#also yes the cast recording has been my soundtrack for the past month

[a-swiss-and-a-spaniard]

I know Alex Brightman is considered THE Beetlejuice and I would have absolutely loved to see him perform live, but I've already been two times to see the tour and I must say Justin Collette has gained a special place in my heart. His BJ is the right amount of unhinged™️ and I adore him very much <3

[letterboxd]

Heart Beat.

Minari’s film composer Emile Mosseri (also responsible for the Kajillionaire and The Last Black Man in San Francisco scores) tells Ella Kemp about his A24 favorites, Nicholas Britell’s friendship and the boldest Paul McCartney needle drop in movie history.

What do you think a broken heart sounds like? How about a warm, beating one? It’s something that Emile Mosseri has been thinking about for a while now. The past two years have seen him complete a hat-trick of beguiling, transporting scores for Plan B movies: Joe Talbot and Jimmie Fails’ The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Miranda July’s Kajillionaire and now, the film voted the best of 2020 by our community, Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari.

What binds these scores together is a delicacy that knows when to break free and turn into something altogether spectacular. But on Minari in particular, Mosseri is in full bloom, working for the first time in a way he’d always dreamed about. While The Last Black Man in San Francisco saw him compose to a loose edit, and on Kajillionaire he worked to a locked cut, Chung gave him the freedom to write music directly to Minari’s script. “It was a dream to work this way on Minari,” Mosseri says. “It was so beautifully written and so visceral.”

‘Minari’ composer Emile Mosseri.

Minari is an intimate portrait of a Korean family making their way in rural America, and the composer was interested in “trying to figure out musically how you can feel connected to your deepest childhood memories”. These memories belong, in the film, to David—a tiny king played by eight-year-old Alan Kim—as he comes to terms with his new life on a small farm in Arkansas, as his family strives for their own version of the American Dream.

The Yi family is made up of David and his sister Anne (Noel Kate Cho), their parents Monica (Han Ye-ri) and Jacob (Steven Yeun) and their grandmother, Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung). It’s a personal story for Chung, one that Mosseri felt honored to be a part of. “It’s a very intimate story with these five characters, which takes place mostly in this small mobile home—but emotionally, it’s very epic.”

There was something about Chung that had caught Mosseri’s attention early on. “I had met him at the LA premiere of Last Black Man,” Mosseri says, “and I sent him the Kajillionaire score.” Mosseri was already familiar with the filmmaker’s work: “His first film, Munyurangabo, is incredible.” He calls Chung “very open, but also sly” in terms of hitting the right notes and “gently steering the ship”. The partnership between composer and director was about working on “a more emotional level,” Mosseri says. “There was never any talk about what we wanted stylistically.”

The ‘Minari’ ensemble cast.

The result is a film graced with music at once lush and raw, grandiose and vulnerable. Mosseri is keenly aware of these nuances, and always made sure to walk the tonal tightrope in the writing process. “There aren’t sad cues and hopeful cues,” he explains. “Every cue has both feelings. Each musical moment dips in and out of the hopefulness and joy of a family, and then the pain and frustration and dissonance that they hold.”

The way Mosseri’s music swells and flows often feels intangible, magical, even—which comes more from knowing what to avoid, rather than acting with too much forced intention. On his first film, Mosseri brought brass and strings to the streets of San Francisco, and with Miranda July, he worked old Hollywood glamor into the concrete blocks of Los Angeles. Here, we twirl through the tall grass as gentle acoustic guitars and elegant string sections sigh and sway, while the Yi family work through their growing pains.

“We didn’t want to hear Korean music when you see Korean characters, and we didn’t want twangy music when you see an American farm,” Mosseri explains. “We wanted to come at it from the side somehow, in some way that’s unexpected.” ‘Rain’, his collaboration with Minari star Han Ye-ri, which features on the official soundtrack, encapsulates this juxtaposition. It’s an epic lullaby of sorts; Han sings in Korean to a gentle guitar; a pleasing swell of synths climbs alongside her voice. The effect on the listener is as if liquid love is trickling from every vein. “I wanted this score to feel like it had a warm, beating heart.”

Two of your three feature films to date have been released by A24, and so we must ask: what are your favorite A24 film scores? Emile Mosseri: Three come to mind. First of all, Anna Meredith’s score for Eighth Grade. It’s so adventurous and unexpected and fresh and just brilliant. It’s so pure and out-there. It also does this impossible thing of being hip and exciting and deep, but also hilarious. The pool-party scene fucking kills me.

Then there’s Under the Skin by Mica Levi. I remember seeing that at the Nighthawk theater in Brooklyn and feeling like it was the best score I’d heard in as long as I could remember.

And then of course, Moonlight. That film got under my skin in a way I didn’t see coming. I saw it by myself in a theater, after hearing all the hype for months and months. When a movie has that much hype you can get a bit cynical and it can distract you, so I went in a bit guarded, but I left the film destroyed. For weeks and weeks it resonated with me in a way that was so profound, and a large part of that is due to Nick [Britell]’s music. And the film is just perfection.

Scarlett Johansson in ‘Under the Skin’ (2013), scored by Mica Levi.

You’ve been described as Nicholas Britell’s protégé more than once… It’s funny, I think that came from me being a fan of his and saying nice things about his music. I met him at Sundance two years ago when Last Black Man was premiering. I went with my wife and my brother and I was so excited, I’d been waiting for this moment for so long. We walked in and Nick and Barry [Jenkins] were walking in behind [us]. And there was also Boots Riley, Kamasi Washington… all these people I looked up to. I hadn’t considered that I would see this film in the room with them, and it was the first time I was hearing the final mix and just agonizing.

Nick was incredibly generous and said great things about the score and was super encouraging, and he became a friend and mentor. But I’ve never studied with him or worked with him. Although, if you’re a fan of somebody’s work, you’re a student of any of these composers that you admire. Anything you watch and listen to, you absorb.

What was the first film that made you want to be a composer? It was Edward Scissorhands. Danny Elfman’s score was the first one that made me realize that this was a job. I’m always attracted to big, romantic melodies, and over-the-top sweeping stuff—but done tastefully. In that score, he sets the high-water mark for me. It’s so unapologetically romantic.

And then there are other obvious ones like The Godfather. It’s maybe a dorky choice because it’s the most famous movie ever, but it really is the best. And that got me into Nino Rota, and from there I found [Federico] Fellini and all these movies through Nino, the composer. And then I got really into the score for La Dolce Vita and more movies that he’d written for, which are so beautiful.

The ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (1990) score was an early inspiration for Mosseri.

Which films, new to you, blew you away in 2020? Take Shelter by Jeff Nichols blew me away. It unfolded in a way that was intoxicating and really exciting, and it just really stuck with me.

What’s been your favorite needle drop on screen this year? Aside from Devonté Hynes’ score being stunning, there’s an amazing piece of music placed in an episode of Luca Guadagnino’s We Are Who We Are. They use a Paul McCartney song called ‘Let Em In’, and they dropped it in this incredibly tasteful but unexpected way, in a really dark, emotionally loaded scene. It worked in such a beautiful and graceful way. It’s because it’s the most cheery McCartney, it’s full-blown upbeat and poppy McCartney. And this is the darkest-of-the-dark human pain, and it lands in this way that is such a bold choice, such a powerful move.

What should people listen to after watching Minari? One record I’ve been listening to a lot recently is Jeff Tweedy’s Love is the King. It could be a good companion to Minari. I’m a huge fan of his and it’s a gorgeous record. It’s very stripped-down and emotionally raw, and it’s both hopeful and heartbreaking.

Which filmmakers would you love to work with next? I’m always afraid to answer this question because there are so many filmmakers I admire. There are filmmakers I grew up with loving their films—working with Miranda was that for me. Spike Jonze or Yorgos Lanthimos are directors in her world that I also love and would love to work with. But there’s so many others. Derek Cianfrance is amazing and he works with different composers. I love his choice of collaborators musically. I love that he used the late great Harold Budd to do his shows [including I Know This Much is True], and then Mike Patton, and Grizzly Bear… the music is always incredible in his projects, but he doesn’t have a go-to person. His films are so heartbreaking and powerful and really, really raw. He’s fearless.

I feel very lucky that I’ve worked on these three films which are all very much like somebody’s ripping their heart out and putting it on the screen. I feel like Derek Cianfrance does that in his films too, in this unapologetic, super-vulnerable way of just ripping his soul out and putting it out for everyone to see. It’s incredibly appealing to find those projects, because they’re really rare.

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Follow Ella on Letterboxd

‘Minari’ is available everywhere in the US that movies can be rented, and screening in select theaters in the US and other regions. Listen to the official soundtrack and more of Mosseri’s film compositions in the official Spotify playlist via Milan Records. ‘Kajillionaire’ is available on VOD now.

[razanartuk]

about me tag game thing

i was tagged by the wonderful @nothingunrealistic! thank you very much ily <3

under read more bc i was not capable of keeping my answers brief this time around

why did you choose your url?

this...was supposed to be a short explanation but it turned into quite a tale so strap in i guess because we are going on a ride. back in 2017 i was just getting into musical theatre rp and i was still feeling too shy to really talk to anyone ooc so i would just wait for people i wanted to interact with to post starter calls so i could just do things in character with them the easy way. So i did this with my friend cam, who posted a starter for me using a lyric from If I Could Tell Her. she linked the song so i could listen to it, so i did and i went ‘wait a minute, is that Ben Platt from Pitch Perfect?? (and other things too, but i only recognized his voice at the time bc of the acappella girl movies)’ and yes it certainly was.

i had zero idea what the plot of Dear Evan Hansen was about at that point, and for some reason based off Just That One Song and the poster art of who i assumed was Some Guy in a Polo Shirt i started to think it was about some jock guy who broke his arm and had an emo/goth friend who had either died or gone missing under mysterious circumstances. also i intuited that Evan had a crush on his friend’s sister but he couldn’t tell her that directly or his emo friend would kick his ass. so i was like mostly wrong, but a little bit right.

oh and i knew jared and alana were characters from the show bc cam said that they were i think?? but i had no idea what their role was. so after listening to if i could tell her, i listened to good for you and all i really got out of that was that evan the apparently not-jock guy had done...something... that really hurt jared and alana. and at that point i finally decided to go look up a plot synopsis and i found out i was waaay off base. but honestly this is why cast recordings should include scene dialogue in the songs bc otherwise you just get soundtracks like dear evan hansen where the songs have like. zero context. we really just go from waving through a window to for forever to sincerely me without like. any reason as to what is happening huh. It’s honestly not a surprise anymore that all those people on twitter had no idea the plot isn’t about gay teenagers.

anyways. cam was writing jared and she made a post at one point about wishing somebody would write alana and i was like ‘oh i could do that!’ (after i had actually Seen a bootleg and finally knew what the whole story was, of course) so i made a multimuse rp blog featuring alana beck, nabulungi hatimbi, chloe valentine and some other characters, and cam started sharing her headcanons with me that alana is trans, jared and alana were close friends when they were little kids but they sort of drifted apart as they got older and their priorities in life changed, jared was the first person alana came out to when she realized she’s trans, etc.

one night i started talking about wanting to pick a more theatre-relevant url for my blog and trans-[character name] urls were getting pretty popular, and at least 3 of the friends i made through rp had changed theirs to coordinating trans-[character name] and i think it was cam suggested i should make mine be trans-alana so i did. eventually i realized the unhyphenated version was available so i changed it to transalana with no hyphen and i have lived here ever since. sometimes i think about changing it but i feel like transalana has become a part of My Brand and i am not so great with coming up with cool names for things.

any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them

in theory, i have sideblogs... i don’t really use them, but of the ones i do have, there is:

emsbookblog - this was supposed to be where i would post excerpts of the book that i’m working on, but i think i did that maybe one time roughly 2 years ago and then promptly forgot about it/got nervous about my writing and was scared to share anything else. the rest of the stuff that is there is assorted writing tips. i don’t really know what to do with it now. i probably should post all my little thoughts about em and anita and caleb there instead of infodumping on my main from time to time, but if i do that then i have to promo a sideblog and direct people over to it which is always annoying to me when i could just do it on this blog which is much easier

dearnovelhansen - this is basically no longer used, but was a sideblog i made specifically to talk/complain about the novel adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen which was about 3 years ago?? maybe? i can’t be trusted to understand the passage of time. but to summarize: i thought it was an honor just to have the story be made more accessible since many of us couldn’t see the stage performance, but i hated a lot of the creative liberties that were taken. my main grumbles are that everyone who isn’t evan or connor is done so dirty in the novel. connor’s still kind of done dirty in the book, but not as much as like. heidi, alana, jared, and zoe are.

horseisle3 - this one was meant to be a place where i could just enthusiastically post screenshots from hi3, but instead it turned into a blog where i occasionally reblog other players’ hi3 content and bitch about how bad the game admins are bc hi3 is the tumblr famous (infamous?) homophobic horse game. the game where it was once okay to call your club store the gulag bc according to their head of hr, ‘it’s just a russian word for prison’ but you can’t say ‘im gay’ without somebody accusing you of corrupting young children who play the game. unfortunately there aren’t very many good interactive horse games out there, so this one is still about as good as it gets. it’s either that or star stable and i don’t care about star stable.

mlaenie - i’ve had this url saved for i don’t even know how long. way way way back in the day when i wanted to escape from the clutches of the onceler fandom i abandoned my first blog where i basically had an alter ego i guess?? and i decided to just be myself on the new blog. i don’t fully remember who came up with it, but one of my sister’s mutuals suggested that if you scrambled the letters in your name you could come up with aesthetic-looking urls. so lauren’s url became lrauen, and to match with her mine became mlaenie, which i abandoned on tumblr after about a year or so? but have continued to use as my main username on twitter, reddit, youtube, xbox, steam, and discord. i barely ever use any of these accounts aside from twitter, steam, and xbox, but yeah. so i’ve decided to try and turn this empty sideblog into a place for video game thoughts maybe. we’ll see how long it lasts this time around.

how long have you been on tumblr?

i made my first tumblr account in december of 2010, but i didn’t understand how to use it at all or how to customize my theme to look cool and unique so i quickly abandoned it. i made a new account in september of 2011 after some kids at school and my sister told me i should and i have been trapped here with varying degrees of activity/inactivity ever since. i have witnessed the rise and fall of the lorax/onceler fandom, hyperfocused on lord of the rings, star wars and back to the future all at the same time, and for the past 4 years i’ve mostly been a musical theatre blog with assorted other fandom stuff mixed in. i feel i have seen everything and nothing, but mostly i’m just tired and bored.

do you have a queue tag?

no bc i don’t use a queue. i’ve tried using it in the past but i irrationally feel pressured to sustain a coherent theme to queued posts and my brain simply does not vibe with that so i just don’t use it at all anymore. Instead i instantly reblog or post several unrelated thoughts in succession and then don’t post again at all for 3 days. the way god intended

why did you start your blog in the first place?

my very first blog was intended to be a place for me to post all of my petz 5 animals’ profile info, but i didn’t have any understanding of how coding worked at all and i don’t think i really wanted to learn, either. so it just sat there, unused. my second attempt at blogging was as a classic rock fandom person, so as you can probably imagine i was pretty pretentious about ‘modern pop’ vs the beatles, the rolling stones, the who, the monkees, and so on. and then i slowly devolved into a lorax fandom blog and everything went to shit so i made a new blog for lord of the rings/the hobbit which later evolved to include star wars and back to the future blogging. and then for the past 4 years i’ve been mainly a musical theatre blog with other random stuff i like thrown haphazardly into the pot. wonderful.

why did you choose your icon/pfp?

because my url is transalana and two of my most prominent lgbt headcanons are that alana beck is trans and a lesbian. i gotta be shouting out @kinqmike though bc she’s the one i adopted the trans alana beck headcanon from in the first place!

why did you choose your header?

in 2017 i was hyperfixating on Dear Evan Hansen (and Be More Chill, but there weren’t many gif-able videos then considering it ran for a month in New Jersey in 2015 and there was only one yet-to-resurface 35 minute bootleg) so i just grabbed a random gif off of google. i really should get to replacing it with a new header of my own though. i just don’t know what i should do for it.

what’s your post with the most notes?

i have lost track of how many notes it has (i think it’s somewhere around 200 now?) but when Will Roland and George Salazar performed Two Player Game on Good Morning America, i posted a screencap of their Jeremy and Michael along with that one quiz answer meme that says stuff like ‘i want to see it grow up healthy’. i didn’t tag it with any ship names or anything because i was anxious about having it show up in the tags, but somebody who reblogged it from me did tag it as boyf riends and i firmly believe it took off because of that. i don’t think i make posts that are relevant enough to amass thousands of notes, even by accident. which is probably a good thing bc if i did i would have to block so many of them.

how many followers do you have?

on this blog? 175 according to the counter. how many of those are still real people and how many are bots and abandoned accounts? i have no idea.

how many people do you follow?

i try to keep it somewhere around 200. i think i’m sitting at 180 right now but i kind of need to go through and clear out the really inactive blogs.

have you made a shitpost?

let’s think about this for a second. i’ve been on tumblr for nearly 10 years. you might even be able to say i’ve made more than one. they’re just not what you would call...popular shitposts.

how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ post?

that stuff makes me so incredibly anxious that i have to fight the urge to want to yeet my laptop or mobile device through the closest window whenever i read it, so i try very hard to avoid any sort of ‘if you don’t reblog this, i’m judging you’ posts. i find them very manipulative and not particularly helpful

do you like tag games?

yeah babey!! i just frequently forget to do them, but please know that if you have ever tagged me in a tag game i felt incredibly touched by the gesture and the @mention even if i completely forgot to do the thing afterward

do you like ask games?

i do! but also rip to literally anyone who has ever sent me an ask meme bc it takes me so long to answer them. i’m still working on a micro fic prompt from a few weeks ago. also, horrified to realized that it has in fact been a few weeks and not 3 days anymore.

which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

i don’t know that any are tumblr famous as a whole. but probably @neverheardnothing

do you have a crush on a mutual?

in any sort of romantic connotation? no. not that i’m aware of. there are mutuals that i have friend crushes on where i want to be friends with them but i get so anxious when it comes to meeting new people that usually nothing ever comes of it. i’m really not good at small talk or other casual conversation either which, as you may or may not be able to imagine, sucks. i just wanna skip over all of the awkward introductions and ‘hey how are you, how is life, what are you doing with yourself?’ stuff. not because i don’t care about it. i do, but i think most of my friends/the people i want to be my friends are also depressed and anxious so asking these basic questions about life tends to uh. make us all nervous. and i don’t do much with my life so i always have the most boring answers anyways.

i’m not tagging anyone officially bc the @ thing has just completely given up on me at this point, but if you want to do it, go for it. and then say i tagged you so i can read it c:

[sibyl-of-space]

Final Fantasy IX ~ Melodies and Memories

"Jesters of the Moon"

There are a lot of very good video games in the world, but it takes some luck and circumstance outside of a game's control for one to reach me at just the right time(s) and place(s) in my life that it has a tangible impact on who I am -- who I want to be. One that carves out a space for itself in my soul that will never be removed or replaced.

I've just finished playing Final Fantasy IX for the first time, and there's no doubt in my mind that such is the case here.

(Continued below readmore.)

I drew this art last year, when I was mourning my attachment to an old favorite game that I just don't feel the same way about anymore: Majora's Mask. I wanted to draw something that captured my feelings about it, because sometimes art is the best way to talk about something when the words don't want to come.

Why is "Jesters of the Moon," the name of a random song in the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack, plastered in the middle of this Majora's Mask fanart? Especially considering I hadn't even played Final Fantasy IX yet when I drew this?

The reason is exactly that "luck and circumstance" that allowed me to fall so uniquely in love with the game.

"Mt. Gulug"

In 2008, someone on YouTube uploaded a Majora's Mask parody-slash-let's-play series called "Majora's Mask: The Things Which Were Taken Out." The series has since become unlisted and won't be linked here out of respect for the creator who probably doesn't want things they said and made in 2008 being spread all over the internet, but because of Unregistered Hypercam 2 reasons, the series inserted other background music over the video and didn't record the actual game audio.

I didn't recognize any of the music, but I watched these parody videos on repeat because in addition to being funny (...at the time, in my mind, at least), I really really loved the music. It got to the point where I would sometimes be playing Majora's Mask and get disappointed when I approached Goht and the Mt. Gulug theme wasn't playing in the background.

I had forgotten about these videos for a really long time in the interim, but I remembered them at some point when I was thinking about Majora's Mask and I found them again. The creator had cited the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack for virtually all of the background music used in the videos, and I realized that despite knowing literally nothing about the game, I had become really fond of - and weirdly nostalgic for - the songs from it that I now recognized.

So I looked up "Jesters of the Moon" and played it on repeat while I drew out my feelings in colored marker. A few months later, I realized that my backwards compatible PS3 can also play PS1 games, and eBay had FFIX for PS1 at a good price. I had nothing to lose by ordering it and seeing what the source of all that fantastic music was like.

"Vamo Alla Flamenco"

I started my playthrough knowing nothing about what to expect from the game. I'd never played a Final Fantasy game before and my overall JRPG experience has been mostly limited to Tales of, Persona, and more recently, mainline Shin Megami Tensei. The only things I knew about Final Fantasy were a) the Tidus laughing scene, and b) Sephiroth. IX seemed like it had vibes I would enjoy, but beyond that I knew nothing about what the experience would be. So I approached it with a "let's have fun and see how it goes" attitude, naming my party members the first silly thing that came to mind, ending up with "Swaggy," "OwO," "Bitchin," "Gunz," and "SWOOORD" to start with.

(For the record I do not regret those names whatsoever.)

I was immediately struck by how differently the game uses music in comparison to all of my previous JRPG experiences. This was not a game where the composer was given a list of theme songs that were slapped on top of a mostly completed game-- this was a game constructed with the soundtrack in mind as a part of the writing process.

The opening act plays almost like an opera (side note, yes I know one of the other FF's has a literal opera, I haven't played that one): you traverse the same locations from different perspectives as different characters, introducing the cast with lighthearted humor and dramatic irony out the wazoo. While you traverse the city as OwO, OwO's theme is playing in the background, coloring your perspective of the city and the narrative. When you switch to Gunz patrolling around the castle, Gunz's theme accompanies your movement and informs his character and mission. I am so accustomed to "location themes" being the norm in virtually all video games that experiencing character and/or narrative themes as BGM instead while I bumble around town changed my entire perspective on what music in games can do and be.

The operatic feeling is definitely intentional, because the game uses a play-within-a-game narrative device to hit you over the head with its themes in a way that is somehow poignant and artful while also being extremely blatant. That is a hard balance to strike, but it manages. The whole game is like that: it is completely straightforward and tells you exactly what it's about at heart, but it does it beautifully.

At any rate, I was enamored with this intro and had a very fun time, but I wasn't obsessed or anything and ended up putting it down. I spent several months on the first half of disk 1 with weeks passing between play sessions. I liked the game plenty, but life stuff happened and I decided to get obsessed with Dai Gyakuten Saiban and Ghost Trick for a while. No regrettis.

It was already clear, though, that FFIX was going to be special to me. My compositions for my team's game in the Global Game Jam in 2021 were directly inspired by FFIX's opera-like intro. I wrote two character themes for our game that would serve as background music when you play as the two protagonists, coloring your journey differently even when moving in the same spaces. I was intentionally trying to mimic the way music is used in FFIX as an exercise. The themes I wrote are definitely some of my strongest work so far.

(You can check out the game here if you want, I promise it is significantly shorter than Final Fantasy IX.)

"Melodies of Life"

Music caused me to pick up FFIX the first time, and music caused me to return to it. After months of not touching or really thinking about it, just earlier this week I was inspired to play it again, because - again - I listened to the right song at the right time.

I was again mourning the loss of something, in this case a friendship, for reasons I'm not going to share here. I had already heard the song "Melodies of Life" because it came up when I was looking up FFIX songs to reblog on Tumblr a few months ago, and I decided to listen to it again. Even without knowing the game context, the song itself really spoke to me in that moment: "a voice from the past, joining yours and mine, adding up the layers of harmony" - it kind of made me feel at peace with the fact that I had a lot of positive memories of that friendship and I could keep those at heart while also moving on in the present. ...I'm also a sucker for music metaphors, so there is that.

I was really moved by this song, cheesy as it is, and I was also definitely in the mood for a distraction. Picking up FFIX again felt like the best move.

It was, and my life is forever changed.

The game never stopped being beautiful and funny and touching, and the soundtrack never ceased to amaze. I recognized concepts I've seen in other games but never had I seen them used so artfully. I adored the fantasy world and non-human cast, I found myself enticed by random encounter for the first time because it made me feel like I had to struggle to survive a difficult journey. Music, gameplay, visuals, and story felt like one cohesive work of art for the entire duration.

Life circumstances got me to play the game again, but the game itself was so captivating and wonderful that I binged the entire rest of it - disks 2-4 - in less than a week. Everything else that the game had to say, it told me itself, in its own context, and I was ready to listen.

"You're Not Alone!"

This is going to make me sound like an emotionally-stunted twenty-something, but it has been years since a work of media has got me to have a really good cry. I used to cry playing games all the time as a kid but recently I'll find myself getting emotional, sure, often tearing up, but getting completely red-faced and snot-nosed because I physically cannot contain the emotions being evoked by a work? Years. I can't honestly tell you the last time it happened with certainty.

I feel like an emotional band-aid has been ripped off. I was f*cking sobbing during the entire duration of the "You're Not Alone!" sequence. It didn't matter that what was happening was obviously coming from a mile away, because the delivery was so raw and emotional and human!!! A whole game's worth of Swaggy punching first and asking questions later to save his friends, being Protag McProtag endangering himself for others in any and all circumstances, for the payoff of all of his friends forcing him to stop being such a primadonna and let them help him for once. It's true, too! He relies on them just as much as they rely on him! And the game doesn't just tell you this, no, it lets you try to solo all these fights and waits until you realize how boned you are until they come bail you out.

When Bitchin showed up with her "looks like you need a hand" I wanted to straight up yell at my tv. YES I DO!!! YES I DO NEED YOU BITCHIN!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!! I half knew that SWOOORD was going to heal me before I got truly KO-ed but I had been unmercifully wiped in "unwinnable" battles before in this game, so I legit thought I might have to re-do that whole part of the game again, and I was so relieved and thankful when she showed up and healed me.

This moment exemplifies everything that I adore about this game. It doesn't just tell you its story. It shows it to you, it sings it to you, and it and lets you play it out and feel it for yourself.

"Game Over"

This song is all too familiar to me. Gizamaluke's Grotto was very unforgiving for a first-time Final Fantasy player, especially one who didn't happen to pick up Big on the way for a fourth party member early on.

I hadn't heard the piano part in a few months, though, because when I picked the game back up I started just mashing to reload before it got to that point any time we wiped. I didn't hear it again until the game was truly over, this time for good.

I let it play for a while. Not too long, because I have a CRT TV and didn't want "The End" to get burned in. But a while. Enough to meditate on what I'd just experienced, and how I was feeling about it.

There's so much more to say about the game, far more than I could put in a blog post. But I don't think I need to describe these thoughts in words. I can do what the game did, and use music, use art, use stories, use metaphors, and use symbols to communicate what I mean; and hope that someone else is able and willing to listen.

And although a written record of my thoughts likely won't be preserved for all that long, maybe the feelings and the memories will be, so long as they have been shared.

[vroenis]

The 2019 Charlie’s Angels Reboot Was A Good Project & Deserved More Respect From Hollywood

We’ve just finished watching the film and there was a lot both J and I really enjoyed about it. We’re critical of media and art in different ways and I certainly don’t speak for them, as for me, oddly I’m lenient in ways that they probably aren’t when it comes to production and culture. I don’t have to dive too deeply into the cultural response to this picture to know how it went down, I’ve come into contact with just enough of it to have a clear understanding of the popular digest. The response is not at all unexpected, it’s just uninformed.

I feel that the 2019 (year of publishing) Charlie’s Angels reboot was a good project with a wonderful spirit. Elizabeth Banks’ aims were clearly evident in the final product, however it may have been shaped along the way, and that it was under-served in the production process likely from the very beginning.

This casting is fantastic.

I do wish there were better cast-ensemble promos for me to lift from the internet and wonder whether that’s another telltale sign of production or whether the heat has just faded since release and they’ve just dropped out of the archives but I struggled to find well composed images.

The first short sizzle-teaser I ever saw for the film, I thought was quite good. Neckbeards and mouthbreathers won’t have paused for a second thought before launching hate for the project - anything in the most vague proximity of feminism or empowerment of women, or even simply just not being centred around men - will be enough to bring snide internet snark by the truckload. It remains interesting that men continue to struggle to live in a world where there can be things that also exist that are not for them, they cannot simply let these other things also exist without contributing in some way. As it were, the project looked good. Sharp, clever, playful, and a timely reboot reclaimed in the most contemporary way. When I looked up the production details and found out Banks was championing it herself, I really took an interest in it. As the first full trailers released, the casting looked great - genuinely diverse and with real chemistry, I hoped it would find the audience it was looking for.

J and I have had a lot going on in our lives over the last two years and still do. We’ve gone to theatres I think twice in that whole time, maybe three times and I think two of those were gift certificates generously paid for by family. So tonight we finally got around to watching Charlie’s Angels. If we’d seen this in theatres, I’d have still be satisfied and had the same evaluation.

A production budget of $55 million is low-balling a project of this scope; 

There seems to have been a bit of pre-production shuffling and Banks did a lot of wrangling herself early on. 

The whole shoot front to back was just over two months and I assume three countries, US/or studio inclusive. 

CGI is noticeably subpar but not exactly cheap either, so it still would have cost a significant portion of that prod. budget. When I say subpar, the CG in this film isn’t bad, please don’t take that criticism as overly negative of the CG artists’ work - remember that people do the best they can with the time and money they’re afforded. If you want to understand what that’s all about, I encourage you to watch Corridor Crew’s channel on YouTube.

Combat choreography with principle actors isn’t great, there’s far too much editing but again, I’m betting there wasn’t a whole lot of money and thus time for training and rehearsing for them, so combat is noticeably slow. 

2nd Unit photography looked very good because this kind of thing is very old-school Hollywood in that it contributes to what makes an action/spy movie look like one. Unfortunately, that means it was also expensive. We’re really running out of money here...

There is a lot of licensed music in this feature which isn’t cheap at all. Again this feels super old-school Hollywood and definitely demographic targeting, but it firmly timestamps the feature - any film, really - and unless your film is about capturing the essence of the time IT WAS THE 80′s! or FOLK FESTIVALS JUST BEFORE COVID BROKE OUT as an example of not necessarily wanting to capture the past, I really think trying to nail down pop songs of the hot present ultimately does your film a disservice.

And I’ll address that one first because I feel like it may have been one of the easiest changes to make to lift the overall quality of the picture. Instead of burning thru an immense amount of budget on a pile of pop licenses, I think a calculated risk could have been taken in getting a young contemporary musician to create a slick electronic score in its entirety to back it along side the generic orchestral action fare, no disrespect to Brian Tyler. To be honest, Tyler probably could have done it all himself but was also probably just writing to spec. BUT HEY... WHY NOT SCOUT FOR ANY NUMBER OF AMAZING WOMEN OUT THERE WHO ARE PHENOMENAL ELECTRONIC MUSICIANS AND PRODUCERS what am I talking about it’s Hollywood...

This is what I mean by the project deserving more respect and being under-served. Hollywood doesn’t believe in projects like this, they don’t realise what the project is and why it needs frontier, sincere, good faith hiring and instead under-funds but funds it nevertheless SEE? WE FUNDED IT, WE DID THE GOOD THING, SEE US SUPPORTING THE WIMMINS? WE’RE NOT  SEXISTS YOU CAN’T SAY WE’RE SEXISTS YOU CAN HAVE YOUR FILM oh it didn’t do very well except we didn’t let you make it the way you wanted to make it, we still shackled you to 

THE SAME TERRIBLE HOLLYWOOD TRADITIONS THAT, BY THE WAY, ARE FAILING OUR MANLY MAN MOVIES FULL OF MEN HOLY SHIT THE DEBT-RECOVERY CYCLE IS REALLY DOING A NUMBER ON OUR INVESTORS I SURE HOPE WE DON’T HAVE TOO MANY CONSECUTIVE FAILURES OR, SAY, SOME KIND OF GLOBAL CATASTROPHIC AND/OR ECONOMIC EVENT HAND-WRINGING

ahem where was I

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross provided the entire soundtrack for The Social Network and it’s both fantastic and timeless. OK oranges and refrigerators, but the principle still stands - I get the intent of Charlie’s Angels was a summer blockbuster but it would have still been elevated by being all the more slick having its own identity in music, having its own sound. You want that soundtrack by that amazing young woman because it sounds fucken awesome.

Charlie’s Angels still needed a few passes by a dialogue editor. I say that a lot. I know my standards are high and it’s a Hollywood film. There’s no problem at all with the vernacular, idioms and the casual language, that was all fine. It’s always just the little details - again, it’s always time and money which - really is just money. A good dialogue editor or script supervisor might have been able to just elevate this whole thing to that super-smooth level of flowing just right. Or perhaps if the actors had spent more time in training and combat rehearsal together, they’d have riffed better and improvised more. They still have good on-screen chemistry but again, more time - more money for time - and things improve.

If you don’t know my taste in film, you could see if you recognise anything in the Film Notes page of this journal, but it’s totally OK if you don’t. Basically most of them are long and boring, with super long takes of people not saying or doing much. I still love Hollywood films tho - I love all cinema and I’ll repeat like a broken record, I should either add a section to Film Notes of my favourite blockbusters or create a page for them. Anyway - Charlie’s Angels still has too much editing mostly due to the aforementioned combat, but also because of that good old Hollywood formulaic style-guide. It’s easy to look up the production credits and pluck out names but on a project like this, it’s difficult to pin the end result on the roles themselves. In these cases, personnel like editors are more like daily jobs rather than creative contributors which again is an immense shame. I catch myself before saying “It doesn’t have to be a Malick/Shortland/Lynch project...” but why not? Why can’t a summer blockbuster have its own fantastic identity? General audiences can identify Michael Bay and Christopher Nolan - sure, one or perhaps both of these people take themselves far too seriously, but why not let a project have its own identity?

We run back into the conversation of protecting investments and style guides.

The easy answer to Bay and Nolan is they’re men, but they’ve also had time to prove their worth over time with previous work and track record. Because they’ve had the privilege to do so. Because they’re men. And most of the people making decisions and letting them experiment and sometimes fail to recover investment on their projects and hey, don’t worry, just try again, are men - and they were permitted to try again because they were themselves men.

Whether individual men do or don’t deserve whatever they did or didn’t get, I’m not here to discuss. Many of them definitely didn’t and I can’t change it.

What we should be changing is how we finance, how we empower and how we hand over autonomy of projects to women in cinema, in the arts - in professional life, in any industry.

YOU DON’T KNOW THE DETAILS OF THIS PROJECT

So. Fucking. What.

I can make educated guesses and I can support as much as possible as fair and equitable an arts industry wherever I engage with it.

I really liked Charlie’s Angels. It had a lot of heart. It had a wonderful sense of play and sass and smarts. Yes, a few too many “why didn’t they just shoot the bad guy” moments etc. - again - script reviews, better writers, more time...

More money.

More respect from an industry that doesn’t respect women and women’s autonomy; social, professional, in all aspects.

I hope Elizabeth Banks wants to make another one, can raise the finances for it and has even more control of the next project. More power to her.

[thecomposerthatwaspromised]

Were you familiar with His Dark Materials franchise before you signed onto the project? Had you read the books before, or was the whole thing just kind of new?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was deeply in my life. It's kind of one of those jobs that when you hear about it, I had to be involved, and whether I bribed somebody to get me the job or turned up at their office, I knew I had to do it. It was with Mission Impossible. I was a massive fan and with Mission, it had been in my life for 20 years. I'd been basically subconsciously writing Fallout out in my head. Just that famous Lalo Schifrin theme, I had been trying to write it for 20-odd years. With Dark Materials, I think... When was the first one? It was in the '90s. '95, gosh, how old was I then? I'm 42 now... Oh well, I'll figure that one out and text you. However old I was, it was a long time ago.

But yes, it was the same heritage and folklore of the likes of Harry Potter and Star Wars to me. Basically, I found out about it and I just knew I had to be part of the team. It's always very intimidating, especially with literature, because the thing is that everybody has created their own soundtracks in their head when reading these books, and you don't want to mess it up.

What kind of inspiration and influences did you take into consideration when you were crafting the His Dark Materials score? Since it's the kind of source material that everyone interprets in a different way, what was kind of important for you in creating your take on it?

I always treat these books as steampunk. I was very aware of the different worlds and the fact that you weren't too sure of what the technology was, and if it's present or past. Musically, I knew right from day one I wanted it to be a mixture of organicness and electronic-ness, and have it so that the organicness was being manipulated, so sonically you don't know what you're hearing and you're not too sure if this is real or if it's not.

I also kind of wanted to always make sure that with Lyra --I'd never worked on a show where it has such a strong young female lead, and I just wanted to make sure that I wrote it so it wasn't patronizing to her age. She is the future and she's just strong. I think that I wanted to make sure that she dramatically was as strong and powerful as if it was Princess Leia, for example.

And also what I wanted to do was very clearly set out each character's themes. Before we even started, I really spent a long time just creating everybody's dramatical world. With Mrs. Coulter, it's powerful but also slightly sexy. I'm not too sure if I can say the word "sexy" for Mrs. Coulter, but the thing is that her character, the way Ruth [Wilson] plays her especially, it's very imposing.

There are so many sides to it. I just wanted to start off composing and just making sure all of our characters have very clear dramatical worlds, and also their own instrumentation. I think that color-wise, I wanted to make sure that they have their own performances. In the same way, I started thinking about who was going to perform the music. And ironically with Mrs. Coulter, I got Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the drummer, to come and play on it. Because it was like "This is serious now, and this is powerful." For some reason, I just kept thinking of Chad.

On other themes, with the Egyptian theme, I was lucky to get [violinist] Lindsey Stirling involved to come and play. Everybody's theme, I wanted to get musicians that I could work with, that would also be that character sound.

I'm just remembering now, the same with [cellist] Tina Guo's playing on the soundtrack. She's the main cellist for Wonder Woman. I'm probably forgetting names. I should have practiced. KT Tunstall, the singer, is on the score. Sarah Willis is a French horn player with the Berlin Philharmonic. I was calling her a month ago in Cuba, in Havana, because she's on tour. And then Rich Harvey, one of the top recordists... Recorder players? Is that a recordist? I'm not too sure. So yeah, I wanted to get that high cast of musicians as well as the show, the cast, their actors.

What's your favorite thing about the score for His Dark Materials? Is there a certain theme or a certain sequence that you're just like, "I can't believe I was able to pull this off"?

I wish I could have more faith in my own music. Unfortunately, I don't. What we're doing with the soundtrack is that when the show starts, we're going to release two albums. The first album is going to be a musical anthology to our world, and it's all of the character's themes and the show's themes. And then the second album will be actual cues from the actual show. I'm still writing at the moment, so I want to say that the best is yet to come because I'm still at episode eight. But I think everything has been a challenge, because I think with Lyra, I think very, very aware of thinking about the fans.

To me, it's a hard job. It's very like working on games, because there's such a heritage and loyal fan base, that you can't please everybody. It's just impossible. But you've got to be loyal. I tried to do some research to see what fans would be listening to, and I found some references to the music of Algar, so I took some inspiration from that. To me, I've tried to just do my best to what people might feel with these characters. And also everybody working on the show are fans of the books -- whether it's the costume department or the makeup department or the camera department, everybody's wanted to be involved with this because of their love of the books. It's apparently a team effort.

And I think that the opening sequence has been one of the hardest jobs I think I've ever had because you're trying to write a theme and a piece of music that represents this story, which is mammoth. I think [it's like] being asked, "Who's your favorite child?" It's impossible, but I think that the journeys through it is all fun. We're recording all over the world, musically. We've been recording in Los Angeles and Cuba and Vienna, and we've been recording an amazing female choir in Bulgaria. We're recording the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra in Wales. Just the recording of the music alone is mammoth. I'd say there is no favorite, but I hope the main theme of the show gets people excited.

I'm really excited about the two different albums. I always love it when shows or movies really let people experience the music of the show, outside of them actually watching it in the moment.

I think there's a lot on the first album that's not necessarily a written picture, but it's a listening experience. And because I wanted to try to, maybe for two and a half, three minutes, be able to clearly represent who these characters are without being interrupted by people talking on top of it, selfishly. I think that's been a fun part of this journey.

[...] And then just to wrap it up, what can you tease about your future projects beyond His Dark Materials? What do you have coming up that we can look forward to?

[...] That's the plan, but also I'll start the second season of Dark Materials, probably after Christmas. There won't be much of a gap. I'm on the last episode at the moment, so there'll be a few months, and then I'll start on the next season, which I'm very, very excited about.

[kimmyiewrites]

Dreams Coming True

Fandom: The Last Five Years, Newsies Ship: Jamie Wellerstein x Katherine Pulitzer AN:  This idea came from my music going from the Newsies cast album to The Last Five Years soundtrack. I love the chemistry that Kara and Jeremy have and well this one shot was born. I hope you enjoy it and I'd love to know what you think!

As soon as the divorce was final, it was like the appeal he had to women vanished. The thing he had going with Elise didn’t work out. It had truly just been a fling, unlike what he had thought before going to Ohio one last time. He threw himself into writing his next book then. He wasn’t going to just be someone who wrote one good book and then never be heard from again.

The parties started up again when it was time to release the latest book. Random House had really out done themselves this time. He knew more people this go around. Mingled with those he hadn’t seen in some time and spoke with the ones that had become his friends while answering questions from the press.

“Pen and paper, huh? Isn’t that a little old school?” Jamie asked as he approached the bar. He had been watching her for most of the evening. The lanyard around her neck informed him that she was with the press but those he had spoken to had a tape recorder or just their phones. Not to mention, she was gorgeous. She had a polite smile that just teased at the real thing. He was sure it could light up just about anything if it was unleashed.

“Maybe but it gets the job done and I don’t have to worry about batteries dying or trying to make out what the person said through the background chatter.” She shrugged, looking towards him, that polite smile making its appearance as she held out her hand. “Katherine Pulitzer, The New York Times.”

He took her hand, giving it a shake before letting go. “Jamie Wellerstein, author.” He smirked a bit before ordering another drink. “Any relation to the designer?” There were times Cathy would always come back. He remembered his ex-wife always complaining about it.

Katherine looked at the author with wide eyes. No one ever linked her to her cousin first. It was always her father since she too was a journalist. “Actually, yes. She’s my cousin.” She smiled fondly, smoothing out any wrinkles in her dress, which happened to be the original dress in the design that was named after her. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask about my father first.”

Jamie’s eyebrows furrowed. He really only knew about her cousin because of Cathy. Should he know who her father is? “I’m sorry but maybe I could get a refresher?”

She then laughed and he smiled, knowing that he had been right. Her entire face lit up. “Oh my god, you don’t know. I think you might just be my new favorite person.” She said in between her laughter. “Joseph Pulitzer, owned The World before selling it and going into semi-retirement to terrorize the grad students at Columbia University?”

He shook his head, still not knowing who this man was, which seemed to be just fine by Katherine. “That’s it. You are my new favorite person. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

He smiled, motioning to her lanyard. “By all means. That’s what you’re here for after all.”

She finished off her drink and picked up her pen. “So how -”

“You’re not going to ask about my ex-wife, are you?” He interrupted her. Too many others had asked that tonight, starting off the same exact way and he just couldn’t any more.

She looked to him, brows furrowed. “No. Have people actually asked you that?”

He nodded his head, waiting for her to finish her original question.

“While I’m glad people have thought of men to ask that question to, it’s still just as tasteless if you had been a woman. I’m sorry my colleagues don’t have any class. I was going to ask how you found your inspiration for this book? It’s much different from your first, yet it still has the same heart that draws your reader in.” She looked to him expectantly.

He smiled fondly, explaining how he wanted a different kind of coming of age story. One where the main character stayed true to themselves and still completed their goals without changing their appearance or who they were. He called it a finding of purpose story.

Katherine smiled and it wasn’t the polite one he had been seeing her show everyone else once she got what she needed. “Great quote, thanks. Enjoy the rest of the evening.” She pushed away from the bar closing her notepad.

“You’re not staying around for the rest of it?” He asked, not wanting her to go just yet.

She shook her head. “No, I’ve got a deadline I need to make. It was great meeting you, Jamie.” She started making her way towards the door before turning back around to face him. “Off the record, I hope you find your own brigade.”

Jamie stared after her. How did this woman know? There was no way she could somehow guess that this story had spurred from all of his frustrations from these past few years.

                                                          ~~~

It had been months since they had last seen each other. He had printed out her review, a mix of wit, honest opinion, and persuasion to go get his book. It may not have had to do anything with the spike in book sales but he was definitely giving her that grateful credit. There was also the twitter conversations. It remained strictly about books but they had begun an exchange of recommendations for each other. Books turned into movies which turned into what to binge watch on Netflix.

Of course the others in their world began to gossip and Katherine had nipped it before it could grow into a large enough rumor for TMZ to cover. “If you do not wind up befriending the creators you write about, you’re doing your job wrong or are in the wrong business.” She had started a whole other controversy with that tweet that their small conversations went right back under the radar.

Random House had orchestrated another party. A different book launch for a different author and because he too was under the publishing house, he had been invited. He briefly wondered if she would be here. He hadn’t really noticed her before the first time they had met. Then again, he had been caught up in Cathy in the beginning.

At this point these parties had become a bit of a routine. Mingle here, grab a drink there, graze whatever food was laid out and then back to mingling. “Did you finish season one yet?” Her voice cut through the background noise as he was waiting for his drink.

“I’ve got like two more episodes. I still can’t believe how good it actually is.” He turned to face her, signaling for the bartender to come back over.

Katherine placed her order and smiled up at him. He shouldn’t feel special that he got a genuine smile from her but it sure did make his heart flutter. “I told you, you would.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved her off with a laugh. “What’d ya think about this one?” He motioned to the party to signal he meant the book they were supposed to be celebrating tonight.

She shook her head. “Not his best work but not his worse either. He hit the sophomore slump bad so anything is better than his second book.”

He choked on his drink, not quite expecting that reply. “Yeah, this one was a little dry.”

“Can I quote you on that?”

“Keep me anonymous. We’re under the same publishing house after all. Don’t want to stir anything up.” He nodded.

“Thanks.” She scribbled down the quote and finished her drink. “Guess I’ll see you around then. Tell me what you think once you finish season one.”

“Wait, you’re leaving already?”

She gave him this look that said you should know by now. “I’m Cinderella at these things, remember. Midnight and I turn into a write up for not making deadline.”

“At least give me your number. It’ll make things so much easier.”

“Twitter’s not that hard to navigate. I should be at the top of your dms anyway. I’ve stayed too late already. I gotta go.” She waved and hurried off.

He let out a sigh as he watched her maneuver through the crowd. He brought his glass up to finish off his drink when he realized what she had said. ‘I’ve stayed too late already.’ Had she been waiting for him?

                                                         ~~~

The next party, she slipped a piece of paper into his pocket. He didn’t even realize it until he got home. He unfolded the torn piece of notebook paper and gasped. Pulling out his phone, he immediately tested the number.

If this is really Katherine. Tell me something that only she would say.

The fact that you don’t believe that I would give you my number is a little disheartening, Jamie.

The Writer: You did just slip it into my pocket without me realizing it.

The Critic: I was trying to keep Twittergate from happening again.

The Writer: The fact that you want to keep this friendship a secret is a little disheartening, Kath.

The Critic: Oh you’re hilarious. Ha. Ha.

The Writer: Did you make your deadline?

The Critic: I did. Thank you. Good night, Jamie.

The Writer: You don’t want to watch Casablanca with me?

The Critic: Can I get raincheck on that?

The Writer: How about tomorrow?

The Critic: Tomorrow works.

                                                         ~~~

They started out with weekly movie nights, switching off who chose the movie each week. Those movie nights then turned into sleep overs and those sleep overs turned into spending the weekend together. There were comments, glances, and touches that suggested she wanted more but he never pushed his luck. If someone like Katherine wanted to be in his life then he was going to do his very best to keep her around. The last time he rushed into something it didn’t end well.

She was so full of life and ambition. She wasn’t where she wanted to be but she had dreams of getting there. She worked so hard to be the best that she could be and he finally realized why people wanted to know her opinion. People listened, made decisions off of what she wrote and she wanted to use that influence somewhere other than the entertainment section. She could do it too, he knew she could. He just was nervous that all of this was going to wind up like the last time and he wasn’t sure if he could survive another five years of that misery.

He had decided to surprise her. He finished the meeting early and it was movie night. He knocked on her door before letting himself in. After a night where she lost complete track of time, she told him where she kept a spare key. Despite the tv set up for the movie she planned to watch tonight, Katherine was nowhere to be found.

Then he heard the crash and the shout.

Jamie walked down the hall to her in home office, knocking on the doorframe. “Is there a reason it looks like a storm blew through here?” Writing utensils were scattered along the floor. Notebooks and books mixed with them. Pages ripped to shreds and Katherine standing in the middle of the chaos.

“I tried to pitch another story again. Guess who was told to stick to reading books?” Frustration laced her voice as she stood in the midst of the mess she created. Her hands were on her hips as she was trying to catch her breath.

He didn’t even get a chance to respond before she launched into her rant. “I was because that’s all I am to them. Their favored book critic. No one cares that I’ve been at this since I finished my education, hell, even before that. No one cares that my stories are given to other writers who couldn’t get the people to care even if there were tear stains on the printed version. No one cares that the glass ceiling is actually just different floors to a fucking high rise building. No one cares that each time I rear back to punch my way through they tie my arm back to make sure I don’t.”

“Maybe -” She cut him off again.

“Don’t. I don’t need any advice. I’ve been fighting this bullshit for too long and I’ve tried everything. I even wrote my own fucking story and they rewrote everything and published it under someone else’s byline.”

“Then what do you want from me, Cathy?” He shouted, not being able to take this anymore. It was too similar, being cut off when all he was trying to do was help. He hadn’t even truly registered the words Katherine had said. They weren’t filled with pity, they were filled with anger and determination.

She pointed to the front door. Her poster had gone rigid from hearing the name of his ex-wife. She knew enough from the stories reported on the two and connected some dots from what little Jamie had told her. There was a new kind of anger behind her eyes. “For you to go.”

“What?” Things finally began to dawn on him. Oh, he truly messed up.

“Go and don’t you ever call me Cathy again. I am not her. This is just one more set back, one more rope for me to cut through. They’ll eventually run out and you’ll see my byline on the front page. I know you had an important meeting today and if you being here earlier than what we had decided on indicates anything, then I can’t be happier for you because you deserve everything you ever dreamed of. I just will not stand to be compared to your ex-wife when I have even the most minor of setbacks because I come out of it fighting even harder. So right now, you need to leave.”

Jamie looked at her in shock before he gathered himself and did as she asked. He had a lot of rethinking to do. Sure both women had ambition but unlike Cathy, Katherine knew her worth and she was going to prove it to everyone. Katherine wasn’t about to let anyone stand in her way.

                                                            ~~~

The Idiot: I’m sorry for calling you Cathy. You are a million miles away from her. I just wanted to say that and that whatever you do, you’ll always have me in your corner.

Katherine looked over at her phone, spoon sticking out of her mouth as the planned movie of the evening played. She read it over and sighed. His text was not helping her with her guilt for feeling like she overreacted. She was throwing a temper tantrum even if she thought she rightfully deserved it. It also reminded her that she lied a bit when she had told him, she had tried everything.

There was one solution she hadn’t tried yet. This one scared her to no end because it meant that she could potentially lose her job. Then again. She jumped up from the couch and hurried back into her office. She wasn’t going to get anywhere she wanted if she wasn’t willing to take some risks.

She set up a youtube channel, a blog, and changed her bio on twitter and instagram. Not just the book girl.

Her first blog and video went into detail about what she was doing, what she would be covering, and hoped that people would follow her. She drafted everything up, linked all of her profiles together, and then stared at her computer screen. This was it. Now or never. She was making a change for her future. She took a deep breath and hit publish. She tweeted a link to her blog post. She posted the thumbnail on her instagram with linking her new blog in her bio. She even went to her stories and linked it there with the swipe up option.

The One: Check out the link I just posted on twitter.

Katherine stared at her phone as she waited. The five minutes that passed felt like life times but when her phone dinged with his response, she felt like she could cry.

The Idiot: I’m so proud of you.

                                                           ~~~

People ate Katherine’s blog up. They loved it. She updated every Tuesday and Thursday with doing various small videos on instagram and twitter about certain stories. Companies began to ask to be sponsors and the day she had been waiting for finally came. The New York Times let her go. She was upset of course but as Jamie had reminded her, it allowed her to spend more time doing something she wanted to do. Luckily the sponsor money helped and she was able to tap into her trust fund if she needed.

Jamie had gotten a movie deal for his latest book. A party had been organized by not just Random House but by the production company as well. With Katherine no longer a part of the media list, he had to figure out how to ask her to join him. She had easily become his favorite part about these things.

“Hey Katherine?” Jamie looked up from his dessert.

“Hmm?” She hummed around her latest bite of pie.

“Would you want to be my plus one to this event tonight? And then well for every event after that?” His voice grew quieter and more rushed at his second question.

“Are you asking me on a proper date?” She leaned a little forward, eyebrow raised.

“If I am?”

“Then I’d say yes.” She whispered, smiling at him before leaning back and taking another bite of her dessert.

He grinned, going to take another bite of his as well when a question came to mind. “Wait, what do you mean by proper?”

“I haven’t been seeing anyone since our movie weekends started, have you?”

“No.” He shook his head. If he was honest ever since he met her, he had stopped looking at other women.

“Then this will be our first proper outing as a couple then, wouldn’t it?” She quirked her eyebrow up once again.

“So you’re saying you want to be my girlfriend?” He really couldn’t believe it. Then again she had always been the one to set the pace in their relationship.

“Yes.” She smiled and he was reminded of how he wondered what a genuine smile from her would look like. He was reminded that he now got them all the time.

“Then I guess we’re officially dating.” He matched her grin with one of his own. He didn’t think he’d been this happy in a long time.

“Picking me up at seven, then?” She asked, after finishing off her dessert.

“I’ll be there.” He promised.

                                                        ~~~

They still kept movie nights but the sleep overs definitely strayed away from sleeping in different areas and moved towards sleeping together. The night he found out that her father was Jewish but the only thing she practiced was Hannukah due to her Episcopalian mother was a night they missed the movie completely. They appeared at every outing together. She stayed by his side and never hid by the bar, steaming with jealousy. Despite working her ass off to make her blog the most successful it could be, she stayed on top of every party that he had to attend. She knew the book, researched the author, and wound up mingling like the best of them. Everytime he would compliment her, she would just brush it off and credit her mother for her behavior.

She had moved to covering the news during the week. On the weekends however, she would give a review of the newest book, tv show, theatre production, or movie she had seen that week. With the first one she did, she stated how it was important to remain in touch with her roots while bringing the hard hitting stuff throughout the week.

A few months into their new relationship, Katherine ran through the halls of Jamie’s apartment building. She knocked on his door, more like banged, until he opened it. His eyes were frantic until he realized the crazed person on the other side of the door was Katherine.

She squealed when he opened the door, raising her arms in the air in a victory celebration while bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I’m gonna be on the Today Show!”

“Oh my god!” He wrapped her in his embrace before picking her up and twirling her around a bit. “Congratulations! I knew you could do it.” He set her back down and ushered her inside. “Tell me everything.”

She launched into how she was getting a segment right before Kathy Lee and Hoda did theirs. It was going to be called Watch What Happens with Katherine Pulitzer. It would cover all the news stories she thought people needed to keep an eye on. She would then end it with a review of some sort or even an interview. They were going to allow her to keep the blog and actually encouraged her to keep it running. The only thing they were going to change was her youtube channel, making it more on brand and instead of uploading her own home made videos, they would upload video clips from her segments.

Jamie just grinned as he listened to Katherine tell him everything. She couldn’t even sit still, she was so excited. Once she was done, he pulled her in for a long, deep kiss. “I’m so proud of you.” He whispered after they separated.

Katherine grinned before pulling him down to her for another series of kisses. Needless to say, Jamie was late for his morning meeting that day.

                                                       ~~~

Katherine’s segment was going well. The rankings were beyond what NBC had predicted. The movie based off of Jamie’s second book was dubbed most anticipated and he was already working on a third book. Life was finally going the way that each of them had dreamed about. They had their dream careers. They had their dream relationship. They even had their dream living arrangement after they moved in together after the first year of them getting together. Jamie didn’t feel like things were moving too fast and Katherine finally felt seen and heard. Most importantly they had each other and the support from the other was something they never thought possible. All of their dreams really did finally come true.

[thisguyatthemovies]

Why so quirky?

It took more than 14 years to get around to it, but the other night I watched the 2005 Cameron Crowe train wreck “Elizabethtown,” a film that sometimes shows up on Worst Movie Ever lists. It’s bad, but its “worst” status is more about disappointment, given the writer-director’s previous track record {“Say Anything…,” “Almost Famous,” “Jerry Maguire,” “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”). Still, did I mention it’s bad? A ridiculous premise, plot lines that go nowhere, obvious and heavy-handed symbolism, multiple and sickeningly sweet (and annoying) “meet cutes” and quite possibly some of the worst casting in a major motion picture ever all add up to a movie that deserves much criticism.

“Elizabethtown” also is notorious for inspiring the term “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” (or MPDG). The phrase usually is credited to Nathan Rabin, who wrote a piece about the movie, “The Bataan Death March of Whimsy Case File #1: ‘Elizabethtown,’” for AV/Film nearly 15 months after its release. In it, he describes Kirsten Dunst’s character, Claire, the inexplicably bubbly love interest of suicidal-but-handsome protagonist Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom), as the embodiment of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Rabin describes the type as such:

“The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

By that definition, applied retroactively, Dunst’s Claire isn’t the first MPDG in movie history (some include Katharine Hepburn’s early roles on MPDG lists), nor is she even the best example of one (think Natalie Portman in “Garden State,” or Zooey Deschanel in “Yes Man” or the TV show “New Girl”). And the term, which Rabin reportedly now regrets coining, has become better defined with attributes that don’t necessarily fit Claire, even though she will forever be considered the epitome of the trope.

In case you have not seen “Elizabethtown” (and you’ll probably be just fine never seeing it), Bloom plays a shoe designer who works for a company not unlike Nike. Somehow, he is saddled with all the blame for a shoe that is so bad that it is recalled and will cost the company (somehow) nearly a billion dollars. Bloom’s Drew Baylor is fired and decides to off himself, but a phone call about the unexpected death of his father interrupts him during his first attempt. Drew, a West Coaster, is enlisted by his family to travel to Elizabethtown, Ky., his father’s hometown and where the elder Baylor has passed away, to bring the body home for cremation. Relatives in Kentucky have other plans for his final resting place.

Drew takes a flight to Kentucky and – wouldn’t you know it? – is the only passenger on the plane. That’s where Claire comes in. She apparently is the lone stewardess, and she is a talkative one at that. She won’t leave Drew alone from the get-go, and she (somehow) senses Drew is troubled and needs help because, for a guy who had a relatively important position with an internationally known shoe maker, he has no idea how to live this thing we call life. She does what any upstanding MPDG would do – she makes the repair of his damaged soul her sole purpose in life.

Claire would seem to vary from the standard trope in that she has a life of her own, at least when she and Drew meet. Her career would afford her at least a modest independent existence. She seems to have a nice place. She even has a boyfriend, though it is not clear if the guy really exists or, if he does, he is all that into her. But Claire quickly becomes a genie let out of the bottle; Drew’s every wish is her command. She just happens to show up wherever Drew is so much that if the roles were reversed, Drew would be accused of stalking. She says all the right things, even as Drew continues to hint at ending his life. She even (somehow) has the availability to, within a brief period of time, piece together a scrapbook (including hand-drawn illustrations) that will help Drew navigate a soul-discovering solo cross-country road trip AND (this being a Cameron Crowe movie) has provided the soundtrack via mix CDs that are (somehow) timed perfectly to coincide with landmarks during Drew’s travels. So omnipresent, so magical is Dunst’s character that some have suggested she was written to be a guardian angel sent to save Drew’s life. That interpretation at least makes some of Claire’s story semi-plausible and almost tolerable.

Claire is selfless to a fault, and she certainly is strange, maybe unstable. But, if anything, Manic Pixie Dream Girls lost even more sense of self and picked up more strangeness as the stock character turned into a full-fledged trope. Think Deschanel as Allison in the 2008 Jim Carrey vehicle “Yes Man.” As is always the case in these things, Carrey is a cynical, disillusioned man looking for meaning in life. He happens upon Allison, who hits a lot of stock MPGD notes. She zips around town on a moped. She wears mismatched clothing from vintage stores. She performs avant garde (and awful) music. Her primary means of supporting herself (?) is by teaching a class that combines jogging and photography. She is everything Carrey’s Carl Allen is not, mostly carefree. They, of course, engage in romance, even though Carl is notably older than Allison (that’s the case in many films, not just MPDG movies).

In 2010’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” two characters combine for the role of MPDG. The titular character, played by Michael Cera, is a slacker musician a few years removed from high school. That doesn’t stop him from dating a high-schooler, Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), whose sole purpose is as a superfan for Scott’s band. Then Scott meets the girl of his dreams (literally), Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is at least older than Knives but still is quirky (she works delivering packages while on roller skates) and impulsive (she often changes her hair color) but is too aloof and serious to be a full-on MPDG. She does, however, end up being a sort-of trophy, to be won if Scott can defeat her seven evil exes. So, her existence still is minimalized.

Some movies have addressed the MPDG thing head-on. Though sometimes cited as a MPDG, Kate Winslet’s Clementine in 2004’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is actually the anti-MPDG. Sure, she wears orange hair and gloves with the fingertips cut off, and she’s impulsive. But she also is flawed, sometimes dark and independent (MPDGs typically don’t get any of those traits). And she says this, which seems like a direct response to the trope, even though the term didn’t yet exist, as written by Charlie Kaufman: “Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a fu**ed-up girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind. Don’t assign me yours.”

Those are sentiments Claire in “Elizabethtown” never would have expressed, her focus being on a lost, sensitive young man and his happiness, not hers. Nor would she be allowed to even think such, given she and MPDGs like her are the products of writers and filmmakers who want to believe that this idealized version of young women is out there. That will probably be the case as long as men are writing movies, just as the male equivalent of the MPDG – the ridiculously handsome man with washboard abs who manages to accumulate much wealth despite always being around to tend to a woman’s needs and whisk her off to beaches on his private jet – will always exist as long as women are fantasizing about them and flocking to see them in rom-com-drams and reading about them in romance novels.

A little healthy fantasy is fine, but movie tropes and stereotypes are not, if we believe they can shape how we live in real life. Manic Pixie Drew Girls, though not totally a thing of the past (Joi, the A.I. girlfriend in 2017’s “Blade Runner 2049,” comes to mind as an updated version), are becoming outdated as more and more females are having their voices heard in Hollywood. MPDGs are being replaced by independent women who are the focus of the story and don’t have to be bubbly if they don’t feel like it, who aren’t required to be quirky and can chase their own happiness. These characters, unlike Manic Pixie Dream Girls, are multidimensional. They give a movie depth, not just gloss.

Imagine if that’s the kind of character Dunst’s Claire could have been. “Elizabethtown” wouldn’t show up on so many Worst Movie Ever lists. And it wouldn’t have been forever linked to a tired movie trope and the terminology to describe it.

[village-skeptic]

RULES: tag ten followers you want to know better!

Thanks to @sullypants, @theatreofexpression and @stillhidden for tagging me! (Honestly, three lengends/faves/stars. <3)

TAGGING: @stirringsofconsciousness, @alicecooperrehab, @ballroompink, @tallulalusa, @pantsaretherealheroes, @a-true-janian-reply ....and anyone else who wants to do this, I can’t remember who all has already!

NAME: On here, village-skeptic. (Incidentally, I must say - I’ve realized post-facto that this is not a naturally nickname-able handle, and it warms my heart immeasurably every time I see someone give it a go.)

STAR SIGN: Libra

HEIGHT: 5′3″ - as I know I’ve said on here before, short enough that I swim in standard pants and yet too tall for many petite cuts. D:

PUT YOUR ITUNES/SPOTIFY ON SHUFFLE. WHAT ARE THE FIRST 4 SONGS THAT POPPED UP?

I was listening to my/my husband’s Pandora station built on Dar Williams as I unpacked my closet yesterday, and so here are four that stuck with me from that experience:  Joan Baez, “Diamonds and Rust” - I just sat down on the bed and listened when this came on. THAT LAST VERSE, in particular. Brandi Carlile, “Turpentine” - Headcanon: this song was a not-insignificant percentage of Betty’s “moving on after Archie” soundtrack, played both with and without headphones. Picture, if you would like, Alice walking past Betty’s room with a laundry basket, hearing gentle guitar and sniffles for the fourth time that week, and giving a heavy, pointed, venomous sigh.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Maps” - Positively hypnotic in its repetition. Dar Williams - “Iowa (Traveling III)” - Dar’s storytelling is just my favorite, and this one does so much to establish character, setting, conflict - in like three very singable minutes!

GRAB THE BOOK NEAREST YOU AND TURN TO PAGE 23. WHAT’S LINE 17?

“The comparative affluence of American workers during the last decades of the nineteenth century stemmed considerably from the great decline in the cost of food, which freed more income for the purchase of luxuries.” - Andrew R. Heinze, Adapting to Abundance: Jewish Immigrants, Mass Consumption, and the Search for American Identity (1990). (This is an interesting claim, tbh, and more has been written about this since 1990...)

EVER HAD A POEM OR SONG WRITTEN ABOUT YOU?

I found a book full of my ex-boyfriend’s poetry (some of which was about me) when I was home earlier this summer; and then ALSO found the lyrics that an older online friend wrote (and set to music!) about the circumstances of my first, very adolescent breakup. 

(This makes my teenage years sound far more glamorous than they were, btw!)

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU PLAYED AIR GUITAR?

I’m not a major air guitar person, but I definitely drum on the steering wheel when I’m alone!

WHO IS YOUR CELEBRITY CRUSH?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is honestly my celebrity crush of record, but as I recently invented a tag to say - every time I watch Luke Perry at a panel, I’m reminded of how much I apparently like Luke Perry now. 

WHAT’S A SOUND YOU HATE + SOUND YOU LOVE?

HATE: Insects buzzing against the walls or window screens honestly just amps my anxiety up really high. 

LOVE: Rain against the windowpanes; ocean waves; the noise of a stream or river. I’m in a water mood right now!

DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?

Not particularly in the supernatural sense. The ones that we carry with us in our minds? 100%.  

HOW ABOUT ALIENS?

I’m agnostic on this question, I think. 

DO YOU DRIVE?

Yes, and thankfully much less in recent weeks than I have had to over the past year.

IF SO, HAVE YOU EVER CRASHED?

No, but I did manage to scrape my car along a light post a few months back. Cosmetic damage only, thankfully!

WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK YOU READ?

I finally got around to reading Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend, and need to track down the sequels!

DO YOU LIKE THE SMELL OF GASOLINE?

Mostly it just makes me wonder what’s gone awry that I’m smelling gasoline. 

WHAT WAS THE LAST MOVIE YOU SAW?

In theaters? The air conditioning was out over Memorial Day weekend, and so we went and saw Book Club on the strength of its cast - at what turned out to be a “reduced tickets for seniors” showing. We were the youngest people in the theater, which meant that watching the audience watch the movie was ALSO fun.

WHAT’S THE WORST INJURY YOU’VE EVER HAD?

Either stitches near my eyebrow as the result of a fall when I was younger, or when I sprained the absolute hell out of my ankle about a year ago. Knock on wood, I have been relatively injury-free!

DO YOU HAVE ANY OBSESSIONS RIGHT NOW?

Absolutely! My brain keeps tossing up Riverdale-related stuff, resulting in things like this mid-century modern architecture Bughead moodboard. We just moved, and so I’m semi-consumed at present with trying to work out solutions and arrangements in this new space - mostly closet-related, so I think I probably ought to cop to the fact that I have TOO MANY SKIRTS, and probably too much clothing in general. And I just binge-watched GLOW the other day and I’m already thinking about rewatching it. 

DO YOU TEND TO HOLD GRUDGES AGAINST PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE YOU WRONG?

I would be lying if I said no, so - yes! 

If you ask me to tell you a story about something where I think I got a raw deal, I *will* relive the emotions in the telling - but then I’ll be completely back to baseline again a short while later. ;-)

IN A RELATIONSHIP?

Very (and very happily) married. But also in many other important non-romantic relationships in my life besides that one! 

[donalsgirl]

Oscar Isaac’s Mom Died. Now He’s Working Out His Grief in ‘Hamlet.’

Oscar Isaac spent most of the fall and winter at a hospital in Florida, caring for his dying mother, Eugenia. As her condition deteriorated, he found himself reading aloud to her from “Hamlet.”

“I would just read the play all the time, do bits for her,” Mr. Isaac said.

An Elizabethan revenge tragedy with a substantial body count and heavy existential dread isn’t obvious bedside comfort. But Mr. Isaac, his mother and his sister were all Shakespeare obsessives. When he was growing up, they watched Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” over and over. “Me doing Shakespeare was her favorite thing,” Mr. Isaac said.

So reciting “Hamlet” to her at the hospital felt like the right thing. Sometimes it felt like the only thing. “I didn’t know how to process any of this, but this I knew how to do,” he said.

As her health declined, Shakespearean questions that had seemed abstract — What drives the dissolution of a family? How do you overcome crippling loss? — felt immediate and real, he said.

Continue reading the main story

“I know it happens to everybody, but it’d never happened to me,” he said. “I know people’s mothers have died, but this was mine.”

Mr. Isaac’s mother died in February, but “Hamlet” is still with him. For most of this heat-struck summer, he is performing as the tortured prince grieving the death of his father, six times a week for nearly four hours a throw at the Public Theater.

Mr. Isaac certainly has other ways to spend his days. For one, his first child, a son, was born in April. And his film career is booming. In a few short years, he’s graduated from indie artisan, with films like “Inside Llewyn Davis,” to bona fide star with roles in “X-Men: Apocalypse” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” He can probably take whatever theater job he wants to or not take any theater job at all.

That said, “Hamlet” is a play that exerts a strange pull on a lot of movie and television stars (Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant, Jude Law, Ethan Hawke), and it’s a role just about any classically trained actor and plenty of actresses have dreamed of playing.

But it’s also a tragedy that asks Mr. Isaac to relive the anguished death of a parent at every performance. In Sam Gold’s rowdy, deconstructionist staging, every time Mr. Isaac mud-wrestles, or lofts a prop skull or performs a mad scene in just a T-shirt and briefs, he seems to be working through his own loss, transforming raw private grief into riveting public performance.

“It’s for my mom that I’m doing it,” he said. “It’s to honor her life, but also her death, which was so awful.”

ON A RECENT WEEKDAY, an hour before rehearsal, Mr. Isaac hunched in a booth at the back of the Library, the Public’s restaurant. Looking slighter in person than onscreen, he was sitting underneath a skull-bedizened poster for an earlier production of “Hamlet.” His black warm-up jacket was a modish update of Hamlet’s “inky cloak.” It wouldn’t have been a huge surprise if he had drawn a sword from underneath the table or spotted a ghost over by the bar.

This symbolic brazenness seemed like a joke; Mr. Isaac was probably in on it. He has a roguish sense of mischief that underlies even his more serious roles (“Ex Machina,” “A Most Violent Year”). And he’s one of the few actors of his generation who can combine the unrestrained volatility of a Method actor with pedigreed classical chops.

His Hamlet is antic, mercurial, unpredictable, but each line of verse comes across clearly, almost conversationally. As Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater — who helped cast a Juilliard-fresh Mr. Isaac in “Two Gentlemen of Verona” in 2005 and “Romeo and Juliet” two years later — said, “That combination, particularly in such a handsome man, it’s amazing.”

It’s that charisma that helped the “Star Wars” director J. J. Abrams decide not to kill off his character, Poe Dameron, who will reappear in the coming “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” “The idea of Oscar Isaac as Poe coming back into the movie and being an ally to the cause got my blood pumping,” Mr. Abrams wrote in an email.

MR. ISAAC LOVED THEATER early. Born in Guatemala and raised by evangelical Christian parents in Miami, he had his first roles in religious plays. Even then, he played antiheroes. His first lead? The Devil. He devised an entrance from underneath the bleachers, scaring an adored teacher and exciting the interest of the popular girl he had a crush on.

“For that little moment, I thought, this is what I want to do,” he said.

Eventually he fell away from the church, and though his parents supported his acting ambitions, for a while he stopped that, too. He turned to music, migrating from soft rock to grunge rock to heavy metal, before landing in third-wave ska groups like the Worms and Blinking Underdogs, which attracted a local following.

Still, he never really shook theater. He studied it at community college and apprenticed at Area Stage Company in Miami. The artistic director got him reading Shakespeare again. “I didn’t really understand it,” Mr. Isaac said, “but I liked it a lot.”

He even developed an infatuation with the film soundtrack to the Zeffirelli “Hamlet.” On an impulse, he auditioned for Juilliard, using a monologue from Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” and arguing about its interpretation with the head of the drama division in the middle of his callback.

Richard Feldman, one of Mr. Isaac’s Juilliard teachers, remembered sensing in him “the best kind of artistic ambition,” adding: “I’m not talking about fame, I’m not talking about fortune. I’m talking about the hunger to be really good.”

At Juilliard, he met Mr. Gold, at the time a directing student. Mr. Gold was immediately struck by Mr. Isaac’s “easy energy and an easy relationship to his talent and having an incredible amount of talent” and a shared belief that “acting shouldn’t look hard,” Mr. Gold said.

The two of them fooled around with some comic scenes from “Hamlet,” making a pact to work together one day on the whole play. They both got “bit by it and obsessed by it,” Mr. Gold said, speaking by phone. Those talks continued, and two years ago, Mr. Isaac signed on, saying he felt he had to do it “before the knees give out.”

“You can only be so old and be upset that your mom remarried,” he said.

Once he’d agreed, Mr. Isaac began reading academic books, watching famous past performances, playing a recording of John Gielgud’s Hamlet “and just listening to the beauty of that man’s voice,” he said. After creative tensions with the production’s original home, Theater for a New Audience, “Hamlet” shifted to the Public Theater, where Mr. Isaac had made his post-Juilliard debut, and dates were set.

But then his mother got sick and his partner, the documentary filmmaker Elvira Lind, got pregnant, and suddenly “there were a lot of things that really connected on a very personal level,” he said. As Mr. Isaac explained, performing has always helped him come to terms with his emotions. “This is how I’m able to function,” he said. “The only way that I’m really able to process stuff is through reflecting it.”

Some of the visual language that he and Mr. Gold settled on — the syringes, the IVs, the PICC lines — make his memories and associations even more visceral. His Hamlet wears rumpled clothes and has a 5 o’clock shadow (if you’ve seen Mr. Isaac’s movies, you know his facial hair is a key to character) to approximate “the look and feel of spending long hours visiting a loved one at the hospital,” he said.

In the first days of rehearsal, Mr. Gold worried “that there would be things in this play that would be such deep triggers that he wouldn’t be able to make it through the show,” he said. But he watched Mr. Isaac use the play’s words “to contextualize what he was going through,” he said.

Mr. Isaac didn’t worry about making a timeworn speech like “To be or not to be” sound new. As soon as he says the words, he is instantly reminded of his personal loss and “the feeling that grief can just make you want to stop,” he said.

At the same time, he never really discussed that personal life in the rehearsal room. “It was always a very subtle thing hovering in the air, ” Mr. Gold said. Instead, he threw himself into experimenting with the role — physically, vocally — and worked on making his colleagues laugh.

Keegan-Michael Key, who plays Hamlet’s pal Horatio, noted that Mr. Isaac, who bought a Ping-Pong table for the rehearsal room, “likes to have fun.” Onstage he’ll often monkey with a pronunciation or arch an eyebrow just to get a rise out of a cast mate.

“He’ll do it on purpose just to keep everyone on their toes,” Mr. Key said. “The more alive it is, the more uncertain it is, the more dynamic it is.”

Mr. Isaac said that performing the play hasn’t felt especially dour. When he comes offstage after four hours he feels energized, he said.

That’s in part because the play isn’t only for his mother. When he acts, he’s also thinking of his 2-month-old son, Eugene, named after her. The baby has Eugenia’s lips, he said, and her hands.

He brought Eugene to the first run-through (“I think some of the more philosophical and theological aspects of the play were above his head,” Mr. Gold joked), and it’s Eugene he thinks of when reciting the “to be” part of the “to be or not to be” soliloquy.

As Mr. Isaac explains, the speech is about dying — that’s the “not to be” part — but it’s also about choosing to go on living. And Mr. Isaac has better reasons to go on than Hamlet does.

“You have a child,” he said, “and you must — you must for their sake — you must say yes to life.”

Source

[roidespd-blog]

Chapter Eleven : RuPaul

“Hello ! Hello ! Hello !” RuPaul Charles (born November 17, 1960) has been a Pop culture Icon for the past 30 years as a punk rock singer turned dancer turned drag queen turned singer-songwriter turned model turned talk-show host turned occasional actor turned producer turned cosmetic guru turned all-around business powerhouse. Though there doesn’t seem to be any secrets surrounding the most famous drag performer in the world (and I’m not running a investigation blog), I do wish to retrace his steps, pay homage to a singular career as he just launched his new talk show last night (June 10th, 2019), and talk about the mistakes he made along the way as a way of learning from them all together.

THE DRAG REVOLUTION

Unless you were alive and moving around Atlanta in the 80s, you probably first put your eyes on RuPaul as an extra dancing on B-52’s “Love Shack”. Yes, he was a drag performer back then too. A starring role on a low-budget film called “Star Booty” here, appearances on a couple of documentaries there. Mostly nightclub work for a true working guuuurl.

In 1993, He recorded his debut album, Supermodel of the World, clearly stating his ambitions. His first single, “Supermodel (You Better Work)” is actually a masterpiece of dance/house music. The track and album were modest successes but attracted extreme media attention through heavy rotation on MTV. Soon, he became the first drag queen to sign a modeling contract (for cosmetics) and released his (first) autobiography, “Lettin’ It All Hang Out”. Side bar, I do believe that the first time I was made aware of RuPaul was in the 1995 movie ‘To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar”, a suck-my-bone-marrow American imitation of “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”. It’s about three drag queens going on a road trip from New York to Hollywood to participate in the biggest Drag Pageant of America. It’s quite vulgar, not subtle for one second and put three straight male actors into drag in performances that don’t shy away from clichés. In the end, they (SPOILER ALERT) made it to the competition and who’s crowning the winner ? Miss RuPaul, anty. I used to love that movie as a kid. Didn’t get it was about drag queens though. But please, watch Priscilla, instead. End of side bar.

By 1996, VH1 gave him his own talk show “The RuPaul Show”. For 2 seasons and 100 episodes, RuPaul interviewed celebrity guests (from Diana Ross to Cher) and made history as one of the first openly gay person to host a show on national television. For the rest of the decade, he released two more albums (one being a Christmas record entitled Ho Ho Ho — priceless name) that lead to commercial failure and overall media fatigue. Because it’s fun to see you, but “different” is better in small portions.

SECOND CUMING

From 1998 to 2004, only one forgettable song from RuPaul was released. This fourth record Red Hot (2004) received little to no coverage — Although the singles kept topping the dance charts. RuPaul admitted to feeling frustrated over the lack of interest in his work during the period, noting the media wasn’t reviewing his records and putting him on magazine covers anymore. Quote “I don’t know what happened. It seemed I couldn’t get press on my album un less I was willing to play in the role that the mainstream press has assigned to gay people, which is as servants of straight ideas”.

In 2008 however, Logo came to RuPaul with an idea that changed so much lives in the process. The offered him the possibility to host and produced a reality competition program based on his brand name called RuPaul’s Drag Race. For those who still don’t know what Drag Race is (HOW DARE YOU?), the premise of the program has drag queens competing to be selected as “America’s Next Drag Superstar” in a series of mini and maxi challenges, culminating in the end of each episode to the bottom two queens lip-syncing for their motherfucking lives and the elimination of one of them. The (new) drag revolution began on February 2, 2009 with a first season that was a bit disavowed by the host himself but it was successful enough to be renewed for a second season. A then a third. And a fourth and so on. The show just ended its eleventh cycle.

The show itself had a very interesting journey. It debuted on the fringe of entertainment, a fun little anomaly for the “in” people. It developed in its first three seasons into a somewhat very solid shows, powering through better storylines, challenges and candidates. In its fourth season, it started to be critically lauded as an incredible piece of pop culture with a cast of queens out of this world. Creatively, the show peaked from season 4 to 6 (4 having the best queens, 5 the best storylines, 6 the best narrative structure). By season 7, it was a phenomenon that keeps on growing as of today.

Last September, Drag Race received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program for the first time. RuPaul himself won Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program three years in a row and each year, the audience gets bigger and bigger. The show (who has already been renewed for a 12th year) has introduced us to almost 150 queens over 145 episodes and spawned a couple of spin-off shows, some successful (Drag Race All Stars — four seasons and counting) some not so much (RuPaul’s Drag U, canceled in 2012 after three pretty uneventful seasons). A few international incarnations were made around the world, most notably the UK edition that’s about to be released in 2019 with RuPaul (and bestie Michelle Visage) returning as judges.

EVERYBODY SAY… LOVE ?

From that storyline of a Phoenix rising from its ashes, RuPaul developed into you can pretty much describe as an “Empire Incarnate”. He released 10 new albums, 8 of them serving as official and non-official soundtracks for the show (which is made of RuPaul songs from beginning to end — ROYALTIIIIIES, PEOPLE!). He created a podcast called What’s the Tee ? with Michelle Visage in 2014 as a way to revive The RuPaul Show into another form. He developed everything RuPaul from glass wear to cosmetic lines, promoting them all on the show, released 3 more books (the latest being called “GuRu”) and establishing an annual event a few years ago called ‘RuPaul’s Drag-Con’ happening in New York City and Los Angeles with most of the show’s drag queens making appearances. Basically, he’s making so, so, so much money. An impressive feat from someone who came from nothing and did something with what he had.

Unfortunately, success and worldwide exposure don’t come without their fair share of controversies. First, the fact that everything is about RuPaul, RuPaul, RuPaul (the puns, the challenges, the fact that HE gets to choose who becomes America’s Next Drag Superstar, blablablah) comes to a breaking point in 2019. After eleven years of almost non-stop self promotion, I do feel like I need to take a little break from his sphere. I mean, we had four seasons of Drag Race and Allstars in the spam of 18 months. That’s 44 episodes of intense Queen Dramas and Glitter Balls. I do feel like too much of a good thing harms the quality and appreciation of a program. Drag Race’s latest seasons weren’t as thrilling as the previous ones, mostly due to lack of imagination in challenges, weaker casts and a formula that refuses to evolve with time. As the show went on to become an actual phenomenon, it became a bit too pleasing for all crowds, including straight people. Not that it’s a bad thing that straight people can watch and appreciate the show, but adapting it for their comprehension is kind of fucked up. They should adapt to the show’s (and ours) culture. We open the window and let the song be heard, we don’t blast the door open and give the partition for free. Anyway, just an opinion.

My biggest concern with RuPaul comes from his relationship with the trans community. Drag Race has featured a number of contestants who now identity as trans women (Sonique, Carment Carrera, Jiggly Caliente, Monica Beverly Hillz, Kenya Michaels, Gia Gunn, Peppermint), some of them making their identity public while competing on the show and that’s a good thing for the trans representation around the world.

In 2014, Carmen Carrera (Season 3) and Monica Beverly Hillz (Season 5) criticized the show’s use of words “tranny” and “shemale”. Well, yes it’s bad but the show is about drag queens and they can call themselves whatever they want, right ? (That’s me trying to come up with excuses for RuPaul back in the day). They also described the announcement phrase ‘You’ve got she-mail’ as transphobic, the same year a mini challenge called “Female or She-male” was used on the show’s sixth season. Hmm, well, the producers removed that phrase and have been careful about their challenges ever since, plus RuPaul released an apology so it’s good, right ? (Me, still finding ways to find peace within myself). In 2018, RuPaul gave an interview to the Guardian in which he states that a post-transition trans woman would ‘probably not’ be accepted on the show, noting that at the time of competition Peppermint (season 9) had not yet had breast implants. Fuck. Ru. RuPaul also compared trans drag queens who had transitioned to athletes who had taken performance-enhancing drugs. Fuck. Ru. Two. He has since expressed regrets for the comments he made but I got to say, regrets won’t totally cut it. For a man who ends every season of Drag Race with a “EVERYBODY SAY LOOOOVE!” and preaches acceptance and self-love and seems to be so involved in his community, his views on the trans community are problematic. The only criteria for contestants are “Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent”, which are qualities you can also find with Trans women. Damn, don’t you know that drag queen is a vocation, NOT an identity ?

I believe that over exposure and the lack of course correction on some of this opinions could cause RuPaul’s downfall in the near future. He’s a phoenix, he’ll come back I’m sure but if he plays his cards right, he won’t have to DO come back. Last night, his new talk show, RuPaul, aired for the first time for a three-week try basis. I watched it this morning on YouTube and… Why do you have a talk show, man ? What’s in it for me to keep watching it, aside from the fact that you are a pleasant person to see for 40 minutes ? The talk show is a vanity project that probably won’t help with the overexposure I keep talking about. I do hope that in the next three weeks though, you will receive a trans person on the show and face the criticism you’ve been shamelessly ignoring on Drag Race.

From the icon who expressed so eloquently how it’s like to have an inner saboteur, to his “you can call he. You can call she. You call me regis and Kathie Lee, I don’t care ! Just as long as you call me” or his incredible “Unless they’re paying your bills, pay for bitches no mind”, I do hope you’ll reconsider some of your actions. Do a little less Drag Race, a little less self promotion. Go enjoy your ranch with your husband for a year or so, reacquaint yourself with your community and come back.

This was an homage to you, RuPaul. I do hope I won’t come to regret my words.

NOW SISSY THAT WALK (ALL THE WAY TO WYOMING)

[carryonmyswansong]

Questionnaire - About Me, pt 2

Do you usually sleep with your closet door open or closed? This might be weird but I don’t even think about my, closet. Its sitting open at the moment, and has been for several weeks now...

Do you take the shampoos and conditioner bottles from hotels? and the lotions, too....

Have you ever ‘done it’ in a hotel room? Yes.

Where is your next vacation? Does homeless camping this past summer count? Cuz otherwise “vacation” isn’t really something I can afford.

Have you ever stolen a street sign before? Nope. Never saw one I wanted to take lol Plus I don’t have the balls to do it lol

Who do you think reads these? Whoever is scrolling through their dash when I hit post.

Do you have a calendar in your room? Nope, not unless the one on my laptop counts

Where are you? In my room, in Jackson, MI.

What’s your plan for the day? A little more blogging and then I’m gonna go to bed.

Are you reading any books right now? Does fanfiction count? Cuz yes.

Do you ever count your steps when you walk? I do not.

Have you ever peed in the woods? Yes I have. I love camping.

Do you ever dance even if there’s no music playing? Yeah, sometimes

There are more under the Read More. Had to break the list up to include the Read More cuz it was hella long otherwise.

Do you chew your pens and pencils? not technically. but I will hold my drawing tablet pen in my mouth so I don’t lose it. Who ever thought to make those things as dark as they are, instead of a bright neon color, needs to be throttled...

What is your “Song of the Week”?  Pretty much anything from the Teen Wolf soundtrack

Is it okay for guys to wear pink? Why wouldn’t it be? Its even ok if he wants to wear a dress and become a princess. I hate gender roles/rules….

Do you still watch cartoons? Yeap

What’s your favorite love movie? The Last Unicorn, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (with Gary Oldman *swoons*), and The Boondock Saints. This answer hasn’t changed in well over a decade Just the order of the three.

What do you drink with dinner? Usually milk or water.

What do you dip Chicken Nuggets in? I often don’t. I do like sweet and sour sauce though.

What is your favorite food/cuisine? Sadly, since my ED relapse, I don’t have the same taste or passion for food, anymore. It doesn’t ignite the pleasure centers of my brain anymore.. I either I “don’t hate it” or I do. *shrugs*

What movies could you watch over and over and still love? Same as my favorite’s list. I usually watch The Last Unicorn like once a year or every other year, depending on if I remember to.

Last person you hugged/kissed?  not a person; My cast ZahZah

Were you ever a boy/girl scout? Girl Scouts. Very briefly.

Would you ever strip or pose nude in a magazine? Maybe

When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper? Its been a very long time

Can you change the oil on a car? I’ve never been shown how. I’m sure I could, once I learned. I love car stuff.

Ever gotten a speeding ticket? Nope. I don’t drive.

Run out of gas? Same answer as above. I’ve been in the car when both happened, but I wasn’t driving.

Favorite kind of sandwich? ham, turkey, roast beef, bacon, with variations on veggies and sauces... 

Best thing to eat for breakfast? Glass of milk, and leftovers from dinner the night before.

What is your usual bedtime? I’m 33, and unemployed. I don’t have a bed time. (The last time I filled this thing in, I was 26 lol)

Are you lazy? No. I’m disabled, so some days, I can’t do much because of my illness.

When you were a kid, what did you dress up as for Halloween? I didn’t celebrate Halloween that often as a kid. I dressed up as a mermaid, a witch, and a vampire…. As an adult, I dressed up as a fairy once.

Do you have any magazine subscriptions? Nope. I wish.

Which are better, Legos or Lincoln Logs? Legos.. hands down!

Are you stubborn? Yup.

Who is better…Leno or Letterman? CONAN! I don’t care for most… 

Ever watch soap operas? I use to. They are kinda dumb… I prefer the teen dramas

Afraid of heights? Afraid? No. Am I cautious? You bet your ass I am.

Sing in the car? Only way to travel!

Dance in the shower? No, but I sing.

Dance in the car? Sometimes.

Ever used a gun? Not really, no.

Do you think musicals are cheesy? Yes, but I like them anyways.

Is Christmas stressful? I hate Christmas. I prefer to celebrate Yule.

Ever eat a pierogi? Yes. Cheesy potato. Yum.

Major annoyance right now? The fact that every time someone gets sick where my roommate works, he brings it home and I’m down for the count for a month at a time...

Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid? Country music star, scientist, unicorn trainer.

Do you believe in ghosts? Yes I do.

Ever have a deja-vu feeling? More times than I’d like to remember.

Do you take a vitamin daily? No, but I drink at least one glass of milk.

Wear slippers? nah

Wear a bath robe? Use to. No idea where mine ended up

What do you wear to bed? whatever is comfortable

Wal-Mart, Target or K-Mart? None, if I can help it. I prefer Wal-Mart, though. I also shop at Meijer’s as well.

Nike or Adidas? Neither. I’m not one for sports brands. I prefer Vans, Etnes, or Volcom.

Cheetos Or Fritos? Depends on my mood. I like both, but I will eat Cheetos over Fritos more often than not.

Peanuts or Sunflower seeds? To be honest? Neither.

Ever hear of, “gorp”? When I answered this the first time, I had to look that word up. I didn’t retain the info.... the word means “trail mix”... lol

Ever taken karate? nope

Ever kissed someone of the same sex?   Yes. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat. 

Can you curl your tongue? Yes, and I can also do the three leaf clover thing, as well.

Ever won a spelling bee? No, but I can spell archeologist by heart now haha

Ever cried because you were so happy? Yes, I actually have.

Own any record albums? Records? No. I wish.

Own a record player? Same answer as above.

Regularly burn incense? I would, but my room mate is allergic.

Ever been in love? Yes. 

Hot tea or cold tea? Depends on the flavor. I will drink my tea if it gets cold. I love both.

Tea or coffee? hmmm… Depends on the time of day. I drink more tea than coffee, but I do like both.

Favorite kind of cookie? Oatmeal chocolate chip. Yes. That’s one flavor. Do it. You’ll thank me later. ;)

Can you swim well? Yes I can.

Can you hold your breath w/o manually holding your nose? Yes I can.

Are you patient? Usually

Ever won a contest? Yes

Ever had plastic surgery? Not sure if this counts as cosmetic since it was helpful, but when I was a baby, I had to have the frenulum under my tongue clipped because it hindered my suckling.

Which are better black or green olives? Neither.

Can you knit or crochet? Yes. I can do both.

Wash room or bathroom? Bathroom

Do you want to get married? Yes

Who was your High School crush? Lordy, I don’t actually know... that was a long time ago.

Do you cry and throw a fit until you get your own way? No. That’s dumb.

Do you have kids? No. I have a couple of angel-babies though… But I do help co-parent 4 kids. And I’m a godmommy to one of them... 

Do you want kids? Yes.

What kind of mom are you?  Openminded, but accountable.

Do you miss anyone right now? My grandmother and all my friends in SC. I haven’t seen most of them for like 8 years….

Who do you want to see right now? Same answer as above.

[servinglemonade]

Music Favorites: May 2017

SO.MUCH.NEW.MUSIC! Hence why this is in a separate post since I didn’t want to make the favorites post so long. Here is the music I have been loving this month!

Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording)

If you have read my Hamilton post you’ll know how much I love this musical and soundtrack. It’s a hip-hop musical about the life of founding father Alexander Hamilton. I know, it sounds weird. That was my response as well. But give this a chance. It’s absolutely amazing. The songs are very versatile, from rap battles to Broadway showstoppers. The characters are portrayed by people of color because Lin-Manuel Miranda (the creator of the musical) wanted to portray how America looks today (YES!). I’m not a Broadway fan, at all. But this, this is something that you can love even if you don’t like Broadway. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

Paradinha - Anitta

Anitta is a Brazilian singer and I absolutely adore her. She’s so good. I don’t know what she’s singing most of the time, but there’s nothing google can’t fix. Paradinha is her newest song and it’s in Spanish?! I was really surprised because Anitta usually sings in Portuguese. But this song is super catchy and perfect for the summer!

Nicki Minaj

Nicki is killing it right now. She dropped 3 songs of her own, “Regret In Your Tears” (!!!), “No Frauds” (feat. Drake & Lil Wayne) and “Changed It” (feat. Lil Wayne). All of these are incredible, I love the direction Nicki is going in! Besides these, Nicki has been featured in a lot of songs: “Run Up” (by Major Lazer feat. PARTYNEXTDOOR), this is an absolute jam, “Kissing Strangers” (by DNCE), “Light My Body Up” (by David Guetta feat. Lil Wayne), “Swalla” (by Jason Derulo feat. Ty Dolla $ign) and “Swish Swish” (by Katy Perry). Her verses are the highlight of all these songs! Can’t wait for her next album to come out.

I’m The One - DJ Khaled feat. Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper & Lil Wayne

A lot of people. But what a hit is this?! Another contender for song of the summer, to be honest. I love Justin, so I was super excited for this collab with DJ Khaled! The beat, the rhymes and Justin’s vocals! It’s a yes from me.

Malibu - Miley Cyrus

MILEY IS BACK!!!! I have been waiting for so long. I loved the Bangerz album, but this is the Miley that I fell in love with. This song is super chill. Everytime I listen to it, I always imagine myself listening to it in the car with the windows down driving by the beach! It really makes you feel like you’re in Malibu (although I have never been)!

No Promises - Cheat Codes feat. Demi Lovato

This song came out months ago, but I feel like people are just discovering this. When I first heard it, the only thing that came to mind was SUMMER. It’s perfect. Demi’s vocals go so well with EDM beats. I hadn’t heard of Cheat Codes before, but they really hit the mark with No Promises. You will not be disappointed by this one.

Felices Los 4 - Maluma

I actually got tickets this month to see Maluma in September here in Holland and I can’t wait.  I actually wasn’t that fond of Maluma in the beginning, but I eventually warmed up to him. He has a really recognizable voice and that’s great. Now this song is awesome. It starts a bit slow, but once you get to the chorus you just want to dance. It’s actually a very sexy song. And I adore it.

Bad Liar - Selena Gomez

I was really surprised when I first heard this. It is very different from what Selena has done in the past and to be honest I wasn’t a big fan of this song at all. After a couple more listens, it started to warm up to me. It actually is a really good song. The song samples Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” and it is a breath of fresh air from what you hear on the radio nowadays. If you didn’t like it the first time, maybe you’ll like it after a few more listens.

Whiskey Kisses - MIC Lowry

Maybe you have never heard them before and that’s okay. MIC Lowry is a group of 5 guys from Liverpool, UK. I hadn’t heard of them until they were announced as Justin’s (when you see Justin on my blog 99,9% of the time I’m talking about Bieber) opening act on the Purpose Tour. I checked them out on YouTube (they have a lot of great covers on there) and I was really impressed by their vocal ability. When I heard them live at the Purpose show, I was even more impressed. They were phenomenal. So after that, I started listening to their own stuff on Spotify and I was surprised by how good it was (”Heart Of Yours” is a personal favorite). “Whiskey Kisses” is their new song and it’s good. Their voices are all great and the beat is very fun. It’s definitely different from what they have done in the past, but it’s very nice.

El Dorado - Shakira

Shakira is back with her newest album, El Dorado. After the first single came out, “Chantaje” featuring Maluma, I was excited for the rest and it did not disappoint. With features from some of the best in the Latin music scene today (Nicki Jam, Maluma, Carlos Vives and Prince Royce), this is album captures the latin music of today! With songs that are perfect for a hot summer, I can’t wait to jam out to the album once the temperatures are going to start heating up! My favorites include: Chantaje (featuring Maluma), Nada, When A Woman and Coconut Tree.

Despacito (Remix) - Luis Fonsi feat. Daddy Yankee & Justin Bieber

Pretty sure that almost everybody knows this song now and not just the remix, but also the original. What I’m so astonished by is the fact that I had never heard of Despacito before Justin jumped on the track. So I was very surprised when I woke up one morning to see that Justin was on a Latin song and when I heard he was actually singing in Spanish my mouth basically dropped. His Spanish sounded pretty good in fact (coming from somebody who isn’t fluent in Spanish, so please if his Spanish isn’t as good as I thought, let me know). This is just such a jam, I’m sure you’ll love it. If you don’t love Bieber, don’t worry, the original track has got your back. 

To see all my favorite songs at the moment, check out my Spring 2017 playlist on Spotify! I frequently update the playlist so feel free to follow it.

That was my post for today. I hope you enjoyed it and even found some new tunes for you to listen to. Thank you so much for reading.

Stay Flawless.

XO

Yenai

[bakaity-poetry]

How are you today? Not good. I haven't had a drink or a smoke for two months. Two months? Is that by choice? Yeah, I was supposed to get organised. [lights cigarette] But not anymore, I guess. You made a film in London twenty years ago with I Hired a Contract Killer. Have you ever thought of shooting here again since? Sure, I will shoot anywhere. But the laboratories are bankrupt and so is Kodak, so why not me also? Do you intend to stick with film, even as the whole of cinema seems to be going digital? Yes, I will die with my boots on. I won't make a digital film in this life. Cinema is made from light and I don't even know what you call a filmmaker these days...maybe a pixelmaker, and I am a filmmaker not a pixelmaker. I wish them luck, not all of them but most of them. You last made a film in France in 1992 with La Vie de Bohème. Have you had a strong desire to go back and film there over the past twenty years? No, in fact I planned to shoot the story in Spain but I couldn't find a real harbour town there. Then I wanted to shoot in Marseille but it was too complicated to shoot there because the streets are so narrow. If I put my tracks there it would block the traffic, and it would take six hours to the location and six hours back, so which hours would I shoot? My logical mind told me it couldn't be done. I drove all over the coast of the Mediterranean and France and Le Havre was my last hope, but it was perfect. Did you have the whole story in your head at this point or did you develop it when you found the right location? The story was ready but I needed a town. I couldn't start writing without the right place to set it in. Why did the subject of immigration attract you? It's a shame, that's why. I am European and it is a shame for Europe that we have this kind of disgraceful situation going on all the time. Immigration stories are often very dark but this one feels optimistic. I can't help my natural optimism. It's a good thing to have, some faith in humanity. No, of humanity I know nothing. I know in the past you have often had a happy ending and sad ending ready and have made a late decision about which one you will use. Since I knew this question would come, I counted yesterday. It seems to be quite mathematical that every second film is either a happy ending or sad ending, but with Le Havre it was always a happy ending, always a fairytale. In fact with Le Havre I have two happy endings, which is something new, but don't tell the audience. How different is it for you to write French or English characters instead of characters from Finland? There is no difference; people are people. My eternal plan is always to make a film that a Chinese lady from the countryside can understand without subtitles. You live in Portugal now, right? Have you considered making a film there? No, never. I have been there 23 winters now and I still can't understand the way they think. They are not like the French or Spanish or English. It is an interesting country. Is silent cinema a big influence on your work? I imagine Buster Keaton was someone who inspired you. Yes, Keaton and Chaplin were the best of all time. Both of them. I particularly like the pale silence of Keaton. He was someone who could express so much through his face alone. Is that something you ask of your actors? The eyes talk, not the face. That would be overacting. If they don't smile or move their hands like a windmill, they are hired. Jean-Pierre Darroussin is someone you haven't worked with before, but he seems an actor who is a perfect fit for your world. Yes, he was lucky. That was his only chance to survive and have a career, with me. To be honest, I dislike overacting to the extreme that I don't allow acting at all. So how do you work with your actors on set? If needed, I will act in front of them, to show them how they should act. If that's not needed, I will just tell them "more" or "less," and it's usually less. Casting for me is hiring the right actors so normally I don't have to direct at all, which is good for a lazy man. That's what Hitchcock used to say, "75% of directing is casting." Is that what he said? I always thought it was my idea. Going back to your point about making films that can be understood without subtitles, you made a silent film in 1999 with Juha. Now that The Artist is proving a big success, do you think that's something you might explore again? No, I have done it already. I made the last silent film of the twentieth century and in fact I started this boom with the best possible film, so I don't need to make a silent film anymore. I understand Le Havre is intended as the first part of a new trilogy. Well, there are lots of plans in this life. I'm so lazy that I have to make these illusions of films in the future. It keeps my mind busy. I would like to say that this is my last film but it wouldn't be a fact because I'm too young to die. You have been taking quite a long time out between your most recent films. Your last picture was Lights in the Dusk in 2006 and before that it was The Man Without a Past in 2002. I used to be the fastest in the world. In the late 80's I made four films a year but as you get older you get slower. Even Jarmusch is faster than me now. Do you find it harder to get money for your films these days or is the support always there if you want to make a film? Money was never a problem, and if I couldn't get money I would make it without. Not having money is just an excuse for lazy people. I did read that you and your brother are responsible for one fifth of all Finnish movies over the past thirty years. Nowadays I think it's more like one quarter. What is the film culture like in Finland? Is it a big cinephile country? It used to be a cinema country; Godard used to have more audiences in Finland than Paris in the old days. Now it is all the usual Hollywood shit because the distribution is a problem. Is that why you and Mika started the Midnight Sun Festival? That was more because of the rage we had against festivals where nobody meets nobody. We decided to have a festival in the middle of nowhere so everybody has to meet everybody, nobody can escape. We tell the directors, "If you want to escape you're welcome to. The airport is 150km that way." Nobody has left so far. Have you ever been to Finland? No, I haven't. Don't go. Life is boring enough. When you and Mika were growing up, what films were an inspiration to you? Thanks to our father we lived in the middle of nowhere throughout our childhood. Tiny villages and if there was a cinema they would be showing gladiator films from the 50's. It was a graveyard for Hollywood films, so the first serious films I saw were when I joined the film club when I was 16. My first real cinema experience was a double-bill of Nanook by Flaherty and L'Âge d'Or by Buñuel, and that's when I thought, "OK, this is a serious business." Between these two films you can put all of the cinema ever made. It's a pity for me that I never got to that level. You have often said that you're a bad filmmaker and a lazy filmmaker, but you haven't done badly over thirty years, have you? Well, in the kingdom of the blind even the one-eyed jack is king. Have you ever been satisfied with one of your films? If I had been satisfied I wouldn't have continued, so obviously not. It's not nice to die without being satisfied just once, so I keep trying. How closely do your scripts match the final movie? If I have a script it's 1:1, there are no changes. Sometimes I don't have a script and I improvise – the actors don't improvise at all but I improvise – and I make the story when I shoot. I can write very fast and the ideas are there so it doesn't matter if I write the film or improvise, it's the same thing. When I told people that I was meeting you they all said they wanted to me to ask me about The Leningrad Cowboys. I recently saw for the first time the short you made with them, Rocky VI. Yeah, it was one of the first rock videos in Europe. The band told me they had a good title for a band, The Leningrad Cowboys, and they had an idea to make some kind of movie. I improvised that day, we shot the next day and I edited the third day. I had a good time doing that, they used to be a good band. Their records were never good but they were wild live. What are they doing these days? They still exist but they were always a band where the best musicians would hang around for a while and then leave, so a band called Leningrad Cowboys still exists but it's not the same band. Music is such an important component of your films. When do you start thinking about the soundtrack? I make the film first and then I go to my record shelf. I only use music which I happen to have. It's a way to avoid dialogue, because the music talks so much and provides a kind of balance to the story. It's interesting. The only thing that interests me in cinema nowadays is to edit music because you can change everything. You can make comedy into tragedy and the other way too. One of the great scenes is Le Havre is a performance from Little Bob. Where did you discover him? Little Bob is the Elvis of Le Havre and Elvis is the Little Bob of Memphis, Tennessee. You can't go to Le Havre without bumping into Little Bob. He used to be a big star in Europe before your days, and he even toured Finland in the late 70's. I knew his music but I had never met the guy before. So when I met him I decided I had to write him into the film. I always use live music in my films for some odd reason. I like to make one song true. Do you know already what the next film in this trilogy will be? Who knows? Maybe I will retire, I don't know. Will I still have film in a few years? Anyway I am planning to go back to my original profession writing, which I never even started. I will start with short stories, but it's such a bloody lonely and complicated job. When I say, "let's shoot" we hire people and equipment, and then I have to be there on the first day with some idea. With writing I can always say, "Oh, I will start tomorrow...I will start tomorrow..." Filmmaking is the only career for a lazy man.

[nsorchidsociety]

Collegiate Honor Society Honors Everybody

Lena Dunham to release spoken word poetry Record

Fueled by Ramen, the record label behind the soundtrack GIRLS Volume 1: Music from the First HBO Series, announced today they will be releasing a record of first spoken word poetry written and played by none other than Lena Dunham. It’s no surprise after Dunham signed a $3.7 million book deal for… MORE “

Music Festival Lineups Announced, Everybody Turns into Douchebags

“Dude, did you   see   that the Bonnaroo lineup?” Asked a tall, lanky white child to his both lanky white friend at the Campus Center last Tuesday. “Dude. Dude!” We began to notice similar cases happening all around campus. 1 girl close to our table in particular Id proceeded to share jpegs of the Coachella lineup on all… MORE “

“Trojan Family Room” renamed for napping purposes

Since its grand opening in 2010, the Ronald Tutor Campus Center has been quite the useful addition for all Trojans, by the outdoor International Plaza to the upstairs offices and Traditions from the cellar. However, the most used of all, but has been the grand entry of Sample Hall, more commonly known as the “Trojan… MORE “

Everybody Blows Off Last Week of Classes, Goes to Disneyland Instead

“I have really made a decision to drop my important and dance in the parade total time today that I have spent the week at Disneyland,” said a very excited theater important. “It is just this kind of lifestyle here.” For a reason, we totally agreed with what she said and blamed it on creepily persuasive Disney magic. MORE “

15 Things I’m Thankful For

Because time moves too quickly in college I’m not really certain  what Thanksgiving is about anymore (pilgrims?? Genocide? I dun no), but the 1 thing I do recall is that folks say what they’re thankful for, and so I have compiled a listing to read at the dinner table tomorrow: 1). The Mucho Mango smoothie at the SCA… MORE “

5 Antisocial Things to do on Halloween

Um, somehow it became Halloween. I’m not sure when that happened, and I have decided it is likely because I have no social life. Whoops. Therefore! As a pitiful person who can not even remember what day it’s, I appropriately compiled a listing of things to do to do while nevertheless preserving the Halloween spirit. Bring on the… MORE “

Campus Center Piano Bans “Chopsticks”

The Ronald Tutor Campus Center recently included a painted upright piano to the International Plaza. The piano, donated by a USC staff member and alumna, became accessible for anybody to play within the campus centre’s “Art and Trojan Traditions” program. The piano immediately gained a lot of a following that frequent visitors began… MORE “

5 Reasons To Celebrate the Rain

Finally. After a few weeks in the high 80s to mid 90s, the LA weather forecast not just dropped to the usual 70s, but predicted scattered thunderstorms having a 50% probability of rain for this Thursday, otherwise known as tomorrow. “Aw man!” Exclaimed some helpless man in Ray Bans next to me about hearing the… MORE “

Wait for the donuts, stay for the intoxicated folks

You are able to get anything from fritters to bagels to breakfast sandwiches to ice cream to any kind of boba-related drink to cereal to smokes to vitamin to iPhone cases to duplicates of your homework due in an hour. MORE “

Young Adult Publications are Totally Cool

I’ve a confession to make: I never grew up. At least, together with books. I mean, I have attempted to read the books and classics for college and weird angsty poetry but something always brings me right back to the fantastic ol’ times of hiding behind the awesomeness of the YA book. Yes, even today in school…. MORE “

Returning Students Petition for Cafe 85

Returning students to USC weren’t happy to locate their favorite overpriced meals court no longer accessible with no meal plan. With Jamba Juice, Daphne’s, and Wok Bar only legend to current freshmen, the remaining part of the student body is in a constant state of mourning. “I will never get a free boost again,”… MORE “

Senior discovers hidden gem known as “Galen Dining Center”

It’s recently come to our attention the Galen Dining Center, also known as “in which the soccer team occupies” to campus tour guides, has gone undetected for many throughout their time at USC. What is the Galen Dining Center, you ask? That is what Steve Flanders, a senior, asked also. “I simply never… MORE “

5 GPA Boosters For The Fall Schedule

Believe it or not Trojans, choosing your fall courses is right round the corner. If you are not an engineer and also have a couple credits to spare, why don’t you take something completely ridiculous interesting  that will cushion your GPA at exactly the exact same time? After requesting the brightest and finest about, I have compiled some options That May just grant you… MORE “

Mad Men Returned to TV (And I Liked It)

Oh! Hey USC Basement. Superior news. Take out your fitted blazer, skinny tie, and pen skirt since the men of Madison Avenue come back! AKA Season 5 of Mad Men. The season began with a bang in a two hour premiere last Sunday. Let’s party like it’s 1966! MORE “

Cool Story Bro: “I must have clotheslined him”

A child, perhaps 14 or 15, was bolting towards me. Like, at top speed. And just like in the movies, time seemed to slow down. I couldn’t move. My ideas were all: “That is odd. He is running like, really quickly. He likely has to grab a bus. God I really want a Coke Zero. French fries. Jon Hamm. Wait, what–” MORE “

10 Totally Wonderful Things to perform (On Campus) Over Spring Break

So you are stuck on campus for spring break. Do not fret! (do people use that phrase anymore?) This can be your chance to take advantage of USC’s “one way” place for the best staycation. Yes I only used the term “staycation.” Here’s a few of our ideas: 1). Try every fast food chain onto Figueroa. If you currently live… MORE “

CampusCruiser offers new service “CampusLoser”

We’ve been ““ dressed to impress at the best rager on Thursday night. The clock strikes 1am with DPS nowhere in sight; a wonderful song comes on because you talk up the hottie you’ve been meaning to talk to for months. Then, from nowhere? The person you least want to view… MORE “

Cool Story Bro: The Laundry Room

This article is part of a brand new series in which Becca over-dramatically remembers “cool narrative bro” moments from her time at USC.   “WTF,” said a girl down the hall. Her voice seemed like evil grossness. The door to my New-North cubby-hole-of-a-dorm-room was wide open and the high-pitched voice kept at it. “Ewww somebody took my… MORE “

Breaking News College Professors Are Old

A recent study performed by the Old People Association of Educational Things and Stuff found that 89% of college professors are indeed age 60+. And yet, the evaluation not only quantified physical era, but psychological age, developing a record breaking statistic of college professors with an older mental age at 99 percent. The analysis… MORE “

‘Smash’ Smashes ‘Glee’ Just Like Woah

Even the premiere of NBC’s Smash past Monday has a great deal of folks talking ““ and hammering ““ about a series that could finally dethrone the sad, overwritten, burnt-out-at-three-seasons “struck” known as Glee. Ouch. That was mean. See, I was like Glee. I did. I loved Rachel, and Kurt, and mash-ups, along with regionals, but somewhere… MORE “

BREAKING NEWS: “The Muppets” Acquire NOTHING at the Golden Globes”¦ WTF?!

In the 69th Annual Golden Globe awards there were lots of winners, the huge ones “The Descendants,” “The Artist,” “Homeland,” and “Modern Family.” However, a night which attracts many winners also brings about even more losers. And while people might be angry that “Bridesmaids” didn’t win gold did Leonardo DiCaprio walk off… MORE “

21-year-old can drink in bars, can not afford to drink in bars

“I’m not ordering cocktails made of gold” Yelled one SC senior because he was escorted from a busy downtown pub yesterday evening. “Can they come off-brand?? Can you do payment plans?!” He’s only one of many students whose long-awaited 21st birthdays immediately tanked due to bar-drink sticker shock. “Fifteen dollars is either a bottle… MORE “

To Rick Perry, Love Santa Claus

Dear Gov. Perry, I’m not scared to admit the concept of me is a little creepy. I mean, it says in a tune I can see children when they’re sleeping. And while that’s true, I don’t abuse my position of energy to pedophilistically spy on minors nor do I use it to publically… MORE “

All Women in Sorority House Hate Drama, Charlotte

As past nights chapter dinner, a lot more individual talks, unlimited hours of   study, and a recent media release in the sorority have revealed, All the women in the Theta Delta Chi home have commented they, “Hate Drama.” Drama has been cast off with this category also, “Shitty,” and, “Annoying,” previously. The… MORE “

Beneath fire, NCAA remains committed to amateurism

Lately and always, the NCAA has already come under fire for its failure to Keep the Exact standards when dealing with distinct compliance cases, particularly when compared to 2010 sanctions against USC who have become viewed as too harsh and really helpless.     While USC confronted severe scholarship discounts along with a two-year bowl prohibit, ” the… MORE “

What Summer Orientation Should Have Been

Those still on campus for summer time might have noticed that it is abuzz with three-day bursts of panicky, fresh-faced nervous energy recently. People without much else to keep them amused are aware ““ it is summer orientation! If you are like me, you had been rejected when you implemented to work orientation (twice!) But also want you… MORE “

Involvement Honest signatures demonstrated to become binding contracts

The thrilling Involvement Fair was in full swing because enthused clubs and organizations lured involvement-hungry students in with guarantees of philanthropy, a great time plus melted oreos to a day which felt like being inside Satan’s drier.   Following the blueprint of Involvement Fairs anyplace, no stall visit was complete without the obligatory signing of… MORE “

My Inner-Battle about Whether to See “Pitch Perfect”

SCA’s “Outside the Box Office” film screening series is performing a sneak preview of Universal’s “Pitch Perfect” tomorrow. I have a reservation since I make a booking for whatever I’ve really heard of before studying the website. But I Can’t decide on if I should move or not, I keep swaying back… MORE “

5 Reasons Why “The Immortals” May Die Out

The Immortals opened last weekend, and audiences everywhere seem to think it wasn’t talking Greek.   (They had been right–it wasn’t.   Anyone who believed otherwise should see their health practitioner.)   Even the mythology-laced 3D sword-and-sandals film managed to top the box in the united states and in overseas markets with more than 30 million in each area.   Haroo, haroo, haroop-de-doo…. MORE “

Neighborhood superhero reportedly always remembers trash day, people’s names

From the warmth of superhero blockbuster season, a real live one has been recently found on campus. Early listed sightings were separate but seemingly described the exact same student who looked “like a regular dude,” but does some fairly nonregular things. Known only by his people moniker, “Steve” supposedly “consistently puts in for beer. And… MORE “

from Society http://www.nsorchidsociety.com/collegiate-honor-society-honors-everybody/

[audiofixationnews]

#OverloadMonday: New Music, Visuals + More

Here's some overload for your Monday blues. Check out what went down this past week, Jan. 15th-21st.

Singles

Apple

After coming out of the rock he’s been living in, Cozz emerges in 2018 with a lot of new music. First he announced a new album, Effected, and then released its lead single, “Questions.” Now he’s teamed up with Curren$y for the smooth-jazzy “Badu.” Listen above, and stay plugged for more from.

We got new music from Wolftyla, OnCue, Joey Bada$$ x Dessy Hinds, Syd x Leven Kali, and Black Milk.

Drake hit us with two back to back joints, check them out!

We also heard new music from ToBi, ABRA, Audio Push, Rotimi, A$AP Ferg and Skyzoo x Raheem Devaughn. 

Lloyd Banks continues on with his At Your Request series with another fire freestyle.

A new band is amongst us! Lyricist Common, pianist Robert Glasper, and drummer Karriem Riggins form August Greene. And first act as August Greene is to release music of course. Listen to their first single, “Optimistic,” featuring guest vocals from Brandy.

Oh and then…yes there’s more…we had new music from Step Brother (Alchemist and Evidence), Chris Dave x Anderson .Paak, and Pollári.

We heard from the likes of Nino Man and Jadakiss…yes, again Nino Man and Jadakiss. I know, they just released “I Hate You", but check it, they got some new heat for us with “From Trap to Rap.” Mmm, what are these two up to?

And then we heard from Dreezy x 2 Chainz, Russ, Fat Joe x Dre, and Rudimental teamed up with Macklemore, Jess Glynne and Dan Caplen.

Despite all the drama with his Generation Now label, Lil Uzi Vert is still releasing new music. Check out his new single, “200 My Dash.”

After making a surprise announcement, 38 Spesh and Benny the Butcher have teamed up with Jadakiss and Styles P for “Driver’s Seat.”

Remy Ma teams up with Chris Brown with what may be the leading single for her next album, “Melanin Magic.” We also got new music from hubby, Papoose. Definitely take a listen to him “Set Trippin” all over the previously owned by Casanova track. Looks like we’re getting two new projects from the love birds.

Visuals

After releasing Paranoia 2, Dave East reverts back to its predecessor, Paranoia, for his newest visual. He released a short film for joint track with Mass Appeal boss, Nas, titled “The Hated.” My favorite track off of the mixtape, it’s great to see East go beyond just the usual music video treatment. And the guy hasn’t even released a debut album yet - well, damn. Watch the Kid Art-directed video above, it’s gritty and raw as is the track itself. A must watch, check it out. With Victory Lap right around the corner, Nipsey Hussle gave us a second offering featuring YG. He followed up the release of the single with a visual, check out “Last Time That I Checc’d." 

Tinashe is back! Teaming up with Offset for her new single, and visual, “No Drama."

Watch new videos from Ye Ali x K Camp, Young Buck, Jorja Smith x Stormzy, and Joell Ortiz x Fred Da Godson.

After riding that “Unforgettable” wave, here’s French Montana with a visual for another track from Jungle Rules.

NF dropped some a visual treatment for his lead single from Perception. “No Name” packs some heat, a must see.

We also saw visuals from Sylvan LaCue, Vic Mensa, Moneybagg Yo, and JaqueBeatz.

Young Thug dropped new video with Trouble and Shad Da God in tribute for “MLK.” 

Young M.A dropped a visual for her freestyle over Gucci Mane and Migos’ “I Get The Bag.”

Famous Dex teamed up with A$AP Rocky back in October and now they have released a visual for their joint track, “Pick It Up."

Right before the release of November, SiR releases the album’s leading single, “Summer in November," along with a visual treatment.

Let’s add them right to list: O.T. Genasis, Russ, Cousin Stizz, and Tyga.

Back in 2016, Lin-Manuel Miranda had a wildly successful run with his broadway musical Hamilton. He also released a mixtape that followed up the musical. Now he's back with HamilDrops, a new series where Miranda will be releasing visuals from the mixtape on a monthly basis. First he dropped “Ben Franklin’s Song,” now he’s here with a visual treatment for the track “Wrote My Way Out,” which features Nas, Dave East, and Aloe Blacc.

Projects

Apple | TIDAL | Spotify 

Over the weekend, SiR dropped his debut album, November. Right before it’s release he dropped the album’s first single. Pick your poison above, definitely a must listen.

Dave East’s Paranoia 2 is here! The 15-track project features the likes of Matt Patterson, Marsha Ambrosius, Lloyd Banks, T.I., Tory Lanez, Pimp Pimp P, and Nino Rideaux. Available on iTunes, stream via Spotify and Apple Music.

Kollision dropped his debut tape this past week. The ATL-native recruited the likes of Twisted Genius, D. Hill, OG Parker and more on the production tip. Better Than Yesterday dives in deeper into his own world. Worth a listen, check it out via SoundCloud.

Well, looks who’s back. Paul Wall released a new album, Bounce Backs Over Setbacks.

Check out Juicy J’s newest surprise project, SHUTDAFUKUP.

Fetty Wap dropped his final chapter of his For My Fans series.

Coming Soon...

Keep an eye out for Audio Push’s new project, Cloud 909. It’s slated to release February 9th, and scroll up for its leading single. Pre-order available via iTunes. After dropping The Wild last year, Raekwon took to Instagram to confirm a new album is officially on the way. 

While it’s been a long time coming, the collab project from DJ Premier and Royce da 5’9 is coming soon. When the duo comes together, they are known as PRHYME, and rumor has it that the sequel to their self-titled debut is set to release March 16th. That’s hope this time it comes out. 

While we still wait on SremmLife 3, Swae Lee still plans on dropping a solo joint. After some success with featuring on hit singles last year, he has spoke about Swaecation. It did fuel rumors of the duo splitting up, but they put those to rest. No, this is just Swae riding the solo wave for just a bit. While we have no official date for both project, just “soon,” now Swae announced that Swaecation will be out for the masses in “less than a month, confirmed.” So stay plugged. 

August Greene are gearing up to release their debut self-titled album on March 9th. It will be an Amazon Music exclusive drop. Scroll up to hear their first single and to find out who August Greene is. 

38 Spesh took to Instagram to make a surprise announcement that he and Benny the Butcher have a joint project on the way. Stabbed & Shot is slated to drop February 16th, scroll up to catch the first single released. 

After four years since his last solo project, If There’s A Hell Below, Black Milk is back in 2018 with new music on the way. He took to Instagram to announce a new album is on the way, titled FEVER. Set to release February 23rd, scroll up for the album’s first single.

Let’s not forget Nipsey Hussle debut Victory Lap that drops February 16th.

Check This

Joey Badass started 2018 with some major news. Along with announcing that we’ll be hearing more from the Pro Era clan, as well as a sneaker, he also revealed that his debut project, 1999, has now become available everywhere to stream. Let’s not forget that his TIDAL podcast, “47 Minutes,” is on the way, and he has also become PONY’s creative director. Now has officially become a platinum-selling artist with his hit “Devastated.” Quick timeline for the single: Released May 2016, hit Gold January 2017 and now platinum in January 2018. A joint project with XXXTentacion has been teased. Stay plugged, the year is just beginning and Joey is too. 

Black Panther, where the hell do I start. I was originally excited to see the movie, but um…can we talk about this soundtrack though?! Once confirmed that Kendrick Lamar and the TDE clan were recruited to piece together the album, we received its first offering from both Kendrick and label mate SZA. Then there was that new trailer for the movie that featured an untitled track from Kendrick and Vince Staples. And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for - literally. (Ha, can you tell I’m from Jersey yet?) It was pretty much confirmed through TDE’s MackWop’s Twitter that we are getting a track from Kendrick and Isaiah Rashad. Yasss, come through TDE! After taking over 2017, it’s pretty much safe to say they’ll be making a huge impact on 2018.

A biopic is underway for Gucci Mane, fueled by his autobiography he released back in September 2017. The same autobiography that made Gucci Mane a New York Times best-selling author. He took to Twitter to make the announcement. Stay plugged for more updates on Guwop. Not only is the film on the way, but The Evil Genius is on the way too.

From the underdog to top bitch, 2017 was Cardi B’s year. Breaking record after record, Cardi is on a streak that doesn’t seem to end any time soon. She recently teamed up with TIDAL and put out a documentary, I’m Here MuthaF*cka. A must watch, so don’t pass it up if you have TIDAL.

Big news for Future. While he wiped his Instagram clean, we all expect new music and it turns out we were right - well, sort of. It was announced that Director X will be taking on the remake of the 1972 cult-classic Superfly. Where does Future play in all of this? Well, Future is set to co-direct the film. Let’s not forget that he will be curating the soundtrack along with Joel Silver. Yes, new music indeed. It was also revealed that 21 Savage plays some role with the film, but nothing has been confirmed yet. Director X took to Instagram to make the announcement revealing some of the cast and crew. So far we know that Grown-ish star Trevor Jackson will be playing the part of Youngblood Priest. Jason Mitchell, who played Eazy-E in Straight Outta Compton, will be playing the part of Eddie.

Released Sunday, and yeah I missed it…I’ll just leave this right here.

heavy rotation pic.twitter.com/Rcl9xadwjl

— AtlantaFX (@AtlantaFX)

January 14, 2018

Stay plugged

That sums up this past week in Hip Hop. Come back next week for more.

Oh and I’ll just leave this right here. And while it’s not Friday, we’ll pretend he said “Monday MOOD,” because well, Diddy just makes everything better.

A post shared by Diddy (@diddy) on Jan 19, 2018 at 11:50am PST