#beattie hawke

[norasilenthunter]

new wife <3

[artphotographyofmen]

Hawkeye by John Beatty

[macrolit]

The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.

As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

NYT Article.

*************

Q: How many of the 100 have you read? Q: Which ones did you love/hate? Q: What's missing?

Here's the full list.

100. Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson 99. How to Be Both, Ali Smith 98. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett 97. Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward 96. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman 95. Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel 94. On Beauty, Zadie Smith 93. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel 92. The Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante 91. The Human Stain, Philip Roth 90. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen 89. The Return, Hisham Matar 88. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis 87. Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters 86. Frederick Douglass, David W. Blight 85. Pastoralia, George Saunders 84. The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee 83. When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamin Labutat 82. Hurricane Season, Fernanda Melchor 81. Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan 80. The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante 79. A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin 78. Septology, Jon Fosse 77. An American Marriage, Tayari Jones 76. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin 75. Exit West, Mohsin Hamid 74. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout 73. The Passage of Power, Robert Caro 72. Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich 71. The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen 70. All Aunt Hagar's Children, Edward P. Jones 69. The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander 68. The Friend, Sigrid Nunez 67. Far From the Tree, Andrew Solomon 66. We the Animals, Justin Torres 65. The Plot Against America, Philip Roth 64. The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai 63. Veronica, Mary Gaitskill 62. 10:04, Ben Lerner 61. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver 60. Heavy, Kiese Laymon 59. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides 58. Stay True, Hua Hsu 57. Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich 56. The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner 55. The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright 54. Tenth of December, George Saunders 53. Runaway, Alice Munro 52. Train Dreams, Denis Johnson 51. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson 50. Trust, Hernan Diaz 49. The Vegetarian, Han Kang 48. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi 47. A Mercy, Toni Morrison 46. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt 45. The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson 44. The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin 43. Postwar, Tony Judt 42. A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James 41. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan 40. H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald 39. A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan 38. The Savage Detectives, Roberto Balano 37. The Years, Annie Ernaux 36. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates 35. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel 34. Citizen, Claudia Rankine 33. Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward 32. The Lines of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst 31. White Teeth, Zadie Smith 30. Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward 29. The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt 28. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell 27. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 26. Atonement, Ian McEwan 25. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 24. The Overstory, Richard Powers 23. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, Alice Munro 22. Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo 21. Evicted, Matthew Desmond 20. Erasure, Percival Everett 19. Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe 18. Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders 17. The Sellout, Paul Beatty 16. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon 15. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee 14. Outline, Rachel Cusk 13. The Road, Cormac McCarthy 12. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion 11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz 10. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson 9. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro 8. Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald 7. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead 6. 2666, Roberto Bolano 5. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen 4. The Known World, Edward P. Jones 3. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel 2. The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson 1. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante

[llovelymoonn]

favourite poems of june

chase twichell the snow watcher: "hunger for something"

hester knibbe hungerpots (tr. jacquelyn pope)

jan beatty an eater, or swallowhole, is a reach of stream

sally wen mao the toll of the sea

peter everwine rain

rebecca lindenberg the logan notebooks: "poetic subjects"

john kinsella native cut wood deflects colonial hunger

katie peterson permission: "the truth is concrete"

linda hogan dark. sweet.: "innocence"

jános pilinszky (tr. george gömöri & clive wilmer) van gogh's prayer

david sullivan the day the beekeeper died: sulaymaniyah

sandra simonds you can't build a child

kari edwards bharat jiva: "ready to receive remains..."

george kalogeris rilke rereading hölderlin

philip nikolayev letters from aldenderry: "a midsummer's night stroll"

franz wright the raising of lazarus

erin belieu black box: "i heart your dog's head"

joseph brodsky collected poems in english, 1972-1999: "the hawk's cry in autumn"

jonathan galassi north street and other poems: "may"

stanley kunitz the collected poems of stanley kunitz: "end of summer"

robin blaser the holy forest: collected poems of robin blaser: "a bird in the house"

liu xia (tr. jennifer stern & ming di) empty chairs

wilfred owen exposure

mahogany l. browne this is the honey

diane lockward the uneaten carrots of atonement: "for the love of avocados"

peter balakian ozone journal: "here and now"

(tw: miscarriage) kathryn nuernberger rag & bone: "translations"

ailbhe ní ghearbhuigh conriocht ["werewolf"] (tr. billy ramsell)

craig arnold meditation on a grapefruit

anzhelina polonskaya (tr. andrew wachtel) to the ashes: "a few words about van gogh"

support me

[legally-brief]

MOVIES WITH MEN IN UNDERWEAR (This is outdated- website shutdown early 2000’s)

“D”

D3: The Mighty Ducks (1996) Disney romp sequel. In a revenge prank, the Ducks introduce fire ants into the seniors' dorm. About a dozen guys rush out into the corridor, most in their T-shirts and boxers.

Dam Busters, The (1954) Wartime dramatisation. In a spot of RAF roughhousing, one man can be glimpsed in the corridor in his shirt and white boxer shorts. Midway through the movie.

Damn Yankees (1958) Tab Hunter changes his pants in the baseball locker room, showing off his white full cut boxer shorts, just before he meets the sultry Gwen Verdon.

Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) Aboard a rich high society yacht, Joan Crawford throws an underwear party for all her male and female friends. Since everyone is in tuxedos, and people want to swim, they strip down to boxers of various 30’s type, including some printed full-cuts, and jump into the ocean.

Dangerous Ground (1997) Crime drama. Ice Cube tries to sober up his junkie brother Stephen (Eric Miyeni), who's wearing an orange satin shirt and black briefs. In a later scene, he and friends go to a guy's apartment, tie him up in his in his bathroom in his T-shirt, socks and boxers, and give him electric shocks.

Dark Side of Genius (1994) Patrick Richwood. Towards the end of the movie, he wears an open robe and very tight black jockey shorts (the kind with the fly-front) and you can see every bit of his big dick! ENORMOUS BASKET!!! I saw that actor at the Beverly Hot Springs, here in Los Angeles and he is, in fact, hung like a horse!

Darling Lili (1970) Rock Hudson wearing white World War I ‘drawers’ as he has a comic bedroom scene with Darling Lili, played by Julie Andrews - a comedy indeed.

Day the Earth Caught Fire, The (1961) Sci-fi disaster movie. Edward Judd in white boxer shorts for a moment.

Day the Fish Came Out, The (1967) A young Tom Courteney spends most of the movie in his Jockeys.

Dead Poets Society (1989) Short scene in locker room. Guys with towels, a few boxers and a great view of Ethan Hawke, looking up his short Umbros - white boxers.

Dead Presidents (1995) Violent crime drama. Larenz Tate, in his white underwear, dresses quickly to avoid being caught by his girlfriend's mother.

Dead Ringers (1988) Jeremy Irons and his ‘twin brother’ walk through several scenes in their printed boxer shorts.

Deadly Outbreak (1995) Action. Early in the film, one of the bad guys tries to rape the heroine, but is interrupted by Jeff Speakman. His pants drop, revealing printed boxers, and Speakman grabs his pants and flips him over, before kicking him in the crotch.

Death of a Soldier (1987) Couple of cadet boxer scenes ... a guy on the john too.

Death Race 2000 (1975) Action. Don't miss David Carradine, wearing only his black face mask and underwear, slow-dancing with his gorgeous female navigator. Hilarious.

Death Warrant (1990) Action. Jean-Claude Van Damme and several other men in boxers and T-shirts, as they are processed into jail.

Delicatessen (1991) Surreal black comedy. The hero strips down to his large boxers in a flooded room.

Deliverance (1972) Infamous rape scene with Ned Beatty in his "panties."

Design for Living (1933) Fredric March waits for his pants to be pressed in a momentary full-cut boxer short scene, while he paces.

Detention (1998) Rick Schroder as a crazed gunman who goes out and shoots up his old high school. Early in the film, before the shootout, Schroder is shown in his bathroom, wearing only his boxers and white socks.

Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999) Comedy. "Deuce does an exotic dance routine for a woman in his tightfitting briefs. She grabs his underwear and stretches it down before letting it go, causing it to snap him in the groin. Later, we see Deuce and this woman's husband doing a dance for her in their tightfitting briefs.

Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) Tense film noir. Fabulous 1940s cars, and, for a moment, Denzel Washington getting out of bed in his underwear. Much of the rest of the time, he's wearing a ribbed, white undershirt, as here:

Devils Don't Dream! (1995) (Investigating the Story of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman (1995)) Movie about the former president of Guatemala. September 1954: overthrown in a CIA-sponsored coup, Jacobo Arbenz is stripped down to his underwear and presented to the photographers, before his journey into exile.

Devlin (1992) (TV) Bryan Brown is in laundromat doing laundry. He took his pants off to wash them and he wears a jacket and blue jockeys.

Diaboliques, Les (1955) When Simone Signoret loses her keys in the pool, one of the school boys, about 14-16, strips to his classic white jockeys to dive in the pool. Really hot scene as he emerges with totally wet undies and his bulge is clearly seen. Really hot for a ‘50s film.

Dick (1999) Comedy. "briefly see the top of the backside of guy's underwear as he pulls down his pants after being accidentally stabbed by a pin."

Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) Action. Bruce Willis is instructed to show up in Harlem in just his white full-cut boxers and a sign containing the ‘n’ word.

Diggstown (1992) I think it’s this one James Woods in white boxers and sweatshirt.

Dil To Pagal Hai (1997) Rahul (Shahrukh Khan, aged about 32), out shopping, goes into a dressing room to try on a shirt. Sounds simple enough, but he forgets to put his pants on and walks out in his underwear. Pooja sees him but tries to avoid him, so as not to embarrass him.

Diner (1982) Kevin Bacon in boxers in an outdoor scene.

Disco Years, The (1991) Short coming-out drama. The young lead jumps into a swimming pool in his underwear (which his friend then pulls off).

Disorganized Crime (1989) After accidentally falling on an anthill, Corbin Bernsen strips off all his clothes, except for a pair of black bikini briefs, and goes running off into the woods in only his underwear. Ed O'Neill plays George Denver, a detective who goes to a small Montana town. At one point, he needs to cross a river, to join his partner who is waiting for him on the other bank. Since he doesn't want to wet his suit, he removes it and his shoes before stepping in the river. But the water is icy cold and some of the pebbles are quite sharp, making the crossing a bit painful and difficult for the cop carrying his clothes in his hands. When his partner shouts at him not to drop their precious flashlight, George trips over and drops both the flashlight AND his clothes, which are swiftly carried downstream by the strong current. Poor George! After that, he gets to spend the rest of the day - and the whole of the following night - running around the countryside in his shirt and tie, and full-cut white boxer shorts!

Diving In (1991) High school boys in Speedos.

Divorce American Style (1967) Dick Van Dyke, angry at wife Debbie Reynolds, refuses to speak to her as he dresses, wearing his full-cut white boxer shorts.

Divota prasine (1975) One of the two partisans in this Yugoslavian tale has lost his pants and must lug around a huge machine gun, the other is a young boy who hero-worships him. They are caught behind German lines and are in as much danger from their cowardly countrymen as they are from the Germans.

Doctor at Sea (1955) [Not sure if this is the right title. Can anyone confirm?] Comedy. Chubby, mustachioed police chief ends up stripped to his outsize, spectacularly colorful boxers in a jailbreak.

Doctor Detroit (1983) Dan Akroyd makes a running change, exposing his bare legs and printed full-cut boxers to all who’ll see. The print is a polka-dot pattern.

Doctor Takes a Wife, The (1940) Ray Milland wakes up one morning in his full-cut white boxers and garters, only to find out that he’s married to Loretta Young, and that she and another man have hidden his pants. The comedy intensifies as Ray Milland paces about, loudly screaming "Where are my pants?!!!"

Dogboys (1998) (TV) Thriller. Many scenes with prisoners in their prison-issue olive-green boxers and undershirts.

Dollars (1972) ($) Crime caper starring Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn. Hawn plays a prostitute, and during one scene a client is running all over her apartment in his underwear and black socks.

Dolores Claiborne (1995) Drama. Kathy Bates laughs at her husband when his pants split. At first, he laughs along and pulls the split wide open to show off his white briefs; but then the mood turns ugly.

Dominick and Eugene (1988) Bed scene with Ray Liotta in white jockeys and Tom Hulce in blue jockeys and white A-shirt.

Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996) Spoof comedy. Sight gag sends up the saggy-pants fashion, as the camera pans across three young black guys standing with their pants hanging low, lower and lowest (hips, knees and ankles), showing off their white undershorts. Another shot shows some fancy boxers.

Don't Just Lie There, Say Something (1973) Abysmal British trouser-dropping farce.

Don't Just Stand There! (1968) Comedy. The plot involves some clothes-swapping and affords the chance to see Robert Wagner's white boxers.

Don't Look Down (1998) (TV) Chiller. Billy Burke in gray boxer shorts.

Double McGuffin, The (1979) A group of boys goes swimming in their underwear. The youngest looks about 13 and flashes his bare butt.

Downhill Racer (1969) Robert Redford momentarily, in his longjohns.

Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde (1995) Tim Daly (Wings) handcuffs himself in bed wearing white Jockeys. HOT HOT HOT scene. Very big bulge. Also, takes his white boxers off and shreds them in the paper shredder at work. Nice ass!

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) Jason Scott Lee as Bruce Lee is only wearing white Fruit of the Loom briefs as he gets up from bed to answer the door.

Dream a Little Evil (1992) Has scenes of the very hot older brother in his underwear at the beginning of the movie and about 30 minutes into it. White briefs for a couple of minutes.

Dream Team, The (1989) Comedy. Middle-aged mental patient is stopped just before stripping naked in a revival meeting, and is thrown out in his underwear.

Dreamscape (1984) Dennis Quaid is a clairvoyant who is being tested at a sleep clinic. One of the doctors enters his room while he is sleeping. Dennis Quaid wakes up and gets out of bed in just a pair of skimpy black bikini briefs while in discussion with the doctor. Sexy scene.

Dress Gray (1986) (TV) Alec Baldwin in Speedos in a swimming pool. Lots of shots of his chest in the whole movie.

Drive, He Said (1971) A seldom seen movie of the early 70s, directed by Jack Nicholson, and (to my knowledge) not available on video. Sexy, fairly long scene of male leads in a college basketball locker room scene, stripped to their white briefs. At least one other white-briefs scene involving one of the leads. A real underwear movie, worth getting hold of if you can.

Drop Squad (1994) Abrasive satire. Vigilante squad abducts blacks they consider sellouts. One man is kept chained up in a cage in his boxer shorts.

Drugstore Cowboy (1989) Matt Dillon in boxer shorts.

Dumb & Dumber (1994) Comedy. Jeff Daniels sitting on the john taking a heavy-duty dump with his pants down, CK briefs clearly visible, after being tricked into taking a laxative.

Dying to Love You (1993) (TV) Tim Matheson in his T-shirt and striped boxer shorts a couple of times.

[dear-indies]

hey; I really hope you can help me out, cause I feel like I can't find the right fc that I would vibe with to use & fits with what I wanna do right now & it's driving me nuts.

I'm searching for a female fc; her age range would be 27-35, and should pass off as a former soccer player (in her childhood & youth). I'm still unsure what her occupation is going to be ; either follow in her father's legacy/footsteps & become a firefighter, or crave her on path in becoming - for example - a veterinarian, a 9-1-1 dispatcher or a teacher/professor. thank you in advance!

Aiysha Hart (1988) Saudi Arabian and English - has spoken up for Palestine!

Nathalie Emmanuel (1989) Saint Lucian, Dominican, English.

Monica Barbaro (1989) 1/4 Mexican.

Úrsula Corberó (1989)

Lisseth Chavez (1989) Salvadoran.

Lorenza Izzo (1989) Chilean.

DeWanda Wise (1989) African-American.

Katy O'Brian (1989) African-American and White - is queer.

Hannah John-Kamen (1989) Nigerian / White.

Taylour Paige (1990) African-American.

Rosaline Elbay (1990) Egyptian - has spoken up for Palestine!

Stefanie Martini (1990) - is bisexual - has spoken up for Palestine!

Harshita Gaur (1990) Indian.

Adelaide Kane (1990) - is bisexual.

Tanaya Beatty (1991) Da’naxda’xw, Himalayan.

Melisa Aslı Pamuk (1991) Turkish - has spoken up for Palestine!

Sofia Black-D'Elia (1991) Ashkenazi Jewish / Italian.

Sarah Kameela Impey (1991) Indo-Guyanese / White - has spoken up for Palestine!

Seychelle Gabriel (1991) Mexican and European - has spoken up for Palestine and Sudan!

Cassandra Naud (1992)

Charlie Craggs (1992) - is a trans woman - has spoken up for Palestine!

Jodie Comer (1993)

Adèle Exarchopoulos (1993)

Luciane Buchanan (1993) Tongan and Scottish.

Maia Mitchell (1993) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Devery Jacobs (1993) Mohawk - is queer - has spoken up for Palestine!

Naomi Scott (1993) Gujarati / White.

Olivia D’Lima (1993) Goan and English - has spoken up for Palestine!

Natasha Liu Bordizzo (1994) Chinese / White.

Frankie Adams (1994) Samoan.

Jasmin Savoy Brown (1994) African-American / White - is queer - has spoken up for Palestine!

Liana Liberato (1995)

Jessica Darrow (1995) Cuban - is bisexual - has spoken up for Palestine!

Lulu Antariksa (1995) Indonesian / White.

Rachel Sennott (1995)

Geraldine Viswanathan (1995) Tamil / White.

Emma Mackey (1996)

Josefine Frida Pettersen (1996) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Tati Gabrielle (1996) African-American / Korean.

Hanako Greensmith (1996) Japanese / White.

Myha'la (1996) Afro Jamaican / White - is queer - has spoken up for Palestine!

Amber Midthunder (1997) Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux, Hudeshabina Nakoda Sioux, Sissiton-Wahpeton Oyate Dakota Sioux, Norwegian / Chinese, English.

Maya Hawke (1998)

Ella Hunt (1998) - is queer.

Hey! This was a broad ask but I think all these work for that type of character!

[fedorahead]

Is there a masterlist of, like, actors and celebrities that have come forward for trans rights?

I know the internet has all sorts of collections of people who've done something messed up and those always depress me but reading about David Tennant being supportive in the face of the UK government and current legislation and stuff really hit me and I'd love to be able to see who else is out there standing up for us and what's right.

If not, here's a list I'm putting together, feel free to add to it or add context in the notes if you want! I'm including celebrities who have affirmed their support for trans family members even if they're not doing other activism. I'm also only listing celebrities I know of, and this list does not in any way endorse any problematic stuff any of them may have done outside of the topic.

Just making this list is cheering me up a lot tbh

David Tennant

Daniel Radcliffe

Emma Watson

Rupert Grint

Pedro Pascal

Jamie Lee Curtis

Ariana Grande

Lady Gaga

Don Cheadle

Taylor Swift

Gabrielle Union

Colin Mochrie

Andrew Garfield

K. A. Applegate

Cher

David Arquette

Jannifer Lopez

Angeline Jolie

Vanessa Carlton

Kevin Bacon

Nick Offerman

Sheryl Crow

Hayley Williams

Sade

Anna Paquin

Jon Oliver

Jon Stewart

Colbert

Keanu Reeves

Anthony Rapp

Charlize Theron

Zendaya

Kate Winslet

Shawn Mendes

LeBron James

Anthony Stewart Head

Gerard Way

Bea Arthur

Hozier

Wil Wheaton

Warren Beatty

Lynda Carter

Selena Gomez

Billy Ray Cyrus

Rihanna

Megan Thee Stallion

Cardi B

Shania Twain

Anna Kendrick

Kendrick Lamar

Dolly Parton

Drew Barrymore

Mark Ruffalo

Bruce Springsteen

Taron Egerton

Orville Peck

Charles Barkley

Yungblood

Sigourney Weaver

Bad Bunny

Emma Thompson

Liev Schreiber

Magic Johnson

Anne Hathaway

Chris Pratt

Ryan Reynolds

Chris Evans

Margot Robbie

Sandra Bullock

Christina Aguilera

Mariah Carey

Adele

Dua Lipa

Tony Hawk

Matt Berry

Harry Styles

John Leguizamo

Patrick Stewart

Jon Bernthal

David Lynch

Russel T Davies

Garth Brooks

Paris Hilton

Lucy Lawless

Bill Nye

Ally Sheedy

Miley Cyrus

Joan Jett

Mike Shinoda

Dick Van Dyke

Eric Idle

Ian Mackellan

Benedict Cumberbatch

Matthew Lillard

P!nk

Adam Conover

Megan Fox

Gwen Stefani

Terry Pratchett

Neil Gaiman

Mara Wilson

David Attenborough

Michael Sheen

Joaquin Phoenix

Halsey

John Lithgow

Jim Norton

Mr Beast

M Shadows

John Cusack

Hugh Jackman

Penn Jilette

Janet Jackson

Brie Larson

Bjork

Britney Spears

Jenna Ortega

Selena Gomez

oh man there are so many more i can't even keep listing but here's a list of 500 feminists who signed an open letter supporting trans women and girls

[book--brackets]

hi!! not sure if ur taking asks rn for the books but heres some of my favs:

the moon base alpha trilogy by stuart gibbs

the chronicle of the dark star series by kevin emerson

the adventurers guild series by zack clark and nick eliopulos

george's secret key to the universe by lucy and stephen hawking

the bridge home by padma venkatraman(made me cry fr)

ths serafina series by robert beatty

the septimus heap series by angie sage

the ascendance series by jennifer nielsen

the witch's boy by kelly barnhill

sorry if theres any repeats and sorry for the long list!! i just found this poll but i alr love it tysm for doing this mod <33 :) my childhood was books so yeah lol :D

Everything except Septimus Heap and Serafina, which were recommended before, have been added! What is it with incredibly sad children’s books and bridges lol

[wrecking]

may!!  been enjoying this month a lot more than i usually do, and i think the music reflects it!  been enjoying more upbeat, dynamic, and sonically diverse stuff than i have these last few months :)

open for names + predictions!

aly & aj - a touch of the beat gets you up on your feet gets you out and then into the sun, kacey musgraves - star-crossed, sigrid - sucker punch, snail mail - valentine, clairo - live at electric lady

ethel cain - preacher’s daughter, choir boy - gathering swans, wolf alice - blue weekend, agnes obel - myopia, willow - copingmechanism

confidence man & david avery - on & on (again) -- which is a single LMAO, miley cyrus - endless summer vacation, ryan beatty - calico, midori - shinsekai, allie x - collxtion ii

frost children - speed run, courtney barnett - things take time take time, big thief - dragon new warm mountain i believe in you, maggie rogers - surrender, remi wolf - prescription -- the other single of the month LMAO

kesha - gag order, jessie ware - that! feels good!, shannon lay - geist, paramore - this is why, caroline polachek - desire i want to turn into you

--

sooo truth be told i didn’t listen to a lot of my planned new music this month.  i think i need to take a break / kinda reconfigure how i’m doing so bc i really couldn’t keep it up this month, esp with totk coming out bc i actually played that game with the sound on (an unusual activity for me)

for next month i’m only giving myself a set of albums i Want to listen to for sure (most are on the topster below), and i wanna try to exceed it, but idk how many i’m gonna actually get to LMAO

-- june predictions time!! --

retain: everything up to remi wolf - prescription

recurrent: st. vincent - daddy’s home (randomly remembered it and it’s so good), maya hawke - moss (finally found the vinyl in the wild and as such have been revisiting it), lana del rey - nfr (another case of random revisit), weyes blood - front row seat to earth (just really good)

new releases: maude latour - twin flame (NOTICE: this isn’t the actual cover, but the actual cover isn’t on topster and i’m too lazy sorry), janelle monae - the age of pleasure

new listens: sufjan stevens - illinoise, the beths - expert in a dying field, deerhoof - miracle-level

ryan beatty - boys in jeans, ryan beatty - dreaming of david, abe vigoda - crush, banks - goddess, pearly drops - a little disaster

[demichq]

as requested, here are some of our most wanted fcs ( in no particular order ): grace van dien, hande erçel, aaron johnson, sean teale, madelyn cline, madison bailey, pedro pascal, jon bernthal, grace van patten, zendaya, oscar isaac, jamie campbell bower, greta onieogou, shelley hennig, rami malek, andy biersack, summer bishil, penn badgley, daveed diggs, lupita nyong'o, demet özdemir, dev patel, tyler hoechlin, rachel keller, joseph quinn, jessie mei li, brianne howey, leslie odom jr, kiana madeira, olivia holt, blair redford, zac efron, simone ashley, kerem bürsin, ryan kelley, david castañeda, felix mallard, natasha liu bordizzo, matt smith, henry cavill, robert pattinson, medalion rahimi, kaylee bryant, chance perdomo, robert sheehan, julio macias, tanaya beatty, adria arjona, isabella gomez, sydney park, maya hawke, natalia dyer, sebastian stan, anthony mackie, kit harrington, brett gray, danny ramirez, adeline rudolph, imani lewis, chandler kinney, alexa demie, hunter doohan, alex saxon, daniel kaluuya, joe keery, yara shahidi, daniel sharman, johnathan daviss, timothée chalamet, zion moreno, anya chalotra, sara waisglass, nikki roumel, dacre montgomery, james scully, rudy pankow, antonia gentry, meg donnelly, abigail cowen, sasha calle, zoe saldana, george macakay,froy gutierrez, mena massoud, rege jean page, michael b jordan, jessica de gouw, alexandra daddario, lucy boynton, raymond ablack, milo manheim, jack mulhern, noah centineo, katheryn winnick, sophie turner, maddison jaizani, danielle rose russell, alexa demie, sydney sweeney, bill skarsgård, paul rudd, chris hemsworth, talia ryder, alba baptista, kristina tonteri-young, sam claflin, ewan mitchell, rj cyler, helena howard, hunter schafer, jameela jamil, maude apatow, barbie ferreira, manny jacinto, oliver jackson cohen, jessica marie garcia, madison iseman, victoria pedretti, riley keough, geraldine viswanathan

[byneddiedingo]

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)

Cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois, William Devane, John Schuck, Corey Fischer, Bert Remsen, Shelley Duvall, Keith Carradine, Michael Murphy. Screenplay: Robert Altman, Brian McKay, based on a novel by Edmund Naughton. Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond. Production design: Leon Erickson. Film editing: Lou Lombardo.  McCabe & Mrs. Miller may be Robert Altman's best film, as well as the greatest of all "stoner Westerns." It's very much of the era in which it was made, with its fatalistic view of its loner protagonist, doomed by his naive willingness to go up against the big corporate mining interests who want to buy him out. Hippies against the Establishment, if you will. It's also very much at the heart of the mythos of the American Western, which always centered on the loner against overwhelming odds. McCabe & Mrs. Miller came along at a time when the Western was in eclipse, with most of its great exponents, like John Ford and Howard Hawks, in retirement, and some of its defining actors, like John Wayne, having gone over to the side of the Establishment. So when iconoclasts like Altman and Warren Beatty, coming off of their respective breakthrough hits M*A*S*H (1970) and Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967), took an interest in filming Edmund Naughton's novel, it was clear that we were going to get something revisionist, a Western with a grubby setting and an antiheroic protagonist. The remarkable thing is that McCabe & Mrs. Miller, perhaps more than either M*A*S*H or Bonnie and Clyde, has transcended its revisionism and formed its own tradition. For once, Altman's mannerisms -- overlapping dialogue, restless camerawork, reliance on a stock company of actors like Michael Murphy, John Schuck, and Shelley Duvall, and a generally loosey-goosey mise-en-scène -- don't overwhelm the story. Some of this is probably owing to Beatty's own firmly entrenched ego, which was often at odds with Altman's. His performance gives the film a center and grounding that many of Altman's other films lack, especially since he works so well in tandem with Julie Christie's performance as Mrs. Miller, the only thing about the film that the Academy deigned worthy of an Oscar nomination. How the Academy could have overlooked the contribution of cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond remains a mystery, except that at this point the cinematographers branch was dominated by old-school directors of photography who had been brought up in the studio system, which was to flood the set with light -- one reason why Gordon Willis's magisterial chiaroscuro in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) failed to get a nomination the following year. 

[aunt-grandma]

What I Listened to in August 2024

1. HIT ME HARD AND SOFT—Billie Eilish

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: BIRDS OF A FEATHER

• Least favorite song: CHIHIRO

2. Younger Now—Miley Cyrus

• Rate: 8/10

• Favorite song: Miss You So Much

• Least favorite song: Rainbowland

3. Sincere—Khalid

• Rate: 6.5/10

• Favorite song: Adore U

• Least favorite song: Dose

4. 21–Adele

• Rate: 8.5/10

• Favorite song: Don’t You Remember

• Least favorite song: I’ll Be Waiting

5. Gloria—Sam Smith

• Rate: 7/10

• Favorite song: Love Me More

• Least favorite song: Six Shots

6. eleven achers EP—Nemahsis

• Rate: 8/10

• Favorite song: immigrant’s tale

• Least favorite song: suicide

7. Tell Me You Love Me—Demi Lovato

• Rate: 8.5/10

• Favorite Song: Cry Baby

• Least Favorite Song: Sexy Dirty Love

8. Wasteland, Baby!—Hozier

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: Almost (Sweet Music)

• Least favorite song: Shrike

9. Snow Angel—Reneé Rapp

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: I Hate Boston

• Least favorite song: Willow

10. Deeper Well—Kacey Musgraves

• Rate: 6/10

• Favorite song: Lonely Millionaire

• Least favorite song: Anime Eyes

11. Plastic Hearts—Miley Cyrus

• Rate: 9.5/10

• Favorite Song: Angels Like You

• Least favorite song: Gimme What I Want

12. Bird’s Eye—Rayvn Lenae

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: Love Me Not

• Least favorite song: 1 of 1

13. Calico—Ryan Beatty

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: Little Faith

• Least favorite song: Hunter

14. Chaos Angel—Maya Hawke

• Rate: 7/10

• Favorite song: Okay

• Least favorite song: Dark

15. hell is a teenage girl EP—Nessa Barrett

• Rate: 6/10

• Favorite song: the one that should’ve got away

• Least favorite song: BANG BANG!

16. Tiny EP—Sifa

• Rate: 5/10

• Favorite song: 2009

• Least favorite song: The Truman Show

17. MAYBE SOMEDAY IT’LL ALL BE OK—Clinton Kane

• Rate: 7.5/10

• Favorite song: ONE MORE DAY WITH YOU

• Least favorite song: I WISH I COULD HATE YOU FOR BREAKING ME AND CALLING IT LOVE

18. NOIRE EP—Avenoir

• Rate: 9.5/10

• Favorite song: TRACK 02 (Dangerous Lover)

• Least favorite song: LINK UP

19. Cathexis—Bambi Thug

• Rate: 7/10

• Favorite song: Doomsday Blue

• Least favorite song: Bye Boy

20. The Death Of Summer & Other Promises—Etta Marcus

• Rate: 8.5/10

• Favorite Song: Theater

• Least favorite song: Skin Parade

21. Retired from Sad, New Career in Business—Mitski

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: Class of 2013

• Least favorite song: I Want You

22. Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land—MARINA

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: Venus Fly Trap

• Least favorite song: Flowers

23. IF THE SHOE FITS, WEAR IT EP—Tristan

• Rate: 6/10

• Favorite song: let’s hope i move on

• Least favorite song: Last Girl on Earth

24. Deadpan Love—Cautious Clay

• Rate: 7.5/10

• Favorite song: Bump Stock

• Least favorite song: Box of Bones

25. Lychee—BENEE

• Rate: 6.5/10

• Favorite song: Beach Boy

• Least favorite song: Make You Sick

26. What’s It Like?—Sure Sure

• Rate: 7/10

• Favorite song: Sedona

• Least favorite song: Good Thing

27. if i could make it go quiet—girl in red

• Rate: 10/10

• Favorite song: Serotonin

• Least favorite song: You Stupid Bitch

28. Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever)—Noah Kahan

• Rate:10/10

• Favorite song: Dial Drunk

• Least favorite song: Your Needs, My Needs

29. Downers Grove EP—Kevin Atwater

• Rate: 6.5/10

• Favorite song: Caleb

• Least favorite song: christopher street

30. Unaired EP—Hozier

• Rate: 7/10

• Favorite song: That You Are

• Least favorite song: Nobody’s Solider

31. This Is How Tomorrow Moves—beabadoobee

• Rate: 8/10

• Favorite song: This Is How It Went

• Least favorite song: Post

32. Emotional Creature—Beach Bunny

• Rate: 8/10

• Favorite Song: Weeds

• Least favorite song: Love Song

33. For Lovers—Lamp

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: Out On Sunny Sunday

• Least favorite song: Words of Love

34. Underdressed at the Symphony—Faye Webster

• Rate: 8.5/10

• Favorite Song: Underdressed at the Symphony

• Least favorite song: Lego Ring

35. Cape Elizabeth EP—Noah Kahan

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: A Troubled Mind

• Least favorite song: Anyway

36. Inner Light (Phase 1) EP—Kid Bloom

• Rate: 7.5/10

• Favorite song: That’s What Happens

• Least favorite song: How to Breathe

37. <ASSEMBLE24>—tripleS

• Rate: 7.5/10

• Favorite song: Chiyu

• Least favorite song: Non Scale

38. Camp Nowhere—Peach Tree Rascals

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite Song: OOZ

• Least favorite song: papá

39. All The In Betweens—Syd Franklin

• Rate: 7/10

• Favorite song: Stay

• Least favorite song: Liability

40. Butterfly Paradise—Jessica Domingo

• Rate: 5.5/10

• Favorite song: Things Unsaid

• Least favorite song: Keep On Loving You

41. The Alternate Ending EP—Liza

• Rate: 5.5/10

• Favorite song: In The End

• Least favorite song: Shades

42. Fantasy Girl EP—Olivia Escuyos

• Rate: 9.5/10

• Favorite song: Change Your Mind

• Least favorite song: Fantasy Girl

43. CHAPTER 4: The End EP—Madeline The Person

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: Watercolor Flowers

• Least favorite song: Things I Carry

44. Comedy & Tragedy: Act 1 EP—Catie Turner

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: God Must Hate Me

• Least favorite song: Control

45. Made By These Moments—The Red Clay Strays

• Rate: 10/10

• Favorite song: On My Knees

• Least favorite song: God Does

46. eternal sunshine—Ariana Grande

• Rate: 8.5/10

• Favorite Song: don’t wanna break up again

• Least favorite song: yes, and?

47. A Cheetah Hunting In Slow Motion—Chloe George

• Rate: 4.5/10

• Favorite song: Outward

• Least favorite song: Glad You Came

48. War + Raindrops EP—iyla

• Rate: 8.5/10

• Favorite song: Juice

• Least favorite song: Power (I)

49. THE ALCHEMIST—Qveen Herby

• Rate: 5.5/10

• Favorite song: MAGIC

• Least favorite song: MIRROR MIRROR

50. Kansas Anymore—ROLE MODEL

• Rate: 10/10

• Favorite song: Scumbag

• Least favorite song: Deeply Still In Love

51. Violence EP—FIGHTMASTER

• Rate: 7/10

• Favorite song: Bad Man

• Least favorite song: Hot Shame

52. Freak Show EP—ALT BLK ERA

• Rate: 5/10

• Favorite song: Misfits:SOLAR

• Least favorite song: Freak Show

53. Fatherless EP—Cinnamon Babe

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: Loose

• Least favorite song: Typecast

54. FAIRY PHONK—Banshee

• Rate: 5/10

• Favorite song: SADIST

• Least favorite song: cant get u out of my head

55. MY MASOCHISTIC MIND—Siiickbrain

• Rate: 7.5/10

• favorite song: Idols

• Least favorite song: Three Eyes

56. GOLDEN HOUR: Part.1 EP—ATEEZ

• Rate: 5/10

• Favorite song: WORK

• Least favorite song: Shaboom

57. SMITHEREENS—Joji

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: NIGHT RIDER

• Least favorite song: Feeling Like The End

58. Solar Power—Lorde

• Rate: 8.5/10

• Favorite song: Mood Ring

• Least favorite song: The Man with the Axe

59. Every Sun, Every Moon—I’m Glad It’s You

• Rate:5.5/10

• Favorite Song: Lost My Voice

• Least favorite song: Big Sound

60. Short n’ Sweet—Sabrina Carpenter

• Rate: 8/10

• Favorite song: Slim Pickins

• Least favorite song: Sharpest Tool

61. 私をしも—mei ehara

• Rate: 5.5/10

• Favorite song: The Night Is Over

• Least favorite song: Next Time

62. Revisit—VIDEOTAPEMUSIC

• Rate: 6/10

• Favorite song: Nomozaki

• Least favorite song: Susaki (Flotsam)

63. Chemtrails Over The Country Club—Lana Del Rey

• Rate: 8.5/10

• Favorite song: Let Me Love You Like A Woman

• Least favorite song: Yosemite

64. Juggernaut:Alpha—Periphery

• Rate: 8/10

• Favorite song: Psychosphere

• Least favorite song: The Scourge

65. 21st Century Hippie EP—Bebe Wood

• Rate: 5/10

• Favorite song: Timed Test

• Least favorite song: Bubblegum

66. i’m somewhere out there EP—Michael Cimino

• Rate: 7/10

• Favorite song: Stay The Night

• Least favorite song: MAKE ME WANNA DANCE

67. OMR—Omar Rudberg

• Rate: 7.5/10

• Favorite song: Que Puedo Hacer?

• Least favorite song: Coast Side

68. Trouble In Paradise—Chlöe

• Rate: 6.5/10

• Favorite Song: Might As Well

• Least favorite song: Rose

69. Eve—Precious Pepala

• Rate: 6.5/10

• Favorite Song: Pls Cheat On Me

• Least favorite song: Bubble Wrap

70. Poetic License EP—Janani K. Jha

• Rate: 6/10

• Favorite song: Library Card

• Least favorite song: Two Roads

71. Deep Love EP—KOIAI

• Rate: 5.5/10

• Favorite song: A New Picture

• Least favorite song: One Way or Another

72. alloy—Mellows

• Rate: 10/10

• Favorite song: Candy making

• Least favorite song: himitsu closet

73. Gone—Clyde and the Milltailers

• Rate: 6/10

• Favorite song: Keys

• Least favorite song: Next Year

74. Entropy—DeathbyRomy

• Rate: 6/10

• Favorite song: No Mercy

• Least favorite song: I Don’t Believe in Anything

75. Matriarchy—girli

• Rate: 5/10

• Favorite song: Overthinking

• Least favorite song: Feel My Feelings

76. black cat—PISSKISS

• Rate: 5.5/10

• Favorite song: white lighter

• Least favorite song: black cat

77. Love Lies Bleeding EP—Love Spells

• Rate: 6.5/10

• Favorite song: Out My System

• Least favorite song: Someone Like me

78. CHAOS NOW*—Jean Dawson

• Rate: 8.5/10

• Favorite song: GLORY*

• Least favorite song: 0-HEROES *

79. = —Ed Sheeran

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite Song: Bad Habits

• Least favorite song: Be Right Now

80. I Don’t Know How to Explain It EP—Michael Cera Palin

• Rate: 8/10

• Favorite song: If It Makes You Happy

• Least favorite song: Southern Comfort

81. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah—Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

• Rate: 7.5/10

• Favorite song: Over and over Again (Lost and Found)

• Least favorite song: Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away

82. Western White Pines—Colby Acuff

• Rate: 6.5/10

• Favorite song: Rollin’ With the Wind

• Least favorite song: Boy and a Bird Dog

83. Broom—Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

• Rate: 9.5/10

• Favorite Song: Anne Elephant

• Least favorite song: Pangea

84. How Many People How Many Dogs—Yes Ma’am

• Rate: 7/10

• Favorite song: Paradise Lullaby

• Least favorite song: The FTRA Took My Baby Away

85. Anomalies in the oddity space EP—The Poles

• Rate: 9/10

• Favorite song: Oddities

• Least favorite song: Space Kids

86. Toy—Patatoi

• Rate:7.5/10

• Favorite song: Shade

• Least favorite song: Vanish

87. Hard Times/ Bad Trips—Pity Party (Girls Club)

• Rate: 5/10

• Favorite song: Stuck on u

• Least favorite song: Something bout u

88. Isotope EP—Wasia Project

• Rate: 8/10

• Favorite song: To Get Better

• Least favorite song: Takes Me Back Home

89. Holy Water Branch—Brennan Wedl

• Rate: 8.5/10

• Favorite song: Bag of Bones

• Least favorite song: Mt. Saint Paul

[dankusner]

Don Graham The best Texas movies on tape.

Giant

1956 Warner Bros. 3:21

Director: George Stevens

Writers: Fred Guiol, Ivan Moffett

Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Carroll Baker, Jane Withers, Chill Wills, Mercedes McCambridge, Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo, Rod Taylor, Earl Holliman

Although it takes a big chunk of time to watch this big film about Texas back when things were right and the Lone Star State was the biggest state in the U.S. of A., one’s time is well spent, because Giant, by Gawd, has everything: lusty ranchers, colorful wheeler-dealers, acres of cattle, tacky clothes, tacky mansions, miles of gorgeous emptiness, a thumping rendition of “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” and a liberal heart-on-its-sleeve subtext about Mexican-Anglo relations. The cast is stupendous: as Bick Benedict, Rock Hudson when he stood foursquare for macho manliness, Elizabeth Taylor at her loveliest even when those barbaric Texans serve up barbecued calves’ brains, Dennis Hopper as Bick’s wimpy son, Mercedes McCambridge as Bick’s sister with the bark on, and, in his last and one of his finest roles, James Dean as Jett Rink, the dirt-poor redneck with a yen for the better things who gets stinking rich and tries to put his brand, JR (please note), on everything in Texas. Required viewing for each new generation of natives and snowbirds.

Red River

1948 MGM-UA 2:05 B&W

Director: Howard Hawks

Writer: Borden Chase

Starring: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan, Coleen Gray, John Ireland, Noah Berry, Jr., Shelley Winters, Harry Carey, Sr., Harry Carey, Jr.

The visual elements inherent in cattle drives go back to the roots of the cinema. Thomas Edison’s boys shot footage in 1898 with titles like “Branding Cattle,” “Cattle Leaving the Corral,” and “Cattle Fording Stream.” All through the silent period and into the bang-bang era of the thirties westerns, Hollywood tried to make the cattle drive story into a national epic. Finally, in 1948, Howard Hawks got it right, with his stirring, powerful, unforgettable big-budget extravaganza based on a Mutiny on the Bounty plot. In one of his best roles, John Wayne plays Tom Dunson, a pioneering rancher forced by post–Civil War hard times to find a market for his cattle up north. Along the trail he clashes with most of the men under his hire and especially with his foundling son, Matthew Garth (Montgomery Clift), who eventually takes the herd away from his tyrannical father. At the end of this one, you feel gritty, and there’s a great rousing fight that allows the two warring males to realize they actually love each other. Peter Bogdanovich paid homage to Red River in The Last Picture Show.

The Last Picture Show

1971 RCA/Columbia 1:78 B&W

Director: Peter Bogdanovich

Writers: Peter Bogdanovich, Larry McMurtry

Starring: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Cybill Shepherd, Eileen Brennan, Clu Gulager, Sam Bottoms, Randy Quaid

A black and white tone poem about teenage lust and love in a dusty, desiccated, flyblown Texas town. Many memorable moments. Among them: Sensitive high school boy makes love to sad, lonely wife of jock-scratching football coach; Cybil Shepherd strips on a diving board to prove she’s in deep with a fast Wichita Falls crowd; and Ben Johnson, who won an Oscar for best supporting actor, every time he is on the screen. To see how good this film is and how far former wunderkind Peter Bogdanovich has tumbled, tune in to Texasville (1990), a boring, inept update of what has happened to the characters since the early fifties. Except for Jeff Bridges’ rather endearing performance as a Duane grown grayish and paunchy, this dreadful film about middle-aged love and forgiveness is as punchless as Texas’ sesquicentennial celebration.

Bonnie and Clyde

1967 Warner Bros. 1:47

Director: Arthur Penn

Writers: David Newman, Robert Benton

Starring: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons

It was all style then, and it’s all style now, this artsy look at the live-hard, die-young lives of Texas’ most famous outlaw team. Warren Beatty’s Clyde is infectiously watchable, with lots of cocky posturing and some nifty “business,” such as his love affair with a cigarette, and a raffish Faye Dunaway, whose portrayal of Bonnie seems, as the years pass, more and more like a takeoff, before the fact, of that big, horsey, blond model Jerry Hall’s rise to fame. Everything in this film is for fun, even the close-up red splatters of people’s faces exploding. The violence is supposed to make us aware that, hey, these young kids are dangerous, but what we really hope for is that Bonnie and Clyde will be just like Burt Reynolds’ Smokey of the next decade, always escaping from the Rangers and high sheriffs. Wonderful Depression-era compositions: Okies boiling coffee in tin cans, farms foreclosed on, and Bonnie and Clyde, dressed to the nines, cavorting in Texas fields. In real life, Clyde once wrote a charming thank-you letter to the Ford Motor Company for building such a fine automobile that allowed him to pull his bank jobs, and this film captures that exuberance and panache very nicely indeed.

The Wild Bunch

1969 Warner Bros. 2:07

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Writers: Sam Peckinpah, Walon Green, Roy N. Sickner, Lee Marvin (uncredited)

Starring: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Jaime Sanchez, Strother Martin, L. Q. Jones, Albert Dekker, Bo Hopkins, Emilio Fernandez, Dub Taylor

The closest the western has come to creating tragic emotions, this ultraviolent film has been denounced for bloody amoralism, exploitative sexism, and just about every other ism you care to name. Still, it’s a great film. The opening sequence, a slaughter of the innocents in a little South Texas border town, precipitates the outlaw gang’s flight into Mexico, where they encounter a beautifully conceived tapestry of opposites: a pastoral Mexican village juxtaposed with a corrupt city ruled by an unholy alliance of Mexican despots and German advisers. The time is revolutionary 1913. In sequence after sequence, Peckinpah depicts the gang’s sense of the end of an era that might have been bloodthirsty, whoremongering, and deadly, but one curiously more honorable and meaningful than what faces them as the twentieth century wheels toward its mass-murder destiny. The final Götterdämmerung is one of the profoundly moving sequences in American film history, as a weary, battered William Holden leads his men to retrieve their comrade angel, the only idealist left in Mexico or Texas, we are to believe. Editing, composition, music, acting, directing, all are superb.

Blood Simple

1984 MCA 1:36

Director: Joel Coen

Writers: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Starring: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, Samm-Art Williams, M. Emmet Walsh

Honky-tonk film noir shot in Austin on a modest budget by Joel and Ethan Coen, the boy wonders who went on to make such talked-about movies as Raising Arizona and Miller’s Crossing. A lean, twisted, devious story of motel love, revenge, double cross, a buried-alive body, and knife-through-the-hand pain. Three terrific characters: a leisure-suited, VW-driving sleazeball of a private detective played by veteran backgrounder M. Emmet Walsh in the role of his life; a snarling, angry, betrayed husband played by Dan Hedaya; and a smart, resourceful, and appealing young woman played by Frances McDormand, the only survivor. She looks absolutely real, the kind of vulnerable beauty you might run into in an all-night laundromat, not one of your big-time Hollywood fake-looking beauties. Contains wonderful voice-over narration; worth seeing (or hearing) just for such lines as these: “In Russia they got it mapped out, so that everyone pulls for everyone else. That’s the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas, and down here you’re on your own.”

The Getaway

1972 Warner Bros. 2:02

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Writer: Walter Hill

Starring: Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Johnson, Sally Strothers, Al Lettieri, Slim Pickens

Sam Peckinpah discovered down-and-dirty noir novelist Jim Thompson years before the current spate of Thompson-based films like After Dark, My Sweet, and The Grifters. The Getaway is a stylish robber-chase film shot on location in, among other Texas sites, San Marcos and El Paso. Steve McQueen is great, Ali MacGraw isn’t (some things never change), and Slim Pickens shows up at the end as a drawling Texas angel presiding over the outlaw pair’s happy-ending escape into Mexico. Dub Taylor puts in a brilliant appearance as a “juicer” desk clerk at a seedy El Paso hotel. A highly watchable film—with Peckinpah’s signature command of involving, kinetic camera work and dreamlike violence.

Terms of Endearment

1983 Paramount 2:12

Director: James L. Brooks

Writers: Larry McMurtry, James L. Brooks

Starring: Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Daniels, John Lithgow, Danny DeVito

Shot in Houston, this film turns the Bayou City into a coastal suburbia, but never mind, the real interest lies in the dynamics of a terrific till-death-do-us-part mother-daughter relationship between Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger, with Jack Nicholson’s randy retired-astronaut character thrown in to liven up the neighborhood. Much thinner in Texas ambience than the Larry McMurtry novel on which it was based, Terms goes for the heart, creating an authentic tearjerker that audiences seem to love, whether they’ve ever heard of Texas or not. Harrowing hospital scenes in the cancer ward would wring tears from a serial killer. On the minor side, Jeff Daniels’ excellent portrayal of the grubby graduate student–English professor, Hap, is surpassed only by the gaggle of English professors in D.O.A. (1988), including one who commits murder to get tenure.

The Searchers

1956 Warner Bros. 1:39

Director: John Ford

Writer: Richard Carr

Starring: John Wayne, Natalie Wood, Vera Miles, Jeffrey Hunter, Ward Bond, John Qualen

One of the most influential movies in recent American cinematic history, according to such directors as Martin Scorsese and Michael Cimino. This film’s master plot—a young girl taken captive by the enemy, the racial Other—underlies the dynamics of such celebrated works as Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter. Impelled by Shakespearean-sized emotions and an epic visual style, it has three flaws: the dreadful score and nonperiod music; the too-broad bumpkin comedy of Ken Curtis’ role; and another broad stereotypical comic subplot involving a fat Comanche woman named Look, who tags along after Jeffrey Hunter. Otherwise the film is operatically powerful and compelling. It is also final proof, if any were needed, of John Wayne’s consummate ability as a screen actor. His hatred of Indians makes us believe that he will kill his niece (Natalie Wood), whom he has spent eight obsessive years trying to rescue from Comanche captors, only at the last instant to clasp her in an all-forgiving embrace. Jean-Luc Godard, the French auteur, has spoken memorably of the moment: “How can I hate John Wayne upholding Goldwater and yet love him tenderly when abruptly he takes Natalie Wood into his arms in the last reel of The Searchers?” The metaphysics of family, race, and destiny has rarely been portrayed as powerfully in American films.

Tender Mercies

1983 HBO 1:20

Director: Bruce Beresford

Writer: Horton Foote

Starring: Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Allan Hubbard, Betty Buckley, Ellen Barkin, Wilford Brimley

In my opinion, the best of Horton Foote’s numerous essays in Texas filmmaking, this quiet study of a country and western singer on the skids has an authentic flat-landscape feel to it that you need when you’re telling the truth about lives that are as plain as hillbilly ballads. Robert Duvall is simply superb as Mac Sledge, both in his thirties-tough Senecan acceptance of life’s hard knocks and his twangy accent, which is the best rendition of East Texas idiom ever recorded in a feature film. Duvall, who sings his own songs in a perfect-pitch C&W whine, invents a country singer far better than real stars such as Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristoffersen in their Texas movies. Tess Harper is convincing in a stand-by-your-man role typical of the culture being dramatized.

Hud

1963 Paramount 1:32 B&W

Director: Martin Ritt

Writers: Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank

Starring: Paul Newman, Patricia Neal, Melvyn Douglas, Brandon de Wilde, John Ashley, Whit Bissell

Dating faster than you’d expect, but still riveting in a number of scenes, this adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s first novel offers us Paul Newman at his hungry, sad, sexy, existential best. He looks great in this film and, unlike wide-gauged co-star Brandon de Wilde, knows how to wear jeans—and walk. De Wilde’s portrayal of the sensitive-young-male-as-proto-English-major looks weaker upon every viewing. Even worse is the treacly Academy Award–winning performance of the old rancher, Melvyn Douglas, whose sanctimonious uprightness makes him seem like an aged Bill Moyers, always talking about ethics this and principles that. As any hands-on ranch owner knows, there’s no such thing as the good old days in the ranching ethos. At the close, though we’re not supposed to, we end up rooting for Hud to screw everybody, because the film is so nauseatingly smug in championing the simple virtues of soil over oil. James Wong Howe’s austere rendition of Texas landscapes, in art house black and white, remains one of the film’s distinct pleasures.

Urban Cowboy

1980 Paramount 2:15

Director: James Bridges

Writers: James Bridges, Aaron Latham

Starring: John Travolta, Debra Winger, Scott Glenn, Madolyn Smith, Barry Corbin

Okay, so Gilley’s is history, reduced to ashes, and the urban cowboy phenom is as dead as the California medfly, so who cares anymore about this Texas version of Saturday Night Virus? All right, so John Travolta is a lily-livered disco dancer from Jersey. This is still a fetching film for one reason alone: Debra Winger as the sexy, soulful Sissy, a working-class Texas girl who drives a tow truck for her daddy and slow dances at Gilley’s every night. All right, so the plot is stupid and improbable, with a villain imported from Huntsville who dresses in black and eats the worm from a tequila bottle. Yeah, so the whole thing is like a mall western, with most scenes taking place inside the boring, cavernous confines of an overrated dance hall. Sure, there is not one good or authentic country and western song in the entire movie. But there’s still Debra Winger riding that mechanical bull as it was meant to be rode.

Written on the Wind

1956 MCA 1:39

Director: Douglas Sirk

Writer: George Zuckerman

Starring: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Robert Keith, Grant Williams

“A splashy sudser,” Variety might have called this knowing melodrama. Fifties audiences wept at the soap opera theatrics of the plot and players, young viewers today laugh at the doings of the rich and impotent, and high-brow cineasts continue to celebrate this film as European-born Sirk’s masterpiece. As in Giant, released the same year, Rock Hudson plays a virtuous Texan, only this time he’s as solemn as a stone. The stand-out performances are those of Robert Stack, a rich playboy scion of an East Texas oil family who falls in love with Lauren Bacall only to have this saving marriage go sour when he proves unable to father a child, and Dorothy Malone as Stack’s sister, a spoiled rich girl who sleeps around because her true love, Rock Hudson, won’t give her the time of day. Eventually the good but boring couple, Hudson and Bacall, are married, while the bad brother-sister combo ends up with the male dead and the female inheriting the family oil empire. Malone won an Oscar for her flamboyant portrayal of sexual energy on the edge of hysteria. The film is full of phallic symbolism (all those oil derricks, don’t you know), emotional posturing, and canny cinematic riffs.

The Sugarland Express

1974 MCA 1:49

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writers: Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins

Starring: Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, Michael Sacks, William Atherton, Gregory Walcott, Louise Latham

There’s a gritty, realistic feel to this chase film, directed by Steven Spielberg back before he became the purveyor of E.T. and other fantasy-based fluff. Drawn from a true story, the movie tells of a young mother who in 1969 helped her husband escape from prison. Their goal: to rescue baby Langston, their two-year-old, who has been placed in a foster home by state authorities. Hawn’s Lou Jean is a honey-voiced live wire, an appealing and resourceful survivor; her husband, played by Atherton, has that doomed look about him. The interaction between the couple and the young cop whose car they confiscate is affecting. The movie’s tone keeps the pace light, as though these are just kids on a lark, and by the time they reach Sugar Land, where the baby now lives, they are celebrities cheered by throngs of admiring small-town people. The carnival atmosphere is counterpointed beautifully by Ben Johnson’s law enforcement officer, a sad-faced man who has to make the decision to employ the expertise of two deadly sharpshooters to end the chase once and for all. This video is not so easy to locate in stores: I found it in the Best Moms in Movies section.

The Border

1982 MCA 1:47

Director: Tony Richardson

Writers: Deric Washburn, Walon Green, David Freeman

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Valerie Perrine, Harvey Keitel, Warren Oates, Elpidia Carrillo

A modern western with Nicholson turning in a brilliant performance as a border patrol officer named Charlie assigned to duty in El Paso. The drama of his efforts to resist corruption is the center of this film. His tempters include Harvey Keitel, an engaging good ol’ boy on the take, and Valerie Perrine, Charlie’s sexy, gum-chewing, K mart–shopping wife, who longs to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and spends every penny he makes on trashy waterbeds and tacky sofas. Reluctantly, Charlie accepts the skewed ethics of an everybody-does-it-so-why-not-you system that preys on the dreams of illegal aliens seeking to come to America, but eventually his redemption comes in the form of another woman, an illegal alien, a lovely madonna from Mexico whose baby is stolen by an adoption ring. Though the plot device of the hardened law officer being softened by a mother and baby is as old as William S. Hart’s films, there is enough fast-paced action and hard-bitten location shooting along the Texas-Mexico border to disguise the number being done on our emotions. But most of all, there is Nicholson’s stubborn, convincing refusal to give up his fundamental decency. Note: Since many of the early scenes take place at night, for maximum clarity it’s especially important to secure a good video copy.

Talk Radio

1988 MCA 1:50

Director: Oliver Stone

Writers: Eric Bogosian, Oliver Stone

Starring: Eric Bogosian, Ellen Greene, Leslie Hope, Alec Baldwin, John C. McGinley, John Pankow

An edgy, unnerving look at the creeps, crazies, and merely neurotic citizens who call in to radio talk shows to relay their demented philosophies of what’s wrong with America. Drawing upon a real case in Denver in which talk show host Alan Berg was murdered, Oliver Stone, following the lead of scriptwriter and star Eric Bogosian, switches the setting to Dallas, with chilling atmospherics the result. Stone takes the closed-in world of a radio broadcast booth and, by means of fluid, searching camera movements and angles, creates a vibrant nighttime of paranoid aggression. The hero is immensely unlikable, part of the point, and the disembodied voices that float in the Dallas night are truly scary. One of Stone’s best films because, narratively, he’s not in it and therefore not hammering away in his usual preachy manner.

The Thin Blue Line

1988 Facets 1:36

Director: Errol Morris

Interviewees: Randall Adams, David Harris, Edith James, Dennis White, Sam Kittrell

A film that really matters: It led to the release from prison of a man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In 1976 Randall Adams, a drifter, was knocking around Dallas when a policeman stopped the car he had been riding in earlier that night. What happened next is the subject of the film. Either Adams or his companion that night, David Harris, murdered the policeman with a handgun. Harris fingered Adams, and Adams got a death sentence. Through a variety of documentary and quasi-documentary techniques, filmmaker Errol Morris reconstructs the case. We witness real-life interviews done in a stark, face-on style; see dramatic reenactments of the episodes surrounding the murder, including some events staged from different points of view; stare mesmerized at close-up objects—guns, clocks, places; and, in certain nonrealistic moments, watch in wonder as a soft-drink cup spirals upward in slow motion. The result is a highly original blend of documentary and detective story. The end is both satisfactory and alarming as we become convinced that Adams is innocent and Harris, now in prison himself for another murder, is guilty of the crime that put an innocent man in prison for eleven years.

True Stories

1986 Warner Bros. 1:51

Director: David Byrne

Writers: Stephen Tobolowsky, Beth Henley, David Byrne

Starring: David Byrne, John Goodman, Swoosie Kurtz, Spalding Gray, Annie McEnroe, Jo Harvey Allen

Since the great state of Texas didn’t do anything memorable to commemorate its sesquicentennial except wallow in an economic nosedive, it remained for David Byrne to take up the slack. In True Stories Byrne, the genius of the thinking-man’s rock group, the Talking Heads, measures the metaphysical pulse of “a bunch of people in Virgil, Texas,” an imaginary small town that is preparing a celebration of its “specialness” in the year of the sesquicentennial. What’s particularly special about this hard-to-classify film is the sweet tone of discovery that informs the point of view. Byrne, wearing a wacky black ten-gallon hat and sporting a look of perpetually bemused wonder, takes us on guided tours of boxlike buildings that contain the mysteries of computer chips, to the edge of suburban developments beyond which lie prairies that will be converted to who knows what, to the candy- and magazine-strewn bedside of a lady so rich that she lives in her bed. Using an unpredictable, arrhythmic mix of documentary, amateur theatrics, surrealism, and droll comedy, Byrne somehow, despite a few flat sequences, manages to keep us interested and along the way to give us a unique look at the places and spaces we inhabit in modern Texas. The music, mostly from the Talking Heads, is also a plus.

Fandango

1985 Warner Bros. 1:31

Director: Kevin Reynolds

Writer: Kevin Reynolds

Starring: Kevin Costner, Sam Robards, Judd Nelson, Chuck Bush, Brian Cesak, Marvin J. McIntyre, Suzy Amis

In a place as big as Texas, there has to be a road movie, and this is it. In May 1971, five University of Texas frat rats leave the wreckage of their last bash, pile in a car, and head west, their mission to dig up a bottle of Dom Perignon they buried in the desert. Adventures and youthful philosophizing ensue. Vietnam, careers, marriage, and flight from all three are much on their minds. Near Marfa, they pay homage to the collapsed pile of Bick Benedict’s mansion on the Worth Evans Ranch, where Giant was filmed. The movie mixes moments like this with adolescent pranks, making for an uneven but energetic film of special interest because of the stars-to-be cast. Kevin Costner, engaging and likable before he became the nineties icon of western soft-focus ecological rectitude, is the leader of the pack. Judd Nelson is so wimpy and unlikable, you wonder why they took him along. Director Reynolds, who began this project as a student film, may join his pal Costner as a major Hollywood property if their Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is as big a hit this summer as expected.

The Zapruder Film

1963 The JFK Assassination Center 22 seconds

Although not available in video stores, this 8mm color home movie of the murder of President Kennedy is the most widely viewed and analyzed strip of film in Texas history. While the Warren Commission used it to support its lone-assassin theory, critics of the commission say the film proves just the opposite. The film has done more than any other single piece of evidence to keep the controversy alive. The JFK Assassination Center (603 Munger, Suite 310, Box 40, Dallas 75202) has a silent, eleven-minute video for sale for $29.95.

The most promising unfinished project is The Gay Place. Billie Lee Brammer’s 1961 novel about a Texas governor based on Lyndon B. Johnson’s politics and personality, observed up close by aide Brammer, might have made a splendid movie. In 1963 Paul Newman was set to star as Roy Sherwood, a South Texas liberal who learns the art of the possible in an apprenticeship to colorful, larger-than-life Governor Arthur “Goddam” Fenstemaker (Jackie Gleason was to play the role). Newman would have coproduced with Martin Ritt, who directed him that same year in Hud. Budgeted at $3 million, the film had large ambitions. A location rep for Columbia who came to Austin to scout sites told the press: “This is a big picture. We wanted to give it a great deal of scope, such as the book has, and we needed the wide open spaces of Texas for that.” But like so many projects in Hollywood, this one was not to be. Events in Dallas later that year spelled the end of any immediate possibility of seeing The Gay Place on-screen. Now Brammer’s daughters, Sidney and Shelby, have written a new screenplay, titled Big State, and hope to begin shooting next spring.

Don Graham, an English professor at the University of Texas, is the author of, most recently, No Name on the Bullet: A Biography of Audie Murphy.

[screenmaven]

Films I’ve Loved This Year

I have already written reviews on some of them (not seen in this post), that you can already read here. So make sure to also do that.

I’m completely laid out in bed extremely sick, I thought between the delusional fevers, bomb exploding headaches, and literally feeling like I’m dying, I’d share the other films I’ve absolutely enjoyed watching this year.

I started up a separate account via Instagram to just post film, but having multiples is beginning to be too much, so from now on any other film content aside from the blog here will be on @ starrymayx.

So to start off the list here we go…

These 90s “Noir” films started my whole new movie Escapades, and I’m so glad they did -

Bad Influence, Guilty As Sin, Pacific Heights, Whispers in The Dark, Dream Lover, Untamed Heart, White Palace

Here are the others…

Thrashin - 1986

Starring: Josh Brolin, Pamela Gidley

Brooke McCarter (RIP homie), Sherilyn Fenn, Robert Rusler, & Josh Richman

Anthony Kiedis + RHCP

Tony Hawk, Kevin Staab, Mike McGill, Jimmy Star

What I liked: There was so much awesomeness in this film and a feel good story of triumph. Basically it’s about two skateboarding gangs, having beef, mix in lots of skating, graffiti, punk rock aesthetics, and a love story, and you have yourself a pretty badass film. Plus they overcome their rivalry in the LA Massacre challenge, and there’s even several rat tails. 🤣 Definitely worth a watch!

I really wish I could skateboard. I would have been so rad. To all my skater friends and Bo’s over the years, mad respect. 🤘🏻

The House on Sorority Row - 1983

Director: Mark Rosman

I swear Scream Queens was influenced by this film.

I really liked it. Loved the lighting, still had a seventies type feel, storyline was really good. Definitely a film to check out if you like really good horror, without all the super special effects.

*For any strobe light sensitive people* like myself out there, there is a scene where it’s wild,

Pump Up The Volume ✊🏻 1990

Director Allan Moyle

This movie is 🔥 Definitely a pioneer for all things talk radio but from a non-narrative perspective. Films like this and indie radio programs paved the way for our now podcasts. I loved the way it was written, the development of the characters personal selves, and breaking the rules.

I love me some Christian Slater 💓

The soundtrack is also amazing!

From Richard Hell, Leonard Cohen, Beastie Boys, Ice T, & more! I’ll link the soundtrack in my stories.

*trigger warning: there is a scene that deals with suicide and those scenes always get me. So I wanted to mention that.

Out of Bounds - 1986

Director- Richard Tuggle

Cinematography - Bruce Surtees

Starring: Anthony Michael Hall

Siouxsie and the Banshees 🤘🏻💓

& Meatloaf (in like 3 scenes)

What I liked: The cinematography of downtown LA & Venice Beach California, (actually the whole film is beautifully done). The 80’s colors, Dizz’s home, her style. The fact that Anthony Michael Hall was a badass hero, taking down a heroin drug man with his knife throwing skills. Really good film.

2 Days in The Valley - 1996

Written and Directed by: John Herzfeld.

Starring: James Spader, Eric Stolz & Charlize Theron

Synopsis: 48 hours of intersecting lives and crimes in The Valley of Los Angeles.

Why I liked it: Artsy Cinematography, James Spader obviously, and the correlation of numerous parties all being connected, going through individual stuff but being thrown into the mix of chaos. Plus sunglasses just seem to add viable cred to it. Why are sunglasses so cool yet mysterious?

Shampoo - 1975

Director: Hal Ashby

Starting Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, & Warren Beatty

I throughly enjoyed this film mainly due to the Jim Morrison/Sharon Tate style vibes it gave off throughout, and all the stylish decor/fashion. The Morrison looking guy played by (Warren Beatty) is basically a lover to many of his women hair clients (he does hair).

I really appreciate the 70’s swank and aesthetic appeal in this film. I’m also obsessed with Julie Christie’s glam Tate starlet look and I wish I could pull off bangs! Goldie Hawn is also in here and a younger Carrie Fisher.

From the 70s eye shadow, purple outfit I want, the main girls style, glamorous hair, river grotto, la house party with body paint and strobe lights (which that part I had to turn away - sensitive), it still rocked.

Based in the LA canyon/hills it’s definitely worth a watch to see the web of desire and aesthetic unfold. Keep your eye out for the creepy art in one of the scenes that just didn’t quite belong. 😳

Additionally there was some dialogue between two parties in the kitchen about questioning the lead male’s (hairstylist) orientation, and the f word was used a couple times. Didn’t like that part.

Really glad we’ve evolved on how we should identify people and what’s right to say and not to. A person can be gay or even not, but using derogatory terminology to hurt them is very low par. If you still do that. Stop.

Chopping Mall - 1986

Director: Jim Wynorski

Mall Location: Sherman Oaks Galleria

I loved this film. For reals.

Nothing better than a mall unleashing new technology security robots, only to go horribly wrong. Which I already knew where it was going as soon as it started 😂

Anyways a group of mall employee friends and two others throw a party in a bedding home store and get freaky - typical 80s horror, which I love. Then basically the robots go crazy and savage, hunting down all of them in a terminator/stranger things vibe kind of way. The aesthetic, 80s style, and scenery are very appealing, all the way down to even the playboy underwear from Miss Virgina Slims herself. Camel ciggs just won’t cut it. 😂

Lots of greats here, and I hope you check them out if you haven’t seen them.

Happy Filming 😘

[gsmattingly]

Review "Wise Blood"

I watched "Wise Blood" directed by John Huston based on the novel by Flannery O'Connor. It stars Brad Dourif as Hazel Motes, John Huston as his Grandfather, Dan Shor as Enoch Emory, Harry Dean Stanton as Asa Hawks, Amy Wright as Sabbath Lily, Mary Nell Santacroce as the landlady. Ned Beatty as Hoover Shoates and several others. The screenplay was written by Benedict Fitzgerald and Michael Fitzgerald, two brothers who had, when growing up, actually spent time with Flannery O'Connor. She had a room in their parents' house where she wrote "Wise Blood", her first novel. This was also the first screenplay the brothers had sold, I believe and the first time Michael Fitzgerald was a producer on a film. They were several other producers involved. A lot of the side characters are locals from the area where the film was shot. Sally Fitzgerald, who was the mother of Benedict and Michael worked on costume design and set decoration. She was also "Flannery O’Connor’s Friend, Editor and Literary Steward ". The film is very interesting and enjoyable, also a bit strange. Hazel Motes and Enoch Emory are particularly strange and I wouldn't call the rest of the characters particularly normal. I found it interesting that the prostitute was, indeed, a local prostitute. The used car salesman was, yes, a local car salesman. Really a fascinating array of characters. I believe the screenplay was basically three sections. The whole story goes from a deep disenchantment with Christianity and Christ to self-mortification of the flesh for redemption. Some of the dialogue is directly from Flannery O'Connor and quite entertaining.

I've seen the film before. This latest viewing is of a release from Criterion and I actually plan to see it again tomorrow night at the Roxie Theatre in San Francisco. There's a discussion after the movie. (the discussion group is actually full and there's a waiting list). It could and should be an interesting evening.