#(though it's not a straight lear adaptation -- there WERE straight lear adaptations though which is what i'm researching)

[butchhamlet]

we'll go on hard mode too. first of all, lear can't be the drama club teacher/director; she has to be a student. second of all, we're making her a girl, which makes reproducing the gender dynamics of og lear automatically harder. this is the challenge i've set myself for no particular reason that has nothing to do with the retelling i'm reading. before i go on, obligatory sorry for being usamerican

now. you may think the crazy shit that happens in high school theater spaces is whatever happens in glee (idk i never watched it) and okay sure maybe there were rancid breakups and outings and pregnancy scares in my high school drama club but i was boring and autistic so i didn't know about any of that shit. the crazy shit that happens in high school theater that everyone knows about is 1. certain people feeling absolutely entitled to certain roles 2. typecasting, specifically 3. talented actors and singers not getting cast because of fatphobia. (+ insert any other bigotry here. but at my high school it was always fatphobia). also, the original play is set in a time of great uncertainty and chaos, so we'll set this, i dunno, in the present day, right after schools came back from lockdown and the drama club has to revive itself and also usamerican politics are a shitshow as usual.

okay so two problems immediately present themselves. 1. lear is a girl, so what do we do about the fact that lear in the original play embodies patriarchy and the reign of the father? and 2. high schoolers are all within 4 years of age of one another, so what do we do about lear being old as fuck?

let's take #2 first. obviously, senility is not going to be a concern with our lear here, but we can adapt, we have the technology. one thing about drama club is that if you're a tiny anxious boring autistic underclassman and the reigning seniors don't like you, you FEEL it. so we make lear the senior who is basically guaranteed to be cast as the lead in every straight-play and musical before she graduates. white thin rich pretty and she hosts all the post-show parties because her family just got their giant basement redone last spring. cordelia is the freshman who just joined drama club this year and is pretty nervous about it and lear instantly took her under her wing and introduced her to everyone and told her how stuff works around here.

goneril and regan are sophomores. juniors would play better with the "we're about to take over, it's our prime time" thing, but making them sophomores emphasizes the age difference between them and lear, who did NOT give a shit about the two of them when they joined drama club last year. goneril is visibly butch, which makes her going for the lead role in anything (male lead OR female lead) automatically tense and dicey, and lear clearly gets the ick from goneril not shaving her legs. regan is the best damn mezzo-soprano in the entire drama club even at 16 but she's also fat so she knows there's no damn way she's getting that lead role. both of them suck up to lear or at least play nice because it's hard to pull off a theatrical show if you don't get along with your cast, but lear is aloof and superior toward them and dismisses any friendliness. the misogyny original lear visits upon the two of them still exists; we've just transferred it to the girl-on-girl violence you can do when you're rich and blond. (obviously lear is blond.) is this progressive? probably not. original lear is very much about men in power. but remember our parameters. ok? we move

anyway they need to elect club officers for next year when lear graduates and lear is clearly trying to train cordelia for the drama club president position even though cordelia is 15 and has "only even done two shows, oh my god," says regan. also, the big audition is coming up for the musical, and it's mamma mia, and OBVIOUSLY lear is a shoo-in for donna since seniors always get the biggest parts but goneril and regan both think they'd slay as sophie but, again, butch and fat so it's looking dire and it looks like fucking CORDELIA is going to be cast as sophie which is like FINE she's cute but she can't belt the girl can hold a note for two seconds at BEST. meanwhile lear is trying to convince cordelia to go for the big wins in both election and audition but privately she's starting to break down about the idea of leaving the drama club she's loved for four years and she's scared no one will remember her after she graduates and she'll never have this level of respect and group belonging again. and secretly cordelia doesn't even want to be sophie because that's a pretty big part for a fifteen-year-old. she wants to be rosie but she can't SAY that

you thought i forgot there are other people in this play. i didn't. called in to paint the set is the whole visual arts department including ONE edgar gloucester, and no he doesn't smoke pot he literally just looks like that because he hasn't gotten 9 hours of consecutive sleep in two weeks because he's studying for the ACT and also having a crisis of faith about whether he's actually going to apply to college as a visual art major because who the fuck gets a job after being a visual art major. WE are aware but HE is not that he's also dealing with having an evil sister, who is not actually involved in the theater drama at all, thank you, fuck theater kids she's in model UN. edmund is edgar's irish twin who ended up in the same grade as him and she fucking HATES this because for some reason everybody fucking loves this guy who doesn't do anything and is a dork with no ambitions and yet when SHE, EDMUND, walks into the room suddenly it's AWKWARD because she's clearly only half edgar's sister because she doesn't look anything like him (like, notably; maybe edmund is biracial in a mostly white school and edgar is a little all-american boy) and also the way she dresses makes people nervous when she walks into the girls' bathroom. also edgar got a car for his sixteenth birthday and edmund didn't even though she passed her driver's test on the first try and he failed twice because "you don't go anywhere except school but edgar is out all the time" yeah dad that's because edgar fucking has FRIENDS for some reason and they're not even going to parties and shit they're going to the fucking city symphony to listen to gustav holst's planets suite!!! what the fuck does that even mean!!! who gives a fuck about the planets!!!

but that argument somehow didn't work so edmund is waiting in the school parking lot at like 6pm for edgar to get out of stage crew duty and drive her home (which sucks because it's COLD out here because it's october in the midwest, that's right, we're setting this in not just any american drama club but specifically the american midwest) so she's there when goneril and regan get out into the parking lot muttering about how it's genuinely unfair that lear and cordelia are gonna be donna and sophie because they're conventionally attractive and goneril is gonna get cast as a minor male character AGAIN and regan is gonna get cast as a comedy relief friend AGAIN and sure cordelia is decent at singing but is she REGAN good? no, obviously not, and ugh somebody should just fucking put glass in lear's shoes or something-- and edmund starts thinking about hey doesn't the stage crew have access to all the costumes and shit backstage and wouldn't it be really easy for someone who could possibly get their hands on a stage crew key fob to put glass in lear's shoes and isn't there a spreadsheet somewhere of all the key fobs and which student got which number fob which would make it really really easy to pick the right fob to make sure you frame the right person for putting glass in lear's shoes? and then SHE could have the honda civic

"glass in lear's shoes" or something similar also takes the place of the eye-gouging scene, in a stroke of genius that means we don't have to figure out how to make yet another fully-adult-man character into a high schooler, because hey man we've only got so much time here and we need to condense. but what about poor tom, you say? well edgar figures that maybe he can get off lighter re: punishment for the thing he didn't do if he fakes a mental illness so he starts reading the symptoms for, like, OCD or schizophrenia or some shit on WebMD but then he has one of those moments that's like "this list is getting uncomfortably real" and then he's like fuck me so not ONLY am i getting expelled and losing the honda civic but i ALSO HAVE OCD???? and lear is like yeah tell me about it i TOO got stabbed in the back by everyone i know (because by this point cordelia has told her that she doesn't even WANT TO BE SOPHIE IN THE FIRST PLACE so what was it ALL FOR ANYWAY) and then obviously nobody dies because it's high school we all just learn a lesson about togetherness and inclusivity or something and . get this. get this. drama club and lear's a girl. IT'S CALLED "DRAMA QUEEN." DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? YOU UNDERSTAND ME

also there's no storm. one of the lights blows out and the backstage sprinkler system goes off

reading bad adaptations will have you sitting in your kitchen at midnight typing shit like "i could do king lear set in a high school drama club easy" but i could. understand me. i could

[titleleaf]

Patrons ate and drank, exchanged loud remarks, and unabashedly cheered and hissed. Sometimes they openly jeered actors who lit cigarettes or cigars on stage on Friday night, even while the protestors themselves were obviously not observing the Sabbath either. Occasionally, patrons yelled out advice, particularly at critical points in the many plays about family conflict. One man was so moved by Jacob Adler’s performance in the The Jewish King Lear, that he ran down the aisle shouting: “To hell with your stingy daughter, Yankl! She has a stone, not a heart. Spit on her, Yankl, and come home with me. My yidene [Jewish wife] will feed you. Come Yankl, may she choke, that rotten daughter of yours.” [”Yiddish Theater in New York”, Gerald Sorin]

Usually when I think of spontaneous audience responses to Shakespeare I think of people’s outbursts in response to Othello but this is the #1 best and most appropriate response to Lear-narratives ever.

[clarasimone]

Iain Glen nailing Hamlet (1991)

In 1991, after winning the Evening Standard Film Award for Best Actor, Iain Glen gave his soulful all, not on the stage in London, no, not yet, though really he could have, but at the Old Vic in Bristol, donning the persona of the Dane, Hamlet. He won the Special Commendation Ian Charleson Award* for his performance and yet it appears we will never see but stills from this production as no video recording was made, not even by and for the company. The University of Bristol has the archives of the production: the playbook, the programme and black and white stills. The V&A archives have the administrative papers. In our day and age, this sad evanescent corporeal sate of affairs is unimaginable. The memory of the play, of this performance fading away? We rebel against the very thought. We brandish our cell phones and swear we shall unearth and pirate its memory, somehow, somewhere. Even if we have to hypnotize patrons or pull out the very hearts of those who saw Iain Glen on stage, those few, those happy few, to read into their very memory and pulsating membrane just how brilliant he was. Because he was, he was. That’s what they’ll all tell you... 

Below, those pics and testimonies....

*(The Charleson Awards were established in memory of Ian Charleson, who died at 40 from Aids while playing Hamlet at the National Theatre in 1989)

- Iain Glen is a rampaging prince, quixotic, technically sound, tense as a coiled spring, funny. ‘To be, or not to be’ results from throwing himself against the white walls, an air of trembling unpredictability is beautifully conveyed throughout. ‘Oh, what a rogue and peasants slave’ is blindingly powerful. My life is drawn in angrily modern post Gielgud Hamlets: David Warner, Nicol Williams, Visotsky, Jonathon Price. Iain Glen is equal to them. He keeps good company. THE OBSERVER, Michael Coveney

- Paul Unwin’s riveting production reminded me more strongly than any I have ever seen that the Danish Court is riddled with secrecy. Politics is a form of hide and seek: everyone stealthily watches everyone else. Iain Glen’s Hamlet is a melancholic in the clinical sense: his impeccable breeding and essential good nature keep in check what might be an approaching breakdown. His vitriolic humour acts as a safety valve for a nagging instability, his boyish charm is deployed to placate and deceive a hostile and watchful world. Glen brings out Hamlet’s fatal self absorption: the way he cannot help observing himself and putting a moral price tag on every action and failure. He is a doomed boy. And his chill but touching calm at the end is that of a man who has finally understood the secrets behind the closed doors. The Sunday Times, John Peter

- This is an excellent production of Hamlet from the Bristol Old Vic. The director Paul Unwin and his designer Bunnie Christie have set the play in turn of the century Europe. Elsinore is a palace of claustrophobically white walls and numerous doors. All this is handled with a light touch, without drawing attention away from the play. Our first encounter with Hamlet shows him bottled up with rage and grief. Glen gives a gripping performance. The self-dramatising side of the character is tapped to the full by this talented actor. The Spectator, Christopher Edwards

**************************************************************************************************

The following though is my favorite review/article because it situates Iain Glen’s creation is time, in the spectrum of all renowned Hamlets.

How will Cumberbatch, TV’s Sherlock, solve the great mystery of Hamlet? by Michael Coveney - Aug 17, 2015

In 1987, three years before he died, the critic and venerable Shakespearean JC Trewin published a book of personal experience and reminiscence: Five and Eighty Hamlets. I’m thinking of supplying a second volume, under my own name, called Six and Fifty Hamlets, for that will be my total once Benedict Cumberbatch has opened at the Barbican.

There’s a JC and MC overlap of about 15 years: Trewin was a big fan of Derek Jacobi’s logical and graceful prince in 1977 and ended with less enthusiastic remarks about “the probing intelligence” of Michael Pennington in 1980 (both Jacobi and Pennington were 37 when they played the role; Cumberbatch is 39) and emotional pitch and distraction of Roger Rees in 1984 (post-Nickleby, Rees was 40, but an electric eel and ever-youthful).

I started as a reviewer in 1972 with three Hamlets on the trot: the outrageous Charles Marowitz collage, which treats Hamlet as a creep and Ophelia as a demented tart, and makes exemplary, equally unattractive polar opposites of Laertes and Fortinbras; a noble, stately Keith Michell (with a frantic Polonius by Ron Moody) at the Bankside Globe, Sam Wanamaker’s early draft of the Shakespearean replica; and a 90-minute gymnastic exercise performed by a cast of eight in identical chain mail and black breeches at the Arts Theatre.

This gives an idea of how alterable and adaptable Hamlet has been, and continues to be. There are contestable readings between the Folios, any number of possible cuts, and there is no end of choice in emphasis. Trewin once wrote a programme note for a student production directed by Jonathan Miller in which he said that the first scene on the battlements (“Who’s there?”) was the most exciting in world drama; the scene was cut.

And as Steven Berkoff pointed out in his appropriately immodestly titled book I Am Hamlet (1989), Hamlet doesn’t exist in the way Macbeth, or Coriolanus, exists; when you play Hamlet, he becomes you, not the other way round. Hamlet, said Hazlitt, is as real as our own thoughts.

Which is why my three favourite Hamlets are all so different from each other, and attractive because of the personality of the actor who’s provided the mould for the Hamlet jelly: my first, pre-critical-days Hamlet, David Warner (1965) at the Royal Shakespeare Company, was a lank and indolently charismatic student in a long red scarf, exact contemporary of David Halliwell’s Malcolm Scrawdyke, and two years before students were literally revolting in Paris and London; then Alan Cumming (1993) with English Touring Theatre, notably quick, mercurial and very funny, with a detachable doublet and hose, black Lycra pants and bovver boots, definitely (then) the glass of fashion, a graceful gender-bender like Brett Anderson of indie band Suede; and, at last, Michael Sheen (2011) at the Young Vic, a vivid and overreaching fantasist in a psychiatric institution (“Denmark’s a prison”), where every actor “plays” his part.

These three actors – Warner, Cumming, Sheen – occupy what might be termed the radical, alternative tradition of Hamlets, whereas the authoritative, graceful nobility of Jacobi belongs to the Forbes Robertson/John Gielgud line of high-ranking top drawer ‘star’ turns, a dying species and last represented, sourly but magnificently, by Ralph Fiennes (1995) in the gilded popular palace of the Hackney Empire. Fiennes, like Cumberbatch, has the sort of voice you might expect a non-radical, traditional Hamlet to possess.

But if you listen to Gielgud on tape, you soon realise he wasn’t ‘old school’ at all. He must have been as modern, at the time, as Noel Coward. Gielgud is never ‘intoned’ or overtly posh, he’s quicksilver, supple, intellectually alert. I saw him deliver the “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave” soliloquy on the night the National left the Old Vic (February 28, 1976); he had played the role more than 500 times, and not for 37 years, but it was as fresh, brilliant and compelling as if he had been making it up on the spot.

Ben Kingsley, too, in 1975, was a fiercely intelligent Royal Shakespeare Company Hamlet, and I saw much of that physical and mental power in David Tennant’s, also for the RSC in 2008, with an added pinch of mischief and irony. There’s another tradition, too, of angry Hamlets: Nicol Williamson in 1969, a scowling, ferocious demon; Jonathan Pryce at the Royal Court in 1980, possessed by the ghost of his father and spewing his lines, too, before finding Yorick’s skull in a cabinet of bones, an ossuary of Osrics; and a sourpuss Christopher Ecclestone (2002), spiritually constipated, moody as a moose with a migraine, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

One Hamlet who had a little of all these different attributes – funny, quixotic, powerful, unhappy, clever and genuinely heroic – was Iain Glen (1991) at the Bristol Old Vic, and I can imagine Cumberbatch developing along similar lines. He, like so many modern Hamlets, is pushing 40 – as was Jude Law (2009), hoary-voiced in the West End – yet when Trevor Nunn cast Ben Whishaw (2004) straight from RADA, aged 23, petulant and precocious, at the Old Vic, he looked like a 16-year-old, and too young for what he was saying. It’s like the reverse of King Lear, where you have to be younger to play older with any truth or vigour.

Michael Billington’s top Hamlet remains Michael Redgrave, aged 50, in 1958, as he recounts in his brilliant new book, The 101 Greatest Plays (seven of the 101 are by Shakespeare); Hamlet, he says, more than any other play, alters according to time as well as place.

So, Yuri Lyubimov’s great Cold War Hamlet, the prince played by the dissident poet Vladimir Visotsky, was primarily about surveillance, the action played on either side of an endlessly moving hessian and woollen wall. And in Belgrade in 1980, shortly after the death of Tito, the play became a statement of anxiety about the succession.

There’s a mystery to Hamlet that not even Sherlock Holmes could solve, though Cumberbatch will no doubt try his darndest – even if he finds his Watson at the Barbican (Leo Bill is playing Horatio) more of a hindrance than a help; there are, after all, more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his friend’s philosophy.

*************************************************************************************************

Oh! Did I say that we were never going to see Iain Glen in the skin of the great Dane? Tsk. How silly of me. Meet IG’s Hamlet in Tom Stoppard’s postmodern theatrical whimsy ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, shot the year before the Bristol play.

Though almost surreal and most often funny as the film follows the Pulp Fiction-like misadventures of two forgettable Shakespearian characters, crossing paths with other more or less fortunate characters, their time with Hamlet makes us privy to the Dane as we never quite see him in the Bard’s play... but for one memorable scene,  in which Iain Glen absolutely nails it, emoting the famous “To be or not to be” which you see tortures his soul, brings tears to his eyes and contorts his mouth; the moment made all the more memorable by the fact that it is a silent scene. You never hear him utter the famous line, but you see the words leave his lips and feel them mark your soul.

I’m kinda telling myself that it’s 1991 and I’m sitting in the Old Vic, in Bristol, not London. Not yet.

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched - Week #71

My second by Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri, West Beirut, his extremely well-made debut film (The first one I’ve seen was ‘The insult’). It starts on April 13, 1975 when a busload of 31 Muslims were massacred by masked terrorists, right in front of the protagonist’s school. This real event sparked the civil war that divided Beirut into Christian East Beirut and Muslim West Beirut. Surprisingly warm and authentic story about two high-school friends who wake up one day to find themselves in a war zone. 9/10

🍿    

"Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man"...

I finally got to watch all 9 films of the riveting British The Up series, considered 'one of the most important documentaries ever’. This once-every-seven-years project, which followed the lives of a random group, 10 boys and 4 girls, from 7 to 63. It was captivating from the very beginning, and I binged it in 2-3 days.

What started as a one-off sociological study of the British class system, turned into a philosophical process of observing change in real time.

What will such cute, innocent, 7-year-old kids (mostly with giant ears) turn into? For many of them, their path was determined by their birth, and their lives went in a predictably straight line. Most all of them got married and divorced and married again, had kids and grand kids, and lived “normal” lives. Some of the working class boys were inarticulate and uninspiring. But few were remarkable: Nick, the very shy boy from a tiny village, who became a renowned nuclear physicist. Lynn, an ordinary girl who became a saintly administrator at a special need children hospital (and who was the first participant to die at 57). Bruce, (... “My heart’s desire is to see my daddy, who is 6000 miles away in Rhodesia”...) a meek boy who became a math teacher in Bangladesh. And Neil, the lovely boy who had to deal with mental illness, homelessness and loneliness most of his adult life. All of it though was fascinating and is highly recommended. (Photo Above).

It got me to think: If it was me summarizing my life in a similar fashion, I would appear to distant viewers as a complete and unpredictable freak.

3 interviews with Michael Apted:

🎦🎦🎦 Roger Ebert Discusses The Series with Michael Apted between ‘49 Up’ and ‘56 Up’.

🎦🎦🎦 From Film at Lincoln Center, October 2019 (Post 63 UP).

🎦🎦🎦 Another from November 2019.

🎦🎦🎦 A dissenting view: Apted’s Flawed but Brilliant Epic of British Social Life, at The Nation.

Best film experience of the week!

🍿      

Another long binge, the newly-acclaimed Station Eleven, a post-apocalyptic pandemic show about joy. From a Chicago production of ‘King Lear’ on the first day of the pandemic that destroys 99% of all people in the world, to a ragtag play of ‘Hamlet’ 20 years later at a small airport in Michigan, it’s a different story of survival. It took me until Episode 3, "Hurricane" , to get hooked, and the rest I watched all in one go.

The graphic novel that formed the center of the story was commissioned by Canadian illustrator Maria Nguyen. I recognized her style immediately: She created one of the best Astronaut Adora artworks, No. 772 on 6/29/14. She even used it on her business cards at the time. Hello, Maria!

🍿      

Kenneth Branagh X 2:

🎦🎦🎦 Much Ado About Nothing, another Shakespeare-adjacent romantic comedy adapted and directed by Branagh. With Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves (as the heel), Michael Keaton and still pudgy Kate Beckinsale in her debut role.

🎦🎦🎦 The Gingerbread Man is a sub-par legal thriller, based on a John Grisham manuscript. Directed by Robert Altman, but there’s nothing of Altman in it. Branagh plays a Georgia lawyer with a fake Southern accent. Everybody associated with it is terrible, including Robert Duvall and Daryl Hannah. It’s hopelessly mediocre and unoriginal. 1/10.

🍿      

As I am waiting for a good copy of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, I watched The Daniels’ necrophiliac debut film Swiss Army Man, a bizarre, mostly disgusting absurdist tale of a corpse whose farts saves a young castaway. Surrealistic, off-putting and original. 6/10.

🍿      

Anne Baxter X 2:

🎦🎦🎦 “...Fasten your seat belts. It's gonna be a bumpy ride...”

First watch: I couldn’t imagine I would be so absorbed in the 1950 Broadway-drama All about Eve. A story of an aging diva Bette Davis who takes in manipulative fan Anne Baxter. “The only film in Oscar history to receive four female acting nominations”. With a glamorous early role for Marilyn Monroe. 8/10. 

🎦🎦🎦 Hitchcock‘s 1953 Catholic I Confess, about Father Montgomery Clift who’s unjustly accused for murder and the consequences of his ‘Seal of Confession’. An observation: A jury trial with 12 jurors - all men! 7/10.

🍿      

Prompted by a reddit comment, I re-watched the tense LA-Noir The Grifters. An adult story by Jim Thompson, directed by Stephen Frears, and produced by Martin Scorsese. With a fantastic opening montage scored by Elmer Bernstein, and scorching performances by Annette Bening, Angelica Houston and John Cusak. 8+/10.

🍿      

2 stop motion animated comedies by Wes Anderson:

🎦🎦🎦 “...Boggis and Bunce and Bean

One fat, one short, one lean.

These horrible crooks

So different in looks

Were nonetheless equally mean...”

Fantastic Mr. Fox, after Roald Dahl: Quirky, charming and eccentric, where all the good animals have American accents and the bad ones have British ones.

🎦🎦🎦 Isle of Dogs, with Bryan Cranston and Yoko Ono. Anderson’s Japanese appropriation wet dream and his Korusawa / Hayazaki free association homage. I would love to see the first storyboard draft of this. And I wonder how much Adora ‘got it’ when we first watched it then.

🍿      

“...I never thought we’ll end this way...

How did you think we’ll end?...

I don’t know - some other way...”

First watch: Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. Starting with a parody of Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin Stairs and ending with this being O. J. Simpson's final role before killing his wife and friend. 2/10.

RIP, Fred Ward.

🍿      

Before 2016, GOP operative Steve Schmidt worked to elect airhead opportunists like Bush 2 to office without any problem. But with the arrival of trump, he found religion, becoming one of Orange Hitler’s sharpest critics. Last week, he even disclosed that there was an anti-American fraction in the GOP already in 2008 during John McCain‘s presidential campaign (which he had ran).

So I watched Game Change, an HBO TV drama, re-litigating the way ridiculously ditsy Sarah Palin was picked as McCain’s VP. It’s an OK behind-the-scene gossip piece, catnip for political junkies like I was. And Woody Harrelson was OK as Steve Schmidt. But looking back at 2008 today is painful: even Obama’s election was not as advertised. And we never would imagine then how much uglier life in America will get after Palin.

🍿 2 more TV-Series:     

🎦🎦🎦 Candy is a new, 5-parts series with Jessica Biel. It dramatizes the 1980′s Texas housewife and mother who axe-murdered the wife of her ex-lover, and then was acquitted by pleading self-defense. I don’t usually care for true-crime stories. This captured well the claustrophobic life and oppressive decor of the late 70′s, but it fizzles into cliches. A 2 hour film would work better. 3/10

🎦🎦🎦 I tried another, fourth series, Apple TV’s 2019 For All Mankind. This 'Alternative history’ speculation of what would have happened if the Soviets were successful in landing a man on the moon before Apollo 11, sounded interesting. But if looked and felt like a mediocre soap opera, badly acted, run-of-the-mill story and boring direction. I manage to stay on for only one episode. 1/10.

🍿      

The only Roy Andersson’s film that I haven't seen is ‘Gilliap’, his 1975 fiasco, and the one that caused his break from the cinema for 25 years. And the only clip related to Gilliap that I could easily source was this lovely score piece, Sommarens sista vals by Björn Isfält.

- - - - -

(My complete movie list is here)

[madamekyberpunk]

Film Diary (July 12, 2020 - Dec 28, 2020)

JULY

July 12, 2020: KNIVES OUT (Dir. Rian Johnson)

We get to see Rian Johnson finely tune his craft in real time, and I find it exciting. I’ve been on a binge of his work as-of-late and a recurring theme of most of his movies is them being a commentary on themselves or the genres they’re working within. I think this movie nails that trick on the head without patting itself on the back too much. The ensemble cast is expertly chosen and works together really well, and you can tell just by watching it that they were having fun on set. The cast is grounded by Ana de Armas’ quietly brilliant performance. My favorite Rian Johnson movie is still reserved for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but I do think this is his best work so far.

July 13, 2020: MERMAIDS (Dir. Richard Benjamin)

A slightly more absurd version of Lady Bird, if Lady Bird was made in the nineties. A good addition to the strained-but-loving mother-daughter relationship cinematic universe.

July 15, 2020: THE UNTOUCHABLES (Dir. Brian De Palma)

This is actually the first mafia movie I’ve ever seen, and honestly...it was probably a bad one to start with. Although it was entertaining and tense at all the right moments, the whole thing just felt empty. Every character seemed half-baked and none of them really had any development. De Palma could’ve gone grittier for an R-rating and made his interpretation of Al Capone a little less cartoonish; Kevin Costner’s Eliot Ness was doing the absolute least, and Robert De Niro’s Al Capone was doing the absolute most.

July 31, 2020: (500) DAYS OF SUMMER (Dir. Marc Webb)

For some reason I have unintentionally seen almost all of Marc Webb’s filmography, and I have to say that I’m underwhelmed by all of it. While watching I found myself reflexively comparing this to Webb’s The Amazing Spiderman and maybe it ruined my viewing experience a little bit. Both of them have lots of super mumbly, drawn-out conversations and an interpretation of an “indie” style that just seems...bland to me. (Also, both of them have pale women with bangs and men with undiagnosed depression.) I don’t know, I just feel like if you want a rom-com with a realistic depiction of romantic relationships, you should just go watch The Big Sick.

AUGUST

August 14, 2020: LATE NIGHT (Dir. Nisha Ganatra)

Emma Thompson was great in this, and I think Mindy Kaling is very underrated as a writer (in some ways, I think she is the modern Nora Ephron). I’ve seen quite a few reviews claiming that this movie plays along with conventions, but I don’t necessarily think that conventions are inherently bad as long as they’re executed well. In this case, they were.

August 22, 2020: THE FAREWELL (Dir. Lulu Wang)

I’d classify this as a really good movie that just didn’t click with me. It was a complete, “it’s not them, it’s me,” situation. It was smartly directed with a focused, sharp script and an excellent leading performance from Awkwafina - I can see why people were upset that it got snubbed at the Oscars - but it just wasn’t my thing. The only time I really connected with it emotionally was the ending.

August 22, 2020: KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE (Dir. Rachel Lears)

The only piece of media currently in existence that somehow makes me feel a sense of patriotism for this hellscape of a country.

SEPTEMBER

September 5, 2020: BARRY (Dir. Vikram Gandhi)

Speaking of living in a hellscape of a country, I have mixed feelings about the Obama presidency - but this movie isn’t about his presidency. It isn’t indicative that he’ll be president at any point. It’s essentially a piece of historical fiction about race and American identity that happens to use Barack Obama as its protagonist. You could replace him with any other dude with a background similar to his and it still would’ve been interesting.

September 8, 2020: UNICORN STORE (Dir. Brie Larson)

If there’s one word to describe this movie, I’d say, it’s cute. Not in a patronizing type of way, but in a this-movie-feels-like-a-warm-hug type of way. I like this Brie Larson vehicle much more than Captain Marvel, mainly because I feel like she’s having more fun in this and she gets to wear more colors and Samuel L. Jackson has tinsel in his hair and also there’s a unicorn in it. I’m a simple girl with simple needs. I also think Samuel L. Jackson should be adorned in tinsel in every film he’s in without explanation (I might actually watch Pulp Fiction if Jackson’s character had a sparkly afro in it). This movie also made me stan Mamoudou Athie - I think he plays a good straight man and I hope that they don’t waste him in Jurassic World: Dominion, although I’m not getting my hopes up.

September 11, 2020: LADY BIRD (Dir. Greta Gerwig)

I waited a criminally long amount of time to finally watch this. I can’t really say anything about this movie that hasn’t already been said. It’s good! It’s genuine and sweet and I liked seeing Timothée Chalamet play a pretentious asshole.

September 12, 2020: THE BROTHERS BLOOM (Dir. Rian Johnson)

Upon a rewatch, I’m taking my original score of 3.5 out of 5 and bumping it up to a 4 out of 5.  Adrian Brody and Rachel Weisz’s performances pretty much make this movie with their earnestness and chemistry. I think you could qualify this film as a romantic dramedy that just happens to be about an international con job. It doesn’t do the greatest job of explaining itself plot-wise, but it makes up for it with stylish direction and a charming cast.

September 18, 2020: EVER AFTER (Dir. Andy Tennant)

The best Cinderella adaptation currently in existence (next to Nickelodeon’s Rags starring Keke Palmer, of course). It’s so good that I’m willing to forgive Drew Barrymore’s attempt at a British accent. I also think this is one of the few movies that could be a decent remake if you gave it to the right director.

September 19, 2020: BRICK (Dir. Rian Johnson)

I love Rian Johnson, I think we’ve established that already, but I kind of sort of hated his film debut. It seemed so caught up in its own concept that it ended up seeming like a shell of a movie with no theme to ground it. Sometimes I don’t care if movie has no theme if it’s entertaining, but this movie was not entertaining, so...

September 25, 2020: ABOUT LAST NIGHT... (Dir. Edward Zwick)

Alternate title: Toxic Man is Horrible to a Woman Who Literally Does Nothing Wrong Ever and Also is Gorgeous, They Break Up, Toxic Man Gets a Different Job and Toxicity is Gone Now, Like His Personality was Sifted Through a Brita Water Filter, then the Toxic Man Gets an Unearned Happy Ending with Gorgeous Woman. It might be a little bit long, but at least people would know what they were in for. Still better than (500) Days of Summer, although every male character in About Last Night... deserves to be in jail. All of Demi Moore’s sweaters get five stars.

OCTOBER

October 3, 2020: ENOLA HOLMES (Dir. Harry Bradbeer)

During the first draft of this post, I gave this movie a pretty good review. Then I rewatched it, and...huh. It’s not exactly a bad movie, it’s just an aggressively average movie. Enola Holmes would have benefited from a) a shorter runtime, b) a better mystery, and c) a weirder style. I think that if the character is going to repeatedly talk into the camera, which is kinda weird, you should just make everything else weird too. Give it a Birds of Prey-esque unreliable narrator and non-linear storyline. It’s still a fun movie, and the inevitable sequels have potential, but it just felt like they could’ve - I don’t know - made more of an effort?

October 10, 2020: HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE (Dir. Taika Waititi)

This is the first Taika Waititi movie I’ve seen besides Thor: Ragnarok. I liked seeing how his style transferred into Ragnarok, and it probably has the funniest funeral scene ever written (do yourself a favor and look it up on YouTube). Hunt for the Wilderpeople knows when to make a joke without getting too goofy, and it knows when to be sentimental without getting too sappy. It also has dozens of glorious one-liners.

October 11, 2020: LITTLE WOMEN (Dir. Greta Gerwig)

The best Little Women adaptation. (I haven’t seen the one with Katharine Hepburn but I’m just going to assume that this one’s better.) This movie was clearly made for people who know and love the story, which can be a good thing and a bad thing - it means that it took some creative liberties that enhanced the story and added subversions that made it feel meta in a satisfying way. But it also meant that it could be potentially confusing for people who aren’t familiar with the story. Personally I wasn’t lost, but I think Gerwig could’ve used some more visual cues to let you know when they were in the present or when they were diving into the past. I wouldn’t want her to eliminate the jumping back and forth, though, because I think it allowed the characters to be explored a lot more than a linear story would’ve allowed. Gerwig also did a great job of letting you understand the motivations of the supporting characters - specifically Amy - in a way that prior adaptations never really did. Every character felt like their own person instead of accessories to Jo’s life.

October 16, 2020: THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 (Dir. Aaron Sorkin)

Siegel, a very good Letterboxd reviewer that I follow, said it better than I can: “Aaron Sorkin is way too good a writer to be forced to work with such a mediocre director as Aaron Sorkin”. I didn’t mind the beginning - I thought the quick editing, upbeat music, and cuts back and forth between historical footage and fictionalized scenes were engaging, but the ending was clunky and didn’t fit the tone of the rest of the film. The Trial of the Chicago 7 was a little confused politically and wanted to desperately cling onto a centrism that didn’t let the film fully embrace the anger that it could’ve ended on. Despite all of these things, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. The performances were all excellent, and if any of them get nominated for an Oscar it’s well-deserved. I’m also a sucker for Aaron Sorkin’s speechy, tangential dialogue. It makes me feel smart whenever I listen to it.

October 20, 2020: HALLOWEENTOWN (Dir. Duwayne Dunham)

This movie does it for the girls and the gays, that’s it.

October 26, 2020: BIRDS OF PREY (AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN) (Dir. Cathy Yan)

This movie also does it for the girls and the gays, that’s it. Seriously, I honestly don’t know why people don’t love this movie. Margot Robbie’s performance as Harley Quinn is Oscar-worthy. That’s not a joke. I actually think that if the Oscars knew how to have fun, she would get a nomination. She is this character. It feels so lived-in and she never does too much - and with a role like Harley Quinn, it would be very easy to do too much. I also have to give props to the type of feminism that director Cathy Yan inserted into this film. I really enjoyed Wonder Woman and didn’t mind Captain Marvel, but there was something so formulaic and studio-approved about the female empowerment in both of those films. Birds of Prey, however, didn’t really give a single fuck. It was a nuanced, violent, funny as hell story about flawed women forming alliances and finding meaningful relationships in a world that actively abuses them and ugh, I love this movie. It’s probably my personal favorite of the year.

October 27, 2020: DOLLY PARTON: HERE I AM (Dir. Francis Whately)

This documentary was strangely edited and offered pretty surface-level information presented in an uninteresting way. I enjoyed myself while I was watching it, but I just wish it would’ve gone deeper. Dolly Parton is one of the most interesting figures in music history, and there was a lot more they could’ve explored.

NOVEMBER

November 1, 2020: ATTACK THE BLOCK (Dir. Joe Cornish)

This 82-minute movie gave John Boyega a more satisfactory arc than the almost seven hour long Star Wars sequel trilogy. Seriously, this movie fucking slaps! It hit all the right notes at all the right moments. I honestly think that a lot of sci-fi movies would be better if they worked with smaller budgets and shorter runtimes. Something about working within limitations makes a film feel more authentic and cuts out a lot of the excess fat. This movie is funny and earnest and surprisingly has a lot to say about the world we live in, with a budget that’s 200 million dollars less and a runtime that's 45 minutes less than a lot of sci-fi movies out there.

November 18, 2020: A PRINCESS FOR CHRISTMAS (Dir. Michael Damian)

*Lady Gaga voice* Amazing, show-stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely-not-ever-been-done-before... My go-to shitty Hallmark Christmas movie every year :)

November 19, 2020: THE LEGO STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL (Dir. Ken Cunningham)

I’m giving this a five-star rating completely unironically. This movie uses the mechanism of time travel better than Avengers: Endgame.

November 20, 2020: THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES (Dir. Clay Kaytis)

There’s a scene where Kurt Russel does a musical number in a jail cell and then Winston from “New Girl” quits his job as a cop. What more could you want from a Christmas movie?

November 21, 2020: INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen)

What was originally intended to be an Oscar Isaac thirst watch turned into what might end up being one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s one of those movies where it’s hard to articulate why it was so good, it was just good, but for the sake of this post I’ll try my best. Oscar Isaac was phenomenal in this - and I’m not just saying that because I’m a simp. His performance, combined with the script, made you root for his character even if he was a douchebag a lot of the time. The movie did a great job of blurring the line between what Llewyn Davis brought on himself and what was the result of just really, really bad luck. The use of sound in Llewyn Davis is excellent, too. Instead of using an instrumental score to emphasize emotion, they used sounds from the character’s environment, which really let the occasional musical moments pop - whenever anyone started singing, it almost felt cathartic. The Coen Brothers also provided moments of levity with perfectly-timed comedic moments throughout. It’s one of those movies where at the end of it, you’re kind of jealous that someone could make something that good. The fact that Oscar Isaac didn’t even get an Oscar nomination for this is - not to be dramatic - a fucking war crime.

November 22, 2020: STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Dir. Rian Johnson)

Listen, I know The Last Jedi is such a hotly debated movie that it’s almost political, but it happens to be my favorite movie of all time. Like, number one. It even beats A Princess for Christmas. I’ve had my fair share of slander for loving this movie so damn much, but I will defend it until the day I die, and then I will have my tombstone engraved with “Luke Skywalker’s portrayal in this movie makes sense, you guys are just poisoned by nostalgia.” I’ve seen this movie several times, but I actually haven’t given it a rewatch since The Rise of Skywalker came out last December, and it still holds up. There’s a couple of things that I really appreciated a bit more this time around: every shot in this movie seems so intentional and emotionally charged. Pause it at any point and you’re going to have something interesting and aesthetically pleasing to look at. I really enjoyed the dialogue, too. In most of his movies, Rian Johnson makes his characters talk in a slightly heightened (or in Brick's case, very heightened) way, and it lends well to the Star Wars universe. I'm never going to to not gush about this film. The Last Jedi is the movie that made me love movies, and for that I will always be grateful.

November 25, 2020: HAPPIEST SEASON (Dir. Clea DuVall)

I have similar feelings toward this movie as I did toward Crazy Rich Asians; it follows most of the conventions that populate the rom-com genre, but for the marginalized people the movie is representing, it’s actually pretty fresh. Hot take, but I don’t think that Kristen Stewart’s character should’ve ended up with Aubrey Plaza’s character - I just think the film could’ve done a better job of empathizing with Mackenzie Davis’s character. If we focused on her perspective a bit more, maybe she would’ve seemed less...shitty and distant. I’d also appreciate it if we just stop doing the Gay Best Friend Trope after this movie because - let’s be honest with ourselves - no one’s going to be able to top Daniel Levy’s rendition of it.

November 29, 2020: MANGROVE (Dir. Steve McQueen)

See my Mangrove review here.

DECEMBER

December 5, 2020: RED, WHITE AND BLUE (Dir. Steve McQueen)

I may need to give this a rewatch at some point, mainly because it seems like I didn’t fully grasp the themes it was conveying due to my own skepticisms going into it. Here’s my original review.

December 13, 2020: THE PROM (Dir. Ryan Murphy)

I really can’t critically engage with this movie because my brain just turns off the minute the first song starts. Most of the criticisms you’ve heard are valid - though perhaps a little bit blown out of proportion - but it’s so much damn fun. I’ve watched it twice now.

December 19, 2020: MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM (Dir. George C. Wolfe)

Chadwick Boseman’s last performance is haunting, transformative, and magnetic. The same can be said about Viola Davis’ performance, which is a surprise to no one, but this is really Chadwick’s vehicle. I just wish the directing was as interesting as the acting. This film was adapted from an August Wilson play, and directorially it was treated like a play, which doesn’t necessarily translate that well to film. The space around the actors wasn’t really utilized, and the way it was shot was pretty lackluster and static; oftentimes, the only interesting thing to look at in a scene was an actor’s performance. Maybe I’ve just been a little obsessed with Steve McQueen’s directing style lately, but this movie probably would’ve been five stars for me (instead of the four-and-a-half I gave it) if it was directed by him.

December 19, 2020: LONG TOAST (Dir. Karsten Runquist)

Fuck yeah, Karsten Runquist! Shout out to his monthly “what I watched in [insert month]” videos for giving me the inspiration to write this. 

December 23, 2020: LET IT SNOW (Dir. Luke Snellin)

Weirdly enough, this may be one of my favorite Christmas movies. There’s nothing all that remarkable about it, but it has a sweet, simple holiday vibe with innocent performances and low stakes. I don’t really ask a lot for Christmas movies, and this pretty much delivers.

December 25, 2020: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ANALYSIS (Dir. Rian Johnson)

This short film from Rian Johnson is the earliest thing I could find of his filmography on Letterboxd, and it was a pretty engaging watch. It was essentially all of Johnson’s quirks as a director condensed into ten minutes. It reminded me of those trippy short stories you had to read in middle school.

December 26, 2020: PLUS ONE (Dir. Jeff Chan & Andrew Rhymer)

I’ve seen a lot of rom-coms - like, an ungodly amount - and my love-hate affair with this genre has made me realize that predictability isn’t the issue with rom-coms (a lot of genres are very, very predictable). The issue is a lack of authenticity. Yes, this film is predictable, but it’s authentic. The humor in this movie actually feels like something that would happen in real life, not something heavily contrived or exaggerated for the sake of entertainment. I don’t have anything against the contrived and exaggerated, but it’s refreshing to see comedy being delivered so naturally in this genre. Plus One also has a more realistic (but still sweet) perspective on love and relationships which you don’t normally see in any genre.

December 27, 2020: THE HALF OF IT (Dir. Alice Wu)

I watched this at the beginning of the year and didn’t enjoy it all that much - partly because I was in the closet and aaaah girls kissing aaaaaah - and partly because I just thought it was boring. On a second viewing, I really appreciated it more. I think it’s the smartest and most well-shot movie directed toward teens that I’ve seen on Netflix. Although the script can be a bit pretentious, it’s directed in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s either trying to be too indie or like an hour and fourty-five minute long single-camera sitcom episode. The character of Ellie is also a really interesting and nuanced character, and a good example of how to write and portray queerness on screen.

December 27, 2020: TAYLOR SWIFT - FOLKLORE: THE LONG POND STUDIO SESSIONS (Dir. Taylor Swift)

I would die for Taylor Swift and/or Jack Antonoff.

December 28, 2020: MANK (Dir. David Fincher)

I went into this movie as a) someone who has never seen a David Fincher film, and b) someone who has never seen Citizen Kane. Unsurprisingly, Mank was definitely not my thing. That doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate it. It’s a fucking good-looking movie. But it’s kind of like the himbo of movies - it’s nice to look at, but there’s not much going on underneath. I’m hearing this complaint from a lot of people: it’s a technical masterpiece, but it feels pretty damn hollow. Personally, it’s not enough for me to recognize that a film looks and sounds good - I have to care about and know the human beings within it in order for me to think that it’s a good movie. To me, a film is only as good as the emotional relevance of its story, but sadly emotional relevance is where Mank falls short.

What movies kept you sane during 2020? Let me know!

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/carl-reiner-comedy-legend-and-dick-van-dyke-show-creator-dies-at-98-variety/

Carl Reiner, Comedy Legend and ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’ Creator, Dies at 98 - Variety

Carl Reiner, the writer, producer, director and actor who was part of Sid Caesar’s legendary team and went on to create “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and direct several hit films, has died. He was 98.

He died of natural causes on Monday night at his home in Beverly Hills, his assistant Judy Nagy confirmed to Variety.

Reiner, the father of filmmaker and activist Rob Reiner, was the winner of nine Emmy awards, including five for “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” His most popular films as a director included “Oh God,” starring George Burns, in 1977; “The Jerk,” with Steve Martin, in 1979; and “All of Me,” with Martin and Lily Tomlin, in 1984.

Rob Reiner tweeted on Tuesday morning, “Last night my dad passed away. As I write this my heart is hurting. He was my guiding light.”

Last night my dad passed away. As I write this my heart is hurting. He was my guiding light.

— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) June 30, 2020

In his later years, Reiner was an elder statesman of comedy, revered and respected for his versatility as a performer and multi-hyphenate. He was also adept at social media. He maintained a lively presence on Twitter up until the last day of his life. He was vocal in his opposition to President Donald Trump.

As I arose at 7:30 this morning, I was saddened to relive the day that led up to the election of a bankrupted and corrupt businessman who had no qualifications to be the leader of any country in the civilized world…

— carl reiner (@carlreiner) June 29, 2020

Reiner remained in the public eye well into his 80s and 90s with roles in the popular “Ocean’s Eleven” trio of films and on TV with recurring roles on sitcoms “Two and a Half Men” and “Hot in Cleveland.” He also did voice work for shows including “Family Guy,” “American Dad,” “King of the Hill,” and “Bob’s Burgers.”

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In 2017, Carl Reiner, his longtime friend and frequent comedy partner Mel Brooks, Norman Lear, Kirk Douglas and other nonagenarian Hollywood legends were featured in the HBO documentary “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast,” examining the secrets of longevity in a fickle industry.

Reiner first came to prominence as a regular cast member of Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows,” for which he won two Emmys in 1956 and 1957 in the supporting category. He met Brooks during his time with Caesar. The two went on to have a long-running friendship and comedy partnership through the recurring “2000 Year Old Man” sketches.

Before creating CBS hit “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” on which he sometimes appeared, Reiner and “Show of Shows” writer Mel Brooks worked up an elongated skit in which Reiner played straight man-interviewer to Brooks’ “2000 Year Old Man”; a 1961 recording of the skit was an immediate hit and spawned several sequels, the last of which, 1998’s “The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000,” won the pair a Grammy.

Producer-director Max Liebman, who cast him in the 1950 Broadway show “Alive and Kicking,” also hired Reiner as the emcee and a performer on NBC’s comedy/variety program “Your Show of Shows.”

Reiner then freelanced as a panel show emcee on “Keep Talking,” as a TV guest star and in featured film roles in “The Gazebo,” “Happy Anniversary” and “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.” Reiner’s 1958 novel “Enter Laughing,” loosely based on his own experiences, was optioned for the stage by producer David Merrick. Reiner did a legit adaptation in 1963 and then directed the film version in 1967, marking his motion picture directing debut.

For Broadway he wrote and directed the farce “Something Different,” which ran for a few months in 1967-68; helmed “Tough to Get Help” in 1972; penned the book for the musical “So Long, 174th Street,” which had a very brief run in 1976; and directed “The Roast” in 1980.

In 1961 Reiner drew on his experiences with Caesar to create and produce “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” a ratings cornerstone for CBS for the next five years. Reiner made guest appearances as the irascible variety show host Alan Brady. The show won Emmys for writing its first three years and for producing its last two. In 1967, Reiner picked up another Emmy for his writing in a reunion variety show with Caesar, Coca and Morris.

Though the “Enter Laughing” movie was modestly received, Reiner continued to direct steadily over the next few decades. “Where’s Poppa?,” an offbeat comedy he directed in 1970, became a cult favorite. Similarly, two other Martin vehicles, the gumshoe spoof “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” and “The Man With Two Brains,” found bigger audiences after their release in theaters.

There were also several less-than-successful films, such as 1969’s “The Comic,” to which Reiner also contributed some of the script; two similarly titled mid-’80s misfires, “Summer Rental” and “Summer School”; “Bert Rigby, You’re a Fool”; 1990’s “Sibling Rivalry”; and a 1993 spoof of “Basic Instinct” called “Fatal Instinct.” He also appeared in most of these pics.

While the last film he directed was the 1997 romantic comedy “That Old Feeling,” starring Bette Midler and Dennis Farina, Reiner was an active presence in guest roles on television and in supporting roles in films during the 1990s and 2000s, even as he neared and then surpassed his 90th birthday.

He guested on “Frasier” in 1993; reprised the role of Alan Brady on an episode of “Mad About You” in 1995 and won an Emmy for it; and guested on “Ally McBeal,” “Boston Legal” and “House.”

Bigscreen appearances included 1990’s “The Spirit of ’76,” directed by his son Lucas; “Slums of Beverly Hills” (1998); and all three films in the “Ocean’s Eleven” series.

Born in the Bronx, he graduated from high school at 16 and worked as a machinist while studying acting. After brief stints in summer stock and on the Borscht Belt circuit, he entered the Army during WWII. His acting talents brought him to the attention of Maurice Evans’ special services unit, where Reiner first met future “Show of Shows” cohort Howard Morris. For the remainder of the war he toured South Pacific bases in G.I. revues.

He hit the ground running in New York after the war, landing a part in G.I. revue “Call Me Mister” and in 1948 appeared in the Broadway musical revue “Inside U.S.A.,” starring Beatrice Lillie and Jack Haley. Concurrently he was appearing on television as a fashion photographer in ABC’s “Fashion Story.”

In early 1950, Reiner became part of the storied team working in front of and behind the camera on Caesar’s NBC variety show “Your Show of Shows,” a 90-minute comedy-variety show that aired live on Saturday nights. The writers room was packed with future showbiz legends including Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Mel Tolkin and Lucille Kallen.

After “Your Show of Shows” ended in 1954, Reiner and series regular Howard Morris moved on with Caesar to star in another NBC variety show, “Caesar’s Hour,” which ran on NBC from 1954 to 1957. When Reiner decided to shepherd his own sitcom, he teamed with producers Danny Thomas and Sheldon Leonard to produce “Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Van Dyke was the fourth partner in the production company Calvada, which has long maintained ownership of the classic comedy. “Dick Van Dyke Show” featured Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore as Rob and Laura Petrie, a version of Reiner and his wife Estelle living in the suburbs of New Rochelle while Reiner commuted to Manhattan to work on Caesar’s shows.

In 1995 Reiner received the Writers Guild’s Laurel Award, a lifetime achievement award for a career in TV writing. In 2000 he won the Mark Twain Prize for Humor, presented by the Kennedy Center. In 2009 he was presented with the WGA’s Valentine Davies Award, recognizing both his writing legacy and valued service to the guild, the entertainment industry and community at large.

He authored several memoirs and novels, including a sequel to “Enter Laughing,” “Continue Laughing,” “My Anecdotal Life” and “I Remember Me.”

In the 2003 “My Anecdotal Life,” he observed, “Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself is a good thing to do. You may be a fool but you’re the fool in charge.”

Reiner’s wife Estelle, to whom he had been married since 1943, died in 2008. In addition to Rob Reiner, survivors include his daughter Sylvia Anne and son Lucas.

— Cynthia Littleton contributed to this report.

[xtruss]

Feature

When Imran Khan Blew Me Away

Facing up to the legendary Pakistani allrounder in his prime took not a little courage

— MARK NICHOLAS | June 6, 2020

July 5th 1980, Hove. Damp weather had taken a turn for the better and play began on time in the Championship match between Sussex and Hampshire. Keith Stevenson, an honest outswing bowler who had joined Hampshire from Derbyshire a couple of seasons earlier, quickly removed Gehan Mendis and Tim Booth-Jones. The pitch was true and quite pacy; Hove was a fine place for county cricket. The folk in their deckchairs and straw hats muttered disapproval at the loss of two early wickets but rather perked up when Imran Khan made his way to the wicket at No. 4, a place higher than on the card. Floating behind the Pakistan allrounder were great clouds of charisma.

He wore the Sussex cap and from its band flowed the signature mane that rested upon the nape of his neck. The martlets on his sleeveless jumper appeared as if newly embroidered and occasionally, when the morning sun broke, shone like little blue sapphires on his chest. Imran Khan was some sight. Outrageously handsome, athletically built and light on his feet, he carried himself like an emperor. When he reached 15 or so, he closed the face of the bat too early on a little push to mid-on and the ball looped from the outside edge of his bat into the hands of the Hampshire left-arm spinner John Southern. It was a catch you would lob to a child. Southern dropped it.

We shall never know why, though clearly he took his eye of it. I was stationed at midwicket and watched in horror, as did our team from their various viewpoints around the field. Hampshire weren't much good that year and such pickings were rare. The deckchairs talked in whispered words of disbelief and relief. Southern pulled his jumper from the back of his neck over his head in order to cover his face. The moment was frozen in time: Southern the subject of shame, Hampshire's team the subject of ridicule, Imran the benefactor of hopelessness.

"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport," says Gloucester in King Lear as he wanders on the heath after being blinded by Cornwall and Regan. The quotation reflects the profound despair that grips him and drives him to desire his own death. He suggests that there is no good order in the universe. Instead of divine justice, there is only the "sport" of vicious, inscrutable gods, who reward cruelty and delight in suffering.

Early days: in the Lord's nets during the 1971 Pakistan tour of England © Getty Images

We were Imran's sport that day all right. He made 114 high-class runs, hitting a six and 16 fours before racing up the hill in the final 40 minutes of the day to claim two wickets with fast inswingers that terrified the recipients, of whom I was one.

Let's deal with the hundred first. Imran's batting was methodical, a thing of planning and practice. He had little of a Pakistani's wristy flair, and none of the looseness that has sometimes characterised the Pakistan game. He was a dodgy runner between the wickets, probably because he called runs from his own vantage point and not with another person in mind; but he didn't run much, at least not in the way of a run-thief. That was about the only flaw. We missed one of those too, Imran stuck halfway down with Paul Phillipson and the throw ending up across the boundary beneath the scoreboard.

He did everything else with time to spare and most of it with elegance. He played very straight - like gun barrel - and moved himself efficiently into line before looking almost exclusively to hit the ball back from whence it came. I remember the six he hit because it was exactly how he hit sixes: a little shuffle of the feet towards the bowler - Southern again - and then a lovely free swing of the bat that sent the ball sailing into the deckchairs. They more than whispered at that - they chortled and poured a glass of pale ale. He was out caught on the boundary off our other spinner, Nigel Cowley. I guess he was bored. Imran's return to the pavilion was the journey of a Roman triumph.

Soon enough he was back out, stretching limbs and wheeling arms. He took the new ball with Garth Le Roux, hardly a slouch himself. The change bowlers were Geoff Arnold and Ian Greig. We were lambs to the slaughter. Imran almost always bowled up the Hove hill and Le Roux down it, which was the case on July 5th 1980.

I repeat, he was a sight - sprinting in, leaping into his delivery stride and unleashing hell. The sprint was short-stepped and reached a good pace before the jump that, in his pomp, set him side-on and close to the stumps at the point of delivery. His left arm worked hard both as a part of the jump and in the follow-through, which, unusually for a fast bowler, broke away to the left and off the pitch area almost immediately after releasing the ball.

From the years at Oxford University in the early 1970s, when he was a chest-on medium-pace inswing bowler, he developed into one of the most sensational and adaptable fast bowlers of all time. Imagine if he had played the large part of his career in England, say, or New Zealand, rather than on the burnt-out, grassless pitches of Pakistan. Imagine the wickets column then! A loose wrist perfectly positioned behind the ball allowed for inswingers that were his stock-in-trade; the outswingers that he developed with the changes to his action were the luxury

Swooning is permitted: in a Sydney gym in 1984 © Fairfax Media/Getty Images

Now here he was at Hove, the Pathan warrior, waiting for me.

First he bounced out Tim Tremlett, a fine county bowler made makeshift opener for a while. Then he pawed at the ground as I took guard - the kid with the crazy dream versus Imran Khan, the greatest cricketer Pakistan has ever known. He whistled a couple past my nose at such pace and with such steep bounce that I barely offered to play beyond a trigger move back and across the crease and the pick-up of the bat. These balls hammered into the wicketkeeper's gloves at head height 25 yards behind me. Then, half-ducking, half-fending, I gloved one that ripped back at me and shot past leg gully down to long leg for a single. The blow sent a surge of electricity through my nervous system, but I was off the mark and away from "Immy".

The umpire at Imran's end was Barrie Meyer. "We haven't met, son, but if I had anything to offer, I'd say stay down this end. You've got a chance against big Garth because you can see the ball in the hand all the way through the run-up and delivery. With Immy, it's lost and then suddenly appears like a bullet from a gun. Good luck." Oh, right. Thanks.

Hove was the quickest pitch in England. As so often in sport, the legend outlives the facts, but the difference on this day and on this surface between our popgun and their heavy artillery was, well, ridiculous. Even I bowled four overs for goodness' sake, and they had Immy, Garth, Horse and Greigy.

There is a tale about me not wearing a helmet but that was a year later, in a Benson and Hedges Cup match. It was a gorgeous day, the pitch was flat - flat like batting heaven - and yes, I wore a sun hat, the Majid Khan-style hat with a wide brim and a hint of style. As I walked out at No. 3 I heard Imran at long leg shout to Garth, who was bowling, "Look Garth, no helmet." They bombed me until the shell shock dismantled me. In defence, helmets were not de rigeur; in fact, they were a choice you made each day, for each pitch or opponent.

Flay as it lays: in action for Sussex in 1981 © Getty Images

On this day in 1980, I wore a helmet but had not worn one before and it was both cumbersome and tricky for sighting the ball - rather an important part of batting. The Perspex visor misted up - well, began to, but I wasn't there long enough for a blinding mist - and it extended a long way out from the face, so it was hard to tuck my chin into my left shoulder in my stance. Thus, I stood quite open, which would have been fine if I had practised that way, but in county cricket there was no time for practice, only play. Oh, and we had only a few helmets so they were shared around. I think mine was white, or blue, or green. I mean, please.

Anyway, Chris Smith sneaked a single off the second ball of Imran's next over and there I was, up the wrong end again. Looking back, it was a thrilling experience but at the time it quickly turned to humiliation. The gulf in standard was so big as to be dangerous. He got me out, of course he did. I nicked a bouncy thing around off stump and nearly shouted "Catch it!" to the keeper behind me. He dived to his right and did just that. I was immediately overcome with sadness at such inability. I was also embarrassed. Sitting in the dressing room, I welled up, reflecting on the truth that I wasn't good enough. It rained for most of the rest of the match, so there was no repeat or redemption.

Eight months later I had a phone call at home from Keith Fletcher. Didn't know him from a bar of soap but was mighty intrigued that he was on the end of the line. He asked me to come with an "England" side to play three matches against a combined India-Pakistan team in Dubai and Bahrain.

I roomed with Basil D'Oliveira, stood at cover for John Snow, and batted with Fletch and Graham Roope among others. Imran bowled a little below Hove pace in a football stadium on a matting pitch under floodlights. I was Man-of-the-Match and Immy, as I suddenly knew him, was friendly and complimentary at the reception that evening. I have been a fan ever since.

I first saw him live in 1979 at the Sydney Cricket Ground during World Series Cricket. By then he was really quick, and with Le Roux, Mike Procter and Clive Rice formed an attack good enough to beat Ian Chappell's Australians in the Supertest final. The cricketers all seemed so glamorous and we came to "see the white ball fly", as went the advertising slogans. Barry Richards made the hundred that saw the Rest of the World XI over the line and a new order of cricketing heroes emerged through the prism of rebellion.

Kerry Packer's astonishing raid on the game had seen most of the world's best players desert the established corridors and sign on to play in the closest thing cricket has ever seen to a rock 'n roll circus. It was a seminal moment, as big in sporting terms as the Beatles and as much fun as the record that changed the look and feel of the seventies, David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust. We watched open-mouthed as the Chappells, Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee; Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd and Michael Holding; Barry Richards, Procter, Rice, Le Roux, Imran, Asif Iqbal, Derek Underwood and Tony Greig played with a white ball under lights, dressed in tight, coloured clothes with bell- bottom trousers and butterfly collars. These guys were Kerry's band, and boy, could they play guitar. Of them all, Viv and Immy shone brightest and played loudest. There was something of Hollywood in them both and the same aura remains to this day.

Imran (standing second from right) with the likes of Glenn Turner and Basil D'Oliveira in a Worcestershire line-up in 1973 © Bob Thomas/Getty Images

My next encounter with Imran was at the old Northlands Road Ground in Southampton in 1987. Hampshire were playing Pakistan in a warm-up game before the last Test and Imran came for a bat but not much else. In fact, he sent Mudassar Nazar, I think, to toss the coin, having hung around at the team hotel himself until the order of the game was decided and then cruised in at No. 7 for a hit late in the afternoon. He made 40-odd and didn't appear again until the third morning, when I suggested a declaration that would set up a lively day for the good crowd. We stood outside the club office, in front of an audience of spectators having an increasingly heated debate. He wanted practice for his team prior to securing what became a fabulous series win over England; I wanted a bit of enterprise and a run chase. I said he had a duty to the game, he said he had a duty to his team. He called me an arrogant public schoolboy, I said it took arrogance to know arrogance, and to and fro we went, like spoilt kids. The game fizzled out but within a few days Pakistan made 708 batting first at The Oval - Immy made 118 of them, Javed Miandad 260 - to end any hope England had of levelling the series, and, I guess, fully justifying the game plan at Southampton!

You could argue he was just a bit too cool for school during that match but Imran has always seen the bigger picture. He was an exceptional leader of men on the cricket field and has gone on to achieve the ambition most thought impossible, the leadership of Pakistan off the field. Of the myriad gifts, his greatest may be the way he holds it together under pressure. This is achieved through both resilience and self-belief; single-mindedness and desire. No one in cricket worked harder at being good. Imran's discipline and unwavering commitment were a locked-in motivation to those around him.

Of course, the 1992 World Cup was a crowning glory - a day for the ages - and provided the platform for another remarkable achievement. "In the speech, after we won the Cup, my mind was entirely focused on the hospital and I forgot to thank the team members who had put so much effort in the game," he has said since. Imran opened the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in Lahore in 1994. His mother, who was a cancer patient, had inspired it, and his speech that day at the Melbourne Cricket Ground will live with us always. He set up a second cancer hospital in Peshawar in 2015.

His route to becoming prime minister has at times been tortuous, needing both courage and persistence in the arguments for what he fundamentally believes is right. He is seen as populist: he pursues Islamic values, to which he rededicated himself in the early 1990s, and liberal economics in the creation of a welfare state. He favours clear and stringent anti-corruption laws and an anti-militant vision for a democratic Pakistan. In short, he is on another mission.

By the age of 30, Imran Khan was a cricketing god. At the age of 67, his real work appears only to have just begun. For those of us besotted by his deeds with bat and ball, we can for now reflect on a fantastic cricketer whose 362 Test wickets at 22.81 each and 3807 runs at 37.69 per innings put him alongside the greatest match-winners to have played the game. When choosing his favourite all-time team, Richie Benaud picked Imran at No. 7. For the record, here is that team - Hobbs, Gavaskar, Bradman, Tendulkar, Viv Richards, Sobers, Gilchrist, Imran Khan, Warne, Lillee, SF Barnes.

Enough said.

Mark Nicholas, the former Hampshire captain, is a TV and radio presenter and commentator

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

[wordsparks]

An Attempt to Explain My WIPs (Warning: GIF Heavy)

Music Land Maestress

A magical girl story, only set in England, with high school girls (and one ten year old to represent magical girl teams usually having a younger member...is that an actual trope? I don't know).

Part Sailor Moon

(Cause it's my fave mahou shoujo show & also cause what mahou shoujo story these days isn't inspired by it?)

With combat more of the PreCure sort (where there's physical combat involved not just magical attacks)

+ Some of the "save a fantasy world" aspects of my favorite CLAMP work, Magic Knight Rayearth

+ The "human mentors instead of animal mascots" idea and the idea that the girls' mission is really the mentors', both from Tokyo Mew Mew. (Only the mentors in my story are from a magical land and are a magical swordsman and a young magical prodigy respectively). The Monsters-of-The-Day are also possibly inspired by TMM's Chimera Anima, not sure though.

+ other things, including music.

***

The CYA Files

The seed of this dates back to my high school years, around 2002-2003, though I didn't start writing a proper MS till 2-3 years ago. Thus it comes out of my "writing really preachy things" period, back when I was still largely in my sheltered Christian bubble. Because of this, my dislike for superhero movies (I'd seen the 2002 Spiderman and a few others and wasn't that into them; I'm still not really THAT into them, though that might be cause I've never been into Marvel & DC Comics really...though now that I'm watching and very much enjoying Supergirl that might change), and maybe some guilt over the very-X-Men-inspired superhero comic "Lightning Girl" I'd written, I came up with this story with people who save future London using powered suits and their spiritual gifts. "Christian Superheroes," basically. When I work on it for NaNoWriMo this year I may have to reevaluate it to see if it's too preachy or not.

Anyway, this novel was inspired by two things mostly:

Superheroes

And mecha

(Not Eva-style specifically, but at the time I came up with the story, I think NGE was the only mecha series I'd seen, so no doubt it had an influence)

***

Nukata: A Novel

My NaNo novel last year (which won! yay!) and the one I'm working on right now. It's a historical romance about Nukata no Ôkimi, a real-life princess from 7th-century Japan who also became one of Japan's first lyric poets of note, and the love triangle she is thought to have had with Emperors Tenji and Temmu. But aside from that it's also a story about maintaining your dignity in a strange world, and about a girl who wants respect for her mind more than for her body. Nukata, Tenji, and Temmu are the main characters, along with Tenji's good friend and chief advisor Nakatomi no Kamatari, who was the ancestor of the famous Fujiwara clan that was the power behind the throne in Japan for centuries (shortly before Kamatari's death, Tenji granted him the family name Fujiwara).

Not much has been written about Nukata in English, and only 9 of her poems (maybe 11 if you count ones attributed to others but thought to be hers) survive, all by way of an 8th-century anthology called the Man'yôshû. I first encountered Nukata in my Brit Lit 1 class believe it or not. My degree program had a global focus, so every class had to have a global element, and thus this class included reading medieval Chinese and Japanese poetry as part of that. The poem we read was Poem 16, her poem comparing spring and autumn leaves, which is probably her most famous.

Nukata is still known in Japan today. There is a Takarazuka play about her (Akane Sasu Murasaki no Hana) and she is briefly mentioned in episode 12 of the anime Chihayafuru.

Not sure of the influences here since research basically wrote the plot, but I'd say Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha and Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan were probably influences, even though they are written about later eras.

This is also my first straight-up historical fiction novel (my other attempt was time travel) and my first romance. (I tend to avoid romances in my work because I've never dated, so I don't feel qualified to be writing romance...also it's a genre I really don't read). So kinda nervous but trying my best.

***

The Case of The Canterbury Colony Ship

My first sci-fi mystery, and the beginning of a series of probably 4 books (one for each year the heroines are in university). My Camp NaNo April 2017 winning novel (yay!). Also an attempt to explore my own autism, since the heroine, like me, has Asperger's, and subtly vent frustrations I have about autism (the seeming lack of treatment for autistic adults in the U.S. and a lack of awareness of girls with autism - mind you these are based on my own knowledge and experience only). She forms a mystery-solving club with a neurotypical policeman's daughter whose father wants her to go into law enforcement but who secretly loves ancient lit, a science whiz girl with Social Anxiety Disorder, and a former scholar athlete who got too into partying and drugs and is now trying to rebuild her life after checking herself into rehab for a year. She gets tired of the mundane cases they get and wants something better, which happens when they get involved with a case baffling the police - the mysterious disappearance of the passengers and crew of a generation ship.

It's kinda the classic "amateurs helping out police/law enforcement agency who might not like them but needs them" trope that has been popular on TV of late via shows like Fringe, Psych, Castle, Sherlock, its American cousin Elementary, Scorpion, Alphas, and most recently Blindspot.

But the series has a decidedly literary bent, in case the title didn't tip you off. Protagonist Sophie Hughes started her life in a writing project I did in Brit Lit 1 where we were supposed to adapt one of the texts we read into a creative writing piece. I chose The Canterbury Tales. Due to page limits, I only wrote the end. Since then, the story and Sophie have evolved into what I have today.

This may also end up being a diverse book. Being white and having had very little experience of POCs growing up, my novels don't tend to have POC characters. But in this one, I ended up making Paige (the girl with SAD) black kinda randomly when doing her character sheet, and Sophie ended up becoming half-Mexican (probably cause I made her be from Miami, and also my mom was watching Jane The Virgin at the time...and also cause I needed some kind of hearty soup Sophie could cook in a dorm room, and my first thought was posole, cause I've seen my Hispanic coworkers eat it a lot). I guess it's diverse in terms of not everyone being neurotypical too (maybe). Can someone who actually understands this whole #WeNeedDiverseBooks thing explain to me how this all works?

So it has that "amateurs helping out police/law enforcement agency who might not like them but needs them" trope (though you could probably replace “law enforcement agency” with “FBI” cause it always seems to be the FBI) but has more of a literary bent. The main inspirations for the literary bent are the awesome TNT show The Librarians (the movies it’s a spin-off of are great too, especially if you want to see how Flynn started out) and the anime Read or Die: The TV, which I was introduced to by my junior college anime club around 2003, shortly before it got licensed here. (The manga version, R.O.D.: Read or Dream, as well as the anime and manga versions of the OAV that stars Yomiko Readman, are also available in English).

(ROD gif from @nothingforkings)

***

The Stars Above Us

This was my NaNo novel 2 years ago, and the first one where I wrote a novel especially for NaNo, rather than using NaNo as an excuse to make progress on an existing work. It’s set in the 3200′s and is about a girl named Katia Sewick who is living a miserable, apathetic, lonely life in Brooklyn and doesn’t picture it getting any better...and then she inherits a space station from her grandfather. She doesn’t know the first thing about running a space station, but she decides to at least go check it out. The staff does not accept her immediately, making her prove herself before she can take command. Then, shortly after she does that, a biological threat is discovered onboard that could kill everyone if not dealt with.

I’m not really sure how it will end, but with everyone living at any rate. Also, Katia will find meaning for her life at last.

This novel actually originated from a prompt in a writing prompts book (“Upon inheriting a working space station from her grandfather, a woman tries to make it run smoothly”), so it didn’t really have inspiration in that sense. The title came about cause someone in my NaNo group said she usually looked to Shakespeare for title ideas. (The quote I used for this title is from King Lear: “It is the stars,/The stars above us, govern our conditions." I’m not sure it fits the book, but it was the only Shakespeare quote I could find that talked about stars).

The biological threat plot is, I think, partially inspired by this kinda obscure anime movie from the ‘80s, They Were Eleven. They released it here in the U.S. on subtitled VHS in the early ‘90s, but a dub also exists. The sub is what I have seen. It’s about these young space cadets whose final test for space academy is to survive for a specified number of days on an abandoned spaceship, with no contact or involvement from outside. There are supposed to be 10 in their group, but when they arrive on the ship, they find there are 11 of them -- and no one is certain who the intruder is. Meanwhile, they discover some weird plant on the ship that makes people ill, among other things.

I also did a fair amount of research about space stations, including designs that have been proposed over the years.

This book also owes a debt to Star Trek (mostly TOS cause that’s the generation I’m most familiar with, having seen a number of the TOS movies even if I have yet to see the TV show) because I wasn’t sure how to structure the station crew (like what sort of crewmembers you would need) and ended up using the TOS crew as a model.

***

Tales of Walden

My high fantasy universe, currently consisting of short stories and poems and a work in progress since 2005. I tried to write a novel in this universe, but never finished it.

I’m still trying to find a long-term goal for this universe; for now I just write stories or poems for it when I feel like it (or like when I did it for Camp NaNo and Story-a-Day in May).

As for inspirations, Lord of the Rings is a huge one.

I’m not going to lie, this universe was very influenced by Tolkien. But then what epic fantasy these days isn’t?

Narnia - the first fantasy series I was ever exposed to - has an influence here too though.

(Narnia GIF from Giphy)

***

Other WIPs

I have some minor WIPs too.

Fairy*Net and Fairy*Radio, a duo of comics I drew art for for NaNoMangO 2015

Some unfinished stories from Story-A-Day 2015

A couple story ideas from Story-A-Day 2015 I want to develop further: one about using biohacking to become pop idols, and another about two Asian idols who are forbidden to be together cause of the “no boyfriends” clause in many female Asian idols’ contracts. (The latter was inspired by this list; I also wrote a short story about sasaeng inspired by this list).

A LOT of fanfic ideas that aren’t yet written (so I guess they’re not WIPs yet, except for the Osaka Naru one, which I have partially written).

Two huge Doctor Who fanfic projects: “The Companion’s Diary of Alyson ‘Alys’ Reed,” a diary-style fanfic about the adventures of a couple OC Companions with Eleven, and “The Linguist’s Story,” a mostly Classic Who-set group of stories about an OC Time Lady.

**

Hope you liked this post!

[igsy-blog]

BBC 100 books (with commentary)

thanks for the tag @thegreatorangedragon  As an English major I was compelled to read a lot of these, and I may only have skimmed/read chunks of some of them if I could get away with it....

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen: not my favorite Austen, actually (Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility are 1 & 2) The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - OMG, SO many times. My siblings and I had rituals around the reading of LOTR.

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte.  Yes - it’s OK Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - Yes!  My kids grew up to them and the experience was almost as good as the books.  But I also really enjoyed watching Rowling mature as a writer over the course of the series.  I don’t ask for perfection from my writers, but warmth and growth.  :-)  Also, they got my stubborn non-reader sons to READ. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee  - like probably every other person who went to MS/HS in the US. The Bible - yes, and twice all the way through.  once at about 10, and then more recently along with Slate’s Blogging the Bible (ok it was just the Old Testament).  That was a stage on my journey to my current fallen-catholicness 
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - yes, but prefer the Pat Benatar song :D Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - yes and really need a re-read 
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - No, keep meaning to. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
.  Yes, and can I say I love Dickens - LOVE Dickens - but I hate this book.  I think it’s always assigned because it’s shortish.  I regularly reread the glorious messes that are Pickwick Papers, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, and my fav, the insane Our Mutual Friend (but ONLY the Lizzie Hexam/Eugene Wrayburn segments). Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - and the sequels.  I think Jo’s Boys might actually be my favorite. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
.  yes - I am pretty sure??? Catch 22 - Joseph Heller.  read enough of it to count Complete Works of Shakespeare - William Shakespeare; yes! my mom was a Zefferelli Romeo & Juliet junkie - we had the album of the film - and I must have heard it 3 dozen times before I was 7.  She bought a complete works and I read all of it over the years. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier. No 
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - Yes.  My husband’s favorite book.  And I really liked the Rankin-Bass film, when I was young.  Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk  No Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - yeah The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger  Realllly?  This is a good book but I’m not sure it belongs on this list.  First novel and feels fresh out of an MFA program.  My other complaints I won’t say here because I tend to get very snarky about this book. (Another book I read around the same time [mid-oughts] was Then We Came to the End, the debut novel of Joshua Ferris - much better, like DeLillo without the air of self-importance.) Middlemarch - George Eliot; love me some Eliot (but prefer Silas Marner, mainly because of a very good tv adaption). Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - Again: really?  I read this book because I spent the summer between HS and college in a really small town with a teeny library and I basically read my way through the fiction stacks.  Won’t say more than that, because I would get political. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald Yes, but not a favorite. Bleak House - Charles Dickens. A great, great book for which two amazing miniseries have been done in my lifetime.  But rightly criticized, IMO, for the annoying tone of its first-person narrator, Esther.  Dickens was dazzlingly, spectacularly wrong in writing about women.  Not to mention other groups.  But my god did he skewer institutions on behalf of the (British) poor - none better. This book wins for the Jo’s death scene and its sweeping, bitter, critique of church and state and society and everything - and so human.  “Dead!  And dying thus around us, everyday.”  I was 12 when I first read that, recovering from chicken pox, and I sat straight up in bed.  This is the book that made me a socialist. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy This is so horrible, but I haven’t! The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams.  Yes, fun, but not a favorite. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - No.  I started to and have a copy at work, for some reason I don’t even remember.  But not enough to county Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky  No :( Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck.  Yes, oh and my grandma’s family were Okies.  Everyone in my family has a copy of the Sacramento Bee front page story sneering about the dust bowl immigrants arriving in town and my great-grandmother is mentioned by name (though they mistakenly think she is her widowed father’s wife).  I love Cali, and Sactown, but we have a long history of being not-so-welcoming to everyone at certain times (was it in the 80s where the “Welcome to California, Now Go Home” bumper stickers were everywhere?).

Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - yes The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - yes but so long ago I don’t remember it at all Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy yes. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens.  Yes, not his best by far.  Another “easy” read like Great Expectations Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - and many other of his works, when I was trying NOT to be an atheist - Mere Christianity, his sci-fi trilogy and Til We Have Faces, a retelling of my favorite myth, Psyche and Cupid.  I like the more obscure books in this series best - The Silver Chair and The Horse and his Boy. Emma - Jane Austen Persuasion - Jane Austen - oh, here it is!


The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis .... uh, yes The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - was a group read at work a couple of years ago.  recommend. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - yes Animal Farm - George Orwell - another book I want to re-read. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - nope 
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez; YES A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving 
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ... did I?  I’m pretty sure. Or was it The Moonstone? Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery.  YES.  Anxiously awaiting the new adaption.  Why is it so hard to get Anne of Windy Poplars on kindle?  That is the funniest one.  And Rilla of Ingleside so heartbreaking 
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood, yes and ever so long ago.  Another book to re-read soon (haven’t started watching the series yet) Lord of the Flies - William Golding Atonement - Ian McEwan; LOVE this book and his writing in general.  He also wrote the screenplay, and the movie and the book are a perfect match in tone. 
Life of Pi - Yann Martel No, but on my list Dune - Frank Herbert - no Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - yes, Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - yay! 
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 
A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - my intro to Dickens, though not his best Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - starting to get depressed at all this dystopian fiction that needs to be re-read as a primer for the present times 
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - lives at my desk at work.  Not even a favorite book of mine, but I love diving into his words every once in a while Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov The Secret History - Donna Tartt The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold  - when I saw the movie it reminded me why I wasn’t into reading the book Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - plot better than the story 
On The Road - Jack Kerouac Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - yeah, I had to read so much Hardy Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie - no, want to though 
Moby Dick - Herman Melville; I can’t even think about this book without remembering our class discussion of the “circle jerk” chapter.  I remember literally nothing else. 
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - meh Dracula - Bram Stoker 
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett  - an ALL-TIME favorite Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson Ulysses - James Joyce; all hail the master, and the bastard responsible for my sick dependence on the em-dash The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome Germinal - Emile Zola Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - unfortunately, yes Possession - AS Byatt A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens; of course Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell The Color Purple - Alice Walker - excellent The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry Charlotte’s Web - EB White: yes The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes.  I prefer Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter series hands-down, but despite her association with Tolkien, Lewis, et al, she got squashed between Conan Doyle and Christie.  Her Gaudy Night is one of my top five books.

The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - yeah The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery heck, yeah The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks Watership Down - Richard Adams yes A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - my kids read this book in HS, so I have a copy lying around, but have never read it A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas Hamlet - William Shakespeare - yes, probably too many times.  What are my favorite Shakespeare dramas?  Maybe King Lear, Richard III? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl. yes 
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo