#also thought it started falling apart & getting weak about midway through the second act but. nobody cares about my personal opinion on tha

[martyrbat]

i think its kinda funny how gone girl became such a book for the white 'girl interrupted/female rage' blogs when they ignore that the basis of the novel is based on a rich white woman being able to cry and manipulate the masses due to her position of privilege and sense of entitlement

[btsinspirationtakesme]

Prompt: “My dick feels like it’s about to fucking fall off, I haven’t fucked anyone because of you!” 

Description: Fuckboi! Jungkook series continues!

AN: I am taking prompts, they can be 1-2 lines and you can send me separate OC profiles too!

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

You thought Jeon Jungkook was successfully out of your life. A small part of you treasured how you had the best sex of your life with him, even though the experience for him was probably apart of some twisted little fantasy to get past on his fuck boy conquests of college. 

You were so wrong. 

“Did you drug me?” Jungkook asked from behind as you walked out of lit class and went to the nearest coffee vendor. 

This was the 10th question Jungkook had asked you in the past week about the quote ‘out of this world’ sex you had both had at the party. It was also the last straw. 

“You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?” You sighed.

“My dick feels like it’s about to fucking fall off, I haven’t fucked anyone because of you!” He hissed in your ear to get your attention. You saw the frustration laced on his face, anyone else would say he was looking at you with the gaze of a mad man in love…or lust. You looked at the way his lips slightly curved when he was angry a little too long before snapping out. 

“Why are you even telling me this? Don’t you have the college sorority sisters to help you out? Go tell them about your little problem!” You yelled, fire in your eyes as you were blinded by the thought of Jungkook’s raging, engorged member tucked away in his tight jeans. Your mouth watered.

Snap out of it, Y/N!

“You’re eyes are dilating, Y/N. I’m sure you could help me out.” He said softly in  your ear this time boring his eyes into yours. Shit, you were obvious.

“Two americano’s on the house. You two look great together.” The kind vendor that you had liked for the past three years said, but now she had just become your worst enemy. She placed two americano’s in front of you which Jungkook took with a bunny smile thanking the vendor. You swore your heart skipped a beat. 

“Thanks, Ajumma.” You smiled brightly before you shot a disinterested look to Jungkook as you started walking away from him by the coffee cart. He looked at you with awe before telling the vendor how cute you were. You felt red rise up your cheeks, he really loved riling you up. 

Later that night, you were nestled in with your housemates watching a movie. Thinking about Jungkook out of the blue had become a regular part of your life now, like when in the movie the protagonist fell into the arms of the super hero. You normally sneered at stuff like that, but you were suddenly reminded of Jungkook’s strong arms as they pounded into you…

It was that bad. 

You didn’t even have time to register the tense atmosphere around you, where all your housemates were looking at you. 

“Is it true, Y/N?” Maddy asked, a look of curiosity on her face. 

‘True what?” You asked, taking another handful of popcorn and stuffing your face as  your eyes still focused on the scree in front of you.

Maddy nudged Miranda. 

“I can’t deal with this tension.” Miranda sighed before bursting. “How long have you and Jungkook been together? I mean, not to be rude or anything but we kind of are your housemates, and it would be nice to find out from you since we’ve been living together for the past 3 years and Jungkook is kind of a big deal.” You stopped eating your popcorn midway through.

“What the- how did- no?!” You stuttered in astonishment looking at both of them.

“She’s lying.” Maddy said. 

“I’m not fucking dating Jeon Jungkook!” You yelled. “Where are these rumours coming from?”

Maddy and Miranda looked at each other with confusion. 

“You don’t know?” They asked in union. 

“Tasha from Physics and I are partners for a project so we met up a few days ago. She’s in the sorority too and was telling me about how Jungkook’s been rejecting all of his usual fuck buddies lately because of you. Someone saw you two kissing at a party a few weeks ago before going into a room. He hasn’t gotten with anyone since. We all thought you two were probably a thing.” Maddy explained. 

“But that mean’s he’s so into you! This is Jungkook- fuck boy extraordinare who hasn’t fucked anyone because he’s so dick whipped for you!” Miranda said, lifting herself up on the couch.

“Are we still in high school? You guys I can’t deal with people talking about me!” You said, your heart beat rising in realisation that people were talking about you. You hated it, you could literally do anything as long as people weren’t talking about you. 

“So you two did get together?” Maddy confirmed. 

You nodded weakly. “I mean, he was really, really good and I can’t stop thinking about him but people are talking about me! Sorority girls too, you know how viscous they can get!” You said, internally hyperventilating. 

“Awh, babe I’m sure it’s not that bad. I mean he’s not use to girls like you so he probably needs to think a little before going back to his usual game.” Miranda came over and hugged you, but you were starting to get a headache as you thought more and more about how the hot topic of the sorority house- Jungkook was now involved with you. All you wanted to do was avoid that sort of crowd, but by sleeping with Jungkook who couldn’t fucking move on, you were on their hit list probably. 

‘I just don’t want to be talked about in the sorority, you know how it gets there?” You said, pushing your head in your hands. 

Your housemates tried to spend the rest of the night consoling you but it was no use. They knew you tried to keep yourself away from stuff like that. The next morning you rushed into class after spending a sleepless night debating whether to call Jungkook  and tell him that he needed to move on, since he did put his phone number into your mobile when you weren’t looking in class. You decided against it eventually, you didn’t have the energy too because the thought of his velvety voice on the phone would make your knees weak. 

“Y/N, right?” You had come back from asking the professor a question at the very end of the lecture when everyone had mostly gone, when a pretty girl you recognised from the sorority house asked. Shit. At least you were prepared now, thanks to your housemates who had coached you on how to act. 

“Stay away from Jungkook.” She hissed in your ear before grabbing your hand and squeezing your wrist with her sharply manicured hands a little too much that you nearly screamed. 

Your eyes widened as you realised the bitch had scratched you. Your mouth dropped because of all things, you didn’t know sorority sisters were that bad. 

“D- did you just scratch me?” 

“Jungkook doesn’t go with girls like you. He needs a girl that can keep his interest.” She glanced your body up and down and winked, before sauntering away without any sign of remorse. You sat back down in your chair in shock. Were you still in high school? This shit couldn’t happen at college, you didn’t work your ass off to get to a place like this and have girls scratch your wrist. 

You looked at bloodied scar. a straight red line. Your mouth dropped ever further. 

Taking your phone out, you debated on what to do. You knew you had to call someone, because you couldn’t just walk out of a lecture hall around campus with blood dripping from your wrist. Taehyung…Taehyung was a good option, but you thought about who caused this to happen in the first place. 

With little thought, you pressed Jungkook’s name. 

“Hello, Y/N. I hope you’re calling with some good news.” He answered cockily on the second ring. 

The words struggled to come out of your mouth and you realised calling him was a stupid idea. What would he do anyway? 

After a pause Jungkook spoke again. 

“Y/N? Are you okay?” His voice had morphed into worry now, sensing something was wrong since nothing came out of your usually cocky mouth. The worry in his voice, something that you never knew existed  made you even more tongue twisted. 

“Y/N? Speak to me. Where are you?” 

“Hey, do you know what class Y/N/L/ had?” You heard him ask someone close by, who answered he thought you might be in the same class as one of his other friends. He was right.

“Are you still there? Stay on the phone, I’m coming.” Jungkook said, and you heard him move around. 

“I’m in the next building, I’ll be there in like, 20 seconds.” Jungkook said, and you were even more confused now with the worry in his voice. He shouldn’t be worried. He should have just laughed and hung up. You expected him to laugh and hang up. 

“Y/N!” You saw Jungkook sprint into the empty lecture hall and up to you. He couldn’t understand the small feeling that started building inside him when he saw you sitting alone looking scared. 

Coming up to where you were sitting, he scanned your features before landing at the bloodied slit on your wrist. 

“Fuck.” He whispered, sitting down and taking your small wrist in his hands. 

“What happened here?” He asked softly, soothing your hand. His hand felt warm and inviting. It send shockwaves of pleasure down your spine.  

When your hand was warmed up from his soothing, you snapped out of your initial shock and took your hand away. 

“I’m so sorry Y/N. I should have known they’d do this.” He said, looking into your eyes with regret. 

“You knew?” You asked, horrified. 

“Not like how you think. Sorority girls are…kind of wild when it comes to guys they get obsessed with…this is their way of telling someone to back off.” He said, training his eyes on you wrist. 

“That’s completely fucked.” You said, even more horrified with this secretive little practice that existed. Even more fucked was that they could get obsessed with someone so much that when they rejected them, they decided to harm people as a threat. 

“Does it hurt a lot?” Jungkook asked even more softly, taking out a box of plasters from his back pocket. That surprised you. He took your wrist again. 

“Do you carry that around for all the girls that get scratched by lunatics because of you?” You asked sarcastically trying to take your mind off the pain of your wrist, not answering how much the scratch hurt because it was still pretty big and stinging. 

Jungkook ripped the wrapping off gently and placed the plaster on your cut, smoothing his fingers over the pink rectangle. 

“Only the pretty ones.” He smirked meeting your eyes. The corners of your mouth curved up involuntarily. 

A moment of silence washed over you both. 

“This shit won’t happen again, Y/N.” Jungkook said sincerely. These sororities were ancient and they had weird codes that he had subjected himself too by fucking nearly every girl in that group some way or another. Y/N had to bear the brunt of it now he had an issue with being unable to think about anyone else because of her. Jungkook knew it from the beginning when she was so different from the girls he usually went for, and he thought Y/N was just an flavour to get rid of. 

That clearly didn’t happen. 

“You kind of need to stop coming after me for that to happen.” You pointed out, grabbing your bag as you prepared to get up. 

“They’ll stop if they know we’re together. If they see you with me, they won’t think it’s just a rumour and they’ll leave you alone.” Jungkook said taking your hand in his and meeting your eyes with determination. He feel uncomfortable with the thought of you having to face those girls again because of him. Was it regret he was feeling? If he didn’t start this, you wouldn’t have to worry about some girls that didn’t grow up from high school. 

He fucked around himself, but he wouldn’t bash a guys head out for fucking someone he fucked every now and then. Well, if that person was you…Jungkook sighed. He couldn’t resist you, your flavour was becoming his favourite. That’s probably what it was. It couldn’t be anything else. You were cute, and very funny, and in your own world most of the time when he caught you ever since you screamed at him at your party- but Jungkook was probably, just really interested by you. Surely that was it. 

“You mean…like pretending?” You asked, wanting clarification. He had a point, everyone knew those girls could get wild when it came to a girl they didn’t want with their ‘idol’ guy. It was fucked up. 

“Depends what you mean by pretending. Pretend sex…could be arranged.“ Jungkook said, his eyes darkening as he pulled your body closer to his. 

“You want to fake date me but have sex on the side?” 

“The regular, the better.” He winked. “I know you want me too, I can practically feel you dripping from here Y/N.” 

Your ear was starting to love the sound of his voice so close to it. You clenched your legs at the sound of his voice. 

“Okay.” You said, giving in to what you wanted for once. He would probably break your heart in the process, but you guessed the sex would compensate. 

“Only until they move on though. When they start forgetting, this thing is finished.” You said, trying to regain your head sense again after feeling dizzy with his sweet voice in your ear. 

“No problem.” Jungkook answered, taking his phone out. He didn’t know why he was going to such lengths, a simple walk around a party with his arm on around your neck would do and they’d just back off.   He became certain that he just wanted to find out more about you, there had to be something he didn’t like or was repulsed by so he could go back to what he was use to- something that was not you. 

“Wait- what are you doing?” You asked, seeing Jungkook turn his phone to his camera selfie mode. 

“Smile, I need a new display picture.” Oh.  This was to make his project more believable. 

“Is this really necessary?” 

“I haven’t changed this display picture since I started college. It’s a pretty big deal, shouldn’t you know as a true millennial?” He teased, moving closer to you and positioning his phone. 

You rolled your eyes before putting on a big smile. 

“Why aren’t you taking it?” You asked still smiling with gritted teeth. He was smiling himself, beautifully might you add. He looked too good to be true. 

You moved your face to ask him why but as soon as you moved your head his face tried to pull a ridiculous face. Your laugh was then interrupted by his lips settling on yours quickly, slowly easing the smile that you had out.

Click. 

Your mouth was just getting use to the taste of him and you began to realise how parched you felt from not having his taste when he slowly pulled you. 

“You’re cute when you’re flustered.” He said with a bunny smile, before checking the candid picture of him kissing your smiling face and setting it as his display picture. Inside, a small part of you was screaming. Jeon Jungkook was to everyone else, officially your boyfriend. The other part of you realised he kissed you, and you…like was an understatement. 

You hoped that Jungkook wasn’t going to play you so well that when he left after getting his final fix of you, you’d be left crying on the side walk. 

“Jungkook?” You asked, your voice smaller than he had ever usually heard it. 

‘Can you promise me one thing?” 

“What is it?” 

Don’t break my heart too much. 

“Just don’t over do it.” 

[charliejrogers]

Best of 2017

Below is my list of the 40 best movies of 2017. Why 40? Because that’s all the movies I saw. In full disclosure, I have a life and must attend school so I didn’t get to see every notable release this year, so if you’re wondering why Thor: Ragnorok, Coco, Mother!, Jumanji, Justice League, I Tonya, Disaster Arist, or Blade Runner aren’t on the list… it’s because I didn’t get to see them. And also in full disclosure, I did get to watch the first half of Battle of the Sexes but fell asleep for the second half. That fact is not indicative of that film’s quality - I was just really tired when I saw it - but it didn’t feel right rating a movie I’d only seen the first half of. So without further ado, here’s my list.

0.5/4.0 Stars

40 The Little Hours

1.5/4.0 Stars

39 Guardians of the Galaxy 2

2.0/4.0 Stars

38 Beauty & the Beast

37 Okja

2.5/4.0 Stars

36 The Trip to Spain

35 A Ghost Story

34 Kong: Skull Island

33 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

32 Dunkirk

31 Logan Lucky

30 American Made

29 Lost City of Z

28 Phantom Thread

3.0/4.0 Stars

27 It

26 Lady Macbeth

25 Ingrid Goes West

24 Call Me By Your Name

23 Spider-Man: Homecoming

22 Detroit

21 Brad’s Status

20 Logan

19 Wind River

18 War for the Planet of the Apes

3.5/4.0 Stars

17 Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

16 The Meyerowitz Stories: New and Selected

15 Get Out

14 The Post

13 Wonder Woman

12 The Lego Batman Movie

11 Darkest Hour

10 The Beguiled

9 Mudbound

8 Shape of Water

4.0/4.0 Stars

7 Sanctuary

6 The Big Sick

5 The Florida Project

4 Baby Driver

3 Columbus

2 Good Time

1 Lady Bird

Do you disagree with the list? Well check out below to see my thoughts on each of the films.

40 The Little Hours

This movie is wholly terrible. It’s jokes include extended sequences of rape, sexual manipulation, and cruel beatings. Please don’t let the truly all-star cast fool you, this movie sucks.

Movies that had probably had some great scenes but were overall not satisfying: (1.5-2 stars)

39 Guardians of the Galaxy 2

The sophomore slump hit Star Lord & co. hard. Compared to the grand set pieces of the first film, the isolated focus on Quill and his father really hindered the fun, action-packed hi-jinks fans expected from the first film. The soundtrack almost single handedly prevented this from being an outright terrible movie.

38 Beauty & the Beast

It will be interesting in the long run to compare the quality of these live-action remakes to the animated originals. Jungle Book was great, but it helped that it’s source material was a superficial 60s musical with lots of room for expansion. Beauty & the Beast was heralded as a masterpiece back in 1991, even being nominated for an Oscar for best picture. Not best animated picture. BEST PICTURE. The Emma Watson version? Not so much. It’s boring.

37 Okja

Snowpiercer is an awesome movie. It’s perfectly paced world building combined beautifully with its creative action sequences (creative both in terms of plotting and in filming). The second English-language film from director Bong Joon-Ho? Nowhere as good. Maybe I’m too jaded… but I didn’t feel any real connection to the titular Beast (the hippo/cow named Okja) or the dangers it faced. And Tilda Swinton (who was fantastic in Snowpiercer) is too abrasive and, frankly, too odd to be taken seriously as a person. And that’s to say nothing of Jake Gyllenhal’s lunatic of a character. Skip it.

Just shy of being good, but are Solid movies.(2.5 stars)

36 The Trip to Spain

It’s kind of hard to fault Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in any meaningful way, since anyone who has seen the first two movies in this trilogy knows exactly what to expect (and really, who but anyone who has seen the first two movies would see this?). They know to expect impressions of famous British actors by two very talented impression artists. They know to expect two actors playing irritatingly arrogant caricatures of themselves. And they know to expect a movie devoid of plot, purpose, and interesting dialogue. That said, you come for the impressions, and Coogan and Brydon will always deliver on those (Mick Jagger and David Bowie being my two favorite additions to the duo’s repertoire.) just don’t expect much else.

35 A Ghost Story

This whole movie seemed to walk the line between a solid indie movie and a parody of a self-important movie. The central gimmick of the film involves Casey Affleck spending the vast majority of the film under a white sheet following his character’s death as the character’s ghost continues to pine after a love lost. When the film focuses on the futility of grief (particular in scenes where Rooney Mara is involved), it is moving. When it tries to make larger philosophical statements about what it means to inhabit land, it gets silly.

34 Kong: Skull Island

I watched this movie hoping to see some cool action sequences of King Kong and dinosaurs. It delivered, though no dinosaurs, but “Skeleton Walkers”. Cool Vietnam War-era atmosphere. The Samuel L. Jackson character is so angry towards Kong as to defy logical sense and the plot is threadbare, but John C. Reilly does wonders when he enters the film midway for comic relief.

33 Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

I wanted to like this movie more. I tried to like it more. It has so much going for it: A pair of knock out performances by Frances McDormand and Woody Harrelson, often fascinating and engaging dialogues and monologues a la the Coen Brothers, and an intriguing premise in a mother trying to discover her daughter’s murderer. It falls apart for me because many of the supporting characters are more caricature than people, especially the insufferable bigoted police officer played by Sam Rockwell. The film is far more interested in developing the character of this unwatchable man than in ever dealing with the McDormand character’s grief, and Harrelson exits the film far too early. There are individual scenes that shine, but the sum of the film’s parts falls flat.

32 Dunkirk

I like Christopher Nolan. I really do. That said, I haven’t liked anything that he’s done since 2010. Dark Knight Rises was bloated, and Interstellar somehow doubled down on the bloat. Dunkirk, while beautifully shot and containing some truly gripping looks at the brutality of war, just never clicked with me. I particularly found the film’s tripartite structure, jumping between three stories whose chronological length differed significantly, more distracting than revelatory.

31 Logan Lucky

Appropriately nicknamed “Seven Eleven,” Steven Soderberg’s first heist movie since the Ocean’s trilogy adapts the standard caper film tropes to a down-to-Earth, working-class West Virginia setting. It’s unclear throughout if Soderberg is mocking his blue collar characters’ way of life or celebrating it, and the humor, particularly in scenes between Channing Tatum and Adam Driver, never quite clicks. But Logan Lucky probably includes the most intelligent, clever, and fun-to-watch heist in any movie. Period. If only the movie were even half as smart and entertaining as the heist it is about.

30 American Made

Doug Liman, The Director of American Made, so badly and clearly wants people to confuse this film with something from the Scorsese catalog. But this is a poor man’s Wolf of Wall Street or Goodfellas. It tries to glorify and legitimize the life of a criminal, and it hits all the highlights. It’s loosely (very loosely) based on real life smuggler Barry Seal. There’s clever heists and crimes. Shady dealings. A big budget plane crash into a suburban neighborhood. And all of it is shot and directed with a fun, vivacious energy. The problem is that this film fails to hit the hard emotional punches. There’s no equivalent to Joe Pesce “getting made” or even a real sense of come-uppance that eventually hit Jordan Belford. There’s a montage in this movie of Tom Cruise scared to start his car due to fear it’s been rigged to explode. What could have been a tone-altering sequence for the film that would bestow a great deal of gravitas, is used for laughs. And that’s about all you need to know about this movie. It’s entertaining and probably worth watching, and Tom Cruise is as cocky as ever in the lead role, but there’s nothing under the surface.

29 Lost City of Z

The is the most action-less adventure story ever told. The life of British explorer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) and his explorations through the South American Amazon plays out at about the speed of a turtle. I’m not gonna say I was ever bored, because I wasn’t, but I was kind of waiting the whole movie for something exciting to happen and it never does. The film makes being captured by natives look as routine as a DMV visit. The movie is divided into a few key locations. There’s Britain where Fawcett spends so little of his life and where his wife (Sienna Miller as a progressive woman railing against the monotony of housewifery) and children lives. There’s The Amazon, and there’s briefly France for Fawcett’s stint as an officer in WWI. As you’ll be unsurprised if you’ve glanced at my review of Wonder Woman below, that the WWI section was my favorite. Perhaps it’s my fault for expecting something more out action of this film, but I think it even fails on the grounds of what it tries to be: a character study. Fawcett’s character is so thinly drawn and his motivations so weak, that when his son (Tom Holland) calls him out on it it’s a breath of fresh air - but then his son and wife later validates his motivations and the movie makes him out to be an unqualified hero - a champion of viewing Natives as more than savages. Fawcett did incredible things in his life, sure, but I don’t think he’s any hero. I don’t know - the movie could have been better.

28 Phantom Thread

The first half of this movie I consider excitingly British-boring, like an episode of Downton Abbey or The Crown. High class British people of the past dealing with first world problems, if well acted, well costumed, and well written, will always be entertaining to me no matter if what’s at stake is who will marry whom or, in this case, whether a dress will be ready on time. But the first half of the movie particularly shines because Daniel Day-Lewis plays the stereotypical controlling genius who society forgives because he’s so brilliant to the T. He’s insufferable, petty, emotionally stunted, and a joy to watch. And the whole first half of the film builds to a moment where Lewis’ girlfriend, a meek waitress played by Vicky Krieps, calls him out on all his bullshit. In the midst of the #MeToo era, her speech railing against his dominating, controlling behavior feels entirely appropriate. And as an audience member you expect the movie to go in a certain direction in the second half… and it doesn’t. At the risk of spoilers I won’t say more, but your response to film’s plot in its second act will be the deciding factor about whether or not you enjoy this film. For me, I did not, which is a shame because I liked the first half so much.

Good, not great movies:(3 stars)

27 It

I have never seen the original It movie or read the book, but based on the infamous boat scene that circulated virally on YouTube and the premise of a killer ghost clown… I wasn’t too pumped to see It. I happily had my expectations reversed. It is perhaps unfair to say the movie borrows from Stranger Things since that show definitely borrows heavily from Stephen King, but it’s hard to deny the similarities between the two 1980s set stories of kids against a cosmic beast. It featured incredible performances from its teenaged cast, with Jaeden Lieberher truly shining as the lead, but overall the movie felt overly long and oddly enough lacking the tension required of a remarkable thriller. Plus, I had far too many questions leaving the theater about the nature of Pennywise and so on for it to qualify as having a completely coherent plot. But as far as coming of age movies disguised as horror movies go, when It focused on the kids and less on Pennywise it was entirely engrossing.

26 Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth was a fascinating little film out of the UK about the extents (often violent) one woman would go to achieve freedom in an incredibly oppressive patriarchy. At just 22 Florence Pugh turns in a masterful performance of a woman wracked with guilt but full of pride in her freedom. She’s at once both sympathetic and monstrous, and watching her go from one to the other is worthy of the film’s Shakespearean title. Only complaint was that the movie, despite being only 90 minutes still felt it dragged a little in places.

25 Ingrid Goes West

What an interesting movie. Aubrey Plaza still seems to be playing the same Aubrey Plaza character she’s played in literally everything she’s been in, but this time it’s different. Rather than accepting Plaza’s character’s usual eccentric behavior as just par for the course, in Ingrid Goes West, these same behaviors are frightening. Obsessive, sociopathic, paranoid. That is the character Aubrey Plaza plays as her Ingrid travels Westward with the inheritance from her mother’s demise to emulate and become Taylor Sloane - a wonderfully basic Elizabeth Olson - someone she found on Instagram - avocado toast and all. As a movie that tries to make a statement about the ill-effects of social media on society, the movie falls flat. But viewed in the line of movies like Taxi Driver, Nightcrawler, etc. that is, movies that present the inner workings of sociopaths, Ingrid Goes West is an admirable demonstration of what Travis Bickle would look like in 2017. Also, poor O’Shea Jackson Jr. All his character wanted was to talk about Batman - and instead Ingrid ruins his life. Sad!

24 Call Me By Your Name

I’ve struggled to rate this movie fairly. One the one hand, I found it kind of boring. I found what the characters and movie deemed a meaningful relationship between Elio and Oliver to be based on little more than the fact that both were open to male on male sex. Their dialogue was supposed to come off as playfully hostile and full of sexual tension, but i just saw Oliver, played by Hammer, playing hard to get a little too well. Maybe I just wasn’t picking up the signs, but to my eyes it never seemed like Oliver ever liked Elio. On the other hand, it was a beautifully shot movie, included a scene about IndoEuropean etymology, and another about Greek bronze sculpture. Plus, Michael Stuhlbarg’s heartbreaking speech towards the end (you know which one) almost single handedly prevents this from being rated lower on this list. Thus, I left the movie thinking a lot, which is always a sign that the movie had done something right. Particularly it raised questions about and shed light on the nature, often awkward, of coming out. And for that, I recognize the movie’s importance and beauty. But that doesn’t mean it was my favorite movie to watch this year.

23 Spider-Man: Homecoming

Now for something completely different. Spider-Man: Homecoming is the definition of a mindless, fun summer blockbuster. Tom Holland shines it what is essentially a high-school action movie. It had cool action sequences (Washington Monument) and laughs (thanks Martin Starr - perhaps the best person to to cast as a nerdy high school teacher - , the school’s PA announcements, and the film’s new Spider-Man sidekick… some kid named Ned). Plus the movie’s villainous twist was legitimately a surprise in the best way. That said, Michael Keaton’s Vulture had some questionably plausible motives, with the theme of forgetting about the working class feeling a bit cliche in this film. It’s a real issue, but the movie didn’t really treat it like one. Still, I can’t wait for Spider-Man: Prom as Marvel’s first take at a high school movie was a success, even if it did little to reinvent the wheel.

22 Detroit

Detroit is a movie that tests your endurance and tolerance for brutality. Based on the historical Algiers Motel incident during the contentious race riots in 1967 Detroit, the movie is less about the incident as it is director Katherine Bigelow’s recreation of the event itself. This movie is like if you pieced together all of the scenes from a recreation typically found in a true crime documentary, and then left out the documentary narrative piece. As a result, the movie has little nuance (besides a beautiful opening animating sequence detailing the Great Migration.) Instead viewers are “treated” to two hours of raw violence. It’s not entertaining, and it’s hardly art, but it is engrossing. It stretches the imagination that some people could be so cruel and that more could be so permissive of such cruelty seen here, but at the end of the day 3 black teens ended up dead and nine others beaten… so I can grant Katherine Bigelow some leeway in how the lead racist cop in her film is portrayed as being the devil incarnate. It’s a powerful movie - just not one you’ll want to watch again.

21 Brad’s Status

If your biggest fear is that you’ll never satisfy your life’s largest ambitions… Brad’s Status is the movie for you. Ben Stiller as Brad is a guy who by all measures has a fine life - a loving wife, comfortable job, and a smart kid… any complaint he has is, by definition, a first world problem… but when he sees his old college buddies go on to become uber-successful… well, anyone is bound to get jealous. The movie is a great look at the emptiness so many feel with the direction of their lives, and Ben Stiller as Brad is perfectly cast as an understandable neurotic. While the movie does a great job of setting up Brad’s dilemma over his lack of status, it perhaps “solves” the issue a little lazily. It turns out his “successful” friends? They’re all jerks, crooks, or unhappy… so again we learn that money corrupts… an answer which doesn’t entirely satisfy the audience… or Brad.

20 Logan

If Deadpool showed how an R-rated superhero could look if you think R-rated = potty-mouth… Logan decided to show us what R-rated means in terms of violence. The opening scene where our “hero” eviscerates some gangsters by the side of a desert road is phenomenally beautiful. And the movie remains as bleak throughout - as well as, perhaps surprisingly, very thoughtful. Every scene with Patrick Stewart was beautiful. Beautiful because of his performance, but also because of how smartly written and well-paced his character’s story unfolded. What do you do when a man who could bring the world to its knees with his mind… gets Alzheimer’s? That Stewart was not even in the discussion for an Oscar baffles me. I legitimately lose interest in the film the moment Stewart stops playing as big a role about ¾ of the way through. It’s still a good movie after that point, but the story of mutant kids revolting against their slave drivers holds less power and realism than the story of a powerful man coming to grips with his dementia.

19 Wind River

Hell or High Water was, for me, the surprise hit of 2016, and when I found out that writer Taylor Sheridan was both writing and directing this film I saw it as soon as I could. While the movie may drag in a few spots here and there, it’s a pretty powerful movie about grief. It shares many story beats with Three Billboards but frankly I think this film does a much, much better job of staying focused on what’s most important. No, not the moral awakening of some insufferably racist cop, but the injustice of a girl’s life being ripped away from her family. And, more importantly, the impact that has upon an already depressed community. I don’t know how many movies there are that highlight the ironic contemporary struggle of Native Americans to get by in what should be their own land, but i don’t think there are many others. And for that fact alone Wind River deserves to be seen. While I’ve thus far talked like this movies a masterpiece it’s not. It drags a bit, Jeremy Renner’s character is both a little boring and a little too unbelievably good at his job, and Elizabeth Olsen’s character is a little bit too unbelievably inept at hers. But Sheridan crafts scripts whose violence is so genuinely shocking (no doubt in one place due to a perfectly placed flashback towards the end of the film) that you actually drop your jaw. You’ve seen thousands of people get shot in movies, but never quite like here.

18 War for the Planet of the Apes

Of all the major blockbuster franchises to be churned out these days, few have had the boldness to be both entertaining and artful. The first 15 minutes of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes should be taught at all film schools as the prime example of world building without needing a single spoken word of dialogue. I think overall I liked the new War for the Planet of the Apes a little less than its predecessor, but still more than the reboot’s first entry, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. For starters, this is a long movie and it didn’t need to be so long. That said, it has some of the best symbolism and beautifully structured motifs of any major blockbuster out there. Caesar is at times a Christ figure, a new Moses, and a slave in revolt, and the movie does a fantastic job of never letting these themes lay on too thick. And for a movie about apes, most of the sympathy undoubtedly comes from Andy Serkis. He deserves some sort of award for his work as Caesar… his facial ticks say a million things and more. Combined with the cinematography of the icy blue winter fortress, it’s a beauty to behold. Had the movie been a little tighter, it could have been that much better, but as is there’s still much to enjoy.

Great, fucking movies:(3.5 stars)

17 Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

By far the most divisive film of 2017, The Last Jedi was… a fine film. Like for every illogical plot point, for every cringeworthily forced joke, for every time that Mark Hamil didn’t know how to act, for every unnecessary venture onto the casino Planet, for every time Leia was a force zombie… I still walked away from the movie feeling satisfied. The action was good and The plot included legitimate surprises. Rian Jonson is many things, but a poor plotter is not one of them. Plus I was just so attracted to the film’s overwhelming feeling of abject failure. Blockbusters are supposed to lift us up and give us hope… but this movie presented an interesting antithesis to all that, even more so than its spiritual predecessor Empire Strikes Back. This movie will and has already been picked apart to death… but I think if someone walked into this movie knowing little about the Jedi, the Force, or who shot first, they would find an entertaining blockbuster and that’s what I saw. Perhaps not the best Star Wars movie… but a fine film.

16 The Meyerowitz Stories: New and Selected

Adam Sandler can act? Who knew! I did! I’ve seen Click! Anyways, this was a very good movie all around. There are top notch performances from all of its leads, with a special shout out to the quiet Elizabeth Marvel and the terrifyingly unemotional Hoffman. The films plot focused on three adults’ differing relationships with their father (Dustin Hoffman) an overbearing father and aging sculptor who failed to achieve any success. The script is superb and beautifully crafted. The whole movie can be summed up in three scenes, with each scene showing a different of the three children running. In one, Sandler is running to catch up to his Dad, representing how his character always felt like he had to prove himself to his father. In another Stiller is running in front of his father, just as his character has tried to escape the overbearing smothering pressure of his father. And thirdly Marvel’s character runs from danger but her father plays no role - she unlike her brothers has managed to shed the shadow of her father. The movie has some missteps in failed jokes (Sandler’s daughter’s movies?) and is a little long which keep it from being an instant classic, but it’s very well done.

15 Get Out

The best horror movie In a decade isn’t much of a horror movie. There are few jump scares and there’s hardly a real enough sense of danger to raise the audience’s blood pressure. But as a drama that intends to say a thing or two about America’s racial issues, this is a damn good movie. The script is extremely well-crafted and the story’s mysteries unfold in such an organic way. You’ll have thought you have it all figured out at least 3 times before the truth is revealed, and the “truth” actually makes sense and appears unforced unlike the twists in many movies of this type. There’s an alternate ending to this film you can find online where Director Peele could have pushed this movie to make a stronger statement about race… I wish he had. He used a half-measure when he should have used a full measure. The movie as a whole can be a little slow at times… but the ending action sequence and the film’s tone and message throughout more than make up for it.

14 The Post

The best newspaper movies are those that are procedural. Films like Spotlight or All the President’s Men made you feel like you were part of the investigation, highlighting the excitement and importance of mundane tasks like combing through directories of priests or tracking down witnesses that ultimately lead to giant breakthroughs. The Post has none of this. The Pentagon Papers literally fall into the lap of the Washington Post and Nixon’s paranoia ensures that The Post will be the only paper with the opportunity to publish. So it’s not a newspaper movie in that it’s not about investigative journalism so much as about the people who run the newspapers and their commitment to the first amendment. As a result, it’s preachy and a little too on the nose for those of us bombarded daily with claims of fake news. That said, it’s still Spielberg so it’s incredibly well-crafted and entertaining and Meryl Streep is fantastic in drawing out the complexity of Kay Graham. And who doesn’t love seeing Bob Odenkirk and David Cross side by side?

13 Wonder Woman

The undersaturation of the movie market with movies about World War I is a shame. Compare it with World War II which has a minimum of 4 movies a year… always. But where WWII is so often portrayed as the heroic triumph of good over evil or dives into the heinousness of the Holocaust, rarely does it get the chance to just pause and question the brutality of war itself. World War I doesn’t have that problem. There was no Hitler, no Nazis, no Holocaust. Just rulers and treaties that led to the senseless loss of life. And it’s this that movies like Joyeux Noel, War Horse, and now Wonder Woman have captured beautifully. Yes, Wonder Woman is a movie about immortal beings and super heroes with lassos of truth… but at its root it’s about the disgusting fact that humans inflict mass pain on each other based on the lightest of pretenses. The movie has a villain… but humanity is the real evil. The plot was smartly put together, the scenery and costumes nail the period, and the budding romance between Chris Pine and Gal Gadot is a treat to watch. But it’s film’s depiction of the senselessness of war (embodied in Wonder Woman’s shell-shocked Scottish companion.) that really sold me. This movie was far more moving than it deserved to be for a silly super hero movie, but it deserves its praise.

12 The Lego Batman Movie

Perhaps this of all the choices on this list will be the one to not age well… but when I saw this movie I was thoroughly pleased. Not only was it an entertaining and funny beyond a “kid’s” film, it was a parodic love letter to the Caped Crusader. I did not see 2017’s Justice League… but I can safely say this is the best Batman movie since 2008’s Dark Knight. The whole plot of this Lego movie is in fact a direct play on a line of dialogue from The Dark Knight. There the Joker tells Batman, “You complete me,” a line which in its context embodies a central theme throughout Batman lore: does Batman exist because Gotham is full of criminals, or is Gotham full of criminals because Batman attracts them. Here though, the line is taken at face value in its pseudo-romantic sense - Joker pledges his “love” for Batman and here he gets denied. And the world hath seen no wrath as a Joker scorned. It’s a funny set-up that leads to a fun who’s-who of villains from across the Batverse and beyond. The film is anchored in the now-classic Lego movie sense of humor. Special props to Will Arnett’s arrogant, self-centered turn as the lead and to Michael Cera’s bubblingly boyish Dick Grayson/Robin. The two have a perfect comedic give and take. It’s as if the whole movie is a side project of Arrested Development with a young George Michael Bluth playing along with the delusional fantasies of his Uncle GOB. Tobias would of course be Mr. Freeze - he already blued himself.

11 Darkest Hour

Who was Winston Churchill? I’m still not quite sure. The movie presented him as a drunk, surely, but also scared, crude, abrasive, confused, a little Alzheimer’s-y at times… but the least I can say is that he deserved my respect by the end of the film and that’s what the movie wanted from me. Gary Oldman is amazing in this movie and other people could speak more eloquently about his performance. But he’s not alone and Ben Mendehlsson as King George and Stephen Dillane as the preposterously prissy Lord Halifax deserve special praise. Lily James as Churchill’s secretary does not though… her role was kinda pointless… But what really caught my eye about this movie is it’s beautiful cinematography. The movie plays with light and dark so well - fitting for its title. Plus the movie tells the story of the Dunkirk travesty from such an interesting perspective. The knowledge of Hitler’s ultimate intentions today make it difficult to swallow arguments of the past that peace might have been possible, but the film does a great job of establishing tension in a conflict where everyone in the audience knows the resolution. There are times when you wonder along with Churchill whether peace might be worth pursuing. However, if you, like me, enjoy getting your history from film, You’ll likely be saddened as i was to learn that the scene where Churchill goes into the Tube and talks to the common folk for inspiration was all made up for the movie… still, the scene’s pretty magical to watch. So everyone plays their roles to the T and the pictures are pretty. If that’s not enough for you, just watch this as an antidote to watching the lifeless Dunkirk. Ugh. Fuck Dunkirk.

10 The Beguiled

This is an extremely moody, brooding film that sticks with much you longer than you’d think. It’s really a short, little movie at only 94 minutes long, but director Sophia Coppola packs that time full of lust-filled intrigue and tension. If you ever wonders what happens when a house full of sexually repressed women in the 1860s encounters a wounded soldier who’s happy to “please”… the answer is not a lot of good. This is not a porno. If anything this movie takes a male fantasy and turns it into a nightmare. Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst, and Nicole Kidman play a fearfully tempting trio, each approaching the mysterious figure of Colin Farrell with their own motivations. Elle as a young woman exploring her sexuality, Kirsten as a woman sheltered for too long and yearns for the companionship, while Kidman as the older woman wants to feel love again… yet Colin cannot have all three and tries anyways… and the result is chilling and creepy reminder that you don’t mess with the heart of a woman. It’s Like Gone Girl in this sense, but better because this movie’s actually rewatchable and the perspective is entirely female-centric.

9 Mudbound

Somewhere online this movie is described as “literary in the best sense” and that’s about all you need to know about this movie. It’s a sprawling character-based epic that charts the lives of two families, one white, one black, whose lives continue to intersect while living in the 1940s rural South. Like much of the 19th c. and early 20th c. American literature, the big takeaway is that life in the country is miserable and prone to stagnation (a little stuck in the mud if you will). And Carey Mulligan’s role as a sophisticated woman forced into the staid life on the farm is practically a carbon copy of the main character in Willa Cather’s “Wagner Matinee” - and that’s a good thing. Mary J. Blige looks really cool with her sunglasses but also does a great job acting as the loving matriarch of her family - in fact the whole cast is pretty incredible. However the heart of the film is the friendship that forms between the veterans returning from WWII- one from each family. Garrett Hedlund and Jason Mitchell carry well the invisible wounds of war and the movie does a great job of highlighting the great injustice and indifference our society all too often places upon the plight of veterans - especially those who are also racial minorities. It’s a movie both reflective of its period’s morals, and a reminder of how close in time we are to some of our nation’s worst racially-based hate crimes.

8 Shape of Water

Love comes in all shapes and sizes - a theme Hollywood has pushed on us for decades. But here the trite fairy tale truism is made fresh… precisely because director Guillermo del Toro does not hide the fact that his Shape of Water - though a movie for adults with rather graphic violence and sex - is a fairy tale. Its love is both unbelievable and beautiful. The film tries to say something about the civil rights movement and oppression in its portrayal of the stigmatized relationship between woman and fish monster… but I personally found those parallels a bit wonky. The film works best as a simple story devoid of overt politics. Few scenes this year are as heartwarming as two rain droplets dancing on the side of a bus window as it races through the night or a dance scene between a fish monster and a woman filmed in the black and white style of the grand musicals of Old Hollywood. The movie includes a heist (the best!), Communist intrigue, comedy, and an amazing villain in Michael Shannon. That guy’s face is made to be evil. Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Jenkins round out a superbly talented cast and the movie is a joy to watch. It was clear this was a work of love for delToro and though it’s not my favorite movie this year it deserves all the praise it gets. It’s a technical and moving marvel

Fantastic films (4 stars)

7 Sanctuary

Of all the movies on this list, I’m gonna bet this is the one you’ve never heard of. I’d never heard of it either. It was an accidental find hidden deep in the Hulu catalog which only attracted my roommate’s and my attentions because it was recently voted the best film in Ireland for 2017 according to some Irish critic’s circle. It was never even released in America. I like Irish film, and I loved this movie. It’s an ambitious project - at least by modern standards. A movie about people with intellectual disabilities, whose cast is mostly filled with people with intellectual disabilities, including like 4 people with Downs Syndrome. It’s part comedy, part rom-com, part romantic-drama, and throughout a tragedy. The movie struggles to find a fine line between viewing it’s largely adult cast of people with intellectual disabilities as people who need to be watched after and people who deserve independence and freedom. And that is not a fault of the movie… in real life finding that balance is hard. The movie has you laughing one moment, crying the other, but at all times forcing this viewer at least to challenge his perceptions of those with intellectual disabilities. It’s a powerful movie, an entertaining one, and one which I think all should see.

6 The Big Sick

Yes, this movie may have committed the worst of comedy movie sins - putting the best joke (the one about 9/11) in the trailer - but that doesn’t stop The Big Sick and it’s plot from surprising. I won’t spoil the plot because it’s best experienced first hand - but one thing I wish I knew going in is that this is fairly closely based on Kumail Nanjiani’s real life, who wrote the film with his wife Emily V. Gordon. I say this because when I first saw this my complaint was that the plot seemed too unbelievable and were this a purely fictional tale I’d be right - but truth is stranger than fiction. The movie has many thematic parallels with the second episode of Aziz Ansari’s Master of None in that the film presents the real pressures faced by children of immigrants to balance wanting to live a “normal” American life without seeming ungrateful or unappreciative of your parents’ culture and the sacrifices they have made to give their kids a better life. Kumail’s mother may be the “villain” from a plotting perspective, but the film is more nuanced than to portray her as heartless. In fact, the incredible love of a parent for their child is palpable throughout, and Ray Romano and Holly Hunter do wonders portraying a couple who though strained will unite to do anything for their daughter. Like life, the characters are realistic, the conflicts have no easy resolution, and it’s equal parts comical and emotional.

5 The Florida Project

Probably one of the best compliments I can bestow upon any piece of art is, “It reminds me of The Wire.” Yes, I am one of those people… deal with it. But what that to me means, is that this particular work of art manages to present an important social problem in a way that has no clear heroes or villains. Rather, it presents real, flawed humans dealing with a terribly shitty social construct. Here, the social construct is poverty - severe, depressing poverty. What are you supposed to do if you have no money, no home, no hopes for the future? You scam, you prostitute, you lie, you do anything to get by. But the characters in the Florida Project aren’t Robin Hoods or Aladdins - lovable thieves. No, they are often ugly people. This is a movie largely about “white trash” America - or rather people we cast aside without a second thought as white trash. However, what makes this movie so brilliant is that it grounds its message in the perspective of a child. Brooklyn Prince is damn near perfect in her role as the six year-old Moonee, the daughter of the aforementioned lying, scamming, destitute woman. By framing the move from Moonee’s view, director Sean Baker allows the movie to be at one moment light-hearted and the next moment heartbreaking. Like The Wire this movie deserves to be taught in any sociology class alongside any textbook. It’s an insightful look at the way the other half lives that’s full of empathetic humanity without providing its characters forgiveness carte blanche. And as entertainment it’s riveting.

4 Baby Driver

I am confident that this movie will not be as good on a second pass, as it’s more of a roller coaster adrenaline rush than artful film, and once you know all the twists and turns the fun will surely be lessened. But that doesn’t stop the first ride through the life of a bank-robbing getaway driver with a heart from being a hell of a good time. Like Patrick Stewart’s snub for Logan, I am legitimately surprised that there was never ANY talk of best director in the cards for Edgar Wright - though it’s probably a little more accurate to call him a choreographer than director as Baby Driver is, for all intents and purposes, an extended music video. Like Wright’s previous work in the Cornetto trilogy, the soundtrack is an eclectic mix of deep tracks from the mainly 60s/70s, but here the music does more than provide a backdrop to the action; it reflects and informs the action. Car chases are coordinated so that the best parts match musical crescendos. Take for example the foot chase towards to the end of the film set perfectly to Hocus Pocus’s “Focus.” The song alternates between a rocking guitar riff and a yodeling breakdown, and Wright appropriately sets the Chase parts to the guitar part and parts where Baby has to hide to the yodel. But calling it a music video perhaps robs the movie of the fact that it created an interesting cast of characters. Yes, it stars Kevin Spacey… but he’s creepy in this movie so at least art reflects life. But more of interest are Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm as two of Baby’s slightly unhinged compatriots in bank robbing. Ansel Elgort in the title role carries enough charm and heart to capture audiences, and Lily James as the Southern beauty with the heart of gold is just grungy enough to be the perfect match for Baby’s criminal nature. Few movies have ever been this fun to watch with incredibly coordinated car chases, and the plot carries enough twists and turns to keep audiences on their toes.

3 Columbus

This movie is one of those movies where I can’t really put into words why I liked it. The most obvious reason is the movie’s scenery. Set entirely in the small town of Columbus, IN, a real town renowned across the world for its collection of buildings made in the modernist style. The town is shot beautifully and even if the movie weren’t good otherwise, it’d be worth a glance for the pictures. However, the plot is good. It’s a two-for-one with two of my favorite themes. One plot deals with the coming of age of a teenaged girl who’s too smart to get stuck in a dead end town. The other deals with a son comings to terms with his troubled relationship with his father. As I said, the movie is slow and I won’t claim to fully believe that in real life a relationship would have formed between the two main characters - it’s a little forced. But the emotions of the movie are undeniably real and it never feels like melodrama. This is one of the few movies where upon watching I immediately wanted to watch it again.

2 Good Time

Unlike Columbus, I was happy when Good Time ended and did not want to watch it again. It’s not because it’s a bad movie - far from it. But it paints such an ugly, depressing, and frankly terrifyingly real view of humanity that you’re happy when it’s finally over. This is film at its most linear (aside from one notable flashback that ranks among the best flashbacks of all time) and that’s not a complaint. The film’s runs quickly from start to finish like a bullet. The story is one of survival, as Robert Pattinson’s Nicky tries to free his accomplice and brother from custody while avoiding the cops himself following a botched bank robbery. This is not a light hearted bank heist movie like the Oceans movies, Baby Driver, or the like. While Nicky’s attempts to evade detection are certainly clever, as the movie continues you find you aren’t rooting for the protagonist - I wasn’t at least. The movie plays with the idea that the cat & mouse trope so popular in literature is far from fun in real life. It’s a hell of an adrenaline rush, Robert Pattinson gives - i think - one of the best performances of the year, and the plot is damn near perfect - not a second is wasted.

1 Lady Bird

The amount a movie makes me cry sits in direct proportion to how much i enjoyed the film (Interstellar being the big exception). At the end of Lady Bird I was awash in tears. The movie depicts with such a razor-sharp accuracy just how hard being in a family can be. Just how contradictory it can be. How is it that you can hate what your mother does, says, and stands for, and still love her? How is it that you can be so relieved to send your daughter off to college and out of your hair but also cry the entire way home? The taut relationship between Lady Bird and her mother (played extraordinarily by Saorsie Ronan and Laurie Metcalf) is without a doubt the cornerstone upon which Greta Gerwig built her semi-autobiographical story. And in a world filled with nuanced stories of miscommunication between fathers and sons, it was so incredibly refreshing to see the mother-daughter relationship explored with the same respect. The key? Neither character is flawless. Yes Lady Bird is our protagonist, but she’s just a teen. The movie can not help but remind us that for all of her confidence and sophistication there’s just so much to this world she doesn’t understand. We see her engage in doomed sexual relationships, get into petty spats with her best friend, and generally just act immaturely. And her mother is no saint either. Yes, she undoubtedly makes great sacrifices for her daughter and her whole family. She is patient and loving with her husband who suffers from depression and struggles to find work. But she also has no interest in learning about her daughter - her thoughts, her feelings. She embodies the mantra “cruel to be kind” yet it’s sometimes hard to see when the kindness kicks in. The movie is honest, it’s funny, and at times heartbreaking. It’s the best movie I’ve seen since Boyhood in terms of showing what life in America is really like, and it’s a gem of a movie deserved to be seen by all.

[adamcoled]

change | pete dunne

pt. 2, pt. 3

A/N: This was originally going to be just one long thing rather than two parts, but idk man I just felt like it needed to be split. 

How horribly rude it was for time to mock me, the clock’s hands shifting slower and slower with each fleeting glance at the stupid thing, mounted on the wall so conspicuously that it would have been much harder to ignore it than to watch as each monotonous minute passed by. There was reason for this overwhelming boredom, of course, since I was at work and there isn’t much excitement as a waitress, besides occasional impatient customers and the gnawing premonition that all of this food can be thrown to the floor with just one wrong step.

A new excitement came in the form of a shy, kind-hearted guy whose arrival I anticipated each shift. Over his many appearances at this same restaurant, I’d learned quite a bit about Tyler, though it was our outside rendezvous that allowed me into his life much further than I would have guessed.

As unfortunate as it seemed at first, we were strictly friends. Admittedly, there were some feelings in the beginning, which we acted upon a few times through dinner dates and endless flirting, but the click just wasn’t there. While we could have lied to ourselves, forced the connection we both so desperately wanted, it was a mutual agreement when I suggested staying platonic. Thankfully, we remained friends and he continued making unexpected stops while I was working, though I had an inkling the food may have been a bigger reason for that than me.

Through a few of our conversations, I’d learned about his career as a wrestler, which was reaching new heights and would explain his recent sporadic appearances, or lack thereof. I tended to stray away from that topic, however, since he must’ve heard about it enough as is. Despite my attempts to keep the wrestling talk at bay, Tyler always mentioned he wanted me to stop by one of the shows sometime, just to see him in action. He’d also brought up his friends a lot, too, each of them seeming like such a unique character completely unlike anyone else I knew. My years on this Earth had included far too many encounters with ordinary people, hardly set apart from the previous passerby, yet apparently all I had to do was get into the wrestling scene to discover overwhelming originality.

Tyler described quite a few names, but there was one that always stood out, sounded perfect rolling off my tongue, entered my mind with no intent to leave, much to my chagrin.

His name was Pete and, from the stories Tyler told, he seemed like the type of person people warn you about, though I’d never listened to warnings in the past and I certainly wasn’t about to start now.

I should have known one day Tyler would walk into the building with Pete beside him; in fact, I should have been surprised it had yet to happen, but regardless, I couldn’t help my absolute shock when he did. He’d repeated the line, “I’ll have to bring him in sometime,” quite a few times, though I had lingering hope that would never happen. I didn’t need to meet Pete to have him fluttering into my mind at unconventional times, so I could only imagine how things would evolve after an actual meeting.

When I made my way to their table, I tried to return the smile Tyler wore so proudly, but it faltered once I caught eye of Pete, staring blankly at me with an unreadable expression upon his face. He looked both bored and amused, an odd combination, if that was even possible. While I tried to greet them as I would greet any other customer, Tyler cut me off midway through.

“Y/N, this is Pete,” Tyler introduced, though it was completely unnecessary, seeing as the name and face frequented my thoughts.

“Ah, yeah, I remember the name,” I smiled forcefully, the understatement falling from my lips without a second thought, “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Pete nodded, a smirk making its way to his lips, the lips that could definitely work magic against my skin. “Yeah, you too. Tyler, if you had told me just how stunning she is before, maybe we woulda met much sooner.”

My face was on fire, my knees feeling weak for a moment before I remembered I was at work and it wasn’t my place to return the flirtation right now, even though I desperately wanted to.

“Yeah, maybe,” Tyler mumbled, seemingly annoyed by his friend’s antics. The two were very different, which I could conclude quite easily through word of mouth, but it wasn’t until each of them were in front of me that it became concrete. It was almost comical in a sense, two men taken straight from one of those cliché films in which the confused protagonist is stuck between the good guy you’d take home to mom and the sex-driven bad boy. Or maybe I was just inferring too much about Pete too early.

Ripped from my unorganized thoughts by their ordering, I hoped my feigned half-smile would deter from the fact that I’d gone into a practical trance for a few good seconds. It must’ve worked, because neither of them questioned it and I went on my way, holding my breath the entire trip to the back.

For once, I would have been grateful for the moments of standstill time. Any additional seconds to prepare for impending doom, or in lighter terms, Pete’s flirting, would have been accepted graciously, yet of course they never came. Instead, their food was prepared in what seemed like lightning speed, forcing me back to the table once more. Though, it was just barely enough time to build my resolve a bit stronger this time through a much needed mental pep-talk. Even if I was internally swooning over words Pete had probably repeated to a string of women in the past, making me just another lost name among the list, there was no reason for him to know that. I’d made it my goal to prove his compliments futile.

Tthat all crumbled when I got a bit closer and overheard their not-so-hushed conversation.

“Whatever, man,” Tyler huffed, “Just knock it off, alright? She doesn’t need to get caught up with your shit.”

“Calm down, mate. If I didn’t know betta, I’d say you like her or somethin’.”

“I’m just looking out for her.”

Cursing my horrible timing and clearing my throat louder than necessary, both heads snapped towards me in an instant, all conversation halted as they silently hoped I hadn’t heard too much. I hadn’t, but I had heard enough to make a general assumption that I was the topic of interest. I couldn’t be sure if I was more delighted to hear Tyler’s always-welcomed protection or Pete’s potential attraction, but I was absolutely sure that I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

“Er…here you guys go,” I placed the plates before them, hoping to make a quick exit.

“Thanks, love,” Pete grinned, though it was full of arrogance and deceit. All I could do was nod, ushering myself away before he could speak up again.

That was only the first time I’d met Pete, but I could tell he’d become a familiar face soon enough. He’d already made a cozy home in my thoughts, anyway.

In the weeks to come, I saw both Tyler and Pete, but always separate, never coming together after that one evening. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the small events that transpired, or so I hoped. Pete had come waltzing into the restaurant several times, eyes watching me carefully each time I was too preoccupied to wait him, and Tyler hadn’t mentioned his troublesome friend since that day.

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to, but without the presence of Tyler, I’d fallen right into Pete’s relentless flirting. It’s not like I met up with Pete outside of my working hours, anyway, so our encounters were always cut short by annoying time constraints and the arrival of more customers. On several occasions, I’d reminded him I had a job to do and couldn’t dawdle over inappropriate coquetry, to which he insisted nobody else really mattered. If he’d had it his way, my attention would be focused solely on him, my job be damned.

If I’d had it my way, we’d be anywhere else but in a busy restaurant secretly exchanging sly innuendos and winks. Maybe out on a fancy date, maybe in his bed. For now, I’d have to settle for the back and forth seduction.

Coincidentally enough, just when he was creeping into my thoughts, I’d noticed him walking in, a habitual hand pushing his hair back as he caught my eye as well. Taking note of the way the corners of his lips upturned into a smirk, I quickly looked elsewhere, which may have done me in even more. If my weakness at his arrival hadn’t already been obvious by my staring, it surely was obvious by the quick attempt to divert my attention. He knew he had my full attention, he basked in that fact, yet still wasn’t satisfied. He wanted more and I was feeling generous. It only took a few seconds for me to find myself beside his table, awaiting the conversation to come.

“Hi, Pete,” I smiled, my voice undeniably sultry but hopefully not to the point where it seemed over-the-top. He had to do some chasing, after all.  

He ignored my greeting entirely, instead looking at his watch for a quick second. “Is your shift almost over?”

“In ten minutes, yeah, why? Got something in mind?”

“Was hoping you’d be my dinner date for the night.”

I couldn’t say I knew Pete extremely well or anything, but I knew enough to know he wasn’t much of a dinner date guy. He was nights spent at the bar with a random girl strewn across his lap, though that wasn’t enough to stop myself from agreeing.

“Dinner at the same place I work at?” I joked. Truthfully, I didn’t care where we went or what we did. I was still a bit shaken up by his request, the excitement rushing through my veins, drowning out the brief recollections of Tyler’s stories.

“We can go wherever you’d like,” he assured, my humor seemingly going unnoticed.

“I’m kidding. I’ll meet you here in a few.”

Over our impromptu dinner date, I’d learned even more about Pete, though he was still a bit of a mystery. Something told me I’d never understand him completely, there would always be an underlying secret. To say I wanted to figure him out would be a massive understatement. For now, I’d have to settle for the simple facts he told me that seemed laced with unsaid backstory. While I was an open book, willing to divulge anything to the man I barely knew, he kept everything behind sealed lips.

“Y’know, I don’t think Tyler likes me liking you very much,” Pete chuckled, taking a sip of his water nonchalantly. Meanwhile, I’d been so shocked by his words I was convinced I’d heard him wrong. I mean, he was an upfront guy, hardly ever watering down his thoughts at all, unafraid of their aftermath, but I hadn’t expected it one bit.

“Liking me?”  I repeated. A very tiny part of me, a part I wished was much bigger, hoped I’d misinterpreted, that he didn’t mean anything by it; Tyler was certainly right, I didn’t need to be caught up in someone like Pete. The defiant part of me wanted the opposite, though. Tyler didn’t need to make decisions for me, it was up to me to deal with the consequences of my actions.

He placed his chin on his hand, the smirk never leaving his face. “I’d like to take you out some more, if you’ll let me.”

My quick agreement surely let on my feelings for him, but perhaps I was too caught up in a web of emotions to really care.

Tyler grew a little suspicious when he noticed the increased time I spent on my phone, eyes glued to the screen and fingers tapping frantically, the little smiles that made their way to my face betraying me. If I had known it was that obvious and I was that oblivious, I’d have certainly tried to keep it discreet. That was no longer an option when Tyler finally decided to confront me about my newfound inattentiveness.

“Okay, what’s up with you?” he asked suddenly, the way my head immediately snapped up not helping my case, “You’re always smiling at that phone these days.”

Really, I was just reading texts from Pete; some of them weren’t even anything to really smile at, either. I had gotten too caught up in him, each day discovering another little tidbit about him that was probably unknown to most. Any text from him had me a distracted mess, a clear sign I was in too deep.

We hadn’t even gone out again yet. Though I didn’t forget his words, I couldn’t, since they played through my mind on a loop and he had brought them up once or twice since then, they had no actuality to them. While we had seen each other, it wasn’t in the capacity that I’d wished for. The ordinary encounters at the restaurant didn’t count for much.

I placed my phone down on my lap, face down so I couldn’t succumb to him yet again. “Just…someone,” I shrugged, which wasn’t necessarily a lie.

Actually, it was. How could anyone call Pete just someone? Someones were the people you meet once and could live without ever seeing again, whose names you’d probably forget in ten minutes flat. Pete was the one who managed to leave a massive impact on me without even a proper meeting.

“You gonna tell me about this ‘someone’?”

There wasn’t much to say, yet there was tons to say. It didn’t make much sense, not even to me. I’d gotten entrapped by devilish flirtation; explaining that it was Pete would be the hard part.

“Well…” I stalled. I could’ve made something up, sure, but admitting it now before he somehow found out any other way was probably best. For once, I made the smart decision. “Don’t get mad or anything.”

He raised his eyebrow before a brief look of realization crossed his face. “It’s Pete, isn’t it?” he concluded, though he wasn’t really looking for confirmation. He’d already deducted it based upon my odd behavior. “So, what, are you guys like dating?”

Although it was completely unfit for the situation, I couldn’t help but laugh at the assumption. Tyler knew Pete better than anyone and still offered such a crazy idea. Secretly, I might’ve wished it wasn’t such a distant dream, an implausible thought.

“What? No. We just had dinner once and he mentioned something about future dates, but you and I both know that was probably just part of the act.”

The words hurt coming out, but I had to admit to myself that they were the truth.

“Wow…I must say, I’m quite shocked,” Tyler finally said.

“Why?” I laughed awkwardly, unsure of where this was headed and hoping it wasn’t bad.

He was quiet for a few moments, seemingly choosing his words wisely, before he spoke up once more. “Y/N, you really don’t know much about him, do you?” he inquired, “I can’t remember the last time Pete went on an actual date at all, let alone to dinner. He’s not into all that.”

I’d guessed dinner dates weren’t Pete’s thing, but I couldn’t tell by how effortless he acted. He didn’t seem uncomfortable or awkward, in fact if I didn’t know better, I’d think it was an actual date. Above all else, he seemed like he was enjoying himself. The laughs and smiles didn’t seem forced, the conversation didn’t have a dull moment,  the atmosphere was entirely normal. 

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Tyler continued, “But all Pete knows is sex. Don’t think the man’s eva been committed to anyone.”

“Well, he hasn’t even tried to get me in his bed yet.”

“Huh…maybe you’re changing him.”

I desperately wanted to believe it, that I could somehow change his lifelong habits, but I couldn’t fool myself like that. All I could do was nod and mumble out a “maybe” before Tyler dropped the subject entirely, moving onto something of more importance than an unlabeled relationship that hasn’t even truly began and most likely never will. My phone went untouched for the rest of our time together, an apology for all the previous inattentiveness, but there was that persisting “What if?”

When he left, leaving me to my own thoughts and a phone loaded with texts, one stood out in particular.

From: Pete

Be ready by 7. I’ll be there to pick you up for that date we talked about.