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Darren Aronofsky’s Favorite TV Shows Include a Popular Cartoon and Ample Nudity

After the intense production – and release – of mother!, director Darren Aronofsky is ready to decompress for a while by catching up on some TV. In a new interview, the filmmaker revealed a list of his favorite TV shows, which include a popular HBO series where everyone dies, an animated show that people everywhere can’t shut up about, and also a series full of nudity. Read on for Darren Aronofsky’s favorite TV shows.

What does Darren Aronofsky like to do when he’s not making intense movies like Requiem for a Dream, Noah or the recent, highly underrated mind-fuck mother!? He likes to watch TV, of course. Aronofsky is now coming off a whirlwind production schedule and press tour for mother! – a psychological horror film that was met with a hostile reaction from nearly everyone who came in contact with it, as if it were less a movie and more of a radioactive piece of debris – and all he wants to do now is chillax.

In a new interview with IndieWire’s Filmmaker’s Toolkit podcast (by way of Vulture) Aronofsky says, “I just want to relax a little bit,” and his ideal way of relaxation includes catching up on some TV. So just what sort of TV does Darren Aronofsky, director and scarf enthusiast, like to unwind with? Per Aronofsky, he’d like to “catch up on Rick and Morty season three and Game of Thrones season seven. And The Deuce is coming out! Never mind Naked and Afraid XL, season three.”

That’s right, like many people, Aronofsky is a fan of Rick and Morty, the animated series that caused its fans to go absolutely insane when McDonald’s failed to stock up on Schezwan sauce. This revelation potentially makes a scene late in mother!, where a horde of crazy fans invade a house and proceed to tear it to pieces, take on a whole new meaning. Perhaps these roustabouts were simply angry Rock and Morty fans, furious over Jennifer Lawrence’s lack of Schezwan sauce in her pantry.

Game of Thrones’ inclusion here makes sense as well, since everyone watches that show (except me – sorry). I’m not quite sure what Aronofsky means by “The Deuce is coming out!”, since the first season of that show has already aired on HBO. Does he mean season 2, or has no one informed Mr. Aronofsky that The Deuce season 1 is already available? Someone tell him, ASAP.

The most surprising addition to this list is the nude-based reality show Naked and Afraid XL, in which “veteran survivalists familiar with the stripped-down drill after appearing on Naked and Afraid attempt to survive in a desolate, dangerous environment for 40 days – 19 more than they previously experienced on the show.” Sure, whatever floats your boat, Darren Aronofsky.

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‘The Breakfast Club’ Deleted Scene With Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy Surfaces After 32 Years

It’s been more than 30 years since the release of John Hughes’ seminal teen comedy classic The Breakfast Club, but the movie continues to surprise us.

Take the new Criterion Collection release of the film, for example. The new edition, out January 2, contains 50 minutes of previously unreleased material, providing all sorts of insights into the 1985 film that opened the door for authentic teen storytelling in the ’80s. One minute of this new material is a never-before-seen deleted scene between Molly Ringwald’s Claire and Ally Sheedy’s Allison.

The Breakfast Club Deleted Scene

The deleted scene, debuted by Vulture, shows a failed bonding attempt between Ringwald’s uptight popular girl and Sheedy’s resident “basket case.” In the bathroom while taking a break from their all-day library detention, Claire cringes at Allison’s odd eating habits, calling her willingness to eat her chips near a “live” toilet “disgusting.” An awkward pause ensues, and Claire quickly relents, saying, “Really, I was just reacting to something I consider a little out of the ordinary. If you’d like to talk, I think I could probably handle it.”

But Allison merely reacts by daintily picking up a chip that had fallen in the sink with a paper towel, before stuffing it in her mouth. As Allison wordlessly leaves the bathroom, Claire sighs and says, “It’s not correct.”

It’s a brief minute-long scene which probably would have taken place during the lunchtime scene, which contrasted the five archetypal students by their wildly different lunches: Jock Andrew (Emilio Estevez) pulls out a massive carb-heavy feast, Claire reveals a gourmet sushi dish, angsty bad boy John (Judd Nelson) steals geeky Brian’s (Anthony Michael Hall) basic brown bag lunch, and Allison shocks everyone with her sugar and chips sandwich.

The Criterion Collection’s release of The Breakfast Club hits shelves on January 2, 2018, and includes the following features:

• 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary from 2008 featuring actors Anthony Michael Hall and Judd Nelson
• New interviews with actors Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy
• New video essay featuring director John Hughes’s production notes, read by Nelson
• Documentary from 2008 featuring interviews with cast and crew
• Fifty minutes of never-before-seen deleted and extended scenes
• Rare promotional and archival interviews
• Excerpts from a 1985 American Film Institute seminar with Hughes
• 1999 radio interview with Hughes
• Segment from a 1985 episode of NBC’s Today featuring the film’s cast
• Audio interview with Ringwald from a 2014 episode of This American Life
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by author and critic David Kamp

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‘Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block’ Premiere Date Revealed In New Teaser

Channel Zero, one of the best horror shows on TV that you’re probably not watching, just recently wrapped-up its second season, Channel Zero: No-End House, in October, but season 3 is ready to go. A new teaser for Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block reveals the premiere date for the new season, and it’s a lot closer than you think.

This might be the shortest time span between TV seasons in recent hustory – the new season of Syfy’s Channel Zero is going to premiere a mere 105 days after the last season ended. Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block will arrive on February 7, 2018, and if you don’t believe me, just watch this creepy new teaser that confirms the premiere date.

Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block teaser 

Channel Zero is one of the best horror shows on TV, and it drives me slightly crazy that the series doesn’t have the same kind of buzz as, say, American Horror Story – a show that truly stinks, yet continues to get attention. Created by Nick Antosca, Channel Zero takes the short online horror stories that originated as “creepypasta” – the internet equivalent of urban legends – and turns them into compelling, dread-filled seasons of TV. Even if you’re not 100% sure what the hell “creepypasta” is, you’re likely familiar with some of its creations: for instance, the infamous Slenderman mythos originated as part of creepypasta.

The first season, Channel Zero: Candle Cove, featured a mysterious children’s TV series that results in several paranormal events in a small town; season 2, Channel Zero: No-End House, followed a group of friends who enter what they think is a simple haunted house attraction, only to get trapped in an existential nightmare. This new season, Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block, follows “a young woman named Alice (Olivia Luccardi, It Follows) who moves to a new city and learns about a series of disappearances that may be connected to a baffling rumor about mysterious staircases in the city’s worst neighborhoods. With help from her sister, she discovers that something is preying on the city’s residents.”

Here’s a breakdown of the cast, and the characters they’re playing:

• Holland Roden (Teen Wolf) as Zoe Woods, Alice’s sharp, tough older sister whose struggles with mental illness have worn her down over the years;
• Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner) as Joseph Peach, a 1950s meatpacking magnate who grew increasingly reclusive and then disappeared after his beloved daughters were murdered;
• Brandon Scott (Wreck-It Ralph) as Officer Luke Vanczyk, a young but already jaded cop, living in the shadow of his father, the Chief of Police.
• Krisha Fairchild (Krisha) as Louise Lispector, a retired journalist who has lived in Garrett, Michigan her whole life. Now she spends her days doing taxidermy and working on her personal project: A book about a pattern of disappearances in the city’s worst neighborhood.

I’m very excited to see Channel Zero is returning so quickly, and I can’t wait to see what nightmarish fun awaits. If you have yet to jump aboard the Channel Zero train, I urge you to give it a chance.

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‘Goosebumps 2’ and ‘Alpha’ Get New Release Dates

Everyone break out your calendars and red pens – Sony is shuffling their release dates.

Goosebumps 2, which has faced its fair share of speed bumps throughout development, and Alpha, a historical adventure movie about a caveman and his wolf buddy that has jumped around the schedule a few times now, both have new release dates.

Deadline reports that Goosebumps 2 will now open on October 12, 2018, a few weeks later than its original September 21, 2018 release date. This announcement arrives weeks after Ari Sandel was hired to helm the sequel to the 2015 family-friendly horror flick, which is based on R.L. Stine’s series of children’s books about things that go bump in the night. And that news came shortly after Rob Lieber was hired to rewrite the screenplay. In other words, Goosebumps 2 does not sound like it’ll be ready in less than a year, so it’s surprising that Sony is clinging to a fall 2018 release date at all. Why not bump the film to 2019 and secure the involvement of original star Jack Black, whose busy schedule has been a roadblock to getting him in the sequel? Currently, Sony has two scripts, one that features Black and one that doesn’t.

Meanwhile, Alpha will now open on September 14, 2018, a huge leap from its previous March 2, 2018 release date…which was a huge leap from its original release date of September 15, 2017. You may recall that the first Alpha trailer arrived in July of this year and the marketing entered total radio silence shortly after that. This doesn’t confirm that Albert Hughes’ film about a young caveman surviving in the wilderness with the help of a wolf is in trouble, but it’s certainly not a good sign. Movies don’t get delayed by an entire year unless something is up behind the scenes. At the very least, a delay this long allows Alpha to get a clean start in 2018 as Sony re-launches a marketing campaign.

If the release dates stick, Goosebumps 2 will go up against First Man and Hellfest at the box office. Alpha will open alongside Fighting With My Family and The Darkest Minds.

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Daniel Day-Lewis Made An Actual Dress From Scratch to Prepare For ‘Phantom Thread’

Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the most acclaimed actors in the history of film, and while he’s become famous for his amazing and deeply rich performances, he’s also become arguably just as famous for the lengths to which he’ll go in order to achieve greatness. Since 1987, the actor has gone above and beyond traditional preparation techniques to get into character for his movie work, and he’s done the same thing with Phantom Thread – which will be his last movie if the retirement he announced this year actually sticks.

It turns out that to play his couturier character Reynolds Woodcock in Paul Thomas Anderson‘s new period drama, Day-Lewis designed and crafted a Balenciaga dress from scratch. Because of course he did.

The 60-year-old actor spent months as an apprentice under Marc Happel, the head of the New York City Ballet’s costume department, learning the trade of making couture clothing to bring authenticity to his role. But after the ballet season came to a close, Day-Lewis decided to take things to another level. In an interview with W Magazine, he explains that he made a Balenciaga sheath dress from scratch:

“The Balenciaga dress was very simple. Or at least it looked very simple until I had to figure out a way to make it and then realized, My God, this is incredibly complicated. There is nothing more beautiful in all the arts than something that appears simple. And if you try to do any goddamn thing in your life, you know how impossible it is to achieve that effortless simplicity.”

Unable to use a physical dress as a training tool (apparently the original is in an archive in Paris), Day-Lewis instead sketched a design based on a photo of the real dress and used his wife, director Rebecca Miller, as the model for his version.

“Rebecca was very patient. The code that I had to crack was a very particular gusset in the armpit. You couldn’t tell from the photos how the gusset was designed. Marc and I each worked on our version of the gusset and, through trial and error, ­figured it out.”

That Day-Lewis went this far in his preparation is perhaps the least surprising news of the year. After all, this is a man who has learned Czech (The Unbearable Lightness of Being), studied under a butcher (Gangs of New York), spent time in a prison cell (In the Name of the Father), wore 1870s clothes around New York City for two months (The Age of Innocence), and learned to track animals from Native Americans (The Last of the Mohicans), all to more deeply inhabit his characters and bring authenticity to his performances. Jared Leto – who sent his Suicide Squad cast mates all manner of weird shit during that film’s production when he played The Joker – could learn a thing or two from Day-Lewis’s much more isolated preparation techniques. Here’s hoping DDL’s retirement is only a temporary one.

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A Fan Turned ‘Dunkirk’ Into a Stunning 8-Minute Silent Film

Dunkirk is a feat of cinematic splendor, a visual and auditory assault that is less a standard film than it is a visceral experience.

There is barely a plot to Dunkirk — you could probably summarize the entire thing within five minutes — but it makes the film all the more affecting. There’s no need for dialogue telling you who, what, when, where, why when you can read the fear in the battle-worn soldiers’ eyes and the apprehension in every British citizen’s face. But is that enough to create a substantial silent film? A YouTube video essay channel decided to find out.

Film video essay channel “Like Stories of Old” re-edited Dunkirk, already director Christopher Nolan‘s leanest film at less than two hours long, into an 8-minute silent film. And it works brilliantly.

Dunkirk Silent Film Fan-Edit

The Dunkirk silent film scraps some of the subplots pertaining to Cillian Murphy’s shell-shocked soldier and the small group of soldiers led by Fionn Whitehead and Aneurin Barnard after they take refuge in an abandoned trawler. But the streamlined story of the nameless soldiers who yearn to be rescued, and the inspirational arrival of the British civilian boats works astonishingly well in silent film format. Other than the grainy black-and-white filter added on to the film, the sped-up action scenes and classic music work to make the video feel like an authentic silent film.

Tom, the user behind “Like Stories of Old,” explained his reasoning behind turning Dunkirk into a silent film and the work that went into this project:

This is a special project of mine unlike anything I’ve ever done before. What started off as a regular essay on Dunkirk’s visual storytelling and its influences from silent films, slowly turned into what is by far my most experimental video to date. It began when I re-edited a few clips from Dunkirk into a silent film style to compare it to existing silent films that Nolan mentioned as his inspirations (and also; because it was just really fun to do). I was amazed at how well it translated and how well it highlighted Nolan’s use of camera angles, body language, facial expressions and staging in Dunkirk’s storytelling; a great use of visuals both in portraying minor conflicts as well as in telling the story as a whole.

This last point presented an interesting challenge for my video essay, because translating individual scenes into silent ones is relatively easy; I think there are many recent films that have scenes with strong visual storytelling, but I can’t think of many films that can be turned into a silent film in their entirety and still work. Dunkirk however, I believe, is one of those films. For a second I considered re-editing the entire film, but because that would obviously lead to copyright issues I decided to transform it into a short that showcases Dunkirk’s strength in visual storytelling in both the small details as well as the story as a whole. I tried as much as possible to maintain the essence of Dunkirk, but I also wanted it to stand on its own which meant I had to pay a lot of attention to its internal logic and do some creative editing.

Nolan has listed classic films such as Erich von Stroheim’s 1924 silent film Greed, F. W. Murnau’s 1927 romance Sunrise, Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front from 1930, Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent from 1940, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear, and Gillo Pontecorvo’s cinéma verité film The Battle of Algiers as influences. He also drew influence from modern action films like Alien, Speed, and Unstoppable.

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