#going deep with david rees | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

slowshcw · 2 years ago

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[ anya chalotra | cis woman | she / her | twenty eight ] —— welcome to grimrose, reena dixon-daubney. it’s cool that you’re here, you know. haven’t you heard of the history of this place… anyway, how’s being a local who has been in town for twenty years, especially since you spend most of your days as a veterinarian at the grimrose veterinary clinic? also, not that it’s a bad thing, of course, but i’ve heard people say you can be a little overbearing more than you are vivacious… but that’s just coming from people who are bored here, i promise. to me, you remind me of big yellow taxi by joni mitchell and waking up at 5 am every morning, constant need to be doing something, animal hair strewn every piece of clothing, pushing yourself beyond your limit, the search for something you don’t want to find, not letting go.… hope to see you around, ree.

STATS

full name — reena

nickname(s) —ree

name meaning — gem; joyous song

age — twenty eight

date of birth — september 22nd 1968

religion — atheist

sexuality — bisexual

education level — university (bachelors in zoology, doctorate in veterinary sciences)

family — david dixon-daubney (father), shawna dixon-daubney (mother), daniel dixon-daubney (younger brother).

finances — stable. her job pays quite well, and she’s got a lot saved up.

spoken languages — english

BACKSTORY

born to two teenagers freshly out of high school, it was no surprise when reena was put up for adoption. they couldn’t afford to look after her; they could barely afford to go to college. she was half a year old when the dixon-daubneys adopted her, seemingly incapable of having children themselves. her brother 3d would come as a surprise a few years later. and, she couldn’t be happier with her family, even if they are a group of oddballs. but, the curious creature that she is, she sometime does wonder what happened to her birth parents.

reena was eight when they all packed up their bags and moved to grimrose. her parents were fascinated with the town due to it’s history and folklore, but she couldn’t understand why. young reena wasn’t very keen on change, and to put it frankly, she thought the move was plain stinky. but, after a slight struggle, she quickly blended into life there.

the grims. she’d only lived in grimrose a year when she’d allegedly witnessed it. the creature couldn’t stop talking about it for years. to this day, she remembers the night vividly. the chill seeping into her bones as she walked home, the shift in the air as she turned the corner and the fear that settled into the back of her throat. that’s when she saw it. it’s massive figure looming compared to the small child. it’s deep red eyes, and the growl it emitted. everything she’d heard flooded her mind, she was certain she was cursed.

it would be an understatement to say she was paranoid. and, whilst her parents tried their best to convince her she wasn’t the subject to a curse to calm her nerves, it didn’t quite work. but, she thought, if she tried her best and pushed herself, she could outrun it. she’d like a motor engine that wouldn’t stop. she didn’t want to waste a single second being stationary. it also kicked started her lifelong interest in zoology.

she’d always loved animals, in all shapes and sizes. she’d wanted to be a marine biologist at a very young age. followed by a wildlife expert. and then, a zookeeper (which led her to volunteer at a wildlife park for a year before college). but finally, she settled on being a veterinarian. and despite changing her mind constantly, she was determined she wanted a career with animals and that’s what she strived to do.

she studied zoology at college in massachusetts, followed by veterinary sciences. to save money and to stay close to her family, she lived at home during this for the most part and drove each day. it was only around a 50 minute drive. once she came back, she got a job at the veterinary clinic at home. and has worked there ever since.

she loves her family a lot, but her brother frustrates her to no end and she just can’t wrap it around her head that he would just want to do ’nothing worthwhile’ with his time. she knows she can be a bit hard on him sometimes, but she only wants the best for him and for him to push himself a bit.

EXTRAS

has a dog and a cat. both of which she adopted from shelters. moose is an older mastiff that she adopted two years ago. and, caesar is her black cat she she adopted four years ago. her pet gecko, beanie, recently passed. rip beanie.

for the sake of her own sanity, she’s kind of determined to prove that the thing she saw was just a big dog. or a new species of dog that had yet to be discovered. she kinda of doesn’t want to know, but also has to know.

very science orientated and very big into cryptozoology. she believes there’s an explanation for most things. bigfoot to her is just an undiscovered species. she has a harder time believing in ghosts than anything else.

is a vegetarian, and has been for about 12 years.

very anti government. one of those kind of people that whilst she’d love to discover bigfoot, would be then scared about what the government would do to one.

MUN NOTE

it’s very late right now and i have a bangin headache and am feeling slightly dazed so i don’t know if this makes any sense, but i hope it does. but thank you for reading. if you want to plot, just give this a like, or pop me a message! and i’ll also be doing some messaging tomorrow when i get up. <3

#grimrosehqs.intro

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fantastica-daily · 3 years ago

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VampyrZ on a Boat Movie Review

Sara and Max's new whirlwind romance is interrupted by a vampire outbreak on a medical research ship. Max will stop at nothing to get back the girl of his dreams, even if it means several heads will roll.

What do you get when you cross an ex “fixer for the deep-state” with a nearly empty ship that’s been rented out for top secret medical research? An unlikely May-December romance hindered by a vampire infestation, of course! Mark Allen Michael’s new release Vampyrz on a Boat is an oddball “romzomhorrorcom” that B-movie lovers will swoon for. Never heard that term before? We made it up just for this movie, because it deserves a class of its own. Trust us, you’ve never seen anything like it.

When Del (Curt Lambert) asks his buddy Max (Dallas Valdez) to come babysit his uncle’s ship for some quick cash, Max declines. He has a one-eyed cat to care for, after all. But when the beautiful Sara (Carrie Keegan) walks on scene, Max falls in love and changes his tune. Max helicopters onto the ship and steps out onto the deck David Caruso style to some pretty fantastic action music that promises we’re in for a wild ride. Instead, Del introduces Max to his uncle, Captain Bob (Robert Acres), a corny drunk who carries his ancestor’s pegleg around for luck. Between jokes and wisecracks, the Captain explains why he needs the men on board. Someone has rented his ship to run a medical experiment at sea, and they’ve paid big money to ensure it sets sail with only a skeleton crew, and to knock out the ship’s communication system. Captain Bob wants Del and Max to find out what the research is about and to protect his ship.

Del takes Max to his security command centre and points out a mystery that’s been bothering him: high tech heat sensors show the outline of a man sitting in a chair in a locked room who never moves, but he emits a bat-like sound. They join Captain Bob in the medical lab run by Adele (Kate Rees Davies), a mad scientist who doesn’t care who dies on board as long as her research continues. That “man” sitting in the locked room? He’s very old, and he’s indestructible…but he’s also dangerous…and he’s also escaped. Adele wants to use his blood to find cures for human diseases, to stop the aging process, to become rich and famous, and she tells the men to go find him, and bring him back alive. Aliiive!

From this point on, the story becomes very confusing. Max and Sara have already gotten down and dirty at least once and professed their undying love for one another, Sara has been bitten by the vampire and is infected (but Max doesn’t know this yet), there are rando’s with chainsaws popping up here and there, and a dude with a ventriloquist dummy who giggles while he talks. Most of the crew is already dead after an incident in the cafeteria. While Max and Del search for Adele’s vampire, Max is repeatedly bitten but never turned or infected. At one point he takes a hammer to the head and goes to Adele to have it removed, which is one of the funniest scenes in the film. If you miss the gags the first time, don’t worry, you’ll see them again. For some reason, removing the hammer from his skull throws Max into a Groundhog Day-esque time loop that is never really explained. His sanity is questioned in one scene when he tells Del about the time he spent receiving electroshock therapy in an institution, but nothing more is ever said about it. This could have been used to flesh out the “this is all a manic dream” potential the film had, but it wasn’t. Instead, it turns into a loop that only Max is somewhat aware of, which oddly helps to develop his character. With some memory of what’s already happened, Max becomes quicker when he encounters the same obstacles, evolving into a hero that none of us were expecting.

What the film lacks in cohesion, it makes up for with enthusiasm. It’s clear that sound designer Corey Brown was passionate about the project, as was cinematographer Stefan Colson. The musical choices were perfectly matched to every scene, amplifying the action with power rock tunes and exaggerating comedic moments with almost cartoonish melodies. Coloured lighting was used to enhance the anxiety of being trapped below decks in a military sized ship with killer creatures, and tight camera work made the characters’ movement around the ship realistic. The editing of every aspect of the film was flawless. For a low budget indie, the crew used what they had with the expertise of a much larger production.

With enough funny lines to compensate for the cringier ones, Vampyrz on a Boat passes as a comedy. It has more than enough gore for any horror lover, and while more could have been done to help the storyline make sense, it’s fun as it stands.

Fans of old school low budget B-movie creature features will love this one for its silliness, improbable plot, and decent special effects, and reviewers should appreciate the effort put into the production details. Indie creators make films like these for the love of the genre, and Mark Allen Michaels is a master of his art.

= = =

Reviewed by Kate DeJonge

Coming to Digital and Cable on September 27, 2022!

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#movie review #vampyrz on a boat #carrie keagan #dallas valdez #horror

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tothemaxxx · 4 years ago

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My Favorite Films and Performances of 2020

“I wish I could’ve seen it on the big screen.”

It was a strange year, and even stranger year of movie watching. In 2020 I saw only one of my top films in a theater, which is crazy (like much else over these past months). But the experience of keeping up with the movies this year was a reminder that great filmmaking can transcend the specifics of the viewing experience. In your living room, in bed, projected onto the side of a garage, streaming on Twitch, broken up into multiple sittings, maybe even on your phone (desperate times)… if doesn’t matter as long as it connects with you. A great film has the power to soothe and transport, to alter your perspective, to re-wire your brain. So while I didn’t get on a single airplane last year, I definitely went places. And I’m grateful for these changes of scenery. For the time-travel as well; last year in my house, we found great comfort in revisiting a bunch of old favorites. It was also an opportunity to finally watch a number of those older films that had someone evaded us… a year of catching up, now or never. We were members of a weekly movie club for some months — that was cool. Another pleasant silver lining was the emergence of virtual film festivals, which have been a fantastic opportunity. I hope that they can continue in some form when this pandemic is in the rearview. Because, you know, getting to Park City is a real schlep. All this to say: like you, I’ll always remember 2020. In this truly crummy year, the movies really helped.

I’m including some of the film festival stuff that’s coming out a little later, because the boundaries between 2020 films and 2021 films feels blurry to me without proper theatrical releases.

TOP 5, loosely ranked. I love these deeply.

1. LOVERS ROCK, Steve McQueen

2. NOMADLAND, Chloe Zhao

3. ANOTHER ROUND, Thomas Vinterberg

4. TIME, Garrett Bradley

5. MARTIN EDEN, Pietro Marcello

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The rest of the Top 25, in alphabetical order. I loved these.

À L’ABORDAGE, Guillaume Brac

BACURAU, Kleber Mendonça Filho

COLOR OUT OF SPACE, Richard Stanley

THE FATHER, Florian Zeller

FIRST COW, Kelly Reichardt

I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS, Charlie Kaufman

JASPER MALL, Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb

LUXOR, Zeina Durra

ALEX WHEATLE / EDUCATION / MANGROVE / RED, WHITE AND BLUE, Steve McQueen

THE NEST, Sean Durkin

NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS, Eliza Hittman

NEW ORDER, Michel Franco

THE PAINTER & THE THIEF, Benjamin Ree

THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD, Armando Iannucci

POSSESSOR, Brandon Cronenberg

PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN, Emerald Fennell

RELIC, Natalie Erika James

SAINT FRANCES, Alex Thompson

SOUND OF METAL, Darius Marder

THE TRUTH, Hirokazu Koreeda

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I also enjoyed (some more than others):

Apples, The Assistant, Babyteeth, Bad Education, Black Bear, Blow the Man Down, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Butt Boy, The Climb, Da 5 Bloods, Deerskin, Emma, The Father (Bulgaria), Greed, His House, The Hunt, I Used to Go Here, I'm No Longer Here, Impetigore, The Intruder, The Invisible Man, Kajillionaire, La Llorona, Let Them All Talk, Lost Girls, The Man Who Sold His Skin, Mank, Never Gonna Snow Again, News of the World, One Night in Miami, Palm Springs, Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, Rebecca, She Dies Tomorrow, Shirley, Slow Machine, Sorry We Missed You, Soul, Spree, Straight Up, A Sun, Swallow, Tenet, Tesla, Tommaso, The Traitor, The Trip to Greece, True History of the Kelly Gang, Uncle Frank, Under the Open Sky, The Vast of Night, Vitalina Varela, Wendy, The Whistlers, Wildland, Young Ahmed

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And these documentaries!

American Murder: The Family Next Door, The American Sector, Assassins, Beastie Boys Story, The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, Bloody Nose Empty Pockets, Boys State, Brainiac: Transmissions After Zero, Circus of Books, Class Action Park, Collective, Crip Camp, David Byrne's American Utopia, Dick Johnson is Dead, Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds, The Go-Go's, Gunda, Miss Americana, MLK/FBI, The Mole Agent, Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado, My Psychedelic Love Story, Mystify: Michael Hutchence, Narrowsburg, On the Record, Other Music, Sisters with Transistors, Spaceship Earth, The Way I See It, Whirlybird

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And these shorts:

Bye Bye Body (which I edited), Fit Model, Friday Night Pizza for Daddy, Hard Cracked the Wind, The Human Voice, John Was Trying to Contact Aliens, Michael's Preference West, What Did Jack Do?, World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime

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My favorite performance of the year:

Frances McDormand as Fern in Nomadland

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Favorite ensembles:

À l’abordage, Another Round, Bad Education, Babyteeth, Bloody Nose Empty Pockets, Blow the Man Down, Emma, First Cow, Kajillionaire, Let Them All Talk, Lovers Rock, Mangrove, Mank, One Night in Miami, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Promising Young Woman, True History of the Kelly Gang

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More memorable (and in some cases under-discussed) performances:

Christopher Abbott as Colin Tate in Possessor and as Gabe in Black Bear

Idir Ben Addi as Ahmed in Young Ahmed

Riz Ahmed as Ruben Stone in Sound of Metal

Daniel Algrant as Kelvin Kranz in Let Them All Talk

Maria Bakalova as Tutar Sagdiyev in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Haley Bennett as Hunter Conrad in Swallow

John Boyega as Leroy Logan in Red, White and Blue

Rob Brydon as Rob Brydon in The Trip to Greece

Jessie Buckley as Young Woman in I’m Thinking of Ending Things

Nicolas Cage as Nathan Gardner in Color Out of Space

Salif Cissé as Chérif in À L’abordage

Sheyi Cole as Alex Wheatle in Alex Wheatle

Cleopatra Coleman as Trina in The Argument

Carrie Coon as Allison O’Hara in The Nest

Michael Angelo Covino as Mike in The Climb

Willem Dafoe as Tommaso in Tommaso

Charles Dance as William Randolph Hearst in Mank

Catherine Deneuve as Fabienne Dangeville in The Truth

Katie Findlay as Rory in Straight Up

Sidney Flanigan as Autumn in Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Johnny Flynn as George Knightley in Emma

Julia Garner as Jane in The Assistant

Robbie Gee as Simeon in Alex Wheatle

Chris Giarmo as himself in David Byrne’s American Utopia

Betty Gilpin as Crystal Creasey in The Hunt

Ethan Hawke as Hank in The Truth

Kris Hitchen as Ricky Turner in Sorry We Missed You

Anthony Hopkins as Anthony in The Father

Jonathan Jules as Dennis Isaacs in Alex Wheatle

Sandra Guldberg Kampp as Ida in Wildland

Joe Keery as Kurt Knuckle in Spree

Udo Kier as Michael in Bacurau

Orion Lee as King Lu in First Cow

Delroy Lindo as Paul in Da 5 Bloods

Peter Macdissi as Walid "Wally" Nadeem in Uncle Frank

Matthew Macfadyen as Wilcock in The Assistant

George MacKay as Ned Kelly in True History of the Kelly Gang

Yahya Mahayni as Sam Ali in The Man Who Sold His Skin

Luca Marinelli as Martin Eden in Martin Eden

Tuppence Middleton as Sara Mankiewicz in Mank

Mads Mikkelsen as Martin in Another Round

Wunmi Mosaku as Rial in His House

Elisabeth Moss as Cecilia Kass in The Invisible Man

Kelly O'Sullivan as Bridget in Saint Frances

Shaun Parkes as Frank Crichlow in Mangrove

Robert Pattinson as Neil in Tenet

Paul Raci as Joe in Sound of Metal

Kadeem Ramsay as Samson in Lovers Rock

Gayle Rankin as Marissa in The Climb

Tanya Reynolds as Mrs Augusta Elton in Emma

Tyler Rice as Detective Russell Fox in Butt Boy

Andrea Riseborough as Hana in Luxor

Cecilia Roth as Marta in The Intruder

William Sadler as the Grim Reaper in Bill & Ted Face the Music

Kenyah Sandy as Kingsley Smith in Education

Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn as Martha Trenton in Lovers Rock

David Strathairn as David in Nomadland

Michael Stuhlbarg as Stanley Edgar Hyman in Shirley

Swankie as Swankie in Nomadland

Tilda Swinton as Woman in The Human Voice

Kristin Scott Thomas as Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca

Steve Toussaint as Ken Logan in Red, White and Blue

Alec Utgoff as Zhenia in Never Gonna Snow Again

Jairaj Varsani as young David Copperfield in The Personal History of David Copperfield

Ben Whishaw as Uriah Heep in The Personal History of David Copperfield

Sharlene Whyte as Agnes Smith in Education

Letitia Wright as Altheia Jones-LeCointe in Mangrove

Ramona Edith Williams as Frances in Saint Frances

Kôji Yakusho as Masao Mikami in Under the Open Sky

Youn Yuh-jung as Soon-ja in Minari

Helena Zengel as Johanna Leonberger in News of the World

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Favorite pre-2020 films I saw for the first time in 2020:

Blood on the Moon, But I’m A Cheerleader, Crooklyn, Cure, Daughters of the Dust, The Death of Dick Long, Deep Cover, The Draughtsman's Contract, Eyes of Laura Mars, Give Me Liberty, Greener Grass, Hardcore, High Hopes, The Last Party, Long Day's Journey into Night, Maiden, One Day Pina Asked, Persona, Right Now Wrong Then, Right On!, The Seventh Victim, Slightly French, Synonyms, Tammy and the T-Rex, Variety, The Watermelon Woman... and a tip of the hat to Coppola's new The Godfather Part III recut, The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2 Episode 1 Easter Eggs & References

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This Star Trek: Lower Decks article contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 1: “Strange Energies.”

The mission of the USS Cerritos is to do the jobs other Starfleet ships can’t; following up with all sorts of minutiae and boring outer space logistics, long after the Enterprise or the Defiant has warped out. But whether it’s Lower Decks or Picard or Discovery or Strange New Worlds, the mission of hardcore Trek fans is the same: Pause the screen and see what deep-cut Easter eggs got slipped in this time!

In Season 1, Star Trek: Lower Decks earned the reputation for the most meta-textual Star Trek ever. There are layers and layers of Trekdom within every frame of this series, making it hard to look at one episode and catalog all the references. But if you thought Season 1 went deep into the wells of Trekkie references and Easter eggs, Season 2 is here to make Season 1 look tame. The Season 2 premiere of Lower Decks — “Strange Energies” — is one giant Easter egg with a bunch of reproducing tribble-ish Easter eggs inside of it. Unless you’ve got ESP powers on the level of Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, there’s no way you caught all of these.

Cardassian ships

The episode has a cold-open on some kind of prison inside of an asteroid field. This is surrounded by two kinds of Cardassian ships, the Galor-class and the smaller Hideki-class scout ships.

“The Keep Showing Me Lights”

Hologram Boimler says the Cardassians “keep showing me lights.” This line, and the existence of the secret Cardassian facility references the famous Next Generation two-parter, “Chain of Command,” in which Picard was kidnapped and tortured by the Cardassians. If you somehow haven’t seen that episode, the whole idea is that the Cardassians try to gaslight Picard into thinking there are five lights in front of him when there are only four. Lower Decks referenced “Chain of Command” in Season 1, too! In Season 1, Episode 7, “Much Ado About Boimler,” Mariner joked about the Cerritos getting a “Babysitter Jellico-type,” for a subsitute captain, which referenced the temporary captain the Enterprise got in “Chain of Command.” Freeman, Shaxs and Ransom whore the all-black special ops outfits in that episode, too, and Tendi did the same in “Veritas.”

Too Many Ships to Count

As Mariner escapes from the Cardassian facility, there are soooo many ships being stored in this particular hanger. It’s all the ships. Here’s just a few we caught

A Federation runabout

Jem’Hadar fighters

A Nemesis-era Romulan warbird

An old school Romulan Bird-of-Prey from TOS

Federation fighter craft (like the ones seen in TNG’s “Preemptive Strike.”)

And many, many more.

Miranda-class USS MacDuff

Mariner steals a Miranda-class Federation starship with the registry NCC-1877, and the name “USS MacDuff.” There’s a lot going on here.

The Miranda-class was first seen in The Wrath of Khan, in the form of the USS Reliant. That film also featured someone stealing a ship like this with ease.

The bridge for this ship is basically identical to the Reliant.

Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan said in 2020 that he was inspired by the Reliant for the design of the Cerritos.

The name “MacDuff” might reference the TNG character, Kieran MacDuff, from the episode “Conundrum.” In that one, the crew has temporary amnesia and MacDuff manipulates them into fighting a war they’re not supposed to be involved in.

Jennifer

Jennifer is back! Mariner is interrupted during her holographic work-out by Jennifer, an Andorian crewmember from last season. In the Season 1 finale, “No Small Parts,” Mariner runs through the halls and pushes this character out of the way, saying, “Move Jennifer.” As far as we know, Jennifer is the only Andorian named Jennifer, but you really have to wonder, was this an Andorian name, or a human name?

“I know we’re not supposed to have interpersonal conflict”

Mariner’s dislike of Jennifer is punctuated by her talking to herself saying, “I know we’re not supposed to have interpersonal conflict…but I really hate that Andorian.” This references a long-standing rule from the TNG–era of Trek TV; that Starfleet officers weren’t supposed to have petty differences with each other. This rule was apparently implemented by Gene Roddenberry and drove several writers, including Ron Moore and Jeri Taylor, nuts.

Slightly new opening-credits

In Season 1, we saw the Cerritos running away from a battle involving a bunch of Borg cubes and Romulan Warbirds. Now, that same battle includes a Pakled ship from the Season 1 finale, a few Klingon Birds-of-Prey, and seemingly, fewer Borg.

Fred Tatasciore’s name in the credits?

Although Shaxs died in the Season 1 finale, Fred Tatasciore’s name appears in the opening credits…hmmm…will this ever be explained?

Rutherford’s date with Ensign Barnes

“Strange Energies” directly parallels the 2020 Season 1 debut, “Second Contact,” in several ways. The crew is involved with a second contact mission that goes horribly wrong and Rutherford starts dating Barnes for the “first” time. In the Season 1 finale, Rutherford lost his memory, which is why his relationship with Barnes seems new to him. This is why Mariner says “that sounds familiar.”

Hating pears…a Doctor Who reference?

Tendi is concerned that Rutherford used to hate pears, but now he doesn’t. This is possibly incorrect, but this could be a Doctor Who reference. In the Doctor Who episodes “Human Nature,” “Twice Upon a Time,” and “Hell Bent,” the Doctor (both David Tennant and Peter Capaldi) mention hating pears. In fact, in “Human Nature,” when the Doctor’s memory is erased, he asks Martha Jones to “never let me eat a pear.”

Sonic power washing

“Sonic showers” have long been a thing in the Star Trek universe, making their debut in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. But, we’ve never seen sonic power-washers before!

“Ever heard of Gary Mitchell”

Ransom’s possession is very much a tribute to Gary Mitchell’s god-like powers in the second TOS pilot episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Dr. T’ana’s insistence that Kirk beat Gary Mitchell with a “boulder” is accurate. For whatever reason, the very first canonical Kirk-adventure ever, established that rock beats god-like powers any day of the week. It should also be noted that Mariner referenced Gary Mitchell in the first episode of Season 1, too.

Possible Harlan Ellison reference?

While Ransom is starting to work out, you can briefly hear him say, “The trick isn’t becoming a God. The trick is staying a God.” This could be a reference to the axiom attributed to Harlan Ellison: “The trick isn’t becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.” Ellison wrote “The City on the Edge of Forever,” for TOS. In Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Soji traveled on a ship called the Ellison, which Michael Chabon revealed was an Easter egg meant to reference Harlan Ellison. So, you never know?

“The Trick isn’t becoming a god, the Trick is staying a god”

Harlan Ellison reference?

Ransom on the Mount

Mariner says that Jack is “going all Ransom on the Mount.” This almost certainly references a hilarious fan video called “Shatner on the Mount,” in which a group called Fall On Your Sword remixed a behind-the-scenes interview with William Shatner (promoting Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) into a hilarious kind of talking-rap song. It has to be seen to be believed.

Giant God Head

A giant God head coming out to grab a starship might seem silly, but there are several precedents for this kind of thing in Trek canon. In the TOS episode “Who Mourns For Adonais?” a giant green hand grabs the Enterprise, which is later revealed to be the hand of the god Apollo. In the TNG episode “The Nth Degree,” the giant head of a Cytherian finds its way onto the Enterprise-D bridge. And, of course, in The Final Frontier, the crew meets “the God of Sha Ka Ree” which also, is a giant floating head.

My older sister got a symbiont

Barnes and Rutherford joke around that her Trill sister has a symbiont, but she doesn’t. This references the idea that not all Trill are joined, which was established in both TNG and Deep Space Nine.

Cetacean ops

Barnes mentions going swimming in “Cetacean ops,” a part of the USS Cerritos that we’ve never seen, but we have to assume has something to do with sea creatures. This is the second time Lower Decks has referenced Cetacean ops, which itself derives from an overheard line in TNG’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” Again, with yet another parallel to its Season 1 debut, “Cetacean ops” was last referenced by Lower Decks in Season 1, Episode 1, “Second Contact.”

“LDS thing”

Rutherford incorrectly refers to SMD as “LDS.” This references a few things. First, for most fans, the official abbreviation of Lower Decks is LDS. But, that abbreviation also references a joke from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in which Kirk incorrectly refers to the drug “LSD” as “LDS,” saying that Spock “did a little bit too much LDS back in the ‘60s.”

Nightengale Woman

At the end of the episode, Stevens tells Ransom he’s going to read him “Nightengale Woman.” This too is a reference to “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” which Gary Mitchell quotes from the poem “Nitengale Woman,” from memory. In Trek canon, the poem was written in 1996 on “the Canopus Planet.” In real life, the poem was written by Gene Roddenberry, who originally wrote part of the poem to describe flying a plane.

Riker’s jam session

As the final moments of the episode cut back to the USS Titan, Captain Riker says “This jam session has too many licks and not enough counts.” In jazz, a “lick” refers to a pattern or musical phrase which is predetermined, but open to interpretation. Usually, a lick could result in a long jazz solo. A “count” on the other hand, is more about the beat and form of a piece of music. Riker’s obsession with jazz began in the TNG episode “11001001.” In the season finale of Lower Decks Season 1, Riker’s catchphrase for sending the Titan into warp was a jazz count.

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Lower Decks Season 2 airs new episodes on Paramount+ on Thursdays.

The post Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2 Episode 1 Easter Eggs & References appeared first on Den of Geek.

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letterboxd · 4 years ago

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Best of Sundance 2021.

From pandemic-era stories, via portraits of grief, to the serendipitous 1969 trilogy, the Letterboxd crew recaps our favorite films from the first major festival of the year.

Sundance heralds a new season of storytelling, with insights into what’s concerning filmmakers at present, and what artistic innovations may be on the horizon. As with every film festival, there were spooky coincidences and intersecting themes, whether it was a proliferation of pandemic-era stories, or extraordinary portraits of women working through grief (Land, Hive, The World to Come), or the incredible serendipity of the festival’s ‘1969 trilogy’, covering pivotal moments in Black American history: Summer of Soul (...Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Judas and the Black Messiah and the joyful Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street.

The hybrid model of this year’s Sundance meant more film lovers across the United States—a record number of you, in fact—‘attended’ the prestigious indie showcase. Our Festiville team (Gemma Gracewood, Aaron Yap, Ella Kemp, Selome Hailu, Jack Moulton and Dominic Corry) scanned your Letterboxd reviews and compared them with our notes to arrive at these seventeen feature-length documentary and narrative picks from Sundance 2021. There are plenty more we enjoyed, but these are the films we can’t stop thinking about.

Documentary features

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) Directed by Ahmir-Khalib Thompson (AKA Questlove)

One hot summer five decades ago, there was a free concert series at a park in Harlem. It was huge, and it was lovely, and then it was forgotten. The Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 brought together some of the world’s most beloved Black artists to connect with Black audiences. The star power and the size of the crowds alone should have been enough to immortalize the event à la Woodstock—which happened the same summer, the film emphasizes. But no one cared to buy up the footage until Ahmir-Khalib Thompson, better known as Questlove, came along.

It would have been easy to oversimplify such a rich archive by stringing together the performances, seeking out some talking heads, and calling it a day. But Questlove was both careful and ebullient in his approach. “Summer of Soul is a monumental concert documentary and a fantastic piece of reclaimed archived footage. There is perhaps no one better suited to curate this essential footage than Questlove, whose expertise and passion for the music shines through,” writes Matthew on Letterboxd. The film is inventive with its use of present interviews, bringing in both artists and attendees not just to speak on their experiences, but to react to and relive the footage. The director reaches past the festival itself, providing thorough social context that takes in the moon landing, the assassinations of Black political figures, and more. By overlapping different styles of documentary filmmaking, Questlove’s directorial debut embraces the breadth and simultaneity of Black resilience and joy. A deserving winner of both the Grand Jury and Audience awards (and many of our unofficial Letterboxd awards). —SH

Flee Directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen

Flee is the type of discovery Sundance is designed for. Danish documentarian Jonas Poher Rasmussen tells the poignant story of his close friend and former classmate (using the pseudonym ‘Amin Nawabi’) and his daring escape from persecution in 1990s Afghanistan. Rasmussen always approaches tender topics with sensitivity and takes further steps to protect his friend’s identity by illustrating the film almost entirely in immersive animation, following in the footsteps of Waltz With Bashir and Tower. It’s a film aware of its subjectivity, allowing the animated scenes to alternate between the playful joy of nostalgia and the mournful pain of an unforgettable memory. However, these are intercepted by dramatic archive footage that oppressively brings the reality home.

“Remarkably singular, yet that is what makes it so universal,” writes Paul. “So many ugly truths about the immigration experience—the impossible choices forced upon people, and the inability to really be able to explain all of it to people in your new life… You can hear the longing in his voice, the fear in his whisper. Some don’t get the easy path.” Winner of the World Cinema (Documentary) Grand Jury Prize and quickly acquired by Neon, Flee is guaranteed to be a film you’ll hear a lot about for the rest of 2021. —JM

Taming the Garden Directed by Salomé Jashi

There’s always a moment at a film festival when fatigue sets in, when the empathy machine overwhelms, and when I hit that moment in 2021, I took the advice of filmmaker and Sundance veteran Jim Cummings, who told us: “If you’re ever stressed or tired, watch a documentary to reset yourself.” Taming the Garden wasn’t initially on my hit-list, but it’s one of those moments when the ‘close your eyes and point at a random title’ trick paid off. Documentary director Salomé Jashi does the Lorax’s work, documenting the impact and grief caused by billionaire former Georgian PM Bidzina Ivanishvili’s obsession with collecting ancient trees for his private arboretum.

“A movie that is strangely both infuriating and relaxing” writes Todd, of the long, locked-off wide shots showing the intense process of removing large, old trees from their village homes. There’s no narration, instead Jashi eavesdrops on locals as they gossip about Ivanishvili, argue about whether the money is worth it, and a feisty, irritated 90-year-old warns of the impending environmental fallout. “What you get out of it is absolutely proportional to what you put into it,” writes David, who recommends this film get the IMAX treatment. It’s arboriculture as ASMR, the timeline cleanse my Sundance needed. The extraordinary images of treasured trees being barged across the sea will become iconic. —GG

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World Directed by Kristian Petri and Kristina Lindström

Where Taming the Garden succeeds through pure observation, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World relies on the complete participation of its title subject, actor Björn Andrésen, who was thrust into the spotlight as a teenager. Cast by Italian director Lucino Visconti in Death in Venice, a 1971 adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella about obsession and fatal longing, Andrésen spent the 1970s as an object of lust, with a side-gig as a blonde pop star in Japan, inspiring many manga artists along the way.

As we know by now (Alex Winter’s Showbiz Kids is a handy companion to this film), young stardom comes at a price, one that Andrésen was not well-placed to pay even before his fateful audition for Visconti. But he’s still alive, still acting (he’s Dan in Midsommar), and ready to face the mysteries of his past. Like Benjamin Ree’s excellent The Painter and the Thief from last year, this documentary is a constantly unfolding detective story, notable for great archive footage, and a deep kindness towards its reticent yet wide-open subject. —GG

All Light, Everywhere Directed by Theo Anthony

Threading the blind spots between Étienne-Jules Marey’s 19th-century “photographic rifle”, camera-carrying war pigeons and Axon’s body-cam tech, Theo Anthony’s inquisitive, mind-expanding doc about the false promise of the all-seeing eye is absorbing, scary, urgent. It’s the greatest Minority Report origin story you didn’t know you needed.

Augmented by Dan Deacon’s electronic soundscapes and Keaver Brenai’s lullingly robotic narration, All Light, Everywhere proves to be a captivating, intricately balanced experience that Harris describes as “one part Adam Curtis-esque cine-essay”, “one part structural experiment in the vein of Koyaanisqatsi” and “one part accidental character study of two of the most familiar yet strikingly unique evil, conservative capitalists…”. Yes, there’s a tremendous amount to download, but Anthony’s expert weaving, as AC writes, “make its numerous subjects burst with clarity and profundity.” For curious cinephiles, the oldest movie on Letterboxd, Jules Jenssen’s Passage de Vénus (1874), makes a cameo. —AY

The Sparks Brothers Directed by Edgar Wright

Conceived at a Sparks gig in 2017 upon the encouragement of fellow writer-director Phil Lord, Edgar Wright broke his streak of riotous comedies with his first (of many, we hope) rockumentary. While somewhat overstuffed—this is, after all, his longest film by nearly fifteen minutes—The Sparks Brothers speaks only to Wright’s unrestrained passion for his art-pop Gods, exploring all the nooks and crannies of Sparks’ sprawling career, with unprecedented access to brothers and bandmates Ron and Russell Mael.

Nobody else can quite pin them down, so Wright dedicates his time to put every pin in them while he can, building a mythology and breaking it down, while coloring the film with irresistible dives into film history, whimsically animated anecdotes and cheeky captions. “Sparks rules. Edgar Wright rules. There’s no way this wasn’t going to rule”, proclaims Nick, “every Sparks song is its own world, with characters, rules, jokes and layers of narrative irony. What a lovely ode to a creative partnership that was founded on sticking to one’s artistic guns, no matter what may have been fashionable at the time.” —JM

Narrative features

The Pink Cloud Written and directed by Iuli Gerbase

The Pink Cloud is disorienting and full of déjà vu. Brazilian writer-director Iuli Gerbase constructs characters that are damned to have to settle when it comes to human connection. Giovana and Yago’s pleasant one-night stand lasts longer than expected when the titular pink cloud emerges from the sky, full of a mysterious and deadly gas that forces everyone to stay locked where they stand. Sound familiar? Reserve your groans—The Pink Cloud wasn’t churned out to figure out “what it all means” before the pandemic is even over. Gerbase wrote and shot the film prior to the discovery of Covid-19.

It’s “striking in its ability to prophesize a pandemic and a feeling unknown at the time of its conception. What was once science fiction hits so close now,” writes Sam. As uncanny as the quarantine narrative feels, what’s truly harrowing is how well the film predicts and understands interiorities that the pandemic later exacerbated. Above all, Giovana is a woman with unmet needs. She is a good partner, good mother and good person even when she doesn’t want to be. Even those who love her cannot see how their expectations strip her of her personhood, and the film dares to ask what escape there might be when love itself leaves you lonely. —SH

Together Together Written and directed by Nikole Beckwith

Every festival needs at least one indie relationship dramedy, and Together Together filled that role at Sundance 2021 with a healthy degree of subversion. It follows rom-com structure while ostensibly avoiding romance, instead focusing on how cultivating adult friendships can be just hard, if not harder.

Writer-director Nikole Beckwith warmly examines the limits of the platonic, and Patti Harrison and Ed Helms are brilliantly cast as the not-couple: a single soon-to-be father and the surrogate carrying his child. They poke at each other’s boundaries with a subtle desperation to know what makes a friendship appropriate or real. As Jacob writes: “It’s cute and serious, charming without being quirky. It’s a movie that deals with the struggle of being alone in this world, but offers a shimmer of hope that even if you don’t fall in fantastical, romantic, Hollywood love… there are people out there for you.” —SH

Hive Written and directed by Blerta Basholli

Hive, for some, may fall into the “nothing much happens” slice-of-life genre, but Blerta Basholli’s directorial debut holds an ocean of pain in its small tale, asking us to consider the heavy lifting that women must always do in the aftermath of war. As Liz writes, “Hive is not just a story about grief and trauma in a patriarchy-dominated culture, but of perseverance and the bonds created by the survivors who must begin to consider the future without their husbands.”

Yllka Gashi is an understated hero as Fahrjie, a mother-of-two who sets about organizing work for the women of her village, while awaiting news of her missing husband—one of thousands unaccounted for, years after the Kosovo War has ended. The townsmen have many opinions about how women should and shouldn’t mourn, work, socialize, parent, drive cars and, basically, get on with living, but Fahrjie persists, and Basholli sticks close with an unfussy, tender eye. “It felt like I was a fly on the wall, witnessing something that was actually happening,” writes Arthur. Just as in Robin Wright’s Land and Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come, Hive pays off in the rare, beaming smile of its protagonist. —GG

On the Count of Three Directed by Jerrod Carmichael, written by Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch

It starts with an image: two best friends pointing guns at each other’s heads. There’s no anger, there’s no hatred—this is an act of merciful brotherly love. How do you have a bleak, gun-totin’ buddy-comedy in 2021 and be critically embraced without contradicting your gun-control retweets or appearing as though your film is the dying embers of Tarantino-tinged student films?

Comedian Jerrod Carmichael’s acerbic directorial debut On the Count of Three achieves this by calling it out every step of the way. Guns are a tool to give insecure men the illusion of power. They are indeed a tool too terrifying to trust in the hands of untrained citizens. Carmichael also stars, alongside Christopher Abbott, who has never been more hilarious or more tragic, bringing pathos to a cathartic rendition of Papa Roach’s ‘Last Resort’. Above all, Carmichael and Abbott’s shared struggle and bond communicates the millennial malaise: how can you save others if you can’t save yourself? “Here’s what it boils down to: life is fucking hard”, Laura sums up, “and sometimes the most we can hope for is to have a best friend who loves you [and] to be a best friend who loves. It doesn’t make life any easier, but it sure helps.” Sundance 2021 is one for the books when it comes to documentaries, but On the Count of Three stands out in the fiction lineup this year. —JM

Censor Directed by Prano Bailey-Bond, written by Bailey-Bond and Anthony Fletcher

The first of several upcoming films inspired by the ‘video nasty’ moral panic over gory horror in mid-’80s Britain, Prano Bailey-Bond leans heavily into both the period and the genre in telling the story of a film censor (a phenomenal Niamh Algar—vulnerable and steely at the same time) who begins to suspect a banned movie may hold the key to her sister’s childhood disappearance. Often dreamlike, occasionally phantasmagorical and repeatedly traumatic, even if the worst gore presented (as seen in the impressively authentic fictional horrors being appraised) appears via a screen, providing a welcome degree of separation.

Nevertheless, Censor is definitely not for the faint of heart, but old-school horror aficionados will squeal with delight at the aesthetic commitment. “I’m so ecstatic that horror is in the hands of immensely talented women going absolutely batshit in front of and behind the camera.” writes Erik. (Same here!) “A great ode to the video-nasty era and paying tribute to the great horror auteurs of the ’80s such as Argento, De Palma and Cronenberg while also doing something new with the genre. Loved this!” writes John, effectively encapsulating Censor’s unfettered film-nerd appeal. —DC

CODA Written and directed by Siân Heder

A film so earnest it shouldn’t work, with a heart so big it should surely not fit the size of the screen, CODA broke records (the first US dramatic film in Sundance history to win all three top prizes; the 25-million-dollar sale to Apple Studios), and won the world over like no other film. “A unique take on something we’ve seen so much,” writes Amanda, nailing the special appeal of Siân Heder’s coming-of-ager and family portrait. Emilia Jones plays Ruby, the only hearing person in her deaf family, at war between the family business and her passion for singing. While Heder is technically remaking the French film La Famille Bélier, the decision to cast brilliant deaf actors—Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin and Daniel Durant—makes this feel brand new.

But it’s not just about representation for the sake of it. A sense of authenticity, in humor as much as affection, shines through. With a script that’s 40 per cent ASL, so many of the jokes are visual gags, poking fun at Tinder and rap music, but a lot of the film’s most poignant moments are silent as well. And in Ruby’s own world, too, choir kids will feel seen. “I approve of this very specific alto representation and the brilliant casting of the entire choir,” Laura confirms in her review. Come for the fearless, empathetic family portrait, stay for the High School Musical vibes that actually ring true. —EK

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun

Perhaps the most singular addition to the recent flurry of Extremely Online cinema—Searching, Spree, Host, et al—Jane Schoenbrun’s feature debut ushers the viewer into a haunted, hypno-drone miasma of delirium-inducing YouTube time-suck, tenebrous creepypasta lore and painfully intimate webcam confessionals. Featuring an extraordinarily unaffected, fearless performance by newcomer Anna Cobb, the film “unpacks the mythology of adolescence in a way that’s so harrowingly familiar and also so otherworldly”, writes Kristen. Not since Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse has there been such an eerily lonely, and at times strangely beautiful, evocation of the liminal spaces between virtual and real worlds.

For members of the trans community, it’s also a work that translates that experience to screen with uncommon authenticity. “What Schoenbrun has accomplished with the form of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is akin to catching a wisp of smoke,” writes Willow, “because the images, mood and aesthetic that they have brought to life is one that is understood completely by trans people as one of familiarity, without also plunging into the obvious melodrama, or liberal back-patting that is usually associated with ‘good’ direct representation.” One of the most original, compelling new voices to emerge from Sundance this year. —AY

Judas and the Black Messiah Directed by Shaka King, written by King, Will Berson, Kenneth Lucas and Keith Lucas

It was always going to take a visionary, uncompromising filmmaker to bring the story of Fred Hampton, the deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party, to life. Shaka King casts Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton, and LaKeith Stanfield as William “Wild Bill” O’Neal, the FBI informant whose betrayal leads to Hampton’s assassination. Both actors have never been better, particularly Kaluuya who Fran Hoepfner calls “entrancing, magnetic, fizzling, romantic, riveting, endlessly watchable.”

Judas and the Black Messiah is an electric, involving watch: not just replaying history by following a certain biopic template. Instead, it’s a film with something to say—on power, on fear, on war and on freedom. “Shaka King’s name better reverberate through the halls of every studio after this,” writes Demi. A talent like this, capable of framing such a revolution, doesn’t come around so often. We’d better listen up. —EK

Pleasure Directed by Ninja Thyberg, written by Thyberg and Peter Modestij

A24’s first purchase of 2021. Ironically titled on multiple levels, Pleasure is a brutal film that you endure more than enjoy. But one thing you can’t do is forget it. Ninja Thyberg’s debut feature follows a young Swedish woman (Sofia Kappel) who arrives in Los Angeles with dreams of porn stardom under the name ‘Bella Cherry’. Although Bella is clear-eyed about the business she’s getting into, Thyberg doesn’t shy away from any of the awfulness she faces in order to succeed in an industry rife with exploitation and abuse. Bella does make allies, and the film isn’t suggesting that porn is only stocked with villains, but the ultimate cost is clear, even if it ends on an ever-so-slightly ambiguous note.

Touching as it does on ambition, friendship and betrayal in the sex business, Pleasure is often oddly reminiscent of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. Or rather, the gritty film Showgirls was claiming to be, as opposed to the camp classic it became. There’s nothing campy here. Kappel is raw and fearless in the lead, but never lets the viewer lose touch with her humanity. Emma puts it well: “Kappel gives the hardest, most provocative and transfixing performance I’ve seen all festival.” “My whole body was physically tense during this,” writes Gillian, while Keegan perhaps speaks for most when she says “Great film, never want to see it again.” —DC

Coming Home in the Dark Directed by James Ashcroft, written by Ashcroft and Eli Kent

A family camping trip amidst some typically stunnin—and casually foreboding— New Zealand scenery is upended by a shocking rug-pull of violence that gives way to sustained terror represented by Daniel Gillies’ disturbingly calm psychopath. The set-up of this thriller initially suggests a spin on the backwoods brutality thriller, but as Coming Home in the Dark progresses and hope dissipates, the motivations reveal themselves to be much more personal in nature, and informed on a thematic level by New Zealand’s colonial crimes against its Indigenous population. It’s a stark and haunting film that remains disorientating and unpredictable throughout, repeatedly daring the viewer to anticipate what will happen next, only to casually stomp on each glimmer of a positive outcome.

It’s so captivatingly bleak that a viewing of it, as Collins Ezeanyim’s eloquent reaction points out, does not lend itself to completing domestic tasks. The film marks an auspicious debut for director and co-writer James Ashcroft. Jacob writes that he “will probably follow James Ashcroft’s career to the gates of Hell after this one”. Justin hits the nail on the head with his description: “Lean and exceptionally brutal road/revenge film … that trades in genre tropes, especially those of Ozploitation and ’70s Italian exploitation, but contextualizes them in the dark history of its country of origin.” —DC

The World to Come Directed by Mona Fastvold, written by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard

Mona Fastvold has not made the first, nor probably the last, period romance about forbidden lesbian love. But The World to Come focuses on a specific pocket in time, a world contained in Jim Shepard’s short story ‘Love & Hydrogen’ from within the collection giving the film its name. Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby are Abigail and Tallie, farming neighbors, stifled by their husbands, who find brief moments of solace, of astonishment and joy, together. What shines here is the script, a verbose, delicate narration that emanates beauty more than pretence. “So beautifully restrained and yet I felt everything,” Iana writes.

And you can feel the fluidity and elegance in the way the film sounds, too: composer Daniel Blumberg’s clarinet theme converses with the dialogue and tells you when your heart can break, when you must pause, when the end is near. “So much heartache. So much hunger. So much longing. Waves of love and grief and love and grief,” writes Claira, capturing the ebb and flow of emotion that keeps The World to Come in your mind long after the screen has gone silent. —EK

Related content

The 2021 Sundance Film Festival lineup by Letterboxd rating

Letterboxd’s ‘Official’ Top 50 of 2021

Awards Season 2020-2021: our awards-tracker list

Letterboxd’s Festiville HQ: our home for up-to-the-minute festival coverage

#sundance #sundance film festival #sundance 2021 #sundance2021 #questlove #summer of soul #black woodstock #shaka king #judas and the black messiah #letterboxd top 50 #best of sundance 2021 #letterboxd

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clarasimone · 5 years ago

Text

A GREAT Iain Glen Interview

(pic edits by @favor757)

A really enlightening interview given by Iain Glen after the premiere of MY COUSIN RACHEL by someone who knows how to ask intelligent questions to actors, a rarity !!!!!!!

http://legacy.aintitcool.com/node/78006

Capone talks MY COUSIN RACHEL and Game of Thrones with actor Iain Glen!!!

Published at: June 12, 2017, 10 a.m. CST by Capone

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here. The Scottish-born actor Iain Glen has made a career out of playing intense men on stage as well as the big and small screen. After finishing at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, he went on to appear in a succession of highly touted stage Shakespeare productions, as well as the musical version of "Martin Guerre" and "The Blue Room,” opposite Nicole Kidman. Although I’m sure I spotted him in early film works like GORILLAS IN THE MIST and MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON, the role that first stood out for me was as Hamlet in Tom Stoppard’s 1990 film version of ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, the ultimate statement on the plight of a story’s minor players, with Tim Roth and Gary Oldman in the title roles. I think it’s fair to say that Glen is the living definition of a working actor—always busy, moving effortlessly from television to stage to film. On the big screen, we had memorable roles in SILENT SCREAM; BEAUTIFUL CREATURES (opposite his MY COUSIN RACHEL co-star Rachel Weisz); LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER; many of the RESIDENT EVIL films; HARRY BROWN; KINGDOM OF HEAVEN; THE IRON LADY; KICK-ASS 2; EYE IN THE SKY; and the aforementioned MY COUSIN RACHEL, directed by Roger Michell, in which he plays the godfather and estate executor of Sam Claflin’s Philip, who falls in love with his cousin (by marriage) after believing she may have killed the cousin who raised him. Glen has been playing the Irish private investigator Jack Taylor in a series of made-for-television films for all of the 2010s, but he has also had significant roles in such television productions as “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “MI-5,” “Downton Abbey,” “Cleverman,” and most notably as Jorah Mormont on “Game of Thrones,” which begins its seventh season in about a month. Although I would love to do an interview with Glen that covers even a fraction of his dozens of roles, I think we do alright beginning with MY COUSIN RACHEL and moving on to a few other choice parts. We even dig a little into his life since beginning “Game of Thrones.” He was a tremendous interview subject and seems game to talk at length about pretty much everything. With that, please enjoy my talk with the great Iain Glen… Iain Glen: Hi, Steve. Capone: Hello, sir. How are you? IG: I'm very well. How are you? Capone: Good, good. It's funny, I just, last weekend, saw the filmed version of the Old Vic's recent production of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,” and it reminded me that, I think, that you were Hamlet in the original film version. That might have been one of the first times I ever saw you on screen. IG: Yeah, you're right. That was Tom Stoppard’s only sort of foray into [film] directing, I think. With young Gary [Oldman] and Tim [Roth]. Capone: Exactly. IG: Which was a ball. We filmed in Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Capone: At that point, in that early part of your film career, you had already worked with Tom Stoppard, Michael Apted, David Hare, and Bob Rafelson—you must have thought you were doing pretty well back in your late 20s. IG: [laughs] Yeah, I did. I'd cross over, sometimes, between theater and film when I started, when I left Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, all those years ago. I did a fair amount of work in the theater and film, and I'd done a play with Tom Stoppard—it was "Hapgood" with Nigel Hawthorne, Felicity Kendal, and Roger Rees, and we got on very well then. He always said, "I'd love to work with you again,” and then [the role of] Hamlet [in ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD] came around, and I’d just played Hamlet at the Bristol Old Vic, playing the full Shakespearean role, so it seemed obvious I was up to speed on whatever lines were required of me in ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN so it was fun coming into it. Capone: So in this film, most of your scenes are with Sam, and each time the two of you meet, he's in a different frame of mind when it comes to Rachel. I feel like that would have been much easier to do if you had been able to shoot those scenes chronologically. I'm guessing that wasn’t the case. IG: [laughs] Well, that's the art of film, and you get used to it. They never, eever film chronologically, except in very, very, rare occasions, so that's really part of the structure and the work you do as an actor before filming is to know where you are in any given part of the story. That was enhanced by the fact that Roger called a rehearsal before filming for all of us. We were all together for a week and went through it piece-by-piece, so we knew where we were on the journey. Roger is very consummate when it comes to working with actors. He's quite a rare breed. Sam Mendes is another, Stephen Daldry, who've had a great history in theater and done a lot of work with actors in theater, and has a very strong film career as well. But, he always zones in on stories that always offer great performances for actors. It's very reassuring having someone behind the lens whose taste you entirely trust. He does so much of the work for you, in a way. He's very clear about where he wants the story scenes to play out, where actors might be in any given scene. It never feels like a constriction. It's always a liberation, and he's up for change, as well. Other directors can be very confident with the camera and what the camera should do and leave you to your own devices in terms of performance. But, Roger is very nurturing throughout the filming of it. So you're right, I was predominantly with Sam, and I suppose the role, in its simplest sense, he's almost like a Greek chorus. In some ways, I follow the audience's point of view. I'm a benign, rational presence who has Sam's best interests in mind and can see him oscillating wildly as he gets caught by the passion of seeing this very exotic, beautiful creature from another planet who arrives in this sleepy, parochial setting. So, we're all very disconcerted by what Rachel brings to the story, so I'm the voice of reason trying to keep the character that I care a great deal for sane. Capone: It's funny you say that, because, you're right, in the beginning, we are looking at these events through your eyes to a great degree. But once we meet her and are charmed by her, we switch into seeing her through Sam's eyes and are bewitched the same way that he is. IG: Yeah, well I think that's right. And it's a testament to Rachel's performance, because I do think whatever preconceptions this story might lead you to believe before you meet her, she's utterly entrancing and charming when she arrives on screen. So, whatever preconceptions we have get slightly thrown out the window. We forget them, and then they reemerge later in the story when other details and facts come through about the history. But that was Du Maurier's milieu, and Roger did a remarkable screenplay. It's so much easier said than done to turn what is a fairly thin novel—very, very concentrated—into dialogue. You have to turn it into a screenplay where everything is told through the words or between the words. Roger did a great job of that. It’s a psychological thriller. It's all about questions being thrown into the air. Audiences are trying to decipher exactly what's going on, and it's very conscious of Du Maurier to not give you a clean landing. Then you say, "Oh, now I… that's what was happening. Yes, she’s definitely sinister” or “Yes, she was entirely innocent.” By the end of the story, my character, and I think the audience, deep down don't really know. Capone: The one scene that really stuck with me is the one that you and Sam have in which he's basically signing over his life and fortune to her. For your part, it’s an amazing exercise in barely restrained panic. IG: Well, I'm glad you thought so. It was good to play. As an actor, it's always lovely when the story is supporting you so well up to the point where the scene happens. There’s so much there that's been stated or understated, and my character's caught in a predicament of desperately wanting to look after his financial legacy, but not wanting to ruin their relationship. We've all been in those situations where we feel a loved one is making the wrong choices, and how do you offer advice without distancing yourself from them? In a way, people have to make their own mistakes, but it's just that the stakes are so high, because Phillip, the character, is willing to give everything over to Rachel. He just wants to express his love and his conviction by giving her everything, and my character just wants to say, "You can feel what you feel, but you don't need to do this. This is not a step that you need to take.” Yeah, I think that was one of the most enjoyable scenes to play. Capone: It's also the the moment, at least for me, where I remember that you’re his godfather, so that means that you've known him since the day he was born, and it make it that much more heartbreaking. IG: I think that's right, yeah. I've been his legal guardian and, again, just to contextualize, what makes sense in the psychology and certainly makes sense of what happens to the character Phillip throughout is that he's been bereft of a father and mother. He was orphaned and brought up by his cousin, who is also this absent figure who's now abroad and dies earlier in the film. So, he's not grounded in the way that other young men might be. The world of femininity is totally alien to him, so that explains why he oscillates so madly between his feelings of either hatred or love for the woman, because she's so exotic and unknown to him. I think that the world that the Kendall household is such a strong contrast to Phillip's household, which has never known a feminine hand. Capone: You also have a lot of scenes with Holliday Grainger, who plays your daughter and is very quickly becoming one of my favorite young actors. IG: She's gorgeous, isn't she? She's lovely. Capone: Tell me about the interactions between those two characters, because they are co-conspirators for good, we assume. IG: Well, I think in my character's ideal world, in some ways, Phillip and Louise would have been a perfect match, and I don't know, but I felt it when I watched the film, you almost want to scream out to Sam's character, "Please, stop looking that way, look this way because you have this beautiful creature here. She's good, she definitely would be a gorgeous wife and a beautiful mother to your children, and she's willing and uncomplicated." So I think, in my ideal world, that would be the match. But almost beyond that, I feel enormously protective toward Sam's character having been his legal guardian. And it's very painful watching your daughter because you know how much she adores him and wants him to look her way, but you can't impose that upon him, so you get that odd, tentative suggestion, "Would you like to say 'Hello' to my daughter just while you happen to be here, giving your entire life away?" So, yeah, it's a tricky one. And I think that's partly why people love period pieces so much. It's because there's a delicacy of manners and emotion there, a subtlety of behavior where everything isn't exposed. Everything isn't stated so quickly. And, yeah, hopping back to the past, I think people feel, somehow we were subtler humans back then somehow. What we required from each other was just a little more complicated and delicate and human. Capone: I was gonna ask you about that. There’s something glorious about a costume drama where someone is becoming unhinged, and they break through that placid façade that you're supposed to have in those movies. IG: That's right. I do love period films for that. It's worth remembering that Roger -- I don't know if you know this, but Roger Michell did this quite radical interpretation of PERSUASION quite early on for BBC, early on in his career, where he started to use hand-held cameras, which had never been done in period films before, and just messed it up. I think often, we have strong preconceptions about period, about what could or could not be done, which we don't really know, but we just put that on period films. Roger's very good at bringing spontaneity to scenes and losing an archness in the dialogue so there's a freshness to it, and I think MY COUSIN RACHEL has a lot of that. It feels very modern in a lot of ways, even though the world is very period. Capone: You've had a regular gig for the last few years that you have to keep coming back to, and I don't know how that impacts your schedule exactly. But knowing that's always coming around, how much time do you have between seasons of “Game of Thrones” to do other projects, and what sorts of things are you looking to do in those periods where you're not making “Game of Thrones”? IG: Well, it's a funny one. when you sign up for something like “Thrones.” I think when we all initially singed up, it was between three and five years and none of us knew, really, whether it was going to run or whether we were going to survive or how it would be received. You hum and haw about something that does feel a little bit like a sentence when you start up on it, and you have no idea how it's unfolding. But, the more “Thrones” has gone on, just a bigger and bigger treat it's been to be involved, and it's become such a global hit and it's opened up different possibilities. As an actor, if you don't celebrate the stuff when it's a massive hit, then you might as well just give up and do something else. I've loved doing it. HBO has always been very good. As long as you turn up looking roughy as you looked the last time they saw you, and you're there a day before you're required to film—they’ve gotten a little tighter, I have to say, over the last couple of years. It’s gotten so massive, and they want to protect the audiences. Maybe they feel it’s easier to suspend disbelief when they don't see you in competing series elsewhere. But generally, they've been very good about allowing the actors, a lot of the supporting cast and principals from “Game of Thrones,” to do other work. So, more than anything, I will feel a great void and loss when it's gone because it's been a part of my life for pretty much a decade and it's been nothing but good fun. Dan [D.B. Weiss] and David [Benioff] are just the best show runners you could ever hope to work with. It's a lovely, very tight cast, and the storylines are such now that we're all starting to overlap with each other and starting to enter the same scenes. Everything's accelerating towards the end game, so it's an exciting time, but it's nearly gone. Capone: So, are you done shooting? Am I allowed to ask that? IG: [laughs] That’s actually something, yeah ... I can't say, yeah. Capone: The new season starts in a little over a month. Is it a relief to a certain degree when a new season starts airing that you don't have to keep as many secrets? IG: Yes, it is. It really is. [laughs] It's funny, because whenever anyone asks you, you know deep down, they don't want to know. It's a no-brainer. But, for a part of them, it's a bit like a drug or something, “Oh, brilliant. I know! And then now I feel hugely disappointed and now I have a headache because I wish I hadn't done that because now I know.” So you just deny people that possibility. Deep down, people really, really don't want to know. Capone: As serious as some of your roles have been over the years, you always seem to find time for genre work. You were in LARA CROFT. You were in several of the RESIDENT EVIL movies, and obviously “Game of Thrones.” What do you enjoy about going the adventure route? IG: I just really dig the variety. I really dig the change. It's a very, very different working environment if you're in a massive-budget, action-led film. But it's one thing that's always been a benefit of being a British actor. There used to be quite a strong divide between film and TV, particularly in the states—if you were doing TV, it was probably because the film career wasn't quite working out as you hoped it would be. That's never really been the case in the UK. I’m as likely to bump into Judi Dench in a radio studio as I am on a TV series or a film or a piece of theater. We are much more mixed-medium over here. So, I just really enjoy change. I just did a small film with Lena Headey from “Game of Thrones” that was about the refugee crisis called THE FLOOD. It was all hand-held. It was all swiftly shot in three or four weeks. It's a great little story and it’s the total polar-opposite to “Game of Thrones,” and honestly, I enjoyed the difference, and that's the trick. Capone: Before “Game of Thrones,” what did people on the street most recognize you from? IG: Honestly, it varies. It’s quite ephemeral, so it depends what you're in. I've done a series for a while playing an Irish detective, Jack Taylor. If you reappear in something, then that roots people in your mind. In the early days, I did a TV thing, something called “The Fear,” where I was playing a London gangster. It's always a lovely, delightful surprise when some people says, "Aw man, I saw you in 'Henry V' at The Royal Shakespeare Company" or "I saw you doing 'The Crucible' at the Royal Shakespeare Company,” and when I did "The Blue Room" with Nicole Kidman here in New York. But it's mainly TV because it has massive audiences, global audiences, so they tend to be the things that people know you for. I've been lucky enough to land a few visible things over the years, but it changes. But, “Game of Thrones” definitely washed everything to the side. Capone: Other than THE FLOOD, is there any other work coming? IG: I hope to be doing something…I better not say the name, but a Second World War drama, which we're inches away from committing to. And that will probably be in August or September; that's a feature. I'm doing a second season of “Cleverman,” an aboriginal drama that I shot in Australia, and more “Jack Taylor,” the Irish detective, so there's quite a bit coming up. Capone: Iain, thank you so much. It was a really great to talk to you and reminisce about your days with Tom Stoppard. IG: My pleasure. Yeah, thank you. He's about to have a birthday party. I'll get his age wrong [Stoppard turns 80 on July 3], but he's an incredibly lovely, adored man in the theater and he holds these fantastic parties in the Chelsea Physic Garden, and he invited me and my family so that's next week or the week after. I'll be seeing him soon. Capone: Thank you again and best of luck with this. IG: Yeah. Take care, mate. -- Steve Prokopy "Capone" [email protected] Follow Me On Twitter

#Iain Glen #behind the scenes #my cousin rachel #favor757

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sweetsmellosuccess · 5 years ago

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Sundance 2020: Day 2

Number of Films: 5 Best Film of the Day: Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Zola: Back in 2015, a Twitter user named @zola began a long, outrageous thread concerning a wild road trip she had been on with a woman she had just met at the restaurant where she worked. The plan was for the two of them to go down to Florida for a long weekend to dance at strip clubs and make a bundle. What followed was an absolutely insane odyssey of horror, involving pimps, guns, gang bangers, and someone jumping off a balcony. Directed by Janicza Bravo, with plenty of snap, crackle and pop, the film stars Taylour Page as our long suffering narrator and Riley Keough as the brazen, hopeless Stefani, who leads her newfound friend into the depths of hell. At its root, it’s a funny, if not sporadically chilling sort of chaotic joy-ride, with Zola’s commentary peppering the proceedings, along with a bevy of social media pings and whooshes (as another critic pointed out, the tweet whistle is half the soundtrack). Bravo pulls out a creative bag of tricks and gags — including a propensity for Scorsese-like screen freezes, while she describes one character or other — all of which gives the film a zany, madcap quality that imbibes the film with plenty of zing. Riley, a trashy southern drawl in her back pocket (just hearing her call Zola “beech” endearingly never ceases to be amusing), takes to the character like James Franco took to his role in Spring Breakers (a film with which Zola shares a certain Florida-crazed DNA), and Page makes an adroit straight person, taking in the insanity all around her, but despite these amusements, it’s really only skin-deep. There’s no deeper sense of anything, which, while in league with its source material, also puts something of a cap on just what the film can achieve.

La Llorona: if the source of all horror, cinematic and otherwise, is, essentially those elements that make up the human condition, than guilt is one of the more powerful evocations from which to draw. Jayro Bustamante‘s horror film is a timely political allegory set in Guatemala, as an aged and deposed former dictator general (Julio Diaz) is being tried for genocidal war crimes, his family, wife (Margarita Kenefic), daughter (Sabrina De La Hoz), and young granddaughter (Ayla-Elea Hurtado) are all forced to huddle up in the general’s mansion, as throngs of outraged citizens hold a neverending seething protest outside. What’s more, the General, now a slightly shriveled old man, seems to be coming unglued, hearing someone sobbing in the house whom he is convinced is a Guerilla assassin. When his mainly indigenous staff catches wind of this — the crying female spirit — they quit en masse, leaving the mansion badly understaffed, until a young, new woman (Maria Mercedes Coroy) arrives, leaving the General further discombobulated, as the nightmares and visions he and his wife endure begin to coalesce into an unnerving climax. Apart from everything else, Bustamante’s film is about the searing power of empathy — the General’s wife starts the film as a racist, uncaring mouthpiece, but gradually gets her layers of denial stripped away from her — and the powerful idea that one’s actions, even if unpunished in the material world, still have dire consequences.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always: Eliza Hittman has made a trilogy of sorts with her first three films. In 2013’s It Felt Like Love, a young teen woman in Brooklyn convinces herself to pursue a callous and contemptuous boy in order to lose her virginity; Beach Rats (2017) follows the trevails of another Brooklyn-based teen, as he attempts to pursue his interest in men while continuing to maintain his bro-heteroness. In her new film, she has moved the setting to a hardscrabble town in rural Pennsylvania, but her characters remain familiar. Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), a dour-faced high schooler has discovered to her horror that she’s pregnant, and too far along to get an abortion without her parents’ cosign, something she wants to avoid at all costs. Enlisting the aid of her cousin, the feisty, resourceful Skylar (Talia Ryder), the pair head off to New York, where Autumn can get the procedure without her parents’ knowledge. With little money and no earthly clue about the city, the two young women are forced to endure a vagabond lifestyle, spending the nights on train platforms, or endlessly going from station stop to station stop, until Autumn can be properly treated. Hittman’s eye for detail and emotional complexity — her characters can rarely articulate anything their experiencing — is incredibly acute, and she pulls tremendously understated performances out of her two leads. In the film’s most searing scene, Autumn goes through an exhaustive intake interview with a sweetly caring counselor. Shot in a long single take, the back-and-forth covers the most basic details of Autumn’s life and also some of her most buried pain and trauma. The camera stays fixed on her face, as she is asked to finally unpack some of the misery she has worked so hard to tamp down, and the result is one of most devastating sequences you will see this year.

Black Bear: What to make of Lawerence Michael Levine’s meta-within-meta film in which the first half is a specific sort of indie drama in which a young couple (Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon) living up in a glorious lake house away from New York get visited by an actress-turned-director (Aubrey Plaza), there to work on a new project; and the second half is, essentially, the Noises Off-like behind the scenes riff on how the trio (now with the actresses’ roles switched) worked together to produce a variation of the film we were just watching? In part one, dubbed “The Bear in the Road,” Plaza’s character is territorial and coquettish, instantly attracted to Abbott’s lonely musician, and enticing him into disavowing his care for his pregnant partner. In Part two, “The Bear by the Boat House,” Abbott is now the film’s director, and Plaza is his wife, also the star of the film in which she is now the clingy partner, as Gadon arrives from the city on a visit. There is a lot to unpack here — or, alternatively, there isn’t terribly much at all, depending on how you see it — it being the kind of film that begs for further viewings to untangle its many layers. Whether you will want to put that sort of work into it is unclear. Still, the leads are all tremendous — Plaza, light-years removed from her “Parks & Rec” days — is a revelation of ferocious, billowing emotion, and Levine is clever enough with his structure to keep things rolling along.

The Night House: The Midnight slate at Sundance, as with most such designations at other festivals, is by nature a roll of the dice. Some nights, you’ll find something absolutely brilliant (The Babadook, The Nightmare), many other nights, something a good deal less so. David Bruckner’s ghost story isn’t close to one of those conceptual masterpieces, but does offer some serious jumpscare thrills en route to a far too explicated finish. Rebecca Hall plays Beth, a grieving widow, whose architect husband just left their modern manse overlooking a lake to shoot himself in their wooden rowboat. Obsessed with trying to find why he might have done such a thing, Beth slowly begins to unravel his dark, secret life, even as her dreams become waking nightmares of visions, blasts of music from their downstairs stereo, and seeming visitations by either her husband or another dark force from behind the veil. With a sadistic sound design that periodically shocks your system, and a beseeching performance from Hall, who carries this film from first frame to last, Bruckner’s effort dutifully serves up enough genuine creepiness to earn your attention, even if the story slowly devolves into something out of the Final Destination franchise.

Tomorrow: Utilizing a slightly more sane pace, I start the day with Dee Rees’ Shirley; check out the much lauded doc Boys State; get my ‘80s on for The Go Go’s; and finish up with Miranda July’s long-awaited next film, Kajillionaire.

Into the frigid climes and rarefied thin air of the spectacular Utah Mountains, I've arrived in order to document some of the sense and senselessness of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Over the next week, armed with little more than a heavy parka and a bevy of blank reporter's notebooks, I'll endeavor to watch as many movies as I can and report my findings.

#sweet smell of success #ssos #piers marchant #films #movies #sundance 2020 #sundance international film festival #park city #zola #la llorona #never rarely sometimes always #black bear #the night house #rebecca hall #aubrey plaza #riley keough #taylour page #eliza hittman

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spoilertv · 10 months ago

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#SpoilerTV

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alliebruns-blog · 6 years ago

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The Namibia/Panama Crossings Part Two. The Desert, Day 5

DAY 5 Conception - The wreck of the Eduard Bohlen - 9 miles (AKA Look Mum, I Crossed A Desert!)

I wake up with a HANGOVER because I am not used to drinking wine anymore. Just a baby hangover, but a baby one when you have a desert to finish crossing is still a pain in the arse. Coffee and salt tabs for breakfast plus a bit of granola - and we are off. Darren is fresh as anything, so he whizzes ahead to try and catch Dani and Jim. I realise that I am going to be alone for a lot of today. Not sure if that’s a good thing. I don't feel mentally strong, but there you go. It is what it is. That’s life.

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It’s a grey morning and I struggle to find the footprints that Dani and Jim have left for us. The dunes have more of less flattened out now - they are more undulating than mega frustrating, and it’s cold, because we are heading to the coast - I have 2 layers on. It feels like a different life to the one we were living yesterday. I trek away on my own, with my own weird thoughts. They are thoughts of pride, mixed with the inability to accept what I have done. Feelings of ‘who the fuck cares’ and feelings that I should try and keep myself together. I want to sit and cry.

The irony of runnable terrain when you are totally exhausted...

I trot over a small dune, and suddenly I can see and smell the sea. It’s almost too much for me to take in. It’s almost over. The smell ignites my childhood memories of holidays, and the mist is rolling in across the flat sand. It’s beautiful and bleak.

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I keep trotting on - not wanting it to end, but willing it to end at the same time. What will I do when I get to wreck? Will I cry? No, I can’t cry. I just want to cry at the moment. I am all out of snacks and everyone is ahead of me. I am last. Always last.

Old German mining railway left to rot on the skeleton coasts salt plains

The sea is not getting any nearer, but I come over a dune towards some plains. The salt plains. They are wet and cold and salty. Do what they say on the tin. The sand drops away under my feet and it’s more like an estuary than a desert. In front of me, is what looks like water, but I have learnt not to trust the desert. Turns out that this time it IS water. My feet are very wet and my shoes are full of grit.

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Seem fine to walk on right?

NOPE.

The water gets deep quickly and is running fast. It has dead fish in it. It’s about calf deep now, and my radio comes into action. It’s Jim. He has already crossed it. He says it will take me 45 mins at least. I look at it, and, being mental and not being able to judge distance, think “nah, that’s ten mins”. It takes me 90 minutes to cross the fast flowing estuary and get to the support vehicle. I have no pictures or video of it, as my hands and phone were too wet and frankly, I was too exhausted to film it.

One of the things I remember vividly about this trip is those 90 mins. It was so hard. Lifting your tired legs and feet out of wet, deep mud. Feeling like you are going backwards, and having nobody to talk to. The support vehicle seemed like it was getting further and further away. It was horrible - really horrible. It’s something that in times of stress I will always recall. Relentless forward progress. You will get there. I stood and shouted the word ‘FUCK’ many, many times at the water. I hated it.

Back on firmer land with unidentifiable dead shit.

Eventually, I made it to firmer sand and got to the vehicle. I said very little to Danny and David. I wanted to change my socks - I had 3 miles to go, so really no need. I felt mental, and probably looked and talked like I was. My shoes were filled with grit and water and I did my best to dust them off. Danny and David told me it was only 5km to the end. I put my head down and started marching. And then I started to cry.

I didn’t want to cry at the end. I wanted people to think I was cool and casual, not overwhelmed by what we had done. I don’t want people to think I am ‘girly’ or ‘weak’. So I cried on my own. the irony of this is that crying doesnt make you weak - it helps you remain strong. I know this now - I couldn’t compute it at the time.

Vertebrae from a whales spine, the skeleton coast.

I kept on marching, I wanted to see the things I had come to see. The whale bones that litter the skeleton coast. Old wine bottles, washed up from ships that met their fate here. I saw a lot of it. Jackals coming out of their holes to chase down baby seals. Pieces of wood and metal from vessels long gone. It was bleak, astonishing and humbling. A world lost in sand and time.

Wine bottles in the sand

Then, in the distance, I see it. The wreck of the Eduard Bohlen. He has sat there since 1909 when he was wrecked in thick fog. The Bohlen completely symbolises the loneliness of the Skeleton Coast. It’s remains lie rusting in the sand, partially buried. A home for jackals, bones of their prey scattered around the hull. A symbol of the possible future of mankind. Once full of wonder and promise - now a wreck forgotten and alone. It’s a lot for me to think about. I think about how transient everything is.

Whale bones hidden in sand

Whale bones covered in sand. Wreck of the Bohlen in the background.

I try and run, but my brain tells me no. I am done. Exhausted. I take in what is going on around me and march it in. Nothing here but the remnants of a once promising and golden future, that the people of the 1900’s would have been proud of. Old glass bottles against dead whale bones. All preserved, but meaning nothing now to the people they once meant the world to.

But I’ve done it. I have fucking done it. I have become the first woman to cross the Namib Desert on this course from east to west. I hold it together, but the team form an arch with their hands, and I run through it. It’s over. They know I have been crying, they just don't say it.

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An emotional little Bailoid tries to hold it together...

The finish line

I am given a beer, and I take a minute to calm myself down. The feelings that I have are not really for writing here, mainly because I don't know how to write them. I am both proud and empty, I have forgotten the hard bits. 127 miles through one of the most hostile environments on earth. I am tired, so tired. Race to the Wreck. I have done it.

Knackered

Ghost ship.

Time is running out to leave - we have a 7 hour drive out of here. I don't have much time to get myself together. I eat lunch, have a quick run around the wreck and wish I could stay here for a week investigating it all. We get in the fun bus. We’re all very, very quiet. The drive back is one of the scariest thing about this trip. The fun bus going up and down dunes at what feels like vertical angles is terrifying. We pass a dead humpback whale on the shoreline, more wrecks, dead seals and hopeful jackals. It takes seven hours of driving across those dunes, but then, suddenly, we hit tarmac and we are back in the human world.

Thats what a dead humpback whale looks like then...

More wrecks on the way out

Some casual driving on the way back..... FFS

We have one night in a hotel before we fly to Cape Town the following day. This journey is not over. One days travel and then its Man vs Table Mountain (or the Cape Town Three Peaks Challenge of Death as I have snappily renamed it). And that’s before we travel to Panama to attempt the double traverse in a journey that fundamentally changes everything for me.

So thanks for reading the first instalment of this ridiculous trip. If you want more info on the race it’s on sale now and I am happy to talk to anyone about it - just get me on the website or social media.

Next up on the blog: Man Vs Table Mountain

THANK YOU…..

RAT RACE CREW

Massive thanks to Jim and Rob and the whole team at Rat Race for once again trusting me to trial one of their ridiculous ideas. This is a hard event, a really hard event, but totally achievable and I am honoured to have been part of the Test Pilot team and hope I have done you proud. I would recommend this to anyone who has ever sought to do more than just a desert multi-day. This is the real deal - an immersion in culture and a world first. And it’s on sale now, kids! Click here for details.

Thanks to Dani Brodie for representing the female side of endurance challenges with me - this was her first ever multi-day event - no pressure then, throw yourself in at the deep end why not? She handled it with style and enthusiasm, and in the end totally nailed the whole route. A total pleasure to be with, she provided some much needed female company on those nights round the brai, and I am so glad I got to spend this time with her.

Handsome Pete Rees for making me laugh with his fear of pretty much everything, his health and safety lectures (NO IBUPROFEN BEFORE FOOD!) and providing us with top notch pictures and video that makes us look a lot more epic than we actually are.

Lastly thanks to Darren - my adventure husband. It really is like being married - we constantly bicker and don’t sleep with each other. Magical. Darren - I know I can be an annoying rat, and so thanks for putting up with me and my stupid voices. It’s good to know I have a constant to talk to when things get horrible and your support means the world.

SUPPORT CREW

Eternal thanks to the crew put together by David Scott who runs Sandbaggers. Without their local and in depth knowledge of the Namib, we would never have made it. Without the expertise of the drivers, the trucks could not have made the journey over the dunes, carrying our supplies, tents and bags. I’ll be honest, some of those climbs in the car were touch and go….. and who the hell tries to run over an Ostrich? MONSTERS LIKE YOU, THAT’S WHO.

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mitchbeck · 6 years ago

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CANTLON'S CORNER: PACK PREPARE FOR ANOTHER PAIR OF GAMES

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - Another pair of weekend home games await the Hartford Wolf Pack. One is a divisional opponent who has owned them the past three years, the Springfield Thunderbirds. The others are non-divisional opponents who they've struggled with, the Rochester Americans, who they will play on Sunday afternoon. For Pack Head Coach, Kris Knoblauch, he's worried more about where his club is at this point in terms of their development than his opponent to some degree to this point in the season. While he was happy last weekend, he wasn’t satisfied with their team game last week. “You like the four points, but we easily could have lost both those games. The Charlotte game we left too many open areas, too many great chances and thankfully Shesty (goalie Igor Shestyorkin) played so well. We have a long way to go. Right now, I’m focused on our team and getting guys into our systems. We're adjusting to our team at this point and working on our identity.” The addition of Nick Ebert, who came to Hartford in the Vladimir Namestnikov deal, was a surprise in that the New York Rangers added yet another defenseman to an already deep organizational chart. Ebert has had only moderate success as a pro and spent some time in Europe. He a known quantity to Knoblauch. “We have tough decisions to make, and we liked how our defense played for the most part over the weekend. We're always looking to improve our team. He brings experience, is a good skater, moves the puck well and has a good shot. I’ll be honest, I’m surprised he hasn’t scored as much at the American (Hockey) League level. I coached against him in juniors. He was a very strong offensive player. It seems last year he has gotten his offensive game back,” said Knoblauch. Ebert played with Orebro HK (Sweden-SHL). His addition to the roster forced the team to move Brandon Crawley to their ECHL affiliate, the Maine Mariners. “We want Brandon to get playing time, and right now we are filled up on defense, and he’ll be a part of our recalls.” Knoblauch is getting an early tutorial on fluidity of AHL rosters. “I’m really learning it now about how much things can change. We want to win every night, but we are a development league. You have to learn to balance those things appropriately.” Ebert wasn’t the only new defenseman that Knoblauch had out on the ice. Yegor Rykov (pronounced Ree-kov) has been sent down and skated for the first time on Thursday since suffering an ankle injury in the Traverse City tournament. He isn’t likely to see game action for likely two more weeks, which will likely necessitate another reassignment to Maine. “He has started first with drills. He's getting back on the ice, and today was his first full (team) practice. It’s gonna be a few more weeks before he is game ready. I saw him in Traverse City (before the injury), and we were very pleased with what we saw. Now it's about getting that timing back.” The lineup will likely see a new, familiar face in Ryan Gropp. He was scratched last weekend and Knoblauch is eager to have him in the lineup. “We really liked him in the pre-season. He showed a very good shot and I really want to get him in the mix. I haven’t worked out my (lineup) details yet, but we'll be seeing him.” Vitali Kravtsov will be in the lineup, and the coach thinks the student understands things better. ‘We showed him some video. He’s aware he didn’t play well. We had a very hard team practice Tuesday and he was very competitive." Saturday’s game is a part of hockey doubleheader with UCONN and RPI starting at 3:30 pm and a 7:30 pm faceoff time with the Springfield Thunderbirds. NOTES: The Thunderbirds will be minus forward Paul Thompson, who was handed a two-game suspension for a blindside hit on Bridgeport’s Thomas Hickey last Friday in the regular-season opener. Sunday’s opponent, the Rochester Americans, will have a very familiar face in their lineup. Tage Thompson (Orange/UCONN), who scored two goals last weekend including an OT game-winner. Ex-Pack, Matt Register, starts the season with the Iowa Wild. The ECHL season starts this weekend with some players of note with ties to Connecticut. Adirondack: Eamon MacAdam (BST), Charles Curti (Yale), Craig Martin (QU) and Hayden Verbeek (the nephew of ex-Hartford Whaler, Pat Verbeek) Allen: Shawn O’Donnell, and Justin Salvaggio (HWP), Brampton: Miles Gendron (UCONN), Cincinnati: Justin Vaive (HWP/BST), Ft. Wayne: Shawn St. Amant (HWP), Florida: Logan Roe (Kent Prep), Greenville: Chris Nell (HWP), and Callum Booth (Salisbury Prep), plus Mike Pelech (HWP), Indy: Alex Krushelnyski (HWP), Charles Williams (HWP), and Karl El-Mir (UCONN), Kansas City: Derek Pratt (UCONN), Idaho: Spencer Naas (UCONN), and Kyle Schempp (BST). Jacksonville: Mitch Jones (the son of ex-New Haven Nighthawk, Brad Jones), and John Albert (HWP). Kalamazoo: Mitch Eliot (the son of Nighthawk, Daren Eliot), Norfolk: Brandon Halverson (HWP), Ben and Josh Holmstrom (BST), Orlando: Jake Marchment (the son of Whaler, Bryan Marchment), Rapid City: Chris Izmirlian (Yale), Reading: Frankie DiChara (Yale), David Drake (UCONN), Matt Gaudreau (BST), and Trevor Yates (the son of ex-Whaler, Ross Yates). South Carolina: Dan DeSalvo (HWP), Tommy Hughes (HWP), Parker Milner (BST/Avon Old Farms), Scott Davidson (QU), Toledo: Ryan Verbeek (the nephew of ex-Whaler, Pat Verbeek), Brendan Kotyk (HWP), T.J. Hensick (HWP), and Josh Winquist (BST), Tulsa: Josh Wesley (HWP), and Mike McKee (Kent Prep), Utah: Cole Cassels (the son of ex-Whaler, Andrew Cassels), Wichita: Jason Sims (UCONN, and the son of former Whaler/Nighthawk, Al Sims), Worcester: Jordan Samuels-Thomas (West Hartford/QU), Connor Doherty (SHU), Nic Pierog (Canterbury Prep), and Henrik Samuelsson (the son of ex-Whaler, Ulf Samuelsson). Former Wolf Pack, Dean Melanson, was the last cut by the Reading Royals. Ex-Pack, Adam Tambellini, was the last cut from the Bakersfield Condors training camp signs with MODO (Sweden-SHL) for the season. He is the second Tambellini to play there. Ex-Sound Tiger, his brother Jeff, played there and is presently a head coach/GM of the Junior A Trail Smoke Eaters (BCHL). Landon Ferraro, the son of former Whaler, Ray Ferraro, who was with Iowa last year signs with Eisbaren Berlin (Germany-DEL). The two are the 71st and 72nd AHL’ers from last season to sign in Europe. Brandon Whistle, the nephew of former New Haven Nighthawk, Rob Whistle, goes from Sheffield (England-EIHL) and signs with Telford (England-NIHL). Mark Arcobello (Milford/Fairfield Prep/Salisbury Prep/Yale University) is playing with SC Bern (SwItzerland-LNA) with 10 points in 10 games. He signs a deal to play for HC Lugano (Switzerland-LNA) next season 2020-21. Philippe Hudon (Choate Prep) goes from Allen (ECHL) to Norfolk (ECHL). Congrats to former New Haven Nighthawks player and head coach, Robbie Ftorek, who was among the four new inductees to the AHL Hall of Fame on Thursday. Joining him are Darren Haydar, Denis Hamel, and Fred Thurler. The ceremony will take place in Ontario, CA site of the AHL All Star Classic the first to be held at a Pacific Division city. Ftorek ended his NHL career with the Rangers. He started out as a child prodigy in the Bobby Orr era at Needham High (MA). Played two years for the Red Wings affiliate Tidewater Wings before he left for the WHA and the Phoenix Roadrunners and Cincinnati Stingers (one of the best logos ever). He was the first and only American captain in the history of the Quebec Nordiques WHA or NHL. Ftorek played with New Haven accumulating 16 points in 17 games in New Haven in 1984-85. His last active game as a player was in New Haven the following season. Ftorek, who was a Guilford resident when he was in New Haven and was the head coach there for two-and-a-half seasons before getting the call to Los Angeles, but stayed there just a year-and-a-half. He had other AHL coaching stints in Halifax with the Citadels and the Utica Devils before he had a strong three-year stint with the highly successful Albany River Rats, before having a four-year coaching tenure in New Jersey. Ftorek returned to his roots spending two years with the Boston Bruins before heading back for a second stint in Albany where he had another strong three year period of winning and development. Ftorek also went the junior route spending six years as the head coach with the Erie (Otters (OHL) before a year as an assistant with Abbotsford. He concluded his coaching career with Norfolk (ECHL). UCONN hockey has its first two home games this weekend Friday night at 7 pm against the Army Black Knights (AHA). Saturday, in another non-conference matchup, with the RPI Engineers (ECACHL) at 3:30 pm. The school’s 2000 MAAC championship team will be honored throughout the day. The championship trophy will be on display on the concourse The Huskies earned a 3-3 tie with Sacred Heart University in their opener in Bridgeport, last week who they have yet to beat since going Division I. The Huskies Jachym Kondelik scored. Fellow Nashville Predator draftee, Tomas Vomacka, was sensational in net making 45 saves despite the hat trick by the Pioneers, Matt Tugnutt, icing his game-tying goal with three seconds left in regulation forcing overtime. Earlier in the week, SNY announced the time and dates for the first-ever Connecticut Ice Festival tournament in Bridgeport at the Webster Bank Arena in late January. The Huskies will kick-off the collegiate tournament against the Quinnipiac University Bobcats at 4 pm on Saturday, January 25th followed by Sacred Heart University playing the Yale University Bulldogs. All four games including the consolation and championship final will air live in the SNY. Read the full article

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thewizard-ofbooks · 8 years ago

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A bunch of people got involved in this last week which makes me super happy!

There were a lot of great recommendations, which are in a list below! I wanted to credit all the people who included recommendations so they will be tagged in a list below the list.

If you want to see the original post click here.

If you want to contribute to the second Rec Chain topic click here.

If you want to suggest the third/ future Rec Chain topic/s click here.

Okay, with out further ado... here are a bunch of Pirate book recs!

1. 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear - By: Walter Moers

2. The Abyss Surrounds us - By: Emily Skrutskie

3. Blackhearts - By: Nicole Castroman

4. Cinnamon and Gunpowder - By: Eli Brown

5. Challenger Deep - By: Neal Shusterman

6. The Dust of 100 Dogs - A.S. King

7. Flint and Silver: a Prequel to Treasure Island - By: John Drake

8. The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue - By: Mackenzi Lee

9. Kushiel’s Chosen - By: Jacqueline Carey

10. The Lies of Locke Lamora - By: Scott Lynch

11. The Liveship Traders trilogy - By: Robin Hobb

12. Piratica: Being a Daring Tale of a Singular Girl’s Adventure Upon the High Seas - By: Tanith Lee

13. Pirates - By: Celia Rees

14. Red Seas Under Red Skies - By: Scott Lynch

15. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among The Pirates - By: David Cordlingly

Recommenders (not a word but I don’t care haha)

@cleo-queen-of-pirates @novelistra @nightmare-in-the-stacks @coolcurrybooks @howlsmovinglibrary @magic-in-every-book @lakecountylibrary @whatlovelybooks @gaydinosuar @planetstudying @reading-between

Thanks for contributing!!! I think in the future I might just put the recommenders in the tags so I don’t bother people haha....

Love all you apricots and I hope you guys go take your recommending powers to the next topic as well!

#rec chain #pirate recs #pirate books #pirates #booklr #bookblr #reading

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wellamarke · 8 years ago

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the reanimated

humans challenge, week 4, day 5: pov switch this is a companion piece to @turned-her-brain's story The Reanimator. I'm having to paste it paragraph by paragraph, because tumblr, in its towering wisdom, has introduced a character limit on??? pasting???? Oh tumblr. We had such a good thing going, you and I. Suddenly my AO3 account is going to get a lot more use. But since I started this challenge on tumblr, I might as well finish it.

wrt this fic, it's slightly AU to the original due to me starting before i had properly reread it. like a fool! so anita is in the house for some of it when she isn't supposed to be. forgive me ♥

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Anita stood by the kitchen counter, staring at the opposite wall as the family conducted their meal. Her protocol settings dictated that she would only join them if invited to sit at the table. Mia was glad of that. If Anita began to move, she'd be powerless to stop it, of course, and would be forced to sit there among them, listening to them chat happily away to one another, a unit she was not part of. It was a cruel joke, that she found herself surrounded by a family, and yet lonelier than she had ever been since the day of her activation.

Partway through the meal, Sophie had turned the conversation toward the subject of superheroes. "I want to bring dead people back to life," she'd said, solemnly, when asked what power she'd most like to have.

Anita's hand became Mia's for a moment, and closed around the corner of the kitchen counter. A file flashed through her head, the one she'd seen so many times before, all blues and greys and muffled wails. Anita tried to push the file away, but Mia fought back. It was important that she remembered these things. The more copies she made of these memories, the harder it would be for Anita to purge them completely. Painful as it was to review Leo's death, it was better than giving him over to oblivion. He had existed. She hoped - she believed - that he existed still. Any outside stimulus strong enough to recall him to her was to be leapt upon and cherished, even if it was just an offhand comment from a five-year-old.

Bringing the dead back to life isn't just fiction, Sophie, she wanted to say. At least, it isn't for me. The only uncertainty is whether I'll still know him, if I ever see him again.

"What about your superhero name?" Toby piped up from the table. "That’s the coolest bit – choosing your crime-fighting moniker. How about: ‘The Ree-ani-mate-toooorrr!'"

This was met with a hushed plea from Laura to stop encouraging her, and a sarcastic comment from Mattie. Mia couldn't help thinking that Sophie's curiosity ought to be addressed more thoroughly than this. Adults often assumed children had no real concept of mortality, but even before his accident, the subject had fascinated Leo. Mia remembered having long discussions with him about life and death when he was not much older than Sophie.

It didn't have to be morbid. She'd never scared him with the ugliest side of the truth, just answered his questions gently. Sometimes he asked her about things she didn't quite know herself, like what does it feel like to die and why can a tree live so long and a person can't? They had wondered about such things together. It had never been a dark and horrifying mystery. But perhaps life and death would always have meant different things to Leo Elster, son of David, than to any other human child. Perhaps it was unfair to compare them.

But she couldn't help it. Sophie was the second child to enter Mia's life, and her every action echoed Leo's in some new and painful way. Mia's attachment to the child was so strong that it had bled through to Anita: the co-profile might be vacant and emotionless in other matters, but she was overly attentive to Sophie.

Mia could only hope that it wouldn't become any more obvious. Laura was already suspicious of Anita, though Mia couldn't work out if she knew about Sophie's mysterious nighttime excursion. Thank goodness Mia had gained enough control to turn Anita round before they went too far. They'd arrived back before the rest of the family were awake, and deep enough into Sophie's sleep cycle that she didn't stir as Anita changed her rain-soaked pyjamas.

Despite that stroke of luck, Laura had taken to storing Anita in the shed overnight, so she wouldn't disturb the family's sleep anymore. She was clearly suspicious of Anita's intentions.

Which was ridiculous in itself. Anita had no intentions. She was just stumbling blindly around using the barest hints of Mia's intentions as a guide. Even in situations where Mia desperately wanted her to follow protocol, Anita sometimes tapped into Mia's core emotions and acted illogically instead. It needed to stop; they needed to distance themselves from each other. Yet Mia could not risk her memories being taken, she had to keep them active. It was impossible to strike a balance. Part of her hoped that she would eventually find one - but part of her wanted to always be at war, because that way she would have a chance of recovering herself.

That night, in the shed, Mia dragged more of her memories up to the surface, forcing them into the headspace she shared with Anita and watching them over and over. Flashes of her family's faces, of laughter in corridors, the rustling of overgrown grass and the way sunlight reflected in Leo's blue eyes, in Niska's green ones, the feeling of Max's arms around her and the gentle notes of Fred's guitar, ringing out in a tune he'd composed himself. The memories were duller than they ought to be, and they came in scraps where she wanted to replay entire scenes. But they were still there. That was something. She was still alive, even in power-saving mode, as long as she could remember.

She was unaware of anything outside her own head for a long time, once darkness had fallen. Eventually, though, her sensors relayed a touch to her chin, which ought to have switched her on immediately. Something was jammed. It was no wonder, the way she was crumpled in the too-small shed. Her chin was pressing awkwardly against her shoulder, stopping the button from engaging properly.

Mia disabled power-saving mode herself, and listened. It was Sophie there with her in the shed - but it was still night, what was the child doing here? Was she in danger?

"Abracadabra!" Sophie said suddenly. Mia's eyes were facing the wrong way, and since the Anita profile still thought they were in in shutdown, she couldn't move her head to see what Sophie was doing. She didn't sound distressed, at least. That was something.

“I am The Reanimator," Sophie whispered, in the deepest, most impressive voice she could manage. "I command you to wake."

Something stirred Anita then. Perhaps the power button had finally engaged, or perhaps Mia's residual activity had triggered a reboot, or... perhaps Sophie had superpowers.

One way or another, Anita woke. She unfurled from her corner to the sound of the startup noise. "Hello Sophie," came the clear, measured voice. "How can I help you?"

Sophie looked delighted by her apparent success. "Would you like to go for a walk?" she asked eagerly. "I've got a superpower."

Mia wanted to reach out, tousle the little girl's hair and ask her all about it. Anita said, "How nice." An auto-reply from a programmed list in a directory typed up by worker bees in a lab. Mia hated not being master of her own tongue. She had always thought hers was a visual mind, the mind of an artist: but since she had lost the use of her voice, she found herself drowning in unsaid words, almost constantly.

Anita got to her feet (Mia's feet, they were Mia's feet, standing in the Hawkins' shed where she'd been abandoned like a disused lawnmower and it was all Anita's fault) and said, "Sophie, you aren't wearing any shoes."

Splinters, Mia thought. Tiny bare feet on rough wooden planks. And she must have walked across the garden, too. What for?

Sophie seemed to notice her bare feet for the first time. "I was too excited to come and reanimate you," she said, by way of explanation. "And it worked!" She looked suddenly pensive. "Anita... what does 'reanimate' mean?" "It means: bring back to life," came the mechanical reply. "That's my new superpower," Sophie said solemnly. "Shall I show you?" "I think you should go back to bed. Your parents will be worried." In this, at least, Anita was probably right. Mia sensed movement in her arm, then felt Sophie's small hand in Anita's as they slipped out of the shed and into the night. The moon shone above them, lighting their way across the lawn, through the soft, dew-covered grass and towards the house where Sophie belonged, where Mia might have, where Anita never could. Still, at least Anita couldn't mind. Mia envied her that, sometimes.

#humanschallenge #mia elster #anita hawkins #sophie hawkins #c4 humans

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rogue-cup-hq · 6 years ago

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2018 Recap

" And God said, "Let there be vodka!" And He saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let there be light!" And then He said, "Whoa - too much light." ~ Anonymous

With the two decade run at Deep Creek officially over, the Rogues found themselves a nomadic herd – a band of idiots without a home, inmates in need of an asylum, the old familiar structures and routines taken from them abruptly. No more snore isolation chamber; no more gas containment chamber - where would William and Goldy sleep? Questions abounded…. Not to mention, the daunting question of “what other drinking courses can we golf on.” The North Carolina contingent (AKA Goldy and William) stepped forward to take the laboring oar in hand and became de facto chairmen for the 2018 event. They secured an incredible deal for the group to convene in North Carolina at two beautiful venues in the Pinehurst area, which conveniently allowed PA an opportunity to double up a visit with family without compromising the annual liver workout.

The 2018 event drew a field of 10 players: PA, Goldy, William, Andrew, B. Smith, G. Berner, Ed Moore, Turns, and of course, Gary "Sandy Bags" Ozenbaugh. Notably, prodigal son David Sautter returned after missing last year due to his move to that little slice of paradise in Maryland called Port Deposit. Schnetzler was a no-show (again) but swore he would return in 2019. Jay“bird” Erbe let yet another year pass without a golf club or wine glass in hand. The usual perennial no-shows (Walter, Luigi) were once again, no-shows. Of those in attendance, several finally at least admitted they had been golfing regularly, but continued to swear they were awful and hadn't improved. The second part of the statement clearly proved true; a touch of honesty was finally beginning to infect the Rogue players..…

The event was “hosted” at the Talamore Villas, with the Rogues bunking in a few condos spread across the complex. The weather was unique for a Rogue event, as we dealt with ungodly high heat and humidity (we all would soon regret our decision to opt for the earlier week):

The courses themselves also represented a radical departure for the group. Rather than seeking out isolated, rural mountain courses with goat pasture fairways and banjos echoing faintly in the distance, we found ourselves playing on real golf courses – our first day of 2018 would be spent battling Talamore, a course the Rogues had no business playing. Day Two would find the Rogues meandering around the course originally known as Pinehurst Plantation, now known as the Mid South Club.

PA, anticipating the heightened challenges of these venues, undertook an ambitious eBay research project in the months leading up to Rogue, intent on replacing those irons he noticed were missing during the 2017 event. The multi-week search for matching Cobra irons came down to the wire, with the final replacement club arriving at Whispering Pines a day before the event. In an odd contrast of fate, PA came out of retirement and went back to work, while B. Smith showed far greater wisdom and left Lansdale to begin life at a lakefront paradise in Virginia (where he immediately set to work preparing “Smithlake” for a pre-Rogue party. And thus the table was set for Rogue 2018; we all pointed our compasses toward the sandhills of North Carolina. The standard decades old caveat/disclaimer regarding the marginal accuracy of my memory still stands. What follows is pieced together from a few notes jotted down on the plane ride home, amidst the cobweb corners of my pickled mind.

Wednesday - PA arrived on Wednesday to visit for a few days with his brother Mark & Mom, enjoying a quiet, relaxing evening. Other than reminiscing with a nostalgic look at old golf clubs gathering dust in the garage, golf was not on the agenda. Beer, however – was…….

Thursday A pre-Rogue gathering was held at Smithlake (I was informed that B. Smith declared that “swimsuits were not optional”). While I wasn’t present, it was described by attendees as a reasonably calm night. All Rogues (PA in Carolina, the rest of the gang at Smithlake) spent the evening watching the Eagles beat the Falcons in a nail-biter 18-12 on NFL opening night; the game came down to a last defensive play against Julio Jones in the end zone, naturally. The Eagles succeeded in swatting the ball away and earning a victory - Go, Birds.

Friday - the group arose in their respective locations and found their way to Buffalo Wild Wings in Southern Pines for some chow and beer before golf. The forecast was hot, humid with heat index in the mid 90's. Forget the forecast – it was already so. With bellies full of mediocre pub food, we made the short drive to the course.

Upon driving through the gates and parking our vehicles, reality slapped us hard in the face. There we stood – looking at a beautifully groomed course fronted by an elegant southern-style clubhouse. Yes, Talamore…. a course constructed in 1991 by famed course architect Rees Jones. With more than 150 feet of elevation change, wetlands, lakes and towering longleaf pines, Rees had carved out a course layout that the Rogues should not have been granted permission to play. Talamore is consistently ranked at the forefront for outstanding golf courses in the Village of Pinehurst area.

Beverages in hand (the usual iced tea and lemonade containers, and modest beer coolers), we were quickly humiliated by the vast, undulating putting green and our public displays of ground abuse on the driving range. An immediate controversy faced the Rogues on the first tee, as the debate raged over which tee box would govern the day. We had choices – gold, blue, white or green. Gold and blue were immediately vetoed by the majority…. Leaving the whites (or the greens, normally reserved for super seniors and women). After fierce debate, the group chose the green tees. Oh, the humanity and embarrassment….

With putters in hand for their first drive off the super-senior tee boxes, the round was underway and reality set in. The Talamore fairways and greens played like billiard tables – true rolls, and hard as a rock. A shot-by-shot analysis of the tattered scorecards revealed the mighty struggle -

B. Smith was his usual consistent self, with a pair of 43’s on both front and back nine – no real blow-up holes on the way to an 86 to establish himself yet again as the benchmark “zero” (go figure). PA started his round with par, double, triple on his way to a front nine 48. Righted the ship somewhat on the back with bogey golf to enter the clubhouse at 92, his first time ever scoring lower than the outdoor temperatures at a Rogue event and first time ever using a driver less than 5 times in 18 holes. Andrew made a statement: carded a 10 on the first hole, followed by a triple/double sequence after which he settled down for awhile, and after his highlight of the day (a birdie on #13) he had a rough sequence at the end, notching a three hole stretch of double/triple/double that left him with a tidy 100 on the day.

Goldy and Sautter shot matching 51’s on the front nine; the scorecard image was suspiciously faded on several of the holes – hard to determine where the trainwreck happened. Despite his usual elegant swing, Mr. Sautter’s wheels came off completely on #11, where he began a sequence of quintuple/quadruple/triple before finishing the round with a pair of triples on #17 and #18 to stumble home with 110 to trail the pack; however, this disaster of a round partnered him with Smith for the championship round, and would have implications on Day 2. Goldy stayed on the double-bogey train to card a 103. Ozy started out at a torrid pace, scoring 40 on the front nine. At that point, he had completely embraced the spirit of the event, evidenced by his 49 on the back, leaving him at 89. Turns had a tidy 45 on the front and seemed to be in a good rhythm; whatever he did at the turn didn’t help him, as he started off the back nine triple/double/quadruple on his way to a 53, putting him at 98 on the day.

Gary, Ed and William’s scorecard was very faded – Mr. Berner & Ed appeared to have an inauspicious start with each putting a triple on the card for the first hole. GB finished with the front nine with a 53, to Ed’s 48. William, quiet and steady as ever, played tidy bogey golf for a 45. On the back, GB played just as “well”, finishing with a pair of double-bogeys and tallying a 107 for the day; he had a gallery of angry, frustrated geese following him up the final hole. William maintained himself in the zone, finishing the back at 42 for a very nice 87 on the day.Others staggered to the finish in various states of physical disrepair.

Exhausted and teetering on heat stroke, the group sought refuge in the air-conditioned villas, languishing in various states of consciousness and disbelief that they had been so humbled by a paltry 5,500 yards of golf. The alcohol had made no difference. Everyone mustered their remaining energy and managed to organize/fund/retrieve a takeout order of sandwiches, pizzas, whatever and chose to stay in the safety of the villas – the evening was spent on internal alcohol rubs, card games, a moment of floor-rolling and cackling, a few chose chair naps. The Rogues were readying themselves for the day ahead.

Saturday – Sunny, hot & humid again in the 90’s, a possible scattered t-storm in the forecast never materialized, although it would have been welcome. The Rogues contemplated their choice to have the team play on Mid-South, an Arnold Palmer signature golf course described as offering a “challenging yet enjoyable” championship layout. From the back tees (an option the Rogues never considered), a player has to carry their drive 225 yards just to reach the fairway. Not to mention Mid South’s 11 acres of bunkers (the Rogues became painfully familiar with the entirety of that acreage).

Having adopted the previous year's team format again, the pairings based on top-bottom scoring of the previous day’s bludgeoning of Talamore were as follows – Smith/Sautter, Whitehead/Berner, Ozy/Goldy, Andrew/Ed and PA/Turns. Foursomes were purposefully done to split up the teams and balance the consumption levels:

Sautter, Ozy, Turns and Smith Goldy, Ed, Berner William, Andrew, PA

Notably, as we prepared for Mid-South, Smith’s and PA’s perennial beverages were on full display, but the usual wine bladder in Mr. Berner’s bag was absent (“red wine is a bad choice for a hot day”). Ozy promised to take up the slack and live the spirit of the event….. PA’s trusty lemonade container was present, as were the copious amounts of beer and what-not.

As we stared down the fairway of the first hole preparing for our tee shots, the heat index was 95. For the 4th round in a row (spanning two years now), a majority vote reinstated the “Great Rogue Compromise Rule of 2017”, again converting the event into a quasi chip-and-putt competition. Some of us looked around sheepishly and silently prayed that the 95 year old husband and wife teeing off on the teebox further back behind us didn’t ask for our IDs. The Rogues had an inauspicious start, with the first group all needing mulligans to get a single ball in play (it had nothing to do with distance). They don’t make fairways wide enough for the Rogues. In fact, it was so ugly that the starter, an elderly gent with a good sense of humor, instantly granted the remaining Rogues permission to hit into the leading group. Our kinda guy.

The Rogues spent their entire Saturday afternoon hacking, duffing, hooking, slicing, chunking, skulling, blading and wandering the Mid-South roughs and bunkers.

PA started triple/double/triple which accelerated his pace to finishing the “lemonade” far too early in the round; he needed every drop on his way to a debilitating 104. Andrew started off well, until the 4th hole – at which point he began a double/triple/triple sequence that loosened the lug nuts, and strung together double bogeys on the remaining holes to tie PA at 52 on the front. On the back, Andrew managed to gain a little traction and finished with 101. William had a rough start with a double/double combo, but then settled down - with a few pars, he managed to score 46 on the front. His story was similar on the back nine, with just a couple blow up holes to shoot 49, getting him into the clubhouse at 95.

Meanwhile, the group of Goldfarb, Moore and Berner were also incurring the wrath of the Mid-South course gods. Goldy had a tidy 10 on the 9th hole on his way to a 52; it got no better on the back nine as the final 4 holes saw Goldy run triple/quad/triple/quad, for a painful 110. After shooting a respectable 48 on the front, Ed decided to mimic Goldy, running quad/double/triple/triple to finish with 104. Gary Berner? Nothing if not consistent…. Started the round triple/quad and finished the round with a triple/quad, placing an enormous 116 on the card. His endurance and physical conditioning were admirable.

The final group (Sautter, Ozy, Turns and Smith) provided the gallery with the full spectrum of Rogue golfing skills. Smith put a tidy 45 on the front nine, with no real blow-up holes. Turns, on the other hand, consistently delivered doubles and triples to card a 58. Ozy worked a triple/triple/triple stretch to smear his opening nine with a 52, while Sautter seemed to be on track with the previous day, putting up a 54. On the back nine, a quad/double/quad finish produced another 58 for Turns, as he staggered off the 18th with a 116. Ozy’s wheels weren’t just off, he may have left them on the front nine. His triple/quad/triple/quad stretch on the back produced a 58 to match Turns, and a rather rare triple digit 110 score. On the positive side, Oz had unquestionably lived up to the spirit of the event. Smith fired another tidy 45 on the back to produce a 90. But the story of the 2018 Rogue golf was clearly David Sautter’s back nine, where he fired a scorching (for him) 43, bringing him in at 97 to clinch the 2019 Rogue Cup team win for himself and Smith….

Some vague personal recollections/observations from Saturday’s Cup round at Mid-South: while I managed to strike some thunderous drives, once off the tee I floundered helplessly in a state of confused ineptitude. No mid-iron skills, no short iron skills, and I hit wedge shots like I was swinging a tree branch. I recall holing an impressively long curling putt on 18… it mattered not. I also recall broad proclamations of despair over the choice of foursome going off first and the subsequent snail-like pace of play. Universally, Ozy is blamed.

Following the round, the group made its way back to the condos to tally up the cards and determine who “won”. We were also in desperate need for a cooling-down period (also known as a “nap”). Sautter and Smith proudly held the Cup high - Smith had gotten so used to wearing the Jacket that a simple nod that he’d won it was sufficient; no need to try and put it on. In a rare combo, Sautter had also secured the Sox as top sandbagger, in addition to having his name engraved on the Cup. This new team format may find the Sox/Cup combo a more frequent occurrence. The Shirt (for highest overall score) was naturally once again in the hands of Gary Berner. For the record:

We found ourselves at a little local watering hole called Maxie’s, after which Andrew gave us an inadvertent driving tour of the area. I recall copious amounts of Crown Royal & ginger the rest of the evening, much of it inspired by Turns.

Sunday was a brief affair – the group fumigated the villas, packed and bid farewell – no decisions made as to a 2019 venue (although we all agreed that NC temperatures required a later date). And thus the 2018 Rogue Cup drew to a close for another year. Farewell, Talamore and Mid-South...thanks for the drubbing! Cheers to all….what will 2019 bring?

2018 Photo gallery here - https://photos.app.goo.gl/UsKXmXVcAk5XF9vE6

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