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doomonfilm · 3 years

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Ranking : Gus Van Sant (1952-present)

I was somewhat familiar with Gus Van Sant prior into taking the deep dive through his catalog, but he was certainly a man that I thought I had a handle on. I knew he had more than a few amazing films under his belt, but the recent years had not been kind to him (see the shot taken at him in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). I knew that he was from the Pacific Northwest (Oregon specifically), and his coming of age in an area that embraces weirdos and outsiders had an impact on him as a human and as a creator. I knew that films like Milk and Good Will Hunting had taken Van Sant to the highest heights, while the collective panning of films like Psycho and Last Days served as valleys in a career full of glorious peaks.

What I came to discover, however, was a man with genuine creative integrity, and lots of it. I found a director who understood his characters and actors on a human level, and shared them with viewers in ways that helped rich connections develop. I saw a director who was not afraid to make those that society often considers outcasts the emotionally rich and important centers of his narratives. I watched Gus Van Sant present, explore, develop and refine his style over deeply independent and infamously studio-driven projects, giving all experiences as much care and attention as he was able. I saw films I was familiar with find placement behind films I was new to, I discovered that his recent creative years have not been as kind to him as the first two-thirds of his career, and I can see that there still may be a bit of a smolder left in his creative fire.

Ranking directors is a labor of love, but by no means do I consider myself the definitive professional on film canon. I enjoyed all of the Gus Van Sant films I watched on some level, and as always, for those brave enough to interact, I’d be curious to see where you would make adjustments to the list. But enough introduction talk, let’s get into what you folks came for!

17. Restless (2011) There are things about Restless that I want to love without judgement. First and foremost, Mia Wasikowska is an absolute treasure who shines in this performance from the earlier portion of her career. The portrayal of Hiroshi is one of the more subtle, substanced and interesting ways of using a ghost within the film framework. As minor a thing as it may be to the casual moviegoer, some of this film’s technical aspects are astounding, specifically the costuming and the lighting choices. Where the film distracts me, and therefore drops in these rankings, is where it takes the YA approach to the romantic drama, with a healthy dose of manic pixie dream girl energy thrown in for good measure. When it comes to displaying romance on-screen, be it teenage or otherwise, there are no expectations, even for a director with a distinct style. Where my issues arise are in the way that death is handled in this film… while I do understand that not every film has to be a distinct statement for a director (especially a film written by another individual), Gus Van Sant had already established a very mature approach to the subject of death, and the way that death and the manic pixie dream girl aspects are intertwined feels more on the amateur side than I am comfortable with for a Gus Van Sant film. Maybe giving the impossibly troubled young man a muse with an expiration date as his way to find the best version of himself is a stroke of genius that provides a gateway for deep commentary on the concept of the manic pixie dream girl, but the film is so approachable and not the type to bare teeth (be it satirically or otherwise) that I doubt there is any subtext to its intention. For that reason, this film finds itself on the bottom half of the Van Sant canon.

16. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018) After the critical and box office disappointment that was The Sea of Trees, director Gus Van Sant had quite the hill to climb with his next film, and with his adaptation of Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, it seemed he was able to right those respective ships. Strangely, the film failed to connect with me, and as far as I can tell, it seems to be the victim of an “all sizzle, no steak” scenario. The film is certainly a showcase of a very diverse cast, and based on both the flashback-based and group therapy approach to the story, there are a wealth of opportunities to create memorable moments. Unfortunately, and perhaps due to an oversight on my end, I failed to find enough substance during my viewing of the film to prop up the parade of moments. What it felt like I was left with, sadly, was a Simple Jack-level approach to conveying a paraplegic-centered story, which undercut the fact that the film is actually telling the true story of cartoonist, artist and musician John Callahan. That’s not to say that the film doesn’t have it’s positive aspects, such as the John Callahan illustrations and the animated versions of his work, but those positive aspects feel sparse in comparison to how much the film relishes in what feels like Oscar bait. If nothing else, see this film for Jonah Hill, because it took me much longer than it should have to recognize him, partly due to his impressive weight loss and partly due to how dedicated he is to achieving the film’s period look.

15. The Sea of Trees (2015) Death is no stranger in the films of Gus Van Sant, but I don’t feel that it would be bold to state The Sea of Trees deals with death in the most direct manner. For those that subscribe to grief having stages, this film accounts for all of them in some way, shape or form during the course of the narrative as we watch Arthur Brennan fall apart and rediscover himself in the wake of losing Joan Brennan, his wife. Placing the film in Aokigahara (aka the "Japanese suicide forest") not only gives the film a sense of natural beauty, but a foreboding sense of dread and despair as well. The core cast is as strong as any found in a Van Sant film, with Matthew McConaughey, Ken Watanabe and Naomi Watts all turning in solid performances. Sadly, the film falters in one very core aspect : sympathy for the protagonist. I found myself feeling very bad for Joan Brennan as I watched her arc, and despite knowing nothing about Watanabe’s character portrayal of Takumi Nakamura, I found myself sympathetic to him based solely on what he was emoting. Arthur Brennan, however, is interesting in all the wrong ways… he is extremely cold and purposefully flat when introduced, the moments we share with the Brennans only seem to show Arthur finding joy at the expense of Joan’s pride, his view of the loss of his wife (and his world view in general) seem to be extremely self-centered, and when he does show heroic attributes they are rooted solely in self-preservation. Perhaps if Van Sant had not already made such eloquent reflections on death via The Death Trilogy and Paranoid Park, The Sea of Trees could have been seen in a different light, but when you set such a high bar for your work, returning to stereotypical storytelling can feel flat and uninspired.

14. Last Days (2005) Last Days is a film with a weird energy and aura surrounding it… in some ways, it feels like the most performative film not only of the Death Trilogy, but out of the entire Gus Van Sant catalog. At the risk of using too negative an adjective, it also feels the most exploitive, though neither of these observations are necessarily meant to be a knock against the film. The Death Trilogy could not help but be exploitive at its root, as each film was inspired by an infamous death event, and with Michael Pitt’s Blake meant to be an avatar for Kurt Cobain, it would be simple to take the film at face value for some sort of glamourized and idealized fictional retelling of his tragic final moments, not to mention a few stylistic nods to iconic Cobain-related imagery. What that viewer would be missing, in my opinion, is a film looking to make some familiar points on outsider culture (specifically alternative rock and roll counterculture and addict culture) minus all the glamour and shine. While Blake’s house is grand, it’s decrepit and in a state of disrepair… despite it being isolated, expected and unexpected guests arrive constantly, not to mention an intrusive ringing phone that connects Blake to outworld obligations… Blake has a number of people living with him, but he almost never interacts with them. Michael Pitt is done up to look so similar to Kurt Cobain that much of the narrative background is implied, and what we are left with is the Death Trilogy style implemented and fused onto a loose leaf narrative with just enough structure to let the supporting actors have isolated memorable moments while we watch Pitt’s Blake decay in the ways that many of us Cobain fans ruminated on in the wake of his sudden and tragic death at the height of his tortured popularity.

13. Gerry (2002) At the risk of sounding cliché, Gerry may be the most fascinating film in Gus Van Sant’s canon. It marks a clear and definitive break in convention from a director that seemingly never cared too much for convention anyway. Multiple aspects of this film make it extremely unique : both characters referring to one another by the same name (though Gerry eventually evolves into an all-purpose non-specific descriptor), a seemingly absent narrative, a shared goal between the characters literally referred to as “the thing” in order to purposely keep viewers in the dark and, perhaps most importantly, a deliberately methodical pacing that pushes even seasoned film lovers to the limits of their patience. The film is beautiful, and that is a fact that cannot be denied… the painterly shot compositions of our characters in the isolated desert, the unfathomably long tracking shots that pull us deeper off the beaten path and the sonic stillness (due to a largely absent score that is replaced with the sounds of nature) either commit you fully to the experiment or come off as massively pretentious. To view the film through that secondary lens, however, is to miss the point of it all. Once it is understood that Gerry marked the entry point for Gus Van Sant’s Death Trilogy, you began to realize that Van Sant, in tandem with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, are giving us an understanding of how we should view the trilogy, and how open-minded we should be in processing what is given to us, like some early high-concept version of what Quentin Dupieux would later go on to master in a more abstract manner.

12. Mala Noche (1985) It’s fitting that this was a feature-length debut from a driven and working director, as it has a very distinct look and feel to it that immediately lets you know you’re dealing with an innate storyteller and someone who has spent time observing the human condition. In terms of visual and narrative balance, Gus Van Sant utilizes what feels like a mix of John Cassavetes and Jack Kerouac, respectively. Van Sant’s use of titles in the film is striking, specifically in terms of the handwritten opening credits and the Dr. Pepper ad copy used to subtitle the Spanish language dialogue. Focusing so heavily on immigration and homosexuality in 1985 is a bold choice, especially as neither group had yet to benefit (even if only minimally) from the onset of politically correct culture policing. While the film was more than likely shot in black and white due to budgetary constraints, the infusion of somewhat modern elements (for the time) gives it a youthful and forward-thinking energy. Having a film of this nature lean so heavily on multilingual and multicultural elements is refreshing, and even more impactful when examined under the boorish and (at times) tone deaf application that humanizes these elements. For all of these aspects of the film, however, when examined at the pure narrative foundation, what we find is a story about how love can blind us from the reality we inhabit, and how we often choose to ignore the obvious when romance and romanticism enters the picture.

11. Psycho (1998) Of all the films in the Van Sant catalog, perhaps the bravest, boldest and most baffling entry is his nearly shot for shot remake of the iconic Alfred Hitchcock thriller and cinematic game changer Psycho. Remakes were certainly not a new or unheard of practice at the time of the Van Sant Psycho release, but most directors opt to put significant twists or updates into their retelling of most remakes, and most films chosen do not hold the lofty stature and position that Psycho does when it comes to remakes. Van Sant’s approach not only made viewers keenly aware of just how direct the homage was, but in some places, modern touches were added in very subtle ways to make the movie more palatable for modern audiences, including more salacious references to sexuality, sound design choices in both the diegetic and symbolic realm, and even an update or two to iconic scenes meant to make us much more uneasy with the Vince Vaughn portrayal of Norman Bates. The actors cast were all famous and respected enough to keep the film’s timeless feeling in-tact, even if the remake could be taken as its own weird and warped project. Personally, I’ve always loved this remake, and taken it as an experiment on the highest commercial level, and a signal to all that Van Sant (at the time) was done with the traditional approach to filmmaking and concepting.

10. Paranoid Park (2007) While many movies centered around skateboarding spend their time and design budget trying to make the outsider nature of the practice look “cool”, Paranoid Park spends its time making sure that the isolation, deep focus and rebellious attitude that come with skateboarding were more authentic than they were appealing. High school is already a very taxing and polarizing section of juvenile development, and based on your perception at the time, the weight that the world unloads on you can feel wholly unbearable. Perhaps this is what makes Paranoid Park such a tense film… that natural teenage angst is already imprinted into the film (and amplified due to the casting of relative unknowns), but Gus Van Sant’s signature use of alternative film stocks, obscure soundtrack and expressive, layered sound design but you square in Alex’s head from the opening moments. As the narrative unfolds, we realize that Alex is not only dealing with standard-issue teen stress, but has unwillingly found himself involved in the type of events that change an individual’s world. This film plays well as the first film post-Death Trilogy, as it deals with the gravity of mortality head-on much like the aforementioned three films, but does so from an adaptive stance rather than one based on true events. If you’re a fan of skater flicks, movies with strong teen acting, or little-known Gus Van Sant gems, then Paranoid Park is a gem waiting for discovery.

9. Finding Forrester (2000) Gus Van Sant has always had a way with stories that dive below the surface of the human experience and condition, so it makes sense that his attempt at a New York-based movie about people living in “the hood” would cover an array of topics with masterful subtlety, specifically the topics of race relations, generational gaps and the blurry line between education and exploitation. The casting on this film is extremely strong… then newcomer Rob Brown gives a riveting and dynamic lead performance, it’d be harder to cast a more perfect curmudgeon than Sean Connery, and appearances by F. Murray Abraham, Anna Paquin, Busta Rhymes and a Matt Damon cameo all stand out. Speaking of Damon, Finding Forrester shares a similar energy to Good Will Hunting, but the proximity of release ultimately held Finding Forrester from finding its proper audience (no pun intended). I wish I had more to say about this film outside of my personal feelings and connections to the story (which I will save for a dedicated deep dive in the future), but Finding Forrester is one of those films that has no trouble speaking for itself.

8. Promised Land (2012) As of the point that this blog post was created, this film stands as the last of the great Van Sant creations. There is something about the Gus Van Sant approach to filmmaking that works best with “salt of the Earth” types, and with Promised Land being centered around the practice of fracking, much of that down-home nature is immediately baked into the story. Speaking of the story, the film was co-written by the characters who ended up being the protagonist and antagonist of the picture, respectfully, which created an electric main dynamic that served as the spine for many other strong dynamics present in the film. In terms of the cinematography, much of Van Sant’s bold approaches and stylistic shifts are absent, save for a few beautiful bird’s eye view perspective shots that give you a real idea of what rural America looks like. Van Sant is no stranger to stacked casts, but he gets some truly top notch names to take part in this affair, and true to the clout behind these names, the performances are as stellar as they are believable and natural. The film also touched a nerve with the actual oil industry due to some of its comments on fracking, despite it not having the reach or success of other Van Sant films. While possibly an indicator that Van Sant would be making a stylistic shift, Promised Land still manages to capture what makes Van Sant his best self in terms of not only presenting real people, but topical and important situations.

7. Milk (2008) Gus Van Sant is clearly no stranger to having representation for the gay community in his films, so it makes sense that one of the hallmark films in his canon would center around gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk. Much like JFK crystalized Oliver Stone, or Spike Lee was raised to another echelon by Malcolm X, Van Sant found a second round of Academy Award-level validation via this biopic while solidifying himself as a creative who could go back and forth effortlessly between big budget studio films and independent projects. With Sean Penn giving one of his signature chameleon-like performances and leading the pack, this Van Sant production is filled with tons of burgeoning talent who have since gone on to make names for themselves in the industry, including the likes of Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna, James Franco, Alison Pill and others, plus a standout performance from Josh Brolin (who also depicted George W. Bush in the same year for the aforementioned Stone). While it may not be the most technically marveling film of Van Sant’s career, it is clearly one of his most important, and the way that it handles the messages it intends to share is as confident as it is even-keeled, which is important for a film that could have easily become a soapbox for espousing personal beliefs and political agendas.

6. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993) This Gus Van Sant adaptation of the famed author Tom Robbins novel shares the same creative energy of films like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Natural Born Killers, Harold and Maude and so on in the sense that it is a very expressive film with a very specific idea it is looking to present. Where the aforementioned films explored ideas of free love taken to the extreme, the toxicity of media, love without judgement and so on (respectively), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues puts femininity and identity outside of the male gaze squarely in its crosshairs. Uma Thurman takes on the role of Sissy with wide-eyed zeal, floating through a series of hitchhiker-based adventures until her reluctant visit to the Rubber Road Ranch helps her find the missing piece of her puzzle. Seeing a bizarre, star-studded tale of a woman finding her agency sounds like it would work on the surface, but from what I could find, the film failed to make a connection with audiences and is considered a commercial and critical failure (which is probably why it was the toughest film to track down on this list). That being said, I’m a sucker for films that catch a bad rap, especially when the combination of such a unique director and visionary author are the foundation of it, because it makes me curious about why I find connection where others did not… who knows, maybe it was those extremely distracting rubber thumbs (the only real knock I can make on the film), or maybe the Tom Robbins style is tough to transfer from page to screen, but for my money’s worth, I can see the vision.

5. My Own Private Idaho (1991) Somewhere within the intersection of films like Midnight Cowboy and Fight Club lies My Own Private Idaho, an extremely personal and nuanced film that covers many topics with depth and an ease that comes with wisdom and experience. For example, when it comes to views on identity, we get two rich narratives that could easily both be their own film : Mike (portrayed by River Phoenix) is going through a crisis of identity based on a sordid history with his mother and absentee father that makes his search for love transform into a life of hustling as a way to find momentary intimacy; meanwhile, Keanu Reeves (who plays Scott) is an entitled young man awaiting an inheritance that decides to spend the time until it happens “slumming” with those many would consider the outcasts of society, much like the “tourists” spoken of by Edward Norton’s narrator in Fight Club. The struggle with masculinity in the face of homosexuality is all over this film, from its multiple male on male connections to the very toxic manner that the core group interacts with one another, when they are not grieving or putting their livelihood in danger via petty crimes. In terms of Van Sant style, the film is one of his most innovative (outside of the film holding the top spot) in terms of looks, with its unique range of colorful title cards, the pinhole vision that Mike uses on his road, or even the standout magazine rack sequence. The film is also a perfect follow-up to Drugstore Cowboy, and could easily double feature with it to this day. As someone not wholly familiar with Shakespeare’s Henry plays, I did not catch that My Own Private Idaho was an adaptation, so I will not only have to revisit it with that familiarity in tow, but I will have to take a look into James Franco’s re-cut, My Own Private River, as well.

4. Elephant (2003) Based solely on the nature and definition of a trilogy, a second film can make or break things. Gerry and Last Days share similarities in how quiet and isolated they are, so it makes sense that Elephant, part two of Van Sant’s Death Trilogy, would in many ways be the meat of the trilogy sandwich in terms of style and thematic substance. Elephant operates on several distinct levels based on Van Sant’s observations of the world going into the new millennium, as the film allowed him a foundation for both experimentation and examination by proxy. While the long takes and vast amount of distance traveled during said takes was present in all three films of the trilogy, Van Sant made a concentrated effort to make the shots look and feel similar to that of video games like the later Grand Theft Auto entries, hence a number of the shots being positionally locked during travel (often times a few feet behind the character at the center of that moment’s focus). There are ramp-downs of the frame rate to punctuate certain moments, and quite often the camera is thrown on a tripod and allowed to take in the array of high schoolers living their standard life. It is this mundane world-building aspect that not only gives the viewer a rapid but deep look into a handful of character’s lives, but it gives you a sense of the school’s social hierarchy while forcing you to reflect on where you once stood within it. Per the film’s clever title, the elephant in the room eventually appears in the form of Eric and Alex, the pair of school shooters meant to reflect the Columbine Massacre perpetrators. While school shootings weren’t an unknown phenomenon going into the 2000’s, Elephant became prophetic in its vision by releasing right before the numbers started rising at an alarming rate on these incidents. In that sense, Elephant holds the dual distinction of not only being one of Van Sant’s best films, but one of his most important. I will soon be looking into the 1989 Elephant film as well.

3. Drugstore Cowboy (1989) The power of Drugstore Cowboy as a modern-day narrative tragedy about the epidemic of prescription drugs, the dark allure of crime and the oddball way that broken people find solace in one another is immediately evident to anyone who has had the pleasure to see Gus Van Sant’s studio directorial debut. Where the film really stands out however, in my opinion, is the way that Van Sant is able to achieve his major studio look while deeply applying a very artistic and personal aesthetic to the cinematography and editing. The traditional looks are interspersed with the use of different film stocks, subtle blends of animation and flashes of stylistic edits that were almost certainly an inspiration for Darren Aronofsky’s “hip-hop editing” style. Add to this an incredibly intuitive and expressive core cast driven by the chemistry between Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch (and a very early Heather Graham supporting appearance), plus a strong appearance by the always memorable Max Perlich, a fiery James Remar performance and an iconic cameo from William S. Burroughs. The jazz-influenced score not only makes key scenes livelier, but it is a symbolic statement on the drug use depicted in the film, while simultaneously playing counter to the soundtrack choices. Period, point-blank, Drugstore Cowboy is the kind of film that surely put the world on notice, and was a clear signal of the magnificent work that would follow.

2. Good Will Hunting (1997) If held up to the standards of what people consider to be good (or even classic) film, Good Will Hunting more than holds up to scrutiny. Visually there are a small handful of flourishes, and having Elliot Smith’s music accompany Will’s painful but enlightening journey has only become more of a bittersweet sting as the years go by. In terms of performances, everyone brought their A+ game to the table, be it the leading performances of Matt Damon, Robin Williams or Stellan Skarsgård, the supporting performances of Ben Affleck or Minnie Driver, or even the engaging nature of Cole Hauser and repeat scene stealer Casey Affleck. After a flurry of dedicated fandom viewings in the years following this film’s release, a very long period away from the film where I had leagues of personal growth, and a revisitation for this set of rankings, what I have discovered is that Good Will Hunting presents a wish fulfillment fantasy that was nearly incapable of being a reality in the pre-internet age for anyone other than a character like Will : an undiscovered genius with a degree from the school of hard knocks. In a world where people often wish they had the correct answer to every question, the looks and personality to be a social magnet, and the ability to back up any tough talk with stone hands, Will Hunting stood as an idealized example you wished you could peel off the screen and have some beers with. As the internet has invaded our lives, however, most everyone has turned into a keyboard version of Will Hunting, looking for fights online when not having briefly intimate Google sessions to flex our supposed knowledge. Much like Will, many people find that the knowledge minus the wisdom of worldly experience and vulnerability leaves you a shell of a person filled to the eyeballs with regret, and perhaps that is why this film only gets better as the years go by, and remains among the best of the Van Sant creations.

1. To Die For (1995) For the longest time, I avoided To Die For simply because I was not a fan of Nicole Kidman… the vast majority of her roles held no interest to me prior to To Die For (it took Eyes Wide Shut for me to really start paying attention to her), and because she was so key to the film, there was never a sense of urgency about seeing it. As time went by, however, I started to hear rumblings that To Die For may have been a bit ahead of its time, to the point that technology and social practices have caught up to some of the ideas presented in the film. I finally watched it for this ranking set, and man, I really missed the boat on this one. Plain and simple, this film is pure genius on every level. The presentation starts off documentary-esque, which not only allows for expedited distribution of backstory information, but immediately gives you an idea for the personalities of our key characters. Kidman’s portrayal of Suzanne stood as the textbook example for what has become commonly known as sociopathy, with her blind desire for fame and respect leading to a wake of human destruction. In terms of narrative pacing, the film proceeds like a match dropped at the endpoint of a long gasoline trail, slowly drifting towards the eventually point that everything blows up and damage must be assessed while blame and accountability must be handled, resulting in a truly powerful ending more than deserving of the heavy lifting that precedes it. The 24-hour news cycle was on the horizon in 1995, daytime talk shows and MTv’s The Real World had not shifted into the reality TV landscape that we know today, and while a few high profile cases such as the Menendez Brothers and Pamela Smart trial (the loose inspiration for this film) had happened, the bombshell and watershed trail that was the O.J. Simpson murder case was hot on the heels of To Die For’s release (the same month, actually). Stylistically, the film also bears striking resemblance to an updated version of Sunset Boulevard, be it knowingly or not. Long story short, the best films not only comment on the times in which they are created, but gain relevance as time passes, and To Die For handled both of these things phenomenally.

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amphtaminedreams · 4 years

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Paris Haute Couture Week S/S 2020 Plus a Little Jacquemus: Okay, Dior DID Suck (Part 1/2)

Hi to anyone reading,

Oh my god. I completely forgot there was also 2 haute couture weeks. I FEEL SO OVERWHELMED. Here I was getting all geared up for the F/W 2020 shows and suddenly it’s Jean Paul Gaultier’s last show and everybody’s (predictably) buzzing about the Jacquemus collection. I can’t keep up. But Haute Couture week is a lot less intense than the RTW shows so I suppose I should be enjoying this relative peace whilst I can.

I remember my last post about Haute Couture week opened with me defending Maria Grazia from the wrath of the internet; if Jacquemus is social media’s Lord and Saviour, this woman is the Antichrist. She’s Michael Langdon minus the dramatic flair. But the thing is, I genuinely really liked the Dior collection last time. Maybe because I was newer to the discipline of scouring Vogue Runway, but the lack of originality didn’t bother me; it was still something I’d die to wear, gothic yet delicate and relevant for 2019.

That being said, this time round, I have to open by doing the exact opposite and concurring: this time round, Dior was in fact, utter shit.

I feel mean saying it but...really? These were the slightly more salvageable outfits and my favourite of the bunch, and to be honest they don’t really capture the full extent of how outdated this collection was to me. I know that the concept behind the show was this idea of the divine feminine but Greek Goddess has been done SO many times. If you’re gonna go down that route, you have to bring something new, elevate it in some way. It can’t be THIS generic.

I can’t believe that in 2020 we’re really seeing plaited hairbands. The individual dresses are basic, but not so much the problem as the styling; they look like outfits I would’ve put together back in 2012. That’s not an exaggeration. I think even 2013 me would appreciate that you need to make things a little twisty.

The colour scheme is pretty, don’t get me wrong, and I like the cowl necks-the white dresses are the highlights. I think the concept of this collection was conceived with all the best intentions. But as a designer you need to take risks and I don’t see one single risk here; there isn’t anything that wouldn’t already be sold in your local H&M. Dior is such an established brand, Maria Grazia has room to do whatever she wants. And yet it just comes across like she’s out of ideas.

You’ve got to look at a designer like Ulyana Sergeenko:

When I say elevated (but still in the vein of wearable), I mean something like this. To be completely honest, I hadn’t heard of Ulyana Sergeenko until I saw shots of this show on Twitter. But what a perfect mix of kitsch and glamour. The influences are clear: Priscilla Presley, Barbie, Jackie O, Valley of the Dolls, the rich stay-at-home wife of the 60s, the Alessandra Rich/Scream Queens-esque sorority girl, Paris fucking Hilton. It’s exaggerated and it’s tongue in cheek with total grounds to call it trashy-there’s a corset resembling a Benjamin Franklin, ffs-but it’s all done with a wink and a nudge. And in all honesty, I just think it’s beautiful. Can you imagine Frances O’Sullivan (@Beautyspock on IG) in one of these looks? It would be worthy of the Rose McGowan cultural reset meme ten times over.

Everything is feline, from the very literal cat silhouettes and cat headed boa, to the makeup and the hair clips. It reminds me of the last RTW Ralph and Russo show but with even more attention to detail. And look at the STAGE. If this collection were a song, it’d be Disco Tits by Tove Lo. And no, I’m not just saying that because one of the dresses actually does feature a (cat shaped) disco tit. Like these are the clothes I dreamed of putting my Bratz dolls, and for null I’m sure, myself in. Absolute perfection. Plus, I’ve loved Coco Rocha since she was on The Face with Naomi Campbell; she is, after all, to thank for the iconic “check your lipstick before you come for me” line. Girl is really the martyr for all purple lipstick lovers, cut down in her prime by a pissed-off Naomi.

Onto Alexandre Vauthier, which I also really liked. An interesting yet effortless blend of the old and the new, the masculine and the feminine, if I could sum this collection up in one word, it would be cool. I know, it’s not the most descriptive, but it pretty much sums up how I feel; I’m not AS gassed about it as I am about Ulyana Sergeenko or this season’s Elie Saab (wait for it), but it’s a fresh offering, even if the styles aren’t the most groundbreaking. Stand outs for me are the almost petticoat like, debutante dresses which have Elle Fanning’s name written all over them.

I was hard pressed to find favourites in the Armani Privé collection if I’m honest. I’m not saying it was awful, all I know is that it just isn’t my style. It’s all a bit TOO tailored for my liking, and kinda reminds me of the Zara pantsuits my Spanish teacher used to wear. In other words, I find it to be a bit dowdy. On a positive note, the colours, fabrics, and beading are all stunning, so I see that a lot of craftsmanship clearly went into it; I think my biggest issue is the styling and the shapes (or lack of) on show. I’m very much getting a 20s, flapper vibe and whilst that’s an era that fascinates me and that I appreciate was cutting-edge at the time, I’ve yet to see it be bought into the 21st century in a way that doesn’t look stiff or costume-y.

Then there’s Azzaro. At the complete opposite end of the scale to Armani, it doesn’t look expensive, which I’m sure isn’t something any designer previewing their collection at haute couture week is striving for. BUT that being said, I’d be much more likely to wear something from this collection than I would from Armani Privé. I mean, I have no shot at ever wearing either but ya get me.

Whilst I’m sure it or something similar has been done before, the mesh diamanté dress is exquisite and I’m a huge fan of the stacked gem chokers and belts. The whole collection looks like something a London socialite who parties by night but (deep breath in) plays in a shitty band so fancies herself a bit of a rockstar by day would wear (exhale) and as much as that doesn’t sound like a compliment, I mean it as one. I’m talking about the kind of person you’d see smoking outside a bar and think “I wish I was them but I am potato lol”. I mean, as far as faux fur and fedoras are concerned, I’m gonna find it hard to completely slate a collection so this is pretty up my alley.

Chanel was a huge step up from their last RTW collection, imo, and probably on par with their last haute couture offering. It’s that same blend of preppy Chanel detailing (i.e the exaggerated collars, the checks and the lace) and practicality, only even more austere this time round.

It’s funny because when I looked back on original notes on this collection, before I’d even done any research into the context, I saw that one of the things I’d written was “giving me Victorian orphanage madame” as well as “something something Amish” and I wasn’t THAT far off base. The collection is, after all, supposed to be a tribute to the nuns who raised Coco Chanel at the beginning of the century in an Abbey-cum-orphanage. This makes me really happy; I know not everyone’s a fan of Virginie Viard’s nods back to the past and the brand’s origins but as a history nerd, I definitely am.

There’s also definitely a lot of things that can be translated into high street trends here: the combination of decorative white socks and black shoes is something I’ve seen making a comeback already, tulle is always a winner (I actually don’t mind it as an overlay, I think it’s pretty, sue me) and I have no doubt we’ll be seeing these dramatic collars creeping back onto tops and jumpers throughout the year. It’s been a while since they were a thing anyway and we all know how cyclical fashion is.

Another high note for Elie Saab this haute couture season; if I was an expressive person, I probably would’ve audibly gasped as I looked through this collection. It is SO FUCKING MAGNIFICENT. The colour scheme, the baroque prints, the floral sequinned embroidery, these are Cinderella style ballgowns taken to the next level. Elie Saab really is the definition of opulence and I’m not at all mad about it. Please, somebody put Lana Del Rey in one of these, PLEASE. Remind her how much of a princess she is and get her out of those “soccer mom” looks.

I’m so stuck between this collection and Ulyana Sergeenko as my favourite, and the latter might just pip the other to the post, purely because of the staging and extravagance of the presentation itself.

Georges Hobeika was predictably phenomenal. Like, I’m not going to lie, I am easily won over by some sequins and tulle, I’ve never claimed any different, and if you can expect that from anyone, it’s this guy (ignore that phrasing making me sound like his proud mother). The colour scheme is very spring appropriate and so is the 3D flower detailing, and if there’s anything good to take from Ascot and English royal weddings, Georges Hobeika knows it’s the hats.

It was another strong year for Givenchy too:

Though Claire Waight Keller is also fond of the extravagant details along the lines of feather and tulle, it’s always done in a more organic way; the details are always more reminiscent of nature, something created by accident, than they are suggestive of painstaking attention to detail, the image of someone hunched over a dress beading for hours on end à la Georges Hobeika or Elie Saab. That is not a bad thing at all; if anything, it makes Givenchy more interesting to study and gives you more to think about. Sometimes a dress takes you a bit longer to fully appreciate, but I’d say that only lends to its memorability. This year’s willowy, billowing, and at times coral-esque structures remind me of something I can see being worn down an Iris Van Herpen runway, set apart by that delicate Givenchy finesse. And side not: I know this post is to talk about the clothes, not the models, but I got super excited over seeing Sora Choi and Adut Akech walk too.

Guo Pei is always fun to look at. I mean, this collection is giving me half Matryoshka dolls, half It’s A Small World Christmas edition and I can’t hate on that.

And then there’s Iris Van Herpen, who knocked it out of the park once again. At this point, I wouldn’t expect anything less. Every outfit looks like something that could be exhibited in the Tate Modern (I know, it’s a basic opinion, but it’s true: TATE MODERN IS THE BEST MUSEUM IN LONDON), or honestly, the Design Museum, just for the genius that must go into the way these dresses move. Honestly, if I can see a goddess wearing anything, it’s more one of these looks than anything in the Dior collection. Like wife of Poseidon or something; I know it’s not very feminist of me to not know the Greek Goddess of the sea’s name but I only know who Poseidon is because I was a Percy Jackson fan back in the day so let me live.

It’s not like the whole under-the-sea theme is particularly new, Zimmerman did something similar last RTW (I think? Correct me if I’m wrong), but these constructions could’ve grown out of the sea bed themselves, which is more of an original take than “oo, blue and white and frothy hemlines!”. Additionally, we’ve got these dresses with the overlapping almost plaited fabric that are-we’re sticking with the goddess references here-fit for Persephone ruling over hell. As for the Grudge-looking dress (fourth down, far left), I could be reaching, but is anyone else seeing that as a nod to the oil spills polluting our oceans? Because that would just add yet another layer to this collection.

Regardless, it’s all impeccable and I’m in love. Iris Van Herpen as a MET Gala theme. Make it happen.

Anyway, to end on a high note, that’s it for this post!

Sorry it’s such a sudden cut-off but Jean Paul Gaultier was due to be my second to last to review and due to it being the final show, there’s an onslaught of photos that would not fit with what’s already in this post. Plus, I’d rather start a post with Jacquemus then end it as I feel like there’s a lot of hype around his collections online right now so 1). it’s��clickbait (for what, I do not know, as I’m not exactly making any money off this blog, just losing my sanity as it transpires when Tumblr accidentally terminated it earlier today and I had a minor breakdown) and 2). this Steve Buscemi meme is the most accurate representation of only 21 year old me to grace the internet:

I will aim to post part 2/2 in the next week, including JPG, as I just mentioned, the Jacquemus co-ed show, Margiela, Valentino and more, and as always, thank you for anyone who read until the end! You are an angel:-)

Lauren x

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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Left and Right Back Pockets, Red and Green, Black and White

Most of the credit for these observations goes to @wdway, but I have some @frangipanilove in here, too. We’ve had detailed discussions about these things. 😉 And I think you all will find some interest here. It’s a great example of how these symbols all intertwine.

@wdway:

I'm going to share a rabbit hole I went down almost two weeks ago. I've been spending a little time each day looking at a few episodes and this may be hard to believe but what I thought would be straightforward and fairly quick turned out to have several side tunnels. Who would have guessed?

Daryl a year from when we first saw him at his river camp. He just passed the two iron steaks in the tree and is taking drinks from his green water bottle when Dog runs up to him. My eyes went to the red rag in his back pocket. I got to thinking about the fact that we have not seen the rag in a long time. Or at least, I didn't think we had, but here, in Daryl's memory of the past, he has this red rag which to me screams RED FLAG.

That rag was part of his costume from the beginning of the series. It was always hanging out of his right back pocket. I believe tptb decided to feature it in s4 and to use it as a half of a symbol representing Daryl & Beth. Daryl's red rag & Beth's green journal.

(Ignore the bit about Aaron. This is from a different theory and I was too lazy to take another one. 😉 )

The shots of Daryl on the path in FM reminded me of another similar shot from Alone. I'm going to do a comparison of the two shots 1) will be from FM. 2) will be from Alone.

1) Daryl carrying a Green backpack.

2) Daryl carrying Beth Greene.

1) Daryl with a Green water bottle.

2) Beth Greene = water.

1) Red rag in Daryl's right back pocket.

2) Red rag in Daryl's right back pocket.

1) Daryl's left back pocket holds a map (paper) of his journey for the last year(s).

2) Beth's left back pocket that above Daryl's holds her journal (paper) of her last year(s).

1) Dog=Beth.

2) Beth.

I asked myself, how long has it been since we've seen Daryl with the red rag in his back pocket? I did an episode search to find out. We last saw it in what I think of as a two-episode storyline that ended season 6, Last Day On Earth and began season 7, The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be.

The first shot is from s6e16. We barely see the red rag in Daryl's pocket as he's taking a swing at Negan which leads to Glenn's death. The second shot is from s7e1.

Again, we barely see the red rag in his pocket as Dwight is loading Daryl into the van to go to the Sanctuary. We never see the red rag in Daryl's pocket again. Until the flashbacks in FM.

We have seen Daryl with something in his right back pocket starting in s6 through the present: a black and white bandana.

The funny thing is, that too, or one just like it, was featured in S4. We saw Daryl wear it as a mask when he was digging graves.

We then saw him give it to Beth in Inmates. She put grapes in it and wore it tied to the left side of her belt. Which ties both the red rag and the black and white bandana to both Beth and Daryl.

Thinking of the red rag as a half symbol representing Daryl & Beth, there was another symbol of Beth that Daryl wore on his left side that we first saw in s4, Beth's knife. She wore it on her right side in Still and then in Alone, they found a gun for her and she switched it to her left side. In s5e10, Them, Daryl started wearing her knife on his left side, his knife on his right. The last time we saw him wear the knife was in s6e11, Knots Untie, just a few episodes before the red rag disappeared from his costume.

Like I mentioned before, I've been searching through episodes. I did not search every episode from S4 through the present, but I searched quite a few and I didn’t see the red rag again. At least, not Daryl wearing it, and that really bothered me because it seemed like I had seen it recently.

The other day, I watched s10e10, Stalker. This was an episode that we had high hopes for because of the 10/10 paper clock in Beth's room at Grady. There was hope of seeing Beth, or at least having some major clues about her, and yet there didn't seem to be anything major. We saw symbolism of her, of course. Especially in the garage scene, there is a white T-Bird with an open trunk, red fire extinguishers, an open roof. Then, when I watched the episode the other day, it clicked and things just fell into place. Things I had seen so many times in my re-watches suddenly had new meaning and new symbolism.

Daryl hiding behind a tool chest. On the other side is the open trunk car. Look what's hanging from the cabinet door next to him, or more importantly, to the right side of him. It's a RED RAG, just like what he wore in his right back pocket until a few episodes after Beth's knife disappeared.

Speaking of back pockets as in seen from the back. If you had any doubts of tptb's meaning this one was the major hints we were looking for but just didn't see.

Ever so convenient that there happened to have been a piece of the cabinet cut out and we can see Daryl eyes peeking over from the back with the RED RAG on his right side. Also in this shot is a yellow mop bucket, similar to the ones that we saw both with Beth at Grady and with Daryl at the Sanctuary.

It's pretty obvious that tptb wanted us to see the damn knife in Daryl's left leg along with the red rag just behind his right side. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I'm going to point it out, anyway. It was Beth's left leg that was hurt in Alone and she switched her knife from her right side to her left, which is also the side on which Daryl wore her knife.

Another thing I want to point out is that starting in s9, Daryl wore 2 knives, one on each side. We saw him after the time jump in e7, Stradivarius wearing the 2 knives along with the black & white bandana in his back right-side pocket. If you go to s9e14, Scars in both the present time and the flashback set 9 months after Rick's body went missing, Daryl is wearing 2 knives and the black & white bandana.

In FM, Daryl is only wearing one knife on his right side, no knife on his left. A red rag in his right back pocket that he hadn't worn since s7e1, in his left back pocket a paper Journal I meant map haha. One more note, he's holding his Greene water bottle in his right hand. What does all of this mean?

My theory is that the red rag represents Daryl and the time when he was part of a couple with Beth. He was the red to her green. Even more importantly than that, I believe the writers are using the red rag as a red flag that what Daryl remembers is not correct. What we're seeing in his telling of his story to Carol is intensely colored both figuratively and literally by his PTSD, his self-inflicted loneliness and desire to belong to someone. His wounded plea for someone to find him. I'm not crying, you're crying. Who am I kidding? We're all crying for Daryl.

This is from e1 of this season, Lines We Cross. It is the scene where Carol has just got off the boat and is talking to Ezekiel and in the background, we see Daryl and Connie talking. The camera focuses on Daryl and Connie, so it's obvious that tptb wanted us to focused and on his back pockets. (I certainly do not have a problem with them focusing on his sweet behind haha.)

The writers’ goal would be for the general audience to realize that Daryl has a book on sign language in his back pocket. This makes a very sweet statement about Daryl taking the extra step to find a book so he could communicate with Connie.

For me, this is showing a lot of other things. First, it is drawing attention to his back pockets which will be a theme through this season, especially at the end of e21 when tptb somewhat more subtly focuses on Daryl's back pockets, where he has the black and white bandana that I believe represents Beth. That part I've already talked about before, so let me just make a couple of statements about this scene, this particular shot.

Yes, there is a sign language book in the left back pocket, the back pocket that Beth carried her diary and where she put the Washington DC spoon. This is a very significant, symbolic, purposeful decision the writers made. Anything that Daryl carries in his left back pocket symbolically ties to Beth.

The way I interpret what I am seeing is that the book is obviously a representation of Connie. It means that there is a tie or will be a tie between her (remember this is the first episode) and Beth in the season. In hindsight, Connie was in the cave and possibly dead. Then she was just gone/missing, and there has been a search for her.

The other thing I want to point out is you can see a little bit of the black and white bandana in Daryl's right pocket in this shot. He originally carried his red rag, and now he has carried this black and white bandana. The most important thing that comes away from this is that the writers made the decision at the beginning of the season about his bandana and which pockets were used to tie Daryl to a particular character.

@frangipanilove:

I want to thank you for tracing the red rag, because that was something I wanted to do, but never got around to. I share your opinion on how it stood out when it appeared again in his flashback. And I do agree that it’s a red flag.

There are other red flags as well. I think they all point to resurrection. I believe the red plastic bag hanging from an antenna of a car in Coda is a RED FLAG. I feel like red flag = red flag, like the ones you get when you get signals that something not quite right.

So, you say it’s showing that Daryl’s not remembering right, I’d probably choose different words to explain it but essentially, I interpret it in a similar way. Backpack and back pocket = “come back”, return, resurrection, Sirius symbolism.

Map is synonymous with Beth’s DC spoon, which she put in her back pocket and later in her backpack. We also see a representation of this symbolism when Daryl shows up in 10x1 with an ASL book in his back pocket. It’s a reference to Beth’s green notebook she kept in her back pocket but also a reference to Daryl’s “the signs are all there, you just gotta know how to read them.”

The backpack symbolism is something we saw when Daryl carried Beth piggyback style across the cemetery, a parallel to Carol throwing the backpack across the river in FM. The wings on Daryl’s BACK are also a part of this symbolism. We saw how the vest was laying in the ground on the episode where Denise died. He also drank the Danville bridge whiskey, which is a reference to the bridge symbolism about crossing over the river/crossing over to the dead side.

About the red rag in 10x10, we did discuss it, and it stood out, but to me I didn’t know where to place it in the greater scope of the symbolism back then, and honestly I’d kind of forgotten it since, so thanks for bringing it back around again. Again, I believe it stands for resurrection, and we saw it in relation to the t-bird(BIRD) with open trunk. Bird = helicopter, trunk = resurrection. Helicopter + resurrection is a reference to how Rick survived (remember, he fell of the BRIDGE between the realms of the living and the dead, he was washed up on the bank of the river, rejected by the death realm)

@twdmusicboxmystery:

The only thing I want to add to this has to do with an edit I made quite a long time ago. As @frangi already said, this left/right theme extends to Daryl’s wings. So it was significant and purposeful that when Beth hugged him in still, she laid her cheek against his left wing. That’s the one that represents her, so it’s only fitting.

In thinking about this, I got to thinking about how Daryl lost one of the wings on his vest. We’ve always assumed that represented Beth because, clearly, he lost her. But I’m rethinking that a bit, now. Especially given that at the beginning of FM, when he sits by the river, his wing is still present on his vest.

Judith made him a new wing in Morningstar and sort of “gave him back” his lost wing, right?

And I’m not saying this ISN’T a foreshadow of Beth. It very well may be. But we also find, again and again, that these symbols have multiple meanings. Based on this left/right evidence, I simply want to put another interpretation forth.

Based on what’s been pointed out above, which I think is 100% accurate, Daryl’s right wing is more likely to represent…Daryl. His left wing represents Beth and he never lost that.

So I’m wondering if the message is that he never lost Beth, even if he doesn’t know it (“I’m not gonna leave you.”). But in his grief and PTSD, he lost himself. That’s why the wing is still present at the beginning of FM, but has disappeared by the end, and we don’t see how.

It was taking care of Judith, after the time jump, that really brought Daryl back to himself, his family, and civilization at large. Her making him a new wing represents her helping him find himself. And only after he finds himself again will he find Beth.

Thoughts?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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girlsgonemildblog · 3 years

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I Am In This Episode and I Don't Like It - Emily in Paris, Season 1, Episode 6 Recap (Spoilers!!)

Poster from IMDB

Birds having sex. That is how this episode opens. Shots of birds fucking. We then cut away from this to Emily lying in bed, unable to sleep because Gabriel and Camille are having extremely loud sex. I have heard neighbors through walls and the people above me's bed banging on the floor, but never have I heard the people who live below me (like Gabriel and Camille do to Emily) having sex. They must be really loud. Also, based on this scene, Emily sleeps with full makeup (including lipstick) and her hair perfectly curled. I honestly think the production team wanted this show to be mocked.

The next morning, Emily is again eating at a café with Mindy, who is whining about how her dad wants to buy her a BMW and a mansion. Her life is honestly so hard. She then reveals to Emily that she was on a singing competition show in China, where she failed miserably and became a meme. Not to repeat myself, but I think the show's goal is to be mocked.

Emily gets to work, and we learn that, because they are meeting with an important couture designer that day, she was told specifically to wear all black. At least the show is self-aware with how terrible her outfit choices are. They arrive at Pierre Cadault's studio, and it is clear that his aesthetic is definitely not all black - more beiges and pastels, just like the rest of Paris. I think the writers were thinking of New York when they chose all black; someone should tell them fashion isn't the same everywhere. Cadault comes to meet them, sees Emily's tacky Eiffel Tower bag charm, and calls her "ringarde" or "basic,” and then storms out of the meeting. A bit dramatic, if I’m being honest, but also, the bag charm was pretty basic:

That night, Emily is minding her own business eating dinner alone when some (not even cute) man begins talking to her about whether a couple at another table is mother-and-son or dating. After a cut to show that time has passed, Emily finishes the story of her meeting with Cadault. The man, named Tomas, says that it is "ringarde" to call someone "ringarde" and then says he doesn't think she's basic - he clearly does not know her very well. He then starts a pretentious speech about known sexist pig, Pablo Picasso, and a bunch of other buzz-word names. Tomas is a know-it-all asshole and reminds me of every guy I have ever dated. Emily is impressed, nonetheless, and sleeps with him. Do better, Emily. Also, while I love Lily Collins, she is not great at acting in sex scenes; it was unbearably awkward. By the way, even Emily's bras have pictures of Paris on them:

The next morning, she runs into Camille, who tells her that she can hear Emily just as well as Emily can hear her and Gabriel. The fact that they all hear each other, but not any of the other neighbors, is pretty solid evidence for my no-one-else-lives-there theory.

At work, Emily brags to Julien about how Tomas quoted poetry to her, and Julien rightfully says that's boring. As an English major who has had to deal with many men interested in poetry, it's only hot in theory. In practice, it's boring and annoying, and they always expect you to be so impressed that they can quote the same Shakespeare sonnet that everyone had to memorize in High School Brit Lit. Emily then learns that Sylvie is holding a meeting without her and not speaking to her because she lost them the account with Cadault, one of Sylvie's favorite designers. Apparently, Emily is not the only person at this office with no sense of professionalism.

Emily meets Mindy at their bench in the park, and they are again talking about Mindy's singing career. I cannot express how little I care about this plotline. Mindy says she has too much PTSD from her failure on "Chinese Popstar" to audition for a local jazz club, but when Emily asks her to sing for her right there, Mindy is belting in the middle of the park with very little convincing. (Here is the moment where I take a break from my criticizing everything to say I absolutely love Ashley Park's voice. Please go listen to "What's Wrong With Me?" from the Mean Girls Musical soundtrack.)

That night, Emily and Tomas run into Gabriel and Camille outside their building, because of course they do. (It was at this moment that I realized the actor who plays Gabriel, Lucas Bravo, could very easily fill the Armie-Hammer-sized hole we currently have in society.) Being her always-friendly, always-oblivious self, Camille forces Emily and Tomas to go on a double date with her and Gabriel. Gabriel sees right through Tomas's bullshit, which is probably easy to do since Tomas is blatantly rude to Gabriel because Tomas is the type to only be polite to people he wants to fuck. Back at her apartment, remembering her conversation with Camille that morning, Emily tells Tomas that they need to be quieter when they have sex. They are (somehow) even louder than before.

Because the whole premise of this show seems to be that Emily lucks herself into things, while walking to work the next day, she notices in the corner of a sign for a ballet that Pierre Cadault designed the costumes and that opening night is that night. After Sylvie refuses to go with her (and rips up the original tickets), she invites Tomas to join her.

As she's leaving for the ballet (in an absolutely ridiculous outfit), she runs into Gabriel again. Are you guys as tired of reading that phrase as I am of writing it? We may have to turn it into a drinking game. Gabriel tells Emily the truth about what he thinks of Tomas, calling him "an asshole masquerading as an intellectual." I loved that line. He also tells her that she is "wasting her time with a guy who doesn't deserve her," and um, what exactly is so great about Emily?

When Emily arrives at the ballet and meets up with Tomas, he asks her if he is playing a joke on him by bringing him to see "Swan Lake", which, according to him, is "for tourists". "Swan Lake" is actually my favorite ballet, so fuck him. Emily then has a moment of clarity and finally realizes what her horniness had kept her from seeing the last three days; Tomas is a pretentious douche. (Emily actually said "snob" but I feel "pretentious douche" is more precise). Tomas responds by calling Emily "simpleminded". When he realizes she's offended by this, for some reason, he tries to better the situation by calling her "simple but beautiful". I believe the sound I made at this point would be called a "guffaw". When she still isn't happy, he tells her to go to the ballet, and he'll meet her afterward and "treat her to some amazing sex." She flips him off and walks away, which is actually a lot more polite than how I would've responded in that situation.

She then finds Cadault and explains to him that she always wanted to be Serena van der Woodsen and would buy bag charms because it was the only thing she could afford from the designers that she worshipped. Cadault turns out to be a Gossip Girl fan, which is revealed by having him spoil Gossip Girl. Seriously, he just straight-up SAYS who Gossip Girl is. I know it's been 8 years, but there should've been a spoiler warning or something. I already knew, but what if I hadn't? It was rude. Anyway, the next day Sylvie gets a call from Cadault that he wants a meeting with her and tells her to "bring Gossip Girl". Everything always works out for Emily in the end.

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current-mcr-news · 4 years

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Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy - Episode 1

BRANDON JENKINS: In 1953, a 25 year old director named Phil Tucker had $16,000 and just four days to make his first sci-fi film. The plot? A creature comes to Earth with a death ray and wipes out all of humanity, except for eight people who are immune to the creature’s weapons. He called the film Robot Monster.

Movie clip: With the swiftness of a deadly cosmic ray, the Earth is inundated by indestructible moon monsters. Their ghastly mission? Death for all humans.

B: The film was so low budget, Tucker couldn’t even afford to get alien costumes, so he had the monster in a gorilla suit with a TV for a head.

Movie clip: What astounding technical developments are being made to protect mankind?

B: The release was a disaster. It was widely panned. Its lasting legacy would’ve been that it was one of the worst movies of all time. But in the early 2000s, a kid from New Jersey with a knack for drawing comics saw a picture of the Robot Monster and it stuck with him.

Gerard Way: I’ve never even actually seen the film, but I saw pictures of this creature over the years, and they’ve got a TV set, kind of circular space looking head, and they have a gorilla body, and I was like, “I want a superhero that’s kind of inspired by this.”

B: The kid’s name was Gerard. He’d been writing comics since he was 15 and was on his way to making it as a professional comic book artist.

WAY: I went to art school and I was an illustration and cartooning major, so comics were kind of like my major, and I was like this perpetual intern. I interned at DC, I pitched a cartoon to Cartoon Network, and then I landed a job as a toy designer at this place called FunHaus in Hoboken. But that’s like right when the band took off.

B: That band, Gerard’s side hustle, would become massive alt-punk sensation, My Chemical Romance. Seemingly overnight, My Chemical Romance and Gerard were making some of the most popular music in the world, getting spins on terrestrial radio, dominating music video countdowns, they were even nominated for a Grammy. But while he traveled across the globe leading a rockstar life, Gerard kept up with his first love - drawing.

WAY: So I really missed comics and we were in Japan and we did a signing at a shop, and one of the fans gave me a little marker set and it was Copic markers. They were like the greatest markers that I’d ever used before, and so I started to create Luther.

B: Luther, a superhero with a gorilla body and space helmet who lives on the moon was the very first character Gerard drew in what would become his hit comic The Umbrella Academy. I’m Branden Jenkins and this is Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy. This season, we’re going backstage and inside the making of season 2. The first season of the show, based on Gerard’s comic of the same name, launched in February of last year and quickly became one of the most beloved series on Netflix. Now it’s back for its second season with bigger effects, bigger characters, and bigger drama. We’re going to catch you up on everything that’s gone down in The Umbrella Academy universe so far, and we’ll spend the next five episodes breaking down how the team shot the multi-million dollar superhero production across two countries, and how in the midst of a global pandemic, they managed to finish it from inside their own homes. But first, we wanted to take a look back and dig into the roots of The Umbrella Academy. So today, I’m catching up with the creators of the comic and the guy tasked with making the TV series. We talk about how the graphic novel was adapted for your screens.

B: Alright, so if you haven’t watched season 1, go back and watch season 1 on Netflix. For those of you who just need a quick recap: At 12pm on October 1, 1989, a supernatural event occurred. Forty-three babies across the planet were born to mothers who were not pregnant just seconds before. The world was confused, intrigued, and one eccentric billionaire wanted to find the babies and adopt them. He ended up with seven. Each baby had a superpower, and what do you do when you’re a billionaire with a group of kids with superpowers? You train them to become a crime fighting family.

Reginald: I give you the inaugural class of The Umbrella Academy!

B: When Gerard Way started creating the members of the Academy, he started with the most fundamental material.

WAY: I created a list of all the things that interested me. It could be anything from ouija board, fortune teller, spaceman, gorilla body, just a list of stuff.

B: Then he drew from that list and started creating these characters. All in all, he would draw seven. The first, Luther, the half-man half-gorilla, was the team’s defective leader. He was also the child closest with their father.

Luther: Just at Dad’s favorite spot. Allison: Dad had a favorite spot? Luther: Yeah, you know, under the oak tree. We used to sit out there all the time, none of you ever did that?

B: Next, he created Klaus and Allison, the boy who talks to the dead and the girl who can make people bend to her will with just a few words.

WAY: Klaus, he has some pretty serious addiction and addiction is something that I dealt with in my life. He’s also a little bit spooky and supernatural, and my personality in My Chemical Romance was very similar to that.

Klaus: I can’t just call Dad in the afterlife and be like, “Dad, could you just stop playing tennis with Hitler for a moment and take a quick call?” Luther: Since when? That’s your thing. Klaus: I’m not in the right frame of mind! Allison: You’re high? Klaus: Yeah yeah! I mean, how are you not listening to this nonsense?

WAY: He was kind of my version of Doctor Strange. I find Allison to be the one that is easiest to write and I put the most of myself into Allison.

B: Her superpower is that she can make you do pretty much anything she tells you with a few magic words.

Allison: I heard a rumor you want to be my friend. I heard a rumor that you like Bradley. I heard a rumor that you left me alone. I heard a rumor that you stop crying.

WAY: There’s a bit of a tragic nature that comes with her power.

B: Allison, out of all of her super powered siblings, is the only one grasping for a normal life - career, husband, children. In a way, she’s the most human. The fourth character Gerard created is Diego, a guy with an uncanny ability to throw knives. He’s also stubborn as hell.

WAY: I knew early on he was gonna be the one that was gonna be really difficult with the leader. I figured that.

Diego: You know, you of all people should be on my side here, Number One. Luther: I am warning you. Diego: After everything he did to you, he had to ship you a million miles away. Luther: Diego, stop talking! Diego: That’s how much he couldn’t stand the sight of you!

B: The fifth character, a kid who can travel through time and space, who simply goes by Five. Despite the other character growing up into adults, he has remained a teenager, sort of.

WAY: He was a time traveler who then got stuck in his young body when he traveled back in time because time travel is complicated.

Klaus: Where are you going? Five: To get a decent cup of coffee. Allison: Do you even know how to drive? Five: I know how to do everything.

WAY: So then came The Horror.

B: The Horror, aka Ben, aka the dead sibling who only Klaus can see.

WAY: I imagined this character that had all these monsters living under his skin that came from another dimension. And he was very tortured to me. It actually kind of hurts him and it’s scary to him.

Ben: Do I really have to do this? Klaus: Come on, Ben. There’s more guys in the vault. Ben: I didn’t sign up for this.

B: And then finally, Number Seven, Vanya, who seemingly has no powers besides playing the violin.

WAY: I was at this cafe in Manhattan when I was living in Brooklyn, and it was called The Sidewalk Cafe I believe, and on the wall they had a white violin just as decoration. And I remember looking at that and thinking to myself, “That would be a cool superhero.” And Vanya was always kind of designed to be a character who wasn’t special, that was going to transform into that.

Vanya: Look, if I was special I would’ve been in The Umbrella Academy. I’m so sorry you got stuck with the ordinary one.

B: These seven adopted siblings forced together by supernatural events formed The Umbrella Academy. Both the original comic and season 1 of the show start at the funeral for the Academy’s patriarch, the eccentric Sir Reginald Hargreeves. We learn that while the siblings ventured away from home as teenagers, after years of fighting and a toxic upbringing, they’ve returned home, back together for the first time in years, and all their dysfunctions and old conflicts come bubbling to the surface.

Diego: He was a bad person and a worse father. The world’s better off without him. Allison: Diego! Diego: My name is Number Two.

B: When he started writing the comic, Gerard was focused on his own strained relationships. He saw his band as his own dysfunctional family at the time.

WAY: When you’re a baby band, you’re in this van and it’s like a submarine but it’s smaller. It’s like a closet that you're all living in and sometimes you’re going on seventeen hour drives, and you have very strong personalities. This dynamic starts to develop between all of the members and you really do kind of become a dysfunctional family. Like, there’s times where I felt like I was the mom.

GABRIEL BA: They know each other’s weaknesses.

B: Turns out, family dynamics was a theme with everyone who joined the Umbrella team, including the illustrator and Umbrella’s co-creator, a Brazilian artist named Gabriel Ba.

BA: And sometimes they say it to hurt the other intentionally and they do that a lot in Umbrella because they’re all angry at each other all the time. And even though I have a great relationship with my brother, I have that. We have a younger sister as well, so she’s very opinionated and she’s strong. I wouldn’t say we fight a lot, but sometimes we- I just know how to hurt her if I want to say something.

B: Family is present in Gabriel’s life more than for most people. He works every day with his twin brother, fellow comic book artist, Fabio Moon. But his work made him an unconventional choice for Umbrella.

BA: In the mid 90s, we moved away from superheroes. We, my brother and I, we figured the type of story that we liked to tell and wanted to tell was more real life, day by day life relationship, this kind of stuff.

B: Gabriel grew up in Brazil and now lives in Sao Paulo. His brother had been making experimental comics for well over a decade.

BA: But The Umbrella Academy was a superhero book with this day by day life relationship drama, and that was really interesting for me.

B: What excited Gerard about Gabriel was his style. His characters weren’t macho. They didn’t have big ripped muscles. They’re the kind of comics you could imagine being drawn in the margins of a notebook. There's nothing stereotypically super about them.

BA: It was not a straightforward American superhero artstyle. It was a mix of European and more fluid, but also could handle action and crazy stuff. And also, I can’t deny The Umbrella Academy was my first paid job in the U.S.

B: Wow.

BA: For the first ten years of our career, my brother and I were making comics for free. Just for ourselves, just getting [?], if there were any. So when I got the invitation to get involved with The Umbrella Academy it was this whole package of factors.

WAY: Gabriel climbing on board was a huge thing for us because he’s such a fantastic artist. He brought these characters to life. The interesting thing about Gabriel, he didn’t have to make Umbrella Academy. He was doing really well on his own and making really experimental artistic comics, but he liked the idea so much that he said, “I’m gonna do superheroes.”

BA: The superhero aspect of The Umbrella Academy is really just a layer in the story. I like the development of these characters, their struggles, their relationships, there’s romance, there’s deception.

Vanya: You are unbelievable, you’re trying to dig up dirt on a guy I like? Who does that? Allison: Look, I’ve had my fair share of stalkers and creeps, I don’t trust him! Vanya: You mean you don’t trust me.

BA: And it had the fun explosions and action scenes. So that’s the good mix.

B: The first book of the comic is called Apocalypse Suite. After their father’s death, The Umbrella Academy gets a warning from their time traveling brother that the world is going to end in 10 days. They don’t know how, they just know that it will. And now, back together for the first time, they’ve got to figure out how to save the planet and learn how to look past their differences. Which sounds dope, right? But when it first published back in 2007, it wasn’t immediately clear that people would dig it.

WAY: So one of the things I was dealing with when Umbrella Academy came out was a lot of people in the press before the comic came out saying things like, “Here’s a musician and he’s writing a comic.” They didn’t really know my background, they didn’t know that I’d written at 15, they didn’t know I went to art school. All they knew was that I was the singer in this rock band that a lot of teenagers liked. So, all I really wanted was a fair shake. I didn’t write The Umbrella Academy to become a TV show or a film. I wrote it to be an amazing comic. But we knew that first issue, and we knew it was good, and we knew that if you didn't get it by the first seven pages you just weren’t gonna like it, and I was totally fine with that. But then it came out and then the response started to happen and then reviewers loved it and people loved it.

B: The comic went on to win an Eisner award, which is like the Oscar of comics, and pretty quickly, Gerard gets an offer to turn the comic into a full length movie.

WAY: I got swept up in the Hollywood thing.

B: But it doesn’t pan out.

WAY: That’s actually one of the reasons why there was such a big gap between comics, is because I was really, you know, I was trying- at the end of the day, I was trying to be helpful. If this was gonna be a movie version of what Gabriel and I had made, I wanted it to be great so I put in a lot of time and it kept me away from the comics.

B: But then Netflix hits you up and is interested in making this into a series.

WAY: Right.

B: I guess I'm curious, as someone who just initially wanted to make just a really good comic, what about turning that project into a television show was interesting?

WAY: Straight up, I want to make a great comic and that’s all I’m really interested in. If I can write great comics, you’ll have great material to make TV shows. So let me focus on that.

B: In other words, Gerard wanted to focus on the comics and let someone else adapt it.

WAY: And that’s when Steve came in and he changed things and he ran with it.

STEVE BLACKMAN: I’m Steve Blackman, I’m the showrunner and I’m executive producer.

B: Steve is a master at adapting books, comics, and film into television. Before The Umbrella Academy, he’d worked on shows like Fargo, Legion, and Altered Carbon, all of which originated from other sources. So he knew coming in that adaptation can be tricky work.

BLACKMAN: At first, I think Gerard and Gabriel, who co-did this with him, were very protective of the work like parents of their baby. And I think I had to prove to them initially that I would love and protect this child that they had worked on for so many years, so here I am, an outsider coming in and they were very nice to me, but I could see there was like, “Is this guy gonna totally screw up our baby here?”

B: Is it something that you can come to the table with Gerard and be like, “Hey, here’s my arsenal of adaptations, this is why it will work.”

BLACKMAN: Yeah, I worked on the show Fargo for three years. Fargo was obviously based on the Joel and Ethan Coen movie from 1996. I don’t think Gerard had ever seen my shows, I don’t think he watches a lot of television, so for him, it didn’t matter what I’d done before. It’s just what I was gonna do in the here and now on this show. I wasn’t intimidated by the challenge but I really did sort of have a sense of I know which direction I’m going.

B: What was your first initial reaction? Were you sort of like, “Oh, maybe I’ve never done anything like this, or this does feel familiar to other work that I’ve done.” Or, “I can do this, this is right up my alley.”

BLACKMAN: Well, what I liked about it from the beginning was what I saw in the subject matter and I saw a dysfunctional family. But right away, I was very inspired by Wes Anderson’s work. The Royal Tenenbaums is one of those movies that really was always something I truly loved. So, I saw that in this show.

Five: An entire square block, 42 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, but not a single drop of coffee. Vanya: Dad hated caffeine. Klaus: Well he hated children too and he had plenty of us.

BLACKMAN: It was a family show, it was a very relatable dysfunctional family show that I wanted to tell.

WAY: Steve’s a great collaborator. Steve Blackman, the showrunner, he had a vision. I respected him and his vision. I realized it was gonna be different from the comic, and I let him run with it because he cared deeply about it.

BLACKMAN: My first conversation with Gerard over the phone, I said to him, I told him one of the words was subversive, we wanted to subvert the expectation of what a superhero show could be because there were many other shows, either on the air or coming down the pipe to be next, and we wanted this to stand out. And that was sort of the first hurdle with me, was to say to Gerard that I could do that and I could definitely make this thing feel special. And right away he said, “Okay, yeah. You get it.”

B: You’ve adapted something like Fargo which is a unique adaptation, right? You’re adapting from a different medium, like a feature film. Does that change the way you understand adaptation?

BLACKMAN: At a story point of view, no, I don’t think they’re that different. I think adapting a story, whether it's a graphic novel or the source material comes from a movie, a book, there’s a lot of care into doing it that the tricky thing is, I need to put my creative spin on it. I had Gerard and Gabriel, who lived with this for ten years, and then I have to come in and say, “Look, I’m going to honor you. At the same time, what is the Steve Blackman part of the show? How can I add my spin to it?”

B: For fans of the comic who’ve seen season 1 of the show, you’ll recognize some of that Steve Blackman spin. For example, the group who governs the laws of time in the comics, the Temps Aeternalis, in the TV show they become the Commission, an entire bureaucratic system running and adjusting linear time. Steve made some other changes too.

WAY: One of the things that I thought was an ingenious idea was making Ben a ghost that Klaus could communicate with. I was most impressed by that change.

Ben: You know what the worst part of being dead is? You’re stuck. Nowhere to go, nowhere to change, that’s the real torture if you gotta know. Watching your brother take for granted everything you lost, and pissing it all away.

B: Perhaps the biggest change from the comic to the show is the diversity of the characters. Diverse in race, diverse in region, diverse in sexual orientation, these characters on screen look a lot more like what the world actually looks like.

WAY: It’s built into it. They’re all from different places, they’re all from different countries, so I think that’s really the biggest improvement on the source material, is how diverse it is.

B: Steve felt the pressure of both fan expectations, and Gerard and Gabriel’s trust in him.

BLACKMAN: There’s nothing worse than having pre-existing source material and having the fans dislike it. You want to make the fans feel honored and respected, at the same time I felt it was incredibly important that Gerard and Gabriel walked out of this thinking, “He did a good job.” If they hated it, I would’ve been crushed. If the fans hated it, I think I’d also be crushed. I knew I couldn’t make everybody happy, but I wasn’t doing a page for page translation. My adaptation wasn’t gonna be that.

B: The adaption worked. Season 1 was a massive success. In the finale of the first season, the Academy thinks they’ve managed to stop the end of the world from happening, but unintentionally, they’ve actually just initiated it. The moon has been destroyed and its remnants are now heading directly for Earth.

Five: We might as well accept our fate because in less than a minute we’re gonna be vaporized. Diego: What’s your idea then? Five: We use my ability to time travel, but this time I’ll take you with me. Luther: You can do that?

B: The family, latching onto their time traveling brother Five, manage to escape the chaos. But we’re left to wonder where and when they’ll turn up, and that’s where season 2 begins.

Five: We brought the end of the world back here with us. Klaus: Oh my god, again?

BLACKMAN: It’s a pretty crazy journey this year and I think people will be hooked. I hope they binge the hell out of it and love every second of it.

B: Coming up in this season of Behind the Scenes, we’ll be taking you on that crazy journey with the people who make it happen.

“We hired meteorologists, we knew that snow was gonna come, but we had planned it. We went away for a day, we came back, and there was four feet of snow on the ground.”

“It’s 60s Dallas. Okay, so that’s a very different story for Allison. We have to talk about this somehow. Her experience is just different from her siblings.”

EMMY LAMPMAN: And a lot of people would come up to me and apologize for doing their job and I was like, “Please stop apologizing.”

“That was a wishlist fight scene that Steve had always wanted to do.”

“So we actually had our guys throwing plates up in the air and taking photos of them to try to get these UFO imageries.”

“You know, we have a new point in our resume: Can produce and deliver a show during a pandemic.”

B: Behind the Scenes of The Umbrella Academy is a Netflix and Pineapple Street Studios Production. I’m your host, Brandon Jenkins. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. It really does help other people find it. Thank you all for listening.

#behind the scenes of the umbrella academy #episode 1 #gerard way #gabriel ba #steve blackman #full transcription

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factual-fantasy · 4 years

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More asks!! :}

Hmm.. I haven’t really thought about it before.. Maybe he’d look something like this?

Mostly simplistic face, roundish and short features? I would’ve tried to draw his whole body but I didn’t have the energy at the time.

Well, it would be very difficult for him to learn, and because he isn't deaf and because he’s Cybertronian, I don't think he would have much of a use for it..

He doesn’t. 😐

I am currently working on one about Suburban and Escort. I’m very glad that people seem interested. :} My only concern now is that the topic I’m writing about is too dark and inappropriate to share with my followers. Quote from the fic,

“Escort curled up away from Suburban ashamed. “Did you do this to yourself?” He asked. Escort nodded. “Why?“ he asked with sadness and confusion forming in his voice. “

Although this quote is subject to change, they’re still talking about a rather dark subject..

That.. that could work. Redrawing something I’ve already drawn.. like, how could you portray my characters in a way I’m uncomfortable with, if you’re just redrawing something I already drew?

That might just be it.. And hey, maybe drawing scenes from fics that I have described could work too.. Also if someone wanted to just draw one of my OCs smiling or something like that, that could be okay too.

I’ll think about it.. I haven’t made a choice yet, but I’ll keep thinking..

Hello! Man, the number of ideas I just got is insane.

So, The bots’ first impressions of Halloween were the costumes the kids and Agent Fowler wore on Halloween night. The kids went to some kind of Halloween party at their school and then went to the base after, here’s what they dressed up as. Agent Fowler wore a Jack-o'-lantern patterned tie, Miko dressed up as a werewolf, Raf dressed up as a Vampire, and Jack dressed up as a rather realistic looking zombie. Forgive me if this isn’t what you think they’d be I’m just not that creative. - -;

The main members of team prime, I.e Optimus, Ratchet, Bulkhead, Bumblebee and Arcee, weren’t fazed much by the costumes. They already knew what Halloween was and that the kids would come to the base that night all dressed up in costumes. It still startled Ratchet none the less though, seeing Raf looking sickly pale and seeing Jack look like he had just been attacked by a Scraplet would startle any medic.

The rest of them however? This was their first introduction to the holiday and the to the concept of scary costumes. Suburban, Escort and Red Van FREAKED. OUT. They went into full panic mode when they saw Jack. They thought the poor kid had been attacked by some kind of wild animal!

Miata kind’a panicked a little not gonna lie, but she calmed down pretty quick when it was all explained to her. She thought the costumes looked very scary, In a good way. :}

Volvo freaked out the most anyone has ever seen him freak out when he saw the kids. They looked sick and deformed! He started panicking and wanted to help them but he was legit too afraid to touch them. It took a lot of talking to get him to calm down and understand that they weren’t sick or wounded. They were just wearing costumes. What ever those were.

When the kids went to Brown Suburban and asked how they looked, he saw their happy expressions, and instantly knew that nothing was wrong. He gave them a thumbs up and said they looked great. He didn't need to understand why they looked like that, he just knew by their faces that they weren’t actually hurt or sick, and that’s all that mattered.

Well, Miko jumped out from behind a corner to scare U.M.Dragster, and nearly got kicked so.. he doesn't like the costumes since technically... he almost killed a human because of one.

A.T.Dragster just kind’a looked at them like,

After it was all explained she was chill though.

Green Truck:

He didn’t understand what he was looking at, at first. He was too distracted by what ever was up with Miko’s head to be freaking out over Jacks face. They explained what the costumes were before he had a chance to register how horrifying Jack’s face looked. He didn’t fully understand the concept of Halloween, but he said they looked great in their “customs.”

Vega nearly had a spark attack, bless his soul, he was so worried. He asked them what happened and who did this to them. They got him to calm down and explained that they were just costumes. He didn't fully understand what that meant, but he was relieved to hear that they were okay and the wounds on Jack’s face were fake.

White Truck: “Hey guys!.. Yo, what’s up with your faces..?..... “Just costumes”..? Huh, well alrighty. You guys looks cool!.. I think? <:D ??”

Beluga, like everyone else, got spooked. But once it was explained, she wanted a costume too. :}

Honda nearly glitch smacked Jack, he scared the absolute snot out of her. Safe to say she doesn’t like the costumes.

Ranger:

Jeepy didn’t have much of a reaction, he was startled sure, but he understood rather quickly that the kids were fine and that these were just costumes.

Bash Buggy didn’t notice anything different about the kids what so ever. He cant see faces or color, so he couldn’t tell that Rafs skin was deathly pale and he couldn’t tell how mutilated Jack looked because he couldn’t see the details on his face. Now, Miko was wearing a big rubber werewolf mask, so when she walked past him, Bash Buggy could see how deformed and enlarged the shape of her head looked. And he legit went,

There is no need to draw me like one, for I already have!!

Since it is spoopy season, I wanted to draw me being real scary and such.

It didn’t work out. XD

Can you make an Kiwi levitate?

*winded* T H A N K Sh hh hh

#my response #transformer ocs

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tbhwhocaresanymore · 3 years

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Nancy Drew 2x1

ONE OF YOU apparently ran to @kat--writes, or as my friend and I call her Tumblr Kat, and snitched that I had not yet posted my Nancy Drew premiere review. I promised to get it up by today and yes it is technically after midnight but the sun has not yet risen, so please find my thoughts under the cut.

Before I do anything else let me just say I will never stop appreciating the continuous book Easter eggs the show writers drop. Nancy mentioning how she learned that trick with the mirror in “a bungalow mystery” when she did in fact pull that exact same trick in The Bungalow Mystery? Iconic.

Now that’s out of the way, I’m going to do something I’ve never really done before and start off with the negatives. Guys, I was underwhelmed.

Not by the episode itself, the episode was great. It picked up right where we left off and continued into the mystery of the Aglaeca, the cast was engaging, the horror was chilling, the story kept unfolding. The problem is, it was great as any other regular episode, it was less great as a season premiere. I waited TEN MONTHS for this episode. And granted I understand that ND didn’t get to finish off its first season how they wanted, but they have had, I repeat, ten months to plan this. The season 1 premiere, for all its issues, did exactly what a season premiere is supposed to do. It established relationships, a season-long arc, character trajectories, and even a couple of smaller plots. We saw Nancy and her dad were on the rocks, she and George didn’t get along in high school, Bess is rich but living in a van, Tiffany Hudson was murdered and the crew are suspects, George is sleeping with Ryan, Ace is working for the police, and we found the bloody Lucy Sable dress in Nancy’s attic, to name but a few.

You guys, that is a lot of plot lines. And the writers explored and solved every single one of them over the course of the season.

Now we have the season 2 premiere. The crew tries to find a mirror to fight the Aglaeca, meets a mouthy dude, and takes a break from the Aglaeca to hide from the Gorham wraith. (Gorham is 100% a play on Gotham fight me.) Like yes there is more if you squint, but aside from that nothing all that major really happened. Mr. Hudson is setting up a defense, but we knew that already. Ryan wants a relationship with Nancy and is pissed at Carson for keeping her a secret, but we knew that already. The new head cop doesn’t trust Nancy or the crew at all, but, again, we knew that already.

But since this was still a good episode even if a lackluster premiere, I will still give you some positives.

The Gorham wraith you guys, oh my god the horror was fantastic. Nancy Drew is really looking every other magic show’s super special effects in the eye as it hits them over the the head with a folding chair made by their costuming and makeup department. The scarecrow coming to life, banging on the back of the bus, crawling in after Nancy? On point. I was on the edge of my seat.

Ryan I know you are an asshole and your character arc is a work in progress but kidnapping? Are you serious right now? “Your suicidal girlfriend begged us to hide and take care of her child right before jumping off a cliff. Also I didn’t even know you were the father.” “Omg how dare you. Time for BLACKMAIL.” It’ll be interesting to see how this whole Ryan v Carson thing plays out. I suspect maybe Carson will become like an example father figure to Ryan, teach him how to be good to Nancy. Something like “if you’re serious about being a father lesson number one is it’s not about you anymore, it’s about her. And you sending me to prison won’t just hurt me it’ll hurt Nancy.” I think that would be a nice parallel, Kate was Lucy’s guidance counselor, and now Carson will be Ryan’s parental counselor/therapist/whatever.

I’m going to be completely honest here, I totally forgot Nick and George had not actually told Nancy they are together. No idea how long this is going to go on for, I suspect not that long, but maybe up until like episode 5 or 6. I do think it would be fun if Nancy found out in like the absolute worst way possible. Like here is my worst/best case scenario. I know Nancy is supposed to have some kind of thing with Gil so let’s say they hook up a couple times and he burns her, as he probably will, and Nancy goes to Nick cause she’s upset and needs to talk, and when he opens the door thinking it’s the pizza guy he is shirtless and George is in the bed behind him. Unlikely, but fun to imagine. But however they do it, all the Nick and George fans will undoubtedly get some fun footage of them sneaking around, so enjoy guys.

All the Nancy and Ace shippers are also getting good material, even if I want to grab Ace by the shoulders and physically shake him.

Nancy: I can’t let you guys help me summon the Aglaeca, there could be really bad consequences.

Crew: Psh, consequences? What consequences? We have the power of FRIENDSHIP.

*Aglaeca sends them all death visions*

Ace: How dare you drag me into this Nancy I can’t believe we’re all going to die because of you.

LIKE BRUH. ACE. MY GUY. If you could maybe use your considerable brain power to pull your head out of your ass for TWO SECONDS I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks. But aside from that, their scene at the end? Poetic cinema. The slow burn is strong with this one. Even if I do have faith she will eventually find her way back to Nick aaaaaaaaah

Not sure how I feel about the twins yet. I know they were in some other ND-verse book series, but tbh I only ever read the Nancy Drew books. I never delved into the Hardy Boys or anything else, I was a Drew girl all the way. I do think the writers could maybe have done a better job introducing us to Gil and making us like him. Like they were definitely going for the Han Solo type I feel, and George being all “wow the Bobsey twins are hardcore” as he ups the price while literally dying. Um, George, no, the Bobsey twins are fucking morons, or at least Mr. Diabetic over here is. It says a lot that Amanda had only two lines of dialogue and I liked her considerably more than Gil. But who knows, maybe they’ll grow on me. And they did mention their family used to work for the Hudsons, I would bet good money they know about more than one skeleton that’s been stuffed in the closet.

This paragraph right here is for me and the like two other Drewson shippers in the fandom. Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the first meeting flashback oh my god. I was dying. I rewatched it ten times. I am in love. The way they both just sort of stared at each other, the way Nancy clearly feels a certain amount of nostalgia for him and what they had. I am deceased. Honest to god I don’t care how many Nick x George and Nancy x Ace moments the writers throw at us, just as long as I continue to get crumbs like that I am good. Have faith guys.

And finally, oh my dear, talented writers. I would like to know when exactly you are planning on pulling my three most favorite women out of whatever floorboard you have stuffed them under. I WOULD LIKE DEAD LUCY, VICTORIA, AND HANNAH GRUEN TO PLEASE STAND UP. Yes I know Hannah Gruen is in the next episode but the wait is excruciating. And if the last time we saw Dead Lucy was going to be in the courtroom scene, her standing in the doorway as Nancy read her suicide note? I am going to mcfreaking lose it.

Well that’s all for today. Sorry this took so long, I guess I just wasn’t all that inspired by this premiere episode. But hopefully I will get the next one finished much quicker. And with that, I leave you until Wednesday the 27th when Nancy Drew 2x2, The Reunion of Lost Souls airs. See ya

#Nancy Drew cw #Nancy Drew #the search for the midnight wraith #Bess Marvin #George Fan #Ned Nickerson #Ace #Nancy x Ace #George x Nick #Nancy x Nick #Drewson #Ryan Hudson #Dead Lucy #writers where is dead lucy

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Batwoman Season 2 Episode 1 Review: What Happened to Kate Kane?

https://www.denofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/batwoman-new-costume-changes.png?resize=400%2C400

This Batwoman review contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 1.

Batwoman Season 2, Episode 1

The freshman season of Batwoman made for a perfectly fine show with a serviceable story and people who undoubtedly can act, but inexplicably chose not to. It isn’t bad, but it isn’t exactly good either, existing in some kind of nebulous, mediocre middle ground that can be a dangerous place for series to linger too long in the era of peak TV. Still, The CW show put a queer female superhero on our television screens every week, which somehow still feel progressive despite the fact that gay people were invented centuries ago. Then, Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) donned a modified and bewigged batsuit and rose to folk hero status as Batwoman in Berlanti’s vision of Gotham City. Now, Ryan Wilder (Javicia Leslie) is stepping into her bulletproof boots, and facing off with new and familiar foes.

Ruby Rose announced her departure from Batwoman after the end of season one, which left the show’s writers with a challenge, and more than a few loose ends. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it—Kate’s presumed death in a plane crash at the top of this episode wraps up her story quite succinctly. It is surprisingly easy for the writers to make room for a new lead without disrupting the larger narrative in any substantial way. This should be upsetting, Kate should feel more integral to the show, but I wasn’t very invested in her, and it seems neither was the plot.

In the inadvertent season one finale, Kate’s dad and leader of the Crows pretended to ally with Batwoman, but pulled the okey doke and tried to capture or kill her instead. Sadly, we won’t get to see this family drama play out, but there is still storytelling potential in Jacob discovering the truth about Kate and reckoning with what that means now that she’s gone. (It’ll be interesting to see how they play the Crows vs. Batwoman dynamic now that the woman behind the cowl is Black.) With Kate’s death, Alice’s plan for familial revenge is ruined. She gave Tommy Elliot Bruce’s face so he could procure kryptonite for her that she would then give to Jacob, who would kill Batwoman, presumably before realizing she is his daughter. As revenge plots go, it is brilliant. Unfortunately, as we learn at the end of the episode, Safiyah beat Alice to the punch by taking down the plane. Now, Alice has a new nemesis, and we have a new Batwoman.

Kate’s plane crashes near where Ryan is parked in the van she lives in. She examines the wreckage, saves someone with CPR, and finds the Batsuit. She immediately has plans for what she’s going to do with that newfound power, and she wastes no time getting after it. We learn pretty much everything about Ryan Wilder—through flashbacks, google searches, and the obligatory CW superhero monologue. Ryan’s birth mom died in childbirth and her dad wasn’t around. She was raised in the system, where she got into trouble, until she was adopted, and turned her life around. She and her mom moved to a nice(r) apartment, but squatters attacked them, and her mom died. Later, she was framed and convicted for drug possession with intent and incarcerated for 18 months. She can’t find work because of her record and she can’t pay her court fees because she can’t find a job, and she lives in a van.

*deep, heavy, negro spiritual sigh* This is where I digress …

Ryan Wilder is damn near a full board on the trauma bingo, and doesn’t even need the free space. My excitement when Javicia’s Leslie was cast was immediately dampened by my concern with how she would be introduced to the audience. The character bio they attached to the announcement did not assuage my fear that the Black, queer superhero would be reduced to overcoming a tough childhood or a “troubled” past. It felt inevitable, yet I was disappointed to be right. Still, I reserved judgement til I could see for myself how those choices shape the character.

Bruce Wayne and Kate Kane are rich, privileged, white folks whose problems will never threaten their comfort or security. Ryan Wilder comes from poverty and violence, and is an extreme departure from her vigilante counterparts. On the one hand, it feels more apt for someone to wear the suit who has lived in the Gotham that the Waynes And Kanes of the world can ignore from their penthouses. On the other, Black women can have trust funds, too.

All I’m saying is, choices were made. And this episode leans into the worst of those choices, when we flash back to the death of Ryan’s adoptive mom multiple times throughout. It isn’t the most violent death, and it is an effective tool for telling this particular story. We can immediately empathize with Ryan because we know what she’s been through and what she’s lost, but there are ways to motivate her that don’t require her trauma being played on a loop in her own head and on our screens. But I won’t dwell on this if the show won’t—and I hope they won’t—but writers need to examine why they assign certain attributes to characters when they are portrayed by certain people. Is all I’m saying.

Ryan suits up and seeks out leads on the people responsible for her mother’s murder, which just so happens to be the Wonderland gang, and Alice. This opens the door for an exciting rivalry, with both parties bringing an entirely different energy. Alice was a cute villain but her connection to Kate meant that there was a limit to how far she would go. She had many opportunities to kill her sister, and didn’t, so her threats became somewhat hollow even though she did a lot of other damage. This season, though, Kate is gone and Alice has neither her, nor Mouse, to keep her grounded. Alice unbound could be very fun, and with the way her story intersects with Ryan’s, there’s a lot of potential for conflict and some really great showdowns. Bring in Safiyah, who also has Julia Pennyworth on her shit list, and it’s a regular ruckus.

How Batwoman Season 2’s Batsuit Improves on the Original

By Kayti Burt

Batwoman Season 2 Casts Victor Zsasz

By Jim Dandy

What I enjoy most about this episode is how seamlessly Ryan is pulled into the existing narrative, and how comfortable Leslie looks in the role. Leslie doesn’t feel like a replacement; she feels like a correction. Ryan is more fun to watch, and has a bit more chemistry with Mary and Luke. She’s also queer and Sophie is out of the closet, and I’d be very happy to see a healthy Black queer couple, though shipping is not the point. I’m already more invested in Ryan than I ever was with Kate. That will not be the universal experience, but Julia Pennyworth is still there if you need badass sapphic white girl representation.

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Ryan wants justice and she, for the first time, has the power to obtain some version of it. But she’s a hero, or will be, and ultimately decides that the suit and what it represents is bigger than her and her personal vendettas. She’s someone worth rooting for, and I am ready to see what she has to offer. There is so much potential for compelling storytelling, and I am hesitant but hopeful that this season of Batwoman will deliver.

The post Batwoman Season 2 Episode 1 Review: What Happened to Kate Kane? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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missjennmurray · 5 years

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The Wylde Interview: Jenn Murray

NORTHERN IRISH ACTRESS JENN MURRAY IS AMASSING AN EXTRAORDINARILY VARIED BACK CATALOGUE OF WORK; FROM HER DEEPLY DISTURBING BREAKOUT MOVIE DOROTHY MILLS (2008) – PLAYING THE EPONYMOUS, DISTURBED TEEN – TO LIGHT COMEDY, IN THE DELIGHTFUL JANE AUSTEN FLICK LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP (2016), AND ON TO HER TURN AS THE SHY CHASTITY BAREBONE IN FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM (2016). ADDING TO THESE ROLES, SHE’S IN THIS MONTH’S MEGA-RELEASE MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL, PLAYING ALONGSIDE MICHELLE PFEIFFER, AND WE MANAGED TO STOP THIS MERCURIAL PERFORMER FOR 5 MINUTES, FOR A WYLDE CHAT-AND-SHOOT…

Interview by David Newton / Photography by Etienne Gilfillan

Wylde: Could you briefly outline your character in the upcoming Maleficent: Mistress of Evil movie? What do you most like about her?

Jenn Murray: My character is called Gerda and she is Queen Ingrith’s right hand woman and devoted servant. Gerda is skilful in weaponry and other perhaps more sinister tools. What I most liked about Gerda was her focus, she was incapable of being distracted. She had no interest in being seen in a spotlight. She worked hard without seeking reward.

You exploded onto the acting world with your debut performance in the deeply disturbing movie Dorothy Mills… was that a difficult role to take on so early in your career?

I find the difficulties in a career as an actor are not the roles specifically but how you maintain your confidence and creative satisfaction when you are unemployed. Dorothy Mills was a gift of a role. I had an amazing scene partner in Carice van Houten and everyday was pure joy. Even though it was my first job, I was aware of how lucky I was to land such a complex role and I savoured it. They bleached the crown of my hair every Friday night. Note to twenty-one year old self: say no to a weekly bleach! It was a strange movie, unsettling and very atmospheric. I am so proud to be a part of it.

I hear from our photographer Etienne that you’re not a fan of musicals? Why not? I love them!

Yes, I appreciate the unbelievable talent and discipline that goes into them but it’s just not really my bag, so to speak. I do think Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago is utterly magical; the performance is primal and that is thrilling to watch.

If you could move eventually into directing, what sort of movie would be your debut film?

My focus would lean towards writing and producing, rather than directing. To be a director is such a massive undertaking, I don’t think I would want that responsibility. The films I want to make are the films I want to see. Manchester By The Sea, Last Of The Mohicans, When Harry Met Sally, Thelma and Louise are all films I adore. The land plays a role, whether it is autumn in New York City, or the dusty roads around the Grand Canyon. I like intimate, urgent conversations amidst nature. I like characters who show fortitude and resilience against circumstance or themselves. My aspiration would be to tell stories that make an individual watching feel expansive and hopeful.

And who would you cast in it? (In other words, who are your favourite actors right now?)

I love actors! There are so many I admire, it would be hard to choose. I like an actor who hand themselves over to the spectator without vanity. In a dream scenario I would like to work with John Hawkes, Kyle Chandler, Marion Cotillard, Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Debicki and Christopher Walken.

What do you most fear?

I fear rodents. When I lived in London, one climbed up through the sink drain and scuttled along my jars of seasonings, smoked paprika, red pepper flakes, garlic salt. I silently and swiftly packed a bag and went immediately to a friend’s house. I did not resume normal breathing for several hours. It was the size of a kitten.

Stage or screen: you are extremely adept at both, but do you lean towards either one in particular?

I love both. I love acting, you see, so whichever way it unfolds, I am game! I feel particularly exhilarated by a live audience; they give you energy and you give yourself. It feels sacred. Lately, it can feel if something is not documented by a photograph or a video, it has less meaning. But I think the moments that are present and private in an art form are essential for the human spirit. I saw Adam Driver in Burn This recently and I already know I will never forget that performance. In film, I love how the camera can see what you are thinking. I like the collaboration and the early mornings. I like the pocket of silence when the camera rolls and the First AD yells “Action!” and you go searching with your scene partner. I have been so fortunate to work with real masters of their craft. Colleen Atwood, the costume designer on Fantastic Beasts and Ellen Mirojnick, the costume designer on Maleficent, are two women that I am so inspired by. They take you in, they think of the story, they pick up a material, a colour and they create an epic painting. When I have a costume designed by one of them, I feel I have an extra layer of confidence around me to take a leap with the character.

I believe you have a fondness for 1980’s movies; which ones, and why?

I do! The fondness is for so many reasons. Firstly when I was a child, my older brother and sister were watching these movies and so, if I was lucky, I could sit with them and watch for fifteen minutes before I had to go to bed. I love Back To The Future and The Breakfast Club, Alien and Ghostbusters, Working Girl! I liked the structure back then, when a camera would sit on two actors for pages of dialogue with the confidence that the audience would not lose interest. Sigourney Weaver played characters who were smart and fun and aspirational, yet attainable. Also in the Eighties there was less interest in celebrity culture and so you were an actor because you wanted to act, not because you wanted to be famous. There was less focus on pleasing a mass audience and more dedication to telling a story that was authentic.

You look amazing in the clothes we got you to wear for our shoot; there’s a moody, character-actress quality to the pictures. What do you gravitate towards, fashion-wise?

I like Ralph Lauren and Carolina Herrera, both fans of the classic white shirt! I like clothes that make you look comfortable and chic. I gravitate towards someone who has a signature look that is timeless. I think Keanu Reeves always looks great in his black suits and desert boots and Sofia Coppola in her tailored suits and silk dresses. I adore silk scarves. The production team of Maleficent had a black silk scarf made for me, and I was delighted. I have a weakness for a great leather jacket. I found this 1950’s brown leather baseball jacket at a market in Los Angeles. I definitely did not need it but I couldn’t resist.

Finally (our favourite question!): what strange dreams have you had recently?

I dreamt Jack Nicholson was cooking me dinner in an attic the other night. He had a mini fridge and he pulled out mince meat, fresh figs and a can of coke!

#interview #press #wylde #jenn murray #Irish Actress

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lucisfavoritedemon · 6 years

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Double Life: Part 3

Title: Double Life

Pairing: Eventual Jensen x Reader

Summary: You are a YouTuber who also happens to be an actor. You do YouTube when acting jobs seem to go scarce. One day you get a call from your manager saying he has found something that peaks your interest. What happens when you meet your co-star and your characters love interest? Will you keep it professional or will you let your feelings get to you?

Warnings: Embarrassed!Jensen, sad!Jensen, negative thoughts, some fluff

Square Filled: Slow Burn

Word Count: 1226

A/N: This is the second part to the Slow burn square for @spnfluffbingo

Double Life Masterlist

Jensen’s POV:

First day of filming, so excited for Y/N to join the cast this season. She is super talented, and she is really nice. I can’t help how I just feel complete when she’s around. I just hope Jared doesn’t turn her into his next prank wars victim, but also something tells me that she could handle him and put Jared in his place.

I saw her standing off to the side just watching us do the first scene. She looked stunned and amazed at how fast and easily we transformed into these characters. It was the coolest thing to see her reaction. Though, she didn’t stick around for long after we started, but she stayed long enough for me to get a little flustered.

~*~

After filming a few scenes we were given a break to get ready for the afternoon. That meant lunch, costume changes, and touch up on hair and makeup. I was super excited and nervous for the afternoon filming because now Y/N was joining in. I just don’t want to make a fool of myself in front of her. That would be super embarrassing.

“Hey, you excited for Dean to meet his love interest?” Jared came up and asked.

“Yeah, I actually am. I mean maybe if it were someone else I would be hesitant, but Y/N is super talented and amazing, and she just seems so right for the roll.”

“Wow sounds like someone might have a little crush on his co star,”Jared teased.

“I mean if I did could you blame me?”

“Well personally I don’t think she is all that pretty, but that’s because I already found the most beautiful girl in the world.”

“That is true. I just wish I could find someone I could talk about the way you talk about Gen. I think, if Y/N was interested, we would last for a while, but I mean, it’s hard to make relationships work in our profession.”

“Hey look on the brightside she could turn out to be everything you want and more. You just never know until you try.” Jared patted my back before walking away to costumes.

He was right though I could never know how things would work out until I tried. I just can’t help but think about the negative because it’s the first thing my mind goes to. What if she isn’t into me like that? What if she actually already has a man she loves in her life?

I kept thinking about all these different scenarios in my head all the way up until I saw her walking up to set. I couldn’t help but smile and wave, and I honestly can’t believe what came out of my mouth next: “There’s the newby. You ready to shoot your first scene?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” She just smiled and stood there looking at me for a while and I couldn’t help but get this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not a bad feeling, but a warm and fuzzy feeling.

~*~

After filming for the day I was gonna go ask Y/N if she wanted to join Jared and I for a movie night, but when I found her she looked at her phone smiling and took off. I just let her go because I just knew that she was taken. Oh well it never works out for people like us anyways, so maybe it’s for the best. I just couldn’t help but have this sinking feeling in me.

This was a new thing for me and I don’t know how to handle it. I just can’t help but want to kick myself for not asking. Now I’ll never really know what could have been.

~*~

“Come on dude you don’t know that. She could have had something waiting for her at her apartment. You can’t just jump to conclusions like that. You have to look at the positive.”

“You had to be there, this smile wasn’t a ‘yay I just got the thing that I ordered, delivered to my house.’ This was a smile of ‘oh my gosh I need to see them now.’”

“Dude call her and ask if she wants to join us if not tonight, tomorrow. I know she won’t truly say no to you.”

“Fine, but if she says no I’m gonna say I told you so.” I said before grabbing my phone and calling her.

It rang twice before a cheery voice answered, “hey Jensen!”

“Hey Y/N, I was wondering if you wanted to join Jared and I for a movie night? We would order pizza and kind of get to know each other a little bit.” I said trying to sound upbeat.

“That sounds awesome, but I am actually visiting an old friend.” I knew it. “Could I get a rain check though?” That was surprising I thought she would definitely say no. At this point I turn to Jared and start talking.

“Yeah of course maybe we could all hang out tomorrow since we don't have any filming to do?”

“Yeah sounds like a plan just let me know where and we could meet up or something.” I couldn’t believe my luck.

“Sounds like a plan then. See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.”

I was super excited to see her tomorrow even though Jared was going to be there, but maybe things will work out in the end. I hope.

~*~

Jared and I had Y/N text us the address of her friend since she said she stayed there for the night. When Y/N came out there was a girl with her, they hugged and then she got in the van.

“I’m glad you invited me to join you guys. Jess thinks that it’ll be good for me. I’m going through a lot. I agree it could be good. Plus, I want to get to know you guys a little bit better.”

“Yeah, we also want to get to know you a little bit more as well.” Jared said smiling at her.

“Yeah, I agree,” I said not thinking, probably embarrassing myself.

We pulled up to a little nice restaurant and I thought I would joke around not only to make her feel like one of us, but to make me feel a little less nervous.

“M’lady,” I said extending my hand to help her out of the van.

“Why thank you kind sir,” she said with an accent, and she put her hand in my.

I felt a spark when she touched my hand, a feeling I’ve never felt before. I had to ask Jared if this is how he felt with Gen, but in a way that Y/N would never know. So I did what was best and texted him, even though he was right there: “Hey the first time you and Gen ever touched hands, did you feel a spark.”

“That’s called getting shocked dude.”

“No like a tingle from even slight contact?”

“Yeah, the first time we ever filmed a scene together, she touched my arm and I instantly felt energy flow from her hand all the way up my arm. It was the first time I realized I liked her.”

“That’s what just happened to me when Y/N put her hand in mine. Dude, I think I’m in love.”

Tags:

@katymacsupernatural @our-jensen-ackles-love @ericaprice2008 @canadianspnhunter @mamaredd123 @sea040561 @anotherwaywardsister @impala-dreamer @impalaimagining @winchesterprincessbride @muchamusedaboutnothing @msimpala67 @atc74 @snffbeebee @torn-and-frayed @masksandtruths @nanie5 @christiancoma-111

#jesen ackles #jensen x reader #spnfluffbingo #youtube #actrees #actor

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ayellowbirds · 6 years

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Keshet Rewatches All of Scooby-Doo, Pt. 23: “A Tiki Scare is No Fair"

("Scooby-Doo, Where Are You", Season 2 Episode 6. Original Airdate: 10/17/1970)

AKA, "Adventures In Culturally Insensitive Tourism"

This is the sole episode of Season 2 of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! that has no musical chase segment, and the episode feels like it really drags in comparison. The content doesn’t help much. Read this recap bearing in mind that i’m an American of mostly Ashkenazic ancestry, and so i was raised with a lot of white privilege. If i make any missteps in criticizing the episode’s handling of Hawaiian culture, let me know.

The scene opens to soothing music with an evening view on an active volcano, the music transitioning into Aloha Oe as the view transitions down to a Hawaiian village where Shaggy, Scooby, and one “John Simms” are enjoying a luau. The scene is presented in the same terms Shaggy and Scooby are experiencing it: tourism aimed at a mostly white audience. Although there’s faux-conversational background noise, none of the locals are heard to speak—not to the gang, not to one another, and barely even when the episode’s villain appears. Only two Hawaiian character gets any lines, and it’s near the very end of the episode.

Shaggy’s first line sums up the attitudes informing this scenario.

After its illegal annexation as a US territory to appease the interests of white settlers, Hawaii had been a US state for barely more than a decade before this episode aired. American tourist culture—that is, white American ideas about what Pacific culture is like, filtered through the experience of tourism and material indulgence.

Mr. Simms snaps a photo of Shaggy stuffing his face, mentioning that it’ll be great for his newspaper, and Shaggy shares his gratitude for Simms taking the gang on a tour. The episode is kind of vague as to whose dollar funded the trip; if Simms brought the gang, his reasons are never brought up, and it seems more likely they arrived by other means and that the arrangement with Simms is about being shown the sights.

In fact, Shaggy mentions plans for the following day: visiting the “ancient village of a lost tribe”, a plan the rest of the gang came up with that isn’t part of the tour Simms is conducting.

Simms warns Shaggy and Scooby that the village is haunted, and advises them to just stick to the tour and enjoy themselves.

Then the drums start.

A poorly-animated man slides in from offscreen, stammering, “ghost drums!”

A trio of drums decorated with faces throb and pulse alone on the sand like abandoned personal massage wands, and ominous clouds move in around the volcano. The light over the whole scene turns red, and in an explosion of smoke, a masked figure appears.

I found it odd that, when mentioning this scene later on, Shaggy insists that Simms was present when this “witch doctor” appears, but he’s actually vanished when the villain shows up to declare that everyone present is “on the forbidden ground of Mano Tiki Tia!”

Now, “tiki” is a word indelibly merged with the concept of island culture in the American consciousness, most egregiously in the form of gimmicky lounge/bar drinks served in cups poorly imitating traditional carvings. It’s from a Maori word, meaning “figurine”, and as far as i’m aware, doesn’t actually mean anything in Hawaiian (though they are related languages, so maybe there’s a cognate i’m unfamiliar with). “Mano” could be any of several words depending on how you accent the vowels when writing it in English; it could mean “shark”, a source of water, or “a vast number of things”.

It’s more likely that Joe Ruby and Ken Spears just made it up to sound “Hawaiian”.

The costumed villain (who, unsurprisingly, will turn out to be a white man) vanishes, and the villagers, Shaggy, and Scooby panic. Scooby and Shaggy are separated in the confusion, and Shaggy finds himself alone.

The action cuts to the Pineapple Parlor, where Fred and Daphne dance to a jukebox while Velma kvetches about Shaggy and Scooby’s idea of fun. Remember what I was saying about the indulgent American tourist culture? The episode began with luau number 48.

Shaggy arrives in a panic, knocking down the door and surfing it across the floor to tell the others what happened in sentence fragments that don’t really communicate anything. “Shaggy, get ahold of yourself,” Fred advises.

The gang take the Mystery Machine back to the site of the luau, Shaggy and Velma arguing about “scientific facts” versus the things Shaggy saw with his own gullible eyes. As the gang arrive, Velma catches sight of an old man sitting by a statue.

The gang get out of the van, and Velma suggests asking him, but to her surprise, he’s vanished before the others could see him. Just as quickly, a “ghost drum” appears, bouncing towards them, and circling the Mystery Machine as they gang try to hide... only to flip over and reveal that Scooby was hiding underneath it.

The gang want to find Mr. Simms, but Shaggy is reluctant, until the incentive of another luau is dangled before him. I really need to affirm that the tourist-centric concept of the luau is inauthentic, and stands as a symbol of the whole repackaging, rebranding, and sale of Hawaiian and broader Polynesian culture to white people. Shaggy’s appetite for luaus goes well beyond his usual gluttony and makes him into a living avatar of American imperialism, here motivated to save lives only by the prospect of more parties.

While searching, the gang find a newspaper with articles by Simms. They can tell this because the page Velma is reading is shown to have the name John Simms written across the entire top of the page, less of a credit and more of a headline or title for the paper itself. It also has the worst typeface choice ever made for a newspaper.

The gang want to investigate further, intending to follow the tracks into the “jungle” (guay de mi, am i glad that word is vanishing from the English lexicon), and Scooby needs convincing to use his nose to follow the scent.

This is probably the single most uncomfortable image of Fred Jones that exists, and i’m including things that can only be described with the words “rule 34″ in that.

Naturally, Shaggy falls for the temptation, and scarfs down the Snack and gets to sniffing on all fours. Scooby follows suit, reluctantly, and we get another glimpse of the old man, watching from the bushes. The gang catch sight of him and flip out, and he laughs to himself as they flee.

Seriously, though, how strong is Velma Dinkley? Get this girl into some weightlifting competitions. This particular formation hooks Shaggy and Scooby upside-down on a tree branch opposite some similarly-posed bats, evidently drawn by someone who couldn’t be zoinksed to look it up and learn that there’s only one species of bat native to Hawaii. The boys flee from the menacing red-eyed, red-eared grey-black bats and—we get another transitional wipe! Are they here to stay?

When the gang literally run into each other again, they wind up at the feet of a giant statue, which Velma identifies as the figure of Mano Tiki Tia from the newspaper article. They’re in the “haunted” village, strewn with human skulls and ominously sharp carvings. As the gang look around, the giant statue rotates at its base, and its eyes open to watch them.

Somehow, they don’t notice this.

They do notice the witch doctor, who chases them in the direction of a large building that is evidently still seeing use, complete with a rotating trick wall. Shaggy and Scooby are left on the outside, as a snorting shadow—very clearly a boar—approaches, and Shaggy is forced to heft a “club” in self-defense.

...what? The boar jumps out of the underbrush, followed by two piglets, bowling Shaggy over. Meanwhile, Velma drops through a trap door, and winds up in a cavernous dungeon where she spots Mr. Simm’s horribly tacky hat. She hides, just as the Witch Doctor enters, but her haypile hiding place triggers a sneeze and she has to run.

The boys recover at the feet of the statue, where Shaggy for some reason has the utter gall to ask if Scooby is really afraid of ghosts. As Scooby gives the obvious, honest answer, a voice booms:

“MANO.... TIKI... TIA!”

Shaggy looks up to see where it came from.

Mano Tiki Tia is the biggest “monster” the gang face by far, and unless i’m misremembering things, will hold onto that status for a good long while.

He’s also really obviously mechanical, and as he gives chase, the camera lets the viewer plainly see the creaking wheels moving his feet over the ground. Hiding from him leads the boys to reunite with Velma, and the trio flee the Witch Doctor into a nearby building where they attempt to barricade the door, forming a chain to pass furniture across the room.

I’m pretty sure this is the first time we see this particular gag in Scooby-Doo, though it’s going to repeat plenty of times in the future.

A brief glimpse of Fred and Daphne’s wanderings reveals another sighting of the old man, and the scene cuts back to the chase.

You know, usually the disguises involve them throwing something else on over their clothes. This is one of the most obvious times that they would have needed to strip and throw on something else, and i really feel like that’s time that would be better spent running.

Even more astonishingly, this disguise works, and the Witch Doctor is totally fooled as “Tarzan” directs him towards “boy, girl, and dog”.

Meanwhile, Fred and Velma find a genuine clue:

A table half-covered with pearls and oyster shells. Another transitional wipe later, we get one of the few exchanges that suggest the gang have a sense of real danger, as Shaggy complains “my feet are killing me,” and Velma responds:

“It’s a good thing we slipped the Witch Doctor, or that wasn’t all that would be getting killed.”

Not that the Witch Doctor ever shows any signs of being armed or in any way capable of hurting the gang, but... wow.

A moment later, Scooby spots a small wrecked airplane. It looks like it’s overgrown with vines—plastic, Velma notes—and there’s a laughing skeleton at the controls... manipulated by a tripwire Shaggy sets off, linked to a tape recorder hidden under a nearby shrub.

Emboldened by the realization that it’s a fake, Shaggy uses the skeleton for some prop comedy. “Hey skinny, do you know why the skeleton went to the library? To bone up on a few things!”

Shaggy laughs at his own joke, and then the skeleton, which is no longer connected to the tripwire and tape recorder, starts laughing as well. I’ll save you some wondering before the end: this sequence gets no explanation whatsoever as part of the villain’s scheme, and is not referenced after it concludes. We never find out how the fake plane crash plays into things, or what caused the skeleton to laugh again.

The trio book it (that’s another library joke), and run into Fred and Daphne. The transitional wipes see heavier use as the gang continue to investigate, chasing the old man into an underwater cavern that leads back into the haunted village, and another encounter with the Witch Doctor and Mano Tiki Tia.

The Witch Doctor alternates between ominous declarations in a faux-aged falsetto, and guttural, animalistic growling, both provided by the diverse talents of the late John Stephenson, who also lends his voice to Mano Tiki Tia. The only reason i don’t complain about this casting (the many flaws aside, the showrunners had already demonstrated that they understood the idea of casting nonwhite characters with appropriate voice actors, and this was back in the dang seventies) is that both are eventually revealed to be white dudes.

Trapped between a rock and a nutcase, the gang flee into some nearby huts. The Mano Tiki Tia statue demonstrates some decent dexterity and considerable strength, lifting up the entire small houses from the ground to look for the gang as if it were a shell game. The kids, of course, are not hidden under any of the huts, but are instead clinging desperately to the rafters of one.

The chase sequence is one of the few in which the gang seem to face a real, immediate threat of harm if caught, with Mano Tiki Tia’s fists slamming pitfalls into the ground. The contrast between the desperate nature of the chase and the many gags involving Scooby and Shaggy responding inappropriately actually make the whole scene work better, as the jokes break the tension of the action and the chase makes the jokes seem fresh rather than a constant stream. Even the canned laughter can’t quite spoil it.

Eventually, Shaggy and Scooby work together to improvise a disguise that actually scares off the Witch Doctor, shambling out of the brush as a kind of “leaf monster”. Fred’s inspired to frighten the villain even more, and formulates a trap that involves a “trick amusement park mirror from the Mystery Machine” (the what and why do they have that?) being placed to frighten the Witch Doctor right into a concealed pit.

Once again, Shaggy and Scooby foul things up in a way that catches the villain anyway, winding up on top of Mano Tiki Tia and blinding the statue so that its attempts to snag them capture its master, instead.

The statue crashes, and Fred unmasks the Witch Doctor:

Mister John Simms?

Somewhat thankfully, the horribly racist caricature villain turns out to be white American in disguise. And the statue of Mano Tiki Tia?

How many parade floats you know that can punch holes in the ground, Velma?

Fred and Velma conclude that Simms set up the whole thing to scare villagers and tourists away so he could poach the lucrative oyster beds for pearls. “Right, Mr. Simms?”

Jinkies, not even a “meddling kids”?

As fir the old man, he appears and reveals himself as...

Um, never mind what i said about appropriate voice casting. Lt. Tomoro is unmistakably Casey Kasem putting on his more authoritative voice, sounding almost exactly like his performance as the heroic but paranoid Cliffjumper in the Transformers cartoons.

Tomoro, like Inspector Lu before him, reveals that he’d been on this case “for a long time”, and that the gang have solved the case for him—so he treats them to their final day of vacation in Hawaii.

The gang enjoy some more dancing, Scooby steals Shaggy’s poi, and the episode ends with the visiting white teenagers and their dog having saved the day by interfering in an ongoing investigation where the locals failed to accomplish anything.

What a great message. I’d like to say the franchise gets better about this kind of thing, but, well, it’s going to be up and down for a while.

That said, there’s only two more episodes of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! to go... maybe we’ll see if in the New Scooby-Doo Movies?

(like what i’m doing here? It’s not what pays the bills, so i’d really appreciate it if you could send me a bit at my paypal.me or via my ko-fi. Click here to see more entries in this series of posts, or here to go in chronological order)

#scooby doo #KRAOSD

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artificialqueens · 6 years

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sinking man (dela centric) - trashqueens

a/n: [AS3 SPOILERS] I have no idea what this is. at this point I am 100% just projecting, I’m really sad about dela leaving and also just General Depression and writing is a good way to take care of my mental health, apparently. also disclaimer, I absolutely love morgan and all (okay, most) of the other queens and I’m really not trying to throw shade here or anything. all the girls deserve our utmost respect for managing to do whatever it is they do.

also I’m really interested in a rpdr/hp crossover so I really want to write that next.

I want to die.

Depression is a funny thing. It hits you when you least expect it, it comes and goes in waves, it knocks at your door and enters without needing a key. It doesn’t care whether or not you’re busy or happy or sad or stressed. It makes itself comfortable at home and when it’s here to stay, there’s no getting rid of it.

I don’t deserve to be here.

Dela has a special place in Ben’s heart. Dela’s the happy one, Dela’s everything that Ben wants to be and more. Dela’s far from perfect, and he knows it, but neither is he, and he wants that positivity in his life always. He wants to put on a costume and shine brighter than the sun. He wants to live.

I can’t go on like this.

It’s a bit like karma, a small part of him thinks. He accused Bianca of sailing her way through season six, and now he knows what it’s like to be at the top and not be allowed to slip in the slightest. He’s trying his best, because he can’t accept anything less from himself. He needs Dela to give her all, but each time she turns it out, she’s only expected to keep it up.

It’s more than he can handle.

Not good enough. Never good enough.

“You’re a little lackluster this week.”

“You need to be at a hundred and twenty percent.”

“You’re letting it get to you. Move on.”

I don’t know how. I can’t stop this.

Morgan’s face keeps appearing in his mind. He imagines her cutting words and scathing remarks, and it’s a scenario that he knows will be burned into his memory forever. He never wanted any part of this, he just wanted to share his art with the rest of the world and let Dela take over. And when even Dela’s unsure, Ben’s practically quaking. He’s absolutely terrified, he hates all conflict and confrontation - it’s just not his style at all, and he can’t deal with the resounding voices in his head -

“You understand what a hypocrite is, right?” You’re a bitch and everyone wants you gone. Morgan thinks you’re a cunt, Trixie probably doesn’t even like you, Shangela hates you. Coward.

Let me die.

Dela’s fading quickly, and he knows it. Ben’s back to his depressing thoughts. It’s a cold, dark, sea, and he doesn’t know how to make it go away. Goth kitty emerges out of nowhere, and even then the negativity is no solace. There’s no catharsis from letting it all out.

You’re stupid, this is stupid, get over it already. Christ, you’re a useless piece of shit.

Talking to Morgan resolves the conflict, eases the tension. But it’s not magically all-fixing. He can’t stop thinking about what the rest of the girls actually think of him, actually see him as. He’s scared and depressed and a little lonely. He’s surrounded by amazing, talented queens and he has no idea where he stands.

Who am I, honestly, and what the fuck am I doing?

It makes no sense to him.

Everything’s wrong, it’s so wrong and I can’t deal with this. I’m going to come apart any moment and it’s going to be a shitshow and everyone’s going to see what a fucking mess I really am.

As they should. You’re disgusting. You don’t deserve to be here.

I should just eliminate myself.

When the thought first comes to him, it almost feels like his prayers have been answered. It’s a solution he’s been waiting for, and while he’s feeling conflicted about the fact that it has to end this way, he’s not mad about it. It’s a relief, now that he knows what he has to do.

He chooses Morgan to stay. He feels like he owes it to her, a little bit, and he’s glad to give her another chance. He hopes she makes good use of it.

When the time comes for him to pull out the black lipstick, he doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. It’s a strange mix of emotions and he’s - he feels resigned, in ways. It’s the only logical answer, and he knows it’s time for him to go. He hears the gasps, feels the shock, all eyes on him. He hugs the girls and tells them they’re all all-stars.

I’m coming home.

The way back home is not easy. His mind glazes over for those last few moments leaving the workroom. He’s not thinking, he’s just mindlessly packing and watching the other eliminated queens do the same. He’s lost.

I’m a winner. It doesn’t matter. I’m a winner.

It’s only when he’s in the van on the drive back to Seattle, all alone, that it finally hits him, and suddenly the tears won’t stop. He’s not even sure why, but he cries and cries and hits his fists against the dashboard until his hands hurt. No one’s around to witness it, he doesn’t know where Dela’s gone, and it’ll be hours before he’s home.

I’ve given up the crown. I’ve proven that I’m not strong enough to stay on. I’m going home.

Everything within him aches, in every sense. His mind’s exhausted from running non-stop all week, his eyes sore, and he can feel the weariness in his bones. He wants to sleep and never wake up.

I’m so tired.

When he gets home, he abandons all his luggage at the door, texts Jinkx to tell her he’s back, and then promptly collapses on his bed. He expected to pass out instantly, but instead spends hours lying there in a fit of sleeplessness. He’s home, he’s finally home, and it’s not at all the way he expected it would be.

He imagines what would have happened had he stayed, he doesn’t think about who he would have eliminated, he thinks about the rest of the remaining girls. He thinks about his fans and their plausible reaction - whether they’d be upset or angry or just not care at all. It’s too late for anything to be done, either way, and he knows it - but the craziness in his head stays.

He thinks and thinks and it’s all too much. Exhaustion finally kicks in in the early hours of the morning. One last thought comes to him in the bare moments before slumber, before he goes out. It keeps him feeling a little safe, a little warm, and a little less afraid.

Life goes on.

He falls asleep.

#trashqueens #as3 spoilers #tw mental illness #tw depression #angst #bendelacreme #rpdr fanfiction #submission #canon compliant #as3 #on set fic

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shark-myths · 6 years

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Folie A Deux

I promised to write FAD meta like, forever ago. It took longer than I planned. Here it is, at last.

Folie is anthemic, artistic; it’s cynicism and heartbreak all layered up in failing hope. It’s Pete saying goodbye to his band and embarking on a new life as a husband and a father. It’s Patrick finding his confidence as a showman just in time for it to turn to ash on his tongue and prompt him to remake himself utterly. It’s Joe finally feeling like he has a role in FOB and creative ownership of his own band. It’s Andy, um, drumming. Super well. Without any particular emotional interpretation on my part because Andy’s, you know, pretty content to just play with his friends.

Without further blathering, allow me to present, at long last: a rambling, tear-filled, official Tryst Theory ™ interpretation of FOB’s fourth-and-almost-final studio album.

I am always struck most by the quality of obstruction in the albums produced during the Commercial Success/’Sell Out’ era. Pete begins obscuring himself for the first time during Infinity on High and especially Folie A Deux: the lyrics become increasingly senseless, more about cleverness and sound that saying things plainly. But he’s so honest during this era too. He tells us exactly what it feels like to be him, to be so pulled apart and scrutinized and sad, to be sick on his own hope. To be sick and fuzzy, made of stuffing, and far away on way-too-many anxiety meds. We get lines that don’t make much sense on the surface, like ‘I’m not a chance, put a heat wave in your pants,’ and we get the self-aware aggression of bops like I Don’t Care.

In the previous era, Pete didn’t really know what it meant, yet—being Pete Wentz. Being so public. Being the face of the band, being the bad guy and the heel. What it would cost. Now he understands that anything he touches, or looks at, or says at loud is going to change. Once he does it, says it, thinks it, feels it, it’s out of his control. It’s owned by someone else. Even his private body, his private phone. Even his decision to defend his friend from an aggressive bouncer onstage. The brand of phone he carries, the girls he texts, who he stands next to in photos, the cities where he plays shows and the cities he does not. Now he understands that his life is not his, but something the public will use to hurt him if we get bored. This is drugstore cowboy Pete. This is a Pete grown so heavy under the weight of his own misery and bullshit that he can barely go on. This is a Pete preparing to say goodbye.

Which is a long way of saying: Folie A Deux fucks me up.

A little history (sourced heavily from Wikipedia):

The album was recorded from July-September 2008, beginning two months after Pete and Ashlee were married, and released in December 2008, shortly after Bronx was born. They started recording ahead of schedule, without telling the label, and deliberately limited their studio time. They wanted to recapture what they had felt during Grave, when they were racing against their drained back accounts to get the album set down. They wanted that simplicity and rawness, the feeling of being mixed-up kids half living out of a van and making music that felt vibrant and essential. Patrick told AP, “There was something really interesting about that creative process when we were starting out. The more time you have, the more potential you have for excess.” (He thought he dominated Infinity and wanted to pare himself back, reign himself in, for Folir.) They tried to emulate the process and feeling of Grave as much as possible: “first-thought, best-thought.” Joe pushed to be included more in collaboration and felt like he “owned the songs a lot more. It made me really excited about contributing to Fall Out Boy and made me find my role in the band.” Pete made an effort (this is him making an effort, okay) to keep his personal life more sequestered from the writing and use more metaphor and the conceit characters speaking lines, more like a stage musical. And, perhaps true to the feeling of Grave, Pete and Patrick fought painfully and violently over the record. It was personal and artistic for everyone. They felt it was their best work.

Fans tore them apart, of course. Booing anytime they played anything off the new record. The album undersold and public reception did not match the glowing critical reviews. They tried to say something important, to talk about society and convey real messages in their music. They were publicly rebuffed. Joe told Rolling Stone, “Some of us were miserable on stage. Others were just drunk.” The reception, the struggle, cemented what Pete had already decided to do: leave the band.

(Let’s not talk about the last song of what he thought would be their last show ever during which, instead of playing Saturday with his best friends and his me-and-Pat, he had the man who named the band in the first place shave off his signature Pete Wentz hair in a symbolic ritual of fucking morning, let’s not let’s not)

(but in case you want to)

A little cover art:

I just want you to know that Pete Wentz has the original painting of that cover in his home. IN CASE YOU THINK THAT’S RELEVANT.

This image. With Pete’s furry history. With the costumes and feeling like a zoo animal and playing the role of the heel, with the way he said in the Folie Making Of video that being perceived in media is “like wearing a costume, you’re not who you are.” With his interest especially in bears, the talk of stitches and stuffing and seams, with the Lullabye track and ‘honey is for bees silly bear’ (and Black Cards’ ‘you’re my best friend, honeycomb head’) and the whole Winnie the Pooh vibe. With the devoted companionship and singular love exhibited by Winnie the Pooh and the way he turns back into inert, lifeless stuffing when you grow too old and you forget what he really is and see him as just a toy, empty and pliable, and the way only childhood wonder and innocence can return him to life. How the cover has not just one person on it, but a bear-boy plus one: a madness shared by two. A real bear, and someone who’s just pretending, or just trying to be. What a match, what a catch.

WHAT A PETERICK MASTERPIECE THIS FUCKING ALBUM IS

The liner notes are empty, by the way. For the physical CD. The liner notes are just pictures and names of band members, then production information and thanks to ‘fans, friends, and loves.’ Nothing else. No lyrics. No record. If that’s not foreshadowing—

And now said masterpiece itself:

1. Disloyal Order of the Water Buffaloes

Okay, so let’s take a step back and imagine for a second the decision-making process that went into writing a magnum fucking opus Peterick anthem to open the album with. Are we all on the same page here? WHAT THE FUCK, were they TRYING to kill me

This album is the fucking Holy Grail of the drug use = Patrick metaphor, and we dive right into it with this one. Boycott love. Detox just to retox. DRAW YOUR OWN HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T PARALLELS. #trysttheory

For all that Pete tried to move away from autobiographical lyrics on this album, his view of himself is plain in this song: ‘perfect boys with their perfect lives, no one wants to hear you sing about tragedy.’

The line ‘fell out of bed, butterfly bandage, but don’t worry’ brings up my theories about what dreams mean. Falling out of bed and getting hurt is a clear consequence of dreaming so hard you forgot it was just a dream (or trysting with your best friend and forgetting there could be consequences, real people you can hurt and yourself included). ‘You’ll never remember, your head is far too blurry’ ties into w.a.m.s as well as Cooperstown and the idea of being blurry-headed, impaired because you’re fucked up on love or some other drug, and making choices you’d regret, if you could remember them. Making mistakes you’ll have to live with whether you remember them or not.

(Romantically speaking, water buffaloes are disloyal: Google suggests a single male water buffalo can sire as many as 100 baby buffs in a single mating season. It seems pretty obvious throughout this album that issues of infidelity were large in Pete’s mind while writing these lyrics.)

2. I Don’t Care

This song makes me think of Wilson (Expensive Mistakes) so much. Starting over again in Mexico, friends who don’t care about you, the blues-pop bounce to it and repeating riff? Sonically, they have a lot in common.

Pete may be playing on his previous reference to Closer (‘he tastes like you only sweeter’) with the opening line here—‘say my name and his in the same breath, I dare you to say they taste the same’—which is the saddest and most painful movie about heterosexuals you will ever watch, but writing that line and putting it on Patrick’s tongue? That may be the gayest thing that happens to me all night, guys, and I’m a queer girl with a bottle of wine and a long, long Friday evening ahead of me.

This song is so much a conversation Pete is having with the world about his fame and notoriety, imo. He calls it a narcissist’s anthem but I don’t think that’s it, exactly. I think—and the music video backs me up on this—it’s a coy wink at their own reputation, all the shit people are slinging about them and Pete specifically. We get a drug reference here, too: ‘take a chance, let your body get a tolerance.’

Also, Patrick is a nun in the video. Pete put Patrick in a literal fucking habit. What more do you need to me to say to prove definitely that Pete is desperately in love with him? This. Kid. In. A. Nun’s. Habit.

3. She’s My Winona

IF THIS SONG ISN’T A DISCUSSION OF HOW PETE HAD TO REVISE HIS PETERICK AMBITIONS WHEN HE FOUND OUT ASHLEE WAS PREGNANT

(There are so many suicide references in this song I want to join Pete and the band’s manager in cheering and celebrating all over again that our boy lived to 28. You can physically feel him resigning himself to living a long life in these verses.)

‘Hell or glory, I don’t want anything in between.’ I take this line as pretty directly about him and Patrick: he doesn’t care if they go to hell and it ruins the band, he wants to take the risk, because he thinks together they could be—glory. He wants to roll the dice. (Take a chance—I’m not a chance.) And ‘then came a baby boy with long eyelashes, and daddy said “you gotta show the world the thunder.”’ In other words, he wanted hell or glory, ruination or Patrick, but then along came his son. And his priorities changed. Of course they did. True love is one thing; raising your child is another.

‘We had a good run, even I have to admit.’

(And—here’s the thing—people ask me sometimes, what I think about Pete marrying Ashlee. “Do you think he married her just because it was the right thing to do?” No. I think he believed in love and family and forever. I think Pete believed it would work. I think he wanted it to. I think that’s why the trysting, and eventually the band, stopped: because Pete tried his fucking best. I think he loved her and loved the idea of a future for himself—the first time he’s ever really imagined that. The idea of somewhere to belong, a real family, one that he felt part of. I think he wanted more than anything for it to work precisely because it was so different from what he, or anyone else, ever expected for him. He said ‘I want to marry this girl’ and he meant it. He really did intend to love her forever, as best he could, and not love anyone else if he could help it.

But those aren’t good reasons to build a whole relationship on, a marriage on. And he was a mess, and in love with Patrick too, and hated and famous and fucked. He had no privacy, limited emotional maturity, a burgeoning substance problem and no sense of himself that wasn’t dependent on what the culture and the media and his fans and his friends reflected back to him and said was true. There was no way they could be happy together under those circumstances, and he’d have stayed forever anyway, I think. His interviews about that time—when he stopped shaving, then stopped showering; when he was a drugstore cowboy stay-at-home dad, depressed and giving up—he doesn’t blame Ashlee for wanting to leave. He hated himself enough to be miserable forever, but she didn’t. So of course it fell apart.)

4. America’s Suitehearts

This commercial headfuck of a song. Jerry christ, guys, someone throw me an anchor so I can drown myself. This caricature, the monstrosity and performance of celebrity, the way the band is reduced to wrestling alter egos, painted and pretend. No one’s being subtle with this song, this video. They are showing us exactly what they mean.

‘I must confess, I’m in love with my own sins.’

DO YOU MEAN LIKE BEING IN GAY LOVE WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND

DO YOU MEAN THAT SIN?

And this verse, though ostensibly about the vagaries of fame, sounds so much like him falling in love with Patrick while Patrick is oblivious:

‘You can bow and pretend you don’t know you’re a legend. Time just hasn’t told anyone else yet. I’m sorry, I just let my love loose again.’

For so many years, Pete believed his love was something he had to apologize for. 😭 😭 😭 😭

5. Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet

Okay, fuck this, I’m done

This fucking

This

UGH

Remember the paternity rumors at the time of Ashlee’s pregnancy? Look at this whole complicated, tangled-up song about infidelity and paternity and the idea of Ashlee cheating while Pete’s cheating too. ‘Keep a calendar, this way you will always know’ [who impregnated you]. ‘I will never end up like him. behind my back, I already am.’ I literally cannot

‘Does he know the way I worship our love’

6. The (Shipped) Gold Standard

do I even need to keep writing this or is the album now, itself, independently writing the tryst theory

my notes for this song just say ‘come the fuck on’

This song is about: living in LA and missing Chicago (and what it felt like in Chicago, who you were and who you were with); taking accountability for your own actions even when it does not satisfy your hedonistic urges (e.g., marrying your pregnant girlfriend and breaking off your illicit love affair with Patrick Stump), trying to remake your identity and change yourself like those are the same thing and you can get a new heart as easily as a new name; losing your luck and breaking up (‘tell that boy I’ll leave you alone now, like a stove, I’ll turn my love down); horseshoe crabs; and of course, that good ol’ famous-in-the-closet feel:

‘I wanna scream I love you from the top of my lungs, but I’m afraid that someone else will hear me.’

7. Coffee’s For Closers

I’m just crying by now I can’t type anymore

He’s using this whole album to break up with Patrick, to explain, to say goodbye

‘I want everything to change and stay the same. Time doesn’t care about anyone or anything. Come together, come apart.’

‘We will never believe again’

And: ‘kick drum beating in my chest again’ and that feeling, the one we’ve all felt in the pit at any show, any good one with that golden-vibe in the air, the one that makes your heart feel connected to the hearts of everyone around you, like you could be lifted on light and floating around the room, like the love is pouring out of you and rising like heat and linking up to the network of love flowing into and out of everyone else, when you feel it and know they do too and your whole body vibrates with the impossible imperceptible hum of your very atoms, your constituent fucking molecules lit up and stitched together by this, this, this. The feeling like you don’t need lungs because singing in breath and bellows enough, the feeling like the only reason you ever had a heart was so the drummer could pump it with their sticks. ‘Preach electric to the microphone stand,’ Patrick the conductor, Patrick the evangelist, Patrick the gospel of his fucking love. Pete’s saying goodbye to that feeling. Pete knows, he knows already, what he is planning to do.

Pete’s lying. Pete’s saying ‘I love the mayhem more than the love’ like all he’s really been out to do is make a mess, break hearts, take names. Like he is no more and no less than what all the tabloids say about him. (Never watch the Fresh Only Bakery videos on youtube. They are boring, for one, and also the saddest fucking Pete you will ever see.) Pete’s saying ‘I will never believe in anything again’ and he’s making Patrick say it too, because true-blue love was supposed to last forever, and then Pete got married to someone else.

‘Oh, change will come.’

8. What A Catch, Donnie

NO. NO

how the fuck dare this song even exist

So this is it. This is the goodbye. Pete has talked about how he wrote this song from Patrick’s perspective, and he recruited some of Patrick’s favorite artists and friends of the band to sing different lines in a medley of the band’s hits up to this point. This is like, the FOB song equivalent of a suicide note. (To follow this with a greatest hits album—! G O D)

The reference to Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway—their collaboration, his ultimate suicide, and the way Miss Flack looked on all his destruction and said ‘I still want you back’ is absolutely a testament to the way Patrick, and the rest of the band, forgave him and took him back in after the notorious Best Buy Incident. The gratitude for the whole band and what the band has done for Pete is tied up in this song. ‘You’ll never catch us’ smacks of trysting, and there’s something to the line ‘I’m the one who charmed the one who gave up on you,’ as the speaker in the sentence in meant to be Patrick and the ‘you’ is presumed to be Pete.

‘They say the captain goes down with the ship, so when the world ends, will God go down with it?’ is both Pete’s intention to go down with the band (which he’s planning to sink, or sees unraveling already in the painful writing process—we don’t know at what point he made his decision to destroy yet another thing he loved in penance for some deep, unknowable conviction of sin) and his gesture of setting them free. The Video of Which We Will Not Speak shows this pretty clearly. Pete saves everyone and everything he’s ever loved at the bargain price of drowning himself. He does it without ever even appearing in the aired version of the video. *broken sobbing*

(The links for the full version are not currently on Youtube, but you can read about it here: http://www.mtv.com/news/1618609/fall-out-boy-release-wrong-version-of-what-a-catch-donnie-video/)

What a match, what a catch. If I say anything else about this song, and how basically everyone who heard it knew it meant the band was going to break up, I will absolutely fall apart

9. 27

OH GOOD A SONG I CAN MAKE IT THROUGH WITHOUT CHOKING ON MY OWN TEARS

NOT

So here’s a lovely little ditty about how Pete Wentz did not kill himself and die at age 27 as he always thought he would! Hahahahahaha I’m fine it’s fine I’m so glad this album exists I’m so glad I’m TALKING ABOUT IT

‘If home is where the heart is, then we’re all just fucked.’ All three of them: Pete, Patrick, and Ashlee. And every FOB fan out there. Ahahaha. GUYS I’M NOT OKAY

We’ve got Peterick drug metaphors to rival the punch of Hold Me Tight Or Don’t: ‘I want it so bad, I’d shoot the sunshine into my veins… Doing lines of dust and sweat off of last’s night stage just to feel like you. Milligrams in my head, burning tobacco in my wind, chasing the direction you went.’

We’ve got desperation about growing and changing and losing that which they so valued in their sound and collaboration on Grave: ‘I can’t remember the good old days. Are all the good times getting gone? They come and go and come and go.’

We’ve got the pressure of keeping your love affair with your lead singer a secret lest you risk your fame, label representation, and fortune: ‘My mind is a safe, and if I keep it in we all get rich’ right next to the dirty, hollow feeling of having images of your body stolen and used to drag your name and reputation like you had no more heart than any other empty doll and losing the value of yourself in that process: ‘My body is an orphanage, we take everyone in.’

We’ve got the romantic comparison to cosmic entities, just like in Real Ones: ‘you’re a bottled star, the planets align. You’re just like Mars, you shine in the sky.’ And that tinge of disparagement and lonesomeness: ‘I’ve got a lot of friends who are stars but some are just black holes.’

10. Tiffany Blews

This song plays with a lot of fun moth/flame metaphors that I really enjoy, while also really amplifying the isolation and quick-burning nature of fame. I think that Pete gets a sick satisfaction from having Patrick sing out the worst things he thinks about himself, that he thinks everyone else thinks about him. (Pete, I think, is the little black dress that will be faded soon.)

Interestingly, we have ‘a roman candle heart keeps us far apart,’ which is a pretty direct link to the later Fourth of July. A heart that flares, explodes, and then burns out quickly certainly would be an obstacle to building a lasting relationship, no matter how much you loved someone…

‘Hate me, baby. Maybe I’m a piece of art.’

‘Dear gravity, you held me down in this starless city’ makes me think of the Moonrise Kingdom quote in Wilson (Expensive Mistakes): ‘I hope the roof flies off and we all get sucked into space.’ It’s the opposite, basically. Hoping to fall in love and get thrown up among the glittering cosmos rather than anchored someplace dark and starless. (Aside: I love how susceptible Pete is to grand, cheesy quotes? Like when, a few days after the release of The Last Jedi, he tweeted the heavy-handed noir line ‘I want to put my fist through this whole lousy, beautiful town.’ Like, look for that in a FOB song someday.)

11. w.a.m.s.

For the curious, Andy confirmed on Twitter that the title stands for waitress/actress/model/singer, a reference to the stereotype of people who run away to Hollywood to make it big but end up washing out and struggling as the starving artist/waitstaff type. If this idea of our boys citing bankrupt ambition does not make you emotional, you may not have a heart.

This song is incredibly relevant to the dreams meta linked earlier—‘when all the others were just stirring awake, I’m trying to trick myself to fall asleep again’ is very evocative of being in denial over the jarring reality of the end of the tryst. I think this song is about one of the last times Pete and Patrick slept together before breaking up.

‘My head’s in heaven, my soles are in hell’ again highlights that Pete’s wildest Patrick dreams are very different than where he actually finds himself; ‘let’s meet in the purgatory of my hips and get well’ is a pretty transparent request, isn’t it? Especially since pre-hiatus Pete really loved to use ‘hips’ as a signifier for sexual desire/activity. Let’s just fuck and pretend it’s all okay. Let’s lose ourselves in each other and pretend we can have it. Tell me I’m the only one, even if it’s not true. Let me get high on this memory one last time.

‘Hurry, hurry. You put my head in such a flurry, flurry’ is the urgency and compromised judgment of the tryst. ‘Oh freckle freckle’ can be read as Patrick’s forehead mole. ‘What makes you so special? I’m gonna leave you’ tells us what makes the last time so good: Pete knows it’s the last time. Pete knows he has to end it. But he’s so addicted-sick, ((stray-dog sick,)) he can’t stop. ‘I’m gonna teach you how we’re all alone’ doesn’t really sound like something a newlywed and soon-to-be-dad should be saying, does it? But there it is. How can he let go when he knows ‘how heartwarming it is inside your skin’?

The final nail in my coffin: ‘I’m a sunshine machine. I want to get stuck and be golden in your memory.’

We’ve talked about how Patrick = sunshine = gold, right. r i g h t

12. 20 Dollar Nose Bleed

Fun fact: this song is basically erotica to me ever since I wrote that recording booth smut about it! I can’t even listen to it without blushing and becoming uncomfortable. So there’s something you didn’t need to know about me that you… now know about me.

‘Permanent jet lag, please take me back. I’m stray dog sick, please let me in. The mad key’s tripping, singing vows before we exchange smoke rings.’ It is OBVIOUSLY my prerogative to interpret this as slightly depraved sexual longing, but I especially like the bit about singing vows without ever exchanging anything lasting or visible that implies commitment—this can be heard as a comment on the fickleness of commitment, or it can be heard as a comment about how deeply he is/was committed to Patrick even though they never had anything to show for it. Anything they could show for it. Even to each other.

Benzedrine is, of course, the very first pharmaceutical amphetamine (read about it here!). Many great artists and thinkers were influenced by the impossible energy it gives you, which is obviously relatable to someone who experiences natural mania, peddling his own prescription like a ‘medicine man’ (Wilson lyrics). I think the verse about Benzedrine and not letting the doctor in not-so-obliquely references the issue with medication compliance that Pete experienced and many people diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder also do: the meds for this disorder are really unpleasant. They dull you out, they give you tremors, they have really strong side effects, and they take away that amazing manic spark that so many artists credit with their success. Don’t let the doctor in. They’ll take away the only thing he really likes about being himself.

‘Have you ever wanted to disappear?’ is, I think, a glimpse of the unadorned real.

The spoken word bit at the end of this song really hammers together a lot of the themes of the whole album, the whole band, personal and political both. ‘You said you’re not listening and I said I’m wishing…’, only we don’t ever find out what’s really being said.

13. West Coast Smoker

I love the hell out of this song because there are few things in life that are hotter than Patrick singing the chorus. And fuck. Patrick saying curse words. I die every time. I think this is a kink I share with Pete Wentz. I think one day Pete Wentz and I will share a circle of hell. It will be called the ‘Underage Stump Mouth Rotunda,’ and we will all be very ashamed.

We’ve got a lot of the same themes: the ease of suicide and the conviction to live, the way shows feel and how it was when they were kids, drug use and overmedicated ennui. Pete was once the son, is becoming the father, is resolving not to become the holy ghost.

‘I’m the last of my kind’ and ‘when they made me they broke the mold’ and the finality of it all. (Contrasted with the modern era: ‘you’re the last of a dying breed.’ Pete has grown up and away from his recursive self-obsession, from his own myth. Pete learning to look inside others and stop dismissing himself, and everyone else, as fool’s gold.)

‘Your eyes are blocking my starlight’ to me really speaks to the person who is keeping him from Patrick, or the people—the fans, the Public, with their eyes on his every action.

14. Pavlove

I LOVE THIS SONG

Once again, we have a drug use metaphor: ‘she’s back to the bathroom for one more,’ ‘get addicted to this,’ and of course, the endless seeking for something to make ‘my chest stir/my head blur.’ And: ‘I’m not ready for a handshake with death, I’m just such a happy mess’ shows us, for once, what Pete has to live for—not just that he’s resigned to life, but the reason for it. This song is all tied up with the heady swell of live music and self-medication, and there’s no line more representative of my experience as a bisexual person than ‘I’m the invisible man who can’t stop staring at the mirror.’

‘I want to make you as lonely as me so you can get addicted to this’ seems very directed at Patrick, doesn’t it? Because this is a Pete who needs Patrick too much, thinks Patrick doesn’t need him back, is terrified. Doesn’t know how to solve his problems except to flee them. So: he flees them.

I MADE IT. I BARELY FUCKING MADE IT BUT I DID.

To sum up: Folie is an incredible, sweeping, beautiful album about the glory of Peterick and the band’s impending end, and it will break your heart. Hit me up with questions and requests, and as always, thank you for reading!

shark-myths out *mic drop*

#tryst theory #peterick #fall out boy #fob #pete wentz #patrick stump #pete wentz x patrick stump #lyrics meta #folie #america's suitehearts #prehiatus #small out boy #folie a deux #fad

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dippedanddripped · 5 years

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long leg, an almost 70s flare.” This was a sentence I wrote in my notebook back in January during the men’s AW19 fashion shows. These were the words of Clare Waight Keller, the designer at Givenchy who dressed Meghan Markle for her big day. The flare is part of a new era for menswear at the Parisian house, marking a distinct shift from the previous administration, where the brand had come to be defined by streetwear, and a sellout rottweiler-emblazoned sweatshirt. Flared trouser suits in strong red and a fabulous teal blue appeared on models walking through Givenchy’s couture salon in Paris. It all rippled with a breeze of expensive glamour. Waight Keller cited not just the 70s but the 90s as inspiration, another era with a strong flared trouser game, if you think of Britpop stars such as the mighty Jarvis Cocker.

Fast-forward a season, to the close of the SS20 men’s shows in June. I posted on Instagram an image from the Celine show by Hedi Slimane, captioned: “A flared Celine jean. That’s all, Paris.” Slimane’s model army strode the runway en masse for a finale rammed to the hilt with flared trouser hems, underlining the fact that the flares trend looks likely to have legs, as it were. I left this show with a head full of images of Yves Saint Laurent during the 70s, on a rooftop in Morocco. I was also more than a little obsessed with the idea of getting my legs into a pair of Hedi’s new jeans.

Between these two moments, Quentin Tarantino’s new film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood had premiered at Cannes. On screen, Leonardo DiCaprio wears, among other variations on this bottom-half theme, a pair of peachy-pink flared trousers. These were specifically created by costume designer and stylist Arianne Phillips. The trousers had already made tabloid headlines during filming last October. “Pink Pants-er” was a particularly choice pun.

So, with some serious style endorsements of the flare, is it time to quit your designer jogging pants and/or – finally – ditch those infamous skinny jeans? Probably. Donatella Versace, whose latest show featured flares in both house signature prints and black, wants you to strongly contemplate the notion. “Men, I think, are having way more fun than before, experimenting with new silhouettes, colours and prints, and the flare pants are part of that process of exploring one’s own personal style I have been doing for a few seasons,” she said.

Versace herself has often taken her end-of-show bow in a kick flare. She thinks a man in flares reeks of confidence. “The attitude I had in mind was, ‘I like it, so I wear it.’ Like everything else in a man’s wardrobe, whenever you change or introduce a new element, there are a lot of people who are sceptical. More than ever, though, we live in a world where people are encouraged to express themselves – be it through one’s own ideas or style. And I love it!”

Elisabeth Murray, fashion curator at the V&A in London, cites Tom Ford’s SS00 Gucci men’s collection as a significant flares moment, including “a particularly daring python pair”. She thinks the flare comeback is part cyclical, part a general interest in the 70s from designers. “Flares are a way to inject fun and frivolity into menswear,” she says, “which is something we’re seeing on the catwalk.”

With menswear dominated by streetwear and cult sneakers for a decade or so, the flare could be seen as part of a shift back to dressing up. Suiting has been reinvented again by the likes of Kim Jones at Dior and Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton – two designers who have often been seen as integral to “sports luxe”. The styling of suiting on runways isn’t about a Mad Men-style professionalism. Designs are cut away from the body and worn with wider trousers for a more louche and easy silhouette. Flares are part of a new wave of upscale chic – the opposite of the familiar body-conscious skinny jeans – crossed with, as Versace says, a new experimentation in men’s fashion.

Murray references noughties Gucci as a moment, and Gucci circa now is also key to the flare comeback. Designer Alessandro Michele has featured them in his menswear since 2016 and they are central to the retro maximalism that has become Gucci’s calling card. Michele wears them himself – as seen on the Met ball red carpet in May. This season, Gucci featured velvet suits with bell-bottoms, so the designer is not getting tired of the shape.

Other brands are also onboard. Balenciaga have been toying with boot-cut denim. Martine Rose – a British designer who loves a wide slack – has featured various flared styles for her label and Fendi’s trousers have also recently had a kick to their ankle. Plus the first men’s runway collection by Jonathan Anderson for Loewe – arriving in stores now – features a fantastic pink tuxedo styled with a pair of definitely-swingy-at-the-hem trousers.

Flares have a history that means almost infinite images to mine for inspiration. Sailors are thought to have been the first to adopt bell-bottom trousers in the 19th century, partly because they rolled up easily, while Oxford bags in the 20s saw the circumference of a hem reach over a metre. It was the late 60s when flares took off. By 1969, they were so popular that astronauts on Apollo 11 reportedly wore their spacesuit slacks with a flare. By the 70s, they were on Sonny & Cher’s TV show, the Studio 54 dancefloor, Abba at Eurovision, Slade, Earth, Wind & Fire. Even footballers wore them as part of suits off-pitch circa 1977. Naturally, as all fashions do, they peaked by the end of the decade, replaced by the drainpipes – proto-skinny jeans – favoured by punks. Flares would not return until the 90s, once again associated with music, from Britpop to grunge and rave.

Phillips says the clothes DiCaprio wears are representative of various changes happening in 1969 in politics, Hollywood and fashion. His character, Rick Dalton, a 50s TV cowboy actor, is, Phillips says, trying to be considered relevant in this new era. “He has many costume changes in this film, one of which is the sherbet peachy-pink flares worn when we see Rick making an effort to keep up with the changing times.”

But what do flares semaphore in 2019? Ben Cobb, editor-in-chief of Another Man (and street style favourite), is a poster boy for the flared look and has been wearing the style since he was 17, when he picked up a pair of 70s flared jeans. He now says he has pairs for all eventualities, including velvet tuxedos, bespoke suits and cords. “There is a feeling of elegance and glamour returning to fashion, and flares in menswear are a great symbol of that,” Cobb says. “They evoke freedom and flamboyance.”

There is little doubt that flares are inherently something of a statement – from John Travolta strutting down the street in the opening sequence of Saturday Night Fever, to Jarvis Cocker in charity shop flares, doing his best lounge singer impression in the video to Pulp’s Babies. Sometimes campy fun, sometimes countercultural and free-spirited. I recall dressing up Jarvis-style (plus hair curtains) to see bands or go to raves in the 90s and am quite sure I considered this a kind of grungy-alternative decision. Luke Leitch, a critic for American Vogue, who recalls having flared cords in the 70s as a child and boot-cut jeans in the early 90s, argues that “they transmit that he [the wearer] isn’t afraid to sail against the prevailing winds of taste. And there’s something about flares, when worn with panache, that seems appealingly sleazy.” While they are yet to reach the high street in earnest, vintage styles are a good way to shop the trend for autumn – and bring a bit of a 90s feel to proceedings.

Flares are also often associated with the kind of sexually topsy-turvy and androgynous styling of the likes of Robert Plant, Marc Bolan, Mick Jagger, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie – all musicians Phillips says were inspiration to her when she started her career dressing Lenny Kravitz in the late 80s. “In the early days when we had no money, I would dress him in women’s flares I found at garage sales or flea markets, which had the perfect proportion for him.”

A few seasons ago, as trousers seemed to be getting wider, I bought a pair of black Dries Van Noten kicky flares. As soon as I put them on, something shifted in the way I stood; I felt leaner, a little sassier perhaps, so I reach for them when I’m looking for an extra slash of dressiness. I’ve worn them to the opera in Paris and the ballet in London. Friends have noted they “add a certain swish” to an outfit. “It’s a really sexy shape,” Cobb confirms. “But the fit is essential: it has to be tight on top and sweep out from the knee. They lengthen the leg and make the bum look great.”

Mark Weston, creative director at Dunhill, has since SS19 been experimenting with a split-hem trouser that gives off the idea of an elongated flared silhouette. He says, “I think this is happening as a reaction to the saturation of sportswear and a rejection of skintight jeans. There’s a desire for clothes that combine utility and elegance with a sense of ease.”

Weston says if you’re planning to experiment with this current trouser proposition, you should “wear it slouchy and comfortable – never uptight”. He adds: “Proportionally, the leg will look longer. So the top half should have either a slightly oversized proportion, whether a great T-shirt or peacoat, or a long and lean Chesterfield coat, to balance it out.”

I ask Versace how to wear it. “You know me, I don’t do things half-heartedly,” she laughs. “You either go with it or you don’t. For the less brave, I’d suggest trying them with a suit jacket and chunky sneakers.” Cobb agrees flares work best when they are making a statement. “Go big. Anything less is just a boot-cut.” Francesco Risso at Marni concurs – this season he offers a flared hem in a bold leopard print.

As for the attitude to channel while wearing flares in 2019, the last word goes to Givenchy’s Waight Keller. She coined the phrase “perverse poshness” to describe her menswear designs for the house. This, she argues, is about “looking refined but not really caring about it. There’s something very elegant about that.”

#men's trousers #men's fashion #fashion #life and style #saturday night fever #menswear blog #fashion blog #flared trousers #autumn/winter 2019

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