Category: Film

By Posted on Posted in Depeche Mode, Film, Life in General, Televison Tagged with ,

Do you know when you binge watch the first season of a show and then eagerly awaits for the following season and then gets very disappointed? I just finished the 2nd season of “You” on Netflix and, boy… what a disaster.

Spoiler-free long story short: “You” follows the anti-hero Joe Goldberg, a very romantic type of guy, who is also a very careful virtual and non-virtual voyeur, stalker and eventual serial killer. A good proposal in these days of internet over exposition and #metoo campaigns. It’s a little like “American Psycho” and “Dexter”, updated to the late 2010’s. The show premiered on Lifetime in the US and didn’t make much of an impact, so much that it had been cancelled, picked up by Netflix and granted a 2nd season even before the first one had aired on Lifetime. It was indeed more successful on Netflix in late 2018, with the 2nd season arriving roughly one year later in December 2019, now as a Netflix exclusive.

But the feeling you get is like no one really was counting on the show getting a second season (despite season 1 ending on a mid-sized cliffhanger). Season 2 shows a very irrational Joe, leaving so many traces behind that it’s hard to believe it’s the same character. In real life, his constant usage of his victims phones passing himself for them would have granted him a court order for the police to locate when and where they were used, eventually adding 2+2 and he’d have been caught halfway through the season. There are other inconsistencies with the character’s rational behavior from season 1 that ruined it for me. When I finally got over with it, I was happy to see it ended in a much more light cliffhanger, tipping it could simply end there without a 3rd season. However, much to my dismay, Variety has confirmed today that it has indeed been granted another season.

It may be the case I simply abandon the show. It wouldn’t be the first time. I confess I don’t know when I gave up on “Fringe” (and that was a lot like “The X-Files” good days meet “Lost” good days – two shows that didn’t know when to stop and I did watch all seasons, only to be disappointed at the end). Or the comedy “That 70’s Show”, which I never saw all the way (and we’re taking about old days of linear television, not today’s streaming and binge watching habits). With “Heroes”, I do remember. It was sometime between seasons 3 and 4 when my patience with it was over after this sci-fi show became a parody of itself.

Which brings me to an opposite situation: when a show I like doesn’t get renewed and the final season had already been filmed and it ends full of loose ends. It happened to the Wachowskis’ “Sense 8”. I could “sense” the show would get cancelled because it looked like one absurd burden to shoot each season in multiple cities across the world with the entire cast coming along and in a completely non-linear way, since all characters could “jump” from one place to another and back during all episodes. So logistics and direction-wise, for a TV-show (ok, “Netflix” show), this must have cost a fortune, needed a beast of planning ahead and didn’t have the desired return to justify such costs. It was, however, granted a final 2-hour special episode to give it some closure. Much like “Farscape”, which was even scripted for 5 seasons, but still got killed after season 4. It took two years for the creators to secure the rights, shoot and air a one-off series finale made-for-TV movie.

The latest incident where this has happened with a show I liked was “Berlin Station”. Loosely based on real life event as the kick off for each season, it follows CIA agent Daniel Miller (the name also got my attention immediately) who’s been recently assigned to the Berlin office of the agency located inside the American embassy in Berlin. Season 1 deals with a whistleblower and was shot on location in Berlin and in Babelsberg studios here on neighboring Potsdam. Season 2 benefitted from actress Ashley Judge joining the cast, and had an extreme-right wing party running for the general elections in Germany, but a lot of the action moved to Spain and I dubbed it “Valencia Station”. Season 3, or “Tallinn Station”, had a lot of exterior “Berlin” scenes moved to Vienna and Budapest (I can tell) while dealing with the issue of Russian influence on the Baltic countries while messing with NATO dysfunctionalities. Here’s where the show got cancelled and we never got to really grasp a proper ending for the storylines.

So much like these last two examples, I don’t have a proper ending for this post, except a reminder that “Spirits in the Forest” will air on ARTE on Jan, 24th both in Germany and  France (although slightly later in France, so technically on Jan, 25th), so make sure to watch it either when it airs or later on their website where it should be available for streaming for a couple of months. See you!

By Posted on Posted in Depeche Mode, Depeche Mode Facebook Takeover, Film Tagged with , , , ,

I’ve been mostly just linking to articles, reviews and interviews about “Spirits in the Forest” and… I’m about to just link to another interview, but this one is very special, cause it was for my dear friend Jenna Rose Robbins, whom I managed to sneak into a quick cameo in the film (well, we spent almost an entire day filming, but in the end you see her for some 6-10 seconds, blame the editing).

You can jump straight to her website and either read or watch our conversation. I didn’t even realize it went on for over 40 minutes (time flies when you’re having fun).

A curious fact: I cried watching the film in several opportunities, but it wasn’t until the 5th time in a theater (6th overall) that I got emotional with my own story. Before, I went from full tears running down my eyes to a lump in my throat with my fellow spirits whenever watching the filme. But the last time, however, was after I finally read what other Brazilian devotees thought of the film over the weekend and how much they stressed the connection with the song “Walking in my Shoes” and that short film in particular starring Australian-born, but also Berlin-based artist Mikey Woodbridge.

Despite liking the video, I wasn’t very taken aback when I saw my first couple of “Global Spirit Tour” shows in Leipzig and Dresden. I found it to be overall quite literal (including a pair of very high heels that are indeed a challenge to walk on). Later when talking to Jenna, we confirmed that when we both saw the video for the first time, we didn’t know it was set in Berlin, but then slowly started to realize it was filmed on the Hauptstadt by the way the apartment is decorated, the heating, the staircase of the building, the architecture on the streets of what was obviously Kreuzberg, the sign in German on the cafe where Mikey stops and, ultimately, the Bar Tausend under the S-Bahn (urban rail) bridge that connects the Friedrichstraße station that Mikey enters as the song ends. And we both realized it more or less at the same time (even if we didn’t attend these same concerts, we both attended the one in Berlin on June 22nd, 2017). So curious how we both thought alike. Also, now, like so many things Depeche, I had mixed feelings about the video when I first saw it, and now I’m absolutely in love with it. If “Walking in my Shoes” was a song I loved, now it’s a song I adore and want the chorus to be engraved on my tombstone.

PS.: French-German channel ARTE will show the film in Germany on Jan 24th, 2020 (the same date as the new release date of the “MODE” box set). You can see more details here (including the fact they’re showing “101” right before).

PS 2.: If you can’t wait that long, the film is available on Amazon Prime, Vimeo, Youtube, Google Play Store and iTunes. On most of these platforms it’s available on SD or HD, and for rent or purchase.

PS 3.: Did you know Jenna has a very interesting book about her crazy idea of following the band during part of their Devotional tour in 1993 called “Faithful and Devoted: Confessions of a Music Addict”? I highly recommend you do. Here’s some more info about it.

PS 4.: WordPress is on the verge of updating some stuff and my site may face some visual issues until I fix everything. If this happens, please bear with me while I work on it. Internet knows no holiday breaks.

By Posted on Posted in Depeche Mode, Film Tagged with , , ,

Well, It’s been more than 24h since I saw the proper first theatrical screening of “Spirits in the Forest” to the general public here in the Depeche Mode capital of the world. Besides a small after-show party hangover which made me miss the entire morning, I had a very busy day reading and trying to answer as many messages as I can (if you have written me and I have not answered, calm down, I’m not finished yet).

Besides the short celebrity experience all the way from when the lights went on in the theater and being asked for selfies with half of the people in the after party, what I’m the most happy with is the reaction people had after watching the film. So I wasn’t the only one who cried watching it (yes, I cried again). For the record, the list of films that made me cry is very short. It’s mostly films about prejudice and extreme injustice: “The Color Purple”, “The Help”, “Bent”, “Dancer in the Dark” plus an odd man out that just so happens to be another of Anton’s oeuvre: “Control”.

Even though I was not the director, nor had almost any creative control over this film, all my fears were indeed sashayed away. It was not another “101”. Our stories were not boring to (most) other fans. On the contrary. I had people telling me this movie made them reconnect with the moment Depeche Mode got into their lives, even if it had nothing to do with what us six tell in the film. Yes, I also got messages from people relating specifically with what we went through, but it was really incredible to see this film even transcends what being a Depeche Mode fan is. You can show it to someone else and say: “this is why we like this band”, but I’ll make Liz words mine and state that this is film about the humanity in us all. Anyone can watch it and still get the message.

As an update from the last post, I also bring Liz’s interview for Home, IndieWire’s review, and German Rolling Stone’s somewhat weird review with some wrong assumptions because none of us were interviewed by them. UPDATE: Anton goes back to his roots in this NME interview.

And for the record: Berlin is the capital of the Depeche Mode world, BUT LOS ANGELES comes in a close second place. Where else in the world is there a Depeche Mode convention? This first part of my line was very popular here in Berlin, where 11 out of 10 people are fans, but the second part was left in the cutting room floor and I just don’t want to piss off fans from LA. Specially after getting to know Liz and also all these great guys in the picture above that I got to spend some unforgettable days with.

By Posted on Posted in Depeche Mode, Film Tagged with , ,

We’re one day away from the big day: the worldwide screening of “Spirits in the Forest”, and I just wanted to leave links for some more interviews and articles here before I lose track of everything.

You can now read David McElroy’s interview with me and with Cristian Flueraru for Home.

Billboard also featured an article about the film.

Forbes Entertainment went as far as defining our film as a “new gold standard” for concert films.

Music Week is full of inaccuracies, but they interviewed Anton and it’s a good summary of what he spoke during his Q+A in London last month.

Mariskal Rock (in Spanish) initially said Dicken was a “chico from Medellín”, which they later corrected to Bogotá after his comment on the site. At least they got it right that I am a carioca in Berlin.

As a 🏳️‍🌈rainbow bonus🏳️‍🌈, LogoTV’s website NewNowNext featured an interview with me which should be available here. However, their site cannot be accessed from within the EU (well, not without a VPN, at least) because they’re afraid of being sashayed away by EU’s GDPR (not to be confused with RPDR). It’s late 2019 and they haven’t fixed it. So should you be redirected to their Youtube channel or some other site, the article can be read as a simple PDF here under fair use terms.

By Posted on Posted in Depeche Mode, Film Tagged with , , ,

I got asked a lot these past few weeks how does it feel to see yourself on the big screen. I didn’t have a proper answer until last Wednesday. I had only seen “Spirits In The Forest” once and it was the day before, at home. Watching it in the privacy of my sofa helped me defuse the surprise factor. That’s not a bad thing. Quite frankly I wouldn’t want to watch it for the very first time in a theater and then, when the lights go on, I’d still be trying to process what I had just seen while shaking hands and talking to everyone next to me.

So, on Wednesday, I ran to London for the very first theatrical screening with the extra special presence of Anton Corbijn, who would be answering questions after the film. Now that I didn’t have to worry how I was portrayed in the film, I managed to pay more attention to subtle details in the narrative of my five fellow spirits. Within 5 minutes I was already in tears, trying not to let people near me notice I was nearly sobbing for the entire first half of the movie, completely moved by everything those people on screen were telling and how it can make anyone understand what Depeche Mode is about. Everyone (or at least every Depeche Mode fan) will identify her or himself with what we have to say because it’s a very human approach to it. Anton said, quite rightfully, that Depeche invokes this sort of cult following that he doesn’t see among fans of other bands he also works with quite well (yes, he mentioned U2 at this moment). It’s not that they are better or worse than DM. It’s that the music and the themes on their songs relate to particularly intimate moments in their fans lives. And that’s why we’re drawn together by the band.

Just so we’re on the same page and everyone’s expectations are managed, without letting any spoiler out, here’s what to expect of the film:

  • It’s not a concert film. That will come out later next year. Anton was asked about this some 5 times in a row.
  • It’s not another 101 either. They didn’t just turn the camera on and let us goof around. It’s also not another “Our Hobby Is Depeche Mode” aka “The Posters Came From The Walls”. I wouldn’t even have signed up for something so embarrassing in the first place.
  • The band is only shown performing on stage. If you want to watch Alan teaching how to play Black Celebration, you’re watching the wrong film. In fact you’re a couple of decades late. If you want to hear the band talking, I’m sure you can find tons of promotional interviews on the internet. The “Spirit” era, in particular, had them talking a lot about their own personal lives and growing up in working class Basildon in the 60’s and 70’s.

If you want some more non-spoiler reviews, I strongly recommend you read what “Halo” book co-authors David McElroy wrote for Home and Kevin May wrote on his Halo, the Violator Book Blog. There’s also a honest review on Gigwise and we even made it to The Guardian (although they focus more on the media and the business model of the theatrical release, rather than the content, but there’s a bit about it too).

It was also interesting to meet the people who had spent 6 months listening to our voices mixing the audio of the film. Dear gawd, bless their souls. Not even I could stand my own voice for so long.

By Posted on Posted in Depeche Mode, Film, Music Tagged with , , , , ,

So this author and a few other fans from across the globe have some stories to share with you on the big screen. All of them are unique, but have one thing in common: the devotion to Depeche Mode plays a part in bringing us all together. Here’s a sneak peak at “Spirits in the Forest”, the film directed by Anton Corbijn that follows the events in our lives leading to the final concert of the Global Spirit Tour on July 25th, 2018 (or watch the 30 second teaser with some exclusive shots here).

So head over to spiritsintheforest.com and check which theater is showing the film near you on November, 21st (and 23rd and 24th in some cases). In the meantime, I’ll see what behind the scenes anecdotes I can bore you with, like when I asked Anton to take a picture of me.