#uncle vanya adaptation

[crikey01]

another gouache in my little book :))

Andrew Scott in Vanya (one of the best things I've ever seen)

Another fully self indulgent gouache painting and ugh, fuck it, I'm gonna say it - I'm actually super proud of myself for this one. Seriously thought I'd bitten off more than I could chew with the lighting and hands. So pleased that I persevered :)

progress pics below ↓

(and for real everyone alive has to watch Vanya at least once in their life it's absolutely incredible)

[denimbex1986]

We are lucky to be alive in the age of Andrew Scott, an actor of extraordinary breadth, skill and sensitivity, who can terrify as Jim Moriarty in Sherlock, make us fall in love (inappropriately) as the hot priest in Fleabag and cry in All of Us Strangers. He can also astonish, last year playing eight parts in a stage adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. He recently became the first actor to win the UK Critics’ Circle awards for best actor on stage and screen in the same year. And his latest project, Ripley, is a beautiful and chilling adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel The Talented Mr Ripley, with Scott playing the lead, dominating all eight one-hour episodes. It’s been a wild, crowning year for the 47-year-old Irish actor. But in March his mother, Nora, died of a sudden illness; she is who Scott has credited as being his foremost creative inspiration. His grief is fresh and intense and for the first half of the interview it seems to swim just beneath the surface of our conversation.

“We go through so many different types of emotional weather all the time,” he says. “And even on the saddest day of your life you might be hungry or have a laugh. Life just continues.” We are in a meeting room in his management company’s offices, talking about his ability, in his work, to modulate between emotions, to go from happy to sad, confused to scared, all within a matter of seconds. How does he do it? Scott laughs. “I would say that I have quite a scrutable face — is scrutable a word? — which is good or bad depending on what you are trying to achieve. But my job is to be as truthful as possible in the way that we are, and I don’t think that human beings are just one thing at any particular time. It is rare that we have one pure emotion.”

It’s an approach that is particularly appropriate for the playing of Tom Ripley, an acquisitive chameleon who inveigles his way into the lives of others (in this case Johnny Flynn, as the careless and wealthy Dickie Greenleaf, and his on-off girlfriend Marge, played by Dakota Fanning). “Ripley is witty, he is very talented. That’s gripping, to watch talent. I can’t call him evil — it is very easy to call people who do terrible things evil monsters, but they are not monsters, they are humans who do terrible things. Part of what she [Highsmith] is talking about is that if you dismiss a certain faction of society it has repercussions, and Ripley is someone who is completely unseen, he lives literally among the rats, and then there are these people who are gorgeous and not particularly talented and have the world at their feet but are not able to see the beauty that he can see.”

The show was written and directed by Steven Zaillian, the screenwriter of Schindler’s List. It’s set in Sixties New York and Italy, and filmed entirely in black-and-white, its chiaroscuro aesthetic evoking films of the Sixties — particularly those of Federico Fellini — while also offering an alternative to Anthony Minghella’s saturated late-Nineties iteration that starred Matt Damon and Jude Law. This has a darker flavour. “I found it challenging,” Scott says, “in the sense that he’s a solitary figure and ideologically we are very different. So you have to remove your judgment and try to find something that is vulnerable.”

It was a tough shoot, taking a year and filmed during lockdown. Scott was exhausted at the end of it and had intended to take a three-month break, but delays meant that he went straight from Ripley into All of Us Strangers. “Even though I was genuinely exhausted, it was energising because I was back in London, I was getting the Tube to work, there was sunshine,” he says. “I found it incredibly heartful, that film, there were so many different versions of love … I feel that all stories are love stories.”

All of Us Strangers, directed by Andrew Haigh, is about a screenwriter examining memories of his parents who died when he was 12. In it Scott’s character, Adam, returns to his family home, where his parents are still alive and as they were back in the Eighties. Adam is able to walk into the memory and to come out to his parents, finding the words that were unavailable to him as a boy. Some of it was filmed in Haigh’s childhood home, and there was a strong biographical element for him and his lead. Homosexuality was illegal in the Republic of Ireland until 1993, when Scott was 16. He did not come out to his parents until he was in his early twenties. I ask if he was working with his own childhood experiences in the film. “Of course, so in a sense it was painful, to a degree, but it was cathartic because you are doing it with people that you absolutely love and trust. I felt that it was going to be of use to people and I was right, it has been. The reaction to the movie has been genuinely extraordinary — it makes people feel and see things, and that isn’t an easy thing to achieve.”

The film is also a tender and erotic love story between Scott’s character and Harry, played by the Irish actor Paul Mescal. The two found a real-life kinship that made them a delight to watch on screen and off it, as a double act on the awards circuit. “I adore Paul, he’s so, so … continues to be …” Scott pauses. ���Obviously it’s been a tough time recently and he just continues to be a wonderful friend. It’s everything. The more I work in the industry, I realise, you make some stuff that people love and you make some stuff that people don’t like, and all really that you are left with is the relationships that you make. I love him dearly.”

Scott and Mescal were also both notable on the red carpet for being extraordinarily well dressed. Scott loves fashion and has a big, well-organised wardrobe that he admits is in need of a cull. “I don’t like having too much stuff. I really believe that everything we have is borrowed — our stuff, our houses, we are borrowing it for a time. So I am trying to think of people who are the same size as me so I can give some of it away, and that’s a great thing to be able to do.” One of his favourite labels is Simone Rocha. “I love a bit of Simone Rocha. What a kind, glorious person she is. I just went to her show.” Fashion, he says, is in his DNA. “My mother was an art teacher, she was obsessed with all sorts of design. She loved jewellery and jewellery design. Anything that is visual, tactile, painting, drawing, is a big passion of mine, so I have tremendous respect for the creativity of designers.”

Today Scott is wearing Louis Vuitton trousers and a cropped Prada jacket, dressed up because he is collecting his Critics’ Circle award for best stage actor for Vanya. I ask how it feels to have won the double, a historic achievement. “Ah …” he says, looking at the table, going silent, having just been so voluble. “I’m sorry …” His voice cracks a little. “It’s bittersweet.”

At the ceremony Scott dedicated the award to his mother, saying of her “she was the source of practically every joyful thing in my life”. Is it difficult for him to carry on working in the circumstances, I wonder. “Well, you know, you have to — life goes on, you manage it day by day. It’s very recent, but I certainly can say that so much of it is surprising and unique, and there is so much that I will be able to speak about at some point.”

He is looking forward, he says, once promotion for Ripley is over, to taking some time off, going on holiday, going back to Ireland for a bit. He has homes in London and Dublin. To relax he walks his dog, a Boston terrier, dressed down in jeans and a hoodie “like a 12-year-old, skulking around the city” or goes to art galleries on the South Bank — he was considering a career as an artist until he was 17 and got a part in the Irish film Korea. He goes to the gym every day, “not, you know, to get …” he says, flexing his biceps. “More that it’s good for the head.” He is social, likes friends, likes a party. When I ask if he gave up drinking while doing Vanya, which required him to be on stage, alone, every night for almost two hours, he looks horrified. “Oh God, no! Easy tiger! Jesus … Although I didn’t drink much, I did have to look after myself. But we had a room downstairs in the theatre, a little buzzy bar, because otherwise I wouldn’t see anybody, so I was delighted to have people come down.”

Scott was formerly in a relationship with the screenwriter and playwright Stephen Beresford and is currently single, although this is not the sort of thing he likes to talk about. He is protective of his privacy, not wanting to reveal where he lives in London, or indeed the name of his dog — but he swerves such questions with a gentle good humour.

He is famous on set for being friendly and welcoming, for looking after other people. “The product is very important, but most of my time is spent in the process, so I want that to be as pleasant and kind as possible. I feel like it is possible to do that, that it is an honourable goal.” He is comfortable around people, with an easy charm — no one I have interviewed before has said my name so many times. And although when we talk he sometimes seems reflective or so very sad, there are also moments when he is exuberant, silly, putting on accents. “I feel like, as a person, I am quite near my emotions. I cry easily and I laugh easily, and there is nothing more pleasurable to me than laughing.”

Scott was raised a Catholic and is no longer practising, but says his view about religion is “ever changing — I definitely have a faith in things that cannot be proved”. When he was younger and felt overwhelmed, just before or after an audition, he would go to the Quaker Meeting House in central London and sit in silence, something that made its way into the second series of Fleabag, in which Scott’s priest takes Waller-Bridge’s character to that same meeting house. “It’s just around here,” he says, standing up, looking out of the window at Charing Cross Road. “When Phoebe and I first talked, we met at the Soho Theatre. We talked about love and religion, we walked all around here. And I said, ‘This is a place I go,’ so we called in and there was no one there, so we sat in there and we talked. It was a really magical day.”

Scott says he sees all the different characters that he has played as versions of himself. “It’s like, ‘What would this version of me look like?’ rather than, ‘Oh, I’m going to be somebody else.’ You filter it through you, and you discover more about yourself. I think that is a very lucky thing to be able to do, to find out more about yourself in the short time that we are here.”

[schiff0rd]

James Lance in rehearsal for Trevor Nunn’s adaptation of Uncle Vanya

[heythereimashley]

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[spiritcc]

Soviet Movie Club(tm): March

So far we're having a Smoktunovsky party: For the Sunday series, we're having Little Tragedies, a 3-parter adaptation of Pushkin's works of the same name. Mozart vs Salieri, Don Juan, a feast among the plague and other stories presented in a Weird Vibe that really makes the show stand out. Lots of celebs involved and a few haunting tunes too.

For this Saturday March 2nd, we're revisiting Uncle Vanya. The only thing to do here is to simp because the movie doesn't provide anything else so be obliged.

[ilikethisacompletelynormalamount]

Anyone who's planning to see Vanya (after the October 9th release date) and wants to be familiar with the text, or saw it already and didn't get a copy in theater, but wants a souvenir, or just happen to be one of the many fans who won't get to see it (but totally aren't jealous and bitter about missing out) you can now pre-order a copy of the Vanya play text adapted by Simon Stephens, after Chekhov's Uncle Vanya , featuring Andrew Scott on the cover.

Available at Bloomsbury, Amazon and other book retailers on October 9th 2023, available for pre-order now.

Bloomsbury preorder

Amazon preorder

[mthguy]

Andrew Scott has distinguished himself as one of the best young actors of his generation. He is currently seen in the film, All of Us Strangers, with his co-star, Paul Mescal. Next up, he stars in the Netflix series Ripley, which he describes as a “stunning” and “quite faithful” adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” After leading a one-man Uncle Vanya in London last year, in the future he hopes to do a musical.

[captorsicallfriends]

andrew scott's one man uncle vanya adaptation comes out exactly a week before my literature assessment about uncle vanya

[gayestshakespearecouples]

Anyone here into Chekov?

I didn't know a single thing about him or any of his works but I went to see (a live screening of) National Theatre's Vanya, a loose adaptation of Uncle Vanya in which every role is played by Andrew Scott. I was blown away both because Andrew Scott is a literal acting god and because as it turns out I think I like Chekov as well? Obviously hard to tell from seeing a weird adaptation but I love those "character drama" type plays.

But yeah Andrew Scott is just fucking unbelievable. I thought he would be excellent in a one-man-play because he blew me away as Hamlet with how he acts *mannerisms* and fidgeting and such in such a believable way there, and I was right.

[astrovian]

Interview with Richard Armitage for The Telegraph (30/10/22)

Transcript under cut

If anyone had asked Richard Armitage 10 years ago whether he’d ever thought about writing a book, he’d have laughed. “I’d have said, ‘I’m not clever enough’,” he tells me. “I always feel a bit of an underdog when it comes to intellectual pursuits. I didn’t graduate from Oxbridge, like so many of my peers at Lamda [the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art].”

Yet here he is, the author of an atmospheric, icily tense audio-thriller, Geneva, about a Nobel prize-winning neuroscientist, Sarah, who is slowly losing her memory. The story, released earlier this month on the online audiobook and podcast service Audible as an “Audible Original”, takes in dementia, Big Pharma and biotech; Armitage narrates alongside Nicola Walker, his voice as soothing as melted chocolate.

“Audible asked me if I wanted to write something,” he explains. “I’ve narrated quite a few books for them and I think they checked the algorithm and realised I score quite highly with crime thrillers. They’ve seen I have an audience.”

Armitage, 51, says this in a self-effacing way. He’s been a fixture on the small screen since 2004, when he emerged as the brooding mill-owner John Thornton in the BBC’s adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North & South, delighting a generation of (let’s face it) female viewers. He has worked with exhausting regularity since then, notching up credits as the imperious dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit film trilogy; inscrutable MI5 spy Lucas in the TV series Spooks; the deliciously villainous Sir Guy of Gisborne in the BBC’s Robin Hood; and the special-forces hard-man John Porter in Chris Ryan’s Strike Back. Most recently, he starred in two Netflix adaptations of the Harlan Coben novels The Stranger and Stay Close.

He is a consistently reliable screen presence: he often plays macho heroes with an interesting, sensitive side and was particularly excellent on stage as tormented visionary Astrov in Ian Rickson’s 2020 West End revival of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. But with grey hair now at his temples, Armitage is wary of taking all this for granted. Hence the branching into other mediums: he’s developing a TV show (which he can’t yet discuss) and, of course, there’s the new book.

“I don’t want to retire when I get to 60, but I don’t necessarily want to still be an actor-for-hire, either,” he says. “It’s quite a whimsical position to be in: one day you’re flavour of the month; next day, no one wants you.

“You can’t force your own relevance. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve never been relevant, I’ve just been lucky. I’m easy to work with, but I don’t think I’ve ever been hot.”

Some might disagree. Still, I don’t think I have ever met an actor who has such a complicated relationship with his own career. Armitage is a curious mix of self-deprecating, pragmatic and quietly anguished. He approaches each role with the dedication of a scholar, penning preparatory biographies for his character and immersing himself in research (he famously endured waterboarding to prepare for his spy character undergoing the torture in Spooks).

Yet he worries he is sometimes cast because of his looks. “A couple of times I’ve been hired for something and I go, ‘Oh, I thought I was here because of my brain, but actually it’s because you want totty on screen. I’ve done all this character analysis and you just want me to take my shirt off.’ People talk about the power of the male gaze. But the female gaze is just as interesting to talk about. It’s a marketing tool like any other.”

One wonders whether Armitage is actually perfectly happy taking his shirt off. He says he told himself that when he got to 50, from that point onwards, he’d keep his clothes on – but he’s at it again in Damage, Netflix’s forthcoming remake of the 1992 steamy thriller featuring Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche, in which he stars opposite Peaky Blinders’s Charlie Murphy.

Still, he says that it took him a while to understand why directors would cast him in a particular type of role. “For long stretches of my career, I would take what I was offered. Yet I wouldn’t understand why I was being asked to inflict violence all the time. Why am I firing guns and throwing punches? Why am I not playing gentle, fragile, broken little people?

“But then you watch yourself and you think, ‘Well, I’m pretty tall. And I seem to have this hyper-masculine energy that I was unaware of.’ Then I realised that was quite useful, because maybe the hard shell of a man often harbours a more fragile person that I could occasionally reveal. Because the world doesn’t really allow men to be fragile.”

Armitage grew up in a working-class family in Leicester and only attended the performing arts boarding school Pattison College thanks to a local-authority grant. He worked first in musical theatre, including stints in 42nd Street and Cats, before taking a three-year course at Lamda then joining the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has always worked hard, an ethic he puts down to both an insecurity about money (linked to his roots) and a gnawing anxiety about his ability.

He admits that the character of Daniel in Geneva – Sarah’s husband and also a scientist – contains a fair bit of himself. “Daniel’s wife has all the glory. He has to accept that he’s pretty average. I relate to that. I know there are people out there who are far better at all this than I am, and I feel my only forte is that I have the discipline to put my head down and work. I’ve always felt like this – in dance, music and acting. I’ve never had that natural, God-given genius, for instance, but when I was younger I knew I could become a fairly average cello player if I worked hard enough.”

Armitage came out at the age of 19, although it’s not something he’s talked about much. “It’s not a big deal. It’s not very interesting. I suppose if I were to stop being hired because of it, that would be something else. But we’ve moved on since those days, haven’t we?”

He genially bats away further questions about his personal life. “When I was younger, the actors I found the most intriguing, such as Gary Oldman, were the ones I knew the least about. I’ve always wanted to be that type of actor; I’ve never wanted to get in my own way. Otherwise it’s a bit like painting a picture then standing in front of it waving your hands.”

These days, he spends half the year in New York: he was advised to move to the US after The Hobbit to expand his career, but couldn’t stomach Los Angeles, so settled for the Big Apple instead. “Although I can’t say living there has brought me any extra work.” That professional angst never goes away. “In fact, it gets worse as I get older.”

He is aware of the absurdities of his profession. “I look at award ceremonies and premieres, in which we’re all swanning around in $400 suits, most of them borrowed, drinking champagne, and I think, ‘What is this illusion we’re all peddling? I’m from a working-class background: I should be on the other side of the barrier!’ ”

Then he laughs. “I say all this, but I’ll probably be seen at yet another film premiere next week.”

[denimbex1986]

'Irish star Andrew Scott has made history after becoming the first to win the best actor gong from both the film and theatre Critics’ Circle in the same year.

His one-man performance in Vanya, an adaption of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s family drama Uncle Vanya, secured him the theatre prize on Monday at Soho Place in London.

It comes after he was named actor of the year at the London Film Critics’ Circle for his lead role in Andrew Haigh’s moving drama All Of Us Strangers last month.

Collecting the prize at the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, Scott said about the arts: “A lot of people need it, I need it and we all do so the arts should be protected and they should be celebrated and they should be funded.

“So I just want to say thank you to the artists.”...'

[grigori77]

2022 in TV - My Top 10 Shows

10.  THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY (season 3, Netflix)

The lovable and deeply weird adaptation of My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way’s epic mindfuck of a cult comic book from showrunner Steve Blackman (Bones, Fargo, Altered Carbon) has pulled off a particularly impressive feat, managing to drop THREE essentially perfect seasons of TV in a row without ANY signs of flagging in quality, pace or sheer sense of fun.  After the bonkers time-travel shenanigans of the first two seasons, things in the timeline have REALLY gone to pot, and now the gloriously dysfunctional Hargreaves siblings have got a truly diabolical enemy to deal with, namely the Sparrow Academy, a far superior group of superpowered oddballs that were trained by their adoptive father, Sir Reginald Hargreaves (Colm Feore), when he discovered what a “massive disappointment” his original collection of inexplicable orphans would become.  Worse still is the fact that one of them is a new, far more unpleasant version of their late brother Ben (After Yang’s Justin Min), who instantly takes a personal set against them … absolutely bonkers and enjoyably irreverent, this show remains as unrepentantly mad as ever, with the entire cast shining throughout, although once again Robert Sheehan effortless steals every scene as louchely nihilistic clairvoyant Klaus.  Extra kudos of course have to go to the show for allowing Elliot Page to transition as his character goes from Vanya to Viktor, although we should also thank Netflix for seeing the good sense in picking it up for one more season after this given that whopper of a cliffhanger …

9.  OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH  (HBO Max)

One of the year’s biggest surprise hits came in the form of this riotously unique surrealist sitcom series based on the true life tale of Stede Bonnet, the gloriously flighty 18th Century Barbadian aristocrat who left his plush life of privilege and luxury in order to pursue his personal dream of becoming The Gentleman Pirate.  Problem was, he’s THE WORST pirate there ever was, a genuine embarrassment to the profession, who mostly rose to fame after he was taken prisoner by and become the object of playful amusement of the feared terror of the High Seas himself, Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. The undeniable highlight of this show has to be enjoying the sparkling interplay between the two leads – Rhys Darby is, as always, an unbridled delight as Bonnet, the most unflappably effervescent hopeful idiot to have ever lived, while Taika Waititi’s clearly having the time of his life presenting the most feared pirate who ever lived as a disenchanted but ultimately gentle soul who’s long since grown tired of the ferocious façade he’s had to cultivate for himself over the years.  The rest of the cast are huge fun too (none more-so than Ewen Bremner as Bonnet’s entirely bizarre first mate Buttons), while the characters and sparkling scripts crafted by showrunner David Jenkins (People of Earth) and his writing team are a veritable masterclass in how to present a perfect show about LGBTQIA folk and their daily struggles through the prism of delightful absurdist comedy.

8.  THE MIDNIGHT CLUB (Netflix)

Mike Flanagan continues his assault of sheer small screen horror brilliance with this pitch perfect (sort of) anthology series based around the tales told by a group of teenagers thrown together in Seattle’s Brightcliffe Hospice for terminally ill adolescents in the mid-90s as they attempt to deal with impending death and all the horrific emotional baggage that comes with it.  Iman Benson (Uncle Buck, Black AF) shines incredibly brightly in an astounding youthful cast as Ilonka, the desperate dreamer who’s checked in with the intention of discovering the source behind a little known cure for her thyroid cancer which may exist somewhere in the hospice, while Nightmare On Elm Street’s Heather Langenkamp is wonderfully complex as Brightcliffe’s firm-but-fair chief resident doctor Georgina, and a winning selection of Flanagan regulars show up in a variety of roles (along with the resident cast) in a variety of intriguing roles in the titular group’s cathartic late night pastime of telling each other spooky tales.  These are the undeniable highlight on offer throughout the series, covering a fascinating range of genres from mysterious whodunnits and ghost stories to time-twisting sci-fi brain-melters that never fail to impress as Flanagan gets a chance to stretch his range a bit, but the overarching storyline is intensely compelling too as we come to really care about and root for these kids.  As we’ve come to expect from his work, this is spooky, creepy and insidiously unsettling, but once again there’s as much emotional intensity on offer here as bone-deep spine-chilling terror.  Unlike the rest of his TV work to date, however, this one was CLEARLY intended to be a proper ONGOING series … so of course Netflix has gone and cancelled it. At least we’ve got his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher to look forward to, and he’s DETERMINED to bring Stephen King’s legendary The Dark Tower to the screen in far better style than the criminally awful 2017 movie, so there’s still hope …

7.  CYBERPUNK: EDGERUNNERS (Netflix)

Another big surprise hit sneaking in under the radar this year was this unexpected anime gem from Kill la Kill creators Studio Trigger, based on the cult tabletop RPG which spawned the troubled yet deliriously popular video game.  Anyone who knows me, of course, knows this is RIGHT UP MY STREET, I’m a total sucker for anything cyberpunk, as well as anime in general, so this was a perfect combo for me, but even so I was generally surprised by just HOW UNBELIEVABLY GOOD this actually turned out to be. It’s pretty short too – with ten episodes each clocking at around the 25-minute mark it’s pretty easy to binge in a single sitting – but thoroughly sweet, each instalment propelling the impressively robust story forward at quite the pacy clip towards a suitably explosive climax, with plenty of blistering action and compellingly dark techno-shenanigans along the way.  The real reward here, however, is the characters, a crew of dysfunctional misfits brought together over the course of the series who perfectly encapsulate the brilliantly crafted universe’s dark and dangerous criminal underworld – the central love story between teenage dropout turned cybernetically-enhanced mercenary David and born-survivor elite hacker Lucy is compellingly intense and realistically written, but the best addition here has to be hyperactive pint-sized cyber-badass Rebecca, who’s an ultraviolent delight from start to finish.  The animation is some of the very best I’ve EVER seen in anime, and the design work throughout is never less than stellar, wisely taking its lead from the impressively inventive game but still happy to carve its own path.  The end result is one of the best animated shows I’ve come across in quite some time (it’s not on Arcane’s level, but comes damn close), so it’s a shame that, since it was apparently intended to be a standalone, we’re unlikely to see any more in the future …

6.  WARRIOR NUN (season 2, Netflix)

Debuting in the middle of the Pandemic turned out to be a stroke of truly great luck for Continuum creator Simon Barry’s unique but also intrinsically challenging adaptation of Ben Dunn’s gloriously bonkers comic book Warrior Nun Areala, which became an impressive runaway hit for Netflix and made a second season inevitable.  Gods knew it quickly earned a rabid following (myself among them) who were champing at the bit for more, but shooting restrictions meant we’d have to wait a little bit … but it’s finally arrived and it is REALLY GREAT, actually IMPROVING on the previous run as we follow unlikely Warrior Nun Ava Silva (a truly spellbinding turn from the thoroughly adorable Alba Baptista) and her gang of rogue holy helpers on their quest to take down the Big Bad false messiah threatening to turn the world into hell on earth, the fallen angel Adriel (William Miller).  Along the way they get into an endlessly inventive series of scrapes, fights and misadventures that are a gleefully subversive joy to watch, but once again the real charm here is the will-they-won’t-they back-and-forth dance that continues between Ava and Kristina Tonteri-Young’s precocious but also thoroughly awkward Sister Beatrice.  Plotwise, things are tied off in a fairly neat little bow by the end of this season – albeit through an emotionally devastating climax which you definitely need to keep the tissues handy for – but even so there’s enough room for more that it’s a criminal shame that Netflix have decided to pull the plug on this one too.

5.  PEACEMAKER (HBO Max)

Whatever you might think about Warner Bros./Discovery in general regarding its current treatment of the future of the DCEU (especially after the shocking fate that befell the heavily anticipated Batgirl movie), and about filmmaker James Gunn in particular now that he’s taken over as the head honcho on the franchise itself, you can’t deny that he did a phenomenal job with this deliciously non-PC spinoff from his awesome 2021 Suicide Squad soft-reboot.  Michael Cena’s Christopher Smith was one of the film’s biggest hits, so a series following his exploits as the titular antihero was a damn smart move, the former wrestler-turned-actor once again proving what a comedic genius he is as he flexes, gurns and drops hilarious inadvertent one-liners as one of THE WORST SUPERHEROES in the entire DC Universe.  That being said, the show’s frequently stolen out from under him by Unreal and Time After Time’s Freddie Stroma, who’s even more of a blissfully awkward joy as Smith’s best friend/unwitting nemesis Adrian Chase, aka Vigilante, a ridiculously talented combat nerd who desperately wants to be a badass dark avenger like his bestie, while there are similarly game turns from Jennifer Holland and Steve Agee (both reprising their roles from The Suicide Squad) as the downtrodden ARGUS agents charged with keeping Smith under control along with Danielle Brooks’ geeky new recruit, and there’s an irreverent and perfectly scummy turn from Robert Patrick as the Peacemaker’s white supremacist supervillain father August Smith, the infamous White Dragon.  A riot from start to finish, this show is packed with over-the-top, ultraviolent action, jet black humour and an endless series of razor sharp winks, nods and homages from one of the best geek-master filmmakers in the business.  Best of all, though, has to be that STONE COLD GENIUS title sequence, choreographed to perfection to the brilliantly awful earworm Do You Wanna Taste It from irreverent Norwegian glam metal band Wig Wam, which is guaranteed to have you crying you’ll be laughing so hard.  Personally, I can’t wait for more of this one.

4.  GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (Netflix)

Anyone who’s been following me long enough to know what I like should know that Guillermo del Toro is one of my favourite filmmakers of all time, I simply ADORE his work, so an anthology show of dark and disturbing horror stories shot-right-through with his irresistible geeky stylistic DNA was a no-brainer for me. ESPECIALLY since he opens every episode with an adorable intro where he presents his philosophical thoughts on what we’re about to experience in the style of Rod Serling. XD  The stories on offer, meanwhile, are an eclectic bunch, ranging from short-sharp-shock creature features to broadly satirical body horror, but there’s an impressive line in cosmic terror on offer here too, with several entries wearing del Toro’s deep-seeded Lovecraft influence on their sleeves.  They’re also consistently impressive, without a single dud in the selection, although the undeniable highlights of the whole bunch, for me, have to be the adaptations of actual Lovecraft stories, Pickman’s Model and Dreams in the Witch House, which perfectly encapsulate the author’s restless sense of endless low-key dread and horrific anticipation, with the eldritch horrors unleashed brought to deeply disturbing life through a selection of impressively palpable physical effects that’s become one of del Toro’s greatest strengths.  The production values on offer here are second to none, as is the quality of the ensemble casts and the directors bringing each story to life, which includes the likes of Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice), Panos Cosmatos (Mandy), Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home At Night) and David Prior (The Empty Man) - each filmmaker does wonders for their individual stories, showing spectacular flair and skill throughout, but every single episode still has the titular master of weird cinema’s fingerprints all over it.  Which is exactly what you want from such a wondrous tribute to one of the best visual storytellers out there right now …

3.  THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA (Amazon Prime)

Netflix really seems to have dominated all on the small screen this year, but Amazon have still managed to make their presence felt with one of this past year’s BEST OFFERINGS, in the form of a gleefully irreverent animated adaptation of the first Campaign of wildly successful Dungeons & Dragons-based live-play table-top RPG webcast series Critical Role. Most of my followers should already be keenly aware that I am quietly OBSESSED with the ongoing games, so when they announced this I was almost delirious in my excitement, and this first season paid off all our mad expectation MAGNIFICENTLY.  Starting out as a Kickstarter by the Crit Role gang themselves with the intention simply to make an animated special, the resulting support was SO STRONG they were able to spring for a whole series, which was then picked up for genuine syndication by Amazon, and the rest, as they say, is history … best of all, though, is the fact that, because it’s their baby, the original cast IN THEIR ENTIRETY are involved in bringing it together, from the writing to the character performances, and since they’re a collection of highly talented voice-actors they’ve done a STUNNING job here … but then THEY DO know their characters right to the bone.  Animated with EXQUISITE attention to detail by Titmouse (Metalocalypse, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Animaniacs and Pantheon among others), packed with stunning action and dark thrills and shot-through from start to finish with an infectious sense of humour, not to mention a veritable DUMPTRUCK’s worth of epic feels, this is an absolute riot from start to finish.  I’m waiting with eager anticipation for the imminent arrival of the second season, and am sublimely happy Amazon have already commissioned a third …

2.  STRANGER THINGS 4 (Netflix)

After season 4 ended in such a crazy place, with Eleven (Millie Bobbie Brown) depowered and Hopper (David Harbour) assumed dead but actually VERY MUCH ALIVE in a Siberian gulag, we were left with a hell of a lot of crazy questions, but we never had any doubt The Duffer Brothers would deliver those answers and more in style. That being said, they really pulled out ALL THE STOPS with this season, not only upping the scale to delirious levels but also massively increasing the overall runtime, which even prompted Netflix to employ a somewhat frustrating tactic of splitting the season into TWO PARTS with an entire month of waiting in-between … but at least the end result was some of the year’s most engrossing and thoroughly AWESOME television. Certainly this one packed the small screen’s biggest amount of WOW, as we’re finally given the fascinating but also thoroughly horrifying origin story to both the Hawkins Lab psychic experimentation project AND the Upside Down itself … giving away more threatens MASSIVE spoilers, but once again every aspect of the show deserves LASHINGS of praise heaped upon it, from the spectacular effects work (particularly some truly stunning prosthetic make-up work bringing the series’ ultimate Big Bad to life) to the uniformly astounding cast, with the ever-reliable returning players (particularly Brown, Harbour, Winona Ryder, Gaten Matarazzo, Sadie Sink and Joe Keery) once again doing their fair share of the heavy-lifting while the newcomers (most notably Joseph Quinn, Jamie Campbell Bower and Tom Wlaschiha) each make strong impressions going forward.  By turns thrilling, terrifying, heartfelt, funny and inventive, but always pitch-perfect in its nostalgic charm, this show continues to be one of the very best pieces of top-notch small-screen entertainment around, and I cannot wait to see what’s to come in the final season …

1.  THE SANDMAN (Netflix)

If ANYTHING was gonna beat Stranger Things to the top spot, it could only have been Neil Gaiman’s VERY hands-on adaptation of his own thoroughly beloved revolutionary cult comic book series.  Seriously, Gaiman changed the game with this title, so he was THE ONLY ONE we, the hardcore faithful, could possibly trust to bring his masterwork to life on the small screen, and after his astonishing efforts with the Good Omens show we had the utmost faith that he had the chops to pull it off.  We were not wrong … working closely with fellow showrunners David Goyer (Blade, Batman Begins) and Allan Heinberg (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, Wonder Woman), Gaiman has produced a series that wisely stays faithful to the original source material, essentially splitting this first season into two arcs, with the first realising Book 1 of the comic, Preludes & Nocturnes, while the second focuses on Book 2, The Doll House.  Tom Sturridge (The Boat That Rocked) was PERFECT casting as Dream of the Endless, one of a unique family of near all-powerful cosmic beings charged with the control and caretaking of various aspects of the Universe itself – Dream, obviously, rules over the province of the Subconscious, while his sister, Death (Killing Eve’s Kirby Howell-Baptiste), is pretty self-explanatory, but not at all what you’d expect.  After imprisonment for almost a century, Dream is looking to put his house back in order, but this brings him into direct conflict with various entities, including, dangerous “sorcerer” John Dee (David Thewlis), the Devil themselves, Lucifer (Gwendoline Christie), and monstrous rogue nightmare The Corinthian (a chilling performance from Boyd Holbrook), while the foundations for a far darker, more wide-reaching conspiracy are being laid by hands much closer to his heart … this adaptation is nothing short of a MASTERPIECE, Gaiman and his helpers bringing his creation to life in the most magnificent of ways in one of the most spectacular chunks of television I’ve ever had the privilege to witness.  Spellbindingly beautiful, emotionally devastating, spine-chillingly horrifying and effortlessly entertaining in equal measure, every single element of this show was brought to bear with the utmost attention to detail, and the results are nothing short of perfection.  Netflix have wisely picked it up for a second season, but we can only hope they maintain their faith in the series long enough for Gaiman to bring the entire saga to life …

Honourable mentions:

The Boys (season 3, Amazon Prime); Andor (Disney+); House of the Dragon (HBO); 1899 (Netflix); Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+); Obi Wan Kenobi (Disney+); Reacher (Amazon Prime); Interview With the Vampire (AMC); The Man Who Fell To Earth (Showtime); Gangs of London (season 2, Sky Atlantic)*

*What can I say?  There was A LOT of great TV this past year …

[tahtahfornow]

How have you been? 🪱🐚🌼

omg ive been pretty good tysm for checking in!! <3<3 <3 it's been a really busy academic year for me so i feel like i've been mostly offline and away from fandom-type stuff etc etc for a while, but that's fine, at least i get to be in school for something i enjoy! my partner lost their job last month (which i count as a good thing bc the boss was absolutely insane and the work environment exploitative and underpaying) BUT they are starting to get a little stressed now about finding another job, money, etc, so ... i guess send us good vibes for the job search pls lol <3 how are YOU?!! life okay? have you read anything good lately? i haven't read a novel in ages, only poetry collections really. watched a cool adaptation of uncle vanya on kanopy though! have heard amazing things about drive my car and been planning to watch it but wanted to see uncle vanya first bc it's important to the plot or something lol.

[shegottosayit]

Wow. This astonishing version of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya is a tour-de-force by the actor Andrew Scott in which he takes on eight roles while all the time preserving the perfect balance of comedy and tragedy that makes this the most humane of plays. What could have felt like a gimmick becomes a revelation.

[szyszkasosnowa]

Bookshelf wrapped

A list of books I've read in 2023 for statistical and archival purposes and also because I like to catalog things (and tumblr let me down by not having a year in review this year).

If any of my followers would feel inspired to do a similar thing please tag me, I'd love to see what you've read!

Służące do wszystkiego, Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak. I love reading the first-hands accounts of history, esp from regular/lower class people. So it's worth to read just for it. There was something lacking for it to be a really good reportage tbh.

Fire and Blood, George R.R. Martin. Really nice if you're an asoiafhead. Can't really recommend to someone who hadn't read asoiaf before. Also I wish GRRM would focus on finishing the saga instead of starting new projects. But can't really blame him for pursuing side stories.

Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer. Keep thinking about that redditor guy who said this book inspired him to try and prepare to climb Mount Everest in one year. Maybe reddit pisses on poor even more than tumblr.

Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert. I must say that of (5) Dune books I've read so far, this has the higher amount of what I consider Dune's fatal flaws. Mostly unnecessarily convoluted dialogues that end up being borderline incomprehensible. It also underutilizes very interesting characters, like Scytale and Mohiam. I would give extra points for Paul's ending, but then I've read Children of Dune.

The True Deceiver, Tove Jansson. Just fine. Even better if you like winter.

Children of Dune, Frank Herbert. Way better than Messiah, can't hold a candle to the original Dune. I feel like some stuff was retconned in this part, concerning Alia's and the twins' abilities. Esp. Alia's arc could use more foundation set in the previous parts.

God-Emperor of Dune, Frank Herbert. Still not as good as the original Dune, but what a beautiful wild ride. So many cool ideas and characters, including the answer to the question 'would you love me if I were a worm', Idk why the people say it's not adaptable to the screen, I know exactly how I would direct the movie. I wasn't born a nepo baby so you will probably never see this, sadly.

Uncle Vanya, Anton Chekhov. I saw a really good performance before reading the play so it probably influenced my rating. Good read for ugly girls who pull no bitches.

The Last Question, Isaac Asimov. Clever.

Girl, interrupted, Susanna Kaysen. Good read for mentally ill and probably ugly girls.

Other voices, other rooms, Truman Capote. Loved how the climate was painted, and I'd say the way it was written, but I've read the translation. So I liked the translator's way with words I guess.

Dracula, Bram Stoker. Jonathan's diary at the beginning is crazy, scary and overall amazing, but sadly it's the highest point of the novel and the rest doesn't live up to the hype. It's still good and it nice to compare how some motives evolved in the popculture.

Chłopki. Opowieść o naszych babkach, Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak. Again, I absolutely loved the primary sources used in this book. And it's in fact rare to see some memoirs by the women of the lowest of low classes. But other then the sources, Idk.

Heretics of Dune, Frank Herbert. The issues of Messiah are back. Can we let go of Duncan at last. Honored Matres as a concept are questionable/laughable. I wanted to ask on Dune subreddit if anyone else thinks Teg and Patrin were gay for each other but they removed my ask, so I'm just gonna believe this on my own.

The Crucible, Arthur Miller. Very good. I have some issues with the character of Abigail and how she compares to the historical Abigail though.

Things fall apart, Chinua Achebe. Crazy good. I kept changing my mind on what I like the most about the book as I read it. In the end I think what I liked the most was giving a perspective of the people who didn't fit with the traditional society.

Śniła się sowa, Ewa Ostrowska. Raw, disgusting, unsettling portrayal of a small, closed off countryside society, and its violence. As small, closed off countryside societies are one of my biggest fears, I loved (?? appreciated) this book.

Owoc żywota twego, Ewa Ostrowska. As above, but even more disgusting and unsettling. Dead Dove Do Not Eat, but if you're fully ready for what awaits you, it's a good read.

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad. Actually good.

Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig. Very cool idea for the book structure (dialogue-only, two inmates try to pass time, one recounts to the other the movies he had seen). But the story itself isn't bad also.

Dungeon Meshi, Ryouko Kui. Beautiful! Heartwrenching! Heals your depression! Elf twinks! Extremely thought out worldbuilding and a consistent, planned out story. Love to see it.

I don't include the manga I've read that are ongoing (or I hadn't finished them).

[grusinskayas]

heyo does anyone know if there's any actual good film adaptations of uncle vanya