Starring: Pablo Schreiber, Yerin Ha, Natasha McElhone, Bokeem Woodbine, Charlie Murphy
Nine episode season. Two episodes watched for review.
Grade: B
A screen adaptation of Halo the video game makes perfect sense and is incredibly difficult, both at the same time. The project has been talked about, in one form or another, since not long after the ground-breaking shooting game debuted on the Xbox platform in 2001. At one point, the show had attached Stephen Spielberg as a producer and was supposed to premiere in 2015. And yet, for all its cinematic beauty, the game is fairly light on story elements, especially in characterization. Master Chief is an iconic looking video game character, but is purposefully obtuse. Not until the fleeting moments of the initial trilogy does he become anything more than a ruthless killing machine – indeed, you’re never fully sure if he’s actually a person or a robot, or both.
Below is my interview with director and co-writer Paul Shoulberg, whose newest film So Cold the River was set and filmed on location in West Baden, Indiana. We talk about the differences from the source material and the film, the difficulties of working in a new genre, and the uniqueness of shooting in a historical location. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Ben Sears: Did you have any history with West Baden or French Lick before deciding to make the film?
Paul Shoulberg: No, I went to grad school at IU and moved to New York afterwards. We moved back to Bloomington in 2011 and I’ve been living here since then and I had heard about the hotels but didn’t really know much about them. I was kind of lucky because I had learned about those hotels first from reading Michael’s (Koryta) book. After I was brought on, we went down there and everything changed once I finally got into that space. It can be an advantage to approach something like this as an outsider, having that space being very new to me. It does sort of hit you in a weird way when you first walk in, and I was glad I was able to tackle it with that sort of energy.
BS: You definitely sense that when Erica (Bethany Joy Lenz) first arrives there. I came into this with a different history, in that my family would always go down to French Lick for fall break almost every year when I was younger. At the time, the West Baden hotel was closed, but we would always see it driving down there and I’ve always been curious about the space. It’s a strange area.
PS: Very. It’s like it doesn’t make sense. What is this doing in a small town in Indiana? It’s like nothing else.
So Cold The River; Saban Films
BS: You really incorporate what it feels like to be there because there is some weird folklore and history that just feels like it could be too much in a movie. But as someone that was already familiar with it, it checks out.
PS: The folklore, yes, but the actual history is pretty crazy too. There’s something about historical places that have that sort of mystique to them that gives you this extra vibe of something that you won’t get somewhere else. Certain churches have that feeling too. It’s like there have been a lot of lives that have passed through this place and there’s something there that’s hard to describe. Michael’s book did a really good job of doing that where it kind of brought this place to the world, in a way. You can’t really explain it until you’ve stepped in. You can look at photos online but until you’ve stepped in that dome, you don’t really understand what you’re dealing with.
BS: Were there very many changes from the book to the movie?
PS: Yes and no. As far as the plot, there were a lot of changes. There’s a lot going on [in the book] and to have filmed the book as a one-to-one, we would have needed at least a season of television and a budget that would match accordingly, and that was never going to happen (laughs). We changed a lot to make it make sense for a movie. I’m of the belief that movies need to be their own thing and not just recreate the book. A movie has to be its own thing or it won’t work. If you’re trying to chase a different medium that isn’t meant to do the same things, and lives off of language and description, but with filming there are time and budgetary and physical restraints that are completely different from what you do as a fiction writer. We had to change a lot in that sense. I was able to work very closely with Michael on this, and that’s not always the case in an adaptation. Michael was heavily involved, so I was able to check in at every step and find out ‘what’s important to you showing up in this movie?’ and his writing tells me what’s important to him. What I do think came across from the novel was how majestic the space was, how the vibe of the hotel, which is the ultimate inspiration for the novel, came through. The biggest goal, in a cinematic way, was to bring to the world the power and the mystery of this place. And I think the spirit of the novel in that sense came through really well.
So Cold The River; Saban Films
BS: This is your first horror film as a director. From a filmmaking perspective, was there anything challenging about working in that genre?
PS: Oh yea, the things that excite me about horror are the things that make it very challenging. The visual possibilities in a horror film, so much depends on what you put in a frame – what you show and what you don’t show. Whereas in a comedy scene, it’s all about the timing and the flow. It’s the same thing in horror, but the visual timing is so critical. The slight camera move will reveal what’s in frame, or shooting properly to cut to a reveal or not cut to a reveal, if that’s more tense. The visual precision required in horror I think was a very new challenge to me. It wasn’t just cutting to the rhythm of the dialogue, it was like, if this doesn’t work on this exact cut, this scare does not exist. It won’t make any sense. The visual planning, not just because we were tackling this huge location but just to make horror move in a proper way, was a huge challenge that I was really excited to take on but it was a lot of work.
BS: You use a lot of long takes with some really fluid camera movements. Are you generally someone that likes to incorporate long takes, or did you feel that that was necessary in this material?
PS: I love long takes and always have. You’ll see long takes in various places in the other two films that I’ve directed. It’s always something I’ve loved and I find that in horror films, specifically, it’s my favorite thing when directors make that decision. If you do it properly, when you don’t cut, you don’t give a break in the tension to the viewer. It forces the viewer to lean in and figure out where the scare is gonna come from. You don’t know exactly where to look in the frame, you’re lighting it and framing it to move their eyes to a place. Sometimes it’s a misdirect, but you’re left stuck in the tension of the shot, if you do it properly. It’s very hard to coordinate that stuff, but I love it. When horror doesn’t spoon-feed me every moment and makes me have to sit on the edge of my seat and lean in a little bit, that’s when you can play with tension, and a long take is always a great tool, when used properly.
BS: Do you see yourself doing more horror films or will you continue to bounce around and work in different genres?
PS: I would love to do more horror; I’d love to find a way to take what I learned doing horror and then kind of pull from some of my earlier stuff, like comedy or drama and mash them up. I’m very interested in taking genre and applying it to pure character studies and things like that.
So Cold The River; Saban Films
BS: Going back to the book and some of the changes that were made, were you ever tempted to really play into the supernatural elements and really make it go off the rails, or did you always want to make it more of a grounded horror film?
PS: The book does an excellent job, I think, of delving into the supernatural aspect of it. I did pitch a more grounded version for a couple reasons. First, budgetarily. I wanted to stay in the pocket of our budget and do things well and not have to rely on CGI versus practical supernatural stuff. We never would’ve had the time or the budget to pull off some of the stuff that was in the book. It’s very big in what it goes for, and I love it. But I wanted it to be more contained, both stylistically but also practically. I wanted to be able to execute all of our ideas. So many times in a horror film, if you’re relying on the razzle-dazzle element of it, you don’t really know if it’s gonna work or not until you throw that stuff at it, so I wanted to make sure what we were doing was working in the frame. So anything we brought to it, supernaturally, was icing on the cake, but not the cake itself. I personally am drawn more to the implied stuff than the actual stuff. Like when you show a monster, to me that’s less interesting than when you feel one around. I wanted to rely on tension and a feeling, as opposed to throwing a lot of crazy visuals at you.
BS: Coming from someone that is a bit of a horror skeptic, I always appreciate more grounded material. With horror, there’s a suspension of disbelief that I have a hard time getting past, and that suspension of disbelief is diminished with more grounded types of horror.
PS: One of the things, when I pitched this, was that I didn’t want to tell a story where the characters don’t make any sense with what they’re doing. So many times with horror films, a character will break off from the group to go down in the basement with a match to light their way, or something. It’s like, what are you doing? Nobody does that! You want to put your characters in harm’s way, and I wanted to make sure there was a human motivation with what was happening to these characters. I wanted everything to be character-driven, and since the novel does that, it’s not like that was a hard sell. I like horror where I don’t have to say “well, this is a horror film, so that’s why this character that I’ve spent an hour with is suddenly really dumb”. The whole thing was properly motivating people that were involved to continuously dive deeper when a normal person would run away. That was a big goal to make sure the decisions that they made make sense so you’re not trying to spend time trying to make that leap as an audience member.
BS: No, I didn’t yell at the screen at all at the characters throughout the film.
PS: *Laughs* Yes, exactly. In so many horror films, it’s like, why don’t they just leave?
So Cold The River; Saban Films
BS: There’s a lot of themes in horror films about inherited violence or psychosis, but So Cold The River incorporates this in a fresh way.
PS: One of the things that was really important with this film, and one of the big changes from the book, is that the lead character is a male, and we switch genders in the film. There were a few reasons for that, but one was that there are so many horror films where a deranged male is tormenting various females, and they’re running away, and even if the women are leads, they’re victims until the third act. I wasn’t really interested in having this male descent into darkness and watching women run away or having to fight for their life the whole time. I didn’t want to jump into that trope of horror, and we’ve had a lot of women directors of horror over the last 10 years that have emerged, and that’s solving that problem to some extent, but I didn’t want to contribute to that trope at all. I’m not interested in that. This was always a horror film about ambition, which I wanted to pursue, Michael was really on board with that approach. I also don’t like using mental illness as a plot point to explain everything away. I was more interested in exploring something like ambition, about something which we all possess, but once you tip it a little too far on the scale. Like if ambition goes 1% past where the balance is supposed to be between our humanity and our ambition and what can happen. I was driven by doing that and not by just saying “this person’s crazy”, which you see all the time in these movies. But I do think that horror is one of the few genres of film that has continued to thrive over the last 10 years, so many genres have just fallen off to TV or just disappeared and horror just keeps evolving really nicely.
So Cold The River will release in theaters on March 25 and on VOD on March 29.
Starring: Ben Affleck, Ana de Armas, Tracy Letts, Lil Rel Howery, Finn Witrock, Rachel Blanchard
Grade: B-
On the surface, Vic and Melinda live a carefree, exuberant lifestyle. He retired early after developing and selling microchip technology which is now used for drone warfare. His days mostly consist of riding his bike around town, tending to his snail collection, and spending time with their daughter. As for Melinda, we’ll get to that shortly. They live in an upper-class mansion and attend formal catered dinner parties with their friends, seemingly on a weekly basis. But look closer, and their life together is far from ideal. In fact, most of their friends openly acknowledge how troubling their public life has become, voicing their concerns to Vic whenever possible.
53. Being the Ricardos (Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor)
Your mileage will surely vary on this one depending on your level of tolerance for Aaron Sorkin. As for me, any film that features a third-act deus ex phone call and a completely pointless series of talking head interviews – populated by actors, not the real people! – is enough to jump ship for good. Yes, Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem, JK Simmons (all of whom received acting nominations, and Kidman could very well win Best Actress) and Nina Arianda are quite good in each of their roles, getting at the heart of their characters beyond simple pantomime. Being the Ricardos is the only Oscar-nominated film that I initially disliked and subsequently despised whenever I would come back to thinking of it later on.
52. Four Good Days (Best Original Song)
Poor Diane Warren. Year after year, the Academy continues to trot her out to the Oscar ceremony for her songwriting, only to pull the rug out from her and award someone else. She certainly won’t be winning for “Somehow You Do”, and perhaps it’s a coincidence that the film it was written for is as lazy as the Academy’s box-checking nomination. Premiering at Sundance back in 2020, Four Good Days is a collection of misguided scenes and character beats that would feel like too much for a Lifetime Original Movie. Mila Kunis and Glenn Close do their best, but the material they’re given is so ham-fisted and tired that these very capable actresses could do this work in their sleep.
51. Lead Me Home (Best Documentary Short)
It’s unfortunate that this documentary short will most likely win its category simply because it concerns a pressing current issue that hits close to the homes of many of the Academy’s voters. To be clear, the film shows a side of America’s homeless population that isn’t always shown, and the result is often heartbreaking. But Lead Me Home asks nothing of the homeless crisis beyond “did you know that homeless people are real people?” The film could have expanded on America’s broken system and why more and more people are finding themselves unable to afford homes that are only getting more and more expensive. Perhaps, if the filmmakers were to develop the short into a feature, they could investigate these issues. But, as it stands, Lead Me Home ultimately feels like a puff piece for the national news.
50. Coming 2 America (Best Makeup & Hairstyling)
When last we saw Eddie Murphy, he was courting a Best Actor nomination for his turn in Dolemite Is My Name in 2019. I don’t know who convinced Murphy and Arsenio Hall to reunite (along with Dolemite director Craig Brewer) and make a sequel to Coming to America more than 30 years later but it’s clear that nobody had more than a passing interest in making a film that justifies doing so. Lazy jokes and cultural observations abound throughout Coming 2 America‘s unforgiveable 110-minute runtime, with the only joke that elicited a laugh from me revolving around a Shake Weight. Were it not for the film’s admittedly solid use of prosthetics and makeup, this film would rightfully be placed amongst the ash heap of history, along with many of Murphy’s other misbegotten films.
49. Don’t Look Up (Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Editing)
Nearly 3 months after watching it for the first and only time, the rotten taste of Don’t Look Up has mostly washed out of my mouth. But I simply can’t forgive the film’s lazy approach to satire, the wasted potential of its A-list cast, or its insane editing, which landed it a Best Editing nomination. (If any professional film editors are reading this, I would love to be enlightened on the film’s editing merits, or lack thereof. Please reach out to me.) Thankfully the Academy didn’t feel as strongly about it as I had feared, only giving it four nominations when many more could have easily happened. That it stands little-to-no chance of winning any of those four awards is extremely comforting.
48. When We Were Bullies (Best Documentary Short)
I have no doubt that director Jay Rosenblatt set out with the best of intentions when conceiving When We Were Bullies. The film interrogates a specific incident from Rosenblatt’s time in fifth grade wherein a classmate was bullied. Far be it from me to demerit someone else’s way of healing with something that’s haunted them for decades, but the resulting film is dramatically inert. There’s nothing wrong with a small-scale documentary that only deals with a handful of characters, but Rosenblatt makes too many questionable narrative decisions to make this a memorable experiment.
47. Bestia (Best Animated Short)
There’s always at least one animated short every year that provides enough nightmare fuel to last until next year’s ceremony. In 2022, that designation goes to Bestia. A stop-motion curio that’s supposedly based on true events from the dictatorship in Chile, Bestia focuses on one woman’s career under the secret police, and her relationship with her dog. But it’s not just the visuals that are unsettling here, as each human character is a kind of unflinching porcelain shape, and everything else is either covered in felt or shaped out of paper. Bestia portrays a person with a terrible occupation, plus some disturbingly strange habits, all to middling effect.
46. On My Mind (Best Live-Action Short)
Director Martin Strange-Hansen’s short is incredibly simple on its surface, but packs an emotional punch with its conclusion. When a despondent man walks into a bar, he notices a karaoke machine and requests to sing the song before he goes to visit his wife. Strange-Hansen’s heart is in the right place, and Rasmus Hammerich gives a fine performance, but the film is filled too much with petty roadblocks to keep the drama going for its 18-minute runtime.
45. The Hand of God (Best International Feature)
Paolo Sorrentino’s semi-autobiographical story feels like (at least) two films mashed together, and only one of those is relatively successful. The first half establishes Fabietto (Filippo Scotti), his family, and his love of soccer great Diego Maradona in Naples, Italy. Far too many plot threads and characters are introduced far too quickly early on to get a handle on the themes of the film. The second half slows down and focuses better, but by then I had mostly checked out. The Hand of God also isn’t helped by Fabietto feeling like a dry lump of clay, though Scott does his best in a few key scenes. At least Sorrentino makes the most of the Naples scenery, along with Daria D’Antonio’s cinematography, to make a visually invigorating film.
44. Free Guy (Best Visual Effects)
I imagine that Free Guy received its nomination not because it had the best visual effects to choose from but because it had the most visual effects. Especially in its early scenes, there’s hardly a single frame that doesn’t have some sort of computer-generated imagery – it does take place inside a video game, after all. It’s important to note that the film likely took the place of fellow short-listed films like The Matrix: Resurrections and Godzilla vs. Kong, films that incorporated their effects more smoothly and effectively. Still, you can’t be too mad at Free Guy; it’s the kind of turn-your-brain-off popcorn film that is typically relegated to the Visual Effects category with virtually zero chance of winning.
43. Ascension (Best Documentary Feature)
In Jessica Kingdon’s feature debut, what begins as a shockingly subversive way of showing the sheer amount of stuff we make in the world – most of it likely going to waste – eventually loses its focus. The film deals with the myriad ways that China perceives work, and the ways that that definition is rapidly changing today. From mind-numbingly monotonous factories to sex doll decorators to bodyguard training, every occupation is shown with an observant eye, and Kingdon lets events fold completely naturally. Though there is plenty of interesting material to be found here, it’s not enough to justify its 98-minute runtime.
42. Nightmare Alley (Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design)
There’s lots to like about director Guillermo del Toro’s follow-up to his last film, which won 4 Oscars, including Best Picture. In fact, a lot of what worked in The Shape of Water is evident in Nightmare Alley as well, like the production design, costumes, and cinematography. But where Nightmare Alley suffers is in its predictable script, which feels like a distillation of every grifter story you’ve ever seen. Del Toro imbues the first half with some interesting details but fails to make all of it feel fresh.
41. Boxballet (Best Animated Short)
A wordless animated film from Russian director Anton Dyakov, Boxballet is a surprisingly endearing tale of how opposites attract. The animation is perhaps the most “traditional” of this year’s nominees in the Animated Short category, but the characters are uniquely designed to emphasize their features. In essence, Boxballet is a love story between a boxer and a ballet dancer as they find mutual solace in the way they’re perceived by the world around them.
40. Belfast (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Sound, Best Original Song)
Belfast could potentially win Best Picture, or it could go home empty handed on Oscar night. Writer and director Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical account of his childhood in the titular Irish town checks all of the boxes of an awards favorite: great performances, a historical backdrop that provides plenty of drama, and a dynamic visual style. And while my initial feelings on the film were positive as I left the theater, I slowly began to realize the film’s flaws. Chief among them being the screenplay, which throws out a lot of ideas and plotlines without fully investing in any of them. Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds, Jamie Dornan, and Caitriona Balfe all give magnetic and memorable performances, but they’re left stranded by a script that puts weight on everything and nothing simultaneously. There’s a version of Belfast that could be a great, worthy Best Picture winner; instead it’s just a collection of fleeting memories.
Starring: Amanda Seyfreid, Naveen Andrews, William H. Macy, Laurie Metcalf, Stephen Fry, Dylan Minnette, Kurtwood Smith, Camryn Mi-Young Kim, Bashir Salahuddin, Sam Waterston
Eight episode mini-series. Seven episodes watched for review.
Grade: B+
You had to know that when the salacious details about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes came forward, Hollywood would come knocking sooner than later. Sure enough, at least two fictionalizations of Holmes’ life are moving forward, and potentially more to come. Adam McKay’s feature film version is in production, and will star Jennifer Lawrence as Holmes. But first comes Hulu’s miniseries, which is based on the ABC News podcast of the same name.
Take one part horror film, one part revenge thriller, a heavy dose of post-MeToo commentary, and a good helping of chemistry between two likable actors, and you have the perfect distillation of Fresh. First-time director Mimi Cave, working from a script by Lauryn Kahn, displays a nice confidence in the material, but lacks the discipline in a few key areas to make the film truly memorable. Nevertheless, Cave populates the film with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan, two capable, charming actors as the leads, which goes a long way to making Fresh an enjoyable ride overall.
Starring: Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, Haley Lu Richardson, Sarita Choudhury
Grade: A-
Kogonada’s sophomore feature further establishes the writer and director as a unique voice amongst new filmmakers. His 2017 debut, Columbus, explored how beauty can be found amongst the mundane, and After Yang contains similarly profound ideas. Specifically, the film is about preserving the memories of those we love after they’re gone. What will we remember about them? And what will they remember of us?
I recently spoke with Eric Crosland, director of La Liste: Everything or Nothing, a documentary chronicling extreme skiers as they attempt to conquer some of Earth’s most extreme peaks. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Ben Sears: What was the most difficult thing for you, logistically speaking, to shoot?
Eric Crosland: The most difficult thing was getting there at the right time of year. For the skiing to be the way these guys wanted it, to ski it really aggressively and fast, you really needed nice snow pack and really good outer skiing, and at those higher mountain ranges it only happens once a year for a couple hours, or maybe once every two years. So the hardest part was really knowing when to be there.
BS: How about from a technical standpoint? What was the most difficult thing about setting up the cameras?
EC: The cameraman – the on-wall cameraman who was actually climbing up to the summits of the peaks with them – that job was probably the hardest because they had to climb as well as operate the cameras They were bringing really small cameras and it was really hard to get good audio and cover the climb in a verite manner. It was so cold and you’re always catching up and they’re climbing quite fast, so that’s one of the most highly skilled positions.
We learned a lot about the drones as we went. The first time we went to Peru, we didn’t unlock them because they’re only set to fly 5,000 meters above your controller because of DGI and aviation rules. But you can hack it so you can fly it as high as you want, above the operator, so that’s what we did in the second and third expeditions; we went into the software and removed that restriction so we could fly it 6,000 feet above the drone operator and get much better shots. But it became really difficult to manage the battery because you burn almost 3 quarters of your battery just getting it up to the proper height, and then you have to get the shot and get it back down before it dies. And because of the cold, the higher you go, the colder it gets, so the batteries would degrade and get colder as you go up.
La Liste: Everything or Nothing
BS: I felt a lot of similarities in the film to Free Solo, where the filmmakers there were worried about Alex’s safety but still wanted to make a compelling film. How did you balance your desire to get good footage with making sure everything is safe and nobody gets hurt?
EC: As far as those guys skiing, and where they wanted to ski, and how they wanted to ski, it was completely up to them. It’s so much pressure on these expeditions, especially when you’re going deep into Pakistan where it takes 5 days just to get to base camp and 10 days from your house before you even see the mountain. Everybody’s feeling the pressure, including the athletes. It was something I really had to wrestle with and learn, to let them decide where and when they wanted to ski, and not give them any input because it would be too much if anything went wrong. You’d have to live with it for the rest of your life and it would be a horrible feeling. It was so dangerous, what they were doing, that you just had to let them make the decision. As far as them opening up to the camera and developing their characters, that was really difficult too because I feel like, coming from a couple guys who just made their own ski movies, they weren’t really as open as some other people would have been because a lot of the film was in English and there was a language barrier. I feel like that was a huge challenge, to capture the moments when these guys were really being themselves or actually making decisions.
BS: You’ve spent a lot of time in the mountains and have done a lot of commercial work in extreme terrain. Was there anything you learned while making this about skiing that you hadn’t learned before?
EC: Yes, I think I had always been told that there’s always so much pressure on the expeditions to come home with enough footage to make a sequence. So it’s always a struggle to enjoy the mountains while you’re there because you never know if you’re gonna get back. That’s something I didn’t do too much but I think I’ve learned more while I was editing the project and realizing that it would be really hard to get back to any of these areas, and try to separate yourself at least once a day and take it in. That’s always been the biggest challenge.
As far as skiing, I had no experience in these crazy Himalayan snow packs or where you’re really close to the equator [in Peru]. Just trying to figure out if the snow was safe or if there would be an avalanche, or if it was even skiable was a huge learning curve, just to see what snow was like in the biggest mountain ranges in the world.
La Liste: Everything or Nothing
BS: It’s ironic that this is being released during the winter Olympics. Are you watching that and thinking ‘that’s nothing’ or ‘that’s like amateur hour compared to what I’ve seen’?
EC: I have a lot of respect for athletes at the Olympics, obviously. It’s crazy how skiing is just syphoned into so many sub-genres like cross-country or big air or slopestyle or racing. It’s like cycling, so it’s really interesting to see how core each of those sub-genres can get and how they’re all part of the sport of skiing but each one can go so deep into their specific discipline. For me, I think skiing is a tool for exploring the mountains; that’s how it was developed, as a way of hunting in the mountains. It was a pure form of what we were doing but I appreciate all sides of it. But it is interesting to see the winter Olympics all on man-made snow in the middle of a desert. That being said, I think climate change is really changing the sport a lot.
BS: That was in the back of my mind as I watched the film. How does the climate crisis affect this sport? Will these athletes be able to do these big mountain expeditions ten years from now? Or are they even thinking that far into the future yet?
EC: I don’t think they are; I think that how climate change is affecting the mountains, from the snow pack, to the windows in which you can ski when it’s stable, it’s shortening, and the time periods are switching. Traditionally, all the big ski movies that you saw in the 90s and early 2000s were all made in the first or second week of April or last week of March, when the snow was consistently good that year for alpine descents. Now it’s in the middle of March and it’s maybe only a couple of days before it gets too warm. You basically have to go to places much longer and really hope you catch the window because there’s no consistency anymore. When it warms up, it warms up really quickly and it’s done, so it’s definitely made it way more challenging. You really get to see the differences after you do a bunch of winters in a row for 10 years or something, you can really see it changing.
La Liste: Everything or Nothing
BS: There were several potential setbacks throughout the film, from Mika’s injury to the difficult weather conditions. Were you ever worried that you wouldn’t get enough material after all of that?
EC: Yea, so many times I had people telling me I should shut it down and it’s not doable. Either someone’s going to die or you’re not going to make the movie. The Mika situation was the first expedition in the film and really affected everybody from there from a safety standpoint. For a long time we didn’t even know if we could use Mika’s footage because it was tied up in usage rights and other legal issues. And then COVID came and that paused us, and we ran out of money and we were basically working for free to finish the film, so we were going over insane hurdles to get it done. We always knew we could do it, it was just a matter of taking it one step at a time. I think Jeremie felt a lot of guilt for inviting Mika on that expedition and when that [injury] happened, he took that really personally, even though he caught Mika and saved his life. That really made him question why he wanted to ski 6,000 meter peaks. Then they hopped into Pakistan after that, which was insanely ambitious and dangerous, so we were on pins and needles the whole time right up until this past September to know if we could even make the movie. There were a lot of key issues and story elements that were up in the air until the last minute.
BS: Where do you see these big mountain free-skiing expeditions going from here, now that these guys have tackled these giant mountains? Is there anything bigger or better that they can do?
EC: Yea, I think Pakistan is insane because of how many mountains are there. It is the biggest and most beautiful mountain range in the world. Nepal steals a lot attention because it has Mount Everest but Pakistan has so many mountains that are above 7,000 meters and there’s so much unexplored skiing there. You could ski there for a lifetime, and nobody is skiing there. But they’re really dangerous mountains. The other place that doesn’t get skied very much is the Kluane national park in Canada – in the Yukon territories – which is where Mount Logan is. It’s virtually unexplored from a free-riding standpoint, but it’s really remote and hard to get to. There’s lots of zones, it’s just a matter of how much travelling you want to do to get to the bottom of the runs. There’s a lifetime of skiing in these mountains, but what’s stopped everybody before is just walking for 2 weeks just to even look at it.
La Liste: Everything or Nothing will release on VOD on February 15.
Starring: Julia Garner, Anna Chlumsky, Arian Moayed, Anders Holm, Laverne Cox, Alexis Floyd, Anthony Edwards
Grade: C
You’ve seen Inventing Anna before. In some form or another, this story has been told many, many times already. Of course, the specifics like the people involved and the setting are unique, but everything about Shonda Rhimes’ newest Netflix series suffers from being too familiar without having anything significant or new to say. Even the show’s tagline, which punctuates every episode’s opening – “What you’re about to see is completely true. Except for the made up parts” – feels like it’s been done before. Perhaps the best analogy to Inventing Anna is Scorsese’s magnum opus of American excess The Wolf of Wall Street, but without the “can you believe this is really happening?” bugnuts details.
The Movie State 