Celebrity Picks: Yoko Okumura (Ball of Twine)!!
Hello Grue-Lings,
Today for Celebrity Picks we have an amazing director, Yoko Okumura. Yoko directed and co wrote Ball of Twine. Yoko wrote it with Mae Catt. Ball of Twine stars Ming-Na Wen, and Karen Allen. Teleplay by Mae Catt as well. The film is about: Kansas Part 1: A mother and daughter stop to see the world’s largest ball of twine. It may sound boring. But it really draws the daughter in. Kansas Part 2: Susan turns to the cops to help find Amelia. Turns out, the town is wound up in something much darker than suspected. Kansas Part 3: It’s time to get to the center of the conspiracy. Susan digs in deep in an attempt to pull Amelia out of danger.
Yoko Okumura is a genre-fluid writer, director, and performer. Born in a Buddhist temple in Japan, she now lives and works in Los Angeles.
Yoko sold a story pitch to Sam Raimi’s Quibi horror anthology “50 States of Fright” and is directing the episode titled “America’s Largest Ball of Twine” starring Ming-Na Wen and Karen Allen. Her directing clients have included Lifetime/A&E’s scripted digital series Fall Into Me, Super Deluxe’s Turnt Beauty series and Uproxxx Uncharted series. Branded clients have included Cover Girl, Honda, and Instagram.
Yoko’s feature film project The Religion of Girlfriends was accepted into the WIF/Sundance Institute Financing Intensive. Her short, Kimi Kabuki, received a DGA Student Film Award, the Panavision New Filmmakers Award and an Austin Film Festival Jury Award. Yoko is also co-creator of digital series Facets, a documentary episodic about trailblazing women who have carved unique life paths for themselves. Her various doc work has been selected for the Vimeo Staff Pick three times.
She directed some tv series including: Fall into Me, The Third Wheel, Facets, Uncharted, and 50 States of Fright. She also directed numerous shorts and films including: Cultivate, 1:58 AM, George and Yoko, The Rescue, The Darlings, Last Meal, Kimi Kabuki, Our Place in the Sky, Moving On, Sit, Strawberries Will Save the World, Lexical Gap, and Basic Witch. Here is Celebrity Picks with Yoko Okumura:
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THE THING:
I love the practical monsters and gruesome body horror in the film and I’m always a sucker for a stuck in one location crisis film that reveals what different moral centers lead different characters.
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THE SHINING:
This is one I can just watch over and over again. It has such a strong strong character study as the spine of the story, it was elevated horror decades before that became a buzz word.
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AMERICAN PSYCHO:
I’ve been obsessed with this film since high school. I love how much it messed with my sense of reality as a viewer. Mary Harron’s directing is brilliant and to this day I admire the film’s boldness.
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ALIEN:
This is another like The Thing where a group of people trapped in crisis sets a wonderful stage to push characters.
Anxieties of motherhood, impregnation, losing control of one’s body is masterfully played out in an anxiety packed film.
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THE ORPHANAGE:
I saw this Spanish horror film with a big group of friends and we had such a blast trying to figure out the mystery at the center of the story. I recall we really enjoyed the reveal and it was a really satisfying watch.
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THE DESCENT:
This film made my palms sweat and feel like I couldn’t breathe, but the most effective part of it for me was the ending. It gutted me and made my feel an immense amount of real dread. What more can you ask for with a horror film?
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ONE CUT OF THE DEAD:
The one comedy horror on my list. It might not exactly be horror, but this Japanese indie zombie film is pure joy.
I really can’t say anything about it except, don’t google it, just watch it. I thought I was ahead of this film but it really turned out to be miles ahead of me as the viewer and that was a delightful experience.
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THE TERROR SERIES:
I know you said films, but I can’t talk about my favorite horror without talking about The Terror Season One.
I adore any historical fiction but this was I think was a truly underrated masterpiece. It takes a real-life mystery like the disappearance of the Franklin expedition and infusing it with a fictional horror bend and made it a commentary about hubris. The characters are so well written and probably one of the few horror stories that made me cry.
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“Ball of Twine” EP 1 🧶 Starring @MingNa – Officially released on @quibi today! 🥰 Do check it out and let me know what you think, k? 😉. Get up on that while Quibi subscriptions are still free 📱💚! #50StatesofFright #balloftwine pic.twitter.com/E97B6vlJ5Q
— Yoko Okumura (@yokinator) April 14, 2020
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