#which - actually - with all this promo it might actually be run by the movie studio rather than Jeff

[meraki-yao]

RWRB Cut Scene: Texas Campfire Scene

Partly in honour of today being the anniversary of Alex's speech, here's a ramble about another deleted scene: the Campfire scene

This promo still of the scene is the cover picture of the movie on prime

In the final cut of the movie, namely the released version that we got, we get the campfire scene as part of a montage in the speech, but unlike running through the V&A as the sun rises or the forest kiss, I don't think this scene was originally shot as a montage, but as a full scene that got cut for some reason

Henry's Instagram account posted a photo of him from that scene, and he credited Nora as the photographer, so I'm guessing Nora was in this scene. This also suggests that this is an ensemble scene, which might be part of the reason it was cut, but also means it would have been a longer scene, I'm guessing 2.5-4 minutes. (which, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) also Henry posted this the same time Alex posted a photos from the karaoke bar, so I think that counts as confirmation that the campfire is part of the Texas holiday

We don't actually have any context about this scene other than it's most likely part of the Texas holiday: Is this the equivalent scene of the gang in the books chilling when June plays the guitar and Henry and Alex make out (P256-257 of the original print, where "Alex is so in love that he can die" came from, and Holy fuck does Taylor bring that single line to life)? Are they having a barbecue? Or is this just a campfire? We don't actually know at all

Date wise I'm curious: the final release of the movie almost made it seem like it was literally two days: day 1: arrival -> volleyball -> hammock reading -> night at the bar ; day 2: conversation with dad -> Lake -> Henry runs away. Given the campfire is also a night scene, I think this means there's an extra day in the holiday sequence

I can't find the GIF for the montage used in this scene in the speech, but God I love that moment. It's almost like the reverse of the Paris pillow talk: this time Henry's talking about something he's passionate about, and Alex listens

Actually on that note, I wonder if that's the reason it was cut: maybe they tried out two different scenarios of Alex's "God I love him" epiphany, one here and one during the karaoke, and decided that the karaoke worked better for whatever reason. Just a guess, but either way I do really, really want to see this scene

I wonder what Henry/Nick is saying in the scene. He looks so happy talking about whatever it is. If I'm right about this being a full scene, then it's most likely scripted lines, but I could be wrong, which in that case, there's also the possibility of that being Nick ad-libbing in character or ... just Nick, which... is a whole other kind of ... wow. Either way, I really want to hear what he's saying

I swear sometimes I wanna grab Henry by the shoulders and shake him because HOW DID YOU NOT REALIZE HE LOVES YOU TOO??? Oh my God, Taylor's fucking performance, the man is drinking in every sight and sound of Henry like a man lost in a desert. He looks like he's two seconds away from proposing on the spot. I look at how Alex looks at Henry and I want to cry from the sheer amount of love there is in his eyes. What the fuck.

Although I'm confident that we're getting more content including deleted scenes in the future, even just from a studio profit perspective, I'm not confident in them releasing everything we want, and so here I am once again screaming for another deleted scene and a DVD with everything

[1ddotdhq]

Thurs 21 Jan ‘21

Welp. Today was a busy week, huh? 

Let’s start with Zayn’s INZAYNLY AWESOME idea of writing a comic book based on his own album - take THAT reviews that said he had no concept behind it! The first panel of the story is a man in a white car speeding away from a man with purple eyes and white pupils (REALLY creepy btw), and it reads, “A madman has been chasing me for the past hour. When I go faster, he comes closer”. I am intrigued! I hope that this is some sort of enemies to lovers type thing, but knowing these guys, its strictly horror/suspense. This is being presented in video form, so the panels are moving figures and they are scored with songs from the album, which I assume is how the rest of the panels will also be presented. You can watch these two panels with the songs “Calamity” and “Better” over on YouTube for the full effect! Also, Zayn’s last listening party was today and he was the DJ! “DJ Malik”, he said in a sentimental throwback to his boyband days. He and his team had a great time throwing airhorns into the the listening party and then they did a “from Dusk Til Dawn '' encore, which I’m sure means Zayn wants us to be streaming NIL from Dusk Til Dawn! 

To keep the party going, Paul Roberts, TPWK and longtime 1D choreographer, had a chat with the BBC about working with Harry and Phoebe (WB) on the music video. He knew right away, he said, that everyone from 1D could be a great dancer if they really wanted to be, and, ten years later, he finally got the chance to test the theory! Spoiler alert: he was RIGHT! Harry had seen Phoebe in Fleabag on the West End and got on with her from the word go, and so the idea came about. “It was about three weeks before the world started to burn”, he says about the filming of the video,“We didn’t know how lucky we were”. 

Finally, let’s CHAT: it’s stunt timeeeeee!! Today is, of course, Freddie’s birthday, which meant the usual round of pictures stolen from social media from the Tomlinson sisters, silence from Louis, and birthday pics from the Clarks. Including a picture of a sonogram posted by Briana that was taken on August 3rd, 2015 (Louis confirmed the baby on the very next day on GMA). This sonogram is notable BECAUSE - drumroll pleasseeeee - it was taken at a FERTILITY CLINIC which specialized in surrogacy and IVF. So this is a clinic that only treats people who cannot have children naturally. To make matters more interesting, the clinic does not do non-client visits, and they did not do them in 2015. You simply could not go to this clinic if you had an accidental pregnancy because those are not the kinds of clients served by this clinic! I mean, if nothing else, this shows that Briana did not get accidentally pregnant by Louis, if she was pregnant at all. Likely, it was another fucked up photoshop job, where they switched Tammi’s name for hers and just forgot to change the name of the clinic. Sighhh. We knew this, of course, but WOW does this prove it concretely, huh? Anyways, I cannot BELIEVE that they are still fucking up THIS BADLY five years later, but uh. Yeah. Happy Birthday, Freddie, hope you got more than an apple this year! 

But that’s not the ONLY stunt that’s becoming faker and faker: Fauxlivia is proving itself to be nothing but the cash, and the cars, and the glory...and the pretty clothes, apparently! Turns out, Olivia is a brand ambassador for La Ligne in much the same way that H works for Gucci. She’s been featured on their instagram many MANY times, and has, thus far, worn their clothes for no fewer than TWO of the Holivia pap walks. Strangely enough, though, when this whole stunt began to manifest in late October, HARRY began featuring on their Instagram page as well. Totally Organically, of course, considering that they’d never talked about him before! That AND: the pink beanie that H was wearing in their dumb af Parking Lot Pap Walk has ALSO been idenfied to be La Ligne, which I’m sure he Just Decided to begin wearing and it had NOTHING to do with Jeff being Right There and them having promoted Gucci together at Jeff’s wedding. Mhmmmmm they’ve convinced me they’re TOTALLY in love. Celebrities that promo together, stay together, after all! (Oh, is that not the saying?)

Meanwhile, Liam’s Final Act merch has been delayed, and he has asked people to “contact him when they get it” (Harry’s team could NEVER), and JC Stewart called Niall “one of the nicest guys in music”. I’m sure he agrees! And, Niall has his own little discourse today - so much for him not creating any drama, huh? There were some shirtless pics of him posted by an ~source~ where he seems to have been working out (Niall has ABS now??) and is arranging a stack of boxes that read “nude” (just like Niall, huh?). UAs battled it out whether or not these pics should have been posted because he did not know they were being taken and there’s ETHICS involved, but Niall hangs out shirtless so much ANYWAYS that I bet he doesn’t mind.

[djemsostylist]

The first trailer for the new Lord of the Rings trailer is set to drop tonight, and I'm weirdly excited. Not because the show is going to be any good (spoilers, it's not) but because I think maybe, finally, we are seeing pushback against giant corporations churning out the same endless array of movies and tv shows that look and feel virtually indistinguishable from one another.

Ever since Game of Thrones, there's this idea that somehow fantasy sells, which I don't necessarily think it true. Popularity sells, and really what studios are counting on is fomo. People want to be a part of the conversation, they want to have something to talk about. It's understandable, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone that. Things are far, far more enjoyable when you can talk to people about them. And an easy line of small talk is "hey, you catch the latest [insert current random 'popular' show here].

My chief issue with this is that not all fantasy world's are cut and pastes of each other. Sure, they might hold certain similarities--species, powers, magical jewelry, quests--but they aren't identical. Stories, all stories, are a product of their time, their creator, and in general, I think different stories have different things to say.

If you would have shown me the promo images Amazon's LOTR and asked what I thought I was seeing without telling me it was LOTR, I would have either guessed the Witcher season 3 promo or some kind of new fantasy YA series I'd never heard of. The characters have the same sort of deeply modern, slickly polished look of pretty much all modern fantasy adaptations--they don't feel real, they feel like characters that exist in a made up fantasy world.

Tolkien was telling a story that was supposed to tell the story of the world as it was before our time. He was crafting not just narratives, but themes and stories of a world that was supposed to be grounded--a world that could have realistically existed. Say what you will of Jackson (and please note that I find the trilogy to be a terribly awful adaptation of LOTR and disagree almost entirely with all of his story choices), he succeeded in creating a world that felt real. And not only did it feel real, it felt believable. The elves in Jackson's trilogy (Hugo Weaving aside) felt and acted with an air of grace and nobility that made you feel the weight of their years and wisdom and experience. The costuming and hair styling made each culture unique, distinct, and real--they seemed like cultures that could actually exist, like these were clothes people might actually wear.

This latest batch of actors feel like something the CW scrounged up. It looks like Dave and Elmer got together to run a D&D session and decided to dress up like their characters, so they ordered their costumes off Etsy and then Dave invited his gym buddy Steve along, and Steve went bc he heard their were hot girls and Dave's girlfriend Jenn came with her armor she bought off Wish and they just rolled with it. And the character descriptions back this up--Dave is an elf who hangs out with humans and goes ranging, Elmer is a young architect/politician and Steve is--a dude who like, got shipwrecked or something. Jenn is a badass girlboss who commands armies and stuff. None of these people, from their looks to their descriptions, bare even a passing resemblance to anything I'd ever mistake for Tolkien.

To say that the entirety of this show is going to be a fanfic mess is an understatement. If what was said in the Vanity Fair interview was true, and they truly can only use LOTR and the Appendices, then their knowledge of what what on in the 2nd Age is extremely limited.

Tbh, I find it weird they chose to double down on a 2nd Age story when they could have taken the longest and easiest tale to adapt, the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, and simply made a Young Aragorn show, as some early rumors had suggested. It still would have been shit, but at least it would have been less insulting. I mean, they didn't, bc a young Aragorn story isn't GOT enough, and they wanted politics and giant battles.

Which is also very weird bc then they go and include like, hobbits and a bunch of random humans and it's like ?????? "A band of unlikely heroes" except it misses the entire point of the 2nd Age AND then the 3rd Age which is that the 2nd Age is full of exactly the heroes you'd expect? Like, the entire point of the 1st and 2nd Age is that it's full of larger than life, world destroying figures of legend and myth, and they bring Middle Earth to it's knees. It's in the 3rd Age, when the heroes of the past are waning and the prominence of the more mundane is on the rise, that they are able to achieve a level of peace. Being like "it's just not Middle Earth without hobbits!" is just about the most infuriating statement, bc what they really mean is "a bunch of people will be like "hey I vaguely remember a movie about hobbits, let's watch this thing" and not "we really understand this universe we are playing in."

I mean, ultimately I guess I shouldn't care. Other than completely butchering both Elrond and Galadriel looks and character wise, everything else is gonna be a made of fanfic mess which doesn't really affect the actual stories at all. (Seriously, the casting for Elrond is consistently bizarre. He's the offspring of Luthien and we get Hugo Weaving and a dude who's closest approximation is real life Keebler elf, someone explain this to me). And it doesn't even look like the love of my life, Celeborn, will even be involved in this mess so I truly shouldn't care. Except that I will care, bc it's going to infuriate me, and idk. It'd be nice if just once, something I loved didn't get fucking ruined by corporate greed and incompetent creators.

The point of all this though, is that it finally looks like people are starting to go "hey wait a minute" and realize that studios and megacorportations do not give a single fuck about their viewers other than to create a product that will sell well and get eyes on it. Doesn't matter how. They aren't trying to make quality, they are trying to make something that will catch the average viewer who goes "hey wait that thing sounds vaguely familiar" or will generate enough fake or real controversy to have articles written about it that make people think it matters enough to watch.

This by no means means this show is going to crash and burn. But lately, people are being slightly more critical of the crap continuously churned out, and it gives me hope that this thing might actually, maybe, just maybe fail. That it might possibly suck enough to make even the average viewer not care. That actual fans will say "pass" instead of "but I watch everything even if it's garbage bc I'm a fan". That even the people who passively consume things will be like, "meh". And that's all I really want. For us to stop the parade of utter, boring mediocrity and ugliness that is so pervasive in Hollywood, where shows look like they can just borrow each other's crappy costumes and sets and it doesn't matter. (I mean, seriously, Elrond could be a damn Marvel character in that look.)

[oneweekoneband]

a hugely inexpert, absolutely correct examination of The Planets and their role in taylor swift turning out to be such a freak

Astrology is real. Astrology is made-up nonsense. Made-up nonsense is real. One person’s chosen organizing principle for living is no more or less stupid than anyone elses. All of this is true or maybe it isn’t. Don’t roll your eyes too hard, but Joan Didion wasn’t lying—we do tell ourselves stories in order to live. It’s about all we do. I don’t understand the stars and planets because I don’t believe it’s my business what happens up there, plus I’m a little dumb, but I, like any blubbering narcissist, enjoy being told something about myself, and what is a horoscope but an opaque little love note designed to be interpreted by the reader in whatever way suits them best. There are astrologers who write beautiful, empathetic horoscopes that are a balm whether you believe them or not, and in this way astrology has a cultural value which makes any dubious scientific purity irrelevant. I don’t understand the stars and planets, but I have friends that do, and I like hearing whatever they sort out. Certainly, I’m not immune to believing in spurious little rituals; I was raised Catholic. Thinking that your star sign is responsible for certain aspects of your personality is no more impractical than keeping a Saint Christopher medal in your car to protect you from danger while traveling. These days I do both. Astrology is possibly real or possibly is not and maybe it matters what “real” means or else it might not, yeah, but the philosophical questions recede in the face of one fact upon which we can all agree: Taylor Swift has a profoundly upsetting birth chart.

Right off the bat, just from an aesthetic standpoint, this image (above) is not inviting. I don’t like to see it. When I wrote about Taylor Swift on this site in 2013 I didn’t know my moon or rising signs. This knowledge was not yet mandatory for trying to date girls and/or understanding jokes online. I was, at that time, far from even the semi-astrologically-literate state I am in now, yet even then if you’d have shown me this image, I know I’d shudder. It doesn’t take a scholar of any kind to see this and feel a chill down your spine, the itch of cold, spectral fingers closing around your wrist. Look at it again. The painful bisection by those angry blue lines. If you found this painted on a cave wall you’d turn and run back towards the fresh air of the opening, blinking back tears, certain some undead beast was following in your wake. This is a birth chart that says I am capable of writing songs like “All Too Well” but sometimes what I like better is to name a cat after the worst David Fincher movie and do a anti-homophobia music video that actually is so bad it felt somehow like it itself was homophobia. This is a birth chart that says I am going to release my new album, Red (2012), with a promo wherein Papa John’s will bring you a copy of it along with your pizza. This is a birth chart that says yeah, I used to do a fake twang as a teenager, and then I dropped the fake twang, but I can bring it back with no notice sometimes so all the girls (mentally ill adult women who have a Pavlovian response to anything that kinda sounds like “Hey Stephen”) go wild.

Taylor Swift is a Sagittarius. That’s the one with the arrow. It’s one of the good signs, theoretically, because it’s one that I have a lot of in my own chart, and because it’s in November and December, which are months where you can wear all your coats. Some other Sagittarians include Brad Pitt, Britney Spears, Janelle Monae, 8th US President Martin Van Buren, Jane Fonda, my friend C., who, in fact, happens to share all three major placements, sun, moon, and rising, with Ms. Swift, but I still don’t think she’s murdered anyone, and, of course, Jake “Twin fire signs / Four Blue Eyes” Gyllenhaal. So we have basically a lot of hot people and one guy who died of asthma, but who did manage to get the highest ranking job in the country first, though the country was a lot smaller then, and didn’t even have McDonalds yet to serve to teams that win college football tournaments. All in all, seems okay. Her moon is in Cancer. I think this connotes something about the watery depths of her emotional self, and it’s the only astrological placement which gets a shout out in the Joni Mitchell song “Little Green”. Her rising sign is Scorpio which is, like... Well, Scorpio to me is Halloween and Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl. Medically speaking, I think that influence is how the stylings for the reputation era turned out so very Hot Topic. My moon is in Scorpio so this is a self-own as much as anything else.

Now look at this. What does it mean? Impossible to say, but that will not stop me from concluding that whatever it does mean is definitely bad. It will not stop me from extrapolating that probably a “multiple planet opposition” is the kind of thing that makes a person go to Stonewall during Pride for a surprise appearance but perform “Shake It Off” instead of any of the actual really good and sexy songs. But then, I bet it probably also factored into her developing into the kind of creative mind who would write something as weird and funny and vital as “And I’ve been meaning to tell you / I think your house is haunted / your dad is always mad and that must be why,” so possibly bad is good and good is bad and the various astrological signs just signify the different ways we relate to death. I don’t know. I’m scared.

In the documentary Folkore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, released on Disney+ last month to accompany the record, because this daughter of three generations of bank presidents is nothing if not a money-maker, Taylor wears a terrifying outfit that I started to like rather than recoil from by about halfway through, and while wearing it espouses a belief that we are all monsters, which I happen to figure is correct. In Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars, essential book on astrology and, importantly, the vagaries of the human heart, the incomparable Claire Comstock-Gay writes, “For Sagittarius, the desire is shifting and undefined. This is a drive, above all else, to see, to learn, to experience, to continually seek knowledge. It’s a drive to live a life that never asks or requires that you cede your freedom and never requires you to stop searching.” Certainly, this is the kind of internal compass which would lead to making the unusual, dramatic, and frankly very cool decision to entirely re-record your first six albums when ownership of the original masters has fallen into the hands of a little creep named “””Scooter””” who refuses to relinquish this morally, if not actually legally, false claim. For years I have speculated that actual murder of a human would not be outside of Taylor Swift’s capabilities. This is a statement made with neither praise or criticism attached. It’s a clinical observation from a sterling mind. What I feel with equal conviction, but admit more grudgingly, is that, if it happened, she’d have a perfectly logical reason. (Note: Taylor, if you’re reading this, I am not the type who’d rat anyway. It’s fine. Please don’t sue me.) I’m positive the astrological facts support my findings on this, and if I’m wrong, fortunately I will never find out. Anyway, the next full moon is in 22 days. I always want to look at it and then I forget. There’s a lot going on in space, and while I do feel that any cosmic forces which would put me and Taylor Swift on Earth at the same time are sort of inherently malevolent, I guess it’s been pretty fun, too.

[candyheartharry]

Go Your Own Way - Part 1

Hello, hello! I know I brought this up a while ago, a good collection of people seemed interested, so sorry it took me a while to touch it up and post it, but here’s Go Your Own Way, which as stated previously is based off a tweet I once say for a Mamma Mia!-esque movie using Fleetwood Mac songs and starring Harry. OBVIOUSLY I once again have a playlist which can be found right here This first part is roughly 2k words for a shorter little intro piece before we dive in a little deeper, please please please let me know what you think and as always I hope you enjoy! 💕The film of the same name stars Harry as our lead, who on screen is the frontman of an up and coming band called The Silk Roses in the mid-70′s, while our female lead (who also wrote and directed the film) plays his not-so-obvious love interest when she joins the band singing background vocals at the suggestion of the band’s guitarist who met her through her brother. During the day she manages the record shop her father had started, while her brother runs a recording studio out of the back where The Silk Roses recorded their early demos. Off camera, Harry and the main character have become close friends, and sometimes acting as someone’s love interest can be hard to drop when the cameras aren’t rolling. 

“She’s a real triple threat if I’ve ever met one.”

“What do you mean triple? All we did in the film was sing and act!”

“Well, yeah, but you wrote it too, didn’t you? I’d say that definitely counts for something.”

“The question was ‘What did you learn the most about the other while working on the movie’ so my answer would be that Harry likes to make jokes, but can’t take jokes.”

At the fourth and final interview for the last day of the press tour, the two main leads answered yet another round of questions, this time doing a special feature for Vogue’s 73 question’s segment while taking them on a tour of the set. Harry was obviously well known for the countless accolades he had collected throughout his career, while she was the rising starlet about to make her “triple threat” debut for writing, directing, and starring as the lead in her own film. If she was going to write a role for someone to play Harry Styles’ love interest, who better for the role than herself? The film, a movie musical about the personal lives of a band on the cusp of fame in the mid-70’s with a soundtrack composed exclusively of Fleetwood Mac songs, was set to debut at the end of the month in New York City at Radio City Music Hall, so this final day of interviews was likely to be the last time the costars would see each other until the release. 

After answering the final questions for the interview while leading the interviewer back to the parking lot, the pair made their way back to the trailers to collect their things before going their separate ways. While they had formally been given their own trailers, they had grown so close during the filming process they ended up informally sharing one the majority of the time; what had started as an accident after quickly rushing back from sneaking off site during an ensemble rehearsal time and throwing all their belongings in one dressing room before running to set had grown into a habit. Although the film had wrapped months ago, there was a good majority of the promo that was filmed on location, so naturally they fell back into the habit of unintentionally sharing a dressing room to spare each of them from having to cut their conversations short, especially this time around since they hadn’t seen each other nearly as much as they did during filming. 

“So have you already gotten your arrangements to New York straightened out?” Harry asked once the two of them reached his dressing room; he took a seat at the swiveling chair in front of the vanity mirror while she took up her usual spot on his couch next to his entirely too expensive Gucci throw pillows and an acoustic guitar. “Yeah, I’m getting there a couple days ahead just to have some downtime, what about you?” she asked as she tucked her feet underneath her and held one of the pink pillows to her chest. He held out his hand for her to pass his guitar over to him, and once he had it in his hands, he absentmindedly played a few notes to a song as he replied. 

“Yeah, I’m gonna get into town pretty early. I’ve got a flight out tomorrow, so I’ll be in town about two weeks.” He kept his focus on the guitar in his lap while he spoke to her, and glanced up for just a moment before he carried on with his thoughts. “You should let me know once you’re in town and we could go to dinner or something,” Harry tried to say as casually as he could, while in the meantime she held her grip on the pillow a little more tightly at his proposal. 

“There’s bound to be another twenty-five headlines about how me might be dating if we do,” she attempted to say as coolly as she could, not about to turn him down, but wanting to make sure he actually really wants to. “You get used to them,” he shrugged, not looking up from his guitar. He had already made up his mind that if she turns him down now, he would ask again once they’re both actually in the city, so really she didn’t have a choice in the matter, although he’d really like a confirmed yes from her now. “But if you really don’t want to be seen out with me, you can always just come by my apartment,” he continued, glancing up at her again, knowing he’ll break her down eventually, but not knowing that he never really has to at all since she’d say yes to nearly anything he asked her. 

She rolled her eyes at him and shook her head as he continued to play his guitar with that stupid smirk on his face. “Why are you so insistent on the fact that you think I don’t like you? Explain to me where you would get that idea?” she pressed, letting go of how firmly she’s gripping the pillow to fold her hands on top of it. He stopped playing his guitar and for the first time this entire conversation he properly looked up at her. 

“So we’re going to dinner once you get into the city; if you don’t tell me when you’re arriving, I’ll just have somebody get in touch with the premiere coordinator and they’ll let me know when you’re supposed to get there. You don’t have to come if you really don’t want to, but I’d really like it if you came,” he said with a soft smile, melting her heart that would do anything for him.

“Harry, you know I’d always go to dinner with you, you never have to try to convince me,” she said reassuringly, matching his smile. He went back to playing his guitar before he could stare at her too long and start to blush. She’s got a question that’s been on her mind since day one of pre-production, and once he was cast for the lead role in the film that she wrote, she knew Harry would be the best person to ask.

“So is anybody you know coming to the premiere?” she tried to ask casually. 

“No not this one, my mum and my sister are coming to the one in London. Your family coming?” he asked while she watched his fingers dance across the strings. “I’m not sure, they haven’t said for sure yet,” she took a moment’s pause before she gets to her actual point of asking. “Would you happen to know if Stevie is gonna be able to make it?” she asked trying to sound nonchalant about the concept, hopeful that he can pull some strings, but not getting her hopes up in case it doesn’t work out. She had been at the same events as Stevie Nicks about three times now, but they’ve never been able to actually be introduced. 

“Last I talked to her she said she would like to but might have rehearsals scheduled that day, so it kind of depends on what she’s got going on,” Harry replied as he started to play a different song. “If I hear one way or another from her, I’ll let you know,” he added with a knowing smile, very familiar with all that she’s told him about how she’s nearly met her more than once now, but never quite gets the opportunity to. “I think Mick might be coming? Maybe Christine?” he threw in, hoping an appearance by some other members of Fleetwood Mac would still be good enough for her fangirl heart. 

“I’d be honored to properly meet any of them, I can’t believe you just talk about them so casually. It still blows my mind you’re practically adopted into the family collectively by all of them together,” she said exasperatedly. She had never missed the opportunity to let him know how jealous she was of his connections to one of her favorite bands since the day she met him. He abruptly stopped playing in the middle of his second song. 

“You know, sometimes I really wonder if you wanted me in your movie just so I could introduce you to the band, you know that?” he teased, to which she calmly and casually placed the pillow she had been holding back down on the couch before standing up. She motioned for him to hand over the guitar and placed it behind her on the couch as well before she walked over to him and placed her hands on the arms of his chair, leaning down so they were nearly eye level so he’s forced to look at her directly. 

“We’re friends, aren’t we, Harry?” she asked casually.

“I mean at this rate we’ve known each other for a little over a year now, so I’d hope so,” he replied with a smirk.  

She leaned in just a little bit closer - any closer and one might argue it’s pushing the boundaries of just friendship she had just asked him to confirm - and continued. She softly brushed back a strand of his hair behind his ear and gently cupped his jaw in one of her hands, the feather light touches against his face being something that their friendship isn’t accustomed to off camera.   “Let’s make it very clear that I’d push you off of a bridge to meet Stevie Nicks and not think twice about it,” she said before giving a soft kiss to his cheek and a gentle pat to his jaw, after which she collected her purse from the vanity behind him before heading to the door to leave. 

Before she exited, she turned around to him one last time, where he remained looking both a touch shocked and surprised in his seat. “I’ll let you know once I’m in New York, if you don’t take me to dinner, I’ll be very personally offended. See you soon!” she announced with a quick wave over her shoulder before she was out the door, leaving Harry with his heart racing as he turned to face the mirror behind him, his fingers gently going to the place she kissed on his cheek where he finally let a flustered smile make his way to his face. Mixed signals on exactly how close they were as friends was another trend they had developed during filming; it was almost expected and it seemed as if it hadn’t ended once the project wrapped.

[disinvited-guest]

3/5/2020 Milwaukee

 I snagged a spot to the left of the keyboard, far enough over to see Marty across the stage.  I was happy to notice that the venue had evidently been putting my “Historic Preservation Fee” to good use.  What had been a flimsy floor of plywood over an open pit in front of the stage was now relatively solid ground.  Since the plywood floor had bounced and shook during the 2018 show, I didn’t miss it.  We were very close to Marty’s Quiet Storm setup as the crew was prepping for the show, so as Fresh took it back offstage, we noticed that he wasn’t wearing any fancy socks!

Only a few minutes after eight, the lights dimmed and a gif of the flag from the Flood Promo was displayed on the projector.  The crowd began to cheer, but it was several seconds before the pre show mix was replaced by Gyspy, and late into that before They took the stage.  Finally, there they were!  Both Johns, Danny and Marty came on and as the cheers died, kicked off the evening by playing Dead.  As they finished, Dan came onstage ready to go.

From Dead they went straight into They Might Be Giants, beginning an absolutely amazing set.  Dan and Danny were kidding around the whole time, Flans was all over the stage, Marty was making the best drumming faces, and Danny was dancing as he played.  All the things I had missed about going to shows were there in abundance, and it was wonderful.

Without pause, they moved on to the always exciting Twisting, and then We Want a Rock.  During the latter song, Danny glanced over at me and did a double take, then gave me a big smile and a nod of recognition.  I think maybe he didn’t recognize me immediately with my longer hair.

Flans had a bit of trouble with his part on Want a Rock, and after the song was over and he had greeted us all, he told us “I just did the musical equivalent of falling down the stairs, so this seems like a good time to remind you that there will be no refunds.”  He continued on, telling us that they had just finished a “four-song rock-block” and that the first set this evening would be all Flood, and the second set would have two songs from Flood, making it “arguably the best set.”

During all this, Danny was upstage dealing with what was apparently a cut on his right thumb, touching the spot and exclaiming “ow!” although he didn’t treat it in any way for the rest of the set.

Meanwhile, Flans continued his introductions, “We are only They Might Be Giants act that matters and from the original members of the band, we’re glad you’re here.”

Linnell then explained that tonight he was debuting his new keyboard stand, and that he’d had his old one for 25 years. Flans told us all that people had tried to tell him to change it, “but I said ‘leave my buddy alone about his keyboard!’” this was said in a tight growl of a voice, crowding the microphone in a truly hilarious, faux-aggressive way.  Linnell went on to explain that no one in the crew had said anything about the stand to him, but when he brought it up to them, they had said that he really did need a new one.

Flans then excitedly chimed in to explain that the keyboard stand was like many men’s second wives “because it is much like the old one.  You are just showing you have a type.” Linnell seemed a tiny bit taken aback by the comparison, but replied that it was “under the hood” that it was different.  The new keyboard stand is a light blue with silver buckles on the sides and removable black legs.  The keyboard on it for this run of shows was white with wood-grain panels on the side.

As their conversation about the keyboard stand wound down, Flans mentioned that he didn’t know what song was next on the setlist, so he moved away from his mic to check his copy upstage.  Watching him go, Linnell said drily “Well you need to be at the mic for it.”

Flans did return to the mic quickly, allowing them to play Minimum Wage. Several people in the crowd, myself included, did a whip-cracking motion at the appropriate time, which felt awesome but looked hilarious.  From there, they played Your Racist Friend, meaning Curt came onstage to blow us all away.  He stayed onstage as they started Particle Man.  Flans showed everybody how to clap, but the crowd had mostly stopped only a few lines into the song, with the few who had stuck with it eventually losing momentum. During the interlude, they played Sun Ra’s Rocket Number Nine, which I had never heard before, and thus had no idea what they were doing.  It sounded very awesome though, and it was clear why it had made it into the show, with Curt rocking out on the euphonium, and an excellent accordion riff on Linnell’s part.  Curt kept the euphonium for the next song, Hearing Aid.

Flans told us that the next song they were going to play was a short one, and that they were going to do it two ways. He encouraged us to “Listen when we do it this way so you can spot the difference,” and they played Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love.

After the song was over, Flans seemed slightly at a loss to explain what came next, “The next part of the show, it’s not really justifiable.”  He decided that we did need an explanation before they played it, but passed off the task to Linnell, “You do it.”

Linnell told us all “It was a dare actually, we lost a bet, that's why we’re doing this.”

“But you need to tell them what we’re doing,” Flans interjected.

“I think you explained it well,” Linnell answered, causing Flans to make a face. “We’re playing the song we just played backwards.”

Regaining his way with words, Flans told us all “If you could record this- and I’m not saying you could- you could take it back to your fancy recording studio, in your McMansion way out in the suburbs and play what we are about to play backwards and it would sound exactly like  the song we just did.”

And with that, they began Stilloob, which was truly amazing in a way the video I had watched of it simply could not capture.  There was a wild energy in the air, that of people who know what they are doing is both beautiful and ridiculous.  Both Dans and Marty were glued to the sheets of paper with their parts on them, and were visibly relieved once the song was over, although I think they did an amazing job with it.  As they moved straight on into Letterbox, Dan moved up onto Curt’s riser, then caught Danny’s attention before striking a ‘rock pose’ for him. 

I believe it was at this point in the set when Flans told us all how trying not to touch his face has just made him realize how much he touches his face.  Linnell responded with a wonderfully bizarre rant about other people touching his face “They tell you not to touch your face but don’t say anything about other people touching your face.  I would like to ask the members of the band to stop touching my face, you know who you are!”

It was hilarious, but marred slightly by a few drunk ladies in the crowd screaming that they would like to touch his face.  Eventually, they subsided, and Flans got back to the subject at hand, how trying to touch his face “just made me aware.  Like adult onset-”  he stopped here, clearly at a loss, then continued “I was going to say adult onset OED, but that would be a good thing.”

“It would be a good thing to have the Oxford English Dictionary,”  Linnell answered.  “I have that other thing”

“The opposite of that,” Flans shot back

“I have the opposite of the Oxford English Dictionary,” Linnell agreed.

From there, they played Lucky Ball and Chain, during which Danny followed Dan around looking over his shoulder at his guitar while Dan tried to move away.  After a few moments of this, Danny went over to look at Linnell’s keyboard then came back to Dan and pointed an accusing finger at Dan’s guitar.  I’m not sure what he was looking at.  

From there, they played Hot Cha and then Women and Men, which is a personal favorite of mine.  During the next song, Someone Keeps Moving My Chair, Danny mouthed along to a few of the lyrics.

There was a pause as Linnell went over to get his accordion and returned to the mic.  There was a moment of confusion as Linnell, off-mic, asked who started the next song.  Flans, who was already checking the setlist for what song was next, replied also off-mic. “You do, John,” making everyone onstage crack up.  This began Whistling in the Dark, followed by the always high-energy Birdhouse in Your Soul.

“We have one song left, and then we are going to take a 10 minute break that lasts 45 minutes.” Flans explained to us after Birdhouse ended.  “We’ve played, as I’m sure you’ve been keeping track of, 16 songs off of flood and we’re going to play 2 in the second set.”

The last song in the set was Road Movie to Berlin, which included the King of Liars verse, which caused a few audience members who hadn’t heard it before to laugh.  Marty played his tambourine diligently throughout the song, and Dan and Danny, who only play at two brief points, were off the stage before Flans was done singing.  Marty and the Johns finished out the song, then walked offstage to join them.

As the lights came on and the crew began setting up for the Quiet Storm, it became apparent Fresh must have changed his socks sometime during the first set, as he was now wearing socks with the 9;30 Club logo printed all over them.  I also learned during this break that they had switched their ‘cue song’ meaning that even though Girl Don’t Come was in the playlist, there were a few more songs between it and the end of the break.  

The Johns and Marty were back onstage before very long though, to the ominous Godzilla Intro.  Marty was really playing up the tone that it created, with stoic looks and deliberate movements as he came on and got ready for the set.

Before playing anything, Flans greeted us all; “Welcome to the Quiet Storm portion of the evening, the part of the show when we play all the quiet songs.”  A man in the crowd booed in response to that statement, and Flans, looking out in his general direction, told us all “We would like to dedicate all our songs to the guy who just booed.  This next song is from the difficult middle 30s of They Might Be Giants.”

This led into 2082, which was, of course, amazing.  Linnell sang the year 2415 instead of 3415 as he was listing off the progressing years.

Flans didn’t know the album the next song was on, and banged his forehead on the mic in frustration before introducing the song as Music Jail.  The song was so incredibly rocking for the format, and I was truly amazed.  I had heard this song with the full band setup before, but this different version truly felt new and special.

Linnell moved over to his keyboard for the next song, Wicked Little Critter, and there were no lights on him because of it.  It was a bit strange, but didn’t detract from the song.

Instead of moving on while the setup was taken offstage, like they had in 2018, the Johns and Marty all went offstage so the crew could take away the Quiet Storm setup (and so Fresh could wear the cover like a cape).  While they were doing this, they projected the Underwater Woman video for the audience to watch.

The band was back on quickly to finish out an amazing second set.  Before beginning, I have a few general notes.  This set was really bass-heavy and Danny did an absolutely stellar job.  He was amazing to watch!   Also, I think he liked seeing my reactions to the songs I didn’t expect them to play, I could see/feel him watching me during some of the intros.  The crowd had obviously taken full advantage of the break to refill their supply of alcohol, and were a bit rowdier and less coherent.

  Coming onstage, Flans rushed straight to the mic to announce “This song is not on streaming sites because we like sabotaging our own career!”  This got a huge cheer as they began The Communists Have The Music.  I believe it was during this song that Dan reached over and tried to poke the body of Danny’s bass, which he quickly jerked out of the way before they moved apart with big grins.

Next, they played Wearing a Raincoat.  I’m always overjoyed to hear anything from Spine, and was completely surprised they had pulled this song out of the vault!

I believe it was here that Flans pointed out the balconies, and went on a diatribe explaining how it was their job to get people excited, but in venues like this you didn’t want the people in the balcony getting too excited.  I believe that Linnell chimed in to mention the Modeska, and not getting sued by the children of lawyers.  Finally Flans sternly warned the people in the balcony that they were only allowed to be “85% rocking out.”  The folks in the balcony cheered, and Linnell relented “Well, okay, 90%.”

At this point, someone in the crowd shouted out a request.  Flans, a bit peeved, moved his mic stand forward and demanded to know “Is there anything else?”  Then spent several seconds arguing with the incomprehensible mess of many crowd members shouting out song titles.  “I’m telling you! We don’t take requests.”  While all this was going on I, embarrassed, had taken off my glasses and hid my face in my hands.  When I looked up again, Danny was watching me, amused, and we shared a rueful smile over the situation.

Eventually, Flans stopped arguing with the drunken masses and they played Pet Name, which sounded amazing, then moved on to Spy.  I had expected new samples from Linnell for his part of the ending, and I wasn’t disappointed.  He had an Eagles’ sample of “take it to the limit” which he had repeated several times opposite the band.  The beauty of this sample is that, because that line repeats in the song of origin, you aren’t absolutely sure it is repeating sample until the 3rd or 4th time.  Not limiting himself to that, Linnell also played the same sample slowed down, which sounded appropriately monstrous.  Eventually, he switched directing over to Flans, who had trouble controlling the crowd in his bit, eventually giving up on us.  Instead of finishing the song, he stopped everyone playing, then began the intro to Older, which was incredible.

After Older, which included the always-humorous long pause, they went straight on to Let Me tell You About My Operation.  The highlight of this song was, as always, Flans’ energetic delivery and non-stop movement around the stage.

Finishing Operation, Dan left the stage and Linnell went to get his accordion.  I had no idea what they were going to play, not even after it was announced as being a song from Apollo 18, until they actually began the song, Turn Around!

Afterwards, Linnell went to the other side of the stage, presumably to put the accordion down, but came back to his mic still holding it.  Meanwhile, Marty and Danny were telling Flans he needed to stall.  At this point in the setlist, All Time What was listed, but they never ended up playing it, so I assume the trouble was somehow related to that.

Flans returned to his microphone and told us a story to stall as requested.  Apparently, he used to have a job where he worked at Grand Central Station.  A bunch of the city’s electrical wiring is located under the city, and the heat from the wires attracts a lot of roaches.  Flans shared a changing room with the exterminator, who was there one week every six months.  One day Flans struck up a conversation with the guy and they were “bonding over having shitty jobs,” when Flans noticed the guy had a roach on his jacket. “So I pointed it out to him and the guy went ‘Aaah!’”

There was some scattered laughter from the crowd, then an awkward pause.  After a moment, Flans said “There’s no punchline to this story, I just think that if you have that job you should maybe have a different relationship to bugs”

Linnell further explained “That would be like if we said, ‘we’re going to play another song Aaah!’”

They then played Museum of Idiots with Linnell on the accordion, a change from when he played it on the keyboard in 2018.  I will never get tired of hearing this one live; feeling the bassline in my chest and hearing the raw emotion in Linnell’s voice is truly wonderful.

The issue that had delayed the show was clearly not yet fixed, so as Linnell put down his accordion and returned to his keyboard mic, Flans prepared to stall some more “So when you worked for the NJ Port Authority-”  He was cut off by Danny, who had come up between him and Linnell, presumably telling them that they weren’t going to be able to fix whatever the problem was and had to move on.

Linnell then responded to Flans’ original comment by saying there was no rearview, and that they had to look forward and not back.  He then told us all “‘Aaaaggh! We’re going to play another song.”

They played The Guitar, with Linnell and Curt on the Future of Sound.  I do enjoy FoS, but I will admit I slightly prefer the live version of The Guitar that has a bass solo in the middle.  I may be a teeny bit biased though.

After the Guitar was over, Linnell had to go and grab his accordion AGAIN, while Flans introduced Dan on the keyboard and told us all that this would be their last song of the night.  He said something about having the best audience ever as well, but I didn’t catch all of it.  Dan, having made it up to the keyboard, was staring, confused, at the settings.  Linnell eventually went over and changed the settings for him before they started Doctor Worm.

They left the stage to thunderous applause.  Eventually, Dan came back on alone, starting the intro to Istanbul, which the audience began clapping along with.  While he amazed us all from in front of the drum riser, the other guys crept onstage quietly, so they were all in place to start the song.  There were two fake endings, one with Dan and Curt switching off, which is always my very favorite part of the song, and the real ending with Curt displaying his talent, meaning we got to be amazed by Curt and Dan both at different parts of the song!  After the song was over, there was a mass exodus as Marty, Dan, and Curt walked offstage, although Curt returned right away.

“We’re playing another song,” Flans announced, “I don’t know why those guys left!” Danny looked over at me and grinned at this, and I grinned back.  They played Theme From Flood, officially hitting all the Flood songs for the show, and then left the stage once again

When they returned to the stage this time around, Flans grabbed a copy of the Flood picture disk that had been sitting up against a case upstage.  He showed off the disk to us, saying that picture disks were controversial, and the sound quality was probably not as good but “It will be the best sounding zoetrope you’ll ever own!”  Unfortunately, while he was doing this, some folks in the crowd thought he was giving that copy away and started yelling for it, so I missed some of the nuances of his pitch.  Eventually, Flans put the disk back where it was, and they played End of the Tour, then an especially rocking New York City before leaving the stage for the night.

Danny and Marty were both back onstage soon after.  Danny gave out setlists, including one for me, and waved at me after he did, I waved back and felt a bit silly and a bit giddy.  He then grabbed a bunch of Flood stickers and started throwing them out into the crowd like  throwing stars.  It didn’t work very well in practice, with a lot of stickers going astray.  I eventually got one that landed on my shoulder before leaving the venue.  It was a long, windy walk back to my hotel, but I was glowing with joy the whole way.

[ashleyjouharphotowords]

In a revealing interview for the Image Source Picture Library, I talked to Miles Aldridge about his early influences, 90’s fashion photography and how at the moment of news-stand success he headed off in a radically different creative direction.

Miles Aldridge shoots sexy, glamorous women in opulent settings. But all is not what it seems in his pictures. Scratch the surface and a common thread runs through the imagery – the strange ominous unease of the dreamworld. Film-maker David Lynch wrote, “Miles sees a colour coordinated, graphically pure, hard-edged reality”. Artist Glenn O’Brien says Aldridge, “uses impeccable instinct in crafting something like ‘stills’ from the fractured narratives that we normally experience nocturnally and unconsciously.”

Aldridge talked to me about his influences and traced the rich visual journey he took from being a graphic design and illustration student, through music promos, to being a photographer who has shaped and stretched the idea of the fashion photograph.

Ashley Jouhar: What was your background to taking the kinds of photographs you take now and what was it that kick started your career in photography?

Miles Aldridge: Well, my father [Alan Aldridge] was a famous illustrator and art director so I grew up around quite surreal, psychedelic and sometimes shocking imagery – and it seemed clear to me I would go into the arts and follow my father. So I went to art school to study illustration, which was incredibly liberating – because I had been at Grammar School and none of my fellow students were interested in art. Being at Central St Martin’s around 1983 – surrounded by a lot of like-minded and talented people – the teachers, the studies and the classes were very good and I immersed myself in everything for the first year and then specialised in Graphic Design with an illustration bias.

Ashley Jouhar: So at that point you were exposing yourself to all the disciplines – life drawing, filmmaking, illustration, graphic design – the whole lot?

Miles Aldridge: I was also getting exposed to cinema, taking girlfriends on dates to see art movies, not blockbusters. I was seeing David Lynch films and it broadened my horizons immensely.

I did become an illustrator when I graduated from art school but I found it quite boring and I wasn’t anything like my father who was a sort of psychedelic whizz kid right in the middle of swinging London, working with everyone from David Bailey to The Stones and The Beatles. So he was really tapping into the zeitgeist. But I didn’t find the work very challenging and I was still very young so I started making enquiries about pop videos. It seemed to me that the film directors I liked were artists, packaging their thoughts and point of view of the world into hour and a half statements.

Ashley Jouhar: A little like you are now doing with your current imagery, except in a photograph?

Miles Aldridge: Yeah, but at that time I had no film training, apart from a couple of days at art so it was all quite new to me. But I bought a Super 8 camera and started shooting films. Then I bumped into Derek Jarman in Soho, who was often drinking tea in the same café I used to hang out in called Maison Bertaux. He was interested in me because I was a good-looking young man and I was interested in him because he was a famous film maker and so we had a few conversations. He was very enthusiastic and encouraging and through this naïve enthusiasm I started to make films. Another person who came into my life then was Sophie Muller, a well known video director who pretty well invented the form, shooting videos for The Eurythmics and many others.

Ashley Jouhar: MTV was exploding at this time so it was perfect timing for you, in the right place at the right time?

Miles Aldridge: Yeah, yeah, exactly and actually because of people like Derek Jarman and other like-minded artists were doing Super 8 presentations to music because of its relatively low cost it was very much the film medium for the 80s. You don’t need masses of finance to make a film on Super 8 – the idea is translated quickly to images. So I started making pop videos for a while.

Ashley Jouhar: Were you coming up with the concepts for these videos – were they very much ideas-driven shoots?

Miles Aldridge: Yes, very much so and I was good at coming up with the ideas but I wasn’t very good with the music! I would come up with an idea that might be loosely based on something from the universe of Hitchcock, Lynch or Godard and I was aware of cinematic tricks and conceits and would play with those. Like for instance, The Shining – I would do a pop video based on a long corridor with different weird things happening in different rooms but I didn’t really know how to put it all together with the edit. During this time I suppose I would have been known as a middling pop video director and therefore lived in a council flat, didn’t have any overheads as such so was very happy doing the odd pop video and hanging out with my girlfriend, who it transpired wanted to be a model. That’s when I took these photographs of her because she looked very much like the kind of girl of the moment – that sort of grungy, heroin chic sort of look of the time.

Ashley Jouhar: I remember it well – the bed-sits and anti-fashion poses.

Miles Aldridge: Yes, and the pictures of her were very well received at Vogue and they asked who had taken them and it was explained that it was this girl’s boyfriend. I was then called in to Vogue to meet them and I had this amazing realisation that instead of all this hard work involved in making videos – starting at five in the morning and ending at five in the morning, horrible food and no money to do anything, I could possibly become a fashion photographer.

Ashley Jouhar: So those original pictures, did you imbue them with something that we would recognise now in your work?

Miles Aldridge: No, I shot them all in black and white on Hampstead Heath on a Nikon and the film was dropped into Snappy Snaps… and picked up two hours later and pasted into her portfolio! They were really, to all intents and purposes, a boyfriend photographing his girlfriend. I mean she wasn’t styled and there was no hair and make up and she wasn’t trying to sell any fashion. Because that was what was happening with London photography then, when fashion photography almost slipped into Reportage.

Ashley Jouhar: Yes, it was very pared down compared to what had gone before.

Miles Aldridge: Yes, very much so and the heroes of that period were people like Robert Frank and Bruce Davidson and also Richard Avedon’s book ‘In the American West’ was kind of like a bible for that kind of styling.

There was this idea of real people rather than glamorous people being pushed to the forefront and being shown as something heroic and wonderful. So I moved from illustration to video to photography in the space of about six years, I think. I really enjoyed the photography and the early work was really about being locked in studios with very beautiful creatures and trying to think how to photograph them. I didn’t come with any technical knowledge – all I had was an eye that still serves me very well today and those pictures were almost a repetition of the boyfriend/girlfriend pictures earlier where in my imagination, these models who were now wearing fashion clothes and hair and make up were, for that six or seven hours in my studio, my girlfriend. Interestingly, when the hair and make-up and styling was being done and I wasn’t paying any attention at all, I left that up to them. In a way, I liked to rendezvous with the model on the white background and see her there for the first time with my camera.

Ashley Jouhar: So at this point your shoots were very spontaneous with what was happening, there were no storyboards planned out or themes?

Miles Aldridge: Yes, it was very spontaneous, it was about having a good time, listening to loud music and being swept up in the energy of a pre-9/11 fashion shoot and I mention 9/11 because after that, the whole world and especially fashion became much more gloomy and serious. Up until that point it was a big party. There was so much energy and money sloshing around and I enjoyed the decadence of it.

Ashley Jouhar: When did you start shooting in a more ‘David Lynch-ian’ way with these very considered, choreographed images and sets?

Miles Aldridge: Well, literally all I was shooting was white background pictures for magazines like W and British Vogue. Those pictures were about energy and shapes and in a way my talent was in trying to find graphic shapes on the flat two-dimensional page. I was successful with that kind of work straight away and sort of fell into it but at a certain point I looked at all this work and I remember I was at a magazine store in New York and saw a cover for W magazine, a cover for British Vogue and a cover for a magazine called Vibe – three white background covers, all by me. One could feel really good about oneself with that but for some reason, seeing them all there together I kind of loathed it and wondered where I’d got lost. Because back when I was an art student and even doing pop videos I was much more interested in darker and stranger things and the books I grew up with were books on Hieronymus Bosch and Breugel. The complete opposite of what I was producing, which I thought was trash. I felt really uncomfortable about that, even though my pockets were full of dollars.

Ashley Jouhar: So this was the turning point?

Miles Aldridge: I realised that when you get into a photo studio as a photographer, even if you said nothing and were dumb, the picture would still get taken because there is the momentum the stylist, the hair and make up artist and the model bring to the shoot that creates the energy for these pictures to occur. Instead of giving myself up to the madness and the freedom of the shoot, I wanted to put the brakes on it – to divert that energy and create a picture you really want to do in advance.

In part 2 Miles tells us how he creates the ‘fantastic’ images that have become his signature pieces…

[lizzylunawizardessfanfics]

About me tag~

Thank you to @aoimoku12 & @donetorhasslichliebe for tagging me as I’ll be tagging the following (sorry if you’ve already been tagged):

@nadia-the-wizardess @leonthecardboardunicorn @proxyoflucifer @swordsmanofsweets

How tall are you?

I’m bout 5′4-5′5?? Something like that 

What color and style is your hair?

So my hair was black but now it’s almost back to being brown (my natural hair color) so it’s a mix of a brownish black color. My hair goes down to kinda passes my shoulder blades as it’s that THICC Italian hair so it’s wavy/slightly curly which I’ll straighten it for the most part (But it’s not stayin long cuz I’m getting it cut at some point)

What kind of student are you?

I was pretty much an Elias when I was attending school as I may of not the top of my class, but pretty much had made honors all my life.

What color is your eyes?

Brown~

When were you born?

April 11th

What’s your fashion sense?

So I’m all over the place as I like to try to be trendy, but most of the time I will dress comfy as the weeb in me likes wearing graphic anime/video game shirts :3 But once summer hits its shorts/short shorts and t-shirts or tank tops 

Do you like school?

I mean... In the most proper way I could say this I have a love/hate relationship with school as I’ve dedicated a lot of my life to my studies and as I got older I just kinda got tired of it/burned out. 

Where were you born & where do you live now?

Born in Connecticut and I’m still here 

What school do you go to?

I’m actually no longer a student as I graduated from my University last year in May, though I just started working in an elementary school~

Full Name:

Elizabeth

Do you wear braces?

Nope

Do you have any regrets?

Ohhh yeah, but I won’t go into detail since they’re pretty personal

Favorite book?

So I’m not a big reader (unless it’s graphic novels/Manga) but definitely have found some novels that are fantasy or mythology related that I’ve really enjoyed.  

one being The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell & the other is called Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes by Cory O’Brien

Favorite Movie?

Spirited Away, it was my first Studio Ghibli movie when I was younger and I just fell in love with the story of it as it was just so captivating.

Favorite TV Show?

So... I don’t watch much TV, but I like to what a lot of stuff on the Syfy channel, but I guess if i had to name one show it would have to be Paranormal Survivor

Do you wear glasses?

Yes I do as I also would wear contacts (which in fact i’m in need of getting a new pair of both glasses and contacts) Fun fact; I have a astigmatism in my... Left eye (pretty sure.. yeah :3)

Favorite past time?

So back when I was younger and had a bunch of reptiles for pets; especially my red bearded dragons I LOVED taking them out to hold them or just chill around the house.

Dream job?

So aside from enjoying doing my writing a lot of my passion is in illustrating as a lot of what I enjoy doing is character designing (shameless promo time: Ya’ll wanna check out my art you can go over to @lizzyillustrationstudios as posts have been lil show but hope to pick it back up soon) As also of why I love drawing is that I wanted to have a way to give back to the community and at least help someone smile or feel happy. As I also wanted to do acting/voice acting too.

What countries have you visited?

I mean I’ve been to various places in the U.S :’3 but that’s pretty much it, but I would love to be able to travel to Japan and some other places someday~

Scariest Nightmare?

So when I was a very young child/toddler (I really couldn’t tell you an exact age, but I was super young) I was aimlessly wandering around a town/city full of monsters as I had somehow gotten separated from my mom in which she was who I was looking for the whole time. As on a sidewalk there was a werewolf (might of been a vampire or something else) and a Frankenstein that had a cauldron of bubbling green stuff (which in my dream I thought it was acid) in which the Frankenstein monster threw my mother into the cauldron as I went running over while screaming n crying trying to save her; but ultimately failed as I watched her melt away. This has scarred me to this very day about death/dying.

Any enemies?

So I definitely have a couple enemies; one girl (who was a freshman n me a junior) hated me because I had a crush on the same guy she did (which I actually had known him longer as I don’t like playing that card but still as he happened to also be my best friend), Another freshman girl who I thought was my friend actually hated me (I didn’t find out until the end of the school year) because I was “too nice”

Any significant other?

Not exactly as I’ve been on two dates with this one guy as I’m not really sure it’s going to go anywhere but we’ll see what happens. 

Do you believe in miracles?

In fact I do! Not to sound cheesy or anything but I’m actually a miracle child

How are you?

I’m good, finally feeling like everything is slowly falling into place now

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Summer Film Preview: 27 of the Most Anticipated Movies of the Season!

Among ET's 90 top picks for summer are our 27 most anticipated films of the season.

Every summer, there is no shortage of new films to blow audiences away at theaters -- and blow away records at the box office. This summer, things are looking especially massive. Blockbuster season kicks off in a huge way with the highly anticipated back-to-back releases of Deadpool 2and Solo: A Star Wars Story, ushering in an onslaught of franchise films with new installments of Jurassic World, Marvel's Ant-Man, Mission: Impossible and The Purge.

Not everything is a sequel, though. Of the originals is the eagerly awaited adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians, marking the first time a major studio has produced an all-Asian-led film since The Joy Luck Club; Spike Lee's latest, BlacKkKlansman; and -- because it wouldn't be summer without one -- a shark attack flick, The Meg, starring Jason Statham.

But no matter what you’re looking forward to, there's plenty to choose from among these 27 sure-to-be hit films.

Deadpool 2 (Out Now)

The Deadpool sequel is bigger, louder and packed with more violence and superpeople, dick jokes and fourth wall-breaking meta-ness than the original X-Men-adjacent movie. And while that all sounds like a recipe for a bloated case of sequelitis, Ryan Reynolds and co. not only pull it off, but top the first.

Directed by: David Leitch | Written by: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and Ryan Reynolds Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz, Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams

Solo: A Star Wars Story (May 25)

Forget everything you think you know about the legendary smuggler and prepare for the unexpected. That's the best advice we can give you about Star Wars' latest anthology installment, which, sure, features the Kessel Run and Han Solo and Chewbacca's origin story, then blasts off for so much more.

Directed by: Ron Howard | Written by: Jonathan Kasdan and Lawrence Kasdan Starring: Alden Ehrenreich, Donald Glover, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Emilia Clarke

American Animals (June 1)

The Orchard / MoviePass Ventures

According to the minds behind American Animals, while most movies are based on a true story, this one is a true story, about four college students who plan "one of the most audacious art heists in U.S. history." It also marks the first appearance on this list by the true star of the summer movie season: Ann Dowd.

Directed by: Bart Layton | Written by: Bart Layton Starring: Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson, Ann Dowd

Hereditary (June 8)

A24

Following its screening at Sundance earlier this year, Hereditary was hailed as the scariest horror movie in years -- if not of all time. As for what actually transpires in the film, well, that is best left vague. Brace yourself for hypnotically unnerving tongue pops and flashbacks to Toni Collette's iconic turn in The Sixth Sense.

Directed by: Ari Aster | Written by: Ari Aster Starring: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd

Ocean's 8 (June 8)

This year's Met Gala might as well have been early promo for Ocean's 8, which centers on another heist-happy Ocean, Debbie, who assembles a team of women to help rob a fictional Met Gala. (If you do some simple math, it seems Anne Hathaway's mark is one of the eight, too.) Unfortunately, Rihanna will likely not be dressed as a sexy pope.

Directed by: Gary Ross | Written by: Gary Ross and Olivia Milch Starring: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna

Won't You Be My Neighbor? (June 8)

Focus Features

If you were a child in the '60s -- or '70s, '80s, '90s, the aughts, really, if you were a child ever -- then Won't You Be My Neighbor? will be a nostalgic return to your younger years, a look at the long-running and formative TV series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and the man behind it, the late Fred Rogers.

Directed by: Morgan Neville

Hearts Beat Loud (June 8)

Gunpowder & Sky

This gem of an indie is for anyone who has ever wished Nick Offerman could be your best friend, your dad or both: Kiersey Clemons plays Offerman's daughter and reluctant bandmate as they navigate fame and family in Hearts Beat Louder. Sprinkle in a queer romance and an earworm-y soundtrack, and what more could you ask for?

Directed by: Brett Haley | Written by: Brett Haley and Marc Basch Starring: Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons, Ted Danson, Toni Collette, Sasha Lane, Blythe Danner

Hotel Artemis (June 8)

Global Road Entertainment

Read this logline: "Set in riot-torn, near-future Los Angeles, Hotel Artemis is a high-octane action-thriller starring Jodie Foster as The Nurse, who runs a secret, members-only hospital for criminals." Now re-read that sentence over and over and over until you go insane and this becomes your most anticipated movie of the year.

Directed by: Drew Pearce | Written by: Drew Pearce Starring: Jodie Foster, Dave Bautista, Sofia Boutella, Zachary Quinto, Sterling K. Brown, Jeff Goldblum

Incredibles 2 (June 15)

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

It has been well over a decade since the original Incredibles arrived in theaters and, even now, under the looming threat of superhero saturation, that first film remains one of the best superhero movies period. Finally, Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack are back, with Frozone and, of course, Edna.

Directed by: Brad Bird | Written by: Brad Bird Starring: Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson, Samuel L. Jackson, Catherine Keener, Sophia Bush

Tag (June 15)

Warner Bros. Pictures

This is a movie about tag -- as in, the game in which you tag someone and they are then "it." Specifically, Tag is about a group of childhood buddies who have been playing tag one month out of the year, every year, for 30 years. If you are wondering, Where do they come up with this?!, it was a Wall Street Journal article.

Directed by: Jeff Tomsic | Written by: Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen Starring: Jeremy Renner, Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Jon Hamm, Hannibal Buress, Isla Fisher, Leslie Bibb

Damsel (June 22)

Magnolia Pictures

If you hear that Robert Pattinson is starring in a Western, you probably have a notion of what that film is. Damsel is not the movie you're imagining, guaranteed -- unless, of course, you pictured a screwball comedy about a pioneer who voyages west with a drunkard and a miniature horse named Butterscotch.

Directed by: David Zellner and Nathan Zellner | Written by: David Zellner and Nathan Zellner Starring: Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, David Zellner

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (June 22)

In the colossally successful Jurassic World, the dinosaurs destroyed the park, as dinosaurs are wont to do, and now Isla Nublar is threatening to destroy the dinosaurs. Thus, Claire and Owen are enlisted to help save the dinosaurs from a second extinction -- and that's only the beginning of this adventure.

Directed by: J.A. Bayona | Written by: Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeff Goldblum, James Cromwell, Justice Smith

Under the Silver Lake (June 22)

A24

Something about those hot summer nights must make us itch for a mystery, because this is yet another noir-y flick arriving in cineplexes, albeit a very modern take on the genre. Andrew Garfield plays a stoner Angelino who begins sleuthing when his dream girl disappears in the middle of the night without a trace.

Directed by: David Robert Mitchell | Written by: David Robert Mitchell Starring: Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough, Topher Grace, Jimmi Simpson

The First Purge (July 4)

Universal Pictures

There's something almost comforting about knowing that every (sometimes every other) Independence Day brings a new installment in the ongoing Purge franchise. Who knew a nutty little murder flick could have so much steam? This one goes back to the beginning and the invention of a government-sponsored killing spree.

Directed by: Gerard McMurray | Written by: James DeMonaco Starring: Lex Scott Davis, Y'lan Noel, Luna Lauren Velez, Joivan Wade, Marisa Tomei

Ant-Man and the Wasp (July 6)

Consider the Ant-Man sequel a respite for those still reeling over the ending of Infinity War, a plucky comedic romp about heroes who shrink, supersize and now fly, too, which probably won't leave you frantically wiping away tears as the theater lights come on. Also, Michelle Pfeiffer plays a superhero!

Directed by: Peyton Reed | Written by: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari and Paul Rudd Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Hannah John-Kamen, Michael Peña

Sorry to Bother You (July 6)

Annapurna Pictures

There is original, and then there is Sorry to Bother You. If a stranger, more out-there film has ever been made, I haven't seen it. I've never seen anything like this, a satiric tale about a telemarketer who uses his "white voice" to get ahead that feels at once painstakingly plotted and completely free-associated.

Directed by: Boots Riley | Written by: Boots Riley Starring: Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler, Steven Yeun, Armie Hammer

Whitney (July 6)

Whitney is not the first documentary to turn the lens on Whitney Houston in the years since her 2012 death, but it is the first to be endorsed by her estate, featuring interviews with loved ones of Houston who had never spoken publicly before and bombshell revelations that made news ahead of Whitney's official release.

Directed by: Kevin Macdonald

Eighth Grade (July 13)

A24

You know how adults always say, "I'm so happy I didn't grow up when there was social media." Watch this Sundance drama, comedian Bo Burnham's directorial debut, and feel that tenfold, alternately a cringey and heartwarming look at what it means to be coming into your own -- yes, with YouTube and Twitter.

Directed by: Bo Burnham | Written by: Bo Burnham Starring: Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (July 20)

Is Meryl Streep's character still alive for the Mamma Mia! sequel? Supposedly. We do know that we will see a younger version of Donna (played by Lily James) as the ABBA singalong jumps back in time to show the Dynamos' origin story, while in the present, Donna's daughter is pregnant with a baby of her own.

Directed by: Ol Parker | Written by: Ol Parker Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Lily James, Colin Firth, Cher

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (July 27)

Paramount Pictures

After successfully completing five other supposedly impossible missions, whatever Ethan Hunt is tasked with in Fallout should be considered mission: pretty difficult but manageable. Still, Tom Cruise continues to up the ante in insane and preposterous ways, like jumping out of a plane at 25,000 feet, for one.

Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie | Written by: Christopher McQuarrie Starring: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Alec Baldwin, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Henry Cavill, Angela Bassett

Christopher Robin (Aug. 3)

If you enjoyed last year's period drama Goodbye Christopher Robin, about the real boy who inspired the creation of Winnie the Pooh, then you are sure to enjoy this, too, Disney's less historical, more fantastical tale about grown-up Christopher Robin and how Pooh and the rest of the Hundred Acre Wood gang help him rediscover his imagination.

Directed by: Marc Forster | Written by: Alex Ross Perry Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Jim Cummings, Chris O'Dowd, Brad Garrett, Toby Jones

The Spy Who Dumped Me (Aug. 3)

I would pay money to watch Kate McKinnon read the phone book. Thankfully, she gets much more to do in this action-comedy, in which Mila Kunis plays the unwitting woman dumped by a spy. McKinnon plays her bestie, and the two quickly find themselves in over their heads trying to stop a terrorist group and save the world.

Directed by: Susanna Fogel | Written by: David Iserson and Susanna Fogel Starring: Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Sam Heughan, Gillian Anderson, Justin Theroux

BlacKkKlansman (Aug. 10)

Focus Features

Spike Lee is back with his latest joint, the so-crazy-it-must-be-true saga of Ron Stallworth, the first black police officer in Colorado Springs, and his undercover operation to infiltrate a local Ku Klux Klan chapter, which was so successful that he eventually became its head.

Directed by: Spike Lee | Written by: Spike Lee, David Rabinowitz, Charlie Wachtel, Kevin Willmott Starring: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace, Laura Harrier

The Meg (Aug. 10)

Warner Bros. Pictures

No summer is complete without a silly shark attack movie, and for the summer of 2018, The Meg fits that bill and then some. First of all, the shark in question is a megalodon, which basically just means a REALLY BIG F**KING SHARK, and hopefully Jason Statham will punch it at some point, right?

Directed by: Jon Turteltaub | Written by: Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber Starring: Jason Statham, Ruby Rose, Rainn Wilson, Bingbing Li, Cliff Curtis, Masi Oka

Crazy Rich Asians (Aug. 17)

Based on the bestselling novel by Kevin Kwan, Crazy Rich Asians is about a Chinese American professor who travels to Singapore to meet her boyfriend's family and discovers they are -- you guessed it -- crazy rich! Hijinks ensue. This is also the first Hollywood movie with a majority Asian cast in 25 years, i.e., crazy overdue.

Directed by: Jon M. Chu | Written by: Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Awkwafina, Gemma Chan, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Jeong

To All the Boys I've Loved Before (Aug. 17)

Netflix

Here's one YA fans have been waiting for. Based on the bestselling novel by Jenny Han, the title refers to letters our heroine, Lara Jean Covey, writes to her past crushes, love letters they are never meant to see -- but do, after they're accidentally mailed out. You don't need to head to the cinema to swoon over this one; it's streaming on Netflix.

Directed by: Susan Johnson | Written by: Sofia Alvarez Starring: Lana Condor, Noah Centineo, Janel Parrish, Emilija Baranac, Israel Broussard, John Corbett

The Happytime Murders (Aug. 17)

Nothing says summertime like puppets snorting ecstasy and soliciting sex. The Happytime Murders -- no lie, from the same director as The Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island -- is about police partners, one felt and one Melissa McCarthy, investigating who is shooting the stuffing out of puppets.

Directed by: Brian Henson | Written by: Todd Berger Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Elizabeth Banks, Maya Rudolph, Joel McHale

MORE SUMMER PREVIEW:

Summer TV Preview: 26 of the Best New and Returning Series to Watch!

Summer Music Preview: 17 Albums We Can’t Wait to Hear

Summer Theater Preview: 11 Must-See Broadway and Off-Broadway Shows

Summer Book Preview: 9 Beach Reads by Bill Clinton, Emily Giffin, Lauren Weisberger and More!

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Candyman: How Bernard Rose and Clive Barker created the horror classic

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

In the winter of 1992, one word was enough to send a chill down the spine of horror fans far and wide: Candyman.

Released in October of that year, Candyman was a slasher movie with a killer hook – quite literally. A horror movie built around an urban legend claiming that if you say the word “Candyman” five times into a mirror, a murderous spirit with a hook for a hand would appear, with grave consequences for those who summoned him.

In a time before the internet and social media, the original Candyman’s lore was enough to spark discussion among curious moviegoers who asked each other: would you say the potentially deadly incantation?

It was a talking point the movie’s marketing leaned heavily into with taglines like “We dare you to say his name five times!” and “Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman… Don’t Say Again!”

Director Bernard Rose took inspiration for the idea from the urban legend of Bloody Mary, rather than the Clive Barker short story “The Forbidden,” which Candyman was adapted from. 

According to the legend, Bloody Mary’s spectre could be summoned by chanting her name repeatedly into a mirror. One of Rose’s masterstrokes was to assimilate this folklore into the Candyman mythology, although it was not without its teething problems.

“In the original script, they were supposed to say Candyman 13 times, not five times, because in the Bloody Mary legend they say it 13 times,” Rose tells Den of Geek. “During the first read through they started going ‘Candyman, Candyman…’ and I was falling asleep. You can’t do it 13 times. It goes on too long. Five is about the largest number you can hear. It did come from Bloody Mary but I had seen Beetlejuice, so I’d have to say Beetlejuice should probably get some credit.”

Rose first hit upon the idea of adapting “The Forbidden” after he was approached about making a film out of another story from Barker’s lauded Books of Blood anthology, “In the Flesh.” But that story wasn’t quite suited to a cinematic adaptation.

“I thought it was really well written, but impossible to make because it’s about two prisoners in complete darkness in a cell,” he says. “And of course, the one thing you can’t represent in a movie is darkness, because if you are in a movie theater there’s nothing to see. It would make a great radio play but wasn’t really a great idea for a movie.”

It was during his initial research into the Books of Blood that Rose read “The Forbidden,” Barker’s short story about a university student who, while studying and photographing graffiti at a local housing estate, learns from locals about a string of murders attributed to a mythical killer known as Candyman.

A rising star at the time, Rose had already collaborated with Jim Henson on The Muppet Show and The Dark Crystal, as well as directing iconic music videos like the S&M themed promo for Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax,” which ended up being banned by MTV. His debut feature, the dream-like dark fantasy horror Paperhouse, had been released to widespread acclaim opening up a wealth of possibilities when it came to his next film. 

Rose was immediately struck by Barker’s story and the way it played on “the idea of belief.”

“All of these people believe in the Candyman, which actually means the Candyman exists, whereas if they stop believing in him he disappears, like how the old deities, like the Roman gods, died because people stopped caring. The idea that if enough people believe something, they manifest it. That’s scary.”

By the time he read “The Forbidden,” Rose had already struck up a friendship with Barker, who he met at Pinewood Studios while the latter was working on Nightbreed, the follow-up to his wildly successful directorial debut Hellraiser.

It was a match made in heaven – or maybe that should be hell – and a bond that made securing the rights to the short story that would become Candyman “really easy” according to Rose, who simply called Barker up with the author agreeing to sign off on the deal and sign on as executive producer.

Rose credits Professor Jan Harold Brunvand’s book The Vanishing Hitchhiker as a major inspiration to his script. A folklore scholar, Brunvand’s book explored the origins of several notable urban legends and has been widely credited with igniting America’s obsession with the phenomenon. 

“The whole urban legends thing hadn’t actually been addressed in a movie at that point, which is kind of extraordinary when you think about it,” Rose says. “It helped give the film this intellectual aspect, the idea of having an intellectual elite character studying the myth not from a sociological point of view, but from a semiotics point of view. Somebody who was intellectual and therefore naturally skeptical about something supernatural.”

While some authors have been known to be especially protective of their source material when it comes to adaptation, Rose recalls Barker encouraging him to “run free with it.”

“He liked the script very much. He was very behind it and at certain key moments, as much as anything, he was an enthusiast. Clive is wonderful. A really nice, smart guy.”

One thing they agreed on was that the story would need to be relocated from its original setting in Liverpool, England, for a very specific reason.

“At the time within genre films, there was there was a real problem with people understanding regional accents, and Clive had that problem on Hellraiser where they ended up having to loop (ADR) the whole movie and change it into a sort of weird unspecific setting, when it’s clearly some market town outside London,” he says. “If we were starting the film now, unquestionably we would have done it in Liverpool. It’s funny, things change, but back then, we wanted it to be somewhere specific. So I said, let’s make it specifically American. That seemed like the easiest thing to do.”

Rose hit upon the idea of setting the film in Chicago after noting similarities in the public housing found there and in the story’s original Liverpool setting.

The Illinois Film Commission took Rose on a tour of the city’s most troubled neighborhoods, which included Cabrini Green. “It wasn’t the worst place they showed us by any means, the Robert Taylor Homes on the South Side but Cabrini Green was right by downtown Chicago and was just spectacular.”

Rose recalls first being taken there in the company of a “full police escort.” Eager to see the neighborhood from a different perspective, he returned later on his own and befriended somebody who lived there.

“That’s the woman who the character of Anne Marie [the single mother who helps Helen with her investigation and whose infant son Anthony ends up being abducted by the Candyman] is based on,” Rose says.

Another crucial step in the development of Candyman came when the filmmaker began researching the history of Cabrini Green.

“I discovered old articles in the Chicago Reader about a series of murders that happened in Cabrini Green, including one where the killer came into the apartment through the medicine cabinet through a breeze block.”

One such article, by Steve Bogira, detailed the killing of 52-year-old Ruthie McCoy, whose pleas to a 911 caller explaining that intruders were breaking in through her bathroom cabinet went ignored. 

“There was a weak spot that you could actually get into people’s medicine cabinets, which is basically inserting holes in the breeze block and you can just literally punch them out and get into somebody’s apartment.”

These articles ended up featuring in the film for real, during the scene where Helen (Virginia Madsen) began researching the Candyman myth. Another element that rang true to life was the fact that the nearby Sandburg Village was “architecturally identical” to Cabrini Green with the only difference being that the former was turned into condos while the latter became public housing. These elements all combined to inform Candyman’s biggest departure from the original short story: Candyman would be Black.

“I wanted to make the film grounded in reality and the whole racial subtext of the film came out of that,” he says. “It wasn’t part of the original story. That was about politics and class differences. The racial element was added to it by the specificity of the location.”

Rose also incorporated his own experience discovering much of this material into Helen’s narrative. “I think that’s why it still feels relevant and powerful now because it came out of something real.”

The filmmaker credits the architecture of Cabrini Green with adding a layer of dread to proceedings.

“The early 80s was the point where we were seeing how modernist architecture could really decay in the most frightening ways and be more scary than the old Gothic spaces that were always designed to be plain and simple.”

Rose felt the film offered an opportunity to draw parallels between the Candyman myth and the myths attached to life in Cabrini Green.

“There was always this kind of exaggerated fear of the place like you might get shot, which is ultimately a very powerful form of racism,” he says. “The real danger is probably very, very small unless you happen to be very unlucky.”

While the stories of murderers emerging through mirrored medicine cabinets tied into the Candyman mythology, mirrors played a wider thematic role in Rose’s film.

“The film has got a lot of mirroring in it, from the imagery to the mirrored apartment. The idea that Helen’s apartment is the same as the ones in Cabrini green. It’s just about what side of the road you are on.”

Even so, Rose refutes any suggestion of Candyman having any kind of deep agenda. 

“The film was not done with a thesis in mind that I then went out to prove. It was more like I was interested in the setting we had and the story which is unchanged from the short story.”

Madsen ended up landing the role of Helen, the protagonist after Rose’s then-wife Alexandra Pigg, who had been cast in the role, was forced to drop out after discovering she was pregnant.

When it came to the Candyman himself, one rumor Rose immediately squashes is the notion that Eddie Murphy was ever considered or even interested in the part.

“If Eddie Murphy had wanted to do it in 1991, it wouldn’t have even been a discussion, it would have just happened,” he says. “Yeah, that’s not even a tiny bit true.”

Instead, Rose and the film’s producers only ever had eyes for Tony Todd. 

“He pretty much just came in and was fabulous and that was that. He just had it in every sense of the word and it was pretty obvious. There wasn’t even a discussion about it.”

Securing the rights, finding a great location and landing a stellar cast had all  proven relatively straightforward for Rose. One thing that definitely wasn’t straightforward, however, would be the film’s use of bees.

The film called for scenes in which Madsen would be covered in bees, while in one particularly memorable shot, the insects would be seen emerging from Todd’s mouth, as per Barker’s story, which took its inspiration from the Bible and the story of how Samson killed a young lion only to find bees and honey in its corpse. The imagery struck a chord with the author, who weaved it into the ever-expanding Candyman mythology.

Coming at a time before filmmakers could fall back on CGI, Rose was in need of an expert bee wrangler. He found one in apiarist Norman Gary.

“I saw him, he was on the Johnny Carson show playing the clarinet, covered in bees. He was quite a character,” Rose says. “He had synthesized queen bee pheromones and had hives of bees on the top of the studio and he was hatching them for the first 48 hours of their lives. Their stingers aren’t fully developed at that point so they’re not really that dangerous.”

Gary would supply the immature bees for the crucial scenes, using pheromones to have them cluster in the areas Rose required before gently vacuuming them up into a pouch when filming was complete.

Rose speaks in glowing terms about the bees themselves, describing them as “intelligent but also very predictable” which made filming the scenes somewhat pain free. Except in the most obvious sense of the word. 

“Everybody got stung quite a bit and certainly when we were doing those scenes, there were quite a lot of crew members who just stopped turning up to work,” he says. “I think people didn’t want to go into a studio that was literally buzzing with bees all the time because you would get stung. I remember asking Norman ‘How do you prevent yourself from getting stung?’ and he said  ‘You don’t. You just decide it doesn’t bother you.’”

Away from the sound of bees, Rose credits composer Philip Glass with delivering a pitch perfect score, that imbued the film with a sense of both the Gothic and the academically-minded analytical. 

“I gave him a brief to just score it for organ, voices, and piano,” Rose says. “He loved that idea of it being very kind of minimal orchestration. So he wrote the suite basically of the music that’s in the film. I think he’s hands down the best living American composer. Very original.”

For all the praise the film and its score received, Candyman was not without its detractors including several notable Black film directors at the time.

Reginald Hudlin, who had directed Boomerang and House Party and would go on to serve as a producer on Django Unchained called it “worrisome” while fellow filmmaker Carl Franklin said the decision to made Candyman Black and move the story to Cabrini Green was “irresponsible and racist” for casting a Black man in the role of a killer.

“People were nervous before we made the film because of his ethnicity, but I always said I understand how horror villains work,” Rose says. “The bogeyman is the hero. That’s it. That’s how they function. And it’s certainly true in the case of Candyman in that Tony’s character becomes larger than the film’s other characters.”

Much of that was down to timing. “The most disappointing thing you can do in a movie is bring out the monster,” he says. “This is why The Exorcist is a masterpiece. You never see a monster. What you see is its effect on the little girl.”

In the case of the Candyman, Rose used the first half of the film to build a sense of dread tinged with a sense of tragedy with the character’s backstory which explained how he was killed in the late 19th century over his relationship with a white woman. Even as audiences catch their first glimpse of Todd in that striking leather, fur-lined coat, they are being told a story.

“The idea of the costume was to show that he was quite bourgeois, like he was on his way to the opera when he was killed. It was a reminder that he was successful and affluent yet none of that protected him.”

Rose took his cues from the Orson Welles classic The Third Man in holding back on the introduction of his titular killer. 

“Every single conversation in the first half of The Third Man is about Harry Lime.” he says. “So when Orson Welles finally appears It’s one of the great entrances in film history because you’re just dying to hear what he’s got to say,”

The Candyman writer also points to an alternative reading of the film that adds a fascinating subtext to the role of race in the movie.

“It’s an entirely subjective movie told from the perspective of Helen,” Rose says. “So whatever happens in the film, it’s what she thought happened and isn’t necessarily objective. There is definitely an interpretation of the film where she committed the murders.”

The film, he says, offers up an extension of one of the original themes of Barker’s book which was the fear of poverty.

“Inequality and oppression creates fear among the oppressors, because they’re afraid of one day being called to account,” he says. “The film is about that in some ways, and that’s why it is still powerful. But I did not have any sort of agenda except to try to represent what I’d seen in Chicago as realistically as possible.”

Rose would not return for any of the sequels, with 1995’s Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh helmed by future Twilight Saga director Bill Condon. In his absence and despite the best efforts of Todd in the titular role, the franchise died out after a third film, 1999’s lamentable Candyman: Day of the Dead. 

Rose puts these failures down to a mismanagement of the properties and a rush to get a follow-up out after the surprise runaway success of his film, which made $25 million from a modest $8 million budget.

“The temptation when making sequels is to just basically do the same thing again which actually doesn’t satisfy anyone,” he says. “You have to develop it and you have to make it more complex and make the story actually have a grander arc. I had ideas, but they wanted to make damn sure that they got them out of me as quickly as possible so they could get on with the serious business of fucking it up. But that’s fairly normal, unfortunately.”

However, he says he submitted a proposal for a sequel which was “pretty extreme.”

“One of the producers read it and said it was the most disgusting thing he’s ever read. All I can say about it is that it involved cannibalism and royalty.”

Though he remains coy on the finer details, he insists it would have made a “great movie” though it wouldn’t have been a straightforward sequel by any means.

“It was an expansion of the ideas in Candyman and also involved another short story of Clive’s that was actually made later by somebody else, ‘The Midnight Meat Train,’ which was set on the London Underground.”

That said, Rose remains fully supportive of Nia DaCosta’s new film, which has breathed life back into Candyman once again.

“Honestly, I think that sequel is probably better than anything I could have come up with,” he says. “It needed to be taken over by someone African-American, so it’s better that way because if I make the film again, it’s just going to be about the same thing as the first one.”

Ultimately, he feels “immense pride” at the idea that Candyman has earned a place as a horror icon to rival the likes of Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger though he sees that as “something separate to the movie in a weird way.”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“It was intended as a horror film, as a subjective, visceral experience. Obviously, if you write something and direct it, whatever you make is a reflection of your views on a myriad number of subjects. That’s one of the things that’s good about the film, the story is open to exploration.”

The post Candyman: How Bernard Rose and Clive Barker created the horror classic appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/39UfRdV

[valentinahart]

Old radio interview from August 26, 2011:

Steph: The guest I have calling in tonight is Mia Von Glitz

She will be calling in, in a few seconds. She is the bassist for the rock band Shoot the Freak, which is a Side B Radio staple.

Steph: Hello.

MVG: Hello Stephanie. What’s going on?

Steph: I’m just doing a radio show right now. What’s going on with you?

MVG: We’re on the radio? Holy shit. *laughs* Can I say that?

Steph: No. *chuckles*

MVG: Sorry!

Steph: It’s okay.

MVG: Okay, G-rated language is on right now.

Steph: Okay, yes. Let’s try that.

MVG: How’s it going? What song did you just play?

Steph: I just played two songs by Bush, back to back.

MVG: Rock and roll.

Steph: Yeah, you know how it goes. I’ve got to play some Bush every Friday. They’re required, so is Kid Henry and Shoot the Freak and Freelance Whales. They’re our staples on this show.

MVG: Awesome. I just saw a play!

Steph: What did you see?

MVG: My friend was in this play called “The Model” in St. Mark’s church. It was cool.

Steph: That’s interesting.

MVG: Yeah, it was abstract and weird and trippy.

Steph: Alright, that’s awesome. So I opened this up to the many Mia Von Glitz followers and I was overwhelmed with questions. Not only did my ask box on Tumblr get over 70 asks, each of those asks had like five questions. So a lot of them were more repetitive, and we won’t get to all of them but I am just going to start throwing them at you.

MVG: Okay, I probably only have like 20 minutes if that’s alright.

Steph:  Yeah, of course. I wasn’t expecting you to be on the phone with me for three hours *chuckles*

MVG: I have to prepare for the hurricane you know. *laughs*

Steph: Yes, I know. The whole town is shutting down and we’re all having an apocalypse tomorrow.

MVG: I know. I bought Wonder Bread so I’m all good.

Steph: *laughs* Okay, you should get some Spaghetti O’s.

MVG: You know I had thought about getting those. I had really wanted to get those but they didn’t have any.

Steph: Oh see, everyone is stocking up on Spaghetti O’s. You’re going to be screwed tomorrow.

MVG: You can eat them cold, that’s why.

Steph: Well I am from South Florida so I know the hurricane drill.

MVG: Yeah, I lived in Alabama for a little while and we had some tornadoes.

Steph: So you know how it is. Okay well, what brought you to New York?

MVG: College! I came to New York to go to NYU in ’04.

Steph: What was your major at NYU?

MVG: I majored in Television Production and Media Communications.

Steph: I know you are working at Showtime, can you tell us a little bit about your job at Showtime?

MVG: Yeah, I am an assistant producer at Showtime in the red group, which is the creative department. So basically I produce features that are behind the scenes for all our different series and theatricals. I do the promos for Californication, Dexter, Weeds, The Real L-Word and things like that. Anything you see on Showtime with an interview, that’s me *laughs*

Steph: That’s awesome. Is that what wanted?  Was that your goal for school or were you hoping for a news anchor position or?

MVG: Uhm, nope. Well I started out acting then I kind of switched out of theater quickly when I realized that I wanted to go behind the camera. And I worked in television for a few years on different daytime programming and I worked for Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I worked for a production company called White Cherry Entertainment where we did a lot of live events like the Emmy Awards, the Tony Awards, the NFL Kick-off, the Superbowl and things like that. Which was really fun but got a little tiring, so I went back to school for film and then I decided that I want to be a film maker. Then I have my band on the side. But then I ended up back to television! I mean, I love what I do. I get to make mini-films of my own. I’m involved in all the little aspects of the process, I write some pieces, I do the interviews, I do some shooting and I edit as well. So I kind of get to make my own three minute movies every day.

Steph: That is very very cool. Speaking of your little movies, I know that you did a little promo teaser for “Hell on Heels”, which is one of the band’s songs. A lot of people want to know if they are going to get a full video of that.

MVG: Oh yes, well to be quite honest we have a lot of footage that we shot that night. That was just kind of a fun night. We shot that all with iPhones; I don’t know if I told you that, we were just having fun one night and shooting some stuff and kind of put that together as a promo for one of our shows. I don’t know, we had a great response to it. So hopefully we will make it into a full length. We need a little more footage for that to happen but we also have newer songs coming out that we want to focus on real music videos for. So hopefully something with an actual director and a script, we have a lot of ideas.

Steph: That sounds very exciting!

MVG: We’re hoping that that’s going to be the main focus for the near future.

Steph: I saw that “Honcho” is the new single and you guys are going to premiere that on September 15th.

MVG: Yeah. Right smack dab in the middle of the month. We just got right out of the studio from recording that yesterday. So it’s going to be mixed and mastered and ready for everybody to listen to. I hope everyone enjoys it. It’s a really fun song.

Steph: Is that going to be on iTunes? That’s another question I got a lot of: When is Shoot the Freak getting on iTunes?

MVG: That’s a good question, I’m not so sure. We’re doing the bandcamp thing for now but we will definitely have iTunes in mind for the future.

Steph: All right so I have a lot of questions about your fashion and your makeup and your hair.

MVG: *laughs* I grow it myself.

Steph: *laughs* everyone wants to know what makeup you use, where you go shopping.

MVG: Most of the makeup I use is Almay because I’m allergic to everything else. But for stage makeup I use the brand called Illamasqua which is an English company. It is the England version of MAC but they sell it at Sephora so that’s where I get mine. I shop everywhere. I love this vintage store where I used to live called, Rags-A-Go-Go, that was my go-to for a while there. Got my favorite t-shirt of all time there. Beacons Closet out in Brooklyn, I really like L.F.  I like to make a lot of my own clothes, too. I just get stuff that looks like you should throw it in the trash and just make it even worse. Tear it into shreds. *laughs* Oh! Buffalo Exchange is good too. Very cheap. I’m all about the cheap these days *laughs* I have a mortgage now.

Steph: Are there people that inspire your fashion? Are there people you look up to?

MVG: Oh yeah. Ducky from Pretty in Pink but that might be too old of a reference *laughs*. I really dig Alison Mosshart’s style, Juliette Lewis a lot, it’s funny because the same people who influence my music taste are my fashion icons as well.

Steph:  All right so, a lot of people wanted to know the causes you are into. Someone said that you did an independent film about the LGBT community.

MVG: Yeah, I did a couple of those actually. In one year I made about eight films, and three of those were LGBT themed. It is definitely something that I am very passionate about. Growing up a lot of my parent’s friends were in the LGBT and I went to NYU and I was pretty immersed in it all through school. It was just something that I felt very strongly about. I went to pro-gay rallies and things like that a couple years ago. So it’s definitely one of my main causes.

Steph: Is there a way to see those LGBT films? Are they on YouTube or anything?

MVG: I do not. I used to but then I took them down not too long ago. But I do want to put them back up. It is kind of a time issue. I’m going to have to find some time where I can do that. I’m running around these days. But I think I will.. I will! I’ve just decided that I will!

Steph: People want to see them! Are there any other causes that you are passionate about?

MVG: Yes! There are a lot of causes that I am into. For sure.

Steph: I like this question. Someone asked what your favorite David Bowie period is.

MVG: Oooh. Good question! Can I just say Labyrinth?

Steph: Yes! This is why we get along I think!

MVG: You know, I love Ziggy Stardust, which is probably one of my go-to’s. “Life on Mars” is one of my ultimate anthems.

Steph: Labyrinth is my favorite movie ever so…

MVG: Yes. It’s a killer movie. Actually when I a kid I used to cry because my sister used to make me watch it all the time and I was scared of the goblins, then you just get into it.

Steph: Mia! You and I need to have an 80’s movie party

MVG: *laughs* that’s my era.

Steph: I hear you.  Did you ever play anything big in theater or did you just decide that wasn’t for you? There are some theater questions here too.

MVG:  Oh, I did a lot of theater. I did theater all throughout growing up. I set out to major in it  my freshman year of college and I went to Miami my freshman year, when I was in the theater program there. I did one year there and I kind of realized it wasn’t for me and got out of it. I did a lot of roles that people would know. My biggest one was probably Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, which was a fun one. I did Wendy in Peter Pan, with my best friend as Peter, which was a lot of fun. My favorite role was Brooke in Noises Off, I don’t know if you know but it is sort of a British farce.

Steph: I don’t know that but I am sure that someone does. There are a lot of people that are into theater that listen to my show.

MVG: Okay cool, so do they specific questions about that?

Steph: There were just wondering if you did a lot of theater. Someone else asked me about you going vegan or vegetarian. Because I remember you tweeting with Devon about that a while back. Are you still?

MVG: Well technically, I went pescatarian because I started eating fish. There is a whole story about that because I would never eat fish growing up because I am allergic to everything. I am allergic to everything with fur and feathers so I could never have a pet. So my parents bought me a fish, and when people are eating fish it always just broke my heart. Like would you eat your dog? No! *laughs* And the moral of that story is I started eating fish because I put on my big girl pants and decided that I need to eat fish because it is good for you. I just started liking it and I felt better eating that and kind of eliminating meat from my diet. So that’s where I am at these days. And plus, I am a huge vegetable girl.

Steph: That’s cool because some people are vegans and they were asking how you were doing and stuff.

MVG: I haven’t gone fully vegan yet. We’ll see, maybe one day. Got to take baby steps.

Steph: Do you have a preference between your day job and the band? Like would you rather be band full time?

MVG: That’s a good question. I love my job, a lot of people aren’t lucky enough to say that they do something that they love doing and I actually really enjoy it but I kind of went through a period where I realized that I was in the corporate creative and not so much in the creative anymore. That was about two years ago when I decided to put the band together so I didn’t really play an instrument. I dabbled in guitar for about ten years but I was never good enough at it to accomplish anything with. Alberto [Duhau]/Jaja our guitarist, who just left us and left me brokenhearted, he gave me a bass and said ‘play this and we’ll jam together.’ And that’s what we did, and that’s how we put the band together. It was great for me to have that creative outlet on the side. I’ve always kind of teetered on the line, back and forth between film and television and music as a career. My family is actually in the music industry in New York so I always knew that that was kind of an easy choice for a career option for me but I kind of realized that it was my relief. After a day of work I want to come home and I want to go see a show. I want that to be my happy place and not something that is stressing me out because it’s work.

Steph: Let’s talk about your tattoos! How many tattoos do you have?

MVG: Okay well, six. Six that I will talk about *laughs* No, just kidding I have six. I am getting another one, I was supposed to get another one tomorrow but there is a hurricane so I have to call and cancel that. I have six, they are mostly about music. *laughs* You would never have guessed.

Steph: Well other than the “Imagine” one.

MVG: Yes, that one is white ink that says “Imagine” on my wrist. It is the first one I ever got and it is for John Lennon, obviously. I got a “Free Bird” on my foot for my Lynyrd Skynyrd days back in Alabama. *laughs* These are just a road map of my life.  I have a dandelion on my rib cage and back that is for Bob Dylan. I have Florentine bracelet design in plum ink on my other wrist which is for Janice Joplin. She has the same one except for I made it plum and added some vines to it. On my bicep I have a butterfly skeleton which is just for The Dead Weather. Which if people don’t know Dead Weather, you should look them up immediately. It is a butterfly skeleton, not to be confused with a butterfly. Which doesn’t actually exist in nature, it was from their limited edition Halloween album cover. So that is where that came from because I just thought it was beautiful. My last one is for Shoot the Freak, which is an arrow with a heart instead of a head. Like me. *laughs*

Steph. Nice *laughs* So you said you played guitar and you play bass. Do you play any other instruments?

MVG: I don’t , no. I say that I am going to learn drums every day. I have a harmonica necklace that I pretend I can play but nope. Just bass, I don’t even really play guitar, just bass.

Steph: I have, uhmm, favorite Disney movie.

MVG: Oh..  It’s definitely a tie, between Little Mermaid and Aladdin. I don’t know. One of the two.

Steph: Nice. Are you a Harry Potter fan?

MVG: *laughs* Am I a Harry Potter fan? I can tell you everything about Harry Potter.

Steph: That doesn’t necessarily mean anything because I know a couple of people that can do that too.

MVG: Uhmm yes *laughs* That will be the end of that question.

Steph: They wanted to know if you associate with any particular house in Hogwarts.

MVG: I took a test once that said I was a Gryffindor. That’s good, right?

Steph: Awesome. Yes it is. That’s the correct answer actually *laughs* I’m just kidding, but Gryffindor is the house that Harry is in.

MVG: Okay cool. I know that!

Steph: What do you do when you are not in the band or at the television studio?

MVG: What do I do? I draw, I write. My friends in New York are all just little collections of music and we are all different genres. So when we get together we just kind of play together. I like to just sit back and watch rather than play because they are all extremely talented people. Much more talented than I could ever be.  Shopping, grocery shopping. That is fun.

Steph: I have a lot of these: What kind of advice would you give to people who want to work in TV?

MVG: I have a very specific piece of advice, but it will only work if you have chosen your path already, but here goes. If you are aspiring to go into media than the best thing you can do is go to a city school. I think I got a huge leg up all throughout school just by being in a city school because I had all these internships while I was still in school. So by the time I got out I had a pretty solid resume, which is how I got the little success that I have now. *laughs* But yeah, that is just my biggest thing. It’s all a personal thing, some people want to go to a campus school and get that campus life but I don’t feel like I missed out on anything by skipping that.

Steph: So you think you will stay in New York then?

MVG: Yeah. I mean I’m kind of a lifer, but who knows. Anything could happen.

Steph: Well I will let you go now so you have time to get ready for the storm.

MVG: Yes thank you!

Steph: So your show is on the 8th right?

MVG: Yes. On the 8th and the new single is out on the 15th.

Steph:  Okay, have a great night.

MVG: You too, thank you!

[photography89-blog2]

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[wellthatwasaletdown]

harry also

lied about how he met the guitarist(said he worked at a pizza shop and that he’d never been in a studio before, when he’s just roommates with harry’s other very famous producer who has worked with celebrities and they were also in a band together for years with picture evidence of them both in a studio)

acted like writing his album was incredibly personal and purely from his soul when his documentary shows he wrote every song brainstorming with a group of other guys he was living with for over two months

lied about deciding to go solo halfway through 2016 since he 1) filmed his documentary in january and 2) met his current agent in 2013 and planned on going solo since then

lies about not liking the word famous and rejecting fame when he did a giant pap photoshoot with kendall jenner on a yacht but also did insane huge promo for his album

lies about wanting privacy just so he can monetize off “opening up” in interviews, documentaries, and his music

which he then admitted wasn’t biographical at all because his songs were based on tropes and movies. he only said this after he was criticized for sexist vapid lyrics.

lied about the intent behind the hiatus(only suggested it to go solo)

lied about being a feminist since he made a misogynistic joke about kendall on national tv and he also loves charles bukowski a horribly misogynistic poet

lied about never having met his current pr girlfriend camille rowe

lied about his girlfriend NOT being pr since he only coincidentally started dating her a week before two ghosts was added to radio circulation, and he’s been dating blonde skinny victoria’s secret models for pr since 2014.

lied about valuing his teen girl fans since he does everything in his power to pretend he’s a rockstar with only neckbeard fans

was caught lying about hanging out with liam since he didn’t know what the chain joke was when he was asked

lied about who he showed sott first saying it was niall when niall said he heard it on the radio

stupidly lied about writing all of his song lyrics on typewriters and notebooks when on video he didn’t know how to type on a typewriter and in his notebook he was writing down lyrics from a song he already had made in 2013

lied about when he auditioned for dunkirk

lied about not being serious about being an actor and only doing it for fun when he actually took acting lessons since 2015 and auditioned for han solo

lied about never taking acting lessons

lied about walking into auditions and seeing famous celebrities everywhere just so he could seem like he beat all of them for the role when in 2016 casting specifically called for young unknown actors age 15-25

lied about being best friends with fionn whitehead and the other cast members and bonding on set when 1) during the first interviews you could tell they were not friends at all and 2) security guards and staff working on set in 2016 said he spent all his time with the makeup artists and extras when he wasn’t just alone

bragged about being mentally sound and level-headed in rolling stone then later on in another interview said he’s a nervous wreck who is constantly on the edge

did a tiny venue tour just so he could get “sold out in seconds” articles then made a manipulative tweet about how he “might” do another show “just for fans if they’ll have him”

he then announced a world arena tour the following month and proof came out that he followed his opening acts in october 2016. it was all a marketing gimmick. it was never for fans.

his is team is also constantly lying paying for articles calling him the best and the most successful out of 1d when he is actually doing the worst, and they constantly buy him success. and it’s all because his agent is the son of irving azoff, and daddy is constantly helping him since this year he merged with his company as ceo and he wants to make him look good. jeff left his dad’s company in 2016 and spent the entire year trying to launch a management company of his own called full stop management. he never registered licensing for it, or rented a building, a telephone, or hired employees. he couldn’t even keep up payments for the website after 3 months. in 2017 his company “"merged”“ with his dad’s aka they changed his dad’s company’s name to full stop management so they couldn’t say his company flopped after abandoning it.

they bought harry a cover on the anniversary edition of rolling stone magazine before he even put out his album and everyone thought it was because he was this legend when in reality irving azoff is best friends with cameron crowe since 1975.

he performed with stevie nicks who everyone treated like a goddess who would only perform with the most worthy and who also said harry was like a son to mick fleetwood. in reality she is managed by irving azoff.

he got praise from john mayer because he is also an irving azoff client.

he got praise from gene simmons because he is in the same publishing company.

he got grammy hype immediately after irving azoff invited the head producer of the grammy’s to harry’s troubadour concert.

irving azoff also invited christopher nolan to that concert, and he coincidentally went from saying in 2016 that he never saw harry act prior to him showing up on set because that wasn’t his department(this was in a magazine), to comparing harry to heath ledger and saying he hand selected him for his incredible audition.

it was hyped up that he sold out msg arena for his tour first because it’s an iconic arena, when in reality azoff msg entertainment runs it.

it’s also worth noting that mtv news ran a story confirming that kings of leon’s manager threatened to never work with mtv again after they published a negative review of their album. mtv was forced to take the article down and only publish positive ones. their manager at the time was irving azoff.

overall there’s a level of fakeness that goes WAY beyond "good business”. it’s the gross manipulative shit their old team did while in a boyband just so they could get more money. he’s treated like the serious one of the boys who is so much better because he is oh-so real and doesn’t want money when he’s just a rockstar version of the same puppet he was in 1d. he doesn’t want to be “real” or “honest”. columbia just had an idea to fabricate a rockstar popstar who could bring them money from the boyband they lost plus the credibility of grammy’s and awards, and harry was the perfect volunteer because he wants to wear the skin of his idols from the 70s without the work. so not only is harry a liar in his own right, but his team constantly builds his career out of lies. it’s just dishonesty everywhere.

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[mastcomm]

Super Bowl Movie Trailers Ranked From Best to Worst

With the price of one 30-second ad during Super Bowl LIV rising to as much as $5.6 million, some movie studios sat on the sidelines this year. Others bought time on the more affordable pregame show (where spots cost $2 to $3 million). Still, over the course of Super Sunday, spots were unveiled for 10 films, including “F9: The Fast Saga,” which had debuted a longer clip on Friday, and “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” which will release its first full trailer on Wednesday. Here’s our roundup of the rest, ranked from most to least promising. (Gal Gadot’s crossover cameo as Wonder Woman in the Tide Power Pods campaign doesn’t count.)

‘Mulan’ (March 27)

For anyone who complained that Disney live-action remakes like “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King” were too faithful to the originals, this one’s for you. With “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”-style action, the drama about a young woman (Yifei Liu) who dresses as a man to join the Chinese Imperial Army couldn’t look less like the 1998 musical cartoon. “I will bring honor to us all,” Mulan declares. Based on this thrilling trailer, we believe her.

‘Black Widow’ (May 1)

“You don’t know everything about me,” says Scarlett Johansson’s heroine. “The Avengers weren’t my first family.” The new ad for Marvel’s latest film focuses on the bond between Black Widow and a makeshift clan from her KGB training days. Her comrades are played by the Emmy nominee David Harbour (“Stranger Things”), the Oscar winner Rachel Weisz (“The Constant Gardener”) and Florence Pugh (“Little Women”), who will compete with Johansson for best supporting actress at the Academy Awards on Sunday. With such a powerful cast, how can this movie miss?

‘The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run’ (May 22)

The Nickelodeon cartoon’s newest big-screen outing starts with typically self-referential humor, as the Krusty Krab’s owner, Mr. Krabs, comments on how expensive Super Bowl commercials are, and Squidward points out that it’s only the pregame. Challenged to sum up the movie’s elements in the ad’s remaining 26 seconds, SpongeBob speeds through a hysterically surreal list that includes robots, Snoop Dogg and a wise sage (Keanu Reeves in a tumbleweed!). Concludes Mr. Krabs, “That was money well-spent.” Agreed.

‘No Time to Die’ (April 10)

The 25th film in the 007 franchise promises to change everything, and its new spot certainly starts on a surprising note as James Bond (Daniel Craig) flies a high-tech plane with a female 00 agent, Nomi (Lashana Lynch from “Captain Marvel”). The rest of the commercial looks like any other Bond movie, though, complete with stunts, gunfire and two facially disfigured villains (Christoph Waltz and Rami Malek). Too bad we only get a quick glimpse of Ana de Armas, but if she and Craig have as much fun as they did in “Knives Out,” this one might be worth our time.

‘A Quiet Place Part II’ (March 20)

This horror sequel’s promo opens with a flashback, as the writer-director John Krasinki’s character, who was killed off in the first film, is shown enduring his first encounter with the noise-seeking monsters that terrorize his family. Cut to his widow (Emily Blunt) going on the run with her three living children and encountering another band of survivors, including a pair played by new cast members Cillian Murphy and Djimon Hounsou. “There are people out there,” she says, “people worth saving.” Whether “A Quiet Place” needed a follow-up remains to be seen. (Krasinski’s “wicked smart” ad for the self-parking Hyundai Sonata was more entertaining.)

‘Top Gun: Maverick’ (June 26)

Cannily placed right after Demi Lovato’s rendition of the National Anthem, the commercial for Tom Cruise’s sequel to his flag-waving 1986 hit featured scenes of him back in the cockpit and seemingly hampered by age. He gasps for air, and we hear dialogue from other characters, including Rooster (Miles Teller) — the son of Maverick’s late pal Goose (Anthony Edwards) — as well as new antagonists Jon Hamm and Ed Harris and love interest Jennifer Connelly. But did audiences wait breathlessly for nearly 35 years to hear Maverick suck wind?

‘The Invisible Man’ (Feb. 28)

Unlike in its initial trailer, the latest spot for this horror-movie reboot lets us hear the voice of the title character (played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen, from Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House”), but that doesn’t add much to its appeal. Despite the presence of Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) as the ex-girlfriend he gaslights — and the imprimatur of Blumhouse Productions (“Get Out”) — this looks like a dispiritingly standard-issue woman-in-jeopardy flick, albeit with souped-up special effects.

‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ (Feb. 14)

It’s never a good sign when a commercial doesn’t show you much of the actual movie. This minute-plus-long spot for the Sega video-game adaptation spends more than half its running time on famously fast athletes (the NFL stars Michael Thomas and Christian McCaffrey, the NASCAR driver Kyle Busch and Olympic sprinter Allyson Felix) praising the title character’s speed. After the ad switches over to unfunny footage from the film, James Marsden’s character asks, “What am I doing?” It’s a question he may be posing to himself in real life as well.

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[toptecharena]

The BT Ultra HD YouView has now been around for a number of years, piping out 4K UHD broadcasts to anyone with the kit and money to be able to watch them.

More technically known as the Humax DTR-T4000, it certainly lives up to the hype surrounding UHD. With compatible systems now on the market from the likes of Sky and Virgin Media though, does the BT option still hold up?

The Humax DTR-T4000 is a YouView+ box, virtually identical in appearance and functionality to the YouView from BT box, except with a 1TB hard disk capable of storing 60 hours of UHD content.

With live UHD content still thin on the ground, you might well be filling the BT Ultra HD YouView box with HD or even SD shows, giving 250 hours and 600 hours respectively. Another difference is that this box is fan cooled, which makes it a bit noisy when the TV’s been switched off but is totally necessary as it runs hot enough to fry an egg on.

To watch in BT Sport in 4K Ultra HD you’ll need a compatible screen with at least one HDMI 2.0 input that can handle HDCP 2.2 content protection and a picture resolution of 2160p (50Hz). Most modern 4K TV screens will play nice with the UHD channels.

Incidentally, you can also watch 4K channels downscaled to 1080p on a non-4K screen, which is something to bear in mind if you’ve got an older set.

What does it cost?

First up, you need to be a BT Infinity broadband customer (with a minimum 40Mbps connection) and a subscriber to BT TV’s top-level Ultra HD packages, which start at £15 a month.

You’ll also have to pay £50 for the box (free to new customers), line rental of £16.99/month and an installation fee of £44 if a BT Engineer is required to get you going.

New BT customers will have to pay £6.95 for a BT Home Hub router too.

Note that the IP content including BT Sport will not work if you use a different make of router, and that the Humax box isn’t wireless. BT does supply a 10m Ethernet cable, but you could try a Powerline connection.

You get 248 channels including 47 premium entertainment, documentary and lifestyle channels. Freeview channels are delivered via an aerial, the rest via internet.

Nearly 50 channels are in HD, 13 of which are premium ones (including seven BT Sport Extra channels). You also get the BT Sport Pack (BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2, BT Sport Europe, BT Sport ESPN) which includes all of the UEFA Champions League and a number of Premier League games.

Some of these will be shown in 4K on the Ultra HD channel (number 434 on the EPG). Aside from the odd live broadcast there’s very little to UHD, just a slew of short promo films designed to show off the format.

Netflix’s Ultra HD content has now arrived to add some much-needed extra 4K content. You can also subscribe to Sky Movies, Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2, but only in HD.

To operate the box you use the humungous remote control, which is a touch unwieldy but at least the operating system is pleasing to look at and logically laid out, with carousels of menu options appearing in narrow bands at the bottom of the screen.

YouView+ means you get an EPG that scrolls back seven days as well as forwards and allows you to record shows from the past week so long as they are also contained within the relevant on-demand engine (iPlayer, ITV Player, All 4, Demand 5, BT Player, Now TV, Milkshake!, UKTV Play, Sky Store, Quest, S4C), plus two apps (BBC News and BBC Sport), with Netflix now joining the party.

There are also scores of movies, TV shows (including box sets) and music videos to rent or buy from the likes of Sky Store, BT TV, Curzon Cinema, Nat Geo Wild, E!, SyFy, Universal, Animal Planet, Investigation Discovery, Sony TV, Discovery, TLC, History, Fox, Comedy Central, MTV, and more…

Unfortunately, the box is no quicker to power up than the BT TV YouView box, taking a good 20 seconds or so from standby (and that in the non-eco mode, with the latter taking a full minute).

Considering how complex the content offering is the box itself is pretty easy to get to grips with.

Recording shows and accessing them proves a cinch and seems reliable. My only gripe here is that fast forward and rewind don’t allow you to shuffle through at twice normal speed, four times, eight times, etc. Instead each press of the FF button skips ahead about a minute at a time, which makes it very hard to find a specific incident. Also, there’s no slow-mo (as there is on Sky’s services).

While live 4K football is shown simultaneously in HD and Ultra HD each channel has its own cameras, commentators and studio support. And both require a lot of equipment and manpower to capture and deliver the picture.

Having checked out some of the matches broadcast in 4K, we can say the extra resolution proves captivating, especially when compared with the HD feeds. The most obvious difference is the extra detail afforded by the higher resolution format.

Everything is sharper than it is in HD, not just a bit sharper, much sharper. Admittedly, BT Sport 2 is a bit on the soft side anyway compared with football on Sky, which I discovered when I switched over to my Sky box to check out the Dundee United vs Aberdeen match on Sky Sports 1 HD.

Anyway, the outline of players in UHD is much clearer, the detail in the grass is better (even in wide shots), and you can actually read the wording on the ads that run round the upper tier of the Wembley stand.

This additional detail allows the camera to zoom out wider, so you see more of an overview of the action. Static detail is especially good since there is some inevitable loss of resolution with motion and the frame rate isn’t high enough to keep fast moving objects pin sharp, though it is running at a higher rate than HD.

One shot that really showed off the extra detail had Jose Mourinho standing on the touch line, taken from afar but framed so that you could see 20 rows of fans behind him, and you can clearly see the faces of around 800 supporters.

Astonishing detail

Another great shot was when Hazard took a free kick, which Cech saved, seen zoomed in from the opposite end, the clarity was a level above anything else ever seen in HD.

Any Ultra HD screen will be equipped to show off the extra detail with motion resolution holding up pretty well thanks to a 50fps frame rate.

As such, my 2015 model Samsung 48JU7000T looked excellent, especially with its Auto Motion Plus motion control mode set to the Smooth setting, keeping the ball from distorting when moving quickly through the air, and more pertinently, doing so without any processing artefacts.

Colours, set to output via HDMI in 10-bit, were also terrific, though the luminosity of the players’ pink and green boots was arguably too intense.

The match proved tricky at times for the cameras because of the immense contrast between sunny and shady parts of the pitch and the technology was clearly at its best when the light level was even (no wonder Sky adopted HDR for its own 4K service).

Even so, the broadcast was without doubt a success, with just a couple of very minor picture glitches and no sound problems at all.

Happily, the IPTV stream is outside of your internet service, so watching a broadcast won’t affect simultaneous streaming or web browsing elsewhere in the home on a computer. Also, the IP stream is user-agnostic so your speed won’t be affected by the number of other users in the district.

Given that so few boxes were out in the wild at the time of the first UHD broadcast it was perhaps forgivable that BT would skimp on the frills, with Peter Drury expected to provide the commentary and fulfil the pre-match and half-time hosting duties along with single guest Kevin Davies.

HD viewers on the other hand had the A-list – with Glenn Hoddle, Ian Wright and Rio Ferdinand.

It felt a bit like a beta service had been unleashed on the public, but Jake Humphrey, the main BT Sport presenter, was at the birth of his second child on the eve of the broadcast so there was a definite element of reshuffling.

As time has gone on though, 4K has grown in stature, with football matches at least broadcast in the higher Ultra HD resolution as a matter of course.

Considering its diminutive size and unremarkable design the Humax DTR-T4000 packs one hell of a punch, offering a broad quantity of free and paid content including the YouView seven day roll-back EPG and BT TV’s bespoke entertainment and sports offering.

Undoubtedly though it’s the BT Sport Ultra HD channel that we’re principally interested in, and without a doubt 4K UHD is the jewel in the BT YouView crown. Don’t forget that extra content from Netflix and Amazon Prime Video though.

We liked

The box is easy to get to grips with, with an intuitive onscreen menu system that makes you more inclined to explore the on-demand content than before.

The EPG is nicely laid out, which makes it a doddle to find and watch TV shows from the past seven days.

The box’s most important and likeable trait by far is the quality of the UHD channel. Utterly perfect for live sport, 4K images are astonishingly crisp and highly detailed.

We also like the way the live broadcast is directed to take full advantage of the greater clarity on offer.

We disliked

The UHD channel needs more shows, even with the addition of Netflix and Amazon Prime. The on-demand repository also requires a massive boost to its 4K content.

Recording is fine but the fast forward and rewind functions aren’t smooth and make it tricky to shuffle through a recording looking for a specific moment. Neither the remote control nor the box itself are going to win any design awards.

And for a significant portion of the population who don’t have the option of a 40Mbps BT fibre broadband this is a complete non-starter.

Final Verdict

More than ten years since the first HD broadcast the, ahem, goalposts have finally shifted again thanks to the BT Sport UHD channel.

The channel itself doesn’t yet seem like the finished article but the fact is the picture quality is so spectacularly good it makes it nigh-on impossible to revert to inferior Full HD pics once you’ve had a taste of the 4K manna.

If you’re a sport-loving BT Infinity subscriber the extra cost (£15/month and a one-off £49 charge) is almost a no-brainer, for non-BT customers the cost implications are higher and more complicated. You can check what it will cost you here on BT TV’s webpage.

Ultra HD is just getting started of course, and with Sky and Virgin Media now offering their own packages, the BT Ultra HD box looks a little inferior by comparison.

How BT gets all those pixels from pitch to picture.

Go to Source Author: BT Ultra HD YouView box The BT Ultra HD YouView has now been around for a number of years, piping out 4K UHD broadcasts to anyone with the kit and money to be able to watch them.