Korean-American actor Stephen Park made his film debut in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing in 1989, playing a grocery store owner who gets caught in the crossfire as racial tensions spill over on the sizzling streets of Brooklyn. Park has since worked with such acclaimed directors as Bong Joon-ho and Wes Anderson, most recently appearing in The French Dispatch for the latter – but you probably know him best for his small but decisive role in the Coen brothers’ homespun crime-drama from 1996, Fargo.

The Coens have mastered the art of crafting memorable scenes around minor characters, who may only appear on screen for a few minutes but still play a crucial role in establishing a key theme or helping to unpick the film’s mysteries. Think of the ill-fated gas station attendant in No Country for Old Men, Adam Driver’s wannabe country singer in Inside Llweyn Davis, or the jibbering lawyer who defends Frances McDormand in The Man Who Wasn’t There.

But perhaps the most unforgettable of them all is Mike Yanagita, the lovelorn ex-classmate of Fargo’s heroine, Marge Gunderson. Park’s brief but brilliant cameo is one of the most cringe-inducing moments in the Coens entire filmography, as Mike clumsily confesses his true feelings to the “super lady” he’s invited for lunch. Twenty-five years on, the scene has lost none of its ability to make us laugh (and squirm).

To mark the film’s anniversary, video essayist and regular LWLies contributor Leigh Singer sat down with Park to get the inside story of the scene. They discuss the real meaning of Mike and Marge’s reunion, how Park prepared himself emotionally for the scene, and how the character was received in the Asian-American community. Watch the full video below and stay tuned for more – next time, Park breaks down his A Serious Man character.

In 1950s Hollywood, horror movies all but turned their back on the genre’s classic Gothic creations. Instead of Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster came new nightmares for the modern Atomic Age – in all manner of strange shapes and sizes.

In The B-Movie Monsters That Time Forgot!, Leigh Singer explores the weird and wonderful creature features that conquered the genre more than half a century ago, and whose sense of invention, daring and sheer fun have helped keep them alive longer than anyone might have dared imagine…

This Halloween, we’ve teamed up with Islay single malt Distillery Ardbeg and their new whisky Ardbeg Wee Beastie to celebrate the golden age of the B-movie monster and give fans in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Islay the chance to win a spine-chilling Monster Night In kit.

There’s a 10cl bottle of Wee Beastie, a bag of salted caramel popcorn, four cocktail recipe cards and a pre-mixed Beastie cocktail, plus haunting Halloween masks, an exclusive poster and a ticket that takes you to a spooky surprise.

For your chance to win enter now at ardbeg.com/en-gb/halloween

Please Drink Responsibly.

Disney’s trend of live-action versions of their famous animated hits has accelerated in the past few years. Almost all are explicitly modelled on their early counterparts, yet none have been as technically dissimilar and yet so aesthetically indebted to their previous iteration as The Lion King.

In the latest part of our Remake/Remodel video essay series, Leigh Singer takes a forensic look at 2019’s The Lion King, noting the various ways it adheres to and deviates from the tried-and-tested formula that saw Disney’s box office skyrocket in the early to mid 1990s.

But is Jon Favreau’s commercially successful update a cutting-edge makeover or cynical marketing ploy? Watch the full video below and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more.

What are the chances that both a film and its remake shift the parameters of their respective genres – and help redefine action heroes’ star personas for decade to come? That’s the case with Japanese master Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 samurai epic Yojimbo and Sergio Leone’s western reimagining from 1964, A Fistful of Dollars.

Despite being made three years apart by filmmakers operating within specific cultural frameworks, there are some striking similarities between these now iconic works, as Leigh Singer shows in the latest instalment in our Remake/Remodel video essay series.

So, who is the last man standing: Clint Eastwood or Toshirô Mifune? Watch the full video below and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more.

As part of our Creative Resilience campaign with Squarespace, we’re pleased to bring you a special edition of Skill-Up, a new video series made by our sister publication Huck.

In this episode, our good friend and illustrator Sophie Mo talks you through how you can go about designing your very own tattoo. Taking characters from the world of movies, Sophie brings a dark, gothic aspect to the striking portraits she creates, whether she’s drawing Danny DeVito or The Dude.

Watch the full video above and read more of Sophie’s story here.

If you’re thinking of sharing your own vision with the world, start building your Squarespace website today with a free trial – no credit card required! Use the discount code LWLIES when you’re ready to go live.

Want more from our partnership with Squarespace? Visit the Creative Resilience hub.

In the cinema of Pedro Almodóvar, the humble household kitchen serves many different functions. It’s a space for cooking and eating, of course, but also for murder, masochism and even sexual awakening. And in almost all cases they are synonymous with breaking away from the past.

To celebrate MUBI Magnificent Obsessions season, which features many of the Spanish auteur’s best works from the past three decades including Live Flesh, All About My Mother, Bad Education, Volver and Pain and Glory, we asked video essayist Luís Azevedo to take a closer look at the design and dramatic potential of kitchens in Almodóvar’s films.

Watch the full video  below, and discover beautifully hand-picked cinema every day on MUBI with a free 30 day trial exclusive to LWLies readers.

The first few days of lockdown, which started for me a week before everyone else when my cinema job was put on hold, set the tone for the last four months. They were largely spent catching up with films I hadn’t seen from various directors, some of whom, such as Pedro Almodóvar, I already loved while others, like Richard Linklater, I developed a renewed interest in.

While Almodóvar’s films remain masterful, it was in the work of Linklater and Jim Jarmusch and their debut features – It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books and Stranger Than Paradise – that I found something more resonant. Both are not entirely successful but they each have their own clear voice and were made with substantially fewer resources than either director’s later projects. Seeing them at a time when conventional filmmaking practices are deemed potential health risks does make you feel, as restrictions are slowly being lifted, that creating new pieces of visual work isn’t completely beyond reach.

Another source of inspiration came in May when Elizabeth Sankey’s feature-length video essay Romantic Comedy was released. Comprised entirely of clips from films in the eponymous genre and largely driven by Sankey’s observational narration, it ignited something in me that I hadn’t felt from other films released online recently.

It was Sankey’s film that ultimately inspired me to create ‘This Is…’, a video tribute to some of the films and cinema-going memories that have shaped my interests over the years. I’ve even wondered if I would’ve made the video at all if it weren’t for the tremendous anxiety I feel towards the future of film exhibition at present.

And then there are the stories I hear of filmmakers diving back into their work irrespective of limitations. Bait director Mark Jenkin is currently between projects, as is Almodóvar who completed a long gestating script entitled Madres Paralelas during lockdown and is now filming an adaptation of Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice with Tilda Swinton in the English language.

Almodóvar even marked the occasion with a picture of himself wearing a face mask as he held a clapper board, a sentiment echoed by Kevin Smith as he shot his own short film under similar measures. As the state of the world changes on a daily basis, I look to these individuals and what they’ve accomplished for the sense of encouragement that helped me to finish ‘This Is…’ and will hopefully help me realise many more projects soon.

“Bond, James Bond.” It’s one of the most famous lines in movie history, first spoken by Sean Connery as the super-suave British double agent in 1962’s Dr No.

For many, Connery is Bond. But he’s not the reason this line became iconic. You’d recognise it out of the mouths of Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, George Lazenby… Well, maybe not the last one.

The point is, it’s not the man that makes the line. Nor the setup. It’s all thanks to a literary device called diacope, as author and linguistics expert Mark Forsyth explains in the first instalment of a new video essay series, edited by Luís Azevedo, about language and cinema.

Watch below, share your thoughts with us @LWLies, and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more.

Glitz and glamour, faded fame and mixed fortunes, comedic capers and morning after silences. For Sofia Coppola, a moment’s peace is usually only found when on the move, gazing out the window.

Born into Hollywood royalty, she got her first taste of movie stardom when she was just a few months old, making an appearance in her father’s film The Godfather. Some 27 years later, she moved behind the camera for her debut feature The Virgin Suicides. Plenty of famous kids have made a movie or two, but Sofia Coppola’s work has struck a chord with viewers and critics alike.

In anticipation of the release of her seventh feature, On the Rocks, video essayist Will Webb offers a closer look at Coppola’s directorial trademarks and thematic interests, and how they have made her one of the most celebrated filmmakers working today.

Watch below and let us know your thoughts @LWLies

Video essayist Leigh Singer continues his Remake/Remodel series with a breakdown of ’60s heist flick Ocean’s 11 and director Steven Soderbergh’s even glossier Hollywood remake from 2001.

Is the irresistible star power of George Clooney, Brad Pitt and co a fair match for the original kings of screen cool: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin? Watch the full video below and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more.