[Weekly Update] November 15th, 2021

Sometimes, it's just strange to realize how long I've been doing this. Apparently this is the 115th weekly update. I'm happy everyone is still here, but also feel kinda old lol.

CHANNEL UPDATE

• Our next video is complete and already uploaded. Once the sponsor gives the go-ahead, it'll be published around Wednesday/Thursday. It'll be a bit of a different piece than our usual videos.
• Nothing really changed for December and January. We still have Stand by Me Doraemon for Christmas, and Fatal Deviation for January.
• I should also start looking into Chinese New Year movies again. Or maybe I should check if other countries have their own Lunar New Year movies. If you are from East or Southeast Asia, let me know!
• Between November and December, we also have one smaller 5 minute video planned. Afterward, we'll be spending most of our time off on making our previously announced short film!

MEDIA TALK

• If you are a long time patron and had read many of my rambling updates, you may have noticed I kinda have a thing for Robert Pattinson.
• Yes, I'm bias. But I swear it's not just about him. I just have a thing for actors who managed to turn their career around.
• Robert Pattinson, like many young and handsome actors before him, took on a successful acting role (in this case, Edward from Twilight) before he's ready. And for a while, Hollywood and his casting agent has little faith in him.
• For one thing, his performance in Twilight wasn't great. Although there wasn't much to work with. At the same time, the need for handsome straight male character in Hollywood is limited and saturated. We are talking about Zac Efron here, or the entire cast of Glee.
• So, unless you can act, like Brad Pitt, or is funny, like Channing Tatum, it's hard to stay relevant in Hollywood as a pretty boy actor.
• As far as I know, Pattinson eventually fired his agent, and started to reach out to indie directors for strange/challenging roles, in order to prove himself. It was a bold but clever strategy, as his name still holds a lot of marketing power for these indie films, while he himself can acquire a much more diverse portfolio.
• Essentially climbing his way from the bottom, leveraging what he was given, Pattinson managed to remake himself. And now he's being Batman. With a cool story like that, how can you not love him?
• We are so used to Tom Cruise being an action start who does his own stunt, many forgot he was also the same kind of pretty boy actor as Pattinson.
• Started mostly with All the Right Moves and Top Gun, Tom Cruise was mostly known as the pretty face. Although the "straight" part of "straight male character" is kinda debatable. It was the 80s and 90s after all. This perception would last all the way to Interview with the Vampire, and even Eyes Wide Shut.
• Cruise pretty much immediately realized he was being typecast, and took on challenging roles early on. The most iconic of which, for me, is "Born on the Fourth of July", where he plays a tragic patriotic veteran. And he definitely proved himself capable with that film.
• His career truly turns around when Cruise took fate into his own hand by forming his own company, and start producing his own movie. That's right: Mission Impossible, the film that made him into a gritty action star.
• Mission Impossible, both 1 and 2, were so successful, his public image is almost immediately changed. He starred in Minority Report and Collateral, films that no longer put emphasis on his handsomeness, and gives him a lot more depth to work with.
• Nowadays, with Jack Reacher, Edge of Tomorrow, American Made and a bunch of other hardcore characters under his belt, Tom Cruise is remember as an action start and only and action start.
• Now that's impressive.

Anyway, who's your favourite actor who managed to turn their career around? Or who's the one you wish had turn things around? I wish MaCaulay Culkin hadn't had such a trouble youth. Although, it still isn't too late to change things around, I guess?

Anyway, I'll see you in a few days with a new video.