Category Archives: Nihilism

Last Friday night, I gave myself a study break and went to see Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) at the Somerville Theatre.

The film was great. Plot-wise, it contains many conflicts, ranging from a bicker in a laundry shop to an existential crisis. Although based on a fantastical setting, most of the scenes are as down-to-earth as the messages they deliver.

Concisely, it is a story about reconciliation between mother and daughter, between husband and wife, between existentialism and nihilism between so many things and also within ourselves.

The films fundamental setting is that every time one makes a choice, there evolves a different branch in the universe. However, the protagonist, Evelyn, is living the worst life of all of her multiverses because she is bad at everything. This is why she is the center of her multiverse. This is also why the villain, Joy (her daughter), who can freely transit between all her universes and employs her skills respectively, spots Evelyn and tries to drag her into the ultimate void she constantly feels because of her omnipotence.

Here is where a common nihilist thought of the young generation enters the discourse: Everything doesnt matter, so why should I care about anything?

As a responsible mother, Evelyn surely saved her daughter from this thought, achieved reconciliation and the family lived happily ever after. But before that, she went through quite a journey of her own.

She was once totally convinced by Joy. After seeing all the miserable or happy versions of her, her current life becomes unbearable. However, she reconciles with herself, accepting the incompatibility between her great ambitions and abject reality. This realization is achieved by thinking in her husbands mind: solving problems with love and bravery. This very action signifies Evelyns reconciliation with him, who is previously negatively depicted as effeminate, cowardly, garrulous and unreliable.

Let me go. Please, said Joy.

And then Evelyn did. The greatest reconciliation between the mother and daughter is this interesting dynamic that once the daughter falls into complete nihilism and freedom, she needs love again.

The films message sparked my thinking that maybe reconciliation is our zeitgeist. Although it is a one-way even a self-disadvantaged action for peacemaking, reconciliation is different from compromise. The message is an active, sophisticated consideration of the lives of others or self, resulting in mutual understanding, while compromises are often mandatory and detrimental in continuing mutual rapport.

I think all issues at our age, no matter how personal or grandiose, require reconciliation so that we can live easier lives. For example, the role of an effeminate husband is reconciliation with the convention of hegemonic masculinity. The journey of Evelyn tells us to reconcile with an unsatisfying life while the screening of the film itself is a reconciliation between individual films and Hollywood production.

With that in mind, I hope we amid COVID-19 can reconcile with the world sooner, for we, after all, dont have multiple universes.

Continued here:

Kolumn: Making Reconciliation the zeitgeist - Tufts Daily

This weekend I have a half-hour, and I like dread.

BarryWhen to watch: Sunday at 10 p.m., on HBO.

Weve been waiting for new episodes of Barry for almost three years, and while distance may make the heart grow fonder, proximity is what makes it beat faster, especially for a show as tense, violent and propulsive as this one. Bill Hader stars as the ambivalent hit man Barry, drawn more to acting than assassinating but hey, a gigs a gig.

On Barry, everything always gets worse, but shows dont generally kill off all their characters. So the stories here exist in this little air bubble of activity beneath a sea of nihilism, dazzling and grotesque, where I love yous are elicited under penalty of death but have real meaning. If you like your showbiz satires with a side of murder and tension, watch this, and if you have the self control to stockpile a few episodes to watch in a row, do so.

GaslitWhen to watch: Sunday at 8 p.m., on Starz.

Gaslit is the shimmering quintessence of its genre: It is a period piece that illuminates an untold or misunderstood aspect of recent history (the story of Martha Mitchell, who knew the truth about Watergate and suffered mightily for it) through a lens of present-day gender and racial politics. It follows a story that has already been re-examined on at least one podcast (Slow Burn) and television documentary (also called Slow Burn, which aired on Epix). Every single character is played by a performer you recognize (Julia Roberts leads the way as Mitchell). And at least one famous person (here its Sean Penn) is buried under enough prosthetics to be unrecognizable.

Gaslit has a perky, arch sense of humor, and it winds up feeling surprisingly fun for a show about domestic abuse and world-altering crimes. If you already watched all the other ones that are more or less like this, this is perfectly fine.

The Man Who Fell to EarthWhen to watch: Sunday at 10 p.m., on Showtime.

The biggest draw for this swirling 10-part sequel to the 1976 movie starring David Bowie (itself an adaptation of the 1963 novel by Walter Tevis) is Chiwetel Ejiofor, who stars as our alien protagonist known as Faraday. We see him in his most raw and confused state, nave and sputtering, and we see him later delivering a TED Talk-like spiel. Ejiofors performance brings forth each minuscule change in presentation just the difference in the breathiness of his voice feels like its own saga. Man has a familiar sense of sad adventure, but it also has punchy humor and momentum.

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How Much Watching Time Do You Have This Weekend? - The New York Times

Dwight Weidman| Columnist

The Democrats, from Sleepy Joe Biden on down to the lowest level, have reached a level of incompetence, failure and outright lunacy that is unprecedented in our nations history. The even bigger problem for them is that they think they are doing great. If the Democrats' governing philosophy can be summed up in one word, it is nihilism, which is: the doctrine that nothing actually exists or that existence or values are meaningless, or a relentless negativity or cynicism suggesting an absence of values or beliefs, or a political belief or action that advocates or commits violence or terrorism without discernible constructive goals. All these things describe the Democrat thought process that has been put into place by the Biden administration and whoever is pulling their strings.

Republicans tend to go to sleep when things are going well, as they did during the Trump administration and its time of prosperity, as evidenced by full employment, booming financial markets and stable prices. Most stayed asleep during the COVID-19 Kabuki play that was used by the Democrats to monkey with our election process to allow no excuse mail-in voting, unmonitored ballot drop boxes and massive ballot harvesting. In places like Pennsylvania, none of these monkeyshines would have been possible without the connivence of local Republican legislators, most of whom are now self-righteously protesting the very election changes for which they voted.

We are told that Joe Bidens disastrous running of the country has set the Democrat party up for massive congressional losses this November. His popularity numbers are hovering around 40% on a good day, with his handling of individual issues from the economy to crime getting even lower marks. The only issue Biden approaches 50% on is his handling of COVID-19, which is no longer an issue of importance to anyone with a life. In Pennsylvania, new Republican registrations outnumber new Democrat registrations by a four-to-one margin. Yep, the voters are done with Joe Biden and the Democrats and are ready for a change. The only question that remains is whether the Republican Party is ready to take the reins, and due to the makeup of that party, thats not an easy question to answer.

Most Republican voters are smart people. Im not talking about the small but noisy group of Facebook Freedom Fighters to whom everything is reduced to some weird conspiracy theory, but the real conservative Republicans who arent caught up in some cult of personality or who arent waiting for someone to tell them how to think. The smart, savvy, educated Republican voter knows that policy is more important than personality and is looking for someone whose policies will make America better. They know that their lives are much worse under Biden: runaway inflation, product shortages, uncontrolled illegal immigration, rising crime rates, especially in Democrat-controlled cities, a weakened America on the international scene and the attempted brainwashing of our children in the public schools. They also can see the looming scandals about to envelop the Bidens; scandals that have gotten so bad that even the mainstream media can no longer cover them up.

To accommodate these conservative Republican voters who make up the core of the party, the party establishment needs to clean up its act and adopt common sense and values. Republicans need to reject the Liz Cheney/Adam Kinzinger/Dan Crenshaw Trump-hating faction as well as the small group on the other extreme that embraces kooky cults such as white nationalism, QAnon, and other hateful ideologies. Most of all, the party, especially at the local level, needs to be a good steward of the resources contributed by the rank and file and not waste money on things like parties, open bar events, and needless expenditures designed to promote the ambitions of internal factions. Above all, they need to be scrupulously honest in every action they take. Only then, will we have a party that is worthy of its supporters.

Republicans have a historic opportunity in November, but they need to be a party of action and one that will remedy the disastrous policies of Joe Biden, not only with legislation, but also investigation and prosecution of wrongdoing on the left. First, however, the party must clean up its own act, and do it now.

Dwight Weidman is a resident of Greene Township and is a graduate of Shepherd University. He is retired from the United States Department of Defense, where his career included assignments In Europe, Asia and Central America. He has been in leadership roles for the Republican Party in two states, most recently serving two terms as chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party. Involved in web publishing since 1996, he is the publisher of The Franklin County Journal. He has been an amateur radio operator since 1988, getting his first license in Germany, and is a past volunteer with both Navy and Army MARS, Military Auxiliary Radio Service, and is also a certified firearms instructor.

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The Democrats are vulnerable, but are the Republicans ready to take over? - Public Opinion

It might have been set in a galaxy far, far away, but it undoubtedly changed the world forever. For the very first time, movies now had Lightsabers you could play with at home and the cinematic universe of a feature film was expanded well beyond merely what we see on the screen.

As a result, the original Star Wars trilogy dominated the childhoods of millions of kids all over the world for generations to come. This expansive new universe couldnt have been upheld if the films werent good enough to prop it up.

Fortunately, the original trilogy comprised a trio of masterpieces. There are many fans who will tell you that within that triumvirate of galaxy hopping adventures, that the shiniest gem in theStar Warscrown isReturn of the Jedi. And boy oh boy did they nearly ruin it all.

As is the case with all the best fantasies, good triumphs over evil. Why wouldnt it? It is a fantasy after all. We wouldnt want a generation of youngsters turning towards nihilism at best and evil inter-planetary fascism at worst. However, that is almost what George Lucas had planned withReturn of the Jedi.

Originally, George Lucas had planned to do away with a fairytale happy ending. His first pitch to co-writer Lawrence Kasdan was as follows: Luke takes his mask off. The mask is the very last thingand then Luke puts it on and says, Now I am Vader. Surprise! The ultimate twist. Now I will go and kill the [Rebel] fleet and I will rule the universe, according to J.W. Rinzlers encyclopaedia on the subject,The Making of Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi.

Somehow, rather than yelling about his last-ditched attempts to destroy their cash cow and seismic cinematic feat, Kasdan found himself in firm agreement. He excitedly told Lucas, Thats what I think should happen! Fortunately, Lucas saw the light side and saved Luke Skywalker from turning evil after he released a truth that many have happily forgotten,Star Warsis for kids.

Thus, lines like Never! Ill never turn to the dark side! came to fruition and the happy ending left a legion of young kids battling space baddies in backyards and school playgrounds forevermore. However, it still remains shocking how close those kids came to commanding their fellows with quips like, You may dispense with the pleasantries!

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The original ending of a Star Wars classic will leave you cold - Far Out Magazine

Why this might not seem soeasy

With just nine theatrical features made across four decades, the career of British genre filmmaker Mike Hodges feels like it should be an easy one to get a handle on. Yet while there are certainly auteurist connections to be drawn between the gangster pictures with which he began and ended his career, the half dozen films that appeared between Get Carter (1971) and Croupier (1998) are a little more challenging to reconcile. Cult oddities like Flash Gordon (1980) and Morons from Outer Space (1985), alongside a substantial body of work for television, suggest a skilled director-for-hire whose few collisions with the studio machine didnt translate into a Hollywoodcareer.

The marketing folk at Warner Brothers didnt know what to do with his ice-cool sci-fi adaptation The Terminal Man (1974), while a brief stint on horror sequel Omen II: Damien (1978) saw him replaced by the anonymous hand of Don Taylor. If its interesting, for a second, to wonder what his CV might have looked like if the studio gigs had kept coming, its clear from his most personal projects that Hodges cant really be described as a journeyman either. With an attraction to genre that depended on curdling and complicating its most straightforward pleasures, its little wonder that the sensibilities of this fascinating figure in British film have been best suited to the margins of the mainstream, where he made some of his finestwork.

Following a handful of television documentaries, it was the pair of dramas made for ITV Playhouse that caught the attention of producer Michael Klinger, leading to Hodges feature debut. Klinger tasked him with adapting Ted Lewiss recently published novel Jacks Return Home, about a gangster out for revenge, which Hodges brilliantly transposed from its unspecified setting to the late-industrial landscapes ofTyneside.

A respectable hit in 1971, it was really on the films 1999 re-release amid a lad culture-ordained resurgence in the British gangster movie that Get Carters reputation peaked, with the likes of Total Film magazine naming it the best British film of all time. Watching it now, its fascinating to think that a work of such pointed nihilism and wanton amorality would be canonised in the wake of Cool Britannia. If that nostalgic PR exercise sought to rejuvenate the spirit of the swinging 60s in late-90s Britain, a film that emphatically sounded the eras death knell seemed an ironic choice for a cultural emblem dujour.

Get Carter still plays like gangbusters, its location filming super-charged by Hodges and cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzkys respective backgrounds in documentary. With a tightly wound lead in Michael Caine, ruthless in his pursuit of those responsible for his brothers death, it pairs well with John Boormans Point Blank (1967) as an example of what critic Pauline Kael described as a new genre of virtuosoviciousness.

Its narrative template may be as archetypal as they come, but in Hodges sparse, steely handling of the material, a sturdy revenge yarn is transformed into a richly textured portrait of social, moral and nationaldecay.

Get Carters resurgence came hot on the heels of Hodges first theatrical feature in almost a decade. Written by Paul Mayersberg (The Man Who Fell to Earth, 1976), Croupier is a delicious neo-noir about a blocked writer (Clive Owen) who fancies himself as the lead character in the Jean-Pierre Melville movie seemingly playing in his head. Propelled by this would-be Samouras internal monologue, Croupier initially suggests a man in absolute control of himself and his environment. So when an opportunity presents itself after his old man puts in a good word for him at a local casino, the chips look likely to fall in his favour. But narrators can be unreliable, and its our heros self-assuredness that makes him the ultimate mark, a patsy to his own confidence tricks. Wickedly cynical and deftly staged by Hodges, its one of the best British films of the1990s.

Owen and Hodges teamed up again for what the director suggests is likely to be his final film. Superficially, Ill Sleep When Im Dead (2003) hews close to Get Carters set-up, following Owens retired gangster as he (literally) comes out of the woods to avenge his brothers death. With a brutal male rape as its inciting incident, its an atmospheric subversion of the British gangster movie and a bleak interrogation of masculinity. If Hodges cinema increasingly centred on questions of redemption, it climaxes with its darkest night of thesoul.

For more subversive genre kicks, Hodges second feature and his second with Michaels Klinger and Caine tackles the question of genre head-on. A playful satire on the roots of noir, Pulp (1972) sees Caines hack novelist Mickey King tasked with ghost-writing the autobiography of an irascibly reclusive film star (Mickey Rooney). Genially languorous, and tonally scrappy, its sun-kissed meta-larks play like The Long Goodbyes (1973) EuropeanVacation.

Hodges isnt all guns n gangsters though. His sideline in science fiction is a broad church of ideas and tones. Made for Italian super-producer Dino de Laurentiis, Flash Gordon (1980) is a maximalist space adventure indebted to Saturday morning serials. A vibrant, pop extravaganza with music by Queen, its a fun time at the movies, with Hodges transposing his ever-present gift for staging into a series of niftyset-pieces.

If you prefer your sci-fi in a more serious vein, The Terminal Man stands among Hodges best. Clinically designed and methodically directed, it features a tremendous central performance from George Segal as a man susceptible to incredible rages who has a preventative chip implanted in his brain. A Frankenstein story in which Segals volatile centre appears to lash out against the prison of Hodges sterile, detached frames, it was never released in UK cinemas, despite winning effusive admiration from both Stanley Kubrick and TerrenceMalick.

Black Rainbow (1989) may look like a curio in Hodges filmography, but its one of his most personal projects. Little seen until its restoration by Arrow Video in 2020, this tale of Bible belt clairvoyants, religious hypocrisy and corporate malfeasance literalises many of the themes latent in Hodges better known works. Starring Rosanna Arquette and Jason Robards, its a slyly ambiguous supernatural thriller with the requisite soft-pedalled sleaze making it a fascinating addition to the southern gothiccanon.

Maybe its a little unfair to judge Hodges 1987 IRA thriller A Prayer for the Dying on the cut we have, given it was re-edited and re-scored behind its directors back. With a cast that includes Mickey Rourke, Bob Hoskins, Liam Neeson and Alan Bates, its a ripely symbolic tale of a hitmans crisis ofconscience.

Designed to kick-start the big-screen careers of British TV stalwarts Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, Morons from Outer Space was a production rife with problems. Essentially, its a satire of Spielbergs Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), in which the quartet of aliens who crash-land on Earth prove as dim-witted as those who race to meet them. Its not very funny, albeit not without itscharms.

Youd be better off picking up Hodges first novel. Published in 2010, Watching the Wheels Come Off is a brisk dose of pulp of which Michael Caines Mickey King would be proud: a muscular noir about a beleaguered escapologist. Heres hoping theres more tocome.

Get Carter is back in cinemas in a 4K restoration from 27May.

50 years of Get Carter: a new interview with director Mike Hodges

Get Carter at 50: how the Tyneside locations look today

10 great films set in north-east England

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Where to begin with Mike Hodges - British Film Institute

Whats better than a Marvel Cinematic Universe? A Marvel Cinematic Multiverse. Once limited to theoretical physics and comic-book plot conveniences, the notion of a multiverse has been an essential tool for Hollywood. Whether its a role thats been cast and recast, a franchise character that gets a spin-off when the larger story ends, or simply a reboot telling a new story without upending its origins, the answer to any big movie problem is often: multiverse.

Despite being filmmakings crutch du jour, the idea of a multiverse is also at the center of one of the most heartfelt and ambitious movies of the year. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a runaway critical and commercial hit, but its success doesnt stem from how it dials up the reality-bending. It comes from how it manages to use the trope to tell a much sillier and much simpler story.

The film follows a Chinese American family making their way through mundane, messy problems. Evelyn (played by Michelle Yeoh) runs a struggling laundromat and faces an IRS audit. Her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), is sweet, if a bit distracted, but hes unhappy in their marriage. And their daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), is growing distant as her parents fail to include her girlfriend in their lives.

But what begins as family drama rapidly becomes absurdist action comedy. Using an alternate realitys verse jumping technology, the family members find themselves fighting with fanny-pack nunchucks, encountering Ratatouille-style raccoon chefs, and playing the piano with their feet (because they have hot-dog fingers, of course). The essential magic of the movie is that the ridiculous multiverse plot is in service of the everyday story.

Every choice, big or small, is an alternate reality unto itself. Everything Everywhere All at Once succeeds by spinning those choices out to the furthest logical extremes. What comes back is a surprisingly affecting metaphor, one thats discussed in depth on an episode of The Atlantics culture podcast, The Review.

Listen to Shirley Li, David Sims, and Spencer Kornhaber in conversation about the film here:

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. It contains spoilers for Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Shirley Li: This film arrives in an era of the multiverse-as-plot-framework with all the Marvel films and shows. After Endgame wrapped in 2019, multiverses abound in shows like Loki and WandaVision, and movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

So were used to the multiverse as fan-service franchise building, but what EEAO does that these superhero movies dont is that it uses the multiverse as metaphor. For the immigrant experience, for the chaotic what-ifs of our lives.

Spencer Kornhaber: How much of a multiverse boom are we actually in? Because the word multiverse feels very current, but the idea of there being multiple realities goes far back to works like The Twilight Zone. I personally wrote a piece five years ago about how multiverses were common across pop culture at the time, with Westworld, The OA, and Stranger Things.

David Sims: Yeah, the multiverse is how you explain that both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck play Batman, right? Comic books publish for decades. Things change, new writers come in, and things get revamped. Its how you explain everything.

But as this multiverse concept has gone on long enough, it becomes acceptable to sell to audiences that Tobey Maguire is going to get to shake Tom Hollands hand in a movie. If you told me 10 or 20 years ago that that was going to happen, I would have considered it too nerdy or inscrutable for a mainstream film, but families go to see it and it makes sense to them.

What I like about how Everything Everywhere All at Once treats the multiverse is that its the road-not-taken idea. They obviously had a lot of fun creating these windows into silly worlds with the hot-dog-fingers stuff and whatnot, but the thematic purpose is really effective. Its that feeling anyones had of: What if I hadnt married this guy? Or What if I hadnt taken that job? If you could jump right into that body and find out, thats an appealing and scary and dangerous and dramatically weighted concept.

Read: Everything Everywhere All at Once is a mind-bending multiverse fantasy

Kornhaber: The remarkable thing about the structure of this movie is that, however wild its channel-flipping, its essentially working you through a logic problem about the point of life. The characters lives feel like a problem to them. And it gives you different hypotheses for how the universe works. You have the villain, the fabulously outfitted Jobu Tupaki, whos also Evelyns daughter in other universes. She represents nihilism. She thinks that shes seen every single possible thing that happens in the universe. And so nothing matters; why not just suck us all into a vortex and get it over with?

And then it swings around to something more hopeful and redemptive. Its almost crude how it works, circling around these essential emotional questions, but nonetheless it feels comprehensive and convincing. And when you arrive at that synthesis momentwhich comes in the form of Michelle Yeoh throwing googly eyes at all her enemies and hugging themthats when the dam broke for me. Life is about fighting with silliness and just having a good time or whatever. It does seem trite for the answer to be love, but the movie makes the most sweeping case for it. Its just astonishing to me.

Li: Its a film that has something profound to say, but it doesnt say it in a pretentious way. I think thats what caught us all off guard. David, what did you take away from this movie?

Sims: I was very charmed by it. I had liked Swiss Army Man, the first film by this directing team called Daniels, made up of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. My biggest takeaway here, though, was what strong affection I had for the leads, and how bowled over I was by those two performances, especially Quan. Hes a performer everyone knows, but obviously not someone weve thought about in a while. He hasnt really acted for many years, and I was so stunned to see him give this incredibly heartfelt and expansive and clever and funny performance. And then, obviously, Michelle Yeoh is a wonderful movie star who I adore.

As I got further from the movie, I also appreciated it as sort of a good fleshing-out of how a lot of people feel right now, like we all have attention-deficit disorder after being locked up for so long. Thats maybe trite or facile to say, but I do understand that feeling of being unable to concentrate or feel settled these days. And it was sort of amazing how this movie captured it.

Li: The benefit of making a film with these insane visuals is that you can go a little corny. Youre hedging that point by saying that its facile, but the movies only able to make that work because its using raccoons and hot-dog hands and butt plugs. (Laughs.) Spencer, Im really curious what you thought of the movie.

Kornhaber: Well, I didnt like it. Because it made me cry. And I dont like feeling that way. [Laughs.] No, I loved it. It provoked a strong emotional reaction in me, but it took me a little while to get into it. It starts on a really small scale. It feels like a dramedy about this family running a laundromat and the generational disconnect between the parents and their daughter, Joy, who is queer.

And at first, it seems like a somewhat familiar generational-clash indie movietolerance, acceptance, immigration, etc. And then the wheels start coming off. More and more psychedelic things start happening, and there comes a point where youre just like: Wait, this movie is doing something similar to a lot of things I've seen, but Ive also never seen anything like this before.

It goes to places of absurdity and extremity, but also sweetness and sentimentality and darkness. Its this vortex that draws you in, swirls you around, and spits you out at the end to say: That was fucking awesome.

Read: How Hollywoods weirdest filmmakers made a movie about everything

Li: Has Everything Everywhere All at Once expanded what multiverses can do in a film?

Kornhaber: Its the kind of movie that no one else would dare to make, because its sort of a basic exploration of the idea: Its not set with the backdrop of a dystopian world like The Matrix. Its not about some superhero meta story or whatever. Theres not even the rom-com twist like in Sliding Doors, the Gwyneth Paltrow classic. This movie takes it in every direction, but still manages to tie it in a bow.

Sims: As a comic-book fan, Im so used to the notion of parallel universes. But Ive always been dismissive about them for that reason, because its often a way to justify resurrecting someone or having some kind of cute adventure. Sure. Jean Grey died, but well just get the Jean Grey out of this universe! And this movie is a little more thoughtful in how its reckoning with all that. And so I appreciate that.

Li: David, you mentioned the Daniels previous film, Swiss Army Man, which was one of the strangest films to come out in recent memory. What can you tell us about the directors?

Sims: Theyre originally music-video guys. Theyve directed a lot of music videos, including the incredible Turn Down for What video, which Daniel Kwan also stars in. But Swiss Army Man was a Sundance movie that everyone at the festival was like: Did you know theres like a farting-corpse movie at Sundance this year? It stars Paul Dano as a guy who washes up on an island. He finds a corpse played by Daniel Radcliffe and starts communicating with it and using it like a Swiss Army knife to survive and escape the island.

When you describe it, it sounds patently ludicrous, but if that actually translates on-screen and works visually, you can see how that would be compelling. But its tough to go this high-concept and then figure out what to do next. And what they did with Everything Everywhere All at Once was double down on everything people like about them. Its heavy on world building. And much like Swiss Army Man, its trying to arrive at this intimate, emotional conclusion. Everything that Im describing is not easy to do, but if you do it well, youre going to become the kind of cult sensation that this movie has.

Li: I think my favorite joke is indicative of why this film works. I love the universe with racca-cooney, the one built off of Evelyn misremembering the movie title for Ratatouille and then pushing it so far that there is in fact a universe that exists where a raccoon manipulates a chef like the rat in Ratatouille.

Kornhaber: It is such a perfect example of what is genius about this movie. Theres that throwaway joke midway through that you enjoy, but then they do a callback to it as an actual universe. Because thats at the root of the movie: Every single thing you think of that could happen is happening. You think its just a funny callback, but as the movie progresses, you see an actual story line in that world and, by the end, you are cheering and shouting for the way it resolves. Its a beautiful moment. This little tangential thought could spiral out for a whole movie if it wanted to. Its ridiculous, but the Daniels manage to make it work through personality and visual panache.

Read: Everything Everywhere All at Once is a masterpiece

Li: The core conflict in this film is Evelyn not being able to cross the generational barrier and accept her daughter Joy as queer, or, to borrow Jerrod Carmichaels language, to love without that despite.

Sims: Its her relationship with Joy and her own regrets for the choices she made in her own life. Thats whats being reflected in her story: Shes being tantalized with this idea of what if you had done X or Y. Emigrating from China. Starting a business. Having a kid.

Li: Thinking about why it resonates so much with me, theres so much detail in this film that is very specific to the Asian immigrant experience. In one scene, the grandfather played by James Hong suddenly speaks perfect English. (And hes the one Evelyn is afraid of revealing the fact that Joy is gay to.) In that moment, it underlined something for me about the film that I dont know if viewers necessarily pick up on, which is the idea of the multiverse as a metaphor for code-switching. And not just code-switching, but the different worlds that you and your family exist in.

The more I think about this movie, the more I think about the space that my grandparents exist in right now. Theyre locked down in Shanghai, and I cant communicate with them the way that I want to.

When we talked about Turning Red last week, we made a point that there are a number of films about Chinese immigrant families in North America right now. And I made a joke that there are too many, because thats naturally where we, as Asian immigrants go: Were making too much noise. Dont notice us. But its wonderful having a lot of these stories. It pushes against a bruise youre perhaps vaguely aware of. And in moments like these, you wish there really was a universe where I spoke perfect Mandarin and my grandparents spoke perfect English.

The movie is also wish fulfillment, right? Right? The Alpha Waymond is a martial-arts master. He also brings it back to the pandemic for me. You cant just label variants other Greek terms. You have to move on to terms that sound like Elon Musks childrens names, a Universe BA.2 maybe?

Kornhaber: (Laughs.) Youre making me think about the booms in dimension-switching multiverse movies and shows. There was a crop of them that came up around the 2016 election, and the common thing to say about them was: Oh, we all feel like were living in a simulation now. Something happened in the world. Reality is broken.

But the interesting thing about this movie is: Its less about something happening in the world that shoved us all into a different dimension. Its more about how personal choices create these different dimensions. And the immigrant experience in this case is a perfect vessel for exploring that idea because it really honors the choice to create a better life. Thats the bet being made when someone uproots their life and moves somewhere else. Youre entering a different world, but theres always uncertainty about the life you left behind.

Continued here:

Everything Everywhere All at Once Is Multiverse Storytelling at Its Best - The Atlantic

The kids are not all alright.

That's the message from Vanity Fair, the May issue of which includes a report from a small but colorful corner of the intellectual and political landscape. In the after-parties and corridors of the National Conservatism conference held in Orlando last October, reporter James Pogue discovered a subterranean network of "podcasters, bro-ish anonymous Twitter posters, online philosophers, artists, and amorphous scenesters." Attracted to the right but far from conservative, these dissidents dream of overthrowing some of the basic premises of 21st-century American life. Where others might see a threatened but legitimate constitutional order or a struggling yet still functional economy, they perceive a tyrannical yet incompetent "regime" collapsing under its own weight.

The shock value associated with these views is an important part of their appeal. As the boundaries of acceptable opinion shift to the left, at least within major institutions, the opportunities for dissent have become concentrated on the right. In universities, media, and many big companies, there's nothing controversial about saying that white people are an essentially malign portion of the human race, that gender is independent of biological sex, or that people who voted for former President Donald Trump are an existential threat to democracy. If you aim to provoke, you'd better reject these claims, loudly and often. On social media, this countercultural quality is known as being "based."

But there's more to the "new right," as it's somewhat anachronistically known (a succession of movements with similar names has emerged since the 1950s), than being based. This motley crew is composed of people in their 20s and early 30s, largely though not entirely men. A recurring theme in their conversation, in the piece as well as the blogposts, Twitter threads, and private chats where they develop their ideas, is the belief that some kind of revolution would be necessary for them to achieve goals that once would have seemed utterly mundane. Not so long ago, professional advancement, stable romantic relationships, and residential independence seemed like the birthright of young Americans industrious or lucky enough to graduate from college and make it to one of the metro areas heavily populated by others of their kind. Today, these markers of adulthood can be delayed by years or decades and increasingly seem out of reach.

The frathouse atmosphere Pogue describes reflects that arrested development. Unlike the buttoned-up official sessions of the conference, the new right confabs revolved around late nights, many drinks, and casual attire. Despite the contempt for academia that infuses the new right, its intellectual and social style derives more from the college campus than from the "real America" that its participants idealize.

In that respect, the new right can be viewed as a negative image of the woke left. Both movements invoke a favored cohort of the truly disadvantaged. In practice, they're more attentive to the anxieties of what George Orwell called the "lower-upper-middle class" in updated terms,the journalists, academics, and other "knowledge workers" whose expectations outstrip their income. On the left, that encourages a fixation on symbolic diversity, student debt, radical police reform, and other issues that are distant from the actual concerns of the poor and racial minorities. On the right, it leads to otherwise perplexing obsessions with content moderation on social media, bodybuilding, and other displays of flamboyant manliness and obscure theological doctrines.

You can acknowledge the tensions between the nominal goals of extremist youth movements and their underlying inspiration without dismissing them as poseurs or fools. Moralistic tendencies dominate precisely because they're not driven by outright material deprivation. The appeal of the new right doesn't lie in its policy proposals, which range from sketchy to fanciful. It lies in the ability to tell a sweeping story about what's worth fighting for, why it's so elusive, and who is to blame.

Early in 1941, the German-Jewish political philosopher Leo Strauss delivered aconsideration of the generational appeal of the far-right to his colleagues on the faculty of the New School for Social Research. Drawing on his experiences as a young intellectual in the 1920s and early '30s, Strauss argued that opposition to the Weimar Republic among his educated contemporaries was essentially a protest against the formless boredom of modern life. Assured of survival without enjoying real security and lacking causes to inspire sacrifice, "young nihilists" turned not only against liberal democracy but against civilization itself.

In the lecture on "German nihilism," Strauss suggested that this energy could have been diverted from its rendezvous with National Socialism by more skillful education, particularly in ancient philosophy. I have always found this conclusion dubious. The yearning for risk and commitment he describes can only rarely be satisfied in the library or classroom. For the young and the restless, ideas are appealing to the extent that they inspire action rather than merely offering the opportunity for contemplation.

To be clear, the revolutionary instincts of today's pseudonymous bloggers, underemployed graduate students, and freelance journalists have limited appealat the moment. As Pogue emphasizes, this strand of the new right is somewhat distinct from the more populist and electorally consequential MAGA movement.J.D. Vance and Blake Masters, both supported by their former employer Peter Thiel, have tried to bridge the gaps in campaigns for the GOP Senate nominations in Ohio and Arizona, respectively. With Trump's endorsement, they may best divided fields in the upcoming primaries (neither is currently leading). But their efforts so far have relied more heavily on familiar culture warring than thereactionary modernismfound in online conversations.

Still, the dissidents at the Orlando afterparty are both responding to a transformation of the intellectual right and helping to ensure that it continues. While they remain staples of think tank issue papers and fundraising appeals, ritualized appeals to the Founders, the Constitution, or patriotic loyalty to the existing United States have become pass among a younger generation of thinkers, writers, and readers. It's no use to tell these elements of the new right that they're not particularly conservative, because they already know that. With building hopes for a kind of Caesar willing to mount a frontal assault on "the regime," the question is what comes next.

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What's wrong with the new right? - The Week

This week, Alyssa Nakken became the first woman to coach on the field in MLB history, Dolly Partons cake mixes and frosting line became available in stores, and the Kardashians returned.

Heres what NPRs Pop Culture Happy Hour crew was paying attention to and what you should check out this weekend.

I am loving Julia on HBO Max. Its a mini-series following Julia Childs rise from cookbook author to TV personality, and it shows her and her marriage in a light that I havent seen before. Her frustrations, insecurities, ambition, and swearing are all front and center.

The show is also just a feast for the eyes. Its got all those colorful 1960s sets and costumes. Everything is beautiful, the cast is terrific, and I cannot say enough good things about Julia. Kristen Meinzer

Jerrod Carmichaels Rothaniel is his latest stand-up special for HBO, and it is a complete 180 from The Carmichael Show. He leaves himself exposed in a way that I havent seen from him or from most comedians, really.

In the special, as you might have heard, Carmichael comes out as gay. I love the way he talks about his coming out process because I feel like a lot of pop culture treats it as a sort of one-and-done situation. You have the dining room table conversation with your parents and you never have to come out again, you just move on with your life. And thats not his story. And especially as a 34-year-old coming out that adds a whole other level of complication. I just found it so lovely and so breathtakingly honest. And Bo Burnham, who directed the special, adds so many interesting visual departures from what we generally expect of stand-up specials. It was incredible. Inkoo Kang

Everyone needs to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once. Ive watched it maybe three times already and it is one of the best movies Ive seen, maybe ever.

It talks about family, motherhood, love and nihilism. It touches on how maybe nothing matters, but also everything does and it really makes you appreciate the important things in your life. The movie made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me angry, and basically, just feel every emotion Ive ever felt and ever could feel in my entire life. I would highly recommend it. Laura Sirikul

Our Flag Means Death is a fantastic comedy series on HBO Max. Imagine, if you will, the sensibility of What We Do In the Shadows and Wellington Paranormal brought to the genre that is: swashbuckling pirate. Its not a mockumentary, but it does have that Taika Waititi essence to it and is based on a true story, which is maybe the weirdest thing about it.

Rhys Darby, finally getting the spotlight hes always deserved, plays Gentleman Pirate Stede Bonnet, a nobleman who really did wake up one day and decided to become a pirate and did, eventually, meet up with Blackbeard, played in the show by Taika Waititi. This show knows exactly the vibe its going for and nails it from the jump. It is so assured and so smart and so deeply queer, so it gets my highest recommendation. Glen Weldon

NPR intern Fi OReilly adapted the Pop Culture Happy Hour segment Whats Making Us Happy into a digital page. If you like these suggestions, consider signing up for our newsletter to get recommendations every week.

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What's making us happy: A guide to your weekend reading and viewing WABE - WABE 90.1 FM

The parent-child relationship has been the nucleus of 33-year-old Ocean Vuongs writing. The American poets family fled Vietnam to a refugee camp in the Philippines before migrating to the US. His father abandoned them. His mother worked in a nail salon. In one of the most compelling poems in his Forward prize-winning 2017 debut collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, he imagines dragging his fathers body out of the sea, turning him over, and seeing a gunshot wound in his back. His 2019 novel, On Earth Were Briefly Gorgeous, is a series of letters from a Vietnamese-American son to his illiterate mother a tale that mirrors much of Vuongs own life. Time Is a Mother is his second poetry collection, and was written in the aftermath of his mothers death.

Theres something about Vuongs writing that demands all of your lungs. The succinct line arrangement and absence of full stops in poems such as Dear Rose force you to breathe heavy, as throughout this episodic poem Vuong talks tenderly to his dead mother about her journey as an immigrant from Vietnam to the US. He fills the poem with vivid imagery: flying bullets, corpses, Wonder Bread dipped in condensed milk and the fermentation of fish. He also wonders if shes still illiterate:

you bought me pencils reader I couldnot speak so I wrote myself intosilence where I stood waiting for you Ma to read me do you read me now

Being led by urge and compulsion feels central to the emotional landscape of Time Is a Mother, sometimes to the point of recklessness. The painterly opener, The Bull, sets the tone for this sense of wild abandon. The narrator of the poem is bewitched by the bulls beauty; its kerosene-blue eyes and fur so dark it purples the night around it. I had no choice. I opened the door.

Vuong, to varying degrees, illustrates what it means to be out of control. Some of the moments feel like stock images; playing air guitar in a backwards wedding dress as seen in Beautiful Short Loser, or hitting rock-bottom in my fast car going nowhere, in The Last Prom Queen in Antarctica. But its the candid, unphotogenic angles with bad lighting that are the most memorable, as in Rise & Shine, where he touches on drug addiction.

Scraped the last $8.48from the glass jar.Your days worth of tipsat the nail salon. Enoughfor one hit.

Poems like American Legend reveal the heights of Vuongs self-destruction. Here, we see the lengths one might go to for intimacy, as a son crashes his car to get physically closer to his father.

he slammedinto me &we huggedfor the first timein decades.

Still, underneath the macabre scenes is an innocent curiosity and thirst for truth and beauty. These ghost poems are about the cavernous corners of loss, grief, abandonment, trauma and war, but that doesnt result in nihilism or apathy for life; in fact, Vuong approaches death like an entrance rather than an ending. I was made to die but Im here to stay, he asserts in The Last Dinosaur.

Not Even is packed with laconic matter-of-fact sentences that blast. He writes with an audacious energy here. Sentences such as Some call this prayer, I call it watch your mouth, feel like one liners. He fills the poem with pregnant pauses, sometimes suffixing phrases with Ha to inspire awkward laughter. Absurdity is in abundance in this poem, but its the way Vuong uses comedic timing that surprisingly provides the most arresting and evocative moment:

Rose, I whispered as they zipped my mother in her body bag, get out of there.Your plants are dying.

You may have heard these stories about Vuongs life, his family history, and the tragedies of his people who lay mangled under the Time photographers shadow before. You may well hear them again in the future, but because Vuong plays with time by the millisecond slowing down or speeding up old memories or conversations he uncovers new enlightening details that have a life of their own.

He stood alone in the backyard, so dark the night purpled around him.I had no choice. I opened the door& stepped out. Windin the branches. He watched me with kerosene-blue eyes. What do you want? I asked, forgetting I had no language. He kept breathing,to stay alive. I was a boy which meant I was a murdererof my childhood. & like all murderers, my godwas stillness. My god, he was stillthere. Like something prayed forby a man with no mouth. The green-blue lamp swirled in its socket. I didntwant him. I didnt want him tobe beautiful but needing beautyto be more than hurt gentleenough to hold, I reached for him. I reached not the bull but the depths. Not an answer butan entrance the shape ofan animal. Like me.

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Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong review writing that demands all of your lungs - The Guardian

Warning: Spoilers! Moreover, this post wont make a ton of sense if you havent seen the movie.

In the mind-bend-y, meta-narrative, sci-fi/comedy-drama/martial arts extravaganza Everything Everywhere All at Once (which arrived to ecstatic reviews in theaters nationwide Friday), it is perhaps fitting that an everything bagel of all things should be deployed as a doomsday device. Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn, a scatterbrained laundromat owner with mounting debt and a crumbling marriage, who finds herself unwittingly thrust into the multiverse: literally tripping and kung-fu kicking her way across multiple dimensions, tapping into the power of alternate selves via verse jumping and, incidentally, trying to prevent the destruction of reality as we know it. The vehicle for that destruction: an obnoxiously literal bagel created by Evelyns nemesis, the nihilistic god-queen Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu), imbued with the power to suck everything into its black-hole-like vortex of nothingness. Um yeah!

EEAAOs writer-directors, Daniels Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert cram in a truly absurd number of outside cinematic references, visual allusions, non sequiturs, in-jokes, and cultural flotsam harvested from distant fringes of the internet because, as they put it, This movie is about everything. The pair single out Hong Kong cinematic sensualist Wong Kar-wai (for whom Everything Everywhere All at Once co-star Ke Huy Quan formerly served as as an assistant director) for special appreciation, along with the chef-protagonist of the animated rat romp Ratatouille (who is chopped and screwed by Daniels into a deliciously bizarre anthropomorphic animal called Raccacoonie).

The self-described maximalist filmmakers rose to fame directing such sublimely insane music videos as DJ Snakes Turn Down for What (a twerking odyssey starring Kwan) and the Sundance Directors Awardwinning surrealist dramedy Swiss Army Man (in which Daniel Radcliffe stars as a farting corpse). Here, they walk us through their inspirations the magical thinking, scientific calculations, beloved relatives, appreciation for Asian American culture creators, and competency porn that resulted in Everything Everywhere All at Once.

EEAAOunfolds within a multiverse where multiple iterations of the same character exist in separate but parallel planes of time and space but come into dynamic confrontation with one another.

Daniel Scheinert: I started doing research into the multiverse in 2010. I was watching the documentary Shermans March.

Daniel Kwan: In this weird, self-destructive movie, the documentarian/protagonist Ross McElwee is bouncing between women. But one he meets is a linguist and she talks about modal realism. And I started doing more research radical learning about the multiverse theory. Just the idea in almost every single art form or medium that there is a version where theyre trying to tackle infinity. Of course quantum physics has its own version of that. Mathematics has its own. So all these different mediums are trying to point towards infinity. Thats really appealing to us because were maximalist filmmakers. The multiverse became a vessel for us to point at infinity in a way that most other premises probably wouldnt allow for.

Scheinert: As silly as our movies are, we enjoy reading pop science.

Kwan: Then, as we were working on the movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse came out. It was a little upsetting because we were like, Oh shit, everyones going to beat us to this thing weve been working on.

Scheinert: I feel like Rick and Morty was the first.

Kwan: Yeah. It was actually hard to watch because we had already been working on the draft for a while. Watching the second season of Rick and Morty was really painful. I was like, Theyve already done all the ideas we thought were original! It was a really frustrating experience. So I stopped watching Rick and Morty while we were writing this project.

In one alternate universe, the disheveled Evelyn is an A-list movie star and her nerdy, fanny packwearing husband, Waymond, is an illustrious businessman resplendent in a perfectly tailored suit. They meet for a street-corner rendezvous backdropped by falling rain and a saxophone soundtrack conjuring a mood of exquisite romantic yearning that will be instantly recognizable to the Criterion Collection set as touchstones of Hong Kong art-house auteur Wong Kar-wai.

Kwan: We could have easily gone into parody with this. A lot of time when people are doing allusions, theyre usually shooting for the most recognizable references so that everyone can be like, Oh, I know what that is and now Im in on the joke. This was less about parody and more just playing with the genre, playing with all the things that we love and using the multiverse to let them all collide.

Scheinert: Wong Kar-wai leans heavily on imagery, not just dialogue. So we were just trying to create a shorthand for the audience even if they dont get the reference. We wanted to make sure they had some ways to tell the universes apart.

Kwan: We both grew up loving kung-fu movies, loving anime, Wong Kar-wai, all these things. A lof of it just happens to be Asian: Asian stories made by Asian creators.

Scheinert: Those stories, those filmmakers, and those movies felt useful to pair up with these characters.

The movies craziest fight sequence takes place in an IRS auditors office where Evelyn now possessed of high-level kung-fu skills must face off against guards attempting to level up against her by bearing down, rectum first, on IRS trophies shaped like sex toys in order to unleash hidden strength and combat capacities.

Scheinert: Late in the writing process, Dan pointed out that, in this concept of verse-jumping where you have to do something crazy or strange or statistically unlikely to jump, we never had a scene where anyone was fighting over the weird action. We didnt milk the premise as much as we could.

Kwan: The trope is usually two people are fighting and then the gun gets knocked out of the hand and then theyre struggling to fight over the gun.

Scheinert: Its like the doomsday device: What would be the weirdest thing to fight over? We spitballed and settled onto trying to get something into your butt is pretty funny. We could do it very high stakes. But it could also be Jackie Chan playful.

Late in the film, Evelyn and her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu) who is also Jobu Tupaki verse-jump away from the Sturm und Drang of previous scenes to a universe where they can peacefully coexist as small, round boulders overlooking a gorgeous Grand Canyonesque vista. But of course the mother-daughter bickering does not end there.

Kwan: The rock thing comes from a confluence of things. Theres a childrens book called Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. A donkey turns into a rock and basically is isolated from his family. One of our friends is an animator and video-game maker named David OReilly. He made this game called Everything. Its a game where you can literally play as anything. Literally, you can be a toenail clipping, you can be a fire hydrant, you can be an antelope, you can be a rock. And theres maybe a dozen different kind of rocks you can be. Just rolling around

Scheinert: just feels good.

Kwan: It feels good and that is really beautiful. The whole purpose of the game is you have to look at it and not press anything. Its a game where the longer you dont press anything

Scheinert: the more you progress.

Kwan: He called it a relax-em-up instead of a shoot-em-up. The last thing is, I remember when I was really young, my first girlfriend ever said something that always stuck with me. Sometimes I just wish I was a rock. So I didnt have to feel everything. As we were working on this movie about noise and chaos, we realized we needed a moment where we can give people the opposite. And what better place than a universe where life doesnt exist?

Occupying a universe in which she is a hibachi chef, Evelyn uses knife and spatula-wielding prowess to nimbly fend off attackers. Her restaurant rival: a handsome young grill man (Harry Shum Jr.) with a suspicious raccoon tail sticking out from beneath his chefs toque. Turns out an anthropomorphic raccoon named Raccacoonie manipulates his actions behind the stove in much the same way Remy the rat controlled Alfredo Linguini in Ratatouille.

Scheinert: There were a lot of steps in the development of that joke. Our producer Jonathan Wang, his dad was Chinese and an inspiration for the movie. He loved movies but never could remember the names of them. Jons family would collect the different titles that Dad had come up with for movies. One time he was like, Oh I saw a very good movie called Shooky Shylock. They were like, What is Shooky Shylock?! He was like, Its like Iron Man but hes a detective and he solves crimes in London; it was Sherlock Holmes. His favorite one was Outside Good People Shooting and it took him a while to figure out that he had seen Good Will Hunting. So early days, we thought Evelyn could be similar. Then the idea that whatever she got wrong was real was a very exciting way to explore the multiverse.

Kwan: The Waymond character says, If you can imagine it, then somewhere out there it exists. We realized there has to be a scene in which Michelle rides the guy and controls him like Ratatouille. That whole thing becomes its own arc. Thats always when we know a joke is going to be worth pursuing when first the idea is so ridiculous that we cant stop thinking about it. Then we find a way to clean it up and close it off with something thats epic and beautiful and cathartic or whatever. Then the last cherry on top was we always imagined Randy Newman would be the voice.

Scheinert: In the first draft it said, Theres a raccoon on his head voiced by Randy Newman. We never thought wed get Randy but we did!

Scheinert: Initially it was just a chef. Then there was a moment where we started getting self-conscious about some of the Asian American tropes that are in the film. At the same time, so many of them were just true. Dan would be like, That is what my grandads laundromat looked like. Then we started embracing them and just getting excited about complicating them and making them fun and different and taking things that are usually just a punchline and living in them a little longer. Also: Hibachi chefs are awesome!

Kwan: Theyre just badasses as far as the skill goes. French chefs would lose in a fight against a Japanese steakhouse chef, obviously. It was a very visual, fun idea inspired by going to those birthday parties growing up with the flaming onion candles or whatever.

Scheinert: Oh my God, that blew my mind as a kid. I was like, Why isnt every restaurant like this?

With a SWAT team closing in on her and Waymond, Evelyn unlocks her potential as a sign-spinner a.k.a. a human billboard; one of those people you see on street corners dancing and acrobatically flipping their sign like a pair of nunchucks to dispatch and disarm a cohort of heavily armed men.

Kwan: We spend so much time on YouTube or Instagram and all the things that rise to the top are people being exceptional. Theres a term for it: competency porn. People love watching people who are competent at what they do. When we were working on this movie, I could just look up competency-porn montages and see people doing incredible stuff. You see sign-spinners and knife-twirlers and

Scheinert: people who lay bricks perfectly. Theres some people who can do it so fast.

Kwan: That would have been a universe. Someones coming at her and she just builds a wall.

Scheinert: We got excited about specifically tapping into a lot of universes where someone has a really impressive skill but its one that is often overlooked or underpaid. That was more interesting than going to a universe where shes a brilliant mathematician

Kwan: or a CIA agent. It was way more fun to just make the everyday normal person feel like a superpower. Then you pair that with the fact we knew the fight scene was going to be with riot shields and things like that. People have been using shields to fight for a while. Obviously Captain America has been doing that. But we just wanted to have a very playful take. Our choreographers did such a good job with that prompt. Were like, What can you do with the sign?

Scheinert: Michelle really had to practice her human directional skills.

The movies most surreal subplot involves a world in which humanity has evolved to possess comically elongated sausage fingers. Evelyn finds herself in a romantic relationship with her IRS auditor, Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), in this universe. And as an expression of love, the two shoot ketchup and mustard out of their fingertips into one anothers mouths.

Kwan: Its not an original idea. If you look online, youll see people sticking fake nails on hot dog fingers and stuff like that. I think there is something very funny about the idea that our fingers look like hot dogs. But we werent interested in them until we figured out what the full arc was. Again, theres a funny initial joke but then you have to wonder, Okay, what purpose is it serving? And ultimately, am I going to get something really meaningful or cathartic on the other end of it? We dont really fully commit to an idea until the whole thing starts to come alive.

Scheinert: We wanted to take Evelyn somewhere that would break her brain, somewhere that shed hate. Shed be like, No this universe does not exist, and we threw a lot at the wall. The idea stuck because of the visual and we were like, She will look around herself and she will be like, That is my auditor. I already hate her. And she has gross hands and she is trying to touch me. Then we wanted it to be as challenging as possible to make her accept this universe. So getting her to the place where she consents to the mating ritual and squirts herself with the hot dog and mustard that was the goal. Can we get her there? We had to get Michelle there too. We had to convince her that it was worth doing.

I think she was like, Okay maybe. Ill see. Ultimately, it was Jamie the fact that Jamie agreed to do it gave Michelle the confidence to be like, Alright. Jamie did the final dance first and then was like, Your turn, Michelle.

Kwan: Theres a scientific calculation you can do for any object in the universe called a Schwarzschild radius, an object that when you compress it down to that radius becomes a black hole. It becomes a singularity and its hypothetical. But the idea is, at a certain density, anything will become a black hole. So everyone has their Schwarzschild radius. Wouldnt it be funny if she did that to an everything bagel? Because this movie is about everything. It started as just a throwaway joke.

Scheinert: We spent a while inventing the religion of the bagel followers. So many things didnt stick. Shes a nihilist; should there be dogma? Should there be a book? What should their practices be as a religion? The bagel stuck because it became such a useful, simple symbol that we could point to as filmmakers. And you dont have to explain it much beyond the joke.

Kwan: It did two things. It allowed us to talk about nihilism without being too eye roll-y. And it creates a MacGuffin: a doomsday device.

If in the first half of the movie people think that the bagel is here to destroy the world, and in the second half you realize its a depressed person trying to destroy themselves, it just takes everything about action movies and turns it into something more personal. Again, like all our ideas, it starts as a kernel that just makes us laugh. And then the gravity of that idea starts to pull in all these other things, until it becomes its own thing that we cant even take credit for sometimes. This became what it had to become and I cant imagine it being any different now.

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Everything Everywhere All at Once's Influences, Explained - Vulture