FILM 2014: LOST RIVER

FILM 2014: LOST RIVER

TRIVIA: First film written and directed by Ryan Gosling.

Matt Smith filmed his scenes during his break away from playing The Doctor on Doctor Who. He had to shave his head for the role of Bully and wore a wig for the last episodes of Doctor Who which were filmed later on.

Thomas McDonald, the actor who plays 'Skip' (the man leaving the area near the beginning of the film), is/was a real life resident of the now sparsely populated shooting location in Detroit.

When Ryan Gosling sent a text to Johnny Jewel (who created much of the film's soundtrack), outlining the influences and intended vibe of the film, Johnny's reply was "dark goonies. cool."

During one scene in the club, a woman can be seen wearing a large skull mask. This mask was originally worn by one of the circus gang motorcycle riders in the film Batman Returns (1992). It was pulled from the basement of the Warner Bros. props department for use in this film.

FILM 1758: LADY BIRD

FILM 1758: LADY BIRD 

TRIVIA: Saoirse Ronan and Greta Gerwig first met each other at the Toronto Film Festival in 2015 when Ronan was promoting Brooklyn (2015) and Gerwig was promoting Maggie's Plan(2015). Ronan had already read Gerwig's script and instantly connected with the titular character, so when both women discussed the script at length in Ronan's hotel room and she read the key part aloud, Gerwig knew that she had found her "Lady Bird."

The film is Greta Gerwig's solo feature directorial debut.

Saoirse Ronan has said that the most difficult word for her to pronounce with an American accent was "perfect."

Director Greta Gerwig suggested to Saoirse Ronan not cover up her acne for the film.

The film cast includes four Oscar nominees: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Lucas Hedges and Timothée Chalamet.

The film takes place from 2002 to 2003, the time when Greta Gerwig herself graduated from St. Francis Catholic High School in her hometown of Sacramento, California.

Throughout the film, a small poster of the movie Rushmore (1998) can be seen on the wall of Lady Bird's bedroom. Saoirse Ronan, who played Lady Bird, worked with that movie's director, Wes Anderson, on The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and co-star Lucas Hedges appeared in Anderson's films Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Anderson also co-wrote the movies The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou(2004) and Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) with Noah Baumbach, who is the current romantic partner of Greta Gerwig, this movie's writer and director.

FILM 1695: HOW I LIVE NOW

TRIVIA: The director, Kevin Macdonald, had originally intended the cast to be all unknown or amateur actors and was looking for an American girl, around 16 years of age to play Daisy, but cast Irish actress 19 year old Saoirse Ronan instead, after her audition, reading a scene which left them in tears.

"During pre-production, before we actually started shooting, [cinematographer] Franz Lustig went around and shot [with a Canon EOS C300] lots of little bits of birds, landscapes and details of things," said director Kevin Macdonald. "This is something you always want to do on films because you can see a beautiful sunset and have the flexibility to pull out a little tiny camera and shoot something. That stuff has all made it into the film. Franz could shoot this on his own." Lustig said: "It was a one-man show! Me, my backpack, three lenses, and maybe a tripod if needed. I could do images for the film and they cut in beautifully. You don't need a whole crew. We also tested some things in moonlight,(...). That was the original reason we wanted to try this camera for its low-light abilities."[2013]

FILM 1574: BROOKLYN 

TRIVIA: John Crowley divided the movie into three different visual movements. The first movement is before Eilis leaves post-war Ireland and is with tight frames and filled with green tones. The color scheme was created by photographic reference of the time. The second movement begins when Eilis leaves for Brooklyn and the first proper wide shot is featured, while the colors become more playful as a nod to how America in 1952 was on the cusp of pop culture kicking off. The third movement is back in Ireland, brighter, more glamour and "subtly more colorful" than the first movement. Crowley wanted to showcase Eilis has changed and looks very different: "There is a slight dreamy quality to that last third," he says.

The city of Brooklyn in the film was actually shot in Montreal for budgeting reasons, as the production was unable to turn 2015 Brooklyn back to 1950s Brooklyn. Only two days of production were spent in Brooklyn, one in order to create the brownstone exterior shots and a second to film at Coney Island.

Saoirse Ronan herself was born in The Bronx, New York, but raised in Ireland to Irish parents. She considers 'Brooklyn' to be one of her most personal films and it marks the first time she plays an Irish character in a film. (In The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) she spoke with an Irish accent but played a citizen of a generic fictitious European country.) In an interview with David Poland she expressed her concern with taking the role:"I felt like I can't mess this up, because all of Ireland will be watching. I felt a huge responsibility to the country to really capture what the story was." However, she said the warm reception at the Sundance Film Festival made her realize the universal essence of the film.

While this is Saoirse Ronan's first time using her native Irish accent, the dialect of her character differs from the one she uses in reality. In this film, she uses a Wexford accent, as her character is from Enniscorthy, while she speaks with a Dublin accent in her private life.

Irish author Colm Tóibín's idea for the novel came from a child memory, in which he overheard a woman talk about her young daughter's move from Enniscorthy to Brooklyn. In 2000 he wrote a short story about this memory, but expanded it to a novel years later, after living in United States himself, as well as teaching literary courses, where he said he was inspired by Jane Austen's "method of examining a single psychology, using an introspective, sensitive heroine, some comic characters and some romance."

Saoirse Ronan received 51 award nominations for her performance.

Julie Walters claims her character is reminiscent of her real-life aunt. John Crowley offered the role to Walters because, among other things, he knew of her Irish descent; "I knew Julie had an Irish mother and I had a suspicion that she would know that woman inside out, and of course she did. She knew who she was, right down to what her hair should look like and what she should dress like. Her accent's impeccable and of course she's a hysterically funny actress, but here she's doing it in a very real way. It's beautifully played."