#tom platts

[bassrebelsmusic]

Tom Platts & Akacia - Before It Starts [Bass Rebels] No Copyright Music ...

[clericxhood777]

Luke, Jeremiah, Tom, Oswald, Miles, Boris and Damian would kidnap their love interest and run away with them

Percy, Bruce, Harry, Ed, Jackson, Theo and Jon would be too lovestruck to even realize that

[elliott-the-queer-artist]

connor murphy and evan hansen from dear evan hansen are just a less murderous reincarnation of nigel colbie and alex forbes from like minds. change my mind

[sneakydraws]

i wanna see fifty five goldfinch pieces 💔💔

OKAY!! So I have this little series I like to call the great decompartmentalisation of Theo decker... Let me walk you through it. I promise there's art after the massive paragraph of meandering analysis alright

You know how Theo's life is segmented into these distinct episodes? And how he himself is split into multiple different identities, and how much shame and fear there is associated with the idea of those identities mixing? For example: the straight a student living a completely, delusionally idyllic life with his adoring mother and the vanilla teenage troublemaker breaking into people's summer homes with his shady homoerotic bestie. When the two identities come into contact via his suspension, it leads to the most traumatic event in Theo's life, and honestly I suspect that might be the origin of this tendency towards compartmentalisation... I could go through the whole book here but the most prominent examples are Theo panicking at the thought of Mrs Barbour or his therapist finding out about Hobie, his cutting himself off from New York when in Vegas with his other shady homoerotic bestie (the amount of times Vegas is compared to an alien planet...) and his dual post timeskip identifies of charming antiques salesman/fraudulent art stealing junkie. And this often manifests in Theo's reluctance to let people from his different periods interact - see him rushing to stop Boris from talking to Pippa, and him keeping Hobie in the dark about the blackmail, and isn't it kind of weird that the barbours - Theo's soon to be legal family - don't really interact with Hobie and Pippa? Anyway. Basically I thought it would be cool to make a series of little vignettes of theo allowing the people and places and things that represent various versions of Him to interact and thus symbolically healing the disconnected parts of himself... Or something. I have more ideas scribbled down but somehow the only ones I ended up with proper art for is the various holidays (which, holidays are also a weirdly prevalent theme in tgf? Idk whats up with that but it's a good tool for this purpose) so we have:

Christmas Eve at Boris's, featuring Pippa and Hobie - I feel kinda bad for only ever portraying Boris with polish customs but let's be real I'm just using him to show off my own heritage lol. In Poland the main Xmas celebrations happen on Xmas Eve, traditionally with the appearance of the first star in the sky. You eat the mostly inoffensive barszcz as well some truly vile shit, such as mushroom and cabbage dumplings, mushroom and cabbage salad, other items made of mushrooms and cabbage, and finally the most disgusting dish of my life: Jewish style carp. No, it's not quite the same thing as gefiltefish, although that's the Wikipedia page you might use to get to the actual dish. All washed down with compote which I hate. You also break and eat communion wafers while wishing each other stuff, which Pippa is doing with popchyk here hehe

Christmas breakfast as a little bonus despite it not having much of a tradition - I associate it with lots of hams/cured meats, gherkins and maybe Tatar sauce (yum). Much superior to the Xmas dinner imho. Really I just wanted Theo and Boris to have a moment to themselves haha

Christmas proper at the barbours, featuring Boris and Tom cable! I could talk about all the tension and who's diffusing it but honestly I think y'all can draw your own conclusions lol. I just think it would be really funny for the infamous dis-engaged couple to each bring their delinquent boytoys and for Boris the drug dealer to actually come out looking superior

Vegetarian friendly Thanksgiving at Hobie's, as tradition requires! I think he'd love to throw one of his big Thanksgiving parties purely for all of Theo's families to get to know each other... you know, kind of an elaboration on that Thanksgiving illustration I drew a while back! This would be before all the Christmases I think. Boris is winning Mrs Barbour over with his roguish charm lol I think old ladies would like him... Theo in the corner freaking the hell out as per this project's mission statement lmao

And on a slightly different note I wanted Theo Pippa and Hobie to all visit weltys grave. I'm borrowing slightly from the polish tradition of all saint's day, when you clean, decorate and light candles on the graves of loved ones.

[moorheadthanyoucanhandle]

GONE FISSION

Opening in theaters this weekend:

Oppenheimer--This biopic splits time the way its hero splits the atom. Narrative is fissionable to writer-director Christopher Nolan; he skips back and forth between episodes of Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) as a bumbling student, then as a philandering rising star in the new field of quantum physics, then as the determined yet haunted lord of Los Alamos, then as a post-bomb martyr to '50s era red-baiting. It glides along smoothly through its fractured scheme, beautifully shot by Hoyt van Hoytema in black and white and varyingly muted shades of color depending on period and point of view, and pushed along by a solemn Philip Glass-esque score by Ludwig Göransson.

Often crowned by a horizontal wide-brimmed preacher-style hat that makes him look like Brad Dourif in Wise Blood, Murphy uncannily captures the bursting, wide-eyed, near-ecstatic face that we see in photos of Oppenheimer. But he manages to give the performance a human dimension, with everyday foibles and touches of humor. He's not a pageant figure.

Murphy carries a star presence. But he's very ably supported by a huge, colorful gallery of star character players: Robert Downey Jr. as AEC Chairmen Lewis Strauss and Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence and Benny Safdie as Edward Teller and Tom Conti as Albert Einstein and David Krumholtz as Isidore Rabi, Oppenheimer's menschy colleague who makes sure he eats and nudges his conscience, and Matthew Modine and Casey Affleck and Kenneth Branagh and Rami Malek and Alden Ehrenreich, to name only a few.

They're all entertaining, but two in particular jolt the movie to life: Florence Pugh as Oppenheimer's joyless lover Jean Tatlock and Matt Damon as the practical-minded, professionally unimpressed Leslie Groves, representing us laypeople in his deadpan, flummoxed scenes with Murphy. For a while it seems like Emily Blunt is underserved as Kitty Oppenheimer, but near the end she gets a juicy, angry scene opposite AEC lawyer Roger Robb (Jason Clarke), who has underestimated her.

Other than maybe a few too many scenes of the young "Oppie" having visions that look like the psychedelic mindtrip at the end of 2001, there was no point where I found Oppenheimer less than absorbing. Few would suggest that this ambitious, superbly acted, superbly crafted film isn't a major, compelling work, a vast expansion on Roland Joffé's watchable but modest Fat Man and Little Boy from 1989. If Nolan's film isn't quite completely satisfying, there could be two reasons.

One is that trying to arrive at a moral conclusion about this movie's hero seems impossible. Put (too) simply: on the one hand, Oppenheimer won World War II for the good guys and checked fascism (not checkmated it, alas) for more than half a century. On the other hand, his invention has the potential to ruin the world for everybody. Both can be true, and the ambiguity is unresolvable.

Another problem with the film, however, is a matter of simple showmanship. Back in 1994, James Cameron brought his silly action picture True Lies to a point where Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis kiss while, far in the distance, we see a mushroom cloud erupt on the horizon. Triumphant, but then Cameron pushed his luck, piling on one last struggle with the villain in a Harrier jet. I remember thinking (and writing) at the time that when your hero and heroine kiss in front of a mushroom cloud, the movie is over.

Oppenheimer, obviously a very different movie, is uneasily structured in the same way. The scenes leading up to the Trinity Test at White Sands in 1945 are riveting, pulse pounding. The explosion and the immediate aftermath, ending the war in Japan, is a stunning dramatic climax.

But then the movie keeps going, for another hour or so, detailing the war of spite and will between Strauss and Oppenheimer, and the revocation of Oppenheimer's security clearance. It's interesting, provocative material in itself, but it seems a little petty and trivial after the "I am become death; destroyer of worlds" stuff. Given Nolan's supposed consummate skill at scrambling sequence, couldn't he have somehow structured the movie to end with a bang and not a whimper?

Barbie--Something is rotten in the state of Barbieland. As this, her first live-action feature begins, our titular heroine finds herself haunted, right in the middle of raging dance parties at her Dreamhouse, by thoughts of death. Still more alarming, when she steps out of her pumps, her feet go flat to the ground.

To be clear, the Barbie in question, played by Margot Robbie, is "Stereotypical Barbie," the blond, inhumanly thin and leggy iconic version of the Mattel doll. She shares the relentlessly cheery pink-plastic realm of Barbieland with countless other Barbies of every race and body shape and profession, all happy and accomplished and untroubled and mutually supportive. They're dimly aware of us in the "Real World"; they believe that their own harmony has created an example that has led to female empowerment and civil rights over here.

The Barbies also share Barbieland with Ken (Ryan Gosling) and countless variant Kens, as well as Ken's featureless friend Allan (a perfectly cast Michael Cera). But the guys exist entirely as accessories to the relatively uninterested Barbies. Ken's unrequited fascination with Barbie makes him subject, unlike the Barbies, to dissatisfaction.

Barbie goes for advice to "Weird Barbie" (Kate McKinnon), whose hair is frizzy and patchy and who's stuck in a permanent split. She's told that her troubles come from the dark feelings of somebody who's playing with her in our reality, so she sets out on a quest to the Real World, emerging in Venice Beach. Barbie connects with a mom and teenage daughter (America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt) whose relationship is strained; she's also pursued by the all-male board of Mattel, led by Will Ferrell. Ken, meanwhile, learns about our patriarchy, likes what he hears, and heads back to Barbieland alone to institute it, with himself at the top.

Mattel was founded in 1945, the same year as the Trinity Test, and there are probably feminist social critics who would argue that Barbie, invented in 1959 by Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler (well played by Rhea Perlman in the film), has wreaked only a little less havoc on the modern psyche than Oppenheimer's gadget. Even though I'm in exactly the right generational wheelhouse (I was born in 1962), my own childhood experience with Barbie was very limited, and thus so were my nostalgic associations with her.

Even so, this nutty fantasy, directed by Greta Gerwig from a brilliant script she wrote with Noah Baumbach, made me laugh from its inspired first scene to its Wings of Desire finish. Narrated in the droll, arch tones of Helen Mirren, it manages to come across as both an ingenious pop-culture lampoon/celebration and an unpretentious but surprisingly heartfelt deep dive into the implications of the Barbie archetype. I wasn't a big fan of Gerwig's 2019 version of Little Women, but here she builds her world with the freedom of, well, a kid playing with dolls, but also with the confidence and adult perspective of an artist.

Not everything in the movie works; in the second half the narrative gets a little lost at times in some very strange musical numbers/battle scenes, and the whole thing comes close to going on a bit too long. And it's hard to say just who this movie is for. It hardly seems intended for little girls; however smart, they're too young for the commentary about female identity to mean much to them yet. It seems more like it's meant for adult women with both a fondness for and an ambivalence toward Barbie.

No doubt there are those who would also complain that, however witty and self-effacing, the movie amounts to a feature-length commercial for the brand. But in the age of Marvel and other such franchises, it seems a little late to object to this.

The revelation in the film is Margot Robbie. It seems ridiculous that she's able, in the role of freaking Barbie, to give a performance of such subtlety and nuance and shading and quiet, unforced wistfulness, but she does. And she gets to deliver the best last line of the year.

Theater Camp--Joan, the founder of "AndirondACTS," a slightly gone-to-seed theater camp in upstate New York, has fallen into a coma. The job of keeping the struggling camp afloat falls to her decidedly non-theatrical "crypto bro" son Troy. Meanwhile the devoted instructors work with the exuberantly happy campers to mount the shows, including an original musical about the life of poor comatose Joan (Amy Sedaris). Needless to say, all does not go smoothly.

The creators of this Waiting for Guffman-esque "mockumentary" comedy, Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman, Ben Platt and Noah Galvin, know the world they're depicting well; all of them have been doing theater since they were small children. Gordon and Lieberman co-directed, from a script by all four; Platt and Gordon play Amos and Rebecca-Diane, the utterly enmeshed, co-dependent acting instructors and Galvin plays the low-profile tech director.

They capture the camaraderie and the sense of belonging that theater can give kids, and their affection for that world is unmistakable, but they're careful not to get too sentimental. The envies and resentments and passive-aggressive denigrations among theater folk, especially at this often professionally frustrated level, are vividly represented.

Getting laughs from the self-important vanities of theater people is pretty low-hanging fruit, I suppose, but Theater Camp is nonetheless often hilarious. The film also manages to get a little deeper at times, touching on the irony that while theater can create a haven and a community for misfit kids, this can generate its own clannishness and exclusionary snobbery, as in Amos and Rebecca-Diane's coldness toward the imbecilic but well-intentioned Troy, charmingly played by a sort of poor-man's Channing Tatum named Jimmy Tatro.

The real joy in Theater Camp, of course, is the acting: Platt, Gordon, Tatro, plus a few vets like Sedaris, Caroline Aaron and David Rasche bring the material to life. But as Glenn, the long-suffering backstage drudge who really ought to be onstage, Noah Galvin, who replaced Platt on Broadway in Dear Evan Hansen, is the revelation among the adults in the cast. He's a knockout.

The revelation among the kids playing the campers is, well, pretty much all of the kids playing the campers. There are some real singing, dancing and acting prodigies in this company. If there was a real theater camp somewhere with this kind of talent, their shows would sell out.

[mostunderratedawards]

Most Underrated Movie

The Impossible

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Intouchables

The Dark Knight Rises

The Cabin in the Woods

Pitch Perfect

[2ndaryprotocol]

The tongue in cheek psycho thriller ‘The Temp’ terrorized moviegoers this day 30 years ago. 🍪🐝👨‍👧

“𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙸 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚢 𝚋𝚘𝚜𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚜𝚝, 𝚖𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚎𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎.”

[rookie-critic]

Devotion (2022, dir. J. D. Dillard) - review by Rookie-Critic

Devotion is a war biopic that manages to stay mostly in line with the genre it's participating in, if only slightly elevated by its fantastic cast and their performances. The story of real life Korean War naval aviators Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner, the film basically follows their entire relationship, and it is that relationship that carries the film. Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell turn in a couple of amazing performances and, even in moments that feel like they're causing the film to drag, they keep it from being a detriment because you're just enjoying watching two actors who have it on lock. There are a few dogfight scenes in the film, which are great, but they're really not the focus. Top Gun: Maverick already did that about as expertly as any movie could back in May. Devotion knows where its focus should be and sticks to it, which is mostly to its benefit.

Speaking of Top Gun: Maverick, I can't make it all the way through this review without pointing out the elephant in the room: yes, Powell (who plays Hudner in the film) is the same actor that played Hangman in Maverick. Yes, both films are about naval aviators. Yes, there is a scene where a plane goes down in the snow in both films. Yes, I made a ton of jokes about that prior to watching it (and it is pretty funny), but Devotion is not just a Top Gun: Maverick clone, and I genuinely don't think it's trying to capitalize on the similarities. It's a really good film with completely different motivations that really stands on its own two feet. That being said, it does feel very "classic." Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean it's a movie where the story plays out in a very unsurprising, flat way. The emotional scenes hit, the action scenes are entertaining, but the movie never really feels like it's trying to excel in any one particular area. It's an interesting story about a couple of great guys in a war that you don't see portrayed on screen a lot, and that's kind of all it needs to be.

Score: 8/10

Currently at the tail end of its theater run. It is available to pre-order on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K through Paramount Pictures.

[hotmusketeerspoll]

Here stand the current entrants for the Magnificent Musketeer Tournament - updated

Submissions are still open, so if one of your favourite characters isn't here yet, make sure you send them in.

Also, if there's a character already here that you have strong feelings about, you can submit them yourself!

Quite a few characters have no text propaganda or photos, here's a list of those that need some help.

On to the list!

All contestants are listed chronologically, from oldest to newest

D’Artagnan

Douglas Fairbanks

Max Linder (Dart-In-Again)

Gene Kelly

Jean-Paul Belmondo

Jean-Pierre Cassel

Jeremy Brett

Michael York

Jean Valmont

Chris O’Donnell

Gabriel Byrne

Hugh Dancy

Logan Lerman

Luke Pasqualino

Tamaki Ryou

Malachi Pullar-Latchman

François Civil

Athos

Oliver Reed

Keifer Sutherland

John Malkovich

Matthew Macfadyen

Tom Burke

Uzuki Hayate

Vincent Cassel

Aramis

Richard Chamberlain

Igor Starygin

Charlie Sheen

Jeremy Irons

Luke Evans

Santiago Cabrera

Miya Rurika

Romain Duris

Porthos

Brian Blessed

Frank Finlay

Oliver Platt

Gerard Depardieu

Ray Stevenson

Howard Charles 

Pio Marmaï

Milady

Lana Turner

Faye Dunaway

Margarita Terekhova

Rebecca de Mornay

Milla Jovovich

Maimie McCoy

Mollie Hindle

Preeya Kalidas

Eva Green

Constance

Marguerite de la Motte

June Allyson

Raquel Welch

Julie Delpy

Gabriella Wilde

Tamla Kari

Lyna Khoudri

Richelieu

Nigel de Brulier

Vincent Price

Charlton Heston

Bernard Haller

Aleksandr Trofimov

Tim Curry

Christoph Waltz

Peter Capaldi

Rochefort

Guy Delorme

Christopher Lee

Boris Klyuev

Michael Wincott

Mads Mikkelsen

Marc Warren

Anne of Austria

Angela Lansbury

Geraldine Chaplin

Catherine Jourdan

Gabrielle Anwar

Anne Paurillard

Sheena Easton

Juno Temple

Alexandra Dowling

Vicky Krieps

King Louis XIII

Hugh O’Conor

Ryan Gage

Louis Garrel

Treville

Hugo Speer

Marc Barbé

Duke of Buckingham

Simon Ward

Orlando Bloom

Jacob Fortune-Lloyd

Planchet

Roy Kinnear

James Corden

Grimaud

William Phillips

Matthew McNulty

Jussac

Ángel del Pozo

Felton

Michael Gothard

Madame Chevreuse

Sophie Craig

Madame Coquenard

Jennifer Matter

Louis XIV

Louis Hayward

Richard Chamberlain

Leonardo DiCaprio

Robert Sheehan

Phillppe

Louis Hayward

Richard Chamberlain

Leonardo DiCaprio

Maria Theresa

Joan Bennett

Vivien Merchant

Kristina Krepela

Cardinal Mazarin

Gigi Proietti

Gerard Depardieu

Michael Ironside

Raoul

C. Thomas Howell

Peter Sarsgaard

Lousie de la Valliere

Jenny Agutter

Mordaunt

Michael Gothard

Kim Cattrall (Justine de Winter)

[bootleglesbian]

available bootlegs

this is everything i currently have available (updated 06/18/24). if you have anything to trade i generally prefer that but i am open to gifting any of the titles that are not starred! as a rule, if no cast is listed or only some members are listed, that means that i do not know the cast but i am happy to send a screenshot if you would like (and if anyone is interested in helping me identify unknown casts or dates of any files, let me know!).

green = video, pink = audio, starred = trade or donations only

*Anastasia (Hartford Theatre pre-Broadway run - Christy Altomare, Derek Klena)

*Anastasia (Broadway - Christy Altomare, Derek Klena)

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (Broadway, 06/24/18 - Melissa Benoist)

Beetlejuice (Broadway, 10/31/19 aka Halloween)

Book of Mormon (Broadway - Ben Platt)

Come From Away (Broadway - Jenn Collela)

Falsettos (Proshot)

Falsettos (Broadway - ORC, not proshot)

Falsettos (Tour - Max von Essen, Nick Adams, Eden Espinosa, Nick Blaemire, Audrey Cardwell, Bryonha Marie Parham)

*Falsettos (Tour - Max von Essen, Nicka Adams, Eden Espinosa, Nick Blaemire, Audrey Cardwell, Bryonha Marie Parham)

Freaky Friday (La Jolla)

*Ghost (Broadway - Caissie Levy)

Hamilton (Broadway - Lexi Lawson)

Hamilton (First National Tour - Michael Luwoye, Solea Pffeifer, Joshua Henry, Emmy Raver Lampman, Isaiah Johnson, Jordan Donica, Mathenee Treco, Ruben J. Carbajal, Amber Iman, Rory O'Malley)

*Hamilton (Chicago Act 1 only - Karen Olivo, Ariana Afsar, Samantha Marie Ware, Miguel Cervantes, Joshua Henry)

*Hamilton (Broadway - OBC, not proshot)

*The Last Five Years (Off-Broadway - Betsy Wolfe, Adam Kantor)

*Lempicka (Broadway, 03/38/24 - Eden Espinosa, Amber Iman, Andrew Samonsky, George Abud, Natalie Joy Johnson, Zoe Glick, Nathaniel Stampley, Beth Leavel)

*Mean Girls (Broadway, 02/22/20 - Renee Rapp, Erika Henningson, Barrett Wilbert Weed, Grey Henson, Kate Rockwell, Krystina Alabado, Kyle Selig)

*Mean Girls (National Tour)

*Mystery of Edwin Drood (Broadway - Stephanie J. Block, Betsy Wolfe, Jessie Mueller)

*The Prom (Alliance Theatre pre-Broadway - Caitlin Kinnunen, Anna Grace Barlow)

*She Loves Me (Broadway - ORC proshot)

Waitress (ART pre-Broadway run - Jessie Mueller, Jeanna de Waal, Keala Settle, Drew Gehling, Joe Tippett, Dakin Matthews, Christopher Fitzgerald, Eric Anderson)

*Waitress (Broadway - Jessie Mueller, Keala Settle, Molly Jobe, Drew Gehling)

*Waitress (Broadway - Sara Barielles, Chris Diamantopoulos, Charity Angel Dawson, Molly Jobe, Will Swenson, Christopher Fitzgerald)

*Waitress (Broadway, 06/19/17 - Betsy Wolfe, Drew Gehling)

Waitress (Broadway, 12/14/17 - Stephanie Torns, Jason Mraz)

Waitress (Broadway - Shoshana Bean, Jeremy Jordan)

*Waitress (Broadway - Shoshana Bean, Jeremy Jordan)

Waitress (Broadway, 02/03/19 - Sara Bareilles, Gavin Creel)

Waitress (Tour, 08/26/18)

Wicked (Broadway, 02/01/15 - Caroline Bowman, Kara Lindsey)

Wicked (Broadway, 02/10/13 - Donna Vivino, Ali Mauzey, Kyle Dean Massey, Randy Danson, Adam Grupper, Catherine Charlebois, F. Michael Haynie, Tom Flynn)

Wicked (unknown - Eden Espinosa, Megan Hilty)

*Wicked (Broadway - Stephanie J. Block, Annaleigh Ashford)

*Wicked (Broadway - Lindsay Mendez, Katie Rose Clark)

[wisteriagoesvroom]

Little brothers of mine

The Guides -- Margaret Widdemer [x] // On Speaking Quietly with My Brother -- Jay Deshpande [x] // It Was The Animals -- Natalie Diaz [x] // The Night Before I Leave Home -- Elisa Gonzalez [x] // I Cast It Away, My Body -- william bearheart [x] // My Brothers Mirror -- Donald Platt [x] // Youth -- Tom Sleigh [x] // There, There, Grieving -- Zeina Hashem Beck [x] // Two Set Out On Their Journey -- Galway Kinnel [x] // stray birds -- Rabindranath Tagore [x] // [When night draws on, remembering keeps me wakeful] -- al-Khansāʾ [x] //

and special thanks @blorbocedes for the final LH soundbite gif (screenshot) because i couldn't find it anywhere else

[ericdeggans]

My List of the Best TV in 2023: An Abundance of Quality Even in Adversity

What’s the surest proof that there truly is too much television available these days?

The fact that, even though 2023 featured historic performers and writers strikes in Hollywood which crippled film and TV production for months, there was still enough great series and projects to fill an entire notebook page.

Way too many, in fact, for me to cover in my small part of NPR’s awesome annual listing of the best TV and film of the year, compiled among six different critics. It’s one reason the strikes went on so long in the first place – for fans of great TV, it didn’t really seem like much changed, as streaming services kept dropping cool stuff, thanks to their long production lead times.

Ironically, viewers may notice the strikes’ impact more next year – in part, because a lot of cool TV shows left us in 2023 (pour one out for Barry, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Crown, Reservation Dogs, Succession, and, possibly, Ted Lasso) and also because the streamers will spend some time rebuilding lineups which got depleted.

Here, where I have a lot more room is my highly subjective and surprisingly long list of the Best TV of 2024:

TOP PICK - Succession – A show which perfectly captured how the dysfunctions of wealthy families can impact the world delivered a note-perfect finale that surprised – though I did predict Tom would win out – and yet felt completely inevitable. All while the world was second-guessing and writing their own endings. Masterful.

The Last of Us – Who knew reinventing the zombie apocalypse story was simple as coming up with a new cause – fungus, eww! – and the willingness to hand big chunks of the story over to compelling, fully drawn supporting characters. Doesn’t hurt to have ultimate zaddy Pedro Pascal and precocious acting genius Bella Ramsey on the case, either.

The Bear - Speaking of compelling supporting characters…this show’s second season sparkled by giving the other employees in Carmy’s greasy spoon-becoming-a-great-restaurant lots of narrative room. But it took flight with unexpected, brilliant cameos from Jon Bernthal, Olivia Colman, Oliver Platt, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, and the legendary Jamie Lee Curtis.

Reservation Dogs – Proof of the amazing, authentic, original stories which come from letting indigenous people tells their own stories, smashing together a crushing realism with the sense that a jarring visit from the spirit world is always around the next corner.

Fargo – Not sure I love the ultimate message on the healing power of suburban, white, upper middle class Midwestern family life (or what happens to the one major Black character). But crackling performances from Juno Temple, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Jason leigh and Dave Foley make this year’s installment the best version in many years.

Shrinking – An emotional and truly funny comedy that reminds us how hilarious Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams can be while not making us spend too much time on Jason Segel’s angsty privileged white guy shtick.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The TV series which scored the most by taking the boldest swings, leaning into Trek’s original heritage as an adventure-of-the-week which told the most ambitious stories on the small screen.

(The dancing, dubstepping, boy band-style Klingons on Strange New Worlds powered my favorite TV scene of the year.)

Star Trek: Picard – Yeah, I put TWO Trek series here, because everyone else in critic-land seems to be sleeping on the fact that they made more than one excellent season of a new Trek series filled with nods to what came before, including this show, which reunited the Next Generation cast in a storyline basically about old people saving the universe from young, clueless, mind-controlled pawns.

Barry – Wasn’t thrilled about how grim this series’ finale eventually became. But respected the fact that co-creator/star Bill Hader never shied away from the fact that the show was going to be his laboratory for all the directing and storytelling tricks he ever wanted to try, and a dark comedy about a hitman-turned-actor has to be seriously dark to mean something.

Beef – A road rage incident becomes a crackling, entertaining look at everything from Asian family culture to Elon Musk-level mogul dysfunction while also proving my girl Ali Wong can act her ass off.

Still: A Michael J. Fox Story – While other celebrities are executive producing documentaries to show how legendarily cool they are, Fox helped create an up close look at his struggle with Parkinson’s disease which show how hard it is to put on socks and take a walk on a new York street without crashing to the ground right in front of a concerned fan.

Only Murders in the Building – A comedy about over-privileged crime podcasters in an Upper West side apartment building should not stay entertaining over three seasons. But this show pulls it off, tossing in against-the-grain cameos by Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep that provide the best icing on a very fine cake.

Slow Horses – This show about a department filled with failed British intelligence agents not only subverts the spy genre, it subverts the satires which originally subverted classic spy dramas, like Get Smart. Topped by mesmerizing performances from Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas, I would have subtitled this one, Get Smarter.

Happy Valley - This series about an experienced, ball-busting divorced single mom of a police sergeant in a mid-size town in Britain notched an underappreciated series finale featuring the amazing Sarah Lancashire as Catharine Cawood, finally confronting the man she blamed for her daughter’s suicide and her grandson’s emotional turmoil.

BS High – A great documentary often tells a story which keeps going deeper and better, like a descent into a spellbinding madness. This film achieved that by giving center stage to master manipulator/football coach Roy Johnson, who got ESPN to air a game featuring his Bishop Sycamore High School team; the film contends their crushing loss eventually exposed that the school didn’t really exist.

I’m a Virgo – Creator and activist Boots Riley made an urban parable where Black excellence became superpowers and the world’s exploitive class came for a 13-foot-tall Black teen played by the always compelling Jharrel Jerome. Always inspiring to see how Boots turns mainstream media’s tropes and expectations against itself.

[solaneceae]

【 𝙿 𝚁 𝙾 𝙹 𝙴 𝙲 𝚃 : 𝙳 𝚄 𝙲 𝙺 𝙻 𝙸 𝙽 𝙶 】 | a QSMP Baghera playlist 🐤

a narrative playlist retracing her story, from her humble origins to Purgatory.

cover art by @Rion_Riots on twitter

⤵️ tracklist under the cut ⤵️

CHAPTER 1: lab rat

a duckling opens her eyes to white tiles and syringes.

Bumblebees are Out - Jack Stauber

A Bird in a Gilded Cage - Alex Niedt

Body - Mother Mother

rises the moon - liana flores

CHAPTER 2: Duckling and Bluebird

a bond is formed between two birds of a feather.

Rule #4 Fish in a Birdcage - Fish in a Birdcage

Two Birds - Regina Spektor

Evelyn Evelyn - Evelyn Evelyn

Innocence - Madeon

CHAPTER 3: escape!

this little duckling has had enough.

Escapism - Rebecca Sugar

THE KID WHO KEPT RUNNING - Vylet Pony

Shelter - Porter Robinson

We'll Meet Again - The Ink Spots

CHAPTER 4: drifting away

the ocean waves are tall and scary, but she presses on.

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi - Radiohead

Ship in a Bottle - fin

Shackleton - Adam Young

soundscape diary - vylet pony

CHAPTER 5: a new life of music and dirt fountains

she finds new friends. and slowly, she forgets.

Youth - Daughter

Tout Oublier - Angèle

La veriter - KronoMuzik

I Say - Zerator & BagheraJones

CHAPTER 6: [[We Hope You Enjoy The Island :) ]]

you didn't think it would be that easy, did you?)

Fallen Down - Toby Fox

Amnesia was Her Name - Lemon Demon

HEAVEN SAYS. - chart

Clocks - Alex Niedt

CHAPTER 7: binary green and white bears

federation? codes? where am i?

Your Best Friend - Toby Fox

Beware The Friendly Stranger - Boards of Canada

01001010 01000001 01001101 - Red Skies Project

Untrust Us - Crystal Castles

CHAPTER 8: cherished egg

the island has granted me the gift of motherhood.

Daughter - Sleeping at Last

I'm a Survivor - Reba McEntire

Apple Pies and Butterflies - Blue Wednesday

Little Moth - chloe moriondo

CHAPTER 9: petit frère

APLUPLUUUUUU

Anything You Can Do - Bernadette Peters, Tom Wopat

Amor de irmão - Barão Vermelho

Brother - Kodaline

For Forever - Ben Platt

CHAPTER 10: can I call you Bébou?

(gifting furniture is his love language.)

Lemon Boy - Cavetown

Demons Are a Girl's Best Friend - Powerwolf

It's Alright - Mother Mother

Chateau - Angus & Julia Stone

CHAPTER 11: ordo theoritas

call her apollo, because her theories ALWAYS turn out correct.

Cry Babies - cclorox

Touch-Tone Telephone - Lemon Demon

Dream Sweet in Sea Major - Miracle Musical

A Good Song Never Dies - Saint Motel

CHAPTER 12: don't you want to become a leader?

the election arc.

NOW'S YOUR CHANCE TO BE A - Toby Fox

Blood // Water - grandson (first death: whale)

14.3 Billion Years - Outer Wilds (second death: the tower)

Brutus - The Buttress

Animal Farm - BIBI

CHAPTER 13: There is no escape this time.

a childhood bedroom hidden beneath engine steam.

Everything Stays - Rebecca Sugar

715 - CREEKS - The Nor'easter

Memories - The Midnight

Look who's Inside Again - Bo Burnam

CHAPTER 14: "Pomme reviens... les gosses me manquent."

she waits for things to change. she seeks her origins.

Dear Wormwood - The Oh Hellos

CRT Days - Waveshaper

Implanted Memories - Infinity Frequencies

What Was I Made For? - Billie Eilish

CHAPTER 15A: P U R G A T 👁️‍🗨️ R Y part I

i don't want to leave. i can finally be myself, here.

Wonderland - Caravan Palace

Misery Meat - Sodikken

Hayloft II - Mother Mother

Chainsaw Girl - Chainsaw Girl

Family - Mother Mother

CHAPTER 15B: P U R G A T 👁️‍🗨️ R Y part II

adios, bolas. i won't leave without her.

Idioteque - Radiohead

Eat Your Young - Hozier

My Friends - Oh Wonder

Goodbye - Bo Burnham

On the Nature of Daylight - Max Richter

[raspberrysmoon]

WELCOME TO THE SOTBAW MASTERPOST!!!!

sotbaw is short for the spawn of the black and white. it follows kai drew, in her adventures being adopted and raised by the lords in black.

KAI DREW IS NOT MY CHARACTER. kai belongs solely to @pastriibunz and her custody has not transferred to me outside of this series.

kais age and condition fluctuate. sometimes shes dead, sometimes not. you'll know.

each lord has "papa" tacked onto their name. papa wiggly, papa tinky, papa pokey, papa blinky, and papa nibbly. nibbly is also called mama nibbly on occasion.

IN CURRENT CRONOLOGICAL ORDER THEY ARE: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,8,11,12,13,14,15,16.

pokey, blinky, tinky, nibbly, wiggly, webby, kai, paul, emma.

ao3 link - coming soon!

spotify playlist link - coming soon!

FICS-

number- title | song credit | lyrics you'll find in the fic | short explanation

1- i forgot my name again. | devil town - cavetown | "i still get a little scared of something new, but i feel a little safer when i'm with you." | kai, at 15, discovering that shes not quite as alone as she thought.

2- i truly am my parents child. | family line - conan gray | "i can run, but i can't hide, from my family line." | kai, at 17, fighting for what she wants.

3- deserves the same judgement. | average - sushi soucy | "you've got the skills of an idiot, who got too much praise." | blinky's thoughts and feelings after losing his daughter.

4- i'm losing on their side. | i bet on losing dogs - mitski | "my baby, my baby.. you're my baby, say it to me." | pokey's thoughts and feelings after losing his daughter.

5- make me love myself, so that i might love you. | saint bernard - lincoln | "when i am dead i wont join their ranks, because they are both holy and free." | tinky's thoughts and feelings after losing his daughter.

6- apathy's a tragedy and boredom is a crime | goodbye - bo burnham | "am i going crazy? would i even know? am i right back where i started fourteen years ago?" | nibbly's thoughts and feelings after losing his daughter.

7- you're scaring us and all of us- some of us- love you. | achilles come down - gang of youths | "soldier on achilles, achilles come down, won't you get up off, get up off the roof?" | wiggly's thoughts and feelings after losing his daughter.

8- what if i told you i made it? | inevitable - the guy who didn't like musicals | "what if i told you a story, that settled all the dust? i'm still the man you trust. it's inevitable, for us." | pokey and kai, meeting one last time in the starlight theater.

9- i won't let go of your hand | two birds - regina spektor | "say that they're always gonna stay together, but ones never going to let go of that wire."

10- you'll never settle any of your scores | little lion man - mumford & sons | "take all the courage you have left, and waste it in fixing all the problems that you made in your own head."

11- it's so cold and i don't know where. | another love - tom odell | "so i'll use my voice, i'll be so fucking rude, words, they always win, but i know i'll lose."

12- i wanna be your left hand man | riptide - vance joy | "i love you, when you're singing that song and i've got a lump in my throat 'cause you're gonna sing the words wrong."

13- you're skin, oh yeah you're skin and bones | yellow - coldplay | "its true, look how they shine for you. look how they shine. look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and all the things that you do."

14- someone just like you | share your address - ben platt | "i want a key to your house, i wanna pick up your clothes, i wanna clean up your mess, i wanna know where you hide your things, wanna be in your pictures, wanna share your address."

15- the land was godless and free | foreigner's god - hozier | "her eyes look sharp and steady into the empty parts of me, but still my heart is heavy"

16- swinging at somebody i can't knock down | take me to war - the crane wives | "all the words i've swallowed, all the sharp things i've kept in my mouth, i am always burning up."

17- i'm gonna keep doing it | breakfast - dove cameron | "do you wanna see a magic trick? cause you don't know, what you don't know, but i know." | UNREALEASED

18- honest with myself | i'm not a cynic - alec benjamin | "not every sunday is a picnic 'cause the sky ain't always blue." | UNRELEASED

19- blame i can't face | stick season - noah kahan | "now you're tire tracks and one pair of shoes, and i'm split in half , and that'll have to do." | UNRELEASED

20- i need something to rely on | somewhere only we know - keane | "is this the place we used to love? is this the place i've been dreaming of?" | UNRELEASED

21- holding the world | epic iii - hadestown | "and i know how it was because, he was like me, a man, in love with a woman." | UNRELEASED

22- finale.

EXTRA FICS AND FICLETS: COMING SOON

[krisseratops]

Tag game!

Thank you for the tag @anisecandy! The rules are to shuffle your "On repeat" playlist and list the first 10 songs that pop up.

...yeah thats pretty accurate actually.

I'll be tagging @reaperlight @symbiotic-slime @kitausuret and @zoeloveconvers99, if you want to!