#Watson’s actor had to “voice” Toby

[anerdynerd]

Sketched some characters/scenes from the play “Sherlock Holmes: Der Fall Moriarty” (The Case Moriarty) that I got to watch live today on my way home from there, Toby was a balloon dog, it was brilliant😭

[hadescavedish]

Ok so @chronically-fangirls​ asked me to do an Anthony Valentine rec-list, since I posted his images all the time lmao. So here we go <3

I’ll do a brief introduction, since some of my followers aren’t familar with him: Anthony Valentine was an English actor who was mostly famous for his really wide range of roles (from passionate heroes to sinister villains, from down-to-earth street gangsters to elegant aristocrats), his alluring and distinctive voice (with more than 10 kinds of different accents). He was born in 1939 in a working class family, started his acting career since age 10, had been acting for almost all his life (to quote his words, he can’t remember a day he doesn’t want to act). Besides the acting talent, there are many things he can do, riding, fencing, dancing, and singing... I will not just write them all down lol.

I will put the links from YT in the following list:

- Raffles: this is the show made me where I am now, I did watch him from Granada Sherlock Holmes in which he played a villainous womanizer at first, and that was how I got to know him. But the show Raffles made me become a, uh, a fan. It was adapted from E. W. Hornung’s novel series ‘Raffles’ (the premise of the novel was: ‘So Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are thieves instead of solving crimes?’ Of course there are more to it but since this is a short rec-list I will keep it simple. It is heavily queer coded, it is actually... gayer than Holmes book series, and many people concluded the other (also very obvious) inspirations are Oscar Wilde and Geroge Cecil Ives, so to speak. AV along with another wonderful actor Christopher Strauli (who played Raffles’ sidekick and love of life) made the show as queer as possible for the specific time period (1970s, and some people say it might have been most explicit queer coded UK TV shows before Brideshead Revisit). Not to mention this show is a full display of AV’s various talents (especially the accent).

- Callan (pilot, S1, S2, S3, S4, scripts): while I was watching Raffles, I saw many people posted AV’s gif from this show, I am actually not specifically into spy genre, but I like its anti-Bond theme, the cynicism, the historical reference, the class conflict and social topics, and the aesthetic.. it is just so artistically entrancing for me. The main character Callan was played by Edward Woodward, who is also a very versatile and talented actor (I would recommend watching ‘The Wicker Man’ and ‘Breaker Morant’). AV played a character who is called Toby Meres (who is well received among the fans and it earned him the publicity and financial stability, his career got better and better since then), a charming but yet sadistic and sinister morally grey agent, who is in many ways opposite to the main character Callan (who was born lower middle class, whose parents were killed during WW2, who was oppressed by the system and upper class). unfortunately during that age filming tapes were expensive, and they didn’t know the show would become so popular, so some tapes from S1-S2 are lost, but even with the surviving episodes, it got me obsessed enough. Also AV was not in all episodes due to contract reasons, he was in most of S1, almost all S2 and S4 (absent in S3). There are also a pilot episode, a flim version of the pilot episode and a TV movie, I recommend the TV pilot episode (in which the original Toby Meres actor wasn’t AV, they recasted the character into him in regular series and it was successful). Well one more thing, I do ship the main character with Toby very hard, don’t judge me.

- Colditz (S1+2, some episodes from S2 got deleted from this list, the second playlist has full S2): AV appeared in almost entire season of S2 as a uh Nazi officer who was heavily wounded before and assigned to Colditz prison camp as second in command (yeah I did hesitate before) the show itself is definitely one of best UK TV shows of all time. AV was so good in the show it turned him into a sex icon (no kidding, srsly lmao, well I am gay so I am not attracted to him in that way but I understand), but also made his public image at the time somewhat troublesome to himself, along with horny fan letters, he also received many threatening letters from viewers who cannot distinguish between fiction and reality. He made a role which could have been handled in wrong ways by other actors, he gave the role just right amount of rigidity, unpleasantness, and yet you can see the humanity with glimpse, a very layered, not-so-villain kind of villain character. I watched his interview for another character in which he mentioned his interpretation to this character... not only he played just so good, also his understanding towards the role was intellectual and insightful.

- Justice: The show itself I consider is one of most liberal shows in UK in 1970s, its view is still relevant even today, it has heavy feminism tone, is sympathetic towards worker movements, and progressive in many respects, immigration, marriage, family, social equality, attitude towards law and goverment and so on. The main character Harriet Peterson was played by Margaret Lockwood, who was absolutely marvelous as a badass lady barrister (kind of like a warrior to me!) AV appeared in S3 (yeah you noticed he appeared in many things yet often was busy somewhere else lol) as young and dashing James Eliot. The fashion sense he had in the show reminds me of Al Pacino in his lawyer movie and also Bobby Deerfield.

- The Donati Conspiracy (three piece dystopian drama, I recommended this so often I can’t recall how many times)

Here are some notable mention I would really recommend after his regular shows:

- The Dancing Years (as the main character who is a romantic and sentimental composer during 1910-WW2)

Thank you for reading (there are other shows I haven’t mentioned but one step at a time) <3

[ao3feed-crimeboys]

Tonight's the casting call (if this is the real audition)

by snxwdrop

“What if you hadn’t come back? I wouldn’t know where the fuck you had gone, I wouldn’t find you,” Wilbur’s voice is stern, but threatens to crack. “I could have lost you, Theseus. I don’t think you quite get that.”

“But you didn’t lose me. I didn’t die,” Tommy pushes, earning a scoff from Wilbur. Tears fall from Wilbur’s eyes, his grip on Tommy’s shoulders strengthening. “You won’t lose me, Will.”

“But I could have,” Wilbur whispers, his hair threatening to fall out of where it’s pinned. “What would Protes say? What would Dad say? If you never came back, if you died , under my watch.”

Tommy didn’t say anything, following the script to a key. He took a shaky breath, shying away from Wilbur and staring directly at the floor. Wilbur sighed, pulling him in for a hug and tucking Tommy’s head under his chin.

“I don’t want to lose my baby brother,” Wilbur mumbles, and Tommy doesn’t remember that part of the script.

(Or, SBI are the leading roles in the latest hit TV show - but Wilbur's agents aren't too keen on him staying there for much longer, leading to him isolating away from everyone on set.)

Words: 10971, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Minecraft (Video Game), Dream SMP

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Phil Watson | Philza, Eret (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo, Shelby Grace | Shubble, Scott Major | Smajor1995

Relationships: Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Actors, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Not Siblings, Hurt/Comfort, Sleepy Bois Inc-centric, TommyInnit-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Family Dynamics, wilbur has a bad agent, Sad Wilbur Soot, Lack of Communication, Arguing, Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, fake injuries (its make-up)

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: The Chris Columbus Harry Potter Films

Here’s a bold stance to take these days: I actually still really love the Harry Potter franchise.

Yes, this series hasn’t had a huge impact on my own writing; my stories I’m working on draw far more from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and the Percy Jackson series than they do Harry Potter. And yes, the author of the franchise has outed herself as a transphobic scumbag whose every post-script addition to her franchise has been an unprecedented bad move (save, perhaps, for allowing Johnny Depp the opportunity to work during a very trying time in his life). But while the author is a horrendous person and the story hasn’t exactly given me as much to work with as other stories have, there are so many great themes, ideas, and characters that even now I’d still say this is one of my favorite series of all time. The world of Harry Potter is just so fascinating, the usage of folklore is interesting, and it has one of the most menacing and disturbing villains in young adult literature and manages to play the whole “love prevails over evil” cliché in such a way that it actually works.

And, of course, then we get into what I’m really here to talk about: the adaptations. The movies are not entirely better than the books; while I do think most of the films are on par with their novel counterparts, and they certainly do a good job of scrubbing out some of the iffier elements in Rowling’s writing, I still think there’s a certain, ahem, magic that the books have that gives them a slight edge. But, look, I’m a movie reviewer, and these films are some of my favorites of all time, and as much as I love the books I’m not going to sit around and say the books surpass them in every single way. There’s a lot to love in these films, and hopefully I’ll be able to convey that as I review the series.

Of course, the only place to truly start is the Chris Columbus duology. Columbus is not the most impressive director out there – this is the man who gave us Rent, Pixels, and that abominable adaptation of Percy Jackson after all – but early on in his career he made a name for himself directing whimsical classics such as the first two Home Alone movies and Mrs. Doubtfire. Those films are wonderfully cast and have a lot of charm, and thankfully this is the Columbus we got to bring us the first two entries in Harry’s story. 

One of the greatest strengths of the first two Harry Potter movies is just the sheer, unrelenting magic and wonder they invoke. They’re so whimsical, so enchanting, so fun; they fully suck you into the world Rowling created and utilize every tool they can to keep you believing. Everything in these films serves to heighten the magic; practical effects and CGI come together with fantastic costuming and set design to make the world of wizards and Hogwarts school feel oh so real. And of course, none of this would be even remotely as effective if not for the legendary score by John Williams, who crafted some of the most iconic and memorable compositions of the 21st century for these films. In short: the tone of these films is pretty perfect for what they are, and every element in them works to make sure you are buying into this tone at every moment.

The other massively important element is the casting, and by god, the casting in these films is simply perfect. Of course, the title characters and his peers have to be unknowns, and thankfully they managed to pluck out some brilliant talent. I don’t need to tell you how good Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson are, even back in these films, but I do feel the need to say that Rupert Grint is vastly underappreciated; I really don’t think the films would work quite as well without his presence, because he does bring that goofy charm Harry’s friend group needs to balance it out. Matthew Lewis is the adorable coward Neville Longbottom and Tom Felton is the snotty brat Draco Malfoy, and though both of their roles are fairly minor in the first two films they manage to make their mark. The second movie pulls in Bonnie Wright as Ginny, and again, I’m gonna say she’s rather underrated; I think she did quite a fine job in her role.

But of course, the real draw of these films is the sheer amount of star power they have in terms of U.K.  actors. You’ve got Maggie Smith (McGonagall), Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid), Warwick Davis (Flitwick and, bafflingly, only the voice of Griphook, who was played by the American Verne Troyer in the first film for… some reason), John Hurt (Ollivander), Toby Jones (Dobby), John Cleese (Nearly Headless Nick)… and this is only the first two films. The movies would continue pulling in stars like it was Smash Ultimate, determined to tell you that “EVERYONE IS HERE” and be the ultimate culmination of U.K. culture.

Of course, even in the first few movies there are those who truly stand out as perfect. Smith and Coltrane are most certainly the perfect embodiment of their characters, but I think a great deal of praise should be given to Richard Griffiths as Uncle Vernon; the man is a volatile, raging bastard the likes of which you rarely see, and he is at once repulsive and comical. He’s pretty much the British answer to J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. Then we have Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy in the second film, and he is just delightfully, deliciously devilish and dastardly. Isaacs actually came up with a lot of Mr. Malfoy’s quirks himself, such as the long blonde hair, the cane wand, and the part where he tries to murder a small child in cold blood for releasing his house elf (which came about because he forgot literally every other spell and had just read Goblet of Fire, so...). Then of course there is Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart, and… well, it’s Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart. I don’t think you could find a more perfect casting choice (except perhaps Hugh Grant, who was originally cast but had to drop out). He just really hams it up as the obnoxious blowhard and helps make him much more tolerable than his book counterpart, though he does unfortunately have the lack of plot relevance Lockhart did in the book, which is a problem unique to Lockhart. Fun fact, he is the ONLY Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher in the series to not ultimately matter in regards to the main story.

Of course, the greatest casting choice of them all is most certainly The late, great Alan Rickman as everyone’s favorite greasy potions professor, Severus Snape. I think Rickman goes a long way towards helping make Snape one of the greatest characters of all time, with everything about his performance just being perfect, and what makes it even better is how it would ultimately subvert his typical roles (though that’s a story for a different review). I don’t think either of the first films is really his best outing, butt he first one definitely sets him up splendidly. Snape barely has a role in the second film – something that greatly irritated Rickman during the movie’s production apparently – but he still does a good job with what limited screentime he has. Then we have Richard Harris as Dumbledore. Due to his untimely death, he only played Dumbledore in the first two films, but he really did give a wonderful performance that had all the charm, whimsy, and wonder the Dumbledore of the first few books was full of. The thing is, I don’t know if he would have been able to make the transition into the more serious and darker aspects of Dumbledore that popped up in the later books. I guess we’ll never know, which is truly a shame, but at the very least he gave us a good showing with what little time he had.

My only problems with the first two films are extremely minor, though there is at least one somewhat big issue I have. You see, while I do like everything about these films, I feel like they’re a bit too loyal to the books, not doing enough to distinguish themselves as their own thing like films such as Prisoner of Azkaban would do. But if I’m being honest, this is seriously nitpicky; it’s not like this really makes me think less of the films, because they have way more going for than against them. Stuff like this and the cornier early performances from the kid actors are to be expected when a franchise is still finding its legs. It really is more of a personal thing for me; I prefer when creators allow their own vision to affect an adaptation so that I can see how they perceive and interpret the work, but at the same time the first two Harry Potter books are all about setting up and the main plot doesn’t really kick off until the third and fourth books, so… I guess everything balances out?

It is a bit odd looking back at these first two films and noting how relatively self-contained they are compared to the denser films that were to come; you could much more easily jump into either one of these films and really get what’s going on compared to later movies, where you would almost definitely be lost if you tried to leap in without an inkling of the plot. But that is something I do like, since the first two films have really strong plots that focus more on the magical worldbuilding and developing the characters, setting up an incredibly strong foundation for the series to come. There are a few trims of the plot here and there, but it’s not nearly as major as some things that would end up cut later.

But, really, what’s there to cut? Like I said, these movies are more about the worldbuilding and setting up for later plotlines. They’re relatively simple stories here, and I think that’s kind of their big strengths, because it lets the characters and world shine through. The first film honestly is just Harry experiencing the wizarding world for the first time, with him going from scene to scene and just taking in all of the magical sights. Most of the big plot stuff really happens towards the end, when they make the journey down to the Philosopher’s Stone. The second movie is where things get a lot more plot-heavy, with the film focusing on the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets and all of the troubles that the basilisk within causes. Despite how grim the stories can get, especially the second one, these films never really lose that whimsical, adventurous tone, which is incredibly impressive all things considered.

It’s not really criticisms, but there are a few things that make me a bit sad didn’t happen in the first couple of films, or at the very least offer up some interesting “what could have been” scenarios. I think the most notable missed opportunity is the decision to axe Peeves, despite him being planned and having Rik Mayall film scenes with him only to have said scenes left on the cutting room floor, never to see the light of day; Mayall had some rather colorful words to say about the film after it came out. Sean Connery passing up on playing Dumbledore is another missed opportunity, but Connery has always been awful at picking roles and hates fantasy, so this isn’t shocking to me in the slightest. Terry Gilliam being straight-up told by Rowling she didn’t want him directing is another sad but necessary decision, as was Spielberg dropping out; neither guy would have been a very good fit for the franchise, honestly. Alan Cumming turning down the role of Lockhart because Grint and Watson were going to be paid more than him is a bit… lame, but also I don’t think he’d have been as good as Branagh in the role; as much as I love Cumming, Branagh has this grandiose stage actor hamminess that Lockhart desperately needs. There’s a lot of fascinating trivia facts I learned writing this review, and a lot of it paints some pretty weird pictures of how this franchise could have turned out in another world.

Chamber of Secrets and Sorcerer's Stone are both absolutely fantastic, whimsical fantasy movies, and I’d definitely recommend both of them to anyone who likes the fantasy genre. It’s a great jumping off point for younger people who may not be able to handle something as intense or heavy as, say, The Lord of the Rings making it a very useful gateway drug into fantasy, though it still manages to work perfectly as fun, engaging fantasy on its own. I’m personally more of a fan of the third and eighth movies but I can definitely hear arguments for either of these two being someone’s favorites or even the best in the franchise, because they invoke a lot of nostalgia and charm just thinking about them, good memories of seeing them with my family when I was a kid.

Some have come to view Chamber of Secrets less positively over the years, seeing it as an awkward transitional phase between the lighter, more whimsical adventures and the darker plot-driven ones, but honestly, Between the Columbus films, Chamber is definitely the superior one. It takes everything that was great about the first film and builds on it, and also gives us Lucius Malfoy, Dobby, Gilderoy Lockhart, and way better special effects and a more consistent narrative. The first film is still a classic, of course, but it’s almost episodic in nature and a lot more focused on showing Hogwarts to us than delivering a story. Still, it definitely has the plus of having way more Snape than the second film did, and there’s no arguments against that from me! Both films are very good at what they do, and both definitely deserve a watch.

[sasha-whos-askin-racket]

Things I Noticed In The Sign of Four Stage Show

Okay, so I saw this two days in a row (Thursday 16th and Friday 17th of May) and on the Thursday I sat on the balcony and on Friday I sat level with the stage. (I also met the cast but that’s another post for another day.) And obviously being sat in different places meant I was able to spot different things, so here’s a series of observations - some subtle; some not. 

ACT ONE - The first thing I noticed was that Joe had had a haircut. Like, I hadn’t seen him in three months but the second he stepped on stage the goblin in my head realised that he looked different because he’d had a haircut. Autism is weird, man. - Holmes says that the pocket watch belonged to Watson’s “eldest” brother rather than “elder” brother, implying this variant of Watson to be the youngest of at least three boys. - Whenever Holmes teased Watson, he ran off across the stage because he knew Watson wouldn’t be able to catch him. -  When Watson was getting upset about Mary, Holmes walked over to him and lay a hand on his chest to calm him. - Watson left his cane on the table and both he and Holmes reached for it at once. - Holmes was always getting sensory input from something. If it wasn’t visual or auditory then it was tactile. He had a number of tics/stims; bouncing his leg, tapping his thumb against his forefinger, twiddling his thumbs and rubbing his fingers together. Attention to character detail - superb. - The fight between Holmes and McMurdo where the actors moved in slo-mo when punching but at normal speed when dodging and circling each other? Mesmerising. - Athelney-Jones and Constable Matthews’s interactions? Loved them so much. - Watson was walking around the room looking for clues, but as soon as Holmes started deducing Watson spun around and just watched him in enthralled silence. - Watson speaks both Persian and Hindi, which makes sense since he was in Afghanistan. His Persian is noted to be better than his Hindi, but he can comfortably converse in both. - Holmes speaks French and German, because why not. Though the German was a Goethe quote, so whether or not he can actually speak fluent German is unsure.  - Being level with the stage basically put the character’s feet directly in my eye-line. Joe did not ever have both feet flat on the stage when standing up. Not even for a second. He was always leaning slightly more on his left leg so that the heel of his right wasn’t touching the floor, even when he didn’t have his cane at hand. Attention to character detail? Literally phenomenal. For both Watson and Holmes.

ACT TWO - By this point, practically every character had made a comment about Watson’s leg, including Holmes, who made such a casually cruel comment that I actually wanted to climb onto the stage and slap him, but there we go. The final comment made is by good old Sherman, who asks if Watson would be able to keep up with Toby “on that leg of yours”. Watson’s response was to look so aggravated that apparently having a bad leg was his defining character trait, but eventually concede.  - Literally the entire scene at Sherman’s was comedy gold. The viper in the bag? Watson’s nervous stammering reaction to it? Watson telling Holmes that Sherman keeps a viper in a bag? Holmes’s response to discovering Sherman kept a viper in a bag? Amazing. -  Mary yelling up to Sherman that she could speak for herself and didn’t need Watson to do it for her? Poetic. - Literally Mary being a 100% independent bad-ass? Perfection. - Holmes said he helped someone out with “a mere trifle” and Watson said “you made him a trifle?” and Holmes looked at Watson like, completely unamused, and Watson was grinning because he was so proud of his joke, and Holmes shook his head but as he faced the audience he was smiling and he said “very droll” in a bored voice but you could tell Sherlock was just trying not to act like Watson had made him laugh. - Holmes’s calm facade dropping for a moment when he found out that Mrs Smith had twelve children. “Twelve?! Bless my soul!” - Sleepy Watson is adorable. - When Holmes went to play the violin for Watson, dust clouds came from the violin bow when he shook it because he’s not very good and clearly hasn’t played in a while. - After scraping the violin bow across the strings and creating the most horrific of noises for about twenty seconds, Holmes moved forward to the lip of the stage so he was looking out over us, cocked his head and gave the audience the most shit-eating grin I’ve ever seen before twirling on his heel like a dramatic gay and sauntering off. - Mary singing a lullaby over Watson talking about how much he loves her is still an amazing choice, particularly because in the scene before she mentions to him how she usually sings a lullaby to the children she looks after. (The lullaby appears to be a slightly edited version of Dance a Baby Diddy.) - Holmes giving Watson his cane back after the boat scene still makes me want to cry even though it’s just a small moment. - Holmes’s sad little pause after “I shall never marry” where you can just feel how much he wants Watson to stay with him. - When Holmes tells Watson that Mary has gained something infinitely more precious than treasure in his love, they have a moment where their eyes meet and its such a heavy moment.  - Watson banging his stick against the stage to the timing of the trombone slides in the closing piece of music is cinematic perfection.

THE ENTIRE SHOW WAS AMAZING. BEST THREE HOURS OF MY LIFE. GO AND SEE IT IF ITS SHOWING NEAR YOU IN THE UK. THE RUN ENDS IN THREE WEEKS. YOU WONT REGRET IT.  IM GOING TO SEE IT FOR A FOURTH TIME ON TUESDAY SO I’LL REBLOG THIS WITH MORE STUFF I NOTICE.

[miz-joelys-sherlollilists]

Hey there! A million thanks for finding my fic earlier (godparents)!! I saw on AO3 that AU prompts are accepted, so here I am dropping a little plot bunny. Basically sibling related AUs will do, e.g. on alouettesque's list: “Oh so you’re the camp counselor my little sibling keeps talking about”, "Our little siblings are on rival sports teams and I’ve made it my life goal to cheer louder than you". Cheers!

Going with the first prompt, sorry it’s taken me so long. Enjoy this uni!lock (aged) Sherlolly ficlet.

Counselor Trap

“Oh, so you’re the one!” Molly blurted out without meaning to, then turned beet red in mortification. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that, it wasn’t an insult, I just wasn’t expecting, that is to say…you really are cu–uh, currently…here. At camp. And not…somewhere else,” she finished lamely.

The Really Cute Counselor her younger sister Tabitha “Toby” Hooper had been gushing over all summer simply lifted an eyebrow as Molly floundered and eventually clamped her lips shut. After the silence had stretched out for almost ten excruciating seconds he finally spoke. “You must be Molly Hooper, the older sister Toby’s always gushing about. The smart, sophisticated college student who has her act together and knows what she wants to do with her life already and is way too good for the likes of you, Curly Fu,” he said in a more-than-passable imitation of Toby’s speech patterns when she was on a tear.

“She, um, didn’t tell me you knew the nickname she’d given you,” Molly said weakly. “She heard that the Chinese press had given that nickname to some actor and she insisted it fit you better but I just assumed she’d actually kept that to herself.” Shut up, Molly, she advised herself. Stop making yourself look like an even bigger idiot than you already have. Why do gorgeous men always make you feel so awkward?

Instead of laughing at her or making one of the staggeringly accurate deductions Toby insisted he did all the time, even when Mrs. Hudson and Head Counselor Lestrade tell him to knock it off, he smiled. Not a mean smile and not a cold, fake smile (Toby said he could do those too…come to think of it, Toby said a LOT about Counselor Curly Fu, now that Molly thought about it)…she completely lost her train of thought at that smile, reaching out dazedly to take the hand he extended. “Sherlock Holmes, although I suppose you can call me Curly Fu if you’d like. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable, it’s just that…well, Toby’s talked you up quite a bit and I was expecting someone a bit more intimidating, to be honest.”

“Um, well, she also talked you up quite a bit and I thought you would be, too. More intimidating. I mean, well, you are, actually, a bit, but not because you’re…it’s just that you’re really gorgeous and fit and I have never ever in my life been able to talk to gorgeous, fit blokes and oh lord just bury me now,” she groaned, trying to take her hand back so she could cover her face. Which was currently hot enough to bake an excellent Christmas pudding on.

“Good,” Sherlock said, not letting go of her hand. “Because I’ve always been rubbish at talking to girls - women now, I suppose since I can actually talk to girls or I’d be the worst camp counselor ever, if I could only talk to the boys.” 

There was a hint of pink in his cheeks, Molly noted when she dared to raise her eyes back to his face, and his speech had become almost as flustered as his own. That gave her the confidence to meet his smile with one of her own. “Maybe we should start over?” she suggested tentatively.

His grip on her hand tightened before he pulled it away. “Excellent idea.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “Hi, I’m Sherlock Holmes, one of the counselors here at Camp Sherwood. You must be Molly Hooper, Toby’s sister. Very pleased to meet you.” He held out his hand again.

She smiled and shook it firmly. “Hi, yes, I’m Molly. So lovely to finally meet you. Sorry our parents couldn’t be here but they’re actually at a country line dancing festival in the US right now - Georgia, I think.”

“The Hotlanta Line Dance Jam*?” Sherlock asked.

Molly stared at him. “Um, yeah, how did you…”

“My parents love country line dancing, they practically live in the US,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “I, er, guess Toby wasn’t kidding when she said we’d have a lot in common.”

“You know it, Counselor Curly Fu!”

She and Sherock both turned at the sound of Toby’s smug voice. The twelve-year-old who was a miniature version of her nineteen-year-old sister was grinning widely. “Hi Molly!” She hugged her sister tightly and was hugged just as tightly in return. Sherlock started to move away to give them some privacy, but Toby quickly grabbed his wrist. “I have to go to archery practice, you have to show Molly around and then we can get lunch and you can tell her how awesome I am at everything, ‘kay? Laters!”

With that she darted off to join a group of other kids, grabbing up a quiver of arrows and a bow on her way.

Molly and Sherlock both stared after the diminutive Hurricane Hooper, then turned back to face one another. “Sooo…care for a tour?” Sherlock asked, crooking his arm as if they were at a Victorian ball.

“Delighted,” Molly replied, resting her hand lightly on his elbow. “And while you point out the sights, feel free to share your opinion on cowboy boots.”

“Hate ‘em,” he replied promptly. “And the hats too. Did your parents make you wear them for family photos?”

Molly shuddered. “No, thank God, but don’t get me started on the fringed vests…and the chaps, dear GOD the horror of the chaps!”

                                                         oOo

“Told you they’d be perfect for each other,” Toby said smugly to her best friend at camp.

Rosie Watson grinned. “Now we just have to find someone for Head Counselor Lestrade, and the summer will be perfect!”

Giggling, the two pre-teens hoisted their quivers of arrows onto their shoulders and hurried to join the rest of the group.

After all, they needed to maintain their reputation as Junior Cupids in more ways than one!

*Hotlanta Line Dance Jam 2017

[disappearingground]

Jenny Lewis Escapes the Void

Pitchfork March 21, 2019

After a turbulent childhood and two decades of brilliantly vulnerable songs, the L.A. idol has finally arrived at something like happiness.

By Jenn Pelly

Jenny Lewis and I are in her brown Volvo, idling outside her childhood home. On a Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, we are two blocks from Van Nuys Middle School, where Lewis once sang “Killing Me Softly” in a talent show and got suspended for flashing a peace sign in a class photo (it was mistaken for a gang symbol). We are walking distance from what used to be a Sam Goody record store on Van Nuys Boulevard, where Lewis once bought a life-changing tape of De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising, stoking her obsession with magnetic wordplay, as well as her first Bright Eyes CD, Fevers and Mirrors, which she quickly shared with the three men in her burgeoning indie band, Rilo Kiley, in the early 2000s.

We are not far from the bar where Lewis’ older sister, Leslie, sings in a cover band every Saturday, following in the tradition of their parents, who sang covers in a Las Vegas lounge act called Love’s Way in the 1970s. And that strip-mall pub is just across from the movie theater where Lewis and her mother once conspired to steal a cardboard cutout of Lewis’ 13-year-old self—a souvenir from when, as one of the busiest child actors of her generation, she starred alongside Fred Savage in the 1989 video game flick The Wizard.

Lewis left the Valley alone when she was 16 and vowed to never go back. “That was my number one goal: just to get out,” she tells me now, at 43. But on the occasion of her fourth solo record, On the Line, I asked for a tour of her past life, and here we are—Lewis in a royal blue jumpsuit, with electric blue sneakers and eyeliner to match; me, staring up at the rainbow of buttons fastened to the sun visor of her passenger seat, a collage that includes Bob Dylan, a peace sign, and a hot-orange sad face.

From the driver’s seat, behind her oversized shades, Lewis mentions the Bob Marley blacklight poster that once hung in her Van Nuys bedroom, and I imagine the scores of teenage bedroom walls that have made space for her own iconic image through the years. Lewis’ catalog of cleverly morbid, storytelling songs with Rilo Kiley and the Watson Twins ushered a generation of young listeners through suburban ennui and personal becoming—like a wise older sister we could visit on our iPods, offering an example of how to do something smart and cool with your sadness and your solitude.

In the mid-2000s, Lewis was like an indie rock Joni Mitchell for the soul-bearing Livejournal era, or an emo Dylan, the poet laureate of AIM away messages. Words—some cryptic, some elegant, some brutally, achingly direct—burst from the edges of her diaristic songs, with a dash of Didion-esque deadpan for good measure. It’s no surprise that Lewis’ earliest bedroom recordings were just Casio beats and what she describes as “raps.” Lewis was the first feminine voice I ever encountered leading a band outside the mainstream, with a sound that initially befuddled my ears because it was, in that overwhelmingly male indie era, so rare: a woman’s plainspoken voice.

Cruising around L.A. together, my mind maps the California of her lyrics. What does it mean for the palm trees to “bow their heads”? What becomes of the cheating, California-bound man in Rilo Kiley’s filmic “Does He Love You”—the soulful rave-up where Lewis belted the heroic mantra, “I am flawed if I’m not free!”? But my most pressing question, the one I must ask Lewis: Is California still “a recipe for a black hole,” as she sang on 2001’s “Pictures of Success”? “I guess it’s all the void,” she tells me straight. “It’s not really geographical. That’s what you find out on your adventures. It doesn’t really matter where you go. You accompany yourself there.”

The main destination of our Van Nuys excursion is the small ranch home of Lewis’ youth—or rather, homes, as there are two, practically adjacent. It’s a little complicated, I learn, as are many things with Lewis’ upbringing.

Lewis was born in Vegas on Elvis Presley’s birthday. In 1976, her parents and sister were living out of suitcases on the road, playing Carpenters and Sonny and Cher songs at casinos like the Sands, the Mint, and the Tropicana. “My mom was so pregnant but she would not miss a show,” recalls Leslie, who was 8 at the time. “Jenny would be kicking her on stage, and I remember seeing my mom flinch. I think that was Jenny saying, ‘Let me out, I want to sing!’”

Soon after Lewis was born, her parents divorced, and her father, Eddie Gordon, left the family and continued his career as one of the world’s leading harmonica virtuosos. Lewis’ mother, Linda, moved back to her native Los Angeles, working three jobs to rebuild a life with her daughters. At 2-and-a-half years old, Lewis was discovered by the powerful Hollywood agent Iris Burton (a young Drew Barrymore and the Olsen Twins were among her clients) after the toddler spontaneously wandered over to her table in a restaurant.

When Lewis was 5, she was already supporting Leslie and their mom with her commercial and TV acting, and they bought their humble first home, the one we’re visiting. “But we always used to dream about the house on the corner,” Lewis says, slowly circling the block, “so then my mom bought that house, too.” It’s two doors down, looks pretty similar—why dream of it? “Because it was right there,” Lewis says, “and it was nicer than the one we had!” (A 1992 L.A. Times headline dubbed Lewis “A Teen-Age Actress With 3 Mortgages”—she owned a townhouse in North Hollywood by then as well—calling her “the youngest member of the United Homeowners Association.”) “I know it’s confusing,” Lewis says. “This is part of the simulation; this is craziness. Why did we also want that house?” She erupts into a cackle. “None of this makes any fucking sense.”

In life as in her songs, Lewis is a consummate storyteller, mindful of how tiny details make a great tale. In the car, for instance, she tells me about the time she played Lucille Ball’s granddaughter on the notoriously bad 1986 sitcom “Life With Lucy.” It was the last show Lucy ever starred in, and it was canceled before the first season even finished. The mood was blue, but a wrap party was still planned, and Lewis’ mother convinced Lucy to have the gathering at their little house in Van Nuys. “So Lucy rolled up with her two dogs,” Lewis remembers. “She walked in the front door, looked around, and said, ‘What a dump!’”

Lewis’ mother typically attracted fascinating characters to the house—like the producers of the TV special “Circus of the Stars,” who trained Lewis in trapeze; or “Fantasy Island” star Hervé Villechaize, who came over for a scammy “Pyramid Party”; or The Exorcist writer William Peter Blatty. One year on Halloween, at the recommendation of the family’s illusionist friend—who, according to Leslie, levitated Jenny in their house—her mother invited over Ghostbusters star Dan Aykroyd’s brother Peter, who was himself a real-life ghost buster. Peter planned to “check out the levels” of the house.

Intrigued by the Lewis’ paranormal investigation, the local news showed up. Back then, Lewis was hanging out with fellow child actors Sarah Gilbert, Toby Maguire, and Leonardo DiCaprio—who also came through to scope things out. Recalling the ghost-busting scene, Lewis says, “They came over and set up their vague, infrared equipment and they captured some sort of reading coming down the hallway and going into my childhood bedroom.”

I ask Lewis if the ghostbusters’ findings felt accurate. “Well, totally,” she says. “Something was going on. We always had weird vibes in the house. Very dark vibes.”

In person, Lewis’ temperament is one of constant cheer. She radiates positivity, takes bong rips in her kitchen, says “dope” and “vibe” often. This sunny disposition is occasionally punctuated by looks of deep, welling concern for others—as if she is on the brink of tears for humanity. Still, she calls herself a “total skeptic,” and tells me that show business trained her, early on, to master the art of getting along. “I didn’t ever wanna be one of the dicks on set—like in a family situation, where one person can really fuck up Thanksgiving,” she says, before veering into more existential territory. “We all know we’re careening towards the end of humanity. I just wanna do my work and hang out with my people.”

It’s only later, while sipping Modelos at the dining room table of her quaint ranch house in the hills of Studio City, that Lewis reveals the source of her childhood home’s “dark vibes” was her mother’s lifelong heroin addiction. “It is painful to go back there,” Lewis tells me. “I get a weird feeling. I don’t know if the ghostbusters could have detected it, but there was some kind of energy that was not conducive to survival. So when I left, I left.”

“My mom was an addict my entire life, and it was a fucking rollercoaster,” she continues. “It lent itself to some amazing situations, but it was manic as fuck, and there were drugs constantly. It’s a lifestyle, and it’s a community to grow up around. I feel grateful for having been witness to some pretty outrageous human behavior from a young age. Nothing really shocks me.”

Leslie attests to their complicated home environment, and recalls “stepping over people trying to find my books to go to school.” She became a mother figure to Jenny, taking her little sister to school on her bicycle and making sure she did her homework. Leslie was just a teenager when she put it together that their mother was pushing Jenny’s acting money into buying drugs and, ultimately, selling them. “It was a terrible realization for both Jenny and I to have,” Leslie says. “I give our mom a lot of credit for being resourceful prior to that. We probably wouldn’t be talking to you today if she hadn’t been so inventive and so diligent. But it escalated.”

When Jenny quit acting in her early 20s, Leslie wasn’t surprised. “I remember her finally having the burden lifted off her shoulders, that she didn’t need to support our mom anymore, and she didn’t need to be told what to do anymore—she was free,” Leslie says. “Her agents were calling me, asking ‘What the hell’s going on? We’re booking her in all this stuff.’ It was a big deal for her to walk away. But she had to do it. I think she didn’t want to be saying other people’s words anymore.” Leslie recalls the bubbly dialogue Lewis would have to recite on screen and adds, “That’s just not where she was at in her life.”

Focusing on her own words, Lewis arrived instead at death, disease, loneliness, deflated dreams. Rilo Kiley’s 2002 breakthrough The Execution of All Things opens with a hushed monologue from Lewis about the melting ground. On the title track, she sings genially of a will to “murder what matters to you most and move on to your neighbors and kids.” Disguised by twee album art, Rilo Kiley created an indie rock uncanny valley, a sweet-sung pop moroseness of Morrissey-like proportions.

The centerpiece of Execution is a gritted-teeth fight song called “A Better Son/Daughter.” It bursts from a music-box twinkle to a monumental marching-band wallop, from a depressed paralysis to refurbished self-worth, from “your mother […] calling you insane and high, swearing it’s different this time” to “not giving in to the cries and wails of the Valley below.” In the past, Lewis has rarely discussed how her own biography fits into her songs, but the sense of hard-earned triumph and conviction powering this particular song is unequivocal. When I ask what might have inspired its climax—“But the lows are so extreme/That the good seems fucking cheap”—she simply remarks, “I mean everything I say.”

In 2006, Lewis wrote the fablistic title ballad of her solo masterpiece, Rabbit Fur Coat, to convey the feeling of her story—a mother waitressing on welfare in the Valley, the promise of a working child, a fortune that fades—if not the concrete details, which, she says, don’t really matter. But the haunting “Rabbit Fur Coat” laid her mythology bare. “I became a hundred-thousand-dollar kid/When I was old enough to realize/Wiped the dust from my mother’s eyes,” Lewis sings, the last line quivering into a moment of piercing a capella. “Is all this for that rabbit fur coat?”

I ask Lewis where she thinks her optimism comes from, and she just says “survival.” This summarizes an equation of emotional resilience that more women than not are tasked with solving young. “Jenny has basically been on her own her entire life,” says her best friend, the musician Morgan Nagler. “She’s the definition of buoyant.”

It’s hard to imagine rock in 2019 without Lewis’ radical honesty, without her hyper-lyrical mix of the sweet and the sinister. “In the early 2000s, the really big indie artists were Bright Eyes and Death Cab for Cutie, and Jenny was one of the only women fronting that kind of music,” says Katie Crutchfield, aka Waxahatchee. “But in the next generation after that in indie music, there are so many women. How could she not have been a huge part of that?”

Crutchfield, now an indie figurehead in her own right, says no songwriter has directly influenced her more than Lewis. When she was still a 20-year-old punk living in Alabama, Crutchfield got the cover of The Execution of All Things tattooed prominently on her arm. Lewis’ odd, poppy, poetic songs had a musicality she hadn’t found in punk, but they still spoke to her as an outcast.

Seeing Rilo Kiley play for the first time—at a Birmingham venue she would go on to play herself—was a watershed moment. Crutchfield and her two sisters stood front row center, sang every word, and cried. “It was so huge to see a woman on stage holding a guitar, being powerful but still very feminine,” Crutchfield says. “That was my first foray into seeing that as a possibility for myself.” She recalls the exact outfit Lewis wore that night: red leather skirt, knee socks, T-shirt tucked in, and “a belt that was like a ruler—something you would see on a teacher.”

When Eva Hendricks, singer of sugarrushing New York pop-rock band Charly Bliss, was still in high school, she would spend days writing Lewis’ lyrics in her notebooks over and over, becoming attuned to the virtues of unsparing openness in songwriting. “Listening to that music unlocked something I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to understand about myself,” says Hendricks, who also appreciated how Lewis never downplayed her femininity. She distinctly recalls going to a Lewis record signing around 2014’s The Voyager: “I waited in line and when it got to be my turn, the only thing I could think to say was, ‘I can’t believe that your voice is coming out of a real human being.’”

Harmony Tividad, of Girlpool, was 12 the first time she heard Rilo Kiley, and calls Execution’s “The Good That Won’t Come Out” one of her favorite songs of all time. “That song is more like a diary entry, and vulnerable in this way that feels like a secret,” Tividad says. The unvarnished album opener peaks with Lewis speak-singing, “You say I choose sadness, that it never once has chosen me/Maybe you’re right.”

“I was a really emotional, awkward young person and felt kind of socially trapped,” Tividad, now 23, reflects. “I was a freak. And that song is about exploring all of this stuff inside of yourself that you can’t really show people. It’s about isolation, which I have felt a lot. This music was a soundtrack to that recalibration of personhood. It was very integral in me developing a sense of self.”

Lewis has resided in the quiet show-biz neighborhood of Studio City—which she refers to as “Stud City”—for 11 years. She mentions that her current home is still, technically, located in the Valley, and shoots me a conspiratorial look: “Don’t tell anyone.” There are retro-looking landlines all around the house (cell service is poor), and eye-catching vintage Christmas bulbs strung in the kitchen window. The house was previously owned by the late Disney animator Art Stevens, who worked on Fantasia and Peter Pan. Standing amid dozens of plants in the little green room at the heart of her home, sipping a coconut La Croix, Lewis enthuses about Mort Garson’s obscure 1976 electronic record, called Mother Earth’s Plantasia. The whole place has an air of magic.

Its infrastructure has been unchanged for decades, which stuck out to a location scout for Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Charles Manson film, who knocked on the door one day and asked to take some photos. He did not return, but his business card is on Lewis’ refrigerator, alongside one from legendary songwriter Van Dyke Parks, and a Bob Dylan backstage pass. The fridge is mostly covered with hospital stickers from when Lewis was visiting her mom, who died of cancer in 2017, and inspired her new song “Little White Dove.”

The other big change in Lewis’ life was the dissolution of her 12-year relationship with singer-songwriter Jonathan Rice—after which, to shake up the energy of the house, Lewis’ friend and photographer Autumn de Wilde painted the walls of her bedroom a striking shade of rose. Directly outside the door is a life-size photo of her best friend Morgan, and the window of her bedroom, spanning the right wall, looks out to a built-in pool. The sill holds carefully arranged objects: ruby slippers, her passport, a candle, a plethora of sunglasses, and a violet notebook labeled “Lewis homework for On the Line.”

Talking with Lewis, the despairing elephant in the room is Ryan Adams, who played on the album. Two weeks before we meet, Adams was accused of sexual misconduct and emotional manipulation from musician Phoebe Bridgers, his ex-wife Mandy Moore, and others, including a woman who was allegedly 14 at the time, prompting a criminal investigation by the FBI. “The allegations are so serious and shocking and really fucked up, and I was so sad on so many levels when I heard,” Lewis tells me. “I hate that he’s on this album, but you can’t rewrite how things went. We started the record together two years ago, and he worked on it—we were in the studio for five days. Then he pretty much bounced, and I had to finish the album by myself.”

“This is part of my lifelong catalog,” Lewis continues. “The album is an extension of that thing that started back at my mom’s house—I had to save myself and my music, and get away from the toxicity. Ultimately, it’s me and my songs. I began in my bedroom with a tape recorder, and it was like my own fantasy world. I’ve taken all these weird turns in my life—with mostly men, sometimes women—but I feel like I’m finally back to that place, which is autonomy.”

Though On the Line features an impressive array of players—Beck, Rolling Stones producer Don Was, Dylan drummer Jim Keltner, literally Ringo Starr—the album marks the first time Lewis has penned an album of songs solo, without co-writers, since Rabbit Fur Coat. “I’m not fully myself when I’m co-writing,” Lewis admits, describing a directness to the songs she’s penned with men, like Rilo Kiley’s “Portions for Foxes,” as opposed to songs she’s written alone, like “Silver Lining.” “With the songs I’ve co-written, it’s almost as if there’s a trimming of the emotional, rambling, poetic hysteria, which is where I live when I’m writing by myself,” Lewis says. “I don’t think of songs structurally. It’s a feeling, and I’m chasing the feeling.”

The cover of On the Line is a close-up of Lewis’ chest in an ornate blue gown. She chose the snapshot intuitively, from a pile of Polaroids taken by de Wilde, and only later recognized it as a deep homage to her mom, who once dressed similarly in Vegas and had an identical mole between her breasts. “Over the years I’ve become more comfortable in my skin,” Lewis says. “It’s funny to feel good in your skin when it’s not quite as tight as it used to be.”

With her voice sounding more refined than ever, On the Line finds Lewis singing about getting head in a black Corvette, feeling “wicked,” and—on the devastatingly delicate “Taffy”—sending nudes to a lover she knows will leave. “There’s a lot of fantasy in my songs,” Lewis tells me. “Sadly, I don’t get that much action. I should have gotten more.” She says she has always written about sex as “character projection,” but when she did so on Rilo Kiley’s final album, 2007’s Under the Black Light, it polarized fans. Lewis recalls one journalist who made a flow chart claiming to correlate the declining quality of the band’s music and the shrinking size of her hot pants. “It was so puritanical,” she says. But as the borders between the underground, mainstream, and genre have broken down, the artists who Lewis inspired are continuing to make space for more expansive expressions of sexuality.

The new record’s sound is warm and sleek, and when Lewis says she listened primarily to Kanye’s recent work while mixing it, I recall yet another wacky tale she shared with me at her house: Once, circa 2008, Lewis chanced upon Kanye at an airport. He played her a cut from 808s and Heartbreaks, and she played him her sprawling psych-rock triptych “The Next Messiah.”

Listening to On the Line, I find myself fixated on “Wasted Youth,” which uses a jaunty piano arrangement to deliver its neatly bleak refrain: “I wasted my youth on a poppy.” Lewis then slyly draws a line from the drugs to our numbing daily realities. When she sings, “Everybody knows we’re in trouble/Doo doo doo doo doo/Candy Crush,” I can feel my phone festering in my palm.

“I feel like that song is more about Candy Crush than heroin, if that’s even fucking possible,” Lewis says. “That’s the fuckin’ end: Candy Crush. It’s terrifying. I feel like my brain has been taken over by one of those weird fungi that grow out of the head of an ant in the rainforest. It’s like we’re spracked out on our Instagrams. It makes me feel like shit even talking about it.”

By the bridge, however, Lewis offers a blunt jolt of hope: “We’re all here, then we’re gone/Do something while your heart is thumping!” That’s a surprisingly heartening sentiment from a songwriter who has referred to herself as “a walking corpse,” who once made a springy emo anthem entitled “Jenny, You’re Barely Alive.”

“I’m in my 40s and something has shifted,” she says, when I ask what she does these days to help herself through. “Maybe you’re more aware of your own mortality, and have the balls to walk away from things, and be untethered, and do the reflection and the hard work—getting your ass out of bed and walking a couple miles, going to the gym, talking to a therapist.”

Lewis says her relationships with her female friends have deepened profoundly in recent years. “Maybe this is what we’re picking up on: the collective consciousness,” she says. “Women are talking to one another more. Reaching out to my girlfriends has helped me through these lessons that keep coming up. It’s the same lesson, where I’m like, ‘How am I in this situation with this fucking person that’s crazy… again? Why am I here and why have I stayed this long?’ And then my girlfriends are there to go: ‘Get the fuck out of there!’” (She is clear that this is not about her relationship with Rice, but rather about other romantic and working partnerships.)

I tell Lewis that these get-me-out predicaments remind me of her own song, “Godspeed,” from 2008’s Acid Tongue, which I had been revisiting quite a bit lately—a golden-hour piano ballad from one woman to another, a paean to “keep the lighthouse in sight,” to get “up and out of his house,” because “no man should treat you like he do.” “I wrote that for my friend,” Lewis says. “But maybe I wrote it for myself now.”

By the end of my time at Lewis’ house, the sun has set and we’re sitting in near total darkness, save for the neon pink glow of one of her many landlines. “You have to make a choice to be happy, or try to be,” Lewis insists. “Sometimes that involves moving away from people that you love, or that hurt you, or that are toxic. You have to find your bliss in life, right?”

I almost can’t believe that the same woman who provided me with my personal millennial-burnout anthems is asking me about unfettered joy—the artist who wrote the lyrics “I do this thing where I think I’m real sick, but I won’t go to the doctor to find out about it” and “I’m a modern girl but I fold in half so easily when I put myself in the picture of success” and “It must be nice to finish when you’re dead.” But I nod; it’s true.

[yilinglaozuhot]

Things I liked in Sherlock S4

I know a lot of people did/does the same list but I have to write my own because I want to appreciate this show that has been a part of my life for over three years. I never loved any show this much like Sherlock though I’m pretty much addicted to watching tv shows. It taught me many things and I gained friendships through it, and I’ll be always thankful for the laughter, thrill and tears and many more that Sherlock gave me. I’m being positive here which is a hard thing for me so appreciate it a little, okay?

In general

The Soundtrack: it was perfect, as always.

The fandom: I love all these crazy, creative people who tried to make sense in these senseless times. The fan arts, the fan fictions, the theories, the edits, everything...

SHERMIT!!! it was hell of a ride and I’ll always ship Sherlock and Kermit the frog.

The live tweeting event: which gave us Shermit. I couldn’t participate because of my exams but it was such fun as I read about it.

The promoting: hell yeah, it was freaking awesome!

Something’s fucky *puts on a tiny tinfoil hat*

The crack videos: people, you are nuts!!! Nuts, but fucking awesome nuts.

The behind-the-scene pictures of tiny Sherlock aka Tom Stroughton. Thank you, @richstoughton for sharing these adorable pictures, they never fail to make me smile.

I’m thankful to all the actors and actresses because they did a fantastic job to bring the series to life.

The Six Thatchers

Benedict’s voice-over... God, his voice...

Toby, the dog: it was adorable how all the characters reacted to this doggo, especially Sherlock. He’s such a dog person that my heart melts.

The Gang: I loved watching the interactions between John, Sherlock and Mary. They were working great when they were clueing for looks together.

Sherlock and his gignernuts *coughs*

Balloonlock

We had to learn more about Mary. I like Mary’s character because she’s shady af no matter what others say about her.

The aquarium and the sharks and the jellyish. I love jellyfish.

The reference to The Lion’s Mane when we are at jellyfish.

The scene where Mary gives birth to Rosie. I loved how freaked out every one of them were. I’m looking at you, Dr. John Watson, veteran army doctor.

Rosie as the Devil AND the Anti-Christ.

“If you want to keep the rattle, do not throw the rattle.” *Rosie throws the rattle into Sherlock’s face*

The Lying Detective

The Cinematography Heaven. I drool over the whole bag deduction, window deduction and “Anyone” deduction anytime I think about them. They were such pleasure to my eyes...

BAMF Mrs Hudson!!!4!!4! I think we can all agree on that.

Sherlock’s finger guns

Sherlock quoting Shakespeare while he’s out of his mind on drugs. It was the highlight of the episode for me as a fellow Shakespeare fan. Just give Benedict all the awards, please.

“Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.” monologue: it touched a string in my heart.

THE HUG: I cried a little, okay?

All of the “a cuppa tea”

Molly Hooper: I just simply love her.

It was a very emotional episode in general.

Sherlock drinking from a vase then complaining that the water is filthy. No shit Sherlock.

Sherlock would talk with you all night if he thought you were suicidal.

Sherlock sending a message to the Big Brother after leaving Baker Street. Dat cheeky smile, tho...

The Final Problem

Adorable, tiny, skippy Sherlock: we all adore how cute he is.

Moriarty’s entrance *yelling I Want to Break Free*

“Hey, bro.”

Pirate Batman Sherlock and John as his Robin

Mrs Hudson listening to Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast while vacuuming. MRS H ROCKS!

The Redbeard revelation was hurtful but so good.

All the ridiculous plotholes which we can fill with laughter.

The tiny Sherlock and not-so-tiny Mycroft pictures on the walls.

Uncle Rudy filming the Holmes family at the beach: headcanon.

You can say whatever you want but tiny Eurus was also cute. On the outside.

Mycroft “Iceman” Holmes showing how much he cares about his family. It was hurtful to watch how he tried to make Sherlock shoot him instead of John.

Fairytale prince Sherlock running through the night

Mycroft’s umbrella revelation: so that’s why he always carries it with him.

John lamenting that he had 10 more minutes of the session after Eurus shot him with a tranquilizer

All the horror movie references were funny.

John in a shock blanket

Sherlock in a beanie

CANON PARENTLOCK!

It wasn’t all that bad, was it? :)

Thank you for reading it. I love this fandom and I will never leave it.

Feel free to add anything else YOU liked in S4!

[savetopnow]

2018-03-18 04 TV now

TV

Cord Cutters

Streaming DVR?

'AT&T TV' Trademark Hints At Another New Streaming Service

Dropping Spectrum for 30 days?

Do I even bother to consider downgrading from the $92/month plan with these rates?

4K over-the-air inches forward...

Netflix Best Of

[US] Nailed it (2018): Unexperienced bakers try to recreate amazing desserts in a hilarious competition.

[US] Wild Wild Country (2018): A controversial cult leader builds a utopian city in the Oregon desert, conflict with the locals escalates into a national scandal.

[US] Take Your Pills (2018): In America today, where competition is ceaseless from school to the workforce and everyone wants a performance edge, Adderall and other prescription stimulants are the defining drugs of this generation.

[US] Dirty Money (2018) - Canadian Star Wars?

Reddit Television

9 years ago, the world was introduced to Kenny Fucking Powers

ACS The Assasination of Gianni Versace.

This is how Finland did Wheel of Fortune back in the day

Today I finished 'Black Sails' and was kinda bummed to discover that Toby Stephens (Captain Flint) wasn't even nominated as an outstanding lead actor. I just want to echo his wonderful performance (short part from the finale)

Martin Freeman has f**king had it with fans wanting Sherlock and Watson to be lovers

TV & Jelly

The Bachelor Week 5: Glitter

The Bachelor Week 4: I’ll be that voice of reason and voice of reality

The Bachelor: Week 3 WHY AM I DOING THIS

The Bachelor Week 2: My Patience Has Been Trialed

The Bachelor Week 1: Salt and Pepper

TV Guide

Why Donald Trump Would Hate Netflix's Teen Dramedy On My Block

Why Do People Like TV Shows That Make Them Cry?

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Deke Is the Most Adorably Annoying Grandson Ever

Family Guy: Watch an Exclusive Clip From Stewie's Big Episode

Is Chicago Fire Staging a Major Death?

TV Is My Pacifier

Review for ABC’s For the People

Saturday on TV – 3/17/18

Is This Is Us an Antidote for Trump?

Friday on TV – 3/16/18

Thursday on TV – 3/15/18

TV Line

The Voice: The 10 Best Blind Auditions

Scandal Series Finale: 'Overwhelmed' Kerry Washington & Co. Share BTS Photos From Last Shooting Day

Ratings: Dynasty Hits the Elusive 0.1

Performer of the Week: Jessica Jones' Janet McTeer

S.H.I.E.L.D. Recap: Defying Gravity — Plus, Who Learned the 'Family' Secret?

The TV Addict

Daily Binge: Your Daily Dose of TV News You Need to Know (Friday March 16, 2018)

Showtime Announces PATRICK MELROSE Premiere Date

The CW Teasers: A Hungry God on SUPERNATURAL, Grodd Returns to LEGENDS OF TOMORROW and More

The CW Schedules Season Finales for April and May

Daily Binge: Your Daily Dose of TV News You Need to Know (Thursday March 15, 2018)

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #110 - The Great Mouse Detective

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: DVD

1) When it comes to Disney animated films, there are certain “ages” you can divide them up into. This film technically falls into what is known as The Bronze Age, the films released after The Jungle Book (after Walt Disney’s death) but before The Little Mermaid. In many ways though The Great Mouse Detective laid the groundwork for the Disney Renaissance (The Little Mermaid to Tarzan). It is one of the standout films of the Bronze Age, introduced us to the directing team behind many Renaissance classics (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules), and according to an article published by Oh My Disney, “it had great music, utter commitment to its concept, and a willingness to innovate technologically,” all of which are concepts which would define the Disney Renaissance.

2) There are some obvious parallels between this and Sherlock Holmes story, mainly that Basil of Baker Street (the titular great mouse detective) lives on 221 1/2 Baker Street under the famous Sherlock Holmes. When I was a little kid I thought Dr. Watson was named Dr. Dawson because this film’s Watson is named Dawson.

3) Olivia is a nice character.

She is wonderfully curious, chipper, intuitive, but without being annoying like so many child characters can be. She’s a nice character to enter this world with.

4) Basil of Baker Street.

Basil is the Sherlock Holmes equivalent of this story without being a carbon copy of the character. He has Holmes ego, distaste for other people, and obsessive nature. But because this is an animated film for families Basil is filled with an animated energy. He is expressive and passionate, qualities which are found in Holmes but not in such exuberance.

5) Our first meeting with Basil has him matching up a bullet he just fired from a gun with another bullet to see if they match. As a kid I had no idea what he was trying to do.

6)

Basil [after Olivia says her father is gone]: “Surely your mother must know where he is.”

Olivia: “I don’t have a mother.”

Without the text, this is Basil’s reaction:

And I feel like in his mind he’s just like, “Well, now I feel like an asshole.”

7) Basil has a framed portrait of his archenemy?

That seems very telling of him as a character.

8) Vincent Price as Ratigan.

Vincent Price brings SO much to Ratigan. According to IMDb:

Vincent Price realized a life-long dream with this film. He had always wanted to be the voice of a character in a Disney film.

During the recording of Vincent Price's lines, animators sketched his exaggerated Shakespearean gestures and worked them into the animated poses for Ratigan.

Vincent Price realized a life-long dream with this film. He had always wanted to be the voice of a character in a Disney film.

You can tell that Price is having a lot of fun with the role and that makes it fun for the audience to watch! He gets to sing two songs (something Price didn’t get to do) and Price’s best asset was always his voice and it is on full display in this film. Price’s work in this film makes Ratigan great and one of the Mouse House’s most underrated bad guys.

9) Let me get this straight: the plot of this film involves the bad guy...

Kidnapping a father away from his daughter...

To build something which will allow him power in the empire?

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

10) “World’s Greatest Criminal Mind”

This is a great bad guy song which tells you a lot about Ratigan. It tells you about how much of a bad guy he is, the things he’s done, as well as his ruthlessness and self loathing when it comes to being a rat. Also there’s a cameo in here from Alice in Wonderland!

Bill the Lizard has the privilege of showing up in two different Disney films separated by 35 years! Raises a lot of questions about the film’s continuity if you think too much about it (like I do) but still a lot of fun!

11) So Basil has help from a dog named Toby who lives in Sherlock Holmes’ home.

Toby is from the Holmes stories and is used sometimes by the detective, and most recently showed up in the season 4 premiere of the Cumberbatch led “Sherlock”. I thought it was just a random dog but it’s kinda cool to learn that he has a deeper connection to Holmes mythology.

12) While Basil shares the same name as the actor who played Holmes repeatedly in the 30s & 40s Basil Rathbone, we hear a little of Holmes actually speak in this film and while it is Rathbone it is NOT from one of those films. Instead, according to IMDb:

Sherlock Holmes speaks with the voice of Basil Rathbone. Although it is often erroneously claimed that the lines are taken from one of Rathbone's 1940s performances as Sherlock Holmes on film or radio, this is not true. The cameo is edited from Rathbone's reading of the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League" by Arthur Conan Doyle for Caedmon Records in 1966, just months before his death. This explains why Rathbone's voice sounds older and less crisp than in his famous films, and more importantly, why the voice of Rathbone's co-star Nigel Bruce was not used for Dr. Watson's brief cameo. According to the text of "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League", this would mean that the film takes place sometime in the autumn of 1890.

13) Dumbo cameo (sort of)!

14) I thought this line was awesome as a kid.

Fidget [after Olivia stomps his foot]: “Ah! My foot! My only foot!”

15) So Basil and Dawson go to this seedy sailor bar in search of Ratigan and as soon as he says they’re looking for him EVERYONE gasps. Then the waitress responds with, “Never heard of him.”

16) The “Let Me Be Good To You” song in the bar is weird.

The "Let Me Be Good To You" segment was almost cut because though brief, the lyrics and some animation was considered "too risqué" for a Disney animated family film, the animators avoided a PG rating and got the scene kept in by appealing to the censors on the grounds that the segment was a Caberet song and harmless in lyrics, and because the character animated singing it was a mouse, not a human and thus not questionable.

17) So Ratigan outsmarts Basil and traps him and Basil just is so defeated and beast himself up. I thought of something watching this I wanted to yell at every Sherlock Holmes character I’ve ever seen: “GET OVER YOURSELF!!!!!”

18) Ratigan leaves before Basil’s death trap is set off and I can’t help but think of this line from Emperor Palpatine in a recent “How It Should Have Ended” video.

Palpatine: “We look forward watching your demise. But unfortunately we won’t be able to see it. As standard villain practices go we must now conveniently leave the room and assume the killing device achieves its desired purpose.”

19) This line from Ratigan when it looks like he’s going to be the queen’s aid reminds me of a certain world leader who shall remain nameless.

Ratigan: “I have the power! I am supreme! This is MY kingdom!”

20) The best part of this film is the clock tower climax.

Many hand drawn animated films from the 2000s and late 90s are marked with mixing CGI and 2D animation, but The Great Mouse Detective is one of the first to do this. It is a callback to the iconic scenes from the Golden Age of Disney animation and sets a precedent for scenes like the Wildebeest Chase in The Lion King for the upcoming Renaissance. It’s memorable! Big, tense, fun! It has an incredible element of fantasy and imagination to it which is the hallmark of all great Disney animation. A great action climax to the film and just a joy to watch.

The Great Mouse Detective is a truly joyful treat from Disney animation, and one of their most underrated pre-Renaissance films. If you’re a fan of Disney, animation, Sherlock Holmes or even Vincent Price I think you’ll like this movie.

[placetobenation]

The Great Mouse Detective

Release Date: July 2nd, 1986

Inspiration: “Basil of Baker Street” by Eve Titus and Paul Galdone

Budget: $14 million

Domestic Gross: $38.7 million

Worldwide Gross: $50 million

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 79%

IMDB Score: 7.2/10

Storyline (per IMDB): In Victorian London, England, a little mouse girl’s toymaker father is abducted by a peglegged bat. She enlists the aid of Basil of Baker Street, the rodent world’s answer to Sherlock Holmes. The case expands as Basil uncovers the crime’s link to a plot against the Crown itself.

Pre-Watching Thoughts: We continue on through this journey as we get to a film that I can honestly say was perhaps one of, if not my favorite films of all times. I don’t know what it was about this film that drew me to it, but it always resonated with me and still ranks high as one of the those films I loved. This also would begin what many consider one of the greatest stretches in Disney film history though I think this film doesn’t completely get the credit for kicking that period off, and hopefully this film will still remain one of my favorites of all time.

Voice Cast: After a long stretch of films that featured a good mix of returning actors and newcomers, we have one of the first films in a long time where we only have a scattering of returning voices and the film is dominated by brand new voices. In that vein, we only have two returning voices as Candy Candido returns to voice Fidget the bat in what would be his final film appearance, and then we have Wayne Allwine who voices one of Ratigan’s thugs and that is literally all of the returning actors. Now moving onto the newcomers as we start with Barrie Ingham who voices Basil in what would be his lone animated appearance, and then we have the iconic Vincent Price who voices Professor Ratigan as he was reaching the twilight of his legendary career. Next, we have Val Bettin who voices Dr. Dawson as well as one of Ratigan’s thugs in a dual appearance, and speaking of dual appearance we then have Frank Welker who voices both Toby the dog and Felicia the cat in a unique performance. We then have Susanne Pollatschek who voices Olivia Flaversham in what would be her only film appearance, and then we have Alan Young who was best known at this time for voicing Scrooge McDuck and he provides the voice of Hiram Flaversham. Up next, we have Diana Chesney who voices Basil’s housekeeper Mrs. Judson and then we have Eve Brenner who voices Queen Mousetoria, and then we have Tony Anselmo and Walker Edmiston who voice two of Ratigan’s guards and then we have singer Melissa Manchester who voices the mouse singer in the bar. Finally in a cool moment, we have a recording of legendary actor basil Rathborne when he played Sherlock Holmes but because Nigel Bruce had passed away, we have Laurie Main voice Dr. Watson. We have seen a bit of a trend of bringing in big names to take part in these films and we will see if that trend continues or if they revert back to just having those best known as voice actors dominate the casting.

Hero/Prince: Once again, we have a pair of heroes to talk about here as we have the team of Basil of Baker Street and Dr. David Q. Dawson who are the mouse equivalents of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Dawson is first introduced to Basil when he agrees to take Olivia Flaversham to him to help her find her missing father, and they learn that he was kidnapped by Professor Ratigan who is Basil’s main rival. Olivia is then kidnapped by Ratigan’s henchman Fidget and he lays a trap for Basil and Dawson which they fall into, and Basil becomes disenfranchised by being kidnapped as Ratigan informs him of his plan to take control of the British Empire. With some help from Dawson, they manage to escape and foil Ratigan’s plan as Ratigan again takes Olivia and they chase him right into Big Ben, and Ratigan and Basil have a final battle with Ratigan being knocked off the clock and Basil manages to save himself. The duo are honored by the Queen and Dawson is offered a chance to be Basil’s partner which he accepts as they prepare to take on a brand new case. Obviously, those who are familiar with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson will recognize the same characteristics with Basil and Dawson, and the two deserve a spot amongst the other heroes in the Disney canon though I am yet unsure as to where they will rank against the rest of them.

Princess: N/A

Villain: Much like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are the human equivalents of Basil and Dawson, we also have to have someone to embody the spirit of the iconic Professor Moriarty and that is Professor Ratigan. He devises a plan to take over the kingdom from the Queen and kidnaps toymaker Hiram Flaversham to create a robot in the Queen’s likeness, and he has his henchman Fidget steal various items to use in his plan as well as kidnap Hiram’s daughter Olivia as collateral to make him finish the robot. Upon learning Basil is on his trail, he devises a trap for Basil and Dawson and puts them in an elaborate series of death traps before leaving for Buckingham Palace. He captures the Queen and implants the robot in its place as it declares him her new royal consult, but Basil escapes and his plan is foiled though he takes Olivia and escapes. Basil and Dawson chase him as they crash into Big Ben and Basil rescues Olivia, but Ratigan attacks him only for the bell to chime and Ratigan falls to his death though Basil manages to save himself. Ratigan is a classic example of a dashing and suave villain who exhibits this façade though he obviously has a sadistic side, and this is shown as he feeds one of his minions to his pet cat Felicia after he inadvertently call him a rat and he also throws Fidget to his death into the river. But like most villains, his overconfidence leads to his downfall and his real personality comes out as he in essence turns into a rabid rat during his battle with Basil only to then lead to his demise. Ratigan is one of those villains that you don’t think about at first when it comes to great villains in the Disney canon, but he is pretty memorable and it will be interesting comparing him to the more iconic villains. I also must mention Fidget who serves as Ratigan’s henchman and he captures Hiram as well as Olivia along with getting the necessary supplies, but he is nearly fed to Felicia after he lets slip to Ratigan that Basil is on the case. He remains by Ratigan’s side until the very end when he tells Ratigan they should throw Olivia off their ship to lighten the load, but Ratigan turns on him and throws him off the ship into the river. He won’t rank as high as Ratigan because he is just a henchman, but he was worth mentioning since he does play a pivotal role in Ratigan’s plan coming to fruition.

Other Characters: It’s funny because when you watch these films when you are a kid, it seems like there are more characters than there actually are and watching this film back, I realized that as most of the focus was on the main characters with a few other characters being featured. At the top of that list are the toymaker Hiram and his daughter Olivia as he is kidnapped by Ratigan to create his robot, and then Olivia is captured and used as bait to force Hiram to finish it only for Basil and Dawson to foil the plan and reunite Hiram and Olivia in the end. We then have Toby the hound dog that is technically owned by Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, but he is used by Basil and Dawson to find Fidget and then he scares Felicia away to save the Queen. Speaking of which, we then have Felicia the cat that is owned by Ratigan and he feeds his enemies to her though he sometimes sacrifices his allies to them, and they try to feed the Queen to her only for Toby to scare her away and she inadvertently jumps into the pen of the Royal Guard Dogs which supposedly leads to her death. We then have Mrs. Judson who is Basil’s housekeeper and she is at times frustrated with Basil’s experiments, and then we have the Queen of Mousedom who is kidnapped by Ratigan and replaced with his robot replacement though Basil and Dawson save her and she honors them as her way of thanking them. Finally, we have the numerous members of Ratigan’s gang who follow him with stout devotion at the fear of being fed to Felicia, and I guess you can also include the random crowds we see in the bar that Basil and Dawson go to as well as the crowd who appears at the Jubilee and turn on Ratigan. There were definitely not as many characters in this film as I seemed to remember, but that’s fine because those that were in here were important to the story and kept the film moving along.

Songs: So I didn’t mention this in the last review, but we did make history as the Black Cauldron was the first film in the Disney canon to not feature any songs at all and it clearly felt out of place though that film didn’t really need any songs in the end. After a brief respite, we go back to having songs in a film as this film features three songs with the first being the centerpiece song “The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind” that Ratigan and his cohorts sing, and it is a fun song that has some breaks in between including Ratigan feeding one of his goons to Felicia after he called him a rat by mistake and it shows Ratigan’s evil side behind his suave façade. Next we have the song “Let Me Be Good to You” sung by the little mouse in the seedy bar and it is a good song as even the rowdy patrons are entranced by the mouse and her beauty, and finally we have “Goodbye So Soon” that Ratigan records and plays to set up the mechanics that will lead to Basil’s death though it is more of a background song if anything. I thought these songs were just fine for this film and it was the perfect amount to be in this film, and it will be interesting to see as we get to the next wave how those films are treated more as musicals than just regular films.

Plot: As mentioned, these characters are basically just the mouse versions of the Sherlock Holmes stories and those are pretty well-known to everyone, but what I was not aware off was there was a series of children’s book about Basil of Baker Street which this film is based off of. In this story, Olivia Flaversham sees her father kidnapped by a bat and with the assistance of Dr. Dawson, they find Basil of Baker Street to ask for his help which he does after learning that the bat was an associate of Professor Ratigan. They track the bat named Fidget to a toy story where he steals various items and he also kidnaps Olivia, and Ratigan uses her as bait for her father to finish building a robot that he will use to take the Queen’s place so he can rule Mousedom. Basil and Dawson find Ratigan’s lair only for it to be revealed that Ratigan was waiting for them and he leaves them there to die, and he kidnaps the Queen and puts the robot in her place only for Basil and Dawson to escape and foil his plan. He escapes with Olivia and is chased by Basil, Dawson, and Hiram as they crash into Big Ben, and Basil manages to save Olivia only for Ratigan to assault him on the clockface only for the clock to go off and Ratigan falls to his death while Basil saves himself. Basil and Dawson are hailed as heroes by the Queen and Dawson becomes Basil’s partner as they are met by a young lady who needs their help. I wouldn’t be surprised if this same plot was used at some point in a Sherlock Holmes story even with the robot, but the story is a good one and could easily have been passed off as a Sherlock Holmes novel and/or movie.

Random Watching Thoughts: I feel like all these films set in London have to always open with a dreary-looking sky; Again, it’s worth mentioning by having voice actors appear in these films while also appearing in other shows, I wonder how many people hear Hiram talk and realized it was the same actor who plays Scrooge McDuck; I would like to know what happened to Fidget that he can’t fly well anymore and how he lost his leg; Once again, Disney is the true master of the jumpscare as the shot of Fidget coming through the window is legit terrifying; Why would Hiram reveal that he has a daughter to someone trying to kidnap him?; We go back to having the credits at the beginning of the film though it is not the full credits; So I looked it up and if Dawson was stationed in Afghanistan at this time, it was either due to the Tirah Campaign in Pakistan or he was there following the second Anglo-Afghan War which ended in 1880; I always wondered how it would be if humans were to stumble upon these hidden animal worlds where they live just like them; I don’t know if a boot is the best place for Olivia to be; I always wondered if that was actually Sherlock Holmes playing the violin; Dawson saying he doesn’t want to impose yet Olivia has no problem coming in even though Mrs. Judson did invite them in; Basil went so far as to create a machine that can smoke a pipe; Basil’s disguise does not appear to be in good taste watching this in 2020; Dawson didn’t even need to introduce himself as Basil knew all about him just by looking at him; He whispers that to Olivia thinking she would know what he is talking about; I can only imagine how much money Mrs. Judson must spend replacing all the pillows that Basil destroys; The constant theme of this film is Basil never being able to say Olivia’s last name properly; Basil was so close, but alas those bullets couldn’t be the exact same; Basil is completely indifferent to Olivia’s plight until she tells him what took her father and now she has his full attention; The portrait of Ratigan has him smiling in one scene, but then in the next scene he smiles to where we can see his teeth only for it to go back to normal in the next scene; He calls Ratigan the “Napoleon of Evil” which doesn’t make Napoleon sound good; You can tell that this is set in London because when we see the robot being tested, it is shown pouring a cup of tea; It is a bit weird that Ratigan would use a toymaker to make this sophisticated of a robot; Good on Hiram for sticking up for himself though it mattered very little when Ratigan said he was going to go after Olivia; It would’ve helped Fidget if Ratigan actually specified what type of tools to get; I’m surprised Ratigan’s cigarette didn’t burn out quicker given how many of his goons offered to light it; Ratigan’s gang has all mice and yet one lizard; That’s quite the haul that Ratigan has accumulated for himself; That one mouse was so happy when Ratigan started pouring the champagne into the fountain only to get kicked into the fountain; I love how they are able to sing so cheerfully about Ratigan drowning widows and orphans; Of all the instruments Ratigan is able to play, you wouldn’t think it would be the harp; He had a voodoo doll made of Basil but as we saw, it clearly doesn’t work; I feel so bad for the drunken goon as he clearly is not thinking straight when he said that, yet Ratigan feels it necessary to feed him to Felicia; A rat that doesn’t like being called a rat is a clear “pot calling the kettle black” situation; If anything, at least the goon was drunk and his death was in essence quick and painless; It is funny to think that while Ratigan and his goons were having their party that Olivia was telling Basil everything she knows; Olivia goes as far as to copy Basil’s movements as he spins this story around in his head; Jumpscare #2 by Fidget; Did Fidget not realize that Basil lived there and how stupid was he to leave his hat behind?; Olivia had no trouble pocketing all of those crumpets; Basil puts the violin on the chair after he prevented it from hitting the ground, yet he forgets about it when he sits down in the same chair and crushes it; He says that Olivia is not coming with them yet she ends up going with them; Great call to have a scene with Holmes and Watson; Toby is initially cold to Dawson yet he quickly falls in love with Olivia though her giving him a crumpet certainly helps her cause; Did Basil really have to growl along with Toby to get him fired up?; Considering we only see him get the uniforms, are we to assume he had the tools and gears in the bag as well since that didn’t seem like a big bag?; First he loses his hat, now Fidget loses the list; He wouldn’t sit for Basil yet he would for Olivia; Considering Olivia’s father is a toymaker, you’d think she would be more amazed being in this toy store; They are trying to be quiet and yet Olivia can’t help herself from playing one of the music boxes; Dawson reverts back to his army days by standing at attention and Olivia mimics him; How long did Fidget take removing those gears considering he had to be careful not to damage them?; Fidget’s way of causing a diversion is by setting off as many toys as possible; Pretty cool Easter egg of the toy Dumbo firing off the bubbles; Jumpscare #3 by Fidget; I hate to be the owner of that toy store when he comes in the next day and finds gears missing from the toys and the shattered remains of that doll; The obligatory “No Sale” on the cash register; That was quite a nasty fall that Basil took yet he’s lucky that he got tied up on that string; Poor Dawson, he feels so guilty losing Olivia; Basil does some deep thinking yet it is the discovery of the list that is their guide; Ratigan is so great here feigning that he is touched by the reunion of Hiram and Olivia; Ratigan is so proud of Fidget until he finds out Fidget lost the list and Basil was chasing him; I know Fidget screwed up, but feeding him to Felicia was pretty harsh though Ratigan did decide to spare him when he realized he could set a trap for Basil; It is amazing how much Basil was able to deduce from this list and through his convoluted experiment, being able to pinpoint where they could find the entrance to Ratigan’s lair; Of all the disguises they could use, they had to use pirate costumes; If that octopus really wanted to impress the crowd, he would use more than just two tentacles when juggling those balls; Dawson can’t help being a gentleman even when trying to keep up this façade; The piano player with some great foreshadowing because he knew the octopus was in trouble; That frog and lizard never stood a chance with this crowd; Leave it to a tiny female mouse to be the one that the crowd falls in love with; She went from being a singer to a showgirl; Considering Dawson wanted a sherry, he had no trouble chugging that beer even though it was drugged; Of course, Fidget would get his peg leg stuck in a hole in the floor; Can we really blame Dawson for getting on stage, after all he had been away in the army for so long and needed some loving; The obligatory sound of a bowling ball hitting the pins whenever there’s a big crash; The bartender of this bar must get so frustrated whenever fights break out because he loses his profits having to fix the place up; Fidget must’ve moved real fast to get back to the lair, take Olivia out of the bottle, put her clothes on, and get in the bottle himself to fool Basil and Dawson; Considering they had this big plan to prepare for, I’m amazed they had enough time to set up that banner and balloons for Basil’s arrival; The common trope is the villain claiming victory prematurely; Ratigan didn’t know how to kill Basil so he just threw together several methods including a mouse trap, gun, crossbow, axe, and an anvil; Another common trope of villains is them explaining their plan to the hero; I can only imagine what people would’ve thought seeing a cat carrying several mice on her back; Talk about random things, Ratigan goes to the trouble of having a camera set up as well; Basil is so resigned to his fate that he casually comments that the Queen and the Empire are in danger; The Queen should’ve known something was up when Fidget called her “sweetheart”; Even though it is for evil purposes, you do have to give Hiram credit for his work on the robot; How long has this song been playing?; Basil has completely given up on escaping until Dawson makes an offhand comment about setting the trap off now, and then his mind begins spinning and sure enough they manage to escape while also freeing Olivia from the bottle and getting their picture taken in time; Are you telling that not one of those in the audience believed something was amiss when the robot Queen came out and started shaking repeatedly?; Ratigan really spared no expense with that robe; Ratigan says he has a few slight suggestions as he unveils his list and it rolls right out the door; Why was Fidget having to carry the Queen by himself, couldn’t any of the other goons helped him?; Are we really to believe that Ratigan listed off 95 items in that short of time?; Basil really did a number on that robot; The Queen didn’t do a great job in tying Fidget up if he was able to escape that easily; Talk about bad luck for Felicia to narrowly avoid Toby only to land amongst the Royal Guard Dogs; Basil is finally able to say “Flaversham” properly when addressing Hiram; That’s quite the chase going on with Ratigan and Basil; Fidget tells Ratigan to lighten the load thinking he will get rid of Olivia, but instead Ratigan throws him overboard though honestly it didn’t matter since Fidget is so small; How fast was Ratigan going that they were able to break right through the glass of Big Ben?; That was as close as you can get with Basil saving Olivia from being crushed by the gears; This sequence of Ratigan running up the gears while going rabid is not only terrifying, but a great work of cinematography; Unless I’m mistaken, I don’t think Professor Moriarty ever went this rabid on Sherlock Holmes as Ratigan is going here on Basil; A fitting way for Ratigan to meet his end; That was a bit of luck there for Basil that he had the pedals to use to work the propeller; Basil still can’t pronounce Olivia’s last name correctly even though he did it for Hiram; Dawson was ready to walk away from everything until Basil pretty much declared him his associate to the lady that came to the door; I wonder when Dawson was narrating this since this film was in essence a flashback for him.

Overall Thoughts: Overall, this is a pretty fun film and still remains one of my all-time favorites though it is not quite up to the level of some of the other films in this canon. It is a vast improvement from the previous film and showed that the animation studio was still a very viable entity, and little did anyone know that this film would set the stage for what would go down in history as the Disney Renaissance. The 1980s have been a trying time for Disney as they saw an upheaval in their staff and the first films of the decade have not delivered as expected, but they now have to be feeling a bit more optimistic of the future though they still have a ways to go. As for this film, it is a solid film and while it may not be considered amongst the classics in the Disney canon, it is still a fun film and will always be one of my favorites.

Final Grade: 7.5/10

[njawaidofficial]

33 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About "This Is Us"

https://styleveryday.com/2018/02/05/33-facts-you-probably-didnt-know-about-this-is-us/

33 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About "This Is Us"

Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore first crossed paths when he was invited to the premiere of A Walk to Remember in 2002.

NBC / Nora Dominick / BuzzFeed

1) The series was originally titled 36. Creator Dan Fogelman changed it after pitching the project as a “show about us.”

2) Fogelman’s original script was for a feature-length film and focused on Jack and Rebecca having sextuplets.

3) The first trailer for This Is Us broke a Facebook record when it surpassed 50 million views within 11 days of its release.

4) In 2017, the series became the first network drama to be nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the Emmy Awards since 2011.

5) With his portrayal of Randall, Sterling K. Brown became the first African American actor to win both the Golden Globe and SAG Award for Outstanding Male Actor in a Drama Series.

Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

6) In 2018, the show became the first network drama to win Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series at the SAG Awards since Grey’s Anatomy won in 2006.

7) Milo Ventimiglia helped inspire the role of Jack. After his initial audition, Fogelman changed the original character concept to help fit Ventimiglia.

8) Mandy Moore and Ventimiglia have known of each other’s work for a while. Ventimiglia first crossed paths with Moore at the premiere of A Walk to Remember in 2002.

9) In college, Susan Kelechi Watson received a $5,000 scholarship from Denzel Washington to go study Shakespeare at the University of Oxford.

10) Before booking the role, Chrissy Metz worked at the casting agency that represents Hannah Zeile, who plays teenage Kate. Metz remembered seeing Zeile’s headshots in the office.

11) Logan Shroyer, who plays teenage Kevin, auditioned once and booked the role the next day.

NBC

12) Before starring as Toby, Chris Sullivan voiced Geico’s now iconic Hump Day camel.

13) Ron Cephas Jones’s real-life daughter, Jasmine Cephas Jones, was the original Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds in Hamilton.

14) The character of Kate is based on Fogelman’s sister Deborah, who also struggled with her weight growing up. She’s even a consultant on the series.

15) Ventimiglia said a lot of his inspiration for Jack comes from his own father.

16) Kelechi Watson actually gets to choose some of what Beth wears on screen. She also has a big say in her hairstyles.

17) It takes the makeup department three and a half hours to apply the prosthetic makeup that transforms Moore into the older version of Rebecca.

NBC

18) The first time Metz saw Moore as the older version of Rebecca she started crying.

19) Ventimiglia did 223 push-ups while they were filming the scene where young Randall (Lonnie Chavis) is on Jack’s back.

20) The scene in Season 2 in which the Pearsons visit Kevin in therapy/rehab was actually filmed at Justin Hartley’s real-life wedding venue.

21) That scene is the longest scene This Is Us has filmed so far. The finished product is roughly 13 minutes long.

22) Ventimiglia is responsible for getting Sylvester Stallone to guest-star on the show. He played Stallone’s son in Rocky Balboa and called in a favor.

NBC

23) In order to film Ron Howard’s guest appearance in Season 2, production briefly moved to London to accommodate his filming schedule of Solo: A Star Wars Story.

24) Ventimiglia has earned the nickname “Papa” on set.

25) Ventimiglia even studied the entire call sheet for the series so he could learn everyone’s names on the cast and crew. He shows up to set on days when he’s not working just to hang out.

26) The entire cast has several group messages so they can stay up to date on each other’s lives. They also love sending funny GIFs back and forth.

27) Metz, Hartley, Kelechi Watson, and Moore brought the actors who play young Kate, young Kevin, teenage Kevin, and young William as their plus-ones to the 2018 SAG Awards. They wanted to make sure everyone was able to attend.

28) The Chavelle car that Jack drives on the show is actually Ventimiglia’s personal car.

NBC

29) Fogelman had an idea of how Jack was going to die from the beginning. When delivering his initial script to NBC he told them where the show was going because it was important for them to understand the arc of the characters.

30) When they filmed the big fire scenes for the Season 2 premiere and the post-Super Bowl episode, they filmed for three nights, an hour and a half outside of L.A. They used a fake name for the series on signs so crew members could find the set but no fans would.

31) The cast has known about the fire and how Jack died for a year and a half now. The code word for talking about it amongst the cast was “The Marble.”

32) Metz barely had enough money to pay for gas to get her to the audition for Kate. When she officially booked the role, she only had 81 cents left in her bank account.

33) And finally, Metz has an email from Fogelman’s producing partner framed on her wall at home. It reads, “Just curious, who got [the part of] Kate?” It stands as a reminder of a moment that changed her life dramatically.

[ubahchidiebere]

Robert Powell since he played the character, Jesus, in the 1977 movie, Jesus of Nazareth has had his photos hung in churches, homes, cars, schools, offices and many holy places all over the world to drive off evil forces and attract good fortunes.However, Powell has cried out in the social media that he is not Jesus and that people should stop worshiping him. Rather, they should respect the true Jesus and worship God.In his words: “I never cease to say and I repeat it to the world since 1977. I am not Jesus Christ, I am just an actor and British comedian. I am tired of seeing my photos displayed in places of worship and other places for worship. I just make a film for a living. Burn my picture and worship the only God intruth ! I am just an actor… Jesus is Lord!”Another actor who played Jesus is Jim Caviezel. According to clipd.com, “Jim is arguably one of the most famous portrayals of Jesus in acting history. He played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion Of The Christ,’ which is the greatest selling Christian movie of all time. Jim won one award for his portrayal as Jesus, and several other nominations.” He too may soon beg people to stop worshipping him like Powell.

  Here Powell’s profile as published by Wikipedia:“Robert Powell (born 1 June 1944) is an English television and film actor, best known for the title role in Jesus of Nazareth (1977) and as the fictional secret agent Richard Hannay. He is also known for his role as Mark Williams in BBC One medical drama, Holby City, and as David Briggs in the sitcom The Detectives alongside Jasper Carrott.His distinctive voice has become well known in advertisements and documentaries, especially in World War II documentaries such as World War II in HD Colour, Hitler’s Bodyguard, The Story of the Third Reich and Secrets of World War II.Powell was born in Salford, Lancashire, the son of Kathleen (née Davis) and John Wilson Powell. Powell was educated at Manchester Grammar School (where one of his classmates was the actor Ben Kingsley), then a direct grant grammar school for boys in the city of Manchester in North West England, and later at the Royal College of Advanced Technology in Salford.Powell took up acting while an undergraduate. He had aspired to become a lawyer and in 1963-1964 attended an external London University LLB degree Course at theManchester College of Commerce but at the same time quietly took acting roles under Trevor Nunn. At the College of Commerce he swapped roles with Bernard Brandon in a week-long College Revue of Comedy Sketches to see which role gave him “the best laughs”. This early comedy experience was later to be fulfilled with Jasper Carrott. After this he secured a post at a repertory theatre in Stoke-on-Trent.His first film part was in Robbery when he played the driver of the driver who is coshed in the Stanley Baker film about the great train robbery. He had a small role in the original film version of The Italian Job (1969) playing one of the gang, but had to wait a few years for his first success, playing scientist Toby Wren in the BBC’s science fiction series, Doomwatch in 1970. Havingbeen killed off in the last episode ofthe original series, at his request, Powell became a pin-up and a household name, following up with starring roles in several BBC serials, including television adaptations of the novels Sentimental Education (1970) and Jude the Obscure (1971). He also appeared in the 1975 series Looking for Clancy, based on the Frederic Mullally novel Clancy.For several years Powell continued as a television regular, with occasional forays into film, as the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler in the Ken Russell biopic Mahler (1974) and Captain Walker in Russell’s film version of Tommy (1975). His role in Tommy had no lines at all and apart from a few early scenes during the overture with Ann-Margret, he is primarily seen through the mind of his son as played by Barry Winch (Young Tommy) and Roger Daltrey. In one of those scenes Captain Walker is shown in a crucifixion pose.He then played Jesus Christ in Jesus of Nazareth (1977) followinga successful second audition with Franco Zeffirelli. The two-part television film had an all-star cast, including Laurence Olivier, Ernest Borgnine and Stacey Keach, Christopher Plummer, Rod Steiger and James Mason. For this role, Powell was nominated for a BAFTAaward, and collected the TVTimes Best Actor award for the same performance.In 1975, Powell married his girlfriend, the Pan’s People dancer Babs Lord, shortly before he was due to start filming for Jesus of Nazareth on location in Morocco. On 23 November 1977, they had their son, Barney, followed in 1979 by a daughter, Kate.In 1978, Powell took the leading role of Richard Hannay in the third film version of The Thirty Nine Steps. It met with modest success, and critics compared Powell’s portrayal of John Buchan’s character favourably with his predecessors. His characterisation proved to be enduring, as almost ten years later a television series entitled simply Hannay appeared with Powell back in the role, (although the Buchan short stories on which the series was based were set in an earlier period than The Thirty-Nine Steps). Hannay ran for two seasons.In 1980, Powell appeared in the filmHarlequin, playing the Harlequin of the title who seems to have the power to cure the son of a powerfulpolitician. For this performance, he won the Best Actor Award at the Paris Film Festival. In 1982, he wonBest Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his role in Imperativ.Powell then agreed to a request from his old friend and golf partner,comedian Jasper Carrott, taking thepart of an incompetent detective in a succession of sketches that formed part of Carrott’s television series. The Detectives was so popular that it was turned into a sitcom, Powell’s first and only venture into this genre.In 1984, Powell made his U.S. film debut in What Waits Below (as known as Secrets of the Phantom Caverns).In 1986, Powell narrated and co-starred in William C. Faure’s popular miniseries Shaka Zulu, withfootball legend Henry Cele in the title role. In 1992, he starred in the New Zealand World War I film Chunuk Bair, as Sgt Maj Frank Smith. In 1993-1995, he was the voice actor of Dr Livesey in The Legends of Treasure Island.Nowadays Powell appears in person less often, but his distinctive voice is frequently heardon voice-overs, advertisements andas a narrator of television programmes such as Great Crimes and Trials and The Century of Warfare and World War II in HD Colour. He read the novel Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez for BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime, and has also narrated many audio books including The Thirty Nine Steps, abridged versions of many of Alan Garner’s books, and several abridged novels for ‘The Talking Classics Collection’. Powell has also lent his voice to musical works, such as David Bedford’s album The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,[4] or the 2002 rock opera The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman, where he played the role of John Watson. He also narrated on two rock albums by Rick Wakeman called Cost of Living and The Gospels (1987).On 29 October 2001, a state-of-the-art theatre named after him was opened at the University of Salford.[5] He became a patron of 24:7 Theatre Festival in 2004, and continues to operate in this capacity as of 2014. In early 2005 he became a regular in the UK TV medical drama, Holby City, where he remained for six years before departing to return to theatre.[6] On 9 February 2008, he performed as narrator in Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf with the Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra with conductor Natalia Luis-Bassa in theNorth of England.[7] He currently has a regular spot narrating literary passages on BBC4’s The Book Quizand will appear in Aladdin at the Malvern Theatre this winter .On 20 December 2014, he took on the role of “Ebenezer Scrooge” in Neil Brand’s BBC Radio 4 adaptation of A Christmas Carol.”Other actors who have played Jesus in movies are:Jeffrey Hunter, Max von Sydow, Jeremy Sisto, Chris Sarandon, Claude Heater, Henry Byron Warner,Christian Charles Philip Bale, Willem Dafoe, John Rubinstein, Brian Deacon and Cameron Mitchell.

“STOP WORSHIPPING ME AS JESUS”-ROBERT POWELL Robert Powell since he played the character, Jesus, in the 1977 movie, Jesus of Nazareth has had his photos hung in churches, homes, cars, schools, offices and many holy places all over the world to drive off evil forces and attract good fortunes.However, Powell has cried out in the social media that he is not Jesus and that people should stop worshiping him.