#ok connery

[giallofever2]

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Operation Kid Brother (De Martino, 1967)

I assume that the James Bond franchise was big enough that there were a number of obvious cash-ins alongside the Eurospy genre that it no doubt inspired. I'm not familiar with those to make any broad sweeping statements, but my guess is that none of them fall into as neat a proto-Bruceploitation template as this one. A lead actor who resembles the real deal? Check. A bunch of peripheral actors from the actual movies? Check. Discount versions of the same thrills? Check. Crazier and sometimes more fun? Sadly no.

But instead of Bruce (Lee), the guy we're ripping off here is Connery, and to this movie's credit, it does have a real Connery. Neil Connery, brother of Sean. What's interesting is that it doesn't try to pass him off as the original, but as the brother of the more famous secret agent, who in the universe of the movie, would be going by his real last name. (Although one must point out that Bond does as well, making him a pretty lousy secret agent in most respects.) Neil plays a plastic surgeon who also can read lips and has the power of hypnosis. Apparently he was a plasterer in real life, and I assume the screenwriters got confused and wrote in the plastic surgeon job in an attempt to make him feel more at ease onscreen. I also assume the hypnosis angle, which bears limited fruit in the pursuit of the mission, was an excuse to give the star a bunch of dramatic closeups in an effort to wring a better performance out of him. Neither is successful. If anything, the movie demonstrates the classic Bruceploitation lesson that you can't fake star power, no matter how much your actor looks like the real deal.

The movie is also not remotely thrilling, and this is an area where it compares unfavourably to Bruceploitation. It's still possible to do entertaining martial arts sequences on the cheap, but the more elaborate set pieces of the Bond movies are harder to replicate when you're pinching pennies. To be fair, the movie doesn't look impoverished, and we do bounce around different locations, although whatever travelogue qualities the movie might have attempted were not done justice by the awful transfer I watched on YouTube. But making up for that is a pretty nice Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai score, including a theme song replete with lush instrumentation and sometimes breathy, sometimes soaring vocals, as well as the actual Bond actors in the cast. (I assume there was nothing in their contract stopping them from acting in rip-offs.) We get Adolfo Celi and Bernard Lee doing more boring versions of their actual roles. But the ladies fare better, with Daniela Bianchi wearing any number of red or orange outfits that proved retina-scorching in the copy I watched, and Lois Maxwell, who is normally stuck behind a desk in the Bond movies, actually getting to go out into the field and get in car chases and shootouts. Now if we had a Moneypenny-centric rip-off, we'd be on to something.

[fervidusinspo]

might b doing a neopets commission for a bud soon and i keep sayin “pulled back in for One Last Job………”

[a-wandering-ghoulette]

I shouldn't be that surprised to not see that Ghost movie being screened in my town. Even the Olympic flame's relais is boring here. So eh, why would they (not the band, but whoever didn't gave a fuck) want to screen that silly band's silly movie ? 🫠

[hotvintagepoll]

Congrats to the ultimate winner of the Hot & Vintage Movie Men Tournament, Mr. Toshiro Mifune! May he live happily and well where the sun always shines, enjoying the glories of a battle hard fought.

A loving farewell to all of our previous contestants, who are now banished to the shadow realm and all its dark joys and whispered horrors—I hear there's a picnic on the village green today. If you want to remember the fallen heroes, you can find them all beneath the cut.

What happens next? I'll be taking a break of two weeks to rest from this and prep for the Hot & Vintage Ladies Tournament. I'll still be around but only minimally, posting a few last odes to the hot men before transitioning into a little early ladies content, just like I did with this last tournament. The submission form for the Hot & Vintage Ladies tournament will remain up for one more week (closing February 21st), so get your submissions in for that asap! Once the form closes, there will be one more week of break. The first round of the Hot & Vintage Ladies Tournament will be posted on February 29th, as Leap Year Day seems like a fitting allusion to leaping into these ladies' arms.

Thanks for being here! Enjoy the two weeks off, and send me some great propaganda.

In order of the last round they survived—

ROUND ONE HOTTIES:

Richard Burton

Tony Curtis

Red Skelton

Keir Dullea

Jack Lemmon

Kirk Douglas

Marcello Mastroianni

Jean-Pierre Cassel

Robert Wagner

James Garner

James Coburn

Rex Harrison

George Chakiris

Dean Martin

Sean Connery

Tab Hunter

Howard Keel

James Mason

Steve McQueen

George Peppard

Elvis Presley

Rudolph Valentino

Joseph Schildkraut

Ray Milland

Claude Rains

John Wayne

William Holden

Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Harold Lloyd

Charlie Chaplin

John Gilbert

Ramon Novarro

Slim Thompson

John Barrymore

Edward G. Robinson

William Powell

Leslie Howard

Peter Lawford

Mel Ferrer

Joseph Cotten

Keye Luke

Ivan Mosjoukine

Spencer Tracy

Felix Bressart

Ronald Reagan (here to be dunked on)

Peter Lorre

Bob Hope

Paul Muni

Cornel Wilde

John Garfield

Cantinflas

Henry Fonda

Robert Mitchum

Van Johnson

José Ferrer

Robert Preston

Jack Benny

Fredric March

Gene Autry

Alec Guinness

Fayard Nicholas

Ray Bolger

Orson Welles

Mickey Rooney

Glenn Ford

James Cagney

ROUND TWO SWOONERS:

Dick Van Dyke

James Edwards

Sammy Davis Jr.

Alain Delon

Peter O'Toole

Robert Redford

Charlton Heston

Cesar Romero

Noble Johnson

Lex Barker

David Niven

Robert Earl Jones

Turhan Bey

Bela Lugosi

Donald O'Connor

Carman Newsome

Oscar Micheaux

Benson Fong

Clint Eastwood

Sabu Dastagir

Rex Ingram

Burt Lancaster

Paul Newman

Montgomery Clift

Fred Astaire

Boris Karloff

Gilbert Roland

Peter Cushing

Frank Sinatra

Harold Nicholas

Guy Madison

Danny Kaye

John Carradine

Ricardo Montalbán

Bing Crosby

ROUND THREE SMOKESHOWS:

Marlon Brando

Anthony Perkins

Michael Redgrave

Gary Cooper

Conrad Veidt

Ronald Colman

Rock Hudson

Basil Rathbone

Laurence Olivier

Christopher Plummer

Johnny Weismuller

Clark Gable

Fernando Lamas

Errol Flynn

Tyrone Power

Humphrey Bogart

ROUND 4 STUNGUNS:

James Dean

Cary Grant

Gregory Peck

Sessue Hayakawa

Harry Belafonte

James Stewart

Gene Kelly

Peter Falk

QUARTERFINALIST VOLCANIC TOWERS OF LUST:

Jeremy Brett

Vincent Price

James Shigeta

Buster Keaton

SEMIFINALIST SUPERMEN:

Omar Sharif

Paul Robeson

FINALIST FANTASIES:

Sidney Poitier

Toshiro Mifune

and ok, sure, here's the shadow-bracket-style winner's portrait of Toshiro Mifune.

[no-144444]

the grid reacts: getting caught making out!

featuring: Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc, Daniel Riccardo, George Russell, Alex Albon, Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Lando Norris

-------------------

Oscar Piastri 

It was just meant to be a small peck, but then he wrapped his arms around you, and it escalated. It had all started with a tiny peck, just before you left his driver’s room to leave him time alone before the race, but Oscar had very persuasive lips (and a very persuasive tongue). He lifted you into his arms, wrapping your legs around his waist as he deepened the kiss, holding you impossibly close. Then he sat down on his physio table, making you straddle him as you got as turned on as he was. You two had time, right? His hands grabbed anywhere and everywhere, exploring your body, despite knowing it so well. You whimpered into his mouth as he squeezed your ass, making you jolt forward. He smirked as you pulled back, throwing him a look of annoyance. 

“Let me kiss it better?” he smirked and you playfully hit his chest, and he pulled you back in for another kiss. "I love you."

“Oscar! We’ve been calling you for-” Lando’s voice rang out as you scrambled to get off of him, but Lando had already seen. You buried your head in your hands, embarrassed and trying not to laugh as Oscar pulled his cap off of his head and covered his bulge. Lando burst out laughing, nearly falling to the floor as he realised what he’d walked in on, and you got up to leave, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek and giving Lando a kick on your way out. 

You: We are never doing that again. Top 10 most embarrassing moments of my life. 

Oscar: Ok WatchMojo. 

You: Sassy man apocalypse. 

-------------------

Charles Leclerc

Charles was a horny man after races. No matter how tired he was, he had to have you. That’s how you ended up in his driver’s room with his lips on yours. He was intoxicating. His sounds, his lips, his tongue. Everything. 

“Mon coeur,” he bit down softly on your collarbone. “Tu es trop belle pour être vraie-” (you are too beautiful to be true)

“Shut the fuck up and fuck me Charles,” you said, out of breath. He had a habit of trying to take things slowly, especially in risky places. You were almost sure he had a thing for doing it in public. He smirked down at you and pressed his lips to your again, using one hand to start to undo your trousers. 

Suddenly the door flew open and you both sat up, hitting your head off of the other’s head, both of you groaning out in pain. 

“Connerie,” he hissed, holding his forehead. 

“Motherfuck!” you groaned as Arthur stared at the two of you dumbfounded, his cheeks red. 

“I’ll just… come back later,” he said, then closed the door behind him. 

“We’ve just traumatised your little brother,” you sighed, hiding your face in the nape of his neck. 

“He will survive,” he chuckled, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. 

“Too bad my pride didn’t,” you added, making him laugh. God, you loved his laugh. 

-------------------

Daniel Riccardo 

He was a slick bastard. One ‘I need help with my suit babe’  and there you were in his driver’s room, your shirt being pulled off and new hickies being left over the fading ones. It had been 2 weeks since you’d seen Daniel, too busy to come to the last race, and then you were travelling for a friend’s wedding. Now you were back, and Daniel was planning on showing you just how much he missed you, 40 minutes before the race started, aka, when he was already supposed to be in the damn car. 

“Daniel, we should stop just-” You started, thinking about someone walking in on you two. Sadly RB didn’t give their driver’s fucking locks on their doors, probably because of Baku 2018… yeah, you and Daniel weren’t exactly quiet, and he wasn’t exactly happy after that race. “Slow down.”

He pulled back, smirking up at you. “Baby, come on, we have a bunch of time, and I haven’t seen you in 2 whole weeks, who’s going to walk in?”

You nodded and pressed your lips to his again, allowing your conscience to fall away with the way he was kissing you. Kissing Daniel was like nothing else. Everything else fell away, there was only him. 

But who would walk in? Yuki, probably. 

“Daniel- WOAH! LOCK THE DOOR!” he screamed, alerting the entire motorhome of your actions. You quickly pulled your shirt back over your head as he ran out. As Daniel laughed for a solid minute, you tried to get over your loss of dignity. Yuki sure did make things interesting.

“I have no lock arsehole!” Daniel laughed. 

“You do! It’s the weird thing above the handle!” One of the mechanics shouted back. You walked over to the door, turning the thing above the handle, and the door locked. Daniel laughed even harder. 

Once you finally stopped Daniel from laughing, you both walked out to the whole team clapping and whooping. 

Yeah, not your finest moment. 

-------------------

George Russell

His stupid dumb pretty face. He just looked so kissable, and you couldn’t help yourself. He was covered in champagne, and he was supposed to be using these 5 minutes to shower and change, but you had other plans. You ran him to his driver’s room, started kissing him, and didn’t stop. He didn’t seem to mind, even if it meant he wouldn’t get to shower and he’d just be champagne-y all night. He pushed you against the wall, his hands on your waist as you ran your fingers through his hair. His soft, gorgeous hair. 

His hands travelled up, taking your top with them and you smirked. 

“Getting handsy?” You smirked. 

“Never,” he shook his head and pulled your top off, beginning his assault on your neck. 

“George! Get out of the fucking shower, you can condition later- OH FUCK OFF!” Aleix, his trainer shouted and ran back out the door. George did the gentlemanly thing and covered you, but not without laughter. 

“George!” you hissed as he laughed. “Give me my top!” 

He handed you your top and quickly changed into a new suit, spraying himself in deodorant. He pressed a quick kiss to your cheek with one last chuckle. “It's a good story for the grandkids,” he shrugged, leaving you with a smile as he went off to do interviews.

-------------------

Alex Albon

Alex had finished in the points again, and you were just so proud of him. Since he’d gotten out of the car you’d kissed him many a thousand times, but he wasn’t complaining. Actually he’d started making out with you about 3 minutes ago, and something in his kisses told you he wasn’t planning on stopping.

“Your mom will be here any minute,” you reminded him, pulling away. He rolled his eyes. 

“Did you seriously just mention my mom while I had a semi?”

“Had?”

“You mentioned my mom!” 

You chuckled and pressed another kiss to his perfect lips. He pulled you back in, kissing you deeply as his hands ran through your hair, messing it up, but you didn’t care. It felt too good, he felt too good. He nipped at your lips, coaxing them open so he could push his tongue into your mouth. His hands slowly went further down, dangerously close to where your top zipped. 

“Alex,” You warned, breathless. 

He smirked up at you. “For a minute?” 

“Alex-”

“Alex? Are you in here?” George asked, walking in. The Brit was stopped in his tracks when he saw you on his lap, hiding your face in his neck as you tried to contain your embarrassment. He hadn’t even seen anything, but your cheek heated and you wanted the floor to swallow you up.  “Oh, sorry for cockblocking, chat later.”

You both started laughing when he left. 

“We need to start locking the door,” he sighed. 

“I think I’m in shock, I thought that was your mom!” you cried, your breath finally going back to normal as Alex laughed at you. 

-------------------

Lewis Hamilton

It wasn’t fair how good he looked in his media day outfits, and he knew it too. He knew you’d pull him to the side and tell him to meet you in his driver’s room, he knew he’d come, and he knew he’d get to fuck you. 

So there you were, in his driver’s room, his lips on yours as you both desperately pulled each other’s clothes off. 

Too bad you forgot to lock the door. 

“Lewis have you- HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK MY EYES!” Lando immediately covered his eyes, turning around as you dressed yourselves. Did you feel guilty? Yes. Did you care at all? Not really. As soon as he left, would you two continue? Probably. “HAVE SOME SHAME AND HUMILITY PLEASE?”

Lewis laughed. “What do you need now?” 

“Bleach for my eyes, maybe!” Lando’s voice cracked and he turned back, his cheeks red. “I need an extra ice pack if you have one.” 

Lewis nodded and got one of his ice packs out of the freezer in the corner of his room. “Here.”

Lando took it and left without another word. You looked at Lewis, shaking your head. 

“I thought you locked the door,” you smirked, allowing him to wrap his arms around your waist and kiss up your neck. 

“That’s funny, I thought you did,” he smirked. 

“You’re going to get us caught,” you whispered. 

“I don’t really care.”

-------------------

Max Verstappen 

He’d won (again), and he was horny afterwards (again). As soon as he was done with the podium and the main interviews, he ran to his driver’s room and called you to meet him there, needing some ‘support’.

“Max,” you hissed as he cupped one of your breasts in his hand, kissing down your neck. 

“Yes?”  he answered innocently, pressing his lips to yours again. 

“You have interviews-” 

“Fuck the media,” he whispered. “I want you.”

“Max this is a bad idea-” 

Just then, the door swung open to reveal Daniel, holding a camera. 

“You two need to keep it down, we can hear you down at RB!” he laughed as MAx started blushing, pushing his friend out of the room. They fought for a moment, but Daniel eventually left you two alone. Max sat beside you, letting you lean into him. 

“He’s going to post that, isn’t he?”  You asked. 

He nodded. “Yeah.”

You’d never have a day of peace with him, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

-------------------

Lando Norris

He was a sly bitch. It started as small pecks on your neck and the top of your head, then it was kisses on the lips, and now he had his tongue down your throat as you ground down on him, even though you both knew he was needed elsewhere.

"That's it," he whispered, loosing himself in the feeling of the both of you. "Feels so good."

You nodded, in pure ecstasy as you felt his hands and lips on you. "So good Lan."

His hands pulled you closer (if that was even possible) and you smiled into the kiss. This was the perfect moment-

"LAN!" Zak brown's voice pulled you both out of it, and you scrambled to get up.

Lando sighed as you left his lap and groaned out a simple "What?"

"We need you for a marketing thing, come on, chop chop!" Zak was as oblivious and cheery as ever and you could barely contain your laughter at Lando's 'annoyed teenager' face, as you and Oscar had started calling it.

"Bye baby," you pressed a kiss to his cheek, and he fought back the urge to ignore his duties and just go back to the hotel and spend the rest of the day with you.

-------------------

navigation for my blog :) (masterlist)

[pedge-page]

I can imagine preggo wife literally talking and talking and talking in the middle of a movie and gets offended and leaves when Joel tells her to quiet down

Joel Dealing with Preggo Wife : Yapper

notes: Oh I had fun writing this! no warnings (maybe some Fugitive and Raiders spoilers), Enjoy!

- - - -

Joel’s pretty excited for movie night. It’s one of the few films the two of you don’t argue over and can pretty much watch the entire way through without disruption.

Or at least, it used to be.

Joel settles against the couch armrest with his feet propped up, knees bent slightly so you have room to sit in front. He’s got any snack you could think of within an arm reach away, and he’s got the title on pause so you can scooch your fat booty and big belly comfortably. Usually takes about 15 minutes of squirming, smacking his chest to “fluff” it up, adding a pillow at his crotch, then taking it away because you like his hard cock there instead, elbow in his groin and then his knee, then you gotta get up to pee before starting the whole process over.

“OK Im ready!” You say after 15 minutes on the dot, snuggling close to him with the back of your head rested against the crook of his neck.

He finally hits play, and the Lucasfilm logo flashes across the screen. The tropical forest and ominous music plays as the familiar font of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark fade on to the screen.

“Joel. Joel. Hey Joel.” 

“Y-yes?”

“Did you know Indiana was named after George Lucas dog? Who also was the physical inspiration for chewy?” You ask  rhetorically. 

It takes him a second to understand you’re asking him a question. “What?”

“Chewbacca! From Star Wars!”

“Oh ok neat,” he says with some enthusiasm, but quick to end it and get back to watching the movie—

“Yeah also Sean Connery is also apparently—well guess how much older he is to Harrison Ford.”

“Um—I don’t—I don’t know.” Joel says slowly, watching as Indy carefully removes the sand from the pouch and weighs it to the gold idol.

“C’mon, guess!”

“I really don’t know, can we—“

“12 years older than Harrison in Last Crusade! My mom was like ‘WHAT no way’ and I was like ‘Yes way’ and she was like ‘He's his father and he's got all that white in his hair and receding hairline’ and I was like ‘Joel's only in his late 30s and he's got white in his beard.’”

Joel can’t hear a damn thing happening on screen except the shouts about hating a pet snake named Reggie. “Wha—“

“Not that you look anything like Sean Connery in Last Crusade. Maybe in like Bond —oof he was the hottest Bond. Plus you got like a receding beard-line with all the patches, I don’t know, but my mom was like ‘Ya know Joel's got more white hair lately since you've been pregnant’ and I was like ‘Nah uh’ and she was like ‘Ya huh’ and I was like ‘Huh I wonder why that is…?’ Anyway but nope only 12 years between him and Ford—“

Joel turns to look at you with a frown, a bit confused and amazed at how you have so much to say, right now, oblivious as ever. 

It doesn’t phase your rambling one bit: “—Like damn, but you know Harrison Ford has always been handsome. But like in the bad boy kind of way, not like handsome upstanding like Christopher Reeves? When I saw The Fugitive, I was like ‘oooohhhh I'll be his wife now’ hahaha! no no I’m sorry, he’s famous and I’m not so that’s why I married you, but that's such a fall film don't you think? Minus the murder and betrayal and fucking Dr Charles Nickles like was he British or not? He was in and out of an accent the whole time? Didn't make sense to me but yeah, it's just such a fall Cozy film.”

Joel looks back at the screen and realizes Marion is already being cornered by the Nazi creep: “Ah huh—honey—“

“OH! I Love her song! It’s kind of like Leia and Han’s from Empire except the last notes are different, like it goes do doooooo instead of da dat dada daaaaaaa, That’s just John William’s for ya, but you’d never notice they were so similar!”

Joel opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out as you continue:

“—Also I know you said my mom made good apple pie but I really wanna try to make it because I want you to like mine more, so I need you to get some apples and pie crust and butter and stuff from the store, I’ll make a list so you can get it. They said we need ground cinnamon but I think ours expired like 5 years ago so don’t forget that. And then I'm gonna tell you how to slice the apples since I can't handle sharp objects and then oh I need you to get the mixer from the top shelf and then you have to mix it all together and slice the top with like little heart patterns and then put it in the oven n stuff ‘cause it's hot and I don't wanna burn OH and that reminds me—!” 

“BABE!”

“Hmm? yes?” You ask with a innocent smile. 

“Let's try to be quiet and watch the movie ok?”

He offers a gentle smile and nods, pointing towards the TV again and settling to watch it with his beautiful wife.

His very very very unhappy wife. Your eyes haven’t left his, face now downturned in such a scowl, he should be shitting his pants.

You roll your jaw at him once, teeth grinding against one another with slitted, murderous eyes. Joel gulps, too afraid to glance back at you again. His eyes are wide staring at the commotion on the television but, now in your deadly silence, he can’t seen to focus on it at all. 

Instead of saying anything, you roll polly up to your feet, arms crossed over your chest defensively as you utter a loud “Hmph!” before storming away from the living room.

He’ll have to deal with groveling tomorrow morning when you might be a little more welcoming. But on the bright side, he’s got way more room to spread out on the couch and he can hear the movie much better now! 

......... 

He switches it off and runs upstairs to get on his knees by your side of the bed, begging for your forgiveness and promises of a Clyde's milkshake to go. 

- - - -

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[mariacallous]

Griffin Dunne has just written a book. He had been meaning to do so for ages. It was one of the items on his bucket list: learn a musical instrument, master Spanish and write his damn memoir. “One down, two to go,” he says, beaming in via video link from his home in upstate New York. The actor and film-maker turns 69 this weekend. He reckons that still leaves him time for the music and Spanish.

Dunne imagined his memoir as a family portrait in the style of David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day. He pictured something light on its toes, witty and poignant, a weave of essays and anecdotes. But then the book changed direction, as though it had a will of its own. It went where it wanted and needed to go. He says: “On some level, I knew there was this big subject ahead. And so, as I’m writing the book, I’m thinking: oh, OK, I know where this is going now.” The story leads to the scene of a 40-year-old crime. It revisits the death of Dunne’s younger sister, Dominique, and the grisly murder trial that followed.

I tell Dunne I really like the book, which sounds crass in the circumstances, but is true. While The Friday Afternoon Club is about the death of a loved one, it’s full of light, life and colour. It’s a startling tale of precarious American privilege, spotlighting a family that is blessed and cursed.

Dunne casts himself as the Hollywood prince at its centre, surrounded by famous faces, clamouring to be noticed. He tells how Sean Connery rescued him from the family swimming pool, how Billy Wilder critiqued his childhood pranks and how he roomed with Carrie Fisher before she went off to make Star Wars (“This movie is going to be a fucking disaster,” she said). Dunne was raised among storytellers (his dad and uncle were authors; Joan Didion was his aunt) and he writes with a loose, easy swagger. His memoir is tart, buoyant and playful right up to the moment it’s not.

In the early 1980s, when he was in his 20s, Dunne was hitting his stride as an actor. He had secured his breakout role in 1981’s An American Werewolf in London, playing the undead grad student Jack Goodman, doomed to haunt the adult cinemas of Soho. His 22-year-old sister was also faring well, having co-starred in 1982’s Poltergeist. But, on 30 October 1982, Dominique was strangled by her ex-boyfriend, John Sweeney, and died in hospital five days later. The trial, says Dunne, was outrageous, a farce. Implicitly, it seemed to put the Dunnes in the dock, framing the bereaved family members as frivolous dandies. Sweeney was convicted of manslaughter, but acquitted of murder. He served just three and a half years in prison.

Four decades on, Dunne’s account of events burns with rage. He is furious with the judge who intervened to block crucial evidence. He is furious with the killer’s employers (the Los Angeles restaurant Ma Maison), who stepped in to pay his legal fees. He is furious with Dominique’s then co-star, David Packer, who remained inside the house while Dominique was being attacked outside. “All the old anger got re-stoked,” he says. “I tapped right back into my vengeful side.”

During the trial, Dunne was approached by a mobster who offered to have Sweeney killed. He discussed the idea with his brother, Alex. “At that time, we would have been diagnosed as crazy people,” he says. “I told my brother that we had an opportunity to have the killer dealt with in the county jail. We decided not to kill him, but to mess him up, to have his hands smashed, like we were ordering pizza and choosing different toppings from the menu. And that was just the beginning of our madness; it carried right through. Even writing it down, I thought: I’ve got to let this go, because you can’t live in hate.”

In the end, they did nothing. Dominique’s killer changed his name after being released from prison and is likely still alive today. “I will neither forgive nor forget,” Dunne says. “But I’m not going to let that be the A-story of my sister’s life.”

Dominique was a victim, but that doesn’t make her life tragic. What is clear from the book is that people adored her. She comes across as whip-smart and droll, grounded and private. “She was a serious, substantial person,” he says. “Serious about her acting, her animals, her family. And, actually, rather intimidating, even though she was the youngest of the family.”

Dominique cared for their mother, Ellen, who had multiple sclerosis. She also cared for their father, Dominick, who was bisexual and closeted and yet confided in her. “So she was somebody we were all a bit in awe of. She was always wise beyond her years.”

She sounds like the family’s moral compass. “Yeah,” he says. “But also a bit bossy. She always knew what she wanted. My brother and I were a little fearful of her. It was like she’d been born already built.”

Dunne, by contrast, was a work in progress. In his memoir, he says that his first word was “taxi” and that he was always in a hurry – always running before he could walk. He was expelled from school for smoking pot. He was “coked to the gills” on the night Dominique was attacked. He was bumptious and entitled. His sister’s death changed him, he says, because how on earth could it not?

“For one thing, I never thought about domestic violence, the abuse of women. I grew up in Los Angeles and when I was in high school, pre-Roman Polanski, it was incredibly common for 13- or 14-year-old girls to be dating guys in their 30s. They’d go to these decadent parties in the hills and then come back and tell us all about it. And that was the culture; it felt exciting. I was unaware of what it meant. But then you have my sister, a 22-year-old girl, who finds herself in a domestic violence relationship with someone who’s twice her weight. So everything looked different to me afterwards.”

Perhaps it affected his career as well. In the mid-1980s, Dunne was on the threshold of stardom. He combined the charm and grace of a leading man with the prickly intelligence of a great character actor. The door kept swinging open, but he seemed to keep shutting it. He turned down The Fly and Sex, Lies, and Videotape in favour of making Who’s That Girl, with Madonna, and a reviled comedy, Me and Him, in which he played a yuppie architect who quarrels with his talking penis.

Dunne’s agent accused him of making “self-destructive choices”. He had always craved fame, only to find that it spooked him. “Too much attention at that time was a little fearsome for me,” he says. “I found it very stressful.” He hesitates. “And also my father,” he adds. “That had a lot to do with it, too.”

Dominick is the third main player in The Friday Afternoon Club, a high-flying producer who came to earth with a crash. He would eventually find his voice as a writer. He became Vanity Fair’s star reporter, first covering the Sweeney case, then the OJ Simpson and Claus von Bülow trials. But the in-between years were hard and humiliating. He suffered a reversal of fortune that took the whole family aback.

“I saw my father fail,” Dunne says. “I watched real failure in action in real time. He was a man who had a big house and a beautiful car and a great job and entertained the most famous actors and directors in the world. And everything was taken away from him, partly through his own actions, but nonetheless. People came out of the woodwork, kicked him when he was down.

“They were like: ‘I always hated you, I always knew you were closeted, you’ll never work again, pack your bags.’ And the effect it had on me, just entering the business as he was being destroyed in that business …” He draws a breath. “Well, it had a lot to do with the choices I made.”

In hindsight, the 1985 black comedy After Hours was his fork in the road. It’s also the picture with which he is most identified. Dunne developed the film as a co-producer and convinced Martin Scorsese to direct. He also took the lead role of repressed Paul Hackett, who embarks on a long, dark night of the soul through the streets of Lower Manhattan.

On set, Scorsese made one big stipulation. He ordered Dunne not to have sex for the duration of the shoot. I am gobsmacked by this, but the actor was unfazed. “It made perfect sense to me,” he says. “I knew what he meant. The character had to be boiling over with this unfulfilled anxiety. You had to see …” He pauses. “Not to be crude, but you had to see the semen build up to where it’s practically coming out of his eyes.”

One Saturday night, though, Dunne cracked and broke the rule. The next day of filming, Scorsese spotted the change and went berserk. “You’ve fucked up the whole picture,” he shouted. “I don’t think I can finish it now.”

Dunne says that he was probably being directed here, too. “Because now I’m afraid. I’m terrified. And it turns out that a certain level of fear is the same as not having sex. So [Scorsese’s] second piece of direction is telling me that I’ve ruined his movie. That’s excellent direction. It brought all the old anxiety back.”

It should have been a tough prospect, sitting down to write his book. Emotionally, because it meant revisiting the worst time of his life. Practically, because the Dunne family had already set the bar high. They are all dead now: his dad in 2009; his journalist-screenwriter uncle, John Gregory Dunne, in 2003; Joan Didion in 2021. But their reputations are daunting. It must have felt as though he were writing in the shadow of Mount Rushmore.

Dunne says it wasn’t that way at all. He had always assumed that writing a book would be a lonely endeavour. In fact, it felt warm, intimate and weirdly convivial. “I didn’t feel daunted, trying to write and being related to all these prominent figures. Quite the opposite. I felt their presence. When I described them, it was like I was seeing them again, living with them again. It was like I was back meeting Joan for the first time. It was as though I was spending time with her and John, my father and my sister,” he says. “They were alive to me. When I finished the book, that was the sad part. It felt like I missed them all over again.”

[serialadoptersbracket]

Round 2, Match 18: Aphmau vs. Agent Washington

Submitted kids:

Aphmau: Levin, Malachi, Yip (attempted), Lilith-Garnet, Alina

Agent Washington: The entire red and blue squads

Propaganda under the cut!

Aphmau:

1. “She has one child dropped off at her doorstop early on and then decides to adopt every mysterious child she finds. Admittedly she did give Yip to a better home since she thought he'd do better with a werewolf dad but she did bring that child home with every intention to raise him as her own. She found Malachi and was like "hmm? Scary ghost child who shows everyone their worst fear uncontrollably? Sounds like he needs a mom!" She's also a serial animal adopter. It's like half canon that she adopted three cats named meowki, meowki, and meowki II, a dolphin, a hamster named Sean Connery, and a number of dogs I believe was close to eight. I haven't really mentioned Lilith because I don't know what to say about her other than ✨dragon baby✨”

2. “Ok so i haven't watched this series in awhile so my memories are kind of blurry, but Levin was put on her door set i believe and she adopted him, then there was a ghost child named Malachi, who was sad and lonely and so she adopted him, and there Lilith, was a baby she found a in a cave I believe ? And I'm very much blanking on what happened with Yip. My memories may not be the best for her this but she deserves to be in the bracket”

Agent Washington:

“They literally picked him up like a wet cat out of the snow (LITERALLY) and he was like “f-ck I guess I gotta look after these guys now” and then like commits to dying for all of them. He’s so tired dad coded like all he’s got are a bunch of kiddie leashes and fraying sanity”

[cmrosens]

Worldbuilding Thoughts 3

Ok so one thing I don't see very much in medieval fantasy settings with a royalty system is the issue of the monarch travelling with a retinue. If you're writing one like GoT and you're into the whole idea of the monarch needing to travel (trust me, if it's medieval, they really do need to do a circuit of their kingdom, even if administration and judicial system has been centralised. If you don't, you can't monitor the nobles on the periphery, and you ... really need to do that).

If this is something you've considered, ignore, if not, I was just thinking about the medieval England situation for the earlier kings (William I to John).

Do you know how many the king travels with?? How many guards how many horsemen, lads to take care of the horses, courtesans, scribes, courtiers who need to stay close, accountants, etc? Now have a look at the size of the castles. They're not that big. You have to scale the castle to the landscape (and really seriously consider how long it takes to build a big one). You've got space for a prestigious guest, and then like. 20 extras. At an absolute push, in some cases. Ok, bigger ones, yeah ram 100 in.

The king's got 200 men. He doesn't scale down to stay at a castle or fortified manor that fits 50max and already has 30 occupants. He just rocks up. People do not want him to, but he does anyway.

What used to happen in Medieval England was - there wasn't ever enough space. Literally none. There was also no system, it was King gets the best guest room, everyone who needs to be immediately close to him crashes on the floor, and if you're not fast enough and a bit further down the pecking order, you're marching into someone's house and saying "I'm staying here tonight" and sleeping downstairs with the goats. There are sources of courtiers bitterly complaining they had to sleep in barns and some "camping" (sleeping rough in the rain) in the forest because there was NO SPACE FOR THEM in the castle/fortified manor or in the surrounding villages because they came late due to their admin duties holding them up. And they don't have a tent. They have to literally sleep outside with their cloaks over them. Did they die of exposure? I mean, sometimes. Did they catch chills and die of those? Sure, yeah. Did it really piss them off? Every time.

(Peasant perspective: So many young* angry men with swords with untreated PTSD from all the war/general life trauma, chips on their shoulders and complexes about being younger sons (the spare not the heir) and desperate to prove themselves in a chivalric context of fighting/shagging prowess but they've been give a lot of admin duties to do, drinking a lot of alcohol every single day. Since being on the road they have had to cut down on the alcohol which hasn't improved their mood. And they're all coming to your village. And you can't feed or house them all.)

Then the king decides to leave.

It takes a good few hours to let everyone know because **nobody knows where anyone is**. You have to prep the supply wagons and the horses. And the king stands up after breakfast and says "I want to leave NOW"

Then he changes his mind.

Now you're leaving tomorrow afternoon.

If you're trying to picture this, with a lot of highly strung horses in an enclosed space being yelled at and dragged into position to cut down time, and people running to comb the villages and the woods for stragglers and leave messages for others coming through later, it's chaos. Absolute chaos.

Now imagine being put in charge of it.

So many plot points to play with there.

*For reference, because I've been watching Robin Hood adaptations lately, Richard 1 "the Lionheart" is depicted as an older man in all the films but he was only 42 when he died (b. 1157, d. 1199). The Third Crusade was 1189, when he was 32. He's played by Sean bloody Connery in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, when he actually was around the same age Richard Armitage was when he played Guy of Gisborne in the BBC Robin Hood series. (For context). Prince John was 33 in 1199 when he became king and only 23 when Richard went off to war. We're often largely talking about an intensely homosocial group of men in their 20s and 30s. ladsladslads

In the 14thC, one of the Earls of the March led his first campaign in the Hundred Years' War at the age of 17. ladsladsladsla-

[misscinnamonroll16]

Brozone CAH

Bruce drew the black card, laughing as he read it.

“What did Vin Diesel eat for dinner?” Bruce said, smiling as he set the card down in the middle of the table. 

The other bros made noises while they tried to decide what cards to play. 

After a minute or two, they all put a card down, passing them to Bruce.

Bruce took the cards, gave them a little shuffle before laying them out next to the black card.

“What did Vin Diesel eat for dinner? He ate Sean Connery. What did Vin Diesel eat for dinner? Vin Diesel ate chainsaws for hands for dinner, pretty sure that’s cannibalism. What did Vin Diesel eat for dinner? The gays? Looks like Floyd’s getting eaten and I swear if this is your card. What did Vin Diesel eat for dinner? A sea of troubles. Sounds salty….Alright who had the gays?” Bruce said, holding up the white card with ‘the gays’ on it. 

“I’ll take that, thank you.” John Dory said, reaching over and grabbing the black card. 

“You want me to get eaten, John?” Floyd said in a fake sad voice, pouting a little. 

“The card just said the gays, it didn’t say all the gays. You should be safe. But also, who wouldn’t want to get eaten by Vin Diesel?” John said while drawing another white card.

“John, your bisexual is showing.” Branch joked as he drew the next black card.

"In Michael Jackson's final moments, he thought about blank. This should be good." Branch said, setting the card down in the middle of the table before taking a drink of his beer.

"Fuck you, my bisexual isn't doing shit." JD grumbled as he looked through his cards.

The rest of the bros laughed as they tried to pick their cards. 

Once everyone put their cards down, Branch gave them a quick shuffle.

"In Michael Jackson's final moments, he thought about a sad handjob. Very mature. In Michael Jackson's final moments, he thought about becoming a blueberry. Weird thing to think about while dying but ok. In Michael Jackson's final moments, he thought about goblins. Yeah probably of the crotch variety. And last but not least, in Michael Jackson's final moments, he thought about the underground railroad. Again, a weird thing to think about while dying. Who had goblins?" Branch said, holding up the black card.

Clay held up a hand while he took a swig of his beer with the other.

Branch handed the black card over to Clay, rolling his eyes. 

"Fuck yeah, goblins for the win." Clay said cockily. 

"That's like your third point, you ain't winning shit." Floyd teased, taking a sip of his wine.

[giallofever2]

[jennazed]

So today I was kinda bored and decided to read the "Be More Chill" book to see if there were any differences between the book and the musical.... and OH BOY WERE THERE SOME DIFFERENCES!!! I wrote down some of them, enjoy (beware spoilers obviously)

Jeremy has humiliation sheets to quantiatively determine how much of an incel he is

Madeline is now Elizabeth?

Who tf is Mark, why does he exist, and why is Jeremy friends with him?

Everyone knows Jeremy wrote the letter to Christine, but now he wants to give her a chocolate shakespeare bc he is a total flirt (TM)

Jeremy's mom is around and has a divorce lawyer-ing firm with his dad now

Michael is a white boy with an asian girl fetish

JEREMY IS A THEATER KID! JEREMY IS A THEATER KID! JEREMY IS A THEATER KID! JEREMY IS A THEATER KID! JEREMY IS A THEATER KID!

Mr Reyes doesn't microwave his own hot pockets, he uses child labor to do so instead

Christine is super angsty like she needs an anger management therapist or smth

Michael's brother got a squip apparently and is going to Brown University

Oh btw, Jeremy's dad doesn't even wear underwear around the house he just lets his son see his junk?

Michael also has a knee fetish apparently???

Sadly, the play is the actual Midsummer's Dream and not a Midsummer's Nightmare about Zombies

Ok Christine is no longer angsty?

Nvm she is angsty again that was quick

Jeremy goes "Heh-heh." a lot

According to Michael, all girls are shirt thieves and should never be trusted

Ok Christine is no longer angsty again and apparently she is very specific on how relationships are supposed to be formed bc of course she is

The whole Halloween party is now a school-sanctioned event

Is Jeremy a furry? what does "sometime tonight I’ve got to find pics on the Internet of girls with tails" mean???????

Instead of dressing up as Juliet, Christine dresses up as a prostitute angel for the halloween party

Btw michael knows all about the squip from day 1, his brother has one

Rich does his whole ITS FROM JAPAN moment at the halloween party instead of while pissing

Rich's halloween costume is marijuana

the squip is no longer "top secret can't even look it up on the internet shit" bc there's like 361 results for it on yahoo apparently

Jeremy's dad might have been gay for Ben Franklin

Instead of using his Bar Mitzvah money, Jeremy steals his aunt's beanie babies to finance his squip

LORE!! The guy from the lady's running shoes place who gives Jeremy the squip, his name is RACK LMAO

Jeremy keeps his squip-shenanigans secret from michael so we don't get the awesome sequence "try to say something cool" "i think i just blew my bar mitzvah money on a wintergreen tic-tac" "yeah not cool" :(

RACK instead of the squip says the "You can also set me to Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Sexy Anime Female hehehehe" line. This change is devestating

"The gayer it feels, the better your posture" YOU HEARD IT HERE FOLKS GAY PEOPLE HAVE BETTER POSTURE

In the book, the squip can see into parallel universes bc quantum physics

Brooke is Anne

Jeremy flirts with Chloe instead of Brooke/Anne man they really changed a lot of stuff around yk

Eminem dies like immediately. That squip DEFINITELY killed him lol

Fun fact: Jeremy is NOT circumcised!

Apparently you just think about the squip turning off to turn it off wow

Jeremy now does pushups whenever he sees an attractive guy on tv instead of whenever he thinks about sex

SQUIPS CAN CONTROL YOUR DREAMS? THATS SO COOL!

lol the squip hates singing

Jeremy instead of the squip says "up up down down left right left right B A start"

wait Brooke is in the book? Then who tf is Anne???

Madeline is now Katrina?

The squip becomes murderous if you drink, i love it!

how does jeremy not know what a pheromone is but is perfectly able to memorize monologues about how humanity has stopped evolving?

Jeremy is a professional boxer and will punch you in the neck and make your gameboy say "dont fuck with me >:(" if you mess with him, remember that folks

Apparently the squip thinks acting like a dog is cute?

NOOO! Some dude named Jason Finderman is the one who has his parents on the run for money laundering and hosts the party instead of Jake

Huh, no optic nerve blocking of Michael? Maybe this version of the squip is actually trying to help Jeremy

Poor Jenna :( she just wanted to talk about how Elizabeth is a slut and Jeremy turned her down

Apparently the squip is also a certified drivers ed instructor! Who knew?

JEREMYS DAD SAYS THE N WORD OK ITS PROBABLY FOR THE BEST THAT ONE GOT CHANGED

Ok smth is up with Jeremy, why is he confessing to Chloe while on ectsasy that he constantly dreams of her with a tail? AND WHY IS SHE KINDA INTO IT??

Fun fact: ectsasy turns the squip spanish

Apparently Chloe's boyfriend in the book is named Brock. Imagine going through 9 months of pregnancy and deciding that your baby should go by fucking Brock lol

Hugging legs is Jeremy's coping mechanism

I love this version of the squip: "TODO LO QUE USTED ES BUENO PARA ES SEXO DEL INTERNET." lmao

btw rich has a belly button kink

Rich named his pp Li'l Cheese Head

No michael in the bathroom moment, instead its more of a michael in a bathtub with an asian girl moment

Michael, who is still buddies with Jeremy :), rushes to tell him of the rich fire

I think rich set the fire bc alcohol + squip = murderous rage in this universe not bc he was trying to get it out

YOOO CHRISTINE IS GONNA BE A PSYCH MAJOR

Jeremy gets a therapist bc his mom freaks out when he tells her about the squip but the therapist is also squipped lol

lol all hollywood actors have squips, awesome

The squip's plan is to have Jeremy confess his love to Christine during the play in front of everybody but she calls him a loser… oof

The squip plans to write Jeremy's life story in a book and then have it kill itself with mtn dew red :O

THE WHOLE STORY WAS A BOOK JEREMY/THE SQUIP WROTE FOR CHRISTINE????? AND THEN IT JUST ENDS??????

That was one way to spend like four hours

[crococookie]

P'tit TW : Dépression. Je me rends compte que c'est dur de lier la santé mentale et le RP. Ce que je veux dire, étant dépressive depuis que je suis très très jeune et angoissée, il m'arrive souvent d'être au fond du trou (et de creuser encore). Dans ce genre de moment, je suis incapable de parler à qui que ce soit, ni même être sur internet en règles général.

Ce genre de période dure entre quelques jours à plusieurs semaines voir mois. Et ça arrive fréquemment, je passe de "je suis joyeuse et je dis des conneries" à "j'ai envie de disparaitre" et ça en une journée parfois. (Genre, la dernière fois, j'ai eu une sorte de révélation et je me suis rendu compte que j'étais le PNJ de la vie des autres... J'me suis pas senti ouf ouf après ça). Poster une absence en disant "j'suis en dépression" ok, mais quand c'est tous les deux mois, on commence à agacer les gens. Et surtout, c'est pas simple de le dire ! Alors parfois, on trouve des excuses à la con pour pas dire qu'on est mal. C'est pour ça que j'ai dû virer les forums ou ça demandait un minimum d'une réponse par mois. Parce que, ouais, je ne peux pas suivre (sauf le forum ou je suis dans le staff, mais tout le monde est au courant de la situation). Plus ça va et plus je trouve qu'on en demande trop. J'ai presque plus aucun plaisir à RP, alors qu'à la base, c'était une des choses qui évitait de me noyer.

Ça devient vite un cercle vicieux. On est mal, on n'arrive pas à RP, on culpabilise, ça nous rend mal, on a encore plus de mal à RP et ainsi de suite. Enfin voilà, c'était le moment réflexion de la journée.

[romanceyourdemons]

remember that james bond movie where he reveals he minored in oriental studies at cambridge which means he speaks every single asian language fluently, and he goes to japan and says out loud “all of these japanese women are uncontrollably attracted to me, in an instinctive, animal way, because unlike japanese men i am Masculine.” and then he puts on some really terrible yellowface and is inducted into the secret japanese art of Ninja and his asian bond girl devoted wife (who’s named kissy yamaha or some shit) dies tragically in his arms a record breaking 15 minutes after she’s introduced. and then sean connery was like ok that’s it no more james bond for me

[leeloooonfire]

Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington

Ok.

imagine: the nickname ‘the hair’ doesn’t originally come to exist because of the locks on his head, but because of all the body hair.

imagine: 12 or 13 year old Steve getting really hairy legs and arms, chest hair and even something like a beard with the start of puberty. He’s proud of it, because now he’s becoming a ‘real man’ (yeah, he’ll grow out of this toxic masculinity after a few smacks on in the head), but yeah - he loves it. Until he doesn’t anymore, because all his classmates are talking about his arms and legs and because teenager are shitty, his basketball team members call him stupid shit much worse than The Hair.

imagine: Steve feeling self-conscious about his body hair and starts to shave it all off, smooth like a baby. (And the girls like it, right?!) The nickname still sticks, because when he’s 15 and comes back after summer, the brown locks on his head are long and luscious and artfully styled. He takes what once was a petty insult and turns it into something people envy him for and that is so uniquely him.

imagine: 19 year old Steve, not really dating, working minimum wage and not really feeling like it, stops shaving his legs and arms and chest (not to mention that some girls told him they like the movie stars with some chest hair and stuff); and then spring 1986 hits.

imagine: Steve walking shirtless through the upside down, feeling kind of self-conscious about his hairy chest (with all of gremlins stupid jokes about his body hair as well) until he sees one particular person being unable to tear their eyes off him - Eddie.

imagine: Eddie, lil smalltown gay Eddie, seeing Steve’s hairy chest and thinking: ‘fuck hell yes, I wanna bury my face in it sooooo badly’, because Eddie likes his men tall, beefy and hairy.

imagine: summer 1986, Steve and Eddie hanging out and smoking by a lake 5 towns over (no bat in hell could drag them back to fucking lovers lake, man!) and Steve not taking off his shirt. At first, Eddie thinks is might be because of the bat bites, so he takes his shirt off to show Steve that it’s ok, that there shouldn’t be any shame. The scars are the visual evidence that they fought and survived.

somehow, when it’s late, Eddie manages to drag a Steve into the lake for a swim and it’s then, that Eddie finally realizes that it’s not and has never been about the scars, but because of the chest hair and hairy arms and legs. because Steve is trying to shy away from him, thinking Eddie won’t really find him attractive like that.

They (let’s be honest, they seem like those type of idiots who would wrestle until one of them gets a boner and puff-gay) play in the water, and Eddie gets all handsy and touchy with Steve, grabbing his chest with one hand until a Steve shies away, saying ‘oh god, stop touching the hair. It’s disgusting’

and Eddie being Eddie, says ‘disgusting?! What?! Your chest hair? Baby, I wanna hold on to it so bad while you fuck me real good, there’s nothing disgusting about your glorious hair.’

‘but, wait - what. You want me to what?’

‘Baby, come on, don’t you know how fucking hot you are like this?! All hero - like… Harrison Ford? No, more like Sean Connery in James Bond, yeah?! Just sooo hot.’

imagine: Eddie obviously get his wish - gets fucked real nice while he’s allowed to grab Steve The Hair Harrington chest.