For British director Steve McQueen, the past isn’t worth dramatizing unless it can illuminate the present, so when he makes films steeped in history — whether it’s “12 Years a Slave” or his World War II epic “Blitz” — he’s asking audiences to judge where we are now in relation to what’s happened before.
“You measure yourself on where we’ve been, where we are and how far we need to go,” says McQueen. “It’s also, for me, who’s left out of these stories, and who has the upper hand to tell these stories.”
It’s why “Blitz,” set in London during Nazi Germany’s cataclysmic bombing of the city, centers on the perspective of a munitions factory worker (Saoirse Ronan) and her mixed-race son (newcomer Elliott Heffernan), rather than a man on the front lines or in the corridors of power. While conducting research for “Small Axe,” his 2020 anthology of films about resilience in the city’s West Indian community, McQueen had come across a photograph of a Black boy on a train station platform awaiting evacuation during the Blitz.
“I thought, ‘That’s an in,’” he recalls. The picture inspired the tale about young George Hanway’s journey home after jumping the train, encountering aspects of British society — positive and negative — along the way. “We confront things through his eyes,” he says. “It’s not ‘Oliver Twist.’”
George’s single mom makes bombs and tries to do best by her bullied son and her father (Paul Weller), who lives with them. McQueen wanted to show who women really were then, outside of the classic representations of loved ones waiting and crying. The research bore that story out too. “You’ve never seen these images before, where women are the physical and emotional backbone of the war effort,” he says. “They were supplying ammunition, looking after elderly parents, evacuating their kids.”
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McQueen saw “Blitz” as a story of love, with the bond between mother and child central to the tale. “Their chemistry was real,” he says of the rapport between Ronan and Heffernan, noting that the former child actor took the first-timer under her wing. “They loved playing together.” Add rock musician Weller, acting for the first time at 66, and the trio forged a formidable onscreen family and off-camera bond. “They wouldn’t stop having fun. I was thinking, ‘Goodness, I wish that was my family.’ There was no hierarchy. It was beautiful.”
(Marcus Ubungen/Los Angeles Times)
When did he know Heffernan, discovered after a widely cast net for the role, was the ideal George? “Day 1, his stillness,” McQueen says. “It was a silent movie star quality. You look at him, and you want to know more. He holds your gaze.” Working with the youngster, he says, fostered a way of filming that was attuned to what Heffernan might do as much as what McQueen might want. “You have to be sensitive, because he has that energy of, ‘What is he looking at? How is he reacting?’ Sometimes, as a director, you’ve got to get out of your own way. You feel it, smell it, allow it to happen.”
Diligent research went into every aspect of “Blitz,” from the actual song being performed at the swanky Café de Paris when it was bombed to the harrowing flooding of a subway station, to a scene in a shelter depicting a protest against bigotry that stemmed from a real incident. But the movie reflects elements of McQueen’s life too. The original song “Winter’s Coat,” sung by Ronan’s Rita at her factory for a radio broadcast, is a nod to his late father.
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“When he died 18 years ago, he left me his winter coat,” says McQueen, who wrote the song with Nicholas Britell and Taura Stinson. “I wanted the idea of absence and presence, where putting on the coat is like an embrace, where you’re feeling the warmth of that person’s body.”
Nothing was more personal, however, than George’s decision to jump from a moving train bound for an unknown destination. “His narrative was laid out for him, but he defied it, and it changes his life, and that’s what happened to me,” says McQueen, who as a schoolboy experienced the kind of institutional racism that could have marked his life for failure if he’d let it. “Everything is, in some ways, finding your way home, self-determination.”
McQueen remembers being taught about the Blitz in school, and its importance to Britain’s sense of self. He hopes “Blitz” honors that history by widening the picture to be more truthful about who populated the nation. “A lot of our identity is based on that, it being our ‘finest hour,’” the director says. “What was our finest hour? Well, a lot of people contributed to that who have been erased from that history. They’re ghosts, and I need to illuminate them. I need to give them a platform. How could I not? The multiculturalism of London at that time, there’s an amazing complexity to that landscape, so rich, so textured and visually dynamic.
Forget the “video game movie” curse;The Mortuary Assistantis a bone-chilling triumph that stands entirely on its own two feet. Starring Willa Holland (Arrow) as Rebecca Owens, the film follows a newly certified mortician whose “overtime shift” quickly devolves into a grueling battle for her soul.
What Makes It Work
The film expertly balances the stomach-churning procedural work of embalming with a spiraling demonic nightmare. Alongside a mysterious mentor played by Paul Sparks (Boardwalk Empire), Rebecca is forced to confront both ancient evils and her own buried traumas. And boy, does she have a lot of them.
Thanks to a full-scale, practical River Fields Mortuary set, the film drips with realism, like you can almost smell the rot and bloat of the bodies through the screen.
The skin effects are hauntingly accurate. The way the flesh moves during surgical scenes is so visceral. I’ve seen a lot of flesh wounds in horror films and in real life, and the bodies, skin, and organs. The Mortuary Assistant (especially in the opening scene) looks so real that I skipped supper after watching it. And that’s saying something. Your girl likes to eat.
Co-written by the game’s creator, Brian Clarke, the movie dives deeper into the demonic mythology. Whether you’ve seen every ending or don’t know a scalpel from a trocar, the story is perfectly self-contained. If you’ve never played the game, or played it a hundred times, the film works equally well, which is hard to do when it comes to game adaptations.
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Nailed It
This film does a lot of things right, but the isolation of the night shift is suffocating. Between the darkness of the hallways and the “residents” that refuse to stay still, the film delivers a relentlessly immersive experience. And thankfully, although this movie is filled with dark rooms and shadows, it’s easy to see every little thing. Don’t you hate it when a movie is so dark that you can’t see what’s happening? It’s one of my pet peeves.
The oh-so-awesome Jeremiah Kipp directs the film and has made something absolutely nightmare-inducing. Kipp recently joined us for an interview, took us inside the film, discussed its details and the game’s lore, and so much more. I urge you to check out our interview. He’s awesome!
The Verdict
This isn’t just a cash-grab; it’s a high-effort adaptation that respects the source material while elevating the horror genre. With incredible special effects and a powerhouse cast, it’s the kind of movie that will make you rethink working late ever again. Dropping on Friday the 13th, this is a must-watch for horror fans. It’s grisly, intelligent, and genuinely terrifying.
A former executive at Live Nation, the world’s largest live entertainment company, is suing the company, alleging that he was wrongfully terminated after he raised concerns about alleged financial misconduct and improper accounting practices.
Nicholas Rumanes alleges he was “fraudulently induced” in 2022 to leave a lucrative position as head of strategic development at a real estate investment trust to create a new role as executive vice president of development and business practice at Beverly Hills-based Live Nation.
In his new position, Rumanes said, he raised “serious and legitimate alarm” over the the company’s business practices.
As a result, he says, he was “unlawfully terminated,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
“Rumanes was, simply put, promised one job and forced to accept another. And then he was cut loose for insisting on doing that lesser job with integrity and honesty,” according to the lawsuit.
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He is seeking $35 million in damages.
Representatives for Live Nation were not immediately available for comment.
The lawsuit comes a week after a federal jury in Manhattan found that Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary had operated a monopoly over major concert venues, controlling 86% of the concert market.
Rumanes’ lawsuit describes a “culture of deception” at Live Nation, saying its “basic business model was to misstate and exaggerate financial figures in efforts to solicit and secure business.”
Such practices “spanned a wide spectrum of projects in what appeared to be a company-wide pattern of financial misrepresentation and misleading disclosures,” the lawsuit states.
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Rumanes says he received materials and documents that showed that the company inflated projected revenues across multiple venue development projects.
Additionally, Rumanes contends that the company violated a federal law that requires independent financial auditing and transparency and instead ran Live Nation “through a centralized, opaque structure” that enables it to “bypass oversight and internal checks and balances.”
In 2010, as a condition of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, the newly formed company agreed to a consent decree with the government that prohibited the firm from threatening venues to use Ticketmaster. In 2019 the Justice Department found that the company had repeatedly breached the agreement, and it extended the decree.
Rumanes contends that he brought his concerns to the attention of the company’s management, but his warnings were “repeatedly ignored.”
At the centre of Madhuvidhu directed by Vishnu Aravind is a house where only men reside, three generations of them living in harmony. Unlike the Anjooran household in Godfather, this is not a house where entry is banned to women, but just that women don’t choose to come here. For Amrithraj alias Ammu (Sharafudheen), the protagonist, 28 marriage proposals have already fallen through although he was not lacking in interest.
When a not-so-cordial first meeting with Sneha (Kalyani Panicker) inevitably turns into mutual attraction, things appear about to change. But some unexpected hiccups are waiting for them, their different religions being one of them. Writers Jai Vishnu and Bipin Mohan do not seem to have any major ambitions with Madhuvidhu, but they seem rather content to aim for the middle space of a feel-good entertainer. Only that they end up hitting further lower.
