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SHERLOCK HOLMES (1984 - 1994) ↳ 5x04 | Boscombe Valley

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Isis Sangare

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I'm just checking, has anyone in the world seen the 1988 live action film of Puss in Boots starring Christopher Walken as a catboy or did I just have a fever dream

(it's also a musical) (yes Christopher Walken does dance and sing about how he's a happy cat who loves his boots) (he also eats mice)

(also there's a proto-Shrek ogre in it)

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Brian Stokes Mitchell releases new song and video "Hope" with Jason Robert Brown

[Brian Stokes Mitchell releases new song and video "Hope" with songwriter Jason Robert Brown] (intro) (music video) (end credits) (YouTube playlist with all videos)

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these spot the difference games are getting harder and harder

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Stokes Song Spotlight: "A Wizard Every Day"

this second song spotlight is brought to you by the unhinged intensity that Stokes brings to the last verse of this song every single time he performs it ヽ (°◇° )ノ and how insane i feel when he quietly gets to the line "not me.."

"A Wizard Every Day" lyrics by Liz Suggs, music by Nikko Benson

Brian Stokes Mitchell sings this song nearly every time I've seen him perform live and when he intros it, he almost always talks about how it feels like the songwriters didn't know it but they wrote it for him. I just love the notion that even as a performer, a song can feel so right that it's almost meant for you personally. I also love songs by really young people about growing older, like my nerd brain eats those up: Paul Simon wrote "Leaves That Are Green" when he was 23, Jackson Browne wrote "These Days" when he was 16! I'm not saying they always get it right, but it's such an interesting perspective especially so because those artists are touring and performing those same songs into their 70s and 80s. Even though Stokes didn't write this song, he has a real childlike enthusiasm about him and what I can only describe as "nerd energy" in interviews and between songs at his shows that juxtaposes with the more dramatic songs that he's best known for. With Wizard he kind of gets to have that career journey from old-young person to professor emeritus of singing silly songs with your eyes closed. [guys, i love him.]

Now, full disclosure this is a musical theater song that is gonna come at you right out of the gate with all of the goofiness that the genre can sometimes entail. But the feelings get big fast, because the song starts out as something that sounds like a kids song, but quickly makes you feel those big, grown-up existential dread sunday-scaries. And it hits those what-is-being-grown-up-supposed-to-feel-like-levels of introspection that somehow no one ever tells you never actually go away as you get older.

"I'm going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world." --Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Anyway, guys it's just a really cute song that uses the uninhibited nature of childhood imagination to get at the pretty dark underbelly of how we use the mundanity and routine of adulthood to avoid our very real adult feelings. And I am telling you when Stokes sings it with his big voice and his song-acting™ (complete with comedy-little-kid-voice and mid-song dialogue), you won't believe it, but you are gonna feel some feelings when he gets to the end of the song and sings it with his eyes shut tight and his arms open wide.

YouTube playlist of Stokes singing the song at various appearances including a few of my own videos from concerts (x)

Links for Liz Suggs (x) (x) and Nikko Benson (x)

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i'm bisexual and tired. rb if you're bisexual and tired.

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Stokes News! 3 Summers of Lincoln, a new musical premiering at La Jolla Playhouse in 2025

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Daniel J. Watts (@dwattswords)

According to some recent social media posts, it looks like Brian Stokes Mitchell is attached to a new musical in production and set to premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2025. It’s listed on their website under the 2024-2025 season (x)

3 Summers of Lincoln

Book by Joe DiPietro

Music by Crystal Monee Hall

Lyrics by Daniel J. Watts and Joe DiPietro

Choreography by Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant

Tap Choreography by Daniel J. Watts

Directed by Christopher Ashley

Sources: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

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Stokes Song Spotlight: "Lush Life"

This first song spotlight segment is brought to you by me learning that the word "distingué" exists and what it means (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Okay so hear me out, I was on the phone with my mom discussing normal everyday things like Frank Sinatra songs we've never heard before. My mom offered up the recommendation to listen to "Memories of You" from the new Sinatra Platinum release (x). While I was scrolling through this album on Spotify, I saw that "Lush Life" was on there.

"Lush Life" is a song that I had never heard before summer 2022 when I heard Brian Stokes Mitchell sing it at 54 Below. He told the story of Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington and how Strayhorn was a black, out, gay man during the 1940s/50s jazz scene. He wrote the song when he was 16! A few days after the 54 Below show, I heard Stokes sing the song on the Boston Pops performance that aired on the radio, and then again two more times live at the Perelman Center (10/5/23) and Ridgefield Playhouse (10/29/23). Ted Firth features prominently on piano, playing a long mood-setting intro before Stokes comes in on vocals and then another solo in the middle of the song.

“where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life, to get the feel of life..”

It’s one of those hypnotic songs, that somehow feels both simple and complex at the same time. I am extremely biased (you know where you are) but I’ll type it out anyway, Stokes’s version is my favorite. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen him sing it live and up close and you can tell he loves it too, but I also think his version is the most mournful. And what I mean by that is he just gets across all the story potential in the song. Like he paints the scene of a guy in a rumpled suit, sitting at a corner table, a fedora pushed back to the crown of his head, hungover and nursing a drink too early in the morning —but in that sad, smoky almost Edward Hopper-like picture you can also see that he’ll be back later, decked out and ready for those brief moments of life that the night brings when the band is playing and everything is right. I know I watch too many old movies it’s true. I guess what I’m trying to say is Stokes makes it cinematic ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ My next favorite version is by Sarah Vaughan.

Anywayyyy, I’m not gonna lie I thought the lyrics were “distant gay traces” but they are actually “distingué traces.” I’ve never heard that word before and I had to look it up, it means having a distinguished manner or appearance and it makes the song so much better. It also gave me the idea for doing these song spotlights because I love learning and sharing my dumb nerd research. So please enjoy the links below for more info about Billy Strayhorn and then pop your headphones on and give this song a listen in all its many forms. And here’s hoping that it makes its way onto a Stokes album someday ✨

[side note: looking up stuff about this song also helped me to learn that the aforementioned Ted Firth has an album titled Lush Life with Tony Desare and one of the tracks is, you guessed it, Lush Life!] (x) (x)

Links:

versions of Lush Life by Stokes (x)

playlist with other versions of Lush Life (x) (x)

the lyrics (x)

an NPR interview from 2007 in support of PBS documentary about Strayhorn (x)

Link to Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn by David Hadju on amazon (x)

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I need someone to write me a crossover fic, The Pickwick Triplets vs. The Stooky Babbies.

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“i just wanna do what Jeremy Brett did when he played Sherlock Holmes on tv, show a little humanity”

guys i made my first fanvid, i don’t know if it’s any good but i had fun. and i’m excited for folks to hear this “Jeremy Brett” song that is one of my faves

“Jeremy Brett” by John Peter and His Collaborators (x)

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Kill me this is glorious

an extra scene that i needed to see.

one final lokius meeting — a proper goodbye. after Loki time slips to get Mobius’s advice during their first meeting, after Loki time slips to talk to Sylvie and gets the idea for his final self-sacrificing gambit:

Loki time slips into a random moment we as the audience haven’t seen before, it’s just him and Mobius in the automat, key lime pies in front of each of them, spoons clacking on plates and the hum of the refrigeration system. Mobius is in the middle of one of his anecdotes about jet skis or something and Loki time slips in as Mobius looks down to take a bite. He continues talking and Loki just looks at him sad and longingly, taking it all in. The beauty in these small moments, he wishes he paid more attention.

Then he gets the courage to speak up and say what he said to Don!Mobius, with tears welling in his eyes he says, “you know you saved my life when I first arrived. You saw something in me that I hadn’t seen in myself.” Mobius feels the change in tone, hears the lump in Loki’s throat as he tries to talk around his tears, but he stays quiet and open in his usual way. He leans forward and puts his hand on Loki’s. “Hey Loki are you okay?” At the touch, Loki lets out a sad chuckle almost just an exhalation of breath to keep from losing it completely, “Did you know you were the God of Mischief’s first and best friend?”

His tears fall freely as he lowers his gaze. Composing himself, he looks back up at Mobius for what is almost certainly the last time, and with all the control over his emotions he can muster, says “thank you for showing me what it means to be loved and wanted and cared for, for showing me that being good was a real option, I’ve never known that before and it’s made all the difference I promise you. I love you my friend, I will miss us when this is all over, whatever happens.”

Mobius squeezes Loki’s hand and then wipes away a tear of his own, picks up his spoon and as he scrapes some whipped cream off of his plate, he says, “you know Loki, I feel exactly the same, I — ” but his eyes look up to catch blurry edges and when they focus again the only friend he’s known is nonchalantly taking another bite of pie.

He thinks of this moment often, while he’s staring out into space in his TVA cubicle, files stacked around him, the thriving branches of the timeline glowing on the monitor in the distance, coffee mug suspended halfway to his lips.

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were me and @sir-squalrus the only ones that thought for just a split-second that Loki and Mobius were going back in time to the 70s to make Goncharov real

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Jean Gabin- holy fuck this guy fucking rules

I am not an "old movie" person by any means. I have never tried to write a review or summary of a movie, period. I just feel very moved by these movies. Gabin's face. Dude. DUUUUDE. I feel like I was fucking robbed. 34 years I've gone without ever seeing these, and even the worst of them (moontide) was worth my time.

Thank you to my best friend, who has slowly over the last few years been showing me dozens of older films. Including all of these in just 3 or4 IRL sessions. @itslucyhenley TYVM for being the best human I know.

Gabin has a face I could watch forever. He is so fucking cool. Like, I used to think Bogart was the coolest, baddest old movie dude around.

Gabin gives him a serious run. I am stunned.

Grand Illusion 1937- This one really blew me away. The strong anti war commentary. The subtle gay love story. the humor and horror. Stunning.

Pepe Le Moko 1937- fucking tragic. but funny. Loved it. Also apparently responsible for pepe le pew existing. 

La Bete Humaine 1938- This felt so modern. Like the prototype of noir, but also a formula for future serial killer stories. It was fucked up, but the camera work and bleak transitions form daylight to all dark and brooding shadows really worked so well. The train itself felt like a fully developed character.

Port of Shadows 1938- Are these French people okay? Also I feel like bands like The Smiths and My Chemical Romance would not have existed without this movie lol. LOVED IT.

Le Jour Se Leve (Daybreak) 1939- Jesus. These French folks are not okay at all. Bleak. Gorgeous. Fucked up.

Moontide 1942- MEH. Weird movie, but Gabin was so cool in it. The only movie of his I have seen that feels like a a straight up romance/drama with a lot of comedy mixed in.

Touchez pas au grisbi 1954- cool as fuck heist-adjacent movie. God I loved this. Gabin at his absolute coolest for me.

French Cancan 1955- loved this night club comedy/drama. The color was so gorgeous and the art within the movie on the walls etc. felt like an extension of the characters themselves. I laughed, I cried, I got up and legit danced. Absolute BLAST of a flick.

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Touchez pas au grisbi (Jacques Becker, 1954)