#columbo has Had It with this man

[columboscreens]

[ruler-of-turtle-kind]

Four episodes into Columbo and I see why everyone on here loves this guy.

[airyairyaucontraire]

at this point I'm barely paying attention to the mysteries and watching Columbo almost exclusively for the fashion

okay I'm watching Columbo for the following things (in no particular order):

fashion

interior design

surprising guest stars (and I'm expecting they'll do that pre-home-video-TV thing where a guest star comes back in a later season as a completely different character and you're not expected to notice)

funny little man with raisins in his pockets

[formosusiniquis]

any cosmo girl would have known

“Oh she did it for sure.”

“Steve!”

“Ten bucks, Bobert, don't give me that look last time we agreed double or nothing.”

“No,” Nancy insists. “This isn't Murder, She Wrote or Scooby-Doo or Columbo-”

“You saw who did it in Columbo at the beginning,” Eddie reminds.

“I know it's an awful show.”

Robin and Steve remain in sync enough to each get a hand on his shoulder to keep him from getting on the coffee table to defend the only good cop show in existence.

“I'm only pointing out,” she rewinds the VHS taking it back the two or three minutes they'd talked over before stopping it completely, “that this is a movie, not a drama with a repeated format that Steve can pattern recognition into predicting.”

“You haven't seen it already, right?” Robin asks. “The one rule of Monthly Middle-Aged Movie Night is you have to pick a movie none of us have seen.”

“No, I haven't seen it already. If you'll all remember when I asked you each to go see it with me I got,” he points to each of them in turn. “‘Wouldn't you rather see Tomb Raider?’ from double VHS, prestige cinephile and ‘That's too much pink for me, baby, you know I have that intolerance, maybe Rob or Nance will go?’ from my emo-isn’t-a-phase husband. And ‘I'm a little busy with this new story, Steve,’ from Nancy, the only one of you with a real excuse.”

“Some feminist you are, Birdie.”

“I don't want to hear it from you. I watched two of the blandest men alive pursue Renee Zellweger while the screen writers tried to convince us she was homely because you ‘forgot’ you had band practice.”

“You said you liked it!”

“It grew on me, but sometimes you just want to see a woman in a tank top. And I won't be shamed by the same man who cried during Beauty and the Beast.”

“I went with my sweet baby Lucy Joan, you miserable hag,” Eddie says, “and they turned that hot werewolf into a boring looking man.”

“You weren't into that? Look at who-”

“Why am I getting made fun of? Can we finish the movie?”

“No, I'm not going to let this be another Sixth Sense situation,” Nancy says, holding the remote hostage, she knows no one will try to take it from her.

“Ugh don't even bring that up,” Eddie groans, “Dustin still mentions it in at least one letter a year.”

Nancy nods, prim and proper, “Exactly, so tell us right now why you think she did it, then we'll play it again.”

“Chutney, the daughter,” Steve corrects, “have you even been paying attention? Her hair's permed.”

“And press play,” Eddie shouts.

“No,” Robin smacks his hands as he makes his ballsy play to reach around her for the remote. “Show your work, Dingus, even I didn't follow that one.”

“I don't always like the movies everyone else picks but I at least watch them. Her hair is permed, she said she was in the shower. She would have had to have been washing her hair if she didn't hear the gunshot and she has a perm.”

“You can wash your hair with a perm,” Nancy points out.

“You would know.” Eddie snarks, fingering the ends of his own hair.

“You can't wash a fresh perm, you'll fuck up the ammonium thioglycolate. Then you're out forty bucks and you've got limp hair. She killed her dad and lied about being in the shower.”

“Press play,” Eddie decrees again, leaning in close to Steve's side to purr, “it's pretty sexy when you go all hair care detective.”

His hand starts to slip below the blanket. “This is how we ended up with Lucy in the first place,” Steve reminds him, just under the sounds of the courtroom drama picking back up. It doesn’t stop Eddie’s hand from wandering until the movie’s climax starts getting closer, and Eddie’s attention is captured just like Robin’s and Nancy’s.

“Unbelievable,” Robin says, when Elle cites the perm salt.

“Never again,” Nancy swears, when Chutney screams her confession.

“Lucy’s been asking for a brother or sister,” Eddie flirts, as Elle reveals that any good Cosmo girl could have solved it.

No more movies with mysteries or twist endings for a while, they all agree, Robin can’t afford to keep betting against Steve.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Anne Baxter (The Ten Commandments, All About Eve)—her soft, gentle voice in "all about eve", those gentle eyes with something odd behind them, the way she flips from Sweet Innocent to Viper on a dime......there was something Built Different about anne baxter, man, and it makes her so good for playing people who are Built Wrong. also one of my favorite batmen villains (her joint episode w vincent price is a delight) and of course I'm obsessed with her columbo episode where she bosses around edith head and does fabulous movie star things for no good reason. and i would be REMISS if i didn't mention her slink—oh the slink—in the ten commandments...................pardon me i must go think of sinning again

Waheeda Rehman (Chaudhvin Ka Chand, Pyaasa, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam)—90+ films and counting, an absolute legend of Hindi cinema. When I see her in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam it makes me want to chew glass

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Anne Baxter:

The prettiest murderer in that film. Just so beautifully evil as Nefertari.

Anne Baxter was part of my Bisexual Awakening. My family has a tradition that every Palm Sunday we watch The ten commandments on TV together... And starting from a very young age, I essentially developed a crushes on Anne Baxter's Nefertiri & Yul Brynner's Ramses. Dude, the woman was HOT! They both were! My crush definitely wasn't helped by the fact that Anne Baxter's costumes were a bit on the sheer side. She had a way of capturing you with her eyes, and I never understood why Charlton heston's Moses didn't just have a threesome with Nefertiri and Ramses. LOL

Her Nefertiri in The Ten Commandments was FORMATIVE TO ME. If not the hottest old movie lady, then she definitely played the hottest old movie character. if that makes sense.

Look. Listen. I only *just* discovered her on a post from the Have You Seen This Romcom poll blog. Saw she had the same last name as me and went OOH hi hello. Went to her IMdB and saw she was born in Indiana like moi. I am now even more intrigued. Been eagerly telling my partner this, and he was like "maybe you guys are distantly related?" And after 2 hrs of going down the tumblr tag + her imdb photos, I'm In Deep(tm) and I can't stop looking at her like 😍 When I go to my grandma's house, bet your ass I'm gonna check my grandpa's genealogy and see if we're somehow related. Sorry that's not really propaganda I just got real excited, esp when I saw that the submission deadline was extended (bless your soul). Narrowing down the movies where she's hottest in was Hell tyvm. I've only just discovered her, she looks gorgeous to me in every movie still I see of her gdi lol.

Waheeda Rehman propaganda:

Linked gif

Linked gif 2

[reasonably-annoyed-fog]

I’m not much of a shipper, especially compared to other people on tumblr, so let me tell you I saw the gif set of the scene with Hugh Grant before I saw Glass Onion, just vaguely skimmed it and went “oh? he’s playing a gay husband? how nice, OH this is from Glass Onion? That’s Blanc’s husband? Fucking Neat gotta watch this soon now don’t look at the gifs too hard so I don’t get spoiled any further”

so I am terribly sorry but I gotta say, people’s reaction being “I thought that was his butler” has me like ????? You thought. That  was. his BUTLER? You saw a frazzled looking man in a t-shirt and tie-die apron holding a sour dough starter in the may of 2020 scolding another man for being in the bathtub too long and went “this seems like an emploer employee relationship”? If that had been a fictional english butler Jeeves’ ghost himself would have jumped out from the pages of a Best Of P H Woodehouse collection and politely tossed him out of a window WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS HIS BUTLER why would someone’s BUTLER complain to ANgela LANSBURY about his boss not leaving the bathtub Where did you get that idea from he wasn’t dressed as a butler he didn’t talk like one There are Movie Conventions that will tell you if someone is a butler Hugh Grant telegraphed None of them

what you did there was you gal palled them, you looked at two queer people and went against all evidence for the straightest explanation. “Well why didn’t we see them kiss and stuff” Because they didn’t have to they really didn’t. There is No Fat in that script it’s Yes he’s in a relationship let’s move on. We didn’t even get to see Helen’s makeover! Frankly I had assumed that Blanc is just living alone like so many famous fictional detectives do, Sherlock Homes has his famous flatmate but that’s as far as it usually goes, Columbo has a awife but we never even get to see her, the fact that they just gave Benoit Blanc a spouse and we got to see him in the second installation of the franchise on screen was enough of a shock for me to take in if they had shown us any more domestic stuff I would have dropped dead on the spot

[oggirlboss]

[untitled and unedited]

pairing[s]: yandere! janitor!levi ackerman x afab student!reader

warnings: flirtatious behavior, power imbalance, m!masturbation, voyerism, age gap, and hella weird so read at your own risk.

summary: levi ackerman has to supervise a certain brat in detention. needy little virgin hours ensue before school is in session.

word count: 3000

art belongs to columbo on twitter

     levi ackerman was the type of man that made the existence of female dress codes nessacary. he couldn't stop himself from looking up girls skirts when he knelt down to pick up their trash, or avoid looking down girls shirts when they leaned over to wash their hands in the sink. he didn't even regard his perversion as an awful thing. after all, there are other guys out there who let their obsessions go to the absolute extreme, their crimes delving into horrendous depths like rape and murder. levi could never imagine such things happening, the thought made him sick to his stomach. he wasn't that bad... was he?

       principle erwin certainly didn't think so. he's known about levi's little habit since grade school, but that didn't stop him from writing levi a letter of recommendation and convincing the board of regents to hire him as the primary janitor at shiganshina high school. surely if erwin thought he was so bad he would have tried to protect the girls of the school from him, right?

       ¿ʇɥɓıɹ

       it wasn't like all of his attention was centered on one individual, levi knew that type of behavior was out of the question. he was just liked looking that was all, he didn't have the skills to actually approach one of these girls. despite these perversions, he was disgusted by men that touched girls. the ones who prey on the vulnerable, whose sickly minds allow them to prey on girls and use their positions of power and authority to manipulate these girls into doing whatever they want. to use them however they want. levi didn't think he was like that at all.

       but he did take a great interest in you during your sophomore year. you probably got put into detention for a stupid reason, and he couldn't help but sympathize with you. he figured that you got caught doing something mildly dangerous by an administrator and shoved into detention with the rest of the rejects. except since it was nearing the end of the year, all the other teachers didn't even bother to put their students in detention. they dished out more tame punishments to their students and basically took it easy for the last stretch of work until summer break. the teachers were just as fed up with their jobs as the students were with their mundane classes. you, unfortunately, were the unwritten exception to this unspoken rule, and as a result you were the only one sitting in a desolate cafeteria.

       that was the first time levi truly paid attention to you. you were a shy kid, you mostly kept your head down and didn't talk much. he had seen you around before and he figured that it'd be creepy if he struck up a conversation before going off to clean the bathrooms in the teacher's lounge. as soon as he saw your silk-smooth skin peeking out of your too short shorts, he knew he'd need to find an excuse to spend more time with you.

       "oi! brat." he spoke calmly, feigning disinterest when his heart was beating out of his chest. "i'm your assigned supervisor for detention. you can start by picking up a rag and some disinfectant to wipe down all the tables and chairs." his stomach lurched at the lie, this was exhilarating. he watched you hurry to do as he commanded, feeling pride swell in his chest. you believed him. he was a trusted adult, and his authority in the matter didn't need any questioning.

       "i was told professor miche would be in charge of detention today." levi pondered on a good response, but he couldn't stop mulling over the fact that bastard had snatched you up first. miche would have had you all to himself if levi hadn't spoken up just now

       "miche couldn't make it on time, so i'm here to cover for him." levi had a teasing tone in his voice, a smile ghosting his fine features for less than a second. "now are you going to stand around looking pretty, or are you going to get to work?" his taunt didn't have much of an effect on you as you marched up to his supply cart and snatched up a rag and some random chemical mix. "no no no. that won't do." levi sauntered towards you, snapping the rim of his plastic gloves as he did so. "you can't use furniture polish for cleaning surfaces. while the lemony scent does have it's perks, a bleach based product would help you much more." your eyebrows furrowed as you nodded. maybe you could learn something from his guidance, after all, he was a professional.

       "alright. will clorox work?" you picked up the product by its handle and squeaked as you gripped the hilt, causing a foamy string of liquid to burst from its container.

       "hey, hey, no funny business." levi smirked at your playful tenacity. you were so much more fun than he'd thought you would be. "who even taught you how to clean?" he scoffed in a light-hearted manner.

       "i guess i'm self taught, but i always get the job done good enough." you smiled at him as you sprayed the different tables and wiped them down with an old blue rag.

       "well maybe your good enough isn't good enough for me and my standards." levi hovered over your shoulder, carefully observing your movements. he wrapped himself around you, pressing his chest against your back and helping you grasp your hand around the rag. "move your arm in a circular motion, but don't press too hard into the wood, you'll tire yourself out too quickly that way." you carefully listened to every word he said, this is a learning experience, isn't it? this knowledge came straight from the mouth of a professional, you'd be absolutely daft to not pay attention to him. but it didn't help that he was easy on the eyes or that you could feel his muscles flex through your clothing. he was undeniably attractive and it was hard for you not to entertain the notion. his sharp breath ghosted the skin behind your ear.

       "what sort of cleaning products do you use at home?" his question and his proximity startled you.

       "um, i use the mr. clean stuff. my mom thought that their super bowl commercial from a few years ago was the epitome of comedy ."

       "tch." you could feel his grip tighten on your hand as he shook his head. you frowned at his reaction.

       "well what's that supposed to mean?" he sighed before spiraling into a lecture.

       "mr. clean, although sexy in his own right, is much too expensive. especially those magic erasers of his. they are outrageously overpriced, and they're not even real magic." your nose crinkled as you snickered at his joke, and his face lit up in a blush. "they're uh, they're made of uh sodium bisulfite copolymer, and it's ridiculously cheap. for half the price, you can buy ten times the amount that damned company scams you with."

       "i suppose that's one of the many miracles of capitalism." levi's deep chuckle vibrated through your back. his presence was comforting, and it was beyond a relief to have such a friendly person around, even if it will only last the span of detention.

       "you're funny." he leaned into the crook of your neck and lightly sniffed the perfume you'd applied earlier that morning. it's probably for that bastard, miche. levi did his best to shake that thought out of his head, and hurriedly stepped away from you.

       "is everything alright, sir?" you threw your rag down, abandoning your place at the table and rushed to his side. your hand rested on the bare skin of his arm, and your eyes widened seeing levi acting so odd. he was perfectly fine seconds ago, it was hard to understand how this change could have taken place so quickly. "you look very pale." before he could blink the backs of your fingers were pressed against his clammy forehead and he was in heaven. he basked in the attention you were giving him, and in this shaken state narrowly avoided lathering you with the same touching care.

       "yes, yes." levi cradled his head in his hand, and stared up at you with his hair falling into his eyes. "it's just a little headache, it's no problem." he frequently struggled with migraines, but those were nothing compared to whatever was coming over him now.

       "well, i have some extra tylenol in my purse, i can go back to my locker and get some." you couldn't register the speed with which he reached out and held your wrist in an iron grip.

       "no." his voice was gravely, like a frog was caught in his throat. "don't leave. it's really nothing." he smiled to comfort you but it only did the opposite. there was a glint in his eyes that made you want to run away and never come back. you reluctantly agreed to stay with him, and worked through the rest of your detention in relative silence.

       the following morning you were called into professor miche's office over the intercom. there were oohs and aahs from your classmates and a resounding thunder of commentary.

       "i don't think y/n has ever gotten in trouble before." armin spoke to himself.

       "she isn't going to be able to worm her way out of his one." snickered to her friends.

       "how much you wanna bet she's screwing him to get a better grade?" reiner joked as berholdt berated him for making assumptions. wrong. wrong. wrong.

       ɬɧɛყ'۷ɛ ɠơɬ ıɬ ąƖƖ ῳཞơŋɠ, ʝųʂɬ Ɩıƙɛ ɬɧɛყ ąƖῳąყʂ ɖơ.

       you slammed your fists on the table, effectively silencing the chatter. you didn't bother to push your chair back in as you raced down the hallway to pound on miche's office door. you heard a sigh from inside as he beckoned you inside. his menacing figure towered over you

       "it's not polite for you to skip out on detention, l/n. where were you for our session?"

       "well, you would know if you weren't tardy for detention, sir." you smiled in an effort to brush off the discomforting feeling his stare brought you. miche leaned down to your level and violently sniffed the air around you. "i was with the janitor, you told him to fill in for you. does that ring a bell?" you could care less if you were sounding rude, but his questioning was getting tedious.

       professor miche sneered down at you, mulling over the consequences that would be brought down upon you if he discovered this was a lie. "is this true, levi?" your eyes widened as turned around to see levi leaning on the handle of his cart. the hallway was utterly devoid of people, and you didn't understand how you didn't hear his footsteps or the squeak of the wheels on his cart. it's like he was invisible the entire time, appearing silently like a ghost. levi cleared his throat as he stared back at miche.

       "quite so, yes. she worked very well under my guidance." he let his gaze drop to the ground as he licked his lips. "it makes me wish that miss l/n could get detention more often so i could have some help keeping this place tidy." he absentmindedly swiped two fingers over miche's name card that hung on his office door. "she worked well, and i'm sure she'll learn from the experience." miche scowled at levi, something was off about him. while the two of them weren't particularly close, he could certainly tell if something was wrong. he'll have to report this to principle erwin, if only to ease his conscience. "well, if that's everything, i suppose i'll be on my way." you gave levi a little smile and mouthed a quick thank you before he set off down the hallway with his cart.

       the rumbling of the wheels echoed through the empty hallway as he moved closer and closer to the bathrooms he'd set out to clean. his cart was placed to the right of the entrance to the boy's bathroom and upon entering he was greeted with the welcoming scent of orange spice. levi took great care to make sure he was alone in that bathroom before he retreated into the furthest stall. he undid the buttons of his pants and slid them down his milky thighs until they rested around his ankles. he ran a swift hand through his silky black hair as he gripped the base of his cock tightly, gently smoothing over the thick skin and working to calm his unsteady breathing. he's never been this wound up during his work hours, but he had a feeling that this was soon going to be a normal occurrence. his brain began to wander away from the bathroom stall as he thought back to the porn he'd watched in his car before he came into work. he imagined the movements of the female model's body beneath the man, and how her body shook with every impact of their hips. his manhood twitched in excitement as he thought of her y/h/c hair that laid spread across her red pillows, but that was too perfect. it wasn't dirty enough for him. he needed the real deal, but nobody wanted to touch an old man, and they certainly didn't want to touch someone as creepy as levi ackerman. so he had to resort to doing it himself.

       his hand stilled, cock sitting at attention against his pale stomach. he ran a finger over the mushroom-like head and began to roughly fist his cock like a madman. his eyes clenched shut as he tried to think of something that would get him off. the first thought that came to his mind wasn't even erotic, but it gave him a renewed vigor and sent a primal ache coursing through his aching cock. he wondered how you would look sleeping. you have to be the most heavenly creation in existence, vulnerable and at peace while you dream. it would only be too easy to get into the file cabinets that contain thee student records and discover your place of residence, and finally be blessed by the sight of you snuggled into your bed with your stuffed animals cradled to your chest. he could shimmy your cute pajama shorts off your body and press his hot tongue against your cunt. it'd be slimy and wet and lewd and absolutely gross. and he'd love every goddamn minute of it. your face would be flushed red and sweat would bead your forehead as you unconsciously rut against his mouth. he wants your juices to lather his lips and hold your breasts in a death grip as he makes you squirt onto his waiting tongue. he wants to be 𝖘𝖔 𝖌𝖔𝖔𝖉 to you, and spoil you in every way imaginable. he wants to spear you on his cock and bury his head in your breasts, smothering himself and coating the valley between the two mounds on your chest with a mixture of his heavy drool and your wet release. he'll pump you full of his cum until you're absolutely bursting and pull up your panties to hide his mess. he'll sneak out your window and drive home while you lay in warm in your bed with your face shoved into your pillow.

       he lets out a heavy groan as he brings his hand to his mouth to bite on his knuckles to stop any sound from escaping his treacherous mouth. he began to imagine what you would look like if you gave him a handjob. would you be slow and tentative? or would you opt to beat his manhood dry? no doubt your delicate fingertips would feel like heaven on earth, and your soft breath would hit his cheek as you focused on bringing him immense pleasure. he heard the door to the bathroom open, but he couldn't break free from his lusty haze. his mind was too focused on the constant phap phap phap of his hand beating against his manhood to register the footsteps that slowly neared the stall he occupied. a hand pressed against the unlocked door to fully expose levi's perversions to the open air. he looks up to see erwin staring down at him, a disappointed look coating the principle's face. no words were spoken as levi continued his assault on his cock. a broken cry left his lips as he threw his head back, eyes clamped shut as he felt his creamy cum shoot out onto his shirt and hand.

       "really, levi?" his eyebrows furrowed as levi looked him dead in the eye. "the boy's bathroom?" levi groaned at his question, not bothering to answer before bending over and pulling up his pants. levi had no shame, and certainly not in front of erwin.

       levi laughed as he wiped the cum off his hand with toilet paper. "would you prefer i did it in the girl's?" his bland retort left a dumbfounded erwin unable to move from where he stood. levi used that moment of shock to escape from the stall and out into the hallway. he was going to enjoy this newfound sense of freedom.

[spaceistheplaceart]

I miss when shows had stupid goofy shit in them that you were supposed to take seriously. I miss robins "holy ____ on a ____, batman!" I miss spiderman crawling around like an insectoid, I miss weird shit that doesn't make sense like "a meteor crashed down on Earth and awoke mummified lion people that lived in caves for thousands of years", I miss when in scooby doo they'd eat fog or dracula hosted races every year, i miss "Columbo has a skateboarding descendant Boronco" or "Napoleon's descendant runs a terrorist organization that wants to take over the world bc its noisy and he wants to sleep". I love batshit plots with weird circumstances that make no sense but they're fun and entertaining-- give me shit that comes out of nowhere and baffles me but is still fun. I miss that kind of stuff man :/

[andhumanslovedstories]

I realized that I’d missed the second pilot for Columbo, “Ransom for a Dead Man” so I took a break from the elevated hijinks of season three to go watch it. I didn’t really like it. Some weird choices, some grating characters. But I do think I love it?

The movie is so weirdly sexist. Like I mean that the way it is sexist is weird. The murderer is like if you reached into a bag of every evil female archetype/cliche, and you just grabbed a random fistful. She’s a gold digger evil stepmother career woman femme fatale stone cold bitch. She’s Barbra Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, and she’s the evil queen from Snow White. All the people around her keep saying stuff like “it must be hard for you, a man, to work for a woman,” and “she always wanted to be a big time fancy lady lawyer!” Her fatal flaw is that she’s too evil.

And Columbo ends up respecting her so much. And she ends up respecting him the same. There’s an alternate universe version of Columbo where there were any recurring characters except Columbo, where she’s the best character in all detective universes: recurring evil person the detective has a weird amount of sexual chemistry with. Something about Columbo’s characterization in this episode put me off, but from the point where they both know that Columbo believes she committed murder, it’s fuckin primo shit dude. They’re tangoing with each other. There’s a point where it seems like she’s having so much fun. You get the sense that she’s never had a real nemesis before and that it delights her.

She was also far and away the best character in the entire movie. Every time she wasn’t there, I wondering when’s my queen was gonna come back. There was a scene where Columbo’s getting lunch, and I was like “get the fuck outta here dude, I know my beautiful murderess is not joining your lame ass at this diner eating chili”

[modmad]

Uncle do you have any movie and tv recommendations for the strike?

absolutely! I am very tired but off the top of my head here's some ancient Western-centric goodies for you most of which you can find on youtube completely free!

Buster Keaton. I recommend starting with the shorts (two reelers) which are usually 20 mins. If you want a wild ride complete with 4th wall breaks my favourite movie of his is Sherlock Jr.

Laurel and Hardy. Them goobers had some magical chemistry with comedy, best just to dive in and start laughing.

the Marx Brothers. Fast paced american patter and absurdity, Duck Soup was groundbreaking in its day.

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Gave Keaton many of his first roles. Incredibly talented man, make yourself cry and be angry forever by reading what happened to him irl...

Harold Lloyd. The third of the three greats. I personally recommend Safety Last!

Charlie Chaplin. Y'all know. City Lights, Modern Times and the Great Dictator should be viewed by everyone wanting to get into movies imho.

the Twilight Zone (1959). You like weird? Let's get weird. Get ready to buy as many extra pairs of glasses as you can afford. You'll understand if you watch That episode.

The Three Stooges. Good exercise for the chuckle muscle. Curly's grandson has even been recreating some of their skits on Tiktok!

Vincent Price. Just. Vincent Price.

The Third Man. It's a good movie. Just watch it okay it's a good movie holy shit the finale. Cinematography mind blaster.

COLUMBO

ITV POIROT SERIES

MISS MARPLE

basically just go look up good old tv there's so much of it I haven't even listed the cartoons I could rec bc that would need AN ENTIRE NEW LIST OF ITS OWN which I might make when I have time

As always with old movies and media there are going to be some dated jokes, and even more dated language, so be aware of that going in.

[yellowocaballero]

One of the many things that I've been doing instead of writing are these damn manwha binges and Villain To Kill is literally so funny. The comic premise is straightforward action, think Tokyo Ghoul meets Solo Leveling - local Genetically Superpowered Superhero Cop working for corrupt Hero Organization gets #betrayed and #murdered and is reincarnated into the body of a Genetically Superpowered Villain Teenager so now he has to join up with all the other villain superpower people to get justice.

It's so 5/10. Cassian is extremely OP and the story isn't well-written enough to pull that off well. The worldbuilding is so incredibly nonsensical and weak that it falls apart if you think about it for more than five minutes (tried to write fic for it and failed because I would have had to rework the entire world - which, I could have, but that's a lot of effort for Villain to Kill). The plot is mostly any OP action hero plot where guy gets increasingly powerful by fighting increasingly powerful guys. Cassian himself has almost nothing going on internally, to the point of elegance. And it is somehow the gayest manwha I've ever read.

It's the fucking character designs. And like its narrative but it's the fucking 100/10 character designs. The entire cast's design and characters slam. There's not that much depth but we don't care. You know if we don't like somebody if they look vaguely straight, and you know that we like somebody if they look like they were set to tumble dry in the queerness washing machine. The (great!) women are high femme or hard butch. The corrupt institution assassinated a man Cassian loved and framed & murdered him, at which point he was adopted by a rag-tag bunch of flamboyant homosexuals deemed unacceptable and undesired by society who all teamed up and decided to villainize society in exclusively funny ways and spend most of their time gossiping or hacking the Pentagon. An AFAB character dresses as a man and goes by he/him pronouns half the time for no good reason. Cassian is physiologically incapable of thinking about anything but violence so the heartwarming found family scenario's going over his head, but his Painfully Het Hero Foil Indoctrinated Into Homophobia caught the found family ball and now he's dancing in their gay bars and dressing in drag. There's only a few characters who are explicitly gay but this is gayer than that.

I talked a while back about how important a decent supporting cast is to a good story, and this is yet again good proof. Looking at this, I think I'd go further and say - it's an action manwha, we're reading it for a reason, we don't need character-driven story arcs or really complex characters. I think it's just charisma. A story can go really far on characters with charisma.

TV Shows that are carried on the lead actor (Columbo I love you) - it's because the actor has charisma. You watch it to see the actor hang out being himself. That's way way harder to do in fiction, but I think that "a complex character" isn't necessarily a "charismatic character". I'd rather have a cast of only charismatic characters rather than only complex ones. A story of any genre needs a strong cast of charismatic characters. They can be deep or they can just be chaotic lesbians. Charisma invests the reader in the story and the characters. It's simple but it's really powerful. And it is fucking hilarious how sometimes all you need to do on that front is "Rupaul this shit".

I can't genuinely recommend Villain to Kill and this is not a recommendation. But random stuff always interests me like this, and I really had no idea that I would read 120ch of a manwha bc the designs fuck so hard. Also, like, this is queerest manwha I've ever read. Somehow. Fucking somehow.

[columboscreens]

[why-bless-your-heart]

Columbo vs. Father Brown WHO WOULD WIN??????

I mean they’d never go against each other, but if there was a friendly detective vs detective race to the solution:

1. Columbo’s job is detective work. He is a professional. Besides having the authority and resources of the police department, he’s got the full 40-hour (plus) workweek to focus on this and nothing else. One of the fundamental premises of his character is that he always catches his man through sheer dogged tenacity. Meanwhile Father Brown has a whole vocation and often a parish or two on his plate.

2. On the other hand, Fr. Brown's job is human nature. He doesn't need to spend nearly as much time or effort to figure out what's going on, if only because he's probably seen it a dozen times before. Where Columbo might need to spend a couple of weeks breaking an alibi, Fr. Brown would simply know that the suspect is not the kind of person to have been in such a place at such a time.

3. They're both trickster characters, but Columbo often intentionally tricks or traps where Fr. Brown doesn't indulge in more than concealment or reticence. Where Columbo has no compunctions about lying when necessary, Fr. Brown is usually scrupulously honest (it's not his fault if people tend to interpret more than he means into what he says.)

4. Becoming a priest requires more education than becoming a police detective does. Columbo & Fr. Brown are probably equal in terms of raw intelligence, but given occupation, time, and place, Fr. Brown's going to have had a lot of exposure to Latin, Greek, Philosophy and History, where Columbo likely only has a GED + two years of police academy. This might not necessarily be an advantage, but there are a couple of Fr. Brown stories where his literary acumen has helped him solve a case.

5. Difference in conventions. Neither Columbo nor Fr. Brown are ever seen to have been defeated by a case (although Columbo admits to having taken years to close at least one), but where Columbo always makes an arrest (only once not arresting the actual guilty party due to somebody else's confession and extreme extenuating circumstances), Fr. Brown will forgo turning a party over to the authorities if justice can best be served another way. They both always catch their man, but Fr. Brown will let him go again.

All together, I think that Fr. Brown would arrive at the solution and confront the perpetrator while Columbo was still assembling his trail of evidence, but the arrest would still be impossible until Columbo had actually gathered all of his data and arrived at his own conclusion.

(The real answer is that Columbo would invite the Padre over for dinner, and after a pleasant meal they would share some tobacco and good wine while talking about more cheerful topics than murder).

[caspercryptid]

With all this goncharov fever I would like to share with you all a piece of very important historical context and also one of my favorite historical anecdotes.

Why make a mob film set in italy full of nothing but russians? Well. Let me tell you something about something that happened three years earlier, in 1970.

1970 marks the creation of an organization called the italian-american civil rights league. And if you're reading that and going. huh? why did the italians need a civil rights league? That's the correct reaction. Anti-italian sentiment was still around, of course, but it had been a While since americans systematically discriminated against italians (that happened quite a bit in the 1910s but that's another story) (and nowadays the most anti-italian sentiment you see is from chris pratt, which is hardly comparable)

The italian-american civil rights league had a goal: to stop the unfair depiction of italians as only violent criminals and Mafiosos. One tiny. tiny problem with this. it was run by a man named Joseph Colombo, who was.... well. a member of the Profaci crime family. He claimed FBI harassment, aligned himself with the jewish defense league, and generally made a name for himself without this little detail being revealed for quite a while, even appearing on TV shows and describing his occupations in vague terms to obfuscate the fact that the guy trying to claim calling italians mafia was bad was in fact a member of the mafia. When The Godfather was set to come out in 1971 Colombo took a couple of goons with him to threaten producer Albert Ruddy personally, to which Ruddy responded by plopping the several hundred pages of script down in front of Columbo and asking him what he'd like removed. When Colombo replied with "I ain't reading all that" they reached an accord that the words Mafia and Costa Nostra were not to appear Anywhere in the film, and the league cooperated fully with the release, but not every filmmaker has that kind of balls, and so a lot of people were (understandably) fairly cowed by the threat of being assassinated for promoting italian stereotypes.

So what do you do if you don't have the balls to plop your script down in front of the mafia and tell them to read it? well. you make all your main characters russians.

[shares-a-vest]

here's to one whole year of suffering from steddie brainrot! does that mean it's permanent if you reach the one-year hyperfixation mark?

"You realise it's been a year, right?" Eddie says, breaking the silence as they look out over the trailer park, now situated one clearing over from the former Forest Hills park, "A year since we met?"

Steve huffs a laugh and leans forward so that Eddie has no choice but to look at his frown.

"Dude, we met way before last year."

Eddie shrugs and takes a puff on his cigarette, "You know what I mean."

Steve hums and shuffles close so he can rest his head on his shoulder, "It's been a long year."

"With me?" he chuckles.

"No!" Steve practically yells in protest, his voice echoing out into the night, "You know what I mean."

Duh. Of course, he does. They both have the nightmares, migraines, permanent scars (some of which match) and the back pain of senior citizens to prove that, hell yes, it has been a long goddamn year.

He takes one last drag before stubbing out his cigarette - an activity he probably shouldn't even be partaking in anymore considering.

Steve coughs, or more, splutters as he tries to unsuccessfully cover it up. Despite it being Spring, a hellhole opening up for a while kinda totally changed the climate of Hawkins. It still feels like Winter and Steve, now a sniffly and sickly dude after a few bats to the guts and an undead vine to the neck, is on the precipice of a cold.

As if on cue, Wayne opens the front door. Eddie swears the old man has developed superhuman hearing this past year as he frets over the two of them.

Jesus, Steve was already living here with Wayne before Eddie was even discharged from the hospital. His uncle hadn't said much at the time but a clipped, "The kid said his parents aren't around" said enough that yes, Eddie will drag Steve back inside if he asks.

"You boys better come in," he insists.

Eddie doesn't remember much of when he first came to live with his uncle. It was all so rushed and he was so overwhelmed with what had happened with his own parents, but he imagines Wayne's boarding-on-overbearing care for Steve resembles that time.

Jesus, Steve was already living here with Wayne before Eddie was even discharged from the hospital. His uncle hadn't said much at the time but a clipped, "The kid said his parents aren't around" said enough that yes, Eddie will drag Steve back inside if he asks.

Wayne lingers as Eddie grips Steve's arm tight and pulls him up off the warn couch. His uncle nods affirmatively as they squish past to step inside and he closes the door behind him.

Steve twirls around under Eddie's arm, bending it awkwardly in a way that makes him grimace - he should really warn a guy!

"Maybe we better go do something, to celebrate?" he suggests, huffing his fringe from his eyes.

He blinks hard. That movement, no matter how cute and fleeting, very obviously made Steve dizzy. Eddie places his hands on his hips to steady him and guides him to his designated spot, the third chair, at the square dining table.

Wayne resumes his seat in his recliner, lounging back with a loud contended, "ah". Eddie looks at the television and rolls his eyes. Tagging along to watch a rerun of Columbo - part of what he likes to refer to as 'Old Man Hour', which also features Get Smart and Hogan's Heroes - doesn't seem particularly romantic.

And, judging by the glint in Steve's pretty eyes, he's expecting as much. Eddie outstretches his hand.

"Wayne?" he calls over his shoulder as he wiggles his fingers, "Steve and I are going out for our one-year anniversary."

"Alrighty," Wayne mumbles, "Wear a coat."

His voice is almost drowned-out as Peter Falk, oh-so-witty in his trenchcoat, quips, "Oh, and just one more thing!"

"Eds," Steve laughs as he scrubs a hand over his face, "It isn't our one-year anniversary either. That's in like, maybe three weeks?"

"You don't know our anniversary?" he teases, knowing they are going to get absolutely nowhere like this.

But it's fun.

He moves his fingers up Steve's arm, crawling and tickling him like a spider.

"Not sure of the exact date, actually," Steve admits, flinching away from his touch abruptly enough that his chair scuffs on the linoleum, "We haven't really talked about it."

Eddie waves his hands as if he's a magician giving a dramatic ta-da! reveal as he sings, "Problem solved, neither of us know for sure. So today it is."

Steve slowly nods, a wide grin sweeping across his face. He dips his head in acknowledgement.

"Happy one-year anniversary of you shoving a broken bottle in my face."

He stops mid-invisible toast to shriek, "You were going to attack me with a boat oar!"

"What happened?" Wayne asks as his chair creaks forward.

The footrest snaps back into place, making the pair jump.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Josephine Baker (The Siren of the Tropics, ZouZou)— Josephine Baker was an American born actress, singer, and utter icon of the period, creating the 1920s banana skirt look. She was the first black woman to star in a major motion film. She fought in the French resistance in WWII, given a Legion of Honour, as well as refusing to perform in segregated theatres in the US. She was bisexual, a fighter, and overall an absolutely incredible woman as well as being extremely attractive.

Anne Baxter (The Ten Commandments, All About Eve)—her soft, gentle voice in "all about eve", those gentle eyes with something odd behind them, the way she flips from Sweet Innocent to Viper on a dime......there was something Built Different about anne baxter, man, and it makes her so good for playing people who are Built Wrong. also one of my favorite batmen villains (her joint episode w vincent price is a delight) and of course I'm obsessed with her columbo episode where she bosses around edith head and does fabulous movie star things for no good reason. and i would be REMISS if i didn't mention her slink—oh the slink—in the ten commandments...................pardon me i must go think of sinning again

This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Josephine Baker:

Black, American-born, French dancer and singer. Phenomenal sensation, took music-halls by storm. Famous in the silent film era.

Let's talk La Revue Negre, Shuffle Along. The iconique banana outfit? But also getting a Croix de Guerre and full military honors at burial in Paris due to working with the Resistance.

She exuded sex, was a beautiful dancer, vivacious, and her silliness and humor added to her attractiveness. She looked just as good in drag too.

So I know she was more famous for other stuff than movies and her movies weren’t Hollywood but my first exposure to her was in her films so I’ve always thought of her as a film actress first and foremost. Also she was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture so I think that warrants an entry

Iconic! Just look up anything about her life. She was a fascinating woman.

Anne Baxter:

The prettiest murderer in that film. Just so beautifully evil as Nefertari.

Anne Baxter was part of my Bisexual Awakening. My family has a tradition that every Palm Sunday we watch The ten commandments on TV together... And starting from a very young age, I essentially developed a crushes on Anne Baxter's Nefertiri & Yul Brynner's Ramses. Dude, the woman was HOT! They both were! My crush definitely wasn't helped by the fact that Anne Baxter's costumes were a bit on the sheer side. She had a way of capturing you with her eyes, and I never understood why Charlton heston's Moses didn't just have a threesome with Nefertiri and Ramses. LOL

Her Nefertiri in The Ten Commandments was FORMATIVE TO ME. If not the hottest old movie lady, then she definitely played the hottest old movie character. if that makes sense.

Look. Listen. I only *just* discovered her on a post from the Have You Seen This Romcom poll blog. Saw she had the same last name as me and went OOH hi hello. Went to her IMdB and saw she was born in Indiana like moi. I am now even more intrigued. Been eagerly telling my partner this, and he was like "maybe you guys are distantly related?" And after 2 hrs of going down the tumblr tag + her imdb photos, I'm In Deep(tm) and I can't stop looking at her like 😍 When I go to my grandma's house, bet your ass I'm gonna check my grandpa's genealogy and see if we're somehow related. Sorry that's not really propaganda I just got real excited, esp when I saw that the submission deadline was extended (bless your soul). Narrowing down the movies where she's hottest in was Hell tyvm. I've only just discovered her, she looks gorgeous to me in every movie still I see of her gdi lol.