#i did find it very funny that the most acknowledgement antoinette really got was in louis recounting claudia saying she had a flat ass lmao

[pynkhues]

Hi! What do you think about Antoinette's storyline and do you think Lestat really intended to include her in the household or was this some sort of unreliable narrative?

Hi! It was pretty thin to me, but I think that made sense in the context of Louis being the one telling her story, and him pretty clearly not wanting to think about her at all and wanting to diminish Lestat's relationship with her. I'm curious if we get to see a bit more of her in Lestat flashbacks in the future, as I imagine that would paint a really different picture to the one Louis did.

As for whether Lestat really intended to include her in the household, I think you could make the argument either way. He clearly liked her enough to keep her around for as long as he did, and in a lot of ways, she's a link to his humanity in a way that Louis isn't. Music is, in Louis' own words from 1.02, where Lestat separates man from meal, and Antoinette being a singer - and a singer Lestat respects enough to perform and record with - is something we're told is real to Lestat.

It actually opens up an interesting thread to me in that sense with Louis and Claudia telling Lestat to kill Antoinette, because it's symbolic of more than just the death of a lover, but in they themselves wanting to further sever that thread to Lestat's humanity. He's done it to the two of them too, of course, but Lestat's both helped to grow Louis' ties to humanity with (i.e. through Azalea's), and twisted and perverted them (i.e. bringing the soldiers home after Louis fucks Jonah).

Music is the one grounding in humanity Lestat still has (or at least, Louis sees Lestat as having), and over the course of the season, it actually shifts from an external love to an internal one, which I think really reflects the increasing insularity of the family. It's a love and a connection that goes from the public (the opera) to a space that belongs to them (Lestat playing piano at Louis' club) to personal (Lestat recording Antoinette to provoke Louis) and finally, completely private (Lestat teaching Claudia to play at home).

Depending on how you want to look at it, you can see that arc as being about Lestat's increasingly suffocating presence in Louis' life, or you can see it as Louis staying true to his words in the finale 'I wanted him all to myself'. He's caught the end of the thread of Lestat's humanity and he's trying to wind the whole thing up and keep it. He wants to be the one to choose how Lestat shares it - at his club, with their daughter - and Lestat knows that, which is why weaponising it against him in the recording, and Louis shattering the record and stabbing Lestat with it, before seemingly fucking him and feeding on him in Antoinette's house, is such a perfect beat.

(Personally, I do see it as both.)

In that sense though, Lestat turning Antoinette could've been genuine. Maybe he did want to take her with them. He's on the backfoot with the family, he suspects his sister-daughter is trying to kill him, he doesn't trust Louis anymore. Antoinette's clearly a comfort to him, she loves him, which is important to him, they share music together, something Lestat and Louis do only as audience, she listens to him and pays attention to him, and turning her gives him more power in the family again. Antoinette can read Claudia and Louis' minds, she'll be on Lestat's side instead of Louis' like Claudia is, and, of course, she's both a tool to make Louis jealous and a balm for his own jealousy.

That said, I think it can also be read as Lestat just using her specifically to figure out what Claudia and Louis' plan is, and that he knows turning her will result in her death because there's no way either Claudia and Louis would allow her into the fold. He won't kill her himself, but it could be him baiting the other two into getting rid of her for him.

What do you think?

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior October 2, 2020 – ON THE ROCKS, MANGROVE, SCARE ME, POSSESOR, BOYS IN THE BAND, THE GLORIAS, SAVE YOURSELVES! and More

It’s October, which means we’re finally getting Patty Jenkins’ long-awaited Wonder Woman 1984 after a number of delays from its original June release. Now that it’s finally coming out, maybe we can finally see movie theaters rebound with such an anticipated superhero blockbuster ready to fill those theaters right back up to 100% capacity. What’s that? It’s been moved to Christmas Day? Movie theaters in New York and L.A. are still closed and other movie theaters are only at 25-40% capacity? So we’re not getting Wonder Woman 1984 this week? So what are we working with here… Something like 30 other movies that few people have been chomping on the bit to see? Great… well, then never mind.  We’ll see how far I get through the insane amount of movies being released this week, but I can tell you right now, that it might not be very far.

Possibly the highest profile release this week is the new film from Sofia Coppola, ON THE ROCKS, which is being released theatrically by A24 (where movie theaters are open) before its inevitable Apple TV+ streaming premiere on October 23. I had the opportunity of seeing Coppola’s film as part of my New York Film Festival coverage, where it got a sneak preview last week.

It’s a fantastic film starring Rashida Jones as Laura, a woman who has been married to her husband Dean (Marlon Wayans) for long enough that they have two young daughters, although she’s started to suspect that he’s losing interest in her and maybe sleeping with his assistant. As she gets more paranoid, her lethario art-dealing father (Bill Murray) shows up and tries to help Laura find out the truth about her husband’s fidelity.

Like many, I was a huge fan of Coppola’s earlier films, The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation – in fact, interviewing Coppola for the latter was one of my first roundtable experiences ever – and though I liked Marie Antoinette just fine, some of Coppola’s other films in recent years just haven’t connected with me. Maybe it took for her to do a full-on New York City film, as On the Rocks is, for me to return to the film but there’s so much other stuff to like about it.

First of all, it seems like a much more personal film than something like The Beguiling but she also has a fantastically vibrant lead in Jones, who doesn’t often get roles that really shows off her abilities. It’s hard not to think about some of Noah Baumbach’s movies, particularly last year’s Marriage Story, while watching On the Rocks because Coppola uses a similar segmental storytelling format. What sets it apart from just about every other film is Coppola’s ability to acknowledge that the best way to use Bill Murray in your movie is to just let him be Bill Murray and do what he’s going to do. That immediately lends itself to some great moments where father and daughter can go out on the town (and eventually to Mexico!) where Jones essentially acts as the audience for her father’s shenanigans.

But this is very much Jones’ movie even as she’s surrounded by the likes of Jenny Slate as a single mother kvetching about her dating life and Wayans, possibly playing his most serious and dramatic role since Requiem for a Dream.

I really enjoyed On the Rocks more than any of Coppola’s movies maybe going back to Lost in Translation. I think that she does have something to say as a filmmaker in terms of something as personal as this vs. a genre film like The Beguiled, and she does a particularly good job capturing New York City in a way that I really miss right now.

You can also read my more technically-minded review of Coppola’s latest over at Below the Line.

While I haven’t had the time to see as much of the 58th New York Film Festival as I like, I did get to see MANGROVE, the next chapter of Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe Anthology” which also played at the NYFF this past week. In fact, it’s the first chapter of the group of five movies about England’s West Indian community, both chronologically and when it will air on Amazon (November 20). 

This one takes place in 1970, focusing on the Mangrove, a Notting Hill restaurant where the West Indian and black communities regularly congregate, but also, a target for the racist local police who are constantly raiding it and causing misery both for the customers and for the shop owner Frank Crichlow, played by Shaun Parkes. Some of the people who frequent the tiny shop are Black Panther’s Laetitia Wright as (what else?) Black Panther activist Althea Jones, but after a number of police disruptions, the people have had enough and decide to march to protest, which inevitably leads to a conflict with the same police.

Unlike Lovers Rock, which is just over an hour long, Mangrove feels like a real movie with a beginning, middle and end i.e. a simpler three-act structure, but it also runs for over two hours. Honestly, this could have been shown in theaters on its own, and I would have been satisfied, although I’m more than curious how that ties into the other movies.

The first act of the movie is similar to Lovers Rock as you’re allowed to look into this community and how they try to enjoy their lives together but having difficulty doing so due to the violent police raids, much of this part focusing more on Crichlow than the others. The actual protest march is the film’s biggest set piece where a lot of the players come together including the PC Frank Pulley, as played by Sam Spruell. This leads to the third act, which is basically a court trial of about a dozen of the people who frequent the Mangrove, including Crichlow, many of them defending themselves. If there was racism in the way the black people of London are treated by the police, it’s exacerbated when they’re put to trial in a courtroom where the jury only has 2 black members. The judge is so clearly on the side of alleviating the police of any responsibility for what happened that you just get madder and madder as it goes along.

As much as the film is very much Parkes as the lead, the strong support from Wright and the likes of Malachi Kirby as Darcus Howe, who has some amazing courtroom scenes, and Jack Lowden as Ian MacDonald, another one of the barristers. Almost every scene gives McQueen and his crew a chance to show off how well they were able to recreate every aspect of the times, whether it’s the neighborhood or recreating the Old Bailey where the trial takes place. I was just really impressed with everything about the movie from the screenplay, cowritten by McQueen with Alastair Siddons, to the cast and every single performance. All of it comes together so well while telling the very true story of the Mangrove 9 in a way that feels like McQueen doesn’t need to exaggerate anything for the viewer to really feel the injustices in play during that era.

This is an epic film that reminds me a bit of Mike Leigh’s underrated Peterloo last year. Not only did I think Mangrove was better than Lovers Rock, but I also think it’s better than McQueen’s Oscar-winning Best Picture, 12 Years a Slave, so it’s kind of odd that this wasn’t chosen to open the NYFF vs. the far shorter film.

Since it’s October, we might as well start with some scary or semi-scary genre movies, three of which premiered at Sundance earlier this year, at least two in the Midnight Section.

I’ve said before how impressed by the movies that horror streamer Shudder was sharing with its audience and Josh Ruben’s SCARE ME (Shudder), which debuts on Thursday, is no exception. I generally love horror comedies, but this one is more of a comedy horror, mainly being a two-hander as two horror writers hang out in a remote cabin in the middle of winter, trying to scare each other by telling stories. Ruben himself plays Fred Banks, a typical writer/actor/director from Hollywood who really hasn’t written or directed much, but when he meets extremely cynical bestselling horror writer Fanny Addie, as played by Aya Cash (from The Boys), there’s a certain amount of competitive flirtation that you know will lead to a fun movie.

So yeah, I’m not going to say too much about the stories they tell each other or what makes them so riveting and hilarious, but Ruben is not afraid to make things very heightened, whether it’s the performances by the two actors or the use of music or sound FX to really emphasize the horror aspect of the film. It’s hard not to think of something like The Shining or Misery due to the house out in the middle of nowhere, but Ruben also tends to show his horror influences in his script. The movie is working so well as a two-hander before Chris Redd from SNL shows up as the pizza delivery guy Carlo, drugs come out and things start to get even more outrageous and hilarious.

I have to say that I haven’t seen a horror movie this year that I enjoyed quite as much as Scare Me, since it’s so fun even when it starts to get exceedingly more dark in the last act. This is a great deconstruction of the horror genre that manages to create a truly original premise out of a mash-up of horror tropes.

In theaters and drive-ins this Friday and then available digitally next Tuesday, October 6, is Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson’s SAVE YOURSELVES! (Bleecker Street), a genre comedy starring John Reynolds and Sunita Mani (GLOW) as a squabbling couple who decided to take a retreat to a cabin in upstate New York to work on their relationship sans any electronics… only to miss the alien invasion that is progressively destroying the rest of the country.

It’s kind of funny seeing this back-to-back with the above Scare Me, because they’re both very funny two-handers, although this one was not quite as funny as I was hoping for, maybe because the main couple are cute, but they’re also quite deliberately clueless. They seem very much like a lot of younger people these days who want to try to better themselves but they’re so addicted to their smartphones, they don’t always realize how bad their behavior looks.

I did like what the filmmakers managed to do with mostly just the two actors and the semi-adorable gas-guzzling furball aliens who show up and terrorize the duo for the second half of the movie. Like with Scare Me, I don’t want to say too much about what happens to them, because that’s more than half the fun of watching the ordeal they end up going through, but it’s a different directorial debut and a great showcase for the talents of Mani (who I’ve seen a few things) and Reynolds (whose work I really didn’t know at all.

Basically, the four of them take a fun concept and do a lot with what is also essentially a two-hander that gets stranger and stranger but never is as outright funny as I was hoping it might be with such a great premise.

Brandon Cronenberg (yes, that Cronenberg) drops his second movie, POSSESSOR UNCUT (NEON), which debuted in the midnight section of Sundance earlier this year. Unfortunately, like the two movies above, it is one where knowing too much might detract from actually enjoying what happens. Essentially, Andrea Riseborough plays Tasya, an assassin who is transplanted into another body via her handler (Jennifer Jason Leigh) but one particular hit, which puts her into the body of Christopher Abbott’s Colin Tate goes horribly wrong.

I think that’s enough of a set-up for a movie that you will probably know immediately whether it will be for you as you watch, particularly after an intensely gory murder which you’ll watch with very little context of what is happening. In fact, you might spend quite a bit of Possessor Uncut unsure of what is going on, and that’s both a plus and a minus towards my overall enjoyment of the movie. Again, I don’t want to give too much away but much of the movie deals with what happens when Tasya is transplanted into the body of a man dealing with his own inner demons (Abbott), leading up to her having to conduct the hit on her target, Tate’s future father-in-law, as played by Sean Bean.

There’s something quite futuristic and other-worldly about all aspects of Possessor Uncut, but Cronenberg handles all the sci-fi elements in the film in such a matter-of-fact way that we never assume this is too far into the future but just watching another version of our own reality. I love Riseborough so much, as she’s easily one of my favorite actors, although I’m a little mixed on Abbott, so mainly seeing him acting like what she might be like controlling his body, it’s a little off-putting to be honest.

What really helps Cronenberg’s bizarre vision more than anything is his second collaboration with his DP Karim Hussain who has grown so much as a cinematographer in the 8 years since Antiviral. Every aspect of the movie’s otherworldliness is enhanced by Hussain’s use of colored filters to keep the viewer off-balance and unsure of what exactly one is watching. But those who are onboard for the type of violence and gore we get early on might be disappointed in how long we have before we get to more of it. In that way, Possessorreminds me of the recent

There’s no denying that Brandon is his father’s son with the type of storytelling he wants to explore, and he brings the same type of auteurish angle to his gore-filled genre filmmaking that is likely to be similarly divisive on who loves and appreciates it vs. those who just won’t get it at all. Either way, Possessor is as daring as it is weird and freaky and your mileage will vary depending on what you’re expecting.

I had never heard of Aaron Starmer’s book SPONTANEOUS (Paramount Pictures), but Brian Duffield, writer of “The Babysitter” movies on Netflix, makes his directorial debut with quite a dark romantic comedy that seems like a great companion to Words on Bathroom Walls from earlier in the year. Katherine Langford from Cursed and Knives Out plays Mara Carlyle, a senior at Covington High School, who is sitting in class one day when one of her classmates explodes, and as others also start exploding, she ends up bonding with Charlie Plummer’s Dylan, as the two young lovers stand together to try to survive.

I generally like coming-of-age and high school movies and I definitely have some favorites, both classics and more recent ones. Let me say right now that this one is VERY dark but also very funny and enjoyable, so it immediately reminds me more of something like Heathers in the fact you’ll just be enjoying some part of the story and then some kid explodes in fully gory glory.  Yeah, it’s something that might be tough for some, because it doesn’t take the typical boy meets girl, lovey-dovey kissy-face movie, although the relationship between Mara and Dylan plays a large part in the movie.

I’ve already been a fan of Plummer’s from some of his previous work, but Langford is really fantastic in this, and this allowed me to see her in a whole new light as much as I thought she played a fine part in Knives Out. It was also great to see unlikely candidates like Rob Huebel and Piper Perabo playing her parents, and I also dug Haley Law as Mara’s best friend Tess.

The movie starts out as one thing but by the second half, it’s turning into something more akin to George Romero’s 1973 The Crazies where all of Covington’s seniors are locked up in a facility being tested with drugs that hopefully will keep them from exploding.  The only real problem is that it does get very dark including one plot point that might lose a lot of those that have enjoyed watching the Senior Class of Whenever spontaneously exploding.

In a week where we have a truly dreadful high school movie about heroin addiction (see below), who would have imagined that a far better movie would be the one where high school kids are randomly blowing up as they frequently do in Spontaneous? This is a pretty fantastic directorial debut by Duffield, a devilishly funny take on an overused genre but one that also stands up with the best of them. Here’s hoping Duffield gets to direct another movie because from this and “The Babysitter” movies, it’s clear he has very distinct voice and style ala Election-era Alexander Payne that would could lead to some great stuff in the future.

Next up, we have one for the boys and one for the girls…sorry. Ladies.

The Ryan Murphy-produced based on Matt Crowley’s 1968 stageplay THE BOYS IN THE BAND hits Netflix on Wednesday. Directed by Joe Mantello, who also directed the recent Broadway revival, it’s an ensemble piece featuring  Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto and Matt Bomer as three of seven gay friends who congregate the Upper East Side apartment of Michael (Parsons) to celebrate the birthday of Harold (Quinto), his birthday party including a number of surprise guests including Michael’s married college friend Alan (Brian Hutchison) and a stripper known as “Cowboy.”

I’ve never seen the stageplay on which this is based, although I know a lot about it, including the fact that it takes place on a single night all on one set. Mantello’s movie includes the entire cast from the recent 2018 Broadway revival which he also directed, so you just know everyone will be bringing their A-game. While there are some big names from the screen in the cast, there are just as many amazing moments from some of the other characters, including Robin De Jesus’ Emory, Larry (Andrew Rannels), Bernard (Michael Benjamin Washington), Hank (Tuc Watkins), as well as Bomer playing Michael’s good-looking boyfriend Donald.

That obviously well-rehearsed cast brought a lot to my first experience with  Crowley’s beloved play, their hilarious patter and interaction making the first part of the movie so light and entertaining, particularly a campy dance number to the song “Heawave.” But the film also gets quite serious by the second half, and that’s despite taking place over a decade before AIDS reared its ugly head.

Much of that drama arrives at the same time as Michael’s homophobic college friend Alan shows up without ever saying why he needed to talk to Michael so urgently – we definitely can put two and two together but it’s never confirmed out loud. When Harold finally shows up, he acts like a complete asshole to everyone, but it’s quite an amazing and standout performance by Quinto, although he becomes more of a spectator as the night goes on.

But the entire cast is amazing and they’re all given moments to shine. Parsons really blew me away with his performance, and De Jesus is absolutely at first but handles the drama just as well, and I can go on and on about what a tight ensemble producer Murphy brought from stage to screen.

Boys in the Band doesn’t just deal with homophobia in the late ’60s, as it also allows these very different gay men to come to terms with their sexuality, talking about how they first realized they were gay, as well as talking about monogamy and fidelity. It would certainly be interesting to see an updated version of this set in present day, but the 1968 text and context still works just fine.

If you’ve never seen any other iteration of this play, Mantello and his cast have done a pretty fantastic job turning a one-location play into something that’s far more cinematic. I think we can expect Boys in the Band to be included in a number of Emmy categories next year.

If Boys in the Band is too much of a sausage factory for you, then there’s THE GLORIAS (LD Entertainment, Roadside Attractions), hitting digital and Amazon Prime on Wednesday i.e. today. I can’t think of any filmmaker better than Julie Taymor to tell the story of Gloria Steinem, because this is in fact a biopic about the feminist activist, as played by Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander and two talented young actresses during the earlier scenes.

I have to be honest that I never really knew much about Steinem except for her role in the Women’s Movement and trying to get the Equal Rights Act passed in the ‘70s and her involvement in so many important women’s movements in recent years, including #MeToo. As with much of her work, Taymor takes a very different approach to the classic biopic, switching between as a little girl in the past, her time spent in India seeing women there struggling with equality, to her fierce fight for women’s rights to have autonomy over their own bodies, which includes getting abortions.

I feel like I need to go back to her childhood where her eccentric father Leo (played by a barely recognizable Timothy Hutton) is always taking her family from one place to another to Steinem as a young woman (as played by Vikander) in India. There’s no question that when Moore enters the picture of the older Steinem where it starts to get interesting. She’s also far better than the generally good Vikander, whose accent doesn’t match up with any of the other actors playing Steinem.

I was a little disappointed that we really didn’t get to see very much of Steinem’s relationship with Dorothy Pitman Hughes, as played by Janelle Monae, who basically appears for two scenes and is gone. Fortunately, it gets more into her affinity for Native Americans, particularly Kimberly Guerrero’s Wilma Mankiller.  Other supporting roles of note include Bette Midler as Bella Abzug and Lorraine Toussaint as Flo Kennedy.

It takes a little time to adjust to the jumps in time and not everyone is going to like the rather pretentious decision to have Steinems from different time periods having conversations on a bus together. On the other hand, Taymor’s recreation of the 1977 Womens Conference is quite impressive, and the movie includes a fun fantasy sequence. The movie essentially does what it’s meant to do, which is to instruct and educate about why Steinem’s place in history is so important, and Taymor does a good job shaking off most of the usual biopic tropes, sometimes to success and other times not so much.

Darren Lynn Bousman, director of a bunch of the “Saw” movies including next year’s Spiral, helms DEATH OF ME (Saban Films), a psychological thriller starring Maggie Q and Luke Hemsworth as married couple, Christine and Neil Oliver, who find themselves stranded on a remote island near Thailand where the couple are trapped when a typhoon hits. The couple wake up confused about what happened over the previous 12 hours until they find a video of Neil killing and burying Christine. Hilarity ensues. (No, not really. This is in fact a deadly serious psychological thriller.)

Listen, I love Maggie Q, and I’m so happy to see her in a third movie this year, even if it’s a little strange that this one is set in a similar island paradise as the generally superior Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island from earlier in the year. This one is also similarly high concept, even borrowing a bit from The Hangover (still, not a comedy), except that the premise gets so diluted by vague and esoteric nightmarish scenes used to keep Christine (and the viewer) in a constant state of confusion.

This feels like such a different type of movie for Bousman, maybe because of the environment or the lush look created by that location which informs the film. In some ways, it reminded me of Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow, and I usually like this type of mind-fuck type movie, but Death of Me just goes too far down that rabbit hole, and the only answer it gives in terms of what is happening is a fairly lame twist near the end. There’s no question this might have been worse in the hands of a less adept filmmaker, because the movie does look good, but I had a hard time connecting with any of it. You’ll notice that I didn’t have much to say about Luke Hemsworth’s character and that’s because he has so little personality when he mysteriously vanishes midway through the movie, you just don’t miss him at all.

At times, Death of Me comes across like a Southeast Asian Midsommar, and Maggie Q generally gives a terrific performance to help sell the terror her character must endure. Unfortunately, that effort and her talent is wasted, because the movie frequently goes so far overboard it’s impossible to get back once it begins to go too far off the rails.

Going from psychological thriller right into futuristic sci-fi with Seth Lamey’s 2067 (RLJEFilms), starring Kodi Smith-McPhee as Ethan Whyte, a young man living during a time when the earth has been disabled by the lack of oxygen. Ethan works in the mines with his older brother (Ryan Kwanten) but he’s suddenly called upon as the potential savior of earth, as he’s sent 400 years into the future to bring back a cure for earth’s woes.

Where do I even begin with a movie that generally should be something I like, but it takes so long to get even remotely interesting? This one had me vacillating between enjoying what was going on and generally being annoyed by everything. I’m not even sure where to begin except for the central premise of all plant life being dead meaning there’s no oxygen for humans. It’s a decent idea for sure but one that’s quickly lost when you realize that this is going to be another well-intentioned movie that isn’t executed very well.

The entire set-up for the movie doesn’t particularly work, but when Ethan is shot 400 years into the future via something called “The Chronicle,” he’s suddenly on an earth full of lush vegetation and no way of getting back. The movie does get slightly better at that point, because it doesn’t rely on people walking around in gas masks – cause there’s no oxygen, get it? – but Smit-McPhee really struggles to carry this section, frequently leaning on Kwanten once Ethan’s older brother shows up. I just don’t think Smit-McPhee has aged well nor has he improved much as an actor, so making him the lead is already questionable, especially when you put Kwanten into more of a supporting role, and that’s really just the tip of the iceberg for the movie’s problems.

Unfortunately, 2067 is harder to follow than most time travel movies but mainly because it chooses to jump back and forth in time, frequently stealing liberally from Blade Runner’s futuristic noir and other movies.  The writing is pretty bad, and the weak cast does little to elevate it with way too much over-emoting in almost every scene.

Even the score, which would have been great if used to embellish a better movie, tends to overpower everything, essentially used as a crutch to instill emotion for characters that are hard to care about. On top of that, the storytelling is all over the place to the point where few will be focused enough to care.

Sure, there’s some nice production design at work despite substandard VFX, and otherwise, 2067 is mostly bland and highly derivative sci-fi that comes off like a bad low-budget episode of Doctor Who with little of that show’s entertainment value.

Where do I even begin with SNO BABIES (Better Noise Films), a heavy-handed PSA about drug addiction written by Michael Walsh and directed by Bridget Smith that’s available via VOD right now. It stars Katie Kelly as Kristen McCusker, a Princeton-bound high school senior who has turned her first taste of oxy into a full-blown heroin addiction as we see her dragged down a rabbit hole of absolutely every possibly awful thing that could happen to her over the course of two hours, just so that…  well, I won’t spoil what happens.

There are times while watching a movie when you’re not too far into it, and you quickly realize that you’re watching a very bad movie. I certainly didn’t have to go that far into Sno Babies before seeing Kelly’s character being put through so much awfulness that it made my skin crawl more than any sort of torture porn. Whether it’s watching her or her awful friend Hannah (Paula Andino) sticking a hypodermic full of heroin into her tongue or seeing her getting raped at a party because she’s in a heroin-fueled stupor. And that’s just the first 15 minutes of the movie!

Instead of staying focused on Kristen’s journey, which is like a cross between Mean Girls and Requiem for a dream, the filmmakers also introduce a young couple, Matt and Anna (Michael Lombardi, Jane Stiles), who are trying to have a baby, Matt’s sister Mary, Kristen’s mother Clare and her real estate business, as well as a problematic coyote that takes up much of Matt’s time. Yes, this coyote ends up playing as larger and larger role in the plot and how it comes together that even if you think you know where things are going (and are probably partially right), you will be left incredulous by everything that happens over the course of the movie until it’s absolutely ludicrous last act.

So yeah, the writing is not good, the actors are very bad and every aspect of the film is so poorly made and directed, it’s impossible to even appreciate it as what it’s intended – to make a PSA for teenagers to try to keep them off of … heroin.  (Yes, there are lots of other drugs that are far easier to get in the suburbs, but for whatever reason, they decided to go with heroin.) Except that the movie is so bad few teenagers will be able to get past the first 15 minutes, which means it’s a failed effort from jump.

Kelly is certainly put through a lot, including a lot of bad FX make-up, but in many ways, Andino plays a far more interesting character with a better arc, but there’s no way of realizing that until the very end, which just makes the whole thing even more bonkers.

The filmmakers behind Sno Babies must have some sort of sadistic streak to make viewers endure everything various characters are put through, but especially Kristen and Hannah. Listen, I’m never been one to get so mad at a movie that I ever actually yelled at my laptop… until Sno Babies.  Let me just say that it’s a good thing I don’t have direct neighbors because they would start thinking they live next door to a psycho who keeps yelling odd things out of the blue. 

Sno Babies is like an Afterschool Special on heroin, in other words, it’s unwatchable trash. Your brain would have to be on drugs to stick with it through the end. As the worst movie I’ve seen this year, it would be an understatement if I were to say that the people who made this movie should never be allowed to make another movie again.

And then we get to all the movies I wish I could get to but just didn’t have time due to my insanely busy schedule right now. I hope to get to watch some of them later but didn’t want to hold up this week’s column too much.

Lydia Dean Pilcher’s A CALL TO SPY (IFC Films) seems like my kind of movie I might like, a WWII drama about how Churchill started recruiting and training women as spies for his Special Operations Executive (SOE) in order to conduct sabotage and rebuild the resistance. Stana Katic plays Vera Atkins, who recruits two such candidates, Sarah Megan Thomas’ Virginia Hall, an American with a wooden leg, and Radhika Atpe’s Noor Inayat Khan, a Muslim pacifist, as the three women infiltrate Nazi-occupied France. The film is based on true stories, and hopefully I’ll get a chance to see it.

Streaming on Netflix this Friday is Kristen (Cameraperson) Johnson’s new doc DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD, which won a Special Jury Award at Sundance earlier this year. This one is about her 86-year-old stuntman father and how she deals with the fact that he’s eventually going to die, but literally staging all sorts of cinematic ways of killing him. This one I actually did get a chance to watch before finishing the column, and it was pretty tough to watch, mainly since I’m dealing with my own coming to terms that my slightly older mother may not be around for much longer. This is such a strange and only mildly entertaining movie, because it is so personal for Johnson, but I’m kind of shocked by how many people in her life would go along with making such a morbid and macabre film.  This definitely won’t be for everyone, and I’m not quite sure how I’d feel about it if my mother died – my father’s been dead for 11 years, incidentally – but I’m not quite sure to whom this movie would appeal. Either way, it’s on Netflix so you can throw it on if you have nothing else to watch.

Other stuff streaming on Netflix this week includes the kid-friendly horror film Vampires vs the Bronx and the streamer’s latest true crime docuseries American Murder: The Family Next Door.

Another music doc that I’ll have to check out is Herb Alpert Is… (Abramorama), the latest from John Scheinfeld (Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary), and it will get a live world premiere on Thursday night at 5PM PST/8PM PST featuring a Q&A with Alpert himself via Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter and www.herbalpertis.com.  On Friday, it will be available via Amazon, iTunes and other platforms as well as via DVD… and lots of other formats, including “LP format featuring a coffee table book and a five-piece 180 gram vinyl set.” Wow. I’ve always been interested in Alpert from his amazing career as a musician to his equally fantastic career running A&M Records, which discovered some of the biggest artists over the decades that followed. I can guarantee that I’ll be watching this movie very soon.

Also, Daniel Traub’s Ursula Von Ryingvard: Into her Own from Icarus Films, an innocuous title about a woman of whom I’ve never heard, will open via Virtual Cinema. Apparently, she’s a sculptor, and that doesn’t do much to pique my interest, although the fact it’s only an hour long might mean I watch it soon, as well.

Also wasn’t able to get to Marcus H. Rosenmüller’s The Keeper (Menemsha Films), which will stream on Kino Lorber’s Virtual Cinema.It’s a biopic about Bert Traumann, as played by David Kross, about a German soldier and prisoner of war who becomes Manchester City’s goalkeeper, much to the consternation of the soccer team’s thousands of Jewish fans. It leads up to the team’s victory at the 1956 FA Cup Final that finally gets him fans. I’m also kind of interested in the historic epic The Legend of Tomiris (Well GO USA), which seems to be getting a digital only release, but I honestly haven’t heard peep about the movie’s release other than the fact it’s opening. That’s not good.

Another movie I was hoping to catch but there were JUST TOO MANY DAMN MOVIES! was Brea Grant’s 12 Hour Shift (Magnet Releasing), which stars Angela Bettis, and it’s a 1998 thriller set in an Arkansas hospital where a junkie nurse, her scheming cousin and a group of black market organ-trading criminals get caught up in heist that goes wrong.

To be honest, I really just didn’t have much interest in Adriana Trigiani’s Then Came You (Vertical), which actually received Fathom Events screenings before it’s On Demand/Digital release on Friday. It stars daytime talk show host Kathie Lee Gifford (who wrote the screenplay!) with Craig Ferguson, Gifford playing a widow who is travelling the world with her husband’s ashes before meeting Ferguson’s innkeeper.  Gee, why on earth would Ed be dubious of a movie starring a daytime talk show host and a former late night television host? Gee, I wonder. I didn’t see it. Maybe it’s great, but nothing less than being paid to watch this movie would get me to watch it, so there we are.

Other movies out this week in some form or another include Rising Hawk (Shout! Studios), The Antenna (Dark Star Pictures), Eternal Beauty (Samuel Goldwyn Films), Tar (1091), Do Not Reply (Gravitas Ventures), The Great American Lie (Vertical), Honey Lauren’s Wives of the Skies (Hewes Pictures) on Amazon Prime on Tuesday, The Call (Cinedigm), Chasing the Present (1091), Haroula Rose’s adaptation of Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Once Upon a River, The Devil to Pay (Dark Star Pictures/Uncork’D Entertainment), and something called Alien Addiction (Gravitas Ventures). I’m sure there’s some good stuff in there, and congrats to the filmmaker for finishing a movie and getting it released but… and you may have heard this before… THERE ARE TOO MANY FUCKING MOVIES!!!!

A couple festivals starting this week includes the 43rd Asian American International Film Festival, which runs from October 1 through 11, and it seems to include a pretty impressive line-up of features and shorts, and though I haven’t seen many, the one I’m highly recommending again (as I have when it played other festivals) is the doc Far East Deep South.

Also, American Cinematique’s Beyond Fest starts this Friday at the Mission Tiki Drive-In in Montclair, California, running from October 2 though October 8. It begins with a double feature of the upcoming The Wolf of Snow Hollow (out next week!) paired with The ‘Burbs, then goes into a David Lynch triple feature of Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway on Saturday and Saint Maud (a chronically delayed theatrical release) with the classic Misery on Sunday. Monday gets a double feature of new movies in Synchronic and Bad Hair.

Also, the Woodstock Film Festival begins this week, running from Weds. through Sunday, with screenings at the Greenville Drive-In, Overlook Drive-In and Woodstock Drive-In as well as an online component. Highlights include The Father (Opening Night on Thursday, October 1) and the Closing Night film is Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand on Sunday night. You can get tickets and more information on Eventive.

What it comes down to is that there are just too many fucking movies. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. This shit has gotta stop, because there’s no way any single movie can get any attention when so many are being dumped to digital/streaming/VOD/virtual cinema each week.

Next week, more movies not in New York City theaters, which will probably never reopen the way things are going.

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[tdrcycle09]

Rags To Riches Ball Part III: Regally Royal Couture

Our next category celebrates all those who have sat on the throne, decked out in drag inspired by kings and queens of the past! With this, our final 4 are also telling us why they should win to get their own crown and throne too! Let’s see what they’ve done!

Analyse Thropic

Lila: Analyse, you are breathtaking. You turn a silhouette that is arguably quite simplistic, intelligently select colour stories and fabrics to go with it, accessorize it extremely, and produce makeup and hair that you may not think goes with the outfit, and man, does it come together. This is such a fucking strong ass look, the concept is so right and I literally die from how Elizabethan it is in design. There are issues, like the lace could’ve came all the way down, and it could’ve had this Vera Wang look to it that would’ve made it more breaktaking, but that’s just me. Your makeup is absolutely stunning in this category and you should be extremely proud because this is a makeup that really made me audibly gasp when opening the link to the pictures. You’ve came such a long way from Charm School and it’s so amazing to see you create such powerful strides.You are truly a TDR success story - and the first queen to truly make me cry. Analyse, it has been such a remarkable journey with you in the past 5 months, and I am so proud to stand by while you go through from strength to strength in this competition, and see you tackle some of the most ambitious challenges in TDR herstory without complaining or being defeatist about anything really was a breath of fresh air. Your speech honestly refreshed my mind and really had me nodding my head, agreeing with your statements and you didn’t filibuster into the realm of repetition, nor did you make it all about yourself. You acknowledge your low points and defend yourself well over those points, and I honestly love a queen who can carry themselves like you can. Analyse, you’ve done amazing this cycle, and I really can’t wait to see what you do in the future, no matter the outcome.

Letha: Analyse Thropic, Miss Royal Tea. You picked a great color palette for this look, as the colors of gold and purple go with royalty while not necessarily borrowing from a specific monarch in particular. I love the ruffs as well as the belt, and from the waist up, I like the outfit, but I don't love the bottom half as much, the length of the gold skirt makes it a bit too business fish for my taste. The hair is a bit of a wash as far as styling goes, but the crown on top does help to make it more regal. Love the nails on gloves, they're the best kind of tacky. I like parts of the makeup, the lips and eyes are great, and the pearl forehead/eyebrows are also good, but the rest of the pearls on the face doesn't read as glamorous for me. Your winning speech was inspiring and you talking about your growth and journey throughout Charm School and Cycle 9 really illustrates how far you have come, and I can only hope that someone watching it becomes motivated to follow their own drag and begin a journey like yours. You should be very proud of your work, Analyse, because I know I am. 

Toni: I loved this look, I think its very well done and I think its clear who you are a queen based around this look. Just a few things thought: Your hair is really confusing looking at it, im not totally sure what its doing but I don’t like it. I also wish that the lining went all the way down to the floor because it would have made it very much ROYAL and I think it’s a bit missing. The speech was beautiful and well spoken. It was funny when it needed to be, serious and heartfelt when needed, and I think it really went over well and gave you a strong platform. 

Gluttoni:  What a beautiful queen you make Analyse! This look is quite stunning and I think my favorite reason why is because of your color palette you chose. The golden champagne color along with that royal deep purple is honestly such smart choice girl! I’m obsessed with the design of your crown and the amazing negative space of it. It’s honestly a gorgeous look but it’s lacking in some areas for me. The hair is definitely you signature color and great length but it need some serious styling in my eyes because it just looked too fried with this polished look. Also you lose me a bit with the underskirt length because it’s just a tad awkward with the sheer panel.  Good job regardless. Your speech was very well spoken and honestly you gave very solid points that really moved me. You should be proud my favorite skin cavity.

Avana Noir

Lila: UGH. This concept is so smart and I get your convention that you set out to achieve. Your hair is so good, literally love this hair on you and paired with this makeup, you LOOK SO DAMN BEAUTIFUL. The makeup is fucking stunning Avana - STUNNING.The colours are strong here, if your silhouette was more of a flair than a ball - shape, then I would’ve enjoyed this a lot more. But without that - I feel your concept is superb. I foresaw this being the route you took, your Mexican heritage should be a proud staple and the chance to express it like this, like I’m proud of you. You have such a great presence when you’re on camera, you have the ability to make me laugh, make me cry, and make me believe that you believe that you can win this. Your points in your speech came across really genuine, I feel such a strong connection to those who go through TDR in a way that you have - you seemed anxious at times, you undermined your work when nothing was really wrong with it, and now, you’ve overcame a sort of renaissance period where you are good enough and you are the one to watch - you’ve acknowledged some of your “mistakes” and you’ve managed to overcome them. Look where you stand. You are such a warm glow in a community that could be watching their Next Drag Superstar. One of the biggest points of TDR is growth - personal growth and growth in drag - and your potential is starting to shine brighter than you know it!

Letha: Avana Noir, or is it just Avana???? Either way, Queen. This look is really great and I love your thought process for it, making it regal but also about your heritage. The color scheme is great, but I do wish you had a strap to hold up the top and stop it from flopping, because otherwise it'd be perfect. The hair goes very well with the look, and the makeup is STUNNING, you really knocked that part out of the park. Your speech was entertaining and funny, as you always are, and you discussing your growth during your time here, as well as you finding your community here, is always so great to hear that someone has gotten that out of their cycle. Know that these friendships will last beyond this competition if you want them to, and that just because we may all live in separate places, we're all sisters and having a network of such fabulous and creative people is like nothing else on this Earth. I am so proud of you, Avana, and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for you.

Toni: I love love love that you went in and made a whole fucking ball gown for this!!! Its rough around the edges but it’s totally amazing for a first try!! I think if you had slowed down and focused on making more ruffles and make sure the lace looked nice this would have been stellar!!! I also think that this could have helped with straps because right now it looks like its barely holding on to your chest. Your speech was so very very very you!!!! It was fun and light hearted but had the slight seriousness that I’ve come to appreciate from you ❤

Gluttoni:  Right in time for Cinco De Mayo, you give it to us with this beautiful Mexican queen look. I love that you pick something so close and meaningful to the person that you are. I love the mug and you really look like doll that you would get as a souvenir for visiting Mexico. Your speech was hilarious. I really got some good hardy laughs out of it and I’m so glad you are owning everything that you are and really bringing what you had along to the competition. Good luck henny.

Lexi Lamour

Lila: I like your Marie Antoinette a lot - The colour scheme is almost very Cinderella as Marie Antoinette, and truly the makeup is just such a standout. Your costuming is coming across for me, very halloweeny store at the bodice line, however with the flare out it’s extremely draggy and it balances out the Yin and Yang pretty much. Your hair is so good and I just think the powder blue is just so fucking beautiful for this scheme like wow. Another success story comes from culminating, well, success, in TDR. Your speech made me choke up a bit and I’m really glad you explained yourself in your reasoning for your personal situation. It sucks to be in such a tight spot and obviously knowing your passion and determination to win this, it must’ve been such a dire situation to be in. For me, you really hit home about some of your points - remember to relax on camera too - we’re only behind the screen and that lense isn’t an eye for the CIA to stare at you through! Touching on your success restored a lot of your achievements in this cycle and I think you should really be proud of what you’ve managed to achieve and succeed in through your journey in this cycle - the amount of friends you’ve made, the new challenges you’ll face afterward, and the support system that you can always turn to. Really, you’ve done such a great job this cycle, Lexi. Don’t forget about it.

Letha: Lexi Lamour, are you you gonna finish that cake or can the children have some? This look screams ROYAL and is so opulent, I am amazed. Even if you didn't make it, you sold the garment and it's so fabulous. I don't love the petticoat underneath, as it creates an odd shape underneath the skirt, but that would be my only crit for the gown. The hair is also incredible, and the makeup is honestly so beautiful, you look so soft and delicate, even if it isn't totally the typical Marie Antoinette style. Your speech was so heartfelt, and your drag journey is much longer than many of ours, with so many ups and downs, but the fact that you are still here is a testament to your strength and resolve to push through and commit to your drag, and I am so proud to see it. I am happy to have helped you through this cycle with my tough love, and I cannot wait to see what's next. 

Toni:I love love love love love adore love this rococo inspired outfit and I think you did a good job of styling it, I just wanted two things form this. It needed a different  hoop skirt, one that went more side ways like rococo gowns do, and I wanted you to be drenched in pearls. I love your speech so much because you really talk from the heart and its something from you that I haven’t seen before and I really enjoyed it and fell in love with you during it. that this

Gluttoni: I love anything referencing French lifestyle and culture so this look is quite the slam dunk for me. I love the soft pastel blue for this look and the hair up to the gay gods. This makeup is probably the best you’ve ever looked in my eyes and the styling was fantastic as well. Nothing bad I can say about this look. You gave us the cake and we got to eat it too. I couldn’t help but tear up during your speech because I heard all the passion and drive in your voice and it was very reminiscent of when I had to do my speech. I was literally boohooing while watching. I just want to you to know whatever comes of this. THIS NOT THE END OF YOU. You have so much more work and passion for the whole world to see. You have the platform, now what are you going to do with it?

Sugar Monroe

Lila: Because this is the finale and you are all battling for a crown, I’m going to be outright with this. I do not like this at all and I was expecting a lot more than this. If you are going to do a Marie Antoinette look, the hair needs to be sculpted up, there needs to be more accessories, and certainly, there needs to be more cohesion. Your makeup has the conventions of Marie, but more of a clown inspired rather than beauty inspired. I would’ve done a lot more white paint all the way down to your clavicle, and certainly tried to make the arms look a lot more white too. Your speech made me soooooo sad. As soon as I opened your speech, I didn’t expect you to give into your own negative thoughts so quickly. Even if you think of all those things - The argument that you didn’t expect to make it this far, the argument that you did this for yourself - you did this like every other person standing in those positions at the finale. You all have reasons for and reasons against winning this competition. Any person in this cast could’ve came to the finale, and you all have potential to win this thing. I say this in a critique so that people can see it - you beating yourself up isn’t going to change how you perceive yourself, nor how others see you too. If you can go through being low, being bottom 2, and still make it to the finale? You have as much right as anyone standing up there with you to plead your case. So Sugar, read this now: You are a great queen. You deserve to be here, and you should celebrate it. Good job in this competition, and good job in this finale.

Letha: Sugar, I have to admit that I'm not loving the look. Beyond the makeup, I don't get too much "royal" so much as "holo", which could work for say... a future queen? but it doesn't have that typical futuristic sleekness. The hair is pretty nondescript, and the makeup throws me a bit. It's very Marie Antoinette, but the contour meeting the cheek kind of muddies the shapes a bit for me. I like the lip/eye, though. All in all, it is a bit hodge-podge and not very cohesive for me. Moving on to your speech, there were some good parts, but you seemed to have felt very defeated. Your confidence didn't carry through the speech, but I want you to know that you and your drag are so valid, and that your growth here is so evident in these challenges. When we started together on Cycle 8, I had no idea we would end up here, but now that we have, I can only say how proud I am of you and how much I look forward to your future in drag. I love you, Sugar. 

Toni:I really loved your speech, I love how you talked about your personal growth and how you really showed us passion for who sugar was and your art, and proving yourself to others as well as yourself. The look is a bit of a let down im afraid. I think if you had done an updo for your hair it would have helped a lot. Maybe adding more stones or jewels, a crown, or even a septar, just something to show us your royalty because other than I’m not getting queen from any section of this. I think your makeup is interesting, I’m not sure if I like it or not. I think if you ahd softened the blue a bit it would have made it a lot better. very you!!!! 

Gluttoni: I feel like I got the vision of the parts of royalty you were trying to reference but I must admit I’m kind of lost with the whole picture of it all. The good parts like the beauuuuutiful holographic fabric seems dulled by the uneventful and plain juxtaposed top. I’m also obsessed withe shoes but it seems a tad too modern for the silhouette's sake.Something about the sullen clownish mug and flat hair really doesn’t spell out opulence and queen-like regalness in my eyes. Not to say any of this is at all bad because it not but I wish you would have though out more about the whole picture which is why this is hard because you can’t explain for yourself your thought process. Your speech was definitely the embodiment of your growth and testament of your hardships overcome by your triumphs. I know this isn’t the end of you journey and my hopes is the that really own your star quality.

[thetwelvecaesars]

Livia Drusilla Was NOT Evil! Hear Me Out.

I love the Ancient Roman Tag here on Tumblr. But, the one thing I don’t like is that everyone hates Livia due to I, Claudius by Robert Graves. Now, as close as we would all love that book to be non-fiction, it isn’t. Livia Drusilla wasn’t evil and even though I know you all would say, ‘well, she did this or that’, let me be her defense attorney.

Exhibit #1: She killed Augustus’ grand-children, Gaius and Lucius.

The only evidence I have been able to dig up is that of Tacitus in his Annals: “When Agrippa died, and Lucius Caesar as he was on his way to our armies in Spain, and Caius while returning from Armenia, still suffering from a wound, were prematurely cut off by destiny, or by their step-mother Livia's treachery, Drusus too having long been dead, Nero remained alone of the stepsons, and in him everything tended to centre.”

Suetonius says nothing on the matter and from reading his work, no piece of gossip was ignored. Not to mention that most of what he says can be cross-referenced in Tacitus and Cassius Dio’s works. Suetonius also had access to the Imperial Records. 

Exhibit #2: She killed Augustus

This idea comes from Suetonius who said that people suspected her as she was his wife. People always suspect the wife of someone powerful. It’s a thing. Suetonius writes that Augustus got a chill at sea and died, which isn’t uncommon. Vespasian of the Flavian era caught a chill and died as well.

Tacitus also didn’t like her, but I felt when reading his work, he didn’t like anyone. But who can blame him? He lived during Domitian’s reign and the Tacitus as a senator, surely lived in fear of being executed. 

Exhibit #3: Livia hated Claudius, so she’s evil!

...a lot of people hated Claudius. Before I go on, I would like to say that I, the writer of this blog is the proud owner of handicap parking placards. I just got them renewed. 

On to Claudius. He was disabled and in ancient times, Rome, Greece, ect, they were looked down on. Hell, even in the later eras. Augustus, according to Suetonius, also hated Claudius because he stammered and all. It wasn’t until Augustus realised Claudius was actually smart, that he didn’t hate him. 

But, it’s a real miracle Claudius is alive, because I am sure someone in Ancient Rome would have killed the deformed child. So, Livia and Augustus weren’t that bad.

And this is the part where I am not sure if I should give Caligula some applause for giving Claudius public office, even if it was somewhat of a joke.

Exhibit #4: She stopped Claudius from writing his family history.

That she did, according to Suetonius. But, if we look at the whole picture, I am pretty sure that Livia was just trying to keep her family looking good. Keeping up appearances in Rome were very important. That’s the reason why Augustus exiled his own daughter Julia. The family was trying to hold onto power and Livia surely didn’t want Claudius to ruin what she and Augustus had built with his history; and that was the new Roman Empire. 

Exhibit #5: Livia was so evil that even Caligula didn’t like her.

True. Caligula didn’t like her. Suetonius writes that he said she was a ‘silver-tongued Ulysses’. Which she may have been, but to me, Caligula saying something like that doesn’t hold much weight. 

Not after looking at all he did. 

1. He promised to marry this one woman if he became Emperor. But, when he did, he forced her and his right hand man, Macro to commit suicide. 

2. Gave Tiberius a moving funeral elegy and then a year later denounced him publicly.

3. He slept with all 3 of his sisters, Livillia, Agrippina the Younger and Drusilla. Then, exiled two of them after denouncing them as adulterers. (And I don’t think he killed Drusilla either, for that matter.)

4. Bitched and complained about how his wife, Caesonia had a daughter and how much of a financial burden it would be. Then, when the child showed some of his cruel tendencies, adored her and finally acknowledged Caesonia as his wife. (Which, was a title he seemed to have reserved for Drusilla until her death.)

Exhibit #6: Livia did it!

Yeah. This is a fun joke, but I really don’t think that she killed everyone. She wasn’t involved in any deaths historically besides Gaius and Lucius that I can find. Even that is just a rumour and I think that even if she did kill those two off, it doesn’t make her evil. 

Augustus, the father of the country of Rome killed way more people than Livia and people still adore him. He also cheated on her, but she didn’t cheat on him. So I really think that saying ‘Livia did it’ is funny, but still isn’t correct. I mean, look at so many female figures in history who were painted to be evil because they were powerful? Lucretia Borgia, Catherine the Great, Marie Antoinette, etc.