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#I support women’s rights and women’s wrongs. Olivia please return my calls I’m nothing without you
youreverycolor · 4 years
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An Unlikely Love: Text Wars (Rafael Barba x Anna Stein)
AN: NSFW AT ALL. No prompt for this one. I just got in another mood. This is 100% pure filth. Please enjoy some masturbation, orgasm denial, spanking, sexting, oral sex, and good old fashioned fucking.
So much love to @madpanda75, @thatesqcrush, and @misssirenlove for love, support, idea-bouncing, and being frigging awesome. Can’t talk about smut and kinks with just anyone, you know.
Tagging: @danahart1 @nikkijmorgan @ele-esposito @dianilaws @sunnyfortomorrow @mommakat32 @lucifersadvisor @gibbs274 @oliviamariathegirl @evee87 @tropes-and-tales @garturbo @delia26 @neely1177 @jennisdirtyimagines @lostintech0011001 @letty-o @lucifersadvisor @sunnyfortomorrow @literallyprentissstwin @gibbs274 @dianilaws
Song: “Buttons” by The Pussycat Dolls (and you’re really gonna wanna listen to this one).
~*~*~*~  
It wasn’t even eleven o’clock and already Rafael’s day had made him pop four Advil. Nothing was ever easy anymore. Every case SVU brought him had some kind of glaring problem, from a lack of DNA to a non-complying witness, to a non-complaining victim. The latest one was against a frat house on Hudson University’s campus—again­—and, per usual, the school had covered it up. The victim had showered, no rape kit was performed. He hated telling Olivia that he couldn’t prosecute, but it seemed like that’s exactly what he would have to do. So, not an auspicious start to his day. He also had a hearing during which he suspected he was going to get metaphorically spanked by Judge Bates for filing an indictment prematurely. That was going to be a real slice.
Anna’s text tone broke the silence of his office. She was at home that day; her only class had been canceled so she had decided to spend the afternoon catching up on a novel. Expecting nothing more than a brief check-in, he opened the message and almost dropped the phone. He was looking at a photo of her, taken in a mirror. She was turned halfway around, dressed in one of his white button-downs, which she had rucked up just enough that he caught a glimpse of pink polka-dot cheeky panties. The accompanying text message was infuriating. How do I look? it read.
He immediately typed out a response, short and sweet. I’m at work, you know.
Thirty seconds later, the phone pinged again. You didn’t answer my question.
He groaned. This was a game, he knew, and she was winning it. This isn’t funny! I have a hearing in forty minutes and now all I’m going to be able to think about is fucking you.
He could almost feel her arousal from across town when she replied. I’ve been thinking about that all day.
He did not understand how just seven words could make him so painfully hard. Well, two could play at this game. You better still be wearing that shirt when I get home. If I have to suffer here all day like this, then I want the full visual later.
He didn’t get an immediate response to that and thought perhaps she was done tormenting him. He thought wrong. I’ll keep it on if you promise to get home on time. Otherwise, I might have to take care of myself via battery-powered means.
Then, a second photo came in. This one was full-frontal. She had undone all but the center button of the shirt, and he could see the outline of her breasts through it—especially her hardened nipples.
He almost came in his pants right there, but he wasn’t about to let her know that. Batteries aren’t the only thing that can keep going and going. I can and WILL keep you up all night. Don’t tempt me.
She sent one more text that made him grit his teeth. I hope so, Guapo. See you tonight.
It was only then that he realized that the front of his pants was actually developing a damp spot. What the hell was he going to do about this? The hearing was in half an hour, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand up properly. The photo was burned into his brain; even if he didn’t look at it again, it would still be there, as would the promise she made of keeping it on when he got home.
He looked at his closed door. Carmen was just on the other side of it, but the blinds were drawn. She couldn’t see in.
It was completely inappropriate, he realized, but he didn’t think he could wait until he got home. Not that that meant he wouldn’t want to fuck Anna just as badly—one glance at her wearing that shirt in person would no doubt make him immediately hard again—but trying to make it through the next six hours without a release would be impossible.
He got up from his desk, still hard as a rock, and locked the door. Then, he sat back down and unzipped his pants, pulling them down just past his hips so he didn’t accidentally leave evidence of his crime. He spit in his hand and rubbed the fluid leaking out of his cock over the head. It provided just enough lubrication to get him going. His closed his eyes and as he suspected, the image of Anna in those panties and his shirt was right there. When she acted like this, wanton and needy, he felt like he was twenty years old again—which would certainly explain why he was in his office, unable to keep his libido in check for even a few more hours.
He sometimes couldn’t believe he had a gorgeous twenty-five-year-old woman who loved him, much less one who sent him racy photos and texts during his workday. Even though he tried to pretend that he was irritated by it, he knew how lucky he was. And there it was—that image again, except this time, all she was wearing were those panties. God, the way her ass looked in them. But what he wouldn’t give to be able to pull them off of her, throw her on top of his desk, and fuck her hard enough to move it halfway across the room.
His hand moved up and down his length, twisting at the base, squeezing harder at the head. Suddenly, the Anna in his mind was on her knees in front of him, looking up with big, blue eyes—and still wearing that shirt. Her hair spilled down her shoulders and he wrapped his hand in it, pulling her toward his cock. She accepted him eagerly, taking him slowly in until she had him fully in her mouth. She hollowed her cheeks and, at the same time, ran her tongue up the front, which never failed to shoot lightning through his entire body.
The biggest difference between Anna and the other women he’d been with was that she actually enjoyed having him in her mouth. She told him so, often. And she was so good at it; he had no idea where she’d learned to do half the things she could do with her mouth, but he was more than grateful to be the one reaping the benefits. And her hands, Christ, she would use her hands on him at the same time, doing to him exactly what he was doing to himself.
He felt the tension in his thighs increasing, the way it did every time he entered her for the first time. Sometimes even just one thrust was enough to make him cum—he had to focus on first-year property law to keep it from happening. He imagined sinking into her from behind—his favorite position when he just wanted to fuck her senseless—and feeling her involuntarily tighten around him. His cock felt heavier in his hand then, like all the blood in his body had pooled there. He was close, so close. And then, he swore he heard her voice in his head, saying the dirtiest things imaginable: “Fuck, you’re so big, my God!” “¡Damelo duro! Ahora!” “Adie me lo das como tu.”
He was pumping faster now, gripping his cock like his life depended on it. He used his other hand to cup his balls, feeling them tighten slowly under his touch. Fuck, he thought, please, please, please…
It wasn’t until he thought about her wearing his shirt while he was fucking her—pulling her up toward him, pressing her back against his chest, rubbing her clit for her while he hammered into her—that he felt the familiar sensation of heat rushing to his core.
And then, suddenly, his office phone rang and startled him so much that he jumped in his chair. He grabbed the for it and tried to return his breathing to a normal rate before he said hello.
“Mr. Barba, this is Judge Bates’ clerk. The hearing was scheduled to start ten minutes ago, and defense counsel and the judge are waiting on you. Is everything okay?”
Rafael looked at the clock. It was half past eleven. “Yes, I’ll—I’m sorry, there was an—a personal—I’ll be there in five minutes,” he stuttered.
Fuck! he thought. And that, he knew, was exactly what he intended to do the second he walked through his door that night. He hastily pulled up his pants and used the hand sanitizer on his desk. Then, he grabbed his briefcase and whipped out his phone with the other hand. Just before he unlocked his office door, he sent a final message to Anna.
Anna was lounging in the bedroom with her novel, still wearing nothing but Rafael’s shirt and her panties, when she got his text. She lifted her phone and opened the message, heart beating faster as she read four little words.
You asked for it.
***
Anna heard the door slam from the bedroom and her heart leapt into her throat. She threw the book onto the nightstand and got up, legs shaking in anticipation. She knew she had worked him up beyond what she had even expected, just based on that last text he had sent. And that had been hours ago—he had the entire day to stew about it. She had only just made it to the bedroom door when he appeared in front of her. His suit coat, shoes, socks, and tie had been discarded along the hallway, leaving him in just his pants, shirt, and suspenders. His face was set to what she called Courtroom Dom: serious, brow furrowed just a bit, jaw set. But there was one difference—she had never seen his eyes so bright and so dark at the same time.
She momentarily wondered if he was as nervous as she was underneath all that bluster, but before she could think on it, he pushed her against the bedroom door, lifting her up by her thighs. She was always surprised at how strong he was; she was small, of course, but no one else she had been with was ever able to hold her up like this. Maybe that was why she found it so unbelievably hot. He kissed her, hard, like he was drunk on her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and could feel his erection straining against his pants.
“Too many clothes,” she finally managed to moan, trying to slip his suspenders off of his shoulders.
“You don’t get to dictate anything right now, cariño,” he replied. “Not after that stunt you pulled today.”
She smiled innocently. “I didn’t do anything you didn’t like.”
He set her down and took one of her hands and pressed it against his crotch. “Do you feel that? That’s been like that most of the day thanks to you.”
Her breath came quicker, and she felt wetness pool in her panties. “How terrible for you.”
He kept her hand on him, pushing into her as he kissed her neck feverishly. “I was late to my hearing because of you.”
“I don’t see how that’s my fault,” she cooed. The innocence in her voice contrasted with the sexual tension between them was almost too much for him. He spun her around and moved them into the bedroom, pressing her chest against a nearby wall. His fingers were on her hips, grabbing them so hard she was sure she would bruise. She didn’t care.
His teeth grazed her shoulder. “You got me so fucking worked up that I had to lock myself in my office and jerk off just to get some relief. Do you know how inappropriate that was?”
She decided to be deliberately combative. She almost wanted punishment at this point. “You jerking off in your office or me sending you photos?”
He bit down on the junction between her neck and shoulder then. She felt like she might combust. “I have some bad news for you.”
“What’s that?” she asked as his fingers left her hips. One hand trailed down her stomach to the front of her panties, while the other reached under her shirt to palm a breast.
He put his lips right next to her ear and lowered his voice almost an octave. “I didn’t have time to finish. Which means you’re about to get good and fucked.”
She turned her head back to look over her shoulder at him. “What makes you think that’s not what I wanted?”
“Enough games,” he growled. He picked her up and all but tossed her onto the bed behind them. She crawled backward toward the pillows and looked at him exactly the way she had in his fantasy earlier: pupils dilated, lashes lowered, lips pouted just so. That look along with the real-life recreation of the photos she’d sent him earlier was hotter than it even was in his head. He made short work of the rest of his clothes and stood at the side of the bed. “Over here. On your knees.”
They had a safe word—Pennoyer—and she knew that all she would have to do to stop this game would be to say it. But it was precisely because of that fact that she didn’t want to stop. She loved rediscovering her sexuality with him as well as discovering new parts of herself that she didn’t know existed. For instance, she didn’t know that one of her kinks would be giving him a blowjob while he ate her out—especially when he was on top of her—until they did it, and suddenly, it was the hottest thing in the world. She didn’t know sex could be this fulfilling, even as he ordered her to her knees in front of him.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
She crawled over to him obediently, surrendering to him completely. But she didn’t wait for him to tell her what to do. She’d wanted this all day, and despite what he’d said about not being able to dictate anything, she somehow suspected he wouldn’t complain. Without any further prompting, she took him into her mouth, immediately moaning around him. The reverberation from that moan sent his hand into her hair—again, just as he had in his fantasy—and he groaned above her. She gripped his cock at the base, stroking him in time with her mouth’s slow movements, almost torturous.
“Fuuuuck,” he hissed. “Do you have any idea how hard I got thinking about you doing this?”
She moaned again. Her panties were practically soaked through by that point, and with his dirty talk, she didn’t think she could get wetter. Except she could, because then she looked up to him only to find him looking back at her. Her lips wrapped around him was indescribably sexy, but he knew what would make it sexier. He grabbed the shirt she was wearing and hiked it up, revealing those damned polka-dot panties and her tight ass underneath them.
She pulled away for just a moment, lips swollen with the exertion. “Is that what you were imagining today? My lips around your cock?”
Before he could answer, though, she went right back to what she was doing, taking him into her mouth completely. He gasped and nearly fell forward, bracing himself on the headboard with one hand. And then, just when he thought it couldn’t get any better, one of her hands moved lightly up his inner thigh and he felt her fingers press against his perineum.
“Jesus Christ,” he roared. That hadn’t been in his fantasy, nor would he have ever thought to imagine it. The sheer intensity of just the lightest pressure there drowned him in pleasure, and he had to practically shove her away before he exploded in her mouth. “Holy shit,” he gasped. “What were you just doing to me?”
She licked her lips. “Again, nothing you didn’t want.”
His expression darkened again. “Oh, mi querida, you have no idea what I want. But I’m going to show you.” Without warning, he flipped her onto her back and crashed his lips to hers again. He swirled his tongue against hers, dragged it along her lips occasionally as he gently pinched one of her nipples. She squealed with delightful pain. He pulled back and looked her directly in the eyes. “You have a choice. Slow”—he dragged his tongue up her neck, over her throat—“or hard.” Then, he pulled her toward him as he leaned back, as if he was at prayer between her thighs. Off the panties came, flung over his shoulder to God knows where. He waited for her answer before he made another move. “Use your words, Anna. I need to hear the words.”
She was panting by that point, almost unable to form coherent thoughts, and he was asking her to make decisions? She managed one word: “Hard.”
He pushed her legs roughly apart and before she knew it, his mouth was everywhere: her thighs, her folds, her clit. She was so turned on that it all felt good. He lapped at her so ferociously that she was surprised he could breathe. When he dipped his tongue inside her, his nose brushed against her clit and she was so worked up that she might have orgasmed just from that if he hadn’t stopped. “What are you doing?” she whined. “Don’t stop!”
He licked his lips sinfully. “When I was in my office, I didn’t get to cum because I was interrupted,” he said, voice as dark as his expression. “It’s only fair that you should have to wait.”
Glorious bastard, she thought. But she knew how to get her way. “Please,” she gasped. “Please, please, Rafael. I need it. I need your mouth. I need you.”
Try as he might, he couldn’t resist her when she said she needed him. It was primal and sensual at once, like she was telling him there was no one else who could do this to her, and no one else she wanted to do it. And the truth was, he enjoyed licking her as much as she enjoyed letting him. He sat up just a bit on his haunches and pulled her hips up so that she was almost arched off of the bed. Well, she thought, this is new.
She didn’t have time to think anything more than that, because he moved his mouth back over her, this time sucking her clit and flicking it with his tongue at the same time. She started to quake from the toes on upward, and then she was splintering apart, undone by his mouth, undone by him. “I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m—oh, God, I’m coming!” He let her ride the waves of her orgasm, holding onto her hips so that he could keep fucking her with his tongue. The rush of liquid that came from within her was one of the sweetest things he’d ever tasted.
As Anna came down from her high, she was convinced of it—even if someone else did exactly what he was doing, it wouldn’t make her cum as hard, simply because it wouldn’t be him. It wasn’t the physical act of sex; Rafael was what made it so good. “You—you have no idea—how amazing—” she sobbed. He crawled back over her and kissed her once again, letting her taste herself on his lips. She drank him in, helpless beneath him, only able to run her hands through his hair and down his back.
“I have some idea,” he murmured against her ear. “Now, you have another choice. Do you want me to take you from behind, or do you want to ride me?”
After the orgasm she’d just had, she literally didn’t have the energy to ride him. “Get behind me,” she replied, giving him one last furious kiss.
She got to her knees with some effort—her legs were still shaking—and she felt him come up behind her, pressing just the head of his erection against her folds. He rubbed it back and forth over her already sensitive clit. She mewled in response, just wanting to feel him inside her.
Now he had her where he wanted her. She may have won the battle earlier that day, but he would certainly win the war. “You’re wetter than you’ve ever been, mi querida. Have you been this way all day?”
She lowered her upper body so that her ass was even higher in the air. That resulted in a firm smack against one of her cheeks, which only served to deepen her need. “You know, you talked about wanting to fuck me since this afternoon. So fuck me already! I’ve been waiting for it all damn day!”
He didn’t have to be told twice. With one swift movement, he plunged into her. It was better than fantasy, better than memory, better than anything. There was nothing like being inside her. He stilled for a moment to let her adjust to him, but when she looked over her shoulder at him, he pulled back out nearly all the way. She whined desperately, full of so much need and want and lust and love that she could barely breathe from it. But then he gave her what she craved—he set a steady, unforgiving pace, hitting the deepest parts of her with every thrust. She grasped the sheets underneath her, holding on for dear life as he snapped his hips against her. Every so often he would give her ass another smack and she would cry out with the pain and pleasure of it.
“This is what I thought about,” he snarled. “Pounding into your pussy, watching your ass, making you scream.”
She couldn’t respond. She just held on and focused on her heartbeat, her breathing, the feeling of him filling her up entirely. The entire room was filled with the smell of sex—it was intoxicating and was giving him almost a high. And that was when he remembered the last image he had before his fantasy had been ripped away from him.
He leaned forward just slightly and wrapped an arm around her waist, hoisting her straight up and sitting back on his heels so that she could be on top of his cock at the same time as he was behind her. Her shirt—his shirt—was pressed against his chest, still fastened by just one button, the fabric rubbing against his skin as she fucked herself on his throbbing dick. He was actually living his fantasy from earlier; the mere thought of that was enough to unravel him, but he held on, waiting for her.
He moved her hair away from one of her shoulders and bit down on the back of her neck, sending shockwaves through her core. They were both thinking it—this was, without a doubt, the hottest thing they had ever done together, and that was saying something.
There was a familiar tingling between her thighs. Everything faded away except the feeling of him inside her, still mercilessly thrusting as he reached down and rubbed her clit furiously. She found her voice just long enough to scream his name before time simply ceased to exist and stars burst behind her eyes.
He fucked her through her orgasm, and felt his start to build, just as it had that afternoon. Except this time, there would be no phone to interrupt him. Nothing could have pulled him away from her. And then he felt something shatter inside himself, along with a jerking of his cock inside her.
“Anna—Anna, oh God, oh my God, Anna!” he cried, practically screaming her name. Everything tightened, and he held her in place by her hips, thrusting into her one last time. She contracted her muscles around him, deliberately milking every last drop of him, which only served to drag his orgasm out even longer. And then they both collapsed, falling next to each other, completely and utterly incapable of moving. “That—oh, God, Anna,” he gasped, clutching his chest to make sure his heart was still inside of it. “That was the hardest I’ve ever come in my entire life.”
She was breathing just as heavily and gazing up at him, pleased with herself. The façade of Courtroom Dom was gone; once she could think clearly, she needed to come up with a name for this look in case she ever saw it again. For the time being, she would settle for gloating. “Was it worth the wait?”
He found the strength to roll onto his side and, with a hand on her lower back, pull her toward him. Then he kissed her, just as passionately as he had when he walked in the door. “Of every fantasy I have ever had,” he said, “you are the one that’s always worth waiting for.”
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The 9th Annual L.A.O.K Awards
I’m no artist, but I did love art class growing up, and let’s just say I’ve won a few coloring contests in my day (God did I live for coloring contests). Let’s also say that in high school I did a watercolor of one of my stepmom’s nature photographs, and let’s say that it ended up in the yearbook. That watercolor was the crowning achievement of my many classes with Ms. Warren, our high school art teacher. Let me paint a picture of Ms. Warren for you: short spiky blonde hair, this pattern Gap button down every day, long denim skirt, and the unfaltering attitude of someone who was born to be an artist but instead ended up teaching ungrateful teenagers who called things “gay” around you even though you were clearly a lesbian.
Months after completing that watercolor, I began work on acrylic painting I’ll admit was uninspired, but I still gave it my best. The composition featured a bird on a branch in narrow focus, so that everything in the background was blurry, and I had planned on giving it to my mom as a Mother’s Day present. The problem was that I had no idea how to paint something out of focus, and instead of doing any research or asking my teacher how to do that, I just dove right in and painted from memory and tried to make the lines really soft. Here is that painting, which still hangs in my mother’s bedroom to my everlasting shame.
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If you look closely, you might recognize that I cut my losses on this one. That’s because it was at this point in my progress when I fully realized I was in over my head and decided to ask Ms. Warren for some tips. She came over to my desk, looked at the painting for a good 10 seconds, and finally uttered two sentences I’ll never forget: “Garrett, sometimes in art you hit, and sometimes you miss. Your watercolor was a hit.” And she was off to the next student.
That said, sometimes a year in movies is a hit, and sometimes it’s a miss. 2017 was a hit. Now on to the next desk:  
Best Film Eighth Grade The Favourite First Man Mary Queen of Scots Sicario: Day of the Soldado
First off, anyone who didn’t like Mary Queen of Scots can meet me in a laundry cottage halfway between England and Scotland in negative 460 years for another asskicking. What is there not to like about this movie? According to Ben Friday, extreme historical inaccuracy. Okay, if anyone comes up with any non-nerd reasons, please let me know. The second film in my top five that you’re going “Guh, what?” to: Sicario: Day of the Soldado, was actually very good, and it turns out everyone is wrong for thinking it’s not. Wow, definitive proof here (https://letterboxd.com/g_baby9000/film/sicario-day-of-the-soldado/). I also loved First Man’s slow burn. La La Land was a misstep for me from Damien Chazelle, but now I’m right back on the Chazelle train. Bravo for making an unconventional, understated historical biopic, which drives through its seeming monotony with an ever building tension that keeps it compelling from start to finish. Then there’s The Favourite, which continues Yorgos Lanthimos’s reign over this annual list. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the dictum came down to the Fox marketing department that they were going to go wide with this movie. 
And the Layokie goes to… Eighth Grade
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In the lead up to Eighth Grade I thought two things: 1) I hope it’s not that good because Bo Burnham’s age and career make me feel inadequate, and 2) It probably isn’t that good because everyone’s talking about how good it is. In LA, if you don’t see a movie until after its release date you are a total loser, and I went even a few weeks after that, so it was already sufficiently hyped. I honestly didn’t expect much from it, and it totally blew me away with it’s humor and heartwarmingness in a way that no other film matched in 2018. I’ll talk more about this great film below.
Next Five The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Cold War First Reformed Roma Shoplifters
Also Great Avengers: Infinity War Beautiful Boy Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot. Outlaw King The Rider A Star is Born Vice (Why does everyone hate Vice? My thoughts on Vice.)
Best Original Screenplay The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (1/6 adapted) Shoplifters - Hirokazu Koreeda Eighth Grade - Bo Burnham The Favourite - Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara First Reformed - Paul Schrader
And the Layokie goes to… Eighth Grade
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Not to retread the obvious, but I think about Eighth Grade and its screenplay in much the same way as Avatar. Predictability and the use of stock plotting does not equate to bad writing, and even if you know exactly what’s going to happen (Kayla must end up with Gabe) it can be done in such a satisfying way that the story still sings (which is the reason why the same story lines continue to be retread). From early on, we can guess pretty much what Kayla’s arc will be, but the fact that it plays out in just the right way, so that you can’t really imagine it had the potential to be anything else, is what makes it such a high mark in screenwriting. Getting to this point in a screenplay is very difficult, because it’s usually only after figuring out the 50 paths not to go down that you realize the obviously correct one. When it finally clicks which Scene B should follow Scene A, the screenwriter too realizes that it couldn’t have been any other way, it just takes a lot of work to get there. I put Eighth Grade on for my second viewing while building an IKEA dresser a week or two ago, and it filled me with such glee. I was doubled over with laughter more than once and had to watch some scenes five times before I could move on.
Best Adapted Screenplay Annihilation - Alex Garland Beautiful Boy - Luke Davies and Felix van Groeningen Leave No Trace - Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini Mary Queen of Scots - Beau Willimon Sicario: Day of the Soldado - Taylor Sheridan
And the Layokie goes to… Mary Queen of Scots
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Like I said above, I don’t really know anything about the historicity of this movie. Apparently the rabble-rousing preacher that everyone was supposed to hate actually was cool and founded my own church’s denomination? Anyway, I loved the way this was paced, only parsing out the information you absolutely needed and trusting you to catch up through its many jumps in time, expertly illustrated via cutbacks to Queen Elizabeth. The characters were complex (especially Elizabeth) and the dialogue was snappy. There’s nothing better than seeing someone in an authority position take someone’s shit just long enough before thoroughly dressing them down at the exact appropriate time, and Mary gets many such chances to shine thusly.
Best Director Damien Chazelle - First Man Alfonso Cuarón - Roma Yorgos Lanthimos - The Favourite Pawel Pawlikowski - Cold War Josie Rourke - Mary Queen of Scots
And the Layokie goes to… Alfonso Cuarón
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Was tempted after another viewing to switch this to Damien Chazelle, but I had already written the following paragraph, and I’m too lazy to redo it. From the opening shot of Roma, two things are clear: you’re in the hands of a great director, and it’s a damn good thing you’re in a theater because it’s gonna be a long, slow ride. If you watched this on Netflix from start to finish without looking at your phone, I salute you (and I’ll say the same for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs). If you haven’t seen it on the big screen and live in LA, it’s currently playing at the Landmark and Vista, so check it out. Also how insane is it that Cuaron will likely win the Oscar in this category this year, making Mexican directors winners in this category 5 out of the last 6 years? Specifically, Cuaron, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Guillermo del Toro, who were already known as the Three Amigos long before going on this stretch?
Honorable Mention Ari Aster - Hereditary Alex Garland - Annihilation Paul Schrader - First Reformed Stefano Sollima - Sicario: Day of the Soldado
Best Actress Emily Blunt - Mary Poppins Returns Lady Gaga - A Star is Born Joanna Kulig - Cold War Thomasin McKenzie - Leave No Trace Soarise Ronan - Mary Queen of Scots
And the Layokie goes to… Soarise Ronan
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I’ve talked about this before, but it seems so many years I struggle to come up with a good list of best actresses (while supporting actress overflows with abundance). I had wondered if I was just a misogynist, but it became clear to me over time that there just weren’t nearly as many films with females in starring roles, let along female protagonists. However, not only did I have trouble paring down my favorites to five this year, there were many more female-driven films I could have drawn from. I really felt like this was a year for women in film, and it was great. The idea that women/minority leads can’t drive box office success seems finally to be a thing of the past, and it’s about damn time. This all probably comes across as liberal posturing, but if you know me well you’ll understand it’s really born from my own selfishness. First, I don’t want special treatment over anyone because I highly value fairness, and the reason highly value fairness is mainly because I don’t want anyone else to get special treatment over me. Second, I don’t care if a story is about women, black people, Asian people, aliens, some fish, or a fuckin’ toaster, a good story is a good story, and I don’t want to miss out one because some marketing executive wants to save his ass. Not once have I ever been not able to get into a film because the protagonist was a different age/race/gender than me. Even though some of them aren’t on this list, Annihilation, Ocean’s 8, Thoroughbreds, Suspiria, Roma, The Favourite, Widows, and Mary Queen of Scots not only had female leads, but fully female-centric casts, and all were either da bomb, fairly da bomb, or da bomb-ish.
Honorable Mention Yalitza Aparicio - Roma Claire Foy - Unsane Claire Foy - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best Supporting Actress Olivia Colman - The Favourite Tyne Daly - The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Cynthia Erivo - Bad Times at the El Royale Nicole Kidman - Boy Erased Regina King - If Beale Street Could Talk
And the Layokie goes to… Tyne Daly
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Pretty thrilled TBoBS is on Netflix, because I recently went back just to watch my favorite two segments: “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” and “The Mortal Remains.” Still not really sure what “The Mortal Remains” is all about ‘cause I’m not that smart about that kind of stuff, but damn did all five of them chew up the scenery, and none more so than Tyne Daly.
Honorable Mention Zoe Kazan - The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Marina de Tavira - Roma Rachel Weisz - The Favourite
Best Actor Ethan Hawke - First Reformed Nicolas Cage - Mandy Ryan Gosling - First Man Viggo Mortenson - Green Book Christian Bale - Vice
And the Layokie goes to… Christian Bale
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I didn’t hate Vice, but it seems like everyone else did. I also didn’t love The Big Short, but it also seems like everyone else did, somehow causing the people who loved The Big Short to hate the Vice. But I don’t think you can deny Christian Bale on this one, or at least I don’t think you can triumph Gary Oldman in The Final Hour or whatever it was called, but deny Christian Bale in Vice. (Scroll down to see that I didn’t triumph Gary Oldman last year, even though he might have deserved it.)
Honorable Mention Mahershala Ali - Green Book Bradley Cooper - A Star is Born Joaquin Phoenix - Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
Best Supporting Actor Robert Pattinson - Damsel Linus Roache - Mandy Timothée Chalamet - Beautiful Boy Harry Melling - The Ballad of Buster Scruggs John Malkovich - Bird Box
And the Layokie goes to… Timothée Chalamet
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It’s about this time that I get tired of trying to come up with something to write for everyone of these, so I’ll take my comments of the air. Timothée Chalamet was great!
Honorable Mention Jake Ryan - Eighth Grade
Best Documentary The Dawn Wall Minding the Gap RBG Three Identical Strangers Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Syeeeke. Did I say I was done coming up with things to write? ‘Cause I got lots to say about this. First let’s get it out of the way. Free Solo is a mediocre documentary about some excellent subject matter. Jimmy Chin made another one of my favorite documentaries, Meru, that definitely did not get the acclaim it deserved, so if he finds that acclaim with Free Solo, then super. And if it wins the Oscar, I won’t be sad about it. What I will be sad about, is that another documentary, also about climbing El Capitan, The Dawn Wall, got totally overshadowed be Free Solo. I watched The Dawn Wall first, and I think that may have something to do with shaping how I felt about Free Solo, but The Dawn Wall had a better, more interesting, more likable protagonist, with a more interesting story to tell about himself and his climbing attempt and way better climbing material! Now, there’s no denying that climbing the full height of El Capitan without a rope is riveting, awe-inspiring, and completely insane, and the 5-10 minutes of Free Solo that actually cover that feat are impossible to top, but if for the other 90 minutes (both films are exactly 1:40) you’d like to watch a doc about climbing El Capitan, it has to be The Dawn Wall. If you’d like those 90 minutes to instead be about a whiny guy who lives in van, then by all means, champion Free Solo. I don’t want to say too much more about why I think it’s better, because I want people to see it and experience it. Hopefully it starts streaming soon. (And if you did see and like Free Solo, please check out Meru, which is currently streaming on Netflix.) The other docs were also great, and what a shame that Won’t You Be My Neighbor? didn’t get nominated for an Oscar, which made me cry evertim.
And the Layokie goes to… Duh, The Dawn Wall -- (See how the wall below makes Alex Honnold’s Free Rider route look like the freaking Aggro Crag from Nickelodeon’s GUTS?)
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Best Foreign Film I only saw: Border Capernaum Cold War Roma Shoplifters
And the Layokie goes to… Shoplifters
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Now, as always, on to the fun stuff:
Refuse to Watch Any more Clint Eastwood Movies
The 15:17 to Paris was truly a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back-breakingly bad movie. Literally worse acting and writing than some student films I’ve seen. And I’m not talking about the Student Academy Awards, I’m talking about the ones I watched from my own peers in my own undergrad film classes. And I’m not talking about some USC or UCLA film classes, I’m talking about University of Oklahoma film classes, where they actively did not give us film equipment to use, because we were a studies program and not a production program, even though no one there wanted to do anything but be writer/directors, and they seemed to resent us all for that fact so we had an edit bay in like an old closet or something and it was on one of the original iMacs with the hockey puck mouse and everything. The last tolerable Clint Eastwood move was Mystic River don’t @ me.
Great in Everything Award Joaquin Phoenix - You Were Never Really Here, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, The Sisters Brothers, (and when do we get to see Mary Magdalene??) Cynthia Erivo - Bad Times at the El Royale, Widows
Best Lesbian Rachel Weisz
Deserves Discussion Damsel
Hmm, a New Wave Anit-Western starring Robert Pattinson with folk dancing and real-life weirdo non-actors, an obvious grand slam slam dunk, right? Wrong. Boy do I wish I had known the Zellner Brothers were also the ones behind Kumiko the Treasure Hunter before going into this. I could have at least prepared myself for all the meandering. I don’t really mind meandering if it serves a story/theme, say like in another seminal film in the genre, Meek’s Cutoff, but you can miss me wit dat meandering for meandering’s sake. The script for Damsel is a great example of an antithesis for what made Eighth Grade so great. The meandering here is not only in the physical sense, but also in the story sense, where no scene absolutely had to happen, and nothing in particular means anything. You would think that a character strapping dynamite to themselves and walking a few miles would fill a theater with Hitchcockian dread and similarly provide a Hitchcockian catharsis when that character eventually blows up. Instead, it’s just one more in a long line of things happening that never add up to what we would call a “story.” Like in Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, the interesting parts that never make up a whole are in themselves still interesting, and I’ll forever be grateful for that film’s gift of the discovery of the Yamasuki Singers. In the same way, I’ll forever be grateful to Damsel’s opening credits sequence, the chance for another stellar character performance from R Patt, the incredible mise-en-scène, and for giving Mia Wasikowska another opportunity to put a mediocre film on her back and carry it to the finish line (what if some day she starred in a good movie??). Perhaps my harshest criticism of Damsel is also one of my proudest film-watching moments. The film’s true lead isn’t even featured on the poster; it’s a character named Parson Henry, portrayed by David Zellner. About 3/4 of the way in, I thought to myself, this actor is so absolutely lacking of anything you could call charisma, I bet it’s the director and he cast himself in the lead role, and you know what? It was. *sunglasses emoji*
Best Song All of the Stars
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Best Score Tie: First Man and Isle of Dogs
Many LOLs Avengers: Infinity War Eighth Grade The Favourite Mandy
Most Surreal Movie-Watching Moment When me and Becca and Joe and Natalie went to see Rampage kind of as a joke when we had our Moviepasses so it was like whatev, and the theater was PACKED even though it was a week or two after it came out, and at one point The Rock is going in for a pound with the big white gorilla that he trained, and the gorilla fakes the pound, then flips off The Rock and starts gorilla-laughing at its gorilla antics, and the audience went. fucking. NUTS. Like it was the purest moment of comedy that ever existed. It was a Sullivan’s Travels-level eye-opener for me. Give the dumb galoots what they want, and what they want, is to see a gorilla give The Rock the finger.
Most Non-Fun Fun Movie Ready Player One
Please Stop Giving Melissa McCarthy’s husband bit parts in Melissa McCarthy movies (didn’t hate The Happytime Murders btw)
The Something Award Sorry to Bother You
The Nothing Award Crazy Rich Asians
Best Scenes Annihilation - Watching the camcorder footage Aquaman - Escaping the trench creatures Bad Times at the El Royale - Any time Darlene sings The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - All of “The Mortal Remains,” which was basically a single-scene segment Eighth Grade - Chicken nugget dinner The Favourite - The dance (putting my fingertips to my mouth then and then giving it a chef’s kiss: “MWAH”) First Man - the m-er f-ing moon landing (damn that was good, had me on the edge of my seat in both viewings) Free Solo - Despite what I said above, for a stand-alone scene, you cannot beat the final climb Incredibles 2 - Jack Jack/racoon fight The Girl in the Spider’s Web - the motorcycle escape Mandy - So many, but it has to be the Cheddar Goblin Mission Impossible: Fallout - The bathroom fight The Old Man & the Gun - When John and Forrest meet Outlaw King - When they finally(!) had sex A Quiet Place - The very beginning when the whole theater went silent Roma - Fermin’s naked martial arts, Fermin’s denial (so sad!), and the fire A Star is Born - v basic of me, but you cannot deny the first “Shallow” performance The Strangers: Prey at Night - The pool scene Upgrade - The first upgraded fight Won’t You Be My Neighbor? - A lot of them, but it has to be “It’s You I Like” at the end
Best Visuals Annihilation Cold War Mary Poppins Returns The Ritual
Worst Movie of the Year
The 15:17 to Paris (turnoff)
A Wrinkle in Time (walkout)
The Nun
Fireworks
The Meg
Winchester
Rampage
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Hold the Dark
Fahrenheit 451
Sadly Missed/Haven't’ Watched Yet At Eternity’s Gate Blaze Burning Destroyer The Kindergarten Teacher Lean on Pete Madeline’s Madeline Mid90s Never Look Away Private Life Support the Girls We the Animals The Wife
Absent on Purpose BlacKkKlansman Black Panther Blindspotting Bohemian Rhapsody
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