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icyg4l · 6 months ago

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PAC: July 2024 Predictions

Hello beautiful people! This is my last week posting/sending readings out for a while! I will be back, but I just need a moment to focus on real life. So if you would like to book a reading with me, don’t hesitate to message me privately! Anyway, tonight I will be talking about your July 2024. So please, without further ado, please select the pile that resonates with you!

Top Left-to-Bottom Right: (1-3)

Pile One: I heard "weighing out your options". I think you may be in the middle of figuring out your taste in love. However, you may be making a risky decision. Remember this everything that feels good ain't always good for you. This month, you will learn to be stingier with your love. Also, there may be someone around you that is negligent. There is no reason to take the high road with them, you need to figure out what goes on and come up with a resolution to prevent this from going on any further. I feel like you will be cutting ties with someone who has been embarrassing you. It will be sad and hard to do, but you only have one life. I also heard "count your blessings". You need to see the light in today. Act like you care about what's going on around you. There is someone who has been picking with you, it's time to cut them off! I see you feeling relieved by the end of the month (only because Leo season aka the best season has startedddd) Overall, this month seems like a good month to start over. Reignite the passion in your life and start today!

Pile Two: "Plagued with confusion" is what I just heard. I feel like this July will be kind of hard for you, Pile Two. There is something that will feel off about this month. Get your mind out the gutter, for one. But also, there is something that is feeding on your energy. It feels vampiric. A person who treats you like a baby or has a newborn baby could be significant. You are your own person. You show up as yourself and get the job done! But you have to stop letting people take advantage of your innocence. I'm watching this anime called Nana. Nana K is the very innocent, perky, loving friend who wouldn't hurt a fly. That's you, Pile Two. But just because you wouldn't hurt a fly, doesn't mean the fly won't hurt you. It seems as though you will be on a quest for independence. Trying to find your way while also trying to see what's your niche. You are young and you will figure it out. Don't let anyone tell you thank you can't. If you really want it that bad, then it can be achieved. This is cliche to say, but just believe! "Wish Upon A Star!" could be a relevant movie to you.

Pile Three: You could be taking a trip out of the country. Barcelona comes to mind. I see you also being receptive to food requests as well. You may be a picky eater, but this month you won't be, lol. Some of you are in summer school, trying to bring a grade up/trying to make the next school year easier. You should try to receive counseling as much as you can. It will ease your mind and in return, your grades will be much better. I heard the word proficient. During this time, you could find yourself doing a lot of backpacking. This is very specific but if you have been praying on someone's downfall, they will receiving their rightfully deserved karma. I am hearing a leprechaun laugh. This is someone's abusive ex or manipulative ex-bestie. I think that you will try to keep your calm this month. You should repeat mantras to yourself, everyday. Maybe you should listen to some more Jhene Aiko. I heard Kevin Gates??? LOL! You will be in touch with your feminine energy during this month so try not to be so active. Be ready for anything, beloved. And lastly, some of you will try out for a sports team. You'll get in because of your connection to the coach or one of the primetime players. Also, some of you could be going to a sports game for free because of one of the players/coaches.

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lboogie1906 · 7 months ago

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Lena Waithe (born May 17, 1984) is an actress, producer, and screenwriter. She is the creator of The Chi (2018–present) Boomerang (2019–20) and Twenties (2020–2021). She wrote and produced Queen & Slim (2019) and is the executive producer of Them (2021–present).

She gained recognition for her role in Master of None (2015–present) and became the first African-American woman to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 2017 for writing the show’s “Thanksgiving” episode. She has appeared in Ready Player One and Westworld. She received a nomination for Best Play at the 76th Tony Awards, for her production work on Ain’t No Mo’.

She was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2018 and was included on Fast Company’s Queer 50 list in 2021 and 2022.

She was born and raised in Chicago. Her father, Lawrence David Waithe, died when she was fifteen. Though acting was not originally among her ambitions, she knew from the age of seven that she wanted to be a television writer and received strong family support for her writing from her mother and grandmother. She graduated from Evanston Township High School and earned a BA in Cinema and Television Arts from Columbia College Chicago.

She married Alana Mayo (2019-2021) a content executive. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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courtneysmovieblog · 2 months ago

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A wild and crazy "Saturday Night"

It's been about 50 years since the first episode of SNL, and by all accounts, nobody was sure the show would make it. One such account is the recently released Saturday Night, a docudrama of the 90 minutes that took place for the show went on air.

This movie is not your standard biopic. If you're looking for a deeper look at the likes of Lorne Michaels, John Belushi, or Gilda Radner, you'll be disappointed. However, it does give you a feel of the chaos that was going on backstage, even though most of the depicted events were either exaggerated or didn't happen at all.

It's evident that Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) had to deal with a lot right before showtime. John Belushi (Matt Wood) hadn't signed his contract yet. The writers were either stoned or revolting against the NBC censors. Jim Henson (Nicholas Braun) was being treated like crap by everyone. And the studio executive (Willem Dafoe) is ready to pull the plug.

While most of the performances seem like nothing more than a very good impression, there are some standouts. Dylan O'Brien nails Dan Aykroyd, and Lamorne Morris is fantastic as Garrett Morris, who was probably the most overqualified and overlooked Not-Ready-For-Primetime Player. Wood's Belushi was criminally underused. Even though the movie plays up his negative traits, it's still a better portrayal than Wired. Maybe one of these days we'll finally get the Belushi biopic we deserve. But I digress...

If nothing else, Jason Reitman captures the frantic, fast-paced chaos of SNL while paying tribute to the classic skits that were in gestation. And die-hard SNL fans will love it for that.

8 out of 10

#snl #review #john belushi #dan aykroyd #gilda radner

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snowlessknitter · 3 months ago

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Just a heads-up that I won’t be covering tonight’s episode of The Masked Singer due to Hurricane Milton. While I’m located a ways north of Orlando, this storm will be bringing at least tropical storm force sustained winds and hurricane force gusts as well as rain and a heightened risk of severe weather such as tornadoes in my area. And the southern parts of Central Florida (places like Kissimmee, Lakeland, and Haines City as well as out towards the Atlantic coast in places like Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach) will be feeling more of the brunt of Milton. All of the local news stations will likely be doing wall-to-wall coverage and preempting primetime programming. My area may be at risk of losing power as well, there’s still a lot unknown. Hopefully things will turn out okay and I can get ready to cover Group B when they begin competing next week.

Anyways, it looks like it will be a double elimination in tonight’s episode, with the act with the lowest number of audience votes being eliminated first, and then the other two competing in a battle royale to determine who advances to the Quarterfinals. So, I’ll just go ahead and make my predictions on who advances, and who I think each masked singer (or singers) is.

I think Woodpecker 🐦 will be eliminated first. Based on past clues and suggestions, as well as the fact that her Black-ish costar Anthony Anderson previously appeared on the show as a bird character (“Rubber Ducky”), I’m going to say that Woodpecker is Marsai Martin.

Which puts Ship ⛵️ and Buffalos 🦬 in the Battle Royale. If it’s just the judges deciding this one again, they’re going to have a very tough decision on their hands, as I think they like both acts a lot. But we haven’t seen a group act win this show yet (although Wilson Phillips came close as the Lambs 🐑), and I think the Buffalos might have the best shot at it in quite a while.

So, who are they?

I think Ship ⛵️ narrowly leaves the competition tonight. She’s got a really good voice, and based on certain clues such as the cowboy hat and boots and the fact that she was her class president in high school, I truly think this is none other than ‘90s pop singer Paula Cole. If you watch her videos on YouTube and TikTok, you can tell she’s taken great care of her voice as she’s gotten older (she’s in her fifties now) and she can still hit some relatively high notes for her age.

And finally…the Buffalos 🦬. I’ve had the vibe that they’re Boyz II Men from the beginning, and the clues of the football player being “On Bended Knee” (which was a number 1 hit for Boyz II Men), as well as the references to Motown (both their record label as well as their debut single “Motownphilly”) are keeping me in that direction. The bottle of poison does refer to Bell Biv DeVoe (“Poison” was their biggest hit), but that is because Michael Bivins of Bell Biv DeVoe was Boyz II Men’s first manager and record producer. Boyz II Men additionally named themselves after a New Edition (the group that Bell Biv DeVoe spun off from) song called “Boys to Men”. And the group’s connection to Nick Lachey? Members of Boyz II Men appeared with 98 Degrees (Nick’s group) as well as members of some other boy bands in an ABC holiday special called A Very Boy Band Holiday in 2021.

I’ll be posting again once the storm has passed and it’s safe for me to do so. Fingers crossed we don’t lose power, but I can’t guarantee it right now.

#the masked singer #the masked singer season 12

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serenityscribes · 5 months ago

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I fell the instant I met you

Castle crumbling,

There you were, my

Not quite ready for

Primetime

Player

♪ Do I love you because you're beautiful? Or are you beautiful because I love you? ♪

CINDERELLA (1997)

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ladyday93 · 4 days ago

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The Day and Night before on Day 24 of Christmas Viewing

On Christmas Eve Day, I’ve got a potpourri of holiday viewing going on in the background. Square Pegs – A Child’s Christmas in Weemawee “Square Pegs” was an 80s tv series that came on CBS created by and showrun by Annie Beatts who wrote for Saturday Night Live in the much celebrated 1st Golden Era of the Not Yet Ready for Primetime Players. Terry Hughes, who also wrote for Saturday Night Live,…

#Benson #blogging #christmas #Holiday viewing #Holidays #It&039;s A Wonderful Life #Midnight Mass #Square Pegs #The Waitresses #tv

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lizzygrantarchives · 9 years ago

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Billboard, October 22, 2015

After reinventing herself as a cryptic Hollywood femme fatale, the 30-year-old singer has fought off the haters to become a proper, if unusual, pop star. In a rare interview, she opens up about coping with anxiety, her new-age mentors and how she almost played Sharon Tate on the big screen: “I could have become an American nightmare.”

LANA DEL REY AND I WERE FIRST introduced at an Architectural Digest pimped manse off Pacific Coast Highway during a party thrown, weirdly enough, for Werner Herzog and his bud, the physicist Lawrence Krauss. (Del Rey, 30, has spoken before of her interest in science and philosophy.) On that night, she wore an unformfitting Polo shirt dress with a personal-old-fave vibe. In deglamorized “Stars Without Makeup” mode, she was unpretentious and softly gregarious, like a doe-eyed, underdressed newcomer to the Town. I was at the same table, and she caught me staring off at the horizon. Del Rey was sardonically attuned, nudging her boyfriend, the Italian photographer-director Francesco Carrozzinni, to have a look at the cliché: Old Brooding Man. Her warmth took me out of myself.

Lana Del Rey’s fourth album, Honeymoon, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in September, but when I asked if she planned to go on the road to promote it, she shook her head. “I do everything backwards. It already happened — I’m actually done with the world tour I started four years ago, when I needed to be out there. I really needed to be out there singing.”

That exodus was partly born of the need to heal following a 2012 appearance on Saturday Night Live that elicited a slaughter-of-the-lamb storm of derision over the then up-and-coming star’s seemingly zoned-out amateurism. She was tarred as a poseur — part Edie Sedgwick, part Valley of the Dolls, a Never Will Be Ready for Primetime Player — but it turned out that Del Rey was only at the end of Act One in an all-American A Star Is Born passion play of celebrity crucifixion and resurrection.

Born Lizzy Grant in Lake Placid, N.Y., Del Rey moved to Manhattan at 18. “For seven years I wrote sexy songs about love,” she says. “That was the most joyous time of my life.” The screen that so many gossipy personas have been projected onto (rich preppy, suicidal anti-feminist, morbid dilettante) has instead transformed into a nearly religious dashboard icon of ghostly seduction. She’s a global phenomenon, part of the national conversation and cultural soundscape. Nielsen Music puts her total U.S. album sales at 2.5 million, and her videos have been viewed hundreds of millions of times. Del Rey is now a few years into her return from the desert, having arrived on a mystery train of Santa Ana winds, existential dread and “soft ice cream” (to quote her song “Salvatore”) that is uniquely her own.

I meet her for the interview at a John Lautner house she rents in Los Angeles. Lautner was a seminal Southern California architect, and Del Rey says her choice of lodging was deliberate. She production-designs her life. She greets me in the drive — inquisitive, friendly and aware. For a moment, she looks like Elvis and Priscilla, all in one. The hair is old-school Clairol dark, the eyes siren green, the auburn ’do the most done thing about her.

“You’d love my dad,” she says. She was just on the phone with him; her parents are visiting. He’s a realtor, and Mom’s an English teacher whose passion is reading history books. Del Rey lives here with her younger sister, Caroline Grant, a photographer who goes by Chuck. (Del Rey tells me that her sister was so shocked by the force of the fans’ emotions during concerts that she doesn’t take pictures of them anymore.)

“My dad’s that guy with perfect Hawaiian shirts and matching shorts,” says Del Rey. “The other day he said, ‘We should see about getting you a vintage Rolls.’ I said, ‘Um, it’s a little attention-grabbing.’ And he said, ‘Uh, yeah.’ ”

What do you do with yourself now that you have nothing on your schedule?

I go for long walks, long drives. I’ll get in the car and drive the streets, feeling for places. I go to Big Sur. I love Big Sur, but it has gotten so touristy. I went to the General Store, and there were hordes. On a Monday! But I’m drawn there. Sometimes I go to write. I’ve been thinking it might be time to do a longer video, a 40-minute video. I was watching The Sandpiper, and I was working on something kind of based on that.

Have you thought of writing something for yourself? Shooting down the paparazzi helicopter in the video for “High by the Beach” was your idea, no?

Yeah, it was. I’d like to write a book one day. But you need a beginning, a middle and an end! I can deal with four minutes — but I’m not so sure about a book.

Your song “God Knows I Tried” fits somewhere between The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” I’m thinking of Cohen because of that line “Even though it all went wrong.”

I love Leonard — because he’s all about women. Women and God.

Does it all go wrong?

It’s hard for me sometimes to think about going on when I know we’re going to die. Something happened in the last three years, with my panic…

I had read that you were prone to that.

It got worse. But I’ve always been prone to it. I remember being — I was, I think, 4 years old — and I’d just seen a show on TV where the person was killed. And I turned to my parents and said, “Are we all going to die?” They said “Yes,” and I was totally distraught! I broke down in tears and said, “We have to move!”

How do you cope?

I saw a therapist — three times. But I’m really most comfortable sitting in that chair in the studio, writing or singing.

The panic won’t last forever.

I don’t think so, but … sometimes you just want to be able to enjoy the view. I think I’m really like my mother, in the sense that I make small lists. To calm myself down. I reward myself. You know, “If I finish this, then I’ll do that” — I’ll go for a walk on the beach or swim in the ocean. I go for swims and am actually shocked I do that. Because one thing I’m terrified of is sharks.

Do you think having a child would chill you out? Do you want to have kids?

I’ve thought about it. Really thought about it lately because I’ve just turned 30. I’d love having daughters. But I don’t think it’d be a good idea to have kids with someone who wasn’t … on the same page.

Someone who…

Who isn’t exactly — like me! (Laughs.) Though maybe it’s best to have kids with someone who’s … normal.

When was the last time you got trashed by a love affair?

The last one — before the boyfriend I’m with now — was pretty bad. It wasn’t good to be in it, but it wasn’t good to be out of it, either. He was like a twin. Not a facsimile twin, but a real twin.

So maybe finding the same person doesn’t work. Are relationships hard for you?

For someone like me — and it’s not a codependent thing — I just like having someone there. I’ve been alone, and that’s fine. But I like to come home and have someone there. You know, to say, “Oh, he’s here. And this other thing (Mimes a table.) is there. And this (Mimes setting down an object on the table.) is there. (Laughs.) I’m very methodical. I have to be. I’m like that in the studio too. Mixing and mastering can take four more months after we’re done — three to mix and one to master. I like having a plan. Though I do leave spaces for ad-libbing in the studio when I write.

Do you mind if I write all this? Because I don’t want to piss off Francesco.

Oh, he’s going to read this! But he’ll have things to say anyway. He’s very … aggressive. (Smiles.) And besides, I didn’t say he wasn’t just like me.

There’s something weirdly shamanistic about your work. You channel Los Angeles in ways I haven’t seen from anyone, at least not in a long while. Places now extinct, streets and feelings that you have no right to be able to evoke because of your age. And it’s so unlikely that you’re the one to be the oracle that way. But it’s for real.

I know. I know that. I love that word, “shamanistic.” I read energy; I always have. One of the books I love — aside from [Kenneth Anger’s] Hollywood Babylon — is The Autobiography of a Yogi. And Wayne Dyer … I was so upset when he died! [Dyer, part Buddhist, part New Thought motivational speaker, was best-known for his book Your Erroneous Zones. He died in August.] He gave me so much over the last 15 years. I went to see a clairvoyant. She asked me to write down four things on a card before I came in, things I might be thinking about, and she nailed all four. I asked about the man I was seeing — that one, before the one now. She said, “I don’t really like to go there, but … I just don’t see him present.” I went, “Ugh.” She’s seeing the future and doesn’t see him present. Oh, no!

Are you aware of your effect on men?

I’ve only recently become aware of the heterosexual males who are into my music. I remember when I was 16, I had a boyfriend. I think he was… 25? I thought that was the best thing. He had an F-150 pickup and let me drive it one time. I was so high up! I panicked and was worried I might kill someone — run over a nun or something. I started to shake. I was screaming and crying. I saw him looking over, and he was smiling. He said, “I love that you’re out of control.” He saw how vulnerable I was, how afraid, and he loved that. The balance shifted from there. I had the upper hand — until then.

Do you want to be in the movies?

Well… I’m open to it all. James Franco asked me to be in three films that were going to be directed by a Spanish director, and I was hesitant. I think he heard my hesitance and got scared. Someone wanted me to be Sharon Tate. I thought, “That’s so right.” At that time, there were three Manson movies being talked about, but none were ever made. So maybe that was the answer.

Have you ever been the “voice of reason” for a friend in crisis?

I have — I can be. It’s easier to do that sometimes … for someone who’s half-checked out.

Meaning you.

Yes. (Pauses.) You know, I was living in Hancock Park once and thought about a movie idea. I was renting this house whose high walls had been grandfathered in, so of course I kept making them taller and taller. And I had an idea about writing something about a woman living there, a singer losing her mind. She has this Nest-like security system installed, cameras everywhere. The only people she saw were people who work on the grounds: construction people and gardeners. One day she hears the gardener humming this song she wrote. She panics and thinks, “Oh, my God. Was I humming that out loud or just to myself? And if it was aloud, wasn’t it at 4 in the morning? Did that mean he was outside my window?” Then a storm comes, one of those L.A. storms, and the power goes out except to the cameras, which are on a different source. And the pool has been empty for months because of the drought. And she goes outside in the middle of the night because she hears something — and trips over the gardener’s hoe and falls into the empty pool and dies facedown like William Holden at the end of Sunset Boulevard.

For me, one of the most interesting things about you and your story — and of course your work — is that you broke through. That it has turned out well.

I think about it, and I’m so grateful. I am aware that it could easily not have happened. That I could have become … an American nightmare. I see her — Lana — I listen to her and watch her, and I’m … protective.

Let’s end with Big Sur. Do you think your interest is by way of your kinship with the Beats? Your enthrallment with Kerouac?

Big Sur challenges me to surrender. What draws me is … the curves. I’m really drawn to the curves.

Originally published on billboard.com, and in the October 31, 2015 issue of Billboard with the headline An Inconvenient Woman.

#2015 #Honeymoon #Billboard #Bruce Wagner

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mikeyismyboyfriend · 1 year ago

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(oh boy more rise headcanons get ready boys and girls and gentlepeople)

Rise Headcanons: epic gaming edition

Let's start with Mikey Baby:

Surprisingly does not play Minecraft, does not give his ADHD brain enough stimuli. Donnie tried to mod it for him, but still nothing.

Also surprisingly is a genshin and HSR player but hides it from his brothers because they very much make fun of the two games.

Surprisingly addicted to lego fortnite with Leo atm however, as there's enough combat to give his brain some sort of stimuli.

Now our based genius Donnie:

Despite popular belief, he is NOT a min-maxxing hyper-godsweat. In fact, he sucks. Really, really badly. He paid for every advantage in that one episode, you cannot fool me.

And the worst part is that he thinks he's incredible at every game he plays. And you thought Leo had an ego?

Honestly better at making games then playing them. His coding skills are off the charts, so he tends to make training games for himself that never work in the end because AI is AI, and not human.

Now for the girlboss April:

Is ACTUALLY the min-maxxing hyper-godsweat. Not only that, but she is f2p and rocks that shit.

No matter what game, if anyone beats her, she will go out of her way to learn said game and absolutely humiliate them. Mikey starts to crank 90's around her in fortnite or something? Give it a week, a few days if she's already familiar with the mechanics. April will annihilate him.

Is the one who always figures out on the dot that someone is cheating, and somehow, someway, finds a way to cheese them to death. It's honestly incredible.

Next, our boy Raphie:

Tends to... stay away from multiplayer games. At least competitive ones, minus Street Fighter, MK, Tekken, etc.

Raph just enjoys more single-player experiences, like God of War, or the Yakuza series. Hell, even Devil May Cry or Dark Souls. The guy is a single-player beast.

big hands, break controller

Finally, time for Primetime Leo:

Genuine hypebeast

He's kinda bad but makes up for it by being funny and having those few moments of being good at the game he's playing.

Grinds fortnite up until like one in the morning and passes out by two. He's gotta get the Peter Griffin skin, you don't understand. If he can't, it's like his life means nothing. Leads to a family intervention because the rest think it's trauma that's keeping him up or something.

#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #headcanon #rottmnt #rise donnie #rise michelangelo #rise leo

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crowdvscritic · 1 year ago

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round up // OCTOBER 23

It’s official: October is the best weather month of the year for the Midwest. When else can you leave your screen door open and keep the air off while you rewatch Gilmore Girls and Stranger Things?

This month’s pop culture top 10 is full of new-to-me tricks and treats for your TV, your earbuds, and your bookshelf, including our first major contender for Best Picture, a Turner Classic Movies marathon, and returning TV shows worth keeping up with.

October Crowd-Pleasers

1. Taylor Swift-palooza!

And to think this isn’t even my first Taylor Swift-palooza! As you scroll through an Instagram feed full of Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce couple costumes, let’s not forget what else happened this month:

On the 13th (natch), Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour hit theaters, and because Swift is a “Mastermind” always “scheming like a criminal” to make us love her and “make it seem effortless,” it’s no surprise this is a home run for fans new or returning to the Eras Tour. Read my full review for ZekeFilm. Crowd: 10/10 // Critic: 9/10

She dropped a live version and remix of “Cruel Summer”

She released 1989 (Taylor’s Version) with six killer new vault tracks

And because I’m me, I finally watched Taylor Swift: The 1989 World Tour - Live (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10) to inform my review of the Eras film, which was a fun blast from the 2015 past

Girl can write a song!

2. Only Murders in the Building Season 3

Three things I did not know I wanted in one of the two shows I keep up with on a weekly basis: Paul Rudd! Meryl Streep! A musical! Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short’s sitcom is still zinging jokes at an impressive rate, and the Agatha Christie murder mystery plotting is still delightfully twisty. Full of both tricks and treats—and more beautiful coats on Gomez!

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3. SNL Round Up

As for the other show I keep up with on a weekly basis, we’re back in Studio 8H for season 49! (Side note: IMDb has 954 episodes listed, which means we’re on track for an 1000th episode celebration in season 52!) Since last season was cut short by the Writer’s Strike, it felt like an extra long (or “cruel,” in Tay’s words) summer without our not-ready-for-primetime players. These have been my favorite sketches, bits, and camoes so far this season:

“Fox NFL Sunday” (4901 with Pete Davidson) - This also would’ve been a valid entry of this month’s Taylor Swift-palooza

“Protective Mom 2” (4902 with Bad Bunny)

“Biden Halloween Cold Open” (4903 with Nate Bargatze)

“Nate Bargatze Stand-Up Monologue” (4903) - Yes, I am also from the 1900s

“Hallmark Horror” (4903) - Let’s make this movie a reality

“Washington’s Dream” (4903)

“Chef Show” (4903)

4. Death Becomes Her (1992)

Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, and Bruce Willis turn Ethan Frome into a zany comedy! Author Hawn and Broadway star Streep are youth-obsessed divas vying for Willis’s affections, but Isabella Rossellini’s promise of eternal beauty makes their rivalry more complicated. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

5. Good Boundaries and Goodbyes by Lysa Terkeurst (2022)

While the editor in me thinks it could lose 20-30 pages, this book is full of crunchy thoughts and questions about setting healthy boundaries, why we people-please, and what Scripture says about saying goodbye to relationships.

More October Crowd-Pleasers: Dolly Parton: Here I Am (2019) is a solid documentary about a delightful (and enigmatic) country star // Colombiana (2011) is a solid action thriller starring a pre-Guardians Zoe Saldana

October Critic Picks

1. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Martin Scorsese’s latest is less about murder and more about the lies we tell ourselves, about talking about both sides of our mouths, and about the discrepancy between our public and private lives. It’s very good (and very 3 ½ hours). Read the full review at ZekeFilm. Crowd: 7/10 // Critic: 10/10

2. Gothic Movies

I have discovered my perfect Halloween film formula: a naive young woman marries a wealthy man with a giant mansion, but plot twist: he might be a murderer! (Also see: Rebecca.) The October Spotlight on Turner Classic Movies was Gothic Movies, and I caught every one of these spooky literary adaptations I hadn’t seen before. Most of them follow some variation of that formula, and many of them star Vincent Price. These were the standouts:

The House of Seven Gables (1940) - George Sanders and Vincent Price war over the family’s cursed home, and Margaret Lindsay’s kind heart is caught in the middle

Jane Eyre (1943) - Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles star in Charlotte Brontë’s classic

Experiment Perilous (1944) - Hedy Lamarr’s fancy pants husband may be gaslighting her, and only George Brent’s doctor can help her find out

Dragonwyck (1946) - Gene Tierney becomes a governess for wealthy Vincent Price’s daughter, but his mansion has as many secrets as rooms

Secret Beyond the Door… (1947) - Joan Bennett elopes with Michael Redgrave but then discovers his hobby is recreating murder sites in his mansion

The Woman in White (1948) - Eleanor Parker plays two roles as a sister engaged to be married and as a mysterious woman escaped from an asylum in Victorian England

House of Usher (1960) - Vincent Price refuses to let his sister wed or to remodel the family’s riven mansion that would fail every inspector’s test in this Edgar Allan Poe adaptation

Bonus: Many of them qualified as new additions to my Letterboxd list “’40s Gals Just Trying to Live Their Best Lives BUT SOCIETY.”

3. The In-Laws (1979)

Neurotic dentist Alan Arkin and carefree criminal Peter Falk’s children are getting married this weekend, but first, they’re going to get mixed up in a international espionage hijinks. Falk is just doing comedy Columbo! Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10

4. Do We Get to Win This Time? (2023)

In this eight-episode series on The Big Picture feed, journalist Brian Raftery digs into the history of Vietnam films, including Apocalypse Now, Born on the 4th of July, Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, First Blood, The Green Berets, M*A*S*H, and Platoon. Because of their bleak outlook, these films are not my favorite, but the each episode gives new context to the filmmaking and ‘70s culture. Listen to the series here.

5. Good Reads

A grab bag of good stuff about tech:

“The Internet Is About to Get Much Worse,” NYTimes.com (2023)

“Blessed Are the Rich, for They Can Afford to Limit Their Kids’ Screen Time,” ChristianityToday.com (2023)

“Streaming Has Reached Its Sad, Predictable Fate,” TheAtlantic.com (2023)

About workplaces at varying levels of functioning:

“To the World, McCarthy’s Exit Is Just Another Example of U.S. Disarray,” NYTimes.com (2023)

“The Magic Number: 32 Hours a Week,” NYTimes.com (2023)

"‘I Just Wasn’t in the Mood to Work.’ American Employees Reinvent the Sick Day,” WSJ.com (2023)

About the movies:

"‘Who wasn’t complicit?’ How Martin Scorsese Won the Trust of the Osage Nation,” TheGuardian.com (2023)

“Dan Harmon Gives Update on ‘Truly Terrifying’ Community Movie,” HollywoodReporter.com (2023)

“Hollywood Reporter Critics Pick the 50 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century (So Far),” HollywoodReporter.com (2023)

“The 100 Greatest Film Books of All Time,” HollywoodReporter.com (2023)

Also in October…

In 2023, we think of the March on Washington as the ideal standard of a peaceful, history-changing protest. At its best, Rustin (Crowd: 7/10 // Critic: 7/10) reminds us that was no guarantee in 1963. Read my full review for ZekeFilm.

Photo credits: Good Boundaries, Do We Get to Win This Time?, Good Reads. All others IMDb.com.

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