#who does drag in a of couple movies For Some Reason (< he is gay)

[abominable-space-they]

A modern LuLaw Au, where Zoro is a huge hot thriller action movie actor. He does everything from historical magical swordmaster movies to modern non-stop suspensful spy chase films

Bepo is also a super famous actor but of the opposite variety. He came up in theater, is the loveable funny dad in family movies, comedic gay uncle in summer block buster type movies, and maybe the love interest in very first date mid market fluffy first date movies marketed to divorced moms and bisexual geeks. He's like Andrew Garfield + Nathan Foad + Harvey Guillén

Perfect in other words

They get teamed up for a wacky odd couple action comedy about an Assassin who has to find his dead lover's estranged brother. The estranged brother is a librarian who speaks 13 languages. They have to go on the run together to find a package that has evidence that can clear Zoro's name.

The movie is a huge hit. At the premiere after party both Zoro and Bepo bring all their best friends.

Both of their best friend groups consist of a motley crew of loveable weirdos

Bepo begs Law to come to the after party with him. It's his biggest commercially successful film to date and a huge accomplishment. It will open up all new avenues in being able to try something different besides the quirky comedic relief. He's elated... and a little overwhelmed. So of course, eventually Law relents.

He was always going to, they both knew it. Law just had to put up a fuss first, lest people start getting ideas about how much of a push over he might be

He's secretly a giant pushover, for a particular kind of chaos... The kind that drags him kicking and screaming into having a good time despite himself, but he always denies it

Law is there for maybe an hour before he's just sick of all of the loud smiling fake crowd. Overwhelmed, he grabs a few beers, and a vape off of one of the long tables full of party favors and escapes to the most out of the way unpopulated balcony he can find.

A balcony where the only other inhabitant is a free range Luffy perched on a railing like a little flip flops and sun hat wearing gargoyle.

Luffy it turns out, wasn't overwhelmed by crowds, but he couldn't stand how fake everyone was, Zoro's manager (Nami obviously) threatened to whoop his ass personally if he made Zoro look bad by getting into anymore celebrity fist fights or accidentally on purpose calling some mega star out on their bullshit

Law is despite himself charmed by Luffy's directness and lack of patience for anything fake ever.

They end up splitting the beer and the vape and hanging out talking till long after most everyone else had already left.

When they finally remember other people exist, it's coming up on dawn and the caterers are trying to politely get them to leave. Both their friend groups have long since left just assuming they both left without telling anyone when they couldn't find them.

In the cold light of predawn Law is a little embarrassed about getting buzzed and staying up till dawn at a Hollywood function with some pretty boy he's never met before.

Luffy is if course unruffled by all of that and drags Law to breakfast with him. He decided that since they were already on their own, there was no real reason to rush off in opposite directions. He thinks all Law's embarrassed bluster is very funny and cute.

And anyway, he knew a place they could eat near by.

Luffy drags Law to the Baratie of all places. Law is so flustered he listened to this hot unstoppable ball of bouncing charisma, he makes sure to point out why the Baratie on impulse at dawn was a terrible plan:

1) they couldn't just walk into to the Baratie dressed for last night's party, from last night's party. This restaurant was much to fancy for that.

2) the Baratie was booked for months in advance unless you were extremely well connected. It was extremely popular with all the right people (and plenty of the wrong ones too)

3) The Baratie was not now, nor had it ever been open for breakfast, it was a five star restaurant not an all night diner!!!

Luffy, shrugs super casualty, beaming mischievous joy at him

"I guess I'm well connected then Torao. It'll work out fine. Come on, it'll be fun"

Law follows him swearing to himself he's only curious what Luffy thinks he can do to get in

Really

When they get their Luffy bangs on the back employee's entrance. An extremely frazzled and probably a little hung over Sanji opens the door

Luffy beams at his friend

"Sanji! I'm starving! We need meat!!"

Sanji was prepping for opening, he scowls at his friend who went missing the night before without telling anyone where he was going again

"... Luffy! Yah! What are you doing here? Where did you go last night? What are you doing with pop rock diva Donquixote Doflamingo's nephew? Damn... You're hungry? Come on in, I have some meats left over from last night's dinner. I can make you guys some breakfast bowls or something."

Sanji knows all the society players and knows exactly who Trafalgar D. water Law is even if Luffy doesn't

Luffy bounces happily through the door.

"Thanks Sanj! What do you mean what am I doing here? I'm hungry! We need meat! We didn't go anywhere. You guys left without me. It's ok, don't feel bad. Lala and I were talking. He's real cool. I think he saved my life. I was considering throwing myself off the balcony in a final act of self sacrifice so I didn't mess up Zoro's party. But then there's Law, with beer, a vape, and my still beating heart in his tattooed hands like the drums of liberation! I could feel the freedom! So we hung out and talked about neat stuff. Then the people with all the shiny trays didn't have any more food left which is sad Sanji. No food. They just asked us to leave, so of course we came here bc we're hungry. I don't know anything about Mingy's nephew or whatever. Don't bring that pink jerk into this. I'm still sad mad from when Crocodad used to bring him to every family gathering. Mingo bahhhh. Lala and I are HUNGRY. Look how pale he is Sanji. We need to eat!"

"I do not feel bad we left you Luffy. You disappeared!"

"Don't be silly Sanji. We were right there"

Sanji gives up trying to talk sense into one of his best friends at this hellish hour. Settling instead on staring silent daggers at Law. Luffy might not know any shame but most everyone else did. Sanji isn't sure what's going on but he's pretty sure he doesn't trust any relative of that insufferable smug bastard Doflamingo.

Law shrugs loose and indifferent

"He's right, we were right there... I don't associate with my uncle, I don't like or trust him any more then you do."

Sanji, nods, he understands not associating with the family you can't quite escape. Still

Raising one gracefully manicured eye brow, Sanji can't help but ask

"LaLa though?"

Luffy leaps into the air, flailing his arms and legs like a particularly ecstatic starfish.

"Yes! Lala! Oh or Tora-ora-oh? Torao?"

Law, looks away, trying to hide the surprising way the nicknames make him blush. He mumbles, embarrassed

"I gave up asking him to stop two hours ago. Maybe if I ignore it he'll get bored"

Sanji absolutely clocking the vibes, snorts a rueful laugh.

"Yeah good luck with that, well don't just lurk by the walk ins Luffy. Take your man to the family table. I'll get you guys all that meat"

Law, spends the next couple minutes in embarrassed silent processing before he comes back around to what Luffy said about Doffy. Like, he knows him because of Crocodile?

"Wait Luffy, did you just call the infamous Hollywood fixer Sir Crocodile, Crocodad?"

Luffy is busy craning his neck towards the kitchen, he crinkles his nose in playful confusion at Law

"Huh? Oh yeah. I have a lot of dads"

Law scoffs,

"That doesn't really explain anything."

Luffy let's his head fall sideways, smiling in thoughtful distraction

"Oh hey! Yeah! I can introduce you to my dads! It'll be so cool! Mihawk will love you I can already tell. Buggy will say he hates you but he won't really hate you. Mihawk says being an utter bastard is Buggy dad's primary love language”

That makes Law huff a small dry laugh

"Is that where you got it from?"

He meant it in a teasing way and for a split second worried that he'd gone to far. People were always telling him his sense of humor was to sharp, to acidic.

Like a surgeon, cutting to the quick of a person

But Luffy only stares at him owlishly, thinking earnestly about the question

"... Oh yeah. Probably. Next time I'm over I'll tell Buggy Dad that. He'll be so happy he'll cry about it. It'll be so cool. Then Shanks will think he's in trouble again and he'll be so relieved the crying's not his fault this time that he'll love you extra. Probably buy you a yacht or something in thanks for getting him out of the dog house this week. You'd look good on a yacht Lala... Or maybe a submarine, a fancy science one not those weird tin cans billionaires keep committing elaborate suicide in"

"I don't need a yacht... a submarine might be cool. A sciencey one like you said. I don't know, no I'm not thinking about that. Luffy, you just name dropped the French Designer single handedly responsible for bringing back gothic romance in high fashion, arguably the most beloved and successful mainstream actor of his generation, and the grand line's Banksy. I know this because my friend Bepo is old college buddies with one of his assistants. Is there anyone you don't know?"

"I don't know everyone. I don't know your friend Bepo yet even though he did a movie with my bestfriend. I don't know who his friend is either"

"Uh Richie, big dude, loves meat almost as much of you, nice enough. He has a giant tattoo of a green lion on his back... He's probably a furry, most Bepo's friends are... but we never talked about it to confirm it. Not a big deal either way..."

"OH YEAH RICHIE! I know him!"

"see? You know everyone"

"You're The Celestial Diva Demon Doflamingo's nephew"

Law sighs deeply

"I was hoping you didn't catch that"

Giggling Luffy shakes his head

"Shihihihihi I catch things fine, I'm flexible... I understand. I understood. Mingy doesn't have anything to do with me bringing you to my family. So it doesn't matter to me if he's your uncle Torao"

"Oh... I... Luffy... Thanks"

Luffy laughs

"Anyways, I didn't know you before but now I do and I'm glad I do. You're really fun Lala. I love fun"

Law swallows thickly, he feels called to being honest, vulnerable even. He doesn't know why exactly but it feels like Luffy will understand the importance of his saying anything at all. He clears his throat

"I'm... I can't believe I'm saying this but... I'm... not mad about it either. Usually people in this god awful town only want to talk to me because I'm the son of famous post modern surrealist painter Rosinante Corazón or because I'm Doflamingo's nephew... Fuck It's exhausting, being expected to constantly perform precious little society Prince every day for their gratification. I love my dad but I hate the looks and the judgement and the expectations for me to follow in their footsteps"

Luffy's eyes are bottomless pools of deep sepia understanding. He nods, emphatic.

"Yeah I get that. Hey, that's why I come here and eat lots of meat! Sanji's dad always yells at me with his big voice and tall hat like, I DON'T CARE WHO'S DAMN BOY YOU ARE. LET ALL SIX OF 'EM COME IN HERE AND MAKE A SCENE. I WAS OUT IN THOSE STREETS WHEN THEY WERE JUST A LITTLE TWINKLE IN THEIR DADDY'S EYES. I'M NOT SCARED OF ANY OF 'EM, NOT SCARED OF YOUR GRANDPAPPY EITHER. LET 'EM COME. YOU COME IN HERE ACTING LIKE AN ANIMAL AND TRASH MY KITCHEN. I'LL PUT YOU ON A LEASH! MAKE EGGPLANT SOLVE HIS OWN STRAW HAT SHAPED PROBLEMS!! It's real great. He loves Sanji so much and he doesn't take any crap from anyone. Sanji wants to be just like him when he grows up"

Thankfully Law is saved from acknowledging how seen, understood, and appreciated Luffy makes him feel by Sanji coming back with food.

Luffy immediately forgets anything that doesn't involve shoveling breakfast steak into his face

Later, Luffy would somehow convince Law to come back to his apartment, where they would fall asleep on the couch together watching Zoro's movies (the only DVD's they had in the house)

Luffy falls asleep chattering about pokemon and beetle battles and all his friends.

It's nice

Really nice. The sort of nice he kinda hopes continues

Law is almost asleep himself when his phone buzzes.

The screen lights up.

It's Bepo.

He totally forgot to text Bepo and let him know that he was ok.

Law wiggles a hand free and arduously texts Bepo back

-Phone mostly dead

-I'm ok

.

.

.

-Met someone...

The response was immediate:

-YOU WHAT?!

-Later Bep. I promise I'll explain. I'm gonna sleep now

-You're sleeping?! Oh you're down bad. Ok ok. I love you but boss please don't forget next time

-Promise Bep

With that taken care of and no witnesses to see him being quite so soft, Law tugs the sleeping Luffy even closer, pulled in close under his chin. He pressed his face into Luffy's mess of dark Auburn curls. For some reason Luffy smelled like sea salt and mesquite smoke. It made Law smile.

He whispered into the top of Luffy's head.

"You just blow into my life with your ridiculous hat and your insatiable appetite. You're're gonna be the death of me Captain Strawhat"

Luffy grumbled sleepily, nuzzling further into Law's chest.

"Torao worries to much. It'll be so much fun, like breakfast. I'm right. Fight me."

Somehow reassured Law grumbled some sort of acknowledgement and was shockingly, soon, fast asleep.

Luffy made such a cuddly weighted blanket. He could get used this

[hotluncheddie]

steve and robin are drunk. it’s about 6pm, they started at 3 and they’re having a blast! upside down shit is over! they’re best friends! young, dumb and having fun baby!!

'this was a great idea, its great, i love being drunk' steve's listening to robin's rambling, nodding and smiling. she's so funny and cool, god he loves her so much!

there's a knock at the door and steve rolls off of the couch, stumbling to his feet, very very elegantly thank you. 'steve steeeeeve no this is the best part, watch steve. watch look how hot she is!' robin is pointing at the screen but steve has no idea what film is on... the actress does look kind of hot tho. 'you're so right.' he tells her and she just nods over and over, eyes not leaving the screen.

steve rips the door open, ‘eddie!! hey robin eddies here how cool is that?’ god this is great! eddies here! steve loves eddie! well you know not like that... not yet...

‘let’s goooooo’ robin shouts from the lounge.

‘party time is it stevie?’ eddie smiles rocking back and forward a little on his heels, steve can't stop staring at him. wow. eddie!

'...can i come in or.. or is it steve and robin only time?' gasping steve processes what eddie is saying. reaching to grip him by the wrist, pulling him inside 'of course you can come in eddie! robin put some weird movie on i don't understand so you have to come save me'

steve doesn't spot the surprised smile that brightens eddies face at the contact. or the way his heart is squeezing at the free sort of happiness emanating from definitely wasted steve harrington. 'of course your highness'

steve giggles at that, dragging eddie to where robin is now sprawled over the recliner, her glass of wine back in hand. steve picks up his own glass and offers it to eddie. 'were drinking wine to be classy and because robin likes vampires now.'

'interview with a vampire read very gay steve' robin has her eyes on the movie still, lips staines red.

'i'm good, angel, i gotta drive back in a bit' eddie pushes the glass back towards steve who blushes and drops on the sofa. 'and i couldn't agree more buckley. now, not judging, but is there a reason you've gone on this very classy bender on a thursday?' eddie takes in the couple wine bottles on the table, sitting next to steve, close enough for their knees to brush.

'we work retail. this is basically saturday. we don't get weekends. time isn't real.' robin states pointing an accusing finger at eddie, her hair totally flat on one side and cheeks rosy.

they go on but steve has lost track of the conversation, he only knows it's happening because he can see eddies lips moving. they're nice lips, eddie likes to say nice things to steve. steve likes that. he likes eddie. he drains his glass, leaning forward to refill it and slumping back to look at eddie again. he's a little closer now, his brain points out. nice.

'you gonna be okay stevie? i gotta go have dinner with wayne, i only came by to drop you this.' eddie pulls a tape from inside his jacket and holds it up, tapping steve in the nose with it. steve giggles again.

'mmm yeah we'll be okay, off tomorrow, couch is comfy to sleep on.' steve wiggles his eyebrows and snuggles down more into the sofa, as if to prove his point. he beams as eddie laughs at him.

'metal?' steve asks, drinking more and holding the tape up close to his face. why are the words blurry? ah! wine! that's why. yes.

'some, not all. mostly just songs i think you'll like' eddie is looking at him and if steve was more sober he might see how nervous eddie is.

mostly steve just sees how pink his lips are as his tongue swipes over them and how big and sparkly his eyes are. always so sparkly, how does he do that?!

'you’re so pretty eddie' steve can't help it. eddie has to know, its, its important. so important that eddie munson knows just how pretty he is. how pretty steve thinks he is.

'pretty eddie. pretty hair, pretty eyes.' steve looks all over eddies face, trying to take it all in.

eddies eyes widen and his cheeks dust pink. there he goes again, steve thinks, being pretty! he can't take it!

'god, harrington you can't just say that' eddie looks at him incredulous, but smiling.

'ugh don't call me that, and i can say whatever i want. its my house and my wine party, thank you very much.' steve sips his drink, going for huffy but he's too drunk to really care, quickly going back to looking at eddie from his slumped position in the couch.

'apologies princess. how about this? call me tomorrow and if you still think I'm pretty we can talk about it then, kay?' eddie eyes are soft, if a little guarded not quite as sparkly.

'mkay, dunno why i'd stop just because it's tomorrow tho.' steve frowns a little, looking into his glass. eddies always been pretty.

'i see. well, i gotta go now stevie but i'll see you soon yeah? you'll look after robin and get some sleep?' eddie tucks some hair behind steves ear and oh. oh. that's nice. sleeve preens, blinking slowly, nodding.

he twists on the sofa, watching as eddie leaves with a little wave. listens as the rev of his engine grows faint into the distance. leaving the room quiet apart from robin's soft snores.

'tomorrow' steve whispers, before he goes to get glasses of water ready for them both and promptly passes out onto the sofa. face smushed into the pillow that smells most like eddie.

...

woken abruptly by the shrill ring of the phone, eddie stumbles into the living room, noting that the clock reads 9am. who the fuck would ring at 9 in the fucking morning?

he rips the phone away from the receiver. 'yes?'

'hey pretty boy.'

‘oh.’

[elatedandexasperated]

So there's been some discussion on RWRB actually being a "gay movie"

Most posts I've seen have more or less summarized that the movie is effectively a "straight romance" featuring a mlm coupling, which annoys me a bit. I can't say that this take is entirely wrong per say - I mean, I've called it basically a Hallmark movie, which I still think is true - but it's not devoid of queer experience like a lot of people seem to think it is...

and that "Hallmark" comparison, which I still stand behind, I feel comes more from structure than content.

You can take the film at face value or read deeper into it and still find a case for this argument. Most of this pertains to the movie alone, I'm personally in the camp that if you're going to analyze a piece of media, it should stand on its own. So while the book may have different expressions and levels of inclusion, remember, it's a book, not a 2-hour time boxed movie

Production

Right off the bat we have the movie's production. I'm not going into speculation on TZP or NG's sexuality out of respect, neither have confirmed or denied being part of the community and that's frankly their business and privacy. In a bit I will go into the text of the film regarding the characters, but I don't want to drag the actors into this any further than saying they did an excellent job portraying the characters.

Lopez, though, who is publicly out as gay, as well as McQuistion who is NB, have both put their messaging and perspectives on queer experience into the book and by extension the film and that much is very clear through things like the inclusion of Intimacy Coordinator Robbie Taylor Hunt (another Gay man) as a way of trying to keep the intimate scenes grounded and realistic. So in the production alone there were clear attempts to visually represent authentic queer experiences. I think this is honestly the main reason why the main relationship is so compelling: the actors vibed well with each other (to the point that it was the initial feud that seemed contrived and unrealistic, which is just hilarious to me) and the coordinator worked with everyone collaboratively to keep things grounded, realistic, and to prevent it from going too far into the realm of fetishization from a visual standpoint.

As for the writing, we obviously are going to see most of the relatable queer experiences pop up in the lead roles:

Henry

Henry's character is arguably where the representation of queer experience is most explicit - at least from a level that regular (read straight) viewers would get without a lot of hand holding. At a surface level there's the classic "what will my family think?" questioning and general anxiety of being outed. Most of us in the community can relate to that, but in all honesty this is pretty standard fare and not the meat and potatoes of why I wanted to write this, what I am now realizing, unreasonably long rant breakdown *inhales*

ANYWAY.

At a deeper level though, Henry's struggle isn't so much internal as it is external. Yes there's internal angst still about being able to love openly, but in the film it's pretty clear that a good chunk of his family is aware of his sexuality (the statement that the king had a conversation with him when he was 18, him being open with Bea, etc.); He's also pretty confident in his sexuality already (he fairly easily explains his sexuality to Alex, and has confidence in his sexual experience). I'll go into this when we talk about Alex more, but I think this stems from the characters being aged up, but what this also does is shifts the narrative from simply "coming out" to dealing with abusive relatives and power systems after you've come to terms with who you are as a person, and then finding the strength to actually fight them once you've built up your support network.

And progress isn't linear for anyone on this - we relapse, mourn old relationships with people and family we thought would support us, and sometimes silence ourselves because "it's easier"; we see this happen with Henry pretty explicitly when he runs from the lake house. The reconciliation with Alex isn't flawless either: Henry requests time and patience with things so he can slowly begin his process of actually tackling the issue of how his sexuality and relationship with Alex relates to and impacts his professional duties. Alex, in true found-family style, gives him the support that he both wants and needs at that point in the story.

Alex

Alex's portrayal in the film I think has been the more controversial of the two (Not in terms of actor choice, TZP is a fantastic actor... Also fine as hell but that's beside the point). Most people who read the book criticize his relatively short "Bi-panic" period and how they felt it was more fleshed out in the book. Again, we're dealing with a time boxed movie here, so obviously the book will have more details. That being said, I don't think it was as unrealistic as people make it out to be if you dig a bit. This part gets a bit speculative, but stick with me here.

While I can't relate to a Bi coming out being a gay man and all, I think people should look at some context regarding the character's background: Alex is an incredibly flirtatious, personable, and media-savvy character who is also steeped in left-leaning politics. He knows what bisexuality is and given that he had a few same-sex experiences, has probably come to terms with that before his conversation with Nora in her office. In that scene he even stated that being into guys was something he understood for himself, his main source of "panic" was more the realization that he was specifically into Henry, someone he was actually angry and antagonistic with for several years.

As for why he seemed trepid first telling Henry he was Bi, and this is speaking from experience, there's a huge difference between coming to terms with who you're attracted to and putting a label on it for the first time, even to yourself. I think TZP acted that awkwardness well, especially in the Paris scene where, to shift gears a bit, the driving queer experience is Alex's inexperience with going that far with other guys, something most of us go through at some point. And again, in good, supportive fashion, Henry guides Alex through the process without judgement.

Alex and Henry

Both Alex and Henry are older in the movie than they are in the book, a fact that Lopez confirmed via interview. Even though it's only a few years, there's a huge difference in understanding your identity between your late-teens/early 20s and your mid 20s (generally speaking, people can come out at any age and that's completely fine. Everyone deserves to come out at their own pace and in their own way). With this, I think they did a good Job shifting the narrative from the more internal conflict of "who am I", which is very common in teen-centered dramas, to the more nuanced experience of figuring out how "Who I am" is going to impact your relationships and professional life, which I think is more befitting older characters. With Alex, it's how it will look to voters/impact on his mother's reelection AND how it impacts Henry's professional responsibilities; with Henry, it's his duties to the royal family and appearances.

*PHEW*

There's a lot more too when you dig. A personal... Um, well "favorite" isn't a great word, but you get my point - is how some members of the community will actively sabotage others for personal gain: Miguel outing them for the sake of professional ambitions (and maybe some light petty retribution for Alex dumping him, wherein Alex was justified) is unfortunately a pretty common experience.

I'm sure that there will be more to add for this if there's a sequel, which I hope there is and that they bring McQuiston in for (talk about marketing: she writes the outline based on the movie and the novel based on the first book which releases at the same time as the second movie. People would go nuts I'm sure).

Asides

We as a community spent years reading into media to find scraps of representation because that's all we could get, but I think we're not great at reading into it with more explicit movies that, while maybe building themselves off of "traditional" genre frameworks, still have those queer experiences. I think we set our standards too high sometimes because we are so starved for representation. What we got in this movie is, at least in my opinion, decent representation and authentic experiences for many people in our community, it's just subtle and maybe requires a deeper read of a character or scene. I picked up on some of these points and I hope other people can see some of the arguments I'm making here.

As a complete aside, I think we've been brainwashed a bit to think that "queer experiences = struggle" automatically and we're too quick to disregard queer media as "not gay enough" if there's not a suitable amount of angst or a particular identity isn't represented (This is NOT me minimizing the struggles of the LGBT+ community, just making a statement that maybe we shouldn't hinge our identities and portrayals in media on such negative experiences). Gay stories don't have to be tragic or full of existential crisis as it pertains to our identity. And while maybe unrealistic, some good fluff is healthy to see alongside the angst. As we progress as a culture and we become more accepted, struggle hopefully becomes less and less a unifying aspect of queer identity and we'll be able to see that reflected in our media.

tl;dr

I think the movie has more going for it in terms of queer experience than people give it credit for, it's just not what's typically seen in visual media and is buried in there a bit deeper. Just because it's a "Hallmark movie" structurally and plays into tropes doesn't mean it's not gay.

[reginaldqueribundus]

I watched Goncharov 2 so you wouldn't have to

I love seeing Goncharov have this weird renaissance on tumblr. It’s like when we all decided to get collectively obsessed with Dracula and the Epic of Gilgamesh. but did you know there's a sequel??

granted it's pretty obscure, like Eighties Bulgarian Treasure Planet levels of obscure, but you can actually watch the whole thing on YouTube for free. I can't even find the original poster, just this shitty DVD cover from Amazon:

FUN FACTS ABOUT GONCHAROV 2

released in 1985, long after anybody would've given a shit about the original

features none of the original cast (except, weirdly enough, the guy playing Andrey's driver, despite Andrey himself being absent)

SOMEHOW passes the Bechdel test

was apparently produced by Benito Mussolini's kid???

the movie starts with a weird, pointless nightclub scene with a ton of characters who get shot dead and are never seen again. it went on for so long I genuinely started thinking this was a Troll 2 situation, where somebody slapped completely unrelated movie's name on this for free clout; but no, this is actually supposed to be a sequel! the plot is that Goncharov's brother, who is also called Goncharov, just wants to sell flowers in Milan but his uncle Vladimir Espinoza (lmao) finds him and drags him off to fight a Galician crime lord named Iago for reasons that aren't clearly explained (and shamelessly rip off the Rocky training montage while they're at it). His Designated Love Interest™ is “Marina”, (imagine a Costco knockoff of Sofia with way more cleavage), whose job is to get kidnapped a lot. She sadly doesn’t get any sapphic undertones aside from a couple weirdly horny scenes with a nameless assassin masseuse who is inexplicably called “the Algerian” despite being portrayed by a Japanese actress (yikes).

The dialogue is so truly awful I strongly suspect English was not the writer's first language. At one point Uncle Vladimir tells his nephew to “gouge out their livers like a beak of the mad kestrel”. I'm 100% certain the guy playing him was hired for his weird resemblance to Al Pacino and not any acting talent; he delivers every line like there's a gun to his head but he also swallowed 30 Ambien. Iago is supposedly Spanish(?) but played by one of the whitest guys I've ever seen (Xander Crane, who has an objectively cooler name than his actual character — dude sounds like a Bond villain). He does a godawful fake accent and keeps accenting the wrong syllables. The part where he screams GON-CHAAAAAA-ROV!! has to be seen to be believed. The mangled English also makes the torture scene unintentionally hilarious, especially when Iago asks “Are you trying to f**k me?” and creates 20x more gay vibes than every Andrey/Goncharov scene combined.

some moments (ex. not-Sofia and Uncle Vlad keep mentioning Katya, but they talk about her like she was this Goncharov's lover) makes me wonder if they started the screenplay before watching Goncharov 1 all the way through, and it was supposed to be about OG Goncharov but they had to quickly rewrite it to be his brother instead. I really hope that's true cuz it would be hilarious and explain why they made a sequel to a movie where most of the characters die at the end.

Aside from (holy shit) Val Kilmer as one of Iago's bodyguards, no one involved with this film has worked on anything else you've ever heard of. The writer isn't even listed on IMDb, and Giuseppe Stromboli's entire filmography consists of this, a kids' cartoon called Spaghetti Briefcase and a bunch of weird Italian chewing gum commercials (which are also on YouTube btw). Matteo JWHJ pops up in the credits as a producer so I can only assume he was desperate for cash.

so yeah. Goncharov 2 is objectively terrible and problematic and lacking in gay vibes or juicy Goncharov lore, but if you want something to get drunk and laugh at with your friends it's got you covered

join me next time and we'll talk about the Goncharov director's cut

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

when i wear make up it’s like. a drag act btw.

[writer-monster]

11 reasons why cap 4 should reintroduce Bucky Barnes as the love interest, an essay

to start this off, i am not writing this essay from a shipping place nor do i believe that this would have any influence at all over the upcoming movie. i expect nothing. this is simply something that i would personally like to see. (of course no hate to anybody who thinks differently)

here are 11 reasons why i think making Bucky into Sam Wilson's love interest in Cap 4 would be a good move for Disney.

-

1. on the Chinese film market - and why it's an irrelevant argument against the inclusion of homosexual themes in Cap 4

the Chinese film market is something that has been blamed for a lack of diversity in Hollywood films a lot lately. many people claim that this market with a lot of buying power has been responsible for the lack of gay and black representation in particular within Hollywood films.

and we have certainly seen Hollywood treating it as such, going so far as to cut gay scenes from movies for their Chinese releases, and vastly minimising John Boyega's (a black actor's) presence in the Chinese poster of Star Wars The Force Awakens.

[image ID: on the left is an image of the American poster for Star Wars The Force Awakens, featuring John Boyega prominently on the right-hand side. And on the right is the Chinese poster for the same movie, in which John Boyega is barely visible.]

so we know at the very least that Disney believes this through their own actions and efforts to self-censor for the different markets.

but Captain America 4 is a black-led movie, don't you forget. and Disney can't minimise Sam Wilson/Anthony Mackie in the movie or the poster because it's his movie and his poster. and no amount of creativity in the editing room can change that (thank God!).

so if by their own argument the film is already going to be either banned, panned or slammed in China... then what do they have to fear from making it a gay movie too?

-

2. oh, the queerbaiting

queerbaiting is an unusual cultural idea. and sometimes i find myself thinking that the term is far too easily used, but then all of a sudden i will stumble upon a movie or show that is so quintessentially cruel and overt in it's... well... queerbaiting that i will start to wonder what the hell kind of a bizarre relationship all these straight people seem to have with their friends. take Troy and Abed from Community or John and Sherlock from Sherlock as the perfect examples of this. (in which my reaction to the show's creators saying the show wasn't gay was to ask so then why did you make it so gay?!)

i felt that Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes in tfatws were getting quite close to this level of queerbaiting.

there was the field scene, the couple's counselling scene, the boat scene, the couple's counselling scene, Bucky going with Sam to face Karli when she told Sam to come alone, the couple's counselling scene, ALL the staring scenes, Sam checking out Bucky's ass here as they said goodbye, the "i would move in with him but" hidden scene, "Uncle Bucky" showing up at the cookout scene, the romantic walking off together into the sunset together ending scene, and the couple's counselling scene. did i forget anything? but i mean seriously, the couple's counselling scene!!! that thing they did with their legs and their crotches while staring deep into each other's eyes, would any straight guy willingly do that? do straight guys crotch-snuggle now?

[image ID: an image of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes during the therapy scene with the quote, "Isn't anybody going to drag me into impromptu couple's therapy and slot my legs firmly between theirs before staring deeply into my eyes?"]

(yeah i stole this image from a buzzfeed article on the fan reactions to the couple's therapy scene. but given that they stole 80% of the content of that article from fandom tumblr, i think it's pretty even-steven.)

there's also the fact that people started talking about bisexual Bucky Barnes a lot after the tiger pictures line, and the lead writer Malcom Spellman responded to the talk of Bucky's bisexuality with "just keep watching". well we watched, Malcolm. but it's beginning to feel like you were just jerking us around.

-

3. the writing

seriously though, what else is Bucky Barnes doing right now in the MCU? his only remaining connection to anything going on right now is through Sam. there is literally nothing else established that's left for him to do that doesn't involve Sam. he moved to Louisiana to be closer to Sam (canonically), he hangs out with Sam's family (canonically), and Steve is presumably gone and is definitely not coming back for more adventures.

he has no villains or loose ends left. he has no other superheroes that he appears to be in contact with. he has no girlfriend or potential love interest, or even other friends or family. he is living in a tent that he has secretly set up in Sam's backyard and is mysteriously appearing from the bushes when it's time for dinner like a stray cat.

in my opinion there is no other meaningful and pre-established progression for Bucky's character that wouldn't just feel cheap.

plus, i don't think the general audience would be all that surprised if they kissed. i think a LOT of people picked up on all that tension. i think a lot of straight people picked up on all that tension too.

-

4. the chemistry between the actors & the chemistry between the characters

the original pitch for tfatws was essentially just this, it was the chemistry between Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie and their respective MCU characters of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson.

now obviously Anthony and Sebastian are simply friends, and i wouldn't mean to imply anything more. but they are also not their characters.

Sam and Bucky's scenes together before tfatws were both limited and short, and yet audiences still fell in love with the dynamic between the two characters.

in interviews, these two actors are constantly slipping into character and flirting with each other and frankly it's adorable. plus it's really entertaining. i'd love to see that dynamic, unfiltered, in a movie.

because believe it or not the flirting is actually even more open in their interviews than it was in tfatws. and i'm leaving some links as proof.

this here is known as the "married" compilation

and here's a "lucky dip" selection of interviews - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,

and here's Anthony trying to get Seb to take his jacket off.

i'm just saying, why not let their chemistry shine? these two are so talented and so entertaining, especially when you put them in a room together. and can you imagine how absolutely hilarious and brilliant it would be to watch them navigate being a couple?

(and for those who bring up the "friends would be uncomfortable pretending to be dating" argument, i'm not here asking for a sex scene or anything. i don't think anyone would expect them to show any more intimacy (physical or emotional) while playing a couple than what they've already shown together in say... tfatws or in their own interviews. not that i actually expect anything regardless.)

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5. if they were a man and a woman they would've gotten together in tfatws

i have no more to add here. just that... yeah, they would've.

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6. and i'm not talking about the comics here, i'm talking about the MCU.

i understand fully that none of what i'm saying here falls in line with these characters from the comics. but the mcu itself doesn't fall much in line with the comics either, and these two characters especially are very different from their comics counterparts.

i'm not asking for these two to get together in the comics. tbh i don't think that it would work.

but the mcu Sam and Bucky are different and closer than their comics counterparts. they've got different histories, different backstories, and a very different dynamic. please rest assured that i am only talking about them in the mcu.

-

7. Bucky Barnes is believably bisexual. and Sam Wilson has never been proven to be straight in the mcu, nor has he had a love interest.

(now please continue to keep in mind that these points only stand for the mcu versions of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson, and not at all for their comics counterparts.)

Sam Wilson has never had a love interest, which is crazy because have you seen that man! he has had two blink and you'll miss it moments of verbal expression of attraction to women, both in TWS. and that's the extent of it, through his entire history in the mcu.

Bucky Barnes has had a number of surface-level female love interests, but none of them even came close to the level of connection and chemistry that Bucky shares with Sam.

and i'm sorry SarahBucky fans, but i just don't think there's very much to their relationship either. i love Sarah, i really do. but it's Sam who shares all the meaningful moments and history and chemistry with Bucky. and i don't see what making her into a love interest would do for Sarah's character either, what would that add to her story?

[Picture ID: Bucky at the cookout with Sam, Sarah, Cass and AJ. Bucky and Sam are looking at each other and smiling.]

and also there is the whole tiger pictures thing... again. which does strongly suggest that Bucky is bisexual whether this was intentional on behalf of the writers or not.

-

8. it's representation... AND it feels natural

marvel hasn't had a lot of queer representation that's been noticeably present in the MCU at the time of writing this.

there have been a lot of failures so far, from the bisexual erasure of Valkyrie in Thor Ragnarok to the wlw erasure in Black Panther.

there was queerbaiting almost identical to the bisexual Bucky baiting for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. when asked if he had considered featuring a gay hero in gotg2, director James Gunn stated that "We might have already done that. I say, watch the movie." after the movie's release audiences were understandably confused about the lack of queer representation. To which the director followed up his comments with, "But we don't really know who's gay and who's not. It could be any of them."

there is also Loki, considered by most fans after the airing of his six episode series on Disney+ to be both a poor attempt at both genderfluid representation and bisexual representation. with both attempts being summed up fairly well by the term "blink-and-you'll-miss-it". (also it's just terribly written and Loki doesn't wear any interesting clothes! fanficcers are a Goddamn blessing in this hard time!)

and let us not forget that Andrew Garfield was apparently FIRED for pushing for a bisexual spiderman. a bisexual spiderman within an interracial mlm relationship no less.

so for all these failures, marvel, why not allow us queer fans this? two brilliant and heroic men in a loving interracial relationship. two heroes that we can look up to.

now, one of the biggest detractions from the argument for representation is the idea of "forced diversity". and some poorly written characters certainly do end up feeling forced into the narrative. take Iceman in the comics for example, with Jean Grey just straight up suddenly telling him he's gay. like, marvel, sweetie, that's not how this works! and i don't know a lot of queer people who thought much of that "representation".

but the crux of the "forced diversity" argument is almost always that it feels unnatural within the story, right? and i don't think that anyone could say that about MCU Sam and Bucky ending up together, given these characters' existing chemistry and their history. they've both played characters in gay relationships before so we know that it's not outside of either actor's wheelhouse. and y'all know that Anthony and Seb can act, people. if it's in the script i believe that they'll make it seem like the most natural thing on earth.

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9. it'd be a nice change

there's been an ongoing meme lately about "Disney's first gay character", the joke being that they continually announce gay characters without really ever including gay characters in their films.

this is to the point where Disney has formed a reputation amongst queer audiences of being homophobic.

if Sam and Bucky were to become a couple, then Disney could have its first actual gay character within a gay relationship. AND have him be in the lead of his own movie, no less.

it's also worth keeping in mind that there's likely an overlap between the people who were outraged by a Sam Wilson Captain America, and the people who'd be outraged by a gay Captain America. and if they were already not seeing the film, then i don't think much is gonna change that.

queer audiences would definitely love it, and the media attention would be guaranteed to be huge. i mean, simply look at the amount of media attention mere rumours of a character's queerness gets you and multiply that by a canon confirmation of said rumours.

but i'm pretty sure that Disney already knows this.

-

10. and yet, in truth, it's not about the representation

in truth i've never felt that i had any trouble relating to characters of any sexual orientation, race, gender, sex, body type, etc. (although that is not to throw any shade at all on people who do wish to see themselves represented) but for me, i think it's more about the story than the packaging.

and yet, a love story is still just a story. straight or queer, monoethnic or interracial. when two characters have chemistry and history and have sacrificed for each other time and time again, and they also can't keep their hands or their eyes off each other, then i'm pretty sure that that's a love story.

straight or queer, monoethnic or interracial, it shouldn't be about these simple labels. it should be about how well written the relationship is. it should be about chemistry, and history, and sacrifice.

because i'm fucking sick of all the hollow, forced romances in media no matter the genders of the participants. i'm sick of lazily written, shallow relationships where any two people sharing the same space for any extended period of time will simply fall in love. it's boring, it's repetitive, and as a writer myself it drives me up the wall!

romance stories suck! and everyone knows that romance stories suck. between twilight, and most of the entire YA genre, and love triangles (so boring), and romance used as poorly-written throwaway subplots in Hollywood movies, the world is in agreement that the romance in western media is simply dreadful. and yet we still want love stories. it's an entire genre that sits at the heart of the human experience (<3), and yet one which so few of today's best known writers seem truly able to capture.

i don't think that i'm the only one who feels this way, either. i suspect it's actually a large part of why fandom is so romance-centred in the first place, that we're all just starving for a good love story.

(btw i think fandom has a reputation for being something that as a whole that it is not. it has this reputation for straight up demanding things and harassing people until they get their way. while unfortunately there are a few people who do this, they're fucking annoying and i swear that they're far from the majority.

in my experience fandom is mostly about writing a five thousand word story at three am while drunk off your ass because it might make someone whom you've never met smile, editing it in the cold light of day, and then posting it. expecting nothing. sometimes getting nothing. and sometimes getting someone send you kudos or a comment so heartbreakingly wonderful that it makes you smile in return.)

-

11. so once again, it is all about the writing.

i want to see Sam and Bucky get together in the mcu, not because they would be a gay couple but because i genuinely believe that their story has potential to be an amazing love story.

and i know the mcu isn't about the romance. it's why in my personal opinion we haven't gotten a lot of good canon romances besides Peter Quill and Gamora. and i don't think that the mcu should be all about the romance either. i fucking love the action and the fighting scenes. i love the comedy. Captain America: The Winter Soldier had no romance and it was a fucking treasure, it was an amazing spy-action-thriller and it made my little gay heart dance. Thor Ragnarok had no romance, and it was an utterly brilliant comedic spectacle action film. not every movie needs romance.

but mcu Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes were doing couple's therapy and fixing a boat and walking off into the sunset together in tfatws. they were inseparable on the battlefield. they've got a dynamic. it's beautiful, it's romantic, and it's gold.

a budding relationship between them in the next movie would be a good way to explore both characters more without the narrative feeling too stilted and separate. at the end of tfatws, both Sam and Bucky fans found that their respective fave felt somewhat underutilised and that their characters were underexplored.

now, that problem would be even more difficult to remedy in a movie, because the plotline of a movie needs to be really tight to work (giggity). and we know that the central conflict of the movie is gonna be action-based (which is good), but we still need each character's personal journey and growth to tie into the main conflict. (which is another issue that some fans found with tfatws, that these characters didn't really feel connected to the action-based plot on a more personal level.)

if Sam and Bucky are already in a relationship, however, this whole dynamic changes. first, their relationship has already been set up for nicely since TWS and through tfatws and they would officially be the best-fleshed-out couple in the mcu. but most importantly, a relationship gives them a perfect vehicle to explore both of their pasts comparatively and connect them personally to the action-based plot.

do you want to establish that Sam is a little too trusting and naïve? then establish this through his relationship with Bucky, and through showing his placing his trust in Bucky. (rather than through having him sympathise with a villain who threatened to murder his sister and his nephews).

perhaps you want to show Bucky recovering from his trauma? show us how comfortable he is with Sam. they get along, they're enjoying each other's presence, we see more of Sam's life and of his family, and then let Bucky tell Sam something that's raw and dark and honest about his life as The Winter Soldier. something about a memory, one that he only just recalled. he's opening up. and maybe what he tells Sam is even something that sets up the future action-based conflict, to ground that in something real.

you want to explore that Sam has trauma too? do this through Bucky. he tells Bucky a story about his time in the military. in the form of a flashback, he shares his own story of loss to evoke before the audience the shared theme of feeling at fault even when you're simply a helpless bystander to an act of pure destruction.

then, action sequence! and it's directly connected to Bucky's time as the Winter Soldier. explore the grief of someone whose life the Winter Soldier tore apart manifesting into a villain perpetuating the cycle of pain. establish your villain.

Later, Sam is dragged into battle against this villain for protecting Bucky. But Bucky doesn't want Sam to protect him. He feels guilt for what he can't control and he doesn't want Sam getting hurt because of him. Bucky reminds Sam that he has a family, one who needs him and who loves him. He tells him to go home.

Sam reminds Bucky that he's a part of that family. And that sure Sam's a hero and his job is to protect anyone and everyone, but that he's doing it because he wants to. It's not simply to prove that he can, or to prove that he's not a bystander (this connects to Sam's trauma here), but that he's doing it to help people.

and this gets Bucky thinking about who he is and what he's doing here. is he a hero who stands by Sam's side? or is he an ordinary man who stands aside? or perhaps, does he stand alone? what does he stand for? Maybe Sam knows. But does Bucky?

Sam and Bucky fight off the villain again, and for the first time Bucky meets this adversary face to face. And Bucky recognises this villain, and has a flashback to the genuine pain that he inflicted upon them in the form of the Winter Soldier. Bucky freezes mid-fight, he almost dies, and Sam has to save him.

Sam chews Bucky out for almost getting killed because he was afraid for him. but Bucky takes this the wrong way and goes off to fight the villain alone, or perhaps to die alone, he's not quite sure.

He puts up a half-hearted fight. He apologises for what the Winter Soldier has done, and he waits for the killing blow, when Sam swoops down and he saves him. He asks Sam why he saved him and Sam calls him a moron. And then, Sam asks him what sacrificing himself would solve. He tells him that you can't choose your past but you can choose your future (connecting to his own experience of loss and guilt and grief). And that no matter what Bucky Barnes still has a future, whether that's as the Winter Soldier or the White Wolf or just some dork with a day job. And that he has a future as a part of Sam's family too.

Sam fights the villain, and it's toe to toe. He delivers a few good blows, but receives a fair few himself. And then the villain tears off his wings, first one and then the other, in a manner reminiscent of what the Winter Soldier did to him in TWS. Through Bucky's eyes there's a flashback to highlight the parallels. Sam gets back on his feet and he fights his best fight, but is now losing.

And then the heavily injured Bucky steps up and fights by Sam's side, and only together do they take down the villain.

"So... I inspired you, huh?" Sam teases with a smile, utterly exhausted. "With my heroism and-"

"You inspired me." Bucky said, equally exhausted. "Let's leave it at that."

Together, Sam and Bucky go back to the safety and warmth of their family. Sam fixes his wings. Sam goes back to being Captain America. And Bucky... he's around, but it's unclear what he's doing.

That is, until the very end. When Sam is in a fight, and suddenly Bucky shows up and helps him out.

"What are you doing here?" Sam asks.

"I've made up my mind." Bucky says. "I'm the Winter Soldier. But now I'll save lives, Sam. Now, like you, I'll be a hero."

Sam smirks. "So does this make you my sidekick, then?"

Bucky smiles. "C'mon, at least make me a partner." He says.

"How about co-workers." Sam says (in flashback, he remembers back to the death of his last on-the-job partner).

"How about friends." Bucky says, with a wry look.

"Bucky... I don't want to see you put your dumbass self in danger." Sam says.

"Oh, and it's ok for you to go running off into danger on your own all the time?" Bucky asks.

"Yes." Sam says stubbornly. "Absolutely it is."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not a dumbass?!"

"Sam, if you think I'm not gonna be watching your back for the rest of time... then you're the biggest dumbass I know. And I don't care if you need me or not, I will be there for you."

"Because Sam, you're more than Captain America. You're more than a good soldier. You're a good man. And I think sometimes, the world forgets what the difference is."

-

...or something like that.

(i only spent like 15 minutes on that. you know if i were actually writing this movie i would come up with something much better. and if anyone from marvel is seeing this, yes i can come work for you. i will make the time, let's do this thing right!)

-

finale

at the end of the day, whether or not the mcu chooses to make Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes a couple, it's their decision. and they don't owe me anything.

i'm just some random person on the internet. who thinks that Captain America 4 should #givecaptainamericaaboyfriend

[batfamtv]

me after writing smut: is this who i am? is this who i represent? lmao i've never written smut until trese, i guess the thirst was too much, let me know how y'all like it! thank you so much for all your support, ily <3

(ﾉ´ з `)ノ

kambal x reader; established relationship

gif by @rasputinaillyanna (see their original gifsets here!)

sfw

the three idiots

seriously, alexandra feels like she keeps aging 20+ years whenever you three are together and goofing around

this is one of the reasons why you’re not allowed on the field with them, they’d get absolutely nothing done

that, and the twins simply wont put you in danger under any circumstances

alexandra also treats you like a sister (in law) and wants you safe, but can only do so much to keep you out of their lives since you still find ways to help them out

absolutely rowdy when you’re with basilio, you and him practically have a lot of inside jokes and a secret language

people would give you both weird looks when you’re out in public, just because you’re both so damn loud

with crispin you’re more mature (but not a lot), he does these grand gestures like taking you out on expensive dates, takes instagram/pinterest style pics of you

basilio also takes pics of you, but those are some of the most unflattering ones that he sends to your groupchat as memes

the ppl who arent familiar with your relationship with the twins are almost often confused when they see you with just the one twin: they’d think “huh i saw this couple a week ago, but i could have sworn the boyfriend had much shorter hair, it couldn’t have grown that long in a week, right?”

when you do go out with the twins, they flank you and you almost get squished in between them, so sometimes you have to push them both to the sides so that you would have space to move around

the three of you like to just chill at the mall sometimes, go window shopping and then eat samgyup/mang inasal later on

other times when you manage to drag alexandra with you, people would assume that you guys are on a double date, and alexandra has the ugliest/most disgusted look on her face as she corrects them “these are my brothers” “im gay”

in your groupchat (just you and the twins) crispin is the sweet, doting one who would text you “have you eaten?” “want us to pick something up for you on the way home?” while basilio sends you memes and selfies of the twins

they send you videos and pics of pets they meet “today we met brownie and blackie”

with regards to living arrangements, the twins have separate rooms (basilio’s is the messy one, smells weird)

when you moved in, alexandra offered you your own room, and most of the time that’s where the boys stay anyway

the bed is much larger than theirs because it needs to accommodate all three of you

you three try to cook meals for ate alexandra, but it almost always turns out disastrous - mostly when basilio insists on helping

so you always make him run errands (“can you go pick up some more garlic and magic sarap”) while you and crispin man the stoves

you braid basilio’s hair while crispin tunes his guitar!!

and you spend a couple of hours listening to crispin play the guitar, basilio’s head now resting on your lap

crispin’s movie taste are like *film* and *poetic cinema* while basilio might enjoy movies that are so bad they’re good, but you three are all suckers for superhero ensemble movies and horror movies

the boys become really annoying when watching filipino horror movies because they like to point out mistakes in the film “aswangs dont do that” “why would you go there all alone are you stupid???”

“please boys i just wanna watch the movie”

a huge cuddle pile

both boys run hot, so during cold nights (that never happen, bc you live in the philippines) you’re all warm and toasty between them

both light sleepers! they were pretty heavy sleepers when they were kids/teenagers, but the occupational hazard of their jobs require them to be ready at a moment’s notice

they still, however, snore quite loudly

crispin doesn’t ever tend to move positions when sleeping, he wakes up in the same position he fell asleep in

basilio rotates around the bed like hands of a clock

most often falls off the bed, but clumsily climbs back up and cuddles you

really really simpy when it comes to you, though most of the time it’s just you three sharing one brain cell (it’s with you, mostly), they can be quite romantic and cheesy if they want to

crispin probably has his brother as just “Basilio” on his phone, and “Y/N ❤️" for you

basilio has “my love ❤️😍😘💘 ” for you and crispin’s number isn’t even registered lol

nsfw under the cut

nsfw

threesome? threesome

boys barely do anything separately and usually just have a Single Thought in both their heads, so if one is horny, the other one is 69% (lol) horny as well

you realize that crispin doesn’t like to be teased at work, but basilio enjoys it so much

you find this out when you’re alone and horny, so you send a pic of you touching yourself to the boys in your groupchat

crispin sees it first, but doesn’t say anything?? he honest to god just left you on read

meanwhile basilio also sees your pic not too long after and you quickly get a “what the fuck” as a reply from him

like 10 mins later he sends you a pic of him in what looks like a washroom and his cock is straining in his pants

he texts you “had to find a washroom so fucking fast so that ate alex and the police captain doesn’t see me so fucking hard in my pants” and “wanna eat you pussy babe”

crispin does text you when the three are on their way home, not mentioning the picture you sent “we’re on our way home”

and at first you thought he is mad at you bc he didn’t bring the nude up?? does he not want you anymore :(

but the moment they arrive crispin all but sprints to your shared bedroom and sees you there, in your underwear

holds your cheeks in one hand, “what the fuck was that baby, hmm? what did you send us?”

you try to ask if he’s mad bc you sent him a nude, ask him if there’s anything wrong, but he just lets your face go as he takes his suit off, basilio finds his way to your room, locks it, and gives you a kiss

basilio whispers “missed you baby” against your mouth before moving away to undress

crispin, now fully naked in front of you, makes you suck his cock, which is hard and twitching, its tip leaking with precum, he makes you place both his hands on your head, “do you know how surprised i was when i saw a text from you and it’s a picture of you touching your cunt? hmm?” he sighs as he sees you looking up at him, eyes watering as you struggle to take all of his cock down your throat “i had to stop myself from getting hard in front of everyone, baby, basilio couldn’t even do that”

basilio huffs but the boys reposition you so you’re in bed and on your back, crispin kneeling to your side, his cock still throbbing in your mouth, basilio positions himself between your thighs, moaning when he sees how wet you are

basilio removes your panties before rushing to sniff your cunt, groaning in delight--you’re sure his eyes roll to the back of his head before he dives into your cunt

you moan into crispin’s cock and he grunts, shoving more of his cock into your mouth, now moving faster, “i really wanna cum down your throat baby, would you let me?”

you nod and he pushes his cock all the way into your mouth, your nose practically touching his groin and pubes

you gag, for a moment panicked as you try to breathe in, while crispin just eyes you, his cock growing ever harder when he looks at your face wet with tears and drool, he grabs your hair, softly at first, to make sure you’re okay, and when you nod crispin groans as he sets up his pace, groaning as he feels his orgasm building

basilio, meanwhile, is licking and sucking your clit with three fingers knuckles deep in your cunt, and when he starts to feel you spasming, a telltale sign that your orgasm is approaching, he pulls his mouth and fingers out and quickly replacing them with his fat cock

immediately, you and basilio both groan, your eyes roll to the back of your head as you feel yourself so full of cock

basilio curses under his breath before taking your legs and resting them against his shoulders “fuck, y/n, im sorry i’m not gonna last long” “your pussy got me so fucking hard you tasted so good baby, you know how much i love your little pussy, right?”

crispin groans at this before he pulls his cock out of your mouth, leaning down to kiss you, he then moves down your neck and your tits, making sure he marks your chest

basilio whimpers and thrusts three more times before releasing a long groan, his cum exploding deep in your pussy “fuck baby you feel so good” he manages to pull out and you see his cock wet with his cum and your juices before settling beside you, panting harshly

you barely had the type to recuperate before crispin flips you on your stomach, making sure your face is resting on the pillows before he thrusts into you with a grunt

“fuck, still a tight little pussy after basilio rammed your cunt, huh?”

your eyes rolling, you couldnt do much other than hold onto the sheets and basilio’s hand, moaning loudly when you feel crispin’s fingers on your clit

“can you take one more, y/n? can your pussy take one more load?”

speechless, you nod, trying to grind your ass against crispin’s hips, but his hands on your hips hold you firm

he grunts approvingly, “good baby, take it deep in your pussy okay? and cum on my cock, baby, i wanna feel it”

you cum on his cock, almost violently, and twins groan at the sound of your moaning, and the sight of you spasming and shaking on crispin’s cock

a couple of deep thrusts later, crispin also cums deep into your pussy, his cum now mixed with basilio’s

crispin moves to get a washcloth to clean the three of you up, before all three of you collapse in bed, huddled together, basilio with his arms wrapped from behind--already falling asleep, you rest your head against crispin’s arm

“so, no more nudes when you’re at work?”

crispin laughs softly before pressing a kiss on your forehead, “unless your cunt is ready to take two cocks at once, no nudes when we’re at work”

[villainess-supremacy]

headcanons of the four lords celebrating pride for the first time with their s/o

notes: you told them that it's pride month and asked if they would like to celebrate with you. none of them have ever celebrated pride before. I made the lords and s/o queer because I can

type: sfw, gender and sexuality of the s/o are not specified

tw/cw: slight mention of alcohol, blood, lgbtphobes

requests: open

Alcina Dimitrescu

her daughters have mentioned pride month before, but she's not sure what it entails exactly

you gladly explain it to her in detail!

she loves the idea since she is fruity herself loves celebrating for such a wonderful reason

you being part of it makes it so much better

and a whole month?? she's in

she would love to go to pride events with you, but she's afraid other mortals will be scared of her due to her height so you decide to just have your own celebrations in the castle

you love watching movies together so you show her all of your favorite queer movies and shows

you bought a pride flag to hang up below the balcony in the entrance hall

she loves the smile on your face when you proudly look up at it

"maybe we should extend pride to be all year if it makes you this happy, my love."

she already regularly gives you presents, but during the entirety of pride month she additionally leaves little gifts for you in your shared bedroom, the kitchen and all of your favorite places in the castle

and that daily

if there is any queer owned shop you like she will literally buy their entire stock

if there are any charities you mention she will gladly donate in your name and give you the certificate as a surprise

she realizes that something about June just makes her want you even more in general, in the private chambers, whichever is up to you wink wink

as a surprise she decides to make a special wine without blood of course named after you and your sexuality/gender if you use labels, but in fancy Latin words

she loves to drink, but of course watches over you so you don't have too much

mortals don't process it as well as she does...

if you come across any lgbtphobes and are noticeably saddened she will be there to distract you right away

everyone who dares to make her love sad will feel her wrath! be ignored since they're not worth her time

but if she finds out that anyone in the village doesn't support you or anyone who is part of the lgbt community, they will be forced asked to vacate their home

she will pamper you and shower you with her love even more

you once jokingly say "be gay do crime and turn maidens into wine" and she makes it her new motto but she's serious about it

Donna Beneviento

she knows a couple things about pride since she reads a lot, but you're so excited to tell her about it she simply lets you talk

you'd love to go to pride events with her but she's too shy and tends to have anxiety attacks when around too many strangers so she sends Angie instead

afterwards she will gladly listen to both of you tell her all about it!

she has her own collection of books that have queer characters in them which she never told anyone about before you and will read all of them with you if you like

there will be regular dates picnics while Angie takes care of the house

she's a cottage core sapphic and pride month brings out that side of her more

she has made dolls for you before, but this time she makes one that looks just like you

it has a pride flag embroidered on the top above the heart

of course you love it!

you're so glad that she accepts every part of you

she will make one of herself with a similar outfit and a small pride flag as well so she can set them up in couple settings

ever since she found out about online shopping it has opened up a whole new world for her so she will definitely get both of you matching outfits or jewelry from an lgbt owned shop

you love doing arts and crafts together so you suggest making bracelets for each other, either color coded or with letters

Donna's house has a flagpole she hasn't used in decades, but for you she'd gladly call for maintenance if it turns out it's unusable after all these years to hang a pride flag

anything to make you happy!

if there are any lgbtphobes bothering you or your friends, she will be right there to comfort you and won't hesitate to send Angie and her other dolls she can control to deal with them

even if you tell her that it's fine and she should just ignore them she's great at distracting you so you wouldn't notice until it's done oops-

since she has no portable device that can access music streaming platforms, but knows the password to your phone she decides to steal it for a bit and makes you the softest playlist that you since then often play for comfort

Salvatore Moreau

he has spent decades almost completely separated from humans so he has no idea what pride month means, but instantly agrees to it because he loves you so much

he will agree to anything that makes you happy

you both sit down and he looks at you with puppy eyes while you tell him all about pride

he loves the idea of celebrating a group of people you both are a part of

he thinks you deserve your own month to be cherished and celebrated!

he may be a little awkward with expressing his feelings, but he sure knows how to prepare a romantic dinner

with mother miranda needing all of the lords a lot to assist her, he usually barely has time to prep food, but for pride month he does his best to cook for you every single day

part of his usual outfit is a cape to cover his back and a type of crown made out of bones and rope

he's not the best with his hands, but he makes a crown for you that resembles his anyway because you're his queen/king/majesty

you love it so much!

you want to give him something in return so you go to the village and visit the shop you know is lgbt owned and get him a custom necklace with a fish pendant that has your initials engraved

he literally bursts out in tears because he is so touched :c

when you started dating he initially was scared of what you would think about his giant fish form, but you turned out to be really impressed and love it and since you'd be tiny compared to him he suggests taking you on an adventure of sorts

meaning you sit on his back while he swims around the lake which is like a roller coaster ride but more wet

he leads you to a hut you never visited before and he shows you treasures he has collected when he was still mortal

he starts making a list of things you could do and stays up all night to complete it but ends up with so many activities and ideas to celebrate pride you'll have to extend pride month... by possibly years....

if he hears about anyone being mean to you he'll just encase them into the blobs of gooey mass he can make but you don't need to know about that, pride month or not

he has always wanted to propose to you so he might be able to work up the courage to hint at it by the end of June

Karl Heisenberg

of course he knows about pride month!

he knows more than you might think

he isn't considered the rebel child for no reason

in the past he has done some celebration for himself, but it was never anything too special

he thinks it's no fun alone and his experiments servants aren't much fun

sure he could program them, but unless it's to attack something they're not really... party animals

since he has you now he'll gladly give it another go!

he'd love to go to pride events with you, especially if you go to drag shows

he didn't know about them before you made him go to one

something about them fascinates him so much, he's more excited than you

he's not really into cooking, but nothing will stop him from making you a nice breakfast in bed

you always love watching him work on his machines because he likes to take off his shirt when he's hot seeing him do what he loves makes you happy

so he decides to gift you some robots to assist you with your everyday endeavors

it's not really necessary but of course you appreciate the gesture

it means more time to spend with him after all

he once sees you with a keychain that has a pride flag on it so he paints it on one of his machines that he uses more often

mostly he will end the day by having a drink and dancing with you

it's a celebration, so celebrate he will

if you're more in the mood for chilling on the couch he won't say no to watching some queer shows or movies

after working on his machines he has a way of just melting into your arms

if he sees you smile at certain scenes in movies he might attempt to do the same with you

of course you notice, but you definitely can't complain especially if you smile on purpose at the spicier scenes

anyone who will come between you and happily celebrating pride will be visited by Sturm banned from his factory and getting anywhere near you

he likes to name his subjects so he will start naming them after all of your favorite queer historical figures, activists and famous people in general

any smile he can get out of you is a win

a win for the gays you might say

when he was younger he may have had a phase of spraying graffiti around the village so you're not surprised when he goes around his factory and writes "be gay do crime" on several of his machines and doors

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on: Criterion's Neo-Noir Collection

I have written up all 26 films* in the Criterion Channel's Neo-Noir Collection.

Legend: rw - rewatch; a movie I had seen before going through the collection dnrw - did not rewatch; if a movie met two criteria (a. I had seen it within the last 18 months, b. I actively dislike it) I wrote it up from memory.

* in September, Brick leaves the Criterion Channel and is replaced in the collection with Michael Mann's Thief. May add it to the list when that happens.

Note: These are very "what was on my mind after watching." No effort has been made to avoid spoilers, nor to make the plot clear for anyone who hasn't seen the movies in question. Decide for yourself if that's interesting to you.

Cotton Comes to Harlem I feel utterly unequipped to asses this movie. This and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song the following year are regularly cited as the progenitors of the blaxploitation genre. (This is arguably unfair, since both were made by Black men and dealt much more substantively with race than the white-directed films that followed them.) Its heroes are a couple of Black cops who are treated with suspicion both by their white colleagues and by the Black community they're meant to police. I'm not 100% clear on whether they're the good guys? I mean, I think they are. But the community's suspicion of them seems, I dunno... well-founded? They are working for The Man. And there's interesting discussion to the had there - is the the problem that the law is carried out by racists, or is the law itself racist? Can Black cops make anything better? But it feels like the film stacks the deck in Gravedigger and Coffin Ed's favor; the local Black church is run by a conman, the Back-to-Africa movement is, itself, a con, and the local Black Power movement is treated as an obstacle. Black cops really are the only force for justice here. Movie portrays Harlem itself as a warm, thriving, cultured community, but the people that make up that community are disloyal and easily fooled. Felt, to me, like the message was "just because they're cops doesn't mean they don't have Black soul," which, nowadays, we would call copaganda. But, then, do I know what I'm talking about? Do I know how much this played into or off of or against stereotypes from 1970? Was this a radical departure I don't have the context to appreciate? Is there substance I'm too white and too many decades removed to pick up on? Am I wildly overthinking this? I dunno. Seems like everyone involved was having a lot of fun, at least. That bit is contagious.

Across 110th Street And here's the other side of the "race film" equation. Another movie set in Harlem with a Black cop pulled between the police, the criminals, and the public, but this time the film is made by white people. I like it both more and less. Pro: this time the difficult position of Black cop who's treated with suspicion by both white cops and Black Harlemites is interrogated. Con: the Black cop has basically no personality other than "honest cop." Pro: the racism of the police force is explicit and systemic, as opposed to comically ineffectual. Con: the movie is shaped around a racist white cop who beats the shit out of Black people but slowly forms a bond with his Black partner. Pro: the Black criminal at the heart of the movie talks openly about how the white world has stacked the deck against him, and he's soulful and relateable. Con: so of course he dies in the end, because the only way privileged people know to sympathetize with minorities is to make them tragic (see also: The Boys in the Band, Philadelphia, and Brokeback Mountain for gay men). Additional con: this time Harlem is portrayed as a hellhole. Barely any of the community is even seen. At least the shot at the end, where the criminal realizes he's going to die and throws the bag of money off a roof and into a playground so the Black kids can pick it up before the cops reclaim it was powerful. But overall... yech. Cotton Comes to Harlem felt like it wasn't for me; this feels like it was 100% for me and I respect it less for that.

The Long Goodbye (rw) The shaggiest dog. Like much Altman, more compelling than good, but very compelling. Raymond Chandler's story is now set in the 1970's, but Philip Marlowe is the same Philip Marlowe of the 1930's. I get the sense there was always something inherently sad about Marlowe. Classic noir always portrayed its detectives as strong-willed men living on the border between the straightlaced world and its seedy underbelly, crossing back and forth freely but belonging to neither. But Chandler stresses the loneliness of it - or, at least, the people who've adapted Chandler do. Marlowe is a decent man in an indecent world, sorting things out, refusing to profit from misery, but unable to set anything truly right. Being a man out of step is here literalized by putting him forty years from the era where he belongs. His hardboiled internal monologue is now the incessant mutterings of the weird guy across the street who never stops smoking. Like I said: compelling! Kael's observation was spot on: everyone in the movie knows more about the mystery than he does, but he's the only one who cares. The mystery is pretty threadbare - Marlowe doesn't detect so much as end up in places and have people explain things to him. But I've seen it two or three times now, and it does linger.

Chinatown (rw) I confess I've always been impressed by Chinatown more than I've liked it. Its story structure is impeccable, its atmosphere is gorgeous, its noirish fatalism is raw and real, its deconstruction of the noir hero is well-observed, and it's full of clever detective tricks (the pocket watches, the tail light, the ruler). I've just never connected with it. Maybe it's a little too perfectly crafted. (I feel similar about Miller's Crossing.) And I've always been ambivalent about the ending. In Towne's original ending, Evelyn shoots Noah Cross dead and get arrested, and neither she nor Jake can tell the truth of why she did it, so she goes to jail for murder and her daughter is in the wind. Polansky proposed the ending that exists now, where Evelyn just dies, Cross wins, and Jake walks away devastated. It communicates the same thing: Jake's attempt to get smart and play all the sides off each other instead of just helping Evelyn escape blows up in his face at the expense of the woman he cares about and any sense of real justice. And it does this more dramatically and efficiently than Towne's original ending. But it also treats Evelyn as narratively disposable, and hands the daughter over to the man who raped Evelyn and murdered her husband. It makes the women suffer more to punch up the ending. But can I honestly say that Towne's ending is the better one? It is thematically equal, dramatically inferior, but would distract me less. Not sure what the calculus comes out to there. Maybe there should be a third option. Anyway! A perfect little contraption. Belongs under a glass dome.

Night Moves (rw) Ah yeah, the good shit. This is my quintessential 70's noir. This is three movies in a row about detectives. Thing is, the classic era wasn't as chockablock with hardboiled detectives as we think; most of those movies starred criminals, cops, and boring dudes seduced to the darkness by a pair of legs. Gumshoes just left the strongest impressions. (The genre is said to begin with Maltese Falcon and end with Touch of Evil, after all.) So when the post-Code 70's decided to pick the genre back up while picking it apart, it makes sense that they went for the 'tecs first. The Long Goodbye dragged the 30's detective into the 70's, and Chinatown went back to the 30's with a 70's sensibility. But Night Moves was about detecting in the Watergate era, and how that changed the archetype. Harry Moseby is the detective so obsessed with finding the truth that he might just ruin his life looking for it, like the straight story will somehow fix everything that's broken, like it'll bring back a murdered teenager and repair his marriage and give him a reason to forgive the woman who fucked him just to distract him from some smuggling. When he's got time to kill, he takes out a little, magnetic chess set and recreates a famous old game, where three knight moves (get it?) would have led to a beautiful checkmate had the player just seen it. He keeps going, self-destructing, because he can't stand the idea that the perfect move is there if he can just find it. And, no matter how much we see it destroy him, we, the audience, want him to keep going; we expect a satisfying resolution to the mystery. That's what we need from a detective picture; one character flat-out compares Harry to Sam Spade. But what if the truth is just... Watergate? Just some prick ruining things for selfish reasons? Nothing grand, nothing satisfying. Nothing could be more noir, or more neo-, than that.

Farewell, My Lovely Sometimes the only thing that makes a noir neo- is that it's in color and all the blood, tits, and racism from the books they're based on get put back in. This second stab at Chandler is competant but not much more than that. Mitchum works as Philip Marlowe, but Chandler's dialogue feels off here, like lines that worked on the page don't work aloud, even though they did when Bogie said them. I'll chalk it up to workmanlike but uninspired direction. (Dang this looks bland so soon after Chinatown.) Moose Malloy is a great character, and perfectly cast. (Wasn't sure at first, but it's true.) Some other interesting cats show up and vanish - the tough brothel madam based on Brenda Allen comes to mind, though she's treated with oddly more disdain than most of the other hoods and is dispatched quicker. In general, the more overt racism and misogyny doesn't seem to do anything except make the movie "edgier" than earlier attempts at the same material, and it reads kinda try-hard. But it mostly holds together. *shrug*

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (dnrw) Didn't care for this at all. Can't tell if the script was treated as a jumping-off point or if the dialogue is 100% improvised, but it just drags on forever and is never that interesting. Keeps treating us to scenes from the strip club like they're the opera scenes in Amadeus, and, whatever, I don't expect burlesque to be Mozart, but Cosmo keeps saying they're an artful, classy joint, and I keep waiting for the show to be more than cheap, lazy camp. How do you make gratuitious nudity boring? Mind you, none of this is bad as a rule - I love digressions and can enjoy good sleaze, and it's clear the filmmakers care about what they're making. They just did not sell it in a way I wanted to buy. Can't remember what edit I watched; I hope it was the 135 minute one, because I cannot imagine there being a longer edit out there.

The American Friend (dnrw) It's weird that this is Patricia Highsmith, right? That Dennis Hopper is playing Tom Ripley? In a cowboy hat? I gather that Minghella's version wasn't true to the source, but I do love that movie, and this is a long, long way from that. This Mr. Ripley isn't even particularly talented! Anyway, this has one really great sequence, where a regular guy has been coerced by crooks into murdering someone on a train platform, and, when the moment comes to shoot, he doesn't. And what follows is a prolonged sequence of an amateur trying to surreptitiously tail a guy across a train station and onto another train, and all the while you're not sure... is he going to do it? is he going to chicken out? is he going to do it so badly he gets caught? It's hard not to put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, wondering how you would handle the situation, whether you could do it, whether you could act on impulse before your conscience could catch up with you. It drags on a long while and this time it's a good thing. Didn't much like the rest of the movie, it's shapeless and often kind of corny, and the central plot hook is contrived. (It's also very weird that this is the only Wim Wenders I've seen.) But, hey, I got one excellent sequence, not gonna complain.

The Big Sleep Unlike the 1946 film, I can follow the plot of this Big Sleep. But, also unlike the 1946 version, this one isn't any damn fun. Mitchum is back as Marlowe (this is three Marlowes in five years, btw), and this time it's set in the 70's and in England, for some reason. I don't find this offensive, but neither do I see what it accomplishes? Most of the cast is still American. (Hi Jimmy!) Still holds together, but even less well than Farewell, My Lovely. But I do find it interesting that the neo-noir era keeps returning to Chandler while it's pretty much left Hammet behind (inasmuch as someone whose genes are spread wide through the whole genre can be left behind). Spade and the Continental Op, straightshooting tough guys who come out on top in the end, seem antiquated in the (post-)modern era. But Marlowe's goodness being out of sync with the world around him only seems more poignant the further you take him from his own time. Nowadays you can really only do Hammett as pastiche, but I sense that you could still play Chandler straight.

Eyes of Laura Mars The most De Palma movie I've seen not made by De Palma, complete with POV shots, paranormal hoodoo, and fixation with sex, death, and whether images of such are art or exploitation (or both). Laura Mars takes photographs of naked women in violent tableux, and has gotten quite famous doing so, but is it damaging to women? The movie has more than a superficial engagement with this topic, but only slightly more than superficial. Kept imagining a movie that is about 30% less serial killer story and 30% more art conversations. (But, then, I have an art degree and have never murdered anyone, so.) Like, museums are full of Biblical paintings full of nude women and slaughter, sometimes both at once, and they're called masterpieces. Most all of them were painted by men on commission from other men. Now Laura Mars makes similar images in modern trappings, and has models made of flesh and blood rather than paint, and it's scandalous? Why is it only controversial once women are getting paid for it? On the other hand, is this just the master's tools? Is she subverting or challenging the male gaze, or just profiting off of it? Or is a woman profiting off of it, itself, a subversion? Is it subversive enough to account for how it commodifies female bodies? These questions are pretty clearly relevant to the movie itself, and the movies in general, especially after the fall of the Hays Code when people were really unrestrained with the blood and boobies. And, heck, the lead is played by the star of Bonnie and Clyde! All this is to say: I wish the movie were as interested in these questions as I am. What's there is a mildly diverting B-picture. There's one great bit where Laura's seeing through the killer's eyes (that's the hook, she gets visions from the murderer's POV; no, this is never explained) and he's RIGHT BEHIND HER, so there's a chase where she charges across an empty room only able to see her own fleeing self from ten feet behind. That was pretty great! And her first kiss with the detective (because you could see a mile away that the detective and the woman he's supposed to protect are gonna fall in love) is immediately followed by the two freaking out about how nonsensical it is for them to fall in love with each other, because she's literally mourning multiple deaths and he's being wildly unprofessional, and then they go back to making out. That bit was great, too. The rest... enh.

The Onion Field What starts off as a seemingly not-that-noirish cops-vs-crooks procedural turns into an agonizingly protracted look at the legal system, with the ultimate argument that the very idea of the law ever resulting in justice is a lie. Hoo! I have to say, I'm impressed. There's a scene where a lawyer - whom I'm not sure is even named, he's like the seventh of thirteen we've met - literally quits the law over how long this court case about two guys shooting a cop has taken. He says the cop who was murdered has been forgotten, his partner has never gotten to move on because the case has lasted eight years, nothing has been accomplished, and they should let the two criminals walk and jail all the judges and lawyers instead. It's awesome! The script is loaded with digressions and unnecessary details, just the way I like it. Can't say I'm impressed with the execution. Nothing is wrong, exactly, but the performances all seem a tad melodramatic or a tad uninspired. Camerawork is, again, purely functional. It's no masterpiece. But that second half worked for me. (And it's Ted Danson's first movie! He did great.)

Body Heat (rw) Let's say up front that this is a handsomely-made movie. Probably the best looking thing on the list since Night Moves. Nothing I've seen better captures the swelter of an East Coast heatwave, or the lusty feeling of being too hot to bang and going at it regardless. Kathleen Turner sells the hell out of a femme fatale. There are a lot of good lines and good performances (Ted Danson is back and having the time of his life). I want to get all that out of the way, because this is a movie heavily modeled after Double Indemnity, and I wanted to discuss its merits before I get into why inviting that comparison doesn't help the movie out. In a lot of ways, it's the same rules as the Robert Mitchum Marlowe movies - do Double Indemnity but amp up the sex and violence. And, to a degree it works. (At least, the sex does, dunno that Double Indemnity was crying out for explosions.) But the plot is amped as well, and gets downright silly. Yeah, Mrs. Dietrichson seduces Walter Neff so he'll off her husband, but Neff clocks that pretty early and goes along with it anyway. Everything beyond that is two people keeping too big a secret and slowly turning on each other. But here? For the twists to work Matty has to be, from frame one, playing four-dimensional chess on the order of Senator Palpatine, and its about as plausible. (Exactly how did she know, after she rebuffed Ned, he would figure out her local bar and go looking for her at the exact hour she was there?) It's already kind of weird to be using the spider woman trope in 1981, but to make her MORE sexually conniving and mercenary than she was in the 40's is... not great. As lurid trash, it's pretty fun for a while, but some noir stuff can't just be updated, it needs to be subverted or it doesn't justify its existence.

Blow Out Brian De Palma has two categories of movie: he's got his mainstream, director-for-hire fare, where his voice is either reigned in or indulged in isolated sequences that don't always jive with the rest fo the film, and then there's his Brian De Palma movies. My mistake, it seems, is having seen several for-hires from throughout his career - The Untouchables (fine enough), Carlito's Way (ditto, but less), Mission: Impossible (enh) - but had only seen De Palma-ass movies from his late period (Femme Fatale and The Black Dahlia, both of which I think are garbage). All this to say: Blow Out was my first classic-era De Palma, and holy fucking shit dudes. This was (with caveats) my absolute and entire jam. I said I could enjoy good sleaze, and this is good friggin' sleaze. (Though far short of De Palma at his sleaziest, mercifully.) The splitscreens, the diopter shots, the canted angles, how does he make so many shlocky things work?! John Travolta's sound tech goes out to get fresh wind fx for the movie he's working on, and we get this wonderful sequence of visuals following sounds as he turns his attention and his microphone to various noises - a couple on a walk, a frog, an owl, a buzzing street lamp. Later, as he listens back to the footage, the same sequence plays again, but this time from his POV; we're seeing his memory as guided by the same sequence of sounds, now recreated with different shots, as he moves his pencil in the air mimicking the microphone. When he mixes and edits sounds, we hear the literal soundtrack of the movie we are watching get mixed and edited by the person on screen. And as he tries to unravel a murder mystery, he uses what's at hand: magnetic tape, flatbed editors, an animation camera to turn still photos from the crime scene into a film and sync it with the audio he recorded; it's forensics using only the tools of the editing room. As someone who's spent some time in college editing rooms, this is a hoot and a half. Loses a bit of steam as it goes on and the film nerd stuff gives way to a more traditional thriller, but rallies for a sound-tech-centered final setpiece, which steadily builds to such madcap heights you can feel the air thinning, before oddly cutting its own tension and then trying to build it back up again. It doesn't work as well the second time. But then, that shot right after the climax? Damn. Conflicted on how the movie treats the female lead. I get why feminist film theorists are so divided on De Palma. His stuff is full of things feminists (rightly) criticize, full of women getting naked when they're not getting stabbed, but he also clearly finds women fascinating and has them do empowered and unexpected things, and there are many feminist reads of his movies. Call it a mixed bag. But even when he's doing tropey shit, he explores the tropes in unexpected ways. Definitely the best movie so far that I hadn't already seen.

Cutter's Way (rw) Alex Cutter is pitched to us as an obnoxious-but-sympathetic son of a bitch, and, you know, two out of three ain't bad. Watched this during my 2020 neo-noir kick and considered skipping it this time because I really didn't enjoy it. Found it a little more compelling this go around, while being reminded of why my feelings were room temp before. Thematically, I'm onboard: it's about a guy, Cutter, getting it in his head that he's found a murderer and needs to bring him to justice, and his friend, Bone, who intermittently helps him because he feels bad that Cutter lost his arm, leg, and eye in Nam and he also feels guilty for being in love with Cutter's wife. The question of whether the guy they're trying to bring down actually did it is intentionally undefined, and arguably unimportant; they've got personal reasons to see this through. Postmodern and noirish, fixated with the inability to ever fully know the truth of anything, but starring people so broken by society that they're desperate for certainty. (Pretty obvious parallels to Vietnam.) Cutter's a drunk and kind of an asshole, but understandably so. Bone's shiftlessness is the other response to a lack of meaning in the world, to the point where making a decision, any decision, feels like character growth, even if it's maybe killing a guy whose guilt is entirely theoretical. So, yeah, I'm down with all of this! A- in outline form. It's just that Cutter is so uninterestingly unpleasant and no one else on screen is compelling enough to make up for it. His drunken windups are tedious and his sanctimonious speeches about what the war was like are, well, true and accurate but also obviously manipulative. It's two hours with two miserable people, and I think Cutter's constant chatter is supposed to be the comic relief but it's a little too accurate to drunken rambling, which isn't funny if you're not also drunk. He's just tedious, irritating, and periodically racist. Pass.

Blood Simple (rw) I'm pretty cool on the Coens - there are things I've liked, even loved, in every Coen film I've seen, but I always come away dissatisfied. For a while, I kept going to their movies because I was sure eventually I'd love one without qualification. No Country for Old Men came close, the first two acts being master classes in sustained tension. But then the third act is all about denying closure: the protagonist is murdered offscreen, the villain's motives are never explained, and it ends with an existentialist speech about the unfathomable cruelty of the world. And it just doesn't land for me. The archness of the Coen's dialogue, the fussiness of their set design, the kinda-intimate, kinda-awkward, kinda-funny closeness of the camera's singles, it cannot sell me on a devastating meditation about meaninglessness. It's only ever sold me on the Coens' own cleverness. And that archness, that distancing, has typified every one of their movies I've come close to loving. Which is a long-ass preamble to saying, holy heck, I was not prepared for their very first movie to be the one I'd been looking for! I watched it last year and it remains true on rewatch: Blood Simple works like gangbusters. It's kind of Double Indemnity (again) but played as a comedy of errors, minus the comedy: two people romantically involved feeling their trust unravel after a murder. And I think the first thing that works for me is that utter lack of comedy. It's loaded with the Coens' trademark ironies - mostly dramatic in this case - but it's all played straight. Unlike the usual lead/femme fatale relationship, where distrust brews as the movie goes on, the audience knows the two main characters can trust each other. There are no secret duplicitous motives waiting to be revealed. The audience also know why they don't trust each other. (And it's all communicated wordlessly, btw: a character enters a scene and we know, based on the information that character has, how it looks to them and what suspicions it would arouse, even as we know the truth of it). The second thing that works is, weirdly, that the characters aren't very interesting?! Ray and Abby have almost no characterization. Outside of a general likability, they are blank slates. This is a weakness in most films, but, given the agonizingly long, wordless sequences where they dispose of bodies or hide from gunfire, you're left thinking not "what will Ray/Abby do in this scenario," because Ray and Abby are relatively elemental and undefined, but "what would I do in this scenario?" Which creates an exquisite tension but also, weirdly, creates more empathy than I feel for the Coens' usual cast of personalities. It's supposed to work the other way around! Truly enjoyable throughout but absolutely wonderful in the suspenseful-as-hell climax. Good shit right here.

Body Double The thing about erotic thrillers is everything that matters is in the name. Is it thrilling? Is it erotic? Good; all else is secondary. De Palma set out to make the most lurid, voyeuristic, horny, violent, shocking, steamy movie he could come up with, and its success was not strictly dependent on the lead's acting ability or the verisimilitude of the plot. But what are we, the modern audience, to make of it once 37 years have passed and, by today's standards, the eroticism is quite tame and the twists are no longer shocking? Then we're left with a nonsensical riff on Vertigo, a specularization of women that is very hard to justify, and lead actor made of pulped wood. De Palma's obsessions don't cohere into anything more this time; the bits stolen from Hitchcock aren't repurposed to new ends, it really is just Hitch with more tits and less brains. (I mean, I still haven't seen Vertigo, but I feel 100% confident in that statement.) The diopter shots and rear-projections this time look cheap (literally so, apparently; this had 1/3 the budget of Blow Out). There are some mildly interesting setpieces, but nothing compared to Travolta's auditory reconstructions or car chase where he tries to tail a subway train from street level even if it means driving through a frickin parade like an inverted French Connection, goddamn Blow Out was a good movie! Anyway. Melanie Griffith seems to be having fun, at least. I guess I had a little as well, but it was, at best, diverting, and a real letdown.

The Hit Surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. Terrance Stamp flips on the mob and spends ten years living a life of ease in Spain, waiting for the day they find and kill him. Movie kicks off when they do find him, and what follows is a ramshackle road movie as John Hurt and a young Tim Roth attempt to drive him to Paris so they can shoot him in front of his old boss. Stamp is magnetic. He's spent a decade reading philosophy and seems utterly prepared for death, so he spends the trip humming, philosophizing, and being friendly with his captors when he's not winding them up. It remains unclear to the end whether the discord he sews between Roth and Hurt is part of some larger plan of escape or just for shits and giggles. There's also a decent amount of plot for a movie that's not terribly plot-driven - just about every part of the kidnapping has tiny hitches the kidnappers aren't prepared for, and each has film-long repercussions, drawing the cops closer and somehow sticking Laura del Sol in their backseat. The ongoing questions are when Stamp will die, whether del Sol will die, and whether Roth will be able to pull the trigger. In the end, it's actually a meditation on ethics and mortality, but in a quiet and often funny way. It's not going to go down as one of my new favs, but it was a nice way to spend a couple hours.

Trouble in Mind (dnrw) I fucking hated this movie. It's been many months since I watched it, do I remember what I hated most? Was it the bit where a couple of country bumpkins who've come to the city walk into a diner and Mr. Bumpkin clocks that the one Black guy in the back as obviously a criminal despite never having seen him before? Was it the part where Kris Kristofferson won't stop hounding Mrs. Bumpkin no matter how many times she demands to be left alone, and it's played as romantic because obviously he knows what she needs better than she does? Or is it the part where Mr. Bumpkin reluctantly takes a job from the Obvious Criminal (who is, in fact, a criminal, and the only named Black character in the movie if I remember correctly, draw your own conclusions) and, within a week, has become a full-blown hood, which is exemplified by a lot, like, a lot of queer-coding? The answer to all three questions is yes. It's also fucking boring. Even out-of-drag Divine's performance as the villain can't save it.

Manhunter 'sfine? I've still never seen Silence of the Lambs, nor any of the Hopkins Lecter movies, nor, indeed, any full episode of the show. So the unheimlich others get seeing Brian Cox play Hannibal didn't come into play. Cox does a good job with him, but he's barely there. Shame, cuz he's the most interesting part of the movie. Honestly, there's a lot of interesting stuff that's barely there. Will Graham being a guy who gets into the heads of serial killers is explored well enough, and Mann knows how to direct a police procedural such that it's both contemplative and propulsive. But all the other themes it points at? Will's fear that he understands murderers a little too well? Hannibal trying to nudge him towards becoming one? Whatever dance Hannibal and Tooth Fairy are doing? What Tooth Fairy's deal is, anyway? (Why does he wear fake teeth and bite things? Why is he fixated on the red dragon? Does the bit where he says "Francis is gone forever" mean he has DID?) None of it goes anywhere or amounts to anything. I mean, it's certainly more interesting with this stuff than without, but it has that feel of a book that's been pared of its interesting bits to fit the runtime (or, alternately, pulp that's been sloppily elevated). I still haven't made my mind up on Mann's cold, precise camera work, but at least it gives me something to look at. It's fine! This is fine.

Mona Lisa (rw) Gave this one another shot. Bob Hoskins is wonderful as a hood out of his depth in classy places, quick to anger but just as quick to let anger go (the opening sequence where he's screaming on his ex-wife's doorstep, hurling trash cans at her house, and one minute later thrilled to see his old car, is pretty nice). And Cathy Tyson's working girl is a subtler kind of fascinating, exuding a mixture of coldness and kindness. It's just... this is ultimately a story about how heartbreaking it is when the girl you like is gay, right? It's Weezer's Pink Triangle: The Movie. It's not homophobic, exactly - Simone isn't demonized for being a lesbian - but it's still, like, "man, this straight white guy's pain is so much more interesting than the Black queer sex worker's." And when he's yelling "you woulda done it!" at the end, I can't tell if we're supposed to agree with him. Seems pretty clear that she wouldn'ta done it, at least not without there being some reveal about her character that doesn't happen, but I don't think the ending works if we don't agree with him, so... I'm like 70% sure the movie does Simone dirty there. For the first half, their growing relationship feels genuine and natural, and, honestly, the story being about a real bond that unfortunately means different things to each party could work if it didn't end with a gun and a sock in the jaw. Shape feels jagged as well; what feels like the end of the second act or so turns out to be the climax. And some of the symbolism is... well, ok, Simone gives George money to buy more appropriate clothes for hanging out in high end hotels, and he gets a tan leather jacket and a Hawaiian shirt, and their first proper bonding moment is when she takes him out for actual clothes. For the rest of the movie he is rocking double-breasted suits (not sure I agree with the striped tie, but it was the eighties, whaddya gonna do?). Then, in the second half, she sends him off looking for her old streetwalker friend, and now he looks completely out of place in the strip clubs and bordellos. So far so good. But then they have this run-in where her old pimp pulls a knife and cuts George's arm, so, with his nice shirt torn and it not safe going home (I guess?) he starts wearing the Hawaiian shirt again. So around the time he's starting to realize he doesn't really belong in Simone's world or the lowlife world he came from anymore, he's running around with the classy double-breasted suit jacket over the garish Hawaiian shirt, and, yeah, bit on the nose guys. Anyway, it has good bits, I just feel like a movie that asks me to feel for the guy punching a gay, Black woman in the face needs to work harder to earn it. Bit of wasted talent.

The Bedroom Window Starts well. Man starts an affair with his boss' wife, their first night together she witnesses an attempted murder from his window, she worries going to the police will reveal the affair to her husband, so the man reports her testimony to the cops claiming he's the one who saw it. Young Isabelle Huppert is the perfect woman for a guy to risk his career on a crush over, and Young Steve Guttenberg is the perfect balance of affability and amorality. And it flows great - picks just the right media to res. So then he's talking to the cops, telling them what she told him, and they ask questions he forgot to ask her - was the perp's jacket a blazer or a windbreaker? - and he has to guess. Then he gets called into the police lineup, and one guy matches her description really well, but is it just because he's wearing his red hair the way she described it? He can't be sure, doesn't finger any of them. He finds out the cops were pretty certain about one of the guys, so he follows the one he thinks it was around, looking for more evidence, and another girl is attacked right outside a bar he knows the redhead was at. Now he's certain! But he shows the boss' wife the guy and she's not certain, and she reminds him they don't even know if the guy he followed is the same guy the police suspected! And as he feeds more evidence to the cops, he has to lie more, because he can't exactly say he was tailing the guy around the city. So, I'm all in now. Maybe it's because I'd so recently rewatched Night Moves and Cutter's Way, but this seems like another story about uncertainty. He's really certain about the guy because it fits narratively, and we, the audience, feel the same. But he's not actually a witness, he doesn't have actual evidence, he's fitting bits and pieces together like a conspiracy theorist. He's fixating on what he wants to be true. Sign me up! But then it turns out he's 100% correct about who the killer is but his lies are found out and now the cops think he's the killer and I realize, oh, no, this movie isn't nearly as smart as I thought it was. Egg on my face! What transpires for the remaining half of the runtime is goofy as hell, and someone with shlockier sensibilities could have made a meal of it, but Hanson, despite being a Corman protege, takes this silliness seriously in the all wrong ways. Next!

Homicide (rw? I think I saw most of this on TV one time) Homicide centers around the conflicted loyalties of a Jewish cop. It opens with the Jewish cop and his white gentile partner taking over a case with a Black perp from some Black FBI agents. The media is making a big thing about the racial implications of the mostly white cops chasing down a Black man in a Black neighborhood. And inside of 15 minutes the FBI agent is calling the lead a k*ke and the gentile cop is calling the FBI agent a f****t and there's all kinds of invective for Black people. The film is announcing its intentions out the gate: this movie is about race. But the issue here is David Mamet doesn't care about race as anything other than a dramatic device. He's the Ubisoft of filmmakers, having no coherent perspective on social issues but expecting accolades for even bringing them up. Mamet is Jewish (though lead actor Joe Mantegna definitely is not) but what is his position on the Jewish diaspora? The whole deal is Mantegna gets stuck with a petty homicide case instead of the big one they just pinched from the Feds, where a Jewish candy shop owner gets shot in what looks like a stickup. Her family tries to appeal to his Jewishness to get him to take the case seriously, and, after giving them the brush-off for a long time, finally starts following through out of guilt, finding bits and pieces of what may or may not be a conspiracy, with Zionist gun runners and underground neo-Nazis. But, again: all of these are just dramatic devices. Mantegna's Jewishness (those words will never not sound ridiculous together) has always been a liability for him as a cop (we are told, not shown), and taking the case seriously is a reclamation of identity. The Jews he finds community with sold tommyguns to revolutionaries during the founding of Israel. These Jews end up blackmailing him to get a document from the evidence room. So: what is the film's position on placing stock in one's Jewish identity? What is its position on Israel? What is its opinion on Palestine? Because all three come up! And the answer is: Mamet doesn't care. You can read it a lot of different ways. Someone with more context and more patience than me could probably deduce what the de facto message is, the way Chris Franklin deduced the de facto message of Far Cry V despite the game's efforts not to have one, but I'm not going to. Mantegna's attempt to reconnect with his Jewishness gets his partner killed, gets the guy he was supposed to bring in alive shot dead, gets him possibly permanent injuries, gets him on camera blowing up a store that's a front for white nationalists, and all for nothing because the "clues" he found (pretty much exclusively by coincidence) were unconnected nothings. The problem is either his Jewishness, or his lifelong failure to connect with his Jewishness until late in life. Mamet doesn't give a shit. (Like, Mamet canonically doesn't give a shit: he is on record saying social context is meaningless, characters only exist to serve the plot, and there are no deeper meanings in fiction.) Mamet's ping-pong dialogue is fun, as always, and there are some neat ideas and characters, but it's all in service of a big nothing that needed to be a something to work.

Swoon So much I could talk about, let's keep it to the most interesting bits. Hommes Fatales: a thing about classic noir that it was fascinated by the marginal but had to keep it in the margins. Liberated women, queer-coded killers, Black jazz players, broke thieves; they were the main event, they were what audiences wanted to see, they were what made the movies fun. But the ending always had to reassert straightlaced straight, white, middle-class male society as unshakeable. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy demanded, both ideologically and via the Hays Code, that anyone outside these norms be punished, reformed, or dead by the movie's end. The only way to make them the heroes was to play their deaths for tragedy. It is unsurprising that neo-noir would take the queer-coded villains and make them the protagonists. Implicature: This is the story of Leopold and Loeb, murderers famous for being queer, and what's interesting is how the queerness in the first half exists entirely outside of language. Like, it's kind of amazing for a movie from 1992 to be this gay - we watch Nathan and Dickie kiss, undress, masturbate, fuck; hell, they wear wedding rings when they're alone together. But it's never verbalized. Sex is referred to as "your reward" or "what you wanted" or "best time." Dickie says he's going to have "the girls over," and it turns out "the girls" are a bunch of drag queens, but this is never acknowledged. Nathan at one point lists off a bunch of famous men - Oscar Wild, E.M. Forster, Frederick the Great - but, though the commonality between them is obvious (they were all gay), it's left the the audience to recognize it. When their queerness is finally verbalized in the second half, it's first in the language of pathology - a psychiatrist describing their "perversions" and "misuse" of their "organs" before the court, which has to be cleared of women because it's so inappropriate - and then with slurs from the man who murders Dickie in jail (a murder which is written off with no investigation because the victim is a gay prisoner instead of a L&L's victim, a child of a wealthy family). I don't know if I'd have noticed this if I hadn't read Chip Delany describing his experience as a gay man in the 50's existing almost entirely outside of language, the only language at the time being that of heteronormativity. Murder as Love Story: L&L exchange sex as payment for the other commiting crimes; it's foreplay. Their statements to the police where they disagree over who's to blame is a lover's quarrel. Their sentencing is a marriage. Nathan performs his own funeral rites over Dickie's body after he dies on the operating table. They are, in their way, together til death did they part. This is the relationship they can have. That it does all this without romanticizing the murder itself or valorizing L&L as humans is frankly incredible.

Suture (rw) The pitch: at the funeral for his father, wealthy Vincent Towers meets his long lost half brother Clay Arlington. It is implied Clay is a child from out of wedlock, possibly an affair; no one knows Vincent has a half-brother but him and Clay. Vincent invites Clay out to his fancy-ass home in Arizona. Thing is, Vincent is suspected (correctly) by the police of having murdered his father, and, due to a striking family resemblence, he's brought Clay to his home to fake his own death. He finagles Clay into wearing his clothes and driving his car, and then blows the car up and flees the state, leaving the cops to think him dead. Thing is, Clay survives, but with amnesia. The doctors tell him he's Vincent, and he has no reason to disagree. Any discrepancy in the way he looks is dismissed as the result of reconstructive surgery after the explosion. So Clay Arlington resumes Vincent Towers' life, without knowing Clay Arlington even exists. The twist: Clay and Vincent are both white, but Vincent is played by Michael Harris, a white actor, and Clay is played by Dennis Haysbert, a Black actor. "Ian, if there's just the two of them, how do you know it's not Harris playing a Black character?" Glad you asked! It is most explicitly obvious during a scene where Vincent/Clay's surgeon-cum-girlfriend essentially bringing up phrenology to explain how Vincent/Clay couldn't possibly have murdered his father, describing straight hair, thin lips, and a Greco-Roman nose Haysbert very clearly doesn't have. But, let's be honest: we knew well beforehand that the rich-as-fuck asshole living in a huge, modern house and living it up in Arizona high society was white. Though Clay is, canonically, white, he lives an poor and underprivileged life common to Black men in America. Though the film's title officially refers to the many stitches holding Vincent/Clay's face together after the accident, "suture" is a film theory term, referring to the way a film audience gets wrapped up - sutured - in the world of the movie, choosing to forget the outside world and pretend the story is real. The usage is ironic, because the audience cannot be sutured in; we cannot, and are not expected to, suspend our disbelief that Clay is white. We are deliberately distanced. Consequently this is a movie to be thought about, not to to be felt. It has the shape of a Hitchcockian thriller but it can't evoke the emotions of one. You can see the scaffolding - "ah, yes, this is the part of a thriller where one man hides while another stalks him with a gun, clever." I feel ill-suited to comment on what the filmmakers are saying about race. I could venture a guess about the ending, where the psychiatrist, the only one who knows the truth about Clay, says he can never truly be happy living the lie of being Vincent Towers, while we see photographs of Clay/Vincent seemingly living an extremely happy life: society says white men simply belong at the top more than Black men do, but, if the roles could be reversed, the latter would slot in seamlessly. Maybe??? Of all the movies in this collection, this is the one I'd most want to read an essay on (followed by Swoon).

The Last Seduction (dnrw) No, no, no, I am not rewataching this piece of shit movie.

Brick (rw) Here's my weird contention: Brick is in color and in widescreen, but, besides that? There's nothing neo- about this noir. There's no swearing except "hell." (I always thought Tug said "goddamn" at one point but, no, he's calling The Pin "gothed-up.") There's a lot of discussion of sex, but always through implication, and the only deleted scene is the one that removed ambiguity about what Brendan and Laura get up to after kissing. There's nothing postmodern or subversive - yes, the hook is it's set in high school, but the big twist is that it takes this very seriously. It mines it for jokes, yes, but the drama is authentic. In fact, making the gumshoe a high school student, his jadedness an obvious front, still too young to be as hard as he tries to be, just makes the drama hit harder. Sam Spade if Sam Spade were allowed to cry. I've always found it an interesting counterpoint to The Good German, a movie that fastidiously mimics the aesthetics of classic noir - down to even using period-appropriate sound recording - but is wholly neo- in construction. Brick could get approved by the Hays Code. Its vibe, its plot about a detective playing a bunch of criminals against each other, even its slang ("bulls," "yegg," "flopped") are all taken directly from Hammett. It's not even stealing from noir, it's stealing from what noir stole from! It's a perfect curtain call for the collection: the final film is both the most contemporary and the most classic. It's also - but for the strong case you could make for Night Moves - the best movie on the list. It's even more appropriate for me, personally: this was where it all started for me and noir. I saw this in theaters when it came out and loved it. It was probably my favorite movie for some time. It gave me a taste for pulpy crime movies which I only, years later, realized were neo-noir. This is why I looked into Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and In Bruges. I've seen it more times than any film on this list, by a factor of at least 3. It's why I will always adore Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's the best-looking half-million-dollar movie I've ever seen. (Indie filmmakers, take fucking notes.) I even did a script analysis of this, and, yes, it follows the formula, but so tightly and with so much style. Did you notice that he says several of the sequence tensions out loud? ("I just want to find her." "Show of hands.") I notice new things each time I see it - this time it was how "brushing Brendan's hair out of his face" is Em's move, making him look more like he does in the flashback, and how Laura does the same to him as she's seducing him, in the moment when he misses Em the hardest. It isn't perfect. It's recreated noir so faithfully that the Innocent Girl dies, the Femme Fatale uses intimacy as a weapon, and none of the women ever appear in a scene together. 1940's gender politics maybe don't need to be revisited. They say be critical of the media you love, and it applies here most of all: it is a real criticism of something I love immensely.

[runawaybouqet]

wdy headcanons/story stuff part 2

hi hi we’re back

second part to “this” in a sense, this is more for the Remorse! AU, my second main AU, or the future of the Reborn Database! AU

-Sam’s father wasn’t neglectful or abusive, he had depression and anxiety because he felt he couldn’t provide for his wife and daughter because of how badly his job paid him. He left home when Sam was only 4 so he doesn’t remember much of him, but she doesn’t hold a grudge against him.

-A couple of days after Sam met Eteled, she got really excited, because she felt she finally had a father figure in her life.

-Sam’s mother wasn’t very financially stable on her own either. But either way, she provided Sam with whatever she wanted.

-After the passing of her mother, Sam went into intense mourning. It was hard for her to get out of bed most mornings and she needed Eteled and Austin to help her wake up when she was still asleep. Kyle moved into her house for a short time to take care of her. 

-Sam couldn’t pay her house rent on her own so she had to move in with Kyle and his dad. She brought Eteled and Austin with her. 

-Austin was actually the one who helped Sam through his gender confusion.

-Eteled still holds a grudge against Kyle but it’s not as intense.

-Eteled’s anger issues still trigger, so Austin needs to hold him back sometimes for comfort. 

-On Sam’s final day of school, she brought Austin and Eteled with her on her laptop to scare Will. It worked like a charm and he shows her more respect now. Even 5 years later, he still doesn’t fuck around with her.

-Eteled’s voice glitches when he’s mad. Austin’s does it when he’s overwhelmed/stressed/sad.

-Nathan still talks to Kyle and goes to his house. He sometimes jokes around with Sam but he still remains scared of Eteled (and Austin).

-Austin can probably float because fuck gravity am i right

-Yes, Austin has a scythe, Eteled is a SMIDGE BIT jealous.

-Austin has long forgiven Eteled, mostly because being mad at him for eternity, since after Sam, Nathan and Kyle “leave”, they’ll only have each other.

-A!Austin looked up to Henry for some reason. It was probably because he was always so calm looking about everything.

-Sam listens to music with Eteled and Austin at night to help them sleep. And half of the time it’s like, intense and loud.

-Austin can pull a pen out of thin air when he needs something, unfortunately for them, xey is completely shit at drawing. So Eteled draws for them and Austin lists off details.

-When Austin falls asleep, Eteled wakes up so he can go watch horror movies with Sam and Kyle.

-Austin can go off track in a ramble if no one stops him. Eteled likes listening to it.

-Austin and Eteled don’t age.

-Austin’s voice isn’t that glitchy anymore.

These last ones are for shits and giggles but they’re still headcanons LMFAO

-Eteled has definitely meowed or whispered in front of Austin with his deep voice to throw them off.

-Eteled makes his normal voice high cuz he knows no one in the house is ready to hear his actual voice everyday.

-Kyle makes jokes that Nathan and Eteled are on sync because they normally pass out to nap around the same time.

-Austin bends over awkwardly to talk to Eteled just to make them mad.

-Eteled has called Kyle and Nathan his “sons” when he’s jokingly pissed off.

-Every time Eteled makes a mistake, he just goes “shut up im gay i dont know anything”. So Austin uses that excuse whenever they’re losing an argument to him.

-Eteled watches Sam play cottagecore games because he finds it relaxing. Austin probably drags him over when she plays horror/action games with Kyle to spite him. 

-Everyone has collectively agreed to not fuck with Sam and Eteled. And especially not Austin.

[chocowhomps]

ghostfightinggold

💯 AGREE. The school episodes put this exact thing right in our faces! Kevin is absolutely insecure and is STRUGGLING to constantly keep up the "bad boy jock" routine that he's EXPECTED to have so that he can remain popular and whatever. Everyone who has ever paid just a LITTLE attention to jocks will have noticed that not all jocks are the same. Kevin is always "in charge" but there are always scenes where we can see him crumbling somehow. It's from toxic pressure.

And let's not forget how he reacted to the truthful reveal about Eddy's big brother in the movie. As soon as Kevin saw how hard Eddy had it, and how his brother was just going to do the same thing to him that the other kids were going to do, Kevin softened up on Eddy just like everyone else did. It's because they're all capable of SYMPATHY/EMPATHY. Even the Kankers flipped out for Eddy and god knows they need just as much help as the rest, considering THEIR ending.

LITERALLY YES- THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!! Kevin is so fucking insecure its nearly as obvious as Eddy. 

He’s got the weight of everybody’s expectations on him being the jock kid so of course he’s seen as the guy who needs to step up and lead. While he clearly has the forethought to lead the kids, he’s also definitely not the brightest tool in the shed, and that coupled with his anxiety is just... Dude he’s hiding shit lmao HES SOOOO FAKE THIS KID IS AN ANXIOUS MESS. Like I could list several canonical instances of his bullshit he is a MESS I want people to realize he is NOT some suave flirtacious bad boy who rides a motorcycle and is rude as fuck. Oh my god. Please.

THAT’S ANOTHER THING- Kevin can be a shithead and he’s definitely a bit cold at times, but why is the disposition of “uncontrollable asshole” one people like to put on him? I can only assume gender roles again and how one part of a gay ship has to be super rude or whatever but oh my god.

Kevin’s rudeness is as fake as the rest of him. Like he’s actually really nice? He’s just kind of chilling and minding his damn business unless dragged into a mess. There’s a few occasions he’s started shit but it’s super rare that that’s the case.

Like he’ll shit on Jimmy and be mean to him but the second someone else does it it’s “Oh what’d you say? What’d you say? Wanna say that again I’ll kick your ass” and he’ll be like “you’re so weird rolf I don’t get you man” yet go to GREAT lengths to try and impress him and he’ll be like “Double D is a nerd” and yet have totally random, kind interactions with him several times FOR NO REASON other than to talk to him and ask for his help enough times that its a normal occurrence 

AND THE SAME THING GOES FOR WHEN EDDYS GETTING ATTACKED BY BRO like hes panicking but he wants to help him to the point he overcomes his own fear which he USUALLY CANT because hes a BABY and IM SO DONE

[nonojustwantsfriesandfriends]

Kuch kuch hota hai would’ve been an excellent gay movie if Anjali was a boy called Anjal ( means heavenly messenger as per google)

Rahul and Anjal being the best basketball boy duo in college. Rahul would have college girls swooning over him and Anjal being the unruly kind who never became popular because his charm level was very low and he was awkward. Both of them managed to win all the matches of the season between them tho.

Anjal being hopelessly in love with Rahul but believes it to be wrong and never voices it, keeping his feelings buried. Doesn’t stop him from giving Rahul pining looks whenever he’s not looking.

Rahul being in love with Anjal but never realises it because you don’t have that kind of feelings for your best bro. HES JUST MY BRO, BRO.

Rahul being attracted to Tina cause she’s hot af ( Rani Mukherjee’s outfits okay ? Rani Mukherjee herself is iconic) and Tina becoming BFFs with Anjal because Anjal has no romantic interest in her (reason? One word: Rahul) and it’s nice to have a friend who’s genuinely interested in talking to her and not trying to flirt with her.

The movie progresses the way it does and Anjal goes back home and Rahul and Tina get married and name their daughter Anjali after their best friend Anjal whom they miss very much. And of course, unfortunately, Tina passed away leaving a widowed Rahul and a motherless Anjali behind.

Anjali finds her mom’s letter and she discovers the existence of her namesake and the fact that her mother knew that those dumbasses were in love with each other but the time wasn’t right.

So Anjali sets off to fulfill his mom’s final wish and organises the camp thing. Anjal is getting married to London businessman or business woman (take your pick because Aman can be used for both genders) and they’re very fond of each other but some small part of him is forever Rahul’s.

Anjal and Anjali meet at camp and Rahul soon follows and the BROS ARE UNITED. Except, you know, the being in love with each other part. Rahul has his bi awakening upon seeing Anjal at camp and seeing him interact with kids and just being his hot, adult self.

The Rain scene happens. You know that one

Rahul is in his black shirt. Anjali is in a similar red or white one. And they dance and then Aman shows up and their bubble bursts. The Anjal and Aman leave for their wedding and Rahul begins to mope.

His mom and Anjali, finally fed up with their bullshit, are like SON HE LOVES YOU AND YOU LOVE HIM. MAN UP AND GO GET HIM BECAUSE THIS IS YOUR CHANCE. So Rahul runs after him.

The wedding scene takes place line by line the way it took in the movie and Aman, being the only one with good eyesight, observational skills and common sense is like fuck this shit you both are getting married here and now and drags Anjal to the mandap.

After god knows how long ( Principal Malhotra claims 10 years and also wins the bet going on amongst the college staff because he knew how emotionally constipated they were) they confess their feelings and get married. If Dadi is seen crying discreetly into her handkerchief, it’s no ones business. Almieda fully sobs and doesn’t even bother hiding his emotions.

Aman and Anjal finally get to live their happily ever after and Anjal makes it clear to Anjali that while he loves her with all his heart and would love to be a dad to her, he is in no way trying to replace her mom and never will. Anjali hugs him and is like mom was right you are an idiot and I love you too. And the ending scene can be the newly married couple teaching their daughter how to play basketball or something

IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES GUYS

[graphicabyss]

I watched The Falcon And The Winter Soldier and I liked it more that I expected, although frankly I didn't expect much. Overall, I love the setting, the cinematography and the character development. The director and the writers did an excellent job. But it also sent me down an emotional roller-coaster and that's the thing I really need to talk about.

I know there are countless rants about TFATWS, Endgame, queerbaiting and poor MCU narratives but I've never really been hanging out in the fandom until recently so for me it's my first one and I need to get it off my chest. It's gonna be long.

It was interesting to see where the show's gonna take things but start to end there was an elephant in the room. It doesn't sit well with me the way they completely sidestepped the Steve Rogers issue. Like, "we didn't make this mess, so we're not gonna go there". And it's just wrong. You can't just avoid the subject altogether and pass it on for future writers to handle. Also, you see Bucky so sad and lonely it breaks your heart. And this inevitably made me think about Endgame and Cap's storyline. I didn't feel like writing it all down after Endgame but now all these thoughts and feelings came up again and I need to get it off my chest. If they ended it all at Endgame, and I thought they did, it would have been fine, sort of. We'd forgive some loose ends. But they didn't end it there and that makes them fully responsible for this mess. I mean, I didn't hate Cap's ending. After all, it could have been worse. Steve could get together with Sharon like in the comics and they probably considered it at some point but the reactions were so bad they backed down and dragged Peggy along. Still, the ending just felt forced, no matter how you look at it. The thing is, if I knew about it after the first movie, I'd rejoice. But at this point, after everything that went down after, it just doesn't feel right.  I love Peggy and I can't deny the dance scene made me flutter a little but now I wish this was Steve's way to keep his promise before going back. In the end, Peggy would be fine without him. She had a good life, she made a career and a family. We know that thanks to Agent Carter. And we got many cues that Steve and Peggy's relationship, as important as it was, was over. Her saying goodbye to him by destroying the serum, him carrying her casket... Yet, Endgame effectively undermined that basically erasing all of these events from existence and making Peggy just a prize for Captain America.  On the other hand, Bucky needed Steve the most. And the show made it clear how bruised and broken he was. Bucky and Steve's relationship was the closest of any relationship in the MCU. At that point it was clear Bucky was everything to him, the only one who could truly understand him. Steve lost him many times and every time he fought to bring him back, no matter how impossible it seemed. When Bucky was captured Steve went into an enemy base alone on a suicidal mission and saved him and everyone else. That's basically how he became Captain America. Then Bucky got killed in the war and it devastated him. Bucky returned as Winter Soldier and there was hardly any Bucky left in him but Steve nearly let himself be killed because he needed to save him and he trusted that James would not hurt him. When Bucky finally got to his senses, there was an ultimate war going on and in the Snap James fell to dust in front of Steve's eyes. It took 5 years to get him back. And as soon as Steve succeeded, he left him, along with the rest of his traumatized friends and the world in deep chaos, to be with Peggy in 1940's, thus throwing 12 years of his life away. It just didn't feel right. That does a disservice to both Steve and Peggy's storylines. But it's not just about Peggy or Bucky. Steve going back and living his life to return to that park as an old man has opened a rift with a host of questions. I tried to get to the bottom of it but it got me nowhere.  According to Russo, when Steve went back he created an alternate reality. He also retired as Captain America. First off, I think he just made that up after to cover up the mess. If that was the case, Cap would return to the designated spot and not be sitting on a bench like he was waiting there all along. But, like, even if it was alternate reality, it could not be that different, right? He wouldn't just live in Peggy's basement, would he? He knew about the things to come like, you know, the HYDRA thing, and being the man that he was, he couldn't just sit and do nothing. Especially when Peggy was one of the founders of the SHIELD. Captain America or not, Steve would do everything to make this world a

better place. Also, if Steve went back after he crashed that plane, that means there's another Steve still locked in ice, which Russo confirmed. Even more importantly, in Steve's timeline Bucky is still with Hydra being tortured. There's no way he could leave him there. So much for the 'quiet life'. Then there are the writers of Endgame who claim that Peggy's two children are fathered by Steve. Really? That directly contradicts the earlier version that the father is a soldier Steve saved, which is shown in Agent Carter. Seriously, guys, if you're gonna make up random bullshit at least get your stories straight first.   Fans love to make all sorts of theories to try and patch up the holes but the truth is, MCU is not just one mastermind's creation and the comics weren't either. It's bound to be a mess because it's created by dozens of writers and directors and each phase gets increasingly messier because it has to fit in with the 547 previously released movies and shows. I get that and I applaud the effort of Endgame but they really can't expect us to get involved with the characters only to see them being treated as an afterthought. And the thing is, I thought that it might be just me but after a quick survey of the fandom I realized that a lot of people feel the same way. If you look at the comment section of nearly any relevant video, you're gonna get top comments saying all these things. If Marvel listened just once maybe things would make more sense. And all these thoughts aren't necessarily what I wanted to see, but what would be right for the characters. And while I do love Stucky, I'm a reasonable shipper and I really didn't expect them to be canon gay or anything, I just wished they had at least spent some time together not fighting, just healing and catching up on their lives. Honestly, I don't always like the way people ship m/m characters in every show but this time it was really more than justified. The whole storyline going through Winter Soldier and Civil War was just massive queerbaiting. It was undeniably a love story, romantic or not. "Why do you ship male characters?" some people ask. Idk, maybe if the writers put half the effort into developing m/f relationships as they do m/m ones and not just randomly throw them together I might care about them. And MCU was terrible with romance. That traumatic kiss Steve had with Sharon Carter? In the comics, Steve did love Sharon but who cares? In MCU they met, like, twice. Mostly after Peggy's funeral. Peak romance. If they had to pick a new love interest they could go with Natasha. They cared about each other, they bonded in TWS and they were both dealing with some difficult issues. But they became just good friends, which I loved. Instead, Natasha got together with Banner? And then there's Wanda and Vision, which seemed like the most random of pairings with no buildup whatsoever. The wonderful world of heteronormativity where a witch/robot couple comes before a gay one. And the thing is, I only recently learned that there's some legit leverage to portray Bucky as gay. Bucky is based on two characters from the comics. Bucky Barnes was Steve's teen sidekick, kinda like Robin, so this origin was too weird for MCU. Instead, the writers used the origin story from a character named Arnie. It was a boy Steve grew up with, a boy who protected him from bullies, and a boy who kept inviting Steve to these double dates. A boy who was gay. Which wasn't explicitly stated but was pretty obvious. And this was in 1984. So making Bucky gay would be neither woke nor against 'canon'. It would be way overdue.  So with TFTWS it was nice to see Bucky recover and bond with Sam but to me the whole ending also felt a bit excessively positive and this time the queerbaiting felt even more intentional, almost as if the writers wanted to distract the discontent fans with a new shiny ship so they forgot all the things they were mad about. Like, of course I want Bucky to be happy but also I hate the way the show's pushing the idea that he just needs to get over losing Steve and move

on with his life already because surely all his problems come from his inability to trust people and not trying hard enough, and not from being brainwashed and tortured for 70 years and then losing the only person who loved and cherished him.

[cricketnationrise]

Frog Pile #37, in B major

Written for Nurseyweek2021 Day 7: Free Space

its also on AO3 if you’d rather read it there

_X_

Normally, Nursey loves living in the Haus.

It’s close to his classes and Faber, and there’s a lot of pies, even after Bitty graduates and Jerry’s delivers now. There are enough people in the Haus that make enough noise to knock him out of his writing sessions and remind him to eat. There’s always someone willing to watch a movie or something with him. He never has to walk home from a kegster, he just has to make it upstairs.

Plus – both his best friends live in the Haus too – easy access if he needs something and he’s close by he can tell when either Dex or Chowder need a friendly face.

However, it’s January.

And no matter how much work Dex does to the Haus, it is still, fundamentally, an 80-year-old house – and that means its drafty. Winter in Massachusetts means lots of snow, and Dex insists on the Frogs being the ones to shovel to set a good example, seriously Nursey, what if someone falls on their way here? And Nursey is all for reducing the chances of himself falling on his face, but – and not to be dramatic – he hasn’t been warm since like, October.

Case in point, he is currently trying to get warm on his own bed. Three blankets, his green beanie, a scarf, and a mug of tea complete the picture. But he’s still cold. Normally, he’d just yell until Dex or Chowder showed up, but they are both out for a while. Chowder is walking Farmer back to the volleyball house so she can do homework and Dex is being the most captain ever to captain and checking in on literally every member of the hockey team that doesn’t live in the Haus. Even the other upperclassmen.

WTF aren’t here either, not that it would mean they would cuddle either. Well, Ford and Tango would, and they would drag Whiskey with them, but there’s no need to make that guy more uncomfortable than he still is. It doesn’t matter because they’re all on a date at Annie’s, and their collective body heat isn’t available to him.

Maybe he’ll just become an ice sculpture, fused to his own bed until Spring.

Just as Nursey is thinking about googling hypothermia symptoms – Dex knocks on the doorframe.

“Feeling a little cold there, Nursey?” he smirks.

“Fuck you. It’s 3 degrees out without the wind. And you made me shovel today,” Nursey says.

“Awww, poor baby,” Dex looks him over critically, “Do you want me to come cuddle?”

“Dexy! You’d do that? For little old me?” Nursey pretends to swoon. It’s less pretend than he likes, but whatever, Dex probably doesn’t know Nursey’s in love with him.

Dex rolls his eyes at the dramatics, like always, but still says, “I’ll even text Chowder and have him stop saying good-bye to Farmer and come cuddle as well. Double warmth.”

And if Nursey wasn’t already in love, that would have done it. He’s so gone. Luckily, he has lots of practice dealing with the gay panic that comes with hiding his feelings for Dex, so he sounds normal when he says, “YES! Frog Pile! Dex you rock!”

_X_

“Oh wow, it’s so cold outside you guys! How do you stand it?” Chowder whines when he comes in to Nursey’s room 10 minutes later.

“Well Dex has that Maine man lobster fishing cold immunity built up. But I’m a delicate tropical flower and so I shrivel up and die when not on the ice.”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny Nursey.” Dex is back upstairs and Nursey fist pumps when he sees Dex has brought up the latest batch of cookies from Bitty with him. The three of them have definitely earned those. He passes them off and the three of them arrange themselves in Nursey’s bed. Through a lot of trial and error, they found the perfect arrangement. Dex likes to be on an end because he usually has to leave first for captain duties or his job. Chowder takes the other end for the back support. Which leaves Nursey free to sprawl all over his best friends with his legs tangled with Chowder’s and his head in Dex’s lap so they can all see the laptop on his desk.

He really loves his friends.

Dex is rubbing the back of his neck as Nursey is musing about what they should watch, which Nursey has learned means that he has an idea, but is embarrassed about it for some reason.

“Out with it Dexy. I don’t have any strong opinions about movies today. My brain is too cold to think.”

Dex clears his throat softly and says, “Well I thought, if you guys want, maybe, we could watch The Mummy?”

“Dex why would you be nervous about that suggestion?” Chowder asks, “That’s like, one of my favorite movies!”

“The reason is dumb.”

“Deets, Dex, you can’t just leave us hanging with that,” Nursey says.

“Ugh, fine. I thought of The Mummy because it takes place in a desert. So we could try to trick our brains into thinking its actually warmer than it is,” Dex says, flushing.

“Dex!!! What a great idea! Let’s do it!”

Nursey’s so soft for him. It’s a problem. One he might actually do something about soon. Maybe.

_X_

“Well Beni, I think you’re on the WRONG SIDE OF THE RIVERRRRRR”

It’s probably better that the Tadpole are out right now, they definitely wouldn’t appreciate hearing the Frogs scream that line along with Brendan Frasier. This was such a good idea.

_X_

“You know who can get it? Like universally?”

“Who, Nurse?”

“Ardeth fucking Bey.”

“You’re so right!”

“He’s definitely the reason I knew I was bi,” Dex offers.

“Hard same, dude.”

He’s totally gonna marry that freckly red head. The couple that lusts over horse-riding, tattooed, secret warrior society badasses, stays together. But for now, he has the rest of this movie. He has this Frog Pile. He has Dex absentmindedly playing with his hair. He can wait.

He’s finally warm.

[moviegroovies]

confession time: for someone who (semi) actively runs a movie blog, i really haven’t seen a lot of classic movies.

(i know this comes as a shock for those of y’all who have been subjected to nothing but my half-baked thoughtpieces on bad 80′s horror for the past couple of years, but bear with me.) 

to be honest, even this review doesn’t REALLY represent me making an active choice to remedy that so much as it does me pulling a long con where i endear myself to marilyn monroe by watching her movies to get myself excited to watch the miniseries blonde (2001), for abnormally pretty, young jensen ackles purposes*, but let’s not dwell on all that. the practical result is the same; i watched some like it hot (1959). now, i hope y’all are ready for a few some like it Thoughts™:

first, idk how much attention y’all have been paying to the loose bits of personal lore i occasionally scatter within my reviews, but one thing about myself that i feel i’ve been pretty open about is the fact that i’m trans. this being so, and knowing not a whole lot about the movie beyond the very basic premise “1959 extended man in a dress gag,” i can’t say i went in with the highest of expectations. imagine my surprise, then, when the gender aspect of this movie was... actually pretty good? i mean, full disclosure, it’s not exactly gender studies, but it’s passable! it’s tolerable! there were even a few moments where i felt inclined to say the words “oh, GENDER?” out loud!

perhaps most impressively, i’d say the Cis Creator Cringe Factor of some like it hot was actually impressively LOWER than a lot of modern moves with genderswapping premises tend to be. like, i know that one definite explanation for that would be the fact that trans experiences are more widespread today, so modern filmmakers don’t feel comfortable playing with ideas like this without at least giving lipservice to them, while the era that bore some like it hot didn’t face the same “pressure,” but, okay. listen. compared to another movie i watched recently--freaky (2020), in which a teenage girl swaps bodies with serial killer vince vaugn, featuring one incredibly anvilicious scene where, upon being informed by a gay boy that she’s in the men’s bathroom, the girl’s best friend retorts, “she [vince vaugn]’s got a dick in her hand, and you’re wearing chanel no. 5. i think we’re past labels.”--some like it hot, a movie older than my father, was wayyyy easier to watch**. actually, you know what? yeah. listen to me. cis content creators? movie producers? i’m talking to you. DON’T EVEN BRING GENDER (or gender “identities”... which is an incredibly gross term, anyway) UP IF YOU’RE NOT PLANNING TO DO SOMETHING WITH IT. sincerely, this particular bad taste corner of the trans community :).

...anyway.

some like it hot, by contrast, did it right. YES, the premise of the movie was two presumably cis men in disguise as women. i’ll put that in the open. however, there was a certain... i don’t know if “respect” is the right word, but there was an avoidance, at least, of the usual predatory tropes. in fact, the worst behavior by far from either main character comes when joe manages to take off his female disguise, donning another, male persona and using things that sugar (marilyn’s character) confided in “josephine” to create a nonthreatening, desirable “millionaire” in order to trick her into sex. okay, like i said, it’s not gender studies, but, the humor in some like it hot comes from generally the right place. joe and jerry don their female disguises in a matter that in quite literally life and death for them (and it’s more than the creators ever thought of, i’m sure, but there IS an interesting analysis to be had of them needing to pass to live), which to a degree removes the usual pitfalls of male to female crossdressing as a gag; they’re neither doing it for lecherous reasons, nor to parody the female experience. this being a comedy, there is a degree of humor found in the situation, but it’s directed at jerry and joe, the characters, more than their disguises. the general assumption is that they both pass without question, as long as they’re wearing their ladies’ clothes; jerry once comments that he’s “not even pretty,” but it’s never an issue to contend with. 

wrt the crossdressing, the worst moment for me, personally, was a scene on the train when jerry prepared to take off the disguise in order to sleep with sugar, and even this ends up comedically averted at jerry’s expense.

and speaking of jerry.

jerry is actually the most compelling part of the movie for me, especially viewing it through the lens of gender. while joe, who gets the girl and manages to spend large chunks of the latter part of the film in his second, male disguise, never thinks too much about what they’re doing beyond the survival aspect of it, jerry is the one who, erm, “gets into character.” joe’s female name is simply josephine; before they get on the train with the woman musicians, it’s assumed that jerry will be going by “geraldine.” however, when they give their introductions, the duo becomes josephine... and daphne. 

as the movie progresses, this distinction grows more pronounced; when joe has to remind a smitten jerry on the train that he’s a girl, referring to their disguises, jerry miserably repeats the affirmation: “i’m a girl. i’m a girl. i want to die. i’m a girl.” later on, however, as joe’s relationship with sugar develops, “daphne” becomes acquainted with local horndog millionaire osgood, who he at first dislikes, but comes around to after being forced on a date as part of joe’s plan to trick sugar. after seeing jerry excited by the prospect of marrying osgood, a bewildered joe has to remind jerry why it’s an impossibility, and in the same miserable tone as before, jerry/daphne muddles through a new affirmation, one that definitely didn’t ring false to my trans ears: “i’m a boy. i’m a boy. i want to die. i’m a boy.” 

hm. actually, now i’m thinking about a trans male reading of joe. he was the one at first resistant to taking the job (with the all-female band), when they only needed money, and not a place to hide from an upset mob boss, but also the one who seems to know more about the role when it comes time to get into character. while jerrydaphne gets increasingly comfortable with femininity as time passes, joe never performs it in anything but a perfunctory, necessary way, and sloughs the costume EVEN WHEN the danger of being found out has not yet passed, because pretending for such a long period of time is just untenable. something about passing for female being a safe haven and a burden for both closeted (re-closeted, in this case) trans men and out trans women?

anyway. by the end, though both osgood and sugar do find out the truth about the disguises, sugar seems to instantly forgive joe for his treacherousness (again, referring more to his actions as the shell millionaire than his escapade in drag), while osgood appears unbothered by daphne’s truth, leading to an ambiguous ending for the futures of the characters, and any realizations that might come later.

no, it’s not the “real transgender experience.” it (thankfully) never claims to be. BUT, being trans myself, there were some moments that made me feel linked to our protagonists, and relatively few, if any, that made me feel alienated. all in all, that’s a lot more than i hoped for going in, so that’s what i’m happy with.

watch some like it hot, y’all. it’s a good movie in a timeless way, and, as modern movies appealing to short-lived trends that will feel outdated next week (if not by the very time of their release) will show you, that’s more than it needed to be. 

*since my original draft of this post, i DID watch blonde, and i don’t know if that’s technically fair game for this blog (not exactly a movie) or what, but 6/10. fairly well done piece of art but just BEATINGLY tragic, so proceed with caution. jensen ackles literally is THAT PRETTY though, so the jackles cut i give a strong 11/10. i am a homosexual.   **i would like to clarify that this isn’t me telling you not to watch freaky. yes, some of the dialogue is tragically riverdaleian, but there’s also a scene where vince vaugn makes out with a teenage boy. so,

[offtopicoverload]

What do you think the female lis’ families are like? I feel like only the guys talk about their families, with the exception being Talia talking about her parents and brother I don’t think any of the other girls do at all

hi anon thanks for the ask, hope my headcanons make sense

Talia:

pretty nuclear family, an older brother, her mum and her dad

her older brother’s maybe 4 years older or so, not enough that they never saw each other but enough that they didn’t really meet in school or anything

and that’s definitely why she meshes so well with the Jake even though they have like 6 years between them, shes used to the gap and hes really similar to her brother anyway, both goofy but sweet when they need to be

she definitely really close with her mother, i know its mentioned that they look just like each other, but i think that dialogues universal for the S1 LIs

and her mum owns a salon, right?

thats definitely why she takes such good care of her hair, her mother always did when she was little and encouraged it, complimenting her on it and styling it whenever she wanted

and she worked at the salon when she was a teenager and it was summer, working the front desk or cleaning up, sorting products, that sort of thing

its definitely a different story with her dad, hes pretty traditional and didnt take her coming out very well

it ruined things between them for a while and made it hard for her to visit, she only saw her brother at his place and her mother at the salon, but after LI, if shes with MC, he eases up a bit when he sees how happy they are

shes so open about her sexuality, especially on the show, because she doesn’t want any other kids to feel alone, she knows how much it sucked when she was a teenager

if she ends with MC, her mothers there at the finale and just showers MC in compliments and comments about wedding bells to mess with Talia

and her brother loves teaming up with MC and Jake to tease her 

the first time he met Jake, Talia thought they’d get married on the spot cuz they just meshed so well

her dads wary at first, but once its clear that MCs not going anywhere, maybe he catches them talking about him or something and just being vulnerable with each other, which is something Talia never was with him, he starts welcoming MC more, buys her flowers or something the next time they visit and annoys Talia because he didnt get any for her

Allegra:

ive been headcanoning for a while that she has a really big family and an awful relationship with them

her parents got divorced when she was little, maybe 3 or 4, they both remarried, her mom got divorced and remarried again, so she has a ton of half and step siblings, but no full

because there were so many kids in whatever household she was staying in at the time she kinda got lost in the crowd, which is why shes so desperate for attention on the show, she never got any when she was younger

and no matter what happens on the show, her parents dont call her or come to the finale, the only person that says anything is the one step sibling shes close with

they're about the same age, maybe 8 months to a year apart, and were glued to each others side when they were tweens

but they live really far apart and her step sister couldn’t make it to the finale, so they barely see each other which makes them drift apart a bit

if MC runs away with her after the reunion, she gushes to her step sister and they get closer again, to the point that her sister moves in with her for a job a year or two later, maybe right before quarantine if MC doesn’t so they don’t go insane

MC and her sister get on well and always call her Leggy just to watch her get mad, and they’re the only two people that can get her to calm down when shes pissed, her anger being another side effect of being ignored as a kid

the only way she got attention was if she threw a fit, and eventually that frustration just stuck around

but she gets better when she gets closer with her sister again and after the backlash from the show dies down, which it does pretty quickly when her and MC announce their relationship since she was the fan favourite

she never really introduces MC to her family, it just doesn’t make sense to her, but MC drags her along to a few weddings and holiday parties until Allegra’s dad introduces himself to her like its the first time four events in a row

she gives up after that, and Allegra’s perfectly fine with it, she’d rather keep their relationship between them anyway

Marisol

like Talia, she has the same family dynamic - an older brother and her parents

but her brothers only a year older and their relationship is a lot tenser

her dad always encouraged competition between them - if one got a good mark on an exam, the other was expected to match or do even better, if her brother got an award, Marisol was expected to get it a year later, that sort of thing

she doesn’t really talk with her brother outside of formal or family events, there’s still a lot of tension from their teenage years between them, but Marisol’s too proud to admit it, and her brother is too

and she’d never admit it, but the whole reason she’s in law school is because her father wanted her to, and she was just lucky that she enjoyed it

and again, like Talia, her dad didnt take her attempt at coming out well, he just flat out denied it, told her she’d meet a nice guy and settle down, that is what just a phase, all that shit

neither her mother or brother stuck up for her, which pissed her off a bit and just made things worse

her mother was never that involved in her life, never seemed that interested unless she was getting perfect marks and competing in dance competitions

and because she was so focused on her studies and work, she never had many friends and has honestly always seen them as a waste of time

its why she has no problem shitting on Lottie’s girl code, to her it just never made sense

so most of her friends end up being from the show and MCs friends if they’re together, and shes not big on family events, her immediate family isn’t either

but she is really close to her abuela on her mum’s side and an older cousin on her dad’s who’s gay and shes always related to 

she got really excited to introduce MC to them, and her abuela made a whole array of food for Marisol, MC,  and her abuelo and her abuela cooed over MC for ages

her cousin bought them drinks and made them tell him stories from the Villa, and afterwards pulled Marisol aside and told her he was proud and approved of MC and it made her really mushy and she hated it, MC wouldn’t let go that she cried in the cab for ages

her brother and her mother were never particularly rude to MC, but her father definitely was cold and distant and disrespectful

she got pretty pissed after that, telling MC off for ever encouraging to go and shouting about why that kind of thing was the exact reason she kept her distance

her and MC definitely has some issues after that for a while, and she shut her dad out until he gave a halfhearted apology, but her cousin and abuelos helped her feel better about her family situation

Elisa:

her parents aren’t together anymore and her mum had custody of her most of her life, even though she struggled to raise her and her sister

she didnt know her dad that well until she was a in her late teens, but regardless of all the lost time, they still have a good relationship

makeup and art was an escape when she was younger, and even when her mother was exhausted after working multiple shifts, she always encouraged her and helped her improve or just told her she loved it

her mum was her biggest supporter when she started the whole influencer thing, and her favourite thing to spend her money on is things for her family, like flowers for when she visits her mum or a new phone for her younger sister

they’re seven years apart, so she never had that close of a relationship with her when she was young, because what 13 year old wants to hang out with their annoying 6 year old sister

but once she got a bit older she started taking her to the movies and shopping to bond and encouraging her own art

her sister loves music, and even if she cant relate to it directly, she always does her best to support her

she even got kassam to make her sister a mixtape after the show and give some tips on mixing, and if MCs a musician she always asks her to give her sister lessons or something

introducing MC to her whole family all at once was one of her favourite things to do, she took them all to dinner and bought MC a dress and everything

her parents loved MC and laughed at all her jokes, and MC nearly joked on her salad at a story her dad was telling 

and even though her sister was pretty quiet, she told Elisa how much she liked her afterwards

they all start a family game night that is Elisa’s favourite thing to post about all week, and even though her parents haven’t been together since she was 7 or so, they still get on well and now that her dad’s more comfortable being there even though he’s not with her mum, hes more involved in her sisters life

her job and her Elisabees are crazy important to her, but she’d drop all of it for her family, even if she doesn’t seem super sappy

Lottie

shes an only child for sure, but with a few cousins shes decently close with

her relationship with her parents isn’t perfect by any means, but she still gets on with them

they encouraged her art even if they made some odd comments about her being alt that rubbed her the wrong way, but they mean well

there was a couple years where Lottie thought they’d get divorced, because they were arguing about finances cuz her mum went back to school and they lost her income, but when she started working as a nurse they were able to get back on track

her dad’s a bloke and loves sports and cars and all that, but hes also big in horror movies and is the one that introduced her to it

her mum hated all the gore, but her dad would let her watch it with him when she was out of the house

she always goes home for Christmas no matter where shes living, but has her own traditions for New Years and Easter

her aunt and uncle always host a big dinner and her dad drives two hours to get there, and she always spends the drive listening to new music and planning new makeup looks to test out

she has a ton of cousins because each of her parents has 4 siblings, but their ages are all so spread out that shes only close with a few of them and swaps stories from the year with three of them

they all lost their shit over MC when she brought her to their Christmas Eve dinner, hugging her way too much in Lottie’s opinion and telling her as many embarrassing stories as they could think of

her mum spent the car ride there trying to connect with MC, and they actually got on pretty well, but her dad seemed to click with MC even more for whatever reason, giving her a beer when they got back to Lottie’s parent’s house and turning on Lottie’s favourite slasher film for background noise while they talked

her dad made MC swear that she’d come back next year, that they weren’t allowed to trade between MC’s family for Christmas and Lottie’s, and MC agreed with a laugh as Lottie’s head was in her lap, watching the movie

Hannah:

she has a huge traditional family

three older brothers, two older sisters, and a younger brother

she grew up in the country and her mother had horses that she always loved to spend time with cuz i love her but she was 100% a horse girl

her parents never had any problems, were always happy and sappy and that was the only type of relationship she saw growing up, so before Love Island she didn’t really understand that relationships could be bad and how to deal with that

two of her older brothers and both of her sisters are married, her brothers and one sister have kids, again super traditional and happy, which only further reinforced these fairy tale ideals she has

she loves her nieces and nephews, but never felt like an aunt, more of an older cousin for whatever reason

her oldest sibling is her brother, they’re 13 years apart and he has four kids already, hes been married since 21

her oldest sister got married the oldest at 25, and shes always been worried she won’t match up to them, which was a huge motivator to go on Love Island

shes closest with her middle sister, who’s 23 with no kids, but she still has a nice house in the suburbs with a big yard, still crazy nuclear

her whole life has been spent around this type of tradition, and it was really hard for her to break out of it after Love Island

Hannah’s youngest brother is still only 15, and hes a bit of a black sheep - hes alt and dyes his hair and draws tattoos on his arms during school, and she was never close with him before Love Island, but after she comes out as some kind of queer, he comes out as gay and nonbinary(he/they) and they get really close for once

he gets in a fight with their parents when they’re 17, and he runs to Hannah’s place, driving multiple hours to get there and moves in with her after a few weeks

they stay with her until they graduate uni with a degree in education, getting a job at a school and telling all their students that his sister was on Love Island and her girlfriend’s really cool

MC and him are her biggest encouragement to break from the mold her family set, both so her relationship can thrive and to be a good role model for her younger sibling

she struggles with fitting in with her stereotypical family and siblings that all have multiple kids and nice houses, but she still loves her little mishmash of MC, her sibling, and the constant friends that cycle through their flat - Lottie, Priya, Chelsea, Gary sometimes even, Ibrahim once or twice as hes on a golf tour

Lottie loves her sibling and sometimes does makeup for them, and Chelsea always shows up unexpected to hang out with MC and redecorate their house but Hannah hates it because she likes all the memories her clutter has, even if MC calls her a hoarder sometimes

she had so many hand me downs growing up that now she has her own place, she loves filling it with things that are for her and MC and only them and has a really hard time letting go of things, always reasoning that they might give her inspiration to write or something

AJ:

shes an only child too, which made her dad treat her as much like as son as he could

her parents struggled to conceive, so once they used IVF to have her they didnt want to go through it again

her dad was super excited when she was interested in sports and is her biggest fan, always showing up to every single game and driving her to practices before she moved out, though she still doesn’t have a car cuz she hates driving, its too much pressure

her dad would watch games with her and coach her during off seasons, her uncles a football coach and used to get them tickets when he could, sometimes letting her train with his team when she was a teenager

her mum didnt like how hard she pushed herself, but was still supportive of how much she loved it 

her mums a mathematician and always helped her with her homework because she awful at maths, while her dad would try and teach her history or edit papers until her mum had to step in and correct him

when she came out as bi and later gay, they didnt even bat an eye, her mum making her pride color cupcakes and her dad maybe even being excited that he could point out cheerleaders when they were watching games

her mum didn’t quite understand when she wanted to go on Love Island, but her dad thought it’d be a laugh and further enforced her “just have fun” attitude

but her parents are both crazy happy when she wins with MC, making a banner when AJ first brings her home

she thought her dad would crush MC when he started hugging her, and her mum made an entire cake, biscuits, cinnamon rolls, and more sweets that she made them take home

her parents always make her and MC come over for dinner on Sundays and she started noticing the extra effort they always went to - her dad actually dressing nice, the house was super clean, the dog always had recently been given a bath

even though she knew her parents supported her, seeing all that really calmed her nerves about bringing home a girl, and made her coming out as a gay a lot easier

MC and her alternate between their family’s for holidays, and her parents each invite their brother and their families every time, and after their third holiday at her parents, they bought her and MC a dog

her and MC definitely have a pretty traditional family life, married after a few years with a nice house, going as far as to adopt a kid or two when AJ stops playing professionally, her parents always closely involved with their grandkids

Disclaimer - I don’t know if Yasmin or Lily make mentions of their family, so I’m just going with what I think

Yasmin:

her mother passed when she was 12, and her and her younger sister were raised by her dad

he wasn’t always the best dad, sometimes he struggled to make time for them with work, or sometimes he struggled to connect with them, but it was never anything too bad

she was always super close to her sister and parented her as she was growing up since they have a 9 year difference between them

her sisters her biggest fan and always makes her send demos and work in progresses so she can listen to them on repeat, and whenever Yasmin writes a song specifically for her she loses her mind

all her friends love Yasmin’s solo music and Enchanted Husband and she brags nonstop

Yasmin figured out she liked girls pretty young, around 10 or so, but only came out when she was 17. she didnt want her sister to ever feel alone or isolated if she ended up being queer too, so she tried to always be open about who she was

her dad sat her down when she bought a pride flag and had her explain everything to him step by step, and he gave her some space for a few days, but then he offered to take her to pride when it came around 

he doesn’t talk about it with her much, and she knows he doesn’t fully understand, but he offers his support whenever he thinks she needs it

her sister absolutely fangirled over MC the first time she met her, hugging her and not letting go until Yasmin nearly pulled her off MC

her dad hugged her too but was far more reserved, hes quieter like her, and tends to keep his distance, whereas her sister has no problem shrieking and making a scene in a train station

later that night her dad pulls her aside and tells her he likes MC and thinks shes a good fit, and her sister has no problem saying how cool MC is, even when shes in the room

her sister and her dad always ask for tickets when shes touring nearby, and MC always offers to take them to dinner before the show, and the three of them get on better than Yasmin expected

she thought her dad might be too distant or her sister too excitable, but even if she’d never say anything, seeing them all get on makes things easier

when her sister gets older and moves out, their dad moves closer to Yasmin, even though he never says exactly why, and there’s a few years where her sister and her are both to busy to meet up, but MC makes them hang out together and then get dinner with their dad when their all in town

MC tends to be her reminder to slow down, and after that dinner she cancels the rest of her tour and takes a two year break in which her sister starts spending weekends at Yas and MCs, their dad visiting often too

Lily:

she has three full brothers and shes the only girl, her parents are divorced and her dad remarried while her mother stayed single

she has a step sister from her dad’s remarriage, but they dont have much in common and didnt grow up together, her parents only split when she was 15

two of her brothers are older than her and her oldest is the one shes closest with, with a gap of 7 years between them

hes an engineer and into cars too, he helped her fix up her first car and helped her pay for college

her youngest brother is only a year below her, but they were never close, he was never that interested in playing in the mud when they were kids

hes an art and english double major and still lives with their dad, hes closer with their step sister than Lily, but there’s no bad blood or anything

her other brother is a middle ground, three years older than her

he’s an accountant and used to drive her around before she could herself, they bonded over a few small mutual interests like a tv show they would binge together and just staring a space together since they shared a room, her younger brother and step sister across the hall

her dad wasn’t crazy active in her life and she doesn’t know her step mother, but her mum worked from home when she was younger and had custody on weekends

she babied her younger brother and always scolded Lily for being a tomboy and it bothered her a lot when she was little, until her older brother started encouraging it

her brothers all love MC, even her youngest, and they all try and bond with her in a different way

sometimes Lily goes home just to find a note that one of her brothers took MC to a movie or dinner or somewhere else, and she wants to be annoyed with them for it, but she likes the validation

she never officially came out, so none of them saying anything or criticizing her is really comforting, knowing that something so trivial doesn’t matter

her mum was a little shocked by the show and MC, but she tries to be polite and eventually comes around, inviting MC to go shopping to bond

her dad has no problem, her step mother being a little confused but not concerned, and her step sister doesn’t care, just nods at MC the first time she meets her

Lily tends to keep her distance from her family, especially when her older brothers find partners and start families, but is fine going to events, sometimes its nice to see her brothers and catch up