The only information in the credits you can't trust

I was fishing around for something to watch on Sunday night and I saw on Kanopy, in a promotional section on Oscar-nominated or -winning films, the film The Teachers' Lounge from 2023, directed by Ilker Catak. It was nominated for best international feature last year, but I remember hearing it come up in 2024 conversations about the best of the year, possibly due to its 2024 American release. Actually, it had a limited U.S. release -- which likely describes the full ultimate size of that release, given that this is not the type of film that plays multiplexes -- on Christmas 2023. But in many countries, it only debuted in 2024, and some people who discuss their best of the year don't use the same rules I do in determining what qualifies where. 

So why, then, was the release date on Kanopy listed as 2022?

While I was watching, I got curious enough to indeed check these release dates. IMDB always lists the earliest one first, and in this case, that was a February 18, 2023 debut at the Berlin International Film Festival. 

You'll see on various streaming services, especially Australian ones, a later release year than the generally accepted release year for a movie, if they are giving the year it first appeared in Australia. (One example having been discussed here.) 

But an earlier release year? A movie cannot meaningfully be said to exist prior to its first festival screening.

"Must be a misprint," I thought, and was set to write a post with that as the thrust.

Then for some unknown reason, while I was putting things away and preparing to go to bed, I paid attention to the credits down to the very last words on screen, even though I was not expecting a Marvel-style post credits sequence. And then I saw the year listed as MMXXII.

So that's where Kanopy got it.

Which, if you think about it, makes sense. I have argued in the past that a movie's title should be listed as it appears in the movie, and for sure, you are meant to take every other credit listed anywhere at face value.

But the year that appears in the credits is the one piece of information you should look upon skeptically.

I'm not sure if the same rule of thumb would be followed in every instance, but I have to think the year you put in here is whatever year it currently happens to be at the time you are making the credits. That may not be true with a big Hollywood blockbuster, whose credits may be finished in one year even though they know for sure the film's release date is the following year. I suspect they would definitively forward-date it in that case.

But with a smaller movie about a conflict among staff and students at a school, whose exact debut is uncertain at the time the credits are completed, you would put in whatever year it was and then let the rest take care of itself, knowing only pedants like me would ever notice and take issue with any of the decisions they've made.

Of course, I don't take issue with anyone involved with The Teachers' Lounge putting in 2022 (or MMXXII) in the credits, because that made the most sense in the moment. I take issue, only slightly, with a streaming service like Kanopy using that as the release year on their site, when consulting any other source (such as IMDB) would have disabused them of any confusion.

That's it, I'm never using Kanopy again. 

Is every movie dedicated to somebody?

This isn't necessarily the post I imagined writing on Halloween, but at least it involves a scary movie -- a movie that is legitimately scary at times, unlike all the Halloween movies I watched this month. (Plus, I've been writing about Halloween and Halloween all month, so I've done as much themed programming as you could possible want.)

Those Halloween movies do factor into this post, though, as that's where I first started noticing this phenomenon.

After Donald Pleasance died in the Halloween movie timeline, I noticed that at least the next movie was dedicated to him, as it obviously would be. There may have been more than one.

Then later it was producer Moustapha Akkad who died, and he may have been remembered in the credits of more than one movie, as the time I noticed it was in 2018's Halloween, 13 years after he died.

But as I've been sticking around for the entire credits in these movies -- which always yields interesting insights -- I saw that near the very end, there was usually an additional dedication, one that is more likely to disappear into the larger flow of credits. For example, the second David Gordon Green movie, Halloween Kills, was decided to a Halloween superfan named Anthony Woodle, whose wedding ceremony Jamie Lee Curtis performed an hour before he died of esophagael cancer.

When I noticed another dedication at the end of Oddity, one of two Halloween-themed movies I watched on October 30th, I got the idea that it might make sense to dedicate any and every movie to some person connected in some way to the production. (I can almost be bothered to go back into the movie and note who it was, but it was not someone famous -- possibly a family member of one of the cast or crew.)

When you think about the sheer hundreds, if not thousands, of people involved with the making of most movies, there is a good chance someone connected to the film will have lost a father or sister or close friend at some point during the 2+ years from pre- to post-production, especially for larger films. It's almost as though if you are not including a dedication -- or an "in memory of," if those are not exactly the same thing -- you are just wasting an opportunity. 

Does this weaken the gesture?

It's hard to say. The last few examples I mentioned were sort of buried in the credits, close to the end, so you'd only see it at all if you'd stayed to watch, like I usually do. I think if every film had a prominent dedication, on the screen by itself very soon after the final shot, then we'd notice it and maybe call it out. When it's buried, it's really more for the crew, and the reality of the situation is, it will make those most affected by the loss of that person very grateful for the thought.

We most often see this, of course, when a major creative talent involved with the film -- like one of its stars, or maybe a producer -- has passed after shooting was finished but before the film was released. The "For Brandon" in The Crow seems like an obvious example.

But what if you are fortunate enough not to have any prominent losses like that? How deep to you dig to make sure someone is filling the requisite dedication slot, even if it is the cousin of one of the gaffers?

This does give me a reason to continue paying the attention I pay to credits most of the time, to get a sense of just how common this is. I may report back on my findings at an unspecified future date.

As for Oddity, I chose it as the option to start way too late (about 10:25) after we had finished the movie we were watching with my ten-year-old, Nightbooks on Netflix, which was actually more intense than we would have originally expected and therefore just about the perfect thing for every kid's desire for slightly aspirational viewing. (I now see it was directed by Brightburn director David Yarovesky, which explains some of the intensity.) I considered All Hallows' Eve, the 2013 film that introduced Art the Clown, now the star of the Terrifier series, the second of which I watched just before October started. It was 14 minutes shorter too. But then I thought, I've been watching movies about a serial killer all month. Let's switch it up a bit. How about a good ghost story?

And Oddity was that. It's shot very well, it's got a good story, and it does have some moments that made the hairs on my arms stand up -- something they did not do once over the course of 11 previous Halloween movies.

An "And Danny DeVito" featuring the actual Danny DeVito

If you are coming to this post seeing the poster for the newly released Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and think I am going to dissect the finer details of another sequel 36 years in the making, you are bound to be sorely disappointed. (Though if you want to read my thoughts on it, my review is here.)

No, this post is about a convention in the opening credits that I've discussed on this blog once before. 

To save you clicking on that link, I'll tell you that it's that moment in the credits when most of the primary cast has been listed and they're about ready to move on to the next section of the credits, but you get the name of one last actor -- the coup de grace, the chef's kiss, the final unexpected name that'll make you squirm with unexpected delight. It's a spot in the credits that actors specifically request in their contracts, and it is always preceded by the conjunction "and."

For me, I have always thought that the perfect sort of actor to appear in this spot is Danny DeVito. So for some strange reason, every time I watch the opening credits of a movie, and it came out during DeVito's career as a professional actor (which covers a 55-year span), I'm always waiting for the "And Danny DeVito" to finish off that section of the credits. When it invariably is not Danny DeVito, I always try to decide if that person has a suitably DeVito-ish quality -- if that person occupies, in some small way, that precise corner of the cinematic landscape that DeVito occupies.

This is not leading up to me telling you that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is finally the movie where I got a real "And Danny DeVito." Sorry to disappoint you again.

In fact, the "And Danny DeVito" in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is Willem Dafoe, who may just be the second best "And Danny DeVito" next to the man himself.

But I was consciously thinking about my personal little DeVito meme as I was watching those opening credits. I don't do it as frequently as I once did, so this was noteworthy.

Because about 15 minutes later, there, on the screen, was Danny DeVito.

It might have occurred to me that we'd actually get Danny DeVito in this movie, because of course DeVito played The Penguin in Tim Burton's Batman Returns, not to mention also appearing in Burton's Mars Attacks! and Dumbo. But if it did, it never escaped my subconscious. 

DeVito plays a netherworld janitor, and before Burton reveals that he's dead -- like everybody else in this netherworld -- he has the camera approach him from behind, to keep the surprise for a moment longer. I knew right away that it was DeVito, not that you would confuse him with Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Oh wait.) But even when his voice, still heard without seeing his face, did not sounds particularly DeVito-ish, I thought "That's Danny DeVito," which struck me as particularly funny because I'd just thought of him a few minutes ago.

And it was.

Did I conjure him into existence? I don't think I said his name aloud, likely not once but certainly not three times. Maybe I thought it three times.

In any case, I thought it was a funny coincidence.

So I guess Mr. Danny has slipped from the status of "surprise last inclusion in the cast" to "enjoyable cameo" as he enters his ninth decade of life, though I should say, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is still on the air (its 16th season!) and still popular I guess, and DeVito is still in it. I've seen exactly one of the 170 episodes. Not my thing, really.

In case you don't want to click on the other link in this post, I gave Beetlejuice Beetlejuice three stars, or 6/10 using the ReelGood rating scale. I feel like I give every reheat of IP three stars these days. I'm sucked in just enough by the fan service to overlook the essential flaws in the construction, which equals out to a pretty okay time at the movies. Will it always be this way? Until we're all grabbing mops to wash floors in the netherworld of the dead?

Mike Lookinland's second career, and remembering an old cup

If you're like me, you'll look at the long crawl of credits at the end of a movie without really looking at it. Your eyes are pointed at the screen and information is hitting your cerebral cortex, but you're not really processing it. If you're like me, you'll read the acting credits, but words like "second unit director" then cause your eyes to glaze over. You keep watching, but you shift into the dutiful position of a person bearing witness. You're not actually taking anything in, not actually broadening the personal database of key grips and dolly grips you're aware of.

Every once in a while, though, you might find yourself a little nugget of something choice.

As I was bearing witness to the credits at the end of the 2000 film The Way of the Gun on Friday night, I saw a familiar name buried long past the point where I'm continuing to take in useful information. That name was Mike Lookinland, and if you're like me, a Boston area child of the 1980s weaned on the afternoon programming of WLVI, Channel 56, you know immediately who that is:

That's right, that's Bobby Brady, younger brother of Peter and Greg, son of Mike, stepson of Carol, stepbrother of Marcia, Jan and Cindy. 

But surely if the erstwhile Bobby Brady worked on The Way of the Gun, it should be as an actor, right?

This is what interested me: This Mike Lookinland was credited as "First Assistant Camera."

Must be a different Mike Lookinland, then? Surely, there might be as many as two people in the world named Mike Lookinland?

No, it's the same one. Apparently, he shifted from in front of the camera to behind it. In fact, Lookinland has 20 camera-related credits on IMDB from 1987 to 2007, at which point, it seems like he gave that up -- though he does still appear in front of the camera from time to time, even now at age 60, as a TV movie called Blending Christmas is listed as in post-production. It should be noted, though, that this is his first acting role since 2003, when he played himself in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.

I'm sure taking up in another part of the entertainment industry is not uncommon for former child stars, or any other actors who aren't really making it in front of the camera. What's probably not as likely is for you -- and by you I mean me -- to notice their names among a flow of hundreds in a typical end credits crawl. 

And if I didn't see Mike Lookinland's name in the end credits for The Way of the Gun, I might not ever have seen it. Of the 19 other projects he worked on as a first assistant or second assistant cameraperson, only two others were things I even recognized. One was a TV show, Everwood, that I never watched and probably never will watch. The other is Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Mayers. I have three other Halloween movies that I've never seen and probably never will see before I'd get to that.

IMDB thinks his work on The Way of the Gun was pretty significant, too. On the brief synopsis of his career on his IMDB page, it says "He is known for his work in The Brady Bunch (1969), The Brady Bunch Variety Hour (1976) and The Way of the Gun (2000)." The idea that a person would be known for performing the function of first assistant camera is, I think, hilarious.

I have two more things to tell you about The Way of the Gun.

One of them is this:

Do you remember this cup?

I hadn't thought of it in ages, but you used to always get your soda in these cups from random snack bars back in the day. In fact, I'm pretty sure we used them in the snack bar I worked in for a summer back in 1992. 

White top, light gray bottom, with a sort of flame icon in red ink. What did that flame mean? Who even knew?

They are kind of like that generic white and blue coffee cup with Greek lettering and the columns of antiquity on the side, the kind you were particularly likely to see if you lived in New York.

Last thing.

The reason I watched The Way of the Gun on Friday night was because I once caught a few minutes of it on cable 20 years ago, and those few minutes stuck with me. I'm not sure why they stuck with me, except that they contained a moment of sudden violence that seemed very shocking in the context of not having watched the rest of the movie.

Spoiler alert, if you care about spoilers for The Way of the Gun.

The moment involved the death of Taye Diggs' character. I had no idea when it actually occurred in the movie, and when I finally watched it, I learned that it wasn't until the final 15 minutes. But the scene involved a tense standoff in a small room, and Diggs suddenly being shot out of the blue by one of the other people in the room. Shot in the chin, I realize now that I've watched it, but not instantly fatal -- he has a moment to kind of gape in surprise as he slumps against the wall and fruitlessly tries to apply pressure to the wound.

For some reason, this isolated moment had always sat in the back of my mind, leading me to think The Way of the Gun was some kind of profound comment on the suddenness and brutality of violence. 

Finally watching the film, I know that this is not an accurate descriptor of this film. It's just another post-Tarantino crime movie, even if director Christopher McQuarrie has subsequently distinguished himself through several Mission: Impossible movies (with at least one more to come) as well as Jack Reacher. (In fact, this guy seems to work almost exclusively with Tom Cruise -- he was also writer for Valkyrie, Edge of Tomorrow, The Mummy and Top Gun: Maverick.)

It's not bad, and in its opening moments it even has a fair amount of promise. But then it degenerates into a bunch of really unbelievable shootouts and a series of strained character motivations.

Of course, what it's really known for is the camerawork of Mike Lookinland. 

Needing no introduction

I did get to Resistance, the movie I was supposed to see in the theater on Monday night, on Tuesday night instead. As I think I mentioned in yesterday's post, I had the option of a screener link to watch, and availed myself of that option in order to put up a review.

It was fine. I haven't written my review yet. I'm still trying to decide whether to marginally recommend people see it or marginally steer them clear.

First, though, I want to write about a peculiarity in the movie's closing credits.

One of the first faces you see in the movie is Edgar Ramirez, who, through the dumb luck of production and release schedules, is appearing in the second of three new releases I will see before the month is out. He had a starring role in The Last Days of American Crime, which I reviewed back at the beginning of the month, and appears to have a similar sized role in Olivier Assayas' Wasp Network, which I expect to watch and subsequently review on Thursday. His role is much smaller here, and I didn't come here today to talk to you about Edgar Ramirez.

But another of the first faces you see is a young actress named Bella Ramsey, who was very familiar to me. It took me until after the closing credits rolled to figure out why:

That's right, she's the badass preteen noblewoman of the north, Lyanna Mormont, from Game of Thrones, who has twice the courage of men twice her age.

I probably would not have looked her up at all, though -- and would have remained ignorant of the connection -- if it weren't for the peculiar placing of her name in the credits.

After about eight of the movie's adult stars are listed, her name comes on screen as follows: "Introducing Bella Ramsey as Elsbeth."

Given that I know how the "introducing" credit is typically used, I knew it had to be her, even though I didn't know her character's name was Lisbeth. (I was paying attention, really I was.) But then I thought "Well, that can't be her, because I know I know that actress, even though I can't remember from where. They wouldn't 'introduce' an actress I know, would they?"

As it turns out, they would.

Ramsey was actually "introduced" to us ages ago. She first appeared on GOT as long ago as 2016, when she was a wee young lass of 13, or possibly even 12. (And no, she's not from Scotland, but I thought it fit here.) She went on to appear in eight more episodes.

Investigating further into the use, or possible misuse, of the "introducing" credit, I found Wikipedia has this to say on the matter:

"If an unfamiliar actor has the lead role, he may be listed last in the list of principal supporting actors, his name prefixed with 'and introducing' (as Peter O'Toole was in Lawrence of Arabia). However 'and introducing' is now mostly used in feature films by a young actor (usually a child) who appears for the first time in a motion picture."

So I thought that maybe this is the explanation, that while Ramsey had appeared in a TV show, she may never yet have appeared in a movie. Well, no, that's not it either. Prior to Resistance, Ramsey also had the following movie credits:

Two for Joy (2018) as "Miranda"
Holmes & Watson (2018) as "Flotsam"
Princess Emmy (2019) as "Princess Gizana"
Judy (2019) as "Lorna Luft"

To say nothing of the five short films she has also appeared in.

And why wouldn't she be in all these films, given how she commands the screen so memorably in a relatively short amount of screen time on Game of Thrones? (Er, memorably enough for me to know I knew her, if not immediately to know how.)

Resistance may be the most central to any film she's been in. But in one of those other films (Judy) she plays an actual person, the daughter of the title character, and she's also been on four other TV shows in addition to GOT.

In other words, thanks but no thanks. The special spotlight she gets in the credits is nice and all, but you don't need to "introduce" us to Bella Ramsey, thank you very much.

In fact, if you're not careful, she might introduce you to the cold steel of her blade, and then spit on your corpse.

The ultimate collaborative medium

One benefit of watching bad movies: You find inspiration in the darnedest of places.

Monday, as I lay dying with coughs that were trying to rip apart my rib cage, I watched Over Her Dead Body (quite appropriate) in the dead afternoon heat of a Los Angeles indian summer. Because I'm a person of good manners, I usually watch as much of a film's credits as I can stand, and that was true in this case as well.

But the thing I'm about to discuss came right at the beginning of this particular film's credits. As the words started to crawl up the screen in the style we're all accustomed to, I noticed the word "A film by" floating all by itself. Normally you'd see the name of the director underneath those words, but in this case, there were only a few blank spaces and then the word "Cast," followed by the listing of actors. "Oh great," I thought. "This film is incompetent enough that it even forgot to include the director's name. Either that or Alan Smithee directed it."

But then a curious thing happened: The words "A film by" came to rest and stayed put, while the rest of the collaborators continued to scroll by underneath them. So instead of incompetence, it was the ultimate in magnanimity. The director, Jeff Lowell, had presumably withdrawn his right to have it read "A film by Jeff Lowell" in deference to all the other people who had worked on the project with him. (Or, more cynically, he wanted to pull an Alan Smithee and blame the movie on someone other than himself.)

It got me thinking about something I constantly wrestle with when writing about films: how to assign authorship to them. One writer writes a book. One painter paints a picture. One songwriter writes a song -- and if it's Billy Corgan, then he can also sing and play all the instruments. But a film? It requires hundreds, or in the case of Lord of the Rings, thousands of people.

But when you're writing about a movie, it's extremely helpful to have either a single person to congratulate, or a single person to blame. When a person thinks that The Departed is brilliant, he or she tends to give Martin Scorsese a lot more credit than he probably deserves -- especially in that case, where it was actually a remake of the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs. Same is true of The Happening -- everything ridiculous about that movie had to be the fault of M. Night Shyamalan.

And this is why there's something called the auteur theory, which I'll let wikipedia explain better than I can if you want to follow the link. While true cineastes would argue that this is subtle and specific notion that applies only to a select few directors, and had a very specific historical place, I'm going to summarize it fairly simply here: It lets us off the hook by saying that for the purposes of criticism, the director is the single author of the films he or she directs.

There's something very funny about this, which is that unless he or she is also the screenwriter, the director usually doesn't do anything that the word "author" would imply he (or she) does. What's really funny is that when you go back to the director's stage origins, his (it was always a "he" back then) primary role was to tell the actors they were saying their lines wrong, and try to convince them of their "motivation" in each scene.

Directors still do that, but we don't think of them that way at all, do we? Yet that's the most basic requirement of the director: literally, to direct the actors.

Except when it comes to Martin Scorsese, the Coen Brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson, Oliver Stone, David Lynch -- anyone you can think of who you consider a modern master -- we are much more likely to ascribe them a more abstract role. Namely, we consider them to be the overseers of all the film's content, from its look, to the themes it explores, to its camera angles, and even to its script. In fact, the script is the most easy thing to extricate out and credit to someone else, namely, the screenwriter. But we still say "What Martin Scorsese is trying to say in this scene ..." Really, it's William Monahan, who wrote The Departed, who's saying it. But who even knows who William Monahan is? I may, but that's because I'm a film geek.

It may seem that I am poking holes in the auteur theory, but really, it serves me very well. I'm not sure if it's mere laziness in trying to figure out who I should really credit or blame, or just the constraints of a 300-word review, but I am very comfortable assigning one person with the making or breaking of a film. I'll often mention the screenwriters -- though some films can have upwards of six, and I'd steer clear of those -- and when really relevant, folks like the cinematographer, the makeup artist or the set designer. But even on these occasions, it can be hard to definitively credit the right person. If a shot looks really good, can I be sure I should credit the DP (director of photography), or should I be crediting the director for telling him to shoot from that angle? If the sets look really nice, is it the vision of the set designer, or is the set designer merely interpreting the director's vision?

I don't have a simple answer to this mess. I will say that my favorite films to review are the ones where the director was also the screenwriter -- and if the producer as well, then even better. Then I become a hell of a lot more confident when I point that finger. (Besides, if you wrote, directed and produced a movie, and it's a massive failure, you have only yourself to blame for not instituting some checks and balances.)

There's one thing that's really interesting about all this. The one time I'm not likely to credit the director for doing something is what he's actually there to do: direct the actors. When Mickey Rourke blows me away in The Wrestler, a hell of a lot of credit should be going to Darren Aronofsky, shouldn't it? I mean, even if Rourke's instincts allowed him to play that part to perfection, it was Aronofsky who picked him out of career obscurity and coaxed out of him a performance that should win him an Oscar. Right? Yet I don't feel confident in crediting Aronofsky there. Maybe that's because I can never tell what percentage of a performance is something that the actor would know to give himself -- and what percentage is because his director told him what his motivation was.

I guess there's no real answer. I will say this -- as long as I've given it my best shot at selecting the right person to credit, I hope the recipients of my praise (or the objects of my scorn) will know enough to share.

Just like Jeff Lowell did.