#this film is just. god. it means so much to me

[trans-cuchulainn]

okay i've finished rewatching pride now i will stop having feelings all over your dash

[ct-multifandom]

I don’t usually make posts like this, but I’ve been seeing a lot of anti-intellectual junk lately, and I really think we need to put the word “pretentious” up on a shelf until people learn what it actually means.

It doesn’t describe someone who likes artsy-fartsy deep meaning media. People who are pretentious are fake. They’re posers trying to be sophisticated and unique, not like other girls. They pretend to only like stuff they think will make them sound cool when they talk about it. They want to act like they know something you don’t, and they want attention for it.

By definition, if you genuinely enjoy something, you can’t be pretentious. If it resonates with you, and you analyze it, and you don’t care what people think, that’s the polar opposite, actually. If you love obscure experimental prog music, if you watch underground high concept indie films through English teacher eyes, if you spend hours in a modern art museum reading each piece as a vessel for storytelling, if your backpack’s full of poetry books that inspire you, if you play underrated games that were someone’s passion project, if you have an interest in studying the classics or the masters, you are not pretentious.

Of course, some people just don’t like some stuff, and that’s fine, but that’s not what this is about. Don’t let anti-intellectuals shame you for enjoying things just because your interests are inaccessible to them, because they refuse to be brave and put effort into critical thinking. You’re not stuck up for refusing to overlook the craft of artists.

[maddy-ferguson]

#me

[shima-draws]

Rewatching HTTYD 2 and RTTE made me realize how badly they fucked everyone over in HTTYD 3. Like. Did they just look at all their character development and go “Yeah, we can flush this down the drain”, or

[stephantom]

I’d need to watch it again to confirm this, but I’m pretty sure that Thomas Becket is the only character who independently initiates touch with Henry?

There are plenty of people whom Henry touches, and it’s almost always possessive or threatening: the villager woman in the first flashback scene, the Saxon peasant girl (and possibly the old man? I think he prods at both of them with his riding crop), Gwendolen (holding her shoulders/neck), the French prostitute (kissing, leaning over, sitting on, slapping her butt), his sons (pushing and kicking them), the bishop (strangling), his barons (clutching onto one, tapping one’s head to indicate his vapidness), and Thomas too—(clasping his shoulders when he realizes Thomas is hurt, holding his hand to put on the chancellor ring).

Interestingly, I don’t think we ever see Henry touch or be touched by his mother or his wife. There’s the moment when he grabs/kicks their needlework, and later on he knocks all the plates off the table, possibly vaguely in their direction—so there are two physical interactions which are violent but still sort of… distant? And still the direction is just Henry to them (in terms of physicality, anyway—verbally, they do initiate conversations/fights with him).

Does anyone touch Henry? There are the monks who whip him in the end, but Henry has ordered them to do it. Likewise, there’s the servant/valet/page who begins to wipe him dry in the bath scene, but again, that’s someone performing a duty. Thomas Becket though, cuts in and takes over the drying, and the dialogue tells us explicitly that he’s not expected to do this, and doesn’t have to (“You’re a nobleman—why do you play at being my valet?”) but Becket seemingly wants to do it, and he knows Henry likes how he does it: enthusiastically, confidently, warmly, and freely (“No one does it like you, Thomas”). He towels Henry’s head, helps Henry put on his boots, and then casually uses Henry’s legs to push himself up to stand.

There’s the scene in Henry’s tent, after the French prostitute has left and the two of them are sitting on the bed: Becket sort of leans in and briefly clasps Henry’s arm where it’s lying in his lap, casually and warmly.

There’s also the getaway horse ride, where Becket is holding onto Henry, arms wrapped around him, and they’re both laughing and smiling. Henry’s shirt actually falls open a little and Becket’s hand winds up on his bare torso.

And then there are the thwarted attempts at touch, after the split: the two scenes where Henry accuses Becket of not loving him. Both times, Becket moves toward Henry and reaches out to touch him, and both times, Henry moves away and tells him to keep his distance.

They’re quick little things, but if they are actually the only instances of anyone touching Henry affectionately (or even of their own volition) that we see over the course of the movie, it does support an impression of Henry as fundamentally isolated—maybe there is truth to his claim that Becket is the only person who’s ever loved him.

What’s tragic is that 1) Henry doesn’t really know how to express love himself (see: Henry expressing nothing but violence and entitlement to everyone else around him, and even to Becket for the most part), and 2) Becket’s love, albeit huge in Henry’s world, is conflicted and unfulfilling—for both of them.

Becket might be the only person who’s dared to reach out to Henry and meet him on something close to a human level, and Henry loves him for it, but why does Becket do it? Part of it may just be an instinct of Becket’s to fulfill a need where he sees one, if he can, and if it benefits him. I think it’s so interesting that Henry seems obsessed with the question of whether Thomas really loves him, when it seems the truth might be that Thomas actually doesn’t know; maybe it’s an unanswerable, even nonsensical question to him. Like, what else could he do? I don’t know. “Insofar as I was capable of love, yes I did [love you].” But the fact that his last words, unwitnessed and private, are, “Poor Henry.” Fuck me up.

Ok, that last paragraph got away from me and now I can’t stop. Tempted to draw comparisons to “Beauty and the Beast” (this is a sad version where no magical transformation happens… unless you take a particular Catholic stance and consider that both of them maybe took real solace and meaning in Thomas being made a saint and that Henry maybe found real absolution through his penance).

I also want to compare all of this to “The Lion in Winter”, where it feels like, rather than a story about one lonely monster in a castle full of people he sees as objects, it’s a whole microcosm of traumatized and power-hungry people, reaching out for power and security and love and stabbing each other in the back, over and over. (Like, of course his mother and wife and kids have complex feelings for him—some of which involve love!) I think that depiction is better and less myopic, more true to life and probably a more accurate portrait of the historical figures involved (even when it comes to Henry and Becket—Becket was of that world too, after all), but I think I’ve rambled enough about all of this, so I’m going to end this post now. I’ll just say that there’s something nevertheless appealing about the boiled-down fairytale melodrama of “no one else ever loved me but you!”

[faaun]

ok let's catch up quickly

[araneitela]

Me staring at test results: It makes so much sense for her, but if I don't specify or elaborate, then we end up with the fanon take. Ugh, how do I easily explain that if you look at the word 'sex' through a much more old-fashioned lens instead of the modern one, that you'll get a vastly different picture of it?

/takes angycat.png typing to my tags

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

One of the many, many reasons I love Blade Runner is that it doesn't have this Big Epic Final Fight you've come to expect from literally any action film ever.

There's just Deckart and Roy - all others are dead, or not here - and it's just them and one was supposed to kill the other and has become the hunted.

Our main hero protagonist is at the end, he's beaten down, he's at the brink of death, he can barely still walk and is just fleeing as far as he can, as long as he can, and he won't be able to go on much longer and there's really only so far he can run before he's inevitably caught. There's no last minute saviour, no sudden burst of strength, no last attempt to fight. He's terrified. He's running, limping, for just a few seconds more.

And the antagonist - the one who was supposed to be killed, the one who was supposed to be sub-human and is living his life as a slave, in fear - he's going mad. He barely ever had anything, and he lost the few others he had - the only ones who understood when the world was against them. He has only minutes to live, minutes that not even his creator - his god, almost - could drag out, a human god who died by his bare hands. There's nothing left to lose and nothing left to do, but there's the person who hunted him down like a machine or an animal that's one rogue, the one supposed to kill him, entirely at his mercy.

And then they're on that roof, and I don't know what Roy might think, but I know Deckart was done with his life. I know he was convinced he'd die right here - that both of them would die on this roof in the rain.

And when Roy pulls him up? There has to be an explanation. Surely he'll kill him now. What else could he possibly want?

But Roy isn't out for revenge anymore. For as little as he's lived, he's seen so incredibly much. And he knows there isn't anything to be done. He'll die, he'll be forgotten, just another rogue replicant - like moments in time, like tears in rain.

"Time to die." No sadness, no anger, nothing. There's nothing more to it, not anymore. It's a fact.

It's when he's free for the first time.

He's no longer living in fear. He died on his own terms. He's as free as he could ever be, in the only way that was ever even a possibility. And as he dies, as he no longer lives as a slave, that white dove flies away through the rain - a symbol of freedom, finally let go.

And Deckart is left alone on that roof, bleeding, his hand broken, exhausted, still not quite away from the brink of death he's been limping along for the last, what, minutes? (How long was it? Can't have been long. But it sure felt endless.)

There's no winner. No one has been defeated, either. There's just one who died, as he was always meant to, and one who lived, but his world might be in shambles.

What is life worth when you're just waiting for death? Is it freedom when you can never settle down? Could there ever be a different ending?

Also I'm going absolutely insane over the white dove which is a symbol for freedom btw like DAMN!!!!!!! IMPLICATIONS!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[ichthyorelationships]

ideas: i didn't really think of him being underwater but they deserve to have drama by crying there too so i just think you could say something about the composition being denser than water or w/e. proteins

i'm always like good thing he didn't try to exit asap via swimming in ciao alberto But What If He Did lol. just swim Somewhere else along the coast, maybe panic about [money??] & whether somehow this ruins school for luca, whether he can get in touch w/o it being On Sight b/w him & all marcovaldos, consider just kind of trying out other places, traveling after all...fascinating considering the other povs on the issue like: now there's the paguros to sympathize w/a kid vanishing, luca however in a somewhat more novel position there, giulia's throwback to alberto being a bit perplexing lmao, kind of thinking the best massimo could do is have a prewritten letter for luca to give to alberto If Possible, conveying something like i know you didn't set my livelihood on fire on purpose but even if you did i'd want you to stay. and luca in a position to do all of "maybe give the island fun facts so someone can check if he's there" & "wait & hope alberto can/does get in touch" & "have a lot of feelings"....not even the context of what this drawing is about necessarily, just tacking it on here anyways. ahead of time i went "heh now i Know they're gonna have it get little Real here b/c it's really about alberto wanting the security of feeling he can 'earn' a sustained relationship" then the short cleared & i was lying completely dead on the pavement

[munamania]

ok im a really chill and normal person and i get over things and am well adjusted but take a walk with me here. just give me my time to complain when im not in the absolute fucking trenches. and yes i believe i suffered more than those in trench warfare. it was literally a lesbian situationship with a bistraight girl come on. just. magenta choppy shag with the roots coming in. camo cargo pants black t shirt with red lettering and striped long sleeve (sign someone likes music. confirmed). lip ring big black stud earrings and nails. red docs. i think lesbians should be allowed to kill one dyke baiter in their lifetime idc

[vampiremansionpoolboy-moved]

going insane over the fact that happiness and care and concern and love is underneath every interaction between newt and hermann in pacific rim

[wormsdyke]

3am pacing around the room in a heated debate with myself over which movie should fill the 4th slot on my letterboxd profile

[emblazons]

Okay but t b h this writer’s strike scares me more than the possibility of byler not being endgame and that’s the truth. I have zero doubts of the direction of the show…but getting there messily because Netflix outsources scripts to non-union writers to get it made (or even moves forward with incomplete scripts) terrifies me.

Like. Anyone who lived through 2007 TV knows my fears lmao. I can’t imagine being given everything I want but have the way we get there be shit (even a little) because some scrooge-like media executives decided Matt, Ross, Kate Trefry, Paul Dichter, and Caitlin Schneiderhan don’t deserve paychecks and protections. I’d start actual riots.

[ncutii-gatwa]

i love hat films very much. they really mean the world to me and im so glad im alive at the same time as them

[tamaharu]

okay thats interesting! in the SF try-outs during the song "legally blonde" she sings about how she cant be legally blonde, while in the official version AND THE DEMO she sings about letting her be legally blonde. which means that at some point they changed the lyrics around, and then changed them back! laurence o'keefe.... nell benjamin.... what occurs in your twisted minds

[seeminglyseph]

I know everyone hates M Knight Shyamalan's The Village, and "oooh it's modern day all along" seems like a lame twist, but consider:

A) wool cloaks fuck and that's always a cool look and I won't apologize for the fact that I definitely just wanted to wear cloaks instead of coats even though I live somewhere that experiences winters in Hardcore Mode and that was not viable

And B) the concept that your parents decided for you that you had to live in a dangerous and reductive environment and raised you on fear and punishment and secrecy because they hated the way society was developing and didn't want you to have access or choice was like. Extremely real fore as someone raised Catholic with multiple friends raised either Jehovah's Witness or Mormon. Like, obviously, it was extremely exaggerated as a 2000s horror-thriller type movie, but like.

It's no Lady in the Water. I honestly haven't seen The Village in a bit, but in concept, I think it does make sense as a cult movie. It's just that too much is like... "oooo it's a twist!" Rather than, like... "damn, the adults of this movie have a cult compound that they have used to isolate, indoctrinate, and control their children, literally creating and becoming monsters that haunt and torment them to keep them in line to maintain a way of life in line with their own moral values"

And like. If you look at it through the lens of like. The emotional impact of how much betrayal goes on within the film in the families and the cult and for the children who had no choice to be there and no information, like. That's much more impactful than simply "it was modern day all along"

It's "your parents have been lying to you all along, and all of your pain and fear has served no greater purpose. Half of these rules were not to keep you safe. They were to make you obey, and you have no way of knowing which are which. The people you trust have deeply and intentionally fractured your relationship with reality as a way to keep you contained and docile and under control. You have been betrayed on the most fundamental level by the people who were supposed to raise you and guard you and keep you safe."

And that's like. That's good horror that sticks in the back of your brain forever? Idk. Maybe my imaginary Village is better than the real Village but like. I think it's a better movie than it gets credit for.

And I want more excuses to wear wool cloaks, like damn.