#dyke drama will unfold. ..

[virtual-minotaur]

the cutes

[yugureview]

Kitanai Kimi Ga Ichiban Kawaii

I just finished reading Kitanai Kimi Ga Ichiban Kawaii, and holy shit, I need to talk about it.

(Did I create this blog specifically to talk about this manga? Yes. But I know I'll have a lot more to say about a lot of other manga and anime in the future, so I know I'll make use of this.)

When I read a brief summary of Kitanai Kimi Ga Ichiban Kawaii (also known as "I Love Your Cruddy" in English) while researching yuri manga to read, it seemed right up my alley. Psychological horror? Check. Toxic yuri? Super check. Gay BDSM? Say no more, I'm in.

Ironically, this manga, which is pretty fucking devastating, was meant to be a little break from a devastating and extremely mentally draining anime I've been watching.

(I'm not going to say which anime that is; you'll have to wait for the review 😘)

But for now, let's continue this review. Spoilers ahead!

At the beginning of the manga, we're introduced to the two main characters, Airi and Hinako. They have a secret BDSM relationship, with their kinky, sadomasochistic acts taking place in a classroom after school. Hot, right? As a kinky dyke myself, this was definitely my favorite part of the manga. Being Hinako in these sitauations is a need.

But then, just as you think you're enjoying this manga, it gets... less hot. The drama starts to unfold. Airi and Hinako's relationship is exposed at school and rumors start spreading. Because of this, Airi stops talking to Hinako. As someone with a severe fear of abandonment (thanks BPD), this really struck a nerve with me. I felt so bad for poor Hinako.

When Airi stops showing up to school, Hinako starts visiting her. At first, Airi is adamant about not wanting to see Hinako (again, triggering my crippling fear of abandonment), but she eventually gives in. And we get some more sexy stuff (yay!), this time with Hinako on top 😏

In the end, due to the drama surrounding their lives, the girls end up running away. This final stretch of the manga was sad as fuck. Airi is suicidal, and Hinako is trying so hard to make things work. But Airi ends up convincing her partner to join her in suicide. Hinako strangles Airi to death, and then lies with her in the snow until she freezes to death herself.

So, yeah. This manga was a rollercoaster of emotions -- the type of rollercoaster that starts out smooth, then has a 100-foot drop and an abrupt stop that makes you fly straight out of the safety constraints. Did I enjoy it? I have no fucking idea. I just got a concussion from flying off a rollercoaster; there's no way in hell I'm gonna be processing any of this shit for a while.

I wish Airi and Hinako got to live out the BDSM life of their dreams. I wish there was less drama and less abandonment and less suicide. But the sad, psychological shit is part of why I came here, right? So I can't complain too much.

Anyways, this review ended up not being much of a review and more of a rant. I just had to talk about this manga. How can you read something like that and just keep it bottled up inside?

Would I recommend this manga? If you're in it for the yuri or the kink, no. If you're in it to cry sad tears (with some yuri on the side), absolutely.

[mean-vampyre]

I had to endure that confusing incest dinner scene and all for what? crumbs of dyke drama unfolding at kingdom level....

[itchy-ears]

locked in for some insane dyke drama unfolding with the girl i used to post about on here

[sleepydelights]

I only want to sweat from the effort of sex. Fuck out of here, sun. I’m gonna be the angriest sweatiest dyke at this shindig. Already been getting evil looks from folks who don’t even know who I am. I’m just here to support my friend and watch the drama unfold.

[chumbie]

something i think about from time to time is how when klaasje points the finger at ruby, kim goes straight to her defense. i think that this can be attributed to the fact he was already exhausted with klaasje’s general evasiveness, but he specifically asks her if she “led her on” which suggests something a bit more personal. it’s a nice little touch that manages to reference his own sexuality without compromising his identity as a (mostly) closeted man

[oksanasanna]

I love when Irina walks into the bedroom with Anna and Villanelle. She was left alone, could have chosen to run away and call the police, but instead she was like “no I gotta see how this dyke drama unfolds”

[bugsongs]

double trouble saw the dyke drama unfolding at princess prom and thot "bro. i think i can capitalize on this" and they did what a champ

[bewitching-elizabeth-olsen]

Press: Marvel’s Latest Frontier? In ‘WandaVision,’ It’s the Suburbs

Marvel’s first series for Disney+ is part drama, part homage to vintage sitcoms, following the misfit heroes played by Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany to some weird places.

    NY TIMES: In the time they have spent playing Marvel heroes together, Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany have gotten extremely comfortable with each other. Not even a little misdirected mucus during the making of their new Disney+ series, “WandaVision” — an incident they affectionately describe as “Snotgate” — flustered them for long.

It occurred when their characters — a woman enhanced with psychic powers named Wanda Maximoff (Olsen) and a synthetic android called Vision (Bettany) — shared a kiss in, especially cold weather. And some disagreements remain about the specifics of how it transpired.

“Paul was not in a good mood for me to make a joke about his snot,” Olsen said in a video interview with Bettany last month. “It was my first time ever seeing him get truly defensive about anything.”

Here, Bettany leaned into his camera and replied, sotto voce: “It was her snot. Anyway.”

They agreed that their differences were quickly settled, and now they can laugh about it. “It was over as quickly as it happened,” Bettany said.

Such are the perils of playing a troubled woman and a sophisticated robot who have fallen in love with each other — characters who first met in the 2015 Marvel blockbuster “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” returned for several sequels and now get the chance to carry their own television series when “WandaVision” makes its debut on Jan. 15.

Like its main characters, “WandaVision” is, well, weird. It’s not strictly an action-packed spectacle in the manner of hit movies like “Avengers: Endgame” — it’s a hybrid of drama and comedy that pays faithful homage to vintage sitcoms like “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Bewitched” and “Family Ties.”

Now, through circumstances beyond anyone’s control, “WandaVision” has to carry even more weight. When the pandemic prompted Marvel to reshuffle its release calendar, “WandaVision” became the studio’s first attempt to bring the superhero soap opera of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to an original Disney+ series, in hopes that it will do for its comic-book characters what “The Mandalorian” has done for “Star Wars,” another Disney-owned fantasy franchise.

These are unexpectedly high stakes but, like the love-struck misfits they play, the stars of “WandaVision” see them as reasons to be more understanding of each other, snot and all.

As Olsen explained: “It’s daunting to take these movie-theater characters and put them on a small screen. There’s a lot of firsts that are a little scary as an actor.”

Bettany agreed. “We need to feel safe with each other,” he added, “to do the thing we’re doing.”

Both actors entered the Marvel family in unusual ways. Bettany, a star of films like “A Beautiful Mind” and “Margin Call,” was cast in the first M.C.U. movie, “Iron Man,” to play the voice of Tony Stark’s artificial intelligence system, J.A.R.V.I.S.

“I would turn up for one day’s work and solve everyone’s problems,” Bettany said. “I could go, ‘The bad guys are coming, sir!’ And then they would give me a bag of money, and I would go home. It was lovely.”

Bettany was upgraded to an onscreen role for “Age of Ultron,” which also introduced Olsen (“Martha Marcy May Marlene”) as Wanda. At that time, Olsen said: “I was getting typecast as emotionally struggling young women in small genre films. They were like, let’s put her in a bigger genre film and make her the mentally unhealthy struggling hero.”

Though the spotlight shone brighter on co-stars like Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr., Bettany and Olsen bonded over the strangeness of their enterprise, like a behind-the-scenes debate they observed over whether Vision should have android genitalia. (Mercifully, the answer was no.)

As they went onto films like “Captain America: Civil War,” they found that they shared an appreciation for diligence and preparedness, even on a hectic Marvel set.

At one point on that film, Olsen said, “I asked Paul if he wanted to run lines with me for the next week. And he had his lines memorized for next week. I was like, this is going to be a great working relationship.”

But Vision was seemingly killed in “Avengers: Infinity War,” and the following year, “Endgame” concluded the narrative arcs of major heroes like Iron Man and Captain America.

Marvel was exploring storylines for its next wave of movies when Disney introduced its Disney+ streaming service, with the expectation that Marvel would also provide original content for it.

Kevin Feige, the Marvel Studios president, said that a Disney+ series offered the opportunity to flesh out the relationship between Wanda and Vision that had been only hinted at in the movies.

“The entirety of the love story between Wanda and Vision was basically one shot in ‘Age of Ultron’ where he swoops in to rescue her, they make eye contact and fly away,” Feige said. “Then a bit more in ‘Civil War,’ a bit more in ‘Infinity War,’ but it all goes bad very quickly in that movie.”

In several decades of comics, Vision and Wanda shared a romance that was much more intricate: They dated, married, had two sons, broke up and reconciled. (Also — and here is where it gets messy — Wanda discovered that her sons were actually the missing pieces of a demonic villain, who reabsorbed them; then she lost and regained the memory of her vanished children; and then she vengefully unleashed her powers to rewrite reality itself.)

With “WandaVision,” Feige said that he had wanted to honor the complexity of the title characters and Wanda’s reality-warping abilities but also to leaven the story with tributes to sitcom history.

“I feel like I’ve justified all the time I spent playing with action figures in my backyard,” he said. “All the time I spent watching Nick at Nite and old TV shows, I haven’t justified yet. This show is helping me do that.”

The series finds Wanda and Vision — now somehow alive — residing in suburban bliss, not entirely sure of why they are cycling through various eras of television history and encountering veteran Marvel performers like Kat Dennings (as her “Thor” character, Darcy Lewis) and Randall Park (reprising his “Ant-Man and the Wasp” role of Jimmy Woo) as well as new additions to the roster, like Teyonah Parris (as Monica Rambeau) and Kathryn Hahn (playing a perplexingly nosy neighbor named Agnes).

As with many of the Marvel movies, there is also a central mystery running through “WandaVision,” asking viewers to ponder the ever-changing reality that envelops its romantic leads.

Jac Schaeffer, the head writer of the series, said that the show’s comic exterior was intended to lure its audience into its further layers of intrigue.

“You enter a sitcom episode with the understanding it’s going to make you feel good and it’s all going to be OK at the end,” said Schaeffer, who also worked on “Captain Marvel” and “Black Widow.”

What “WandaVision” adds to this formula, she said, is an element of “creepiness — the idea of shattering that safety in a calculated way.”

Matt Shakman, who directed all nine episodes of “WandaVision,” said that the series ultimately tells a story of “grief and trauma and how we hold onto our hope.”

“Wanda is probably the person who has suffered the most of anyone in the M.C.U.,” he added. “And so the show is always grounded in that. Even though what you see are faithfully recreated television shows, there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye.”

Shakman has previously directed shows like “Game of Thrones,” “Succession” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and was himself a former child actor on TV sitcoms like “Diff’rent Strokes” and “Just the Ten of Us.” Directing “WandaVision,” he said, was “a gloriously schizophrenic job” that some days required orchestrating action sequences on green-screen sets, and some days involved shooting on the same sitcom stages where he once worked.

For these TV tribute sequences, Shakman and his team worked carefully to reproduce the wardrobe and production design of shows like “I Dream of Jeannie” and “The Partridge Family,” using vintage lighting and camera lenses and filming in front of live studio audiences.

Although the “WandaVision” actors were given two weeks of sitcom boot camp before filming started, they did not require much training to get into the spirit of things.

Olsen is, of course, the younger sister of the former “Full House” stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen; she appeared in some of their later projects and grew up a fan of shows like “Laverne & Shirley” and movies like “A Very Brady Sequel.”

Bettany said that classic American shows were a regular part of his TV diet when he was growing up in England. He speculated that some of the religious exploration his family undertook in his childhood may have happened “because my mom was watching ‘Little House on the Prairie’ — we were in for a penny, in for a pound.”

Had events unfolded according to Marvel’s earlier plans, the debut of “WandaVision” would have followed the theatrical releases of movies like “Black Widow,” “Eternals” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” as well as the premiere of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” an action-oriented Disney+ series in a more familiar, “Avengers”-like mode.

The pandemic required Marvel to reorganize this rollout, but Feige said that the studio’s carefully planned master narrative, stretched across its films and TV shows, had not been significantly affected.

“If the run we had in 2018 and 2019 had gotten disrupted this way, in the buildup to ‘Endgame,’ it would have been a bigger headache,” he said. “With these projects, it worked well,” he went on, adding that the debut dates for the TV shows were shifted only “by a matter of weeks.”

The creation of “WandaVision” was also affected by the pandemic; its actors left an environment where they could freely mingle with co-workers and returned to one, several months later, where “you finish your scene and you get whisked away into these hermetically sealed bubbles,” Bettany said.

“I had a hard time with that,” Olsen said, her voice hardening in exaggerated anger. “I was like: ‘But I’m talking to the crew! This is for moral support!’”

In that sense, the actors said, perhaps it was fitting that “WandaVision” should reach audiences at this moment, when both its narrative message and its making-of process reflect a human desire to keep going, no matter how unrecognizable the world becomes.

“We’re all experiencing this extreme version of life right now,” Olsen said. But for a time, while she and her colleagues finished their work on the series, “We created this microcosm of humanity where we could communicate and problem-solve together,” she added. “There was something great about getting to come to work and experience that.”

What Marvel has done consistently, for its characters, its cast members and its audience, is “create a home for people who wouldn’t necessarily find each other,” Bettany said.

In the particular case of “WandaVision,” he added, “It’s about a group of people finding each other — people who are really getting their freak on — in a situation where it’s all right to be really different.”

Press: Marvel’s Latest Frontier? In ‘WandaVision,’ It’s the Suburbs was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND June 21, 2019  - WILD ROSE, TOY STORY 4, CHILD’S PLAY, ANNA

Before I get to this week’s usual column, I want to draw some extra attention to a movie opening this weekend, NEON’s WILD ROSE, a terrific musical drama starring newcomer

Jessie Buckley as Rose-Lynn, a single mother from Glasgow, Scotland who has just got out of prison after spending a year there. She’s a talented singer who has big dreams of being a country star at Nashville’s Grand Ol’ Opry, but she constantly has to choose between this dream career and her two young children.

Directed by Tom Harper (“Peaky Blinders”), the film is pretty amazing, especially to watch Rose-Lynn’s story unfold and how much energy Buckley brings to the role. It’s almost impossible not to love Rose-Lynn’s feisty take-no-shit attitude, which really drives the film but it’s also nice to see Julie Walters as her mother, who is tired of her daughter neglecting her two kids.

This really has been amazing year for musical films between Rocketman, this and the upcoming Yesterday, and I hope that continues since I love inspirational music films. I really hope people seek this one, although I do worry that in some of the places where country music flourishes, audiences might have trouble with the difficult Glaswegian brogue, though I do hope that isn’t a hindrance, since the movie is quite wonderful.

Rating: 8.5/10

Now, let’s get to the other new movies in wide release, and I’m afraid to say that I don’t have a ton to say about any of them other than my actual reviews. Obviously, Disney and Pixar Animation’s TOY STORY 4 (Disney-Pixar) is going to be the big movie of the weekend, and I’ve already reviewed it and loved it. I won’t have a chance to see Orion Pictures and U.A. Releasing’s remake of CHILD’S PLAY until late Wednesday night, but I’m a little trepidatious of it other than the fact it stars the wonderful Aubrey Plaza. (MY REVIEW of Child’s Play is now live.)I guess we’ll see how it goes, but my review will be on The Beat on Thursday at noon.  Lastly, there’s Luc Besson’s new action movie ANNA (Lionsgate), starring Sasha Luss from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, which I actually won’t be able to see before Thursday night but I hope to have a review of that over at The Beat, too.

I talk more about the upcoming wide releases over at The Beat, so do check that column out as well, but if you’re still here, than you know that there’s lots of other stuff to city, especially if you’re lucky enough to live in New York and L.A.

LIMITED RELEASES

Some really great docs opening this weekend, and I want to focus on those first. First up is Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s TONI MORRISON: THE PIECES I AM (Magnolia), an amazing doc about the influential and inspirational author of books like “Beloved,” “The Bluest Eye” and “Sula,” none of which I’ve read, but I’m definitely more intrigued after reading about the influence she’s had on black culture as well as promoting black writers since her editing career began in the late ‘40s. The movie isn’t just about her history or her process, though, and in some ways it reminded me of Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro to show how important Morrison has been to literature and the Civil Rights movement. This movie opens Friday at the Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center in New York and Pacific Arclight and Landmark 12 in L.A., and I highly recommend it.  I’m hoping Magnolia will be able to get this out there, and it looks like they have a fairly robust release plan, so definitely seek it out if it plays in your city.

Equally enticing is Oliver Murray’s doc THE QUIET ONE (Sundance Selects), which takes a look inside the amazing archival efforts made by Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman. I’m a pretty big Stones fan and have been for decades and the access Murray gets to his archive of pictures and films really helps painting a picture of his time with the Stones. While I think this will be more interest to Stones fans than anyone else, I do recommend it. It will open at the IFC CenterFriday, as well as in Boston, L.A. and San Francisco and then will be on VOD on June 28. Both of the opened played at the recent Tribeca Film Festival.

It’s kind of crazy that Jordan Roberts’ BURN YOUR MAPS (Vertical Entertainment) (based on the short story by Robyn Joy Leff) premiered at the Toronto Film Festival way back in 2016 and it’s finally being released now, but hey, it happens. It stars Jacob Tremblay as an 8-year-old boy -- Tremblay is now 12 – named Wes who has dreams of becoming a Mongolian goat herder, befriending an Indian immigrant (Suraj Sharma from Life of Pi) and they travel to Mongolia together. Also starring Vera Farmiga and Virginia Madsen, it will be in select cities and On Demand.

Matthias Schoenaerts, Léa Seydoux, Peter Simonischek, Max von Sydow and Colin Firth (woo, what a cast!) star in Thomas Winterberg’s THE COMMAND (Saban Films). It tells the story of the Russian flagship nuclear submarine K-1413 KURSK  that sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea in August 2000, and like Saban’s other films, it will get a nomination theatrical release but mainly be seen on VOD.

Let’s get to some fun genre stuff….

A new horror anthology worth checking out is NIGHTMARE CINEMA (Good Deed Entertainment), which premiered at last year’s Fantasia Fest. The premise that ties the five chapters together involves five strangers who come to an abandoned theater to face their greatest fears with Mickey Rourke playing a mysterious character called the Projectionist. The episodes of the anthology are directed by Juan of the Dead’s Alejandro Brugués; the legendary Joe Dante; David Slade, who has directed “Hannibal,” “American Gods” and “Black Mirror” (including Bandersnatch!); Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura and the man who put it all together, Mick Garris. It will be in theaters and On Demand Friday.

A late addition to the weekend is Israeli director Guilhad Emilio Schenker’s Madam Yankelova’s Fine Literature Club (Rock Salt Releasing), which premiered at Fantastic Fest last year. It’s about a woman named Sophie who is getting older but who only has to seduce one more victim in order to achieve the rank of Lordess.

Lastly, there’s Carolina Hellsgård’s “post-apocalyptic feminist gothic fairy tale” Endzeit Ever After (Juno Films) follows two young women who develop a friendship while trying to survive after zombies overrun the Earth as they’re stranded in the Black Forest.  This opens at the IFC Center Friday and in L.A. at the Laemlle on June 28.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Streaming Weds on Netflix (and opening at the IFC Center in New York) is Petra Costa’s documentary THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY, which I’m mainly interested since I have family in Brazil who are quite political and this looks at what happened that cause two Brazilian presidencies to unravel.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

On Friday, Metrograph Pictures releases a 4k restoration of Jack Hazan’s 1974 film A Bigger Splash, an intimate portrait of British artist David Hockney at a pivotal time in his life after he breaks up with his boyfriend and muse Peter Schlesinger and is trying to complete his painting “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)”, which sold last year at auction for $93 million (!!!) The Metrograph will have all sorts of guests and QnAs at the screenings of the movie over the weekend.

This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph  is the influential Japanese thriller Battle Royale (2000), while Playtime: Family Matinees  will screen Tim Burton’s 1995 family comedy Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. Over the weekend, the Metrograph will also screen two films by Juleen Compton, 1965’s Stranded and 1966’s The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean, neither which I’ve seen so I don’t have much to add.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Besides the Weds. matinee of Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain (1966), starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, the New Bev is doing a double feature of Lady in Cement (1968) and Pretty in Poison (1968) on Weds and Thursday, then Paul Mazursky’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) with Cactus Flower  (1969) on Friday and Saturday. Friday’s Midnight movie is Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, while Saturday’s Midnight is something called Candy (1968), co-written by Buck Henry.  The KIDDEE MATINEE this weekend is one of my personal childhood favorites Chitty Chitty Bang Bang  (1968), starring Dick Van Dyke. Sunday and Monday, the theater is showing the Shirley MacLaine/Bob Fosse film Sweet Charity (1969) and Monday is a matinee of Ocean’s 11. No, not the one from 1960 as that would screw up the Bev’s late ‘60s motif.. it’s Steven Soderbergh’s movie from 2001 starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Matt Damon. The Tuesday Grindhouse is off next week replaced by a double feature of Peter Sellers and Goldie Hawn’s There’s a Girl in My Soup (1970) and Don Knotts’ The Love God? (1969).

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

Out in Astoria, they’re beginning the series Grit and Glitter: Before and After Stonewall in conjunction with the 50th anniversary with screenings of Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures  (1962) with two George Kuchar shorts on Friday, Tony Richardson’s 1961 film A Taste of Honey and Kon Ichikawa’s 1963 An Actor’s Revenge on Saturday and Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason  (1967) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1968 film Taorema on Sunday. (All of these are screened separately with separate entrance fees.) On Saturday and Sunday, MOMI screens a special The Muppet Movie 40thAnniversary Celebration, as well as a screening of 1979’s The Muppets Go Hollywood on Saturday. As part of the See It Big! Action series on Saturday, they’re showing Shaft director Gordon Parks, Jr.’s 1974 film Three the Hard Way.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

A new restoration of Jennie Livingston’s 1991 film Paris is Burning continues to play as part of Pride Month and the 50thanniversary of Stonewall, and Alain Resnais’Last Year at Marienbad will continue to play through Thursday. This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is Gurinder Chada’s 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham starring a very young Keira Knightley. Next Tuesday night, the Film Forum is screening a double feature of Dean Hargrove’s 2015 film Tap World along with his 2004 short Tap Heat.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

On Thursday, the never-ending Scorsese/Cassavetes series continues with Faces  (1968) and Mean Streets (1973)  and maybe this is the end of that series. Friday night is a screening of Eric Rohmer’s La Collectionneuse (1967) and on Sunday, the Art Directors Guild Film Society screens Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

AERO  (LA):

On Thursday, Cinematic Void is screening a double feature of Brian De Palma’s The Phantom of the Paradise (1974) and Dwight Little’s 1989 The Phantom of the Opera (with Little in person). Friday starts a Tying the Coen Brothers Together series in conjunction with Adam Layman’s fantastic Coen Brothers book with double features of No Country for Old Men and Blood Simple on Friday, The Big Lebowski and The Man Who Wasn’t There on Saturday and Fargo with A Serious Man on Sunday. Adam Nayman will be in person for the first two and actor Fred Melamed will be there for the latter.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

On Friday, the Quad premieres a new 2k restoration of Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg’s 1984 film Before Stonewall as well as a new series called Queer Kino playing through June 27, including Frank Ripploh’s German film Taxi zum Klo (1980), Wieland Speck’s Coming Out (1989) and more.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

This weekend, the Tribeca theaters is showing Toshio Matsumoto’s 1969 film Funeral Parade of Roses, the Wachowski’s Bound (1996), a 20thAnniversary screening of the thriller Jawbreaker with director Darren Stein and a few more recent movies including Booksmart. Not a bad line-up for this upstart arthouse theater.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This week’s Waverly Midnights: Parental Guidance is David Lynch’s Eraserhead (again) and Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook,Weekend Classics: LoveMom and Dad screens Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life  (1959), while Late Night Favorites: Springscreens Pulp Fiction, Alien (again) and Jaws.

FILM OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

The Ermanno Olmi series continues through June 26.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

This week’s Friday midnight is Stanley Kubrick’s classic The Shining.

Next week, the month of June closes off with the threequel Annabelle Comes Homeand Danny Boyle/Richard Curtis’ musical rom-com Yesterday.

[lexxikitty-blog1]

Family Jewels by Kate Christie Read: May 2017 Rating: 4.25 Stars

I’m not sure if I knew this going in, but this is not a Romance book. There is a bit of romancing that occurs, and there is love seen, but not Romance. What do I mean? Well, the kind of love seen is that between a father and daughter, and, separately, that between much older mentor and much younger mentee. And the romancing? Well, more on that later. I have some vague idea that Elizabeth ‘Junior’ Starreveld is somewhere around 26, though that might be because so many people in books I’ve read have been around that age. I do know that she is ‘not yet thirty’, and post-college age. So 26 is probably accurate. She is called Junior by her LGBT related friends (while her family call her either Elizabeth or Lizzie – though it is somewhat grating on Junior when Cat uses Lizzie since it is quite close to another word Cat likes to use, Lezzie – Cat being one of Junior’s older sisters, she has three sisters (the four sisters in order of birth: Jane, Mary, Cat, Elizabeth). Junior did well in college and has two jobs. Both of which are somewhat lower than her family believes she should have. And, admittedly (she admits), they are. One involves working at her friend Toby’s café; and the other involves working at an arboretum connected to the University of Michigan underneath her mentor Fitz (Dr. Margaret ‘Fitz’ Somethingorother). Junior is working these two jobs because a) she doesn’t know what to do with herself; b) she didn’t want to dive into investing much time in a career when she would be following her girlfriend when she got a job in her profession – after ‘passing her orals’. But they split a year ago, so Junior has been in something of a holding pattern, work wise. Relationship wise she has been seeing two women at the same time (known to both) – that’s part of the ‘romancing’ I mentioned, though the reader only sees the ‘dyke drama’ (as worded in the book) and not the ‘romance’, but the reader does see the ‘romance’ of Junior and Sofie in Amsterdam (and with Junior and . . . I think it was Michelle? Well, whoever, she worked at the hotel Junior and her father were staying at, one of them – that’s one of the things I wanted to mention, there were certain aspects of Junior’s character I didn’t like, this was one of them – no not trying to pick up the hotel worker, but doing so right in front of her father, and inviting the woman to share a meal with them when the father wanted a super quick meal before heading to the train station; basically I’m saying that Junior shows some growing needs to be done). Right, so. Got ahead of myself there. The book involves Junior puttering around, dodging ‘dyke drama’, dodging her ex-girlfriend and ex-best friend, working, and having dinners with her family every two weeks or so. At one such family dinner, the father – who has been estranged and acting stand-off-ish ever since Junior ‘came out’ after high school graduation – has asked/offered/invited his daughter Elizabeth (Junior) to go with him on his trip to Europe. For the ticket is already paid for and the person who was going to go with him, Kevin (name not important, he never once appears in the book), has a family emergency. Actually the father asked his daughter to go to a gem exhibition (however that was worded) and the daughter almost immediately declined, until she realized it would be in Amsterdam. And so she agrees. The book then proceeds to show them getting ready for the trip, being on the trip, then coming home – changed from the trip. Junior did grow as a character during the course of this book. For she moved from someone I kind of did not like (not necessarily disliked but . . . not liked) to one who I mostly liked. Dislikable aspects? Her relationships with other women (her doormat-y existence with her long time now ex-girlfriend; her kind of lazy passive relationship with two women (which reminds me that there was a bit of sex in this book since I now recall mention of a cheerleader girlfriend being stretched out on a bed, though I don’t recall if it is any more explicit than that, bluntly stating that the girlfriend is stretched out on the bed); her causal flirting with everyone; her seeming infatuation with every woman she came across in Europe (okay, with two women); her causal acceptance of a ‘mystery pill’ that she doesn’t actually want to ingest but does because she doesn’t want … um . . . to be . . . rude, that’s it, she didn’t want to be rude – so she put a mysterious drug into her system. Eventually, though, the book grew on me. A slice of life, watching a young woman mature, watching her grow closer to her father, watching her watch a beloved mentor steady decline in health, etc. etc. In the end, I rather liked the book and how it unfolded. And want a sequel. Because Elizabeth/Junior is more mature now in her life and attitude and stuff, and I’d like to see a romance between her and someone – maybe in Seattle, maybe in Ann Arbor, maybe even including Sofie (years later they could meet up again when both have grown and matured). This is actually one of the early books by this author so that ‘sequel’ already occurred or will never occur (it has been 5 years since the book came out). Solid interesting lovely tender book that, at a few points, brought a little wet-ness to my eyes (though only wetness (I do admit when I get teary, so no I’m not dodging around, no tears actually fell here)). ETA: looked at the other books - there are only two other books that I have yet to read. Neither of them are a 'Elizabeth/Junior finding romance' sequel to this story here. Rating: 4.34 May 30 2017

[dingoes8myrp]

Orange is the New Black: The Road So Far

Now that I’ve finished the fifth season, here are my thoughts on the show.

For the most part, I feel like this season was 80% filler, 2% character development, 8% set-up, and 10% compelling story.

I should mention, as a viewer and as a reader, I loathe filler. I’m a minimalist. I probably write this way, too. I like every piece of dialogue, every description, every scene, to either move the story forward or give important information. I like to be constantly moving or thinking. My perfect movie, episode, or book is one where I’m captivated and engrossed. And this doesn’t have to be a high-octane thriller either. Really, it just has to keep me moving or keep my brain working. I lose interest in books with paragraphs and paragraphs of detailed descriptions (George R. R. Martin and Cassandra Clare). I tune out of shows or movies with a lot of side-stories with no real bearing on the main arc (The Vampire Diaries and Game of Thrones), or with a lot of expositional dialogue and unnecessarily long shots (The Walking Dead). I’m not a fan of old Westerns with their wide, expositional shots and slow-moving stories (3:10 to Yuma). However, I’m captivated by mysteries and thrillers with unsettling suspense (The Killing and Gone Girl). I love a story that focuses on character development even when the plot doesn’t move much (Titanic and Lost). Just an aside so anyone reading understands where I’m coming from before I get into the nitty-gritty of this.

Season 5 of Orange is the New Black wasn’t bad. It was well-written, and some of the performances were absolutely amazing. Danielle Brooks (Taystee), Uzo Aduba (Suzanne), Selenis Leyva (Gloria), Elizabeth Rodriguez (Aleida), and Brad William Henke (Piscatella) were particularly stand-out for me. However, there is a stylistic difference in the later seasons of the show versus the earlier ones. The first two seasons in particular were well-paced with a steady arc and compelling characters. I couldn’t stop watching because I felt like I was being pulled through the story by what was unfolding. Last season and this season in particular felt different: drawn out and inconsistently paced with an overarching story that was muddled and unclear. I believe this trend began in season 3. Seasons 1 and 2 focused on Piper’s arc as the main story with everyone else’s stories revolving around it, much like the spoke method used by Seinfeld. Other stories and characters were artfully folded into this main arc, but Piper was the show’s heart: the lens through which we viewed the world. Gradually, other characters came into the spotlight with Piper. Dayanara’s relationship with Bennett became its own strong story. Nicky’s battle with addiction and her relationship with Morello became a compelling story on its own. Meanwhile other characters became near and dear to us through compelling personal arcs: Taystee with her dynamic personality and her drive, Red with her no-nonsense Alpha vibe and maternal role, Suzanne with her troubling but endearing quirks, and of course Alex with her anti-hero road-to-redemption arc. There was a nice structure and momentum to the first two seasons that made me feel grounded, and managed to reveal layers of individual characters while balancing a few different side-stories without losing sight of that main grounding arc.

Season 3 began to lose this balance. The departures of Bennett and Mendez drastically changed Dayanara’s story and took something away from the dynamic of the guards. Nicky’s stint in Max left Morello with nothing to do and removed an entire layer of story from a lot of other arcs Nicky was involved in. Larry was ultimately written out of the story, which removed a complication from Piper that made her relationship with Alex less dramatic (so other plot elements were added, presumably to keep the drama going). Meanwhile new characters were introduced or focused on, and those characters didn’t have two seasons of story under their belts to help them carry the weight. As a result, we started getting these “filler” episodes that focused on an underdeveloped character to sort of catch them up to everyone else (i.e. Boo in “Finger in the Dyke,” Flaca in “Fake it Till you Fake it Some More,” Chang in “Ching, Chong, Chang,” basically the bulk of the episodes). We were introduced to a whole new cast of characters and their stories while the characters we’d gotten to know took a back seat. While I appreciated some of these episodes individually, I didn’t appreciate them as a part of the whole. Pulling so many new or background characters into the spotlight so quickly created a need to hit “Pause” on a number of stories and slowed down the show’s momentum.

Seasons 4 and 5 continued this trend of introducing or expanding characters, but also reintroduced characters that had been minimalized or written out. This has bloated the story to the point where it’s difficult to discern the main arc or to keep up with all the side stories and character arcs. We’re picking up threads of stories that were back-burnered trying to remember where we left off while some newly introduced stories are put on pause and some even newer stories are being set up. There’s just way too much going on, and the 10% of it I’m actually invested in has gotten lost in the shuffle. Aleida being released from prison was a big deal at one point, and I was very interested to see how she adjusted to life outside. However, a very small amount of screen time was spent on this compelling story and instead Aleida’s role became relative to Dayanara’s story (which stopped being compelling as soon as she lost the gun). Alex killed a man and buried him in the garden and that somehow wasn’t even in the top 5 storylines. It was just something we were reminded of every few episodes through expositional dialogue, presumably so we didn’t forget that this was once an important plot point. Poussey, a beloved main character, was horrifically killed. Instead of the fallout becoming the main story, as was set up in season 5’s premiere, it somehow became a setting in itself rather than a plot. This is actually something I’ve seen in other shows, where a character’s death becomes a part of the atmosphere (Sons of Anarchy and Outsiders come immediately to mind). However, if Poussey’s death wasn’t the overarching plot, and the riot it caused wasn’t the overarching plot… then what the hell was? I still don’t know.

My major problem with season 5 is that it took way too long for anything to move forward in a significant way, and when it did everything happened all at once. Red, Lorna, and Suzanne are all competing for Little Miss Crazypants of Litchfield. Piscatella’s in the house and he’s also throwing his hat in the Crazypants ring with a side of torture just for funzies. Humps died and no one seemed to give a shit despite his death being a BIG FUCKING DEAL because all the negotiations between the inmates and the gun-toting officers hinge on the fact that no one has died, and because a beloved character shot the guy while another blew into his I.V. for shits and giggles, and another whole shit load of characters fought like hell to save him. All but one of the remaining guards got out, which was also a big deal. An overzealous S.W.A.T. team stormed the prison. I mean, Jesus, we couldn’t have spaced this out a bit to make the previous 8 episodes more interesting? As entertaining as it was to watch Angie and Leanne fuck around like Lucy and Ethel, I really didn’t need as much of it as I was given and I would have loved more of Alex or Almeida or even Pennsatucky. As fun as Linda as an inmate was, that was an entire storyline I could have done without in the grand scheme. Brook’s grieving was super compelling and we barely got any time with her. 

This brings me to my secondary problem with season 5, which was the fact that a number of compelling stories and characters got lost in everything going on. Lorna got pregnant and doubted her sanity while playing fast and loose with everyone’s medications. Burset became a badass MacGyver style medic and then disappeared for the rest of the season when she could have been super useful to have around. Pennsatucky engaged in a consensual relationship with her rapist and somehow that wasn’t the most interesting thing going on. Bayley was having a straight up mental breakdown because of his role in Poussey’s death and it’s just a side story we get a glimpse of here and there. Instead of focusing on any of this, we spent a lot of screentime watching Caputo and Taystee negotiate with Figueroa. We followed Leanne and Angie around while they decreased our brain cells with their stupidity. We hung out with Red and Flores in an office for some reason. We watched Frieda and company smoke pot in a bunker because why the hell not? We watched Boo court Linda despite the fact that her friend Pennsatucky was clearly in need of some sort of support. We watched Piper walk around talking to people while Alex rolled her eyes (legit, that is the extent of their plot this season as far as I can tell).

Oh my God, that ending. Really?? You’re going to cram all the good stuff into the last 3 episodes and then end with a fucking cliffhanger? Not an earned one, either. This reminded me of the end of season 6 of The Walking Dead. Whatever impact the S.W.A.T. team storming into the bunker is going to have, they just cut it in half by making us wait a year to finish watching that fucking scene. I’m not a fan of that trick. So, they could kill off anyone in the bunker and they’re shipping the bulk of the cast elsewhere (“probably not max” is all we know). So, does this mean we’re going to be splitting our screen time between THREE different settings next season? Or does it mean virtually ALL of our beloved characters are being written out? Either way, it doesn’t look good.

All told, while this wasn’t a bad season, I felt like we were focusing on all the wrong things, and it slowed everything down while hurting the flow and momentum of the other stories. Not my favorite season by far.

[oosteven-universe]

Sonata #1

Sonata #1 Anomaly Productions/Shadowline/Image Comics 2019 Written by David Hine & Brian Haberline Illustrated by Brian Haberline Coloured by Geirrod Van Dyke Lettered by Francis Takenaga     Two cultures clash on a planet they each believe is their Promised Land. The Rans are a peace-loving people, but the Tayans are a race of warriors who seek to colonize and control. The mysterious Sleeping Giants also call this place home, though no one knows if they’re monsters or the gods of legend. And amidst all this, a young woman named Sonata is willing to break all the rules to find her place in this world—and she’s not about to let sleeping gods lie.     This is one of those series that takes a concept that is kind of outrageous merges it with some great science fiction and the discovery of lost worlds and you’ve got something like this. I mean I love the fact that we’ve got tow species of humanoid’s who are essentially the Vulcan’s and the Romulan’s both of whom are trying to claim the same planet for their new home. The similarities here are nicely done with this new twist being applied. The opening is fantastic as we get to see Brian and Geirrod showcase what we can expect to come and the narration beautifully sets the stage for the kind of story we are in for.     One of the things about this that I really liked is how layered the story here. Sure there is what is on the surface between all the inhabitants and then there’s father and daughter and potentially the children of the delegations and a whole Shakespearean drama to unfold. Plus with the tantalising last page a whole new aspect is revealed. There is nothing about this first issue introduction that wasn’t extremely well thought out and executed because this whole thing feels the intro to a new science fiction Netflix series.     The story & plot development here is crazy good and alongside the pacing and character development that we’re seeing is sure to make this an instant fan favourite. Once you start reading you get swept up in this, it allows your imagination to run wild alongside what you see. There is this almost full sense immersion happening that you don’t expect but can’t resist the temptation to keep going or want more when it’s over.     By the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse the interiors here are beyond and I mean beyond any and all expectations. I mean the linework is exquisite and the range of weights that we see in them is so stunningly well rendered I mean you can find lines here and there and in places you don’t realise so that you get this crazy and I mean crazy good work. The way the page layouts are utilised and how we see the angles and perspective in the composition of the panels is truly amazing. Brian’s eye for storytelling is stupendous to see. The colour work is just as gorgeous as we see clouds and mountains in the backgrounds that feel real. The sense of perspective in foreground and background is that variation in the colours that give the eye focus. The imagination and creativity that we see here blending science with fantasy these folks bring that to life beyond measure. ​     I want more and I want it now. I wish this was one of those 80 page giant issues so I could just keep discovering this world, these people and myriad of mysteries surrounding it. I like the friends of the Rans and the creatures they’ve come to live in concert with and while waiting is a key element in keeping readers coming back time and time again to learn those secrets. I can’t wait to learn about the divergent paths they took from the Tayans of vice versa. This is an extraordinary read and it deserves all the accolades that will garner.