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gretavanfleetposts · 2 years

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hi loves!!! congrats on hitting 300 followers, it’s well deserved and I’m so happy for you!!! I love ships mostly bc I’m nosey LOL so this is v exciting.

my name is Jen (here is my face for context hehe):

I’m in college studying creative writing. I want to work in publishing or become a published author myself some day. I’m a Taurus sun, pisces moon, aquarius rising (aka i have a lot of emotions and cry a lot over literally everything, good or bad).

I’m pretty outgoing, I can hold conversation really well and i make friends really easily, too, but going out isn’t something I make a point to do often. If I’m not going out I love to read, write, or binge watch shows/movies—really anything to get the creative juices flowing. My favorite move of all time is The Breakfast Club, but films like Dallas Buyers Club, The Theory of Everything, and Little Women hold very special places in my heart. My favorite books are A Little Life and Six of Crows. As you can tell, I love hurting my own feelings lol. My go to song to brighten my mood is anything by Prince, really, or Green Day. Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of older music, and have found solace in the voices of Grover Washington and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Like I said before, I’m a writer, so I spend a lot of time in my head. I love bouncing ideas off of other people, but sometimes some people don’t get as excited as me and it hurts my feelings lol. That’s another thing about me: I’m very sensitive. I tune into everything and I’m too self aware for my own good. Reassurance is a huge need for me. I use people as my muses so I need someone comfortable with that.

My favorite item of clothing is my Taylor Swift sweater, and my favorite accessory is my paper airplane necklace. It almost acts as a good luck charm for me, as I can be superstitious at times, and I have a really huge attachment to it. Sometimes I’m convinced that if I don’t wear it my day is just gonna go to shit lol.

In terms of a partner, I’m really picky. I’ve stayed single for a long time because I enjoy my independence and I want someone who doesn’t feel threatened by that. I need someone equally as creative as me; I love sharing my ideas with the people I love and love when they share back. It’s another form of intimacy for me. I value honesty and loyalty, you know, the basics—I just want someone who is my best friend and lover wrapped into one human being. I think we all strive for that, really, but companionship comes first for me in romantic relationships rather than anything else. If i wouldnt be friends with someone outside of a relationship, why would I be with them in the first place?

My ideal date would be going to a book/record store and just bonding over what we find, then having a picnic or going to a vineyard. Anything where the connection can naturally grow is something I’d enjoy, but literature and music are so prominent in my life that I want to be able to share those interests with someone and be able to learn more through them. I just really love people and learning about what makes them who they are.

Thanks so much in advance!!! I’m so excited to see what you come up with. ❤️

Hey beautiful!

❤: Girl you are so gorgeous, oh my goodness. Also I could tell you're a writer just by reading this. I know it's just a ship request but honestly it was beautifully written. I love your creativity and that you art is inspired by the people around you. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a lot of emotions. Cuz girl, me too.

Ship: Josh

Because: I think Josh would love being your muse. Knowing how creative he himself is, I think it would mean the world to him thinking he was an inspiration for your creativity. Like that's probably the highest form of praise in his mind. I think he'd be a good partner and a good friend. He seems so honest and caring and I think the two of you would just click.

Scenario:

You were late for class, sure, but getting to class on time wasn't as important as finding your gold paper airplane necklace

Without it, your day was sure to go downhill

But you found it where you had taken it off the night before, strewn across your nightstand

You fumbled with the clasp, all too aware of the time which seemed to be getting away from you, and in your haste, pressed too hard for the too many-eth time

The clasp broke in your hands

You held it in your palm for a moment, tears already forming in the corners of your eyes, before placing it back down with a deep breath and resolving to go without it

It was going to be a long day

And a long day it was

Your professor had put grades in and you got a particularly bad grade on an assignment you had put a lot of time and thought into; an assignment you had loved, personally

In between classes you had grabbed a coffee, in desperate need of a recharge, which you had spilled all down the front of you before you could take more than five sips

Unfortunately you hadn't brought a change of clothes with you and you would have no time to change before your next class so you trudged on throughout your day with a wet, stained sweater

By the time you had finished with your classes for the day, you were more than ready to head back to your apartment

As soon as you walked in the door, you knew your boyfriend was there

You couldn't see him but you could smell his cologne from a mile away

You dropped your backpack off your shoulders and it fell to the floor with a hard thud

The noise must have signaled to Josh that you were home because he emerged from the living room where he had been browsing your record collection while waiting for you to get home

"Hey, mama," he said, cheery as ever. "How was your day?"

You broke down crying before ever getting a word out as he moved in to hug you

He rubbed your back as you sobbed into his chest, trying to comprehend what you were saying through sniffles muffled against his shirt

You told him about the frustrating day you had had, ending with how your day had started, your broken necklace

He pulled away from you abruptly at the mention of your necklace, much to your surprise

"Oh, about that," he began but instead of continuing, silently took your hand and led you to your bedroom

"I came over earlier because I couldn't remember what time you were done today and saw that it was broken"

He was fumbling with a small box but put his body between you and the task so you couldn't fully see his hands busy at work until he turned around

The little golden paper airplane now hung from a different chain, more delicate than the previous

It shimmered in the light as he held it out to you

"I got you a new chain for it. I didn't want you to have to go without it"

Tears welled up in your chest again, this time from appreciation rather than frustration

You turned your back to him and moved your hair so he could put it on you

His fingers brushed your neck as he clasped it and before letting his hands fall, he traced the line of the delicate gold chain across your skin, sending warmth through your entire body

You turned back to face him again and pressed a kiss to his lips as a thank you

It was a surprisingly good end to an otherwise terrible day and you had Josh to thank for that

I hope you liked it! Thank you for the request!

-⭐

Ships are currently closed

#ships #gvf #gvf ships #anon #anon ships #greta van fleet #greta van fleet ships #gretavanfleetpostsships

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xipiti · 3 years

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This thread by Seth Abramson is 200 tweets long, but completely worth it. He goes through the speech line by line, analyzing the ways in which it was specifically written (clearly not by 45) to direct the mob to get inside the Capitol and by their actions, “save America” from what Congress was doing (a completely legal, normal, and mostly ceremonial certification of electoral ballots).

Here’s an unrolled version: much easier to read than Twitter’s garbage fire of an interface.

And here’s the start of it copy-pasted to whet your appetite for Impeachment 2, Electric Boogaloo Bois:

1/ First, many don't realize that while the name of the *rally* was "Stop the Steal," Trump spoke flanked by banners that read "Save America March"—Save America being the PAC Trump has used since the election to scam voters out of more than $300 million for "election defense."

2/ It appears, therefore, that the link between Trump, his opposition to Biden's January 6 certification in Congress, and the insurrectionist march on the Capitol is one that comes, incredibly, with a paper trail—as it appears Trump *paid for* the seditious "Save America March."

3/ Seconds into his speech, Trump says, "These people are not going to take it any longer. They're not going to take it any longer...They came from all over our country. I just really want to see what they do." It's an astonishing admission he thinks something is going to happen.

4/ Trump then seems to catch himself, repeating the phrase "I just really want to see" but now adding "how they [media] cover it [the Save America March]." It's hard to know, therefore—perhaps deliberately—whether "what they do" means "what media does" or "what the marchers do."

5/ He then falsely says "media and Big Tech" together "rigged" the November 2020 election *and* the Georgia run-off, suggesting—in the context of past Trump remarks—that a combination of pre-vote polling and post-vote vote-manipulation explains GOP losses in those two elections.

6/ "All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical Left Democrats, which is what they're doing, and stolen by the fake news media, that's what they've done and what they're doing. We will never give up." The verb tenses here are *key*.

7/ Remember, Trump excitedly tweeted about this event on December 19—the day it was moved to January 6. Trump scheduled his speech for an hour before the election certification was due to start. His words were *timed* to coincide with the "Save America March" he was paying for.

8/ So when Trump speaks in the present tense of the election being "stolen" by Democrats and the media—it's "what they're doing"—he means it literally: he's telling the "Save America March" that he and they are *imminently* facing a "stolen election" due to events at the Capitol.

9/ He then switches to the future tense: "We will never give up. We will never concede." He's directing the Save America March he paid for, which he'll shortly launch at the Capitol explicitly, to future conduct that'll encapsulate a shared commitment not to "give up or concede."

10/ "You don't concede when there's theft involved." He's telling the crowd that they *can't* do anything but march on the Capitol (as he will shortly tell them to do), and that they *must* not do anything on January 6 that would "concede" to the vote taking place at the Capitol.

11/ Trump clearly sees the crowd as an army. He crows about the size of the crowd, claiming it is "hundreds of thousands" strong. That's important for his "mens rea" (mental state) as a criminal actor: he believes he's commanding the actions of a *massive* force near the Capitol.

12/ "Our country has had enough. We *will not* take it *any more*. And that's what this [the Save America March] is all about." Trump is *unambiguously* tying his speech to the March, and the March to a dramatic action—not a metaphor or merely symbolic one—that's about to happen.

13/ "And to use a favorite term that all of you really came up with, we will 'Stop the Steal.'" Trump connects the march to the rhetoric of Ali Alexander—who we now know coordinated the "Stop the Steal" march on the Capitol with Trump Congressional allies Gosar, Biggs and Brooks.

14/ In fact, "Stop the Steal" was not a grassroots slogan, but was created by Ali Alexander in conjunction with Trump's allies, one of whom (Mo Brooks) had just spoken before Trump, exhorting the crowd to start "kicking ass." But we also must consider the word "stop." It matters.

15/ The action Trump is demanding isn't a "protest"-type action. It's not a let-your-voice-be-heard action. It is *explicitly* an *intervention*—the "steal" will be "stopped" by the assembled army marching on the Capitol as Trump will shortly direct them. There's no fuzz on this.

16/ Trump says he'll "prove" he won the election in a "landslide." He cites the "real pollsters"—presumably he means internal ones he paid for—who assured him he'd win if he got a certain number of votes. It confirms the media "theft" he refers to has to do with polling/coverage.

17/ Trump says Biden didn't get 80 million votes, he got "80 million computer votes"—thus returning to his "media and Big Tech stole the election" theme by implying that the big tech companies he's been fighting with somehow helped rigged the vote tabulation via criminal hacking.

18/ He calls the hacking—which he now takes as a given—a "disgrace," says nothing like it has happened before, and notes that it wouldn't even happen in "third-world countries." He makes clear he's referring to *both* the White House loss (November) and Senate loss (January 5).

19/ "We will not let them silence your voices." Interestingly, he is focusing (with "them") as much on media and big tech as on Democrats, which certainly helps explain the attacks on *journalists*—and their equipment—that accompanied the insurrection that would begin soon after.

20/ "We're not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen." Pronouns matter here. Trump repeatedly says "we"—over and over in his speech, he puts himself in the midst of his army. It matters because he shortly will *falsely* say "we" are going to march on the Capitol now.

21/ Media reports confirm Trump was told *days* before the Save America March that he couldn't accompany the rally-goers to the Capitol. So his "we" is consistently rhetorical: he is strengthening his army's backbone to do the unthinkable by deceitfully saying he'll go with them.

22/ Trump now—for the first time—lets his speech be interrupted by an extended chant from his army, and it's because it's a chant he approves of and that matches what he wants: "FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP!" He grimly soaks it in, letting it carry on awhile.

23/ I just want to pause here to say that, knowing what we know now—5 dead; 50+ injuries; looting; countless assaults; a hostage plot; guns and bombs; an officer crushed in a door; shots fired; elected officials hiding—it is *really* terrifying to watch what Trump is doing here.

24/ "If those tens of thousands of people would be allowed—the military, the Secret Service, the police, law enforcement, you're doing a great job—but I'd love it if they could be allowed to come up here with us. Is that possible? Can you just let them come up please?" Uh...what?

25/ This is—beyond any doubt—the strangest line in the speech. When he says "come up here with us" he *couldn't* be referring to the stage he's standing on, as he says he's referring to "tens of thousands" of military people and cops. So where does he want them to "come up" *to*?

26/ The obvious answer—indeed, the *only* answer—is that, as he's about to reveal, he is *well aware* (and was pre-speech) that the Save America March he paid for is a march on the Capitol to "stop" the certification, and that "we"/"us" will be making that march. And therefore...

27/ ...he is asking "the military, the Secret Service, the police, [and] law enforcement" (his words) to march with "us" to the Capitol. Given the historic security failure we'll ultimately see at the Capitol, and DoD refusing to release the Guard, and Trump refusing to do so...

28/ ...this line in the speech will naturally cause federal investigators to wonder if elements of Team Trump had been in contact with Capitol Police and (far more likely) Trump's stooges at DoD about his plan to march on the Capitol. But it gets even worse than this, I'm afraid.

29/ We now know from several major media reports that Trump wanted to *increase* the military presence at his Save America March as a way to "stop antifa." Seems... odd, right? There was no intelligence about antifa showing up to his Save America March, only far-right extremists.

30/ So why would Trump want *more* military? Well: "If those tens of thousands of people would be allowed—the military, the Secret Service, the police, law enforcement—I'd love it if they could be allowed to come up here with us. Is that possible? Can you just let them come up?"

31/ Every indication here—I know it seems incredible, but realize how deranged Trump became post-election—is that Trump wanted the ranks of his army to be swelled by *actual military* and *armed law enforcement* before his army marched on the Capitol. This is a *full-blown coup*.

32/ Had Trump's army been joined by soldiers and cops, its ability to access the Capitol would've been assured.

There's simply *no other logical explanation* for what Trump says here other than that he wants soldiers and cops to "come up [to the Capitol] with us"—and imminently.

33/ Oddly, he switches from this thought directly to "And Rudy you did a great job. He's got guts. Unlike a lot of people in the Republican Party." Remember, Rudy had just publicly demanded "trial by combat." Why did Trump address *Rudy* immediately after addressing the military?

34/ That Trump is thinking about what Rudy just said on-stage is made clear by his next words, which both (a) paraphrase Rudy's exhortation, and (b) directly reference the fact that Rudy just spoke. Of Rudy he now says, "He's got guts. He fights....that's a tough act to follow.:"

35/ This is way too deep a dive for this thread, but I must say—because I wrote three books about Rudy—that investigators will want to look into whether Rudy was in touch with Kash Patel at DoD about the march, and whether that's why Trump strangely connects Rudy to the military.

36/ What we know for sure is Rudy helped coordinate the insurrection, making calls to the Capitol in mid-coup to try to get Trump's allies to artificially elongate the vote—which would've given rioters more time to breach the House/Senate chambers. But who else did Rudy speak to?

37/ I mention the Giuliani-Kash Patel connection because the two men secretly worked together as part of the "BLT Prime" team that tried to help Trump shake down the Ukrainian president during the Ukraine scandal. (Events discussed in detail in my 2020 book Proof of Corruption.)

38/ In discussing Rudy Giuliani, Trump in his speech also introduces another figure, John Eastman, who had spoken before him. Eastman is the law professor infamous for falsely claiming that Kamala Harris was not eligible to serve as VP because of the circumstances of her birth.

39/ Trump uses Eastman as a segue to discussing Pence, noting that Eastman had told him what was happening (the "theft") was incredible. Trump says, "I hope Mike Pence will do the right thing." Note that Pence had *already told Trump* he'd *not* be interrupting the certification.

40/ "Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we'll win the election. All he has to do—this is from one of the top constitutional lawyers in our country [Eastman]—he has the absolute right to do it, he's supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our...

41/ "...Constitution and protect our Constitution. States want to revote–the states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to re-certify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to re-certify."

42/ "...And we become president and you are the happiest people." Trump is falsely building up hope about what Mike Pence can do and will do, and he *knows* it. And this very incitement is why the crowd chants "Hang Mike Pence!" at the Capitol and then starts *hunting* him there.

43/ "I just spoke to Mike [Pence] and I said, 'That doesn't take courage, what takes courage is to do *nothing*.'"

I have to unpack this, because it is an *extraordinary* threat against the Vice President that *many* people will miss.

Do folks realize what Trump is saying here?

44/ Trump is telling the crowd he threatened Pence. He's telling them—an army he's about to send to the building Pence is in—that he told Pence that if he does *nothing* to help Trump win it's that act that shows courage. Why? Because Trump is saying Pence is endangering himself.

45/ And Trump is *right*. As within an hour, Pence is being evacuated from the House chamber, crowds are chanting for his death, armed invaders are hunting him in the hallways of the Capitol. These events were foreseen and expected by Trump when he—apparently—threatened his VP.

46/ This is consistent with all the major-media reporting, which tells us that Trump had been treating Pence "horribly," tried to "order him" to complete a "coup," told him he "didn't want to be his friend, he wanted Pence to be his VP," and that Pence was *livid* at the Capitol.

47/ It's clear Pence feels Trump was trying to stir violence against him—and thus his family, which was with him in the Capitol. This is why this Trump speech is perhaps the sickest speech ever given by any American president. No wonder the two men haven't spoken since Wednesday.

48/ "We're just not gonna let that happen." Trump is referring to... incredibly... Biden being president. Trump is *directly asserting* that "we" (including himself) are "not gonna let" Biden be POTUS. These are seditious words—especially in the context in which he's saying them.

49/ "You hurt our monuments, you hurt our heroes, you go to jail for 10 years." Trump had begun rambling at this point, but his brief reference to an EO he signed is particularly ironic here as he's literally *in the midst of sending an army against our heroes and our monuments*.

50/ "We're gathered...for one very very basic and simple reason: to save our democracy." It's really important that we understand exactly what Trump is saying here: he's trying to convince his army that *what they're about to do imminently* is no less than "saving our democracy."

Please read the rest of the thread at https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1347908845281095680.html

#long post #itmfa #january 6 #incitement to insurrection #get him out #arrest them all

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ultrahpfan5blog · 3 years

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Rewatching Snyderverse Part 1 - Man of Steel

Not, let me preface this by saying that my opinion of Zack Snyder as a director prior to MoS was mixed. I really liked his Dawn of the Dead and 300 was a lot of fun. But I hated Sucker Punch and while there are some merits to Watchmen, I think he was a bit too slavish about adapting the comic without really getting the spirit of it along with a few fatal miscastings. But Nolan had endorsed Snyder for the movie so I was optimistic. My overall opinion of the film ended up being a big “meh”. I have seen the movie a few times, including last night and my opinion has never changed.

Now I don’t hate the movie. The film is split into two halves. I really quite like the first half of this film. The Krypton sequence is my favorite action sequence of the entire film and Snyder does create a unique version of that world. I enjoyed everything about Clark’s past with Jonathan and Martha, interspliced with him figuring out his Kryptonian heritage and finding the scout ship. I liked that Lois Lane is shown to be a smart reporter and having tracked down Clark all on her own, and I really liked how the idea of first contact with aliens is handled. I mean Zod’s arrival on Earth is very creepy and well handled. There are a few eye rolling moments like Clark being able to fake his background check and being able to make it onto a secret military installation despite just being a grifter. But those are relatively minor. Superman’s first flight is a gorgeous scene, capturing Clark’s glee quite wonderfully. The casting of the parents is excellent. Crowe as Jor-El, Costner as Pa Kent, and Diane Lane as Martha Kent are all really good.

To me, the film takes a pretty big downturn after Zod enters the picture. His arrival on Earth is well handled, but then the film turns into one brawl after another, starting with the Smallville sequence. To me, the action sequences are what I call destruction porn. Snyder seems to revel in causing as much destruction as possible. Certainly the camera lingers constantly on buildings falling and explosions. It just gets boring and monotonous after a while. And its basically one after another. The Smallville fight is followed immediately by the gravity beam destruction, accompanied with Clark trying to destroy the World Engine, followed by creating the singularity, followed by the Clark vs Zod fight. There is no relief found for the last 40-50 minutes at all because its just non stop destruction. I also found Shannon to be overly hammy. There are moments where he’s really good but a lot of it is just him screaming. Faora was a more intimidating figure in the movie. There is also some pretty hokey dialogue. Like Zod screaming “There is only one way this ends Kal. Either you die, or I do”. Every time he says this I can’t help but say in my head that that is actual two different ways how it can end. There are some big tonal issues. Like Metropolis goes through unimaginable destruction and tragedy and we have Lois and Clark kissing at basically ground zero like its a big romantic moment, and then a few scenes after Zod’s death, we have Lambard flirting with Lois and Jenny about going to the basketball game. The film also wastes a lot of characters. I mean, Fishburne, Meloni, Lennix, Schiff etc... are all good actors who are basically just spouting exposition grimly. I am a huge fan of Richard Schiff from TWW and its criminal how he is basically just used to just explain to the audience what is going on.

My big issue also comes down to casting of Henry Cavill and Amy Adams. Now, I think Henry Cavill has great potential to be a fantastic Superman and he has the looks and the acting chops, but for some reason he’s always been a tad too bland in this role. I have seen him be way more charismatic and better in other movies like in The Man from UNCLE and MI: Fallout. He’s not bad at all. He’s decent, but whereas the best superhero castings like Bale as Batman, RDJ as Iron Man, Evans as Cap, and even Affleck as Batman, have grabbed me immediately, he didn’t really make me feel that he’s The Superman. And I had never seen any Superman movie prior to MoS other than Superman Returns, so I had no Christopher Reeves nostalgia. Amy Adams is one of my favorite actresses and I have loved her in many, many movies but like Cavill, she’s a bit bland in this role. And the most fatal problem is that Cavill and Adams have no chemistry. Given how important that relationship is in the context of this film and the films that came after and were planned for the future, its a big problem.

In the end, I can’t help but make direct comparisons between Man of Steel and Batman Begins. Both have a very similar structure with the first half going back and forth between the hero’s past and what he’s doing currently, and in the second half we have the hero dealing with a villain from his past. Batman Begins managed to do the second part a lot better than Man of Steel did and it utilizes its cast a lot better despite Man of Steel having more than its fair share of quality actors. At the end, I was a little let down because the first half of the film gave me a lot of hope for a great Superman origin movie but the last hour of the film just gives me a headache. It was still an acceptable movie. there are a lot of worse Superhero movies out there, but in a world where we had great superhero origin movies like Batman Begins, Iron Man, TFA, Spider-man etc... this one paled in comparison overall. But it had laid a pretty solid foundation, if they had only followed it up properly. Overall, it was a 5.5/10 type film.

#man of steel #zack snyder #henry cavill #amy adams #superman #clark kent #lois lane #richard schiff #christopher meloni #harry lennix #lawrence fishburne #michael shannon #zod #snyderverse

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theliberaltony · 3 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Georgia’s new voting law has captured headlines for all the ways in which it makes voting harder. It’s also not the only state considering these kinds of laws; there are nearly 20 states in which voting restrictions have already passed at least one step of the legislative process. More than 300 voting restriction bills, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, have been introduced in state legislatures this year following months of fraudulent claims from former President Trump and his supporters that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. (Sixty percent of Republican voters still say the election “was stolen” from Trump.)

But understanding the effects of laws like Georgia’s is complicated. There’s not really solid evidence one way or the other that this law will hurt Democrats or help Republicans. It’s also a point that elides a more fundamental one: If one party increasingly supports anti-democratic measures, does anything else outweigh that?

Public opinion on voting laws isn’t clear-cut either — provisions like a ban on giving voters food and water (something the Georgia law did) are unpopular, but voter ID laws are broadly popular. So let’s address the politics, public opinion and research on voting laws to better understand the contours of this debate, tackling this chat in two parts:

First, how much does it matter that Republicans’ election security push is precipitated on a lie? That is, as there has been no evidence the 2020 election actually experienced wide-scale fraud, does that undermine Republicans’ argument?

And second, how much do Americans care about voting rights as an issue?

OK, first up — The argument from Republicans supporting these new laws. What do they want in the push for more “election security”? And how much does it matter, at this point, that there wasn’t actually wide-scale voter fraud in 2020?

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): IMO, the “Big Lie” is the key to understanding Republicans’ motivations. Everyone can agree that elections should be secure. But …

… the specific methods of voting being targeted by Republicans (almost half of the voting restrictions that have been introduced regulate absentee voting), the states in which they are targeting them (disproportionately swing states), and the timing of that targeting (after Republicans lost the 2020 election) all suggest that they are only passing these restrictions because they think they will help the GOP win future elections.

alex (Alex Samuels, politics reporter): But to your second question, Sarah, this is the narrative conservative lawmakers and many of their voters have bought into, right? That the 2020 election was supposedly stolen from Trump?

There was never — and still is no — evidence of massive voter fraud that Trump and his allies stated as fact. But because it was repeated so many times and with such certainty, large parts of the GOP electorate came to believe it.

As long as the “Big Lie” continues to be pervasive, we’re going to keep seeing these efforts to get these restrictions passed, as Nathaniel notes.

nrakich: Alex, it’s an interesting question whether these Republican legislators actually believe that rampant voter fraud cost Trump the election or they are just going along with it because it’s politically convenient. But I’m also not sure it matters. Either way, they are making policy based on a conspiracy theory.

sarah: Right, setting aside the question as to what extent Republican politicians buy the “Big Lie,” it is pervasive among Republican voters: In a March 30-31 Reuters poll, 6 in 10 Republicans said they still believed the election “was stolen” from Trump “due to widespread voter fraud.”

nrakich: And rank-and-file Republicans are correspondingly willing to make voting harder in order to get their desired outcome. According to the Pew Research Center, only 28 percent of Republicans now say “everything possible should be done to make it easy for every citizen to vote,” down from 48 percent in 2018.

alex: Republican politicians also seem to acknowledge that it’s likely they won’t win future elections without some sort of changes to the voting system. Sen. Lindsey Graham told Fox News that “mail-in balloting is a nightmare for us,” even though it wasn’t controversial before this past year. I think these changes are more about preserving power than about “voter fraud.”

And to Nathaniel’s earlier point, few Republicans lawmakers are doing anything to stop these bills from passing. Even the ones who don’t necessarily think there was fraud.

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): The argument about election security boils down to an argument that people voted who shouldn’t have, right? That there were questionable votes.

And so reforms based on the “Big Lie” hinge on the 2020 election having those kinds of irregularities. People might not come out and say it was because people of the wrong skin color voted — they might say, well, people should have been ineligible because of changes to early voting rules or whatever. But in the context of both the history of disenfranchisement of African Americans and more recent fears about people living in the country illegally voting, the implication is pretty clear. When the solution is to tighten up the voting rules, you have implied that the problem is the wrong people voting.

nrakich: Yeah, Julia, you see this in how surgically targeted some of these provisions are. For example, legislators in Georgia originally proposed banning early voting on Sundays, which would end the “Souls to the Polls” initiatives that are so popular at Black churches. That provision did not end up passing, but one that did — prohibiting food and water be handed to voters in line — will disproportionately affect urban areas, where there are both more lines and more voters of color.

alex: Myrna Pérez from the Brennan Center told us something similar, Julia. The bills we’re seeing now reflect “a real fear over the browning of America, and folks trying to protect what they have and keep the power for themselves.”

sarah: And as you all are saying, sometimes it’s hard to see that this is what these restrictions intend to do, because some of the more draconian measures don’t end up passing and the exact language of the measures that do pass isn’t quite so explicit (i.e., “This voting measure intends to disenfranchise Black Americans.”).

The New York Times’s Jamelle Bouie argued this in his essay on how it’s not an exaggeration to compare the current voting restriction push to the Jim Crow era. That is, a lot of the ramifications and larger purposes behind these bills weren’t immediately clear until all the pieces fell into line. “[T]he thing about Jim Crow is that it wasn’t ‘Jim Crow’ until, one day, it was,” writes Bouie.

At this point, though, do Republicans need the “Big Lie” to push through this agenda?

That is, it feels like there is a shift at play here with Republicans increasingly distancing themselves from the election being stolen in 2020 and more so focusing on scoring points against how Democrats are now characterizing the laws (i.e., Jim Crow 2.0).

In fact, we’ve already seen some of this reframing in how Republican politicians criticized Major League Baseball’s decision to pull its All-Star Game out of Georgia over the new voting law, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warning CEOs to “stay out of politics.”

What’s Republicans’ long-term strategy?

nrakich: Many of the new arguments that Republicans are pushing are in bad faith, though. For example, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has claimed that Georgia’s new law actually expands voting rights because it allows for more early voting. But that completely ignores the many more objective restrictions in the law, such as less time to request an absentee ballot and the need for absentee voters to provide voter ID — not to mention arguably the most concerning part of the law, the part that gives the state elections board the ability to remove local election officials.

alex: I agree. Republicans’ motivation, long term, seems to be anti-democratic. Even Trump dismissed proposals to make voting easier last year. So now the post-Trump strategy seems to be focused on how best to win elections, and even though Republicans have maybe not explicitly said they don’t think they can do that without overhauling the current system(s) in place, that seems to be what’s happening.

nrakich: McConnell’s request for corporations to “stay out of politics” is also pretty funny — he sounds like Bernie Sanders! What McConnell means, of course, is that he wants corporations to stop disagreeing with him politically. (Corporations have been intimately involved in politics for hundreds of years.)

sarah: It is a difficult position for a party that is traditionally pro-business to adopt this stance, too.

nrakich: Exactly, Sarah; it’s disingenuous. Republicans have historically wanted corporations to be more involved in politics — e.g., when they’ve defended corporations’ right to give money to political campaigns.

julia_azari: I mean, part of the founding ethos of the Republican Party was about creating a strong national economy based on free (as opposed to slave) labor. Nineteenth-century Republicans saw the purpose of government as being able to help American business grow strong.

So I read McConnell’s statement as “stay out of politics that challenge existing power arrangements.”

alex: Isn’t Republicans’ argument with MLB, though, that it’s overstating what Georgia’s law does?

nrakich: What do you mean, Alex?

alex: Maybe my Texas bias is showing, but Gov. Greg Abbott said yesterday that he wouldn’t throw out the first pitch at the Texas Rangers’ home opener after MLB adopted “what has turned out to be a false narrative about Georgia’s election law reforms.” (That’s straight from his statement.)

sarah: Right, Republicans are now attacking Democrats for overplaying their hand in how they’re describing what the laws actually do. But Nathaniel hit on this earlier — while there might technically be a longer early voting period in Georgia now, there is less time to request an absentee ballot and it’s harder to cast an absentee ballot because a voter must provide voter ID.

julia_azari: The inconsistency of the arguments the GOP has been using to defend their position is wild.

nrakich: Yes, Julia, it’s so bizarre! If you truly believe that “voting shouldn’t be easy” is a defensible position, you should make that argument (e.g., on security grounds).

But instead many Republicans are insisting that they are the party expanding voting rights, which suggests that they agree with the premise that restricting voting is the wrong side of the debate to be on.

julia_azari: I think this reveals a key asymmetry (or at least a potential one). Democrats can overplay their hand by stoking outrage in their supporters and end up being lambasted for being wrong or exaggerating. Republicans, on the other hand, don’t seem to suffer repercussions for changing up the logic of their arguments; instead, they seem to have found a strategy in attacking “cancel culture” whenever under scrutiny.

sarah: What’s also so hard to disentangle in laws like Georgia’s is there are really two things happening at once. First, there are actual changes to the voting process, but then there are also changes that affect how elections are administered, and in the case of Georgia, make it easier for politicians to interfere.

Nathaniel mentioned it earlier, but take the part of Georgia’s law that now allows the Republican-appointed state elections board to remove local election officials and essentially remove the secretary of state’s role in ensuring the election was conducted fairly.

We know that in the 2020 presidential election, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger refused to kowtow to Trump’s demand that he find “11,780 votes,” but now that guardrail is gone.

A lot of what we’re talking about here is moot, though, if Democrats are able to push through their sweeping voting reform bill, H.R.1.

julia_azari: I’m on team “nothing else matters” once we’ve passed a certain anti-democratic threshold. And the provisions on election administration in Georgia’s law are worthy of a lot of attention — even if it’s not clear what they’ll mean in practice.

The period between the 2020 election and the inauguration featured a lot of attempts to mess with the Electoral College votes. There was real drama over certification in Michigan, for instance. You’re seeing a move — even if it’s slight — toward the direction that people shouldn’t actually get to choose their slate of electors or that state legislatures can have a stronger hand in that process. This is like early 19th century stuff.

sarah: Is voting rights something Americans care about, though?

alex: Considering this is something some people fought for the right to do for decades, I’d say yes. Others might have a different answer, though, because not everyone votes.

nrakich: Historically, voting rights hasn’t been an issue that has motivated many voters; it barely cracks the list of the most important problems facing the country, per Gallup polling. It’s hard to get people worked up about wonky provisions like whether people should be able to register to vote on Election Day or sometime before, or whether there should be one week of early voting versus two.

But I think framing these wonky issues as questions of rights and the health of our democracy has the potential to be very motivating. Especially if some voters (i.e., people of color) feel that their rights are being abridged.

alex: And I think that’s what Democrats have been doing so far: framing what’s happening in Georgia and other states as a “Jim Crow 2.0.”

That’s also probably easier to understand — and more motivating — than explaining the nitty-gritty measures in each individual bill.

nrakich: Look at what happened in North Dakota in 2018. The state passed a law that required voter IDs with residential addresses on them — something many Native Americans who live on reservations didn’t have. But the law appears to have backfired; Native Americans were highly motivated to exercise their right to vote in spite of the law, and Native American turnout skyrocketed.

julia_azari: Yeah, this is a pretty well-documented phenomenon. I want to make sure we clarify, though, that we are using this as an illustration of how important voting rights are to people, and not in the sense of “these laws are OK because there’s always countermobilization!” The latter caused so much angst on Twitter over the weekend in response to The New York Times’s Nate Cohn’s analysis of Georgia’s law.

alex: I’m torn on the countermobilization argument, because I’ve seen the same logic used to talk about Black voters (i.e., efforts to make it harder to vote will motivate more people and backfire against Republicans). But people shouldn’t have to surmount unconstitutional hurdles to vote!

I’m not saying you’re making that argument, Nathaniel, I’m just saying I’ve seen a few people argue that voter suppression isn’t real because a turnout gap didn’t/doesn’t materialize as expected.

nrakich: Agreed 100 percent, with both you and Julia. Even if a law doesn’t deter a single person from voting, it might still be restrictive if it imposes additional hardships on existing voters.

For example, even if people are willing to wait hours in line to make sure their vote gets cast, that inconvenience can have non-voting-related consequences, such as having to pay extra for child care or losing out on wages at your hourly job.

sarah: For sure, the most important thing is that people have the right to vote without it being a burden. But I also want to return to this question of electoral impact, because the research is really mixed on it.

Some studies have suggested that absentee voting didn’t help Democrats’ margin in 2020, or as Cohn’s analysis of Georgia’s law suggests — it’s really hard to know whether this will impact turnout negatively in elections moving forward. But something we found in the research for our 2020 forecast was that if we account for changes in how easy it is to vote in each state based on a cost of voting index researchers have put together, states with higher barriers to voting tend to produce better results for Republican candidates while states with fewer barriers tend to lean more toward Democrats.

nrakich: I think a lot of nuance is called for when attempting to answer this question of electoral impacts. Discussions like these often lump different types of voting restrictions (or expansions) together, but not every voting reform is created equal.

For instance, I am persuaded by the studies that show that changes to absentee voting laws are unlikely to change the outcome of an election. But political scientists have found that things like banning/instituting same-day voter registration actually can have significant effects! This thread from political scientist Charlotte Hill was very instructive in that regard:

The idea that making voting easier *won't* improve turnout is one of political science's worst takes. (And to be clear, many political scientists don't buy it.) In this thread, I'll explain why. Buckle up. https://t.co/NH1HH0YYuZ

— Charlotte Hill (@hill_charlotte) April 3, 2021

sarah: It also seems as if making voting easier is becoming an increasingly polarized issue, with far more Republicans now unwilling to say that “everything possible” should be done to make voting easier.

julia_azari: Yeah, on the question of polarization, this debate isn’t necessarily always going to be directly related to which laws help which parties, but rather how voters understand those laws in relation to their own partisan motivations — what they dislike about the other party, how their own identity motivates their partisanship.

This thread from political psychologist Christopher Federico linking support for restrictions to racial attitudes is also useful.

Been digging into the new 2020 ANES release this week, and I got curious as to what might predict negative attitudes toward increasing ballot access. So, I took a look at the ANES items on early voting, voter ID, and felon disenfranchisement. (1/n)

— Christopher Federico (@ChrisPolPsych) April 2, 2021

sarah: Where do you all think the fight over voting rights heads next?

alex: Whether Democrats can actually agree on something and get H.R. 1 passed is a big open question. But there’s also how many of these restrictive bills actually pass and where that leaves Republicans two years down the line.

If Republicans only pass a few dozen of these bills, do they continue pushing for them in future legislative sessions? (I would bet the answer is yes, but I’m curious to see how this progresses over time.)

julia_azari: A couple of questions I have been thinking about: One is the degree to which Trumpism within the Republican Party is about winning elections without winning majorities of the multiethnic electorate, and another is where standard political hardball ends and being anti-democratic begins.

And at the risk of sounding stupid because I know these things are so intertwined at this point, I also wonder how to think about what’s about partisanship versus what’s about race. A really cynical take would suggest that elite Republicans are taking advantage of the salience of these demographic issues in order to produce institutional changes to consolidate power.

nrakich: I just think voting rights is an extremely nuanced issue that requires people to acknowledge a ton of realities all at once.

Some voting restrictions probably don’t affect turnout or who wins.

But others might.

But backlash/countereffects can scramble that calculus too.

But electoral impacts are only one small part of why these laws matter.

They matter in how they affect the convenience of voting too.

Regardless of impact, intent is important (e.g., it matters that Republicans are pushing voting restrictions shortly after losing a major election and crying “voter fraud” about it).

It matters normatively that it has become the position of one of the two main political parties that it should be harder to vote.

Regardless of impact, context is important (e.g., this is not the first time that a state like Georgia has tried to make it hard for certain people to vote).

It’s important to acknowledge the racial impacts/motivations of these laws.

“Voting restrictions” (or “voting expansions”) is an extremely broad term that encompasses a ton of more specific proposals, which should probably be judged on their own merits because they each have different impacts and are just or unjust to varying degrees.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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filmbuddy · 3 years

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Review: Unhinged

When you have kids, your free time becomes a finite resource. On any given day I have roughly three hours of free time to do whatever I want. It sounds like a lot, but it’s not. “Whatever I want” includes anything that’s optional like showering. I don’t need to shower on any given day, I’m not going to die if I don’t, but if I do that’s on my time. So watching a movie has become an investment. If I have any inkling a movie is going to be bad, I’m not going to spend the majority of my free time on anything less than a slam dunk. Or at least a layup. Basketball.

I broke this rule for Unhinged, an Amazon Prime movie starring Russell Crowe as an enormous snowball of rage. The movie kept coming up constantly in a group chat in the form of references and GIFs I didn’t understand. I thought I could weather the storm until interest eventually waned. But the chatter went on far longer than I thought it would and finally I relented to see for myself so I could at least have some context of what they were talking about.

The premise is simple: a financially struggling single mother honks at Russell Crowe’s character (simply titled The Man in the credits, but who constantly refers to himself as Tom Cooper and has no reason to lie about it by that point) as he idles at a green light preventing her from moving forward, and Crowe spends the rest of the movie chasing her down in his macho guy truck with the sole intention of destroying her life because of it.

The film is not horrible, but it ain’t good either. The sparse quality of the film hinges on the unhinged himself. Russell Crowe is a genuinely terrifying maniac. Every time he’s on the screen your shoulders cinch up and stomach tightens. I feel as though most people have been in a road rage encounter where they were uncertain whether or not the person in the other vehicle was a homicidal crazy person, and the movie relies on that. Russell Crowe was famously arrested in real life for throwing a phone at a complete stranger in a fit of rage so I would not be surprised if he was drawing from personal experiences for this role.

The entire rest of the movie lacks any type of focus. There’s nothing interesting about the cinematography. There’s some distractingly heavy use of blue color filters in almost every scene which is typically an indicator of a forgettable film. There’s some fun car crashes, but they linger on them for way longer than you should for peripheral collateral damage. Even the ADR is noticeably bad, tacking on an incredible amount of grunts to Russell Crowe’s performance any time he has an extreme close up. There are plenty of phone calls in this movie and all the voices are way too clean, tinny, and cartoonish. There’s even a point where she is talking to her best friend on her cellphone and you hear him loudly hang up like he was talking to her on a handset when it is established later on he too is using his cell.

There seems like there could have been a really good movie somewhere on the page, but it was lost in the execution. Rachel, played by Caren Pistorius, is having inarguably the worst day of her entire life. She has lost her best client and her loved ones are being targeted by a crazy guy because she kinda lost her cool and layed on her horn, yet there is little to no dynamic in the performance. Her response to listening to her best friend being stabbed to death over the phone pretty much matches her response to Russell Crowe repeatedly ramming her car from behind in bumper to bumper traffic (an action that not a single person around takes notice of). This could easily be an issue with the direction as almost all of the other actors have one note responses to the insanity occurring all around them.

After finishing the film it became clear why this movie was being referenced so often. It’s not because it’s not very good, or was a missed opportunity, or even because Russell Crowe is surprisingly good in it. It’s because he got so fucking fat. The first shot where you see his upright profile is utterly shocking. He gained an unbelievable amount of weight. At first I considered this was pandemic weight and he was like “I’m bored, let’s make a movie,” but this was not the case as the film was made before all that started. This is the same guy who won an Oscar for playing the lean alpha gladiator during the reign of the mighty Roman Empire and now he looks like he might be 300 pounds. Did he gain it for this role? I mean, probably. But I’m not sure how much it adds to the character, or what it’s necessarily trying to say. Perhaps it was to contrast the size between the two leads, but I suspect the 6 foot Russell Crowe looked plenty big next to the petite protagonist.

Should you watch this movie? If you love Russell Crowe, yes. If you just kinda like him, eh, flip a coin. If you have friends that are constantly referencing this movie and only have a passing interest, just look up “Russell Crowe fat” and you’ll get it.

#russell crowe #unhinged #gladiator #caren pistorius #amazon prime #movie review #film review

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bopinion · 3 years

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Book of the month / 2021 / 02 February

I love books. Even though I hardly read any. Because my library is more like a collection of tomes, coffee-table books, limited editions... in short: books in which not "only" the content counts, but also the editorial performance, the presentation, the curating of the topic - the book as a total work of art itself.

Phaidon Design Classics (001-999)

Alan Fletcher (and Phaidon Editorial Staff)

Encyclopedia / 2006 / Phaidon Press

I love design. On paper and in three-dimensional space. After winning the lottery, our home would look like a mix of a high-end furniture store and a modern gallery - Bauhaus meets Apple, Philippe Starck meets Eva Solo, Ligne Roset meets Alessi, Alvar Aalto meets Le Corbusier. And I would finally meet BoConcept ;-)

I tease my wife by crowing loudly "The chair!" or "The lamp!" every time I spot an Eames Alu chair by Vitra or a Tolomeo lamp by Artemide in a movie or series - because that's exactly how her desk is equipped. And I crow often, because after all, the set designers have at least as much style in their blood as I do. But significantly more budget.

To this day, I still weep for the Wagenfeld Lamp on the Eileen Gray Adjustable Table, which didn't end up with me after the divorce. Now they have found their destiny as ambassadors of good taste. There's so much "Gelsenkirchen Baroque" - as we call the Germans' favorite taste aberration - out there, most furniture stores are a scarier experience for me than the ghost train. There is a difference between cheap and inexpensive. So for the time being, I continue to dream of a Hardoy Butterfly chair and ottoman in black calf leather and stainless steel.

Phaidon, the British eminence for reference books, obviously understands me. And has documented the 999 most important designs of the last hundred years in a compendium: Three volumes with 3,300 pages of beauty. Already on the title, the claims are made clear:

Industrially manufactured objects of aesthetic value and timeless quality:

1) Definite Models of lasting influence and enduring quality

2) Objects that are innovative in their use of new materials and unite technological advances with beautiful design

3) Objects characterized by simplicity, balance and purity of form

4) Objects that are perfect in their design and have remained unchanged since their creation.

Wow - I'm in love!

Of course, the selection of design objects is subjective, but the compilation presented here can certainly be considered recognized and comprehensive. The product areas range from furniture and lamps to household goods, toys, tools, packaging and transportation. Among the icons considered are the Moleskine notebook, the Thonet Chair No. 14, the Peugeot Pepper Mill, the Swiss Army Knife, the Steiff Teddy Bear, the VW Beetle, the Tabasco bottle, the Mont Blanc fountain pen, the Rolleiflex camera, the Bialetti Mika Express coffee pot, the Model 300 telephone, the Savoy vase and the Slinky. A wealth of design highlights - and I only took the first volume "001-333" off the shelf for these examples.

The illustrations are of good quality as well as neutral and documentary in their simple pictorial language. Construction sketches and design studies are not missing and one or the other gag appears: for example, a picture from Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" is shown for the famous New York Checker Cab. The depth of information in the accompanying texts is perfectly measured - one learns everything essential about the object, its design and its creator, all well in context.

We learn: Design accompanies all of our daily lives. Design transports functionality. Design positions the individual in the omnipresent. Design creates value. Design attracts and creates expectations. Design communicates with the viewer. Design builds the bridge from sober "form follows function" to animating marketing. Design has an effect. By the way, this also applies in reverse: the absence of design - whereby one should actually speak of "accidental physical manifestation" instead, because an actual absence would be invisible and intangible - also has an effect. But just negatively.

The lasting value of good design is demonstrated, for example, by Coca-Cola, whose lettering and typical bottle shape have remained basically unchanged since 1937. Anyone who looks at Pepsi in comparison will understand what this says about the quality of the design. And even such everyday self-evident things as crown caps, zippers or pencils were once created by designers.

Of course, a reference work on design must itself be appropriately designed. Thus, none other than Alan Fletcher is responsible for the layout of the three books. Fletcher was described by The Daily Telegraph as "the most highly regarded graphic designer of his generation, and probably one of the most prolific". Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Fletcher moved to England at age five, and studied at four art schools: Hammersmith School of Art, Central School of Art, Royal College of Art and Yale School of Art and Architecture. The Phaidon Design Classics was his last major work before his death in 2006.

By the way, the three volumes were delivered in a specially designed transport case. Created by Konstantin Grčić, a renowned Munich-based industrial designer of Serbian descent. And that, in order to get to the contents, actually has to be broken. I remember that I didn't want to believe it and even wrote to Grčić's studio - unfortunately without feedback. After a few days of patience, I then proceeded to the destructive work and have since wondered if this was meant to be a deliberate statement. According to the motto "Nature is the best designer - I'm only human". Who knows...

Here is the website of Phaidon Press - the section "Magazine" is worth more than one look:

https://www.phaidon.com

#book #book review #phaidon #coffeetable book #design #classics #alan fletcher #coca cola #konstantin grcic #artemide #tolomeo #Alu chair #charles & ray eames #checker cab #aesthetic #encyclopedia #timeless

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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years

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New Bums Interview: Married Couple Vibe

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Unlike the mathematical approach of Six Organs of Admittance or the wound jangly pop of Skygreen Leopards, Ben Chasny and Donovan Quinn’s New Bums is like its name: contemporary slacker vibes, loose playing, easy, gorgeous tunes. The band’s first record, Voices in a Rented Room, came out in 2014, and almost immediately afterwards, they started recording its follow-up. It wouldn’t be released until this March, as the more layered but just as lackadaisical Last Time I Saw Grace (Drag City). Both Chasny and Quinn write songs, and each plays off the other one’s style as much as presenting their own. For instance, on the energetic “Oblieration Time”, which juxtaposes soloing and acoustic strumming, Chasny attempted to write lyrics like Quinn. As for Quinn’s lyrics, more generally, Chasny’s instrumentation shifts them. “One of the great things about songwriting [is] the way the lyrics come across versus what they actually mean,” Quinn said on a Zoom call earlier this year with me and Chasny. “The same words can be funny, sad, [or] ironic depending on the instrumentation behind [them]. It’s really fun to see what Ben does.” Chasny agrees that instrumentation matters, not citing a general philosophy but rather a YouTube video with almost 10 million views that overlays a scene of Darth Vader visiting the Death Star with a snippet of Spandau Ballet’s “True”.

Indeed, the buddy quality of New Bums shines through when they’re in the same room--even a virtual one. They laugh and play with each other and finish each other’s sentences, having been friends for a long time. But such a laid-back feeling wouldn’t be possible without each member’s distinct personalities. Chasny, knowing I was set to interview Chris Corsano later that day about his and Bill Orcutt’s excellent Made Out Of Sound, had me communicate an inside joke to Corsano, with whom he shares a band, Rangda. (The joke? Telling Corsano that he should make a pack of beats called “Chris Corsano’s Breakbeats,” to which Corsano cackled and replied, “You’ve been talking to Chasny.”) Chasny’s also self-deprecating: “I’m not a very good violin player, but the last song has me on the violin,” he shrugs about Last Time’s “Follow Them Up the Slope”. And he forgets the titles of the songs, facetiously chalking it up to the album’s lyrical themes of decay. Quinn, simply, is humble and go-with-the-flow.

Underneath it all are some serious aesthetic and instrumental chops from the both of them, a mix of guitars, harmonium (the circular “So Long, Kus”), violin, and keyboards. Opener “Billy, God Damn” is twangy and layered. “Onward to Devastation” features tasty riffing following the lilting folk of “Marlene Left California”. “Wild Dogs” shimmers, while “Hermitage Song” stuns with deep string textures. All in all, Chasny and Quinn talk about these songs with the same exuberance they do their other projects, or music by Corsano and Orcutt, or even legendary records by 90′s German drone artists. Music fans make music makers, and music bums never fade.

Read my conversation with them below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: What’s unique about Last Time I Saw Grace as compared to Voices in a Rented Room?

Donovan Quinn: I think both of the records come from the same place. A buddy record is the way I would put it, where it grew out of me and Ben in a room, playing two guitars, talking about ideas and records we admired. This one, we built the songs up a little bit more, added some layers to the songs with overdubs, and really added some depth to a lot of the compositions with vocal and guitar work and different synths, whereas the first one we tried to keep it as barebones as possible.

Ben Chasny: Yeah. I would say the first one was more slopdog, like a mutt running wild, and this one isn’t showdog level, but trimming up the dog a little bit, teaching it a couple tricks.

SILY: Maybe album 3 will be showdog.

BC: Yeah. I think it’ll probably take a poop right in front of everybody, but it will still be up there.

SILY: Those layers are what I noticed from the get-go, on [opener] “Billy. God Damn”. Is that why you decided to have it first on the record and release it ahead of time?

BC: We ran through a number of sequences on the record. It just felt like a good one to start out with. There are definitely more vocal layers on this than the other record we did for sure.

DQ: Yeah, I don’t have a clear memory of recording a lot of these songs because we did it over a long period of time, and “Billy God Damn” is one of those songs. I think we put it first because it set a good tone for the rest of the record.

SILY: The sequencing definitely struck me. It goes back and forth between more up-tempo tracks like “Obliteration Time Two” and more lilting tracks like “Marlene Left California”. Is that something you had in mind when ultimately deciding on the order of the tracks?

BC: I think so, yeah, trying to balance it out without having one of the sides of the records being too much one direction.

SILY: I love records like this where the palate is mostly vocals and guitars but you throw in a wildcard like the harmonium, or the cello on “Street of Spies”. It makes those songs stand out.

DQ: “Street of Spies” has our buddy Jason Quever on cello who has a band called Papercuts. I work a lot with Jason and he was kind enough to put some cello on that one.

BC: He did the drums and some of the strings on the first record, too.

SILY: You could say the whole album has a loose quality, but on that song especially, you kept the false start and the countdown from the live recording.

DQ: We do like that kind of sketchbook vibe with our records.

BC: [laughs] I have a feeling I know what you’re gonna say, Donovan.

DQ: I’m not gonna say what you think I’m gonna say...Me and Ben have known each other for so long, it’s a married couple vibe where we know what the other person is gonna say or is thinking...With the way you can record records now, it’s pretty easy to really get things lined up and cleaned up. We thought with New Bums, it would be kind of a nice contrast to not do that, to keep things a little bit frayed.

SILY: It goes with the aesthetic suggested by the band name, too.

DQ: Yeah, exactly.

SILY: Did anything inspire the lyrics specifically?

DQ: Not anything specifically, but over time, both me and Ben writing, we kind of developed a sense of a type of record lyrically, and it seemed to be a lot of songs about decay and certain kinds of desperation. We built from that, not totally consciously, but everything seemed to gravitate towards it.

BC: I will say, when I wrote some of the lyrics to the song “Obliteration Time”, I was actually trying to write songs like Donovan’s band Skygreen Leopards, and I was hoping he would pick up on it. I was like, “Did you pick up on it?” He was like, “No, I didn’t at all.” That was what I was trying to do.

SILY: In some ways, you still have a ways to go in your marriage, then.

BC: Yeah, a lot of ways.

SILY: What were you going for on the first line of “Street of Spies”, “Who gives a fuck about clemency?”

DQ: You know, I don’t remember. And when we were listening back to different vocal takes, there was one that was so unusually angry for me that Ben was saying I sounded like Rage Against the Machine or something, so we changed it. I don’t know. It’s just meant to have the language contrast the mellow vibe of the song. I like that style when if you have a mellow song with lyrics that contradict that feel.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the album title?

BC: It’s a line [on the album]. When you listen to [the] song, you realize it’s the name of a woman, Grace, but in context on the front of the record, it has a different meaning, which we thought would be kind of fun. You listen to the record, and you realize, “Ah, I see what they’re talking about.”

DQ: That was kind of a last-minute title. I think we got lucky with it. It fits really well with the kind of themes developed in the record: decay, desperation, etc.

SILY: Is Grace a real person or just a character?

Both: Just a character.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the cover art?

BC: Donovan had the concept behind the art.

DQ: We were gonna see if anyone noticed this, but if you look at the first cover and the second cover, it’s basically the same elements, but we took things away. The first one has the two triangles, and it’s pictures of me and Ben, and this one doesn’t have any pictures. The idea is for every album to have the same basic design that takes elements away to eventually have nothing at all.

SILY: What are you gonna lose on the next one? One of the triangles?

BC: Possibly. That’s when I get kicked out of the band.

SILY: Or it’s self-titled, and you can use New Bums as the band and the title.

DQ: The other day, something cool happened that reminded me of the cover and the two triangles. It doesn’t totally work, but I did this video that heavily references ZZ Top. For the video, we bought a couple of ZZ Top magical keychains, and I was trying to open a box with it, but the fucking thing broke! But the two extreme points of the keys broke off, and what’s left looks a lot like the two triangles.

BC: The original record cover from the first record was based on one of my favorite records, pretty much a tribute to it, a band called The Black Vial. He did a record called Frozen Morning in maybe the mid-90s. He did 300 of them, this German guy, Liebried Loch. They were wrapped in black electric tape, and that’s what held the photograph on. This really gorgeous looking record, one of the most dark, depressing records I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s just droning on electric guitar on a practice amp, really distorted, singing songs like, “Black crows, flying no more!” We based the original artwork off that record and then modified it.

SILY: Have you thought about doing a live stream or socially distant show?

BC: We should try to figure out how to do it together. We still have to figure out Zoom. We may not do Zoom a lot. We’re more Google. We know technology.

SILY: You’re not Luddites?

BC: We have most of our meetings on Google Hangouts.

DQ: New Bums has a lot of meetings, and we spend a lot of time together, so it’s surprising it’s taken us 5 years to do two albums and two tours.

BC: We do have some great video footage from that tour a couple years back filmed at a bookstore in San Francisco called Adobe Books, and I think we’re gonna put that out for people to check out.

SILY: Were some of the songs from this record performed there?

BC: Yeah, we [did] “Cover Band”.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?

DQ: I’ve been watching a lot of movies more than anything else. I have the Criterion Channel service, so I’ve been finding a lot of inspiration in that. I was just recommending the movie Close-up to Ben, if you want to feel that doing any kind of artistic endeavor might have some meaning, it’s worth it.

BC: I’ve been watching a lot of Poirot. That guy’s great. His relationship with Hastings is quite similar to Donovan and me, though I won’t say who is Poirot and who’s Hastings.

Last Time I Saw Grace by New Bums

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Zack Snyder’s Original Vision for Justice League Faded Long Before His Exit

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As Zack Snyder’s Justice League prepares to showcase the director’s true vision of the 2017 film long-sought by a vocal segment of the fandom, behind-the-scenes details have emerged about the director’s exit from the theatrical film, providing interesting context to its upcoming debut as an HBO Max miniseries. It seems that the official—devastatingly heartbreaking—explanation for Snyder’s departure from the film actually overshadowed some behind-the-scenes strife.

Picture this for a Justice League plotline: Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) falls in love with a recently widowed Lois Lane (Amy Adams). While the notion of a Batman/Lois Lane romance is not entirely unheard of in the annals of DC Comics, it might seem awkward for a film franchise that was still taking its first steps. Nevertheless, this was a major angle that Snyder intended to inject into the film, as revealed in a lengthy Vanity Fair exposé. Of course, the romance, which would have directly followed the events of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, obviously didn’t make the film, and—barring some secretly-shot scenes for the Snyder Cut—it is unlikely to ever happen. However, it was apparently typical of the now-revealed clashes that Snyder had with Warner Bros. in the lead-up to his 2017 exit.

“The intention was that Bruce fell in love with Lois and then realized that the only way to save the world was to bring Superman back to life,” Snyder explains of the idea that Warner nixed. “So, he had this insane conflict, because Lois, of course, was still in love with Superman. We had this beautiful speech where [Bruce] said to Alfred: ‘I never had a life outside the cave. I never imagined a world for me beyond this. But this woman makes me think that if I can get this group of gods together, then my job is done. I can quit. I can stop.’ And, of course, that doesn’t work out for him.”

Backtracking a bit, Snyder—having come off hits like Dawn of the Dead, 300 and Watchmen—was auspiciously tapped to shepherd Warner’s wider aspirations for DC Comics films starting with 2013’s Man of Steel, which debuted Henry Cavill’s impressive iteration of the Blue Bomber. However, the film was a winding rollercoaster of dark drama that stood in stark contrast to the Marvel Comics movies against which it was designed to compete. Thusly, it banked $668 million worldwide—by no means a flop, but well short of Warner’s expectations, especially against the film’s $225 million budget. Regardless, the studio gave Snyder a mulligan and allowed his vision to further manifest mostly unfettered with 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which introduced Ben Affleck’s Batman, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, Ray Fisher’s Cyborg and—in a bizarre, context-deprived cameo—Ezra Miller’s The Flash.

Dawn of Justice would go on to gross $873.6 million worldwide—once again, not a flop, but nevertheless disappointing for Warner, who had maintained faith and even upped the budget for Snyder’s sophomore DCEU effort to $250 million. “When Batman v Superman came out and we did get a negative reaction from the fans, it was disheartening for all of us,” laments production head Greg Silverman. “Zack had made these movies, like 300, that were such crowd-pleasers. And that was our job—to make crowd-pleasers. And here, we have made a movie together, and it didn’t really please the audience.”

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Indeed, Batman v Superman was not generally regarded as a crowd-pleaser, and was instead widely lambasted by both critics and audiences alike, manifesting as a marathon of moroseness passing for poignancy, showcasing a titular conflict between the two heroes held together by flimsy load-bearing motivations, weighed down further with unexplained Justice League-foreshadowing scenes (notably the aforementioned Flash cameo and the “Knightmare” sequence,) referencing an imminent invasion from planet Apokolips. More importantly, it didn’t create the watershed cultural moment that Warner needed to effectively whet audience appetites for the Justice League team-up, which was clearly its main purpose. Thus, while Marvel continued to bask in billions with likeable icons—and even made icons of non-mainstream titles like Guardians of the Galaxy—Warner was stuck with DC movies permeating with unrelatable angry gods who hate each other.

Consequently, while the studio soured on Snyder by the time production for Justice League had commenced, there was an unfortunate fatalism, since the die had been cast on where the story was headed. After all, Snyder came into the film with a vision that was far too lofty even for a director who was still in the studio’s good graces, much less one perceived as having led it down the primrose path. Further tinder for this proverbial fire was scattered with a top-down edict from Warner chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara, who mandated that the picture would be only two hours in length, and that DC Entertainment creative chief Geoff Johns and Warner Bros. co-production head Jon Berg were to be on-set every day to, as Snyder puts it, “babysit” him.

“It was really tricky and not a position that I loved, to be honest,” Berg says. “I tried to be forthright about what I thought creatively. My job was to try to mediate between a creator whose vision is instinctually dark and a studio that perceived, rightly or wrong, that the fans wanted something lighter. I was respectful of the director and didn’t pursue things that were coming at me from the corporate side that I thought weren’t in line with what would make the best movie.”

Snyder maintains that having Johns and Berg watching over his shoulder didn’t bother him, and that “they weren’t that threatening.” Yet, they constantly pressed him to inject humor into his otherwise-serious content. “It wasn’t anything that was too outrageous,” says Snyder, but it nevertheless created a contradiction, especially as the ambitious designs Snyder teased in Dawn of Justice—many of which sidetracked that film—were being systematically erased. Thus, Justice League seemed to be a tug-of-war production, as Snyder moved ahead with his vision, only to see concepts nixed outright (like the Batman/Lois romance,) and even lose produced ideas like the spinoff-teasing romantic subplot between Ezra Miller’s Flash and Kiersey Clemons’s Iris West (the latter of whom was cut from the film altogether,) and a proposed return of Harry Lennix’s Man of Steel character, General Swanwick, who was to be revealed as a disguised J’onn J’onzz/Martian Manhunter; concepts that, for those in the know, represented the intended heart of the film.

The laborious process continued even after Snyder and wife Deborah (who serves as a producer,) were dealing with the passing of their daughter. Yet, Snyder officially exited Justice League in May 2017—two months after the tragedy, which was initially cited as the primary reason. “It’s such a lightning strike in the center of this whole saga,” says Snyder. “And in a lot of ways it has informed everything we’ve done since.” However, it was clear that the escalating acrimony between Snyder and Warner Bros. was the heretofore unspoken other reason behind the split, after which the studio tapped Joss Whedon—fresh from his own acrimonious exit from Marvel Studios—to pinch-direct the picture and have it ready for theaters by November. Of course, as Ray Fisher, and an increasing number of personnel now allege, that tenure led to a different—inherently toxic—problem.

Regardless of where one stands on the perpetually polarizing topic of Zack Snyder, his exit from the ambitious crossover film was undeniably one of the saddest stories to hit the industry in quite some time. However, its tragic aspect turned out to be the emotionally heavy straw that broke the back of Snyder’s rapidly weakening relationship with studio Warner Bros. Thus, with most of those studio restraints now shed, it makes the upcoming arrival of the labor of love that is the “Snyder Cut” even more intriguing.

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Zack Snyder’s Justice League hits HBO Max on Thursday, March 18.

The post Zack Snyder’s Original Vision for Justice League Faded Long Before His Exit appeared first on Den of Geek.

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letterboxd · 4 years

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Touching the Void.

Searching for cinema that soothes? Ella Kemp suggests it could be as simple as looking for a film poster with a white background.

How many weeks has it been? When did any of us last go blindly into a cinema and take a chance on something new? Film-watching in the time of Covid-19 has changed. The immediate and never-ending news of the world is frightening. Is it still, and more than ever, okay for me to sink into movies to alleviate my mood, just for a bit? How is that even possible when the world has come to a standstill?

We are forced to adapt, and it has taken some time for my attention span and emotional capacity to adjust. But I think I might have found a solution, and I have the meticulous list-makers of Letterboxd to thank. It was Izzy’s list of comfort movies that first lit the fuse. Specifically, the second, third and fourth row; films including Billy Elliot, Clueless, School of Rock.

Fifteen stark posters, speaking one truth: We are vulnerable and nervous. What we need is a film poster with a white background to assure us the movie exists entirely to serve and soothe us.

Part of Izzy’s ‘comfort movies’ list.

List-making on Letterboxd has never been more prolific. Pandemic movies, overdue filmography catch-ups, comfort movies galore. Everyone categorizes and logs their watches differently, but Izzy’s pattern speaks to me with an epiphanic answer. I’ve always admired successful color-coding, but now I see its crucial function.

As I scroll for distraction, for something guaranteed to be good (because I cannot and will not be subject to any uncertainty I can avoid), I see the rainbow. The pale blues of Studio Ghibli, Wong Kar-wai’s passionate reds, the pastels of Netflix Original breezy romances. Like some kind of cinematic ikebana, countless Letterboxd members have mastered the art of arranging film posters. There are standouts: the staggering oeuvre that is Gordon’s chromatic roundup of favorite posters; the comprehensive color-graded history of women directors via their best posters, courtesy of Vanessa; and the penchant for beige in the year 2015, as spotted by Letterboxd co-founder Matthew Buchanan.

A selection of Gordon’s favorite movie posters.

But when I see these 300 examples, color-coded by typography and accents by Sera Ash, I recognize that white movie posters are the ones most likely, in this very strange time, to take care of me. I see it in three distinct filmmaking periods: Disney animations from the 1940s and 50s, the video marketing for cult comedies of the 1980s and 90s, and the alternative marketing materials of my favorite films of the 2010s. Each poster is straightforward and inoffensive. It captures the story, but never dares to impress or intimidate beyond basic description.

A 1975 re-release poster for ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937).

In 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs announced the birth of Walt Disney’s feature-length empire. While its original theatrical poster is also mostly white, it is represented on Letterboxd by a 1975 re-release poster depicting a peek through the keyhole: a curved triangle framing Snow White, the dwarves, and the two sides of the jealous queen, against a vivid green forest. In the bottom corner, a castle. To the left, the title—her name in red cursive, theirs in black. These simple images come together to present an elementary summary of the ingredients within. The white frame showcases the seminal animation craft without suggesting the viewer diverts their eye anywhere else.

This technique was common across other animated titles, collected in lists like dantebk’s Disney animated classics. Pinocchio toys with the hyperreal relationships between characters alive and wooden, human and animal—but does so on a plain canvas, so that the magic remains within reach. Dumbo, Bambi, Cinderella, Peter Pan—each follows suit. Whether with the mustard yellow of a circus tent, the faint sketches of grass tufts, the gold dust of an enchanted fairy godmother or the ink blue of a midnight starry sky, these colors (indicative of each defining scene-setter or mood-maker) only pepper a blank background, and so make their significance ever greater with the most sporadic touches.

A selection from dantebk’s list of Disney animated classics.

Live-action knockouts from these decades—films like The Shop Around The Corner and The Red Shoes—embrace painted recreations of their protagonists (Margaret Sullivan and James Stewart as festive lovers in the former, Moira Shearer as a tortured ballerina in the latter) and use the color red as a signifier of romance, against a plain white page, to set the mood. Slashes and splashes of red have been used to create a vibe in genre cinema for many decades—a trend deftly chronicled in this list by Rocks.

As far as we know, the underpinnings of digital photography began in the 1950s, and the first published color digital photograph dates back to 1972, when Michael Francis Tompsett shot a photo of his wife Margaret for the cover of Electronics magazine. Consumers got their hands on the gear in the late 1990s, but movie studios really started to make the most of sharp digital photography and stark white backgrounds for their striking posters from the late 1980s onwards. Because, never mind the multiplex, the video store is where you wanted your comfort fare to stand out in the 1980s and 90s.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) and Say Anything… (1989) form a handsome, trend-setting 1980s pair. While the theatrical poster for Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything… deigned to include John Cusack’s co-star, Ione Skye, by the time of the film’s video release, the focus is clearly on pre-High Fidelity Cusack, as proud underachiever Lloyd Dobler, smouldering lopsidedly under the weight of a boombox. It’s the singular image of the film to this day.

Meanwhile, Matthew Broderick as Ferris-slacking-Bueller is making the most of his title activity, arms behind his head, a proud smirk on his face. Nothing else matters except that these charismatic young stars are stepping up to leading-man status. The white background accentuates the star power of these new boys in town, embracing the limelight in one fell swoop.

Star power is everything: beautiful people doing simple things against empty backdrops, because what could be more important than the regularity of symmetrical bone structure, of familiar charm? The trend boomed in the 1990s and 2000s, in films widely embraced by casual moviegoers. The sort who list “watching Netflix” as a Sunday activity on dating profiles and use the Christmas holidays to rewatch comedies they have memorized over dozens of half-attentive viewings (absolutely zero judgement here!).

The vast majority of these films have white posters. Who is your soothing cup of charm: Tom Hanks on a bench, nothing more nothing less, from 1994’s Forrest Gump? Or Heath Ledger, effortlessly cool, leaning on the brown corduroy armchair Julia Stiles sits in for the 10 Things I Hate About You poster from 1999? (The 90s harnessed the increased appeal of having two lookers just sitting and posing against a plain background, as demonstrated in this chilling list by Ashley.)

Ashley’s list of couples posing in front of a white background.

Will Ferrell had been earning his stripes as an actor for years, but he changed the movie comedy game as Buddy the Elf in 2003. There’s plenty of visual humour in Elf, but Ferrell’s coat-stand posture bedecked in festive green velvet and those tights is… enough. A white background lets the ridicule slide, just.

How many Disney series really deserve a whole movie—and one that stands the test of time? Lizzie McGuire, resting on her tiptoes with a swinging suitcase in hand, sells The Lizzie McGuire Movie like no idyllic views of Rome ever could. It’s reaching out to an audience loyal to the character, one who will follow her to the ends of the Earth, or at least to another continent. Hilary Duff could be doing almost anything on this poster and it would achieve the same effect—so long as the white background remains plain enough to keep eagle-eyed fans on the main event at all times.

It’s surprising that the star-making system only let Meryl Streep appear in a tiny box, one of four character tiles, on the poster for The Devil Wears Prada in 2006. But the design here taps into 1940s animated sensibilities, giving prominence to a devilish red Macguffin larger than the humans. It still achieves the same function—a glossy, glamorous design with the accessible sell of a quotable, star-fuelled comedy.

Red may be the color of romance and the devil; it’s also the color of comedy. Exhibit A: the 2007 gross-out comedy Superbad, whose star power—marking the emergence of Jonah Hill and Michael Cera—is used to an opposite and impressive effect on its poster. The awkwardness of these teen boys—lanky, unkempt, insecure—is what cinches the comedy. The simplicity of the poster design, with their uncomfortable posture against, well, nothing at all, further anchors their incapability of facing the world in any confident way, shape or form.

There are countless more examples, like Marley & Me, Bridesmaids, 27 Dresses (notice how the red type is replaced by pink when the film’s plot veers toward the altar). But to understand the curious and timeless appeal of the white movie poster, what happened to it in the 2010s cements its adaptable strength.

As the art of graphic design has continued to bloom, the aesthetic argument for the colorless color-block movie poster has shifted to embrace a film’s context. Consider Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, the enjoyable 2015 drama that provided Michael Fassbender one of the most under-celebrated roles of his career, playing the late Apple co-founder. The poster turns the canvas into a blank screen: the title is typed, the text insertion point poised, waiting for the next key press. As Jobs, Fassbender occupies the bottom right corner, in profile, thinking.

This starkness makes sense: what’s next, Steve? It offers a rare example of a poster from the past decade that fully leans into the monochrome aesthetic entirely on purpose—to serve the restrained and unequivocal need for white. (And it’s interesting to compare with the marketing narrative for an earlier film about another tech leader: observe how Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg eyeballs us from The Social Network’s dark-mode poster.)

Comfort movies don’t own the white poster, of course. Jordan Peele’s Get Out toys, both in its marketing and its delivery, with the binaries of black and white. It’s deployed on-screen with sophisticated horror, and this extends to its two most graphic poster variants.

While one poster sees Daniel Kaluuya’s character, Chris, sat on a chair split vertically between black and white, the all-white poster allows only a center-frame letterbox to reveal Chris’s enormous eyes, accompanied by an all-caps type treatment. The vast expanse of white only makes the image more menacing, framing the claustrophobia so effectively. The landscape crop is a device that defines stern dramas as much as arthouse comedies, as documented by Haji Abdul Karim in their expansive list.

Haji Abdul Karim’s list of white-with-landscape-image posters.

But back in the ‘comfort’ realm, we’re seeing more and more that the marketing wants to have it both ways—the negative with the positive; the art house audience and the multiplex crowd. As genres blend, demographics collapse and audiences become more fluid, a film’s advertising needs to speak more languages.

Two ultra-comfort films from last year demonstrate this idea well. The poster for Judy sees a backlit Renée Zellweger finding her light, receiving her applause. Black is the key color, right down to the classic little black dress; the eye is drawn to the title, spelled out in red sequins. It’s showbiz, it’s drama. Though the film itself fudges a few of the more uncomfortable facts of the star’s story, it’s still honest about her addictions.

In the white-background version, which was more widely distributed, Zellweger, in a floral dress, turns away from the light. The name still sparkles, but in softened gold. There’s no less glamor, the stakes in the film are just as high, but she’s perhaps more accessible like this. The focus, as it was in the 90s, 80s, 40s, returns to the main event.

Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, too, played with dark and light. The indie queen released her previous film, Lady Bird, via design-conscious distributor A24, and Gerwig’s singular aesthetics promised that her Little Women remake would be worlds away from all the others. But when the first images for the film were released, the marketing campaign was questioned by die-hard Gerwig fans.

Both of the group posters are curiously stripped back, freezing Louisa May Alcott’s beloved March sisters in a moment. In the darker image, they gaze out a window, secure in their festive domestic bubble, but set on what’s beyond. There’s more to life, and the film, than this room. It feels more lush, painterly, certainly more dramatic.

Whereas the white poster, at first, seemed like a mistake. It took one of the first images teased from the film and just... dropped it onto a poster. The March sisters look as if solidified by clay, entirely undynamic and at odds with the fluidity and warm soul Gerwig had made herself known for in her filmmaking.

And yet, nothing matters more than these characters. Beth, Jo, Meg and Amy are holding each other, happy, each in their own favourite color, and there is nothing more to fight over. The white-poster alternative lets the 2010s viewer stay attached to the most important part of the film.

The lessons here? A white poster is a vital sign that you’re safe here. You’ve made the correct choice. Attention spans are dwindling, options are expanding, focus is difficult. The promise of a white frame tells me what matters, what is good, where I should place my time and my value. For now.

#movie poster art #poster design #film poster #film poster design #movie marketing #movie design #white posters #comfort movies #comfort films #letterboxd lists #Letterboxd #little women #judy #ferris bueller #disney #graphic design

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