Favorites of the Year 2015: Movies, Series, Books & Talents

It’s that time of the year where I share my favorite everything. Without further ado, here they are!

Happy New Year!

Movies

Scene from a Movie

Everything that involves Luis telling a story about something somebody said! (And pretty much all of Michael Peña’s scenes in Ant-Man.)

Also: EVERYTHING in Mad Max: Fury Road but especially the final chase sequence that ends with Immortan Joe’s death; the Ares III Crew’s rescue of Mark Watney with that near miss at the end; Bing Bong’s disappearance in Inside Out; the ‘head popping’ scene in Kingsman; Thomas the Tank Engine’s cameo in Ant-Man; old Sherlock Holmes’ break down in Mr. Holmes‘ most emotional scene; Tom Hardy fighting Tom Hardy in Legend!

Series

Last year Fargo was my top favorite TV series. This year, it’s my favorite series on TV as well. The second season of Fargo is, in fact, much crazier and more violent than the the first season with the same level of script cleverness from the writers and acting brilliance from the cast. The one area where it’s better than the first season is the soundtrack. Also, it’s proving to be a show driven by amazing female performers: Alison Tolman won the first season for me, now it’s Kirsten Dunst’s turn. Her character is annoying (you wish you could just stab her repeatedly) but Miss Dunst just SHINES in this role. All the awards (again)!

My absolute favorite web series, Sense8 was worth all the effort I made to watch it. All the characters are interesting, although not too developed that there’s no room for them to grow. In fact, the main attraction of the show is to see how the eight of them grew into their own skin after the troubles they faced. The number of characters also mean that some of them aren’t as prominent as the others but the concept is mind-blowing and the execution is flawless. Plus, it has a great opening credits and shiver-inducing music. Perfect.

Also: Marvel’s Agent Carter, Jessica Jones, Daredevil, London Spy, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Hannibal series finale, Wolf Hall, How to Get Away with Murder, Jekyll and Hyde, Poldark, Grimm, Galavant, Blindspot, Broadchurch and Quantico!

Books

I spent the entire year reading Joseph Delaney’s Wardstone Chronicle (with fear and trepidation from all the horror). But reading the book successfully erased my severe disappointment with the movie version. Despite that, I still use the still from the movie to illustrate my love for this series because without that disappointment, I wouldn’t have been driven to read the entire series. Book reviews are available at Bookerie.

I don’t usually listen to audiobooks but this one is one of my favorites this year. OBVIOUSLY. 🙂

And the rest…

Talent Interview

Obviously this year is a FANTASTIC year in terms of interviewing talents. Pixar’s Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen come to mind, and Indonesian filmmaker Joko Anwar and the cast of Halfworlds as well. But of course the best was getting to talk to Mads Mikkelsen and Richard Armitage for the last season of Hannibal. The best of them all, however, was Mr. George Miller – director of my favorite movie of 2015 Mad Max: Fury Road – by phone. He indulged me for a 45-minute conversation and answered all of my ridiculous questions (because I’m a Mad Max novice!) He was very, very friendly and nice and articulate. I love these great taltens and I love my job.

All Film 68: Richard Armitage Feature

Earlier this week All Film issue 68 was released. It’s our Comic Book Movie Preview edition. All the features are about comic book movies such as Deadpool, Batman v Superman and whatnot. But we also couldn’t resist including Richard Armitage’s Hannibal interview in this issue as a 4-page feature, because we here at All Film are all just crazy about him. (We’re not even joking. We covered him for all The Hobbit movies, Into The Storm and now Hannibal. Not even Tom Hiddleston – who was in 3 MCU movies – could match that number and we’re also crazy about Hiddles.)

Hannibal ends this week – perhaps for ever – and we thought it fitting that the magazine should cover season 3 until its very bittersweet, scandalous and exhilarating end. As Francis Dolarhyde, Richard’s performance has been truly magnificent so we thought, despite having published the unabridged interview in our official website, we should still publish it in the magazine to reach an even wider audience. We did this mostly for the fans – especially the Armitage fans who are probably NOT Hannibal fans in the first place – because they were the ones who clicked on our website (and my blog and my Soundcloud) to check out the Richard Armitage and Mads Mikkelsen interviews.  But also to show our appreciation for AXN Asia, which has been very supportive to All Film in giving us the chance to interview Mads Mikkelsen and Richard Armitage by phone and a whole lot more materials for us to use, such as photos and transcripts.

Also, the coverage for Hannibal S3 has been my passion projects so of course I advocated for this article to be featured in the magazine as well.

Richard Armitage Surprise Soundbite: On Staying with the Character

In honor of Richard Armitage’s birthday on 22 August 2015, I present a surprise soundbite from Richard’s Hannibal S3 interview. There’s no other reason for it than to appreciate his talent, his craft and his thoughtfulness because they are, after all, the reason why I admire him as a person. And that is also the reason why he’s among the few actors I would sincerely wish A Very Happy Birthday and All The Best of Luck – because even if he doesn’t read it, he still deserves it.

Hannibal Interview Soundbites: Mads Mikkelsen and Richard Armitage

As promised, to all the wonderful Richard Armitage, Mads Mikkelsen and Hannibal fans who have read my interviews with those two amazing actors, here are the soundbites. Enjoy.

Mads Mikkelsen’s Hannibal Interview: Abridged and Emphasized

This is the complete version of Mads Mikkelsen’s interview about Hannibal season 3 that I did a couple of months ago, before the season premiere, of which an excerpt has been posted before. Unlike Richard Armitage’s interview this is NOT the unabridged version of the interview and, while I sincerely apologize for that, I have a strong reason for doing so.

The interview session with Mads (consisting, as usual, a group of 4 journalists, including myself) was not as stellar as Mr. Armitage’s session. With all due respect to Mads Mikkelsen, who is also a wonderful, straightforward interviewee, this session was riddled with non-Hannibal related questions (e.g. asking him about his James Bond role) that I have no interest in putting inside my article. When the Hannibal-related questions appear, some of them are just too generic and too broad; a few, even, Mads has answered in other occasions (for example, questions about how playing Hannibal Lecter has affected his taste in anything and his preparation to play a killer like Hannibal in general). They are of no interest to me and so I didn’t use them in my article, and so they are not here either.

My long article was partially based on this interview, with some tidbits taken from a junket in Toronto last April, plus my observations of the show. A full translation of the article is not in the works at the moment but reading the Mads Mikkelsen interview will give you a glimpse of what I wrote in the article (with extra emphasis on Francis Dolarhyde and the Red Dragon arc.)

Richard Armitage’s Hannibal Experience: A Conversation in Three Acts – Act III

Originally posted in All Film website as
Richard Armitage di Serial Hannibal: Perbincangan Tiga Babak – Babak III.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Hannibal S3.

Actor Richard Armitage speaks to All Film magazine about his character, Francis Dolarhyde, in Hannibal TV series. Continued from Act II. This is the third and final part.

Act III: Fans and Fullerverse

Bryan Fuller is said to be a collaborative showrunner. Is that what you experienced?

Yeah, I mean, it was one of the highlights of the experience for me. Any ideas I was sharing with him, he absolutely took on board and absorbed into creating of the episodes. But also a lot of the time, we’d email more or less at the same moment, and I would be asking for something at the same time that he was offering exactly the same thing, so we were very in tune with each other. There were very few occasions – I can’t even think of one occasion – where I disagreed with a choice that he was making and everything that I was given to say, everything that I was given to do, or where, just felt completely appropriate. And you know, when  those things were all in place, you can work in a way where you think, “Well, what about if we go here?” and I can jump a little bit higher, I can go further, and so that was exactly what happened.

Richard Armitage’s Hannibal Experience: A Conversation in Three Acts – Act II

Originally posted in All Film website as
Richard Armitage di Serial Hannibal: Perbincangan Tiga Babak – Babak II.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Hannibal S3.

Actor Richard Armitage speaks to All Film magazine about his character, Francis Dolarhyde, in Hannibal TV series. Continued from Act I.

Act II: Finding the Beauty Behind the Beast

This show is distinctively about Hannibal Lecter’s and Will Graham’s relationship with each other. Francis Dolarhyde is said to be trapped between Hannibal wanting to corrupt him further and Will wanting to kind of save his soul. How do you find this dynamic, and is this something that you feel is true to the original Thomas Harris story?

No… that’s the new element. That, in a way, suspends Dolarhyde appropriately in the existing Hannibal TV series universe. In the book, Dolarhyde is a very standalone character and Hannibal isn’t really… they never really meet, they don’t have very much to do with each other, and of course you can’t play that character in a series that’s called Hannibal [in which] Will Graham is such a featured character. So that is a construct that is designed to place Dolarhyde in a part of the story whereby he can engage with Hannibal Lecter and play against Will Graham.

Richard Armitage’s Hannibal Experience: A Conversation in Three Acts – Act I

Originally posted in All Film website as
Richard Armitage di Serial Hannibal: Perbincangan Tiga Babak – Babak I.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Hannibal S3.

Hannibal the Cannibal finds himself in a quagmire. Entering the second half of its third season Hannibal Lecter (or the Chesapeake Ripper, if you prefer his serial killer name), played by Mads Mikkelsen, has landed himself in prison. Meanwhile, outside the TV show’s universe, Hannibal the NBC show is also in trouble – it’s been cancelled by its American broadcaster, NBC, and has yet to find a new home for its fourth season.

Ironically, just as NBC moved the show to a different, quieter night (originally Thursday night in the US and Friday in Asia; now it’s on Saturday night in the US and Sunday in Asia) and as fans fret over the loss of Dr. Lecter’s sumptuous dinner parties and his next nefarious plan to manipulate Hugh Dancy’s Will Graham from behind bars, the show is unleashing its most epic weapon of destruction ever: Francis Dolarhyde.

The character, same as Hannibal, Will and Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne), came from Thomas Harris’ famous novel, Red Dragon. A quick Google search will point out that he’s an iconic one that’s been played twice before. Tom Noonan played him in Manhunter (1986) and Ralph Fiennes in Red Dragon (2002), both of which are feature films. Now Hannibal showrunner Bryan Fuller has recruited yet another actor for the television series, making him the third to play Francis on screen. But despite being the third, this actor is set to make serial killer Dolarhyde, aka The Tooth Fairy, entirely his own. And his might just be the best; after all, the new Francis is played by none other than Richard Armitage.

We have interviewed Armitage twice before, specifically for his role in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit movies as dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield. We know him from those previous sessions to be courteous, eloquent and incredibly generous with information. There are few other actors All Film loves to interview more than the former Spooks and Strike Back leading man, especially because when we interview Armitage, we can let his own words do the work. Descriptions of experiences on a film set, character development and story arcs are naturally built upon his answers.

Rather than bore you with the details, without further ado, here is what Richard Armitage has to say about the saga of Francis Dolarhyde and the Great Red Dragon. Completely in his own words.

Mads Mikkelsen: “Showdown is a small word for what’s happening between Hannibal and Francis Dolarhyde”

Photo credit: AXN Asia

It’s less than 24 hours until Hannibal S3’s premiere and the excitement for the show based on Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter novels and characters is at its height. I was fortunate to have been granted an interview session with Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Dr Lecter himself, and talk about the series. As anyone can guess, I couldn’t not ask him about Francis Dolarhyde, a.k.a. The Tooth Fairy. But first let me explain why I felt the need to ask him that.

Pretty much everything you want to know about Richard Armitage’s Francis Dolarhyde has been covered everywhere. I can’t even begin to explain to you just how epic this role is – The Tooth Fairy is THAT iconic – and the fact that Richard Armitage gets to play this character is an honor to both actor and character. (And before anyone accuses me of idolizing a serial killer – no, I do not admire Dolarhyde for being a killer. I admire the character because he is a complex individual that requires deft handling by an accomplished actor on screen. Let’s just get that straight.) So far, we’ve heard plenty Richard’s involvement in the show, but they are mostly from Hannibal showrunner Bryan Fuller and, in a couple of occasion, from himself. (Most recently, Fangoria has an interview with Richard Armitage on Francis Dolarhyde.)

When the opportunity came up for me to interview Mads Mikkelsen (who is also one of my favorite actors) I couldn’t not ask him about working with Richard. I wanted to know, from a fellow actor’s point of view, what Francis Dolarhyde’s appearance in this series will mean for Hannibal Lecter’s character. In other versions, Dolarhyde’s case was what made Will Graham consult with Dr Lecter again, and Dolarhyde was said to idolize Lecter, but I wanted to know if the TV show is going that way or taking a different path.

Hannibal Season 3: The Tooth Fairy is Coming

 

My fangirly heart was beating very hard today as I read Empire magazine’s interview with Hannibal‘s showrunner Bryan Fuller and stars Mads Mikkelsen and Hugh Dancy. The interview itself reveals nothing completely new – they even talked about King Arthur… again – but it also contains a mention of Richard Armitage and his character, Francis Dolarhyde, a.k.a. the Tooth Fairy. Which is why the upcoming third season of Hannibal has become my most anticipated show in the summer.