#might have to share the saw parody horror short he made

[thatsgonnaleaveamark]

just went to see renfield, didn't expect to hear any mcr today but man i'm not complaining

[mollymauk-teafleak]

A Stranger in a Crown (part two)

Please consider leaving a comment on Ao3! It really means a lot and god damn this took a long time to write

Huge thanks to my betas @minky-for-short and @spiky-lesbian! Love you both!

Trigger Warnings: Discussion of a Juno/Diamond past relationship and all that implies, references to drug and alcohol use, references to suicidal thoughts. But! Happy ending guaranteed!

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The waiting was the worst part.

Juno almost wished the queen would just tear him to pieces in front of the entire ball and have done with it, throw as many bottles at him as she liked. They’d shatter so prettily on the parquet floor. They could call them a feature and before the month was out, broken glass would litter the floor of every noble ballroom on the planet.

Even that would be better being yanked to her side as soon as he came within reach, black dirt from the garden still clinging to his heels, with not even a word. Just the black fury seeping out of her skin and staining the air between them, the set of her jaw that fired old instincts to run and make himself as small as possible and hope the storm would pass. She marched him around like that for the hour that remained of the party, like a dog on a leash. Juno took the hint and kept quiet through the painful conversations with dignitaries and councillors, all pretending not to see just how hard the queen was gripping the princess’ arm or the depths of volcanic rage clearly showing through the cracks in her make-up.

And, as the grand clock that still worked on real gears and springs like in the olden days chimed out the first hour of the new day, those guests not yet rendered completely useless by drink all stood to attention, waiting politely. Juno felt eyes pierce his skin in little pinpricks and he swallowed hard, looking down.

They were waiting for the announcement. This was the ball to celebrate his betrothal, after all, and there was still one role left conspicuously unfilled. This was the last chance and of course it only made sense for the queen to leave it until this last moment, the perfect flourish, only right and proper.

But Sarah Steel only clenched her teeth tighter and made a dismissive gesture to the herald, signalling the end of the ball. A ripple of surprise and confusion ran through the crowds still left on their feet, murmurings bubbling up as the queen marched Juno from the hall without so much as a closing pronouncement, Benten running after them and only just slipping through before the heavy doors boomed shut.

Well, Juno thought bitterly, at least they’d have something to talk about on the journey home.

It was clear immediately that they weren’t going to the twin’s room. Apparently Juno had fucked up so bad that this dressing down could only take place in the throne room, dark and silent now but for the intense lights that were always kept on, framing the throne itself.

It was an undeniably beautiful thing. Made of silvered wood, the kind that only grew on Harpyia, so it glowed with a faint bioluminescence, it was carved in the shape of vines thick with butterflies. The wings of each and every tiny insect was inlaid with jewels and rich pigments that hadn’t faded with the years. When the queen sat on it to hold court, looking like some mystical creature of the forest, the kind that were said to have lived on Harpyia in its earliest days, she was equally as beautiful. But she never looked further away from his mother.

It just looked imposing now, with the vast hall around it empty but for the three of them, their footsteps echoing on the floor, the queen’s determined and purposeful, Juno’s dragging, Ben’s hurried and frantic.

Eventually, she let him go, once they were at the foot of the small stairs that lead to the platform, perfect for the ruler to look down from. Juno was overbalanced when she stopped him and almost fell, the heel snapping off his shoe in his attempt to right himself.

“Juno,” she snapped, as Benten rushed to help him but was stopped in his tracks by a flick of her fingers, “What is that?” Her other hand snapped out to point up the stairs.

Juno didn’t understand, trying not to visibly shake even with the panic rising, “I...I don’t…”

“What is that?” she repeated again, more force in her voice.

“The throne?” Juno guessed, feeling his pulse behind his eye. His instincts shouted at him to please her, to do or say whatever it took to calm her anger, but it was so hard to do that when he didn’t know where she was going.

“Exactly,” her voice dripped with sarcastic praise, a parody of a schoolteacher with a young child, “And what exactly does that throne mean, Juno?”

Juno shook his head, mouth opening and closing as he tried to think of an answer that would pacify.

“No answer for me, little monster? Not a single word on what this throne, with all its history and all the people depending on it, means to you? But you still claim to be my heir.”

Juno felt tears burn in his eye. He hated this, he hated that she could still do this to him, that he’d never been allowed to be anything other than a child no matter what he looked like on the outside or what they also paradoxically claimed he was ready for.  

“I’m sorry…”

Sarah shook her head, no interest in hearing it, “I know you had your reservations about tonight but I thought you were willing to make the sacrifice for our planet and our people. I thought you’d listened, all the years I did my best to raise you so you’d be ready. I forgave your embarrassing lapses, telling myself that you’d grow up one day and you’d see…”

“I left for an hour, that’s all!” Juno burst out, unable to swallow the unfairness of it all.

“An hour,” the queen raged at him, “An hour plus five years of dragging your feet, turning back fine suitors I would have killed for when I was your age, ignoring your responsibilities while we’re recovering from a goddamn war.”

Juno trembled, now it was the truth of what she said that burned, “I...I’ll do it, I’ll pick someone…”

“Too little and too goddamn late,” the queen snarled, “Ever since you two were born I’ve had to do this on my own and shield you from the wolves at our door. Keeping a broken country running while people like the Kanagawas lick their lips and eye us, dodging the snakes in my own palace. All on my own. No one will take that throne from me when I have worked myself hollow for it, not Min Kanagawa, not Lord Takano, not my own selfish little princess. Do you hear me?”

“Jack…” Ben murmured, frowning, but he may as well have been on a different plane of existence to Juno, who could only see the queen.

“Mother, I…”

“No,” she shook her head, nearly dislodging the grand crown from her head, having to stop and fix it before centuries old gold and diamonds could clatter to the floor, clinging to it like the shadows she saw might rip it away at any moment, “I tried, Juno. Know I tried to work with you and give you some agency in this. I tried so hard…”

Tears that hadn’t been there a second ago were suddenly visible in her eyes, shining like the gems she gripped so tightly. Juno jolted, seeing his mother standing before him, the mother who had told him stories about the harpies and the butterflies, who’d kicked away her shoes after endless balls and dinners and galas, exhausted, and sat between her sons’ beds to make them laugh with court gossip and the antics of drunk rich people. But then she blinked and was gone, only the queen remaining, cold eyed.

“I received a message two days ago, one I wasn’t going to share with you but you’ve left me no choice, Juno,” she spoke with as much ice in her voice as in her gaze, “Diamond put forward a request for consideration as your spouse. And I will accept.”

Juno felt the oxygen leave him all at once, like the floor had disappeared out from under him “No…”

“Mother, you can’t!” Ben sobbed out, horror on his face.

“The bride price they offer far outstrips anyone else’s, even the Kanagawas,” the queen continued like she couldn’t see them, sounding rehearsed all of a sudden, like she’d been practicing this in her head all night, “Their family is powerful, with influence that, true, others could match and exceed but it comes from within Harpyia itself. We could become stronger. We can’t make our little rock any bigger but goddamn it, we can make it something to be reckoned with. And marrying them will give us that. That’s all they ask, Juno, just you, nothing else.”

Juno couldn’t hear her, he was spiralling, unable to hear anything through rushing air and the throb of old bruises, “Please...mother, please…”

“After everything they did to Juno?” Ben’s tears were falling thickly, dripping onto the shadowed floor, “How they hurt him? How can you be so heartless, mother...”

The queen turned the full force of her glare on him, “I am doing what needs to be done to save this planet. As apparently you and your brother won’t.”

Juno had seen Ben angry before, it had always looked so out of place on his sweet, gentle face, so clearly made to smile. And this kind of wounded, aching fury looked even more strange.

“You have no idea how much he does,” getting the words out was a struggle, his voice tight as a drum, brimming with the anger of a child who has been lied to, “No idea.”

And he turned and fled the room, fled the shadow of the throne, his tears leaving a trail on the floor.

Juno looked but couldn’t find enough of himself to call to him or run after him as he wanted to. He was too busy hearing angry voices that he’d told himself he didn’t remember, words he’d thrown and words that had struck him. He was remembering how the blows had come without warning, every time, as he’d broken rules he hadn’t known existed. He was remembering a year of nothing but fear and hate, when the way out had been behind him the whole time but he’d never looked.

The queen wasn’t wrong. Diamond had been- and apparently still was- a figure of power in Harpyia, even if it was a kind of power that most wouldn’t look too closely at. There had been an official face of their family, a good name, structure and commerce as the scaffolding to the true reason why the heads of much older, more wealthy nobles bowed when they entered the room. They were part of Harpyia’s foremost organised crime family, one of the many that bred in the poorest parts of the city. But this monster had gorged itself during the war, pulling the right strings and putting money in the right places to grow and swallow others until they were the largest and richest and, as far as they were concerned, only. Diamond was their heir, the first born into the prestige and respect their dealings had acquired.

And didn’t they know it.

Juno had been fascinated since the first day he saw them, at a party much like that night’s disastrous one. And they had been fascinated with him in turn, bringing him close, making him feel seen in a way no one else did. Diamond hadn’t cared that he drank, that he did drugs, that he harboured so much black resentment in his heart. They’d listened to the things he couldn’t even tell Benzaiten, taking Juno’s chin in their fingers and promising the world was so much bigger, telling him everything he wanted to hear, feeding the bitterness and despair inside him even while Juno had believed he was happier than he had ever been. With Diamond, things had made sense. Juno hadn’t needed to face the questions and panicky chaos inside him because all he’d had to do was listen to Diamond. Diamond became everything.

And when Sasha, Mick and Ben had protested, saying it wasn’t right the way they treated him, the way they controlled him, that he’d been so close to getting clean before he’d met them and now he was in deeper than ever, Juno had felt sorry for them because they didn’t understand. They didn’t understand how happy he was.

Realising how wrong he was had been like shattering to pieces on jagged rocks hidden by the surface of the sea. The queen had exiled Diamond, banning him from the palace, once Benten and Sasha had brought her enough evidence of how he was abusing the crown princess. She hadn’t said that was why, of course, she wasn’t going to put her heir’s scars on display. But it wasn’t as if there was a shortage of legitimate reasons for their fall from the royal graces, they’d just been ignoring them up until now.

Putting himself back together and climbing back up the cliff face had been twice as painful as the breaking but he’d done it, in time for coming of age. And he’d actually started to be proud of himself.

And now he was falling again. As easily as that.

“We will announce your betrothal tomorrow,” the queen kept talking like Ben’s outburst hadn’t happened, “Diamond not being present at the ball will give us a good excuse for why we didn’t do so tonight and silence any gossipers. God knows some of them are bound to have seen you stumbling out of the gardens with mud on your skirts. There’ll be stories breeding like rabbits all through this palace. But this will set it to rights. This...this will fix everything.”

If Juno had been looking, if he’d been able to see or think or feel in that moment, he’d have heard the crack in her voice on the last word. He’d have seen another flash of his mother, looking as scared as her son did in that moment. He’d have seen a child in a crown, looking at the shadows on her bedroom wall and trembling in terror.

But he couldn’t. So he didn’t.

A guard must have been summoned to lead him to bed because the next time Juno could feel his heartbeat and the air moving in and out of his lungs and the wilted silk against his skin, he was leaning back against his bedroom door.

Growing up with the only space that was truly theirs being full of antiques and priceless, ancient furniture had been strange. There’d always been a disconnect, like their ancestors would come haunt them if they left a jacket on a thousand year old chair or something. So they’d tried to leave as much of a mark as they could, if only a removable one. There were posters on the wall and you could neatly divide the room by which brother owned which half, just by which bands and streams were represented where. Their clothes were chosen for them, for the most part, but in here they could wear sweatpants and soft jumpers and simple t-shirts and throw them on whichever part of the floor they pleased. Old toys they couldn’t bear to throw away were in boxes at the corners and there were books everywhere that would never be allowed in the palace libraries. They’d managed to give it the veneer of actually having two twenty two year olds living in it.

And Juno had always felt a little bit safer here. So now he was inhaling the smell of Ben’s hairspray and the cheap barbecue chips he was unapologetically addicted to and even the funk of their unwashed socks, he could think more easily. He could leash the panic and start to think.

And, as it had been all his life, his first thought was to make sure Ben was okay.

Juno waded into the room, taking off his dress and letting it fall carelessly, shedding everything that would remind him of the last ten minutes. He quickly dressed in something comfier, pyjama bottoms patterned with characters from a cartoon he hadn’t watched since he was six, a loose top that hung off his shoulder. He shed all the jewellery like a snake changing it’s skin, leaving it all on the dresser though the more expensive pieces would need to go back in the vaults or back on display. His lady in waiting, Rita, would sort that out in the morning, she was good at keeping him on track.

The tiara should have gone with it all but, somehow, when he had it in his hands, he couldn’t let go. Instead he gazed at it for a moment, seeing his own face, puffy with tears and streaked in makeup, fractured and repeating over and over in the jewels.

What had Peter Nureyev seen in that face?

The more he thought about it, the more it felt like a dream. All he had to tell himself it was real was the dirt on his broken shoe and the memory of those other hands holding this tiara. Not much to hang a promise on.

But no, not now. Benten. Find Benten and comfort him, somehow. Tell him what had happened in the garden, tell him that everything would be okay, that he’d find a way to fix it all, even if it tasted like a lie. Then...then Juno didn’t know.

He didn’t have to look far at all, as it happened. He was putting the tiara down on top of his dresser when the door behind him opened. Still tense and bad memories clinging to him like burrs, Juno jumped, having to swallow down a scream but it was only Benten. His suit, done in colours to compliment Juno’s dress, was rumpled and had clearly gone beyond its natural lifespan, his make-up shedding from his face. Juno vaguely recalled a time when they’d been jealous of their mother, getting to go to all these wonderful parties that sounded so magical.

In the same instant, after a moment of looking at each other and feeling each other’s exhaustion, both of them spoke in perfect synchrony, “I need to tell you something.”

They had to smile a little at that, despite everything. Juno held out his fist with a questioning expression and Ben grinned tiredly, answering with his own. Three taps, Juno threw scissors and Ben threw rock.  

“You always do that,” Ben observed distractedly.

Juno wasn’t going to point out that it was deliberate, motioning him to sit on his bed while he sat across on his own, “What do you need to tell me?”

Ben didn’t hesitate, setting his shoulders and looking directly into Juno’s eye, “You need to marry Mick.”

Juno was the one who couldn’t bear to hold his gaze, who couldn’t watch a man still half a boy give up nearly everything that made him happy with not a waver in his voice. He looked at his hands instead, clenched tight enough to turn his knuckles white.

“Benten...we’re not doing this…”

“Juno, it’s the only way. Everything mother said, everything about why she’s...doing this. Mick’s got all of that, his family’s here on Harpyia, they’re powerful. And Mick isn’t a goddamn abusive psychopath. We can take it to her before it’s too late and...and hell, even if she doesn’t agree, if we go and just do it she can’t argue and you’re safe-”

“Ben, I said no, this isn’t an option!” Juno protested, heart thudding hard enough to make him feel sick. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, I’m supposed to keep you safe, not drag you down into it with me.

“Juno, it took you so long to get away from them, I won’t let you throw yourself away like that. It was bad enough when mother was marrying you off when you didn’t want to be but now...god, I don’t even want to think about what they could do to you.”

“But Benten…” Juno didn’t see how there were any tears left in him but his eye was wet all the same, “Mick is yours.”

His little brother, who he’d always seen as his little brother despite the mere half an hour between them, who he’d always admired for managing to hold his smile when it seemed impossible, who’d always believed in the best of people after so many had tried to prove him wrong, who’d shown more bravery in his optimism than anything that tried to take it away from him, he smiled with the sadness of someone so much older.

“Juno, he’s never been mine.”

And he understood then how it must have felt, to fall in love with one of your best friends, to find someone who understood you so completely and made you feel safe. And to also know they could never be yours, not really. Not in a way that anyone else would ever recognise. Because of something as insignificant as half an hour.

“It was nice to pretend and...and thank you, for everything you did, covering for us and all the times we switched clothes halfway through a party so I could dance with him twice,” Ben laughed but it was a hollow sound, like a recording of his usual laugh, “Remember that?”

“You always wore everything better than me,” Juno murmurs, his fingers numb now with how hard he was clenching his fists.

“But...Juno, you being safe and whole and...and well, maybe not happy but, god, not living in fear of your life, that matters more to me than playing pretend,” Ben turned a bracelet around his wrist over and over again, “And Mick...maybe it’s for the best. It’s not going to hurt any less the longer it goes on, right? And I meant what I said to Mother, you’ve already sacrificed everything. If I can help you with this one thing then...then at least it’s a start to making up for everything you’ve had to do.”

Juno looked up at him, voice soft, “Benzaiten…”

His brother coughed slightly, clearly it was becoming more difficult to keep his tears as the lump in his throat, “You know, I found it hard to get until those nights, where I’d become you and you’d become me. When the guests all thought I was you...they treated me so differently. They looked at me like they were waiting for something, like they expected something from me and every second I didn’t do it, I was a disappointment. But I didn’t even know what they wanted! I felt that weight on my shoulders you must feel every second of every day and...god, it was awful. I’d always resented the way I didn’t matter if you were in the room, I never wanted to say it but I did, deep down. I used to hate being the spare. But after five minutes of being you, I’d much rather be invisible than carry that weight on my own.”

“You’ve never been invisible to me,” was all Juno could think to say, “To Sasha or Rita. And definitely never to Mick.”

Ben looked grateful that he’d said that, it seemed to give him the strength to swallow and say, “Let me make the weight a little smaller, Juno. It’s all I can do.”

A small part of Juno he didn’t want to believe existed whispered how easy it would be. Depending on how much was already agreed between her and Diamond’s family, the queen might be furious but Ben was right, the Mercury name had everything Diamond’s did but with more legitimacy, she’d have to forgive them in time. And Mick was kind. He would never do anything unless Juno asked. And, in time, after the performance and the heirs and spares the kingdom demanded, maybe he’d even become fond of him in a way he wasn’t right now. Maybe he’d have something like love in his life. He’d never have to find out what was in the galaxy he could see as points of light in the darkness, he’d never have to risk anything. He could stay in this broken system that had hurt him so much already and try and scratch something good out of the poisoned earth. But he’d know where he was and who he was.

It was more tempting than Juno wanted to admit.

But he was an older sibling, down to the bone, it was the only part of himself he’d ever been proud of. And he wasn’t about to watch Ben make such a sacrifice for him.

Not when there was a chance they could do something together.

Juno stood and moved to Ben’s bed, sitting beside him and putting an arm around his shoulders. The dam burst then, as he’d known it would, his brother weeping against his neck while he held him tight and rocked him gently. He had a vague memory of their mother doing something like this for them, when they would skin their knees or a favourite toy broke or when she would have to go away for a while. But after she’d changed, after the mask had become impossible to tell apart from her real face, Juno had become the expert in making his arms feel like a shield.

Eventually Ben ran dry and he was just leaning against him, sniffling softly, “So you’ll do it? Please?”

“No,” Juno said simply.

Ben growled in frustration, shoving him away, “For fuck’s sake…”

“Will you give me a second?” Juno sighed, catching his hands and holding on to them, “Let me explain. I won’t marry Mick. But I won’t marry Diamond either.”

Ben frowned, eyebrows knitting together, “What…”

And Juno told him everything. How he’d been in the middle of a panic attack when Rex Glass had appeared like a fairytale prince, taking him outside. He told him about the kiss, the jewellery in his pockets. And he told him about the offer, about the tiara.

Well, he told him almost everything. He kept Nureyev’s name as Rex Glass, realising what a gift it had been to hear his real name. Juno Steel kept his promises where he could.

By the time he was done telling it all, Ben was looking at him like he’d looked at him the fair few times Juno had snuck back into the palace, steaming drunk, and collapsed over his legs just before dawn rambling about nonsense.

“Juno, that sounds fucking insane,” Ben said warily.

“It does,” Juno nodded, “But just because something sounds insane doesn’t mean it is.”

“Well no, but it’s a fairly good indicator…”

“If you don’t believe me, go check the queen’s jewellery box. You and I both know her bedroom and her office are the most fiercely guarded places in the palace, especially after the night I lost my eye. You know she’s been tripling security nearly every month, Sasha told us so. If Glass isn’t who he says he was- I mean, the second time around- then there's no way her jewellery would be missing, right?”

Ben absorbed that, nodding slowly, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

“Then go see,” Juno spread his hands, “Go see, come back and tell me.”

Ben seemed to come back to himself more, now that he had a task to complete and a mystery to intrigue him. He jumped up almost eagerly, throwing off his ballroom attire much like Juno had, not really caring for it’s crumpled finery. Rita would have a fit the next day, Juno knew, she took the abuse of any pretty fabric as a personal offence.

Once he looked like Benzaiten again and not Prince Steel, he made for the door, only freezing right at the last moment, when his hand was on it.

“Ben?”

“I’m just…” he chewed on his lower lip, “I’m not sure I want to see mother right now. I don’t want to pretend like everything’s okay with her after...after what she said…”

When you said something so many times, when you fell into comfortable, familiar patterns of speech, you often missed your own eccentricities. But one thing that Juno noted every single time it happened was how, to him, Sarah Steel was the queen and, to Ben, even now, she was mother.

She had two faces, that was the commonly whispered gossip in the quieter corners. When they said it, they were referring to how quickly her moods changed, how she could be their wise, benevolent queen one minute and, the next, the paranoia would show and she would become someone much more sinister. Juno wondered if they knew how right they were in their idle gossip.

The problem was Juno only saw the queen, cold and fiery by turns, focused only on securing their future and making their people safe in her misguided ways. Ben could still see their mother, who loved them and shared her secret jokes with them and did everything to protect them. And neither of them were wrong and neither of them were right. But how could you see something that was turned away from you?

Juno sighed softly, “Benten, I don’t want to make things difficult for you…”

Ben set his jaw, stopped his quivering lip, “No. You know what? If I see her, I’ll tell her the exact same thing. I’ll tell her she’s wrong to do this to you. And if she doesn’t like it then she can be mad.”

Juno’s mouth tugged up at one end and he felt a warm glow in his chest that, after everything he’d been through that night, was like balm on an angry burn, “Just don’t get yourself grounded.”

Ben wasn’t gone for very long, all of their bedrooms were in the same royal suite. But it felt even shorter than it was, with Juno thinking about the kiss Nureyev had left him with. A silly thing to focus on, when so much was at stake, but it soothed him. The way he’d been held, the way he’d been able to be the small one who’d needed comfort. The way Nureyev had kissed him like there was nothing else he’d rather be doing. The way he’d looked at him after they’d drawn apart and Juno knew he was seeing him. Him, not the dress or the jewels or the tiara or the name. The way Mick looked at Ben, the way Juno had always been so jealous of because he’d known he could never have it.

But there it was. And Juno just couldn’t let it go.

Then Ben was crashing through the door, eyes wild, and his thoughts were interrupted, “It’s gone! Every single one, just like you said! And I asked the guards, they have no idea, no one’s come in or out!”

Juno breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. He realised then that he had no clue what he’d have done if the jewellery had been there and it really had all been a dream. He’d just believed, completely and utterly, in Peter Nureyev and never imagined he might have been lying.

That was new.

“Mother’s going to go apeshit…” Ben was shaking his head in amazement, like a puppy with burrs in it’s ears, “Your thief better be coming back before she realises or he’s going to get his head put on a spike…”

“Come on,” Juno rolled his eye, “She’s not gone that far yet...was she there?” He had a sudden sense of having very little time, like Diamond might come knocking at the door at any moment.

Ben paused in his frantic amazement, frowning a little, “Actually she was still in the throne room. Shouting at someone. Jack, I think.”

Juno felt like he should be more concerned about that but he was too busy feeling the kind of hope he’d thought had died around the age of seven.

“I can’t believe this,” Ben flaps his hands in front of his face, pacing back and forth.

He looked like he had whenever their mother would reach the climax of their bedtime story and the heros would be dangling over the precipice or facing down something with slaver stringing from it’s teeth. Back when she had the time, she’d been excellent at telling stories. Back when she’d had time to live lives other than her own, when she hadn’t been the one facing monsters that may or may not be shadows on the wall.

“You’d be the heir,” Juno nods, heart pounding, “You could marry Mick, for real.”

That seemed to hit Ben with the strength of a sledgehammer, hearing it out loud, hearing it be spoken by someone he trusted implicitly. He practically staggered, hands going to his hair and stroking through it rapidly like he needed something to hold on to.

“Oh…” he murmured, eyes clearly seeing something else, watching what had always been a selfish dream become his possible future. “I could. We wouldn’t have to sneak around, we’d have an engagement party and everyone would know and it would be fine, we’d get married in the grand hall where they all do and it would make mother smile and she’d know we were safe and you! You’d be my…”

He stopped then, his face falling, his hope and excitement shattering like a broken vase. He looked to Juno, looking like he’d become ten years younger in an instant.

“You wouldn’t be there,” he murmured, voice small and far away like it was coming from another room, “You’d be gone.”

Juno closed his eyes tightly and took a breath, needing to steady himself before he could meet his brother’s gaze. He’d never found it easy to crack himself open and show others what was inside, even with Benten. How could he, when he was raised to do the exact opposite, to move through a prearranged list of tasks as effortlessly as a ballet dancer, never giving the impression that there was anything but clockwork in his chest?

But if this was going to be goodbye, he was going to fucking suck it up because that’s what Benzaiten deserved.

He stood and opened his arms, Ben crashing into them so hard they both were in danger of going flying. For a long few heartbeats, the two of them just held each other, as tight as they could, the kind of hug that could only happen between two siblings, between two people who loved each other so fiercely it hurt and who had also called each other every curse word under the sun.

“I won’t do this if you don’t want me to,” Juno murmured, voice muffled against his own shoulder, “You’re the other half of me, Ben, and I’m not going anywhere if you aren’t okay with it.”

“Juno…” Ben sighed, drawing back but putting his hands on Juno’s shoulders, gripping tight, “You’ve spent your whole life doing things for other people. You deserve this. And I’ll be fine, you don’t have to worry about me. I mean, I know you’re always going to…”

Juno chuckled wryly, “Yeah...can’t help it. It’s a big brother thing.”

“Only by half an hour!” Ben rolled his eyes, exasperatedly, “But whatever. I can stand on my own two feet, Juno. It’s time people realised that.”

Juno sighed a little guiltily through his smile. Maybe he had been seeing Ben as younger and more helpless than he was. Maybe it had been convenient for him to have someone need him in a way he could fix. He couldn’t solve the housing crisis or the poverty in Harpyia, he didn’t have magic words to turn back the queen’s paranoia. But he could hold his brother when he cried at night, he could swap clothes with him so he could dance with his secret boyfriend, he could tell him stories from their childhood to help him remember when things had made a little more sense. And maybe he’d forgotten somewhere along the way that Ben was clever, brave and would make a wonderful crown prince. Better than Juno ever could be, because he hadn’t grown up with the title and had it break him slowly in a myriad of tiny ways.

“But…” he shook his head, “I’d feel like such a coward. And...and you said, you said you hated being me at all those parties!”

Ben smiled simply. He did that so often, like the act didn’t cost him anything.

“So I won’t be you, Juno. I’ll be me.”

It was very hard not to cry then but Juno had done enough of that. Any more and he’d render himself useless.

“And you’re not a coward,” Ben added firmly, “That’s the last thing anyone can call you. It shouldn’t be down to one person to fix all this shit, anyway. It’s going to take time and effort and smart people who care.”

“But...they’re getting Mick Mercury?” Juno grimaced, finding it easier to not cry if he was joking. It was even easier a second later when he had the pain of Benten socking him in the shoulder to focus on, “Kidding, kidding. So...I guess that makes this…”

“No,” Ben said quickly, holding up a finger, “Don’t you dare. Not yet. Or I’ll cry and then we’re never going to pull this off.”

Juno smiled, nodding, more than a little relieved.

“Okay then,” the smile was back, almost blinding, “Let’s go get you a happily ever after.”

It had taken some time for the queen to wipe the regret off her face, some was still clinging when her sons assembled wordlessly behind her. But by the time she stood out on her balcony, it was gone, not a trace of it lingering.

The press and dignitaries assembled below her all turned their faces up as the doors swung open, like flowers moving towards the sun. A sun they needed, a sun that fed them but they would still snipe and gossip about her as soon as she set. She would love to see how they’d survive in a cold world with a dead sky.

The best of Harpyia was assembled below her, as well as the sweepings of the surrounding planets who were still here. Of course they were eager to hear what she had to say, after the debacle that had been last night's ball with no pronouncement. Perhaps she should thank her little monster. The delay had only fanned the flames and stoked the interest.

She could sense him behind her, standing next to Benzaiten as a perfect matching set. He’d turned his eye away every time she’d made to glance at him, since he’d been summoned to this announcement and hadn’t emerged from his room until that moment. If he hadn’t already hated her, these next words would set it in stone.

Inside the shell of what she’d become, Sarah Steel wept.

Outside the glass, the sun was making it’s slow, leisurely way below the horizon, the glow from the gardens was just igniting in long pulses like a heart waking up. Late for an announcement like this but it had taken a long time to assemble everyone important enough to need to be here. Not long by anyone else’s standards of course but for a queen, it was closer to night than she would have liked. Perhaps she could spin it as deliberate, so they could make these decisions in the glow of the years past, the same light their ancestors had been bathed in as they forged the planet they now stood on, some bullshit like that.

Of course it would give a lovely ambience to the drinks and canapes after, the circles of the ballroom Juno and Diamond would take so people could congratulate them and all those who’d dared oppose her recently could quake in their boots at the sight of the princess’ arm through that of the heir to the most powerful crime family. You gave me nothing, her smile would say when her lips couldn’t, so I found my own strength. Now fear what my planet will become.

It was the face absent from the crowd that concerned her more than that, however. Jack wasn’t anywhere to be seen when, by rights, he should be already doing what he did best, winning people to their side, smoothing the cracks. Likely he was off nursing his battered platitudes and niceties she’d torn through last night. Well and good, as long as he remembered who truly ruled Harpyia but that didn’t mean she would forget his absence.

She was done forgetting and forgiving.

She spoke in a loud, clear voice, the one she’d honed for years with her mother standing her at one end of the empty throne room and her at the other. She had nightmares about that sometimes, her mother’s voice booming at her from somewhere she couldn’t see, louder, louder, louder, Sarah. She spoke of the strength of Harpyia, how they would only flourish and grow in the coming years as Princess Juno moved towards his time on the throne with his new partner by his side. She put a lot of emphasis on the power and prestige of his betrothed, how their family was part of Harpyia, a hard working and dedicated family that showed the best of what their planet could be. A pit of snakes with venom dripping from their fangs, she corrected herself inside her mind, and I will step carefully. But oh, won’t it be fun to throw some of you bastards into that pit.

“And now to formally announce his betrothal, my beloved son and heir, your Princess Juno,” she moved smoothly to one side, to give her little monster a severe don’t fuck this up look before he spoke the pre rehearsed words he’d been delievered that morning, voice clear and bright and without a tremble.

And she was faced with empty air.

The queen was glad she was turned away so they couldn’t see the shock and dismay on her face. So they couldn’t see her look at Benzaiten, still standing straight backed and to attention, the barest flicker of a smile on his face and growl through gritted teeth, “Where the fuck is he?”

The two guards there purely for ceremony looked around, helpless, fumbling. The murmurs below began, quiet and rumbling as a river with hidden currents ready to pull you below and choke you. And Benzaiten only shrugged. He shrugged.

Not caring who heard now, the queen dispatched the guards with a curse, ordering them to find the crown princess and drag him up here whatever state he was in. She gave a bitten off scream of frustration and brought her palm down on the polished wood of the balcony’s railing, snapping two of her nails. She brought her heel down so hard it snapped off halfway up.

And inside, Sarah Steel prayed that her son was running hard and fast.

The garden really was beautiful. Juno thought it every time he sat here, no matter what or who he was occupied with, but it bore saying over and over again. It was beautiful. Harpyia was beautiful.

The gathering night put some coolness in the air. His dress was far less ridiculous than last night’s monstrosity of lace and petticoats but the sleeves were shorter, leaving his arms free to pepper with goosebumps as he sat on the bench and waited. His silent flight from the balcony, taking all the quickest, quietest ways he’d ever snuck in and out of the palace, hoping that everyone was too busy looking the other way to learn the name of the person he wasn’t going to marry, had left his heart writhing with leftover adrenaline.

But now he could just sit and take air in and out, feeling shreds of himself fall away and get snagged by the wind like petals. He would have to check in later and see what was left, see whether he’d lost anything he cared about. He doubted it though. He only felt lighter as the moments passed.

And then he wasn’t alone.

“Juno Steel,” the voice came from close by, “You can’t know how happy I am to see you here.”

“Same to you, Peter Nureyev,” Juno turned and smiled, he was sitting right beside him on the bench, “This is yours.”

He held the tiara out to his thief. It felt so light in his hands, far too light for the history it carried. The history he was giving away in this moment, as he moved from being the figurehead of a planet, the mannequin on which they dressed their centuries, to being a flesh and blood human being. Who could make mistakes and do things wrong but also learn and grow and make beautiful things out of it all.

Like falling in love with the man in front of him.

Nureyev barely even glanced at the tiara, already leaning in and kissing him. If Juno had harboured any worries that last night had been a dream, that he’d blown it up in his mind, that it would never be what he’d remembered in his stressed out, desperate haze, that kiss wiped them away in a moment. It was just as sweet and honest and full of promises that he believed Nureyev would keep. It made sense, in a beautifully simple way.

And as much as he wanted to sink into it, his ear was straining towards the palace, a shrinking distance away from them. Was that the trickle of the water fountain hidden in the middle of the maze or was it angry voices rising in volume? Was that the beat of butterfly wings above them in the canopy or footfalls on the gravel, running towards them?

Reluctantly, Juno pulled away as far as he could bear to which wasn’t very far at all, “We should go. I want a seat on that magical escape and I don’t fancy seeing you in the dungeons.”

“That’s a shame,” Nureyev gave a smile that flickered quick as a sparked match and Juno’s face felt hot like he’d been standing too close, “But you’re right. I came to steal you away and I do not intend to have this particular prize taken from me.”

Juno grinned, letting him pull him to his feet. Both of their hands, Juno’s right and Nureyev’s left, held the tiara as their fingers wound together. Perfect complementary shapes locking into place, the spun gold snug between them. All they had to do was keep a tight hold and not let go.

And run.

It was immediately obvious that this was Nureyev’s element. Like Ben dancing, like Rita at her comms, like the queen in her throne, this was where he was the brightest star in the sky. Sprinting through somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, holding something he wasn’t supposed to have, making a breakneck escape, this was what he was made for. All Juno could do was hang on and grip his hand, letting himself be pulled along.

They weren’t going to be caught, he realised that after a minute, as Nureyev fearlessly dived into the thick woods that surrounded the royal grounds. The queen may as well try and catch lightning in her bare hands, it just wasn’t going to happen. A force of nature was a force of nature.

Which meant Juno really was leaving for good.

In between his own ragged breaths he wondered what Ben was doing right now. Crying probably, though Juno really didn’t want to think about that. But if he was, he hoped Mick was holding him tight against his chest the way he’d seen them do, where Ben could tuck his face against Mick’s collarbone. Mick had been there for the goodbyes, with the rest of them, with all of the people he actually wanted to say it to when he’d realised he had less than an hour to go.

Juno didn’t want to think about that too much, not right now when he had to depend on his lungs to pull in air and his eye to stay clear. The time for it would come later when he could sit and see the miles he’d put between his home and him clearly in his mind. For now, he just hoped that Ben was safe in Mick’s arms, that Rita was pulled into a tight hug, that Mick’s hurt anger had faded some. He could just hope that they’d be okay.

And in return, he would go and be okay.

The forests around the palace were so dense, they were rarely set foot in, the gardeners had long ago given up on taming them. Juno always remembered being warned away from it as a child, nanny after nanny and even their mother telling them firmly that the forest was not a playground and it would be so easy to get lost. They hadn’t listened, obviously, he and Ben, along with Mick and Sasha, had dared each other into them hundreds of times, sitting under the towering trees with their veins of bioluminescence and passing bottles of expensive wine and joints back and forth, telling ghost stories and seeing who could climb the highest.

But even they had never pressed in too far, staying where some sunlight could still trickle in between the leaves overhead. There was just something primal and terrifying about the true heart of the forest, something about it that still felt alien, no matter how long Harpyia had been colonised. Those trees and plants had been there long before any humans, seething there for centuries upon centuries, and it was easy to believe they still harboured a grudge.

Juno hoped it wasn’t too strong a resentment as he followed Nureyev deep into their embrace, feeling very at their mercy. But maybe they would understand. Maybe they could empathise with a princess running away from the same structures that had infected the planet that had once been theirs. Maybe they envied his legs to run with.

He must have had the right of it because the trees kept them well hidden, wrapping them in a veil of black leaves, stems throbbing with blue light like there were hidden rivers running through them. That was the only light they had, all the brightness of the setting sun completely banished by the thick of the foliage. Their own personal, premature night had fallen, lit only by faint stars in an array of natural, biological colours. But it seemed to be enough, Nureyev never stumbled once, even as the ground beneath them grew spongy and uneven and twigs started to snap under their heels like broken bones.

Juno was starting to curse his dresser. He obviously couldn’t dress for his escape, not when he was trying to make it seem like he fully intended to attend the pronouncement, not without arousing suspicion. He’d long ago learned how to run in heels and full length skirts, he was no amature. But even he was starting to suffer, points of agony flaring on the soles of his feet and he was sure the hem of his dress was a wreck.

And then Juno realised he was only noticing his hurts because they were slowing down.

Soon they came to a stop entirely, Nureyev pulling them into the shelter of the thickest, blackest trunk, the one roughest and most scarred with age. He was sweating too, lightly around his hairline, breath coming in soft, practised pants. That pleased Juno, it was good to see his thief really was human.

“This will do,” Nureyev kept his voice low, though sound would never carry here, “We can rest here awhile.”

“What’s the plan?” Juno wheezed, leaning against the tree. He still hadn’t let go of Nureyev’s hand.

Nureyev grinned at him, he clearly loved explaining his plans, seeing another person’s eye widening in awe at their brilliance, “They’ll be expecting us to run straight for the capital port. Or one of the smaller ones, if they have any regard for our intelligence. So instead we wait, out of range of sensors or signal jammers, give them time to exhaust all the obvious options and become panicky, become more reckless and heavy handed. Those heavy hands may come down with more force but it only makes the gaps between the fingers wider. That is when we slip through them in my own vehicle. Unregistered, untraceable and damn good at escapes. It’s been waiting here in these woods since last night with my supplies.”

Juno followed his easy gesture over to a particularly thick bramble patch. Only when he squinted and looked very closely could he see the glint of something chromatic, a bright flash of green, the edge of a wheel.

He grinned, “So we wait right under their noses, somewhere they can never find us.”

Nureyev gave him a languid smile, “Are you afraid of roughing it for a night, princess?”

“No more than anyone else. And call me Juno, okay?”

“Juno,” Nureyev repeated obediently, letting his voice slide over each syllable.

He sounded different, he’d clearly been wearing a voice as easily as he’d been wearing those clothes at the ball. It was all gone now, voice softened with the subtle accent of somewhere outer rim, the clothes just plain black pants and a tight black jumper, belt heavy with packs and rolls and concealed tools, no square inch of skin exposed that didn’t absolutely need to be.  

Juno realised then that he found competency very hot.

Clearing his throat, he stood and pulled a twig from his hair. He let their fingers unwind, leaving Nureyev with the tiara, likely he had some place in that car to conceal his treasure.

“There’s hot pools just a little ways over there,” Nureyev was watching him carefully, a smile playing on his lips, “If you want to freshen up.”

“Yeah,” Juno felt adrenaline fuelled laughter bubble in his voice, “Yeah, I do look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, huh?”

“Please,” Nureyev sniffed playfully, “The hedge was Plan B. No, I just mean...if you need a moment.”

Juno gave him a grateful smile and steadied himself back on his own feet, “Sure. Feel free to join me.”

Certain his intentions had been made clear, he picked his way through the clinging leaves half gone to rot and the claggy, black mud. It wasn’t hard to follow the steam to the pools Nureyev had spoken about, close by just as he’d said. He must have spent months memorising the layout of the palace and the forest, he knew things even Juno didn’t after living here all his life.

Fingertips brushing the surface of the water told him they were plenty warm without being blisteringly hot. The mud made them black as night, no wind meant they were still as a mirror. You could so easily stumble right into them, never knowing they were there, if you didn’t spot the bioluminescent fragments of leaves floating on their surface.

It was a while before his heart stopped pounding and his breathing stopped coming in hitched gasps. Once it did, once the quiet of the forest settled into him like a plant growing roots through his veins, everything felt so fresh and new. Like up until now, he’d had wool covering his skin, stuffed into his nose and mouth, clinging to his eyes. Now it was gone, Juno could believe he’d never heard butterfly wings beating above him before, that he’d never smelled fresh earth, that he’d never really seen water running in perfect diamond droplets down his fingers.

The jewellery went first, rings, necklaces and hair pieces falling to the ground like stars. Then the eyepatch, it’s delicate lace and white satin instantly muddied. The gown next, a sweet off white waterfall of lace, specifically chosen to echo a wedding dress. Juno took great pleasure in pulling out a penknife (it was amazing what you and a dedicated lady in waiting could hide in such voluminous skirts) and sawing through the material just above his knee, freeing his legs should he need to run again, before hanging it over the bough of a tree and letting the sheaf of cut away lace flutter down to the ground. He had a sudden daydream of a mother fox snagging the loose material and using it in her den for her cubs. The shoes were completely abandoned, their white satin and pearl decoration ruined by the mud. If Juno had to run again that night, he would do it in bare feet.

Lastly, he hung his chemise and panties from the same black branch, shivering pleasantly at the cool air on his skin. It made for a shuddering contrast when he slipped into the water, felt it rise to the level of his throat, deeper than he’d first anticipated. The line between the heat and the cold was sharp, it could have been drawn on with a marker, and for a moment it was all he could do to close his eye and feel it all. He hadn’t known freedom would have such a distinctive taste to it.

He took a breath and submerged himself, letting the black warmth close over his head with a sensation not unlike being consumed by some beast, close enough that there was an edge of fear to the action. But then he was just floating, like a heart in a chest, for a moment that seemed so purely endless. Like he could just keep sinking, through the earth, through to nothing and never feel anything but peace.

Juno had felt something like that before, a version of that promise of a quiet eternity that wasn’t as clean and neat as this. He’d replicated it with drugs, with alcohol, with walking along the very edge of the palace roofs, knowing that all he’d need to do was take a step forward and the fall would stretch on forever. And there had always been a bitterness when it had faded, when he’d pulled away and the feeling had slipped through his fingers.

This time there was none of that. This time he rose up out of it gladly. Because Juno knew what was waiting for him up above was worth returning to.

When his head broke the surface again, Peter Nureyev was there a little ways away, hand resting lazily on the nearest tree but there was a hopeful kind of strain in his bright eyes. He was naked too, a bottle hanging from the fingers of his slack hand, the black leather of a harness hugging his slim, angular hips.

Juno had to laugh, “So when you said you kept your kit in that car...what part of thieving is a cock useful for exactly?”

Nureyev gave a disarming smile, relaxing at his positive reception, “For the part where you steal away pretty ladies to secluded areas in beautiful forests, obviously.”

The adrenaline reawakened in his veins as Juno hauled himself up out of the pool, already stirring before he even broke the surface, before the ghost of the warmth broke into tiny pearls on his skin. By the time he and Nureyev met somewhere in the space between them, he was half hard and had a moan waiting for when their lips met. He didn’t have a chance to feel cold because Nureyev was burning when he wrapped his arms around him, his skin prickling with a close heat.

Juno wondered cheekily if he got this way after all of his daring escapes. If after every one he had to find a shadowed corner, some kind of privacy, and tend to himself, pressing back sighs of release with his palm. He liked that idea. And suddenly he wanted to be around for every one after this point.

He let Nureyev lead, aware of the points of contact but not the movement between them, too lost in his lips and the slide of his tongue. His back pressed against the ground which was suddenly so soft, warm with whatever underground spring fed the pools. Nureyev’s hands were greedy things, at his hair then his broad shoulders then tangled in the hair on his chest then following the rounded valley of his hips. Juno felt appraised almost, climbing high on how clear it was that his thief liked what he touched and saw. He felt precious.

Kissing had never factored much into Juno’s other nights, at parties with heirs just as lost as him or beautiful servants who’d caught him when he was feeling lonely. But now that it was someone he wanted to kiss, he was addicted, moving in again and again after they’d snatched a breath of air, until both of their mouths were bitten and tender and everything tasted the same.

There was so little of Nureyev physically, he was all angles and bones, but somehow he was everywhere, wrapping Juno up so completely, it felt like he must have more hands than just the two. They were here, then there, then they were slick with cool gel and then, oh, they were right where they needed to be. Juno gasped, catching his lip on Nureyev’s pointed teeth and grinding hard into it. Nureyev gave a soft laugh and murmured something about impatience that was lost to a low groan as Juno’s thumb began to circle one of his nipples.

After it all, they’d ended up with Juno lying flat on his back, his knees the parentheses for Nureyev’s hips, his dirt stained hands splayed on his thin chest, their faces bare inches from each other, close enough that their noses could touch. Nureyev’s fingers were sunk deep into the earth, anchoring them both.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured into the moment’s pause before he pressed inside him.

Not your gown is pretty. Not your hair is lovely or your makeup or your crown. Nureyev saw Juno, only Juno, as stripped bare as he could ever be and saw he was beautiful.

And Juno realised he was going to follow this man to the very edge of the stars.

He pressed him forward with his heels, the need now beyond desperate. Nureyev complied, moving almost reverently, like it was a privilege to share his body, kissing him as he sank deeper and deeper until their skin met. He licked some of the water still beading on Juno’s cheekbone as he began to rock, slowly at first then steadily faster until it felt like they were running again, hearts pounding in their chests and breath misting in the air.

It wasn’t a fairytale. It was getting cold and Juno didn’t even want to think about where he’d be finding dead leaves in the morning, they were both giddy and giggling and trying new things in bursts of frenetic eagerness, too hungry to settle on just one thing. And, far sooner than either of them would have liked, Juno was gripping Nureyev tightly, pressing his face to his shoulder and gritting his teeth as he painted both of their chests. Nureyev fell with him a few moments later, gasping and groaning, sinking to his elbows as his strength left him in shudders and starts. Passionate but in a hectic way, messy and dizzy and grasping, not the tasteful fade to black at the end of a fairytale when everything was wrapped up neatly and everyone was on the path to their perfect future.

But it did feel like the start of something.

Juno thought about that as they washed off in the pools and wandered back to Nureyev’s car, wrapped themselves in blankets he pulled from the seemingly bottomless trunk and watched the stars from the backseat. He thought about it as he fell asleep listening to Nureyev tell him about all the famous heists and daring stunts that had been pulled off in this car, his head pillowed on his thief's stomach.

He’d never had the start of something before. He’d always had endings, he’d had destinations to chase, goals to achieve and once he’d done that, nothing. But there had been some security in that, at least he’d only ever had two options. Get there or fuck up. Success or nothing.

Starts were different. Starts could lead anywhere, there were a million options, all branching out into tomorrows he couldn’t see, roots of a tree that just went deeper and deeper. Any one of them could lead to heartbreak, any one could be a wrong turn. Hell, the way this was going, he could end up in a jail cell for the rest of his life. So many ways for this to be a shattering mistake.

But Juno slept better curled up on the back seat of the Ruby 7 than he had in any featherbed in the palace. He felt safer with Nureyev’s heartbeat and quiet voice than he had in years.

Juno would take a start every time.

The space port had a metallic, inorganic kind of stink to it, the smell of cluttered machinery, of too many kinds of homespun fuel, of rust and ill fitted parts. That alone marked it as not the biggest nor the nicest port on Mars but one of the smaller ones that clustered in places like Olympus Mons, stretching out like growing boils across the sands, even to the Cerberus Province. This one would be somewhere between those two extremes. The black market items weren’t on flagrant display on the tables but you got the strong sense that the merchants wouldn’t have to reach far to get a hold of them.

Juno was standing at one of the more reputable looking booths, a StarMail station, one of millions that could be found scattered all over Solar planets, even one or two on the outer rim. They all looked the same with their faded chrome and smiling AI attendant on a glitchy comms screen, the loud, colourful logo of a cartoon star with a mail bag slung over one shoulder, their promise to send all messages securely and safely to all corners of the system. This one was squatting between a booth selling rusted parts clearly scavenged from battlefields and a vendor selling wraps of some meat that steamed like burning tires and seemed to actually have parts covered in scaly chitin.

The funny thing about StarMail was, if you had the right codes on the right signal jammer, the kind that were only sold to certain individuals in certain seedy space ports, you could send something completely untraceable. Your message could have come from Jupiter or Mars or Brahma, anywhere in the solar system, bouncing around mischievously between all of these identical booths. All it took was a press of a button, under the guise of scratching your chest under your long trench coat. The one you’d just bought and fit you better than anything you’d ever owned.

But you still kept the same slightly too small dark sweater underneath it. Because your boyfriend had given it to you one damp, humid morning in the forest half a week ago and it still smells slightly of his cologne.

Juno kept the message short, it would be easier that way, just in case it did fall into the wrong hands. After all, there were several hundred million creds attached to it. Hidden, sure, but enough that you couldn’t be too careful.

For social projects. Housing, hospitals, anything that will help people. More to come. I’m doing good. Miss you. J.

He had to smile a little, as he sent it off and watched his words dissolve into pixels that blew away on a digital wind. It certainly was helpful that the palace’s email servers were the best, most secure on the market. Benzaiten Steel was probably the easiest person to send the funds of a stolen tiara, broken down and sold across the solar planets.

Juno had been half listening to the comms perched on the counter of the food stand, tinnily broadcasting the news in a sugary, bubblegum voice of whatever presenter they had this month. The usual stuff, the political and high society dramas that always raged through the celebrity stratospheres of the galaxy, barely touching the people below. Marriages and divorces on the same day, murders before breakfast the next morning. Amounts of creds hundreds of zeros beyond what he’d just sent off changing hands in seconds, forced or gladly frittered. Parties and balls and orgies, the fallout of so much money and so little sense. Big and flashy and grand and final. Countesses, stream starlets, mobsters.

And runaway princesses.

“The search continues for the princess of the outer rim planet, Harpyia, missing now for close to a week. Rumours abound despite the stony statements from the palace. Was Princess Juno stolen along with millions of creds worth of ancient royal jewels? Or did he flee of his own accord, taking the jewellery as recompense for years in the spotlight? Several stream studios are already in talks to tell the story of this runaway heir, even as it unfolds. Little concrete news comes from the planet’s current monarch and her staff but we think the sudden announcement of a hasty engagement between the remaining prince and one Lord Mercury speaks for itself, viewers! Keep watching for more on this unfolding rollercoaster. Or, well, watch it all played out on your screens in technicolour before too long!”

He allowed himself a smile, one that would still be hidden behind the scarf wound around the lower half of his face. It was dusty on Mars after all, especially out here in the shadow of the great mountain, with these cut rate domes.

There was so much to see in the Olympus space port, so many unique little pieces of life, so different from everything he was used to. He could have stayed and breathed in the rank smell of the charring meat and listened to the two traders off to his left exchange rapid fire insults he didn’t understand all day, endlessly fascinated by it all.

But Juno couldn’t hang around. He couldn’t linger and listen to the tragic, already mythologised tale of princesses gone astray, of glamour on the run and jewels worth more than stars going missing.

He had a ride to catch. And someone to catch it with.

You couldn’t park an infamous getaway car in the middle of a busy space port. They took a hoverbike out into the sandy wastes where Nureyev had stashed it, safely tucked out of reach of the city lights.  

“Well, Juno,” he smiled his sharp toothed grin as he brought the engine to life and put his whole weight on the pedals, pressing them back in their seats, “We’re between jobs and we’re filthy rich with ill gotten gains. The entire galaxy is yours, my love. What would you like to see first?”

Juno knew exactly what he wanted to see first, though he wasn’t going to share it. He waited until they were past the milky red haze of the atmosphere, until there was just the blackness around them, just the endless night of space.

There he could see his reflection better. He saw his square jaw, the shadows under his eyes from the endless travel in a short space of time, the plain black eyepatch. He saw his curls, flattened and out of shape from sleeping in the back of the Ruby 7 and doing a lot of things that weren’t sleeping in the back of the Ruby 7. He saw the smudge of sauce from the street food they’d eaten still standing up, marring the corner of his mouth. He saw the ease his face was starting to settle into as a matter of course, hesitant like the muscles weren’t quite sure what to do just yet but they were learning.

And he saw the stars, up above him, all around him, through him. All his possible futures mapping themselves out, like constellations that hadn’t been sketched in yet.

And in the middle, his own reflection, clear as day against the night. A face he was happy to see.

And Juno smiled.

[culturalgutter]

We really should have had a mystery series featuring a sensible lesbian couple by now. Something like two Miss Marples sharing a sensible home and sensibly solving extremely–some might even say overly–complicated murders together. One wakes the other up when she turns on the nightstand lamp to do a crossword puzzle, her favorite occupation when she is trying to crack a case. It helps her think. There should have been something based on a series of books written in the 1920s and 1930s, just after the War–either one. It should have been written by female author with three names and set in a quaint village outside London, the kind of village with many corpses in the shrubbery. Or maybe set in the city, with someone like Miss Fisher, but including the women she has had affairs with. Her dressing table or mantle featuring suggestive photos of the detective on holiday in Malta or visiting Paris with Josephine Baker, Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, Djuna Barnes and even, possibly, Garbo herself. Our detective’s tux would be divinely tailored.

Yes, we could have them now, a retro 1930s correcting the oversights of the past. But we should have already had these drawing room mysteries long ago. They should have played on Masterpiece Theater, A&E and the various BBCs. They should be so prevalent that there are Sesame Street parodies teaching children how to count or the letter “L” or the word “sensible.” Old mystery and film fans should patronizingly explain to us that Zasu Pitts or Theresa Harris, Margaret Rutherford or Maude Eburne, in fact, performed in the first film versions of these films back in the day. “The earliest performance of this character dates back to Sarah Bernhard,” a random pedant would interject*.

The realized this terrible loss in the very same moment I saw it almost presented to me in Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate (1971) and its spin-off series, The Snoop Sisters. The Snoop Sisters ran as part of NBC’s Mystery Movie from 1972 to 1974. Though it stars two sisters, aunts to a police officer, I think it will get hard to read them as anything but a married couple in the future. I discovered The Snoop Sisters while watching old, made-for-tv mysteries and thrillers with the Gutter’s own Beth Watkins. We watched one where Barbara Stanwyck’s house is probably possessed and another where someone is trying to drive her mad. One where a theater troop re-enacts a murder to get a confession. One where Shelley Winters’ passion for Debbie Reynolds gets the best of her, demonstrating that there is something very much the matter with Helen. Another called, A Very Missing Person (1972) in which Eve Arden plays Hildegard Withers, a character who was variously played by ZaSu Pitts, Edna May Oliver and Helen Broderick in a series of 1930s films based on the novels of Stuart Palmer**. Ms. Withers is an ex-schoolteacher with an intriguing taste in hats and another good candidate for sensible lesbian detective. And we watched Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate. Helen Hayes, Mildred Natwick, Myrna Loy and Sylvia Sydney. They are retired women who occupy their time with luncheons, amazing outfits and creating the profile of a much younger woman for a computer dating service. Unfortunately for them, their profile attract a serial killer. Unfortunately for him, these ladies have moxie. Watching the movie, I realized that I would love to see these women solve a mystery every week. Apparently someone at NBC felt the same, because while the movie was not picked up as a series, it is somewhat reprised The Snoop Sisters, with Mildred Natwick taking on Myrna Loy’s role as Helen Hayes’ sister. It is the snazziest Mildred Natwick has ever been in a film, as she plays the fashionable Gwendolyn Snoop-Nicholson, “G.” for short. It is one of the only times I can think of that Mildred Natwick has outdressed nearly everyone else on the screen. Helen Hayes plays mystery novelist, Ernesta Snoop. And now both are instigators.

The Snoop Sisters has the things people like in 1970s made-for-tv mysteries—women in their 60s and 70s, magicians, Roddy McDowell, switcheroos and twists. The Snoops solve mysteries, scoop the police—led by their own nephew Lt. Steven Ostrowski—and charmingly prove what everyone thinks is happening is not what’s happening at all. Except, that yes, Alice Cooper is happening, and so is a fist fight between Vincent Price and Roddy McDowell. Also, classic film star Joan Blondell is a medium, Bernie Casey wears pants no one should be able to successfully look handsome in and Steve Allen hosts Ernesta Snoop on his television program. There are so many outfits—fantastically printed caftans and ties; wide lapels; loudly patterned suits; sweaters with ring pulls. And there is a lot of decor—including Gloria Hendry’s amazing octagonal waterbed.

Sadly, there were only five episodes produced, but fortunately they have been collected in a dvd set.In “The Female Instinct,” the Snoops solve the murder of an old Hollywood icon Norma Treet (Paulette Goddard) while Barney tries and fails to keep them out of trouble. There is a sweet screening of one of Goddard’s films, The Ghost Breakers (1940), presented as one of Treet’s. Their nephew***, police Lt. Steven Ostrowski (Lawrence Pressman) as their nephew, Lt. Ostrowski sets Barney, a retired cop played by Art Carney, to keep the ladies out of trouble. But no one, not even Art Carney—an Art Carney who does a stunt—can stop the Snoops from doing what they want to do. And they want to write mysteries, solve mysteries, meet amazing people, and disguise themselves as anything from “stuffed animal fluffers” to exterminators and a bowling team.

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And they wear amazing outfits. G.’s wardrobe is very much from the 1970s, including a beautiful coat I covet. Ernesta’s much more turn of the Twentieth Century. I will also note that Ernesta is butch, but hers is a butchness leaning towards Gertrude Stein but with a fondness for ridiculously feathered hats. It’s from a when wearing a certain cut of jacket was more meaningful in gender coding than wearing a skirt. In this case, most of Ernesta’s skirt suits are “mannish” in the parlance of the thirties and forties. And I am pretty sure she is straight up wearing men’s or boy’s gray striped flannel pajamas.

My favorite part is the peek into Ernesta’s creative process as she works on a book while G. takes dictation.

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We also get another glimpse of their home life as Ernesta works on her embroidery in bed and Mildred asks to borrow her liniment, after a close call with a potential assassin required that they both run.

By the second episode, “Corpse and Robbers,” there have been some changes. Now Bert Convy plays Steven. And rather than a retired cop, Barney is now a paroled convict doing the lieutenant a favor by watching his aunts. Played by Lou Antonio, Barney is also twenty or thirty years younger than the Snoops and too hobbled by his respect for their ladyness to come close to contending with them. In the episode, Ernesta tries to discover what happened to her dear old friend, and toy-making genius, Franklin Birdwell (Liam Dunn). Ernesta also hopes to prove that she is not imagining that he has called her. The Snoops disguise themselves as “stuffed animal fluffers” to infiltrate a toy factory that specializes in toy dogs that bark and wag their tails, Winnie the Pooh stuffies, and giant devil masks. I assume the factor is one of the Joker’s old hideouts and, in its off hours, the site of many a giallo murder.**** Ernesta and G. also go jogging in knit outfits.

Their activewear.

In “Death Is A Free Throw,” we discover many interesting things, such as that G. is a basketball fan and that their Lincoln limosine’s license plate just happens to be 473 FEM. Oh, and as Ernesta and G. defend a man who has come flying out of the green room for the Steve Allen show, “We warn you, Mr. Bates, we know kung fu.”

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Fortunately, fisticuffs prove unnecessary and the Snoops quickly befriend basketball great, Willie Bates (Bernie Casey). Willie wears some amazing outfits that only Bernie Casey could make it seem like a good idea for anyone else to wear. I mean, some other people could look handsome in them, but, seriously, don’t think you could because he could. Meanwhile, everyone has stomach trouble and G. becomes a suspect.

“The Devil Made Me Do It!” might contain the most wonders per hour. The Snoops find themselves the target of a Satanic coven that would very much like its ancient relic back, thank you. Classic film bombshell Joan Blondell appears as a medium, Madame Mimi. And Alice Cooper not only appears as a witch, but sings a song to a very interesting audience at the Frou Frou Club.

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But my favorite character is the Honorable Morlock (Cyril Ritchard), the proprietor of an occult shop who specializes in providing New York’s covens with human skulls, in any size and painted in any color you might like. He assures us that Henry Ford had the right idea in only offering one model of car in one color. He blames the government for the rapacious frog bone suppliers. He wears a wig, red eye shadow and stunning ritual magick robes. (The Honorable Morlock definitely spells magic with a K and probably deplores the confusion of stage magic with the Art). And he speaks in rhyming couplets whenever he can. When Barney asks how the Honorable Morlock knows he has a bad back, he declaims: “Lucifer, give me strength! Do you think you’re dealing with kids? Because I’m a pro—that’s how I know!”

He’s a pro!

And if The Snoop Sisters had to go out, at least it went out with an episode featuring both Roddy McDowell and Vincent Price. The episode begins gloriously with Ernesta and G. cosplaying that most romantic of classic horror couples, Frankenstein and the Bride****. Ernest is the creature, of course. And Mildred Natwick makes a remarkably elegant Bride. They are dressed up to attend the Michael Bastion Film Festival, a revival of classic horror films. We see among the attendees people dressed as vampires, a werewolf, the Metaluna Mutant and a mummy. That’s right, G. is a horror fan. She’s seen all of Bastion’s films and is excited to meet Bastion himself. Bastion and his wife arrive in an old hearse. His wife leaves from the passenger side. Muscle men in silver masks pull a coffin out of the hearse, lean it up and open it to reveal Bastion to his adoring fans*****. There is a fun movie-within-a-tv-movie starring Bastion, and, of course, a murder during the screening. Bastion is the accused and the Snoops investigate. Like Price himself, Bastion is a noted gourmet cook and G. distracts Bastion by taking him up on an offer of a gourmet luncheon. There is a very fine drunken-crepe making scene. And Ernesta wears an indescribable golfing outfit. I do not think I am spoiling anything but informing you that there is also a fistfight between Roddy McDowell and Vincent Price. This is obviously an enticement.

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While I willingly admit that the Snoop sisters are, in fact, sisters, no matter how queer coded the relationship and the show seems, The Snoop Sisters does satisfy some of my desire for weird old tv mysteries starring a lesbian couple. Sure we could do something retro now and that would be fun, but it isn’t the same. And it’s a reminder of how much we could have had without prejudices limiting art.

*One must take the good with the bad if one is truly sensible.

**A Very Missing Person also stars Julie Newmar and Pat Morita. Morita plays a hippie, which is so, so worthwhile.

***I will note the long tradition of couples who are coded gay having nieces and nephews. I also suppose that if Steven were Gwendolyn’s son, she would not be considered so free to gallivant around with Ernesta because she would be a Bad Mother somehow to the series perceived audience. Even if Steven’s all grown-up and a police lieutenant now.

***I have been thinking about gialli a lot while watching this made-for-tv mysteries with Beth.

****For my thoughts on calling the creature, “Frankenstein,” and on the poor Bride, please see “The Specter of Frankenstein.”

*****Bastion later arranges to meet someone in the men’s bathroom, but I am resisting the temptation to say anything about that.

Two other queer and queer-ish, made-for-tv movies: The Judge and Jake Wyler starring Bette Davis and Doub McLure; and, What’s The Matter With Helen? starring Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters.

 ~~~

If you need her, Carol Borden will be consulting with the Honorable Morlock.

Snooping Ladies Sensibly Solving Mysteries We really should have had a mystery series featuring a sensible lesbian couple by now. Something like two Miss Marples sharing a sensible home and sensibly solving extremely--some might even say…

[ramajmedia]

Tim Burton's 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

There aren’t many directors who are known to the general moviegoing public, because they’re mostly unseen, but when a filmmaker comes along with a clear and unique vision that stands out, audiences tend to notice. That’s how it went with Tim Burton, a former Disney animator who has gone on to become the first name in gothic cinema.

RELATED: Dumbo 2019 Changes: How Disney's Remake Tries To "Fix" The Original

Drawing inspiration from the German expressionist period and collaborating with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter so much that it’s become a joke, Burton has built one of the best-remembered careers in Hollywood. Here are Tim Burton’s 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes.

10 Batman Returns (78%)

Richard Donner might have created the superhero blockbuster with 1978’s Superman: The Movie, but Tim Burton created the dark superhero blockbuster with 1989’s Batman. He then followed it up with an even better sequel, 1992’s Batman Returns.

Michael Keaton continues to be the definitive big-screen Batman in the sequel, deepening the psychology of Bruce Wayne as a guy who moonlights as a masked vigilante, while Michelle Pfeiffer and Danny DeVito provide a brilliant double-whammy of villains as Catwoman and the Penguin, respectively. (This set the template for each subsequent Batman movie to have two villains – Warner Bros. hasn’t looked back since.)

9 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (83%)

Tim Burton might seem like an odd choice for an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s book classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but at least his quirky, bleak, gothic visual style helped to differentiate this version from the previous version starring Gene Wilder.

Johnny Depp played a Willy Wonka that was weirder than ever and Burton gave the factory an unusual steampunk look that made the film a dark alternative to its predecessor. It wasn’t as good as the original adaptation, and Wilder himself thought as much, but it was still a dazzling, sumptuous, compelling work of big-budget cinema.

8 TIE: Corpse Bride (84%)

If there’s one specific type of movie that has Tim Burton’s personal stamp all over it, it’s spooky, horror-tinged stop-motion animated movies with supernatural themes and elements of both comedy and romance. A terrific example of this from Burton’s repertoire is Corpse Bride.

It has all the makings of a great Burton movie – Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in the lead roles (with Christopher Lee as a supporting character), a bleak visual tone, a paranormal storyline, a musical score by Danny Elfman – and it has the follow-through to give it some legs. In some ways, this is the quintessential Burton film.

7 TIE: Beetlejuice (84%)

If Tim Burton made Beetlejuice today, there’s no doubt that he’d cast Johnny Depp in the title role, so it’s a good thing he made it in 1988, before his collaborations with Depp began, because Michael Keaton was born to play this character (and Batman and Riggan Thomson).

RELATED: The 10 Greatest Lines From Beetlejuice

He’s a gifted actor with an eccentric line delivery and a comic wit honed during his background in standup comedy. And he has the Betelgeuse look, because even under that makeup, it’s all in the eyes. A sequel to Beetlejuice has been mooted for years and it’s looking like it’ll never get made, which is a real shame.

6 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (85%)

It can be tough to make musicals work nowadays, because there were a ton of them in the ‘50s and then the genre died out like the Western did, or like the superhero blockbuster will. And it’s even tougher to make a musical work when its plot involves a barber who slits his customers’ throats and then bakes them into pies to serve to the public.

But if there’s anyone who could pull off that delicate combination of genres, it’s Tim Burton, and that’s exactly what he did with this grisly screen translation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical starring his regular collaborators Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

5 TIE: Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (87%)

It might seem as though a Pee-wee Herman movie is a million miles away from the kind of work Tim Burton does, and in many ways, that is true. But this was Burton’s feature film debut, back when he didn’t have the freedom to pick and choose projects (when no one knew what a typical Tim Burton movie was), and it turned out surprisingly well for a movie that doesn’t suit his vision.

In a ludicrous parody of the Italian neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves, Pee-wee searches high and low for his missing bike. This simplistic premise led to some timeless slapstick gags.

4 TIE: Frankenweenie (87%)

This was a feature-length adaptation of one of Tim Burton’s earliest animated shorts, which went by the same title. In a spoof of the Mary Shelley gothic classic that its title paraphrases, Frankenweenie tells the story of a young boy mourning the loss of his dog who uses a risky scientific experiment to bring his beloved pet back to life.

As a black-and-white stop-motion animated movie, it wasn’t a huge box office success, because that style isn’t to every modern moviegoer’s tastes, but it’s a delightful, heartfelt yarn with an important message for kids about dealing with the death of a pet.

3 Edward Scissorhands (90%)

Based on a drawing that Tim Burton made as a bright-eyed teenager with ambitions to tell stories, Edward Scissorhands is a heartfelt and very personal suburban tale. The bright, sunny Californian neighborhood in which it’s set contrasts nicely with Burton’s bleak tone.

RELATED: The 10 Most Memorable Tim Burton Characters, Ranked

In many ways, all of Burton’s films are fairy tales (that’s certainly where his influences come from – disturbing stories dressed up with sentiment), but this one is the closest he’s come to a modern fairy tale. Johnny Depp plays the title character, a pale-skinned weirdo with blades for fingers, and the message is clear, simple, and warm: it’s okay to be different, and not all monsters are scary.

2 Ed Wood (92%)

This biopic of the titular director, shot in the same black-and-white format as his best-known films, presents a relationship that is familiar to Tim Burton. The relationship shared by hotshot young filmmaker Ed Wood and his has-been idol Bela Lugosi in the film mirrors Burton’s relationship with his own childhood hero, Vincent Price.

Ed Wood bombed at the box office – because, let’s face it, black-and-white movies about film directors hardly anyone has heard of don’t tend to make a fun Friday night at the multiplex – but it was acclaimed by critics. There’s a comic element in the fact that Wood saw his own movies as Citizen Kane whereas they were reviewed as the worst films ever made.

1 The Nightmare Before Christmas (95%)

If you need any evidence of the existence of karma, look at the fact that Tim Burton has screwed up two of Disney’s animated classics in the Mouse House’s ongoing onslaught of live-action remakes – 2010’s Alice in Wonderland and 2019’s Dumbo – and now, the studio is planning one for Burton’s own classic Disney ‘toon, The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The stop-motion animated original is one of the most beloved holiday movies of all time. Everything works in tandem – the visual palette complements the plot, the animation style complements the musical numbers, the characters complement the message etc. – to make a fantastic movie.

NEXT: The Coen Brothers' 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

source https://screenrant.com/tim-burton-best-movies-according-rotten-tomatoes/

[cinephiled-com]

New Post has been published on Cinephiled

New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/113-joan-crawfords-mommie-dearest-gets-reprieve/

At 113, Joan Crawford's Mommie Dearest Gets a Reprieve

On this day in 1904, Lucille Fay LeSueur (later known as Joan Crawford) was born in San Antonio, Texas. Some sources list the year of her birth as 1904, 1905, or even 1908, but a quick search of the San Antonio census records reveals the truth. By any measure, Crawford was one of the greats in the history of Hollywood.

I recently watched the 1981 film Mommie Dearest for the first time in decades. While Faye Dunaway’s depiction of Crawford over the course of almost 40 years is dead on, it sometimes seems as if she’s using Carol Burnett’s parodies of Joan Crawford as her source material rather than the actress herself. The way Dunaway transforms herself through makeup, hair, costumes and her exquisite acting chops is one degree short of channeling, but her performance is so over-the-top that you have to wonder what the filmmakers were going for. What could have been a truly incisive look at the stresses and psychological issues of a well known figure is instead an exercise in High Camp even though I don’t think that was anyone’s intention at the time, least of all Faye Dunaway’s (who refuses to discuss this film today). I’m not sure director Frank Perry was the right man for the job, and yet he did direct two films that I thought were outstanding depictions of mental disorders: David and Lisa in 1962 and the classic Diary of a Mad Housewife in 1970.

I have long wished for a new look at Joan Crawford on the screen, one that would treat her life and issues more seriously, not as a big punchline. But I never dreamed it would actually happen — I was sure that Faye Dunaway’s larger-than-life depiction was the last time we’d ever see a talented actress donning Crawford’s red lipstick and shoulder pads. I was wrong!

Ryan Murphy’s eight-part series Feud, currently running on FX, details the production of the 1962 Robert Aldrich film, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Though we’ve only seen half of the episodes, I have to say that I am deeply moved by the performances of Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis.

Not everyone in my circle of classic movie-loving friends agrees, but I find Lange and Sarandon’s depictions deeply moving and nuanced. Yes, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? has itself become a camp classic on par with Mommie Dearest, and this series focuses on the bitter rivalry between the two stars as they grappled with the agonies of being middle-aged in Hollywood (Davis was 54 and Crawford 58 during the making of that film, not old by today’s standards but in Hollywood they were considered ancient relics), but Feud also looks beyond the Hedda Hopper-ish “dirt” to the living and breathing women behind the icons, with all their wisdom, experience, insecurities, and vulnerabilities on full display. I think Sarandon and Lange, themselves 70 and 67, are remarkable in the roles.

Feud also looks at aspects of the questionable parenting of both women, but presents it in a much more compassionate way despite many cringe-producing moments. Davis’s daughter, B.D. Hyman, who would eventually write her own tell-all about her mother, actually had a small role in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? although it was clear from the start that she did not inherit her mother’s acting ability. Played by the talented Kiernan Shipka (Sally Draper from Mad Men), we see Davis and B.D. struggling through difficult moments in their relationship as mother and daughter as well as fellow actors. In 1962, Crawford’s two older children were out of the picture but we see Crawford interacting with her teenaged twin daughters who would later refute the charges levied by their older sister.

When Christina Crawford’s tell-all book came out a year after her mother’s 1977 death, Old Hollywood divided into two camps: those who thought the book represented the slanderous ravings of a spoiled brat bent on revenge for being written out of her mother’s will; and those who said they had witnessed Crawford’s unstable behavior with her children and were convinced that the book’s shocking claims were true. At the top of the list of Joan’s defenders was her old friend Myrna Loy who had known Crawford since she first arrived in Hollywood in the 1920s and had appeared with daughter Christina in a stage production of Barefoot in the Park. Loy disliked Christina and said that she had behaved horribly during the run of their play. She said that while she never saw Joan hit her daughter, if anyone needed a good slap it was Christina. Yikes.

Helen Hayes, however, another great actress whom Joan had befriended in the 1930s, did not exactly elect Joan Mother of the Year in her autobiography:

Joan was not quite rational in her raising of children. You might say she was strict or stern. But cruel is probably the right word.

When my young son Jim came to stay with me, we would go out to lunch with Joan and her son Christopher. Joan would snap, “Christopher!” whenever he tried to speak. He would bow his little head, completely cowed, and then he’d say, “Mommie dearest, may I speak?” Joan’s children had to say [that] before she allowed them to utter another word. It would have been futile for me or anyone else to protest. Joan would only get angry and probably vent her rage on the kids.

I have read that people who are abused as children often become abusive parents. Maybe it was Joan’s tough childhood that made her exert her power like that over her own children. But understanding the reason did not make their suffering any easier to watch.

Pretty damning stuff, and yet were many who claimed that Christina Crawford exaggerated some of the childhood episodes for dramatic purposes. I admit that certain scenes from the film that so appalled me when I first saw it in the 1980s don’t seem that bad today. At Christmas time and on birthdays, Joan’s fans would send Christina mountains of presents. Crawford would let her keep one or two and have her give the rest to needy children. This is presented in the film as monstrous abuse but I have to say that it seems pretty reasonable to me today. Still, it’s clear that there were times when Crawford’s highly disciplined and controlling nature devolved into episodes of severe mental and physical abuse. The last thing I would ever do is accuse Christina Crawford of lying about her own childhood. I would think that the only thing worse than experiencing such abuse is telling people about it and not being believed. Only she knows what happened between her and her mother and it certainly seems like Joan had plenty of issues that made her a challenge to live with. On the other hand, I wish the makers of Mommie Dearest had avoided the temptation to create completely fictional scenes of terror like the one in which Joan almost kills Christina in front of a magazine reporter.

As far as Joan’s friends defending her, it’s true that you never really know what goes on behind other people’s closed doors. Still, Christina Crawford hasn’t helped her “case,” in my opinion, by encouraging the camp-fest that has developed around the book and movie of Mommie Dearest. She has appeared at screenings with drag queens playing her mother and at which the crowd interacts with the film à la Rocky Horror using props. The last time I saw the film in a theater, an AFI-sponsored screening for its 25th anniversary in 2006, I was uncomfortable at the uproarious laughter that greeted so many scenes. If the story is true, we are laughing at horrific child abuse. If it is an exaggerated tale of a troubled childhood, we are participating in a major defamation of character of a woman who is not here to defend herself and whose public image (the one thing everyone who knew Joan Crawford said she cared about more than anything) has been utterly trashed.

Not that I can truly blame the audience for laughing or claim that I took the high road and didn’t join in from time to time. How can you not laugh at lines that are so out there they have become indelible parts of our pop culture such as “Christina, bring me the ax!” or the iconic “NO WIRE HANGERS…EVER!!” My personal favorite is a scene that I think shows Joan in a positive light even though she’s clearly being a Class A bitch. After her fourth husband, Pepsi-Cola honcho Al Steele dies, the top brass at Pepsi try to kiss her off. Never one to meekly slither away, Joan Crawford lays into the Board and threatens to use her fame to turn her fans against Pepsi if they continue their campaign to get rid of her. After years of dealing with the sleazeballs of Hollywood, Joan was not about to let this group give her the heave-ho. “Don’t fuck with me, fellas!” she spews with an evil smile on her face. “This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.” I hope she really said that, it’s such a great line.

While the Crawford twins, Cathy and Cynthia, that we see in Feud always defended their mother against their sister’s charges, Joan’s adopted son, Christopher, definitely did not. Though he was never as interested in sharing his story with the world as Christina had done, his own childhood was every bit as troubled.  As a young boy, Christopher ran away from home several times. At 12, Joan placed him is a residential military academy but it didn’t curtail the trouble the boy constantly got into. Following Crawford’s death and the release of his sister’s book, he finally agreed to talk to a newspaper reporter in 1978 about his unhappy childhood.

“I want to tell this once, so people will get off my back and leave my family alone,” says the 6-foot-4 man whose hard life shows in his face. He needs dental work. There are small scars on his face and larger ones on his back from a mortar explosion in Vietnam.

Crawford recalled his mother’s “sleep safe,” the harnesslike device used to keep infants securely in their beds. Chris was strapped into bed until the age of 12. Once caught playing with matches, his mother made him hold his hand in the fireplace. “I had blisters all over my hand. That day I ran away for the first time. I was 7.”

Though Chris attended his mother’s funeral, his last encounter with J.C. was five years ago. His youngest child was born in Brooklyn, on welfare. “When Bonnie was born, she had a lot of trouble. She was just a tiny little mass of bones with some skin stretched over them. So I called J.C. and said, ‘I need your help. Your granddaughter needs blood and she needs it now. She might die.’ J.C. said, ‘She’s not my granddaughter. You were adopted.’ I lost my temper and slammed down the phone so hard I broke the receiver. That was it between J.C. and me.”

FEUD: Bette and Joan — “Mommie Dearest” — Installment 1, Episode 3 (Airs Sunday, March 19, 10:00 p.m. e/p) –Pictured: (l-r) Jackie Hoffman as Mamacita, Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford. CR: Suzanne Tenner/FX

That’s as bad as anything in Mommie Dearest. Christopher Crawford died of cancer on September 22, 2006. Cynthia Crawford died the following year. It’s quite possible that Christina and Christopher’s perspectives about their mother were as true and valid as their younger sisters’ claims of a strict but very loving mother. In any event, I’m grateful to Ryan Murphy and Jessica Lange for allowing the world to see a more multifaceted and complex version of Joan Crawford, albeit another fictionalized take that is open to different interpretations. Few people cared more about their career or their public image than Joan Crawford and I’m happy that this poignant examination of the screen legend doesn’t treat her incredible and often tragic life as one big joke. Happy Birthday, Joan!

[d-and-s-are-bord-blog]

Better Late Than Never: 19 Must-See Movies from 1999

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From 19 movie lovers to one other, here are some of our favorites from 1999.

We get a lot of emails here at Film School Rniejects, and while most of them are split pretty evenly between people curious if Kieran Fisher is a “real” person and others asking Christopher Campbell, Esq. for nudes, some are actually complimentary enough towards the site to count as fan letters.

One such example came to us recently from a young woman in the UK hoping to celebrate turning 19 years old with a writing project about movies released in 1999. Her plan was to watch or re-watch films from that year and then write about each of them whether she connected with the movie or not. As a fan of FSR and One Perfect Shot she asked if we could offer a few suggestions as to what we consider to be the must-see movies of 1999.

“Hi, I figure this email is a long shot but I’d really love your help. My name is Ellie, I’m 18, a complete film geek and I could not live without Film School Rejects or One Perfect Shot. I’m starting a project that involves me trying to watch new or rewatch 19 films from 1999 by the time I’m 19 on June 2nd and I would really love any suggestions that I can add to my list. I know its small, but this project means a lot to me and I’d love to complete it and write up about all of them, whether I’m passionate about them or whether I detest them. It would mean the world to get some help on this.

Thank you thank you thank you!

Ellie

London, United Kingdom”

The smart, easy, and nice thing to do would have been for one of us to dash off a quick list of 1999’s best films so she’d have it in time for her birthday. Unfortunately, we here at FSR prefer to complicate things and miss deadlines whenever possible, so instead of a short list we’d like to present Ellie with 19 picks from 19 members of our team. Some might seem obvious, others less so, but it’s most definitely a broad spectrum highlighting not only our staff’s eclectic tastes but also the absolute wonder that is cinema’s breadth and scope.

We write about movies because we love movies (and because Disney pays so damn well for positive Marvel coverage, but that’s a bit off topic so forget I even said it), and we’re equally excited by any opportunity to share that love with others. There are so many amazing films out there, and like everyone else, we’re still discovering new favorites every day.

So happy belated birthday Ellie! We apologize for the tardiness of our reply, but hopefully you find something new to appreciate from our picks and that they add to your already growing love for the movies. (And, yes, we did add a bonus pick for an even twenty to get a jump on your 20th birthday…)

10 Things I Hate About You (directed by Gil Junger)

Perhaps the last great teen movie of the 20th century, 10 Things I Hate About You made its debut in 1999. It’s essential viewing for any rom-com fan, but especially for young women. Kat (Julia Stiles) is a badass feminist lead unlike many we see in romantic comedies who accepts an invitation to prom from class mystery man Patrick (Heath Ledger). There’s miscommunication, true love, and a Shakespeare enthusiast. The soundtrack is the perfect time capsule of 1999, but it still rocks today. It’s a fun and adorable movie I adored when I was nineteen! – Emily Kubincanek

All About My Mother (directed by Pedro Almodóvar)

Us film writers have a bad habit of using “melodrama” like it’s a dirty word. The thing is, melodrama is most often used as a crutch—blatant appeals to viewers’ emotions made in an attempt to distract audiences from other shortcomings. It takes a skilled filmmaker to remind us of how wrong we are in conflating melodrama’s potential with the underwhelming contents in which it is most often seen, and Pedro Almodóvar is perhaps the preeminent master of melodrama working today. Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother) is stuffed to the brim with plotting straight from a soap opera, expertly condensing the twists and turns one might expect from an entire television season into less than two hours. Gorgeously vibrant and filled with innovative cinematography that will stick in your brain long afterward, the film is a much-needed reminder that melodrama and great cinema can absolutely be one and the same. And that you should always look both ways before crossing the road. – Ciara Wardlow

Analyze This (directed by Harold Ramis)

What is the best way to understand film genre? Apart from actually sitting down and immersing oneself in its finest examples, the answer is clear: genre parodies! An overlooked classic is Harold Ramis’ Analyze This. One sentence summary: Robert De Niro plays a mob boss and Billy Crystal is his psychiatrist. It’s a ton of fun! Also, it’s a thoughtful satire, one that raises deep questions about our understanding of masculinity, especially in films about Italian-American men. In Goodfellas, De Niro plays a mobster completely devoid of emotion; here, he plays one who struggles to admit he has emotions because he believes doing so would make him weak. It’s well-worth your time, plus, if you like it, there’s a sequel! – Will DiGravio

Audition (directed by Takashi Miike)

By the time you read this, Takashi Miike’s filmography will have surpassed 100 directorial outings and some change. The Japanese maverick is a workaholic who’s willing to make any project he gets offered, though when you look at the eclectic array of titles in his oeuvre, what you see is some of the boldest and most daring cinema of the last 20 years. Audition, which is based on Ryu Murakami’s novel of the same name, is one of his foremost masterworks, as well as an example of J-horror at its smartest and most sadistic. It tells the story of a widower who’s looking to get back into the dating game, but he gets more than he bargained for when he meets a woman with a mysterious past and a willingness to go the extra mile. Part romantic comedy, part stomach-churning nightmare, Audition serves as the perfect introduction to Miike’s demented world, and it’ll either make you want to delve in further or avoid it forever. – Kieran Fisher

The Blair Witch Project (directed by Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez)

Found footage movies get a bad wrap. Look, I get it. After the – ahem – foundational film The Blair Witch Project made its splash debut at Sundance Film Festival, screening at midnight to an unsuspecting crowd, studios every year have attempted to cash in on this low-cost way of filmmaking. But when done right, this POV format elicits a cinema verite quality that we so rarely see in the horror genre. And that’s what makes Blair Witch work so well. It just feels real. And in a time when the internet was just becoming what it is today, it was easy for the studios to really capitalize on that and make audiences believe that it was real. From the website that the filmmakers set up to the Sci-Fi Channel “documentary” The Curse of the Blair Witch that ran the week before the film released, they essentially made not only the first Augmented Reality game but also an immersive experience. Watching the film you feel like you are in the Black Hills Forest with Heather, Mike, and Josh slowly losing your sanity as the claustrophobic woods send chills down your spine. And when the woods finally come alive, the terror feels real. In a decade that was full of glossy excess, the simplistic DIY quality of The Blair Witch Project made it a breath of fresh air. This film didn’t have beautiful 20-somethings, pretending to still be in high school, running away from a hook hand or a ghost mask, this was a fear of the unknown. What’s right behind the door, or down that dark corridor. What we can’t even begin to comprehend, for fear we go mad. Often imitated, but never duplicated: The Blair Witch Project is real old-school horror. – Jacob Trussell

Dick (directed by Andrew Fleming)

After nearly 20 years, I still can’t believe Dick hasn’t become at least a cult classic. This movie has so many hilarious performances from its mix of Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live cast members, including Bruce McCullough and a not-yet-famous Will Ferrell as iconic journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Ryan Reynolds is here pre-fame, as well. The political satire mashed with teen comedy stars Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst on the edge of their transitions from child actresses to Oscar and Emmy worthy talents, and that’s a perfect spot for them to be in while they play bubbly girls in the midst, almost Forrest Gump-like, in one of America’s most notorious scandals. It’s a hip, lampooning introduction to the Nixon Administration and Watergate for young audiences with a wonderful portrayal of Tricky Dick by Dan Hedaya, and it’s a light and entertaining take on political corruption and the well-worn story of becoming disappointed with heroes and leaders. – Christopher Campbell

Election (directed by Alexander Payne)

Hear me out: Tracy Flick did nothing wrong. Over the years, Reese Witherspoon’s portrayal of an uncannily chipper, type-A teen who will stop at nothing to become student body president has been hailed as both a cultural icon and monstrous villain – but as a profoundly dorky and overachieving teenage girl who first saw Alexander Payne’s Election when I was Flick’s age, I’ve always felt a deep kinship with her. Matthew Broderick is disarmingly convincing as its (unreliable) protagonist, a beloved teacher who can only see Flick as a vindictive seductress after an affair with his married colleague (a situation we’d recognize today as statutory rape). In retrospect, it seems to occupy a strange in-between era of teen-media canon – its sour, biting portrait of high school politics takes after the pitch-black wit of Heathers, and yet its earnest idiosyncrasy also recalls later, weirder works like the great American Vandal. It’s the rare kind of comedy whose sense of humor is dazzlingly sharp and yet never feels mean-spirited. – Aline Dolinh

Eyes Wide Shut (directed by Stanley Kubrick)

Stanley Kubrick’s final film is a salacious peekaboo exploration of the sexual desires hidden within the minds of our significant other. We recognize the deep, dark secrets that lurk inside our own fantasies, but we dare not ask our partners what delights they crave. What’s the password? You do not want to know. Eyes Wide Shut peels the curtain back on the lust that fuels humanity. The film is made all the more dangerous by casting real-life married couple (at the time anyway) Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in the roles of the husband and wife reeling from the revelations laid bare after one admits their carnal wants. Their bedroom confrontation is an exposed vein that the audience both recoils from and salivates towards. We should not be privy to such horrendous intimacy. Kubrick’s passing and the prudish controversy surrounding the centerpiece orgy marred the initial response to the film. The longer I’ve sat with Eyes Wide Shut, the more time it has wormed its way into my relationships. Don’t wonder what’s going on in your lover’s head. Ask. Or suffer the torment. – Brad Gullickson

Fight Club (directed by David Fincher)

Before it became a stereotypical Film Bro signpost, this fantasia of runaway masculinity was a pulsating, bloody, controversial revelation. An essential entry into the filmographies of Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter, it was also the movie that gave David Fincher his biggest early push toward his current label as a modern auteur filmmaker. Love it or hate it, Fight Club is a pop cultural touchstone, referenced for its quotable dark humor, brutal offhand violence, anti-Capitalist ideology, and above all else, its wildly surprising ending. First and foremost, though, I think Fight Club is an example of what filmmaking can look like at its most technically brilliant. It was the movie that made me fall in love with the aesthetic side of cinema, the technical aspects which separate film from other mediums of storytelling. As with Fincher’s later works, Fight Club makes use of sounds and sights, colors and cuts that flow seamlessly together, fluid and visually dynamic, to create a rich and distinctive moviegoing experience. – Valerie Ettenhofer

Galaxy Quest (directed by Dean Parisot)

1999 was a simpler time on the verge of being more complicated. It undeniably had its eye to the future, but its special effects and grasp of a swiftly changing technological landscape haven’t all aged amazingly. Galaxy Quest actually holds up surprisingly well, but it does make for interesting viewing 19 years later. In 1999 the internet was still a new phenomenon, not yet a place where everyone and their dog had an opinion on your favorite sci-fi show. The film’s main plot, that an alien species have mistaken a tv show for reality, is inherently clever and funny, but seen from 2018, when all-consuming fandom is more visible than ever, it doesn’t feel quite so… otherworldly. That’s what makes it obligatory viewing for the end of the millennium — now officially older than its long-canceled titular show, it offers a prescient view of the world that it almost certainly didn’t intend. It’s a time capsule of accidental speculation. It’s also a fun space adventure with a lot of heart and Alan Rickman, so if you’re not in the mood for reflecting on how the world has changed drastically since your birth, you can still have a great time. – Liz Baessler

Girl, Interrupted (directed by James Mangold)

There truly aren’t many films exploring the motives and psyches of teenage girls, but alongside other 1999 releases such as 10 Things I Hate About You and The Virgin Suicides, Girl, Interrupted furthered the presence and dimensions of young women on-screen. In classic Winona Ryder style, she undertakes the role of an interesting, intellectual, and misunderstood adolescent, namely Susanna Kaysen, an eighteen-year-old who has found herself admitted to a mental institution following an overdose. She finds the women around her (an incredible supporting cast in the form of Brittany Murphy, Elisabeth Moss, and Clea DuVall) both relatable and frightening, revealing the inner prejudices she holds within herself. The real challenge Susanna faces, however, is the charisma and allure of sociopath Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie’s Oscar-winner, and an icon on every teen’s Tumblr dashboard circa 2012). Underneath the powerhouse cast and vivid identities, however, is a focus on mental illness and coming-of-age that makes Girl, Interrupted a seminal piece for anyone trying to navigate their place in the world. Susanna is the narrator of the story in place of the audience’s inner monologue, skipping with us through the highs, and tugging us out of the lows. It shows, frankly, that with therapy, recovery is possible. It also emphasizes the importance of friendship and the solidarity of women, providing a depiction of troubled teenage years with an absorbing and truthful force. – Anya Hudson

The Iron Giant (directed by Brad Bird)

When Brad Bird’s directorial debut about a boy and his giant robot from outer space hit theatres on August 6th, 1999, it was a critical success. But Warner Brothers hadn’t had the first idea how to advertise it, and it opened in ninth place at the box office. And in all fairness, The Iron Giant doesn’t exactly fit into a marketable mold. That’s one of the film’s strengths. It’s based off a children’s story that Ted Huges wrote to comfort his children after the suicide of his wife, Sylvia Plath. It’s a Norman Rockwell-inspired political parable about a young boy befriending a metal monster who, despite his programming, doesn’t want to do harm. It had something to say about fear-mongering, violence betting violence, and the cost of peace—and it said all these things without talking down to young viewers. At its core, The Iron Giant is a story of empowerment, not as myth or destiny, but as a choice. You are who you choose to be. You can be gentle, you can defend, and you can be kind. You can be superman. – Meg Shields

Magnolia (directed by Paul Thomas Anderson)

Magnolia is significant in the 1999 canon for several reasons. It is arguably Paul Thomas Anderson’s best film. It has an ensemble cast that rivals some of the best actors and actresses of our time. And frankly, it contains one of the best performances from Tom Cruise. That alone would be a feat, but Magnolia is an untraditional epic that proves that nothing is written in stone. Anderson uses a short story to present audiences to the idea of strange phenomenon. An unsuccessful suicide turns into a murder by the most unlikely circumstances. That is the theme that runs through Magnolia, unlikely circumstances. Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) was a former quiz show winner whose moment of fame passed him by. The man who hosts that show, Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall), has his own issues as he is slowly dying from cancer. And these two are connected to other members in the cast through coincidences. Anderson has waned back and forth on whether Magnolia is his masterpiece, but regardless of opinion, there is no denying the power of the film. Add in an iconic score by Aimee Mann — and did I already mention Tom Cruise’s performance? — and you have a movie experience quite unlike any other. – Max Covill

The Matrix (directed by The Wachowskis)

Notice how in almost every action movie there will be a slo-mo fight sequence where the protagonist is dodging bullets left and right? You can thank 1999’s The Matrix for that. Though, admittedly, later films may not exactly do it justice. Moving past those iconic visual effects (known more familiarly as “bullet time”, undeniably made most famous by The Matrix though it can be found in its predecessors) this movie is a wild ride that defined the action genre for years to come. The use of sophisticated fight scenes, heavily featuring a martial arts fighting style as per its Hong Kong cinema influence, along with incredibly complex and unique worldbuilding, The Matrix has firmly secured its spot in pop culture legend. What’s more, Keanu Reeves shines as hacker-turned-rebel against the machines, adding sci-fi badass to his already notable film career. His journey as Neo takes you from sympathizing with his 9 to 5 struggles (a good juxtaposition, as the side gig as a career cyber-criminal was probably less relatable) and seeing apart of yourself in a character going through the gray-tinged motions of a salaryman, to wanting to be him. Who wouldn’t want an alluring, mysterious stranger to plunge you into the realities of a dystopia, introducing you to a cyberpunk cult who gives you the choice to change your perception of the world forever? It seems much more appealing in The Matrix, I promise. The Wachowskis’ most famous achievement, this is a film much better viewed than dissected, particularly at the risk of revealing an amazing semi-plot twist. It’s more than just a pop culture phenomenon, still able to stand tall in 2018 as the perfect combination of action film technique and sci-fi storytelling prowess. While the gothic, cyberpunk look of the costumes and character style may admittedly date itself, the core and general appeal of the movie hold strong. Where else can you find Reeves entering a technological-underworld, filled with the expected futuristic elements coupled with a grungy exterior⎯ while also battling cryptic agents and practicing kung-fu. – Kendall Cromartie

The Mummy (directed by Stephen Sommers)

Two sequels, four Scorpion King spin-offs, and an ill-fated reboot may have diluted the Universal Mummy brand, but Stephen Sommers’ original summer blockbuster is still as ruggedly charming as its lead. Brendan Fraser is at the peak of his dopey charm here, and Sommers rips off Indiana Jones with freewheeling ease, forgoing scares in favor of all manner of swashbuckling adventure, complete with a climactic sword fight with an undead army. There’s no sweaty cinematic universe-building to be found in The Mummy, just good old-fashioned grave-robbing fun. – John DiLillo

Peppermint Candy (directed by Lee Chang-dong)

There are plenty of light and fluffy movies I love, both from the US and elsewhere, but my heart belongs to darkness. (On the screen at least… I’ll stick with light and fluffy in real life.) South Korean cinema is better than most at scratching this particular itch, and Lee Chang-dong’s beautiful but devastating look at his own country’s recent history does it in brilliant fashion. Like the more well-known Irreversible from three years later, Peppermint Candy magnifies the story’s drama and emotional effect by playing out in reverse chronological order. We start with a broken man screaming on a train track as the locomotive rushes toward him, and we work backward through his life to the young idealist he once was. It’s a personal tale of one man’s disappointment, but the events he experiences also tell the story of South Korea’s own growing pains as a young democracy. It’s a smartly crafted punch to the heart, and it’s one of 1999’s best films. – Rob Hunter

Ratcatcher (directed by Lynne Ramsay)

Too often in conversations of a year’s best films are international works forgotten. For this reason, if you’re looking at 1999 in movies, Scottish writer-director Lynne Ramsay’s feature film debut Ratcatcher is a must-see. The film is set in 1973 and tells the story of James, a young boy living with his family in a run-down housing scheme in Glasgow during the city-wide garbage strike, leaving the already dilapidated residential units in worse conditions ever. By exploring the minutiae of the sensitive James’ daily life, Ramsay creates a film that delivers an incredibly thoughtful and powerful meditation on ever-relevant themes of poverty, guilt, secret-keeping and human connection. – Madison Brek

Ravenous (directed by Antonia Bird)

It’s been a slow climb to respectability for Bird’s 19th-century cannibal classic. Universally panned on its release – the film was called a ‘stupid black comedy’ and ‘material that’s often better suited to a Monty Python skit’ – Ravenous has slowly risen in the esteem of horror fans and earned a spot as one of the better horror films of the last 20 years. And for good reason: not only does Ravenous feature the kind of onscreen talent normally reserved for high-profile chamber pieces, it also contains one of the most memorable soundtracks of any decade, a pop-infused cacophony of period instruments and chanting (co-written by Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn). Equal parts black comedy and superhero-horror hybrid, Ravenous is the kind of movie that was meant to get better with time. Here’s to the cavalcade of anniversary pieces already scheduled for next spring. – Matthew Monagle

The Straight Story (directed by David Lynch)

There’s art-damaged David Lynch, there’s network TV David Lynch and even big studio David Lynch, but what if the best David Lynch is the one that Disney randomly bought at Cannes the summer of ’99 and which remains the director’s only G-rated entertainment? Shot along the route that notable Iowan Alvin Straight took by lawnmower to see his brother over in Wisconsin a few years before, The Straight Story tells this tale with the kind of look-in-your-eye sincerity that Lynch had for so long only been able to perform in various tediously ironic costumes. Richard Farnsworth, a stuntman who once played Matthew in Anne of Green Gables, is Straight, exalted here as an ordinary joe stubborn to the progress of time and old wounds. One finally triumphs over the other when Straight decides to reconcile with an estranged brother two states away, who appears, as-who-else but longtime chum Harry Dean Stanton. Because of Straight’s decimated vision, the local Man tells him he can’t drive and god knows no All-American will be caught dead on a bus in those 49 states, so Straight hitches up a lawnmower from the local John Deere affiliate and off he goes, with longtime Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti scoring this to an ambient take on that era’s popular The Oregon Trail 3rd Ed.-music. What follows is an epic Odyssian tale that offers Oscar-nominated real pain and real country patois. It was perfect for the comedown from the summer of Woodstock ’99, and it’s perfect for right now, the clouds gathering and you can see them far-off if you look, before another summer of infinite bleakness. – Andrew Karpan

The Virgin Suicides (directed by Sophia Coppola)

Sofia Coppola is known for her vested interest in girlhood and female experiences, and she’s been committed to this since her debut film in 1999. The film is haunting and achingly beautiful in its depiction of the events that led up to the Lisbon sisters taking their own lives, all before they turned eighteen. It is intimate and empathetic, characteristics that Coppola frequently employs well, but unlike her other films that take the perspectives of her characters as they grapple with loss and disillusionment, The Virgin Suicides never fully breaks through to the Lisbon sisters, leaving them as mysteries without answers, asserting how difficult it is to know each other but how important it is that we try to. Every time I revisit the film I find a new detail that reminds me how much I love Coppola as a filmmaker and how grateful I am for her work. – Anna Swanson

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The Simpsons: 10 Homer Simpson Quotes That Are Still Hilarious Today – Screen Rant

Few television characters are as legendary as Homer Simpson. As the lazy, dim-witted and short-fused father of the Simpson family, Homer has been a pop culture fixture for decades. We have followed him on many adventures, from the show’s very beginning to the less satisfying later seasons. And through it all, he has always made us laugh.

RELATED: The Simpsons: The 10 Funniest Apu Quotes

Though Homer might not be the perfect husband or father, he is a constant source of amusement. He is responsible for some of the funniest television moments of all time, even if we’re often laughing at him rather than with him. Here are some Homer Simpson quotes that are still hilarious today.

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10 To Start Press Any Key’. Where’s The ANY Key?

You would think that someone who works as a safety inspector of a nuclear power plant might be tech literate. To be fair, there are a lot of qualifications for that job that Homer doesn’t meet and the technology side of things is just one small area.

After securing his dream job of working from home, Homer sets up at the home computer. Ready to get started, he is immediately thrown off by the first command on the screen. He then tops his own stupidity by hitting the TAB key to order a drink.

9 I Think It Was Called “The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down.”

Homer’s stupid is a thing of amazement at times. He is so oblivious to the world around him that he almost accidentally stumbles on the right answer before blowing right past it. This even extends to simple things like remembering the name of a movie.

RELATED: The Simpsons: 10 Most Painfully Relatable Moe Quotes

As Homer explains, “I saw this movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode!” He decides the title of the movie was “The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down”. So close.

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8 Captain What’s-His-Name

We’ve seen Homer get mad plenty of times, especially at Bart. But despite his rage, he is not much of a disciplinarian. Even when he is trying to lecture his kids, his confused rantings are hard to take too seriously.

When Bart is caught shoplifting, Homer is legitimately angry, but he can’t quite get his point across. He yells at Bart “Haven’t you learned anything from that guy who gives those sermons at church? Captain What’s-His-Name?” Maybe Bart wasn’t the only one not paying attention in church.

7 To Alcohol! The Cause Of, And Solution To, All Of Life’s Problems

Is it possible that Homer is secretly smart after all? Probably not, but even a broken clock is right twice a day and Homer can, at times, say something that is at least a little profound. It makes sense that his words of wisdom relate to beer, something he thinks about a lot.

After a brief era of prohibition is ended in Springfield, Homer triumphantly raises a glass of beer and shares his throughs – “To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” It’s a funny examination of alcohol with more than a little truth to it.

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6 Batman’s A Scientist

Homer might primarily be a nuclear power plant employee, but for a lazy man, he sure has taken on a lot of different jobs. As it turns out, one of his shortest and most dangerous career paths was as the conductor of Springfield’s first monorail.

RELATED: The Simpsons: 10 Most Hilarious Principal Skinner Quotes

Designed by a shady businessman, the monorail almost immediately malfunctions, causing it to take off at dangerous speeds. Marge finds the scientist who built the first monorail and tells Homer she has someone who can help. Homer immediately guesses it’s Batman and when Marge explains it’s a scientist, Homer points out “Batman’s a scientist.”

5 The Lesson Is, Never Try

Homer loves his children very much, but he’s not going to be named father-of-the-year anytime soon. Perhaps due to his limited knowledge or his laziness, Homer is not filled with the kind motivating pep talks you’d want from a father.

When Mr. Burns is looking for an heir, the Simpsons kids try to impress the right old man but, as Homer points out to them, they failed miserably. Along with that bunt criticism, Homer imparts the lesson that he seems to live his own life by, “never try“.

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4 No TV And No Beer Make Homer Something Something

While Homer is unhinged in a regular episode of The Simpsons, the Treehouse of Horror specials allow him to really show off his wild side. One of the best segments from the show’s Halloween episodes is the parody of The Shining with Homer in the role of Jack Torrance.

In a recreation of the classic scene from the movie, Marge finds Homer’s written ramblings which say “No TV and no beer make Homer go crazy.” Yet Homer can’t quite think of the right title for it until Marge suggests “go crazy?” and the deranged Homer responds “Don’t mind if I do!“

3 I’m Normally Not A Praying Man, But If You’re Up There, Please Save Me, Superman

As we see with the Captain What’s-His-Name remark, Homer is not really a man of religion. That’s probably mostly due to his own laziness rather than putting actual thought into any kind of belief. But in his hour of need, he is willing to turn to a higher power.

RELATED: The Simpsons: 10 Funniest Krusty The Clown Quotes

Finding himself in yet another dangerous situation with his life on the line, Homer looks to the skies and prays to the one man who can help him. To be totally fair to Homer, Jesus and Superman do have a lot in common.

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2 You’ll Have To Speak Up I’m Wearing A Towel

Sometimes the things Homer does are so hilariously unusual that you could spend hours considering how he got himself in that position. His stupidity brings up so many questions to which we may never know the answers.

When Bart’s school calls him at work, Homer runs to the phone in a towel around his waist and answers it, remaking “You’ll have to speak up I’m wearing a towel”. Why was he wearing a towel at work? Why would wearing a towel affect his hearing in any way? So many questions.

1 I Am So Smart. S-M-R-T

This quote might be the perfect summation of Homer Simpson. It is also one of the quotes that can get lodged in your head forever.

Shockingly, Homer has never had any secondary education. However, when he is accepted to college, he waists no time in setting his high school diploma on fire and declaring himself a genius. As the diploma fire spreads across the house behind him, Homer sings “I am so smart” while misspelling ‘smart’ for good measure.

NEXT: The Worst Things Homer Simpson Has Ever Done, Ranked

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The Cannibal Galaxy (Highlight: 62; Note: 0) ------------- "Half the people love, half the people hate. And where is my place between these halves that are so well matched? And through what crack shall I see the white housing-projects of my dreams, and the bare­ foot runners on the sands or, at least, the A uttering of the girl's kerchief, by the hill? " "three buildings were middling-high, Aat-roofed, moderately modern. Behind them, the lake cast out glimmers of things primeval, cryptic, obscure. These waters had a history of turbu­ lence: they had knocked freighters to pieces in tidal storms. Now and then the lake took human life. " "and then the lake took human life. In the mornings, well before the first rumble of the early buses, the Principal would come down from his dark and sagging rooms and run to the beach. He was a bachelor of fifty-eight, and still a good runner. In the misted green rain of May the water looked Aat and impervious, as if a dead membrane had been stretched over it. The waves were without rise or fall. On other mornings the whole circle of the lake wheeled its dazzle of brass like another sun. Crayfish shells cut into the rubber of the Principal's sneakers. That was one side of the school. " "The school was on a large lake in the breast-pocket of the continent, pouched and crouched in inwardness. It was as though it had a horror of coasts and margins; of edges and extremes of any sort. The school was of the middle and in the middle. Its" "three buildings were middling-high, Aat-roofed, moderately modern. Behind them, the lake cast out glimmers of things primeval, cryptic, obscure. These waters had a history of turbu­ lence: they had knocked freighters to pieces in tidal storms. Now and then the lake took human life. " "He thought how even the stars are mere instances and artifacts of a topological cartography of imagined dimensions; he reflected on that mathe­ matical region wherein everything can be invented, and out of which the-things-that-are select their forms of being from among the illimitable plenitude of the-things-that-might-be. " " gravity and chemicals." "An image is an image," "A puddle still trickled from the center of the pyre; a transparent spiral of vapor curled out of its flank." "strange hairinesses" "Sweat spilled from behind Joseph's ears down into the well of his collarbone; it was July." "By a transposition of the senses, M. de Cambremer looked at you with his nose. This nose of his was not ugly, it was if anything too handsome, too bold, too proud of its own importance. Arched, polished, gleaming, brand new, it was amply prepared to atone for the inadequacy of his eyes. Unfortunately, if the eyes are sometimes the organ through which our intelligence is revealed, the nose (to leave out of account the intimate solidarity and the unsuspected repercussion of one feature upon the rest), the nose is generally the organ in which stupidity is most readily displayed." " possess a fish pond, and if a child is careless in his studies, I bribe him by giving him some of the fish and thus win him over to study." " "He was fixed on getting out of Europe; on leaving France; and sometimes, when he lay curled among bird droppings and the droppings of small rodents and bats, he dreamed of razing Paris to the ground-so that it would look like the prilliant mead­ ows all around him, the wilderness of meadows that piled gold upon gold until they came to the lip of the brook." "He devoted himself to the study of the possibility of liquid nitrogen oceans on distant satellites; he puzzled over faraway frac­ tures and vapors; he brooded about whether the rings of Saturn were electrically charged. He had re-entered civilization: then why did he feel desiccated? Why, stretching toward the margins of the remotest blue haze, did he judge himself to be middling? Through telescopes as huge as chimneys he looked toward the mathemati­ cal spheres. The radio emissions of orbs and powers and particles wheeled by in their shining dress. He was discovering himself not to be a discoverer-both too shabby and too cunning for the stars, so he abandoned his life to the chances and devisings of another continent" "She was in fact abundantly aged, even hallowed; " " vehicles instinct with secretion" "vehicles instinct with secretion: the pocket­ mouth of the uterus, motherhood red in tooth and claw." "beautiful, always at the edge of evening, with the shining yellow arc of sand fading from its June butteriness to filmy gray to the kind of pink mirage that lasts only a fraction of a second before the depth of the true dark. " "perfume reduced to hieroglyph" "the curves of the base strokes like" "Already the resem­ blance was waning. A fleeting aberration of his own, set off by the pure bell of the mother-tongue cleanly striking. Among" " A fleeting aberration of his own, set off by the pure bell of the mother-tongue cleanly striking. " "Miss Trittschuh," ""you want a silk purse out of the wrong animal's ear." " " Nights he lay down beside the flickering planetary glow of the television, sick with infatuation. " " his stomach swarmed with too many organs" "her. Her vocabulary was even more offensive than her sweat." " Her vocabulary was even more offensive than her sweat. " "of flight, meteorites are the brightest passengers of the ether." What lace, what rodomontade! His mouth churned gewgaws, ribbons, fragments of fake ermine. All the same, he did not think of himself as a flatterer; he despised his antagonists too much. " "together cried out into the crevasse of the icy planet" "molds, to bring form into being. He acknowledged-now that he was looking for it-how she worked to make a frame for every idea. Her ideas were peculiarly athwart, as if in parody. She set out-she mimicked-every rational scheme, but with the almost imperceptible screw-turn of her malignant smile. He had witnessed that smile only once, and for only a moment; but retrospectively, toiling through her work, he learned the quality of its tight-stretched mirth. It was strange to think she had a child. Profoundly, illim­ itably, he knew the mothers; she was not like any of them. The unselfconscious inexorable secretion ran in all of them. From morning to night they were hurtled forward by the explosions of internal rivers, with their roar of force and pressure. The mothers were rafts on their own instinctual flood. Encirclement, preser­ vation, defense, protection: that was the roar and force. That was why they lived, and how: to make a roiling moat around their offspring. The ardor of their lives was directed toward nothing else, and though it seemed to be otherwise, they were in the pinch of nature's vise, they were contained in an illusion of freedom: as the bee in midflight is unaware its purpose is honey, and supposes each flight to be for flight's sake, so the mothers went here and there, and did this and that, and believed one thing and another, but all for an immovable and unsubtle end. And their offspring too would one day be the same: aggressive, arrogant, pervicacious: the gland's defense of the necessary shove toward continuity" "&er this he was afraid to telephone her again. She was impatient with stragglers. Ad astra; and he had stopped too soon. She was ambitious in a way he had never before encountered, or, if he had, he had forgotten it. Her ambi­ tion was the same as desire, and her desire was unlike his; it had long ago put away dream. Her ambition, her desire, was to cast " "fragmented but thorough" "a funerary mound pouting between short legs. " "" he knew at once which mid rash it would be, and could not, for himself, see the connection with her subject. " "when the first is accom­ plished and future repair is most chimerical. " " It was unlike her books-more fevered with parody, and then contorted beyond parody, so that once again it seemed wholly straightforward. In" "It was unlike her books-more fevered with parody, and then contorted beyond parody, so that once again it seemed wholly straightforward. " "distant unforgotten talk (the laughter of Akiva, he privately named it), he dangled on the rim of infatuation after all; then pulled back. Safe. Again he had stopped too soon, but was glad of it:-he had his wits still. She engrossed him, she engaged him, she drew him. No longer diffident, he sought the telephone often, and it was curious that she was almost always there, accessible to his wish, and willing enough to bend toward him for ten minutes at a time. He reflected that, on her side, it was the obligation of the bargain she had struck; it must be for the sake of the child. But he could do nothing for her child. He could not. He saw the fourth grade flash by, then the fifth, the sixth, the years frantically counted in grades, and all these flashings, these passings, were his tragedy, because it was not given to him to chase time through to its disclosures. If Beulah left the sixth grade, the sixth grade was still there, altered not at all; the sixth grade and all the other grades were all he had; the sixth grade never vanished, though one day Beulah would; however many children vanished, time would not move; there was again a sixth grade, and would be into eternity, and he, who could not abolish the timelessness of all this, felt the thoroughness, the repletion, of the curse of perpetuity. Hydra­ headed replenishment, Keats's urn, but overflowing. No form grows old in such a hell. " "For a few months following that " "He was proud of this letter. How well-written it was! It took him a whole night. It made him feel restored, enlarged; it was as if he had ennobled himself by fitting together, shard by shard, an almost-forgotten palace. Once he had known himself to be just such an honorable soul, a man of faith and sincerity buried in a dungeon in Egypt, with just such a gift for the phraseology of idealism. "Pupils need to have confidence in the meticulous attention of teachers-again, attention not to marks, but to the instillation of trust." While he was writing this sentence, and just as the long dash made its stripe, his vital organs seemed to swell inside their envelope of red flesh, and it was as if he stood in the after-school muteness and greenness, leaning his breast toward the road. " " He told her what he had never expected to tell: how Rabbi Pult had once beckoned Gabriel and Loup close to his chair among the brown­ glass brine bottles (though in the telling he omitted the bottles and the back room of the poissonnerie) and said, in their small brother's hearing, ''Always negate. Negate, negate"; and how he, young as he was, was horrified, because he believed Rabbi Pult was purposing to distort his brothers by drawing them, old as they were, from the society of the normal. "They were big boys then, into their teens," he explained. " ""I always think of the abnormal," he said. "It's a form of self­ regard." It" ""I always think of the abnormal," he said. "It's a form of self­ regard." " ". It was as if she lived without anecdote; as if nothing had ever happened to her. Only mind. She was free of event because she was in thrall to idea. Yet the child was there, had been born, in the regular way, out of the fork of a woman. Despite everything she was in contradiction with herself: she had given birth to her opposite. An opposite is an opponent; perhaps she hated the child, was sickened by her blankness, abased by her insipidness-or did she never think of the child at all? Yet the child was fed, dressed, attended to. Did the philosopher ever talk to her daughter? He wished he could eavesdrop at bedtime. " " It was as if she lived without anecdote; as if nothing had ever happened to her. Only mind. She was free of event because she was in thrall to idea. Yet the child was there, had been born, in the regular way, out of the fork of a woman. " "Brill believed she would surely be engaged before the school year was out. Unexpectedly she fell into a reliable spinsterhood. She developed a scowl and he did not lose her. " "The washed sand was a snowfall. Quickly the heels of his sneakers were sucked down and buried. The waves were white, like snowy beards shearing themselves. The white dawn hesitated behind all that sharper whiteness. In the cold, sunk in that snow­ sand pocked by those primeval shells (the life in them cleaned out, scooped, eaten, decomposed, the shell-walls polished, pearly, snow white), he decided to marry." "cee who lived alone with her child, a boy six years old. She seemed unreasonably tall, taller than any of the secretaries, taller than the teachers, taller than himself, and this appealed to him. He was drawn to heights of every kind. " "He gave the job to a twenty-nine-year-old young woman with an elderly bun, black and shining as fresh tar, and blue-black ink-moist bangs, a divor-" "boyhood, and they were as familiar to him as his own bedclothes. These domesticated and intimate syllables had all at once taken on an enchantment, an illumination. He was stunned by what he heard in them. He left the prayer hall exulting, strange even to himself. As soon as he crossed the threshold someone spoke to him, a fellow student. Brill rebuffed him. He was sharp; he was coiled and cold in his own strangeness. The rabbi-it was Pult­ came out and summoned him back. "Joseph," Pult said, "come here and daven. You have not davened." Brill protested, "Rabbi, I just finished davening. You saw me. You heard me." Pult said: "If you pray and then you go out and embarrass someone, you have not prayed." " "? Fish after the grain of language, she instructed him, look for the idiom in the wilderness of a narrative; distrust poetry. He already did. In reality the heavens are gases and express physics. He told her that when he was a young man-he was still in the earliest stages of his study of vapors-he had once prayed very deeply. The liturgy that afternoon penetrated the secret channels of his brain; he understood his mouth's work for the first time, even though he had chanted those same words every day from" "Every image, she said, has its logic: every story, every tale, every metaphor, every mood, is inhabited by a language of just deserts. " "There was a white wart beneath one of them, caught in a bluish well." ""The term is only a few weeks gone. And it made good sense last year," Brill blew out, pushing them out to sea, "to dismiss Mrs. Fischeltier three weeks before the end of the term. What transpired then, you may recall, was that I was asked to be sensi­ tive to the protests of some of the very same ladies present in this group." He knew "transpired" was vulgar; that was why he had used it. "Fischeltier was an idiot," Mrs. Dorothea Luchs said. "She insulted Corinna. She wouldn't let her ask questions. She called Corinna a monopolizer. She said Corinna was running the show. I don't want my kid talked to that way." This animal beauty of hers was repugnant to Brill; she was as straight as a cat or a boy. Her little mouth was lovely, her flawless teeth more so. Her eyes were as widely spaced as a fawn's-as Claude's. How aggressive she was, how he despised her aggressive energies! " "room. Peering toward Beulah's desk, Brill glimpsed a drawing of a house, with smoke. Immature. He supposed the smoke was rising out of the chimney. The third-graders did that. He looked again: the whole house was on fire, and the trees all around it, even the sky behind-a conflagration. " "Thereafter he watched Sheskin. Principal Brill moved quietly along the rear of the classroom and listened to the lesson. He understood at once that the yeshiva student had no obvious personality and appeared to believe in sacred texts. He was like a plain blotter through which the old words seeped. He was also no disciplinarian, and Brill began to suspect that as soon as the awe of unfamiliarity brought on by a new teacher ebbed-four days, five-Gorchak's old classroom would be a howling chaos. Mean­ while the voice was sweet, devoted to the page under the young rabbi's flat fingertips. The eighth grade bent over notebooks, and Brill, stretching out his short neck (heroic, he thought of the sacrifice of Fifferling, the debasement of Gorchak), observed the flowering of a multitude of doodles-tigers, mermaids, planes, supermen, disembodied eyes and teeth, decorative friezes composed of wings and florets. Sheskin reprimanded no one. The doodles went on and on: circles, balloons, eggs, dogs' ears, women's lips and breasts; a kind of trance had set in. The room was in concen­ tration. Old King David was dying. He was dying in this very " "Something came to him then, a clairvoyance, as if he had gotten hold of a thread leading to a great dew-flecked web: frag­ ments of light in a shadowed cranny. If he tugged on a single vein of it, the web would rupture, the drops of light fall into one bright globule. A pool ofknowing. He did not go on with it. H� crowded the sheets back into their packet; he could not keep his eyes from the new clerk-receptionist's blue-black bangs. Iris or Daisy. He had hired Rabbi Sheskin and the new clerk-receptionist a day apart-she told him this was significant, it made her a sort of twin to Rabbi Sheskin, even though she didn't relate to anything spiri­ tual. Cain wasn't Abel, and that was the whole of her metaphysi­ cal learning. She was cheeky with him; he was amazed. It passed through his conscience that the right thing to do would be to sack her; but that was only a whim. Whim after senseless whim. Losing Fifferling, demoting Gorchak, replacing Gorchak, all these loos­ enings and braidings of his forces laid down as an offering before Hester Lilt-who spurned them. All the same he could do what he pleased, he was a man in possession of an entire society, he was a potentate. " "The next week he received from Hester Lilt-in a wide brown envelope carried to school by Beulah, marked BY HAND, and mutely delivered to the clerk-receptionist with the blue-black bangs-a new essay. He surmised that it was a kind of spite. She meant to Aatter him. Her Aattery was spite, willing at last to acknowledge his homage-how drawn he was to the prodigy of her mind. He was somehow now not so drawn. She intended her genius to punish him. He pulled the printed sheets out of the envelope and surveyed the title: On Structure in Silence. He read: Silence is not random but shaping. It is like the empty air around the wing, that delineates the wing .... " "It was a beautiful evening-the lawns newly mowed, brightly verdant, the crickets yelping high. The Phlegethon simmered black and red. In a certain deep stone-littered dell where the mower could not go without endangering its axle, the uncut dandelions in their hundreds burned yellow as butter. " "In a modest recess near a door, massive, with the effulgence of a flood of white arrows, "