#Hollywood Beats

[queermasculine]

genuinely despise the way straight writers write about butch suffering. it's always some tired dogshit like "she was hurt by a man so now she's cold and bitter and mannish, if only she'd heal, then she'd become her natural feminine self again!" which sucks because i absolutely would love to watch a relatable butch character go through something harrowing and emerge victorious, just not if it was written by someone who seems to have misunderstood the basic nature of my existence

[laundrybiscuits]

Eddie’s doing some dumb trick with a couple of wooden spoons, clever hands making them move through the air in improbable ways, and Steve’s about to bite his whisk in half. 

He’d thought for sure that Eddie would be going home the first week; Edward Munson, 29, bartender/musician from Brighton with mismatched tattoos and wild hair, seemed like exactly the kind of pretentious asshole who would flame out early with some ill-advised hipster experimentation. If Steve (28, social worker from Indiana, USA) had been a complete asshole, he’d have said that Eddie didn’t have the fundamentals. That he was all sizzle, no steak. 

It’s a good thing Steve’s not a complete asshole, because Eddie’s been blowing the technicals out of the water so consistently it’s actually pretty fucking embarrassing. His signatures and showstoppers are making a very respectable showing too, except for the time he tried to incorporate some fresh pandan extract and fucked up the liquid ratio, leaving him with a dripping mess that Mary’d declined to even try. 

Afterwards, Steve had seen him leaning against a tree and struggling to light a cigarette. Steve went over for no particular reason, flicking on his lighter and holding it out like a peace offering. Eddie looked at him warily, but bent over the offered flame. 

“Can’t believe I made it through this one,” Eddie said after a moment, white smoke curling out of his mouth.

“Yeah, I feel like that every week.” Steve leaned against the tree next to Eddie. It was a big tree, the kind that’s probably been growing in this field since before England was even England. 

“Nah, but—c’mon, you know what I mean.”

“You had some bad luck with your showstopper. Happens to the best of us, man. Your signature hand pies looked sick as hell.” Steve’s own hand pies had turned out pretty well, so he was feeling generous. It had only been the third week; plenty of time for Steve to snag Star Baker, though even by that point, Steve had been getting the creeping feeling that he was being a little too American about the whole thing. Everyone else seemed to think competitiveness was some kind of deadly sin. It was—actually kind of nice, to get the same kind of nerves he’d always gotten before high school basketball games, but know that he wasn’t really fighting against anyone except himself in the tent.

Anyway, the very next week, Eddie had done some kind of kickass gothic castle with a shiny chocolate dragon and gotten Star Baker for the second time. Steve had clapped him on the back, appropriately manly. Eddie had pulled Steve into a real hug, arms tight around Steve’s shoulders and his whole lean body pressed up close and warm. It had only lasted a moment, and then Eddie had bounded over to Mel and Sue, both of whom he’s been thoroughly charming since the get-go. 

Steve thinks that when this season—or, uh, series—airs, no matter where Eddie places, the entire country is going to be just as charmed. Eddie’s going to get whatever kind of cookbook deal or streaming show he wants. Sponsors will take one look at that handsome face and charismatic grin, and a whole world of possibilities is going to open up for Eddie. 

Steve’s not in it for any of that, of course. He’s here kind of by accident, because Robin pushed him to apply, and it’s a goddamn miracle he’s been holding his own. Hell, it’s a miracle he’s in this country at all. When Robin had started looking at the Cambridge MPhil program in linguistics, she’d said wouldn’t it be great if and he’d snorted, yeah right, like I could ever get whatever job I’d need to move to another freaking country, but then—well. Things had happened the way they’d happened, and now Robin’s almost finished with her degree and Steve is taking time off from the London charity he works at in order to be on Bake Off. 

He’s told all this to the cameras, plus the stuff about how baking started as a way for him to connect with the kids he used to babysit in Indiana, blah blah blah. He thinks it’s probably too boring for them to air, but he gets that they have to try to get a story anyway. 

Eddie Munson, on the other hand, is probably going to be featured in all the series promos. Steve is rabidly curious about what Eddie’s story is, but he hasn’t worked up the nerve to just ask. It should be the easiest thing in the world. They’ve got kind of a camaraderie going, the two of them; a bit of a bromance, as Mel’s put it more than once. 

It’s true they get along pretty well, and the cameras have been picking up on it: on the way Eddie’ll wander over to Steve’s bench like a stray cat whenever they get some downtime, how they wind up horsing around sometimes, working off leftover adrenaline from the frantic rush of caramelization or whatever. There’s the time Eddie had hopped up on a stool to deliver some kind of speech from Macbeth, of all things, and overbalanced right onto Steve, who had barely managed to keep them both from careening into a stand mixer. Sue had patted Eddie on the shoulder and said, “Well, boys, that’ll be going in the episode for sure.”

They both get along with the other contestants just fine, of course, but they’re two guys of about the same age with no wife and kids waiting at home. It’s only natural that they’re gravitating together, becoming something like friends, Steve figures. It’s pretty great that he’s getting at least one real friend out of this whole thing.

It would be even greater if Steve could stop thinking about Eddie’s hands in decidedly non-friendly ways. With all the paperwork he’s signed, he can’t even complain to Robin about how Eddie looks with his sleeves pushed up to show off the tattoos on his forearms, kneading dough and grunting a little under his breath with effort. Steve had almost forgotten to pre-heat his oven that day. 

Two benches away, Eddie fumbles the spoons he’s been juggling with a clatter, and he bursts out laughing, glancing over at Steve like Steve’s in on the joke. Steve grins back, heart twanging painfully in his chest, and thinks: well, fuck. Guess this is happening.

[dms-a-jem]

🏳️‍🌈’80s Pride🏳️‍🌈

[iangallagherisadeadman]

paul by big thief (masterpiece, 2016)

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ thank you @fionnagallagher and @shamelesscreencaps for the screencaps ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

[leonsliga]

I love that manu went running to sven because he knows he will collect a card lol but then thomas ran to save manu because DON'T TOUCH HIM

Everything about that sequence is pure, concentrated comedy gold from start to finish 😂 so let’s do a play-by-play, shall we?

Now if you’ll direct your attention to the bottom right of the gif below, you’ll see a wild Sven Ulreich absolutely BOOKING IT from the stands, ready to go on a warpath. The Ulle cometh, so to speak.

And naturally, he wastes ZERO time, nudging his way right into the thick of it.

Strong words are exchanged, and by exchanged I mean it’s pretty much just Ulle cursing out anyone on the Union Berlin coaching staff within shouting distance.

Sensing the escalating conflict in a way only a mama bear can, Manu swoops in to save the day (or to save Ulle from cutting a bitch—you decide).

In the midst of his efforts to pry a positively irate Ulle out of the fray though, Manu sustains a few gentle shoves himself. This of course angers beloved twink warrior Thomas Müller, who rushes in to assist his decade partner in his Sven Ulreich rescue mission.

Now this may seem, to the untrained eye at least, like standard operating procedure for a hardened Bayern diplomat. In actuality though, it’s a desperate, last-ditch effort to get his bf tf outta there (mostly unscathed). And let’s face it: the only way to do that is to remove our notorious (affectionate) pot-stirring goalkeeping deputy from the scene so Manu doesn’t have to mediate for anyone anymore.

Once the dust settles, only a visibly furious Thomas remains, who, naturally, has to be escorted away, because HOW DARE THEY touch his bf and brother-in-arms and think they’ll get off without a scratch?

In all seriousness though, I love that even though Ulle is pretty much benched whenever Manu is fit, he’s still just as invested in the match and willing to do battle for any of his teammates whenever they’re slighted in any way. That’s why he’s our beloved little card collector—our favorite justice warrior 🥰

And we all know that when someone even thinks about harming his dearest Manu, Thomas’s protective instincts go into overdrive and he can’t help but give them hell for it. All the better that we got angry Ulle content out of the deal—a two-for-one special folks! It’s impossible not to love the complete circus that is our Bayern squad, I swear 😂 even when they’re not playing at their best, you can’t say they’re not entertaining!

[restinslices]

I like to pretend Johnny ain't win a 1 v 2 against Subzero and Scorpion because bitch, don't piss me the fuck off

[dylanconrique]

what's my roman empire you ask?

that's easy, my roman empire is the day scooby was adopted by the gang.

[sarafangirlart]

Most inaccurate part of Wonder Woman (2017) is that Ares managed to beat and kill Athena, mf wouldn’t even make it past Hermes lol

[girlwiththegreenhat]

i genuinely love when you can tell an older show was Not made with high quality video viewing in mind. i am watching knight rider and constantly seeing all the little mistakes they surely brushed under the rug thinking nobody would see them on their crunchy little CRTs back in the 80s, that are huge attention grabbers now in HD fullscreen on my 3 foot computer monitor

the biggest one of course is all the drivers/controllers for the (in-universe) self driving car, kitt. there's guys tucked down in the footwells who can't always stay out of the shot. there's a guy who has a Car Seat Suit to blend in and look like the drivers seat from a distance, but you can always tell when that's the method they're using for a particular shot because its so much thicker than the passenger seat next to it and the headrest is missing it's cutout section. in at least one instance he starts taking the suit off too early, on a focus shot of the damn car, so its REAL visible.

all the extremely obvious stunt drivers or performers who look nothing like the character they're supposed to be

props, such as animals, vanishing from the car interior for stunt/race sequences.

the production crew (or their shadows) being visible in the background. only at a glance, but its especially hilarious in shots where nobody else is supposed to be around

the camera panning out from a sound stage set far enough that you can actually see over the edges of the set and into the stage they were filming in. mostly this happens with their truck trailer mobile unit thing.

this one isn't a mistake but every time the car "turbo jumps" they CLEARLY hide the ramp behind another car, a prop, the environment, and its just. so charming. sometimes its blatantly on screen just for a moment. like... of Course in real life this car isn't magically leaping 20 feet, of course its a ramp, but it's still so silly and fun to be reminded of how they were doing those stunts to begin with.

also not really a mistake but related, the bracket they keep on the front of the car for stunt work.... is just left on half the time. cuz it's a pain to take on and off.

and there are more examples that are more unique that haven't cemented themselves in my head well yet, but these are the more notable or common things i see and it's really charming. if i'm not giggling to myself noticing the "seams" and flaws and so human imperfections of your show or movie what EVEN is the point. hollywood is too flashy these days i think!

[80s-song-smackdown]

80 New Wave Tournament Side B

[thegetdownrebooter]

ruining your own show because you were bitter about people shipping your self insert with a black woman is crazy.

[thislovintime]

Peter Tork’s first house, at 6416 Rodgerton Drive in Los Angeles: (photos 1 & 2) in 1967 and in 2011; Stephen Stills inside the house (photo by Ann Moses); Peter in 1967 (photos by Henry Diltz).

About photo 3 - “Steve Stills of Buffalo Springfield, a close friend of Peter’s, looks at a place of interior decorating by Monkee Davy, who has taken a number of ‘Davy Jones stamps’ and spelt out the word LOVE on the wall just inside the front door.” - Ann Moses, NME, August 10, 1968

"Davy Jones is an acknowledged practical joker: and he kept up his image when he returned from his vacation. The Monkees event three weeks at RCA Studios recording their new album. One night after a sessions Peter invited Davy over to his house and while Pete was getting something to eat Davy pasted Davy Jones stamps all over his dining room wall! You can see Pete’s best friend, Steve Stills checking them out on the left." - Ann Moses, Tiger Beat June 1967

“[At Peter’s house I] found the Davy stickers on the wall, put up by — I, in fact, I took a picture of Steve Stills standing next to the… and he had put the Davy stickers up, and he had put it, all the little stickers so they spelled Davy, and that was on the wall at Peter’s house. So I always thought that was really cute. But [Peter] lived very — you know, he had thrift-store coffee tables and things like that.” - Ann Moses, The Monkees Pad Show no. 10

* * *

"When Peter went looking for his first home he thought of ‘hills and cool green.’ He found them here. Pass through the open front door and you will see the dining room table and the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out on the city lights below. Here on the top floor are the living room, dining room and kitchen… and no matter what time of day or night you enter Pete’s home, the room is always dimly lit with candles and incense is burning. The kitchen, currently stocked with health foods, is to the right and to the left is the living room, the main feature of which is the two single beds that fit into the corner and double as sofas. Whereas green dominates the outside, orange is the feature color indoors because Peter feels it suggests warmth and goes well with candles and quiet. Between the beds is a heavy coffee table that matches the walnut of the color television set across the room. You can actually stand on the table — it is so heavy — and when there’s a crowd in the room the easiest way to get through is walk along it. There is a fireplace against one wall, where a fire is often burning. And the only thing here that doesn’t fit with Peter’s ‘natural’ feel is that he uses artificial logs because they burn more smoothly. The easy chairs in here are sculptured Danish modern and sit next to two huge amplifiers of the stereo system and beside Peter’s electric organ. Behind the sofas, on the wall, is a series of calendar posters called ‘13 ways of looking at a Blackbird’ — each one has a free verse like ‘on two snow-filled mountains, nothing moved but the eye of a blackbird.’ They were a gift of which Peter is very fond. The ground floor lacks the excitement of the upper one, having just two bedrooms and a bathroom. One bedroom is Peter’s, the other is for guests, and neither is decorated. Other bits of info about the house… in the kitchen are walls with paper flowers… there is another favorite poster of Peter’s, a present from his friend Steve Stills of Buffalo Springfield, showing a man and a woman hugging on a deserted beach… and as you walk in the front door to the right Davy Jones has spelled out the word ‘Love’ in big letters using ‘Davy Jones stamps.’ […] A typical evening at Peter’s is spent listening to/or playing music. Group discussions about everything from music to Eastern religious interests captivate Peter. His gatherings are usually spur-of-the-moment things where he’ll call up a few friends and say: ‘Come on up to my pad.’” - Ann Moses, NME, August 10, 1968

“As you walk in the front door of my house, directly across the room there are floor-to-ceiling glass windows that look out onto a small balcony and the green hills. At night you can look out on the lights of the little valley. It makes it very pleasant during the day with the sunlight streaming in. There are a couple of wall lamps, but the socket on one is burned out and the other lamp fell down off the wall, so all the light is by candle. There is no lighting except by candle and I even read by it. I enjoy the colors candles throw off." - Peter Tork, Monkee Spectacular, July 1967

“It’s really groovy at Peter’s house. People just come over and we talk or sit around and watch color TV. We don’t have any favorite programs, we just mainly like the color TV. Sometimes we mess it up so there’s dots and flashes, it’s like our own light show. I’ve learned some things about Peter that I didn’t know before, like he likes to live in a cold house. ‘72 degrees is plenty warm enough,’ he says. He doesn’t like the heat turned up. Also, he loves Chinese food, but he doesn’t cook if he can help it. He much prefers to be ‘cooked for.’ There’s usually a parade of fans every afternoon up at the house. They come up to the door and whisper ‘Is Peter here?’ and then they run away. If he’s home he’ll go out and sign some autographs, but he’s not home that often. He’s usually working. We often sit around and play guitars. His favorite song right now is ‘Strawberry Fields Forever.’ The groups we’ll listen to are the Spoonful, the Beatles, of course; the Mamas and Papas; and Peter digs the Springfield. When we’re not playing music or listening to music, we’re usually picking things apart — groups, ideas we hear from people, pieces of music, each other’s brain.” - Stephen Stills, Tiger Beat, July 1967

“Most of the people who live with him (there are seven now) have known Peter for years. Since money has no value to him, he lavishes his money on his friends. Peter has spent thousands of dollars just helping, with no thought of getting repaid. (That much has changed — a few years ago Peter couldn’t give much more than a sympathetic ear.) With all those people living with Peter now, he has very little privacy, but apparently it isn’t missed. Everyone at the house is working and ‘doing their thing,’ and the house is a simple, unpretentious, very lived-in home. As one person living there puts it[,] ‘It’s a happy, productive household, so full of love you can’t quite believe it.’” - Judy Sims, Disc and Music Echo, May 11, 1968 (x/x)

“Last week we went to Peter’s house to meet him. He had some friends over, but he came out and talked to us. He looked so groovy, and he was twice as friendly and nice as we’d ever expected! He talked with us, took pictures, and signed autographs. We’ll never forget that day, and we just want to thank Peter for making that day the most wonderful in our whole lives! L.E. and S.M. Los Angeles, Calif.” - Monkee Spectacular, March 1968 (x)

[frommybookbook]

Heist Movies and the Hays Code

The other night, some friends and I watched the incredible Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Badda Bing, Badda Bang", which is a loving pastiche of the heist film. As we were watching, we all noticed how old the actor playing the character of Mr. Zeemo was and I knew there had to be an Easter egg reason for it. After looking him up, I realized he was Marc Lawrence, who appeared in The Asphalt Jungle (1950), largely considered to be the first true heist film (though there are a couple from the 40s, that I've also seen, that are sort of proto-heists).

I decided to watch Asphalt this weekend, since I'd never seen it and it'd been sitting in my queue for ages. It was fine, definitely a first pancake situation, but now I can't stop thinking about the evolution of the heist film and the way the Hays Code shaped its early days and how it was allowed to shift and evolved after the code was lifted.

The earliest heist films were made under the Code. And not only under the Code, but at the Code's peak in the late '40s/early '50s. You watch these movies and you know from the very beginning that no one in our gang of misfits is going to succeed. The rules of the Code and its insistence that crime and depravity and bad morals can't pay means all of them will either be dead or in jail by the time the closing credits role. It doesn't matter how much we love our protagonists, it doesn't matter what their motivations are for participating in the heist, they are criminals and they must pay. They'll never see a dime of their money and all their efforts will be in vain.

Contrast this with the modern heist movie: the lovable rogues always beat the house. George Clooney and Brad Pitt and their buddies walk away with their millions. Sisko and his crew trick Frankie Eyes and save Vic's. Jason Statham in every Jason Statham movie gets his cash and lives to steal another day.

A lot of what I've read about the evolution of the heist movie and the role the Code plays in it focuses on the fact that once the code was lifted, these movies became more violent and graphic and leaned hard into that. And I'm sure that's true, but that was true of all movies. The 70s and the 80s in particular really exemplify the shock value of violence and sex in a post-Code Hollywood. But nothing I've seen talks about how the dissolution of the Code changed how audiences are allowed to see the thieves in a heist movie. Without the draconian constraints of the Code, we're allowed to root for the thieves, to be on their side, and to see them "win" in the end and make off with their bounty.

Even in the rare modern heist where the hero protagonist doesn't win—he (because it's almost always a he) doesn't get the money or he does get caught and goes to jail—it's always inferred that this is just a temporary setback. Next time, he'll be smarter and better and he'll win. He's alive and prison is just a small blip on the timeline, he'll be back (probably in 17 sequels) and the next time he'll do the job to beat all jobs. Heist movies of the Code era rarely see the thieves end the movie alive and when they do, they're behind bars with no hope of release or escape. The message that crime doesn't pay is never in question.

Yes, violence and sex have become more prevalent in heist movies in the post-Code era, but I think the greatest change the freedom of production without the Code brought to heist movies is that now, the house can lose.

[cringyedge]

I need this man arrested IMMEDIATELY

[hollywoodlady]

John Huston, Humphrey Bogart and Gina Lollobrigida during the making of 'Beat the Devil', 1953.

[colinfarrellupdates]

Six years ago

Colin Farrell in 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Him' (2016)