This Week’s MPN Podcast: DCU Projects; Interview With ‘Children of the Mist’ Director; Netflix’s Sharing Crackdown
February 8, 2023
On this week’s episode of the Media Play News podcast, hosts Charles Parkman and Charlie Showley dissect the James Gunn video he released on behalf of DC Studios, detailing their upcoming slate of TV shows and movies. Charles, ever the comic book nerd, has a ton of insight into just about every one of the properties announced by Gunn, and Charlie’s ears perk up at a couple of them even after getting turned off by the endless parade of Marvel movies rolling through theaters. In short, James Gunn’s vision for DC movies is to preserve the directorial voice of each one of the properties’ leads, which the hosts believe will make them stand out from Marvel. What Marvel movies suffer from is constraining all their movies into the same homogenous look, which really makes creativity suffer, so this plan of DC’s is certainly promising.
Charlie interviews Ha Le Diem, director of Film Movement’s documentary Children of the Mist, which has won awards for its unfiltered look into the childhood experience of a girl in northern Vietnam and the tradition of bridal kidnapping among its Hmong ethnic group. Charlie digs into Diem’s perspectives while filming the documentary, which was done over the course of multiple years, and how she tried to strike a balance between remaining a documentarian behind the camera and making sure the subject of her film remained safe. In the film, the protagonist of the film is herself subject to near-kidnapping, which is an extremely raw scene and difficult to watch. Charlie gives Children of the Mist a strong recommendation.
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Wrapping up the show is a follow-up on Netflix’s plan to crack down on password sharing: after announcing their plans to their U.S.-based users, online backlash caused Netflix to retract the plan and claim it was posted “in error.” Charlie and Charles think that, despite the backlash, it remains a positive sign for Netflix as 38% of survey respondents who access Netflix for free via password sharing would consider signing up, and 40% of respondents would consider a cheaper ad-supported tier. Since Netflix is planning to roll out such an ad-supported plan this year, it’s probable this tantrum over password sharing enforcement will be a short-lived phenomenon.