Celebrating student filmmakers
Nov. 21 — Happy Friday! Earlier this week, ATL Jewish Film hosted its first-ever Student Filmmaking Competition Showcase at the Tara Theatre in Atlanta, and three student filmmaking teams came out of that night having won awards. I love that ATL Jewish Film is making an effort to celebrate student work and keep an interest in filmmaking alive in kids at a young age. I hope to be able to catch next year’s competition in person. If you know any of the students who participated, give ’em a big old, “Congratulations!”
🧹 Some housekeeping: we might be off here at Rough Draft next Friday, but you will see a new, slightly shorter edition of Scene in your inbox, so be on the lookout for that!
Without further ado … Action!
🤖 Disney has announced that it will begin allowing Disney+ users to create their own user-generated content using artificial intelligence.
🎞️ Christopher Nolan has reportedly shot over 2 million feet of film for his upcoming film adaptation of “The Odyssey.”
🕍 Reporter Logan C. Ritchie attended a screening of “One Day in October,” a seven-part series about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, on Nov. 19.
🔪 “All the Sinners Bleed,” a serial killer drama from showrunner Joe Robert Cole, has started production in Atlanta.
This week’s newsletter includes a conversation with Bonale Fambrini, an actor who will appear in the touring production of “The Outsiders” musical coming through Atlanta next week. We’ve also got Jim Farmer’s conversation with filmmaker Christin Baker about her new holiday lesbian rom-com. I’ve also got two reviews for you this week, featuring “Wicked: For Good” and “Train Dreams.” Plus, a new edition of Spotlight, what’s playing at theaters this week, and some reading and listening recommendations for your lunch break.
Thanks for reading!
Sammie
Actor Bonale Fambrini talks being on tour with ‘The Outsiders’
🎭 Since making his stage debut at the age of 11 in “South Pacific,” Bonale Fambrini hasn’t been able to find his way off the stage.
The 23-year-old can next be seen starring as Johnny Cade in the touring production of “The Outsiders” musical, which is coming to the Fox Theatre Nov. 25-30. “The Outsiders” is based on the novel from S.E. Hinton as well as Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation, and follows the conflict between two rival gangs in 1960s Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The musical, with music and lyrics by Jonathan Clay, Zach Chance, and Justin Levine and a book by Adam Rapp and Levine, won Best Musical at last year’s Tony Awards. Fambrini’s character Johnny is the best friend of the main character, Ponyboy Curtis, and plays a pivotal role in the story.
🏍️ It’s always a joy talking to young performers whose careers are starting to take off. Check out my conversation with Fambrini here.
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Filmmaker Christin Baker talks new lesbian romantic comedy, ‘The Christmas Writer’
🎄 Christin Baker remembers a time when all holiday romantic comedies were the traditional “boy-meets-girl” type. She’s happy that’s slowly changing.
In Baker’s new romcom “The Christmas Writer,” Noel (Shelby Allison Brown) is a well-known lesbian Christmas author who is dealing with the loss of her mother, a break-up, and a bad case of writer’s block. With a nudge from her agent, Noel visits her hometown to find inspiration and meets Callie (Callie Bussell), a single mother who owns the local bookstore.
Baker directed and co-wrote the film and is the CEO of Tello Films, which she describes as the Netflix of lesbian cinema. For Georgia Voice, Jim Farmer spoke with Baker about the making of the film.
‘Wicked: For Good’ is ill-paced and ill-conceived
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW
🪄 My review last year of “Wicked” began with the notion that the film would have been much better if someone hadn’t made the decision to split act one and act two of the 2003 Broadway musical into two separate movies.
Now that the second film, “Wicked: For Good” (a roughly hour-long act stretched into a two-hour-and-17-minute movie), has come out, I feel I can firmly say that I think I was right. But that certainly doesn’t make me feel any better.
I can’t say that “Wicked: For Good” doesn’t have its moments. Ariana Grande once again proves that she’s very well suited to this role (although I have some questions about the way Glinda is positioned in the film), and I did giggle and kick my feet while watching Jonathan Bailey sing “As Long as You’re Mine” (I am a red-blooded American woman, what can I say?). But, outside of those few moments, “Wicked: For Good” feels immensely slow and ill-conceived.
💚 Check out my full review here.
‘Train Dreams’ is a search for meaning in American expansion
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW
🚂 In “Train Dreams,” the new film based on the novella of the same name by Denis Johnson, Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) is a 20th-century logger, and the lens through which the story explores American expansion, manifest destiny, the meaning of life – you know, simple, easy subjects.
But director Clint Bentley and his co-writer Greg Kwedar seem to have a talent for boiling down complex themes to their basic human components – they did the same thing with 2023’s “Sing Sing.” (Kwedar directed that one).
Just like with “Sing Sing,” in “Train Dreams” Bentley and Kwedar take a story that could easily feel trite or overwrought and instead come up with something deeply humane. “Train Dreams” sometimes gets close to toeing that line, but, particularly with the help of Edgerton’s subtlety and evocative cinematography from Adolpho Veloso, the film beautifully explores the tension between beauty and violence, between meaning and happenstance, and how to go on living nonetheless.
🪵 Read my full review here.
At the Movies!
If you’re looking for a movie to see in theaters this week, here’s what you’ve got to look forward to!
Movies releasing this weekend:
🇫🇮 “Sisu: Road to Revenge” (pictured)
🧙♀️ “Wicked: For Good”
👪 “Rental Family”
🎬 “Sentimental Value”
🇮🇹 “Jay Kelly”
🇹🇷 “The Things You Kill”
Special Events:
🕹️ Joystick: “Scarface” in 4K @ The Plaza (Friday)
💥 “Crumb” @ The Plaza (Friday-Wednesday)
🪄 “Practical Magic” @ The Plaza (Saturday-Wednesday)
🗞️ “La Dolce Vita” @ The Plaza (Saturday-Thursday)
👹 Videodrome + Deadly Prey Gallery: “Society” @ The Plaza (Saturday)
🤰 “Baby Boom” @ The Tara (Friday-Wednesday)
🍷 “Something’s Gotta Give” @ The Tara (Saturday-Tuesday)
Spotlight: Julia Butters in ‘Freakier Friday’
🔄 Since she was a little girl, Julia Butters (pictured above on the left) has been an actor I’ve loved watching – and considering she’s only 16 years old, it really hasn’t been that long.
The first time I noticed Butters was in 2019’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” where she stood toe-to-toe with Leonardo DiCaprio at the ripe old age of 10. She is one of those child actors where it almost scares me, how good they are – no one who has barely made it out of single digits should come across that assured of themselves.
I’ve mostly seen Butters in dramas like “Once Upon a Time …” and “The Fabelmans,” so it was a real joy earlier this summer to see her try her hand at a broader sort of comedy in “Freakier Friday.” In the sequel to 2003’s “Freaky Friday,” Butters plays Lindsay Lohan’s character’s daughter, and a worthy heir to Lohan she is: it’s difficult to find a teenager who can believably embody the soul of a woman in her late 30s. Butters gamely rises to the task.
It’s not just that she can emulate that brisk walk of a caffeine-addicted, mid-30s girl boss facing a crisis at work, or that she has comedic timing to rival both Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. She also nails the motherly emotion of the story without taking it too over the top. “Freakier Friday” is a bit more sentimental than its predecessor, and in the wrong hands that could have gone horribly sideways. But, even with such a short filmography under her belt, I always feel like I’m in good hands when Butters is on screen.
Lights, Camera, Action!
✏️ In honor of the 50th anniversary of “Siskel & Ebert” – the movie review show starring Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, perhaps the last truly famous film critics – the website that shares Ebert’s namesake asked their writers to share memories and appreciation for the show. If you want to dive a little deeper and read some of Ebert’s best reviews, check out his “Great Movies” collection here.
🍿 If you have a subscription to Puck, you might want to check out this piece on what types of movies are consistently keeping theaters alive from Scott Mendelson. I especially appreciated the section about how women are often the ones minting new movie stars, or making hits at the box office – we know Patrick Swayze more from “Dirty Dancing” than “Road House,” after all.
🌝 A recent episode of NPR’s “Fresh Air” featured two wonderful conversations: one with Ethan Hawke about his most recent turn as Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon,” and one with Tim Robbins as he reflects on the last 30 years of his career. Check out that episode here.
🖊️ Today’s Scene was edited by Julie E. Bloemeke.
