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No Jail Time – New York Times reports on the increasing number of American lawyers turned videographers creating documentaries on behalf of their clients, in order to get lighter sentencing from judges. Via the article:

Today, however, a growing number of lawyers are creating empathetic biographical mini-documentaries, or “sentencing videos,” to reduce their clients’ prison sentences. Inspired by the storytelling techniques of traditional documentary film, some lawyers team up with independent filmmakers while others become filmmakers themselves. These films are made for an audience of one: the presiding judge.

While videos have historically been permitted in the courtroom, this phenomenon took off in 2005, when the Supreme Court, in United States v. Booker, allowed trial courts to consider an offender’s “personal history and characteristics.” Before Booker, judges were bound by sentencing guidelines and were generally restricted in looking past a defendant’s crime and criminal record.

In sentencing videos, lawyers try to portray their clients in a positive light, notwithstanding the nature of the crime of which they were found guilty. These short videos, which can cost $5,000 to $25,000 to make, can be extremely effective, sometimes substantially decreasing sentences, including those involving the death penalty.

I immersed myself in this phenomenon at the The Sentencing and Post-Conviction Film Festival, held in New Orleans in June at an annual training conference for federal public defenders. The event is organized by Doug Passon, an attorney, filmmaker, attorney-filmmaker, and sentencing video expert.

Hideo Kojima is back with another long, beautiful, highly bizarre trailer for his upcoming game Death Stranding, starring Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen, with a guest(?) appearance by Guillermo del Toro. Del Toro and Mikkelsen aren’t in this trailer. With no gameplay out and not much information about the game, Avclub has an analysis:

At the moment, Hideo Kojima’s upcoming project Death Stranding is less a video game and more a series of weird art films that he trots out once a year with the clear intent of prolonging his friendship with Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen for as long as humanly possible. That being said, between the game’s initial E3 announcement in 2016 and two consecutive trailers at the annual Game Awards—the latest released last night—we’ve now got more than 15 minutes of Death Stranding to analyze and agonize over, so we thought we’d look over everything we’ve got on Kojima’s latest opus and try to come up with a grand, unified theory of this game about emphasizing “ropes”—i.e., human connections—over “sticks”—weapons—once and for all.

[…]

Death Stranding still doesn’t have a release date and neither Kojima nor any of his famous friends seem like they’ll be talking any time soon. I don’t know about you, William, but for now, I’m more than happy to accept our vision of this bizarre game as the truth. I for one can’t wait to use Magic Baby power to save humanity as we know it from the Bad Floaters.

Move aside Apple and John Lewis, BBC One’s Christmas Together ad is a beautiful animated short film about family and paying attention. A mix of CGI and stop animation, the ad was put together by a team of stars:

A large team worked on the project, including Elliot Dear who previously created the expensive The Bear and the Hare ad for John Lewis.

The team of people were required to blend what the corporation said was a ground-breaking mix of CGI and stop-motion animation.

And they included puppet-makers MacKinnon & Saunders, who have previously worked with big names like Wes Anderson and Tim Burton.

The lead CGI artist was Rune Spaans, famed for her work on children’s favourite Trollhunters, and Clockwork Frog, who designed sets for Aardman film The Pirates, also chipped in.

Even the music, a song by Clean Bandit featuring Zara Larsson, comes with a pedigree.

The hit song was rearranged for the corporation by award-laden producer Steve Mac, who has worked with everyone from One Direction and the Saturdays to Rita Ora and Susan Boyle.

Also working on the project were marketing gurus Amar Marwaha and Arvid Härnqvist, the brains behind previous campaigns for the V&A alongside Martini, who were poached by the BBC Creative team last year.

Justin Bairamian from the BBC Creative in-house design team, which was heavily involved, boasted: “We’re delighted to have formed a world class team from across the industry to create this film.”

But despite the A-listers behind the ad, the licence fee-funded BBC today refused to say how much money had been lavished on the project.

The trailer for Batman Ninja has dropped, and it looks incredible – directed by JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure’s Jumpei Mizusaki. Via the Nerdist:

Nearly a decade ago, the Batman: Gotham Knight animated anthology brought multiple anime styles to the Dark Knight. But next year, Bruce Wayne‘s famous alter ego is taking it even further in his first theatrically released full length anime movie, Batman Ninja. The first trailer for Batman Ninja has been released in Japan, and it’s promising a wild ride even by comic book standards. As you can see in the video below, the Batman of the present finds himself transported to the distant past, with the Joker at the center of it all.

Intriguingly, it appears that the entire movie is set in Japan, even during the present day sequences. So we can assume that this version of Gotham City isn’t an American city. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, Batman finds himself surrounded by altered versions of his friends, allies, and surrogate sons, even when trapped in the distant past. Alfred is relatively unchanged (man bun excluded), but Robin, Nightwing, Red Robin, Red Hood, and Catwoman are quite different.

Of course, it just wouldn’t be a Batman story without some of his greatest villains. The Joker is joined by several of the Bat’s top foes, including the Penguin, Two-Face, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy, in addition to unexpected players like Deathstroke the Terminator and Gorilla Grodd, neither of whom is traditionally associated with Batman.

This Vox.com explainer looks at how technicolour changed movies: it wasn’t just a great new technology, but also a powerful corporate influence. A 1998 LATimes article explores the rise of technicolour:

With the phenomenal success of the Al Jolson musical “The Jazz Singer” in 1927, Hollywood quickly made the transition from silents to talkies. However, injecting color into movies was a much harder sell. In fact, it took the founder of Technicolor more than two decades to convince movie makers about the viability of color.

The new Turner Classic Movies documentary “Glorious Technicolor,” premiering Monday, examines the tangled history of color movies, as well as the life and career of Herbert T. Kalmus, the “father” of Technicolor.

Narrated by Angela Lansbury, who appeared in such Technicolor classics as “National Velvet,” the documentary features interviews with Technicolor stars Esther Williams and Arlene Dahl, as well as the never-before-seen Technicolor screen tests of Ingrid Bergman for “Intermezzo” and Vivien Leigh and Leslie Howard for “Gone With the Wind.”

The documentary also kicks off the cable network’s weeklong, 21-movie Technicolor festival featuring such breathtakingly beautiful color films as 1937’s “A Star Is Born,” 1938’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and 1951’s “An American in Paris.”

“It took Kalmus 23 years to get the process right,” says “Glorious Technicolor” producer Peter Jones. “Finally, ‘Gone With the Wind’ really turned it around for Technicolor. He was really working off the kindness of investors for many years.”

Kalmus’ first Technicolor system required two projectors running simultaneously that created severe synchronization problems. The only film produced with this early technique was 1917’s “The Gulf Between,” of which just one frame of footage still exists.

In 1922, Kalmus developed a two-color photographic process that used a single projector that produced two dyed strips of film cemented together. The film industry failed to get behind Kalmus, so he received development money from, of all places, the Bon Ami cleanser manufacturers. A few films were made with this process including 1922’s “The Toll of the Sea” and Douglas Fairbanks’ 1926 classic “The Black Pirate.”

The Ningyo is a visually impressive short film by Miguel Ortega and Tran Ma, about a cryptozoologist’s search for a mythological creature. Via Short of the Week:

Nothing will give you a crash course in modern digital movie magic like watching the 7min making-of, but the film’s ambitions are not merely visual. At 26min there is a lot more going on than in your typical proof-of-concept short. Professor Marlowe is a famed hunter of mythological creatures, famous for discovering Africa’s famed “zebra-giraffe” the Okapi. But, in a crisis of conscience, he has renounced killing animals. He still wants to hunt mythological beings, but now only for scientific study. One particular creature obsesses him and that is the ningyo, a Japanese fish often referred to as a “mermaid”, and which, according to legend, will grant unusually long life to whomever tastes its flesh. After receiving a map that purports to reveal the location of this the ningyo, he tries to rouse the support of his colleagues in academia for an expedition, only to be roundly mocked. The mockery hides a deeper conspiracy however, as the ningyo is protected by a Japanese clan whose ancestor was cursed by the creature’s gift, and is also pursued by a mysterious collector whom possesses seemingly limitless wealth and reach.

Bud Light has sent craft brewery Modist Brewing Company a hilarious, medieval Cease and Desist “parchment scroll”, delivered via town crier. Via Adweek:

Modist Brewing Company in Minneapolis made the new “Dilly Dilly” Mosaic Double IPA, named for the cryptic but popular catchphrase from recent medieval-themed Bud Light ads. Having trademarked “Dilly Dilly,” A-B InBev needed to nip this in the bud. So, it sent a guy in medieval garb to Modist’s lobby, where he read the cease-and-desist scroll aloud.

We’ve seen a number of chatty cease-and-desist letters from brands recently, but this one ranks up there with the best of them. First, much as Netflix’s note to a rogue Stranger Things bar did, this missive simply asks Modist to keep things to a limited run. Second, it’s amusingly written, in keeping with the “Dilly Dilly” humor. And third, adding in two Super Bowl tickets for Modist employees is a very gracious gesture—and shows some recognition that anyone’s “Dilly Dilly” beer, on some level, will benefit Bud Light.

Full text of the scroll:

Dear friend of the Crown, Modist Brewing Company. Congratulations on the launch of your new beer, Dilly Dilly Mosaic Double IPA! Let it be known that we believe any beer shared between friends is a fine beer indeed. And we are duly flattered by your loyal tribute. However, “Dilly Dilly” is the motto of our realm, so we humbly ask that you keep this to a limited-edition, one-time-only run. This is by order of the king. Disobedience shall be met with additional scrolls, then a formal warning, and finally, a private tour of the Pit of Misery. Please send a raven, letter or electronic mail to let us know that you agree to this request. Also, we will be in your fair citadel of Minneapolis for the Super Bowl, and would love to offer two thrones to said game for two of your finest employees to watch the festivities and enjoy a few Bud Lights. On us. Yours truthfully, Bud Light.

This recruitment ad for the New Zealand Police Force is hilarious, with a lot of typically kiwi understated humour and a witty script. It’s also, naturally, gone viral. Via News.com.au:

New Zealand Police have released the world’s “most entertaining recruitment video”. The video released on Facebook depicts a funny and thrilling police chase.

The opening line: “We want New Zealand to be the safest country in the world, but we can’t do it without your help.”

The video stars more than 70 police staff, including Commissioner Mike Bush. Several women and people from diverse ethnic backgrounds are also represented.

“Police want to attract more women, Maori, Pacific Islanders, and people from all other ethnicities and backgrounds to better reflect the communities we serve,” Constable Zion Leaupepe said, according to the NZ Herald.

The captain of New Zealand women’s rugby team Fiao’o Faamausili, who is also a police officer, stars in the video.

“Our primary audience is 18 to 24-year-olds, so it was a given we would use social media,” deputy chief executive of public affairs Karen Jones said.

At the time of writing, it had been viewed over 1.4 million times.

The video is fulfilling its purpose as well. “At 9am today there had been an 800 per cent increase in traffic to the New Cops website since the launch of the video. As well as this, 333 full profiles have been created by people interested in joining us,” Comissioner Bush said in a statement.

Not sure where Elle got this great idea, but here’s Daisy Ridley (Rey) of Star Wars fame building the Millennium Falcon during an interview. Yes, Star Wars’ latest installment is coming and we couldn’t be more excited. Full Interview:

Two years later, 25-year-old Daisy is sitting opposite me at a restaurant in downtown Manhattan, dressed in a shirt and capri pants in clashing blue-and-white prints, her hair still wet from the shower. She’s brimming with the kind of enthusiasm that reads on screen as charisma, and that helps to explain her meteoric rise from stage-school graduate with a few TV credits to her name to one of the most recognisable young stars on the planet. Paranoid Linda still makes an occasional appearance, she says, but mostly she has managed to adjust to life after two Star Wars movies.

Daisy clings to the fact that fame doesn’t need to have a warping effect. It also fits in with her belief that the best way to survive the pressures of high-voltage exposure is to try enjoying it. Everything is ‘amazing’ in her world and everyone is ‘remarkable’, ranging from her mum (‘a great person’) to Barbra Streisand, with whom she recorded a song in 2016 (‘a fantastic woman’), Harrison Ford (‘awesome’) and ‘Colly’ – Olivia Colman to you and me – who she starred with in Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express and who she found ‘incredible’, naturally. There is no hint of sycophancy here; it appears that Daisy is simply joyfully happy.

This cheerfulness has acted as a useful screen to hide behind during the years since she made Star Wars. Now her character, Rey, is back for The Last Jedi, the new Star Wars movie, directed by Rian Johnson. But Daisy found this one to be much more pressure than the first movie. ‘I suddenly felt a much bigger sense of responsibility,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think I was good in the first film, and I was struggling with that.’

Disney/Pixar’s acclaimed Coco is a huge box office hit in Mexico, and has had a strong weekend opening worldwide, but you wouldn’t know that in Australia… for some reason the ad buy has been more or less nonexistent. It opens for sneak previews in Melbourne this week and next, and generally in Australia on Boxing Day. Catch it if you can! Via Vanity Fair:

It’s one thing to find inspiration for a Día de los Muertos–themed film while walking through the Mexico Pavilion at Disney World’s Epcot, another to turn that spark into an authentic Pixar film for the masses. Lee Unkrich came up with the idea for Coco, the animation studio’s 19th feature film—out on Thanksgiving—after spotting a papier-mâché mariachi band comprised of skeleton musicians in a theme-park exhibit. “I’ve long been interested in Día de los Muertos,” said the Toy Story 3 director. “It is an odd juxtaposition of skeletal imagery with bright colors and festivities and joyfulness.”

But getting the green light gave Unkrich pause. “I immediately felt this weight on my shoulders of the responsibility to get this story right and to be culturally accurate and respectful,” he said. To start, Unkrich insisted on an entirely Latino cast—featuring Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, and newcomer Anthony Gonzalez, who has been playing mariachi music since he was four years old—and hired a team of cultural consultants, for whom Pixar screened versions of the film every few months. Unkrich and his creative team also took multiple trips to Mexico for research and inspiration—visiting with families on the early November holiday and touring museums, markets, plazas, workshops, churches, and cemeteries in Mexico City, Oaxaca, and Guanajuato.

“We absorbed details in every place that we visited, but the most valuable thing was the time we spent with Mexican families,” said Unkrich. “Every one of them was kind and open and excited to share their traditions with us. A lot of the details from those visits ended up being a part of Coco.”