#the red rooms

[anhed-nia]

I have been trying to figure out what to say about this movie since I saw it on the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival jury, and I keep running up against the embarrassing conclusion that it has been impossible for me not to take it personally. This happens occasionally, where something hits you so strongly right in your DNA that you can't even tell whether it's as good as you think it is; mercifully the quality of RED ROOMS is not in doubt, but it reminded me of my delusionally personal associations with the original SNOW WHITE. The Disney feature was one of the first movies I ever saw, and it seemed to communicate to me very directly about my options for living as a human female of the brunette variety: On one end of the spectrum there is the sickly virgin with her morbid beauty and her kinship with nature, and on the other end, the cannibalizing bitch goddess with her devious mind full of arcane knowledge (ok so the Wicked Queen is not actually dark-haired, but I assert that that cowl counts (and I want one)). As a little girl I thought, yes, this is a pretty good deal for me, either one of these assignments will do.

Pascal Plante's RED ROOMS offers a similar dichotomy, and it has proven very hard for me to avoid seeing its main characters as an Aspirational Self, and a disappointing Actual Self. Maybe RED ROOMS has a Magic Mirror quality, in fact maybe all films do, though they don't all speak so clearly and bluntly to every viewer.

Juliette Gariépy plays Kelly-Anne, a fashion model who is fixated on the high profile trial of Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) who is accused of serial murder and traffic in the snuff films of his young female victims. Seated in a row of goth groupies, the expressionless Kelly-Anne is identified with their fascination with the case, and yet we have no idea what really motivates her. Implicitly, few people would have any idea what it is like to be Kelly-Anne; as her internet handle LadyOfShalott suggests, she lives alone in a luxury highrise with the computer as her only connection to the outside world. She emerges for fashion shoots marked by her dark, edgy brand, and to attend the Chevalier trial. Otherwise, her only regular human contact is with online poker competitors who are no match for her savant-like math expertise and apparent lack of feeling. She presents as a bit of a sociopath, which becomes worrisome as she uses her technological skills to stalk the bereaved mother of the only victim whose recorded murder has not yet surface. However, Kelly-Anne is ultimately unknowable, and not much like the other fangirls and -boys who appear day after day at the hearings. We find evidence of this in the arrival of Clementine (Laurie Babin).

In opposition to Kelly-Anne, Clementine is needy, ingratiating, and naively intrusive. The tiny girl is fueled by her fanatical belief that Chevalier is innocent, a conviction she assumes Kelly-Anne must share. In a moment of rare empathy, the model invites the urchin into her sanctuary and, after flirting with the notion of human friendship, she eventually reveals enough to totally shatter the young woman's illusions. Clementine is the perfect foil, providing us with a tool for interrogating Kelly-Anne's identity and motivation--and for me, she also provided a painful reminder of the difference between myself and what I claim to value. Kelly-Anne is like every William Gibson heroine I have ever attached myself to: beautiful and alien, yet more intelligent than beautiful, dangerously brilliant and purpose-driven, emotionally incompatible with normal people, voluntarily exiled to the fringes of society despite her social currency and financial power. It's hard to imagine what she does and does not feel, but perhaps her life is not so easy. Clementine doesn't see it, of course, finding Kelly-Anne's robotic perfection very amusing. Clementine is her opposite: pretty only in a childlike way, hopelessly unself-conscious, counterbalancing her ignorance with self-righteous fanaticism. I saw myself there, and while Clementine is appealing and sympathetic despite (or even because of) her foibles, it wasn't a great feeling. She is obsessed rather than focused, embroiled in adult matters she can't quite grasp, and incapable of understanding or engineering other people's perceptions of her. She and Kelly-Anne make a lovely odd couple, but true connection is not quite possible, and Clementine only ends up feeling embarrassed, and like she has something to apologize for.

Whatever filmmaker Pascal Plante's grander statements might be, about the cybernetic nature of modern life and the merchandising of other people's lives and deaths, laced through as they are with a peculiar Arthurian motif, I've had a hard time fully engaging with them only because of my own passionate investment in his characters and their perverse interpersonal dynamics. Maybe by October I will have matured enough to articulate a more robust argument about this in-any-case extremely great movie. In the meantime, I am haunted by the enviable unknowability of Kelly-Anne, and the tragic transparency of Clementine. For now I will just say that I love it when a male filmmaker seems to live out a fantasy through a female character. One of the reasons that I don't totally dis Rob Zombie is that I enjoy the way that he encourages personal identification with tough female protagonists represented by his wife Sheri Moon, genre heroines like Meg Foster and Karen Black, and in my personal favorite instance, young Taylor Scout Compton:

When I saw this grim, black-eyed portrait of Pascal Plante, with its stark resemblance to Kelly-Anne, I thought yes, this guy gets it, he wants to live through her just like the rest of us, even if her version of humanity is not ours.

PS Please enjoy Lord Alfred Tennyson's description of average Tumblr user the Lady of Shalott, depicted visually by John William Waterhouse:

[redsray]

I love the hc that Tim never really stopped taking pictures of heroes and vigilantes even after he became Robin. Not even out of hero worship or anything-- he just found it fun. In fact, being Robin just made this hobby easier to do. He has them separated in folders and definitely has blackmail photos included.

The first time Tim met the Justice League one of his first reactions was to sneakily take at least one picture of each of them. Clark vaguely heard a camera shutter but he could never find any cameras or camera owners.

Sometimes Bruce comes to him and asks for specific pictures of members of the JL doing things they shouldn't be doing i.e Barry ditching a meeting cause he was eating Chipotle in the Watchtower kitchen. No one knows how Bruce gets the pictures except for the other Batfam members.

Tim is the god of blackmail right behind Babs. You need older blackmail or videos? Go to Babs. But Good quality blackmail photos? Tim is your guy.

He has at least 4 folders full of pictures of Dick specifically. One for his time as Robin, one for Nightwing, one for Discowing and one for just Dick.

He also manages to have pictures he definitely should not have because how did you get into the cave before you were Robin, Tim, but he refuses to elaborate on those. i.e Robin Jason out of costume, cozily reading at the batcomputer ("seriously, Tim, that's creepy"), Dick when he first adopted Haley ("were you there when I rescued her?!"), Damian training with the League of Assassins ("how the hell did you get that"), Duke back during the We Are Robin movement ("I do not remember you pulling out any cameras what the hell")

[vintagehomecollection]

Beyond The Kitchen: A Dreamer’s Guide, 1985

[cephalog0d]

Dick's Evaluation of Innocence Checklist:

Jason wouldn't kill them

Jason would have covered his tracks/gone to ground more effectively

Jason would have recorded the whole thing on video himself, set it to music, and emailed it to the entire Batfamily with no less than three middle finger emojis (if not an actual picture of him flipping them all off) and since that didn't happen he must not have done it

(Source: Nightwing 2016)

[batcavescolony]

Tim: I love Christmas

Jason: did your parents celebrate with you or something?

Tim: no, but while at boarding school my roommate wanted to watch Home Alone and I just loved the idea.

Steph: oh this will be fun

Tim: so I forged my parents signature and signed myself out. Took a cab home and set trapps all throughout my house. Now that was fun but I wanted to whole experience so I hired two goons to break into my house.

Jason: what the fuck?

Tim: they didn't get permanently hurt, I wasn't cruel. I did give them payment and obviously I didn't want my parents knowing so I just let them go after. It's was fun

Steph: sounds like you.

Tim: hey, we should do that! We have better training and traps! It could be Family bonding!

Steph: YES!

Jason: ...that does sound fun. I'm game.

[iwantmygun]

Pterodactyl sounds

[lazycranberrydoodles]

english translation book 5 baby we are in the ‘people assuming kid form hua cheng is xie lian’s son’ era 🔥🔥🔥 / follow for more hualian silliness

[cabi-leodrann]

Picked up watercolor again, after not doing anything with it for years lol Pretty happy with how it turned out!

Anyway, Cult of the Lamb fanart- because it lives rent free in my head. Specifically the Lamb/Narinder ship. I live for this ship, I do not know why. It just scratches my brain like very fiew ship can.

[homkamiro]

Tapping massage

[easyaesthetics]

Shuake & tweets - Happy 11/20!!!

[the-home]

[cavalierclavier]

tfw you’re breaking out a science experiment with a broken snooze button and you keep sassing one another between the senseless violence

[soniruza]

Hi again! Here's Red! (Re-e-e-ed, re-e-e-ed) lmao ❤️🧣

[yrsonpurpose]

Please stay gorgeous and strong and unbelievable. I miss you I miss you I miss you I love you. I’m calling you as soon as I send this, but I know you like to have these things written down. A ✿ / ❀

[zarla-s]

scout later died of 124/125 disease

[patreon]

[bitegore]

Zionists want you to conflate Judaism and Zionism. Zionists want you to believe that Judaism cannot exist without Zionism and that all Jews are Zionists. Zionism would have Jews believe that a Jewish state is the only way that they can be safe from antisemitism and will point to any instance of antisemitism as proof that Zionism is the solution- so Zionism wants gentiles to be antisemitic in their support of Palestine. They want you to conflate all Jews with Zionism and the state of Israel, and they want you to treat all Jews regardless of political affiliation as the face of Israel. Antizionist Jews exist, and incidences of antisemitism ostensibly acting against Zionism will not help dismantle the forces propping Zionism up.

Don't do their work for them.