#tony and Gregory are both so flawed and have so much going on in their head theyd be fucking crazy together

[puhpandas]

I love ggy so much how did they accidentally make the most intriguing hypothetical gay romance ever

[mandibierly]

Danny McBride breaks down that wild 'Vice Principals' ending

Danny McBride in the series finale of ‘Vice Principals’ (Photo: Fred Norris/HBO)

Spoiler alert! If you tell Danny McBride that you thought Lee Russell (Walton Goggins) really had been shot dead by Ms. Abbott (Edi Patterson) in the series finale of HBO’s Vice Principals, you’ll make him very happy.

“I just love hearing that you really bought it, ’cause that’s sort of what our goal was with this whole show,” he says of himself and fellow exec producers/directors Jody Hill and David Gordon Green. “We all felt like we were bored of just watching something and knowing where it’s going to go. We felt like, if we can just make something that people don’t see the end coming a mile away, we’ll have done what we were supposed to do here. … We’d adjust back and forth between super-dark-weird drama and dumb comedy — it just makes the audience kind of sit back on their heels. You never really know what’s going to come. So I think it’s kind of funny to think that when you get into that, you really do think, ‘Wow, they can kill Lee Russell ’cause they don’t give a f**k.’ We did give a s**t, but we’re just pretending that we don’t.”

Lee had figured out that it was jilted Ms. Abbott who’d shot McBride’s Neal Gamby in the Season 1 finale, and then, jealous of Gamby’s relationship with Russell, tried to frame Lee for the attempted murder by planting evidence in his car in Season 2’s Spring Break episode.

“Lee’s flaw is that he’s a compulsive liar. It made more sense to us that that would be ultimately what would come to damage him. That his reputation is so severe, being accused of this and no one believing him [when he insists he didn’t shoot Gamby] — that’d almost be a greater way to have him have to explore himself,” McBride says. “Ultimately, at the end of the day, these guys have done so much bad stuff, but I think that’s the way it is in life: justice isn’t always served for our greatest wrongs. Sometimes it’s the small slights that we don’t even think of as a wrong that come back to bite us in the ass.”

The producers had decided Abbott was the killer before they began filming the series, though they didn’t tell Patterson and the rest of the cast until they got to Season 2. “We didn’t want everybody tipping off what was going to happen in the first season,” McBride says.

He admits it was a bit of a gamble. “What was interesting with this show was we never shot a pilot. We wrote the whole series and we just started shooting, so we never had that time to just see, is everybody going to work? Are all these actors going to pan out? Which I think is what most people use the pilot for — to test-drive the concept of the show,” he says. “But with Edi Patterson, I mean she was just so funny from the very first day that she showed up on set. She just made us so excited to see where her character was going to go. So we didn’t sway from her being the culprit. I think she’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met before. I had just the absolute best time working with her. And honestly, when the show was over, I just kind of looked at her and was like, ‘Me and you have to do something else together again.’ So, we locked up, Edi and myself, and wrote this script together that’s a vehicle for her that I want to direct. So hopefully after this performance of hers, someone will finance that and make that movie.”

He would also love to work again with Goggins, who became a good friend. They had so many memorable scenes together, but he points to the one in the finale after the tiger that Lee had ordered for graduation attacks him. “The one that really got me the most was when he’s, like, dying for the second time because of the tiger wounds,” McBride says. “I remember him and I both were like, ‘This is what the whole entire series is about. It’s about this scene. If we can just make people take this ride for this scene, then we will have done what we needed to do with the show.’ So much so that we were actually supposed to shoot that scene one night. Then the night had kind of gone wrong, and Walt and I were both like, ‘Let’s not do it tonight. We’re not in the mindset. Let’s push it down the road a little bit.’ So we both just kind of knew that we needed to be in the right head space for that scene, and those two guys basically just acknowledging that they helped each other move past this f**ked up part in their life.”

Lee told Gamby that this last year was his favorite year of his whole life, and that he loves him. Then, he badgered Gamby into saying that he loves him, too. “That was all pretty much in the script. We probably improv-ed the least amount of any [project] we’ve done on this. I think that’s because there were so many spinning plates,” McBride says.

Yes, when Russell changed the school’s mascot to the tigers at the beginning of Season 2, it was so they could have that ending. “We started with [the idea that] these guys are out of date. Their views are out of date, the way they see the world is out of date, and it’s unfair. So the idea that the symbol that represents them in the beginning is the Native American warrior — something that is obviously insulting to so many people, something that really was out of place and out of context, it sort of makes sense. And then the idea that Lee’s ambition turns their warrior into the tiger — that’s how ambition sort of ends up eating him at the end. That was always in the DNA of [the show].”

Plus, we got to see the brilliant moment when Gamby, the ultimate disciplinarian, stopped the tiger from attacking again with the sheer force of his anger and a “f**k you.”

“He has so much rage and anger and displaced anger, this was a place for him to finally harness it, and try to use it to protect himself,” McBride says with a laugh.

Walton Goggins in the series finale of ‘Vice Principals’ (Photo: Fred Norris/HBO)

The finale ended with a flash-forward to three months later. Gamby’s still with Ms. Snodgrass (Georgia King), who’s now a published author, but he’s now the principal of a middle school. Lee, meanwhile, is the regional manager of a boutique in the mall. Gamby and Russell see each other in the food court and smile. But when Gamby looks again, Russell is gone. Does that mean they know their friendship is too toxic for them to spend time together? “I think that both of these guys [know] the importance that each of them played in their lives in this particular moment,” McBride says, “but I also think that both of them have grown enough to know that it’s probably better for the world if they don’t join forces.”

They never questioned where Lee would end up, he adds. “What’s really so funny is, ironically, when you write something like this where you explore these characters so deeply, by the end of it, your last episodes sort of end up writing themselves. You’ve set all this stuff up, and the characters sort of tell you where they need to go,” he says. “For some reason we just thought that he would take that lust of power and move into retail. He always cared about what he wore. He always had a sense for style. And it made sense that would be how he would build his empire again.”

And what’s the take-away from Gamby laying down the law for his new vice principal (Steve Little)? “Well, I think that Gamby learned a lot from Welles [Bill Murray]. I think he learned a lot more from Dr. Brown [Kimberly Hebert Gregory],” McBride says. “He is sort of using a little bit of her tactics of being open, but at the end of the day, letting people know that she shouldn’t be f**ked with.”

Maya Love and Danny McBride in the series finale of ‘Vice Principals’ (Photo: Fred Norris/HBO)

It’s a bittersweet fate for Gamby, for sure. “Weirdly, it’s one of the things that I find the most heartbreaking, when Gamby pulls up to that principal sign at a different school, because at the end of the day you know that North Jackson, and being there when his daughter was going to be there, is kind of all he ever wanted,” McBride says. “So I really look at that ending like he’s an exiled king that got booted out of his homeland. But the idea that Steve Little, who played Stevie Janowski on Eastbound, is there — [we’re] literally leaving the audience thinking that maybe all of the fun isn’t over just yet for him.”

Still, striking the right tone in the finale had to be tricky: we all know the criminal acts Russell and Gamby committed, and yet, we’ve grown to root for them. “We really set out to tell the story of the villain. In doing so, we didn’t even really want to totally redeem them, because I think true villains don’t just change overnight or become different people. So I think that there was a balance between how much justice do these guys deserve, and how much of it is just really like we’re showing this character piece?” McBride says. “Like with Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, you don’t necessarily have to see him get arrested or get killed for that to be a complete story. I think that’s sort of what we’re doing here. Do I think that being the principal of the middle school is a punishment enough for burning someone’s house down? Definitely not. But I think that in this world, it’s like we don’t really even know if this is all that’s going to happen to these guys. This is definitely a show about vice principals fighting for a job. When both of those guys are out of the running for that job, the story is sort of over, and the audience is kind of left to fill in the blanks of what happens next.”

The show was conceived as a limited series, but especially now that we’ve gotten to know the teachers so well in Season 2, maybe we could at least get a reunion special on the DVD? “I had probably the best time of my career working on the show and meeting these friends, and I love them — every one of them from Kimberly to Walton to Edi, Georgia, they’re all just incredible. I would love to work with all these guys again, and if it was in this world, if it was the right idea, I’d do it again,” McBride says. “But I think that part of what makes the story work is the idea that it isn’t designed to go on forever. We were really able to show character growth and flip the story on its ass because we didn’t have the restraints of having to make sure we maintained a formula that would be workable year after year after year. I think that’s what ultimately made the show interesting.”

As a viewer, it was satisfying to see how Gamby’s moments with the “workers” (DeShawn!), “bad kids” (yay, Robin Shandrell!), and “gold-star teachers” all built to them joining forces in the penultimate episode after Gamby and Russell’s epic brawl through the school. (McBride directed that fight in less than a day, by the way: “I just had to get creative and figure out how to shoot this in a way where I didn’t need to get in there and cover every single punch and kick,” he says. “So I was just walking around the set and came up with an idea for that tracking shot, and I just started to devise the whole fight that way — seeing these guys with the background, with the school, which is the other character of the show.”)

What was the most satisfying part for McBride in the end? “We took a year to write the whole series, and I swear to god I never had an anxiety attack ever in my life until about a week before we went down to shoot. I just woke up in the middle of the night, panicked in a straight-up anxiety attack, just because of the sheer amount of time we spent writing on this, then knowing we were about to go shoot it,” he says. “This whole thing was an adventure, and to be able to put that much energy into something, then to at the end of the day come up with something that you’re proud of, and that you’re happy with, and that you made new friends with — I think it’s the ultimate sort of pay-off because the whole thing was ultimately rewarding. It was such a fun way to make a living.”

Since he doubts we’ll get the trademark group commentary on the Season 2 Blu-ray (he hears it’s being rush-packaged for Christmas: “Maybe one day down the road Criterion will decide to release a TV show and they’ll have us do a commentary,” he jokes), can he at least answer one burning question: What did Lee do to get kicked out of gymnastics?!

“The world will never know,” McBride says with another laugh. “I know what he did, but I will never tell anyone. I will keep Lee Russell’s secret to the grave.”

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[nickarmstrongfilm]

OCTOBER 2018: AN EXERCISE IN EXCESS & A HORROR DIARY

Carrie (dir. Brian De Palma, 1976)*

The Rage: Carrie 2 (dir. Katt Shea, 1999)

Duel (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1971)

Pulse (dir. Jim Sonzero, 2006)* For all intents and purposes, I don’t think this movie was at all necessary — what Kurosawa pulled off with the original Pulse was nothing short of miraculous in its terror, melancholy and study of society… but I must admit that the idea of a group of people watching that film and translating it into a mid-2000s American tech-horror movie (aesthetic and all) is highly appealing to me. It’s fun! It’s dumb! Kiyoshi already mastered it so I can’t really get mad at this.

Daphne & Velma (dir. Suzi Yoonessi, 2018) Wholesome live-action Scooby-Doo spinoff with women at the helm, and is about as fun and nostalgic as anything I’ve seen related to Scooby-Doo. Lots of Halloween-y fun!

Captain Voyeur (dir. John Carpenter, 1969) Had been dying to get my hands on this for a long time, so it was lots of fun to finally see it (and complete Carpenter’s filmography!). It’s short and slight and very noticeably Carpenter. He improves on all aspects of this in his amazing career, but this is an inspiring artifact nonetheless.

The Crazies (dir. George A. Romero, 1973)

Something Evil (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1972)

Tales from the Hood (dir. Rusty Cundieff, 1995)*

Uncle Sam (dir. William Lustig, 1996) Anti-American slasher where the villain is a zombie soldier named Sam who dresses up as *the* Uncle Sam. I think that is praise enough.

Hell Fest (dir. Gregory Plotkin, 2018) This one has really grown on me over the month, especially as it inspired me to rewatch The Funhouse, which in turn inspired me the finally read the novelization of The Funhouse by Dean Koontz. As much as I was initially underwhelmed and annoyed by certain aspects of the film, the concept is terrific and it really plays into the uncertainty of the theme park’s dangers for impressively long stretches of time. Mostly dumb but also very fun.

Tales from the Hood 2 (dir. Rusty Cundieff & Darin Scott, 2018) Not even close to as impactful or consistent as the original, and my fear that this was co-directed by Cundieff and co-writer of the original Darin Scott actually turned out to be reasonable, because the two segments he directed are noticeably worse, but it remains passionate and blunt in its manipulation of genre tropes to suit the subject matter. Keith David murders it in the wraparound, and the closing short “The Sacrifice” is deeply powerful.

Stay Alive (dir. William Brent Bell, 2006)

Slice (dir. Austin Vesely, 2018)

Drag Me to Hell (dir. Sam Raimi, 2009)*

The Vagrant (dir. Chris Walas, 1992)

Venom (dir. Ruben Fleischer, 2018)

Dracula 3D (dir. Dario Argento, 2012) Argento’s rendition of the age-old Dracula tale is the umpteenth adaptation of the story, and while it doesn’t appear to make many changes to the narrative, I have to give credit to his formal experimentation — it strikes me as an admirable case of retrofuturism, as he uses the most modern digital filmmaking (I would love to see this in actual 3D) to tell one of the oldest tales imaginable. Lots to discover here, I think, but I really liked it!

Sleepwalkers (dir. Mick Garris, 1992)

The Black Cat (dir. Edward G. Ulmer, 1934)

Parasomnia (dir. William Malone, 2008) William Malone is one of the most underrated figures in horror, and while I can’t fully get behind this one — frankly, I’m unsure of whether it criticizes or endorses its imbecilic male character, who fetishizes a “sleeping beauty” — but his highly unique, Kiyoshi Kurosawa-esque aesthetic shines through in many moments, notably its dream sequences.

Hellraiser (dir. Clive Barker, 1987)*

Crazy As Hell (dir. Eriq La Salle, 2002) Kind of overlong, but cut down it could be a very serviceable series of predictable twists and turns that examine ethics in journalism and hospital institutions.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (dir. Tony Randel, 1988)

Sorority House Massacre (dir. Carol Frank, 1986) Understandable to be deemed a Halloween ripoff, but it places a deeper focus on friendships and beats the rest of the Halloween series to a sense of psychic kinship which pushes this above being a fairly standard slasher. This is fun!

Soft for Digging (dir. J.T. Petty, 2001) I often think about, from experience, how making your student film silent is a smart but played-out trick to make it feel less cheap… nothing about this really sticks with me, but its lead performance is compelling and the atmosphere is strong at times.

Ganja & Hess (dir. Bill Gunn, 1973)* Just one of the greatest American films of all time, such a layered and nuanced take on the vampire subgenre. I don’t know what else to write except that Bill Gunn was one of the great filmmakers of all time.

Scary Movie 5 (dir. Malcolm D. Lee, 2013) Inarguably the least offensive of the series (a flawed series that I happen to love) and a very pure, frequently funny parody that director Malcolm D. Lee brings a whole lot to — and is as quietly incisive about the genre as some of the best entries are. The best one since the Wayans left.

Bones (dir. Ernest R. Dickerson, 2001)*

J.D.’s Revenge (dir. Arthur Marks, 1976)

We’re Going to Eat You (dir. Tsui Hark, 1980)

Ghost in the Machine (dir. Rachel Talalay, 1993) Incredible technology-focused Nightmare on Elm Street/Shocker hybrid made by the woman responsible for one of the very best Elm Streets. The effects, both practical and digital, are stunning in their own ways, and it’s just so much fun!

Aftershock (dir. Nicolás López, 2012) This feels like exactly how people see Roth’s Hostel, which makes me wonder why he’d take part in this. It is essentially a dumb version of the very smart film he made — which people consistently said was dumb — and he plays one of the assholes in it. This movie is unbearable.

The Funhouse (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1981)* Such an incredible extension of what Hooper examines in his essential Texas Chain Saw Massacre, replacing stumbling into backwoods America with a travelling version of the same horrors. Watching this made me miss writing about Hooper, because each of his works perfects and furthers everything he’s once done. An incredible film that is perhaps the ultimate in self-reflexivity within horror, and one of Hooper’s absolute best.

My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (dir. Johnnie To & Wai Ka-Fai, 2002)

Cat People (dir. Paul Schrader, 1982)* To my mind, this and Tourneur’s original are hard to compare because they perfectly fill each other in — Schrader’s lurid remake dares to show all that Tourneur couldn’t and wouldn’t 40 years later, which makes this a pretty ideal remake!

The Ambulance (dir. Larry Cohen, 1990) Another excellent entry in Cohen’s endeavor to turn the familiar into the horrifying, which I always appreciate as an attempt to alter the public’s perception of basic institutions. Very fun and intelligent.

Gothika (dir. Mathieu Kassovitz, 2003) Not unlike this year’s terrific Unsane in its examination of how all institutions are run by the amoral, and how innocent people are manipulated, victimized and gaslit. Has that ‘00s horror aesthetic I love (this comes from Dark Castle Entertainment, whose horror output I find thoroughly underrated) complete with Limp Bizkit’s cover of Behind Blue Eyes playing over the credits. Underrated and relevant.

Dark Angel: The Ascent (dir. Linda Hassani, 1994) At once a wholesome rom-com, righteous horror picture and an intelligent take on theology.

Love Massacre (dir. Patrick Tam, 1981) This is deliberately barren visually, making the splashes of blue and red all the more powerful when they come — its constant manipulation of genre and colour mesh perfectly with its narrative of violence and entitlement. The only cut that exists has hardcoded white subtitles — in an already very white movie — but for the time being, it actually tends to add to its mystery and minimalism. A masterpiece.

Urban Menace (dir. Albert Pyun, 1999) I’ve never ever ever seen a movie that looks like this — it starts with our narrator (Ice-T, of course) ranting about Urban Renewal and warning our viewers that if you’re easily offended, this movie is decidedly *not for you*. It is not a particularly offensive movie though I would not argue if someone called it a visual atrocity. For argument’s sake, it is not exactly a horror movie, but its intense exposure gives it a very dreamy quality that actually makes it a lot scarier to watch. This movie is probably not good but I fucking love Albert Pyun and I can’t say that I wasn’t in awe of how this was made.  Plus it is 1 hour long!

The Card Player (dir. Dario Argento, 2004) Argento’s most blatant satire, this feels like a lampoon of both typical procedurals, as well as the desensitization of the internet age. There aren’t many images in Argento’s oeuvre I like more than a group of police officers cheering and laughing at a game of blackjack with a video of a woman being tortured superimposed over it.

Halloween (dir. David Gordon Green, 2018)* This didn’t work as well for me on a rewatch outside of my first experience at TIFF (full of excitement and yelling) but many of my favorite aspects remain: Laurie’s turn to the typical American defense against trauma (which also manifests in a cat-and-mouse chase in a slasher-proof booby-trapped housed), as well as its use of the sequel’s timing to explore multi-generational trauma, but all of its best ideas are explored with far more character in both Carpenter and Zombie’s iterations. 

Lisa, Lisa (dir. Frederick R. Friedel, 1974)

Leprechaun 4: In Space (dir. Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1996) Just the most incredibly off-the-hinges horror franchise there is, especially because the antagonist is anything but scary. I think that the “in space” moniker is the quintessential jump-the-shark move for a franchise, so as stupid and offensive as this movie gets, it truly feels like it is just out of the viewer’s hands and the only responsible thing to do is enjoy the increasingly absurd nature of the films (though I can’t imagine it gets wilder than this).

Leprechaun in the Hood (dir. Rob Spera, 2000) Not only not wild enough to distract me from its horrid nature, but deeply offensive and unexpectedly transphobic (as a major plot point). Not even worth recommending for Ice-T or the Leprechaun smoking weed and rapping.

Hotel (dir. Jessica Hausner, 2004)

Spontaneous Combustion (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1990)* Both Tobe’s superhero movie and his Sirk picture, filled to the brim with bright colors and melodrama that also functions as both a parody and indictment of 50′s paranoia. Another masterpiece from Hooper.

The Return of Swamp Thing (dir. Jim Wynorski, 1989) I love Swamp Thing!! I don’t like this quite as much as Craven’s comic-book gothic romance, but it does lean further into comic-book stylings, and is filled with color and explosions and melodrama!

Chiller (dir. Wes Craven, 1985)

Kaun? (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 1999) Varma’s use of setting here is so major, eliciting fear and obscurity  almost exclusively through camera movements and narrative control. One of the spookiest, most subversive home invasion films I’ve seen (particularly in its exploration of power within the genre). I need to see more Varma.

Fright House (dir. Len Anthony, 1989) Makes absolutely no sense but Ernest Dickerson shoots the heck out of it and in terms of October vibes, it really does the trick.

Faust (dir. F.W. Murnau, 1926)

Reflections of Evil (dir. Damon Packard, 2002) One of the most disgusting and confounding films I’ve ever seen, but how Packard explores the political climates of several different decades, pop culture and capitalism almost exclusively through one man’s foul-mouthed adventures walking through L.A. selling watches is inspiring, especially in its dazzling final sequence. It also explores Spielberg’s immeasurable effect on culture in a way similar to house Spielberg does himself in Ready Player One.

Christine (dir. John Carpenter, 1983)*

Torso (dir. Sergio Martino, 1973)

Scream (dir. Wes Craven, 1996)*

Dracula (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)*

Nightmare Detective (dir. Shinya Tsukamoto, 2006)

Student Bodies (dir. Mickey Rose, 1981)

Giallo (dir. Dario Argento, 2009) I’m so consistently amazed with how self-reflexive horror auteurs get later on in their careers, as well as by how unwilling audiences who praise their early work are to buy into said work. To hyper-focus on this film’s aesthetic as generic and its violence gratuitous (and the same goes for 2004’s THE CARD PLAYER) is ignoring how painstakingly Argento wrestles with a genre he revolutionized. I mean, our antagonist here is a entitled man who sexualizes violence and whose skin has gone yellow in order to justify his namesake being that of said genre, how much more does he have to spell it out before he can be given credit (instead of using this as an opportunity to, say, jab at Argento for a negative review of the film by saying he is “yellowing with age”, Fangoria…….). Of course, I don’t mean to discredit the film by simplifying it in such a way but that Argento was this obvious in his attempt to self-reflect, it becomes especially evident that he, nor the genre, are taken seriously. I particularly think that this progresses the genre in its equal pathologizing of both parties of its cat-and-mouse game (both portrayed by Brody), ultimately sparing its victim in the end but leaving the originator of her trauma relatively ambiguous. At once, it is obvious that the character Giallo is to blame for his horrific violence, but it never takes the magnifying glass off of the detective character either, nor off of the giallo genre itself. I need to revisit some early Argento because I remember appreciating them for their craft and innovation, but that was much easier to do in the 70s (with regards to the subject matter of other films, at least). What he experiments with in his post-2000 work, however, is even more fascinating to me and will need to be examined.

[puhpandas]

What about beckory is so appealing to you? /gen

outside of them themselves and my own personal preference, them being a mlm ship and also not canon and completely hypothetical are huge factors to me. it's so interesting building them up in all of these different interpretations since theres not much canon to go off by, but the canon we DO have is really good

and now speaking of the ship itself the last point I made applies because ggy the book is just. really good. when you read it for the first time it's fine but then you reread it and notice things and look deeper and you find all of these things making the friend group you thought was average way more deep and you see everyones flaws, and that makes them interesting. the book revolves around tony and ggy so we get the most about them, and what it shows us about them makes me claw at the walls

it showed us how tony is obsessive when it comes to mysteries because of his dad being put in prison and how he cant handle not getting to the bottom of a mystery because of it, and that obsession has driven a wall between everyone and him. then he meets the most mysterious guy in the universe Rab and he becomes obsessed with ggy to an unhealthy degree while also slowly starting to prefer greg over his best friend since he was 4 (which like how am I not supposed to like the ship when tony inadvertently became obsessed with Gregory throughout the whole book that's so funny😭)

they're both flawed people and even outside of ggy Tony's relationship with Gregory is almost purely hypothetical since they never actually met. but making aus or story ideas where tony survives after the end of ggy has so many possibilities for his and Gregory's relationship

theres a whole new world if you think tony dies and Gregory mourns later on when he gets freed, theres whole new worlds if tony goes on a quest to save Gregory or if Gregory fights back against ggy to save Tony's life or whatever could happen. everything u could think of has potential and it could all be unique and different and could hit off their relationship in tons of different ways

and their relationship has so many directions it could go becuase of their respective characters. in my personal interpretation of them, Tony's obsession doesnt go away after he survives the ggy attack and he tries to track down greg after he goes missing after the attack, and when he finds him it's a year later and greg isnt actually greg at all but Gregory. to me the idea of tony having an idea of Gregory in his head that was never him and that he has to unlearn would cause drama between them but it makes their bond stronger. tony has to get worse before he can get better to me, and that playing out with Gregory as they get older is so good to me

and amneisiac gregory is one of my fave things so the idea that Gregory slowly remembered tony over the course of living with 3 star fam and had an idea of him too, and when he shows up on his doorstep hes excited to meet him and the fact that tony is from Gregory's past thats a whole mystery to him he means a lot to him immediately

I guess tldr they're so interesting to me because they have all the potential in the world and a thousand different things you could do with them, but also their characters themselves are already just so interesting and fleshed out that it's fun to see how they could get to a relationship from their starting points and how flawed they are. they're not immediately compatible and they have so much about themselves and their personal stuff to work through at the time they meet but they go through growth together and it makes them rlly close. they make eachother better people as they get older :)

[puhpandas]

so uh sorry in advance if this question is annoying or if you've already been asked it before but. I haven't read the GGY book yet, I know what happens in it for the most part and I plan to read the pizzaplex books in order, but as someone who hasn't read it yet.. What exactly is it you see in shipping gregory and tony? no hate, just a genuine question on what about it is appealing, I don't really get it but I wanna understand it. is it something about the way it's written in the books or just the dynamic in general?

my genuine answer is the plot and story that could come from them. since its implied tony didnt know the real Gregory during their friendship and that ggy attacks him at the end of ggy I think theres so much story potential if he survives and like. as a mystery solver actually frees Gregory after realizing what's going on

I dont actually ship Gregory and tony from the strictly canon ggy book sense but I think that post ggy, tony and Gregory bonding over what they went through with ggy (in a scenario where he frees greg) and tony getting to know the REAL Gregory is just really interesting. and in my case I think beckory/romance could eventually come from that :)

it's why all of my beckory content (at least now) is always post ggy. even if Gregory was himself during their three amigos friendship in ggy I dont think beckory could happen because of what kind of people they both are. not only does post ggy beckory make more sense after going through stuff together but since tony is a selfish person with easily fixable flaws if he'll just realize them I think him growing and changing as a person during his and Gregory's (and depending, ellis, since he has to be included too. I believe in no tony without ellis) adventure would be so interesting

this ask wasnt rude or anything so dont worry :) I'm glad to answer it. this is my own appeal to beckory but others dont have my exact preferences and that's okay, but this is how I see them trying to stick as closely to in character as possible. I like seeing beckory as a continuation of ggy and not completely changing everything about the book to make it happen, you know?

I like the story and I think beckory would come from that, not purely beckory so I erase everything else. Tony's character development tied with beckory + how beckory can parallel fronnie is so appealing to me. I'm a writer so of course I love the big picture + the ship more than just the ship lol

[mandibierly]

Danny McBride breaks down that wild 'Vice Principals' ending

Danny McBride in the series finale of ‘Vice Principals’ (Photo: Fred Norris/HBO)

Spoiler alert! If you tell Danny McBride that you thought Lee Russell (Walton Goggins) really had been shot dead by Ms. Abbott (Edi Patterson) in the series finale of HBO’s Vice Principals, you’ll make him very happy.

“I just love hearing that you really bought it, ’cause that’s sort of what our goal was with this whole show,” he says of himself and fellow exec producers/directors Jody Hill and David Gordon Green. “We all felt like we were bored of just watching something and knowing where it’s going to go. We felt like, if we can just make something that people don’t see the end coming a mile away, we’ll have done what we were supposed to do here. … We’d adjust back and forth between super-dark-weird drama and dumb comedy — it just makes the audience kind of sit back on their heels. You never really know what’s going to come. So I think it’s kind of funny to think that when you get into that, you really do think, ‘Wow, they can kill Lee Russell ’cause they don’t give a f**k.’ We did give a s**t, but we’re just pretending that we don’t.”

Lee had figured out that it was jilted Ms. Abbott who’d shot McBride’s Neal Gamby in the Season 1 finale, and then, jealous of Gamby’s relationship with Russell, tried to frame Lee for the attempted murder by planting evidence in his car in Season 2’s Spring Break episode.

“Lee’s flaw is that he’s a compulsive liar. It made more sense to us that that would be ultimately what would come to damage him. That his reputation is so severe, being accused of this and no one believing him [when he insists he didn’t shoot Gamby] — that’d almost be a greater way to have him have to explore himself,” McBride says. “Ultimately, at the end of the day, these guys have done so much bad stuff, but I think that’s the way it is in life: justice isn’t always served for our greatest wrongs. Sometimes it’s the small slights that we don’t even think of as a wrong that come back to bite us in the ass.”

The producers had decided Abbott was the killer before they began filming the series, though they didn’t tell Patterson and the rest of the cast until they got to Season 2. “We didn’t want everybody tipping off what was going to happen in the first season,” McBride says.

He admits it was a bit of a gamble. “What was interesting with this show was we never shot a pilot. We wrote the whole series and we just started shooting, so we never had that time to just see, is everybody going to work? Are all these actors going to pan out? Which I think is what most people use the pilot for — to test-drive the concept of the show,” he says. “But with Edi Patterson, I mean she was just so funny from the very first day that she showed up on set. She just made us so excited to see where her character was going to go. So we didn’t sway from her being the culprit. I think she’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met before. I had just the absolute best time working with her. And honestly, when the show was over, I just kind of looked at her and was like, ‘Me and you have to do something else together again.’ So, we locked up, Edi and myself, and wrote this script together that’s a vehicle for her that I want to direct. So hopefully after this performance of hers, someone will finance that and make that movie.”

He would also love to work again with Goggins, who became a good friend. They had so many memorable scenes together, but he points to the one in the finale after the tiger that Lee had ordered for graduation attacks him. “The one that really got me the most was when he’s, like, dying for the second time because of the tiger wounds,” McBride says. “I remember him and I both were like, ‘This is what the whole entire series is about. It’s about this scene. If we can just make people take this ride for this scene, then we will have done what we needed to do with the show.’ So much so that we were actually supposed to shoot that scene one night. Then the night had kind of gone wrong, and Walt and I were both like, ‘Let’s not do it tonight. We’re not in the mindset. Let’s push it down the road a little bit.’ So we both just kind of knew that we needed to be in the right head space for that scene, and those two guys basically just acknowledging that they helped each other move past this f**ked up part in their life.”

Lee told Gamby that this last year was his favorite year of his whole life, and that he loves him. Then, he badgered Gamby into saying that he loves him, too. “That was all pretty much in the script. We probably improv-ed the least amount of any [project] we’ve done on this. I think that’s because there were so many spinning plates,” McBride says.

Yes, when Russell changed the school’s mascot to the tigers at the beginning of Season 2, it was so they could have that ending. “We started with [the idea that] these guys are out of date. Their views are out of date, the way they see the world is out of date, and it’s unfair. So the idea that the symbol that represents them in the beginning is the Native American warrior — something that is obviously insulting to so many people, something that really was out of place and out of context, it sort of makes sense. And then the idea that Lee’s ambition turns their warrior into the tiger — that’s how ambition sort of ends up eating him at the end. That was always in the DNA of [the show].”

Plus, we got to see the brilliant moment when Gamby, the ultimate disciplinarian, stopped the tiger from attacking again with the sheer force of his anger and a “f**k you.”

“He has so much rage and anger and displaced anger, this was a place for him to finally harness it, and try to use it to protect himself,” McBride says with a laugh.

Walton Goggins in the series finale of ‘Vice Principals’ (Photo: Fred Norris/HBO)

The finale ended with a flash-forward to three months later. Gamby’s still with Ms. Snodgrass (Georgia King), who’s now a published author, but he’s now the principal of a middle school. Lee, meanwhile, is the regional manager of a boutique in the mall. Gamby and Russell see each other in the food court and smile. But when Gamby looks again, Russell is gone. Does that mean they know their friendship is too toxic for them to spend time together? “I think that both of these guys [know] the importance that each of them played in their lives in this particular moment,” McBride says, “but I also think that both of them have grown enough to know that it’s probably better for the world if they don’t join forces.”

They never questioned where Lee would end up, he adds. “What’s really so funny is, ironically, when you write something like this where you explore these characters so deeply, by the end of it, your last episodes sort of end up writing themselves. You’ve set all this stuff up, and the characters sort of tell you where they need to go,” he says. “For some reason we just thought that he would take that lust of power and move into retail. He always cared about what he wore. He always had a sense for style. And it made sense that would be how he would build his empire again.”

And what’s the take-away from Gamby laying down the law for his new vice principal (Steve Little)? “Well, I think that Gamby learned a lot from Welles [Bill Murray]. I think he learned a lot more from Dr. Brown [Kimberly Hebert Gregory],” McBride says. “He is sort of using a little bit of her tactics of being open, but at the end of the day, letting people know that she shouldn’t be f**ked with.”

Maya Love and Danny McBride in the series finale of ‘Vice Principals’ (Photo: Fred Norris/HBO)

It’s a bittersweet fate for Gamby, for sure. “Weirdly, it’s one of the things that I find the most heartbreaking, when Gamby pulls up to that principal sign at a different school, because at the end of the day you know that North Jackson, and being there when his daughter was going to be there, is kind of all he ever wanted,” McBride says. “So I really look at that ending like he’s an exiled king that got booted out of his homeland. But the idea that Steve Little, who played Stevie Janowski on Eastbound, is there — [we’re] literally leaving the audience thinking that maybe all of the fun isn’t over just yet for him.”

Still, striking the right tone in the finale had to be tricky: we all know the criminal acts Russell and Gamby committed, and yet, we’ve grown to root for them. “We really set out to tell the story of the villain. In doing so, we didn’t even really want to totally redeem them, because I think true villains don’t just change overnight or become different people. So I think that there was a balance between how much justice do these guys deserve, and how much of it is just really like we’re showing this character piece?” McBride says. “Like with Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, you don’t necessarily have to see him get arrested or get killed for that to be a complete story. I think that’s sort of what we’re doing here. Do I think that being the principal of the middle school is a punishment enough for burning someone’s house down? Definitely not. But I think that in this world, it’s like we don’t really even know if this is all that’s going to happen to these guys. This is definitely a show about vice principals fighting for a job. When both of those guys are out of the running for that job, the story is sort of over, and the audience is kind of left to fill in the blanks of what happens next.”

The show was conceived as a limited series, but especially now that we’ve gotten to know the teachers so well in Season 2, maybe we could at least get a reunion special on the DVD? “I had probably the best time of my career working on the show and meeting these friends, and I love them — every one of them from Kimberly to Walton to Edi, Georgia, they’re all just incredible. I would love to work with all these guys again, and if it was in this world, if it was the right idea, I’d do it again,” McBride says. “But I think that part of what makes the story work is the idea that it isn’t designed to go on forever. We were really able to show character growth and flip the story on its ass because we didn’t have the restraints of having to make sure we maintained a formula that would be workable year after year after year. I think that’s what ultimately made the show interesting.”

As a viewer, it was satisfying to see how Gamby’s moments with the “workers” (DeShawn!), “bad kids” (yay, Robin Shandrell!), and “gold-star teachers” all built to them joining forces in the penultimate episode after Gamby and Russell’s epic brawl through the school. (McBride directed that fight in less than a day, by the way: “I just had to get creative and figure out how to shoot this in a way where I didn’t need to get in there and cover every single punch and kick,” he says. “So I was just walking around the set and came up with an idea for that tracking shot, and I just started to devise the whole fight that way — seeing these guys with the background, with the school, which is the other character of the show.”)

What was the most satisfying part for McBride in the end? “We took a year to write the whole series, and I swear to god I never had an anxiety attack ever in my life until about a week before we went down to shoot. I just woke up in the middle of the night, panicked in a straight-up anxiety attack, just because of the sheer amount of time we spent writing on this, then knowing we were about to go shoot it,” he says. “This whole thing was an adventure, and to be able to put that much energy into something, then to at the end of the day come up with something that you’re proud of, and that you’re happy with, and that you made new friends with — I think it’s the ultimate sort of pay-off because the whole thing was ultimately rewarding. It was such a fun way to make a living.”

Since he doubts we’ll get the trademark group commentary on the Season 2 Blu-ray (he hears it’s being rush-packaged for Christmas: “Maybe one day down the road Criterion will decide to release a TV show and they’ll have us do a commentary,” he jokes), can he at least answer one burning question: What did Lee do to get kicked out of gymnastics?!

“The world will never know,” McBride says with another laugh. “I know what he did, but I will never tell anyone. I will keep Lee Russell’s secret to the grave.”