#I did enjoy david and catherine playing against david and catherine

[mizgnomer]

Behind the Scenes of Wild Blue Yonder - Part Five

“There’s lots of acting for David and Catherine in this episode,” says Tom. “And they’re also playing different versions of themselves as well, which is really cool.” “It’s not straightforward, distinguishing between the actual Doctor and the not-thing Doctor,” David explains, “because there are scenes where the gag is that as an audience you’re deceived. So you have to play that as the Doctor, you can’t give anything away otherwise you’re undermining it. Also, the logic is they’re developing very quickly so they’re not going to be the same from scene to scene. In some ways, that’s quite liberating because you can just select whatever is most effective in that moment either to deceive the audience or to creep people out.” “There’s something soulless about the bad versions,” considers Tom [Kingsley, director of Wild Blue Yonder]. “All the life that David and Catherine bring to these characters, they subtly turn that down.” Catherine says that, for her, the most challenging part of the episode is “Holding two conversations in your head at the same time.” “Yeah,” agrees David, “we have to learn the lines twice. I don’t actually have any lines today though. I’m literally just running in straight lines. Running on the travelators is going to be an added challenge though.”

For other posts in this set, please see the #whoBtsWBY tag. The full episode list is [ here ]

[nellygwyn]

When I first began studying Renaissance history, almost two decades ago, I did so in part because I wanted a change from the world of present-day politics. I always found parallels, of course: I would laugh over sixteenth-century letters that unwittingly foreshadowed the voices of politicians I knew, but I was firm in my mind that the past was a foreign country. When I made jokes comparing those supranational centres of Europe - fifteenth-century Rome and twenty-first century Brussels - they got a laugh but I was sure I was being flippant. As I went on, however, the past seemed to become less foreign. I would read 'tech revolution' stories and think about the history of printing; read about the election of Pope Francis and think about the global sixteenth-century Catholic Church; read about the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean and think about the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from Spain. This is not to say that nothing has changed: as we will see, there are many differences between that society and our own. But precisely because the legacy of this Renaissance (or Age of Reform, or Age of Exploration, if we prefer) has become so important in Western culture, in defining who 'we' are (and who 'we' are not), it is worth getting to know it better.

This is all the more important because the popular story of the Renaissance - like many versions of modern Western history - tends to focus on the genius and the glory at the expense of the atrocities. Machiavelli's ideas about power, for example, become a set of timeless aphorisms rather than emerging, as in fact they did, from a specific setting. The fact that all these people coexisted with the early European voyages to the Americas, to which some of them had personal connections, and that Italians provided personnel, finance and write-ups of the subsequent colonisation, is not unknown. The bloody side of the Renaissance has always been part of the period's fascination. It is more often told, however, in the fashion of TV's 'The Borgias' as the glamorous, sexy violence of the rich-and-famous murdering one another in pursuit of power (the viewer consoling herself that most of them deserve their fate), and far less the violence of war, exile, and colonisation, nor yet domestic abuse. This is the narrative that makes the Medici a family of mafia godfathers, and it is about as connected to the reality of Florence in the sixteenth-century as gangster movies are to actual life in a town run by organised crime today. I have no objection to people enjoying a bloody tale of vendetta: I’ve told the gory story of the Baglioni wedding in Perugia in 1500 to tour groups myself. Yet too much of this masks the brutal realities beyond Renaissance works of art. Take the 'Mona Lisa': Lisa Gherardini, the woman of the mysterious smile, was married to a slave-trader. One possible model for the 'Venus of Urbino' - Angela Zaffetta - was gang-raped. The Florentine Republic that commissioned and was symbolised by Michelangelo's 'David' came to a brutal end with a sack of 'unheard-of cruelty' in which thousands of men were massacred in just a few hours. 

As I was finishing this book in March 2019, forty-nine people were killed in a gun attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The perpetrator, a right-wing extremist, posted on social media numerous precedents for his actions, including notable Christian victories against Muslim forces. One was the 1571 Battle of Lepranto, the subject of my final chapter. Sixteenth-century history has rarely been so explicitly appropriated by the far-right as have, say, the Crusades or the myth of the all-white medieval West. More commonly, Renaissance history has played a more subtle, if no less pernicious role, the mythologies of its great men reinforcing ideas about European and Christian and white superiority without ever being so vulgar as to say outright. That is not to say it is wrong to appreciate or enjoy the artistic innovation of sixteenth-century Europe: there is plenty to wonder at. And by exploring how people of this world thought about their own media revolution, or considered questions of gender and sexuality, or responded to changing weapons technology, we can better understand our own world too, and the ways in which then as now brilliant cultural innovation can exist alongside - indeed, is often intertwined with - all manner of atrocity.

- The introduction of Catherine Fletcher’s book The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance

[bettsfic]

Hi Betts, hoping for your guidance if you have the time. No pressure really. But my course will be focusing quite a bit on Shakespeare for the rest of this year. Do you have any advice for someone who isn’t really a writer on how to understand Shakespeare better? Have you read much of it? How did you tackle understanding the language? Is it just reading a lot more of it and looking up words? I struggle getting through one play, but is it just pushing through it? Resources you found helpful?

i feel like i’ve been waiting my whole life for this question. 

i’m feral for shakespeare. i have a hamlet tattoo. i have an unfortunate number of monologues memorized on the off-chance someone at some point goes “hey does anyone know any good monologues?” and i can be all “TO BE OR FUCKING NOT TO BE, BITCHES” or “ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH DEAR FRIENDS, ONCE FUCKING MORE.” i have an actual literal lecture on how richard ii is a greedy glamazon bitch, and an outline for an article on how lady macbeth can teach us everything we need to know about sympathy in fiction.

like many people, high school made me despise shakespeare. i can’t tell if it was the simple coercion of being forced to read things, period, or that we were made to treat everything so seriously, and expected to understand the use of language as if it were like anything else we were reading. 

then when i was 23ish, i got obsessed with doctor who, which led me to david tennant’s filmography, and david tennant happens to have done really a lot of shakespeare. when i geared up to watch his hamlet, however, i thought, i want to read this first, so i can see how different it is from my perception of it.

cue me surreptitiously scrolling through the wikisource version of hamlet while pretending to listen to conference calls at work. i think that helped, making it something i wasn’t allowed to do. it made reading feel like an indulgence. 

free of the constraints of “i’m going to have to write a five-paragraph essay about this when i’m done,” i began to read very casually, only trying to understand what was going on and not trying to find any profound meaning in it. 

in doing that, i realized i was actually doing it correctly. these are plays, meant to be performed on a stage, to entertain, immerse, and evoke feeling. you’re supposed to be sad at the end of tragedies and happy at the end of comedies. however, reading the plays is a far different experience than watching them, and in many ways more of a challenge.

you can’t read a play, especially a shakespeare play, like a book. prose and poetry both lend themselves to crafting intentional images. the entire thing exists to be and only be read. but plays and scripts are just one piece of a much larger puzzle, involving directors and actors and costume designers and set designers. bringing a play to life is a team effort. when you’re reading, you’re only seeing the skeleton of the story. it’s like reading a guidebook for a vacation destination. you can get the gist of it but only truly know a place by going there.

you can’t read shakespeare as a reader. you have to read as a director. you have to envision each actor, and after every line, decide where they are standing on stage, how they deliver their line, and what happens between each line. shakespeare gives almost no stage direction, so you have a lot of creative license in interpretation.

another thing to remember is that shakespeare is first and foremost a rhetorician. he wanted his words to be memorable and beautiful, to persuade and delight. if he wanted to be understood simply, he would have written simply. but instead, he uses 17 lines where 1 would have sufficed. it’s helpful, after every line, to consciously ask yourself, “what has just been said?” and very often the answer is simple. a yes or a no, i agree or disagree, or even sometimes banal statements.

consider hamlet’s “to be or not to be.” he goes on and on and on, but he’s really just being the “guess i’ll just die” meme. in the comedies, shakespeare often uses this effect as a joke. one character will go on and on, and another character gives a simple and curt and blunt reply, and depending on the delivery, it’s hilarious. 

you’re not supposed to love hamlet, or richard ii, or macbeth, or any other character. the tragedies are train wrecks that make you go “i get why you’re doing this but you need to Stop.” the comedies are similar, in that the characters sometimes make you go “you are being so fucking stupid.” it’s the sense of irony, the “i know what’s right in this situation but you don’t” that creates a huge amount of engagement. we’re always bracing ourselves for what comes next.

so here’s how i recommend reading shakespeare:

pick a play, and pick a version or two to watch afterward. here’s a really great list of productions. personally, i’d stick to ones where you’re familiar with the actors, which heightens the engagement. 

before you start reading, consciously cast each character, using actors you really like. or, instead of actors, you can cast your favorite characters as if they were in an AU version of your current fandom. reading shakespeare as fanfic is a speedy way of ensuring your emotional investment.

pull up the wikipedia plot summary of the play to have on hand while you read. every few pages or so, line your reading up with the summary to make sure you’ve caught onto what’s been happening.

as you read, direct the actors you’ve chosen. how do they deliver the line? sometimes this takes a few tries. you can’t let your eyes move left to right across the page and just expect to miraculously understand it as if it were prose. you have to puzzle it out.

if you’re really stuck on something, pull up the spark notes version. there’s no shame in that. if you compare with spark notes enough, you begin to get a sense of the language and begin to need it less and less.

when you’re done, order a pizza, pour a glass of wine, and watch your chosen production version. delight in already understanding what’s happening, figure out where you might have been wrong or confused, and revel in the places you were right. 

watch another production and see how your version, the last version, and this version all differ. 

if you get all the way to this point and you’re not utterly in love, i don’t know what to tell you. i think i watched wyndham theater’s much ado over a hundred times. rsc’s hamlet probably just as much. i have yet to watch or read a single play i didn’t at least appreciate. i’m one of the few people who even enjoys titus andronicus. 

shakespeare takes a lot of energy, but it’s worth it. once you get a feel for the strings he pulls and how he pulls them, it’s like opening a door to a whole other world. you see clips of phrases from this play or that, understand subtle references, and see how his influence exists in nearly everything. you can use his characters and plots and dynamics in all your own work. you can reach backward to see his own influences in greek plays, and forward to see his influences throughout all of literature. it’s amazing, not just who he was, but how his plays are still both so beautiful and so human. 

i’ve skipped over rhetoric, craft, the sonnets, and a few other things that i really enjoy about shakespeare, but those are probably topics for another time. if you’re looking for somewhere to start, i highly recommend much ado about nothing, particularly the wyndham 2009 production with david tennant and catherine tate which is genuinely one of the funniest things i’ve ever watched. it’s fun to compare it to the 1994 kenneth branaugh film and then rage against whedon’s 2013 travesty. 

best of luck in your shakespearean pursuit!

[oddcoupler222]

Do you have any book recs like yours and w. epic love scenes like yours?

I appreciate anything I’ve written being called epic in any way :) 

I don’t really know if I could accurately compare any books I’ve read to my own but I do have some book recs that I adore! I’ll give you my top ten lesfics for some variety

- Behind the Green Curtain by Riley LaShea (my ultimate fave romance)

When Caton’s sleazy boss offers her a position as his wife’s personal assistant, she accepts the job with reservations, certain Jack Halston has ulterior motives. After meeting Jack’s wife Amelia, though, it’s Caton’s motivations that begin to unravel. As vicious as she is beautiful, Amelia threatens Caton’s position and her sense of decorum. As the attraction between the two women spirals into a torrid affair, Caton is drawn deeper into Jack and Amelia’s world of privilege and prestige, where everything is at stake and nothing is what it seems. 

- All That Matters by Susan X  Meagher

Life is going damned well for Blair Spencer. She's a very successful real estate agent, happily married to a man who encourages her to live the independent life she loves; and they're actively working to have a baby. The wrench in the works is that Blair favors adoption, while her husband David desperately wants to have a biological child. The fates are against them, and they finally seek the help of a group of reproductive specialists. One of the doctors, a surgeon named Kylie Mackenzie, eventually becomes a good friend to Blair. And she needs all of the friends she can get when things start to go horribly wrong at home. As her marriage teeters on the brink of collapse, she relies more and more on Kylie's friendship. Kylie's happily gay; Blair's happily straight. But the way they structure their relationship leads friends and family to privately question whether the pair is setting themselves up for heartache. They eventually come to a crossroads, which could either destroy their friendship or turn it into what each of them has been seeking. The question is whether each woman can change her view of herself and her needs. The answer is all that matters.

- Alone by EJ Noyes 

Half a million dollars will be Celeste Thorne’s reward for spending four years of her life in total isolation. No faces. No voices. No way to leave.

Since Celeste has never really worried about being alone, the generous paycheck she’ll receive for her participation in the solitary psychological experiment seems like easy money.

When she finds an injured hiker in the woods bordering her living compound, her strictly governed world is thrown into disarray. But even as she struggles with the morality of breaking the rules of the experiment, Celeste can’t deny her growing attraction to the kind and enigmatic Olivia Soldano. Still, how much can you really trust a stranger? And how much can you trust yourself when you know all the faces you’ve seen and voices you’ve heard for the past three years have only been your imagination?

But what’s real? Celeste’s reality may lie somewhere between the absolute truth and a carefully constructed deception. (the concept of this is just INcredible. and the execution as well - perfect)

- The Goodmans by Clare Ashton

The lovely doctor Abby Hart lives in her dream cottage in the quintessential English border town of Ludbury, home to the Goodmans. Maggie Goodman, all fire and passion, is like another mother to her, amiable Richard a rock and 60s-child Celia is the grandmother she never had. But Abby has a secret. Best friend Jude Goodman is the love of her life, and very, very straight. Even if Jude had ever given a woman a second glance, there’d also be the small problem of Maggie – she would definitely not approve. But secrets have a habit of sneaking out, and Abby’s not the only one with something to hide. Life is just about to get very interesting for the Goodmans. Things are not what they used to be, but could they be even better? (there are not one but TWO perfectly written romances intertwined in this *chef kiss*)

- Pretending in Paradise by M Ullrich

When travelwisdom.com assigns PR specialist Caroline Beckett and travel blogger Emma Morgan to cover a hot new couples retreat, they're forced to fake a relationship to secure a reservation. Ten days in paradise would be a dream assignment, if only they'd stop arguing long enough to enjoy it. Reputations are Caroline's business. Too bad she was forced out of her previous job when an ex smeared hers all over the office grapevine. She's never getting involved with a coworker again, especially not one as careless and unprofessional as Emma. Emma knows that life is too short to play by the rules. But when she goes too far and a defamation lawsuit puts her job in jeopardy, she has to make nice with Caroline, the image police, and deliver the best story of her career.

Only pretending to be in love sure feels a whole lot like falling in love. When their story goes public, ambition and privacy collide, and their chance at making a fake relationship real might just be collateral damage. (there’s just SOMETHING about this that is super freaking cute)

- The Brutal Truth by Lee Winter

Australian crime reporter Maddie Grey is out of her depth in New York, miserable, and secretly drawn to her powerful, twice-married, media mogul boss, Elena Bartell, who eats failing newspapers for breakfast. As work takes them to Australia, Maddie is goaded into a brief, seemingly harmless bet with her enigmatic boss—where they have to tell the complete truth to each other. It backfires catastrophically.

A lesbian romance about the lies we tell ourselves.

- The Red Files by Lee Winter (kudos to her for being the only author that makes it to this list with two separate books)

Ambitious Daily Sentinel journalist Lauren King is chafing on LA’s vapid social circuit, reporting on glamorous A-list parties while sparring with her rival—the formidable, icy Catherine Ayers. Ayers is an ex-Washington political correspondent who suffered a humiliating fall from grace, and her acerbic, vicious tongue keeps everyone at bay. Everyone, that is, except knockabout Iowa girl King, who is undaunted, unimpressed and gives as good as she gets. One night a curious story unfolds before their eyes: One business launch, 34 prostitutes and a pallet of missing pink champagne. Can the warring pair work together to unravel an incredible story? This is a lesbian fiction with more than a few mysterious twists. (as someone who is usually pretty bored by any plot other than the romance, I actually enjoyed this mystery)

- Tricky Wisdom/Tricky Chances by Camryn Eyde

(for tricky wisdom)  Darcy Wright is a closeted lesbian who has been infatuated with her best friend, Taylor, since junior high. Leaving her small northeast Minnesota town for Harvard in a quest to become a doctor, she moves in with med-student Olivia Boyd, a neurotic, anal, gigantic pain in the backside. The first year of juggling medical school is grueling, but it’s nothing compared to living with Olivia.

Coming out to her friends and family with an anti-climactic flop, Darcy uses her newly publicized sexuality to try and win Taylor’s affections through an ill-hatched scheme that crosses uncomfortable lines. The result is as unexpected to Darcy as Darcy’s affinity for medicine is to Olivia.

The first year of medical school is a nerve-wracking encounter in medicine, learning lessons the hard way, and finding what her heart desires.

Tricky Chances is the sequel to Wisdom, but it’s the only lesfic sequel that i truly felt added to the first one and was just as gripping! Plus, the first book is only 48k words so the followup is perfect to come right after

- Who’d Have Thought by G Benson

Top neurosurgeon Samantha Thomson needs to get married fast and is tightlipped as to why. And with over $200,000 on offer to tie the knot, no questions asked, cash-strapped ER nurse Hayden Pérez isn’t about to demand answers.

The deal is only for a year of marriage, but Hayden’s going into it knowing it will be a nightmare. Sam is complicated, rude, kind of cold, and someone Hayden barely tolerates at work, let alone wants to marry. The hardest part is that Hayden has to convince everyone around them that they’re madly in love and that racing down the aisle together is all they’ve ever wanted. What could possibly go wrong? (this book comes in 9th because i don’t love it QUITE as much as i do all the others, but it was the one that got me into lesfic so! it’s good stuff)

And in a guest pick from the only other voracious lesfic reader i know, @debbie-eagan - 

Beautiful Dreamer by Melissa Brayden - 

Philadelphia real estate broker Devyn Winters is at the peak of her career, closing multimillion-dollar deals and relishing it. She’s pretty much blocked out her formative years in Dreamer’s Bay, where the most exciting thing to happen was the twice a year bake sale. Unfortunately, a distress call hauls her back home and away from the life she’s constructed. Now the question is just how long until she can leave again? And when did boring Elizabeth Draper get so beautiful?

Elizabeth Draper loves people, free time, and a good cup of coffee in the warm sunlight. In the quaint town of Dreamer’s Bay, she’s the only employee of On the Spot, an odd jobs company. She remembers Devyn Winters as shallow in high school, but now everything about Devyn makes her lose focus. Though her brain knows Devyn is only home temporarily, her heart didn’t seem to get the memo (I’m personally not a huge Brayden fan but a lot of other lesfic readers are so I reached out for a second opinion on this matter)

I hope you enjoy!

[itsjackgilbert]

Situation Comedy

INSCRUTABLE MUSIC-VIDEO GENIUS MAKES MOVIE. IT'S VERY GOOD. INSCRUTABLE FILMMAKER DOES MAGAZINE INTERVIEW. IT'S VERY BIZARRE. A VERY SMALL GLIMPSE INTO THE INSULAR WORLD OF SPIKE JONZE, WHERE MAKING AWESOMELY STRANGE FILMS, WEARING FAKE PENISES, AND GETTING BEAT UP (SORT OF) ALL ARE PART OF THE SCENERY

BY ZEV BOROW

"He came to visit me once and when he first arrived I got a phone call that I had to come pick him up because his car had been impounded because he'd been chased by, like, ten cops on bikes after he drove his car onto these little fairgrounds and did a bunch of doughnuts. So, then I had to drive him around all weekend." — Three Kings director David O. Russell

"Actors are more consistent. They tend to land their tricks." — filmmaker Spike Jonze, on who is easier to direct, actors or skaters.

"He wanted his brother to be in Three Kings, so he shot an audition tape with his brother doing the Sharon Stone role in Basic Instinct, crossing and uncrossing his legs. It was the weirdest fucking thing I've ever seen." — David O. Russell

I meet Spike Jonze at the production offices of his new movie, Being John Malkovich, which is a bizarre comedy about a love triangle between three people who find a secret portal into John Malkovich's head behind a file cabinet in an office building where the ceilings are four feet high. John Cusack and Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener are in it. So is John Malkovich. It's really good and weird and funny, though not always in that order. Spike Jonze directed it.

Jonze is 29 years old and sort of famous for directing some of the best music videos ever made: the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage"; Fatboy Slim's "Praise You"; Weezer's "Buddy Holly"; Björk's "It's Oh So Quiet"; and other really good ones, too. He's also made some excellent commercials and two interesting short films. However, mostly because of the exceedingly cool videos he's done for, mostly, exceedingly cool people, Jonze has also become famous for being exceedingly cool. A wide and deep selection of the hippest people alive dig Jonze. They are his friends. This past July Jonze married actress, filmmaker, and fellow sort-of-famous person Sofia Coppola. Tom Waits sang at their wedding. Tom fucking Waits.

Jonze is small and wiry, with the body and demeanor of a skateboarder, which he is. He is relaxed, unfailingly polite, and has a voice suggesting a 15-year-old boy. When we meet he is wearing a T-shirt and scuffed-up $350 Marc Jacobs shoes. He tells me he's supposed to meet with Knox, an as-yet-unknown guitar player, to discuss ideas for his video and invites me along. But first we go to buy a big bag of cat food for his cat.

Jonze says Knox plays "sort of country-funkabilly-Prince-like music...really beautiful stuff." A friend gave him a tape, he says, and he fell in love with it. We get lost trying to find Knox's house.

When we finally arrive, Knox says he was asleep because Jonze was supposed to arrive hours ago. Jonze says he's sorry, that it must have been his assistant's fault. Knox is tall, with short, dark hair styled vaguely pompadour-ish. His apartment is small. Neil Young in on the CD player. An acoustic guitar rests in the corner.

"I'm the only one in the band, so I do the whole gig," Knox says. "My old man was a guitarist and my mother was, like...well, she was a capable pianist, not great. I'm from Tenness–Knoxville–that's why I go by Knox. My mother ahd a baby two years before me, a little boy, and it died at birth, and I am, like, the copy of that kid. And my little brother almost died at birth 'cause of me, so it's kind of all cyclical. But I'm still tweaking it. So, uh, what kind of ideas do you have?"

Jonze talks about making a video that's not very commercial, about something that's cool in and of itself.

Knox: "I just don't want it to be cute. Don't take this as an affront, but some of your videos are...cute. The 'Buddy Holly' thing was little fucking cute. I was thinking more of an early John Cugar-type of thing. Like 'Jack and Diane.' Maybe with some of the words on the bottom of the screen."

Jonze: "Uh, cool.... But it’s also cool to do something maybe not as literal.” He asks Knox if he wants to be in the video. Knox says maybe just his face, as a child.

Jonze says he could come over with a video camera and they could try some stuff out.

Knox: “Like what?”

Jonze: “Well, I don’t want to just throw stuff out.”

Knox: “Well, I’m not going to steal your stuff.”

Jonze laughs, sort of. There is an awkward silence.

Jonze: “How about a video with Xeroxes, just as a cool medium?”

Knox: “Yeah, well, that sounds schticky. Xeroxes are schticky.”

Jonze tries to say something about form. Knox says he likes “the Jazzercize” video Jonze did.

Jonze: “‘Praise you.’ Cool.”

Knox turns toward me and says he doesn’t think Spike looks very into it. Jonze says he doesn’t want to do anything he’s done already. He asks Knox if he saw the video he did for Sean Lennon.

Knox: “Nah. That guy’s too fuckin’ avant garde for me.”

Jonze: “No, I’m not saying that. It’s just I don’t want to make something silly out of your song, but at the same time....” He trails off.

There’s a tense silence, then Knox turns to me and asks if I have any ideas for videos. I tell him I don’t. Knox says “fuck,” loudly.

Jonze: “Look, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do, and if you don’t really like my stuff maybe we shouldn’t work together. I like working with people who are....”

Knox: “Yeah, well...fuck.... Well, if you come up with some ideas, any ideas, call, but I just...shit.”

Jonze: “I should go.”

Jonze gets up. Knox begins to pace. Then he screams, “Fuck!” and throws a small wooden chair Jonze had been sitting on against the wall. It shatters.

Jonze: “Dude, chill.”

Knox: “I think you better leave!”

Jonze: “I was just....”

Knox: “Just fucking leave!”

Then Knox pushes Jonze into a wall, hard. I think to myself: Spike Jonze is about to get his ass kicked. Then, like a panther (or jaguar), Jonze jumps at Knox. They hit the floor. Jonze is on top of Knox, throwing punches at his head. After about 15 seconds, I pull them apart. Knox gets up and screams, “Wait right fucking there!” and runs into a back room. Jonze looks at me and says, “Let’s get the fuck out of here!” and runs out the door, fast.

Knox jumps out from the back room, glowering and holding a baseball bat.

DRIVING AWAY, JONZE MUSES ABOUT HOW “HECTIC” things got with Knox. He repeatedly pushes his face toward the rearview mirror and asks if I think his eye looks swollen. It doesn’t. He says nothing like that has ever happened to him before, except once “with Everlast, but it never got physical.” We pull into a 7-Eleven and he gets a juice and some Advil.

I try to ask some more questions about the movie. “I’m apprehensive about talking about it at all,” he says, “because I feel like it’s going to cloud someone’s opinion. You think about all the movies you had preconceived notions about, about all the ones you read stuff about until you were sick of them before you even saw them.

SPIKE JONZE’S REAL NAME IS ADAM SPIEGEL. He isn’t interested in talking about why, or when, he started going by Spike Jonze, or how much it has to do with Spike Jones, the 1940s band leader, but it’s probably related to the fact he grew up hanging out with a lot of competitive BMX bikers similarly fond of pseudonyms and alter egos. He was raised in Bethesda, Maryland, a well-heeled suburb of Washington, D.C., where his mother enjoyed photography and his father enjoyed being the scion of an extremely successful family-owned catalog company. Jonze is the middle child (younger brother; older sister) and was into skateboarding, photography, lots of Dischord-era punk rock, and, most of all, BMX.

In the mid-’80s, BMXing’s popularity was exploding, and Jonze was spending much of his time at Rockville BMX, a legendary retail and mail-order BMX shop in nearby Rockville, Maryland. At age 15, he accompanied the Haro pro-BMX team on a summer tour of the U.S., serving as part-time roadie, contest announcer, T-shirt salesperson, and using an old 35-millimeter camera, team photographer. By the time he was 16, he was writing and taking pictures for skate and bike magazines. At 17, immediately after finishing high school, he moved to Torrance, California, to work at Freestylin’, the sport’s preeminent glossy. There, he met Mark Lewman and Andy Jenkins, two kindred spirits.

“We were all living together in this apartment across the street from the magazine’s offices, in the Valley, which was like the epicenter of the skateboarding and BMX world,” says Lewman, who was 18 at the time and is now a creative director at Lambesis, a San Diego–based advertising agency that deciphers youth culture. “We’d skate to work, ride ramps, listen to Black Flag and Eric B. and Rakim, and get into adventures drinking Night Train, being weird, and stomping around downtown L.A.”

They’d also make zines. First, in 1991, Homeboy, then, two years later, Dirt. Clever and funny, they became popular with the 25-and-under, proto-extreme-sport, punk/rap-inclined hipster set. During this time, Jonze also started getting hired to take photos for magazines such as Details and Interview. And he began filming skateboarding videos, including one particular deft collaboration with ‘80s skate god Mark Gonzales titled Blind Skateboard Video.

One night, backstage at a Sonic Youth concert, Gonzales gave a copy of that tape to his friend Kim Gordon, who dug it so much that she asked Tamra Davis–who had just directed her first film, Gun Crazy, and had yet to become the wife of Beastie Boy Mike D.–to work with Jonze on shooting some skateboarding segments for Sonic Youth’s video for the song “100%.” He was 21.

Jonze has always lived in something of a rarefied world inhabited by bikers, skaters, emerging rock icons, and movie stars. Even so, he notes, he first met the Beastie Boys through his sister. She and Adam Yauch met in traffic school. The Beasties and Jonze share an appreciation for the absurd. Yauch and Jonze used to do things like rent police uniforms so they could direct traffic in Manhattan.

A few short years after “100%,” Jonze was established as America’s preeminent director of unusual music videos. This fact seemed to bore him. In 1998′s Fatboy Slim “Praise You” video, the one with the dancers in front of Mann’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Jonze credited the direction to Richard Koufey and the Torrance Community Dancers. To this day, Jonze denies having been a part of it. Earlier this year, a typed letter arrived at the Spin offices vehemently demanding Spin retract its report that Jonze directed the video. It was signed Richard Koufey and included a detailed résumé for Koufey that stated he was a dancer in the “Thriller” video, the “Love Shack” video, the film Dirty Dancing, and something called “Dancextravaganza” at the opening of a Dellamo Fashion Center.

IN ADDITION TO BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, Jonze has another movie coming out, one in which he acts. It’s called Three Kings and was written and directed by David O’Russell. The two met when Jonze hired Russell to help him write a script for Harold and the Purple Crayon, which was to be a partially animated adaption of the children’s book, and Jonze’s feature-film debut, but never made it into production. Jonze costars in Three Kings with George Clooney, Ice Cube, and Mark Wahlberg. They play four U.S. soldiers who try to steal a secret cache of Kuwaiti gold at the end of the Gulf War. It’s a different, very sharp war-genre picture. Jonze plays a redneck private who is the sidekick of Wahlberg’s more seasoned soldier.

“I’d never really acted before,” Jonze says. “A few little things with friends, but nothing serious. And it’s not like I really want to get into acting. But David was really into me doing it, and Mark was especially supportive. In some ways I feel like I had no right to do it. But it was a lot of fun.”

Russell recalls Jonze’s commitment to the project. “He stayed in character a lot on set, and I think he eventually regretted it because Mark started beating the shit out of him as if Spike was really his tagalong sidekick. We tried telling Mark to go easy on him, but he was in character too. I think Spike was upset that that was happening.

AMONG THOSE IMMERSED IN THE CULT of Spike Jonze, the Weird Al prank is infamous. As partially recounted in an issue of the Beastie Boys’ zine, Grand Royal, Mike D. and Russell Simins, the drummer for Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, interviewed by Weird Al. During the interview, they got the conversation to come around to the Beatles. Precisely at that moment, they had Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono walk by and staged something weird and funny. No one at Grand Royal can remember exactly what happened, but it included Spike Jonze dressed up as a waiter.

I didn’t know of the Weird Al prank until weeks after meeting Jonze. As such, I spent a good portion of my evening immediately following the Knox vs. Jonze incident breathlessly telling friends all about their fight, until a friend, a longtime skater, looked at me and matter-of-factly said: “He staged it.”

Two days after the fight I go to meet Jonze for lunch, and, even though I’m not sure, I tell him I now that the afternoon with Knox was staged. Jonze demurs. “That would be gnarly” he says. “Maybe we should come back to this topic after lunch.

We pull into a Carl’s Jr. Things between us are slightly tense. I keep pressing him on the issue as we walk into the restaurant. Jonze doesn’t say anything until he’s just about to order at the counter, then he says we should walk outside. I follow him into the parking lot toward a parked black sedan. There is a guy in dark sunglasses sitting there, sipping on a Coke.

“Dude, it’s off,” Jonze says. “We’re busted.”

Jonze then reveals that he’d “planned something” for right there, right then, at the Carl’s Jr. We all had back inside the restaurant, where Jonze begins walking around the seating area and tapping on what appear to be lonely Carl’s Jr. diners on the shoulder. There are four of them, strategically placed; two have video cameras hidden on them, on has a regular camera. Two of them, including the guy from the car, who is Jeff Tremaine, the art director of the skateboarding magazine Big Brother, are wearing hidden microphones.

“This was going to be an all-out assault,” Tremaine says. “I was going to walk by and bump into Spike and my drink was going to fall all over me. And then I was going to get all jacked at Spike and knock some shit on him and get into a fight.”

“I was actually going to take a punch this time,” Jonze says, “but I was also going to bite down on some blood pellets.” He shows me two small capsules of fake blood. “I wanted the whole article to be about how I keep getting my ass kicked.”

“I was going to knock over the salad bar,” Tremaine says. “We were going to have the whole thing on tape. I twas going to be a turkey shoot, like Kennedy.”

“You are all extremely fucked up,” I tell them.

Jonze says he started planning for it late last night and tells everyone he’s sorry he didn’t go through with it. Tremaine tells Jonze that he was excited to punch him. Then, everyone tells me some stories of previous pranks, the best of which is described as simply the Hard-On One. It goes something like this:

The guy who played Knox yesterday–a friend of Jonze’s who also pulls stunts like getting himself hit by a car (for a Big Brother photo shoot) and shooting himself with a gun while wearing a bulletproof vest (for fun)–puts on a pair of flimsy gym shorts, out of which sticks a large, fake rubber penis. Then, he goes out and gets into a pickup basketball game. Next, he walks into a guitar store, where, when a salesman hands him a cord to plug in, the salesman is pulled toward the fake rubber penis. After that, he makes a quick stop at a karate studio, from which he is quickly removed. Finally, he goes to get measured for a tux, where, according to Jonze, the tailor exclaims [in a thick Indian accent], “What? You always run around with your dick sticking out?”

“It’s amazing,” Jonze says. “We’ve got the whole thing on tape.”

After Carl’s Jr., Spike lobbies me to concoct a wild, made-up story with him, one I could submit in lieu of the article. He’s got some funny, clever ideas for it, too.

“SPIKE DIDN’T GROW UP WATCHING A TON OF FILMS or even TV,” says Kim Gordon, who has known Spike ever since he worked on “100%.” “So he’s not tied to any sense of history image-wise, the way most people are. He just has a real instinctual feel for what people like. And he’s willing to try absolutely anything.”

“I think he kind of looks at everything like it’s a chance to take a golf cart and make it go 60 miles per hour,” says his old friend Lewman. “It’s always been about having a really good time.” Even so, by all accounts Jonze is meticulous, tireless even, whether it concerns a feature film, or taking down a Carl’s Jr. salad bar. His willingness to go to almost any lengths to maintain the integrity of any project–no matter how seemingly small, trivial, or twisted–is nothing short of spectacular. It is probably the one quality that best portends him making very good movies for a long time. A vast portion of Jonze’s creative energies are consumed by these tiny, hysterical performances that will never make any money, that are solely for the benefit of himself and his like-minded friends.

“But it’s not about being weird for weird’s sake,” Lewman says. “I mean, Malkovich is a movie that, at its heart, is about something everyone can relate to–desperately wanting to be someone else.... I think a lot of how [Jonze] looks at the world might come from skating and biking. You do that as a kid and you don’t look at things normally. You look at a hockey rink and see a place to skateboard. You look at a bench as a thing to do tricks off of.”

I SEE JONZE ONE MORE TIME. HE MAKES IT OBVIOUS he’d rather I not write about the Knox and Carl’s Jr. pranks. Further, he mostly turns off my tape recorder any time I start to ask him anything. He tells me he doesn’t know what to do because he doesn’t want to come off as a guy who is lucky enough to make cool movies with big stars but is all petulant about talking to the press. He tells me again how anything he says as far as explanation of his own work is less interesting than someone’s own interpretation of his, or any, movie. About an hour passes. I ask him to name some of his favorite movies and filmmakers.

“I like stuff that is unpredictable in terms of tone,” he says. “I like Tim Burton, The World According to Garp, Being There, all the Coen brothers’ stuff. I feel really lucky to even have the opportunity to try to make those kinds of movies.”

I ask about his movie, about what Malkovich was like.

“He’s just amazing. Really genuinely eccentric. He heard about the script and contacted us, loved the idea. It was weird because he plays himself in the movie, but it’s not really him, it’s the script’s idea of him. Whenever I see him do the Dance of Despair and Disillusionment, I’m like, this guy is my hero.”

The Dance of Despair and Disillusionment is reason alone to see Being John Malkovich. In the movie, John Cusack plays a puppeteer who enters the body of John Malkovich and forces him to give up acting for puppeteering. At one point, Malkovich acts out the dance he wants to be his ultimate master-puppeteer work, the Dance of Despair and Disillusionment. Just out of the shower, he acts it out in a towel. David Fincher, the director of Seven and Fight Club, fellow former music-video director, and close friend of Jonze, calls it “up there with Butch and Sundance jumping off the cliff, as far as greatest movie moments ever go.”

I try to get Jonze to talk about other things, videos, his commercial work. (Jonze often shoots commercials, the most recent being Lee Jeans’ “Buddy Lee” spots.) He won’t. A few days later, we talk on the phone. He asks how I’ve decided to “handle” the article, says he knows I’ll write “something good.” The next day, I call him back, ask him to clear up some factual stuff, dates he worked on things, how he first met certain people. He’s not into it. But, before we get off the phone, he does answer one question.

Me: Where did the idea for the “Sabotage” video come from?

Jonze: “Australia.”

[greysanatomy-series17eps5]

▷ Grey's Anatomy; Season 17 Episode 5 - (S17E5) - HD 720p

Watch Grey's Anatomy (Season 17 Episode 5) : Full_Episodes ⇨ One way to watch StreamiNG !!! ⇨ Enjoy watching! Series Online Complete! ⇨ Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Full Online @ https://bit.ly/3n0uNMu

Genre : Drama Air Date : 2020-12-10 Network : ABC Casts : Chandra Wilson, Justin Chambers, Ellen Pompeo, James Pickens Jr.

Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Full Recap Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Online Stream Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Premiere Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Online Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Live Stream Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Dailymotion Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power HD Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power English Subtitle Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power HD1080p Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Full Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Stream Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power HD720p Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Free Online Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Online HD Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Synopsis Watch Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Episode 5 : Fight the Power Full Episode

Sipnosis

Bailey panics as she hears there has been a surge of COVID-19 cases, knowing she has loved ones in an assisted living facility. Meanwhile, Jackson and Richard team up against Catherine to teach her a lesson, and Teddy continues to try to mend her frayed relationships. After an intense surgery, Jo is uncertain about her future.

Storyline

Meet Meredith Grey. She's a woman trying to lead a real life while doing a job that makes having a real life impossible.

Meredith is a first year surgical intern at Seattle Grace Hospital, the toughest surgical residency program west of Harvard. She and fellow first-year interns Cristina Yang, Izzie Stevens, George O'Malley and Alex Karev were students yesterday. Today they're doctors and, in a world where on the job training can be a matter of life and death, they're all juggling the ups and downs of their own personal lives.

The five interns struggle to form friendships in this most stressful and competitive atmosphere. Meredith's medical ambition is overshadowed by a troubling secret: Her mother, a noted pioneering surgeon, is struggling with a tragic and devastating illness. Cristina is highly competitive and driven, but lacks tact when it comes to bedside manner. Isobel "Izzie" Stevens is the small-town girl who grew up dirt poor and, in spite of paying for her medical career by modeling. Sometimes she cares a little too deeply about her patients. George O'Malley is the warm but insecure boy next door who always manages to do or say the wrong thing at the wrong time. In spite of his attraction to women, he's treated as "just one of the girls". And Alex Karev, the intern the other interns love to have, masks his working class roots with arrogance and ambition.

The interns are guided by an established team of doctors who are determined to shape them into skilled surgeons or break them: Miranda Bailey, a senior resident responsible for training them, is so tough that she's nicknamed "The Nazi". Derek Shepherd is the flirtatious but very capable surgeon who shares a forbidden but undeniable sexual attraction with Meredith. Preston Burke's arrogance is second only to his skill with a scalpel. Overseeing them all is Dr. Richard Webber, Seattle Grace's paternal, but no-nonsense chief of surgery.

Grey's Anatomy focuses on young people struggling to be doctors and doctors struggling to stay human. It's the drama and intensity of medical training mixed with the funny, sexy, painful lives of interns who are about to discover that neither medicine nor relationships can be defined in black and white. Real life only comes in shades of grey.

✌ STREAMING MEDIA ✌ Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream refers to the procedure of delivering or obtaining media this way.[clarification needed] Streaming identifies the delivery approach to the medium, rather than the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies especially to telecommunications networks, as almost all of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio tracks CDs). There are challenges with streaming content on the web. For instance, users whose Internet connection lacks sufficient bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of this content. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain content.

Streaming is an alternative to file downloading, an activity in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it. Through streaming, an end-user may use their media player to get started on playing digital video or digital sound content before the complete file has been transmitted. The term “streaming media” can connect with media other than video and audio, such as for example live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are considered “streaming text”.

This brings me around to discussing us, a film release of the Christian religio us faith-based . As almost customary, Hollywood usually generates two (maybe three) films of this variety movies within their yearly theatrical release lineup, with the releases usually being around spring us and / or fall respectfully. I didn’t hear much when this movie was initially aounced (probably got buried underneath all of the popular movies news on the newsfeed). My first actual glimpse of the movie was when the film’s movie trailer premiered, which looked somewhat interesting if you ask me. Yes, it looked the movie was goa be the typical “faith-based” vibe, but it was going to be directed by the Erwin Brothers, who directed I COULD Only Imagine (a film that I did so like). Plus, the trailer for I Still Believe premiered for quite some us, so I continued seeing it most of us when I visited my local cinema. You can sort of say that it was a bit “engrained in my brain”. Thus, I was a lttle bit keen on seeing it. Fortunately, I was able to see it before the COVID-9 outbreak closed the movie theaters down (saw it during its opening night), but, because of work scheduling, I haven’t had the us to do my review for it…. as yet. And what did I think of it? Well, it was pretty “meh”. While its heart is certainly in the proper place and quite sincere, us is a little too preachy and unbalanced within its narrative execution and character developments. The religious message is plainly there, but takes way too many detours and not focusing on certain aspects that weigh the feature’s presentation.

✌ TELEVISION SHOW AND HISTORY ✌ A tv set show (often simply Television show) is any content prBookmark this siteoduced for broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set set, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are usually placed between shows. Tv shows are most often scheduled well ahead of The War with Grandpa and appearance on electronic guides or other TV listings.

A television show may also be called a tv set program (British EnBookmark this siteglish: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A tv set Movies is The War with Grandpaually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and so are The War with Grandpaually split into seasons (The War with Grandpa and Canada) or Movies (UK) — yearly or semiaual sets of new episodes. A show with a restricted number of episodes could be called a miniMBookmark this siteovies, serial, or limited Movies. A one-The War with Grandpa show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “televisioBookmark this siten movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television set rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video.

Television shows may very well be Bookmark this sitehey are broadcast in real The War with Grandpa (live), be recorded on home video or an electronic video recorder for later viewing, or be looked at on demand via a set-top box or streameBookmark this sited on the internet.

The first television set shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within an extremely short range from the broadcast tower starting in the. Televised events such as the 944 Summer OlyBookmark this sitempics in Germany, the 944 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famoThe War with Grandpa introduction at the 9 New York World’s Fair in the The War with Grandpa spurreBookmark this sited a rise in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 944 World Movies inspired many Americans to buy their first tv set and in 94, the favorite radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a well balanced, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The firsBookmBookmark this siteark this sitet national live tv broadcast in the The War with Grandpa took place on September 4, 94 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in SAN FRASEAL Team CO BAY AREA was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets.

✌ FINAL THOUGHTS ✌ The power of faith, love, and affinity for take center stage in Jeremy Camp’s life story in the movie I Still Believe. Directors Andrew and Jon Erwin (the Erwin Brothers) examine the life span and The War with Grandpas of Jeremy Camp’s life story; pin-pointing his early life along with his relationship Melissa Heing because they battle hardships and their enduring love for one another through difficult. While the movie’s intent and thematic message of a person’s faith through troublen is indeed palpable plus the likeable mThe War with Grandpaical performances, the film certainly strules to look for a cinematic footing in its execution, including a sluish pace, fragmented pieces, predicable plot beats, too preachy / cheesy dialogue moments, over utilized religion overtones, and mismanagement of many of its secondary /supporting characters. If you ask me, this movie was somewhere between okay and “meh”. It had been definitely a Christian faith-based movie endeavor Bookmark this web site (from begin to finish) and definitely had its moments, nonetheless it failed to resonate with me; struling to locate a proper balance in its undertaking. Personally, regardless of the story, it could’ve been better. My recommendation for this movie is an “iffy choice” at best as some should (nothing wrong with that), while others will not and dismiss it altogether. Whatever your stance on religion faith-based flicks, stands as more of a cautionary tale of sorts; demonstrating how a poignant and heartfelt story of real-life drama could be problematic when translating it to a cinematic endeavor. For me personally, I believe in Jeremy Camp’s story / message, but not so much the feature.

[lamiralami]

TMA Retro 4: Page Turner

I was touched to see some tag commentary on yesterday’s post! Honestly, it gave me an emotion - I am traditionally very anxious about engaging online, it speaks to my immense love of TMA that it brought me to Make A Post At Last. It’s very affirming and reassuring to get some response to my lunatic treatises. Y��all are all right. 💜

Anyway, grab some lighter fluid and a sturdy wastepaper basket, time to torch your haunted novel in MAG 4: Page Turner

It’s ironic that this statement is about the Vast when it is one dense motherfucker. so many dangling plot threads are introduced here, each ready to hook you and start reeling. we’ve been into the meta plot since episode one but this episode is the first time the audience is made aware of such.

seriously: Jurgen Leitner and his library, Gerard Keay and Mary Keay, Michael Crew. the figures introduced in this one thirty-minute installment loom large over the rest of the entire run

you could, your first time through, even file this away as a one-off scary story if not for the fact that Jon knows what’s going on (enjoy it while it lasts, my son). He’s heard of Jurgen Leitner. He alludes to an incident with his library in 1994. Deeper than that, he immediately takes the statement at face value and treats the claims within it as authentic, which is a complete 180° on the first three episodes

and this is such a smart story choice? Jon shapes our perspective into this universe and up until now he’s been utterly dismissive of the validity of the stories he’s telling. To go from practically rolling his eyes to scheduling a meeting with his boss about tracking down more haunted books - that tells us that Jon takes this seriously as a threat. And that makes us take it seriously too, makes us take note that strange books are dangerous things in this world. Any offhand mention of books in future statements will be enough to make us sweat

And! It starts winding the narrative tension on a character level. Why and what does Jon know about Jurgen Leitner and his library? Why does he say his name with such venom? And if he’s so sure about the supernatural nature of these books, why is he so loath to believe the other statements?

(and then it takes 80 + episodes to fully answer these initial questions. Jonny enjoys a slow roasted torment)

love that the statement giver presents, as proof of his iron-clad sanity, the fact that he works as a theatre technician. speaking as someone with an unfinished theatre degree: theatre people are feral my good buddy, try again. I mean, we refuse to say the name of one of the most famous plays in the English language because we think a ghost will trip us for the indiscretion. this is not the trump card you think it is.

a quick sidebar for the Red String Brigade: The Trojan Women is an ancient Greek tragedy that involves a baby being thrown off a city wall. The Seagull’s first published English translation was done by Marian Fell, and also a seagull is a bird and birds can fly. Much Ado About Nothing is very good and you should all watch the version from 2011 with David Tennant and Catherine Tate.

it’s interesting that these early episodes seem to take a cue from urban legends in some respects. Nathan Watts gets extremely drunk at a party and then is almost skinned by a monster while having a smoke. Joshua Gillespie is approached while engaging in a whirlwind of debauchery and has to take care of a cursed coffin after accepting money for what he thinks is a drug trafficking gig. Amy Patel regularly spies on her neighbour for her own entertainment and then has to watch him be replaced by a malevolent entity only she can perceive. and now Dominic Swain pushes past his guilty conscience to score a valuable book off an unknowing charity shop and...gets a bit dizzy and haunted by a phantom stink for a few days then gets ‎£5,000, well anyway, the point is he got spooked! spooked after doing something kind of iffy! that is pure urban legend procedure; modern day fairy tales imparting dire  consequences onto societal transgressions. in a horror story this structure offers a false sense of safety - if you’re a good person, the monster won’t come for you. I can’t recall which upcoming statement yanks the rug out from under us with the first completely random victim.

cannot comprehend how this guy didn’t start plugging the book into google translate the second he got home. that probably saved him from being taken by the book but I am still judging him for not even trying it. yeah you’d be sucked into some sort of sky hell but at least you’d know what’s in the book!! could never be me

(yes I am aware in this universe I would have been eaten years ago. I’ve made my peace with that)

grbookworm1818 slays me. I don’t know which is better, the idea of Gertude carefully curating the most sixty-five-year-old-on-goodreads username she could as a cover for her cursed purchase history, or her actual sixty-five-year-old brain just expressing itself naturally because Gertrude is a very busy woman who doesn’t have time to immerse herself in the ins and outs of internet culture, she just wants to buy the demonic tomes she’s selected for destruction and get on with her day thanks.

did Gertrude know what a meme was? which Archivist could convincingly pose as a millennial best, Gertrude Robinson or Jonathan Sims?

The Key of Solomon and its former keeper, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, are both real historical figures. the book is basically Renaissance-era magical au fanfic of the Bible, and the man was a 19th century British occultist (and likely drinking buddy of Jonah Magnus) who founded a Very Serious Secret Society. this is a picture of him whiiiiiich rather dispels any sense of menace he’s meant to invoke. what kind of cosplaying nonsense

Mary Keay is such a striking figure. “She was very old and painfully thin, but her head was completely clean shaven, and every square inch of skin I could see was tattooed over with closely-written words in a script I didn’t recognise.” a Look, a vision!

I’m guessing that Our Gerard was blasting heavy metal at 2 am to try to drown out his undead mother while waiting for her manifestation to dissipate. I like to imagine him frequenting Reddit advice posts about dealing with toxic family members, poor lad

oh my gosh Mary refers to Gerard as “her Gerard” is that where Jon got “our Gerard” from?? I feel betrayed??

whatever, I’m reclaiming it. Our Gerard is meant with affection now babey! 

the eye portrait is a bit puzzling. the inscription - ‘“Grant us the sight that we may not know. Grant us the scent that we may not catch. Grant us the sound that we may not call.”’ - could almost be read as an invocation against the Eye? But in general Gerry is fairly Eye-aligned, so...shrug emoji

(honestly my main takeaway from the eye portrait is that it’s finely detailed and near photorealistic so we can add “tortured artist” to our list of Gerard Keay traits and is it any wonder that he’s so Fandom Beloved?)

Mary is Not Good at negotiating sales. her main technique involves terrible tea, bringing up repressed childhood trauma, and getting her magic book to drop animal bones onto customer’s shoes. I’m guessing Pinhole Books was in bad shape even before the police investigation and murder charges.

hahaha, the Vast pushes Dominic down the stairs. classic. you gotta grab what opportunities are available

so did Gerard have to follow Dominic back to his flat and wait awkwardly on the doorstep at like 3 in the morning, hoping none of his neighbours would notice and call the cops

the revelation that Mary’s been dead the whole time! this episode may be more intent on world building and plot set-up but damn if it isn’t still a good little ghost story.

kind of rude of Gerry to just burn a book in this guy’s flat without asking and then steal his wastepaper basket.

Jon may not call the statement giver a liar for once, but never fear, he’s still our petty bastard man. accuses Gertrude of filing statements without reading them, has Sasha double-check Martin’s research, grumps about his general misfortune . he’s stressed from the Archives’ disorder and having flashbacks to a certain picture book but by Jove, that won’t stop him making snide comments on what’s supposed to be an official audio transcription!

[imaginedisish]

I Will (Stefan Butler x Reader) (Bandersnatch)

A/N: SO THIS MORNING I HIT 100 FOLLOWERS AND I JUST WANNA THANK YOU ALL FOR THE LOVE AND SUPPORT!!! I meant to post two imagines today but unfortunately I did something I never do today...I left my house and hung out with my friend LOL! Sorry guys :( I’ll write two imagines tomorrow though because itsssss Saturdaaayyy!!! I hope you all enjoy this fluff ball of a request from an excellent anon. Enjoy. Thank you all for everything. You guys mean the world to me.  Xxxxxx <3 :) (p.s the title and parts of the imagine are based on I Will by the Beatles. This song really reminded me of what I wanted to write so I thought I’d reference it)

Summary: You and Stefan babysit your sister’s kids. It’s fluffy, adorable, romantic, aaaaannnnd um !DOMESTIC STEFAN! Who doesn’t want that???

Warnings: NONE HEHEHE! (oh mega fluff)

Word Count: 2,034

“You’re sure you really want to come with me?” You ask Stefan as you put your seat belt on.

“Positive,” Stefan says, a small smile stretches across his face, he pulls out of your driveway. Stefan had planned a beautiful date for you. He had made reservations at your favorite restaurant, and after you two planned to to walk around your favorite park, just talking and laughing. 

But, life unfortunately tends to get in the way of things. Your sister called earlier in the day, explaining that she was called into work and needed someone to take care of her kids.

“I’m sorry to bother you, (Y/N),” Your sister said hurriedly over the phone. “I just got called into work, it’s for an emergency surgery. I need someone to take care of the kids, are you available? You’ll probably have to sleep over since I won’t be home until much later.” Your sister was a doctor, and so was your brother-in-law. Unfortunately, this sort of thing happened often. You always reminded your sister that she could depend on you. Just like she was constantly on call, so were you. 

“Yes, of course.” Obviously, you had no choice but to say yes. She was your sister, after all. How could you say no? Still, you hated the idea of cancelling your date with Stefan. You love that boy more than words could ever describe, and the last thing you wanted to do was disappoint him. 

You picked up your phone and called Stefan immediately, hoping he wouldn’t mind the change in plans. “I know you went through so much trouble to get those reservations tonight, but my sister needs me to babysit. She got called into work. It’s an emergency” Your voice was soft. 

Then, before Stefan could say anything in response, an idea popped into your head, and you cut him off.

“What if you came with me?” You said excitedly, practically shouting over the phone. Stefan lets out a light chuckle. While he had met your family, Stefan had never spent very much time with your nieces and nephew. Those kids meant so much to you, so naturally you wanted Stefan to get to know them better.

“I’d do anything and go anywhere if it meant spending more time with you,” Stefan says over the phone, his voice timid. He was still nervous to say things like that to you, and it was adorable. You felt so lucky, so special that it was you he was saying those things to.  

God, did that boy make you so unbelievably happy.

Now you two were driving to your sister’s house. Stefan fidgets in his seat every now and then. He was clearly nervous.  

“I hope they aren’t too crazy tonight,” You say to Stefan, trying to make conversation. At the end of the day, all you want is for him to love the kids just as much as you do. 

“You think they’ll like me?” Stefan asks nervously, his grip on the steering wheel growing tense.

“Of course! I mean, they already know who you are, so things should be relatively easy.” You say back, flashing a reassuring smile in Stefan’s direction. 

After a short drive, Stefan pulls into your sister’s driveway, and puts the car in park. You unbuckle, and open your door. Stefan is frozen, his left leg bouncing up and down. You let out a giggle.

“Come on, silly. They already like you, and now they’re going to love you.” You put a hand on Stefan’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.

“I just…” Stefan trails off.

“You just what?” You question, staring into his emerald like eyes, sparkling in the rays of light that peeked through the windshield. 

“I know how important they are to you.” Stefan’s voice is quiet. He runs a hand anxiously through his fluffy, brown hair. “And I mean, you know…the future? They’ll have to like me if…” Stefan trails off again. 

“If? If what?” You ask, the corners of your mouth turning up.

The future, you think to yourself, smiling widely now. Images of what your future with Stefan would be like pop into your head. Moving in together, getting married, making a life together. It makes your heart beat rapidly against your chest. The thought of spending your lives together is so appealing to you. 

“Nothing.” Stefan’s cheeks grow red, and he tries to hide a slight smile as he gets out of the car, probably envisioning the same future you were.

You wait for him to come around to your side of the car, and you grab his hand the second he meets your side. You two walk up to the door, and you press a finger to the doorbell. Stefan anxiously pulls at his earlobe with his free hand.

“It’s going to be fine. They are going to love you,” You say, squeezing Stefan’s hand tightly in yours. He squeezes your hand back, and leans in, pressing a kiss against your cheek. The simple kiss makes your heart flutter, and your stomach do back flips. 

Suddenly, the front door swings open, bringing you back to reality. 

“Aunt (Y/N)!” Your niece, Catherine shouts loudly, her arms only reaching to your hips as she pulls you into a tight hug. You hug her back, picking her up off her feet and placing her carefully back down on the ground.

“I brought someone special with me!” You exclaim, pulling away from Catherine. Her face lights up with excitement for a second time as her eyes wonder to the tall figure standing next to you. 

“Stefan!” Catherine shouts, moving over to Stefan, practically pushing him to the ground as she wraps her arms around his legs. Stefan giggles, putting his arms around Catherine. 

“Well hello to you too!” Stefan says, a huge smile spreading across his face. 

“Where are your brother and sister?” You ask Catherine, who seems to be refusing to let Stefan go.

After a few more seconds of holding Stefan captive, she finally lets go of him. “They’re inside. Come on!” Catherine opens the front door, and skips inside. You and Stefan follow her in. Stefan seems to be much more comfortable already. Your words of reassurance and Catherine’s loving (yet forceful to say the least), hug clearly instilled some sort of confidence in him. 

“They’re here!” Catherine calls out. The sound of heavy foot steps shake the house, and two blurs of colorful motion flash before your eyes. 

“Aunt (Y/N)! Stefan!” You niece Louise and your nephew David cheerfully shout in sync. Louise runs over to you, and David to runs over to Stefan.

“Stefan, come to the basement and see my new toy truck!” David says, pulling on Stefan’s hand with a wide, toothy smile spreading ear to ear. 

“Sure buddy, lead the way!” Stefan says laughing as he’s pulled across the room by David. Catherine and Louise run after the two boys, heading to the basement as well.

Your sister rushes in from the kitchen, her bag in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. She presses a quick hello kiss to your cheek. 

“Thank you so much, (Y/N)! Duty calls! A doctor’s work is never done!” Your sister says, walking towards the door. “Bye loves! I’ll be home as soon as possible!”

Your nieces and nephew don’t respond, clearly wrapped up in Stefan’s presence. 

“I’ll tell them you left, that is if they give me the time of day with Mr. Popularity running the show down there,” You laugh. Your sister thanks you again, and heads out. You make your way downstairs, hoping your nieces and nephew haven’t torn Stefan limb from limb just yet. 

“I want Stefan on my team!” 

“No he’s on my team!” 

“What about me?”

And Stefan thought they wouldn’t like him? You think to yourself, smirking. 

“No one wants me on their team?” You say, reaching the bottom of the stairs, walking into the playroom. 

“We all want Stefan on our team!” Louise says with a frown on her face, standing up and pointing to Stefan. Stefan looks helpless amongst the three children as they surround him like friendly vultures. It’s absolutely adorable to you. The kids really love Stefan. He sits on the floor in the middle of them as they continue to fight over him.

“What game are we playing?” You ask, plopping down on the floor next to Stefan. Stefan holds up a box. Pictionary. You laugh hysterically. 

Eventually, you and Stefan somehow convince the kids to watch a movie on the couch instead of playing a game. Of course, it was another big argument to chose a movie, and then an even bigger debacle when it came to deciding who got to sit next to Stefan. 

In the end, The Rescuers is the winning movie, and you decide that you would be the one to sit next to Stefan. David, however, somehow managed to squeeze on the other side of him, and in the middle of the movie, Catherine made her way in between you and Stefan. Louise sat next to you, and passed out almost immediately. 

It only took an hour for Catherine and David to fall asleep as well. You and Stefan watch the rest movie, your head on his shoulder, and his hands combing through your hair. 

The movie ends, and you look over to the clock. 

10:30, it reads. 

“Should we bring them up to bed?” Stefan whispers, trying not to wake the kids up with his voice. You shake your head.

“They’re light sleepers. They’ll wake up for sure,” You say, standing up. “They can stay down here. We just need to grab some blankets and tuck them in.” Stefan nods his head in response, standing up with you. You walk over to the closet adjacent to the couch, and you take out three, fuzzy grey blankets. 

You pass one to Stefan, and he carefully drapes it over David. He presses a kiss to David’s head, which makes you smile. You pass him another blanket, and he does the same to Louise. You tuck in Catherine, and then head upstairs into the guest room. 

You and Stefan change into your pajamas, brush your teeth, and climb into bed. Stefan pulls you close to him and you snuggle against his chest. You listen to Stefan’s heartbeat, your eyes beginning to feel heavy with sleep. 

“R-remember before, when I said that thing about the f-future?” Stefan stutters quickly, the nervousness in his voice evident. 

“Yeah, of course,” you say, perking up a bit. You had a hunch as to what he was going to say, but you weren’t completely positive. You simply hoped that he envisioned the same future that you did. 

“W-well I was too scared to say it before b-but,” Stefan pauses. “I see one with you. G-getting m-married…” He stops again. You look up at him, his eyes are soft and full of love. “…and well, having kids. I want that. I want what we got to do tonight every night. I want that with you.” 

The corners of your mouth curl upwards. You heart flutters in your chest. You were surprised by what he said, only because he seemed so nervous up until now. You thought he’d never say that. 

But you were so glad he did. 

He searches your eyes for some sort of an answer. “Was that too much?” He asks, rubbing his eyes, heat rising to his cheeks as they redden. You shake your head. 

“No. It was perfect. I feel the exact same,” You say softly, looking deeply into his eyes, a smile still plastered on your face. He cups your cheeks, and presses a soft kiss against your lips. You smile into the kiss, your heart filled with more exuberance and more joy than you could ever explain in words. 

“I love you. I’ll love you forever, and forever, and I will always feel the same,” Stefan coos. You lean back against his chest and shut your eyes. 

“I love you more,” You whisper back, kissing the center of his chest. 

“Impossible.”

[aion-rsa]

The Silence of the Lambs: Brooke Smith on Surviving Buffalo Bill

https://ift.tt/37cOLgW

Brooke Smith has enjoyed a career spanning more than three decades across the big and small screen. She’s starred in the cult classic Series 7: The Contenders, had roles in blockbusters including Interstellar and featured prominently on Grey’s Anatomy, Ray Donovan, and Bates Motel to name but a few. 

Yet to some, she will always be remembered as Catherine Martin, the daughter of Senator Ruth Martin who winds up being kidnapped by Jame Gumb, aka Buffalo Bill, in The Silence of The Lambs. Not that fans always immediately realise it.

“I don’t get recognized for it that much compared with something like Grey’s Anatomy,” she tells Den of Geek. “With The Silence of the Lambs, it’s more like ‘wait a minute, how do I know you?’. I would get that at the school my kids went to. They knew me but they just couldn’t quite figure it out.” 

Smith was a relative newcomer to acting when she was cast as Catherine back in 1989 having spent her formative years as part of the CBGB New York punk scene. But she possessed one crucial quality: she was fearless. “I was just a gung-ho young actress who wanted to do something I didn’t think I could do,” she explains.  

The role of Catherine certainly presented a worthy challenge. While the majority of Jonathan Demme’s film focuses on Jodie Foster’s FBI-agent-in-training Clarice Starling and her attempts at coaxing Anthony Hopkins’s dangerously disarming cannibal Hannibal Lecter into helping track down Buffalo Bill, played by Ted Levine, Smith took on the crucial role of the serial killer’s hostage, trapped down a disused well in the basement-turned-dungeon of his seemingly ordinary suburban home. 

It’s her welfare and fate that provides the emotional heartbeat of an otherwise dread-fuelled psychological thriller. As time wears on, Catherine’s increasingly desperate and distressing state only cranks up the tension with audiences aware of the horrifying fate potentially awaiting her.  When Demme first met with Smith to discuss the part he had one important question for Smith: “Why on Earth would you ever want to do this?” 

“I did not audition,” she explains. “That would never happen now. They would never just hire an unknown actor for such an important part. He brought me in and explained to me what he had in mind. He didn’t have to convince me much. If anything, I had to convince him that I was going to go all the way. That I was really going to go as far as I could go as Catherine.” 

She saw some parallels between her relationship with her mother – trailblazing Hollywood publicist Lois Smith – and that of Catherine and her own high-profile politician mom. 

Smith also credits her friend at the time, Michelle Pfeiffer, with helping her get the part. “My mother looked after Michelle Pfeiffer, which was how we met. She was considering playing the part of Clarice. She had done Married to the Mob with Jonathan. She told him about me.” 

Pfeiffer was Demme’s original choice for the role of Clarice while he initially approached Sean Connery for the role of Lecter. Both turned the film down, with Pfeiffer deciding the subject matter was too dark.  Smith does wonder what the film might have turned out like had she signed on to star. 

“I think of Jodie as very intelligent and analytical. There is something about her being so analytical that made Clarice so fascinating. It would have been different with Michelle, maybe more emotional. I’m not sure.” 

While Pfeiffer rejected the chance to star in The Silence of the Lambs, there were some trying to dissuade Smith from her involvement. “There was one agent in particular who said I was forever going to be known as the fat girl in the pit. Which is…partly true,” she jokes. 

Eager to immerse herself in the role of Catherine, Smith prepared herself for the experience of being trapped in a pit by locking herself in a wardrobe while ruminating on the “worst possible circumstances” someone would face in such a situation.

“It was a basement closet. I went in, closed the door and turned the light off. I thought about what it would be like to be in those circumstances. Stuff like what would it be like if your contact lenses dried out or if you had your period. I stayed in there for about an hour at a time.” 

Part of Buffalo Bill’s modus operandi in the film saw him target plus size women. That created the first major challenge for Smith who was required to put on 25 pounds for the part.

“Because I had been a heavy teenager and lost all the weight to be an actress, to then have to gain it all back really messed with my head,” she says. 

There were positives and negatives to the experience though. “I was in an acting class with Vincent D’Onofrio and he had just done Full Metal Jacket where he gained like 75 pounds. I remember him saying ‘make sure the studio gives you a credit card, you shouldn’t be paying for your food’ which I would never have thought of. They did actually give me a credit card and I remember taking Ted Levine to dinner most nights when we were shooting.”

But just as with any role that requires a drastic transformation, putting the weight on proved a challenge.

“It was physically exhausting though because of the weight,” she says. “And after it was done, it was difficult as an actress struggling with how I was supposed to look and getting the weight off. I ate a lot of ice cream and pizza and milkshakes. Stuff like that. It sounds amazing to most people but it did put me off that kind of food a little bit.” 

Reading Ted Tally’s Oscar-winning script ahead of filming, Smith felt a sense of fear and intimidation for what lay ahead. 

“There was this one line that scared the hell out of me,” she says. “When Catherine sees the fingernails on the side of the pit – the fake nails that have come off – in the script it just said ‘screams and screams and screams.’ I just thought ‘oh my God, I don’t think I can do that’.” 

Despite some initial confidence-sapping struggles with continuity and hitting her mark during the scene where Catherine first encounters Buffalo Bill, once her character is confined to the basement pit, Smith was in her element. Getting in and out of the pit was something of a complicated procedure, so Smith would often stay down there between camera setups, taking care not to drink too much water in order to avoid any unnecessary bathroom breaks. 

Read more

TV

Clarice: How Does The Show Compare to Hannibal?

By Gabriel Bergmoser

Movies

The Silence of the Lambs and Clarice’s Lifelong Battle Against the Male Gaze

By David Crow

“I would get myself worked up before we shot. Every day I set out to achieve something and if I got it all out, I felt great. It was like primal therapy. Just going as far as I could and releasing it all…I wonder if I could do it again,” she says. “I remember doing a real mind fuck on myself. At certain points they would take some of the wall away from the side of the pit and be down there filming my misery. I remember getting into this headspace where I would be thinking ‘not only are these people not helping me, they are actually exploiting me and filming me in this horrible space.’ It was just this crazy, extreme thing that added to it all.” 

Occasionally, Smith’s suffering went beyond psychological. 

“I ripped a toenail. It was nasty.  The pit was made out of some kind of fiberglass. They had told me to go crazy so I did and then suddenly there was blood. It took a while for that nail to grow back.” 

Though she suffered for her art, Smith credits Demme with fostering a brilliant atmosphere on set that motivated everyone to bring their A-game. “Jonathan treated us like we were the best people for the job, whether it was Jodie or the people in craft service. He had a way of making everyone want to do their best.” 

As a director, Demme also wasn’t afraid of coaxing more out of his cast, and she says that he. “never thought it was possible to go too far.” 

“There was a guy on set from the FBI who said he had seen similar things in real-life and I remember Jonathan saying that I should try to do it for all the people who are in horrible situations and could not get out. So, no pressure or anything.” 

Smith recalls one particularly strange and intense conversation held in the pit when Demme looked her dead in the eyes and said “You know that feeling when you’re in prison?”  “I had to be like ‘um, no,” Smith says laughing. 

Away from Demme, Smith also found support among her fellow cast mates. Though she didn’t interact much with Hopkins (“Tony sort of stayed in his own world”), Foster proved invaluable in helping her understand the intricacies of filmmaking and things like “overlapping” on dialogue. 

She formed her strongest bond and friendship, however, with Levine, despite the adversarial nature of their relationship on the screen. 

“I respect him so much as an actor. When the camera was on me and it was my coverage, he gave just as much, if not more. He just had my back. At times I was in awe of him and asking how he did things.” 

Levine has long since stopped answering questions about his breakthrough performance as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs but Smith is able to offer some insight into what went into his terrifying portrayal. Levine famously drew on real-life serial killers like Ed Gein and Ted Bundy, but also offered up another, more unique perspective in his discussions with Smith. “I remember him saying he had a toddler at the time and he had observed how extreme their behavior could be. They act like they are going to die one minute and are then just so happy the next. I think he was tapping into something there.” 

Smith remembers the moment she first saw Levine’s terrifying solo dance number as Gumb and how it blew everyone away.

“I saw it in the dailies and Ted did not go. I saw him after and told him it was amazing. I don’t think that was in script. He just came up with it. It’s totally terrifying.” 

She does empathise with Levine’s decision to close the book on The Silence of the Lambs too, having herself endured the “strange” experience of fans heckling her with shouts of “it puts the lotion on the skin” a line said by Buffalo Bill to Catherine as he prepares her for her eventual murder. “It’s really hard when people only see you as one character and I can understand not wanting to be seen as Jame Gumb. I think he maybe feels like he’s said all he wants to say.” 

Ultimately though, she credits the experience as one which helped her work through personal issues.  

“It got me in touch with some stuff in myself that I had to work on,” she says. “At the time it wasn’t so easy for me to fight back as Catherine. Working on this film made me think ‘wait why wouldn’t I fight back that much, what’s my problem with me?’ I wrote a letter to Jonathan thanking him for helping me get in touch with that. I came upon some self-worth.” 

A critical and commercial hit, The Silence of the Lambs went on to sweep the board at the 1991 Oscars, becoming only the third film to win Academy Awards in the top five categories for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.  The film’s success “thrilled” Smith and only added to a sense of vindication in her decision to pursue a career as an actor.

“My mom knew how hard it was to be an actor. There was a discussion between us like ‘Are you really sure you want to do this?’ The Silence of the Lambs ended that. She had great taste in actors. To see her be proud was nice.” 

Demme would go on to further acclaim with his next film Philadelphia as part of a directing career that continued until 2015. He passed away in 2017, aged 73. Smith last saw him, by chance, at a yoga class. “He was just his usual, sweet, positive self.”  

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“Jonathan was such a great guy. The whole experience felt like he was throwing a party and you were lucky to be invited. It was a really special project.” 

The post The Silence of the Lambs: Brooke Smith on Surviving Buffalo Bill appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/37cORVQ

[weekendwarriorblog]

The ThanksgivingWarrior 11/25/20 – THE CROODS: A NEW AGE, MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM, ZAPPA, HAPPIEST SEASON, STARDUST and More!

It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and usually I’d be struggling to figure out how much the new movies might make in what is normally one of the most unpredictable weekends at the year. Wait a second. I’m getting déjà vu here. Didn’t I say this exact same thing in the intro for last week’s column? Probably. Let’s face it, kids. I am absolutely losing my mind with how bored I am getting looking at my laptop screen all day long, even though I’ve now set up a pretty sweet new TV system to watch stuff on!

Anyway, there is one family movie coming to theatres this weekend, and in any other Thanksgiving weekend, I’d suggesting getting out and going to theaters, but at this point in the pandemic, with COVID numbers so bad that even I, “Mr. Reopen the Movie Theaters!” can’t recommend going to see a movie in theaters… well, except maybe in New York City, where they’re still closed. Sigh. 

We’re going to do things a little different this week, because I wasn’t able to get to as many movies as I wanted but didn’t want to delay the column to Thanksgiving Day. Instead, I’ll post what I have done on Wednesday, then check back here on Friday when hopefully I’ve added a few more reviews. Cool?

Fortunately, the new animated sequel from DreamWorks Animation and Universal Pictures, THE CROODS: A NEW AGE, is a lot of fun, and this is from someone who really enjoyed the first movie quite a bit. The sequel’s premise is as simple as you can get: caveman family The Croods (voiced by Nick Cage, Catherine Keener, Emma Stone, Clarke Duke and Cloris Leachman), along with Ryan Reynold’s Guy, are still trying to survive in the wilds until they encounter a beautiful oasis that turns out to be the home of the more-evolved Bettermans, Phil (Peter Dinklage), Hope (Leslie Mann) and Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran).

I really liked the original The Croods quite a bit, so I’ve  been waiting patiently for DreamWorks to figure things out for a sequel. My instincts were definitely spot-on, because even if the original premise sounded a lot like The Flintstones, putting those voice actors together, even if it’s just Ryan Reynolds and Emma Stone proved to be quite prescient. A big part of the sequel is the burgeoning romance between their characters, Guy and Eep, much to the brutish chagrin of Eep’s father Grug (really Cage at his finest). Then along comes the Bettermans, and then it changes into a movie that is constantly showing the differences between the two families in many funny ways.

I’ve long admired Emma Stone as an actress, since she’s no naturally funny, and that’s even more apparent by how much she brings to Eep with merely her voice. Some of the scenes between her and Tran’s Dawn are absolutely hilarious. Cloris Leachman’s Gran also has some absolutely LOL moments later in the film. In some ways, Reynolds while funny, especially when pit against Cage and Dinklage’s characters, takes a back seat to the ladies.

I was equally impressed with the film in terms of its animation and how gorgeous and colorful the whole thing is, but more than that, it thrusts in a zaniness that I’d usually expect from something like Ren and Stimpy or SpongeBob SquarePants. So as much as it’s a kid movie, there’s enough to entertain older kids and even old men like me.

Without having seen Pixar’s Soul yet (this weekend!), Croods: A New Age may be one of the most entertaining animated movies I’ve seen this year, and that’s because it leans so heavily on being so absolutely crazy and zany that you can’t help but have fun.

You can read more about the movie and how it was made in a feature I wrote for Below the Line.

Next up is MA RAINEY’s BLACK BOTTOM, George C. Wilson’s adaptation of the 1982 August Wilson play that preceded Fences, which Netflix will give a theatrical release this week before it goes to streaming in December. Like Fences, this once again stars that film’s Oscar winner, Viola Davis, in the title role of Ma Rainey, a legendary blues and jazz singer in the late ‘20s who has come to a recording studio in Chicago to make a record with her band.  The band’s hotshot trumpet player Levee (the late Chadwick Boseman) is more interested in breaking out on his own, and he does everything to grandstand and try to impress the label guy (Jonny Coyne) even if it means throwing the rest of the band under the bus.

Since I never saw Wilson’s play, I really didn’t know what to expect from this movie, although the fact that most of it takes place in a recording studio definitely had my interest piqued. In case, you’re wondering about that odd title, it’s actually a song in Ma Rainey’s repertoire that she wants to do one way, but her manager Irvin (Jeremy Shamos) wants to try Levee’s version of the song. Ma’s not having any of it, and a lot of the film involves her

There’s been quite a lot of chatter about Chadwick Boseman getting a posthumous Oscar nomination for his performance in this, and it’s probably well-deserved since he gives quite a showy performance as Levee, giving a couple moving monologues including one about his mother being sexually assaulted by white men.  It’s a very powerful performance indeed.

Rainey is certainly an interesting character for Viola Davis to play, even if she’s not necessarily likable with her obstinate demeanor and the way she gloms over her eye candy Dussie Mae, played by Taylour Paige, and dotes over her nephew Sylvester (Dusan Brown). As interesting as those relationships are, I probably enjoyed the interaction between the musicians more, because Boseman is working with some greats like Colman Domingo, Michael Potts and Glynn Turman. It’s actually kind of interesting how it switches between Levee and the musicians and Ma dealing with Irving upstairs.  

As much as the Wilsons are exploring some interesting topics about race and the treatment of black people in the times, the movie frequently feels dated and it feels like some of the ideas are never fully revolved, even as it builds up to a fairly shocking climax.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, but it’s a perfectly fine dramatic piece, but I didn’t feel that it had the weight of other movies about race I’ve seen, including yes, Green Book (sorry, haters), and a lot of that probably has more to do with George Wilson’s direction than August Wilson’s writing.

Just want to quickly mention a couple movies I’ve already reviewed, which will hit the streamers this week, including Steve McQueen’s LOVERS ROCK on Amazon Prime Video, which I wrote about here, and Ron Howard’s HILLBILLY ELEGY, now on Netflix after a short theatrical release. I reviewed the latter here.

I’ve actually seen Lovers Rock a second time since the New York Film Festival, and I enjoyed it even more, as it’s really a well-crafted film even if it’s not as immediate maybe as Mangrove (now on Amazon Prime) and Red, White and Blue, which will be on Prime Video on December 4. I just love how Steve McQueen created a shorter piece that isn’t quite as deep as some of the others since Lovers Rock isn’t based on history but is just a nice young romance about two young people who meet and fall in love at a “Blues Night” party. It’s not as deep as the other movies I’ve seen, but is still good. Oh, and my interview with Steve McQueen is up at Below the Line finally, and I’m pretty proud of it, so check it out!

I don’t know if I have too much more to say about Hillbilly Elegy, but I hope people will give it a chance because even if it does have problems and isn’t perfect, it’s an interesting story, particularly for Glenn Close’s performance.

This week’s “Featured Flick” is Alex Winter’s doc, ZAPPA (Magnolia Pictures), an amazing film that takes a look at the life and career of the late Frank Zappa, best known for his quirky rock tunes but just at proficient at writing jazz and classical musical. I definitely went through a bit of a Zappa phase in my teens, and every once in a while, I would go back and see what had been released since his death in 1993, because his wife and widow Gail did a great job getting a lot of his unreleased music and live shows out there.

What shocked me when I saw Zappa was how little I really knew about the musician, because maybe he was a little bit of an enigma while he was still alive. I enjoyed the other doc, Eat That Question: Zappa In His Own Words, that came out a few years back, which was made up of public interviews Zappa gave, but it doesn’t really give as clear a picture of the man as Winter’s doc does.

For instance, Winter gets a lot of the musicians, including the amazing Ruth Underwood, who played with Zappa in the Mothers. You’d assume those musicians would presumably know the man best having toured with him for years, and yet, even they say that other than when they were rehearsing diligently or playing gigs, Zappa kept to himself. We also get a good sense of what a family man he was, since Winter was able to get Gail to talk to him before she herself passed way in 2015.

Zappa is an absolutely terrific doc that I hope music enthusiasts give a look even if they think they know what Zappa was about or maybe even those who didn’t care for his music. You might be pleasantly surprised by the tremendous amount of depth Winter brings to this talented musician and composer who still had a lot more to say. (And that’s an understatement!)

Incidentally, I’ll have an interview with Winter over at Below the Line very soon.

On the other end of the musical spectrum (more or less) is Gabriel Range’s STARDUST (IFC Films)  -- not to be confused with Matthew Vaughn’s far better Stardust – this one starring Johnny Flynn, who played a young Albert Einstein in Genius: Einstein, this time playing a young David Bowie. Years before breaking it big with his album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, young David just can’t catch a break in the U.S., so he goes on a road trip in 1971 with his Ron Oberman (Marc Maron), the A&R guy from his U.S. label who hopes to get Bowie across to young American audiences.

I’m not quite sure how someone can screw up a movie about Bowie, one of my all-time favorite artists, but making a movie that a.) takes place in the most boring era of Bowie’s career and b.) Not actually being able to use any of Bowie’s beloved tracks, certainly doesn’t help matters. It also doesn’t help that the script just isn’t great, creating a fairly dull biopic that relies more on Maron’s personality basically playing the same character we’ve seen him play so many times before to stay even halfway entertaining.  I couldn’t even get excited by Jena Malone, an actress I generally appreciate, as David’s wife Angie, because she plays her to be such a despicable and unsympathetic character.

If Maron is decent than Johnny Flynn is just plain flaccid as Bowie, playing him so mopey and aloof that when he finally emerges from his chrysalis as Ziggy Stardust – also with little of the flamboyance in his stage shows -- you just don’t give a rat’s ass anymore. Oh, and a lot of the movie is based on the theory that the history of mental issues in his family is what haunts the singer.  Drab and dull, Stardust manages to make the most exciting rock star of the last half century seem like the most boring person on earth. It’s a flat-out failure as a biopic.

Joan Carr-Wiggins’ GETTING TO KNOW YOU (Gravitas Ventures) is a witty Canadian high-concept rom-com, starring Natasha Little and Rupert Penry-Jones as two strangers who have a chance encounter at a hotel in Northern Ontario. The latter plays New Yorker Luke Manning, who is back home for his high school reunion, but when his positively smashed high school girlfriend Kaila (Rachel Blanchard from Peepshow) shows up at the hotel hoping to rekindle their spark, he asks Little’s character Abby to pretend to be his wife.

I don’t have a lot to say about this movie which was a nice surprise and clearly a labor of love for the filmmaker. Honestly, my favorite part of the movie is how hilarious Rachel Blanchard is in it. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me that found her deliriously drunk nightmare of an ex to be kind of sexy, but maybe that’s just me. In fact, the movie might have been even funnier if the rest of the cast were able to keep up with Blanchard, but the connection between the two leads did grow on me as it went along. It definitely has some funnier moments like when Kaila’s bowling husband Kenny shows up, and then some of Luke’s other classmates pop in as well, but it does have to work very hard whenever Blanchard isn’t on screen.  (I also enjoyed watching the soap opera that seemed to be going on between the employees of the hotel, which was perpetually funny.) Otherwise, it does feel a little flat whenever Blanchard is on screen.

The filmmaker’s lack of experience is sometimes obvious, because there are things like the repetitive music that I wasn’t so crazy about. Otherwise, this is a light and quaint indie that’s a little off the beaten track, but you won’t have any regrets if you make the effort to go looking for it.

I’m thrilled to see actor Clea Duvall back behind the camera for her second film as a director, HAPPIEST SEASON, which was going to get a theatrical release through Sony’s TriStar Pictures at one point. Instead, it’s now going to be on Hulu starting Wednesday. (Today!) It’s a high-concept rom-com starring Mackenzie Davis and Kristen Stewart with Davis playing Harper, a woman who has not come out of her closet to her family, which makes it that much more awkward when she brings her girlfriend Abby (Stewart) home for the holidays.

As mentioned, this is a fairly high-concept comedy that uses the idea of someone coming out to their disapproving family we’ve seen in many movies, but does it in a way that can take it seriously but still allow for some funny moments. In fact, there are times when the comedy even goes into Meet the Parents territory in terms of the character humor.

I really enjoyed Duvall’s previous film, The Intervention, and once again, she has put together such as great cast to realize the script that she wrote with Mary Holland. In fact, Holland has a great role, playing Harper’s bubbly sister Jane, who steals so many scenes in terms of the humor that I was shocked that I only realized later she co-wrote the script with Duvall.

Mackenzie Davis continues to be every director’s secret weapon, because like in Jason Reitman’s Tully, she can literally deliver on every aspect of the movie, keeping the comedy aspects grounded but also deliver a really poignant performance. She also works really well with Kristen Stewart, maybe bringing out things in Stewart we just haven’t been able to see before.

Besides having Alison Brie play Harper’s older sister and Aubrey Plaza as an old flame, Duvall also had the foresight to get the amazing Dan Levy, recent multi-Emmy winner for Schitt’s Creek, to play Abby’s best friend, who is constantly there for her to kvetch and who shows up to pretend to be her boyfriend. (Oddly, there’s a lot of that sort of thing going on in movies this week.)

Happiest Season works as a perfectly fine albeit fairly traditional holiday rom-com in a similar way as The Family Stone. More than anything, Duvall continually proves her abilities as a filmmaker that can handle comedy and drama equally well.

Next up, is Alan Ball’s UNCLE FRANK (Amazon), the Oscar-winning writer of American Beauty, directing only his second movie after 2007’s Towelhead – you might remember his HBO shows Six Feet Under and True Blood. This one, set in the ‘70s, stars Paul Bettany as the title character with Sophia Lillis from It Chapter One and Two playing his niece Beth, a teen from Creekville, South Carolina who worships her New York-based professor uncle. When she goes to college in New York, she attends one of Frank’s parties with her pseudo-boyfriend and ends up learning that Frank’s “roommate” Wally (Peter Macdissi) is actually his boyfriend. When Frank and Beth return to South Carolina for his father’s funeral, he has to try to keep his sexuality and relationship with Wally a secret from his family. Yeah, this does sound a little like Happiest Season, doesn’t it? It is, but only to a point.

At first, Uncle Frank is a cute but not-particularly-deep coming-of-age story about Lillis’ character as a fish out of water in New York City. Once Wally is introduced, he seems to be there just to make jokes and lighten the mood as it turns into a road trip. From his previous work, I’ve grown to enjoy Ball’s unconventional storytelling, but by comparison, this movie is very by-the-books, so it never really grabs the viewer.

The biggest problem with Ball’s latest--and it’s one that I see in a lot of movies these days--is that it doesn’t know whether it should be a comedy or a drama, and because it isn’t particularly funny, you expect it to fare better as a drama and yet, it doesn’t.

Ball has such a great cast including Judy Greer, Margo Martindale, Stevens Root and Zahn, all playing the duo’s racist Southern family, but they disappear for long sections of the movie, and then don’t do much when they return for the more dramatic last act where it turns into such a maudlin melodrama once Frank and Beth get back to South Carolina.  As they mourn the dead patriarch, Frank keeps reflecting back on what drove him to New York in the first place, and we’re pummelled with so many flashbacks. Lillis’ character almost gets lost at this point, even this story is supposed to be told from her point of view.

Essentially, Uncle Frank falls somewhere quite literally between Hillbilly Elegy and Happiest Season but not being as good as either. It’s just disappointing that Ball didn’t have someone offering good advice on handling material that will constantly have you groaning, “What was the point?”

Screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom, State of Play, 21 Bridges makes his directorial debut with MOSUL, which will debut on Netflix this Thursday. As you can figure out from the title, this takes place in Iraq in the fall of 2016 where an army of 100,000 Iraqi soldiers and militia men mobilize to liberate Iraq’s second largest city from ISIS along with the embedded journalist Ali Maula. Surprise, surprise, this is another movie from last year’s September festival season, too, and there also was a documentary from last year with the same name about the same story, too.

I’ve been a fan of some of the films Carnahan has written over the years, some mentioned above, but his directorial debut certainly sounds ambitious, since he’s working with an all-Arab cast. I look forward to watching and reviewing this one, hopefully before Friday.

Premiering on Disney+ this Friday after losing its theatrical release – this is becoming the norm for Disney, huh? – is Ashley Avis’ adaptation of Anna Sewell’s classic piece of literature, BLACK BEAUTY about a girl and her horse. The girl is played by Mackenzie Foy from Interstellar and The Conjuring, and Black Beauty the horse is voiced by Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet. No, I did not make that up, and I can’t wait to watch this, to see how that works exactly. Look for my review later this week… hopefully.

On top of that, those Trixie Pixies at Disney+ have somehow managed to secretly pull together a Taylor Swift concert called folkore: the long pond studio sessions, which will premiere exclusively on Disney+ November 25. Oh, that’s today!

Debuting on Showtime this Sunday is Errol Morris’ new doc MY PSYCHEDELIC LOVE STORY, which takes a look at the Acid King Timothy Leary through the eyes of his lover, Joanna Harcourt-Smith, trying to figure out her part in his turn into a narc for the CIA. Another one I hope to get to soon because while I like Morris’ political films like The Fog of War and even the Steve Bannon doc American Dharma, this seems more in the vein of Tabloid, which I also enjoyed. Will try to watch this over the weekend and report back.

Also of note is that the doc She is the Ocean (Blue Fox Entertainment) will be hitting On Demand this week. I guess I never got around to reviewing it.

So, let’s see. We’ve had some good movies, we’ve had some not great movies, and we’ve had a few movies that I just didn’t get around to watching yet. What does that leave? How about two of the worst movies I’ve seen this year? Are you ready?

SUPERINTELLIGENCE (HBO Max) is the latest comedy from Melissa McCarthy and hubby director Ben Falcone, and boy, it won’t take you long to realize why New Line decided LONG before COVID not to give it a theatrical release, instead handing it over to its new streamer HBO Max. 

In this, McCarthy plays Carol Peters, an average Seattle woman, who – I mean, honestly, does it even matter what she does? It’s irrelevant. Carol encounters an artificial intelligence being with the voice of James Corden that has just achieved self-awareness and wants to study Carol in order to understand humanity. But what are its plans… to save humanity or destroy it? Only Carol has the power to keep the world from finding out. 

I honestly don’t even know where to begin except that I was a Melissa McCarthy stan for a long time before Bridesmaids;  Superintelligence makes it all-too-obvious that she needs to stop making movies with Falcone. It’s not that he’s an incapable director, but he just doesn’t give her the actual direction she needs. The movie is just all over the place, starting with the physical comedy McCarthy has done so much in her movies, but then turning into a romantic comedy as the AI tries to reunite Carol with her college boyfriend George, played by Bobby Cannavale. Apparently, making The Heat with Sandra Bullock has made Falcone think his wife could or should be Sandra Bullock. No, she can’t. Throwing her into a ridiculous concept like this one that isn’t very solid does little to endear McCarthy to the fans she keeps driving away with bad movies like this.

I’m sure it doesn’t help that I really hate James Corden and hearing his voice over the course of the movie while also acting very META by referencing the ACTUAL James Corden, Carpool Karaoke, etc. Just none of it is very funny. Oddly, this is written by the same guy who wrote the duo’s earlier movie, The Boss, which I didn’t think was that bad, but mainly because McCarthy was paired with Kristen Bell for a lot of the movie.

On top of that, Superintelligence wastes its entire supporting cast from Brian Tyree Henry to Sam Richardson (from Veep) but also has Karan Son from Deadpool playing the EXACT SAME CHARACTER he played in Like A Boss, but only for a few minutes then he’s gone. At least it had the forethought to cast Jean Smart as the President, but the fact that I didn’t even like Bobby Cannavale in this might be the biggest sign of how much I absolutely detested Superintelligence.

There are movies you might hate when you see them in theaters but later realize that they’re probably funny enough cable. That is Superintelligence, except for the funny part. What else can I say except that “Superintelligence” is not a term I'd use for whoever greenlit this piece of crap.

Also debuting on HBO Max this week is the new thriller series The Flight Attendant (HBO MAX), starring Kaley Cuoco, who really hasn’t been doing much outside The Big Bang Theory, so this should give her a chance to show how funny she is. She plays a woman who wakes up in the wrong hotel and wrong bed with a dead man, so it already sounds like a great premise right there. I guess the entire first season will debut on Thanksgiving.

And yet, believe it or not, Superintelligence isn’t even the worst movie of the week! Nope.

Apparently, Josh Duhamel’s new comedy, BUDDY GAMES (Saban Films/Paramount), played in some theaters over the weekend, but it’s now available on digital and On Demand. It’s Duhamel’s directorial debut, and it’s about as dude-bro as you can possibly get, as it has Duhamel, Dax Sheppard, Kevin Dillon, Nick Swardson, Jensen Ackles and Dan Bakkedahl as a group man-children friends who regroup five years after going their separate ways to bring back their “Buddy Games,” a series of obstacle and endurance tests that end up reviving ill feelings between a few of them.

I’m not sure how quickly I knew I was in trouble with this one, because at first, I thought that maybe Duhamel made a fun indie comedy about friendship ala the underrated A Good Old Fashioned Orgy. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was wrong as wrong could be, since by the halfway point it turned into something as innately immature as Jackass.

The general idea is that Duhamel plays Bob, the guy who found enormous success after splitting from his friends, marrying Olivia Munn’s Tiffany, but then he finds out that his old friend Shelly (Bakkedahl) has been put in rehab for a drug overdose. Turns out that at the last Buddy Game, Swardson’s character shot Shelly in the nuts with a BB gun, and he eventually lost his other testicle as well. That’s about the level of this low-brow comedy that rarely fails to grab the lowest hanging…um… fruit.

As it goes along, it just gets worse and worse to the point where there was one scene where the guys are at a bar while trying to get girls to buy them drinks that just got so disgusting, I almost turned it off. If I did, I would have missed the scene with a gila monster going after steaks strapped to the heads in another lame competition.

I can go on and on about how Buddy Games is but probably the worst infraction is that it does the most sexist thing possible by basically putting having women for a few moments and none that particularly advance anything.

Duhamel isn’t a bad director, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he got hired to direct another comedy someday soon, but this movie just very bad, very gross and almost excruciating to sit through at times. To call Buddy Games moronic, idiotic or even asinine, would be an insult to the morons, idiots or asses, who are likely to be the movie’s target audience.

On Friday, New York’s Metrograph is bringing back the 2017 4k restoration of Fruit Chan’s Made in Hong Kong as a ticketed screening running from Friday through December 3. You can also still catch Shalini Kantaya’s Coded Bias and the French New Wave anthology Six In Paris as ticketed screenings through December 3.

Up at New York’s Lincoln Center, you can catch its World of Wong Kar Wai with a couple films available this Wednesday, including his fantastic drama In the Mood for Love, but you can also get the 7-film Janus Bundle for $70 which is a saving over the individual movie cost of $12 apiece. Those seven films and five more will be shown over the course of December.

Other stuff out this week that I wasn’t able to get to include:

The Christmas Chronicles 2 (Netflix) Last Call (K Street Pictures) Faith (Vertical) Saul and Ruby’s Holocaust Survivor Band (Samuel Goldwyn) The Walrus and the Whistle Blower (Gravitas Ventures) Life in a Year (Amazon Prime) 32 Weeks

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[booksaremyoxygenn]

Ready Player One: Book Review & Discussion

“We’d been born into an ugly world, and the OASIS was our one happy refuge.”

If you love video games and the 80s, you MUST read this book. USA Today’s comparison of Ready Player One to Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory couldn't have been more spot on, but instead of the inheritance of a man who owns a chocolate factory he is playing for the inheritance of a video game creator.

Overall Rating: 4.5 / 5 Stars

My biggest argument is that because there was so much info and teaching about the 80s and video game references it felt choppy and it was hard to get lost in the book. However I absolutely loved learning all of those fascinating pieces of information. There were surprisingly many great life lessons in this book and I feel like I am walking away more knowledgeable. 

Age Recommendation: Well.... it depends on the child. It does curse a few times (but let’s be honest the kids already know the words, the aim isn’t for them not to learn it but to know not to use it.) However there is a bit of a lengthy section on things I would not even want my 13 year old sister reading on 193-194 so I recommend you take their book, rip that page out and then they are all ready to go. They will never even miss it. I think there are great life lessons in this book though for a young teen age group like the importance of logging off and living offline and not getting wrapped up in trying to constantly escape the real world. It talks about how people should be judged by their personality not their appearance. If we could simply choose out skin color, gender, and appearance like an avatar, life would be easier but life doesn’t work that way so accept people the way they are. You may surprise yourself with who your closest friends up being. 

Spoiler- Free Review: 

Wade just really doesn’t like his lot in life, whether that be in the real world when he’d rather be in a video game or that he is in the 2040s when he’d rather be born in the the 80s, or at the least before the Global Energy Crisis. Though he doesn’t mind living in OASIS soaking up the endless knowledge. The vast source of all books, movies, art, history, videogames, and, most importantly, information on James Halliday. OASIS is like the internet but with VR glasses only 10x more detailed, advanced, and infinite. Wade doesn’t even go to a real school he goes through the virtual reality of OASIS. “In OASIS, you could become whomever and whatever you wanted to be, without ever revealing your true identity, because your anonymity was guaranteed.” (pg 57) When James Halliday, inventor of OASIS, dies and leaves his fortune (240 billion dollars) to the first player to find the three keys hidden within his own video game, the world goes crazy in pursuit. Though after numerous years no one had found a single key, until Wade. That’s how the story begins. 

I loved that Cline’s writing encourages readers who know nothing about the 80s or video games to read this book. That has been a massive concern for people before they pick up this book, that they won’t understand the references. To be honest, there were many hidden “eggs” in the text that I saw that I knew were references that I just didn’t understand. (Which was still cool and I enjoyed looking them up and learning more.) However, all of the big, important references he explains in the book and he doesn’t make you feel stupid for not knowing but explains it clearly for those of us who aren’t experts. I genuinely feel more intelligent by reading this book and now know a lot more about pop culture in the 80s. Who knows this all may come in handy on Trivia Night? I highly recommend this book for a fun, nostalgic read. 

SPOILER Review / Book Discussion: 

Isn’t it scary how possible this all could be? With virtual reality continually advancing (in real life) how much longer will it take until people go to school in virtual reality like Wade or before the internet takes on this new form?

Though obviously in Wade’s world as technology has advanced his real world has been given up on. The stacks, while a great concept and super cool looking on the front cover, are atrocious living conditions. Though I must give Wade kutos on his battery powered heater and computer but really just his van in general. It makes me want to make my own Bat Cave inside a van. This was when I knew what his advantage would be in this game, he was a self-teacher, self-motivator, and dedicated his whole life to the hunt. 

One of my favorite parts about Cline’s writing was how it was constantly breaking stereotypes and speaking about important topics. I really appreciated the backstory that he gave Halliday. Especially how even though he wasn’t good at school he became a multi-billionaire. I am so tired of the assumption that being good at school has a direct correlation with future success. So many people who have changed the world never went to college, dropped out, or did poorly in high school. Another thing that I loved was the fact that this whole story wouldn’t have happened if Ogden Marrow (Og) wouldn’t have walked over to Halliday when he was sitting alone and invited him to play Dungeons and Dragons. It reminds me how much can change by a simple act of kindness and stepping out of your comfort zone to talk to new people. This whole story wouldn’t have happened, their world may have been drastically different if it wasn’t for Og’s invite. My favorite part though was how he had Asperger’s autism because my older brother has it as well and I could see the connections. Halliday’s lack of desire to express social skills, inability to step into other people’s shoes, and his few unhealthy obsessions were the most common traits. However I wish he wouldn’t have made the connections between Halliday’s crazy side and his Aspergers because that gives a bad name to this type of autism. (I mean you can’t win every battle right?)

One thing that really bothered my is how indifferent Wade was to risking everyone’s lives in the Stacks during his meeting with IOI. Once he realized he wasn’t actually gambling his own life because he wasn’t at home then it didn’t bother him anymore. He was willing to risk that. I understand that his aunt was cruel to him and that there were thieves and rapists roaming around the stacks but that’s not a good enough excuse as to why his conscious was clear about all those people he played a part in murdering. He said that there were no survivors. I understand that his other option was be enslaved to IOI but he is very smart, he could have figured out an alternative where hundreds of uninvolved people don’t die. (pg 146)

I personally love when authors put deep meaning into characters, places, animals and other things’ names. I loved that Art3mis was the greek god of the hunt and that Wade was Parzival. “On the day the Hunt began, the day I’d decided to become a gunter, I’d renamed my avatar Parzival, after the knight of Arthurian legend who had found the Holy Grail.” (pg 28) I love when author’s twist different stories together like that and give character’s deeply meaningful names. Like Alaska in John Green’s Looking for Alaska, or Katniss from The Hunger Games whose name is from a plant that is latin for archer. I prefer a bit more meaning than when Rainbow Rowell named the twins in Fangirl Cath and Wren because the mother didn’t know she was going to have twins so she split up the name Catherine. Though I do apprecaite it more than when authors just randomly name thier characters. (Also, Darth Vader’s name is literally Dark Father in Dutch so his name is a spoiler in itself.) I applaud Cline for his good choice in names. 

The first task was where players went into the Tomb of Horrors from Dungeons & Dragons to play Joust against Acereak. It was amusing to me but as someone who doesn’t know the first thing about Dungeons and Dragons the references were lost on me. However this line really stuck me as funny..... “It suddenly occurred to me just how absurd this scene was: a guy wearing a suit of armor, standing next to an undead king, both hunched over controls of a classic arcade game.” (pg 82) The whole time after he met Acererak I just imagined him going from his scary, glowing eyes to his best friend playing a video game and them fist bumping each other. Like I genuinely wanted them to become friends. Haha.

The first gate was where players played Dungeons of Daggorath to open the gate where they had to say and act all the lines of the character David Lightman in the film WarGames. This was my favorite task / gate he had to do and I wish I had my own version for The Hunger Games where I could be Katniss. Anyone else agree? They called them “Fliksyncs” (112) and I genuinely think if they make something like it in real life, it could be my favorite invention of all time. You would get to walk, talk, and live the life of your favorite character, your heroes, or be 1/2 of your favorite OTPs. ( I would gladly be Clary to play besides Jace from The Mortal Instruments... just putting it out there.)

A really important message that spread throughout the span of the book was that the internet (OASIS in RPO’s case) can take over our lives. ”It had become a self-imposed prison for humanity,” he wrote, “A pleasant place for the world to hide from its problems while human civilization slowly collapses, primarily due to neglect.” (pg 120) How much truer does that get?? Than once Wade won the egg even Halliday admitted that that was one of his biggest regrets, not logging off and living life the way it was meant to be, truly using your senses and awakening your body instead of constantly trying to mute it and hide yourself.  “I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be. it is also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?” (pg 364) I think that is something people across the globe can relate to. We could all use a lesson in learning when to turn off our screens and fully engage in the world around us. 

Another really important message was during that OH MY GOSH! AECH REVEAL!.... which at first I felt like it changed everything but that’s the whole point, it didn’t change anything. She was still the same person she had always been. We see what we want to see in a person when we make assumptions about them from what they look like. It’s just a genuine reminder of how the lines between gender are so fluid and it doesn’t matter what you are born but how you act. I’m not even referencing transgender specifically but just boys being free to like pink and girls feeling free to be obsessed with Star Wars and video games. Though there was another lesson in this which was how she chose to be a white, male avatar, because her mother told her it would help her get treated better, even in the virtual world.  “In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie has used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.” (pg 320) Why is this so painfully true?? I really loved what Wade said after he found out,  “We’d connected on a purely mental level. I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation.” (pg 321) Though I will admit I am glad that Cline made Ache a lesbian because I was worried she was going to confess her love to him and then Wade would have to choose.... and there just wasn’t enough pages left in the book for all that drama. Plus I really love when books allow guys and girls to just be friends without every liking each other romantically. 

The final thing, that I wouldn’t dream of ending this review/discussion without talking about is... Art3mis. Can we talk about how she started out such a strong character who was a fighter, independent blogger and full time badass who knows exactly how she plans on saving the world with the prize money from the egg. But then as time goes on she transforms more into a love interest than a fierce competitor. I think she sees this as well which is why she leaves him to focus on the competition. Though at the very end when she finally meets Wade in person she does that thing that Reese Witherspoon talks about in her Woman of the Year speech. Where Art3mis, the female,  turns to Wade, the male, and pretty much says, what do we do now? This is a phrase Reese says she hates reading the most and is usually written by scripts with no female involved in the writing.  She says “Now you do you know any woman in any crisis situation.. who has absolutely no idea what to do?” Reese made a good point in saying that it’s top woman stop playing the damsel in distress because we so rarely are. Art3mis went from this total badass who could carry her own to a self conscious, love interest. However, I am so glad that Art3mis gave up Wade for the hunt in some ways because if she would have given up her passions and her life long goal for a boy, I would have been more insulted. Personally, I just really like strong, female leads and am getting tired of women being accessories to males. I’m also tired of the never ending line of self conscious characters (both female and male) who find their self worth and beauty once their romantic interests informs them that it exists. So thank you to characters like Celaena Sardothien, Alaska Young, and Margo Roth Spiegelman for showing the world that it’s cool to love yourself and know you are amazing. Though I was still rooting for Art3metis because of her strong will and good intentions for the prize. 

In the end everything seemed to fall perfectly in place which made me so happy. No loose threads and a beautiful, sappy, happy ever after. The character development for Wade was so great and I felt happy walking away from this book knowing that things were going well for him. 

Favorite Quotes: 

1.) How the protagonist, Wade, feels about video games is how I feel about books...

"Playing old video games never failed to clear my mind and set me at ease. If I was feeling depressed or frustrated about my lot in life, all I had to do was tap the Player One button, and my worries would instantly slip away as my mind focused itself on the relentless pixelated onslaught on the screen in front of me. There, inside the game's two-dimensional universe, life was simple" (pg 14)

2.) Me when I get into a good book series....

“I was obsessed. I wouldn’t quit. My grades suffered. I didn’t care.”  (pg 63)

3.)  “Spending time with her was intoxicating. We seemed to have everything in common. We shared the same interests. We were driven by the same goal. She got all my jokes. She made me laugh. She made me think. She changed the way I saw the world. I’d never had such a powerful, immediate connection with another human being before. Not even with Aech.” (pg 174) 

4.) “I was watching a collection of vintage ‘80′s commercials when I paused to wonder why cereal manufacturers no longer included toy prizes inside every box. It was a tragedy, in my opinion. Another sign that civilization was going straight down the tubes.” (pg 176)

5.)  “And then one night, like a complete idiot, I told her how I felt.” (pg 179)

6.) “No one in the world ever gets what they want and that’s beautiful.” (pg 199)  

7.) “I stood outside her palace gates for two solid hours, with a boombox over my head, blasting “In Your Eyes” by Peter gabriel at full volume.” (pg 203)

8.) “Art3mis had led me to believe that she was somehow hideous but now I saw that nothing could have been further from the truth. To my eyes, the birthmark did absolutely nothing to diminish her beauty. If anything, the face I saw in the photo seemed even more beautiful to me than that of her avatar, because I knew it was this one was real.” (pg 292)

9.)  “In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie has used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.” (pg 320)

10.)  “We’d connected on a purely mental level. I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation. (pg 321)

Discussion Questions: 

1.) Would you apply for the virtual OASIS education like Wade?

When Wade talks about his classes and how he is able to travel through a human heart, visit the Louvre, Jupiter’s moons and more it makes me think that our education system could be so much better with this technology. For one, he discusses how discipline isn’t a problem, how Wade can mute out bullies, and how even the teachers liked the system so much more. It gives students the ability to do things like Wade did and go to chat rooms with his friends in his free time and hang out with people he likes and avoid / mute the ones he doesn’t. I think there are major problems like affordability and the fact that you miss out on real human interaction that scientists have proven is needed for a healthy mind, body, and soul. 

2.) If you were a gunter, would you join a clan or stay solo? 

In the end I think that part of the lesson Holliday was trying to teach is that you need other people to succeed. You need help and can’t do everything on your own. Why else would he have made the door only open with three keys?

3.) If you were Wade would you sell out to sponsors, movie and book people, and the Suxors? or would you risk it all on the chance of being the first to find the egg?

4.)  What movie would you want to enter into like Wade did for the first gate for a “Syncflik”? Could you complete the dialogue for a whole movie?

5.) Did they fake drink at the bar at Og’s party because they hadn’t ever been able to eat or drink inside the OASIS before? 

6.) Has social media become obsolete in their world or is the avatar practically their form of social media? Or instead of trying to impress people with how they went to the beach or the expensive Louis Vuittons they just bought, do they put their energy into impressing through their OASIS accounts?

7.) Doesn’t IOI trying to capitalize on OASIS sound a lot like the government trying to end net neutrality? I think this whole story is a lot more realistic than most of us would like to admit to ourselves. (pg 33)

Movie Trailer: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSp1dM2Vj48 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Scj3wiIcSu0&t=115s

I really hope they keep the Rocky Horror Show scene (pg 179) in the movie because I want to see them have fun and be laid back together. Plus it would be really funny. It was super entertaining in Perks of Being A Wallflower when Charlie has to be in the show. Also, I saw the zero gravity dance floor and the revamped Delorean in the movie trailer and can’t wait to see more of that. (pg 182)

The only thing that would make me immediately hate this movie is if they don’t give Art3mis her birthmark and so far in the trailer I noticed that they have only distinctly shown one side of her face but in the clip where she is sitting in a chair across from Wade you can see most of her face and I didn’t see any scar. What a missed opportunity? Unless they are having her cover it in the first half of the movie with makeup or something. The greatest parts of this book were the lessons learned and I think him meaning that he would love her no matter what she looked like in person because he loved who she was is a crucial part of the story and the birthmark plays a large role in that. It was an opportunity to give people who had similar situations like birthmarks have someone that looked like them in a movie to relate to. I think it really could have been something special. 

The other thing that is a bit of a turn off is the body form they gave Ache in the movie because it means that she won’t be able to have that moment talking about how she chose a white, male avatar because of how she felt at a disadvantage as a African American woman and wanted her avatar to be able to escape that. Also the actress they cast is thin so it is another missed opportunity. 

Also the choice of the song from Willy Wonka “Pure Imagination” was genius for the trailer. It was beyond perfect!

Side Note:

Also, if you would like to watch part 2 of this book... it’s called WALL-E. There are different characters but it is definitely what Wade’s planet earth is going to look like very soon. They were all absorbed in the internet and forgot about real life and how to make connections, just like this book. I mean Wade even notices his weight gain from being overly absorbed into the game. (pg 196)

[beatrice-babe]

Shakespeare Asks!

Okay, so about eight billion years ago I reblogged a Shakespeare ask thing, got people asking me the questions, and promptly proceeded to never respond. @accio-spaceman and @neverending-shenanigans, I’m finally answering!

1. The first production you ever saw - Ever? Idk, probably The Lion King (the Disney movie), if we’re counting that as close enough. Actual Shakespeare? Probably either David Tennant’s version of Hamlet or David Tennant and Catherine Tate’s version of Much Ado About Nothing

2. A line that gets stuck in your head - I mean, I have ‘doubt thou that the stars are fire/doubt thou that the sun doth move/doubt truth to be a liar/but never doubt that I love’ painted on my wall, so I guess that probably counts, right?

3. A production you’d fantasize about directing - Midsummer Night’s Dream. I feel like the way it is normally done isn’t in a way I can appreciate. So often the characters just come on stage, say something funny, and leave. I want to do a version that has a little more characterization. Plus, that lack of characterization gives me space to create within the established framework without stepping on academic toes

4. A character you’d fantasize about playing - Beatrice! She’s my favorite (see my username, not even kidding)

5. A character you’d fantasize about dating - No one? I’m just bad at wanting to date in general. But like, friend date? Get food and hang out as super good friends? Beatrice and Benedick from MAAN (maaaaybe Don Pedro as well)

6. A character you would fight - Claudio from Much Ado About Nothing

7. A Shakespearean scholar, actor, or director you would fight - Kenneth Branagh. Meet me in the damn pit, asshole

8. The play you’ve never seen performed that you most want to (alternately: the play you’ve never seen performed well that you most want to) - Midsummer Night’s Dream. See my previous issue with the way it is done for more information

9. The historical production you’d most want to see live - Um...none? I’ve only read a couple of the histories and none of them really stuck as far as plot goes

10. Your favorite film version - Can we call 10 Things I Hate About You a film version? If not, then the David Tennant and Catherine Tate version of MAAN (I’ve seen the video of it)

11. Your least favorite film version - Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing. The way he approached the characters rubbed me wrong, and also this thing where he needs to play the main character every time is a little annoying. And while I haven’t seen it, I feel like I’d be against his Hamlet version as well (unpopular opinion right there)

12. A dreamcast for stage or screen - Meryl Streep as Lady Macbeth. I haven’t thought it through so much, but I feel like after seeing her in The Devil Wears Prada she could kill it

13. An underrepresented/underrated character - Don Pedro

14. An underperformed/underrated play - Pericles. I read it in class a while ago and I seem to remember really enjoying it and I never hear about it

15. A minor character whose story you want to know more about - Don Pedro

16. A line you quote too much in casual conversation  - Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

17. The scene that consistently makes you laugh out loud or the scene that makes you cry - When I saw MAAN at the Globe, I was definitely crying at Hero’s “wedding”

18. The question you’d ask William Shakespeare if you were drinking in a pub - How many of these plays did you write because you just DEEPLY needed to tell the story, and how many did you write because you needed that sweet sweet money

[sage-nebula]

The more times I rewatch The Office, the more I realize just how absolutely unacceptable Andy’s entitlement and behavior was toward the end of season eight / into season nine, re: his management position and his treatment of Nellie.

Most viewers take Andy’s side during the Nellie fiasco, and I can understand why to an extent. Andy is a character we’ve known since season three; although he’s quite possibly the least consistently written character on the show (they fumbled him a lot because they were trying to make him Michael 2.0, but that really didn’t work, and is a discussion for another time), he’s still one that viewers were familiar with and, quite possibly, liked. By contrast, Nellie was brand new, and so when it seemed that she was “stealing” the job from Andy, it makes sense that people would be upset with her, particularly since Jim (one of the most well-liked characters on the show) was against this (as Dwight and the other office workers, at first).

However, upon a re-watch . . . honestly, I would argue that Nellie did nothing wrong, and here’s why:

For those who don’t remember, Nellie briefly took over as regional manager of the Dunder-Mifflin Scranton branch when Andy, upon impulsively realizing that he “loved” Erin, decided to drive down to Tallahassee to get her after she told him that she planned to stay there. (I say “loved” because Andy had been treating her pretty poorly for a while before that point, and had a girlfriend that he had thought about proposing to. Andy, much like Ryan with Kelly, only decided that he wanted Erin when she took control of her own life and he realized he couldn’t have her. That’s not love. Aside from which, they only dated for three weeks before breaking up the first time, and---not the point.) That’s all well and good, but the thing is that Andy didn’t tell anyone that’s what he was doing. He didn’t tell any of his coworkers, nor did he tell his boss, Robert California. Instead, he just up and left. And yes, that’s a ~grand romantic gesture~ or whatever else you want to call it, and Andy (always the thespian) was swept up in the moment, but when you have a full-time job, you can’t do that. What Andy did is called a No Call, No Show, and it’s not acceptable regardless of your pay grade or position. What makes it even more ridiculous (and even worse) is that, as a full-time regional manager, there is no doubt in my mind that Andy had some paid vacation time. He has personal days. Had he called in ahead of time to tell Robert that he needed to take a personal day (say it’s a family emergency, say whatever), then his job would have been secure. Even with Nellie swooping in to “fill the vacancy,” there wouldn’t have been a vacancy to fill because Andy would have his job on lock. Yeah, he told Robert a lie later about being sick, after Robert and Jim hounded him via phone, but that isn’t the same as formally calling in to take a sick day, and it certainly isn’t the same as a personal day. Andy was blowing off work, and Robert knew it. Andy decided not to come in, and Nellie did.

And that’s the thing.

Andy basically forfeited his own job by showing that he cared so little about it that he would blatantly blow it off for several days to drive down to Florida to win back his girlfriend. The old woman that Erin was staying with even pointed out that Andy was acting in a way that could likely end in his termination. And it would have. Andy, showing an astounding (but altogether not unsurprising) lack of sense, had pledged to stay there until Erin took him back. He didn’t care about his job. And that’s fine---he can value his girlfriend over his job, whatever. It’s sweet, I guess. But if he doesn’t care about his job, then he has no right to throw tantrums when he comes back to see that his position has been filled by another. Scranton needed a regional manager (more or less), and Andy never took an approved leave of absence, as is proper protocol. Therefore, in all honesty, Robert could have terminated him and told him to get out the second he walked back in, and Andy wouldn’t have had any room to complain. That Robert still tried to negotiate a bit with Nellie actually shows an astounding amount of understanding (coming from him), even if he did eventually side with Nellie when she refused to leave and Andy once again grew violent in the office. (Which, really, did anyone tell David Wallace about that? Because if I worked in the office, I would have. I wouldn’t feel safe putting him back in the manager’s chair.)

Yes, the way Nellie got the job was unconventional, absolutely. But it worked (and is believable) because Robert California was CEO. And even setting that aside, even if Nellie wasn’t hired, that doesn’t mean that Andy should have been able to fuck off for several days without taking vacation time and waltz right back into his job. The fact that he was basically rewarded for doing that (by convincing Wallace to buy back the company and then getting himself reinstated as manager in the process) is no doubt what gives him the confidence to do it again in season nine, but this time for three months. And somehow, despite that, he’s still not fired! I know that Michael got away with some egregious things in his day, but nothing like that. And I’m not sorry for saying this, but Nellie actually being a responsible manager (tardiness aside) after earning the job unconventionally is not worse than that. It’s certainly not when she still showed Andy compassion during her stint as manager, but then he took every chance he could to verbally abuse her when he got the position back, because he’s so much of a petulant, selfish, greedy child that he can’t behave any differently.

I don’t have a source on this, but it’s my belief that the showrunners made Andy the manager once Michael left because they felt that he could be Michael 2.0. Out of everyone in the office, it would be easiest to use him to fill that role. But as much as I don’t hate seasons eight and nine the way most people do, I think that was a mistake. I think they should have gone with Nellie from the start. Nellie is a different type of manager from Michael, but that’s not a bad thing. Rather, I think it would be a good thing. Her different management style could lead to a lot of different storylines, as well as could give the characters someone new to bounce off of. At the very least, I actually rather enjoy her scenes / subplots on the show (her friendship with Pam, while still new and a bit odd, is adorable), and the fact that she’s played by the brilliant Catherine Tate certainly doesn’t hurt.

Anyway, it was wrong of Andy to keep the manager position after what he did, and to be honest, I’m on Nellie’s side with that whole issue. She should have been the manager from the start when Michael left, full stop.

[go-redgirl]

Regis Philbin, boisterous television personality, dies at 88 Lauren Wiseman  2 hrs ago

Regis Philbin, the boisterous television personality who gained a devoted following on his long-running morning show and helped reinvigorate the prime-time game show genre as host of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” died July 24 at 88.

The family confirmed the death in a statement released by a personal representative, Lewis Kay. Further details were not immediately available.

Mr. Philbin’s trademark blend of enthusiasm, quick wit and excitability made him a popular television host for more than six decades.

Initially a page on “The Tonight Show” hosted by Steve Allen, he became one of the most seasoned performers on live television. He was an actor, a singer and nightclub comedian before emerging to greater prominence in the late ’60s as second-banana to entertainer Joey Bishop on an ABC late-night talk show that tried to challenge Johnny Carson’s ratings dominance on NBC.

Mr. Philbin spent many years hosting a morning show in Los Angeles before he returned to his native New York in 1983 to take over a failing morning show on the local ABC-TV outlet in New York. He had two short-lived female co-hosts before teaming with Kathie Lee Gifford in 1985.

Three years later, the program was nationally syndicated as “Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.” Mr. Philbin’s exclamatory, teasing, air-chopping personality played well against Gifford’s much-younger sex appeal and irreverence, and they thrived on small talk about news in the headlines and what Mr. Philbin called “the aggravations, the slights, the family stuff” in their own lives.

They conveyed the chemistry and appeal of a married couple comfortable with each other’s idiosyncrasies.

“I couldn’t decide if he was obnoxiously adorable or adorably obnoxious,” Gifford wrote in her memoir.

For his part, Mr. Philbin told The Washington Post: “She does get on my nerves once in a while, as I do hers. But what I hate is the hosts who are too civil, too nice to one another. I like to keep an edge between us. And if it looks like there’s an antagonistic thing, well, maybe there is.”

Each morning, the show would open with an unscripted “host-chat.” Mr. Philbin refused to talk with his co-host until they were seated in front of the live audience, enabling spontaneous, off-the-cuff conversation.

Part of the appeal was Mr. Philbin’s ability to make fun of his enthusiasms, particularly for his alma mater Notre Dame, and the fact that so much of the daytime competition was reveling in the tasteless and tabloid.

“That was the year of discontent on television,” Mr. Philbin told Entertainment Weekly about the start of his long run with Gifford. “Geraldo [Rivera] was breaking his nose, Phil [Donahue] was walking around in a dress, Sally [Jessy Raphael] was walking around with hookers, Oprah [Winfrey] was losing 65 pounds. And here we were talking about what we did last night! Who cared? But I knew that if they could just watch us two, three times in a row that we could hook our share of the audience. And we did.”

Washington Post television critic Tom Shales wrote in 1992: “Not racy, not freaky, not remotely tawdry, the syndicated daily hour of small talk and tomfoolery has become one of television’s least disheartening hits, and the reason it’s succeeded has everything to do with the wacky cranks at the heart of it.”

Gifford left the show in 2000 to pursue other interests, including a singing career. The show, renamed “Live With Regis,” continued for the first year with guest co-hosts, including Mr. Philbin’s second wife, the former Joy Senese. He teamed with a new partner, former soap opera actress Kelly Ripa, in 2001, and their show “Live! With Regis and Kelly” aired for a decade.

In 1999, Mr. Philbin began hosting the ABC prime-time show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?,” whose format was borrowed from a game show that had aired successfully in the United Kingdom.

The ABC show was initially given a two-week limited run, and it proved such a ratings winner that the network began broadcasting it three times a week. It was also widely considered instrumental in showing that unscripted programming could attract a broad audience for network TV.

Mr. Philbin had been a game show host earlier in his career and when he heard that “Millionaire” was going to be produced for American television, he enthusiastically lobbied to be its host. He appeared on the “Late Show With David Letterman” and proclaimed that if given the new hosting duties, “I am going to resurrect ABC!”

At the very least, he helped resuscitate the prime-time game show format. Following “Millionaire,” which Mr. Philbin hosted until 2002, the networks aired a slew of game shows including “Twenty-One,” “Weakest Link” and “Deal or No Deal.” Within a few years, the “reality” game show genre, which included popular hits such as “The Amazing Race,” solidified their place on network television.

In the New York Times, journalist Alex Witchel wrote in 1999 that “the X factor of ‘Millionaire’s’ success seems to be — besides the money, of course — that Mr. Philbin genuinely wants the contestants to win.”

Mr. Philbin’s experience was suited to carry the show in front of a live studio audience. His much-imitated catchphrase, “Is that your final answer?,” kept the show suspenseful and intriguing.

“I got lucky with this show,” he told the Times in 1999. “I thought I had climbed my mountain with the morning show. Big hit locally and nationally. And all of a sudden this ‘Millionaire’ show comes along and I’m pushed to another mountain peak. I really don’t dare ask anything more. This is it. What else can I want?”

Regis Francis Xavier Philbin was born in Manhattan on Aug. 25, 1931, and grew up in the Bronx. His father was a personnel director for Sperry Gyroscope, which manufactured navigation equipment.

He was named after Regis High School, a Jesuit school in New York that his father attended. He later quipped, “It’s not a great show business name, but Robert Redford was taken.”

He received a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1953 from the University of Notre Dame, then served two years in the Navy before launching a career in entertainment against the wishes of his parents. His early idols were singer Bing Crosby and broadcaster Jack Paar.

He held various jobs, initially with the help of an uncle who worked at CBS radio as a press agent. He spent much of his early career on the West Coast, where he showed promise as a TV personality on local news programs. He had a break in 1964 when Westinghouse Broadcasting hired him for a nationally syndicated late-night show.

It did not work out well, he later told Entertainment Weekly. “I get to Hollywood and find out I’m on a two-week tape delay!” he said. “What could I possibly talk about that would have relevance two weeks from now? I have to be live, and be able to relate something that has happened in my real life. I don’t know how to use writers. I remember being in a hotel suite in San Francisco before the show premiered and staying up until dawn, literally in shock and scared to death. I psychologically was not ready for it. So I failed miserably.”

In 1967, he won a job as announcer and sidekick on “The Joey Bishop Show,” where each night viewers would hear Mr. Philbin say, “And now — twinkle, twinkle, it’s time for Joey!”

But despite the national exposure, Mr. Philbin was unhappy. Often, he was belittled by Bishop and was the butt of on-air jokes. One night, he walked off the set in the middle of a live performance.

“There was talk that maybe it was me who was hurting the show,” Mr. Philbin told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Rather than hurt Joey’s chances for success — and I guess I was offended that they thought it was my fault — I decided to walk one night and see what happened. I simply said, ‘There’s been a lot of pressure on you. I know we’re starting out. I’ve heard some talk that maybe ABC is unhappy with me. You hired me. To get you off the hook — Love ya. Good luck, goodbye.’ ”

Letters from supportive fans immediately poured in and three days later, Mr. Philbin returned to the set. The show lasted until 1969 and often showcased Mr. Philbin as a singer. In 1968, he released his first recording, an album of pop songs called “It’s Time for Regis!”

Mr. Philbin’s first marriage, to Catherine “Kay” Faylen, ended in divorce. In 1970, he married Senese, who had been Bishop’s secretary. In addition to his wife, survivors include a daughter from his first marriage; and two daughters from his second marriage, Joanna and Jennifer. A son died in 2014.

After Bishop’s show ended, Mr. Philbin served as host of a succession of talk shows culminating in a six-year run on “A.M. Los Angeles.” He left the morning show in 1981 and soon reunited with one of his former colleagues, Cindy Garvey, on a consistently low-rated morning show on the ABC-TV outlet in New York.

Once Mr. Philbin took the helm, the ratings picked up. Garvey was later replaced by Ann Abernathy and then by Gifford.

As much as Mr. Philbin enjoyed household recognition, he tried to present himself in private as down-to-earth and approachable. In his 1995 autobiography, “I’m Only One Man!,” written with Bill Zehme, Mr. Philbin called himself a “cab guy.”

“Limousines just embarrass me,” he wrote. “Like anybody else, when I see a limo on the street, I wonder who’s riding in back. Whoever it is, I expect to be impressed. Whenever I’ve gotten talked into riding in a big sedan, I can’t help but think I’m going to let people down by stepping out of it. They want Madonna to be in that car. Or Donald Trump. Or Kathie Lee! I don’t want to be responsible for that kind of disappointment!”

Read more Washington Post obituaries

-----------------------------------------

OPINION:  May Regis rest in peace!

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY In 1893 London, popular writer Herbert George Wells displays a time machine to his skeptical dinner guests. After he explains how it works (including a “non-return key” that keeps the machine at the traveler’s destination and a “vaporizing equalizer” that keeps the traveler and machine on equal terms), police constables arrive at the house searching for Jack the Ripper. A bag with blood-stained gloves belonging to one of Herbert’s friends, a surgeon named John Leslie Stevenson, leads them to conclude that Stevenson might be the infamous killer. Wells races to his laboratory, but the time machine is gone.

Stevenson has escaped to the future, but because he does not have the “non-return” key, the machine automatically returns to 1893. Herbert uses it to pursue Stevenson to November 5, 1979, where the machine has ended up on display at a museum in San Francisco. He is deeply shocked by the future, having expected it to be an enlightened socialist utopia, only to find chaos in the form of airplanes, automobiles and a worldwide history of war, crime and bloodshed.

Reasoning that Stevenson would need to exchange his British money, Herbert asks about him at various banks. At the Chartered Bank of London, he meets liberated employee Amy Robbins, who says she had directed Stevenson to the Hyatt Regency hotel.

Confronted by his one-time friend Herbert, Stevenson confesses that he finds modern society to be pleasingly violent, stating: “Ninety years ago, I was a freak. Now… I’m an amateur.” Herbert demands he return to 1893 to face justice, but Stevenson instead attempts to wrestle the time machine’s key from him. Their struggle is interrupted by a maid and Stevenson flees, getting hit by a car during the frantic chase. Herbert follows him to the San Francisco General Hospital emergency room and mistakenly gets the impression that Stevenson has died from his injuries.   Herbert meets up with Amy Robbins again and she initiates a romance. Stevenson returns to the bank to exchange more money. Suspecting that it was Amy who had led Herbert to him, he finds out where she lives. Herbert, hoping to convince her of the truth, takes a highly skeptical Amy three days into the future. Once there, she is aghast to see a newspaper headline revealing her own murder as the Ripper’s fifth victim.

Herbert persuades her that they must go back – it is their duty to attempt to prevent the fourth victim’s murder, then prevent Amy’s. However, they are delayed upon their return to the present and can do no more than phone the police. Stevenson kills again, and Herbert is arrested because of his knowledge of the killing. Amy is left alone, totally defenseless, and at the mercy of the “San Francisco Ripper”.

While Herbert unsuccessfully tries to convince the police of Amy’s peril, she attempts to hide from Stevenson. When the police finally do investigate her apartment, they find the dismembered body of a woman. Now aware of Herbert’s innocence, the police release a now-heartbroken Wells. However, he is contacted by Stevenson, who has actually killed Amy’s coworker (revealed to be the dead body in Amy’s apartment) and taken Amy hostage in order to extort the time machine key from Wells.

Stevenson flees with the key – and Amy as insurance – to attempt a permanent escape in the time machine. Using Amy’s car, Herbert follows them back to the museum. While Herbert bargains for Amy’s life, she is able to escape. As Stevenson starts up the time machine, Herbert removes the “vaporizing equalizer” from it, causing Stevenson to vanish while the machine does not. As Herbert had explained earlier, this causes the machine to remain in place while its passenger is sent traveling endlessly through time with no way to stop; in effect, he is destroyed.

Herbert proclaims that the time has come to return to his own time, in order to destroy a machine that he now knows is too dangerous for primitive mankind. Amy pleads with him to take her along. As they depart to the past, she jokes that she is changing her name to Susan B. Anthony. The film ends with the caption: “H.G. Wells married Amy Catherine Robbins, who died in 1927. As a writer, he anticipated Socialism, global war, space travel, and Women’s Liberation. He died in 1946.”

DEVELOPMENT Meyer first came to fame in 1974 for his best-selling Sherlock Holmes novel, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. Two years later, he adapted his book for the Herbert Ross-directed film and earned an Oscar nomination for his screenplay. When the book was published, Meyer heard from a lot of people including Karl Alexander, whom he knew from his days at the University of Iowa. Alexander had started a book inspired by The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and wanted Meyer to read the 65 pages he had written revolving around Wells and Jack the Ripper time traveling.

Meyer loved the idea of H.G. Wells creating a real time machine and having Jack the Ripper and Wells using it. “That was back in the days when I had time to read other people’s stuff,” Meyer recalls. “I was fascinated by it. I had some thoughts. I gave him some notes about it. I thought I was putting it out of my mind and then realized as days and then weeks were going by, that it was an idea I really couldn’t let go.”

And he had one of this middle of the night brainstorms telling himself, “You’re an idiot! Why don’t you just option what he wrote?” Meyer gave Alexander the completed script and the novelist utilized the script to complete his novel Time After Time, which was published in April 1979. Meyer hooked up with producer Herb Jaffe. “When Universal had optioned The Seven-Per-Cent Solution book, they optioned it on condition that I write the screenplay,” Meyer says. “I just took the same idea and stepped it up one and said, ‘Yes, you can have the screenplay, but I have to direct the movie. Orion and Warner Bros. said yes more or less on the same day. They teamed up and split it, with Warner Bros. getting to distribute.”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

PRODUCTION Malcolm McDowell wasn’t Meyer’s first choice for Time After Time. He originally envisioning British actor Derek Jacobi — who was then enjoying acclaim for the British series I, Claudius — as the charming, bespectacled Wells. “I was looking for a non-muscle-bound, spandex-clad hero,” says Meyer, who made his feature directorial debut with Time After Time. “I was looking for somebody who was cerebrally endowed,” Meyer adds. “I wasn’t looking for a macho guy. I was willing to cast against type if I could. We now think of I, Claudius as a classic. But when I brought it up to Warner Bros., nobody had seen it. Nobody knew who he was.” It was one of his 3 a.m. brainstorms that led him to McDowell. “I remember sitting bolt upright [and thinking,] ‘Now, that’s a weird notion.'”

“When I raised the idea of him with Warner Bros., they said they knew who he was, but he always played the villain. I said, ‘Well, that’s what’s going to be so interesting. This is called acting. This time, he’ll play the hero.”’

Warner Bros. also was pushing for Mick Jagger to play Jack the Ripper. “I thought no one would lose themselves in the movie if Jagger were cast,” says Meyer. “We’d be watching Mick Jagger, not the Ripper.”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

McDowell was attracted to the material because he was looking for something different than the sex and violence in Caligula, in which he played the title character. While preparing to portray Wells, Malcolm McDowell obtained a copy of a 78 rpm recording of Wells speaking. McDowell was “absolutely horrified” to hear that Wells spoke in a high-pitched, squeaky voice with a pronounced Southeast London accent, which McDowell felt would have resulted in unintentional humor if he tried to mimic it for the film. McDowell abandoned any attempt to recreate Wells’s authentic speaking style and preferred a more dignified speaking style.

The cast all gave high marks to Meyer as a director. “I remember him saying — he did it in front of the whole crew — ‘Listen, you all know I haven’t directed a movie before,'” recalls David Warner. “‘So you know more about making movies than I do. I love movies. If there’s any suggestions or anything you see me doing that you think isn’t quite right, please tell me. Don’t be afraid to tell me.’ I really liked him for that. I really respected him. He didn’t pretend he knew everything, which is a very good quality, I think.”

H.G. Wells walks by a TV store. All you have to do is show television. It parodies itself All I had to do was light it and photograph it right.” H.G. Wells has stopped at a McDonalds to try to get some lunch. He watches the man ahead of him in line, a truck driver type, and listens as the man orders: Truck driver: “Gimme a Big Mac, an order of fries, and a small Coke to go, please.” Wells, imitating the trucker, orders next: “Gimme a Big Mac, an order of fries, an ” he finishes in his native clipped British: and tea, please.”

Time After Time really operates on five levels,” says Meyer. “It’s science fiction. It’s a thriller homicidal maniac being chased by a man of reason. It’s a romance Wells falls in love with a bank teller, and she’s the ultimate quarry of Jack the Ripper. It’s a comedy. And it’s an ironic social comment Wells decides he’s gone backward as much as he’s gone forward.

“The film’s jaundiced view is apolitical, H.G. finally says at the end, ‘Every age is the same. It’s only love that makes any of them bearable.”

“I hope I don’t sound pretentious or pompous when I say that our aims are somewhat more serious than the aims of most science fiction movies. More serious than what? Star Wars, for instance?

“No, no, Star Wars has a serious intent beyond its fireworks. It sought to recreate a mythology, of sorts. To me, Star Wars was King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table set in outer space. It worked, and it’s what makes that film so enchanting.

“Close Encounters also has a serious purpose, a very romantic idea that we are not alone.

“While I enjoyed Superman, I don’t think there was any real thematic purpose there. They flirted a little with the idea of Superman as Jesus Christ, but that was always there in the comic book.

“All three of those movies were finally and fundamentally supposed to reassure you. They all have positive, romantic themes Time After Time isn’t exactly a reaffirmation, but it does say that, well, that the Victorian era was as horrendous in its own way as this-” He gestures toward the editing screen where there’s a midtown San Francisco traffic jam. Meyer says to Donn Cambern, “Now I want this very noisy. We live in a noisy age.” – Nicholas Meyer

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Early Prototype Model

Finished Result

Richard Taylor, lately associated with Star Trek: The Motion Picture is in charge of those mysterious time-travel effects. This is the first time I’ve ever directed a movie, and believe me, I went for the easiest thing to do. I didn’t want to bite off a lot of miniatures, opticals, Special effects and so on.” The only effects portions of Time After Time are the passages through time, which Taylor has committed to film in self-contained scenes which were inserted bodily into Meyer’s live-action work. “If the film addresses itself to the science fiction community–if there is such a thing as a science-fiction community it will do so on a unique basis. The only film this bears even remote resemblance tots a film called Alphaville, which did influence me some. Time After Time does not present, fundamentally, a very optimistic look at today.

MUSIC SCORE Meyer got the legendary three-time Oscar winner (Ben-Hur, A Double Life, Spellbound) Miklos Rozsa to compose the lush, evocative score and dusted off the classic Max Steiner-penned “Fanfare” to play over the Warner Bros. logo.

“I thought to myself, ‘This movie should have a musical accompaniment that reflects the personality of the protagonist,'” recalls Meyer. “The protagonist is a 19th century person. So, I was thinking, obviously, not of a rock and roll score. When I started to think about composers who would fill the bill, I was also looking for someone who had a gift for the fantastic. I loved the Rozsa score for The Thief of Bagdad and thought, ‘Yeah, this might be a winning combination.'”

But his glorious score was almost scrapped. “By the time it came toward preview time and mixing the movie, we had heard that Warner Bros. didn’t like the film. They didn’t believe in the film. And one other thing we kept hearing was that they wanted Bill Conti (Rocky, The Right Stuff) to write another score for it.”  

Meyer told Jaffe that they should take an ad out in the Hollywood trade papers to announce how much they loved Rosza’s score. “Why don’t we write Mickey a letter telling him how great his score is and then publish the letter? Herb Jaffe’s comment was ‘You’re learning.’ We published the letter and then they really couldn’t take the score away.”

It was one of the last films scored by veteran composer Miklós Rózsa, who received the 1979 Saturn Award for Best Music.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

RELEASE/CONCLUSION Despite the preview response and generally getting positive reviews — THR critic and columnist Robert Osborne wrote at the time that “such a scrambling of fact, fiction and imagination in itself deserves back-patting and, for the most part, the rendering is as delightful as the basic idea” — audiences didn’t storm the theaters. The film made only $13 million at the box office (about $45 million today).

“If they were an under confident before the screening, they became overconfident after the screening,” says Meyer. “They suddenly decided to open the movie really, really wide. They didn’t have the stars that would support that, and they weren’t giving it time for word of mouth to build. It was a success, it just wasn’t a huge success.”

McDowell believes the box office suffered at the time because advertising played up the Jack the Ripper storyline and not the love story. Earlier that year the grisly Holmes and Watson mystery thriller Murder by Decree had a Ripper plotline. “Our movie came out on the tail end of that, and nobody went to see that,” he speculates.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Time After Time (1979) Pressbook & Posters

CAST/CREW Directed by Nicholas Meyer Produced by Herb Jaffe Screenplay by Nicholas Meyer Story by Steve Hayes Based on Time After Time 1979 novel by Karl Alexander

Malcolm McDowell as Herbert George Wells David Warner as John Leslie Stevenson/Jack the Ripper Mary Steenburgen as Amy Robbins Charles Cioffi as Police Lt. Mitchell Kent Williams as assistant Patti D’Arbanville as Shirley Joseph Maher as Adams

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY hollywoodreporter Starburst#060 Cinefantastique v08n01 Starlog#031

Time After Time (1979) Retrospective SUMMARY In 1893 London, popular writer Herbert George Wells displays a time machine to his skeptical dinner guests.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Y2K, Head lice, Britney Spears, Alcoholic’s Anonymous and other things that happened to me..

It was around this time that I got head-lice for the first time. Which was a pain in neck, as I am sure anyone who has been unfortunate enough to be blessed with the little fellows can tell you. I begged my father not to make me have to cut my hair off and it was a tough sell. I had to keep washing my hair with this weird shampoo. And I guess we got rid of it for a year, but then it came back. And I ended up giving it to Sarah. I think eventually they left. I've been checked several times, and there is no itching at all. If they for some crazy reason stuck around, all of them would be long dead for the amount of times I bleached my hair when I was fifteen. I had so much bleach going onto my head, it's a wonder I am alive to tell about it.

It was a huge relief to have Sarah-Mae as a friend. I felt enclosed and safe from complete ostracization. I finally had a place in the female social order now and cursed Catherine was out of my hair – burned in my stead, but with that sureness was the unspoken understanding that I was to be the welcome mat and the whipping boy. It would be a far cry to call me a peer. The benefit that I gave to the group was to make the other girls feel better about themselves. Whenever anyone felt like it at the lunch table, they could explain to me how and why I was ugly or annoying. I was not to think of myself as an equal by any means to Samantha or Sarah-Mae. Privately, Sarah-Mae's really cherished my friendship. We talked a lot and were very close. She really liked me. But in public, when we weren't drawing or watching reruns of Full House, she felt compelled to shame me in public, make sure I knew that I was ugly and stupid and make sure the popular girls knew that too.  And Samantha absolutely saw no use for me in the girl group whatsoever. She openly said she could not stand me when people asked her why she kept me around. So long were the days when we were sweet little kindergarten girls sharing cookies and pretending to be penguins. I was a pain in her backside.

I withstood many years of this. It wasn't good for my self esteem to be the at the bottom of the stack. It hurt my self esteem in ways that took years to get over. I spent countless nights hating everything about me and wishing I were dead feeling ugly and worthless, and having a puffy face from secretly crying in the bathroom stalls. But I eventually learned the power that can be held by being at the bottom. And mark my words, there is a power in being the servant, the slave, the black sheep, the loser, the mousy forgettable beta. You see a side to your superiors that they themselves don't have the angle to really grasp as the egotistically assume they are impervious. You secretly get stronger than them, but you don't let them know that at first. And if you are strong and lucky, and fight past the despair, you learn who you really are, and you learn to be your own best friend, and if you are cunning when you do strike back strategically, it brings down the entire established order. And this all comes from learning how to be humble and seemingly docile.

That of course had not dawned on me at eleven or twelve though. It would take many more years of repeated ridicule at school, neglect and abuse from my parents before they finally broke me and I learned how to manipulate and command my situation. You have to hit that place where nothing could be any worse. And if it doesn't destroy or break you, it bends you and you become a weapon. Not that I have never been a victim. It still happens. I am still learning. I have been taken advantage of, a lot – and I have let it happen more than once, though I try to learn from my situations and I try to reflect on my experiences with a degree of reflection and acceptance and even appreciation. There have been many situations where I had no good options too, where my position gave me no benefits. I think there is a strength and weakness at every level one finds oneself in, but there are times when you are in a pit surrounded by bows and arrows, and there is no flying out of these situations. Also, I do realize that there are people in this world that are far more cut throat than me. There are lengths to getting one's way in the world that I either am too weak and comfortable to resort to, or too idealistic and humanitarian minded to really venture into. Some tunnels are too dark even for the likes of me.

My father found me crying one day, and surprisingly he did not respond with frustration or fury. I don't understand why, but he seemed shocked and horrified that I was so upset. When he asked me what was wrong, I told him that there was no point to being alive. Why this shocked him I have no idea, since he brought me to tears often enough to not be surprised by how I wore my misery. So he took me to the doctor. This doctor was a real creep. He assessed that I had depression – which he was right about. But he did so because he said I was too fat for my age, which he told me, and I didn't do anything nice with my hair. He asked what my grades were. And then he prescribed pills to me. I could just tell that he was a conceded prick. My dad then told me that he didn't think I was depressed and we never refilled the prescription.

Maria had her baby. She named her Jasmine. Jasmine had these light blue little eyes, and this golden hair. Going to my mother's place became extremely pleasant to me because I loved being around Jasmine all the time. In my mind, for all the times Maria had put me through hell, I considered Jasmine partially my own baby. I spent all my spare time playing with Jasmine. We grew very close. I shared all my food. I became her favorite person over the course of two years. She was a weird baby. Her first word was not mama, or baba. Her first word was MINE, and she seemed to enjoy watching movies more than she really liked people, though she was very attached to her mother and to me. She would sometimes stare at the wall for an hour straight at seemingly nothing. Word here and there was that she had mild autism perhaps, but nobody ever really took her to the doctors. Since Maria was working at KFC, she wanted Jasmine to be awake when she got off at 2:00am. I became Jasmine's babysitter, and it was my job to keep her awake till then. Because of this, Jasmine's internal clock is set for her to stay up very late at night to this day.

Roxanne was pregnant with her second baby, who ended up being her oldest son Alex. She had Alex, Issac, and Hailey with her first serious boyfriend Jody the boring lazy dunce. Throughout the next five years, she was either pregnant or on drugs. By the time she was eighteen, she had four kids.

My father got a DUI. He had been drinking excessively – I am guessing probably because of the stress of splitting his 4O1K money in half with my mom as part of the settlement of divorce. And it just upset him that he was getting a divorce. She took the 40,000 all at once and spent every dime on stupid stuff. God, I wish I had that money now. I have watched so many people waste tens of thousands of dollars on nothing. If I had that money, I would go to the doctors, I would go back to school. I would make decisions that would permanently improve my life and the lives of those around me. I would spend the money in a way that would hopefully ripple into the future and make the lives of people in the future better.

He managed to avoid losing his license. If he had lost his license, he would have lost his job. And in that case, he was afraid to the point of death that it would force me, Allison and David to live with my mother full time. Which would not have been good for our well being – but I think a part of his fear of that was also him having to concede to my mother in some way. He talked the judge into letting him keep his license, but he still had to pay the fine, and we had to start going to AA after school every other day. He would pack us all into the car and we would drive the forty miles into Lewiston where we would stay in a nursery like daycare area for three hours while my father went into his meetings. Because my dad yaks and yaks, I ended up learning everything about AA. I learned all the steps, and he told me about everyone's  lives that they opened up about as they went around the meeting.

I have nothing against AA. Normally, a lot of people who go simply go back to drinking once their probation is up or they have fulfilled their requirements, but if it helps one person permanently quit drinking, if it gives one little child a better life because their parents have cleaned up their act, than I really do support it. With that said, while I think some of the elements of AA are actually really healthy and reflective things people should do, the whole concept of a 'higher power' has never worked for me in the least. I don't see the rhyme or reason in embracing powerlessness and giving yourself up to that higher power. The whole program is very seeped in Christian rhetoric and I am not fully buying it. There are phrases that I actually agree with, and I can see the principle and reason for the steps that need to be taken, but I can read between the lines of AA's twelve steps to know it's kind of a self-deception game that hopefully sticks. I will never criticize it though to people who it is working for. If believing in that stuff really is making their lives better, I absolutely in no way want to tear them apart for it. If I ever had a drinking problem, I most likely would not be able to incorporate those steps into my life. And actually, there are other methods that people use to overcome addiction, that I feel don't get taken into consideration often enough.

The daycare system brought me into a group of other kids, some of them being my age. Some of them a little younger. All of our parents got busted. I don't remember all of them, only there were about ten of us, and a little baby. And somehow I became the leader of these kids over the course of the next year. Whenever I become the leader of a group of people, it has to be some kind of fluke. I am no leader. But when I am put in a leadership position, I always end up feeling this creeping feeling entering my ego immediately. It comes so intrinsically with power that there is nothing I can do to balance myself out that won't also make my followers dissipate with uncertainty. Suddenly everyone thinks I am funny and right after years of literally no recognition at all. I try to control it, but I instantly become corrupted by power. I have to find ways to balance myself out. I have gotten a little better, but I still don't entirely trust myself.

There was this boy named Michael who I almost had a crush on. I didn't, but I almost did. It was like a precrush. He had a little brother named Sky. I don't remember much about them other than their father robbed someone's house eventually and got arrested. Then they weren't there anymore. Which was a bummer. Michael and I were the group leaders.

We had two alternating babysitters, Veronica and Jennifer. They were both seniors in high school. Back in these days, high school senior girls were these elusive unicorn like beings full of wisdom, they always smelled good and had figured out what to do with their hair (though year book pictures time and time again demonstrate that this is indeed not the case). They were always catty in a mysterious way. A strange mixture of kind hearted and pretentious. It was hard to imagine that me, or any other girl my age would ever grow up to be one of these mystical creatures.

At first we all liked Veronica. She was far more chipper and made a better first impression. She was really into cheerleading. She liked to tell me all about her boyfriends. She openly talked in detail about her dumb teenager sex life. She was VERY confident her and Brad, Tyler, or whoever her quarterback boyfriend was were going to get married and move to Malibu. She always chewed gum. She told me that if I ever wanted a boyfriend, all I had to do was flip my hair a lot in class. She was really into Christina Aguilera. She didn't care what we did very much. She sometimes would spend her time on the phone if she could get away with it.

Then there was Jennifer. She was kind of boyish. She had short  blonde hair and glasses. The side of her face had a scar that she got from falling into a fire when she was a child. And she took her job a little more seriously. She didn't have a boyfriend. She mostly was concerned with getting into college. She let us know that she was not that popular in school. She didn't let me do whatever I wanted either. And she seemed to be more controlling over what we said and did. I didn't like her much at first. But over time, I grew to like her a lot more. She started talking to me and much like Veronica she gave me her own life advice. She told me about how she had been raped by a neighbor when she was a little girl, and she really wanted us to respect ourselves and not date dumb teenage boys who would take advantage of us. She was a very real person, and I grew to like her a lot better than Veronica.

Eventually Veronica tried to get me to talk shit about Jennifer. She started talking about how Jennifer was super ugly and no boys dated her. She made fun of the scar on the side of her face. I refused to participate, and decided then and there to become an informant to Jennifer. I assume things must have happened between them in the hallways of the giant people school because Jennifer said she was going to confront Veronica, who Jennifer informed me was not a nice person. There was a lot of tension after that, and Veronica started skipping her sessions. Eventually kids fell away, and after a year of this, I think they reduced the amount of times per week my father was required to go to these sessions. I missed Jennifer, who I am hoping went on and had a good life. Michael's father ended up going to jail, and so him and Sky left. I was happy to not have to eat those cold make-your-own-pizza lunchables, which, though the idea is intriguing, is actually awful in every sense of the word.

My fathers wanted to get in shape to kind of reestablish himself after the divorce, so he joined a gym. I used to go into the kids room, which was nothing more than a small closet-like room with a terribly small television always playing Dragon Ball Z (which ironically, I had no appreciation for till I was in my twenties). The whole room was covered in toys, and it was very difficult to get through the mess. In just about every gym, there is always a man who is screaming his head off like he is dying, trying to squeeze one more lift out of himself. I always found this extremely alarming. I would sit in there and watch over Allison and David to make sure they were not fighting. Which they seemed to do more and more of as they got older.

There was also a lady-friend that my father had made. To this day I could not decipher if they were dating or not. Asking him now, I am sure my father would have no clear answer either and honestly, I don't know if he actually knows. Her name was Denise. She was a waitress at Shari's. She was kind of a tough lady. She had raised 5 boys, one of them being the son of one of her cousins. They were all very wild, and she raised them all by herself. She was always pretty nice to me, and we would go over to see her at least once a week. Though I never saw my father and her kiss at all. I could not decipher the established relationship. They didn't sleep together or kiss, but if either one of them began to see someone else then they probably would have been angry.

Jimmy was the oldest – he eventually went crazy and became homeless, then Marques who was very popular among girls, he was one of those people who looks like they are wearing mascara and eyeliner but are not, Anthony who had a lot of friends who came and ate everything in the cupboard and generally no one in the family liked him but I never knew why, and finally Clayton, who was a truly monstrous little boy with missing teeth. It was very difficult to be around Clayton. He took things out of your hands, screamed, broke things. He was a little tyrant. I had to be in the same room with him a lot. It's also worthy of note that Denise had two iguanas that she was obsessed with. She called them her lovers. Her regard for them made them like her children, though it is questionable if they regarded her quite as favorably. My dad and Denise were in a relationship-not-relationship for almost two years. My father would often times complain to me about people, and as history repeated itself, I eventually complained openly about Clayton in front of Denise, basically repeating what my father had said and how he ruined one 4th of July at the beach in the car, with Denise in it. And it really upset her. She could not talk the rest of the way home. I was completely block-headed and had no idea I had said anything remotely offensive. She was furious, and my dad tried to say something to her, but she shushed him up. And this kind of ended their whatever-it-was. We visited a few more times, but eventually she told my father to buzz off.

The other friend my dad made that didn't make any real sense was a woman named Judy Burns. She was a married office lady at the factory my father worked at. She was extremely wealthy and lived in a part of town I had never known existed. She was a woman still dealing with a seriously traumatic event that happened just a few short years previous to my father and her's decision to hang out. Her twelve year old son had died of an asthma attack and she had not realized he was dying while he was in another room. So she came in and found her son dead and she carried enormous guilt with her. And this horrible situation had made her entire life fall apart even though it did not seem like it. She was extremely chipper and friendly. But she began eating to cope with the death of her son. She became obsessed with candy. I had never in my entire life seen so much candy. She had in her kitchen, hundreds of bags of candy. When she laughed, she had this twinkle in her eyes of pure sadness.

My dad went to Judy I think talking about the divorce. He could not stop talking about the divorce if someone had a gun to his head. She probably enjoyed the attention she got from my dad. After her son had died, her husband had completely disattached from her. He would walk around the outside part of the house completely drunk and not answer anything she said. He seemed kind of crazy with grief as well. He never smiled or laughed or looked anyone in the eyes at all. She responded to her sons death by almost pretending nothing was wrong, and he did the very opposite.

He must have told her that I had no mother figure in my life. And she saw this as an opportunity to perhaps do something good for a kid who was close to the age her deceased son. So my father came into my bedroom one day and told me that I was going with this lady on a shopping expedition to get fashionable school clothes and such. My dad has always apologetic and forewarning about people's weight. He warned me cautiously that she was 'VERY HEAVY'. I have absolutely no idea why he does this. Was she going to sit on me? Why would he even mention this to me at all? He ended up giving me a bigger stigma by reacting and assuming so much about overweight women. And he never apologized for men's weight. Only women's.

Judy took me to a bunch of super rich girl stores. She got me the classic late nineties dragonfly necklace. She decided that I needed to be up to date with 'cool' new music, so she bought me a bunch of Back Street Boys albums,  NSYNC, and Britney Spear's album that had Hit Me Baby One More Time on it. It was a bit confusing getting all this stuff. I didn't know how to feel about it. I wasn't into that kind of music at all. She also bought me a bunch of preteen magazines. I knew that all the girls in my class thought these guys were hot, but to me their hair was absurd, and I couldn't get into their silly soulless faces. I remember other than the dragonfly necklace, I didn't really like this stuff all that much. But my dad was insistent I be grateful. I really liked patchy homemade hippie clothes that my mother was capable of sewing but wouldn't. I wanted to dress like a more tomboy hip Raggedy Anne.

She also got me a bunch of beanie babies. Word was, that they were going to stop making these things once the year 2000 rolled around. So she bought me a whole bunch of beanie babies, since that was what 'the kids' were into these days, and presumably these stuffed animals would be worth so much some day that my grandchildren would have their tuition paid for. I thought these stuffies were boring, but I accepted them as graciously as I possibly could. Word was also, that Y2K was going to wipe out everyone's computers and as my friends at school informed me, all electronic devices would end. I could not wait for New Years to arrive to see if it actually happened.

I spent two weekends with Judy before either she made my father feel weird, or I once again messed things up by saying something questionable or judgmental, it's never been made clear to me why the visits stopped. The second weekend, she took me camping. She had this camper that had a running toilet, air conditioning, a heater, and a television, nothing about it was dirty or gritty in the least. The camper had bedrooms. We camped at a really crowded campground. This was so foreign to me I simply could not understand it. This was not the kind of camping I was used to at all. We didn't even need a fire. We stayed on night out in the woods, but her husband got drunk and began doing something strange outside at night, I am not sure what. I just heard her crying and them fighting outside. So in the morning she said we would hang out at her place.

Her home was opulent. I had no idea what two people could do with a ten bedroom home. They had these two yappy dogs and one of them tried his very best to impregnate my leg. It was somewhat awkward. I felt strange, like I was using her somehow. There was a very strange pressure about the whole situation. If her husband was mad about her doing this for me or her involvement with my father, I didn't hear any direct fighting from it. They offered me too many options of everything. It was difficult to know how to respond to all of this. If I took too much of something I felt I would be rude, and if I refused it then I would also be rude. Judy seemed to stare at me expectantly, waiting for me to do something, i didn’t know what. Judy wanted me to go swimming in the new bathing suit she bought me, so I went into her pool and chubby little me was swimming around. She insisted that I ask her husband to set up the water slide. I didn't want to go on the water slide, but she made me feel bad if I didn't. So eventually, I decided the right thing to do was to ask him to set it up for me.

He seemed annoyed and resentful towards this. Like I was some kind of rich impudent girl asking a slave for something absurd. The whole thing was awkward. He would not speak to me when I asked other questions and he seemed to slam things about getting this water slide – that I didn't even want to use, set up. On looking back, I imagine that perhaps it was hard to set up the pool. It was likely something they had put together for their son. There was probably memories associated with the water slide that were incredibly painful. In any case, nothing could have made it worse. Once he had the thing set up, I realized that if I were to go on it, then when I hit the water I would be submerged. I was fearful of getting water in my nose. So, after setting it up for the last half hour, he sat and watched me expectantly. I swam around and waited for him to go. Eventually he gruffly asked me ARE YOU GOING TO USE THE SLIDE OR WHAT?!. And I told him no. I didn't think I would. He was so pissed off. I quickly got out of the pool and went inside, with that dumb dog chasing after my leg.

So it was officially the day of Y2K. I was at my mother's. I remember sitting up that night, determined to stay up all night long to watch the end of the modern world crumble into chaos. I watched an interview on television with George W. Bush. I was informed that he was the next president of the United States. I didn't understand what they were saying. He seemed rather boring to me. Allison was four and a half by that time and she very much aware that everyone was going to be staying up. She wanted to stay up as well. My mother said no, but Allison was relentless. I watched my mother give Allison half an adults sleeping pill in a piece of food. She also put a little bit of NyQuil in Allison's kidcup. As she did so, she said 'Watch this'. Allison walked around for another five or ten minutes, but she started to falter and look super drowsy. She then passed out on the floor from exhaustion.

I was very into black tea at the time. I made a lot of tea that night. As it has turned out the world did not end at all. However, I ended up having the flu that night and I throwing up several times. The beginning of a good new millennium.

In case you want to read the first parts of my personal tale here are the links to the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth parts.

Also, i usually post these things twice. There seems to be people who like what i write for some reason randomly - sometimes not, but not everyone is on tumblr at the same time.

PART 5

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160817595789/my-life-story-continued

PART 4

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160729982054/being-10-in-1999

PART 3

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160399693214/about-me-the-third-part-i-did-it-after-all

PART 2

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160333575899/life-story-part-2

PART 1

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160186590059/about-me-life-story-part-1