#the fact that they recorded not one. not two. but THREE DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARIES FOR THIS FUCKING FILM

[elvisqueso]

the struggle is real. i'm out here hunting down the director commentary track from pocahontas's laserdisc edition, specifically, bc the other two version were either only for the extended cut (and finding that is it's own battle) or were from the bluray release and who the fuck knows what they'll say in that after 20 years of hindsight.

i want the purity of someone who's JUST finished the project, the high of creation still humming in their veins, proud of their work and having no idea that what they'd just done was going to piss off SO many people. i want that. i want that innocence.

[corndogninja]

Is the Punisher in Spider-Man 2? An Investigation

A persistent yet specious factoid that the Punisher (portayed by Thomas Jane, or his stunt double, from the 2004 movie) can be seen in the finale of Spider-Man 2 has circled around the internet for decades. But is this really the case? Spoilers – probably not!

If you want a quick visual overview, check the video -- a longer text writeup is under the fold!

Foreword: The claims

The claims center around a man seen in the movie's finale: clad in a black jacket, he turns to look at Mary Jane as she runs through the park before turning back and continuing to walk away:

The man has no lines and is never clearly in focus during the shot, which centers on Dunst running in slo-mo.

The basic claim - that the Punisher appears here - does have several reasons it would be appealing or believable:

The Punisher first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #129, so a cameo in a Spider-movie would bring things "full circle"

The movie already features several cameos, including Stan Lee and Bruce Campbell

Pre-MCU crossovers are especially intriguing to a Marvel universe fan

A Wolverine cameo was considered for the first Spider-Man movie, setting a precedent for such crossovers

However, I quickly grew suspicious of this claim for several reasons:

Nobody can agree on the details: did Sony or Raimi want the cameo? Was it him or just a stunt double?

The only source offered is "the DVD commentary". There is never a specific quote given, and if it was plainly stated on the commentary surely the specific details would be easy to verify. This also makes for good cloud-cover, it sounds believable enough and who's going to dig out their old DVD and listen to two hours of chitchat to verify it?

The only places making this claim are clickbait listicle content-farms or user-generated pages like Twitter or Reddit. Neither of these are known for perfect sourcing!

This particular cameo doesn't make much sense to me. The Punisher of the comics is a vigilante gunman, why would a cameo feature him casually strolling through a park? 2004's The Punisher was set in Florida, if this is meant to be the same character why'd he move up the eastern seaboard?

Part 1: The Commentaries

Every time a source is offered to back up the cameo, there is simply a generic referral to "the DVD commentary". However, there are in fact three DVD commentaries for this movie!

I'll save you the suspense: I listened to all three and none of them mention any such thing. Here's the clips of the relevant scene in all three commentaries:

I have listened to all three commentaries in full, not just this scene. Relevant observations from all three:

Commentary 1: Director Sam Raimi and actor Tobey Maguire, and producers Avi Arad and Grant Curtis (Raimi and Maguire recorded together, as did Arad and Curtis - but the four are not together and the commentary combines elements of both discussions)

During the scene, Maguire speaks of how the ending of the movie reminds him of The Graduate. Raimi is mostly silently listening to Maguire. Neither mention the man in the park.

This is the only commentary to feature Sam Raimi - since most sources point to "Raimi on the DVD commentary", this is enough to disqualify them.

Avi Arad produced both Spider-Man 2 and The Punisher, even casting Jane himself, but makes no reference to the Punisher in his commentary.

Curtis points out that the priest at the wedding is played by producer Joe Caracciolo - if you're calling out one cameo, why not point out another one that happens less than a minute later? Several other cameos (noticeably Campbell) are also pointed out.

Stunt doubles are briefly discussed (for instance, mentioned that Rosemary Harris - Aunt May - wanted to do some of her own stunts) but never in the context of Thomas Jane's double.

The commentary mentions that Raimi considered cutting or even not filming the park scene altogether, making it unlikely that a special cross-production cameo would be set up in such a scene.

Commentary 2: Special effects supervisor John Dykstra and effects team (Steve Johnson, Eric Hayden, Anthony LaMolinara, Scott Stokdyk, Lydia Bottegoni)

This commentary is almost more like a special-effects podcast. Ock's arms don't appear until over a half-hour into the movie, but for that first half-hour the team is already going into deep detail on the production and design of the physical and digital arms. This means that - outside of action scenes - the commentary frequently is not directly discussing what is happening onscreen. Predictably, only general remarks about the approach to VFX design are given during the park scene and the black-clad man is not noted.

Commentary 3: Producer Laura Ziskin and screenwriter Alvin Sargent. This commentary is exclusive to the "2.1" extended cut

During the scene, Ziskin remarks on how Sargent wrote the scene of MJ running through the park but there was some debate on whether or not to include it. Neither mention anything about the man MJ runs past.

Many cameos of family and friends of crew, mainly featured extras in street scenes, are mentioned; Caracciolo as the priest is called out again as well. Nobody in the park is pointed out.

Several other Spider-Man characters not seen in the movie are remarked upon, including Felicia Hardy (Black Cat) being in several early drafts and Dr. Connors potentially becoming the Lizard in a sequel. But the Punisher is never mentioned.

So I can conclusively say that a cameo from the Punisher is not mentioned in any commentary for Spider-Man 2. I also searched to see if Raimi or Arad had ever mentioned such a thing in later articles or interviews, but found nothing. This is enough to call the story "untrue", for me. Nobody related to the production of Spider-Man 2 confirming or even alluding to this cameo doesn't give it a leg to stand on.

Still, in the interest of being thorough...

Part 2: Is it even plausible?

Let's give the story the benefit of the doubt. Could it even be possible?

2.1: Scheduling

Spider-Man 2 filmed in New York from April 12 through May 13 2003. In the shot in question, Mary Jane is running through City Hall Park so that scene must have been shot during this time.

Thomas Jane was officially cast as the Punisher on April 3, 2003 (though he had reportedly been sought for the role for a while beforehand). Production began in July and filming (in Tampa, FL) wrapped in October.

So there is a little overlap where the Spider-Man 2 crew would've known that Jane would be playing Frank Castle. Whether they could get him away from pre-production (Jane reportedly spent 6 months training with Navy SEALs for the role) or if the low-budgeted, tightly-scheduled production of The Punisher would be willing to loan out their headlining star to a rival production for a blurry, silent, semi-cameo is a little less plausible.

Actual filming did not overlap – and even if it did, Tampa and NYC are over 1,000 miles apart – so it is impossible for Jane (or his double) to have popped over to the other set on a slow day.

2.2: The Stunt Double

The majority of places that claim the Punisher is in Spider-Man offer that it's just the stunt double, not Jane himself. Thomas Jane reportedly performed the majority of his own stunts (75% to 90%, depending who you ask) and the movie's credits do not list a double or stand-in for him.

According to IMDB, Tom McComas was Thomas Jane's uncredited stunt double on The Punisher (he also included The Punisher among his credits in a 2016 reel). Though he has appeared in other Marvel productions (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Runaways, WandaVision) he is not credited as appearing in Spider-Man 2.

If you want to familiarize yourself with how he looks to judge for yourself, McComas can be seen as a prison guard in the opening of Men in Black 3 (the slim man who tells Boris "You've got a visitor) or in the short film The Stunt Double.

To my eyes, McComas is pretty obviously not the man in the scene. Even accounting for the blurriness of the movie shot and age differences (I had trouble finding contemporaneous images of McComas, many are at least ten years after Spider-Man 2), things like his jawline, the overall shape of his head, and his facial features are noticeably different.

2.3 Thomas Jane

But could it be Jane himself? We get awfully close to a "smoking gun" here with a note in the letters page of Wizard magazine:

I have a question about "Spider-Man 2." I never noticed this in the theater, but does the Punisher (actor Tom Jane) make a cameo in the movie? I was watching the DVD and when Mary Jane is running through the park in her wedding gown, she passes a man in black who turns around to look at her, and I swear it is Tom Jane. This is the only person in the scene who takes special notice of her. If I am correct I hope my Marvel No-Prize is a good one because I have never won anything before.

(As an aside: despite the fan's assertion, the man in black is not "the only person in the scene who takes special notice of her". Although he is a little more in the foreground than other extras, several others can be seen staring at MJ or even stopping to do a double-take as she runs by.)

Wizard responded with:

"And you ain't gonna win anything now, either," says Jane of the Spidey cameo. "I can neither confirm nor deny that the skinny little, queeny-lookin'-er, wait, that is me in 'Spider-Man 2.' Natch." So Bryan, it looks like your keen eye has gained you the respect of Tom Jane and junior detectives everywhere. Still, we checked out the DVD ourselves, and sure enough—that guy in the right-hand corner looks an awful lot like the same guy who flung a pot of hot beans in Kevin Nash's face in "The Punisher." But, even though Jane admits to the cameo, some folks on our staff still aren't convinced! Check out this screen shot and you tell me.

I've only seen the clip circulated online, so I'm not sure of the source (and I'm not going to buy a bunch of old issues of Wizard off ebay to verify) -

The twitter user who provided the image said it was from the "Mega Movie Issue" from spring 2005

A 2006 forum post states it was from an April Fool's issue

A 2007 forum thread says it was mentioned in "the latest Wizard", though nobody in the forum is convinced that it's Jane.

Although Jane's response would be proof-positive for many, his flippant, noncommittal tone that doesn't even convince the editor makes me doubt that he's being serious. Couple this with suspicions that it may have been an April Fool's joke and the fact that Jane has (as far as I am aware) never mentioned this in any other interview, and the total lack of evidence from anyone involved in Spider-Man 2, it becomes even less believable.

But to be fair, in the spirit of Wizard's "you tell me", here is another comparison. These photos of Jane are all from The Punisher, which as you will recall means they were taken within months (if not weeks) of the Spider-Man 2 scene.

Although the resemblance is closer to Jane than McComas, I don't think this is him either. The park guy has a squarer head, wider jaw, different nose, and different profile. He seems to be wearing a gray rather than black shirt, and doesn't seem to have the "trained with Navy SEALs for months" build that Jane displays as Frank Castle.

3. Postscript

My theory as to why this caught on is what's known in editing as "eye trace". The shot just before has MJ running from the left to the right of the screen, so viewers are already looking to the right of the frame. Then a man pops in from the right of the frame, looking at MJ but also towards the camera - so people are more likely to notice this one guy. You can see the effect of this accidental emphasis in the letter to Wizard - he claims that "this [man] is the only person in the scene who takes special notice of her" even though it's quite apparent that several other extras are staring at MJ (one even stopping mid-stride to turn around and gawk).

Since the movie was first available on VHS and DVD, the lower picture quality of an already blurry scene also added to the plausibility of this being Jane; on Blu-Ray and 4K the differences become more apparent.

So I say: Myth Busted. or at the very least: Implausible

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Re-Visiting DVD Commentary 🤔

@wdway:

I have something to share that made me happy in a very sad for Daryl kind of way. The last week or two I have been just watching old episodes from different seasons with no point other than just wanting to see them again. A couple of days ago I thought since I was using my DVDs it would be fun to watch a few episodes with the commentary on.

First, I watched Still with Emily and the director JuIius Ramsay and a second time with Norman and AK. That put me in the mood to want to go watch and listen to the commentary for s5e10 Them. I had remembered going into it that the director on this episode was also Julius Ramsay who was also one of the people commentating along with Sonequa Martin-Green (Sasha).

I couldn't remember if there was anyone else on the commentary and was pleasantly surprised that the third person was Norman. I'm going to give you a few of the comments that emphasized that Daryl was in fact mourning Beth. I know that's a given for us but I have just read over the years so many people (carylers) who want to say that Daryl in the episode Them was sad about Beth but it was a combination of losing Sophia, the prison, Bob and Tyrese that he was upset about. That there was no special emphasis on Beth. I know that is crazy.

It was such a pleasant surprise, and I can't believe that I forgot that on the commentary. Daryl's grief for Beth was pointed out by JuIius, Sonequa and Norman. There was no subtitles for the commentary only for the episode itself so I'm going to paraphrase what was said starting with the scene where TF is walking down the road and Rick tells Daryl that he knows he lost something back in Atlanta.

Julius asked Norman how he chose to act out Daryl's grief of losing Beth. Norman seem to have a little trouble explaining it.  He touched back on this later on in the episode during the barn scene where Rick talks about they were The Walking Dead. Norman came back with how he was influenced by the person and the character they played and used the combination in showing Daryl's grief. My impression was that he was sad to see not only the character Beth gone but Emily the actress.

During the scene where Carl gives Maggie the music box Norman made the comment that the music box represented Beth. I have to say sometimes it was very hard to hear what was being said by Norman because he is actually very soft spoken and at the same time Sonequa agreed with him and said that Lauren (Maggie) had said that very thing on TTD. This means in my mind that it's on record by three of the actors that the music box=Beth.

In the scene where Maggie opens the trunk of the car as soon as the Walker was shown Sonequa said that Lauren said it was a reminder if Beth and Norman immediately agreed. Julius went on to say that when they were casting for the Walker that they were looking for a small framed blonde as a reminder of Beth.

Of course there was many moments talking about how very upset Daryl was and kept separating himself from the group. How during the scene where he's sitting under the tree and burns his hand he explained how it originally was meant for him to cut himself but he felt strongly that he did not want people to mistake him crying for crying about the pain of the cut. That when Scott Gimple heard of the change they had made to the scene he was quite pleased and thought it fit perfectly with how they wanted to show what Daryl was feeling.

At one point Norman talked about how this episode had so much symbolism and biblical meaning to it.

During the scene where Maggie comes over and sits with Daryl in the barn and he gives her the music box back Julius say that this was the closest that Daryl was allowing anyone to see the emotion he was feeling of missing and grieving for Beth. Right after the part where Daryl talks about how strong Beth was but she didn't know it Sonequa said that Daryl was showing his sweetness of how he felt about Beth.

Sonequa also said that Daryl fixed the music box "the little Beth."

I thought these moments during the commentary was a nice little nod to Daryl grieving Beth. It wasn't as good as if he said he loved her but I'll take it.

I also watched WHWGO with the commentary from Greg Nicotero and Chad L. Coleman. During the last scene where Tyrese is being buried and we see Daryl hands the shovel to Sasha as he's somewhat turned away, Greg said that it was an emotional moment because Daryl was grieving the loss of Beth and was handing the shovel to Sasha who was now grieving her brother and still grieving Bob.

So it wasn't just one episode where it is stated by a director or in Greg's case not only a director but a producer that Daryl was in fact grieving Beth.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

Thanks for this. Loved reading it. I’d forgotten a lot of these details as well. It gave me all the Bethyl feels. 💔 I don't think I've ever watched the commentary for most of these episodes, because I always buy the episodes digitally. But it makes me so happy that they confirm so much of what we've always said: that he was grieving for Beth, that the music box = Beth, that there is intentional biblical imagery in it, etc. Yay!

@galadrieljones:

Thanks for this. I loved reading it. It makes me want to buy the DVDs!

@wdway:

Is it wrong of me to be happy that you both at the same reaction of sadness over Daryl's grieving the loss of Beth. No way around it that man loved that girl.

There's a couple of things from the commentary that I wanted to tell you guys about I just didn't want to lose the flow of Daryl grieving in the post last night.

I mentioned that Sonequa said that Daryl was showing his sweetness of how he felt about Beth during the scene where he gives back the fixed music box to Maggie. Sonequa did use the word sweetness in her description and it caught my attention when I heard it because in the commentary from Still with Norman and AK Angela use the same word sweetness to describe the similarities of both Daryl and Beth. That there was a core sweetness about both Daryl and Beth. Which made me wonder if that description had been something that was talked about to the whole cast.

They was a few comments that Greg made in the commentary for s5e9 and e16 that I feel are worth mentioning.  In e9 he talked about laying the groundwork and planting the seeds in episodes that would not show up sometimes for several episodes or seasons.

Later when I watched s5e16 in the coda where the Wolves were leading the walkers back into the trailer trucks Greg said that the Wolves were making an army of zombies. I thought that was a giveaway to what we saw in the final episodes of s11 when the herds of  walkers overtook the CW. A nod that someone had orchestrated an army of Walkers.

[weheartchrisevans]

BOSTON — So you're Tim Scott, the Republican senator from South Carolina who opposes Roe v. Wade and wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and you get a call from Chris Evans, a Hollywood star and lifelong Democrat who has been blasting President Trump for years. He wants to meet. And film it. And share it on his online platform. Can anybody say "Borat?" “I was very skeptical,” admits Scott. “You can think of the worst-case scenario.”But then Scott heard from other senators. They vouched for Evans, most famous for playing Captain America in a series of films that have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide. The actor also got on the phone with Scott’s staff to make a personal appeal.

It worked. Sometime in 2018, Scott met on camera with Evans in the nation’s capital, and their discussion, which ranged from prison reform to student loans, is one of more than 200 interviews with elected officials published on “A Starting Point,” an online platform the actor helped launch in July. Not long after, Evans appeared on Scott’s Instagram Live. They have plans to do more together.

“While he is a liberal, he was looking to have a real dialogue on important issues,” says Scott. “For me, it’s about wanting to have a conversation with an audience that may not be accustomed to hearing from conservatives and Republicans.”

Evans, actor-director Mark Kassen and entrepreneur Joe Kiani launched “A Starting Point” as a response to what they see as a deeply polarized political climate. They wanted to offer a place for information about issues without a partisan spin. To do that, they knew they needed both parties to participate.

Evans, 39, sat on the patio outside his Boston-area home on a recent afternoon talking about the platform. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans and spent some of the interview chasing around his brown rescue dog. Nearly 100 million people didn’t vote in the 2016 general election, Evans says. That’s more than 40 percent of those who were eligible.He believes the root of this disinterest is the nastiness on both sides of the aisle. Many potential voters simply turn off the news, never mind talking about actual policy.“A Starting Point” is meant to offer a digital home for people to hear from elected officials without having the conversation framed by Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow.

“The idea is . . . ‘Listen, you’re in office. I can’t deny the impact you have,’ ” says Evans. “ ‘You can vote on things that affect my life.’ Let this be a landscape of competing ideas, and I’ll sit down with you and I’ll talk with you.”

Or, as Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has appeared on the site, puts it, “Sometimes, boring is okay. You’re being presented two sides. Everything doesn’t have to be sensational. Sometimes, it can just be good facts.” Evans wasn’t always active in politics. At Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, he focused on theater, not student government. And he moved away from home his senior year, working at a casting agency in New York as he pushed for acting gigs. His uncle, Michael E. Capuano, served as a congressman in Massachusetts for 20 years, but other than volunteering on some of his campaign, Evans wasn’t particularly political.

In recent years, he’s read political philosopher Hannah Arendt and feminist Rebecca Solnit’s “The Mother of All Questions” — ex-girlfriend Jenny Slate gave him the latter — and been increasingly upset by Trump’s policies and behavior. He’s come to believe that he can state his own views without creating a conflict with “A Starting Point.” When he and Scott spoke on Instagram, the president wasn’t mentioned. In contrast, recently Evans and other members of the Avengers cast took part in a virtual fundraiser with Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala D. Harris.

“I don’t want to all of a sudden become a blank slate,” says Evans. “But my biggest issue right now is just getting people to vote. If I start saying, ‘vote Biden; f Trump,’ my base will like that. But they were already voting for Biden.”

(In September, Evans accidentally posted an image of presumably his penis online and, after deleting it, tweeted: “Now the I have your attention . . . Vote Nov. 3rd!!!”)

Evans began to contemplate the idea that became “A Starting Point” in 2017. He heard something reported on the news — he can’t remember exactly what — and decided to search out information on the Internet. Instead of finding concrete answers, Evans fell down the rabbit hole of opinions and conflicting claims. He began talking about this with Kassen, a friend since he directed Evans in 2011’s “Puncture.” What if they got the information directly from elected officials and presented it without a spin? Kassen, in turn, introduced Evans to Kiani, who had made his fortune through a medical technology company he founded and, of the three, was the most politically involved.

Kiani has donated to dozens of Democratic candidates across the country and earlier this year contributed $750,000 to Unite the Country, a super PAC meant to support Joe Biden. But he appreciated the idea of focusing on something larger than a single race or party initiative. He, Kassen and Evans would fund “A Starting Point,” which has about 18 people on staff.

“There’s no longer ABC, NBC and CBS,” Kiani says. “There’s Fox News and MSNBC. What that means is that we are no longer being censored. We’re self-censoring ourselves. And people go to their own echo chamber and they don’t get any wiser. If you allow both parties to speak, for the same amount of time, without goading them to go on into hyperbole, when people look at both sides’ point of view of both topics, we think most of the time they’ll come to a reasonable conclusion.”

“What people do too often is they get in their silos and they only watch and listen and read what they agree with,” says John Kasich, the former Ohio governor and onetime Republican presidential candidate. “If you go to Chris’s website, you can’t bury yourself in your silo. You get to see the other point of view.” As much as some like to blame Trump for all the conflicts in Washington, Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) says he’s watched the tone shifting for decades. He appreciated sitting down with Evans and making regular submissions to “Daily Points,” a place on the platform for commentary no longer than two minutes. During the Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Coons recorded a comment on Judge Amy Coney Barrett and the Affordable Care Act.“ ‘A Starting Point’ needs to be a sustained resource,” Coons says. “Chris often talks about it being ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ for adults.”

It’s not by chance that Evans has personally conducted all of the 200-plus interviews on “A Starting Point” during trips to D.C. Celebrities often try to mobilize the public, whether it’s Eva Longoria, Tracee Ellis Ross and Julia Louis-Dreyfus hosting the Democratic National Convention or Jon Voight recording video clips to praise Trump. But in this case, Evans is using his status in a different way, to entice even the most hesitant Republican to sit down for an even-toned chat. And he’s willing to pose with anyone, even if it means explaining himself on “The Daily Show” after Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas posted a selfie with Evans. (Two attempts to interview Trump brought no response.) Murkowski remembers when Evans came to Capitol Hill for the first time in 2018. She admits she didn’t actually know who he was — she hadn’t yet seen any Marvel movies. She was in the minority.“We meet interesting and important people but, man, when Captain America was in the Senate, it was all the buzz,” she says. “And people were like, ‘Did you get your picture taken?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I sat down and did the interview.’ ‘You did an interview? How did you get an interview with him?’ ”What impressed Murkowski wasn’t his star power. It was the way Evans conducted the interview.“It was relaxing,” she says. “You didn’t feel like you were in front of a reporter who was just waiting for you to say something you would get caught on later. It was a dialogue . . . and we need more dialogue and less gotcha.”

“Starting Points” offers two-minute answers by elected officials in eight topic areas, including education, the environment and the economy. This is where the interviews Evans conducted can be found. “Daily Points” has featured a steady flow of Republicans and Democrats. A third area, “Counterpoints,” hosts short debates between officials on particular subjects. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, debated mail-in voting with Dusty Johnson, the Republican congressman from South Dakota.

“Most Americans can’t name more than five members of the United States House,” says Johnson. “ ‘A Starting Point’ allows thoughtful members to talk to a broader audience than we would normally have.”

The platform’s social media team pushes out potentially newsworthy clips, whether it’s Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) discussing his meeting with Barrett just before he tested positive for the coronavirus, or Angus King, the independent senator from Maine, criticizing Trump for his comments on a potential peaceful transfer of power after November’s election. Kassen notes that the King clip was viewed more than 175,000 times on “A Starting Point’s” Twitter account, compared with the 10,000 who caught in on CNN’s social media platform.

“Because it’s short-form media, we’re engineered to be social,” says Kassen. “As a result, when something catches hold, it’s passed around our audience pretty well.”

The key is to use modern tools to push out content that’s tonally different from what you might find on modern cable news. Or on social media. Which is what Evans hopes leads to more engagement. He’s particularly proud that more than 10,000 people have registered to vote through “A Starting Point” since it went online.

“If the downstream impact or the byproduct of this site is some sort of unity between the parties, great,” says Evans. “But if nobody’s still voting, it doesn’t work. We need people involved.”

[tcm]

In Memory of Brian, Fred and Jerry by Susan King

I mourn the loss of Hollywood legends, especially those I have interviewed over the years. I broke into tears when Debbie Reynolds died four years ago, recalling our last chat together in 2016 when we did a duet of “Moses Supposes.” And I still haven’t watched TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (’62) since Gregory Peck died in 2003. I had the opportunity to interview the handsome Oscar-winner at his now torn down home in 1997 and 1999. He was everything you’d hope he would be – sweet, intelligent and funny. He also loved Bob Dylan. His last words to me as he walked me to my car were: “You are a most interesting young lady.”

In 2020 alone, I lost over 20 former interviewees including Kirk Douglas, whom I interviewed eight times between 1986-2017, and my beloved Olivia de Havilland, who I found to be delightful and a bit ribald in the two interviews I did with her. I got more than a little misty when Brian Dennehy, Fred Willard and Jerry Stiller died this year. They were supremely talented and made our lives a little brighter with their performances. And, they all were great guys and fun interviews.

Brian Dennehy

I interviewed Brian Dennehy, who died in April at the age of 81, several times in the early 1990s when I was at the L.A. Times. The former U.S. Marine and football player was intimidating at first sight. He was tall, burly and barrel-chested. He had a no-nonsense quality about him, and he spoke his mind. But he also was funny.

In 1991, discussing how hard it was for some actors to land parts after starring in a TV series, he noted “coming off a TV series is a tough deal, and you go into limbo land for a while, if not forever. Most actors go immediately to the ‘Island of Lost Actors’ and stay there. Troy Donahue is the mayor.” Dennehy never went to that island. Not with the complex and often memorable performances he gave in such films as FIRST BLOOD (’82), SILVERADO (’85), COCOON (’85), PRESUMED INNOCENT (’90) and as Big Tom in the comedy TOMMY BOY (’95).

He was nominated for five Emmys, including one for his chilling turn as serial killer John Wayne Gacy in the miniseries To Catch a Killer (’92).

I had one of the most extraordinary evenings at the theater in 2000 when Dennehy reprised his Tony Award-winning role as the tragic Willy Loman at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in the lauded revival of Arthur Miller’s masterpiece Death of a Salesman. It was a gut-wrenching performance that left me emotionally exhausted. He earned another Tony in 2003 as James Tyrone in the revival of Eugene O’Neill’s superb Long Day’s Journey into Night. And he never stopped working.

Shortly after his death, the drama DRIVEWAYS (2020) was released on streaming platforms. And it could be Dennehy’s greatest performance. He plays Del, an elderly widower and Korean War vet who sparks a warm friendship with Cody, the young boy next door. The reviews for the film (it’s at 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and Dennehy have been glowing. The L.A. Times’ Justin Chang wrote that Dennehy’s Del is as “forceful and tender a creation as any in this great actor’s body of work.” And Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times stated: “What we might remember most, perhaps appropriately, are Dennehy’s warm, weary features and rich line readings. In a lovely final monologue, Del advises Cody to avoid rushing past the experiences in life that matter, as they pass so quickly on their own. Much like the careers of beloved actors.”

Fred Willard

I first encountered Fred Willard as the clueless sidekick of sleazy talk show host Barth Gimble (Martin Mull) in the late 1970s on the syndicated comedy series Fernwood Tonight and its continuation America 2-Night. I quickly became a fan, and that admiration grew when he became a member of Christopher Guest’s stock company of zanies in such comedies as WAITING FOR GUFFMAN (’96) and BEST IN SHOW (2000). In the latter, he played the equally clueless dog show announcer Buck Laughlin who quipped in his color commentary, “And to think that in some counties these dogs are eaten.”

Willard told me in a 2012 L.A. Times interview that he didn’t think he was funny until he was an adult. “I always loved comedy growing up – Bob Hope, Red Skelton and Danny Kaye,” said Willard, who died in May at the age of 86.

Willard got a serious part in Tennessee Williams’ one-act in a summer theater group when he was in his 20s. “I was getting laughs on all the lines,” he noted. “The director got upset because the audiences were always laughing. I didn’t try to do it deliberately. Then I realized I would say things around people, and they would laugh. I didn’t mean to be funny. I have always been relaxed around comedy.”

Just as Dennehy, Willard kept working. In fact, he received an Emmy nomination posthumously for his hilarious turn as Ty Burrell’s goofball dad on ABC’s Modern Family. He told me he wished he could try to do more dramatic fare like in Clint Eastwood’s World War II drama Flags of Our Fathers (2006). Willard even called his agent to see if he could get a role in the movie. “Clint Eastwood’s people called back and said, ‘We love Fred, but we are afraid if he appeared on the screen, they might start to laugh.’’’

Jerry Stiller

Jerry Stiller was a real sweetie and also very thoughtful. He sent me a lovely thank you note when I interviewed him and his wife, Anne Meara, in the early 1990s. When I talked to him for his son Ben Stiller’s remake of THE HEARTBREAK KID (2007), Stiller sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers. Ditto in 2010 when I interviewed the couple for a Yahoo! Web series Stiller & Meara: A Show About Everything. I also received Christmas cards until Meara died in 2015.

Baby boomers remember Stiller, who died at 92 in May, and Meara for their smart and sophisticated comedy act, in which the majority of the humor came from the fact that he was Jewish and she was born Irish Catholic. They recorded albums, were popular on the nightclub circuit and did The Ed Sullivan Show three dozen times. They split up their act when musical variety series went away.

Both were terrific dramatic actors. In fact, I saw Stiller in the 1984 Broadway production of Hurlyburly, David Rabe’s scathing look at Hollywood, and he did a 1997 production of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. Of course, Stiller garnered even more success in his Emmy-nominated role as Frank Costanza, the caustic father of George (Jason Alexander) on NBC’s Seinfeld (1993-98) and was the best reason to watch CBS’ sitcom The King of Queens (1998-2007) as Kevin James’ acerbic father-in-law

But I most remember that 2010 interview where Stiller and Meara bantered back and forth much to my enjoyment. Here they talk about Ed Sullivan:

Anne: I never liked him.

Jerry: You are out of your mind. You never liked him?

Anne: He scared stuff out of me. I am talking about Mr. Sullivan himself. I wasn’t the only one. There were international favorites throwing up in the wings—singers and tenors and guys who spin plates. It was live. We were scared.

Jerry: Ed Sullivan brought us up to the level that we knew we never could get to – him standing there on the right side of the wings laughing, tears coming out of his eyes and then calling us over and saying, ‘You know, we got a lot of mail on that last show you did.’ I said, ‘From Catholic or Jewish people?’ He said, ‘The Lutherans.’”

[justforbooks]

Hildegard of Bingen, also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath of the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most-recorded in modern history. She has been considered by many in Europe to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Hildegard was born around the year 1098, although the exact date is uncertain. Her parents were Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet and Hildebert of Bermersheim, a family of the free lower nobility in the service of the Count Meginhard of Sponheim. Sickly from birth, Hildegard is traditionally considered their youngest and tenth child, although there are records of only seven older siblings. In her Vita, Hildegard states that from a very young age she had experienced visions.

Hildegard's works include three great volumes of visionary theology; a variety of musical compositions for use in liturgy, as well as the musical morality play Ordo Virtutum; one of the largest bodies of letters (nearly 400) to survive from the Middle Ages, addressed to correspondents ranging from popes to emperors to abbots and abbesses, and including records of many of the sermons she preached in the 1160s and 1170s; two volumes of material on natural medicine and cures; an invented language called the Lingua ignota ("unknown language"); and various minor works, including a gospel commentary and two works of hagiography.

Several manuscripts of her works were produced during her lifetime, including the illustrated Rupertsberg manuscript of her first major work, Scivias (lost since 1945); the Dendermonde Codex, which contains one version of her musical works; and the Ghent manuscript, which was the first fair-copy made for editing of her final theological work, the Liber Divinorum Operum. At the end of her life, and probably under her initial guidance, all of her works were edited and gathered into the single Riesenkodex manuscript.

Attention in recent decades to women of the medieval Catholic Church has led to a great deal of popular interest in Hildegard's music. In addition to the Ordo Virtutum, sixty-nine musical compositions, each with its own original poetic text, survive, and at least four other texts are known, though their musical notation has been lost. This is one of the largest repertoires among medieval composers.

One of her better-known works, Ordo Virtutum (Play of the Virtues), is a morality play. It is uncertain when some of Hildegard's compositions were composed, though the Ordo Virtutum is thought to have been composed as early as 1151. It is an independent Latin morality play with music (82 songs); it does not supplement or pay homage to the Mass or the Office of a certain feast. It is, in fact, the earliest known surviving musical drama that is not attached to a liturgy.

The Ordo virtutum would have been performed within Hildegard's monastery by and for her select community of noblewomen and nuns. It was probably performed as a manifestation of the theology Hildegard delineated in the Scivias. The play serves as an allegory of the Christian story of sin, confession, repentance, and forgiveness. Notably, it is the female Virtues who restore the fallen to the community of the faithful, not the male Patriarchs or Prophets. This would have been a significant message to the nuns in Hildegard's convent. Scholars assert that the role of the Devil would have been played by Volmar, while Hildegard's nuns would have played the parts of Anima (the human souls) and the Virtues. The devil's part is entirely spoken or shouted, with no musical setting. All other characters sing in monophonic plainchant. This includes Patriarchs, Prophets, A Happy Soul, A Unhappy Soul and A Penitent Soul along with 16 female Virtues (including Mercy, Innocence, Chasity, Obedience, Hope, and Faith).

In addition to the Ordo Virtutum, Hildegard composed many liturgical songs that were collected into a cycle called the Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum. The songs from the Symphonia are set to Hildegard's own text and range from antiphons, hymns, and sequences, to responsories. Her music is monophonic, that is, consisting of exactly one melodic line. Its style has been said to be characterized by soaring melodies that can push the boundaries of traditional Gregorian chant, and to stand outside the normal practices of monophonic monastic chant. Researchers are also exploring ways in which it may be viewed in comparison with her contemporaries, such as Hermannus Contractus. Another feature of Hildegard's music that both reflects twelfth-century evolution of chant, and pushes that evolution further, is that it is highly melismatic, often with recurrent melodic units. Scholars such as Margot Fassler, Marianne Richert Pfau, and Beverly Lomer also note the intimate relationship between music and text in Hildegard's compositions, whose rhetorical features are often more distinct than is common in twelfth-century chant. As with all medieval chant notation, Hildegard's music lacks any indication of tempo or rhythm; the surviving manuscripts employ late German style notation, which uses very ornamental neumes. The reverence for the Virgin Mary reflected in music shows how deeply influenced and inspired Hildegard of Bingen and her community were by the Virgin Mary and the saints.

In recent years, Hildegard has become of particular interest to feminist scholars. They note her reference to herself as a member of the weaker sex and her rather constant belittling of women. Hildegard frequently referred to herself as an unlearned woman, completely incapable of Biblical exegesis. Such a statement on her part, however, worked to her advantage because it made her statements that all of her writings and music came from visions of the Divine more believable, therefore giving Hildegard the authority to speak in a time and place where few women were permitted a voice. Hildegard used her voice to amplify the church's condemnation of institutional corruption, in particular simony.

Hildegard has also become a figure of reverence within the contemporary New Age movement, mostly because of her holistic and natural view of healing, as well as her status as a mystic. Though her medical writings were long neglected, and then studied without reference to their context, she was the inspiration for Dr. Gottfried Hertzka's "Hildegard-Medicine", and is the namesake for June Boyce-Tillman's Hildegard Network, a healing center that focuses on a holistic approach to wellness and brings together people interested in exploring the links between spirituality, the arts, and healing. Her reputation as a medicinal writer and healer was also used by early feminists to argue for women's rights to attend medical schools. Hildegard's reincarnation has been debated since 1924 when Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner lectured that a nun of her description was the past life of Russian poet-philosopher Vladimir Soloviev, whose Sophianic visions are often compared to Hildegard's. Sophiologist Robert Powell writes that hermetic astrology proves the match, while mystical communities in Hildegard's lineage include that of artist Carl Schroeder as studied by Columbia sociologist Courtney Bender and supported by reincarnation researchers Walter Semkiw and Kevin Ryerson.

Recordings and performances of Hildegard's music have gained critical praise and popularity since 1979. See Discography listed below.

The following modern musical works are directly linked to Hildegard and her music or texts:

Sofia Gubaidulina: Aus den Visionen der Hildegard von Bingen, for contra alto solo, after a text of Hildegard of Bingen, 1994.

Peter Janssens: Hildegard von Bingen, a musical in 10 scenes, text: Jutta Richter, 1997.

Cecilia McDowall: Alma Redemptoris Mater.

Tilo Medek: Monatsbilder (nach Hildegard von Bingen), twelve songs for mezzo-soprano, clarinet and piano, 1997.

David Lynch with Jocelyn Montgomery: Lux Vivens (Living Light): The Music of Hildegard Von Bingen, 1998.

Alois Albrecht: Hildegard von Bingen, a liturgical play with texts and music by Hildegard of Bingen, 1998.

Christopher Theofanidis: Rainbow Body, for orchestra (2000)

Ludger Stühlmeyer: O splendidissima gemma, for alto solo and organ, text by Hildegard of Bingen, 2011.

Wolfgang Sauseng: De visione secunda for double choir and percussion, 2011.

Devendra Banhart: Für Hildegard von Bingen, single from the 2013 album Mala.

Gordon Hamilton: The Trillion Souls quotes Hildegard's O Ignee Spiritus

The artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Hildegard.

In space, the minor planet 898 Hildegard is named for her.

In film, Hildegard has been portrayed by Patricia Routledge in a BBC documentary called Hildegard of Bingen (1994), by Ángela Molina in Barbarossa (2009) and by Barbara Sukowa in the film Vision, directed by Margarethe von Trotta.

Hildegard was the subject of a 2012 fictionalized biographic novel Illuminations by Mary Sharatt.

The plant genus Hildegardia is named after her because of her contributions to herbal medicine.

Hildegard makes an appearance in The Baby-Sitters Club #101: Claudia Kishi, Middle School Drop-Out by Ann M. Martin, when Anna Stevenson dresses as Hildegard for Halloween.

A feature documentary film, The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard, was released by American director Michael M. Conti in 2014.

The off-Broadway musical In the Green, written by Grace McLean, followed Hildegard's story.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[allsassnoclass]

Hello everyone!  Today is the one year anniversary of my favorite fic I’ve written (so far), Puzzle Pieces!  I thought I’d give a full length director’s commentary to commemorate the occasion.

Spoilers for the fic below!

The idea for this fic stemmed from a few things.  I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of a soulmate au where colors appear on your skin when you first touch your soulmate(s).  I think I initially encountered this in a newsies fic that I’ve since lost track of that was heavily focused on platonic soulmates.  I liked this convention because the possibilities for multiple soulmates are endless and I like the idea of colorful splotches on people.  I also think that identifying soulmates via touch rather than the first sentence they say or some sort of other identifier gives a lot of opportunity for relationships to grow and develop before they know that they’re soulmates.  I am always a little bothered when soulmate aus have people fall right into a relationship and kissing and intense emotions right away when the two people don’t know anything about each other.  This seemed like a way to combat that a little, but I’ll speak more on that later.

The Beginnings

The first record I have of this fic is a message I sent to Helen on May 8, 2020.  The fic was very much only in the idea stages then, as I took over three more months to write it and wrote Too Close to See during that time.  A google doc for the fic wasn’t started until July 20, 2020, and it was titled “soulmate colors au.”  My method for writing is going in order these days, and for this particular fic there wasn’t a specific scene that I started with in mind.  I really was just going or it and making it up as I went, chugging along and seeing what happened.

The Colors

A pretty significant part of this fic is the colors.  When I figured out that colors would appear on people when they touched, I knew that figuring out who had what color would be very important.  Initially I was going to have each pairing have their own color (so for example cashton would both leave blue on each other but malum would both leave green on each other) but I quickly decided that I didn’t like that and that each individual should have a color that they leave, instead.  I sent a message to Bella asking what colors she thought the boys would be, but I can’t find that message anymore and know that while it was similar it wasn’t quite right.  Here’s some reasoning behind each of the boys’ colors:

Michael: I went with red not just because of the iconic red hair, but because it’s a pretty loud and brash color.  Michael (especially when he was younger) doesn’t really filter things, wears a decent amount of his personality on his sleeve, and first reaction that said red to me

Calum: Calum has always been forest green.  This is partially influenced by the empahty hoodie, even though it’s a bit brighter than the green in my mind for him here, but I also think green is a very dependable, stable color.  (I used that color symbolism in one of my fall out boy fics years ago lol) It reminds me of pine trees, and I think Calum can give off that same sense of reliability in weathering the seasons.  It’s a quieter color but can really pop next to another one.  It also worked out nicely that Calum and Michael’s colors were compliments

Luke: Luke gets gold because he is a sunshine boy!  Luke actually was the person I had the most trouble with, because I was flipping between gold, a lighter blue, or pink.  Pink ultimately was too close to red to make me be able to visualize what the marks looked like on each boy to my satisfaction.  It just looked ugly and clashing.  I went with gold because there is a lot of outward brightness in Luke.  He’s the kind of person where if he’s happy everyone else gets a bit happier, and gold also seemed fitting for the eventual shift into a rockstar and the amount of talent he has

Ashton: Ashton gets purple, but a deeper purple.  Dynamic but still relatively stable, has a lot of depth.  Purple is a secret color, but it’s still beautiful and it draws people in.  When I visualize it it ends up being a really dark shade, but in reality he’s probably more of a royal purple than a plum purple.  I feel bizarrely passionate about his color specifically.  I don’t know why that is.

The colors didn’t have any sort of influence on the fic, but they were deliberately chosen.

The World of the Fic: Chosen Soulmates

So here’s the thing.  I feel very strongly about love being a conscious decision that people make over and over.  It takes work.  It takes a deliberate commitment.

Soulmate aus kind of negate that.

So, how do you fix this?  Well, I did that by having these marks not necessarily indicate soulmates.  The way that the marks are described in the fic is that they indicate how easy it should be to love someone and how compatible two people are.  It doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll adore them forever and never leave their side.  You still need to put in the work.  (Luke shows this early on when Michael asks if he loves Calum and he says  “I don’t think I know him well enough for that yet.  I know I will, because the colors say it should be easy and I want to, but not like you do.”  He has made the decision to work toward loving Calum, but he knows that just having the colors doesn’t immediately make them love each other.)  In that way, it almost isn’t a soulmate au, at least not in the traditional way.  Things aren’t inevitable.  There is still an element of choice.

This was also shown with Ashton.  I don’t remember when I made the decision to give Ashton a Tragic Background with his dad, but I know it was relatively early because by the time I wrote his introduction I knew that would happen.  I wanted to give a bit more of a reason for his hesitation to let them touch him, which I was already including because Ashton has always been the least touchy of the band, and I saw this as another opportunity to show that necessity of choice.  It’s sweeter to me for the boys to choose each other rather than to just be stuck with each other, and if Ashton hadn’t actually been a soulmate of theirs then I wanted there to be the assurance that they could still love him just as much, because all love is chosen.

In the end, having a broken soulbond in Ashton’s past was a good way to accomplish all of that.  It’s heartbreaking to not be chosen despite the fact that it should be easy, but once Ashton accepts that Michael, Calum, and Luke are vehemently choosing him with or without the soulmark, it makes his acceptance of their love very sweet to me.  He’s saying that he trusts them to put in the work to love him.  The scene where he talks to Michael in the car and the scene where he accepts their touches and soulmarks are probably my two favorite scenes in the fic.

The World of the Fic: Touch

In a world where the first skin-on-skin contact can indicate whether it’ll be extremely easy for you to love someone, how common would touch be?  Would we greet people with handshakes still?  Would gloves be more common fashion accessories?  Would touching someone be a Big Deal?

Hence, the First Touch was born!

I figured that, with touch possibly being a lot more significant in this world, people would be a lot more careful about whether they make skin-on-skin contact.  Kids would be taught that it’s impolite to try to touch someone, to a more extreme degree than they are now.  Handshakes simply are not a greeting anymore.  Instead, sometimes the first contact people make is considered a big deal, seeing as it can indicate whether two people are soulmates or not.

I figured that Luke especially would enjoy important first touches, because he’s a sentimental sweetie.  Of course, his first touch with Michael ended up being special simply because it was with each other :)

This also let me really lean into Ashton being touch-adverse.  Now on top of not liking touch, he also has another reason to avoid it, which makes every cuddle moment after the first touch even better, because he’s definitely touch starved.  The band cuddles him so much once they share the colors.

The World of the Fic: Platonic Soulmates

Guys. GUYS. I love platonic soulmates. I love them a lot.  I feel very passionately about them.  Romantic love is not the pinnacle of human love, and as someone who cannot at this point see myself with a romantic partner I really wanted to ensure that platonic soulmates were a thing.  Given that information, it’s a no-brainer that I included them in this fic.  Part of the appeal of this type of soulmate au was that it gave opportunity for more than one soulmate and more than one type of soulmate.  As such, platonic, familial, and romantic soulmates could all be indicated by the colors.  I also really liked that there wasn’t any sort of differentiation between the types of soulmates.  One type of love isn’t hailed over the others.  It’s an even playing field here.

That was one of the things that immediately drew me to this type of prompt, actually.  I wanted to write a fic about Michael parsing through his emotions and figuring out what he feels for Calum.  The difference between platonic and romantic love has always been very interesting to me, because I find that the line can be pretty blurry personally.  The best way to do that was to give him a set of soulmates who he cares about equally but in different ways.  

The following excerpt really is the theme of the story to me:  “Calum is an old, comfortable sweater, but Luke is like a favorite pair of shoes.  They both fit him perfectly.  He feels more at home when either of them are around, and although the love he has for Calum is different, he thinks he could love Luke just as much.”  Each of us love everyone we meet a little differently, because everyone is a different person, but different doesn’t mean unequal.

While the fic is about Michael figuring himself out, it’s equally a love story between all four of them.  The moments where Michael finds out he’s soulmates with Luke and Ashton were just as important to me as the moment he and Calum get together, and I really wanted to be sure that each relationship had it’s time in the limelight.  That’s ultimately why the idea of puzzle pieces became a theme (that I added on editing).  I like the idea of all of them coming together to create something bigger than themselves.  They fit.  They click.  They are better for it.  The first time someone referred to this as an ot4 fic it threw me off, because only malum is romantic in it, but I really like that classification for it, because it is.

Asexual Representation (Accidentally)

I didn’t know I was writing Michael as ace until about 4 days before I posted the fic.

Looking back, that’s a little bit ridiculous, because I was brainstorming this fic for three and a half months and actively writing it for two before I realized.  I believe there was a conversation in the discord about ace rep in fics (Bella and I think Heath were part of it, I can’t remember any other participants), and I thought to myself “hey I’m ace and like ace rep, Michael in the soulmate colors au could probably be ace.”  Lo and behold, he already was.  All I had to do was add a few sentences and finish the fic (I hadn’t written the scenes in England yet).

My asexuality definitely influenced the way I had been writing Michael’s confusion over his feelings for Calum.  Part of the reason I myself see the line between platonic and romantic as so blurry is because I’m ace and so much of romantic love in media is tied in with sexual attraction.  When you don’t feel sexual attraction, that can get confusing, especially since most strong feelings of love are depicted to be romantic.

While Michael and I had very, very different paths to figuring out our sexualities, I drew on my own experiences of ace-ness to write him.  This was a bit more apparent in the sequel scene Bedroom Activities, but it ended up becoming a core of the story.  I genuinely don’t know how I didn’t realize that’s what I was writing.

As an ace person, ace rep means a lot to me, given how little of it is in popular media.  I’m glad I explored it so early on in my 5sos fic career, and I’m proud of this one.

Miscellaneous Things

The process of writing this story was, as I stated before, pretty linear.  I went from the start to the end without a lot of planning.  I specifically had no clue what was happening at the Hot Chelle Rae afterparty until it was happening.  The kiss came out of no where.  However, I want to point out that initially I thought this fic would be 8k.  It is now my third longest fic ever written.  I have never learned to correctly estimate how long a fic I’m writing will be.

I have a few various favorite lines, but one repeated theme I love is Michael craving Calum’s touch.  I say he’s touch-starved for him twice, once relatively early on and once at the end, and I love that Calum’s touch has been a constant for Michael.  They had their first touch accidentally and became best friends immediately in the way that little kids do, so Michael has always had him as a constant, tactile presence in his life.  That’s why losing him to Luke scared him so much and why then gaining Luke and Ashton as soulmates is so good for him.

I really like referring to Michael, Luke, and Calum as a triangle.  I first did it in this fic, but it’s now my tag for the three of them.  Idk I just like how equally distributed a triangle is, all sides touching, no one left out.

Branching off of this, one of my favorite lines is when Ashton and Michael do their first touch: “The dark purple reminds him of spilling grape juice on his clothes as a kid, and when he collapses into Ashton he feels like they could have known each other at that age, too.”  There is something so charming about meeting someone later and feeling like you’ve known them your whole life, and that was significant here because Michael has known Calum and Luke since they were younger (although Luke did come in the picture when they were tweens/young teens instead of kids).  I wanted to be sure that although Michael, Calum, and Luke are the triangle, Ashton is an equal part of their soulmate group.  He doesn’t have the same history, but that doesn’t matter because it feels like he does.

Luke’s obsession with soulmate statistics is a convenient plot device and partially a result of his mom being a math teacher.  Above all things, it’s a manifestation of his desire to be loved.  The guy just wants to be loved!!! and he wants others to be loved, too!!!

This is by far my favorite fic that I’ve written.  It’s not perfect (there are for sure two lines that I would change, and I think I could’ve done things differently with the very slight OCD I gave Michael that manifested in his hand washing), but I love it dearly.  It’s the type of fic that I would’ve loved to read, and the response to it has been wonderful.  Thank you to everyone who has read it and special shout out to everyone who has made it to the end of this very long director’s notes <3

[shemakesmusic-uk]

Texan-born, Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and TikTok personality Allison Ponthier makes a splash with 'Cowboy' – it's the enthralling first taste of her upcoming EP. Finding a path away from her conservative upbringing, queer singer-songwriter Allison Ponthier is another artist making country music her own. Taking references from Kacey Musgraves and Orville Peck, Ponthier's take on the genre is high camp and features a kaleidoscopic visual world too. Growing a huge following on TikTok, 'Cowboy' marks the start of a whole new chapter for Ponthier with her debut release with Interscope and Polydor. The track itself references her move from the bible belt to New York City and her journey accepting her sexuality. Warm and inviting 'Cowboy' is cinematic pop with some real heart-on-sleeve confessional songwriting. Complete with a masterful music video that runs like a mini-movie complete with impressive special effects, on reflection, cinematic is an understatement. The video itself is a striking and exciting introduction to this new artist, “I probably watch movies more than I listen to music,” Ponthier says of the video. The clip, directed by Jordan Bahat (Christine and the Queens) adds a whole new cosmic energy to the track and aims to amplify the lyrics' detailed storytelling. As she unveils more of her forthcoming debut EP, Ponthier explains what we can expect from her; “a lot of my songs are about being uncomfortable in your own skin but getting to know yourself better, figuring out who you really are.” [via the Line Of Best Fit]

Miley Cyrus has shared the full video for 'Angels Like You'. The pop rebel returned in 2020 with her excellent album Plastic Hearts, a series of superb empowerment anthems. Album highlight 'Angels Like You' has received the video treatment, shot at the Superbowl in front of an audience of fully vaccinated healthcare workers. Miley has also provided a note for the video describing her feelings of gratitude to these workers. [via Clash]

LA punk four-piece The Paranoyds have dropped a new video for track 'Egg Salad', taken from their album Carnage Bargain which is out now on Suicide Squeeze. The video's director Nicole Stunwyck comments "The video presents the glitzy & glamorous world of a teenage girl who, after accidentally catching a beauty pageant on TV, dreams of her rise to stardom & subsequent downfall... It’s not a commentary on anything but an experimental depiction of my own personal fascination for young tragic starlets alà Valley of The Dolls."

Noga Erez and collaborative partner ROUSSO have shared a fifth compelling new single from forthcoming album KIDS which is set for release on March 26 via City Slang. 'Story' is a snappy, addictive song about how couples relationships are always a relationship between two people’s past and present. "Everyone brings their past experiences to the relationship even if things are great" Erez comments. "Sometimes past situations come in and take over." As with the album's previous singles 'Story' is brought to life with a captivating video, starring Erez and ROUSSO, who also provides vocals on the track. "ROUSSO is my partner in music as well as my partner in life" she explains. "This is the first time we tell a story about our relationship in a song and video. It’s a song about a couple fighting and how, in that situation, sometimes what you hear the other person say is not what they actually said. The making of this video was a 10-day couples therapy session for us. As we rehearsed the pretend fighting and martial arts moves we knew that, at times, one of us would get punched just a little too hard. It was so intense and interesting to live in this world, where our relationship comes alive in the most physical way."

After announcing Detritus with lead outing 'Stories' last month, Sarah Neufeld has unveiled the album's second single 'With Love and Blindness'. Neufeld says of the song and Jason Last-directed video, "The video for 'With Love and Blindness' came together through a long-time collaboration between myself and videographer Jason Last. I knew that Jason and I would work together again on some visual aspect for my third solo release, and it so happened that before I even began recording the album, we were presented with the opportunity to do a mini residence on Corsica with Providenza; an amazing collective with a farm, cultural laboratory, festival and residency program." She continues, "I was doing a short solo tour in Europe in the summer of 2019 in order to re-work some of the pieces from the dance collaboration to begin to find a shape for the album that was to be recorded in the Fall. In the middle of that tour, Jason and I travelled to Corsica for several days (graced once again with a suitcase containing Esteban Cortazar’s unique and beautiful creations). Besides performing in Providenza’s outdoor amphitheater, we were immersed in nature, literally staying in a treehouse perched on the side of a mountain, overlooking the dramatic coastline." Neufeld adds, "I found that the pulse of the landscape resonated with the essence of the music, especially "With Love and Blindness"; a sense of rawness, of sensuality, of a strange gravity intensified by the hypnotic summer heat and the general otherworldliness of the place." [via the Line Of Best Fit]

Molly Burman was brought up around music. At every family event, every party, the soundtrack would resonate with her, providing an education in itself. Both parents were gigging musicians, and she always wanted to follow in their footsteps, to use performance as a means of self-expression. Lockdown brought the time and space to bring these ideas into focus, and she's working to unveil a series of one off singles. Her debut single proper 'Fool Me With Flattery' is out now, a blissfully melodic piece of indie pop with some whip-smart lyricism. There's a tongue in cheek element to her sound that is fantastically endearing, matched by the subtle lo-fi elements of her bedroom pop confection. She comments: "I wrote the song after a long day of feeling overlooked and ignored by some of the guys in my life. I was fed up, angry and used the stereotype of a mansplaining misogynist to let it all out. This song is for anyone who feels belittled and like they’re being made to shrink themselves; be as big as you possibly can, and don’t let anyone fool you with flattery." The video is a hilarious showcase for Molly's offbeat sense of humour. [via Clash]

Punk provocateurs Pussy Riot have unveiled their latest song 'Panic Attack', as well as a music video that features a hologram of singer Nadya Tolokonnikova. This is the final release from Pussy Riot’s new Panic Attack EP, a collection of three linked songs that, for now, can only be streamed as separate singles. The title track features punk guitars underneath a tinkling music box melody, as Tolokonnikova turns anxiety into a sports cheer. “Gimme an A,” she says, “Gimme a T/ Gimme a T/ Gimme an A/ Gimme a C/ Gimme a K/ Okay? Okay.” While upbeat and seemingly cheerful, the synth-punk song comes out of the trauma she experienced in a Russian prison camp. As she explained in a statement, “After serving 2 years in a labor camp, I’m still struggling with mental health issues. Trauma, fear and insecurity never fully go away, causing depression episodes and deep anxiety. ‘PANIC ATTACK’ was born as the result of me staring at the wall for 24 hours in the middle of the pandemic, feeling 100% helpless. I was trying to write something uplifting to encourage people to get through the tough times. But I was just failing and failing. Magically, at the second I allowed myself to be honest and write about despair I was experiencing, I wrote the track in like a half an hour. Depression is a plague of the 21st century, and it tells me that there’s something broken in the way we treat each other. The video ‘PANIC ATTACK’ reflects on objectification of human beings, loneliness, disconnection from the environment that causes us to feel small and powerless. And it’s us who caused it with our own hands – that’s why in the end of the video I’m fighting with my own clone.” The music video for 'Panic Attack' was directed by  Asad J. Malik. He used 106 cameras to capture all angles of Tolokonnikova, then converted that information into a photoreal hologram. Afterwards, Tokyo-based creative technologist Ruben Fro built out landscapes reminiscent of video games through which the virtual Tolokonnikova could frolic. But as the visuals progress, those idyllic settings give way to a hellscape, and the singer faces off against a clone of herself. [via Consequence of Sound]

The wait is finally over. BLACKPINK’s Rosé shines like the star she is with her official solo debut. On Friday, she released two solo songs on her debut single album titled R, 'On the Ground' and 'Gone.' With its deep lyrics, angelic bridge, and Rosé’s high note at the end, 'On the Ground' is an exemplary song for her solo debut. Add the fact that Rosé is credited as a writer for the song, and one can really tell how much time she spent perfecting it for release. The accompanying music video, meanwhile, expands the story of life and growth. Rosé starts off looking lost and trying to find herself amidst all the wildness of life; she eventually encounters past and present versions of herself while searching for answers and purpose. By the end, she finds herself and her path forward, and one can’t help but smile as she sings an explosive outro. [via Teen Vogue]

On Ellise's latest alt-pop concoction the rising pop star gets gothic as 'Feeling Something Bad...' transforms a crush into an obsession. An expert at catastrophising everyday experiences, the LA-based artist has arrived fully formed with not only a consistent and cohesive sound but a striking visual identity too. That's even more clear when you press play on the accompanying video for her latest infectiously catchy track. With the clip directed by Joakim Carlsson we get to see Ellise in her absolute element as she brings "Feeling Something Bad..." to life in a macabre world of its own. “I just love dramatising little everyday feelings in life, so this is my big dramatic ‘I have a crush on you’ song,” Ellise explains – it's a song she wrote about a boy she barely knew. [via the Line Of Best Fit]

With President Biden determined to get the majority of American adults vaccinated by summer, bands are earnestly beginning to look forward to the return of live music. Purity Ring are the latest to announce 2021 tour dates, which they’ve shared alongside the video for their track 'sinew'. The song comes from WOMB, the synth-pop duo’s first album in five years that was released just before the pandemic struck. Directed by Toby Stretch, the clip brings back the abstract graphics and costumes that featured in the 'stardew' music video, continuing the enigmatic story of the domed bicyclist and their sun-headed sidecar companion. [via Consequence of Sound]

Australian Pop Princess, Peach PRC releases the official music video for her debut single 'Josh'. Peach PRC comments on the official 'Josh' visuals, “The music video was inspired by growing up watching the same five infomercials, morning news channels and old movies on my little pink box tv when I was a kid and couldn’t sleep on a school night. The idea was to have “josh” feel just as harassed the more he tries to call. Every creative step along the way was entirely my vision, from writing the music video script, to the lyrics and everything in between. I’m so happy and hope all the girls, gays and theys who dated “josh” will sing along.”

[samreviewsmovies]

Bo Burnham: Inside

Year: May 30, 2021

Director: Bo Burnham

Writer:  Bo Burnham

Actor:  Bo Burnham

Produced by:  Josh Senior

Synopsis:  Recorded in his home during the COVID-19 pandemic without a crew or audience, it was released on Netflix on May 30, 2021. It features a variety of songs and sketches about his day-to-day life indoors; he depicts his deteriorating mental health and explores themes of performativity and his relationship to his audience. Other songs are about internet activities including calling one's mother on FaceTime, taking photos for Instagram, and video game streaming.

Rating:

Rotten Tomatoes: 97%

My Rating: 9/10

Platform: Netflix 

Thoughts: I’ve got to say right of the bat, that Bo Burnham is a very talented person. To be able to do all the things to produce a piece of work of this magnitude, and quality, and be as thought provoking, the man is quite possibly a genius or a mad. Probably, more the latter, if the content of his special has anything to say about it, but by all means, he is very clever and a hard worker. So, kudos to you, Mr. Burnham.

For a moment, I was hesitant to include this on my blog, because it’s not a movie or a tv show, but it’s not your typical comedy special either, if it can be call comedy. To me, it’s more of a piece of a piece of art. And I don’t mean, hang it in the Louvre, it’s the best thing since Monet’s Water Lilies, (even though I really enjoyed looking at the cinematography) but it makes us see things from a different perspective. The special asks uncomfortable questions that there aren’t really answers to. It’s social commentary, it reflects something about us in this moment, which is something that I think that good films and shows should do. Make us think and make us feel, way past the time we’ve gotten up from our seats. This special hasn’t quite left the back of my mind since I watched it earlier this month, (Future Sam, that’s June 2021 because you won’t remember) but that could because of how catchy the songs are or how they’re all over Tiktok. Probably Tiktok. 

I know I said this not even two paragraphs ago, but Bo is really talented. From the way he analyzes musical trends to make catchy songs, from the points he brings up that are true and uncomfortable, and to the way the film was shot. I liked his transitions, I liked his use of lighting and projectors to influence the moods of his pieces, and use some not so subtle tongue and cheek symbolism. Yeah, I’m talking about the overlaid cross just so we’re clear. And these are things that movies do, that stage plays do, but that’s done by a whole crew of people. He put this together on his own. And he did a really, really good job.

Something that this piece does well, is make us question what is real and what is a performance, which I think is it’s intention and a critique. We’re all so geared to social media these days and trying to put our best self forward that we kind of ignore the real self. Not that that is necessarily only for social media, we’ve been doing it for years before the internet, and even in our heads with perceptions of other people we build up. Bo achieves this effect by interspersing his editing moments and his down moments between the performance pieces. We see the loneliness, the frustration, the despair, the daily annoyances, things that don’t usually make it to the screen. These might be true, human moments, (I’m inclined to think most of them are. It’s hard to be a creative, even before the added pressure of being a big name star, and it’s hard being human, too) but by the fact that he then chose to edit them into the film, they become part of the performance and maybe less real. He didn’t have to, he’s made them in to performance pieces. So who’s to say what’s real and what’s fake. Only he can, and even then does it really matter? Isn’t it funny how in movies and shows, the actors can be feeling real things, drawing from personal experience, but those emotions are ‘fake’. To make us feel real emotions, we have to watch unreal things.

All of his songs have some kind of message, some kind of deeper meaning, even if on the surface level they don’t seem like much. I’m going to highlight three songs/moments that really struck me on an emotional level. In no particular order they are: the laugh during “Welcome to the Internet,” “That Funny Feeling,” and “All Eyes on Me.”

“Welcome to the Internet” says a lot, about how all the different things we do, the things that you can find, how we interact with others. It was always meant to be a tool, but it has become a lifestyle. We spend a lot of time on it, and I’m not saying that’s good or bad, it just is. We spend a lot of time on the internet. And There is a whole generation of people growing up that have always had the internet around for them. The song has it’s own kind of story, being bombarded by information, it feels bad, out of control, and then Bo shifts the story into something softer, hopeful when you think that we’re out our most angry, our most insane, at our lowest. “It has always been the plan/ To put the world in your hand” and that line moved me. It was hope. It was good intentions. And then there is the laugh that plunges you into horror and madness. And that moment was *chef’s kiss*. I wish I could go back to rewatch that moment for the first time for the emotions it gave me. 

“That Funny Feeling,” is a funny (ha) one for me to try to write about. It’s hard to put my finger on. A song of juxtapositions, some funny and some sad. It starts with the performance of someone who’s insecure, yet is putting themself willingly on stage. I had to laugh, because I could imagine that kind of person. We know who they are. That and this song, is admittedly in the genre of music I like to listen to, so I had to laugh at myself. (See, it can be comedy sometimes!) Listening to the song gives me a funny feeling that I can’t put my finger on after listening to lines like “ A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall“ and “A book on getting better hand-delivered by a drone”. I feel like I need a hot bath and a good cry, but I also feel numbed and expectant. This happens everyday, and it’s awful, but do I really care anymore?

Derealization: derealization disorder occurs when you persistently or repeatedly have the feeling that you're observing yourself from outside your body or you have a sense that things around you aren't real, or both. Feelings of depersonalization and derealization can be very disturbing and may feel like you're living in a dream.

“All Eyes on Me” is essentially a slow party at the end of the world, that just picks up the pace. There is a touching moment, about Bo Burnham’s personal life, that’s brave of him to share, and a heavy dose of situational irony. The lines that really get me in this song is basically all of verse three. “ You say the ocean's rising like I give a shit/ You say the whole world's ending, honey, it already did/ You're not gonna slow it, Heaven knows you tried/ Got it? Good, now get inside”. It’s both sides of the coin, both things that we might find ourselves thinking about every day, or at least I do. One half panic, fear, and dread and the other half a distant, nonchalance. How can you care when everything is the next greatest disaster, pulling your attention in many different directions to care about too many things. It’s overwhelming.

“How can you joke at a time like this?” Indeed. It’s either laugh, cry, or shut down completely. 

Extra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Burnham:_Inside

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Max’s Enemy

This might be the second worst episode of the first season, right behind Rapunzel’s Enemy. Don’t ask me why episodes with the word ‘enemy’ in their titles are bad in this show, they just are. 

Summary: A new horse, Axel, shows up in Corona and quickly shows up Max in every way, even joining the royal guard and beating all of Max's former records. However, only Max sees the devious nature of Axel's behavior; his true intention was to rescue Lady Caine from the dungeon, along with the gold transfer already planned.

This is Another Episode That’s Shown Out of Order

Once again, this is one of those episodes that was meant to be shown after Queen for a Day. Only moving this episode around isn’t the problem, it’s the fact that the writers didn’t think through the over all story of the following seasons. 

Ideally, this episode should have been switched with Under Raps. It wouldn’t have changed much in season one’s plot but it would have set up the reveals in seasons two and three better. 

My recommended viewing order would be after Great Expotaions 

Max’s Enemy

One Angry Princess

Queen for a Day

Painter's Block

Pascal's Story 

Big Brothers of Corona

Not In The Mood

Under Raps 

The Wrath of Ruthless Ruth

Way of the Willow 

The Quest for Varian

Then from there the rest of the season as is. It’s basically the original production order with Under Raps switched with Max’s Enemy, but only placed before TWoRR because in it King Frederic sees the entry about the balloon. 

We’ve Already Forgotten That Lance Has a Job

If this is suppose to take place after Big Brothers of Corona as intended, then why is Lance still helping Eugene with guard duty instead of being a cook, also why wasn’t he at the Snuggly Duckling in TWoRR if he’s meant to work there. Like some consistency would be nice show. Especially, if you want to have an overall arc with character development.  

Parallels Have Do Something Other Than Just Exist

Jealousy and validation is a recurring theme in the show. That’s because it’s the crux of Rapunzel’s and Cassandra’s core conflict with one another, which in turn becomes the main conflict of the last two seasons. Only here’s the thing; that’s not a nuanced enough conflict to be sustainable for three seasons and simply having other characters randomly encounter this same conflict every other episode does nothing to actually stretch that main conflict out. 

A parallel has to actually add something to the show. It either needs to permanently push one of the main or supporting characters forward and help them develop, or it needs to pull double duty and be a plot point for the overall arc.  

I’ll go with Star Wars for example. There’s an obvious parallel between Luke wanting to redeem his father, Vader, and Rey wanting to redeem Ben/Kylo Ren. The movie The Last Jedi even points this parallel out directly to the audience. That’s because one fuels the other. Rey is inspired by Luke’s story and wants to do what he did. The parallel become both a point of character development for both herself and Ben and also becomes a major plot point in the following two movies. That’s how a parallel is done. 

No one learns anything from this. No one grows. The status quo is not changed in the slightest. Max doesn’t become a different person by the end, Rapunzel doesn’t apply whatever lesson she says she’s learned here, and Cassandra isn’t even present in the episode.  

Dream Sequences are Lazy 

Ok, not all dream sequences obviously, but ones that only reiterate what the character is feeling are. 

I was watching a commentary on The Incredibles DVD, and in it, the director Brad Bird was discussing why they cut out a planned dream sequence for the film. There was no need for it. It spelled things out too much the audience. A good writer shows what a character is feeling without the use of overt symbolism.  

A proper use of a dream in a story is to make it a plot point. Is it a prophecy that pushes the characters to take action, like in Star Wars? Is it establishing that a character even has problem, a problem like PTSD for instance? Is it an excuse to get an elephant up in a tree? What is it?

Have your dream sequence actually do something or otherwise you’re just wasting everybody’s time, speaking of which. 

This Episode Is a Waste of Time

We talked about filler fatigue last episode, and that was mainly because of poor pacing, but here it applies because of poor plotting. People just aren’t invested in seeing Max get a rival. A rival who does nothing outside of this one episode. We’d rather focus on the ongoing story or one of the other established plots. Instead of this episode we could have had, an episode focusing on Varian and his time spent as fugitive, more backstory on Corona’s past with the Saporians and/or Zhan Tiri, or even just an episode fleshing out other recurring baddies, like say oh, Lady Caine or the Baron for instance. 

Rewarding Bad Behavior 

Regardless of whether Max was right about Axel, he did indeed behave badly. There’s no acknowledgement that he was in wrong as well and that acting upon your jealousy is bad. In fact the show not only justifies this poor behavior by making Max’s rival a villain it also has Rapunzel reward Max with the validation he so desires by apologizing to him. Even though she actually didn’t do anything wrong herself. The show doesn’t want to hold it’s mains accountable for anything and so no one learns or growns and the wrong lesson is taught. 

Hi, Lady Caine

Bye, Lady Caine 

What should have been the main villain of the series is treated as no more than a convenient plot point. She was presented to the audience as a major player, with a complex backstory and deeper motivations then the usual one off baddies. But since then she only makes two more appearances, is easily defeated in each, and her backstory and original motivation is all but forgotten. She doesn’t even get a bare bones basic resolution. She’s just dropped from the story altogether. 

That’s not some clever bait and switch. That’s just poor storytelling. It’s a lack of set and resolve. It’s misleading to your audience to the point of frustration and wasting a great concept so you can piddle around with crap that don’t actually matter.      

Conclusion

Out of all the mandated ‘animal’ episodes that marketing pushed for this is one of the most useless. It would be the worst if not for King Pascal in season two, and it’s easily the worst out of all the Max focused episodes. These characters aren’t meant to carry stories of their own. They’re aren’t complex enough for that. You have to pair them with some other character or story concept for it to work. Overall the episode is boring, stale, and predictable because of this. 

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven DVD Commentaries: 5.14 - New World Order

Commentary with Brian Millikin and Nick Parker, writers for the episode

BM: We knew going in to this 26 episode season that it was going to be basically two 13 episode seasons. But it was really useful for us to know that from the get go, that it wasn’t going to air in one giant 26 episode season. So we broke it that way; we knew in the season arc road map some of the bigger things that we were moving towards, and we able to spread it out over 26 episodes.

NP: Yeah so season 5A was all about Mara and Duke getting worse and worse and what she was doing to him. And then season 5B is about coming up with some sort of resolution because stuff now is worse than it’s ever been before. BM: Yeah, it was always going to be the Mara season for 5A; she was the big bad and we were going to be dealing with her, and we knew that Mara would die at the end of 5.13 - that Charlotte would wind up choosing Audrey over Mara. And then we knew that the next 13 episodes were going to deal largely with the aftermath of the Mara of it all. Because we knew that Charlotte’s choice would have some ramifications for her relationship with Audrey but we also knew that Mara would have this “evil plan” that would still come to fruition even though Mara herself is gone. And we knew that was going to be turning Duke into what we called a Trouble Bomb. NP: Yeah, she basically weaponised Duke. And weaponised the Troubles in some ways. BM: Yeah, we had become really attached to the idea that the Crockers had been absorbing those Troubles all those years, not just eradicating them. So it became really a convienient story for us that she could almost turn Duke into a Trouble giving machine. NP: One of the things I always liked is that the Troubles had been absorbed and lived in the bloodline rather than being eradicated. So it’s not just Duke and the Troubles that he’s killed, it’s all of the Crockers from the past, ever, which really gives a sense of scope and how long this has been going on for. BM: Yeah it’s the right kind of reveal for me. We detest a retcon; looking back and changing something that was set up earlier. What I prefer is a deepening of the understanding of stuff. So it wasn’t that the Crockers were getting rid of Troubles, they were actually absorbing them, but that doesn’t really erase anything that we had done before. There’s a reveal coming up in this episode about what the Barn was going to do and it’s a similar thing; you just learn a little bit more and look at it a bit differently, but it’s not undoing anything that we had set up before. NP: And I think also, with the Troubles being more visible and out there than ever (which is what this episode is also about) what I liked is that we could live in the reality of that and actually have people talk about it and deal with that in a more public way. Vince and Dave have always been the lore keepers and always hiding secrets. BM: Sure, but look - in this very scene [Vince and Dave talking to Nathan and Dwight in the station] they’re actually *telling people what they know*, which wouldn’t have happened a couple of seasons ago. NP: And I think it speaks to the fact that things are worse in Haven than they’ve ever been before. BM: Sure. And that had always been the plan for 5B. We didn’t know if this was going to be the last season of the show or not (and it may or may not be, even at the point we’re recording this commentary), but we knew that this would be a fitting end point. And so we had always intended to get to this point where Haven was at its darkest hour, both in terms of what’s going on with anyone in Haven could be Troubled, and also what’s happening with the shroud, of Haven being cut off from the rest of the world. It’s kind of set Haven into - I don’t want to say post-apocalyptic (we even joked about it being the Walking Dead in Haven) - but it’s just got, serious. Just more dangerous than it has been before, and pushed things to the breaking point. NP: I think this episode definitely sets that up and then the following two really live in that. And then they start to figure things out. BM: It’s funny, Nick and I at one point were going to be writing episodes 15 and 16 so were really heavily into living into Haven with the shroud. So then when we - for a variety of production reasons - got shifted to the episode 14 slot I think it helped us with this episode to have been working on 15 and 16. Because we ended up understanding a bit more than anyone else did at that point exactly how screwed Haven was going to be. Everyone else was still dealing with episodes 9 to 13, but we had been thinking about 15 and 16. So this episode, 14, was always going to be about watching it get to that point, so that was good preparation for us. This whole episode is kind of a downward slope of things getting worse and worse, and us trying to fix something the solution actually ends up making things more complicated.. NP: I think what’s also interesting about this episode is that it’s the season premier for 5A but because we broke it as part of this 26 episode run, it kind of straddles an interesting line where it’s almost acting as a season finale for 5A as well as the premiere for 5B, it’s a bit of a middle ground - it’s an episode that has to accomplish a lot. But it let us have some fun. Plus, Shawn Pillar, is a great director and loves to do some cool visual stuff so we actually got to go a lot bigger with our visual effects and ideas. BM: Our producers may have felt those ideas were a little too big at times. But we had always talked about it being a little bit like a disaster movie - disaster in Haven. Everything’s going bad and it’s all hands on deck, so even in this scene here [Duke waking up in the wheelchair in the hospital] there’s people running around in the background and sirens going off, explosions and stuff. But that was something we hadn’t done before in this way. There was a bit of it with the meteors at the end of season three, but we didn’t see the full effects of that because of the six month jump between season three and four, whereas now we’re living in it. NP: And that was one of the fun things about writing the season three comic book; I got to live in that moment and talk about the crazy things that were happening then. And this time we actually get to show the crazy things on screen which was a lot of fun. BM: And in addition to what Duke being a Trouble Bomb did for us in terms of now anyone in Haven could be Troubled, we also really liked what it did for Duke. I mean, obviously we don’t like it because he’s now dealing with pretty much the worst guilt ever. But something else that we had known was that in 5A Duke and Mara were going to be doing this kind of dance with each other and in the end she was going to beat him; he was going to kind of get played by here. And the guilt from that and everything else that’s been building up for all of these seasons was going to finally drive Duke to do what he had talked about doing in other episodes (like Crush) and leave town. NP: Oh a brief aside here, I like in this scene with all the people frozen where a Trouble’s been activated but it refers back to a previous Shawn Pillar show, The Dead Zone. Which you also worked on. BM: That’s right. I was just an assistant back then but this was one of their go-to moves, when Johnny Smith would have one of his visions, everyone would be frozen. And it ends up looking really cool, because it’s just kind of creepy. And it’s also one of the cheapest things to do, quite frankly, because everyone’s just standing still. NP: But it looks great. NP: Yeah. There were a couple takes we couldn’t use because someone was blinking, but it totally works. So we threw that in there for Shawn and also because we knew, as you’ll see later in the season, that it would be a Trouble that we would call upon again. And in very useful ways. NP: Yeah this episode sets up a lot of stuff that we’ll play off later in the season. BM: And that was sort of a benefit of us having a 26 episode plan. When we started working on 5.01, we knew what was going to happen in 5.26. And it didn’t really change that much; you always have to make adjustments, but we’re dealing with more and more Croatoan stuff here and we set that up from the get go.

*impressed noises of surprise from both of them as we see the car drive up to the frozen people at the fog wall, get turned around by it and smash into some of the people, shattering them * NP: Ooh, that was pretty good BM: That looked great. NP: Shawn Pillar directing the acting sequences; some quick cuts. I think that guy was probably driving about 25 miles an hour.

BM: I cannot tell you how much we talked about whether cell phones would still work or not with the shroud up. NP: Oh my god. BM: We were dealing with cell phone experts. Because it’s like; If there’s a shroud around the town and they can’t communicate with the satellite then it’s over. But other people were like; Well there’s still a couple cell towers in the town. Ultimately we just kind of wound up going with it. NP: Yeah. I think the rule we settled on was that cell phones inside the shroud would work with each other, but not be able to reach anyone outside. BM: Right. And you and I were in the camp for having no cell phones, but it’s just sort of impractical for a TV show these days.

[As Dwight gathers all of HPD together to tell them the Troubles are real] BM: Now, what’s happening here was something that we were super-excited about doing. NP: So fun. BM: So, so happy that we finally got to do it. And it’s something we’ve been talking about doing since the first day of the series. Which is finally letting the other cops in on it. Rebecca Rafferty maybe knew, and maybe Laverne seemed like they kind of knew. But Stan we’ve always been playing him as pretty oblivious. Which leads to one of my favourite Stan moments in all of the seasons. And this was fun, it’s good to be able to have them break it down and be honest, and just be like; We’ve got to rally, we’ve got to come together on this. BM: This was always a kind of ‘tale of two speeches’ episode. We knew that there would be this speech, and then there would be Dwight’s other speech later. I thought he did a great job with this one. Because he had to dance around the fact that some people maybe already know about the Troubles, other people are going to be surprised. NP: Both of these speeches were really fun to write. And both of them didn’t really change. BM: But what’s crazy is that it took us this long to get to this point. Despite everything that’s happened - meteors falling from the sky… aliens - but it took until now for them to officially let all the other cops in on it. NP: We’ve got to have all hands on deck for this. BM: Most of the cops in this scene are background actors that we’ve used for years. And I thought they really brought it. They often don’t get enough spotlight treatment on our show. Even though we’re a bit of cop show, we pretty much only deal with our main characters. But from Glen, who plays Stan, they all do a great job.

NP: What I really like about the way Shawn lit and directed these post-disaster episodes is that everything’s a little bit dim, everything’s a little bit darker; you really get the sense that they are in a rough, rought spot.

BM: So, going back to what we were talking about with the Duke of it all, we knew going in to this episode that by the end of it, Duke would be leaving. So we wanted to start him in a place here with Nathan where they’re on pretty good terms. We wanted to get the bro hugs in and wanted for things to at first seem like just another episode where maybe they’re going to be able to take care of everything. And then by the end of the episode it all sort of falls apart. The speech to the cops winds up not really working and Duke is about to abandon Haven at the end of the episode. We knew that we wanted to shake it up in 5B, so we knew that we wanted Duke to get out of there. We also knew there was a story to tell with him learning  about himself and figuring himself out, outside of town, and then having to fight his way back in. And we knew that Duke was the only one who could pass in and out of the shroud, so it all worked.

*dramatic pause in the commentary to listen to the end of Dwight’s speech to the cops, and Stan’s confused response* BM: This was our show runner Matt McGuinness’s favourite line in the episode, coming up from Stan [Stan: What?!?!] *laughing* BM: Oh Glen. Glen nails it. Great timing. NP: Matt came in the day after we sent that script, he’d been on the bike in the gym reading it and came in telling us how he burst out laughing, startling everyone around him. And I figured that was a good endorsement from our showrunner.

[Gloria getting her bottle of tequila for Dave to trigger his visions] BM: How much of an alcoholic is Gloria? Would we describe her as a problematic alcoholic? Is she just a social drinker? NP: I mean, she’s functional, I guess. But she stores tequila in a body locker, at her job. That’s a problem.

BM: So this was a complicated dance we had to do with Alex Sena being the son of Joe Sena. I hope that was clear enough for the audience. It was a bit of a tough dance. But we also knew that by the end of this episode that Charlotte was going to have a falling out with Audrey. Even though she chose Audrey at the end of the last episode, and that was a big deal, they’re going to not see eye to eye. And that’s going to be their story for the next few episodes. So we wanted to start them here in a little bit of a good place and then obviously the shit hits the fan when the truth about the Barn comes out.

[Nathan with Duke, briefing everyone about ‘exploding girl’] BM: I really like this as well, this is something we haven’t really seen before - he’s got back up at a Troubled scene. NP: What I really like about this is that now it’s not one little team investigating the Troubles, it’s like, the entire town of Haven vs the Troubles. It takes on more of a war time feel to it.

BM: Now this guy who’s playing Alex Sena NP: Victor Zinck BM: Yes, we loved him in the audition but for whatever reason the role wound up going to someone else. And then the day before we started shooting we heard that the guy who had been given the role had broken his leg, and couldn’t get on the plane NP: I think it was his foot, or? BM: But so we wound up going back to Victor here, and I am happy that we did. No offence to the other guy. But I think he’s fantastic. NP: I think Victor in his audition tape had a really big mop of hair. BM: Yeah, he had to get a hair cut.

[As Alex Sena freezes all the cops and only Duke is left to talk to him] NP: So this is where we establish that Duke is immune to all the Troubles that came out of him. BM: Well we really needed just a little Trouble in this episode to help re-establish that Duke isn’t affected by the Troubles that came out of him. It’s kind of a set up for why and how he’s able to leave through the shroud. But we realised that wasn’t that clear, so it was an opportunity at the same time to tell a story about, what would it be like now if new people were Troulbed without knowing how to deal with it. And we actually haven’t done a Troubled cop before. And at the same time we’re telling a story about the cops trying to handle this crisis but just being a little bit unable do, out of lack of experience. NP: It’s just too big. There’re currently living in a terrarium, trapped with all of these Troubles. It’s intense. BM: They are standing right now [Duke trying to talk Alex down], right behind our production office. NP: Yes, and this was almost one of the last days in this production office before we made the move BM: Yes, just after this we start our move to Halifax. We have been shooting for five years in Chester, Nova Scotia, and now we’re moving about an hour up the coast. Our stages were on a hockey rink that come September we’ve got to give it back to them. But hockey is, let’s be honest, more important than the show. NP: Yep. BM: So we were shooting outside of Chester for the first time. Starting with episode 18 I think.

[Gloria: Oh I need a beer; tequila makes me thirsty] *both laugh* BM: Oh, Jayne Eastwood is an MVP. NP: You can give her any line and she’ll make it funny. She’s great. BM: We were lucky to get her for this episode. She’s a recurring character, not a regular, so it’s a little bit tough because we don’t have what they call a ‘hold’ on her. So every time we want her in an episode we have to figure out whether or not she’s doing something else. So we just got lucky with this episode. NP: It was also fun to write this little bit with Dave getting drunk because John Dunsworth, who plays him, on his other show Trailer Park Boys is a constant drunk on that show; he’s always stumbling around in his boxer shorts drunk as can be. So we’ve had a couple opportunities we’ve jumped at to have him act drunk. Here and in Crush when he had the bends. It’s always fun to see him act that. BM: And this wound up being a really important moment where we needed to see what’s going on with Dave; his tie to Croatoan. Just that name is the trigger for another one of these visions. And again this is something we’ve been setting up since the beginning of the season, with the wound in his leg and everything. We knew that we wanted there to be these visions and for them to realise that they’re not flashbacks at all, they’re real time present day memories now. Memories of somebody else.

[Back with Alex Sena, Duke and all the frozen cops] NP: I really liked this moment here which is that because everyone else is frozen, Duke is the one that has to do the curse whispering. Which is something that Audrey, and sometimes Nathan, has always done. BM: We very rarely see it be Duke. And we really wanted that to be in this episode, and it all kind of came together for us here when - it was almost like a curse anti-whispering as Alex here is whispering himself. But we knew that he could do it if it came from a place where he gets angry at Duke and blames Duke. NP: Which is something that evolved as the writing of this script went on. BM: Yeah there were tons of different versions of this scene. But once we landed on this one where Alex is curse-whispering himself and at the same time pushing Duke towards leaving town, then it really felt right. But again, it was another example of someone trying to fix something [Duke trying to Trouble whisper Alex] and it goes awry. NP: Which is what the show lives in a lot, which I like. [Alex Sena to Duke: You should get out of here. Before you get more people killed.] BM: And there’s no retort there - it’s a big deal when Duke doesn’t have a come back. NP: I think this might have been one of the last sunny days of filming up in Nova Scotia. BM: But it’s raining on Duke. NP: I think Eric Balfour just does a really good job. I mean we’ve talked about it before but he’s a very good actor with his face. He expresses a lot of emotion with just small looks. You can see how pained he is in that moment. BM: Absolutely. We talk a lot when we’re casting actors or watching dailies about their eyes. And it’s hard to put a finger on it but there’s just something that you can see on someone’s face that there’s something going on there; something more, something deeper. You can almost see what they’re thinking. And there are some actors, who shall remain nameless, who you just can’t. It’s weird. And it’s not the be all and end all but - Eric definitely has it. Whatever it is. NP: Yep, when you can just point a camera at him and have other people’s lines on his face and his expressions and you have that as an option, it’s great. BM: Absolutely. And there were plenty of times when we were going through scripts with Eric where we ended up cutting lines because he can do it with a look.

NP: There’s an important mythological conversation coming up here [between Charlotte and Audrey] BM: Oh yes, a huge mythology bomb, I think we refered to it as. But we needed to establish the rings, which we had seen in 5A but which are going to be much more important this season, and we needed to learn a bit about the Barn. And I think as soon as we decided that this was where that truth bomb about the Barn was going to come in, that from a certain point of view was going to cure the Troubles, but in reality was going to cure them by eradicating Troubled people. NP: Which was an important distinction. BM: So as soon as we determined that this was where that was going to come in, I think it really changed everything for us. We realised that Audrey and Charlotte’s relationship is going to be really important this season. She’s the closest thing to a mom that Audrey has, which is a big deal, but she’s about to discover that her and her mom don’t see eye to eye. And it fell in line with something that we always talked about with the Barn which was that it was this punishment device that was built for Mara to try and help teach Mara a lesson - NP: It was a rehabilitation programme essentially BM: Yeah, but we always talked about the idea that, and really liked the idea that the people who built it (Charlotte, really) they kind of didn’t get it. They were trying to teach Mara a lesson but it obviously didn’t work. Because they didn’t get to the heart of it. And by the same sort of way, Charlotte was trying to do a good thing (by cleaning up the mess that Mara made) by in a kind of a cruel way NP: This scored earth approach BM: So Charlotte, her heart’s in the right place but her head, is not. NP: Yes, and what this episode, and really this season is about is getting her head there too. BM: And she did a great job with this because Laura had to carry all of this exposition. And she nailed it. NP: Laura really is great. In this and other episodes, just as a function of her character knowing what she does and being from this other place, she had to download a lot of information and do it in compelling ways. And hopefully the writing does that, but regardless of how well the writing does it, she nails it with the acting. BM: Absolutely. It’s funny, there was a lot of talk before we cast Laura because we knew that she was going to be revealed to be Audrey’s mother, or Mara’s mother. But she’s only I think the same age as Emily. But we were totally confident in casting her because she carries herself in such a way in some of her roles. And we never heard any word from Emily or her or anyone struggling with it. They just kind of fell into it.

[Audrey and Nathan hug outside Lisa Hawkin’s place] BM: We talked a lot about this hug. It seemed kind of incidental on the page, but it was a big deal. They’d been split apart for a bunch of scenes. And this was the first season premiere we’ve ever done where they started it together and the two of them and their relationship is not the problem. There’s no Mara thing, she’s not off in weird Barn space, she hasn’t been kidnapped like at the start of season three, a doppelganger her didn’t show up like at the end of season one. So, for once, they’re not the problem and they have each other. And that was a big deal for us, going into season 5B. NP: Absolutely. I think it’s what differentiates this premiere and this season from others is that really 5B is about the town. The town as a war zone, the town of Haven. Which is nice to be able to come towards what is a wrapping up point and have the show really be about the town as a whole. BM: It’s funny, maybe it’s because of the ‘Save the cheerleader, save the world’ of it all - say what you will about Heroes, but we had sort of shortened it down in our pitch to the network and everyone that 5A was going to be ‘Save Audrey’ and 5B was ‘Save Haven’. And so we always knew that 5B would be, the mission would be to build a new Barn. And we have to finally cure the Troubles. So that’s where this episode came from, and we knew we were going to get to that at the very end, and we knew that in order to get there, because we hadn’t done it in seasons past, it hadn’t been the mission to cure the Troubles before. Both because they never had a way to (but now we’ve got Charlotte) but also because things had been bad before but had always been manageable. The Troubles would come and go but Haven was safe most of the time. But now it is not safe. Now it’s worse than ever, so it’s all hands on deck let’s try and cure this.

[Coming up to the earthquake-in-the-police-station scene] NP: This was a fun thing to write for Adam Copeland. And he nailed it. Because of his abilities as an actor, and maybe also because of his training as a wrestler. But he is a total bad ass in these. Super hard, super determined. And he plays it so well. BM: This scene was great. The idea of an earthquake in the police station was something that I think you and I had pitched to the powers that be really early on, and they were like; We could never produce that. And I was like; We’ll shake the camera, it’ll be like Star Trek. But everyone got on board now because conceptually we liked the idea of the whole mess in town hitting the police station. NP: We also needed to break the police station for a variety of reasons. We were going to move production up to Halifax. BM: That’s right, we were not going to have the set. It was going to be taken down and rebuilt an hour north in Halifax. That’s right. Jennifer Stewart, our fantastic production designer, called us  and thanked us. We were like; We need to break a bit of the set, it needs to be dusty and messy. And she was like; that’s great because we need to pull it apart anyway. So we were making it so that there was no way that we could go back into the police station for a few episodes until it’s fixed. NP: Yeah, a narrative explanation for a real world issue. BM: But it worked in this episode, so it was like; two birds, one stone. That’s what we do. NP: And do you remember the dailies of these scenes when we go them in? They were awesome because they shook the camera and had dust falling down and everything, but whatever was causing the shaking and the dust was really loud that the actors had to scream so loud to get over that noise that it worked great.

BM: So our idea with this sequence was that we wanted Dwight to see the way that the cops weren’t responding to the Troubles very well, they’ve almost shot Dwight, the station’s falling apart and now he gets the call from Nathan to say that there’s no way to take the shroud down. Just when he’s been kicked he gets a call telling him there’s no hope. So we’ve pushed Dwight to his second speech. With the first speech they had broken the dam a little bit, now he’s about to flood the truth out. So this is something else we’d always talked about in what may or may not be the last season of the show, one of the tenets we’d always held on to was that there’s some people in town who know about the Troubles. There are a lot of people who know about the Troubles but not everybody; we’re about, at most, like 25% of the town know. But that distinction is about to be erased. We wanted this episode to let everyone in on it. NP: And I think we always loved the idea of using the old air raid sirens. BM: Yeah, we had to sell some people on it. We figured there’d be these old speakers and Dwight would grab this old timey mic, and it felt Haven-y NP: Yeah it did BM: And we wanted to cut around to see the crowds listening, for this disaster movie feel. And it’s funny we were pretty worried about the speech and how it would come across NP: Both of the speeches BM: But they both worked out really well. I think it was jus tbecause it’s something we haven’t really done before. But it was great. NP: And it was stuff we’ve had in mind for a while. Working on the show for as long as we have, just kind of living in it. You kind of know what you would say to people to explain what it was really like. And so really it was just like putting those ideas down on paper BM: Yeah, when I was working on the speech I would just harken back to how I would explain the show to people. You know; there’s this town, with people who can do things, we call them Troubled. And we’re recording this commentary many months before this episode airs but we imagined when we saw the dailies [for Dwight giving his speech to the town and the residents outside listening] and how great it all looks - you could almost do a commercial with just this. Some shots of Dwight, some shots of the town and the audio and it would be; Wow - that show looks great! NP: This speech as a trailer on Netflix or whatever would nicely explain what the show is. BM: Yeah. Shawn, and everyone, did a great job wih this whole sequence here. And in many way this was the climax of the episode. NP: And a literal mic drop BM: But it felt right for a season premier to pull the rug out on everything that we knew about Haven up to this point. NP: And puts Dwight at total odds with Audrey and Nathan and their approach to things. This was the idea. BM: Yeah. But as big a moment as that was, we always knew, in the pitch, the outline, the script, that there would be another scene after that before the last commercial break, which is this here [Nathan and Audrey meeting Duke at the fog wall]. Even though Dwight’s speech was a big deal, we then come over here and Audrey and Nathan are about to receive one more gut punch. NP: Yeah because important as the town is, this show is mostly about this trio here. BM: Yeah. And for all the problems they’ve had, the three of them have been able to over come pretty much anything. I’m talking about time and space. NP: Yes. Time, space, death, age. BM: But the one thing they can’t really over come is if they’re broken. And Duke’s going to leave. I thought we’d get some push back at the idea that Duke would choose to leave, rather than getting pushed out or thrown out. I was always worried that people would say that it would make Duke too unlikeable. I think it’s because of Eric, because he’s so good that he’s able to sell it. And you feel sorry for him, and understand what he’s been through over the course of five seasons. Audrey’s like; Think of everything you’ve done. And Duke’s like; That’s the problem, I am thinking about it. NP: And it’s bad. BM: He was a happy go lucky Han Solo type, and look what’s happened to him. NP: And the loss of Jennifer. I think that is kind of a critical thing. Jennifer’s been gone for a while, but Duke has never gotten over it. BM: But what I liked about it was we were able to have him refer to history over five seasons of the show. And when you can have characters make decisions based on that kind of history, as opposed to things that happen in just one episode, I think that we’ve really succeeded. So I hope that rewards long time fans of the show, that he would actually turn and walk out through the shroud that they feel we’ve been building to this for a while. And I loved the idea that Nathan would run in to the fog and just come running right back out again. NP: I think the shroud is a cool idea and it looks really good. BM: And it was always in our plan and we thought it would turn the dial up on what’s happening in Haven. And the same with having the Guard take over; it’s another way of making it different. So this scene [Nathan talking to Dwight where Dwight throws down the chief badge] was always about Dwight taking off the vest NP: That was the image we started with BM: And originally there were versions of this season where we had Dwight from this point on become much more of an antagonist NP: Quite dark BM: So you can still feel it a bit in this scene where these two don’t see eye to eye any more and Dwight is going in a direction that Nathan feels like he can’t follow. So it doesn’t quite pay off as much as it used to, but it still kind of does. NP: What I appreciate about it and the way you can walk that line is he can be antagonistic because he is correct. The nice thing about Dwight is he’s pretty much always the rational character. He’s like; I know you’re thinking of Audrey, I know you’re thinking of helping people, but the reality of the situation is ...this. BM: This was a big deal for us too [Nathan picking up the chief badge that Dwight threw down]. It was his dad’s badge and then it was his for a little while  and now he’s got it  back. Of course - he’s the chief of what now? NP: There’s no station. BM: Exactly. There’s no police. But still, that was a set up for where we’re going at the end of the the season.

[Gloria: There is no cause of death. And there’s only one other body found in Haven like that. Vince; The Colorado Kid] BM: Speaking of set ups for where we’re going later in the season NP: This was a fun one to tie this back in to the mystery that spawned the show. BM: Yeah. SyFy; gotta give them credit, they told us straight up right before we started this season just; Pay off what you can and do it for the fans. And that’s exactly what you want to hear. We had what we were worried was maybe too complicated a plan to pay off all the stuff that we had set up. We’d always intended to do that, but there was just a lot; who killed the Colorado Kid, Croatoan, what happened with Barn, everything. But they were completely on board.

[Nathan and Audrey talking to Charlotte] BM: There was a long time where this was the last scene in the episode. The next scene where we see Duke outside of the shroud was something that you and I really fought for. Just because we felt like it felt like the right last beat. And it told the audience, and Duke, a bit more about the situation Haven’s in. But for time and production concerns, it got cut. We didn’t have Eric for a little while and we never shot the scene. And by the time we were going to shoot it, it was weeks later and we weren’t sure we needed it. But we shot it anyway, but then it got cut for time because we were 45 seconds long. So we had to continually argue to save it. But this scene [with Nathan, Audrey and Charlottte] was great. It was the idea that Nathan is the hopeful one, and he comes up with this plan where he’s like; You are our Barn expert, so let’s build another one. NP: Let’s do it the right way. BM: This was pretty much the tent pole for the season; That Nathan kicks of the mission to build a new Barn. NP: This is giving Charlotte her mission statement. BM: Yeah, and we really liked the idea that it would be Nathan. He actually didn’t have lot to do this episode, but we know that he’s sort of the hopeful heart of the show. NP: And that’s something we played with in the next couple of episodes as well.

[Duke hitching a ride outside the shroud] NP: Beautiful shot BM: Yeah it looks great. And you can’t tell - or maybe you can, from his hair or the trees or something, but this was shot I think two months after the rest of the episode. And we cast the role of the truck driver multiple times. It was fun to write Old Man Trucker dialogue. He felt like stock Old Man Trucker, but it felt like what was necessary. But this was a really important moment for us where the guy’s like; Nah, there’s no such thing as Haven. NP: Yeah because we needed to show that the shroud wasn’t just affecting Haven on the inside but was also erasing Haven from the map from the outside. Because you need to know that no help is coming. BM: So yeah, I hope people like this one. NP: It was a fun one to write. Keep watching and thanks for listening.

[daleisgreat]

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

A movie podcast I listen to, The Big Picture, did a recent episode on the 10th anniversary of 2010’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (trailer). Coincidentally enough, that film remains in my backlog box all these years later, so I made sure to re-watch it before giving that podcast a listen. For those unfamiliar with this film, it is based on a series of six graphic novels of the same name by Bryan Lee O’Malley released between 2004 and 2010. The basic gist is that Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) falls for newcomer to town, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). In order to win her over Pilgrim has to defeat Ramona’s “Seven Evil Ex’s.” Scott spends the rest of the film exploring Ramona’s mysterious past and dueling her ex’s while practicing with his band, Sex Bo-Bomb, as they progress through a battle of the bands tournament. Sex Bo-Bomb is one slick act! Stephen Stills (Mark Webber) is the doom-and-gloom frontman of the band. Kim Pine (Alison Pill) is a 2010 take on Daria and effectively nails her vintage expressionless glares and blunt quips. Young Neil (Johnny Simmons) is the affable, DS-loving, always ready alternate for Sex Bo-Bomb. Their #1 fan and also other girlfriend of Scott Pilgrim is one Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). Knive’s arc is probably my favorite of this ensemble cast as her journey from adoring fan and girlfriend to her final destination is a fascinating quest to see develop and a faithful translation from the books.

I first heard of the books on the videogame podcast, Team Fremont Live where they reviewed the first book and their breakdown of it caught my attention when they dissected all the nonstop videogame references that are peppered regularly throughout it. The film captures that imagery to a T where it feels like Pilgrim is living in a real life videogame. In this world suspending disbelief is required because it is jam-packed with extraordinarily choreographed battle scenes, makes anyone capable of instantly pulling off bombastic martial arts moves in the blink of an eye without any training whatsoever, and quirky little animations of objects like Mario Bros.-esque coins and pixelated items inserted throughout that any videogame fan will pick up on. The fighting game fan in me popped a little each time a thunderous “KO” blared out each time Pilgrim emerged victorious after an evil ex duel. As a lifelong fan of videogames, it was fun picking up on all the references and Easter eggs in the background throughout. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World hit at an interesting time where Michael Cera was the only established star at this point in 2010 and was riding the last wave of critical success coming off of Arrested Development, Superbad and Juno. Brandon Routh is noteworthy appearing here as one of the evil ex’s after flaming out in his single appearance in a Superman film. However, a few other stars are here right before they exploded into bigger success like the aforementioned Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Chris Evan is here as another evil-ex shortly after his two Fantastic Four films, but a year before donning the Captain America costume for the first time. Anna Kendrick is here in a small role as Scott’s sister Stacey while in the midst of her initial Twighlight run. Finally, Brie Larson is here as Scott’s evil-ex, Envy Adams and she is the lead for her band, Clash at Demonhead in my personal favorite musical performance of the film as they belt out “Black Sheep.”

It is worth repeating that I highly recommend suspending all disbelief going into Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and simply roll with it. The battle scenes are a hoot to take in and feature a ton of CG that holds up well ten years later. It is also worth pointing out this film is part absurd videogame battles, part early 20s love triangle drama and to a lesser extent part musical with several performances from Sex Bo-Bomb and other bands throughout the film. Director Edgar Wright tracked down a few bands to play the tracks for some of the featured bands in the film such as Beck performing the handful of Sex Bo-Bomb songs in addition to a slew of other tracks from artists like The Rolling Stones and Blood Red Shoes that perfectly supplement the outlandish tone of the film. It is not too often on here I recommend hunting down the soundtracks for a film, but the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World I wholeheartedly recommend! I think the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World BluRay may have set the record for amount of extra features for a single film in the near seven years of movies I have covered on this blog. A rough tally on my notes gives an approximate sum of nearly five hours of bonuses, and then four feature length commentary tracks on top of that! I will not detail every bonus, but will give some highlights of the ones that stood out for me. There is just under a half hour of deleted scenes with or without commentary from Edgar Wright. Most of them are extended scenes from the first act to trim out excess background info, but an alternate ending is what stood out the most that Wright explained he changed because it did not go over that well in test screenings. I can always appreciate a good blooper reel, and an excellent 10 minute reel is compiled here that I would rate right up with the stellar ones in the Marvel films.

There are three features grouped together in the ‘Docs’ section of the extras tallying up to a little over an hour. If you only had time for one of the five hours of bonuses I would go there because that has the core making of documentary which breaks down collaborating with Bryan Lee ‘O Malley, nailing the casting, detailing the extensive stunt training and interviews several of the bands about being featured in the soundtrack. Speaking of the soundtrack, there are four music videos included. Definitely check out the four minute animated short, Scott Pilgrim vs. Animation that is essentially a prequel to the film that dives into Scott and Kim’s former relationship. There are 12 ‘Video Blogs’ totaling 45 minutes that are raw on set interviews with the cast and crew between takes that sees the crew up to all kinds of mischief to kill downtime. This BluRay easily has the largest photo gallery of any home video I have covered with several hundred photos. One gallery is labeled ‘storyboards’ but each storyboard panel is nearly identical to the excellent quality of the art in Bryan Lee O’Malley books so that is essentially a free comic book adaptation of the movie buried in the extras! I experienced all four of the commentary tracks in one re-watch of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World via jumping around to a different commentary about every five minutes. Edgar Wright is on two of them, one with Bryan Lee ‘O Malley and writer Michael Bocall and the other with photography director Bill Pope. The other two commentaries are split among nine cast members, with Michael Cera and the rest of the leading cast on one and the ancillary cast members on the other cast commentary track. Wright has tons of nonstop insight and production facts on his tracks, and the cast tracks are have a lot of fun anecdotes such as Cera failing at trying to get additional people on the commentary via phone call. On top of the commentary I had on during my re-watch was also a factoid subtitle track to really take in the extra features. Despite going on now for three paragraphs about the bonus features, I think I only touched on about half of what is available, and it is truly astonishing to see how much they crammed into one BluRay disc.

A part of me thought going into this that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World would not hold up after 10 years. I would chalk that up to thinking I may have got easily won over with all the hype from being vastly into the books back then and being too caught up into the build to the film’s initial release. I can put those reservations to rest thankfully as I immensely enjoyed this ode to videogame fandom as much as I first did in 2010. Throw in a plethora of extra features to last all year to make Scott Pilgrim vs. the World one of my highest recommendations yet! If you want even more commentary from me about this film than below I have embedded the podcast I originally recorded 10 years ago shortly after seeing the film on its opening weekend. I bring on a couple other special guest hosts that are also ardent Scott Pilgrim fans and we review the film, soundtrack, the books and the videogame. Enjoy!

I brought on a couple other Scott Pilgrim experts on as guest hosts on my podcast to review the film, books, videogame and soundtrack shortly after they all released 10 years ago. Check it out in the embed above for more Scott Pilgrim goodness or click or press here to queue it up for later. Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Not for Resale Pulp Fiction The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild The Wizard Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

[damienthepious]

director's cut of the recorder scene in ch.11 and/or the braiding bit at the end of ch.12?

[Pick a short passage from any fanfic I’ve written specifically Scattered On My Shore today I’m being picky, and send it to me, and I’ll give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet]

faldskjfasdklf i already did part of the recorder scene but someone else also asked for the end of ch12 so i’m gonna do an earlier part of the recorder scene, yeah? yeah. that’ll work. After Arum confronts her, when she pulls her.. hrm. her counterpoint.

[“Skip ahead on the recorder,” she says. /// “What?” /// “Skip to entry four two one one. Should be… eighteen to twenty after the one you just played, I think.”] Rilla knows exactly what entry she wants him to hear. She knows the exact entry. That’s interesting, isn’t it? She doesn’t remember exactly what number entry Arum just played. But she knows the number of the one she thinks he should hear.

[“Why?” he snarls, ducking his head and clutching the recorder close against the bandages on his midsection.] Arum is perpetually suspicious, but he’s amping it up right now. He’s furious, he’s hurt, and now he’s fucking confused, because what the fuck else could she want him to hear? What does she think she can pull, to trick him again?

[“Because there’s something else you should hear, too. You heard what I said when I first found you. You should hear what I said after. If you really think that I’ve been using you for some sort of spy work, then the rest of it should interest you too, right?”] She’s trying to be matter-of-fact. She’s trying to do this without getting emotional herself (this will break down). This isn’t a fight. She just wants him to listen long enough that she can explain.

[He hesitates, his expression tightening. “Perhaps I have no interest in hearing myself cataloged, doctor.”] This could still be part of some trick. And. honestly. Hearing her like that in the first recording hurt. He didn’t realize how much he trusted her until it broke, and he doesn’t want to hear another recording of her speaking about him like he’s some animal.

[“Please. Just- listen to it. And then you can decide if you want to- I don’t know. How you want to proceed. But before you make any sort of decision, please- please just listen, Arum.”] If this breaks bad, Rilla doesn’t even know what that would mean. Will he start trying to leave, again? Will he just- shut down, emotionally? Will he just stop speaking to her entirely until he’s just well enough to slink out the door and disappear?

[Arum stares at her for another long moment, suspicious with a growl in his throat, and then he moves his thumb, sending the recording forward with a thin squeal of sound. He overshoots the start of the entry a little, and it cuts in just in the middle of a word.] Here’s something: Rilla doesn’t say please very often. It means something when she says it three times in one little speech. And Arum is curious, despite himself. Maybe a little morbidly so. How much worse could it be, he wonders. How much deeper can i push the blade. A lot of Arum’s impulses are vaguely self-destructive, that way.

[“-ter than that, and it seems like his frill is really starting to knit together properly. Finally. It’s been tricky since it’s only a half-conscious thing, the flaring, but- I mean, it’s hard to complain about. It’s always so funny when he gets indignant and it just- fwoops out like that and-”] The second recording is about a lot of things. First: contrast. It’s tonally opposed to the first one. It’s personal, instantly. It’s not cold, the way the other one was. She’s excited, she’s enthusiastic, she’s noting rather unscientific points. Also if you imagined Rilla making an absurd hand gesture when she says the word “fwoops”, you are correct. Also, I don’t know why Arum’s frill became a Thing in this fic.

Also, hilariously, I’m pretty sure that the first chapter, where cleaning it wakes him up, and this sentence, from this scene, were the first two things specifically about Arum’s frill that were written. Him perpetually exacerbating his cuts by flaring it came later.

[She laughs on the recording, breathless, and Rilla remembers this moment with exact clarity.] She remembers this moment with exact clarity. This was important. This was a shift. Off screen, which was kind of a Choice. I could point out when this happens, in the fic, but I’ll hold on to that, I think. Some of the ways that Rilla reacts to things give it away, a little bit. You could probably narrow it down if you tried.

[The door to his room had been cracked, she could just see half his face through the gap as he rested, the gentle light of early morning on his scales and his expression untroubled in sleep-] Love this image. Would sacrifice a limb to project the image i have in my mind into actual art.

[“He’s beautiful,” she says, and she still feels the little stunned swoop that realization had made her feel.] yeah.

[“He’s… I didn’t know a monster could be so beautiful. I didn’t know they could be funny either, honestly, or- or-”] … uh oh. Also, one sentence away from realizing that she thinks he’s beautiful, she’s already upgraded him to “so beautiful”. Also trailing off on those ‘or’s stops a little floodgate situation. she was about to ramble. she was about to go off. and she realized what she was about to start doing. Remember, in the courtroom scene, where she talks about Damien? “I love his stories and his smile! I love that he makes me see the beauty in the hard questions, even when they make me uncomfortable! I love that he makes me grow!”

she just caught herself about to do something similar. Uh oh, Rilla. Uh oh.

[There is a pause.] deep breath, Rilla

[“Saints…”] ………. so……….. I talked with Sky, a bit, about how there are very specific Moments in this fic. When characters Realize certain Things. I feel like it’s probably pretty obvious, actually… exactly what Rilla is realizing in this particular moment.

[Another pause. Quite long.] Cataloguing symptoms, perhaps. Or maybe just reeling. Hey I wonder what Arum is thinking right now? Hm.

[“He… um. He’s improving by leaps and bounds, now,” she says, her voice a little clipped, a little muted.] Back to business. She. she doesn’t have time to think about this, right now.

[“He can almost stand on his own, though it tires him out. He’s… soon he’ll be well enough to travel, I think. Which means we’re going to have to have another conversation, soon, about- about exactly how we’re gonna get him back home.”] She doesn’t have time. She’s gotta do her job, first.

[“And that shouldn’t… it shouldn’t hurt to think about that, should it?”] Oh, Rilla…

[“It’s good. It’s a good thing that he’s… soon he’ll be well enough to go home, to be free again, to go back where he belongs and rest and recover where he’ll be comfortable and safe, but-”] That’s been the goal. Hasn’t it? Make him well again. Save his life.

[A little half-laugh. /// “I’m gonna miss him, is the only thing.”] A partial admission, if not the whole thought. and it’s… ridiculous, isn’t it? She’s had long-term patients, before. Never a monster, obviously, but- [“I’ve gotten so used to having him around, and- and even if he’s always arguing about the methodology he’s been so- it’s been nice to have him around when I’m doing my experiments, I mean- it would have taken me ages to think of modifying my bandages with machracnid silk, and the improvement to the elasticity is- but that isn’t even the point, you know? He’s just- he’s-”] just realized i never checked the script to see if i spelled machracnid right whoops ahem. I love the way Rilla rambles when she gets distracted by a thought. Hey i loved Moonlit Hermit did y’all know that? fljdjdkfdk

[Less of a laugh.] These are not fun feelings to examine.

[“It’s almost time for him to go home. It’s the only way to keep him safe. The longer he stays here-”] All three of them are fiercely protective, aren’t they?

[“I know Damien won’t hurt him, not anymore. I think he’s seen it too, he’s seen how- how much- he’s seen Arum, really seen him. I know he has.”] Rilla isn’t quite as articulate as Damien, especially when it comes to emotions. Seen him. Acknowledged him as a person, is what she means. Which, not verbally he hasn’t, but she knows anyway. Rilla isn’t as perceptive as Damien when it comes to people, either, but she knows Damien. And Damien isn’t actually good at concealing what he feels, whether or not he speaks his heart.

[“But every day Arum stays here is another risk, is another chance that he’ll be seen or- and if that happens, then what? I don’t care what they do to me, I’m not afraid of them, but Arum- he’s still not strong enough to defend himself, and even if he was, what would he do against an armed squadron of knights? I wouldn’t be able to do anything to protect him, and- he- I can’t let that happen. I won’t. I won’t let the Citadel hurt him.”] Hm, looks like i echoed Arum’s canonical can’t/won’t again. I swear that wasn’t intentional. Again, fiercely protective. And all of this- it hurts, to think about Arum getting hunted by knights. Rilla knows if things go wrong, she’s not going to be able to do ANYTHING. And she hates feeling helpless.

[“So- so… so he has to go home. It doesn’t matter that I-”] IT DOESN’T MATTER THAT I- IT DOESN’T? RILLA. IT DOESN’T MATTER? [“it doesn’t matter how I feel. I have to get him home. He deserves- he-”] Getting him home and making sure that he’s safe is more important than her own feelings. Whatever feelings those are, exactly.

[“Amaryllis?”] this scene is the primary reason i want desperately to do a podfic of this whole thing, eventually. I know. I know the exact intonation of every part of this, but I can always just HEAR the voice Arum is using here, in my head. gentle and unhurried and expectant. fun fact: they fcukging care about each other and i’m soft

[tutyayilmazz]

I can't stop thinking of this interview 😩

The first time the two women sleep together, Héloïse asks, “Do all lovers feel they’re inventing something?” It’s a knock-out line. “A relationship is about inventing your own language,” says Sciamma. “You’ve got the jokes, you’ve got the songs, you have this anecdote that’s going to make you laugh three years later. It’s this language that you build. That’s what you mourn for when you’re losing someone you love. This language you’re not going to speak with anybody else.” 

We know from the first scene that the two women don’t end up together. Was that to avoid giving the audience false hope? “Yes, and also because I wanted to question what a happy ending is,” says Sciamma. “We have the romantic-comedy philosophy – a frozen image of two people being together – and we also have the tragic ending. And I wanted neither. Why do we believe that eternal possession of somebody means a happy ending? Love educates us about art. Art consoles us from lost love. Our great loves are a condition of our future love. The film is the memory of a love story; it’s sad but also full of hope.”

By design, there are almost no men in the film – though the impending heterosexual nuptials loom like a cloud over every passionate embrace. “I wanted to use the tools of cinema so you would feel patriarchy without actually having to embody it with an antagonist,” says Sciamma. Free from the gaze of men, Marianne, Héloïse, and the servant Sophie (Luàna Bajrami) are in a sort of utopia. There, the women and their love can briefly flourish. “When a man comes back in the frame,” smiles Sciamma, “it’s a jump scare.” 

She recalls recording the DVD commentary for Portrait with a male recording engineer, who watched the film alongside her. When – two hours in – a man’s hand appeared in the frame, the engineer looked down at his own. “He said, ‘I looked at my hand, because that’s the hand of a man.’ That’s what I wanted to do – there’s no man in the film, not as some kind of punishment, but as a way for them to go through someone else’s journey. You’ve been looking only at women and suddenly it feels different, weird.” She laughs. “And that’s cinema, you know?”

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the first of Sciamma’s films to centre women in adulthood. The rest of them have been, in one way or another, coming-of-age stories. I bring up something she said once – that for women, losing the androgyny of childhood is a “tragedy, because you lose your freedom”. Did that happen to her? “Wow,” she says. There’s a 10-second pause. “I was such a gay child. I played by these rules, of course, but knowing that it was a performance. And I suffered from the fact that it was a performance. You have to be patient. You have to just wait for your life to start.” 

That’s one of the reasons she makes films. So that young people don’t have to wait quite as long as she did. “We’re losing time, wasting time, because our culture is not being transmitted,” she says. “But we keep reinventing it. Discovering it. And that’s also the beauty of it.” 

[aion-rsa]

Garbage Pail Kids At 35: The Kids Are Alright

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Presented by:

This story appears in the Den of Geek x eBay special edition trading card magazine.

Garbage Pail Kids gave birth to my anti-authority streak. I was in fifth grade waiting for art class to start and showing off my prized Ashcan Andy to enraptured classmates when my teacher walked in the classroom, sighed, confiscated the card and proceeded to rip it up. “This junk has no place in an art room,” she stoically declared as Andy was transformed into sad confetti before my eyes. Years later, I came to realize that this demonstration was all about jealousy – these cards had instantly engaged students in art in a way that her years of teaching never could.

And let me be clear here: Garbage Pail Kids are most definitely art. Often grotesque and always eye-catching, the unfortunate children showcased on these cards fostered an interest in painting, illustration, and design for generations of kids since Topps first introduced them back in 1985 (their pun-heavy names also were a gateway for subversive humor). After 35 years, Garbage Pail Kids have become a cultural institution—not to mention schoolyard contraband for nearly four decades, an unexpected bonus that would make the creators of these cards—veterans of the counterculture themselves—beam with pride.

To trace the origins of Garbage Pail Kids, a brief history lesson is in order. Although they were best known for their baseball cards, the Topps Company also had huge success with bubblegum cards based on popular films and TV shows. Further expanding their creative pallet, Topps released numerous humor card lines, the most popular of which was Wacky Packages. Like Mad Magazine before them, these stickers showcased parodies of contemporary products with bitingly accurate focus. 

In the early 1980s there was no bigger consumer frenzy than the Cabbage Patch Kids. These dolls from Xavier Roberts and Coleco featured an elaborate backstory and cloyingly adorable looks that became the stuff of toy legend (news reports featuring near riots as parents tried to get their hands on the damn things were commonplace in the early 1980s). 

Naturally, then, Cabbage Patch Kids were an ideal target to get the Wacky Packages treatment. But the decision was wisely made by Topps execs that Garbage Pail Kids could be a card line of their own. Spearheading the project was underground comics legend Art Spiegelman (who would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for his groundbreaking holocaust graphic novel Maus), Raw comics anthology contributor Mark Newgarden, and artist John Pound. 

Pound, a veteran of painting fantasy and science fiction book covers, was brought by Spiegelman to illustrate the original Wacky Packages “Garbage Pail Kid” card (featuring one of the dolls pushed into a trash can and touting orders to send the unfortunate soul to the Department of Sanitation). Though this Wacky Pack was shelved, Pound single-handedly painted all the characters featured in the first Garbage Pail Kids set. “They liked the idea sketches I sent in,” he says, “and asked me to do all 40 paintings in two months, which was faster than I was used to, but I got organized and made the deadline.” 

Working with Spiegelman, Newgarden, and Topps creative favorite Jay Lynch to craft ideas, Pound’s early characters included the now iconic Adam Bomb, and remain some of the most beloved in the line (for the record, Pound names Adam Bomb, Up Chuck, Jolly Roger, and Mona Loser as some of his favorite creations). 

Looking back over three decades later, Pound sees several reasons why Garbage Pail Kids have endured:

“The original concept had strengths: doing a parody of the famous Cabbage Patch Kids, and a name that was both clear and familiar sounding,” he says. “The concept’s rebellious attitude and shock value gave it initial attention. Also, in the ‘80s, Topps products were widely distributed, like in drug stores, variety stores, convenience stores.”

Although he freely admits that “I wasn’t expecting it, but Garbage Pail Kids became a huge hit,” Pound says aesthetic concerns were foremost on his mind when painting these garish figures. “On my end, despite the abundant gross humor and shock value, I simply wanted the art to feel good to look at. And I tried to put love into the paintings.” 

The care with which these outlandish cards were created was appreciated by consumers. Fifteen different series of Garbage Pail Kids were produced between 1985 and 1988. There was spinoff GPK merchandise too, ranging from folders emblazoned with images of popular characters to the on-brand/subversively named Cheap Toys. The Garbage Pail Kids Movie was released in 1987 with The Facts of Life co-star Mackenzie Astin in the lead. On that topic, The Toys That Made Us and A Toy Store Near You creator Brian Volk-Weiss sums up the flick perfectly: “That movie is so bonkers even seeing it is not believing it. It reminds me in a weird way of a low budget Batman and Robin in that it was like a ton of people were involved with the green light and execution and seemingly had no oversight on any matter.” 

But as far as Volk-Weiss is concerned, a new motion picture has plenty of potential. “I would love to see them do a ‘serious’ reboot that would be similar to the first Guardians of the Galaxy film in that they take the characters and the world seriously,” he states, “but the fun and humor and oddness stays intact too.” While there may be a future on screen for New Wave Dave and company, whatever it turns out to be must avoid the mistakes of the infamous 1987 cartoon series – which was produced for CBS but never aired due to the then-ongoing controversy surrounding the franchise (it eventually landed on DVD, and the less said about it the better.)

Despite a lull in any new products that lasted from the late 1980s until 2003, Garbage Pail Kids never really left the public consciousness. If anything, they were inspiring new talent. Enter Buff Monster. The Hawaii native and prolific street artist known for his upbeat, ice cream-inspired work was so inspired by Garbage Pail Kids that he created his own line of sticker art cards, The Melty Misfits. With names like Mind-Blowin’ Owen (featuring a cameo by a very Adam Bomb-esque character) and Bam Bam Sam, these intricately designed stickers—created on the type of antiquated machinery that Garbage Pail Kids were made on—come complete with a retro-styled wax pack and showcase Buff Monster’s own unique aesthetic as they pay homage to the Topps line.

Talking about why he personally connected with Garbage Pail Kids, Buff Monster makes a salient point on why these things were so memorable in the first place. 

“If you look at most trading cards, they are less than what they’re about. Having a baseball card is a ‘less than’ experience than watching the game. If you’re watching a baseball game in person, that’s great, but watching a baseball game on TV is actually better because you’ve got commentary, and you’ve got playback, and all this sort of stuff,” he tells us.

“But Garbage Pail Kids stand out because the art was made for the cards, so the card was the thing. The card wasn’t some sub-version of something else. It was the point of making the art in the first place. And so that has always stuck with me. And that is really kind of what it comes down to for me.”

Buff Monster’s The Melty Misfits stickers are a burgeoning phenomenon for the 2020s, just as Garbage Pail Kids were for the 1980s. It’s understandable that he is partnering with eBay for a special pack of The Melty Misfits, some of which will come packaged with a random “Golden Ticket” card that will entitle the recipient to have Buff Monster create a character of their choice. 

“This pack that we’re going to do is a nice little introduction to me and eBay working together,” he says. “This is a very easy thing for the completist to get. And that’s good.” 

It’s clear when talking to Buff Monster that Garbage Pail Kids continue to inspire. And the cards themselves feel more vibrant than ever, way more relevant today than the doll that inspired them in the first place. Case in point? Recent political and horror-themed Garbage Pail Kids sets (which are really one and the same when you think about it) have brought old fans back into the fold. 

Another example of booming Garbage Pail Kids interest is the 2017 documentary 30 Years of Garbage: The Garbage Pail Kids Story. The film’s writer and (with Jeff Zapata) co-director is Joe Simko, himself an accomplished artist and graphic designer who has worked on the card line and IDW’s spinoff Garbage Pail Kids comic, as well as his own series of The Sweet Rot graphic novels and his Cereal Killer trading cards. Simko vividly remembers when Garbage Pail Kids entered his life.

“I first discovered Garbage Pail Kids when I was 10 years old while riding the school bus. A couple of kids were sharing them,” Simko says. “It was the second series, and I just remember that artwork jumping out at me. Never had I seen such appetizing visuals on a trading card before. I knew instantly they were an attack on the highly successful Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, which dominated the kid’s market landscape at the time. Garbage Pail Kids were such a great middle-school kids protest to that cutesy Cabbage Patch world.”

Simko has been a part of Garbage Pail Kids lore since 2009, and during that time has given the Garbage Pail Kids treatment to everything from Stranger Things to Universal Monsters. “I think my favorite Garbage Pail Kids projects are the licensed product paintings I get to do,” he says. “For instance, the Garbage Pail Kids cereal for FYE was just so great to work on. Doing cereal box signings at the FYE pop-up shop during San Diego Comic-Con was an overwhelming experience. Greeting Garbage Pail Kids fans, when I too am a fan, is amazing.”

When I mention the brand’s longevity to Simko, he is quick to sum up their continued popularity. “Garbage Pail Kids have lasted this long due in part to the dedicated group of collectors who grew up on the series in the ’80s. Yes, there are younger kids buying them today, but the nostalgia it brings to those grown-up kids keeps the spirit and revenue of the Garbage Pail alive.”

Bringing things full circle, he also vindicated myself and everyone else who was ever frowned upon for appreciating the cards’ artistic merits.

“They are a true form of art. To pass judgement on them and reject these cards as ‘art’ because of the subject matter, is to have a narrow perspective of what art is,” Simko says. “Credit goes to the original creators of the Garbage Pail Kids cards during the 1980s, Art Spiegelman and Mark Newgarden. Art and Mark knew the ingredients to make GPK work. And of course the artists, John Pound, Tom Bunk, James Warhola, and Jay Lynch, were the ‘cooks.’ They made it taste and look perfectly gross. Without any of these creative minds, I believe Garbage Pail Kids would not be the success it became at the time.”

Despite being anchored to a fad from the 1980s, Garbage Pail Kids are ultimately timeless. Children of all ages will always take to the goofy grossness that is embedded in the line’s DNA. Nostalgia is a potent thing too, but as recent years have illustrated, Topps is always looking to evolve the IP, be it through virtual Garbage Pail Kids, high-end collectible figures, or just by continuing to bring in great artists to keep the bread and butter of the franchise—the card line—going strong. These Kids may be pushing 40, but in the heart of fans, they’ll never age.

Garbage Pail Kids eBay x Topps Exclusive 

The 10-card set created by Joe Simko is the first exclusive from eBay and Topps. Each card is representative of buying and selling on eBay. The set will be available for $19.99 on eBay for one week starting on August 10. 

The post Garbage Pail Kids At 35: The Kids Are Alright appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[blackkudos]

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American singer, dancer, actress, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned over 70 years, appearing in film, television, and theater. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of 16 and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood.

Returning to her roots as a nightclub performer, Horne took part in the March on Washington in August 1963 and continued to work as a performer, both in nightclubs and on television while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for more than 300 performances on Broadway. She then toured the country in the show, earning numerous awards and accolades. Horne continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, disappearing from the public eye in 2000. Horne died of congestive heart failure on May 9, 2010, at the age of 92.

Early life

Lena Horne was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. She was reportedly descended from the John C. Calhoun family, and both sides of her family were through a mixture of African, Native American, and European descent and belonged to the upper stratum of middle-class, well-educated people. Her father, Edwin Fletcher "Teddy" Horne Jr. (1893–1970), a numbers kingpin in the gambling trade, left the family when she was three and moved to an upper-middle-class African American community in the Hill District community of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron (1894–1976), was a granddaughter of inventor Samuel R. Scottron; she was an actress with a black theatre troupe and traveled extensively. Edna's maternal grandmother, Amelie Louise Ashton, was a Senegalese slave. Horne was raised mainly by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne.

When Horne was five, she was sent to live in Georgia. For several years, she traveled with her mother. From 1927 to 1929, she lived with her uncle, Frank S. Horne, dean of students at Fort Valley Junior Industrial Institute (now part of Fort Valley State University) in Fort Valley, Georgia, who later served as an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From Fort Valley, southwest of Macon, Horne briefly moved to Atlanta with her mother; they returned to New York when Horne was 12 years old. She then attended Girls High School, an all-girls public high school in Brooklyn that has since become Boys and Girls High School; she dropped out without earning a diploma. Aged 18, she moved to her father's home in Pittsburgh, staying in the city's Little Harlem for almost five years and learning from native Pittsburghers Billy Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, among others.

Career

Road to Hollywood

In the fall of 1933, Horne joined the chorus line of the Cotton Club in New York City. In the spring of 1934, she had a featured role in the Cotton Club Parade starring Adelaide Hall, who took Lena under her wing. Horne made her first screen appearance as a dancer in the musical short Cab Calloway's Jitterbug Party (1935). A few years later, Horne joined Noble Sissle's Orchestra, with which she toured and with whom she made her first records, issued by Decca. After she separated from her first husband, Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet in 1940–41, but disliked the travel and left the band to work at the Cafe Society in New York. She replaced Dinah Shore as the featured vocalist on NBC's popular jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. The show's resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded with Horne in June 1941 for RCA Victor. Horne left the show after only six months when she was hired by former Cafe Trocadero (Los Angeles) manager Felix Young to perform in a Cotton Club-style revue on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.

Horne already had two low-budget movies to her credit: a 1938 musical feature called The Duke is Tops (later reissued with Horne's name above the title as The Bronze Venus); and a 1941 two-reel short subject, Boogie Woogie Dream, featuring pianists Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons. Horne's songs from Boogie Woogie Dream were later released individually as soundies. Horne made her Hollywood nightclub debut at Felix Young's Little Troc on the Sunset Strip in January 1942. A few weeks later, she was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In November 1944, she was featured in an episode of the popular radio series Suspense, as a fictional nightclub singer, with a large speaking role along with her singing. In 1945 and 1946, she sang with Billy Eckstine's Orchestra.

She made her debut at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Panama Hattie (1942) and performed the title song of Stormy Weather based loosely on the life of Adelaide Hall, (1943), at 20th Century Fox, while on loan from MGM. She appeared in a number of MGM musicals, most notably Cabin in the Sky (1943), but was never featured in a leading role because of her race and the fact that her films had to be re-edited for showing in cities where theaters would not show films with black performers. As a result, most of Horne's film appearances were stand-alone sequences that had no bearing on the rest of the film, so editing caused no disruption to the storyline. A notable exception was the all-black musical Cabin in the Sky, although one number from that film was cut before release because it was considered too suggestive by the censors: Horne singing "Ain't It the Truth" while taking a bubble bath. This scene and song are featured in the film That's Entertainment! III (1994) which also featured commentary from Horne on why the scene was deleted prior to the film's release. Lena Horne was the first African-American elected to serve on the Screen Actors Guild board of directors.

In Ziegfeld Follies (1946), she performed "Love" by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Horne lobbied for the role of Julie LaVerne in MGM's 1951 version of Show Boat (having already played the role when a segment of Show Boat was performed in Till the Clouds Roll By, 1946) but lost the part to Ava Gardner, a personal friend in real life. Horne claimed this was due to the Production Code's ban on interracial relationships in films, but MGM sources state she was never considered for the role in the first place. In the documentary That's Entertainment! III, Horne stated that MGM executives required Gardner to practice her singing using Horne's recordings, which offended both actresses. Ultimately, Gardner's voice was overdubbed by actress Annette Warren (Smith) for the theatrical release.

Changes of direction

By the mid-1950s, Horne was disenchanted with Hollywood and increasingly focused on her nightclub career. She made only two major appearances for MGM during the 1950s: Duchess of Idaho (which was also Eleanor Powell's final film); and the 1956 musical Meet Me in Las Vegas. She was blacklisted during the 1950s for her affiliations in the 1940s with communist-backed groups. She would subsequently disavow communism. She returned to the screen three more times, playing chanteuse Claire Quintana in the 1969 film Death of a Gunfighter, Glinda in The Wiz (1978), which was directed by her then son-in-law Sidney Lumet, and co-hosting the MGM retrospective That's Entertainment! III (1994), in which she was candid about her unkind treatment by the studio.

After leaving Hollywood, Horne established herself as one of the premier nightclub performers of the post-war era. She headlined at clubs and hotels throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. In 1957, a live album entitled, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria, became the biggest-selling record by a female artist in the history of the RCA Victor label at that time. In 1958, Horne became the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Musical" (for her part in the "Calypso" musical Jamaica) which, at Lena's request featured her longtime friend Adelaide Hall.

From the late 1950s through to the 1960s, Horne was a staple of TV variety shows, appearing multiple times on Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dean Martin Show, and The Bell Telephone Hour. Other programs she appeared on included The Judy Garland Show, The Hollywood Palace, and The Andy Williams Show. Besides two television specials for the BBC (later syndicated in the U.S.), Horne starred in her own U.S. television special in 1969, Monsanto Night Presents Lena Horne. During this decade, the artist Pete Hawley painted her portrait for RCA Victor, capturing the mood of her performance style.

In 1970, she co-starred with Harry Belafonte in the hour-long Harry & Lena special for ABC; in 1973, she co-starred with Tony Bennett in Tony and Lena. Horne and Bennett subsequently toured the U.S. and U.K. in a show together. In the 1976 program America Salutes Richard Rodgers, she sang a lengthy medley of Rodgers songs with Peggy Lee and Vic Damone. Horne also made several appearances on The Flip Wilson Show. Additionally, Horne played herself on television programs such as The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and Sanford and Son in the 1970s, as well as a 1985 performance on The Cosby Show and a 1993 appearance on A Different World. In the summer of 1980, Horne, 63 years old and intent on retiring from show business, embarked on a two-month series of benefit concerts sponsored by the sorority Delta Sigma Theta. These concerts were represented as Horne's farewell tour, yet her retirement lasted less than a year.

On April 13, 1980, Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, and host Gene Kelly were all scheduled to appear at a Gala performance at the Metropolitan Opera House to salute the NY City Center's Joffrey Ballet Company. However, Pavarotti's plane was diverted over the Atlantic and he was unable to appear. James Nederlander was an invited Honored Guest and noted that only three people at the sold-out Metropolitan Opera House asked for their money back. He asked to be introduced to Lena following her performance. In May 1981, The Nederlander Organization, Michael Frazier, and Fred Walker went on to book Horne for a four-week engagement at the newly named Nederlander Theatre on West 41st Street in New York City. The show was an instant success and was extended to a full year run, garnering Horne a special Tony award, and two Grammy Awards for the cast recording of her show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. The 333-performance Broadway run closed on Horne's 65th birthday, June 30, 1982. Later that same week, she performed the entire show again to record it for television broadcast and home video release. Horne began a tour a few days later at Tanglewood (Massachusetts) during the weekend of July 4, 1982. The Lady and Her Music toured 41 cities in the U.S. and Canada until June 17, 1984. It played in London for a month in August and ended its run in Stockholm, Sweden, September 14, 1984. In 1981, she received a Special Tony Award for the show, which also played to acclaim at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1984. Despite the show's considerable success (Horne still holds the record for the longest-running solo performance in Broadway history), she did not capitalize on the renewed interest in her career by undertaking many new musical projects. A proposed 1983 joint recording project between Horne and Frank Sinatra (to be produced by Quincy Jones) was ultimately abandoned, and her sole studio recording of the decade was 1988's The Men in My Life, featuring duets with Sammy Davis Jr. and Joe Williams. In 1989, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1995, a "live" album capturing Horne's Supper Club performance was released (subsequently winning a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album). In 1998, Horne released another studio album, entitled Being Myself. Thereafter, Horne retired from performing and largely retreated from public view, though she did return to the recording studio in 2000 to contribute vocal tracks on Simon Rattle's Classic Ellington album.

Civil rights activism

Horne was long involved with the Civil Rights Movement. In 1941, she sang at Cafe Society and worked with Paul Robeson. During World War II, when entertaining the troops for the USO, she refused to perform "for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of black servicemen", according to her Kennedy Center biography. Because the U.S. Army refused to allow integrated audiences, she staged her show for a mixed audience of black U.S. soldiers and white German POWs. Seeing the black soldiers had been forced to sit in the back seats, she walked off the stage to the first row where the black troops were seated and performed with the Germans behind her. After quitting the USO in 1945 because of the organization's policy of segregating audiences, Horne financed tours of military camps herself.

She was at an NAACP rally with Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, the weekend before Evers was assassinated. She also met President John F. Kennedy at the White House two days before he was assassinated. She was at the March on Washington and spoke and performed on behalf of the NAACP, SNCC, and the National Council of Negro Women. She also worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to pass anti-lynching laws. Tom Lehrer mentions her in his song "National Brotherhood Week" in the line "Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek" referring (wryly) to her and to Sheriff Jim Clark, of Selma, Alabama, who was responsible for a violent attack on civil rights marchers in 1965. In 1983, the NAACP awarded her the Spingarn Medal.

Horne was a registered Democrat and on November 20, 1963, she, along with Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman John Bailey, Carol Lawrence, Richard Adler, Sidney Salomon, Vice-Chairwoman of the DNC Margaret B. Price, and Secretary of the DNC Dorothy Vredenburgh Bush, visited John F. Kennedy at The White House, two days prior to his assassination.

Personal life

Horne married Louis Jordan Jones, a political operative, in January 1937 in Pittsburgh. On December 21, 1937, their daughter, Gail (later known as Gail Lumet Buckley, a writer) was born. They had a son, Edwin Jones (February 7, 1940 – September 12, 1970) who died of kidney disease. Horne and Jones separated in 1940 and divorced in 1944. Horne's second marriage was to Lennie Hayton, who was music director and one of the premier musical conductors and arrangers at MGM, in December 1947 in Paris. They separated in the early 1960s, but never divorced; he died in 1971. In her as-told-to autobiography Lena by Richard Schickel, Horne recounts the enormous pressures she and her husband faced as an interracial couple. She later admitted in an interview in Ebony (May 1980) that she had married Hayton to advance her career and cross the "color-line" in show business.

Horne had affairs with Artie Shaw, Orson Welles, Vincente Minnelli, and the boxer Joe Louis.

Horne also had a long and close relationship with Billy Strayhorn, whom she said she would have married if he had been heterosexual. He was also an important professional mentor to her. Screenwriter Jenny Lumet, known for her award-winning screenplay Rachel Getting Married, is Horne's granddaughter, the daughter of filmmaker Sidney Lumet and Horne's daughter Gail. Her other grandchildren include Gail's other daughter, Amy Lumet, and her son's four children, Thomas, William, Samadhi, and Lena. Her great-grandchildren include Jake Cannavale.

From 1946 to 1962, Horne resided in a St. Albans, Queens, New York, enclave of prosperous African Americans, where she counted among her neighbors Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and other jazz luminaries.

Death

Horne died of congestive heart failure on May 9, 2010. Her funeral took place at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Avenue in New York. Thousands gathered and attendees included Leontyne Price, Dionne Warwick, Liza Minnelli, Jessye Norman, Chita Rivera, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Lauren Bacall, Robert Osborne, Audra McDonald, and Vanessa Williams. Her remains were cremated.

Legacy

In 2003, ABC announced that Janet Jackson would star as Horne in a television biographical film. In the weeks following Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" debacle during the 2004 Super Bowl, however, Variety reported that Horne had demanded Jackson be dropped from the project. "ABC executives resisted Horne's demand", according to the Associated Press report, "but Jackson representatives told the trade newspaper that she left willingly after Horne and her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, asked that she not take part." Oprah Winfrey stated to Alicia Keys during a 2005 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she might possibly consider producing the biopic herself, casting Keys as Horne.

In January 2005, Blue Note Records, her label for more than a decade, announced that "the finishing touches have been put on a collection of rare and unreleased recordings by the legendary Horne made during her time on Blue Note." Remixed by her longtime producer Rodney Jones, the recordings featured Horne with a remarkably secure voice for a woman of her years, and include versions of such signature songs as "Something to Live For", "Chelsea Bridge", and "Stormy Weather". The album, originally titled Soul but renamed Seasons of a Life, was released on January 24, 2006. In 2007, Horne was portrayed by Leslie Uggams as the older Lena and Nikki Crawford as the younger Lena in the stage musical Stormy Weather staged at the Pasadena Playhouse in California (January to March 2009). In 2011, Horne was also portrayed by actress Ryan Jillian in a one-woman show titled Notes from A Horne staged at the Susan Batson studio in New York City, from November 2011 to February 2012. The 83rd Academy Awards presented a tribute to Horne by actress Halle Berry at the ceremony held February 27, 2011.

In 2018, a forever stamp depicting Horne began to be issued; this made Horne the 41st honoree in the Black Heritage stamp series.