My friend Jason says this is a great film so I’ll share the trailer, despite the fact that YouTube is probably going to start recommending some crazy stuff to me now.
The film is apparently about some theater employees who watch a cursed pornographic movie and then have to deal with a succubus. These things happen. One the one hand, moving to video from film did adversely effect the quality of the films being released by the adult film industry. At the same time, it also led to less supernatural curses. Everything has a price.
Anyway, here’s the trailer. Google’s recommending porn to me now.
Earlier this year, I think almost everyone in America was thrown into a moment of panic when it was announced that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson had been diagnosed with COVID-19. Not only did it show us that anyone could get the disease but it also forced to consider the fact that Tom Hanks is just as mortal as the rest of us. At that moment, we stopped taking Tom Hanks for granted.
Fortunately, both Tom and Rita recovered from the Coronavirus. When the previously unheralded Greyhound premiered on AppleTV+, it was an unexpected hit and many observes assumed that it was all due to people suddenly remembering just how much they loved Tom Hanks. This December, Hanks has another movie coming out and there’s some speculation that his role in News of the World could lead to Hanks picking up another Oscar nomination.
In News of the World, Hanks stars as a Civil War veteran who has been tasked with delivering a girl back to her aunt and uncle. The catch is that the girl doesn’t want to return back home. News of the World reunites Hanks with his Captain Phillips director, Paul Greengrass. Captain Phillips featured what was perhaps Tom Hanks’s best performance to date. Strangely enough, Hanks did not receive an Oscar nomination for that performance. At the time, it was felt that the Academy was guilty of taking Hanks for granted. If this year has taught us anything, it’s that you should never take anyone or their talent for granted.
Here’s the first trailer for News of the World, which will be released in December:
For all the analysis that has been dedicated to this song and Neil Tennant’s reasons for writing it, Tennant himself has said that the song itself isn’t as a serious as everyone makes it out to be. As he explained it in a 2009 interview with Andrew Sullivan:
“People took it really seriously; the song was written in about 15 minutes, and was intended as a camp joke and it wasn’t something I consciously took very seriously. Sometimes I wonder if there was more to it then I thought at the time. But the local parish priest in Newcastle delivered a sermon on it, and reflected on how the Church changed from the promise of a ghastly hell to the message of love.”
Not surprisingly, the video is full of religious imagery, along with representations of the seven deadly sins. In the video, Tennant’s fellow Pet Shop Boy, Chris Lowe, plays Tennant’s jailer while the judge is played by the distinguished British actor Ron Moody. An Oscar nominee for playing Fagin in 1968’s Oliver!, Ron Moody also came very close to being cast as the Third Doctor on Doctor Who. Though the role was offered to him, Moody turned it down to focus on his film career. Instead, Moody’s friend, Jon Pertwee, received the role and Moody would often later say that the decision to turn down Doctor Who was one of his biggest mistakes.
This video was directed by Derek Jarman, the experimental British director who is perhaps best known for his adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II. A political activist and a pioneer in the British gay rights movement, Jarman would sadly pass away just seven years after directing the video but he left behind a body of work that continues to be influential to this day. Along with directing Laurence Olivier in his final performance (in War Requiem), Jarman is also often credited with having “discovered” Tilda Swinton.
It’s A Sin was one of the Pet Shops Boys’s biggest hits. Would it have been a hit without this video? Probably. But the video definitely didn’t hurt.
Through the Shattered Lens 