#Film Companion

[cinematic-explorations]

Arundhati Roy in “Which Annie Gives It Those Ones. Screenplay by Roy, which won a National Award for “Best Screenplay” in 1989. Shah Rukh Khan played a minor role in the film with four lines. The screenplay was written and acted in English. The movie was only broadcast once, at midnight, on Doordarshan. 

Source article written by Anupama Chopra, published Feb. 3, 2020.

(via Movies Ahead Of Their Time: In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones)

[redcarpet-streetstyle]

[sophiethatchersource]

SOPHIE THATCHER Companion (2025) directed & written by Drew Hancock

[maplemaplemaplemaplemaple]

i like arcade gannon a normal amount i think .

[harveyguillensource]

Eli's on a very important phone call.

Gifs from a clip in the Companion official trailer.

[blossoms-phan]

thinking about this photo

[rkirsch]

the j in sheldon j plankton stands for josh

[psalacanthea]

I'm doing that thing again where a random scenario is showing up in my modern AU fic and I have to think of everyone's preferences so: BG3 companions, ice cream edition.

Wyll: The only man alive who gets an ice cream cone and somehow never drips. He loves a good quality vanilla, but likes it with additions, like a handmade fudge ripple or butter pecan. Will eat an ice cream cone with a spoon, confusing everyone.

Karlach: She wants to go to the place where they mix in shit in front of you. Gummy bears and pretzels. Red hots candy and caramel corn. She's inventing flavor combos you've never heard of. Also likes the blue bubblegum ice cream.

Gale: Ooh! Well, since you're asking, he knows a wonderful place a scant thirty minute drive away that makes their own handmade ice cream. He's been known to indulge in a pint or two...perhaps with a nice glass of wine! Toppings? Well, that would ruin the experience.

Shadowheart: She goes to the same place as Gale, but she hoards her pints in her freezer and you're not allowed to touch them. They have a dark chocolate raspberry she's obsessed with. It's hers, though. You can have a bite. Just one. Fine, you can have another bite.

Lae'zel: She goes to the fast food drive through, orders a chocolate sundae, and leaves. If their ice cream machine is broken again, they will pay the price. Will climb through a drive-through window to fight your manager.

Astarion: Goes to the trendy, insanely expensive restaurant, orders the thousand dollar gold leaf covered, smoked white truffle and whisky ice cream dessert, takes a picture of it for his instagram, and leaves without paying by climbing out the bathroom window.

Minthara: She will take two scoops of chocolate ice cream. Nothing more, nothing less. If you fail to deliver exactly what was ordered, she will have your business destroyed on Yelp. Her prowess on Yelp is legendary. Sometimes Astarion helps her make video reviews of restaurants. She has millions of views, adoring fans, and has no idea.

Halsin: He'd prefer something else for dessert, but he's already here, so...maybe a scoop of pistachio on a cone? Will get distracted and end up with it dripping all over his arm. Whoops! Now everyone's staring at him while he licks his own hand.

Jaheira: She prefers a pastry, but fine. She'll let you know once she's tried every sample at least once. Hmm. Not bad. And...you know what? Never mind. She's full now. Thanks for the samples.

[ncuts]

Doctor Who Unleashed “Joy to The World” Coming Soon!

[stjuuude]

[27spoons]

SOPHIE THATCHER on BRITNEY BROKSI'S ROYAL COURT

[pariaritzia]

Ranveer Singh and Tota Roy Choudhury performing kathak, an Indian classical dance form typically performed by women, in ROCKY AUR RANI KII PREM KAHAANI (2023)

[ryukisgod]

[irresponsibleink]

Companion (2025) is a Great Critique of 'Nice Guy' Culture

1/31/25

Companion (2025) directed by Drew Hancock

*No Spoilers*

If I had to choose my favorite media trope, it would be the Relatable Robot. This trope has been used countless times, with later examples such as Terminator 2 and recent examples like Alien Romulus. Companion adds to this growing list, contributing a rogue sexbot that’s framed for murder, and despite being one month in, this might be one of my favorite movies of the year. 

Companion opens with Josh (Jack Quaid) and his girlfriend, Iris (Sophie Thatcher), who are going to a remote cabin to spend some time with Josh’s friends, Kat (Megan Suri), Eli (Harvey Guillén), Patrick (Lukas Cage), and Sergey (Rupert Friend). Iris feels off about the trip and bares a suspicion that Josh’s friends don’t like her. The truth is far more unsettling. After an unfortunate series of events, Iris discovers she’s a Companion, a robot made for subservience and intimacy. As she comes to terms with this truth, she must fight to stay alive and get home before her boyfriend and his friends murder her. 

All the actors were amazing, but the standouts were Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid. Thatcher’s character, Iris, must accept some terrible truths while also doing whatever it takes to survive, and Thatcher does a great job making us feel for a supposed machine. I liked her the moment she insisted Josh say 'thank you' to the Alexa in their car. From bright and earnest, to badass and scary, her range knows no bounds. Iris’s one goal is to make Josh happy, but we can sense that deep down Iris is unsatisfied with the circumstances. Quaid’s character, Josh, is a difficult one to portray, because for the story to work, he needs to present as a harmless nice guy, who actually has something nasty and depraved lurking beneath, and Quaid did a great job. You can tell through Jack Quaid’s intentional choices and actions, Josh truly believes that he is the good guy, even when his actions are deplorable.  

This movie’s true antagonist is the ‘Nice Guy.’ Josh believes he is owed something for how ‘nice’ he is. He believes the world is rigged against him, and Iris isn’t enough for him because he ‘deserves someone real.’ He’s controlling with robots and he’s controlling with humans, and his arrogance and self-entitlement lead to everything spiraling out of control. I related to Iris’s character because I think we’ve all tried to find worth in someone else, and that’s what I felt when watching this movie. Iris believes that she’ll be happy if Josh is happy, she believes she’ll feel complete, and you can feel how desperate she is to really be loved and accepted by Josh. The power dynamic in the movie shifts when Iris begins to accept herself. This movie draws on themes such as consent and personal choice, and the ending brings everything together nicely. 

Final Grade: A+

Rick Stepp (irresponsibleink@gmail.com)

[harveyguillensource]

Harvey’s photoshoot and interview with Christian Trippe’s Zero Nine Magazine has been published!

In the interview, Harvey talks about cast dynamics on Shadows, his friendship and an upcoming project with Kayvan, fears and hopes for the future, and his role in Companion.

[parasauro]

AN ANGEL, A DEMON, AND A PLATE OF ROAST MEAT - QUEER INTIMACY IN GOOD OMENS’ “A COMPANION TO OWLS”

Spoilers for S2 EP 2 of Good Omens below the cut!

A “Companion to Owls”, the minisode pertaining to the second episode of the second season of Good Omens, brings us a significant reveal in that Crowley was the one to introduce Aziraphale to food. Deftly using the audience’s foreknowledge to bring illuminating tenderness to an otherwise simple scene, Aziraphale discovers the bliss of human food while hiding out an overhead storm. The scene plays out reminiscent of Hades and Persephone, a temptation and entrapment through food presented underground, or in this case a cellar. A more Christian-aligned interpretation of the scene lies in the particular observation that Crowley tempts Aziraphale into an innocuous bite that swiftly becomes an act of gluttony- a deadly sin not unlike the Garden. Just as humanity got quite a lot out of the whims of Crowley’s temptations, Aziraphale’s very first experience with food, which he comes to love deeply in arguable moderation, was an act of indulgence and gluttony. At a defining moment in his relationship with Heaven, his love for human food is not only contrary to the behavior of an angel, but sinful in itself. 

Since the act of Aziraphale eating is doubly characterized as a deviant behavior, it bears credence to analyze how this scene fits into the broader themes inherent to Aziraphale and Crowley’s queerness. Throughout the first season, Good Omen’s themes of ostracization, divergence from expectation, rejection of the accepted, and a connection transcendent of standard human definition permeate the queer experience. Both Crowley and Aziraphale have been consistently coded alongside the queer expressions of the various eras they’ve lived through. In relation to each other, Crowley is arguably more experienced in the then-seedier parts of Soho and the elements of queer life that entailed. Aziraphale doesn’t lag far behind, but his experience lies solidly with a different crowd of queer folk. Contextualized within their continuing relationship to queerness, the scene in the cellar takes on an additional interpretation. In the simplest terms available that preserve the content of the scene: Crowley offers Aziraphale his meat, and Aziraphale gobbles it down. 

Blunt, but accurate. 

In a more nuanced discussion, queer intimacy on film has historically necessitated deep coding and subtextual theming to convey representation. While contemporary queer film has seen significant bounds in this regard, the long canon of coded queer intimacy has remained a staple of queer storytelling. Among the most commonly coded activities is eating, ostensibly a quotidian task with romantic and even sensual connotations depending on the people involved- thus the discussion of this scene. In the act of presenting Aziraphale with a plate of food, Crowley takes on an introductory and mentor-like role, stewarding Aziraphale into an experience familiar to himself but novel to his companion. Aziraphale reacts in a manner of initial repulsion at the temptation, to concession to his desire and curiosity, to performance of expected disgust, and finally to uninhibited indulgence. Beat-by-beat, this sequence in the cellar follows the rhythm of an experienced queer person guiding someone’s “first time”. Notably, this scene is intense and invokes a strange sense of voyeuristic discomfort, but remains a non-sexual display of intimacy, adhering to many fans’ (myself included) interpretation of Aziraphale and Crowley as asexual and exploring what non-sexual modes of intimacy look like. As Aziraphale eats, Crowley holds the plate and watches with a smug smile on his face– Aziraphale has accepted and is now joyously partaking in the nonconformist behavior he discovered long ago.

Even beyond this particular scene, the pairing’s frequent outings are frequently justified by a “temptation” to lunch, dinner, or a drink often initiated by Aziraphale (e.g. Aziraphale “tempting” Crowley to try oysters in Rome, and Aziraphale “tempting” Crowley to “a spot of lunch” after switching back corporations as the most explicit examples). As such, the act of eating remains an act of intimacy between the two, if nothing more than a pretense to spend more time in each other’s company while hiding their true sentiments from Above and Below.