#So true Joe Gillis so true

[two4tea1485]

I just finished reading The Pale Blue Eye and came on here hoping to find a decent book-vs-film post to help me decide whether to bother with the film... 

But judging by all the posts I’ve been able to find so far, no one even knows the book exists???? 

[greenfiend]

So I guess, Gaten, Charlie, Finn, Maya, Joe, Natalia and Caleb won't get called out or "cancelled" for seeing and taking pics with known racist comedian Shane Gillis This fandom and it's double standards and blinders

I don’t know anything about Shane Gillis or the cast hanging out with him but there absolutely is a huge double standard.

Sad thing is, people who are still out here spreading hate towards Noah do.not.care.about.Palestinians. They may pretend to, but they don’t. They spread hate because it gives them dopamine and makes them feel better about themselves (temporarily). They also just care about how they are perceived by others online, thinking that joining the hate mob will make them appear more virtuous (it doesn’t).

People are also just lazy. I keep seeing people accusing Noah of things he never did. For example, the photo of him with the “Zionism is sexy” stickers in the background turned into him creating the stickers, him handing out the stickers, and him making that statement which none of those were true.

Could you argue that some of his actions/statements were in poor taste? Sure. But honestly, in the grand scheme of things, this whole controversy is far too overblown. I bet you, most of the people spreading hate towards him have also spread love to celebrities who have done far worse things. Far worse. But they aren’t the punching bag of the moment so it’s acceptable for them to like them.

But yeah… people have no room for critical thinking or nuance nowadays. No human is perfect, we all have done or said things that are in poor taste. We all have skeletons in our closets. Especially some of those haters too. In the future, some of them may become miniature celebrities themselves and experience their own “cancelation” due to their disgusting hateful words and lies they’ve uttered in the past. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[mollrat101]

I find it so fascinating that this is the song that’s playing when Ruby and Ava have their date at the restaurant in episode 9. 

Because on the surface this song is about Ava’s feelings for Ruby and probably distills down why Ava is so drawn to her. The only lyric that really seems to be about Ruby is the very title “You’re So Cool”. Why does Ava like Ruby? Because she thinks she’s cool. Something that Ava is very obviously obsessed with. 

To be fair, we don’t know a lot about Ruby, and she seems like a perfectly nice person, but just glancing at their relationship doesn’t really give us much insight into why Ava is drawn to her. We know that L.A. is where Ava pursued superficial values over more meaningful pursuits, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest her draw to Ruby is also based on this. Ava likes the idea of being able to win the heart of a young, beautiful, cool and successful actress. And while Ruby seems to care about her, Ava seems to avoid emotional vulnerability with her. Their connection seems to be based on having fun with each other and anything deeper than that isn’t something they’ve been good at handling. 

But everything else in the song? It fits more with Deborah. 

Which probably just highlights that Deborah’s presence in this whole scene is felt despite not being there. She has forever taken space within Ava’s heart and mind.  

(It got long, I’m sorry but my love for Ava and Deborah made me write this much lol.)

Body so fit So full of spark With affirmations As your wall art You were driven Eyes on the prize A yoga routine Home exercise

The song is speaking about an ambitious and driven person the narrator is admiring. There is no character in Hacks who is quite as driven and determined as Deborah. Despite all the tragedy and heartbreak and challenges that have come her way, Deborah has managed to find great success in her field. Deborah is nothing if not a survivor. 

Some of Deborah’s best traits are her ambition, self-discipline, dedication to her craft, strong work ethic and her determination. We see this demonstrated time and again such as when she mentions haven told 30,000 jokes in her career and when we see her morning routine which consists of her exercising in her home gym. For almost being 70, Deborah is in incredible shape. There’s no mention of her having chronic diseases and she’s health conscious to the point of being too restrictive on herself. 

Again, we don’t know much about Ruby so it’s probably not fair to say none of this could apply to her. She wouldn’t have gotten successful as an actress if she wasn’t ambitious and determined. But it’s the next lines that fully cement that even those that’s likely true, Ruby has a privilege Deborah doesn’t: youth.  Now like the faded star In sunset blvd

Here is a reference to the classic Hollywood horror film, Sunset Boulevard. The film follows “Joe Gillis, a struggling screenwriter, and Norma Desmond, a former silent-film star who draws him into her demented fantasy world, where she dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen”. The film is touted as one of the best scathing critiques of the Hollywood system by touching on issues of ageism, celebrity culture, the discounted role of writers in Hollywood and trying to balance the love of filmmaking with the cynical real-world business. 

This video essay goes more in depth on the film, but it’s easy to see some comparisons you could draw between Norma and Deborah. Norma and Deborah are both aging female stars who are looking to make a comeback. They’re both isolated and lonely in their mansions. They both take pains to create a certain image in response to the ageist and sexist standards of the entertainment industry. 

Of course, where Deborah differs is that while Norma fits the trope of the Monstrous Older Woman, Deborah is a deconstruction of it. While Sunset Boulevard, to some degree, sympathizes with Norma for the misogyny, ageism and destructive Hollywood system that has thrown her away, it ultimately portrays her as a cautionary tale and a villain. 

But Deborah is the hero of her own story. The story is more interested in empathizing with her suffering and exploring how she can move forward in a way that lets her have more control of her own narrative. Her backstory signals that the Mad Woman she’s been painted as was just a fiction perpetuated by her vindicative ex-husband. The fact that she leaned into it in order to preserve in her career and to take away some of the sting is completely understandable. 

Compared to Norma, Deborah doesn’t fall into delusions or commit acts of violence despite the fact that the public perceives her as the crazy woman who burned down her ex-husband’s house. 

While Norma is too far gone, Deborah’s story offers hope for her to finally feel free of this trope and to claim her own narrative. And while Norma’s relationship with Joe is toxic, Deborah and Ava form a real genuine bond that is based on honesty and push the other to become better artists and better people. 

The movie also debates things like cynicism versus idealism in working in movies which feels very similar to how Hacks battles between idealist or cynical when looking at the comedy world. 

Another character that’s relevant is Betty Schaefer, Joe’s collaborator and love interest. Betty represents a balance between Joe’s cynicism about moviemaking and Norma’s delusions of recapturing glory. Betty isn’t concerned with fame nor has she had idealism beaten out of her yet. She sincerely loves movies and has a devotion to writing good ones, but she’s realistic about working in the rough business. Joe initially chastises her for saying that a film should say something calling her “one of those message kids”. This feels very much like what Deborah accuses Ava of believing that comedy now should be about honesty and speaking your truth. But the film takes Betty’s side, as Hacks ultimately takes Ava’s. 

While Norma and Joe are cautionary tales of both Ava and Deborah being spit out by the entertainment industry (at the most extreme, Deborah ending up irrelevant and Ava ending up dead), Betty represents who they will actually become by being able to merge their points of views into a healthy whole. 

I play the devoted butler Morning coffees by the bed While all hard fought endeavours Bring in diminished returns

The 2nd reference to Sunset Boulevard is talking about the “devoted butler”. That’s referring to the character of Max. Max is Norma’s butler who is later revealed to be Norma’s first husband and former director. After she divorced him, Max couldn’t stand to live without her, so he abandoned his career to devote his life to her. 

In terms of Hacks characters, Max could actually be compared to either Marcus or Ava. Marcus has been in a codependent relationship with Deborah for 20 years where he’s essentially built her business empire singlehandedly, been her constant companion and has seemingly ignored his own personal and professional life in favor of devoting his life to Deborah. Marcus is the dark version of this idea of loyal service, sacrificing his own personal well-being to take care of someone else. 

But Ava represents a more positive spin on it. Ava becomes Deborah’s most ardent supporter of the new direction of Deb’s career. Ava choosing to act in service for Deborah isn’t seen as a negative as it’s actually seen a character growth for her. Unlike Marcus, one of Ava’s defining traits is her self-centeredness and her ruthless ambition. Ava choosing to lift up someone else’s career, to some extent at the sacrifice of her own, is actually a moment of growth for her. 

Of course, the more somber idea of efforts and diminished returns could refer to the fact that Ava and Deborah’s journey for her comeback is going to be difficult. While Deborah will never be able to gain back the potential success, she could’ve had in 1976, hopefully there will be some returns although they won’t likely go as they expect. 

And also, my little shipper heart can’t help but want to imagine Ava being supportive of Deborah day in and day out as her partner and her collaborator, in a way more positive spin on Max.  

You're so cool, it's true You're my kind of girl Keep you 'til the end

While the title itself, superficially, can refer to Ruby, most of the season has actually been dedicated to Ava genuinely starting to see how “cool” Deborah really is. Not in a superficial way, but in a way where Ava is impressed by her talent, her courage, her experiences and her perseverance. 

Again, going to be a huge sap here and say that while Ava believes it is Ruby who is right for her, it’s more likely actually Deborah. Is Ruby the kind of person she really wants to be with? It’s hard to say. I’m not sure Ava herself would know. But I find it very interesting that when we got a glimpse into Ava’s subconscious it isn’t Ruby, she imagines showing her love and intimacy, but Deborah. And while her relationship with Ruby isn’t likely to turn into anything long-term (at least not based on past experience), Ava’s relationship with Deborah (in whatever form that takes) is likely to be for life.  Find solace in the privilege to pursue Most people are crushed into servitude

This line likely refers to how Ava and Deborah have chosen the unstable path as artists. 

The path they’ve chosen is difficult, but they know they’ve taken a risk by not choosing a supposedly more stable career path. They cannot control how the industry evolves, but they can choose to find solace in doing good work and in being with each other. 

tl;dr: Despite the song “You’re So Cool” featuring on Ava and Ruby’s date, the lyrics have more relevance to Deborah. Superficially it’s about Ruby, but when you dig deeper the connections to Deborah are stronger which is kind of a metaphor how it is Deborah (not Ruby) who has left an indelible impression on Ava. It is Deborah who Ava’s heart feels really true to. 

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats #14 | William Lustig Double Feature

The Violation of Claudia opens with Sharon Mitchell being "attended to" by three servants. Dissonant music plays, consisting of clashing piano, percussion and synthesizer, while distored moans are heard on the soundtrack. For Mitchell, this seems too good to be true, and alas is is, as she wakes up next to her husband, an older, inconsiderate man who claims to be too busy to give her the romantic attention she craves. So she spends her days getting tennis lessons from a sexy instructor played by Jamie Gillis, with whom she has an easy rapport. He raises the idea of prostitution ("lots of exciting jobs a pretty lady like you could do") and she abruptly leaves. Of course, Gillis proves persistent, and in a later scene when she's getting a massage, he takes over and has his way with her (as can be expected for the genre, consent proves a slippery concept), leaving his number after he's finished.

At the dinner table she tries to strike up a conversation with her husband but he's not very attentive. Frustrated, she informs him that she "had a very enjoyable fuck", to which he responds "Hmmm, that's good." (She reacts by angrily cutting her steak.) When he leaves for a business trip ("I hope the plane crashes"), she lets the maid take a few days off and decides to act on her desires. She picks up a hitchhiker who resembles John Amplas. "Have you ever made love to an older woman?" she asks, even though they look to be the same age. They make love beside the fireplace in a sensually shot scene, that seems less interested in close-ups than in photographing two attractive bodies. After this, Mitchell takes up Gillis' offer and joins his agency. She hits it off with fellow escort Crystal Sync, who proves extremely friendly in both natural (helping her try on dresses) and genre-pandering (gettin' it on) ways.

Her first client is a balding, diminutive bespectacled man who immediately searches nervously for hidden cameras. He then lays out a tablecloth, asks her to undress and lay on the table, puts on an apron and paper hat, then puts down a bunch of toppings on the table, and proceeds to put whipped cream (and other delights) on her body. (The first shot after the scene is of an ice cream sundae. "No thanks," says Mitchell.) I was a little worried when the weird looking guy showed up, but this is actually a pretty fun scene, helped largely by the fact that both participants seem to find it amusing (Mitchell giggles all the way through). Mitchell's next client is a cross dresser who wants to "sprinkle her with [his] fairy dust", at which point she decides this isn't for her and walks out. (On a side note, it is interesting how films whose purpose is delivering explicit content decide what lines can't be crossed. Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS has endless, graphically depicted tortures throughout its runtime but its heroine finds the idea of a golden shower too vile even for her.) Without giving too much away, let's just say she finally learns why her husband has been so inattentive to her.

The Violation of Claudia is almost like a softcore feature with a few extra close-ups. The sex scenes, while explicit, seem less concerned with gynecology than intimate vibes and handsomely shot nudity. Bringing to mind a smuttier Belle de Jour, the tone is unexpectedly elegant, especially given the grungy genre movies that William Lustig would go on to direct. If one really wants to reach, they can find similarities between this and Maniac in how Lustig gets inside his protagonists' headspace, but the performances by Mitchell here and Joe Spinell there, while both good in their own way, couldn't be more different. (Fun fact: Mitchell has a cameo as nurse in Maniac.) In any case, this is well acted and features nice soft focus cinematography and attractive decor, all of which make it pretty enjoyable.

These qualities don't persist in his follow-up, Hot Honey, which opens with a Lou-Reed-ish theme song while the characters walk down 42nd Street. The heroine, played by Colleen Anderson (credited here as Heather Young) is reluctant to have sex with her boyfriend, who wastes no time after she leaves in calling his upstairs neighbour for a booty call. When Anderson gets home, she gets chewed out by her brother Jamie Gillis, who is in a wheelchair and attended to by a nurse played by Serena. Anderson has a friend with whom she practices her dance routine (this is not a euphemism) and then later does the horizontal mambo (this is a euphemism). Her friend's husband is played by Herschel Savage, who at this point had a hair and mustache combo that made him look like Gene Shalit, so if you ever had a thing for Gene Shalit, this might be worth your time. (Alas, he makes no puns.)

Later Serena chastises Gillis for riding his sister. Her prescription? Riding his sister. Anderson walks in on her sexually dominating Gillis and is invited to join in. (I should note that during this scene Gillis moves his legs repeatedly, and it's not clear if he's breaking character. I will give him the benefit of the doubt.) After this, she decides to finally have sex with her boyfriend (actual honey figures in the action at this point) and in the film's climax, has a threesome with her friend and Savage. (Fans of Gene Shalit, rejoice!) To be perfectly honest, there isn't a lot to this. Most of the sex scenes feel perfunctory in their execution (the exception being the scene with Serena and Gillis, where the perversion factor gives it a tension absent in the rest of the movie), and characters are sketched out roughly at best. I enjoyed Anderson's work in Skin Flicks, but I don't think she's a good enough actress to make her arc work or otherwise ground the movie. This isn't terrible by the standards of the genre, but is only really worth seeking out for completist interest in Lustig's career.

[jackoshadows]

Yes, it is not feminist to think that strong, independent women don’t need or want love, marriage and kiddies. It is true that women who are not traditionally feminine and don’t conform to patriarchal gender norms are often seen as being not romantic and not requiring love and marriage and this is falsely seen as empowering. And it is true that much of fandom and D&D/cast and crew have pretty much treated the character of Arya Stark this way. 

But it is also not empowering to think that women can only be happy and valid if there is romance in their lives and marriage and children. That’s basically ignoring the existence of millions of happily single women around the world who don’t bemoan the absence of marriage and children in their lives.

The point being that it is possible to make a case for Arya having romance, love, marriage and children in her story without denigrating single woman who are perfectly fine without any of those.

Yeah, GOT was terrible in how they wrote their female characters. But the over correction in the opposite direction about how Arya is now going to be miserable forever because she did not accept Gendry’s offer of marriage or stay in Winterfell being Sansa’s executioner and is instead sailing around the world with lots of money and servants? Yeah, fuck that. There is nothing inherently anti-feminist about the idea of Arya not wanting marriage even if D&D are sexist hacks. There is nothing misogynistic about someone head cannoning Arya as being happy exploring new worlds within the context of the show and it’s writing of these characters.

At least Arya’s ending on the show is actually open-ended enough that it allows for her to come back to Gendry or Winterfell or to Jon or find romance and love or opt to remain single and happy.  There are other characters who fared far, far worse.

Arya ending up with Gendry is a totally possible and valid ending for her. And a 14 year old Arya ending up single at the end of the books? Also a totally possible and valid ending for her - her character does not becomes less than or doomed to a miserable existence just because she does not find love and marriage at 14. It all depends on how GRRM writes her and what she wants at the end of the books.

Currently, book Arya is a traumatized 11-12 year old who thinks that the only refuge she has is with the FM - that’s why she kills the thin man under duress. She does not want to be kicked out of the FM and feels like she has no where else to go. We can only speculate as to where her story is going next in the books. To the riverlands and Ladystoneheart? To the wall and Jon? To the Vale and Sansa? There is also Nymeria and her wolf pack who will be playing a major role in the North and the whole fArya plot.

If we are looking only at the show, which main character got a happily ever romance plot?

Dany? Exploited by the Starks, betrayed by everyone and murdered by her lover. Sansa? Ends up all alone ruling the North. Brienne? Dumped by her lover.

What about  the men. Jon? Kicked out of Westeros. Bran? Turned into an unfeeling automaton who exists with no motivations or personality. Tyrion? All the other Lannisters are dead.

What about Grey Worm and Missandei?

The only two characters who manage to find love and happiness at the end are Sam and Gilly - and that’s most probably because D&D forgot about them and they were not all that important. I think we last saw Gilly in episode 4.

It’s understandable why D&D veered away from SanSan on the show considering that Rory McCann is like 50 and Sophie Turner is 21. There was speculation in book forums when the 40 year old McCann was cast as Sandor Clegane that this was an indication that Sansa and the Hound don’t end up together in the books. And from some of the comments Bryan Cogman has made, it looks like GRRM has not yet decided on whether to bring back the Hound and the show just went ahead and did it because the Hound is a fan favorite. 

So comparisons between SanSan and Gendrya does not make a case for Gendrya endgame in the books. SanSan did not happen on the show either and we don’t know if SanSan is a sure thing in the books. For now the Hound has a conclusive ending in the books if GRRM opts to not bring him back.

If Jon/Arya is a thing in the books, it’s understandable why it’s not a thing on the show. Considering the outrage from the general audience over Arya sleeping with Gendry, imagine the reaction if Jon/Arya happened?

And unlike King Bran, there was actual build up for Arya/Gendry on the show. Gendry was played by an age appropriate Joe Dempsie and Arya was played by a now age appropriate Maisie Williams. So, if Bran became king on the show because that’s his book ending, then why didn’t Arya end up with Gendry if that’s her book ending? A possible explanation being that this is not her book ending?

Arya is also a pretty little girl who is going to end up looking like Lyanna Stark - considered to be one of the most beautiful women of Westeros. Arya’s story is not about becoming a warrior woman just like Jon’s story is not about becoming a warrior man. She has learned how to fight using Needle, like Jon knows how to fight.  But Arya also knows poisons, how to read emotions, languages, politics and leadership. If she does get romance and love when she is older, this is nothing new or unconventional in ASoIaF. After all, wild child, horse riding, weapon wielding Lyanna Stark is one half of ASoIaF’s most romanticized couple. In GRRM’s original outline, the central romance was for Arya. 

GRRM is indeed writing an unconventional romance story in his books - for Brienne of Tarth, with a reversed Beauty and the Beast tale. Brienne, who is taller than Jaime, ugly and a fighter also does not conform to gender roles. Jaime/Brienne is quite popular in both the ASoIaF and GOT fandoms and we still did not get Jaime/Brienne on the show. Maybe because they don’t end up together in the books rather than D&D thinking that Brienne does not need a man?

It’s rather clear that Arya’s story in the books has strong connections to the North. Pretty much all the current female leaders of the North are Arya stereotypes - Lyanna Mormont, Wylla Manderly, Alys Karstark  - who Jon compares to Arya. But the show effectively took away Arya’s book story when they centered the Northern plot around Sansa from season 5 - D&D have admitted to Sansa’s Vale story being too boring for a TV adaptation.

So what can they do with show Arya without book Arya’s story? They could stick her in WF at the end - but this would just turn Arya into Sansa’s bodyguard/executioner instead of an important character in her own right with an ending that’s about her instead of about Sansa.

And again, with respect to the complaints about Arya not being with her family... Sure, book Arya loved her family and wanted to be back in Winterfell with them. But D&D basically destroyed the Starks as a family in the last two seasons and wrote them as Lannister lite selfish, xenophobic bullies who even turned against Jon in the end. So would Arya ending up with Sansa in WF be all that satisfying for Arya fans? In the context of the show, why would Arya stay in Winterfell?

I doubt that D&D sat there and came up with the plan of deliberately isolating Arya because they thought she was a strong, independent woman who did not need love. I get the feeling that she got this ending because D&D’s garbage writing over the last 4 seasons pigeon holed these characters into certain narratives and then they were stuck with that narrative towards the end.  Essentially all the bad writing for these characters from season 4 onwards - after they ran out of book material - is what’s responsible for these endings.

I think they just stuffed these characters into certain slots that is somewhat close to their book endings. I mean, have you guys seen their hilarious behind the scenes comments of the final episode? One of them being that after Jon kills Dany:

“ We did not really realize how much residual drama there was left - once we realized that both Jon and Tyrion were inevitably going to be prisoners, their fate was far from settled. So we went through a number of different versions of how to take advantage of that tension and we finally landed on the version we had in the dragonpit ”

Fans have put more thought, effort and time into trying to understand and dissect these endings and what that means for these characters than D&D ever did. And that’s the sad truth about this terrible show.

And considering what was done to Dany as a character and her ending on the show, the Starks and Jon came out of the whole thing with better endings that was unearned. It could have been far worse.

[filmista]

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

“You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.” “I am big. It's the pictures that got small.”

The subject of Billy Wilder's masterpiece Sunset Boulevard isn’t actually that remarkable anymore: Hollywood at its dirtiest with ego trippers closing filthy deals, selling all integrity they once had with pleasure for the right price, divas stabbing each other in the back and so on. 

During the past ten years it seems as if the American film industry has become proud of its self-righteousness, and makes it a point to regularly send a piece of self-mockery out into to the world: Robert Altmans The Player  started that trend in '92, and since then we have received titles such as Swimming With Sharks , An Alan Smithee Film , Hurlyburly and America’s Sweethearts.

That kind of self-referential cinema has now become a genre in itself  but in 1950, when Wilder made Sunset Boulevard many people considered that a form of high treason. 

The German director was just at the height of his fame, after successes such as Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend, and now he knowingly bit into the hand that fed him. There is a legendary story about the production, Wilder showed his film to a number of Hollywood insiders, including studio voucher Louis B. Mayer. Mayer got so mad at Wilders bitter exposé that he left the projection room shouting and cursing, no recent "look how well we cab laugh at ourselves” film, will have that effect. 

The story revolves around Joe Gillis (William Holden), a writer who struggles with a lack of inspiration and cash. He regularly visits studios with rather bland scenario proposals, but he doesn’t succeed in selling anything and before he knows it, he’s on the flight for creditors. 

Through this he happens to end up in a dilapidated villa on Sunset Boulevard, where he meets with Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a silent movie star that with the rise of sound saw her career perish before her eyes. Desmond clearly has a screw: she leads a lonely life, with only her butler (Erich Von Stroheim) as company, but imagines that the world is still waiting for her come-back. She dresses, behaves and speaks like she is still a star, although she has lost her audience years ago. 

Desmond, however, apparently still has money and when she suggests Joe to write her own scenario for a retelling of Salomé it’s hard for refuse. He gets a room in the villa, is taken care of by the crazy old lady and meanwhile tries to pen a script for her to best of his abilities. 

Wilder uses that plot to paint a gloomy, ink-black portrait depend on the Hollywood of the forties and fifties, a city ​​that is good to you as long as you are successful, and that immediately forgets you as soon as that is no longer the case. 

Norma Desmond is as crazy as she can be, of course, but what would you be like if you were used to being worshiped by everyone for years, and suddenly nobody wanted to know you anymore? The only people who still come by are the long forgotten silent film stars of yesteryear, including Buster Keaton. The film industry of Sunset Boulevard is a pool of hypocrisy, because behind the glitter and glamor is an anonymous army of wanna-be’s like Joe Gillis and has-beens like Norma Desmond.

Men with worn out clothes trying to sell their sccripts, divas of yesterday who are now quietly waiting in a house for a come-back that will never come. Even the audience isn’t spared, at a certain moment we hear Cecil B. DeMille (as himself) say “Thirty million fans have given her the brush. Isn't that enough?” Von Stroheim, the butler, turns out to be a forgotten director and one of Norma’s ex husbands, who is now feeding the ego of his former star and wife, by writing her fan mail, almost heartbreakingly tragic. 

Anyone of importance in Hollywood loses all interest in you once you are no longer at the top, but the audience is just as bad. What makes this story so realistic is the fact that the actors which Wilder used were more or less in the same situation as their characters. 

Gloria Swanson was indeed a star from the silent film era that was dismissed when sound was introduced, although she unlike Norma, stayed active (and mentally healthy). Erich Von Stroheim made a very expensive flop with his doomed masterpiece Greed in the 1920s and fell slowly but steadily into a hell of B movies. Then there are of course all the cameos of real Hollywood figures, even William Holden, at the time a young actor who was stuck in small, unremarkable roles in equally unremarkable films. Sunset Boulevard meant his definitive breakthrough.

Viewed more broadly than just the nasty attack on Hollywood Wilder performs here, there is of course the well-known negative human vision that the filmmaker had. All characters are up to some extent opportunists - Joe decides to take money from Norma although he knows she’s not all right in the head, Norma herself wants to be in the public picture again at all costs and the less we say about the studio bosses, the better. 

The only one who is really innocent is Betty (Nancy Olson), a young girl who works as a secretary at Paramount and hasn’t yet been corrupted by the hunt for success. Everyone here wants to play the lead role in the film that is their  life. When Norma at the end, in a now iconic scene, dramatically descends the stairs and says: "Alright, Mr DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up,” that's a symbol for what almost all characters do throughout the film.

And by extension, what everyone everywhere in the world always does: everyone wants to be important, be loved, be rich. Everyone wants to be the protagonist in an unforgettable success story: "Me and My Life At The Top”.

 Wilder and screenwriter Charles Brackett filled their film with great dialogue,  “I am still big. It’s the pictures that got smaller! ” and towards the end succeed  in evoking a sincere feeling of compassion from their audience. 

Norma Desmond is crazy, yes, and Wilder is certainly not afraid of occasionally ridiculing her. But in the end she is also a very sad figure, someone who didn't make it in a tough world. 

Even now, more than fifty years later, Sunset Boulevard is without a doubt one of the best movies about Hollywood ever made. It’s a true catalog of unforgettable scenes and dialogues that should be missed by no one. 

“You didn't know Norma Desmond as a lovely little girl of 17 with more courage and wit and heart, that ever came together in one youngster.”

“I understand she was a terror to work with.”

“Only toward the end. You know, a dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit.”

[klarolinedrabbles]

alrighty, I’ve never done the positivity spin for a ship and fandom that isn’t klaroline, but I’m gonna try now so bare with me, ya’ll.

Below the cut will be all talks of current leaks, unconfirmed leaks, speculative leaks, all of it. So read at your own peril, and hopefully I’ll manage to express my point more eloquently and concisely than the reddit does, lmao.

Let’s start, so the current leak that the specifics might be dodgy about , but that the foundation of is solid, is an Arya and Gendry scene during the feast. Allegedly, prior to Gendry leaving to seek her out, get’s given Storm’s End or made Lord Baratheon???? Which is all too quick to me, but it’s based on a translation so take that with a grain of salt. Like I’m sure if that’s what happens, it’ll come across more organized than it sounds.

So he seeks her out, and as I have it understood, says he wants to marry her? And she shoots that down. Now they clearly kiss in this scene, so keep that in mind. But shortly after this, she leaves Winterfell, and the Hound follows her.

Now, we know Maisie filmed in Spain, as did Joe. So Arya has to end up in King’s Landing at some point, whether you factor in other leaks that place her there or not. Leaks or no leaks, she’ll end up in King’s Landing, we know this. And there’s this other unconfirmed leak that’s been around for a while, about Arya, The Hound, and Jamie I think, trying to get to Cersei in the Red Keep and it starts crashing down. So if that’s true, and even if it’s not honestly, my perception of this scene with Gendry is the same.

Let’s all have a moment here to remember what Arya’s arc is supposed to consist of this season. And that’s an inner-conflict between her family and life, vs revenge and death. She’s supposed to be torn between the two sides of who she is, that’s her narrative this season. We caught up with her last season on her way to kill Cersei, and she turns around to go home, and that’s the first domino that fell in how things got so messy for her internally.

Also I can’t remember who it was that posted in here about how in the inside the episode for 8x03, there’s a version of Beric’s death scene where his last word to Arya was “live”, but that’s important to note too. There’s pretty clearly a decision that Arya has to make here, and it’s my perception of all this, that she’s being set-up to make this decision twice.

This scene now in 8x04, I think is her choosing wrong. Really look at the cues here, where what’s waiting for her if she chooses the ‘love’ side of her path over the ‘revenge’ side is being shown to us. If she is in fact still trying to kill Cersei and sticking to the last person on her list, and it goes down as the supposed leak says it does, then she has to make the choice she’s making in 8x04 again. Say the red keep is collapsing but she’s only there to finish her list, she can trudge forward and probably die herself for this vendetta, or she can let it go and live. I think this scene in 8x04 is meant to parallel another one---the wrong choice, and the right one.

And again, I say this is my perception of this scene whether the red keep leak is true or not. Because no matter how you dice it, she’s choosing wrong. If she leaves, then she isn’t just not choosing him, she’s not choosing her siblings either. Leaving, and choosing any of them are the opposite sides of the choice, and she’s made one here. I don’t think she’ll make the same choice again. I’d argue the whole purpose of her even choosing this now is so she chooses differently later.

Maisie and Joe filmed in Spain, and I’ve heard absolutely nothing in any leak about Gendry towards the end of this season. Joe was in Seville and he knows how it ends, meaning he got the script, definitely placing him in 8x06, but doing what? We don’t know. So this conflict between them placed here now in my honest opinion bodes well. The smooth-sailing couples are fucked, we know that much. Jon/Daenerys, and now Greyworm/Missandei are living proof of that, even Jamie/Brienne if Jamie going back to Cersei is true, which it’s lookin like it is. Dynamics with an angst, and a fork in the road, have to have a resolve---a resolution. That’s what’s being set up here. Because as per the kiss, we can surmise she cares for him, that much is clear. But she’s putting that darker side of her above the part of her that cares, and that’s where the heart of this narrative is, in her struggle to decide who she’ll be.

I quite frankly now think they’re the only couple---aside from Sam and Gilly---with a chance of ending up together. I’m gonna be honest, I kinda think this angst now serves a purpose, because she’s been fighting those two sides of herself all season, and the show has chosen to do that through Gendry. Including this angst now isn’t a death-sentence, it’s Arya’s chance to live, and good golly I think by season’s end she’s gonna take it.

Also say the red keep stuff is bs, The Hound, is also a key here. That bit where she asks him when tf he ever fought for anything but himself. I’ve got money also on him dying and it being a kickstart into her choosing right, change my mind. Would bet my whole arm he’ll say something about not being like him.

Arya is being given this choice to make, and the show is choosing to have her make it through a Gendry/Arya scene. She could’ve easily shot down one of her siblings and left Winterfell too, but no, they have her turning away from the better half of herself through a scene with Gendry. And so I have to believe when she makes the right choice, it’ll be through him too.

THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK.

[deesdiaries]

Click on link above for full article.

Excerpt:

Who’s Alive and Which Crew Are They With…

We’ve waited over a year for the new season, and the anticipation has been excruciating. It’s also given us some time to take stock of who’s still breathing — or, at least, moving around — and where we left them:

TEAM MOTHER OF DRAGONS

Daenerys Targaryen — just had sex with her nephew on a boat to White Harbor headed toward Winterfell Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) — on that same boat, pining for his Dragon Queen Jorah Mormont — same as Tyrion most likely Yara Greyjoy (Gemma Whelan) — presumed alive, but imprisoned by her uncle Euron Greyjoy Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) — headed out to sea to save his sister Yara Varys (Conleth Hill) — presumably on the boat to White Harbor headed toward Winterfell Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel) —  presumably on the boat to White Harbor headed toward Winterfell Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson) —  presumably on the boat to White Harbor headed toward Winterfell Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma) — presumed alive, but imprisoned by Cersei at King’s Landing, watching her daughter die from a dose of the poison tears of Lys Daario Naharis (Michiel Huisman) — last seen reluctantly agreeing to stay behind to keep the peace in Mereen

TEAM KING IN THE NORTH, KNEE-BENDER, TARGARYEN, AND RIGHTFUL HEIR TO THE IRON THRONE

Jon Snow — having sex with his aunt Daenerys on a boat to White Harbor headed to Winterfell Sansa Stark — at Winterfell chatting with Arya on the castle’s ramparts Arya Stark — at Winterfell chatting with Sansa on the castle’s ramparts, having just executed Lord Petyr Baelish Bran Stark — at Winterfell with Samwell Tarly, figuring out that Jon Snow is the true heir to the Iron Throne Samwell Tarly (John Bradley) — at Winterfell combining his knowledge with Bran’s visions to uncover the realm’s most well-kept secret Gilly (Hannah Murray) with baby Sam — last seen riding into Winterfell with Sam Davos Seaworth (Liam Cunningham) — presumably on the boat to White Harbor Melisandre — the Red Priestess of R’hllor was last seen telling Varys that she was headed to Volantis, but that she would return to “die in this strange country” just like him Brienne — last seen at the armistice talks, she’s presumably headed back to Winterfell Podrick Payne (Daniel Portman) — wherever Brienne is Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) — last seen at the top of the Wall as a portion of it exploded in front of him, we’ll presume he is alive, because we’re optimistic that way (he still needs to finish wooing Brienne) Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer) — with Tormund and also presumed alive Sandor “The Hound” Clegane (Rory McCann) — last seen at the armistice talks, he’s presumably on the boat to White Harbor with Jon and Daenerys Eddison “Dolorous Edd” Tollett (Ben Crompton) along with the Night’s Watch — last seen at the Wall, presumed alive; Castle Black Night’s Watch should be in fighting form, but the Eastwatch brothers will be dead, dying, and reanimating Gendry (Joe Dempsie) — last seen collapsing at the Wall at Castle Black and asking Edd Tollett to send ravens for Daenerys to save Jon and the remnants of his Magnificent Seven Meera Reed (Ellie Kendrick) — last seen saying goodbye to Bran at Winterfell, saying that she’s going to see her father, Howland Reed (maybe we’ll finally get to meet the elder Reed in season 8) Maester Wolkan (Richard Rycroft) — Winterfell Lyanna Mormont (Bella Ramsey) — Winterfell Yohn Royce (Rupert Vansittart) and the Knights of the Vale — Winterfell Robin Arryn (Lino Facioli) — last seen in the Vale as a ward in the home of House Royce Hot Pie (Ben Hawkey) — last seen working at the Inn at the Crossroads in the Riverlands, giving Arya news that her half-brother is King in the North

TEAM CERSEI LANNISTER-BARATHEON

Cersei Lannister Baratheon (Lena Headey) — in King’s Landing, planning to do nothing as the North is invaded Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk) — last seen at the armistice talks, claiming that he would be sitting out the war with the dead from his throne in the Iron Islands (because the dead can’t swim), but Cersei later reveals that he’s headed to Braavos to pick up a company of sellswords and ferry them to Westeros to defend King’s Landing and fight for the queen Qyburn (Anton Lesser) — at Cersei’s side Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson) — at Cersei’s heels

M.I.A., UNDECIDED, UNKNOWN, UNRELIABLE, OR OTHER

Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) — committing treason, heading north on the Kingsroad Bronn (Jerome Flynn) — last seen leaving the armistice talks to take Podrick for a drink Archmaester Ebrose (Jim Broadbent) and the rest of the Citadel — keeping their heads in their books — for now, at least; though it would be great to see Broadbent and those crusty ol’ maesters swoop in to save the day, or a day at least Tycho Nestoris (Mark Gatiss) and the Iron Bank of Braavos — last seen offering to loan Cersei more money, the Iron Bank representative will swing in whatever direction promises to enrich them Melessa Tarly (Samantha Spiro) — last seen at Horn Hill, her husband and son have since been burned by Daenery’s dragon; her allegiance is uncertain, given her warm relationship with Sam Talla Tarly (Rebecca Benson) — last seen at Horn Hill, her father and brother have since been burned by Daenery’s dragon; her allegiance is uncertain, given her warm relationship with Sam Edmure Tully (Tobias Menzies) — last seen securing Riverrun for Jaime Lannister, he was presumed to have been returned to the dungeons at The Twins, but since all of the men of House Frey were killed by Arya, he may have been released by the Frey women Roslin Frey Tully (Alexandra Dowling) — last seen at The Twins, Roslin could possibly now be the Lady of The Twins and may have released her husband (however useless Edmure might be) Syrio Forel (Miltos Yerolemou) — last seen in season 1, Arya’s dancing master was never confirmed dead; his resurrection would certainly delight fans Jaqen H’ghar (Tom Wlaschiha) — last seen in Braavos at the House of Black and White, Jaqen (or whatever his name is) could be anywhere Hodor (Kristian Nairn) — we didn’t see him die on screen, at least not permanently; sad to say, but he could be marching with the Army of the Dead Benjen Stark (Joseph Mawle) — see “Hodor” Nymeria — last seen in the area of the Neck, staying as far away as possible from all of them. Biggest mystery…

THE ARMY OF THE DEAD (Mostly Dead, But Slightly Alive — or All Dead, But Mobile)

The Night King (Vladimir Furdik) — collapsing the Wall and flying wight-dragon Viserion over the North 100,000 or so wights and White Walkers — following closely behind their dragon-rider — which begs the question: Could he be a Targaryen? The Three-Eyed Raven (Max von Sydow–edition) showed us a blond man being stabbed with dragonglass, but who was he and where did he come from?

[fossadeileonixv]

Milan Season Preview 2022-23: The Scudetto Defense Begins

At last, the only season preview that REALLY matters!

Up until this point we have focused on the other top teams, namely the ones who were fighting for a European spot in the table last season. Of those top 7 teams if you exclude Milan (top 8 if you don’t), we heard from a select few passionate fans for all those teams save Fiorentina (sorry Fiorentina fans, we tried). But now it’s time to focus on our beloved Milan – the CURRENT Scudetto Champions!

For this year’s season preview we’re going to do a similar round-table type of discussion, however we have interwoven the questions we asked the fans of the previous teams highlighted AND we have reached out to a select few from Milan Twitter for additional contribution, dialogue, and perspective. Let’s get started!

BIOS: CONTRIBUTORS

Gianfranco is the founder of the original blog of what is now known as the Fossa Dei Leoni XV, which has been known as many other names with the previously most recognizable iteration being the Milan Offside (yes, that one is still out there but it’s the imitation brand American Milan blog…the Toasted Whole-Grain Oats to our Cheerios). While he is a busy man, he has gained a superior knowledge of stalking from fellow FDLXV contributor AviA, so he may not comment much he’s always…around…

Michael Lisi, also affectionally knowns as Nonno, is the main creative force behind the blog today. His sharp wit, vast knowledge, and 100% strong and healthy ticker in the left side of his chest is the…heart…of this place we all love.

TR is one of the OGs here and along with Mike and AviA, have been ample stewards of FDLXV since Gianfranco has focused his efforts on his career and family. TR is known for his hot takes here and does not put up with shenanigans. He also has a lot of man-love for Essien.

AviA is…well, AviA. He has authored many books including the NYT Bestseller: Always viewing inconspicuously, Always: A Stalking Manifesto.

He has also touched Pippo, although whether it was consensual is still being investigated. AviA is also largely responsible for corrupting the Kalinic signing, which was bad, but also for the WAGS posts here, and that’s good (and the main reason he’s still here)! Lastly, he truly, and deeply, loves Pioli and is a proud supporter of #IMIT and #IPIT.

Gillis is still effectively the new guy and is responsible for making the pot of coffee each morning, most of the blog art for all of the posts, and is desperately trying to get Frank on board so HE can be the new guy. He’s always never serious so just ignore him…which you were probably doing anyway.

BIOS: GUESTS

Joseph Baccellieri is an expert in all things Milan, wine, fine dining, and cazz. Joe doesn’t like hyperbole, ignorance, or anything else for that matter that falls under the category of being, cazz. He’s friends with some of the best Calcio folks on Twitter and is on a first name basis with Matteo Bonetti of Paramount+ and Kay Murray of ESPN. In fact, it’s even more than that as they have nicknamed him, “Joe Bach”. Joe Bach can be found on Twitter at @joebaccellieri.

Alessandro Tomori, as he’s known on Twitter, is a true blood Rossoneri. He is always following his team closely and laying down the law when foo’s on Twitter get out of place. Per his bio on Twitter, he is also an Azzurri fan and like me, a proud atheist, leftist, feminist, and antifascist, among others. Alessandro Tomori lives in Florida but he keeps calling me, “mate”, so I’m assuming he’s Australian. Thanks for sharing your takes, Alessandro Tomori! If you’re on Twitter, Alessandro can be found at @nav702.

ROUND-TABLE PREVIEW

How do you like your teams transfer window so far?

GIANFRANCO: I was still in scudetto hangover mode and didn’t even really notice…I kid, but I think center back and winger depth was needed and we maybe could have done a bit better.  Remember it’s a World Cup year there will be fatigue from fighting on multiple fronts.  I am not a fan of collecting players but there will be need for depth.

LISI: So far so good. pretty much what I expected. we are at the point where one must go for one to come. I still expect Bakayoko and Gabbia to go.

TR: It's okay. King Charles is a very nice pickup and we needed someone of his profile to play behind the strikers. I think Origi will be a decent signing or a flop, no in between. I'm a bit concerned that we haven't adequately replaced our two biggest losses in Romagnoli and Kessie. Also not at all thrilled that right wing appears to be something we are going to once again have to work around. And we didn't as of yet sell Rebic, which I find offensive. Not a bad window, not a real good one, but time will tell.

AviA: Pretty well considering I wasnt really looking for too many changes but the Sanchez fiasco annoyed me as it would have been good to see Milan at least make like there was a 2nd, 3rd option instead of blurting out to the girl in your class how much you really like her just to have her leave you hanging in that power dynamic, why cant we act like the dick who doesnt care whether that you're the hottest girl in class as there are lots of options? Otherwise Origi, CDK & Adli all seem like solid additions!

GILLIS: I’m going to say it’s about 8/10 and it’s not just because of who was brought in but who was let go and not brought back. The youth and promise this team has is unmatched. If Ziyech comes I’m going with a 9.5/10

JOE: As of right now, Milan’s transfer window has been solid.  Adli and Origi were known to be coming in, so those two deals were wrapped early.  It seems that CDK was the main goal even if the negotiation took longer than expected.  Now they have less than 20 days to add a midfielder, defender, and right winger.  If those three goals are accomplished by the deadline, then this transfer window is a huge success.  Based on recent seasons, continuity is the biggest mark of success.  If you can continue to build upon a solid foundation and keep adding pieces, then your transfer windows will continue to thrive.

AT: Out: Kessie Romagnoli

In: CDK Origi

Loans : Adli, Pobega

It's a pretty average window if you look at the players that went out and those who came in.  We still haven't found a replacement for Kessie or Romagnoli. So I am unhappy when looking at it that way, however there are a handful of exciting players that have come in, including the loan returnees. And I trust the management and the process, so all in all an average window for me.

Are you happy with “the plan” as put in place with Maldini & Co not just for this season but basically since Elliott’s tenure and beyond? If so, why? If not, who is most responsible for your disappointment?

GIANFRANCO: Not really disappointed because it finally feels like there is a plan, would I like a stronger Italian core to feed the Azzurri, sure, but I also no that is not really an easy thing to execute.

LISI: 100% I love the plan. After years of old guys on 'free' deals that inflated our wage bill we desperately needed this. What makes me doubly happy is I thught THIS was the year we would compete for the scudetto. Here we already got one.

TR: I'm mostly pleased. It is really how we have to conduct business at this juncture and they've built a side worthy of top four competition for the foreseeable future. However, two things that worry me going ahead are obviously the inability to resign key players to the point they walk, and failing to secure targets that you have been working with for months. I don't really point the blame at anyone, but that is something that needs rectification, especially if we are on limited means. You really need to either recoup what you have or profit.

AviA: Overall I have to be happy as it looks like there is a genuine plan now and we can FINALLY move away from "Year Zero" (reaches over and chinks champange flutes with Gianfranco). If you recall I took it bad when Elliott took over as I was kinda paranoid it would end in disaster and never could have imagined the end to last season. The future is bright!

GILLIS: I am so f**king proud of this team and management. I’m on the record plenty of times saying the current European football model of gross mismanagement and tons of red ink won’t last (not exactly bold on my behalf). I think by 2025 a few more leagues will have taken the La Liga route of some kind of salary cap/luxury tax and by 2030 pretty much every league will have something La Liga-esque in place. And there’s no team within the top 5 leagues better positioned than Milan for this. IMIT! IPIT!

JOE: I guess my answer for this question was already answered in the previous question, sooooooo…..YES!!!  How can you not be happy with the job Maldini and Company have done?  Champions League Football is back, A SCUDETTO, exciting young players instead of re-treads trying to re-capture past glory, not having to sell key players in order to finance transfer windows, etc, etc.  It’s quality over quantity at this point…just because Milan isn’t bringing in 10 players during this window does not mean the plan isn’t working.  It is actually the contrary because the plan is thriving.

AT: To the most extent, yes I am happy with our approach of not over spending for players, putting in a strict wage cap etc. I am only concerned about retaining our core players. If these guys rise to expectations, we will have to pay them accordingly or they will leave. I can't accept Leao leaving for free, that would be a colossal failure. So imo, in addition to maintaining the current approach, the mgmt also understand the right worthy players and sometimes pay beyond their set limits. This should also apply to incoming transfers, if there are opportunities too good to pass.

What excites you for this season?

GIANFRANCO: Watching and seeing this team continue to grow and mature tactically. Can they win the CL, probably not, but gaining that experience and using the experience form last season will be fun to watch.

LISI: Watching Adli and Origi bed in. Everyone forgot about Adli for 6 months and right now it amazes me how many people talk about the team and don't mention Origi. remember at this time last year folks discounted Giroud and he turned out to be massive.

TR: My sons Rafael Leão, Sandro Tonali, Pierre Kalulu, and the newest addition to my family, CDK.

AviA: Just the idea that the internal rot has been burned out and we are emerging as a more modern team ready to take part in the current footballing world, the idea of a new stadium, as gutted as I would be to lose the San Siro, gives me a semi (am I over sharing here?)

GILLIS: Kalulu, Tonali, and Diaz. All will have major impacts and all are 22 and younger (Diaz might have just turned 23)

JOE: Another season of growth from Tonali, Leão and Tomori.  It is amazing to me that these players haven not even hit their ceiling and they played key roles in delivering a scudetto. I am excited to see these players dominate, as well as CDK and Adli contributing on a consistent basis.

AT: CDK, Adli and Leão. I feel that our attack and overall game would be much more fluid than last season. I am excited about watching the above mentioned players,  how they improve our qualities in the final third.

Repeating Scudettos is always difficult. Where do you put the odds of Milan repeating as Serie A champions?

GIANFRANCO: Italy is funny that, way, you either repeat for a few years straight or you don’t repeat at all. Inter was close last season, so the competition will be rather fierce but the World Cup year will make it proverbially crap shoot.  The real thing to watch out for is progression not regression.

LISI: 40% and slightly higher if inter end up selling off Skriniar.

TR: Not high. I think Inter and Juve have improved enough where pound for pound they may have better squads. We were the best team in Italy last year, but we also benefited from a number of variables that have changed for this season so I think we finish 2nd or 3rd. I feel pretty secure we finish top 3, so anything higher than that I think is extra income. It'll be tight though.

AviA: NOT gonna be easy but if our backline stays uninjured, it will greatly increase our chances, so far im pretty confident as I don’t believe our competition can compete with us in that aspect.

GILLIS: Total homer but I’m going to say 80/20

JOE: PRINT THE SHIRTS!!!  BACK to BACK!!!  #20 INCOMING!!!

AT: I am going with Milan as the favorites, but only if we avoid injuries to our starters in key positions. The squad is extremely light, unless we add in January or before September.

Milan will be in pot 1 this year for Champions League. What is your prediction for their CL performance this season?

GIANFRANCO: I think this will still be a challenge, the team is young, and it will take time to develop the presence of mind and wherewithal to truly compete in the World’s premier club competitors.

LISI: Round of 16

TR: Knocked out in the round of 16, if we get a decent draw, maybe the quarter-finals, but I just have difficulty visualizing us performing in Europe. The depth isn't there should something go wrong.

AviA: I'll be genuinely happy just to finish 1st or 2nd in the group and at least make the group of 16, after that Im good. I just want to see our guys blood themselves in the CL for a couple of seasons before I raise my expectations from the current squad (crosses fingers for some UK teams to draw Milan).

GILLIS: Quarterfinal Appearance

JOE: Quarterfinal Appearance

AT: Even though we are in pot1, there are a lot of quality opponents in the other pots that we could face in the group stage. My prediction is that this would be another year where we will struggle to get out of the group stages, but if we did, I see us getting at least till the QFs

What is Milan's biggest weakness (position) on the pitch?

GIANFRANCO: Wings are still a weakness and if we continue to deploy them we need to improve.

LISI: Depth along the backline right now. Kjaer is coming off an injury, FBT is unproven and Calabria can have some real clunkers. Starters are great. depth is wonky

TR: Right wing. I just don't rate either of those two worth a lick. In Europe I worry about the right side in general as I think Calabria is only as good as he is in Serie A. I'd then say the midfield. When Bennacer misses two to three months in early 2023 and Krunic is starting in Champions League games... aye, I don't even wanna think about it.

AviA: Wings and no Kessie replacement currently but they feel kinda minor as we look pretty decent across the board in other depts.

GILLIS: With CDK now in and most likely playing RW, I’m going to go with depth being the main issue at a few positions. Hopefully Ziyech comes at the last minute

JOE: Backup LB…they need someone to spell Theo.  Honestly though, this team is pretty versatile which was done on purpose.  There are several players who can play in different roles which actually is a strength instead of a weakness. 

AT: There are two positions which I see as the biggest weaknesses. The pivot, and the central defense. One injury and we are left with players who don't really fit our playing style, and a huge drop in quality.

Aside from the 3 questions above, *what else worries you if anything?

GIANFRANCO: Regression, both team and players.  We need to see growth on both fronts, players need to improve on last season and the team will benefit.  This goes for Pioli as well, he did well to use his team and put them in positions to win, he needs to continue to do that or the team will regress.

LISI: Honestly nothing. That alone is kinda worrying

TR: Not re-signing key players

AviA: Frank made an excellent point recently about how quickly we might get exposed if things go against us, just an injury or two and we could be back to MehLan (see what I did there?) whereby we could end up totally relaint on guys like Messias, Krunic & Saladmaker rather than having them be bit part players. Please no injuries!!!

GILLIS: Depth, not that Milan is any better or worse than any other Serie A team, but it’s still an issue for some positions nonetheless

JOE: Too many players out for injury at the same time.

AT: I am worried about other teams strengthening. Inter brought n Lukaku, Mkhi, and Aslani, and now it seems like they are not selling Skriniar. That's a very good Mercato for them. Juve, of course is having a good window of their own. Kostic and DePay rumors, these are very good signings. Milan would have to punch above their weight again,  if we don't bring in more quality now or in Jan.

Your top 4 predictions for Serie A.

GIANFRANCO: Yikes…Juventus got better, Inter as well, Napoli can play, so add Milan and that’s your top four, if I venture a ranking it would merely be names out of a hat.

LISI: Milan Inter Juve Napoli

TR: Inter Milan Juve Roman club

AviA: Milan, Roma, Merda, Rube?

GILLIS: Milan Inter Juve Lazio

JOE: MILAN, Roma, Inter, Napoli

AT: Milan, Inter, Juve, Roma

Relegation predictions?

GIANFRANCO: My focus is the top of the table…Milan hasn’t been there in a few years let me enjoy my time at the top!

LISI: Lecce Crem Samp

TR: Cremonese, Lecce, Salernitana

AviA: Anyone but Monza!

GILLIS: Cremonese, Lecce, Salernitana

JOE: Cremonese, Lecce, Sampdoria

AT: Cremonese, Lecce,  Salernitana

Award Predictions:

Who do you think will be league MVP?

GIANFRANCO: I think Pogba comes back and tears it up this year frankly.

LISI: Leão again

TR: I honestly don't know. That Turkish guy on Inter.

AviA: Leão

GILLIS: Leão

JOE: Leão

AT: Leão

Who do you think will be the team MVP?

GIANFRANCO: Tonali will cement himself as the backbone of this team!

LISI: Leão

TR: Leão

AviA: Tomori

GILLIS: Leão

JOE: Leão

AT: Leão

Most improved?

GIANFRANCO: Diaz has room to grow and I want to see it!

LISI: Kalulu explodes

TR: Pobega

AviA: erm...Baka? No! Just kidding, in fact Baka if you're reading this please GTFO my team!

GILLIS: Brahim Diaz

JOE: Diaz

AT: Messias Jr

Offensive MVP?

GIANFRANCO: Giroud will go on a goal scoring tear this year!

LISI: Leão

TR: Leão

AviA: CDK (he's gonna fuqn wreck it!)

GILLIS: Leão

JOE: Leão

AT: Leão

Defensive MVP?

GIANFRANCO: Theo all day every day…

LISI: Tomori

TR: Mike

AviA: Magic Mike + Tomori

GILLIS: Maignan

JOE: Tomori

AT: Theo

Newcomer of the season?

GIANFRANCO: Will wait to transfer season is over to weigh in here…

LISI: Adli

TR: King Charles

AviA: Adli (please be the new Albertini!)

GILLIS: CDK

JOE: CDK

AT: CDK

Bust of the season?

GIANFRANCO: Ugh, I don’t want to jinx anyone off the rip.

LISI: Messias

TR: Brahim, if that even counts

AviA: Ask me at the end of the season!

GILLIS: Saelemaekers, maybe Adli and not because he’ll be bad but because Brahim improves and takes away a lot more minutes than people are predicting

JOE: Calabria

AT: Saelemaekers

Anything else comes to mind please share it below

GIANFRANCO: I think the team’s pruning of the roster was a good thing but I think depth is an issue, need to really think that through or position young players with opportunities to fill the void.

LISI: This first half of the season will be crazy with CL and all. As long as we don't stumble out of the gate we are gonna be fine. We will come back after the break and not lose another league game.

TR: Nada

AviA: I’m pretty relaxed for this season which is unusual, hope we come out of blocks with a consistent number of wins from the off and then sustain it, this 2nd season will also be a test for Pioli. Yeah, you managed to galvanize the squad, win the scudetto and get the tattoo but can you keep them motivated to do it all again whilst juggling new additions to the squad with one eye also on the CL? A different season with a different set of problems for our coach but hope he's still got that fire! It would be great to see him continue his journey of growth at Milan by having an excellent run in the CL after having climbed the summit of Serie A last season. Can’t wait for this season to get going!

GILLIS: Going to be an interesting close to the mercato and what to make of the WC break. But, BUT! Pioli handled the COVID break as well as anyone, in fact, it’s what more and less kicked off this run. Just can’t wait for the season to start already!

JOE: I am interested in seeing how Pioli navigates the squad while now having a target on their back.  It is a different mindset when you are chasing the crown, as opposed to defending.  Nevertheless….

FORZA MILAN!!!

AT: Nada

FINAL THOUGHTS

Defending a championship in any sport is always difficult and Milan gets to try their hand at it starting tomorrow. As you can see from the wonderful round-table above, different things concern different people but we are all on the same page when we think about Milan getting that second star before Merda, amiright?!

Thank you to everyone in this post for sharing your thoughts and to everyone that contributed to our Season Preview series. Tomorrow can't come soon enough!

We want to hear what you think! Please share your thoughts below on all of the previews but especially this one! And what the hell, let’s take another look at the Scudetto celebration from last season!

Forza Milan Per Sempre

[tcm]

Wherein TCM’s Integrated Marketing Manager, Kristen Welch (@socalledfandomlife) discusses her love for SUNSET BOULEVARD (’50)

When I was asked to write on SUNSET BOULEVARD (’50) I jumped at the chance because it is one of my favorite films. But as I sat down to write, I realized that my love for it meant I had no idea where to even start. There is so much that could be said about the film, from Gloria Swanson’s performance to Billy Wilder’s biting and gothic commentary on Hollywood and celebrity, from the famous cameos to William Holden’s casting, and much more. So I decided to do something different.

In fact, this is actually an article for those who have, perhaps been on the fence when it comes to classic films. Being a “Classic Film Fan/Geek” and working at TCM has meant I have heard it all when it comes to why someone hasn’t watched classic film—in particular people that claim to not like black-and-white movies (Shocking!)—So, over the years, I’ve compiled a short list of films to recommend to these folks in response. These are based on trials with college roommates, past boyfriends and even internet friends (all very scientific I assure you) so if you have anyone you know or who follows you that is looking for that final push to get into classic film, this article is perfect to share with them.

My list of tried-and-true films is short and predominantly made up of Billy Wilder films. As a writer-director, Wilder’s filmography contains many iconic titles, of course, but even further than his pedigree, his witty and often biting sense of humor gives his films a truly contemporary feel. SUNSET BOULEVARD in particular, with its commentaries on Hollywood, celebrity and the pressures of staying culturally relevant in a culture that prizes youth, feels like it could’ve been written today.

His words are brought to life by the incomparable Gloria Swanson and William Holden who are able to play out the film’s gothic noir and highly crafted dialogue to cinema perfection. Swanson brings emotional depth to Norma Desmond, making her fate all the more tragic while Holden is all charm and dry wit as Joe Gillis. It’s hard not to fall in love with both characters: from Norma’s larger-than-life style to her grand and quite quotable pronouncements (“I am big! It’s the pictures that got small!”) to Gillis’ voice over asides that Holden imbues with a dripping, noir cynicism. (As a fun side note, the silent film Norma watches with Joe is from Swanson’s film QUEEN KELLY (’29), initially directed by Erich von Stroheim [who plays Max in SUNSET BOULEVARD].)

With its mix of gothic melodrama and film noir, its memorable quotes and even more memorable characters, SUNSET BOULEVARD has the ability to capture each new audience it finds, making it the perfect introduction for those who have yet to take the classic film plunge.

If you have a friend or family member who’s asked you for years what films that should see to get into classic film, might I suggest taking them to see SUNSET BOULEVARD on the big screen on May 13 or 16? You can learn more and get your tickets by visiting http://myt.cm/SunsetBlvd and in the meantime, let us know which films you use to recommend classic film in the comments below!

[gadgetgirl71]

Top Ten Tuesday 19 January 2021

Welcome to this weeks Top Ten Tuesday. Originally created by The Broke & The Bookish, which is now hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week it features a book or literary themed category. This weeks prompt is:

Books I Meant to Read In 2020 but Didn’t Get To

(You could take this opportunity to tell us what’s left on your seasonal TBRs from last year. Or books you were super excited about and then you didn’t get to them.)

A Springtime Affair by Katie Fforde

It’s the season of new beginnings for Helena and Gilly.

Gilly runs her own B&B business from her much-loved family home, which she doesn’t want to part with – at any price.

But that’s before she meets handsome estate agent Leo, and soon she begins to wonder whether selling up might not be such a bad idea after all.

Meanwhile Gilly’s daughter Helena has a budding romance of her own. A talented weaver, she’s becoming very close to her new landlord, Jago, who’s offered to help her at an upcoming craft fair.

It’s what friends do, and they are just friends. Aren’t they?

With spring in full bloom, Helena and Gilly begin to ask themselves the same question:

Might their new loves lead to happily ever after?

Breathless by Jennifer Niven

Before: With graduation on the horizon, budding writer Claudine Henry is making plans: college in the fall, become a famous author, and maybe–finally–have sex. She doesn’t even need to be in love. Then her dad drops a bombshell: he’s leaving Claude’s mother. Suddenly, Claude’s entire world feels like a lie, and her future anything but under control.

After: Claude’s mom whisks them away to the last place Claude could imagine nursing a broken heart: a remote, mosquito-infested island off the coast of Georgia. But then Jeremiah Crew happens. Miah is a local trail guide with a passion for photography–and a past he doesn’t like to talk about. He’s brash and enigmatic, and even more infuriatingly, he’s the only one who seems to see Claude for who she wants to be. So when Claude decides to sleep with Miah, she tells herself it’s just sex, nothing more. There’s not enough time to fall in love, especially if it means putting her already broken heart at risk.

Compulsively readable and impossible to forget, Jennifer Niven’s luminous new novel is an insightful portrait of a young woman ready to write her own story.

Meet me in London by Georgia Toffolo

What do you do when your fake engagement starts to feel too real…

Aspiring clothes designer Victoria Scott spends her days working in a bar in Chelsea, and her evenings designing vintage clothes, dreaming of one day opening her own boutique. But these aspirations are under threat from the new department store opening at the end of her road. She needs a Christmas miracle, but one is not forthcoming.

Oliver Russell’s Christmas is not looking very festive right now. His family’s new London department store opening is behind schedule, and on top of that his interfering, if well meaning, mother is pressing him to introduce his girlfriend to her. A girlfriend who does not exist. He needs a diversion. Something to keep his mother from interfering while he focuses on the business.

When Oliver meets Victoria, he offers a proposition: pretend to be his girlfriend at the opening of his store and he will provide an opportunity for Victoria to showcase her designs. But what starts as a business arrangement soon becomes something more tempting, as the fake relationship starts to feel very real. But when secrets in Victoria’s past are exposed will Oliver walk away, or will they both follow their hearts and find what neither knew they were looking for…

Our Story by Miranda Dickinson

Otty has just landed her dream job. She’s about to join the writing team of one of the most respected showrunners in TV. And then the night before her first day, she’s evicted from her flat.

Joe has been working with Russell for years. He’s the best writer on his team, but lately something has been off. He’s trying to get his mojo back, but when his flatmate moves out without warning he has other things to worry about.

Otty moving into Joe’s house seems like the most obvious solution to both their problems, but neither is prepared for what happens next. Paired together in the writing room, their obvious chemistry sparks from the page and they are the writing duo to beat. But their relationship off the page is an entirely different story, and neither of them can figure out why.

And suddenly the question isn’t, will they, or won’t they? It’s why won’t they?

An epic and modern love story for our times, we will all see ourselves reflected in Otty and Joe. We are our own biggest barriers and this novel explores what happens when we get out of our own way. And it is glorious.

The Summer Villa by Melissa Hill

Three women. One summer reunion. Secrets will be revealed…

Villa Dolce Vita, a rambling stone house on the Amalfi Coast, sits high above the Gulf of Naples amid dappled lemon groves and fragrant, tumbling bougainvillea. Kim, Colette and Annie all came to the villa in need of escape and in the process forged an unlikely friendship.

Now, years later, Kim has transformed the crumbling house into a luxury retreat and has invited her friends back for the summer to celebrate.

But as friendships are rekindled under the Italian sun, secrets buried in the past will come to light, and not everyone is happy that the three friends are reuniting… Each woman will have things to face up to if they are all to find true happiness and fully embrace the sweet life.

An epic summer read about food, friendship and the magic of Italy, perfect for fans of Mary Kay Andrews and Susan Mallery.

A Home from Home by Veronica Henry

Sunshine, cider and family secrets…

Dragonfly Farm has been a home and a haven for generations of Melchiors – arch rivals to the Culbones, the wealthy family who live the other side of the river. Life there is dictated by the seasons and cider-making, and everyone falls under its spell.

For cousins Tabitha and Georgia, it has always been a home from home. When a tragedy befalls their beloved great-uncle Matthew, it seems the place where they’ve always belonged might now belong to them…

But the will reveals that a third of the farm has also been left to a total stranger. Gabriel Culbone has no idea why he’s been included, or what his connection to the farm – or the Melchiors – can be.

As the first apples start to fall for the cider harvest, will Dragonfly Farm begin to give up its secrets?

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

How much can a family forgive?

A profoundly moving novel about two neighboring families in a suburban town, the bond between their children, a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, the daily intimacies of marriage, and the power of forgiveness.

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, two rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne—sets the stage for the explosive events to come.

Ask Again, Yes is a deeply affecting exploration of the lifelong friendship and love that blossoms between Francis and Lena’s daughter, Kate, and Brian and Anne’s son, Peter. Luminous, heartbreaking, and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes reveals the way childhood memories change when viewed from the distance of adulthood—villains lose their menace and those who appeared innocent seem less so. Kate and Peter’s love story, while tested by echoes from the past, is marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace.

Behind Red Lips by M R Smith

Her confidantes are a rubber duck and a diary she calls Rajah. She tiptoes on the edge of the love cliff, but to her an imaginary love life is safer than taking the plunge with a real one. She dreams about men who remind her of her long lost love, Mason, yet when she bumps into him she panics and runs away.

Her heart crushed by a long-ago betrayal, Charlotte cannot find happiness unless she confronts the ghosts of her past and deals with the realities of the present.

This touching love story wends its way through the ups and downs of Charlotte’s life as she tries to deal with her emotional problems and find a way to heal her broken heart.

The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys

A portrait of love, silence, and secrets under a Spanish dictatorship.

Madrid, 1957. Under the fascist dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, Spain is hiding a dark secret. Meanwhile, tourists and foreign businessmen flood into Spain under the welcoming promise of sunshine and wine. Among them is eighteen-year-old Daniel Matheson, the son of an oil tycoon, who arrives in Madrid with his parents hoping to connect with the country of his mother’s birth through the lens of his camera. Photography–and fate–introduce him to Ana, whose family’s interweaving obstacles reveal the lingering grasp of the Spanish Civil War–as well as chilling definitions of fortune and fear. Daniel’s photographs leave him with uncomfortable questions amidst shadows of danger. He is backed into a corner of difficult decisions to protect those he loves. Lives and hearts collide, revealing an incredibly dark side to the sunny Spanish city.

Includes vintage media reports, oral history commentary, photos, and more.

The Women at Hitler’s Table by Rosella Postorino

Inspired by the powerful true story of Margot Wölk, this is a heartbreaking and gripping historical novel for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and The Beekeeper of Aleppo

East Prussia, 1943. Hitler hides away in the Wolfsshanze – his hidden headquarters. The tide is turning in the war and his enemies circle ever closer. Ten women are chosen. Ten women to taste his food and protect him from poison.

Twenty-six-year-old Rosa has lost everything to this war. Her parents are dead. Her husband is fighting on the front line. Alone and scared, she faces the SS with nothing but the knowledge every bite might be her last. Caught on the wrong side of history, how far is Rosa willing to go to survive?

Until next week.

#JustForFun, #Top Ten Tuesday, #TopTenTuesday, #TTT

[dorianfiftyshadesof-gray]

Commentary: Game of Thrones 7x05

-i'm exhausted and should be studying but Thrones is screeching at me so I guess I shall watch it. -Imagine if they have killed off Goldfinger *awkward laugh* -JOE DEMPSIE! HE's IN THE INTRO! OH FUCK MAN! GENDRY IS BACK! -Eastwatch looks pretty fancy -yay sexy uncle isn't dead, just puking -Jaime may be hot, but he really isn't the sharpest sword at the blacksmiths; talking of blacksmiths..when are we gonna see Gendry!? -Bronno: "Listen up cunt, until I get my wife and castle you can't neck yourself" -Jaime considering whether it's better to drown or tell his lover/sister about the dragons -Tyrion disapproves -Ben Dan-y telling the troops that what Cersei has told them about her burning shit isn't true but for the past 15 mins, all she has been doing is making barbeque -Things Daeny needs to shut up about: that goddamn wheel and bending knees -gotta love Dickon, honorable lad -listen to Impy for once Dragon Lady, you dumb-dumb -oh no not Dickon! -This is the first time we have seen people bend the knee for Daeny out of fear, not respect or love. "Daeny becoming the villain" theory ship is sailing -haha Sistershagger tells Brothershagger about Olenna dropping the mic on Joffrey -Please start falling out of love with Cersei, Jaime. Sincerely, everyone -Bastard dude gonna pet a dragon oH MY GOD! -Jon Snow *cough* Targaryen *cough* patting the dragon! This is so epic. -The way to Daeny's heart is through her dragons, not a cave Jonny Snowblower -Daeny: "They're beautiful, aren't they"  Jonno: "Not the word I was thinking of"..  Daeny: U fuckin wot m8!?!? -Rastafarian Targaryen catching on to Daavos's slip up lmao -"Ser Daavos gets carried away" nice save bro -JORAH THE EXPLORER IS BACK! I SMELL A LOVE TRIANLGE BREWING!! -still friendzoned tho -it seems Lord Friendzone is also part of the time-travelling gang of Westeros™ -Daeny going in for the..hug -Fuckin "Bran" warging around -them ice zombies are pretty damn close now man -poor Samwell Gamji in the 'shit'adel -yes Sam! standing up for the Starks -Tyrion and Varys: drinking buddies. now that's a show I would watch -hell yeah Jonny Snow knows of his siblings are home -Lannister reunion wat WHAT! -lol just noticed Jorah in the background -WHERE ARE MY DROGONS doesn't want Knows Nothing to go she likey-likes him -Jonno needs to stop going on these stupid-ass decisions -see all the Sansa-haters, she isn't going to betray Jon -I like seeing them hang-out and bickering -damn Lil'Ninja Chick, you can't solve everything with killing -they're already fucking in King's Landing!? Da shit!? -Tyrion and Jaime!!! O H  M Y  G O D ! ! ! my heart stopped -Jaime's gonna cry, Tyrion's gonna cry, I'm gonna cry -when are we gonna see Gendry?? -I have a feeling it's gonna be soon -GEEEENNNNNNDDDDRRRRYYYYY -we all thought he might still be rowing! -I'm freaking out man!! -He looks so different (still want him and Arya to get together) -Davos is such a sweet lad. Talking about sexy-times crab aphrodisacs -Well, this is inconvenient for Dwarfy to show up -go Gendry you absolute dude!! -you know when Cersei is calm, shit's gonna. go. down. -oH ShIt! SHE PREGGERS!! Another incest baby!! -"Never betray me again" oops -Davos: “Just remember you are called Clovis”  Gendry: “Yep no worries”  Meets Jon Snow  Gendry: “HI IM A BARATHEON BASTARD CAN WE BE BEST FRIENDS???” -They chattin like their dad's. They gonna be bros like their dad's. -I love that Gendy instantly believes everything. -are Jon and Daeny trying to flirt?? emphasis on "trying" -Gilly talks about useless shit... useless shit... JON IS TRUEBORN... useless shit... -Sam lost his 15,782 shits -why does Sam have a hipster messenger bag?? -good one you Sam, you were too good for the 'shit'adel -Arya spying Le Creepy Petey -what did they find!?!? -Arya: professional lock-picker apparently -Pedopete spying on Arya who was spying on Pedopete. Spyception -The One Who Has Dragons™ and The One Who Fucks Her Brother™ -Tormund still lusting over Brienne completes me -lol he's meeting the Hound -this season is just a reunion special -Tormund: *growls* -When the entire crew rolls up in their fur coats -I'm guessing this was mostly a set-up episode because next ep we gonna see some crazy shit which is fair. I personally enjoyed it, w got Gendry back who's an absolute lad and some Davos appreciation plus reunions galore. Until next week ya losers

[tuckinpodcast-blog]

EPISODE 8: THE LONGEST SUICIDE.

LISTEN: SOUNDCLOUD / iTUNES / GOOGLEPLAY

SOURCES: will be listed in separate post (Yes, I know I still haven’t posted sources for the James Dean episode yet, I’m a mess, I’m sorry)

NOTES: Just a quick reminder that there’ll be no episode next week because I’ll be in Los Angeles for the weekend. Expect some photos and things from me while I’m o my trip though!

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, I'm Jack, and this is Tuck In We're Rolling: Queer Hollywood Stories. Before we get into today's story, I just wanted to mention again that there'll be no episode next week because I'm going to be spending my weekend in Los Angeles visiting a friend and doing touristy things like taking selfies with the Hollywood sign and visiting a few cemeteries so I can pay my respects to some of my favorite Golden Age stars. We'll be back with our regularly scheduled programming in two week's time, and I thank everyone for their patience. And real quick, I want to go ahead and give a content warning for the entire episode – there's a bit of, I guess, body horror and a lot of talk about addiction and conversion therapy. Here we go:

I'm very excited for this week's episode, because it's essentially the reason I made this podcast. We're going to be talking about Montgomery Clift, his struggle with his sexuality, and why we don't talk about famous queer people when they're not young and beautiful anymore. If you're not familiar with Monty's movies, I'll forgive you, but I think because his life was so short – not as short as James Dean's, but short enough – it's all the more important to watch his films. Like Brando, he was from Omaha, and also like Brando, he employed the Method – though he bristled at his style being categorized that way. In the beginning of his career, he was incredibly handsome. I mean, it hurts to look at him handsome the way young Kurt Russel and Patrick Swayze were. The camera loved his face – probably because it had a lot of ins and outs. I mean, he's gorgeous. In A Place In The Sun, when he smiles at Elizabeth Taylor, it's like – I don't know how to describe it without getting cheesy and maudlin. But I think that's kind of the thing about Monty Clift. He makes it okay to get cheesy and maudlin, because that's what he did. So if you're going to binge on Monty's movies, start with A Place In The Sun – and give it a chance. I swear, in your memory, it's a million times better than the first time you watch it.

And that's the thing with Monty, I think. In your memory, he's a million times better than he ever was in life.

So, after you've watched A Place in the Sun and maybe From Here to Eternity – which you've probably seen clips from or homages to, whether you know it or not, because of the scene where Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr's kiss in the breaking waves – switch it up to the movies he made in the second half of his career. Watch Suddenly, Last Summer and The Young Lions. You'll notice something very different, and that's his face. That handsome boy from Omaha with the stars in his eyes doesn't look so handsome anymore. He's different. His characters are wild-eyed, tired. His face is different – he still looks like himself, but … wrong. So, what happened?

I think I've mentioned “post-accident Monty Clift” before, and now I'm going to explain the distinction. There were really two things that defined Monty's life and his career: meeting Elizabeth Taylor, and the car accident that destroyed his face. I know that when I say it like this, it sounds simple – but it's a lot more complicated than that.

Clift got his start around the same time as Brando, in the same place as him – in New York on the stage. He was only a few years older than Brando, and the two of them were friendly their whole lives. There are some rumors about them being involved, and maybe it's true, but Brando never said anything in the affirmative – and, you know, even though Brando admitted that he had relationships with men, he never named names. But I think it's worth pointing out again that theater and drama nurture this vibe of weird, queerness, but especially in the late 40's and 50's when Brando and Clift got their start, they were very actively denying queer people their right to exist.

So Monty is hands-down one of the most handsome men to ever grace the screen, but Monty is queer. And I say queer and not gay because because he had sexual relationships primarily with men, but fell in love primarily with women. I honestly don't think that he really gave it much thought until he met Liz. He had a few relationships with women before her, and he had been arrested for soliciting a male prostitute at least once, but you know, then he meets Liz. She's seventeen, eighteen. She's the most beautiful girl in the world. They met because the studio forced them to go out on a date for a premier of one of his movies, to drum up some buzz about Place In The Sun, but they ended up getting along like a house on fire.

There's a lot of talk about whether or not Monty and Liz ever had a “real” romantic relationship. Liz broke a thousand hearts, but after his death, she said that she always knew Monty was supposed to be with a man – which makes me think that he might have really been one of the only ones that ever broke her heart. So you know, like I said, I really don't think Monty thought about his split sexuality too much – not because it didn't cause him anxiety or anything, but because it really did, and sometimes when you think on something that causes that much pain, it's just too much. And he meets Liz, and it's like – all of a sudden, he realizes that he can't love Liz the way he feels like he's supposed to or the way that he should, and I think – I think really, that's a pretty big contributing factor to some of his emotional issues. I mean, when Liz had her first baby, he spoiled that kid so bad that people joked about it being his, and he would answer them with: “I wish.”

So when I say that meeting Liz Taylor was a defining moment in Monty's life, I say it because I think it ended up dredging up a lot of things that he would have rather kept locked up. Monty was prone to being “that weird guy” at a party. I've heard stories about how he did things like cook a steak in a fireplace at a party and then carve it up and serve it right there, and how he and Liz used to hang out when she was pregnant surrounded by magazines with their faces on it. His apartment in New York was covered with mirrors so that he could look at himself constantly. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. He and Liz really had a tendency to bring out the worst in each other, and he was already hooked on pills and booze by the time he got into the accident that ruined his face, but he was supposedly mostly sober when it happened.

The other reason I list Liz as a defining moment is simply because Montgomery Clift had his car accident when he was driving home from a party at her house – a party that she had pestered and goaded him to come to. Now, I kind of debated how in depth I wanted to go into exactly what happened to Monty in that car accident. On the podcast You Must Remember This, Karina Longworth's episode about Liz Taylor has a pretty graphic description of how it looked when Liz and her husband followed Roddy McDowall down to where Monty had crashed his car and how she saved him from choking to death by pulling his teeth out of his throat. Sufficed to say, most of his teeth were knocked out, he had fractured ribs and vertebrae, and his face was in shreds. He had a lot of reconstructive surgeries after that, but he never looked the same. The thing is: he was notoriously vain. Remember how his apartment was covered with mirrors? I guess if I looked like him, I would want to look at myself all the time too, but it was an immense blow to him that his looks were gone. Looking at photos of him post-accident now, you almost can't tell the difference. But you look again, look a little longer, maybe look at a picture of him from Judgment at Nuremberg and feel completely jarred. His upper lip was completely paralyzed, and there's something a little wrong about his face around the eyes. He looks pinched and pained, and a little – as one of his friends put it – stuffed. He was in constant pain for the rest of his life after that, and it really only worsened his addiction to pills and booze.

So you know, I could talk about Monty and how people called his death “the longest suicide” for literal hours – and he did die young, at the age of 45 from heart failure as a result of his addictions. He's buried in an unmarked grave in a Quaker cemetery in Prospect Park that no one's allowed into. And this is a really sad ending for a man who had so much promise and was such a talented actor. But even though I could talk about him and just him forever, I wanted to sort of use his story to talk about something else: the way queer people torture themselves to deny who they are out of fear, and the way we reject and queer people once they're not young and beautiful and perfect anymore.

I'm finally going to explain to you why I have beef with David Thomson, you guys. This is probably the last time I'll talk shit about him in the entire series – no promise, though. So, my big issue with Thomson is that he was very flip and dismissive of Monty. He mentions somewhere in the text that John Wayne was totally unimpressed with Clift while they were filming Red River – which really makes no sense to me, because the two have been compared to one another quite a bit. Seriously, if you've seen a picture of young John Wayne, he's a dead ringer for pre-accident Monty. So, fine, okay, maybe it's true and Wayne was just giving a young buck a hard time. Okay. But Thomson really put the nail in his coffin for me when he started in on Monty for turning down the main role of Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard. The role was written for him, and it's been said that Clift turned it down because he felt uncomfortable playing a man who was in love with an older woman because he felt it would hit too close to home for him. Thomson had another idea, positing that, and I quote: “[…] Clift would have made Gillis insidiously charming instead of a desperate scrambler. You would have wanted to save Clift (that was his trick); [William] Holden knows that Gillis is beyond salvation.”

Let's unpack this for a second, shall we?

Okay. So we know that Clift did have a gift for playing sensitive, conflicted men – probably because he was a sensitive, conflicted man, and because he employed the Method school of acting, he brought some of himself to all of his roles. So. Thomson has a point, right? Well, sure. Kind of. But Thomson is mocking Clift for 'tricking’ people into saving him. I take this quote as derision as opposed to a compliment to the actor’s ability to play a role because of the overall scorn it appears Thomson shows for queer people and also women throughout the book, and because he seems to have so much scorn for Clift himself.  You know, my thought process is more like: Could it be that maybe Clift had this knack for 'tricking’ people into thinking they could save him because of his own tortured inner workings and his need for support and validation due to the turmoil he felt because of his sexuality? I don’t think it would be a stretch to consider that maybe Clift’s close friendship with Elizabeth Taylor and his own film roles all contributed to trying to reach out to someone to ease his pain. And, you know, maybe - just maybe - Thomson has some kind of problem with this.

Clift ended up going to conversion therapy to try and “fix” his sexuality, along with his drinking. He had a fourteen-foot long medicine cabinet packed with every kind of drug he could get his hands on. His addiction was so bad that on the set of The Young Lions,Marlon Brando sat him down and had a long talk with him about going to therapy, going to AA, and getting help. He knew addiction firsthand, because, as I've mentioned, his mother had been the town drunk growing up. She dried out, got help, and started a few chapters of AA. Brando admired Clift, and I'm sure Clift admired Brando. But I think by this point, Brando had come to terms with his sexuality. It might have taken until 1976, but he fully admitted that he experimented and hooked up with men. And maybe if Monty had listened to Brando or even quit the sauce, he would have been around in 1976 to say something similar.

I think that we're looking at two sides of – if not the same coin, but something similar. Brando accepted himself and he came from this family of artistic weirdos that understood how to accept people who were different from them – with the exception of Brando's father, Marlon Sr, who he had a famously troubled relationship with, but you know – for the most part, he had a good family that he loved. Monty had a pretty troubled relationship with his father, too, but I think everything about his family life was troubled. His mother had been adopted, and she was convinced that she was part of a blue-blooded New England family, and she insisted that all of her children be given the best of everything. Monty's father could pay for it – up until he lost his job. So Monty was raised in a kind of rich boy vacuum. He never did well at school, never felt at home anywhere but up on a stage. You've got a lost boy in Monty, and a “not all who wander are lost” boy in Brando.

It's been pointed out that people sort of dismiss Monty after his accident. He's not as good looking, and he looks very old and somewhat rumpled by the time he reaches the age that he died at. Way more like a harried old professor than a forty-five year old movie star. The roles he took, too, turned dramatically. He's not that starry-eyed young man anymore. He plays men absolutely haunted. The scars on his face actually do lend to most of these roles – grizzled cowhand alongside Clark Gable in The Misfits, a witness to Nazi war crimes Judgment at Nuremburg, even as Freud in the creatively titled Freud. It's almost like losing his good looks opened up other avenues to him, because he wasn't pinned down as a young, pretty boy anymore. But it was hard to look at him sometimes, and it was hard for him to act – in Judgement at Nuremburg, he couldn't remember any of his lines and ad-libbed the entire scene. To go from being hard to look at because he was too handsome, to being hard to look at because his face was so unidentifiable – I can't even imagine what that could have been like. And I want to point out again, going back to the Brando episode where we talked about masculinity, how no one really talks about these roles. They all want to talk about A Place In The Sun, and it's a very good movie – but it's not Monty challenging masculinity and male beauty standards with a scarred face and chronic pain. People only want to remember their queer icon when he was gorgeous, but that's really only paying attention to half the story.

After the accident, it was hard for him to get jobs because he was deemed uninsurable by most of the big studios. Liz Taylor offered to put up some of her own money to insure him for a few movies, but he mostly backed out of them due to his health. He was supposed to play Brando's character in Reflections in a Golden Eye, and Liz had put in a lot of money to get him insured for the picture. He backed out, and some combination of Liz and Monty's suggestion both landed on trying to get Brando for the part. The studio said Brando was too expensive, so Liz offered up even more of her own money to pay his salary – to be paid back to her if the movie made enough money. It made enough money.

I've talked about this movie before – it was really one of the first on-screen portrayals of what everyone knew was a gay man, instead of being buried in subtext. Something in me thinks that Liz trying to get Monty into these roles was her convoluted way of trying to help him, but when I think about Reflections in a Golden Eye, I can't see Monty doing it. There's just so much violence that pours out of Brando's Major Penderton as a direct result of being closeted in the military, so much rage – maybe a post-accident Monty could have pulled it off. Maybe. But I think, ultimately, playing a closeted gay man who directs the anger and confusion and rage of being closeted outward – as opposed to Monty personally, who directed it inward – would be too much for him. The movie came out the same year he died, and part of me thinks that he knew that he had taken a toll on himself.

When he died, people like Lauren Bacall and Frank Sinatra showed up to the funeral, but Liz was in Rome shooting on location, and she just sent flowers. She talked about Monty a lot in her later years. She missed him. She missed their friendship. And I think – you know, I think she couldn't bear going to his funeral, as shitty as it was for her to skip it. Monty died from a heart attack because of coronary artery disease, and his autopsy revealed a whole host of other issues that he was dealing with – thyroid problems that would've caused issues with his balance and speech even when he was sober, problems with his digestive system from dysentery and colitis.

I want to say, I had a lot of trouble with this episode. I have a lot of trouble reading books about Monty and even watching his movies sometimes, and I thought at first that maybe it was secondhand embarrassment – knowing that he hated watching his own movies and always thought he looked terrible – but I think it also comes from knowing that he probably wants to be left in peace after so many years of suffering. They called his death “the longest suicide”, and I think that's fair. So I want to express that I did this episode out of the highest regard and the desire to not let Monty writhe in obscurity after his death. You know, the American Film Institute took A Place in the Sun off their Top 100 Movies list when they remade their 10th anniversary edition, and Monty isn't listed among their Top 50 actors – though Brando is number four, right after Jimmy Stewart, and James Dean made the list at number 18. Elizabeth Taylor made the number seven spot on the list of actresses. So I think that Monty was a phenomenal actor, an influential actor, but I just don't think he has the same sort of cultural pull that James Dean did – dying at twenty-four and capturing hearts and imaginations. And he certainly didn't have the same kind of sex appeal and back story that Marilyn Monroe does, which is why I think she's still on our radar so many years later. Monty fell off the face of the cultural radar because he lost his looks. He disappeared because his death was a steady descent into alcoholism and chronic pain. People don't talk about famous people, queer or not, when they're not young and gorgeous anymore – unless they're doing some reality show like Anna Nicole Smith. They care for a minute when they die, and then forget. And maybe Monty wanted to be forgotten, but I think we shouldn't lost the lessons we got from his life in the process of letting him rest in peace.

Before we go, I wanted to mention this quick aside – my roommates and I play this game where we ask each other stupid questions, mostly to do with whatever fandom we're into – you know, right now there's a lot of, “If you weren't your chosen house in Game of Thrones, what house would you be in?” but the other day, one of them asked me if I think Monty's ghost would have his perfect face or the one from after the crash, and I had to really think about it. I think maybe he would make himself perfect again, but then I thought that maybe he would let it go and keep his wrecked one. You know, maybe him having the scarred face that he did after the crash kind of … took a little bit of that pressure off, you know? He didn't have to be the most handsome actor in the entire world anymore, and he could take interesting, challenging roles – even if he was so far gone he could barely remember his lines. Just a thought I kind of wanted to share with you all.

Thank you so much for listening to Tuck In, We're Rolling: Queer Hollywood Stories. This week's episode was written, researched, edited and recorded by me, Jack Segreto. You can find a transcript of this episode and all our episodes, along with movie and book recommendations, fun facts and photos on our tumblr, tuckinpodcast.tumblr.com. You can also give us a like on Facebook at facebook.com/tuckinpodcast. We accept messages on both of those platforms, so please feel free to shoot us any suggestions for show topics and comments you might have. We put out new episodes every Wednesday, and you can listen to us on SoundCloud, iTunes and Google Play, so don't forget to rate and subscribe to us! We'll be back in two weeks with a round-table discussion featuring my roommates about why we care so much and cling so hard to stories about queer people in popular culture. See you next time!

[mdwatchestv]

Game of Thrones 7x05: Suicide Squad

Gather children for it is time for ye old Game of Thrones. We got people zippin all up and around this great land of Westeros, just zappin from one side of the world to the other. I guess they finally unlocked all the fast travel check points on the main map. After last week's dragon battle we are back to our regularly scheduled plotting and planning. Plans were planned, revelations revealed, and players travelled around the board at rapid pace. So let's break down everything we learned and bore witness to this week!

First off it is immediately revealed that Jaime and Bronn survived their dive into the drink and conveniently floated a short distance away out of harm's way. I had thought they would perhaps be taken prisoner by the Dragon Queen herself, but turns out they were able to (swim?) to safety just in time. But not all of the Lannister Army were so lucky, and the notably downtrodden survivors were marched in front of Dany's congregation. Dany offers the singed soldiers a "choice" to either bend the knee (her fav) or meet with fiery death. This is about as much of a choice as cake or death, but those pesky Tarlys opt for death rather than defect their loyalty. We hardly knew ye Tom Hopper and now you are ash. RIP Tarlys. Tyrion is notably disturbed by this turn of events, even though Dany claims to be a benevolent ruler she is exerting her rule in the new land by using fear rather than mercy. For Tyrion this iron fist approach to conquering feels a little too reminiscent of Cersei or the Mad King for comfort. Although Dany clearly sees herself as the tough but fair type, Tyrion is still left wondering where he is going to draw a morality line in the sand. This is still a guy who killed his old man on the shitter though, so I think he can grant Dany some wiggle room for now at least.

After dealing out some fire and brimstone justice Dany jets back to Dragonstone and meets up with Jon who is back brooding on his brooding cliff. Khaly K lands her giant sky lizard in front of Jon and what does this fool do? He reaches out to pet that scaly monster like it's the only cat at a house party. Not only is this a nice friendship moment (let's keep it platonic here people), but it seems like Drogon has also gotten the memo and is acknowledging Jon's true lineage (more on that later obviously). As always there's a lot of beautiful storytelling being done in the mise-en-scène, and I particularly liked Dany's fur-lined gown which hinted at her newfound Stark alliance.   Anyway Jon gets the memo from Winterfell that Bran the Seer of Sucktown has seen the Night King's Army descending rapidly on the Wall and he gots to go. Dany's war council decides that, rather than finishing off Cersei in a blast of magma and death, they are going to negotiate an armistice with the Lannisters in order to focus on the undead. To be perfectly honest I wasn't 100% clear on why we are doing this and not just invading King's Landing, but whatever. The new game plan is to go North of the Wall, kidnap a zombie solider, and bring it back to King's Landing to show Cersei. Again, not totally sure what the most desired outcome here is, Cersei surrender? Ceseri alliance? Cersei go into the corner and be quiet? I feel like even when confronted with a wiggling, murderous, undead corpse Cersei is not going to play nice with the new kids. Look, I'm not totally sold, but please don't bring a zombie to my apartment in order to convince me. 

First step of this new plan is to establish communication with the inhabitants of the Red Keep. This plan has a lot of steps, and I am already exhausted by it. But Ser Davos gamely smuggles Tyrion to have a bro-to-bro chat in the Dragon Skeleton Room and talk living dead. While Tyrion and Jaime exercise their dramatic acting muscles, Ser Davos goes to casually pick up GENDRY. When Joe Dempsie's name popped up in the opening credits I shrieked like a banshee for I knew the day had finally come for Gendry to return unto us. If you recall (and how could you not) last time we saw good old Gendry he was rowing away from Dragonstone after Melisandre attempted to assassinate him for his sweet, sweet royal blood. Many a meme has been made surmising old Gendry has just been rowing around aimlessly for the past 4 season to one day wash up on the shores of plot once more. Well today is that day, and boyfriend has been in King's Landing THE WHOLE TIME. He just went right back to blacksmithing and has been hammering away drama-free for YEARS. I am not even mad though, I am just happy to have Chris Gendry back in my life. Welcome back young man.

Jaime and Tyrion have a semi-productive secret conference, productive in the sense they effectively communicate their ideas to one another, not productive in the sense that it is in any way a secret. Cersei lets Jaime know she is on to his sneaky shit, and then drops the bomb she is pregnant with his baby and doesn't care who knows it. This emotional assault of intimate news sandwiched between two scary threats binds Jaime even more tightly to Cersei. However one does have to wonder if Cersei is truly carrying a child or simply attempting to secure one of her last remaining loyalties. Only time and fashion will tell. Boy, she’s a scary hugger. 

Step number one of the 50 Step Zombie Plan completed, Davos, Gendry and Tyrion zoop back to Dragonstone where Gendry is introduced to Jon Snow. Their dads were friends, they're both bastards, they're bros, good times, let's get on the boat and hammer some zombies, wham bam thank you Sam. Except, wait, hold on, I'm getting a breaking news alert- let's cut to our correspondent Gilly for more on this developing story.

"Hello yes, this is Gilly reporting live from The Citadel. I am reading a book about steps, shits, and various other statistical sundries and I have just come across a word I don't know. That word is annulled, and it is next to another word which looks like a name, and that name is-"

GREAT JOB GILLY NOW SHUT YOUR BIG LADY MOUTH. As you clearly heard here first it looks like Jon Snow is NOT A BASTARD, I repeat, NOT A BASTARD. But seriously, while Sam is busy feeling sorry for himself Gilly stumbles upon a pretty major narrative bomb that Sam proceeds to COMPLETELY ignore. Samwell really blew the chance to be one of (arguably two) characters who know the truth of Jon's lineage. What Gilly discovers is that Rhaegar Targaryan (aka Jon's real dad) annulled his marriage to Elia Martell and was remarried to, presumably, Lyanna Stark (Jon's real mom). Now we knew that R+L=J, but this new info means that Jon is NOT a bastard! He is a legitimate son! And most important the REAL HEIR TO THE IRON THRONE. Sorry bout it Khaly K, but if we are going by Targaryan inheritance rules it's all Jon all the time. Not that this matters much to Jon, he's going North of the Wall to get a zombie pet, obviously.

Before we get to the Zombie Acquisition and Retrieval Task Force (ZARTF) and it's many members, let's skip on back to Winterfell. Game of Thrones characters can apparate all over the map, and so can I. Back on the ranch Arya is growing increasingly suspicious of Sansa's potential ulterior motives. So much for a happy sister reunion. Arya thinks she is being super clever following Littlefinger around and getting proof he and Sansa are secretly attempting to overthrow Jon. But Arya's been gone a minute and she has forgotten she is not the creepiest creep in the creeper anymore. Yes Arya learned some sick skills from no one, and can wear other people's faces, but Lord Baelish has been perfecting his spy game since before she was born. Baelish plants an incriminating letter written by Sansa for Arya to find (like come on Arya you think Lord Petyr Baelish hides shit in his mattress? Girl) hoping to further drive a wedge between them. Littlefinger knows that a Sansa without allies is a Sansa ripe to be preyed upon, because he’s gross and a predator. Hopefully Arya will figure this out and rather than lash out at Sansa instead form a positive bond of sisterhood with her. Hopefully.

As you can see a lot of plot happened, there were revelations, machinations, and congregations. A plan to kidnap a member of the walking dead was hatched and set into rapid motion. Jon does not pass Winterfell, and does not collect $200, but rather hops right up to the Wall where he assembles an A-team coalition of male supporting characters who are all vaguely the same. ZARTF ROLL CALL:

Jon Snow! Ginger Beard! The Hound! Ole One Eye! Top Knot McGregor! Papa Jorah! Gendry!

None of them really like each other, and certainly more than one is going to die. TBH I would be fine with losing any of them except Ginger Beard (I just love him okay). Next week they're going on a zombie hunt, they're gonna catch a big one etc etc.

Stuff I didn't get to:

Chronic quitter and non-listener Sam peaces out of the Citadel 

Daddy Jorah came home!

MVP: Gilly

XO MD

Bonus Daddy time:

[bigmoneygator]

Gonna talk about some things! That have been bothering me! Without need or hope for anyone to reply because I feel like I'm bothering everyone with how much I've been talking about it lately!!!!!!! I love golden age cinema. No, I haven't watched most of the movies in the 'canon', but the stories behind them are what get me. I'm getting real frustrated, though, with the underreporting/erasure of queer people in Hollywood at this time. Not by the studios and the fixers and the morals police of the time, but by contemporary biographers and even just the general public. I'm fully immersed into the 'You Must Remember This' podcast (I even sat through the Manson murder season because of the tidbits I could glean that weren't murder related), and I'm reading a book called 'The Whole Equation' by a gentleman named David Thomson, who is a (rather old) film professor and Hollywood historian in various publications. Karina Longworth, of the former, doesn't seem to shy away from the implications of queer stars, while I have found not one reference to anything like this in Thomson's writings in the latter - to my recollection anyway, which is shoddy at best, so maybe I missed something. So maybe the book is more focused on the entirety of Hollywood and how it came to be, so it glosses over a lot of the seedier, juicier bits about the personal lives of stars - though it does go into some detail about Jean Harlow's death by uremic poisoning (Miss Harlean Carpenter comes back into play later in this rant), but I digress. I'm also losing the point of my ire and, therefore, the entirety of this massive rant. I'm just finding out that it's an agreed upon fact that Cary Grant, born Archie Leach and having spent some time in the Village in New York City before his time in Hollywood, was a gay man who only married and had dalliances with women to keep his contract signed and uphold his end of the morals clause therein. Some perspective: I arbitrarily fell in love with Cary Grant sometime after I had confused him for Gregory Peck during high school, then confused him for Clark Gable for a time, then watched a massive stack of his movies and found my affections with the right man. I've loved Cary Grant for a decade. And I'm just. Now. Finding this information out. I'm pissed. I'm livid. And I'm not pissed to find out that he was gay or that he was suppressed (though it does make my blood boil - just on a whole other level). I'm mad because somehow this information - though widely agreed upon by most biographers - is not even mildly commonplace knowledge. I've BEEN pissed off that people see fit to reduce Montgomery Clift's sexuality down to a simple sentence: He was bisexual, like many other stars of the time. You know what? Fuck that noise. That does not begin to encompass the raging wreck that was Monty Clift. The man felt wrong and ugly inside because he loved women but didn't want to sleep with them, and he put himself through years of conversion therapy and it presumably helped spark the alcoholism and addiction that took his looks and his life. Sure, we remember him as one of Liz Taylor's 'boyfriends', but we don't remember his 14 foot medicine cabinet or the fact that he's only remembered as bisexual because he used to get piss drunk and go home with anybody that would have him, regardless of whether or not he really was bisexual. Which brings me around to my mentioning of David Thomson's book. It's dense and it's wordy and it's filled with a lot of subjective narrative about Hollywood and its history, some raw facts about grosses and contract rates. It's a good read, though, especially for someone who's just at the beginning of their journey through Golden Age cinema (it contains a lot more stuff about the actual dawn of the technicality of movies and film, plus a little more about the magic of moving pictures, and it does so in somewhat manageable chunks of metaphors between the point of the story he's trying to tell and a relevant Hollywood figure). As I mentioned earlier, Thomson goes into some detail about Jean Harlow and her upbringing and death, and mentions her marriage to Paul Bern. He mentions Bern's death. He fails to mention that Bern was quite possibly deeply in the closet. Okay, so maybe the man doesn't believe it. Then, he gets into insulting Marlon Brando quite a bit. That's okay. The man was a bear to work with, an odd duck method actor at his best and a literal destroyer of sets at middling and an actual sexual predator at worst (see: 'Last Tango In Paris'). He goes on to blame, somehow, Brando's attitude on therapy. Weird. Then I recall that in Montgomery Clift's Wikipedia article, his sexuality is compared to that of two other actors: James Dean, and Marlon Brando. I haven't done any research into Brandi's bisexuality or lack thereof, but I'm willing to bet there's some merit there. He mentions Greta Garbo, Katherine Hepburn, Kaye Francis - but fails to mention that all of these women were confirmed to be (at the very least) bisexual. He might have mentioned Katherine Hepburn's habit of wearing pants, but I don't think the man even mentioned that her first on screen kiss was WITH ANOTHER WOMAN. The first nail in the 'Whole Equation' coffin for me came in the form of two mentions of Monty in the text: one in which Thomson makes some claims that while working together, John Wayne says that he found Clift 'feeble' but tried like hell to keep up or even outpace him in their filming. Personally, this makes no sense to me, because have you ever seen young John Wayne? He's a dead ringer for Montgomery Clift at his peak. But, okay, Wayne was a hard worker and I can buy him giving the young bucks a hard time. Then, Thomson gives himself the second nail: "[...] Clift would have made [Joe, of 'Sunset Boulevard'] Gillis insidiously charming instead of a desperate scrambler. You would have wanted to save Clift (that was his trick); [William] Holden knows that Gillis is beyond salvation." (p. 250) I'm not going to bother dissecting the part of the paragraph before this quote in which Thomson paints Clift as someone solely turning down a role due to vanity and his own carefully crafted image, because for all I've learned in my time as an amateur historian, this is probably true. Stars were crafted after they were found, and studios did their best to keep stars into the molds they were poured into. I'm gonna talk about the part where Thomson seems to deride Clift for 'tricking' people into saving him. I take this quote as derision as opposed to a compliment to the actor's ability to play a role because of the overall scorn it appears Thomson has for someone who can't seem to live up to the studio's farm factory system, and because he seems to have so much scorn for Clift himself. Could it be that perhaps Clift had this knack for 'tricking' people into thinking they could save him because of his own tortured inner workings and his need for support and validation due to the turmoil he felt because of his sexuality? Maybe I'm just an asshole here because I don't have a degree in psych or film history, but I don't think it would be a stretch to consider that maybe Clift's close friendship with Elizabeth Taylor and his own film roles all contributed to trying to reach out to someone to ease his pain. And maybe - just maybe - Thomson has some kind of problem with this. (DISCLAIMER: I haven't read anything else by this author and I haven't looked into his own personal history and I don't know if he's changed his tune about all of this so I can't be sure.) So, in all of this, somehow and somewhere, what I'm trying to say is: contemporary LGBT people deserve to know their history. There's that post floating around about walking down a hall of history and finding it blank, being told it doesn't exist and that's what it's like for a queer person in this day and age. And I agree. So let's start by acknowledging that Hollywood has been filled with queer people from day one, and go from there. Okay, raging queer nerd out ✌🏻 byeeeee

[jonsnowisthesexiestbastard]

Ok so while waiting for the season 7 I’ve start to think about what could happen. 

With barely 20 episodes left, I assume season 8’s plot is gonna be only about the Others which means that every plot that can’t be connected to them is gonna end in season 7:

- Jon is NOT gonna find his true identity before the finale. It’s a big deal, I dont see them throwing it in the middle of the season, unless he meet Howland Reed somehow or if he make it back to Winterfell before the finale

- I highly doubt that the characters based in King’s Landing (Cersei, Sr Gregor, Qyburn) are gonna survive to the season  finale. I don’t think that Jamie is gonna die, I think he is gonna die but during the battle against the Others so in season 8. I don’t know how Cersei is gonna die but her storyline isn’t connected at all to the North so it wouldn’t make sense to keep her around.

- Same about the Greyjoy’s plot. I think Euron is gonna die and I’m not sure if Yara is gonna make it but I don’t see Theon dying yet or probably around the season 7 finale.

-Since Gendry is ( FINALLY ) back and Joe is filming with Emilia, I assume he is gonna be turn to a legitime Baratheon by Daenerys since she see herself as the rightful queen

- Arya is either gonna die or is gonna really go to Winterfell, there isn’t no other choice at that point

-I’m still stuck to my idea that Bran is gonna be the one to bring the Others South because of the mark on him so the Night’s watch is probably gonna be destroy ( but since Edd has as much lives as a cat he is gonna make it, probably because he is gonna take Meera and bran to Winterfell)

- Sam, Gilly and Sam II are gonna go back North by the end of the season, probably because Sam is gonna find out a way to fight the Others but honeslty I don’t know how his beef with his dad is gonna play out.

- The Sand Snakes and Ellaria are probably gonna die now that they are useless again  

- Brienne, Pod and Sandor are gonna somehow end up at Winterfell since Sandor is the one who will destroy the relation between Sansa and Littlefinger with the truth about Ned’s deah.

        Also, I had the AWESOME idea that at the end of the first episode of the season, Brienn or Sandor are introduced to who ? LADY MOTHERFUCKING STONEHEART ! What ? A girl can dream.