#and during that time i got to watch wile the other characters interacted with one another!!! and all i could do was fucking sit there!!!!

[awesomephd]

Watching Through My Collection: Day 1/36

Creepshow (1982)

Day 2

So for a challenge to myself and motivation to put a dent in the frankly absurd amount of horror movies I own that I haven't seen, I've decided to spin a wheel and watch one random movie every night from my birthday to Halloween and post about them.

I know there's a big chance that a lot of them will be very obscure and niche despite starting off with one as well-known as Creepshow, so most will probably be a lot shorter than this one. I'll keep them mostly under a cut, still.

CW: bugs, body horror, and drowning

I'll start off with saying that I think it's a little ironic that I've honestly had very little interaction with Creepshow or any Tales From The Crypt media before my 27th birthday- especially since I did read my fair share of actual horror-related comics! (My mother had old DC comics including Stanley and His Monster and I even got my hands on a couple printings of Plop! as a kid.) Though, while I was looking up stuff about Creepshow, I unlocked some very old memories of having seen Creepshow 2 once before, so I'm at least familiar with the idea of it.

Knowing it was written by Stephen King and finding out partway into the movie that it was made with George A. Romero and Tom Savini too, really made the experience for me.

The movie really has a ton of fun with the comic inspiration, playing with colorful lighting everywhere and fun backgrounds to highlight cuts just goes hand-in-hand with the pulpy comic writing of the horror.

Father's Day

The first segment of the movie is simultaneously the worst story and the best setup for the mood going forward, imo. It's truly a story of death and murder for the sake of getting to do it and I salute them for it. o7

The characters are all kinda dumb and the only one you really even feel a slip of sympathy for is killed first. It's an honestly boring first half followed by a weird ending with some fun and wild visuals.

So a perfect horror comic short story!

The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill

Finding out that part of the direction Stephen King was given for this bit was to act like Wile E. Coyote just noticing he walked off a cliff elevated this whole bit to camp. He's a toony country bumpkin with toony sci-fi horror problems and I honestly loved the plant growing effects and makeup- even if apparently Stephen King was so allergic to the makeup he had to be on constant medication and given shots!

He also kept a figure of Greedo in his pocket and kept trying to play pranks with the makeup effects like trying to surprise his daughter with a ton of cuts and bruises and taking his son out to lunch with fx makeup done. Love that for him.

Something to Tide You Over

I'm already of the camp that Leslie Nielsen and Ted Danson are actors that would have a hard time not being the best part of anything they're in and I stand by that still.

The whole drowning in high-tide killing plot is also a ton of fun too, so I just had tons of fun with this one the whole way through.

Also, apparently Leslie Nielsen had a fart machine in his pocket during rehearsals and would crack everyone up with fart noises before scenes and shit which just highlights how good the serious acting is and makes it more impressive.

The Crate

Starring Tom Savini's first ever animatronic effect nicknamed Fluffy!

I'd call this the more usual plot in horror short stories. Some decent tension and raising stakes and a climax where the most insufferable person finally gets shut up by getting merc'd by the monster! And what a monster he is.

Very Good Boy 11/10 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

They're Creeping Up on You!

Despite every other segment's great makeup effects, this one was the most expensive part of the movie! The sheer amount of cockroaches cost them thousands of dollars to get. Money well spent, the hoard of bugs did exactly what they were meant to do. 👍

I love them and they were wonderful actors.

[jadethekitteh-blog]

...

[thecomedybureau]

The 100 Best Things in Comedy We Were Witness to In No Particular Order of 2019

OK, 2019′s officially over and we’ve wrangled our 100 truly favorite things in and around comedy (and it really spans all of comedy) that are not ranked whatsoever. It’s just like the title says and, it’s, as it is every year, quite long, so we won’t waste any more time with this intro. 

Oh, in case you forgot and/or curious and/or need a quick refresher, here’s our 2018 list. 

1. Rory Scovel Live Without Fear-This documentary follows Rory Scovel and his journey through six nights of completely improvised hour sets. In a single word, it’s inspiring. You see the way Scovel truly connects the audience and keeps it that way through his indelible charm and endless curiosity. The near unbelievable story of the Relapse Theater in Atlanta is also beautifully threaded in the doc as well. The clips of the improvised performances capture the magic that stand-up comedy can be that’s absent from the majority of comedy specials. You should be required to see this whenever and wherever it comes if you have any level of interest in comedy at all. 

2. Naomi Ekperigin-From her own stand-up, to her podcast with husband Andy Beckerman, Couples Therapy, and her writing across TV, and everything else she does, Naomi is such an thoroughly commanding, yet delightful presence that we love seeing every time anywhere (and she should already be way bigger of a star already).

3. Cait Raft’s Presentation on “Bradley Cooper’s a Star Is Born Takes Place in an Alternate Reality Where 9/11 Never Happened”-Witnessing the imagination of Cait Raft up close was a privilege for us. This amazing dissection of the zeitgeist left us in stitches and with our mouth agape for how thoroughly it proved its point.

4. Corporate Season 2-The second season of the ultra dark workplace comedy delivered once again on its hysterical nihilistic satire that’s so prescient, yet still so unbelievably funny.

5. Mom-Prov Presents Family Therapy-Improviser Izzy Roland was daring enough to have her mom and her grandmother, both of whom are also in showbiz, to join her on stage for one of the most madcap, fourth wall-breaking, entertaining improv shows we’ve seen all throughout 2019.

6. Jena Friedman-So, this year, Jena delivered yet again with her subtle delivery and calm demeanor that hides her absolutely killer jokes. The follow-up to her Adult Swim special, Soft Focus, upped the ante with an interview of a gun-toting John McAffee and her brilliant Conan set about everyone’s true crime obsession.

7. Brendon Walsh’s Afternoon Delight-This last year, Brendon Walsh let everyone know that he was and still is one of the best at pulling prank calls, which is so much harder now than it was even ten years ago. This live show actually has Brendon place live prank calls in between stand-ups and the ride you go on is absolutely thrilling.

8. Jacqueline Novak’s Get on Your Knees-Novak’s solo show has more than earned its spot as an Off-Broadway show with bringing such an exquisite, almost never before seen comedic sensibility to the topic of blow jobs.

9. #F*ckF*ckJerry-Props to Vulture Senior Editor Megh Wright for sparking the fire to take out the egregious social media accounts of F*ck Jerry that just lifted jokes from comedians all across the Internet without pay or attribution.

10. Lorelei Ramirez-We’ve known distantly about Lorelei Ramirez for so many years, but seeing them up close was a breathtaking experience that had us laughing so hard. Their artistry in comedy that gracefully borders on performance art and even horror is absolutely inspiring.

11. Aaron Urist-Denver’s Aaron Urist is such a killer joke writer and joke teller and has been for years. We just were reminded about that with his burning bush joke during his latest LA trip.

12. Booksmart-Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut was not only a reinvigorated take on movies that specifically hone in on the end of high school, but also had a sincerely hopeful vision of the future generation. We hope that Booksmart finds its way to the top of the coming-of-age comedy films pantheon.

13. Rachel Mac on Lights Out-One of the highlights of Lights Out with David Spade is how unfiltered and raunchy they let comics get during their sets on the show. Rachel Mac took that amount of comedic license and thrived in getting into the nitty gritty about her last teaching job.

14. What We Do In The Shadows-The FX TV adaptation of the seminal Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement film in 2014 exceedingly succeeds in nailing the comedy of minutia in the world of the undead that also happens to be in a (somewhat) grounded reality.

15. PEN15-Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle’s vision of 2000 and their performances as teens were so spot on that PEN15 would deserve acclaim just for that. However, the heart of this show made its humor stand out in an ever crowded field of coming-of-age comedy.

16. Tiffany Haddish’s Black Mitzvah-A lot has happened for Tiffany Haddish since her last special (she’s a legit A-list celebrity now), but it’s clear that she is still her unapologetically positively, life loving self. This special is evidence of that, especially with her bit about her New Year’s show that she got undeserved flack for.

17. Straw Men-Lindsay Adams, Danny Palumbo, and Sam Wiles (and producer Kimmie Lucas) put on what is our favorite imagining of a comedic debate that we’ve seen thus far. The encouragement to make the most ridiculous, baseless arguments and being transparent about the whole thing is a golden goose of comedy.

18. The ending of Gloria Bell-Well, we can’t very well give away the ending to this English language dramedy remake from Sebastián Lelio that has Julianne Moore shine as bright as she has ever shone before, but just know that we stood out of our seats, applauding what she did to John Turturro right at the end.

19. I Think You Should Leave-Tim Robinson’s unflinchingly absurd sketch series unequivocally has many of the best sketches of 2019. The hot dog costume and Mexican restaurant sketches will have us busting up through, very likely, the next decade.

20. Les Miz and Friends-Bonkers (and we mean that in the best way possible) doesn’t begin to describe how wild this meta and great this puppet and human hybrid take on the theater institution of Les Miserables. The sheer cleverness on every level is awe-inspiring. 

21. Dave Ross’ The Only Man Who Has Ever Had Sex-Ross has been a longtime favorite of ours for the contrasting bounciness and darkness of his comedy. His debut album captures this dichotomy perfectly.

22. Nikki Glaser: Bangin’-Nikki Glaser’s first Netflix hour special started off with a bang, pun intended. Her frank, but heartfelt exploration of all facets of sex is so damn funny that Glaser gets away with being as blue as she wants.  

23. Super Dating Simulator-This live, interactive version of various Japanese video game dating simulators is one of the more innovative and surprisingly charming things we saw this year. Creator Sam Weller did a bang-up job not only making a video game work as a stage show, but doing so with a very off-beat sub-genre of video games

24. Emmy Blotnick’s Party Nights-Blotnick’s latest album shows Emmy at the peak of her delightful observational powers. The concept of a “Self-Potato” is just priceless.

25. Tammercise!-Folks in comedy are getting all sorts of clever these days to redefine traditional formats and disciplines and push the art form forward. Madeline Wager does this exquisitely with a solo show of a woman unraveling that doubles as legit aerobics class.

26. The Cherry Orchard w/Chad Damiani and Jet Eveleth-Damiani and Eveleth explore a new angle on postmodern clowning by supposedly doing a Chekov play going through dress rehearsal without any of the players knowing what they’re supposed to do. The back and forth between the live direction and the tomfoolery on stage is truly hysterical.

27. Bake Stuff with Lindsay LIVE-It’s about time for a comedic cooking show that actually does teach you a wonderful recipe and also explores and resolves(?) childhood trauma. Lindsay Adams’ Bake Stuff with Lindsay, which we indeed saw live, accomplishes all of that and inspires all those watching to cook through their feelings.

28. Shalewa Sharpe’s So, You Just Out Here?-Shalewa imbues homespun wisdom with marvelously colorful descriptions all throughout this very satisfying album.

29. The Amazing Johnathan Documentary from Ben Berman-The Amazing Johnathan’s life story is pretty captivating as is. The story about Ben Berman trying to tell his story amidst several other people trying to tell his story is absolutely engrossing and is somehow all true.

30. Julio Torres’ HBO special “My Favorite Shapes”-Torres’ special is simultaneously one of the most daring and silly hour specials in recent memory and his elevation of prop comedy to a whole new level is to be commended.

31. The Underculture with James Adomian-James Adomian has been one of comedy podcasts’ most in-demand and bright shining stars. It comes as no surprise that his own podcast that revs up all his characters has some of the best, most dynamic, absurdist interviews in political and pop culture satire. 

32. Daniel Van Kirk’s Thanks Diane/Together Tour-Van Kirk’s first, complete hour that he both toured with and released as an album is so impressive with how deftly Dan manages a balance of sincerity and mischief from wire-to-wire.

33. Conan in Greenland-Conan marvelously turns his travel specials series Conan Without Borders on its head by attempting to buy Greenland based off of Trump’s stupid tweets.

34. Mary Beth Barone’s Drag His Ass: A F*ckboy Treatment Program-Mary Beth Barone’s live show exploration into her dating life is illuminating and hilarious throughout, but the actual interview that she does live with a “f*ckboy” is transcendent.

35. Obvious Plant’s Carnival of Toys-Jeff Wysaski AKA Obvious Plant really outdid himself this year in his quest to permeate everyday reality with a satirical twist. He not only made a whole line of custom toy figures that satirize pop culture on so many levels, but opened up a whole pop-up museum for several days to exhibit them in all of their bizarre glory.

36. Sports Without Equipment with Coach Keith Alejo-This Dress Up Gang sketch is one of those ideas that are simple, yet so out-of-left-field. Literally, they take sports without equipment to its funniest conclusion.

37. #Squatmelt-Howard Kremer’s desire to keep the spirit of The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail alive has evolved into its own very special thing in the form of a DIY stand-up comedy show/walking tour that periodically migrates around LA.

38. Catch-22-Trying to adapt such a monumental literary work like Catch-22 is almost a fool’s errand, but writers Luke Davies and David Michôd do a smash-up job for not only bringing Heller’s immortal words to life, but also sticking the landing for all the darkly absurdly comical moments that run rampant throughout the story.

39. Get Rich Nick-Even if they didn’t have the fantastic banter, riffs, and asides from the very funny duo of Nick Turner and Nick Vatterott, this podcast that explores how to make money real quick is one of the best new podcasts of the whole year. Fortunately, Nick and Nick’s humor runs rampant through every episode and makes Get Rich Nick engrossing and makes you actually laugh out loud.

40. MK Paulsen-The comedy of MK Paulsen can be faster than a bullet, but as satisfyingly silly as a gun that shoots a flag with the word ‘bang’ on it. Every time we see him do stand-up, it’s a fun, rollicking ride that’s equal parts offbeat whimsy, clever wordplay, and an agile sense of timing and play.

41. Father Figurine by Matt Kazman-The dour faces of the family in this dark comedy short play to the highest comedic effect perfectly. A dead patriarch and an apathetic family make for some of the best dry humor in 2019.

42. Funk Shuffle-Danny Cymbal, Dennis Curlett, and Michael Gardner comprise Funk Shuffle, an improv group that manages fly freer and more untethered than almost any other improv group that we’ve ever seen. They make their defiance and experimentation with improv forms really work due to the trio’s unflinchingly playful spirit.

43. Gary Gulman’s The Great Depresh-Gulman, as one of comedy’s premier craftsman, of course, delivers an hour of stellar comedy with this special. He also manages, this time around, to destigmatize depression and, in general, be hopeful. That particular comedy trifecta is such an impressive feat that very few can accomplish.

44. Greener Grass-The scope and ambition of Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe’s directorial debut hints at some really special things to come from them in the future. Their absolutely demented, pastel drenched absurdist vision was a shocking delight through and through.

45. Jenny Slate’s Stage Fright-Slate’s best comedic strength is her unshakeable vulnerability. This hour special lets Jenny present that trait as intimately as she has ever presented it and gives an in-depth look as to where that hilarious vulnerability comes from. 

46. Heather Anne Campbell swatting a baby out of someone’s hands in an improv scene-At this point, it should come as no surprise that Heather Anne Campbell is one of our absolute all-time favorite people in comedy and thus, she kind of just ends up making it on this list annually on her own someway, somehow. This year, during a performance of her improv group, Heather and Company, we laughed as hard as we’ve ever laughed at Drew DiFonzo Marks initiating a scene by rocking a baby back and forth and then, Heather insanely swatted it out of his hands and stomped on it. It sounds ludicrous, but trust that Heather made that so unbelievably funny. 

47. Adam Cayton-Holland’s Happy Place-Cayton-Holland’s live solo show based on his critically acclaimed book of the same name pulls off oscillating between cleverly wrought and self-aware comedy and some of the most heartbreaking stories you’ll ever hear about his late sister. Holland’s focus and calm make it all miraculously blend together.

48. The Authorized Unauthorized My Favorite Murder Musical-In the world of unauthorized musicals about things that you wouldn’t really think about being adapted into unauthorized musicals (it’s a bigger ever-burgeoning world every month it seems), the staged reading of this My Favorite Murder-inspired musical that we saw was phenomenal. The full stage production to come in 2020 will undoubtedly be something really great. 

49. Pedro Gonzalez-Pedro’s jokes are so expertly written and crafted that you forget that he immigrated to America as a teenager from Colombia and learned English as a second language.

50. Garry Starr Performs Everything-UK comedian Garry Starr’s solo show is a genius send-up and celebration of theater as a whole. The physicality and the sheer madness of the whole show are so thoroughly hysterical.

51. Kira Soltanovich-We just want to take a moment to appreciate the agility of the comedy of Kira Soltanovich. Not only does Kira play any room or any show as far as we’ve seen, but her drive is just unstoppable (see ep. of The Honey Dew).

52. Mike Birbiglia’s The New One-Though it seems almost too routine that Birbiglia comes out with a new hour special that garners tons of acclaim for its ornate and complex and, ultimately, very satisfying tapestry of stories, Birbiglia delivers exactly once again with one such solo show/special on fatherhood.

53. Michelle Buteau-We saw Michelle headline just a few months ago at Dynasty Typewriter and were reminded of just how good Buteau is. She combines being heartfelt, having a fun bit of attitude, and an absolute command of the stage in such a beautiful way.

54. Gareth Reynolds’ Riddled with Disease-Many folks know how great Gareth is from his madcap riffing on The Dollop, but Reynolds shows he is fantastic with a sharp, hilarious, yet still fast-and-loose-feeling hour.

55. Sara Schaefer’s LIVE LAUGH LOVE-Sara, above most folks working in comedy today, goes to great lengths to be considerate, inclusive, and vulnerable in her comedy and it’s so, so wonderful because of that. This album is yet another great example of that mix.

56. Sean Patton’s Scuttlebutt-Sean Patton’s latest album is a fantastic note to any and all that Sean is, hands down, one of the best comedians ever to spin a yarn (and also share some damn fine true stories) and deserves way more accolade and attention for that now and going forward. 

57. Matt Rogers’ Have You Heard of Christmas?-Rogers had quite a 2019 in putting culture on notice, but his queer and subversive holiday musical extravaganza might be one of the best pieces of holiday themed comedy of all time.

58. The Chris Gethard Show with Robby Hoffman-Not only does Robby Hoffman keep the punk rock, conventions-be-damned spirit of TCGS alive, but she makes it so much her own and lets her hilarious, domineering persona transform the show into another very special, unique round of controlled chaos.

59. The taping of Eddie Pepitone’s latest special-Eddie’s sound and fury and his irreverent stream-of-consciousness-seeming comedy were flawless in this latest hour. Everyone in attendance, including ourselves, were in stitches for the whole taping. Props to director Steven Feinartz for one of our favorite looks of a special that we saw last year (which you’ll all get to see soon in 2020).

60. Eric Dadourian’s closer on Nebraska 2-Dadourian is always all in for the sake of a real bold, imaginative bit and, as such, pulled off one of our favorite closers of the year on his very first full length album.

61. Jessica Kirson: Talking to Myself-Kirson’s hour special on Comedy Central really let Jessica cut loose and let her showcase her stand-up expertise. From the way that Kirson contorts her face to her deep well of voices/characters to razor-sharp quick wit to, of course, her signature asides to herself, Jessica really kills it in this hour. 

62. Brody Stevens-Long live the “jock doing performance art” comedy (one of our favorite descriptions of Brody’s comedy by his dear friend Zach Galifianakis) and may he rest in peace. Yeeeees! Enjoy It!

63. Byron Bowers on Colbert-Byron Bowers and his clever, yet sincere, dark, vulnerable comedy put up one of our favorite late night sets this year. From the opening to his frank jokes about his dad make us think that it’s just a little crazy that this is his network TV debut.

64. Desus and Mero on Showtime-With the upgrade of being on Showtime, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero are having the most fun in late night with the freshest voices and format (and they’re able to pull that off with only being twice a week).

65. Fleabag Season 2-creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge assuredly has more masterpieces ahead of her, but managing to top herself from one masterpiece season of dark romantic dramedy with another one is something that deserves all the accolades and awards that it has gotten.

66. Kenny DeForest on Corden-Kenny dismantles toxic masculinity so incisively through the whole set that he most certainly earns all the applause breaks he gets the whole way through.

67. Josh Gondelman’s Dancing on a Weeknight-Gondelman is often thought of as one of the best, sweetest people in comedy. This latest album, for all of its being clever and genuine, is proof that he indeed really is that sweet and funny.

68. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 3-The perennial prestige comedy from Amy Sherman-Palladino earns its keep by having some of the best writing (it’s almost impossible to write jokes that are contextualized for the 50s/60s and make them actually funny for 2019 audiences) and also being one of the most gorgeous looking shows in all of television.

69. Nick Ciarelli and Brad Evans-Whether it be pulling pranks on Twitter, their plethora of hysterical sketches doing an impression of Jack FM on shows around town, or their monthly live sketch character showcase Atlantic City, Nick and Brad are a damn fine comedy duo and have been for quite some time. 

70. Caitlin Gill’s Major-It’s quite the magic trick to make an hour of comedy that’s entirely clean and have it being clean not be a thought that you’re thinking about at all when listening or watching it. Caitlin Gill spectacularly does just that with this album as Gill can make all of her earnest rants, imagery, and observations work in any way that she needs to.  

71. 97.9 The Rat Race-Ben Roy’s satirical reimagining of a morning radio “zoo crew” is so spot on, then gets real twisted to make this one of the most surprising and rewarding podcasts of 2019.

72. Mike Lane’s Picture Frames-This short film from Lane heightens the idea of remembering those you love after they’ve left this mortal coil to such a ridiculous level every step of the way (and is more and more enjoyably unpredictable the further it goes).

73. Paige Weldon on Corden-Paige’s upbeat self-deprecation is just hard to resist and it makes the best impression in this late night set on The Late Late Show with James Corden.

74. The Righteous Gemstones-Danny McBride’s latest HBO series that darkly and comically dissects the South might be his most ambitious yet, but, of course, he nails it. The constant suspense perpetuated by hysterically tragic characters in the world of televangelists is profound.

75. My Friend Chuck-Comedic erotica author Chuck Tingle (one of the absolutely most unique voices and cadences we’ve heard in awhile) and friend McKenzie Goodwin celebrate their friendship every week for a podcast that’s preposterously funny and, also, more heartwarming than almost anything we’ve heard or seen. 

76. Joey Clift’s Telling People You’re Native American When You’re Not Native Is a Lot Like Telling a Bear You’re a Bear When You’re Not a Bear-Clift makes such biting, pun intended, commentary with this short film/PSA that is also so playful that the message about Native identity will undoubtedly stick with you.

77. Megan Gailey’s My Dad Paid For This-Gailey strikes a wonderful balance of charm and attitude and fervent desire to burn down the patriarchy. Such a mix accents her very delightful observations about herself and the world around her in this marvelous debut album. 

78. Robin Higgins as Baby Yoda at Tournament of Nerds-Higgins might have made one of the best, first attempts at Baby Yoda cosplay. She also, for what’s supposed to be a roast-style competition between fictional/pop culture characters, perfectly imagined how Baby Yoda would roast someone while maintaining Baby Yoda’s sweetness that has captured the hearts and minds of the Internet.

79. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote-Terry Gilliam went through hell, did a few laps, and came back over several years to get this meta-quixotic tale about reimagining the legendary novel Don Quixote made. The finished film, for us, was worth the wait. 

80. Jo Firestone on The Tonight Show-Jo’s sense of play is so pure and present that it’s kind of irresistible. Combined with a perfect amount of self-deprecation, Jo really delivered a terrific set we’ll probably never get tired of.

81. Paul Rudd continues his time honored tradition of playing that one clip of Mac & Me on Conan-Rudd evolves the arc of this long running bit on Conan where, instead of playing a clip of what he’s on Conan to promote, he plays the same exact clip of the universally panned alien comedy Mac & Me. We all know what’s coming and yet, without the benefit of surprise, Rudd’s annoyance of Conan still keeps on being so damn funny.

82. Billy on the Street featuring Reese and Mariah-This year, we were lucky enough to get two instantly classic episodes of Billy on the Street with Reese Witherspoon and Mariah Carey that gave us our fix for our obsession with Billy Eichner yelling at strangers on the streets of NYC.

83. The Dollop England & UK-As Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds embarked on an entire England & UK tour of The Dollop, they thought it prudent to do a mini-series specific to Great Britain and did a smashing job making fun of British history. The Cyril the Swan episode is particularly brilliant.

84. Lost Moon Radio-The live musical sketch comedy theater troupe (Lost Moon Radio truly lives up to such a description) marked their 10th anniversary and put on an absolutely fantastic “Summer Block Party” this year that both showed that they still got their ingenious musical sketch comedy chops. 

85. Nate Bargatze’s The Tennessee Kid-The calm with which Bargatze pervades all of his comedy is part of what makes it beloved by nearly any and all that see or hear Bargatze’s stand-up. That’s such the case now that Nate gives updates to stories from previous specials on this latest hour. 

86. Beth Stelling on Kimmel-Every detail of this set on Jimmy Kimmel Live is pretty stellar. That includes Beth, in general, for her warm demeanor, smile, and cleverness, the Chippendale’s story, Beth’s mom being there in the crowd, and, of course, the surprise guest at the end. 

87. Liz Climo’s Please Don’t Eat Me-This illustrated book is just the latest in a long line of uber-adorable and genuinely-funny-for-all-ages books from Climo. Liz seems to have quite the knack for making unlikely animal friendship jokes. 

88. John Hodgman’s Medallion Status-Hodgman’s journey through the various statuses of airline privilege/celebrity is a superb serving of existential humor, done up with Hodgman’s painstaking attention to the exactly right details. 

89. Jane Curtin’s 2019 New Year’s Resolution “My New Year’s Resolution Is To Make Sure The Republican Party Dies”-Said during a CNN interview with the SNL alum, this was the first thing to make us heartily laugh in 2019.

90. Alex Kavutskiy’s Squirrel-Kavutskiy’s short film dives into the concept of forgiveness unlike we’ve really seen and, as is Kavutskiy’s style, is so darkly spellbinding and so pointedly funny at the same time.

91. Astronomy Club: The Sketch Show-The long running comedy troupe known as Astronomy Club really ran with their chance to do a full-fledged sketch series on Netflix. They’re so endlessly clever on in their sketches, especially when it comes to the subjects of identity and oppression, and pack in so many jokes and sight gags that you’ll definitely want to watch it more than once so you don’t miss anything.

92. Dolemite Is My Name-Eddie Murphy seems poised to make a real return to comedy (and stand-up comedy in particular) and this marvelous biopic of comedian and blaxploitation star Rudy Ray Moore AKA Dolemite is the perfect way to start.

93. Anna Drezen on Corden-Drezen has such a perfect sense of farce and misdirection and puts on a beautiful display of those two things from start to finish in this set on The Late Late Show with James Corden. 

94. BUTT’s Yoda themed dating app sketch-This sketch is so prescient of the resurgence of the world’s current (baby) Yoda obsession. Also, while this is so absurd with its deep dive into various Yoda fan art and cosplay, Joe McAdam and Chris Stephens’ take on dating apps is so sharply and deeply funny. 

95. Mel Brooks Unwrapped-The never ending bit of attempting a documentary between Mel Brooks and the BBC’s Alan Yentob is yet another display of the true, unquestionable genius of Mel Brooks.

96. 50 First Stephs-The amazing, hysterical Steph Tolev kicked off 2019 with a show where 50 or so of her compatriots and contemporaries did various impressions and characterizations of her. Part roast, part loving tribute, part amazing showcase of the depth of creativity in LA comedy, Tolev’s night for herself was something really special.

97. The Bongo Hour with Sandy Honig and Peter Smith-Honig and Smith brought their wild variety show that featured such wonderful bits, characters, drag, and burlesque to LA and showed, truly, how much better life is when you’re fluid about nearly everything.

98. How Did This Get Played?-Hosts Nick Wiger and Heather Anne Campbell and their take on the “worst and weirdest” video games do their namesake, the beloved How Did This Get Made?, proud. Even if you’re not a gamer, the way they dissect the most bizarre video games ever made along with Heather and Nick’s chemistry is very, very enjoyable.

99. Joe Pera Talks With You Season 2-This second season of Joe Pera’s unique talk-to-the-viewer series is so calming that the comedic twists sneak up in the most delightful way possible. There is a certain beauty to Pera’s show that makes us want to have Joe Pera Talks With You playing on a loop in a contemporary art museum.

100. John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch-John Mulaney does “it”, yet again. “It” being releasing another hour of comedic brilliance that’s so markedly different than whatever he did before, yet, somehow still stamped with an indelible mark of Mulaney’s comedy of obtuse hyper-specificity. 

[roominthecastle]

A ‘bullet point text reaction’ post thing to the season premiere would be forking good. If you can spare the time in between all the rewatching and RL, which again might be messin with the rewatching. Ps. sexy librarian ftw.

Apologies for the late reply, anon, and thank you for the interest. I gave it a try but apparently I had a lot more rambling in me than expected, so I’m not sure how much the bullet point format will help. Still, I rolled w/ it behind the cut:

obv spoilers ahead for those who haven’t seen + it’s mostly Michael focused but who is surprised at this point? ok, here we go:

Yes. All hail the Sexy Librarian Guy! 👍

and his ~~flawless~~ Australian accent lmao. I am no native speaker but even I could hear it was just… delightfully off. I love this disaster zone demon so much.

and how pleased he was that Eleanor was pleased w/ that particular “intervention”. It’s a small but nice reminder of how making her happy makes him happy now. #oppositeTorturesRule

it’s a v small thing but I also loved the “fast food link”: Michael being ecstatic about the Pizza Hut/Taco Bell combo & Eleanor fantasizing about Chipotle during Chidi’s lecture on Aristotle. It reminded me of that s1 moment when she tells Michael about those Arizona churro dogs and they both just go ahhhhhhhh at the image + Judge Gen ofc (they love fast food in the afterlife)

also also the sweet ache of Michael being entangled in her ticker tape while insisting on nudgy-nudge-nudge her & Chidi together bc that’s how it should be is still pressing hard on my heart thank you v much

but

I think that being deprived of close contact w/ his humans is causing Michael to slide back into puppet master mode again. His motivation is different or “reformed” now (secretly helping instead of secretly torturing) but his methods, his itch to control everything (and failing), and the rigid focus on his goals are… not so much, imo, and I love it bc this is Michael: he is a nerd but also an idiot w/ Wile E. Coyote vibes. Janet tries to reel him in but she can’t. Eleanor was the only one who could control him and she was the only one whose advice he actively sought and listened to, but she cannot be there for him now, so yes, I am getting a lot of S1 vibes from this double ep complete w/ her unintentionally messing w/ his formula by not falling for Chidi & the arrival of Trevor. *rubs hands*

COCOONS

so many

so… squishy

and TODD! I never thought I would see him so soon but I was right: he is the best lava monster and fork you, Shawn, for being a jerk to him when he was nothing but supportive and even brought you guys Dunkin’ Spiders to snack on.

I love Shawn, he is the perfect baddie, and I love that we got another glimpse into how TBP operates w/ all their excruciatingly low-tech gadgets. It’s in sharp contrast to (even Michael’s fake) TGP where everything is so neat, efficient, and high-tech. It’s another nice reminder of how the torturers are also being made miserable in TBP in various ways. I can’t blame Michael for wanting to keep his failing experiment running as long as possible.

Judge Gen (who continues to be a delight and way too relatable w/ her binge-watching of media content) is so up to something, people. I cannot shake this feeling that this whole “Operation Resurrection” is not what it looks like on the surface at all. Maybe it’s an experiment within an experiment sort of deal. I mean, why does she trust Michael of all creatures w/ the monitoring duty at all?? She might be quirky but she is def not stupid. She must know he’s a natural rule breaker who’s incapable of sitting still for longer than 2 seconds and he’s not at all impartial here. The way she set this all up reminds me of the test she gave Jason, and Michael is already failing just like Jason did bc he couldn’t opt out of “playing” due to lack of impulse control and a massive personal bias regarding his favorite team, the Cockroaches. idk what this will mean long-term but I think he’s gonna be in a lot of trouble soon.

speaking of Jason and Michael: theirs is my favorite (sort of bonding) scene, hands down. Again, it reminded me of an early S2 moment when Jason stumbles on a brooding, lost Michael and tells him a dope story about his 60-person dance crew that unexpectedly inspires Michael to seek out Eleanor & Co. The situations are reversed here but it’s an excellent parallel, esp when you compare the two scenes and see the development in both characters and their relationship. Jason is a bit   more grounded and Michael is less dismissive and much kinder to him now. I also love Jason’s continued immunity to Michael’s b.s. It’s different from Eleanor’s (his is stupid-based and hers is about being smartbrained) but it works and pushes Michael to just level w/ him and the second he does, Jason becomes instantly receptive. It’s just a really really great character moment that also moves the plot, so it’s basically perfect. Also I think this is the moment when Michael is temporarily pulled from his puppet master mode due to being near one of his human friends again, and his other side peeks out as he lets himself rest a bit - it’s in his body language, too, as he leans back against the bridge railing and has a semi-honest chat w/ Jason.

Michael’s disguises are an eternal source of happiness to me. All of them (and based on promo pics, more is coming). I also love the way he approaches each human bc it is reminiscent of how he steered them during the reboots: to Eleanor he gave a small clue and just let her chew on it and work w/ it. W/ Chidi, he was more direct, posing as a wise helper/guide. W/ Tahani, he targeted her sense of self-worth. W/ Jason, he gave up after 5 seconds and just told him what he wanted him to do.

I doubt his aliases raised many eyebrows, tho, not in a universe where Simone has colleagues called Mrelk and Catapulp :D but Eleanor seemed to have a bit of a “hmm” reaction to the name of Dr. Charles Brainman, so… we’ll see.

Dr. Simone Garnett had probably the smoothest entry into an established character group, imo. I’m usually sensitive to changes like this but it’s like she’s always been here - another excellent casting choice right there. I am not gonna touch shipping issues, thank you, but I love how Simone’s presence, which is a lot of fun in itself, instantly enriched the landscape of relationship dynamics regarding the present, the future and also the past. I feel that every character combination exists somewhere in canon whether it’s explicitly on screen or not, and that’s just an incredibly freeing, resourceful attitude to have on a show w/ this sort of “multiverse” setup, imo. They have the premise, so why not milk its full potential? The writers use relationships as tools to aid character development, they have admitted as much already, and I am looking forward to seeing what other combos they have in mind and how they play out.

despite his limited screen time and despite him spending most of it being flat and emotionless, frog guy aka The Doorman managed to deliver the biggest punch in my heart w/ that reaction to Michael’s gift. I.crumbled. the way his flatness did when he saw the frog on the mug. Thank you, Mike O'Malley.

It’s probably a good thing that they are becoming buddies now bc w/ evil Trevor in the mix, Michael’s gonna turn that Earth entrance into a revolving door. Unless Judge Gen is onto him and steps in at some point. And I still don’t know how he will interact w/ the team now since they’ve all met him already and he was posing as a different person each time. And given his track record, whatever solution he comes up with, Eleanor will see right through him eventually anyway.

ok this is way too long already, so I’m just gonna say that I am very excited for this season, I love the new setup, I miss the fake Good Place but the university environment is growing on me fast, too, and just bring it, show, ok?

my body is ready

[poipoi1912]

Carisi-centric thoughts on Ep 19x03

Yet another solid episode! This season is going to be a winner. Also, THE BARISI CORNER IS OFFICIALLY BACK :D

But first:

Overall Thoughts

OK, this wasn’t much to write home about, but it was more than serviceable. All three actresses were very good so they kept me engaged, the case was pleasantly twisty but not convoluted, Sonny had significant input as a lawyer (and I loved how Liv was all “we’ll follow Carisi’s suggestion!”) and Barba delivered a heated and eloquent closing argument. I enjoyed it.

Squad Thoughts

More sharing of personal information! I swear, Sonny and Fin have talked to each other more in these last two episodes than they did in the previous 3 2 seasons! And they didn’t need some random case-related segue, either. This week, they were just driving to a crime scene, and they were shooting the breeze on the way there. You know, like normal colleagues do. Like real people do. Not cardboard cutouts. Something small like that, something as silly as stealing candy as a little boy, it can breathe life into a scene which would otherwise be mundane.

The thing is, even when an episode is not as exciting, it’s still worth watching just to see our characters interacting and being friends. That’s what SVU seemed to have forgotten, and it’s also the key to making a watchable procedural. Let’s face it, all the cases have been done before (often by SVU itself, because it’s been on for a hundred years), but the team interactions can )and should) be enough to maintain the viewers’ interest. This season, it’s clear the team dynamics are being cultivated, instead of being ignored, and that makes me happy.

The Barisi Corner

WE'RE BACK.

Just like I hoped, it's like S18 never happened. We're back to the S17 Barisi dynamic of friendly teasing and inside jokes. In the deleted scene from the premiere, we got the classic "booyah, Fordham law" type of interaction, except in its advanced S17 form. Where in S16 Barba would be biting with his remarks, in S17 and in the 19x01 deleted scene he was just making a joke for the sake of a joke, because that's what they do. Sonny tries to impress Barba, Barba is totally impressed, and then he makes a joke to pretend he's not actually appreciative of Sonny's input.

In this episode, we got an even more advanced interaction. We got Sonny making a smart legal observation not just to impress Barba, but because he wanted to contribute to the case. And, just like in S17, Barba was impressed, and then he used a joke not to diss Sonny, but to praise him.

See, there are two kinds of humorous Barisi interactions.

There's "Sassy Sonny Tries to Impress Barba" which comes complete with Sonny's dimples, and Sonny's smirks, and Sonny's cocky remarks like, "Oh, Rafael, are you mad you didn't think about it first?" This type of Barisi interaction always ends with a Barba side-eye and a snarky comeback. When Barba knows that Sonny is flaunting, he's always quick to shut it down. That's the joke. Sonny starts blathering on about a hypothetical argument, just to show off his legal skillz, and Barba is amused, but he also acknowledges the alterior motive, i.e. Sonny's desire to get Barba's approval.

But then there's "Dedicated Sonny Tries to Crack the Case" which comes with Sonny's frown and Sonny's desire to get justice, and Sonny's casual use of legal terminology like "obfuscated." This type of Barisi interaction always ends with Barba subtly praising Sonny, using a joke to cover up a genuine compliment. When Barba knows that Sonny is trying to be helpful, he's always quick to encourage it. That's Barba's favorite thing. Seeing Sonny creatively solving a legal problem with no ulterior motive. Sure, their games are fun, and they've been fun for 3 2 seasons now, but at the end of the day they're both trying to get justice, and Barba loves it when Sonny focuses on their work.

That's the thing. Both Sonny and Barba have evolved. Sonny used to thirst for Barba's approval, early on, in S16, but soon after that he found his confidence, and his footing, and his place on the team. He still tries to show off for Barba, because it's fun, but that's no longer his main motivator when he speaks legalese. Sonny isn't a law student looking to get that A, he's a lawyer looking to get that D. And his actions and words have come to reflect that. Now he doesn't just state the obvious as Barba jokes "save it for night school." Now, Sonny has original ideas which can actually help SVU.

And Barba, who treated Sonny so condescendingly at first, Barba has come to see the change in Sonny as well. The humorous element of their interactions persists, because Barba is a snarky bastard, but now those same interactions are loaded with respect. With friendship. With flirtation. Barba is no longer dismissive of Sonny, and hasn't been for a long while. Barba sees Sonny as a useful presence in the squad, with legal knowledge the other cops don't possess, and it's clear he welcomes Sonny’s observations. It’s right there in his smile smirk. Barba is willing to listen, and he’s even willing to entertain the notion that Sonny just might think of something he didn't, which is beautiful to see :')

Barisi Hopes

Now all I want is that other type of S17 interaction, the quiet support. Sonny always supported Barba in tougher moments, like the death threats (what death threats lol?), or a trial gone wrong, but Barba also supported Sonny, especially during that Catholic Church case, as we all remember. I'm loving the new showrunner's tendency to use humor to display the bonds between our characters, it's just the perfect thing to balance out the grim nature of the cases, but I'd love to see some more muted, more emotional moments between them (between all of them, but Barba/Carisi especially, lol). We have an entire season ahead, so there's still plenty of time. I'll be waiting.

For now, I'm just happy the classic Barisi dynamic is back.

I've said it time and time again, and I don't even mean romantically (that's what fic is for). Those two characters, Barba and Carisi, they have a dynamic that's gold. Clashing personalities (Sonny is dorkier, Barba is more sarcastic), contrasting temperaments (Sonny is sunnier, Barba is a little more bitter), common interests (the law), a reluctant mentor-mentee relationship (which has evolved now that the student is no longer a student, though he's far from being a master), a constant willingness to joke back-and-forth (which keeps building up their relationship and strengthens their bond), fundamental differences which breed a potential for unexpectedly emotional moments ("I admire your...", because Sonny is an openly affectionate person, and Barba and his wide eyes tend to shy away from affection), it's all there.

Good writing, plus a willingness to explore that bond, plus the natural ease Peter and Raul have with each other as actors, plus Sonny’s sweetness and Barba’s sass = television gold. And Barisi gold :’)

Yummy Thoughts

Barba was flirting. End of story. Textbook “there is no heterosexual explanation for this.” And I’m grateful.

Barba Thoughts

I’ve always said it, I prefer seeing “shrewd legal mind” Barba instead of “slave to his emotions” Barba, but the latter sure is fun to watch. That closing was intense, and you could see that Raul really dug his teeth into those lines.  I mean, damn. It’s not every week that he gets to really show off, with more than an eyebrow raise or a smirk, but when he does, wow.  I was just thinking, they rarely let Raul have a legitimate monologue, even though he’s a lawyer and theoretically we could be watching his opening and/or closing arguments every week. This episode tells me that the writers might be saving those moments, and using them sparingly, so they’ll have more of an impact. And I think they’re right.

That said, I wonder if we’ll be seeing a focus on Barba’s more emotional side, to better juxtapose him to the upcoming ADA, who’ll be more black-and-white and (I’m assuming) less emotional. If so, this was a smart way to start doing that. In this episode, we still saw how smart Barba was, but we also saw a passion we don’t often see from him. I’m assuming Barba and Peter Stone will clash on more than their positions, they’ll clash on philosophy, as well, and I hope this was an example of that. We have to see the “new” (but old) Barba, he has to be established first, under the new showrunner’s reign, and then we can be introduced to Stone, and see what they have in common and what they’ll never agree on.

Stray Thoughts

Just like I thought, last week's dramatic ending (and Sonny’s potential subsequent trauma) was not directly referenced. It may come up again in the future, but again, as I said in last week's post, this is classic Original L&O stuff, a self-contained dramatic episode which ends and is never mentioned again. L&O in its earlier seasons was much less serialized, and I think the new showrunner is bringing that back. I don't mind it.

Another thing I didn’t mind? Flirty Sonny using his masculine wiles to cozy up to that witness and get her to help. Now that’s how you use your assets :D

“CONFIRMED.” I love Fin.

That old high school pic? I love that NBC employs people who have a passion for graphic design :’)

More background on Sonny’s family! The show remembers he has a niece! His mom used to cover for him for childhood shenanigans! He went to confession for stealing candy! Classic Carisi material. And continuity galore. This is the Sonny we know and love.

Amanda dismissively saying “pills, booze” to judge a woman who was on prescribed anxiety meds and enjoyed, like, a beer? Never change, Amanda. actually, please change (that said, yay for continuity!)

What a waste of Annabeth Gish.

So Brooke Shields is the grandma? Wasn’t that what everyone guessed? I was trying to come up with other guesses because I actually believed them when they said “no one has guessed who she’ll play”. Oh well. That said, she looked amazing, and I’ve always liked her. It’ll be nice to have someone with a (seemingly) kinder demeanor fighting against Liv. Not a criminal or a lawyer, you know? We haven’t seen that before.

Amanda and Liv’s jackets keep slaying my existence every week.

WHY DIDN’T WEE SONNY’S REACTION TO “YUMMY”???? HUH???? WHERE IS THAT CLOSE-UP OF HIS SMIRKY DIMPLY LIL’ FACE???

Did I write more than 900 words of this post about a 5-second Barisi interaction? HELL YEAH I DID :D

[i-am-very-very-tired]

In early 1937, director Gregory La Cava sent an assistant named Winfrid Thackrey to embed herself in a home for aspiring actresses, the Hollywood Studio Club, to gather material for a movie about theater life. He told Thackrey: Find me some dialogue that’s alive—get some case histories. Who are these kids? Why do they want to be in pictures? Where do they come from? What was their home life? Small town? Why did they leave home to come here? Are they having any success? Have they been to the “casting couch”? Was it worth it? Thackrey moved into the Club posing as an actress who, realistic about her chances, was also trying to learn shorthand. She spent her days eavesdropping on the young women around her, compiling notes which helped give the resulting film, Stage Door, some of the richest dialogue of any classic Hollywood production. It also presents the era’s most compelling treatment of the deeply engrained sexual harassment women have faced in the entertainment industry, depicting the “casting couch” not as the popular myth used to malign female entertainers, but as a very real predatory tool of men in power over them. THE CASTING COUCH IS OFTEN CALLED AN “OPEN SECRET,” AND THE STORY OF STAGE DOOR IS A STUDY IN THE KIND OF WILLFUL IGNORANCE REQUIRED TO KEEP SOMETHING SO WIDELY KNOWN FROM ENDANGERING THOSE IN POWER. The eighty-year-old Best Picture Academy Award nominee stars Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers as actresses who confront a producer who treats sex as the price of fame. It’s an eerily timely movie to encounter in the wake of the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, James Toback, and so many others. The casting couch is often called an “open secret,” and the story of Stage Door is a study in the kind of willful ignorance required to keep something so widely known from endangering those in power. It was just one movie, both at odds with widespread messages covering up the entertainment world’s harassment problem, and compromised by those messages to the point that its testimony could not even be heard. Article preview thumbnail The Invention of The 'Casting Couch' “I’m angry, not just at him and the conspiracy of silence around his actions, but also that the… Read more Stage Door was not the first film to mention the casting couch, but others tended to bring it up only to exonerate those who wielded it. The 1923 film Souls for Sale was written as a rejoinder to the criticism the industry sustained in the wake of Fatty Arbuckle’s relentlessly publicized 1921 trial for the manslaughter of Virginia Rappe; though he was ultimately acquitted, it was suggested he’d sexually assaulted and accidentally killed her at a wild party. The movie presents a Hollywood where stars work tirelessly, have strong morals, and don’t even make that much money. And they keep their souls intact—never stooping to the casting couch. Early on, the naïve heroine enters a crowded casting office and desperately flutters her lashes at the desk clerk. Educated by anti-Hollywood gossip, she assumes “the only way to succeed in the movies is to sell your soul.” On the contrary, an intertitle notes, “Beautiful women are no luxury to the poor casting director. He has about two jobs a day to give out and endures more wiles than King Solomon.” She waits outside the director’s office and watches as a young vamp looks deep into the director’s eyes, puts her arms around him, and says, “I must have work. I know that I must pay ‘the price.’” The man is repulsed, casting her out and insisting neither he, the producer, nor the director would dream of touching her. “It’s the public you’ve got to sell yourself to—not to us.” Thus the notion of the casting couch is dismissed. The heroine avoids making the same mistake and instead finds stardom the “honorable” way. Even her anti-Hollywood preacher father comes to recognize the fundamental decency of the industry. Later films such as They Call It Sin (1932) and Myrt and Marge (1933), are more honest about powerful men, the latter featuring one sneaking into an actress’s room wearing a robe, but usually the victim is presented as taking a foolish risk. In the Best Picture winner The Broadway Melody (1929), a woman is warned not to date one of her show’s funders, but she does so anyway, only to regret it when he demands favors. In Show Girl in Hollywood (1930), an actress’s boyfriend says of a producer across the nightclub floor, “I know the type: the minute he meets a girl, he starts feeling her ribs and talking about screen tests.” But she heads right over to him nonetheless. In All About Eve (1950), Marilyn Monroe does not enjoy courting producers, but she’s the one on the hunt. The industry doesn’t look good, but its victims don’t look any better. When the woman is rescued in The Broadway Melody, the rescuer chastises her before getting to the producer who has just been holding her captive. USUALLY CASTING COUCH REFERENCES ARE FLEETING, RELYING ON A SAVVY AUDIENCE. Usually casting couch references are fleeting, relying on a savvy audience. In King Kong (1933), a director offers Fay Wray a job and she stammers an uncertain response before being assured, “You’ve got me wrong. This is strictly business.” In The Stand-In (1937), Leslie Howard instructs Joan Blondell to shut a pair of doors, and she says, “My my, you talk like a producer, but I can scream so you can hear it through more closed doors than this.” In A Star Is Born (1937), Adolphe Menjou tells Janet Gaynor, “I think I’m going to like you,” as he comes around his desk toward her, and Gaynor looks warily and shifts away in her chair, only to sigh in relief when it’s clear Menjou’s intentions are pure. Maybe the filmmakers wanted to gesture to the truths they knew of Hollywood, or perhaps they sought, like Souls for Sale, to render the casting couch myth. Six months later, Menjou would again play a producer in Stage Door. However, this time he wouldn’t be helping Hollywood deny the performing world’s dirty secret, but laying it bare. The Hollywood Studio Club was created in 1916 to be a home for the young women then flooding Hollywood, whose lack of money or connections put them at the mercy of unseemly men. It didn’t solve the problem, but it offered positive public relations, assuring the public that Hollywood had sincere concern for vulnerable women. By the mid-thirties, 150 were living there. In March of 1937, Thackrey consulted with the Club’s director, Marjorie Williams, who allowed her to pose as an aspiring actress. While the girls would chat in the large social room after dinner, she would sit on a couch with her back to them and take careful notes, listening in as they detailed their daily efforts to get parts. During the days, she went with actresses to studios, or ventured elsewhere in Los Angeles: “I loitered in pick-up bars evenings, filing my nails or seeming to practice shorthand outside the girls’ room, waiting for two girls to come in together—one to the toilet, one to powder her nose at the mirror—their voices loud, their comments colorful, often hilarious.” She spoke with others on set, or at a bus stop, or working a soda fountain. “I never relied on my memory,” she wrote in her 2001 memoir. “Lines were exactly as spoken, colloquial, slang ridden, all faithfully recorded in shorthand and transcribed the following morning. The girls probably thought I was a bit cracked, and certainly snoopy, but my interest in them as persons was genuine.” She adds: Much of the dialogue was used in the picture. Much of it was not. Some of the case histories found their way into the picture. Many did not, but the whole project established a mood that worked and that did carry over to the film itself. Conversations, comments, opinions were interrupted, questions were overlapped with other questions and never answered: my notes recorded faithfully the way people actually talk. The 1936 play the movie was based on, by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, was largely jettisoned, as were scripts by Morrie Ryskind and Tony Veiller, but, as Thackrey says, many of her gathered bits of dialogue survived. When the actresses arrived on set in June of 1937, La Cava had them sit around and talk to see how they interacted and to develop more natural dialogue. Rogers’ ad-libs were so good she later received a telegram from the producer suggesting she work as a gag writer. In addition to the stars and up-and-comers like Lucille Ball were five girls from the Studio Club, picked by La Cava after they performed the play for him in the Club theater. Each night after shooting, the writers would craft the next day’s script and then they’d encourage improvisation around it on set in the morning, not coming up with a final draft until the lunch break. That free-flowing spirit is evident in the opening scene as the camera roams across the parlor of the “Footlights Club,” picking up on a fight between Rogers and her roommate Gail Patrick over borrowed stockings, and then a phone call from some Seattle lumbermen asking Ball out for a date, and then the Club manager emerging from the hall to exert order. All the while, a dozen young ladies lurk in the background, pursuing their own conversations or tossing in wisecracks. It all flows so effortlessly, with each character’s dialogue as enticing as the next, that you hardly notice the whole course of the movie is being set up. Rogers finds herself standing next to Ball, who asks if she wants to double date. Remembering how the oafish Northwesterners stepped on her feet last time, Rogers refuses and Ball responds, “Alright, you can stay here and gorge yourself on lamb stew again.” This changes everything. The mere mention of a chance at a decent meal has Rogers on board. Then Hepburn arrives. She’s obscenely rich and obnoxiously out-of-touch, and the ladies let her know it. As she waits for the manager who will soon assign her to be Rogers’ new roommate, the old one comes downstairs. A car has arrived for Patrick, sent by an important producer, and on her way out the door she has some parting shots for Rogers. Patrick: You know, I think I could fix you up with Mr. Powell’s chauffeur. The chauffeur has a very nice car too. Rogers: Yes, but I understand Mr. Powell’s chauffeur doesn’t go as far in his car as Mr. Powell does. Patrick: Even a chauffeur has to have an incentive. Rogers: Well, you should know. Patrick: I hope you enjoy your lamb stew again tonight. I’ll be thinking of you while I’m dining on pheasant bordelaise. Food preoccupies the women of the Club. There’s endless lamb stew, flavorless vegetable soup, and meatloaf the cook “must have gotten…from the Smithsonian Institute.” Ball’s not excited about her dates, but says, “To me, they’re meat and potatoes.” Unable to find work as an actress, Andrea Leeds is starving herself to save money. To all of them, the producer is a “meal ticket,” gateway to elegant eating like “bordelaise,” a word the women like the sound of even if they don’t know its meaning. The association of men and meals goes further when a butcher arrives for a date with the house cook and Ball flirts aggressively with him, trying to convince him to sneak some chicken in with their lamb. The women are in love with the theater, but that love is qualified by baser needs. Their hunger makes them vulnerable. TO CRITICS, THIS WAS NOT A STORY OF WOMEN SUBJECTED TO PREDATORY MEN. MANY OF THE REVIEWS DON’T EVEN MENTION THE PRODUCER, FOCUSING INSTEAD ON THE RIVALRY BETWEEN ROGERS AND HEPBURN. The next day, Rogers and Ann Miller are at dancing school when the producer, Adolphe Menjou, arrives, leering at all the dancers before settling on the pair. Miller hopes he’s eyeing her, but Rogers is disgusted with him. When he comes over, she serves up some insults and then hurries away. Alone with the much older man as he looks her over, Miller loses her enthusiasm and makes a hasty exit too. But then back at the Club she criticizes Rogers for blowing an opportunity. Her vacillations suggest the predicament of all these women, both repelled by the men in their lives and beholden to them in order to get work, or simply eat. Moments later, a phone call comes in offering Rogers and Miller jobs dancing at a nightclub. It would seem Rogers did the right thing, eschewing the sleazy road to success, being rewarded for her merits. But then after her first performance Menjou enters her dressing room. He has a stake in the nightclub, she realizes: he got her the gig and expects a reward. Menjou sits behind her and describes the woman of his dreams, one just like Rogers, and she ridicules his come-ons. But then, once more, she changes her attitude upon hearing a single word: “dinner.” When Menjou offers to take her out the next night, she responds, “I’m very fond of dinner.” In moments they have a date, but Rogers has little appetite for it. Her face drops as Menjou steps out the door. She’s spent the first act mocking Patrick for trading her affections for this guy’s wealth, and now she finds her only hope of success lies down the same path. In his omnipresence in Rogers’ life, and in the way the women fixate on this single producer, Menjou seems to epitomize the predatory men keeping the gates throughout the industry. In the next scene, the other women wait outside his office, hoping in vain to be seen. Soon half-starved Leeds arrives. Menjou has ignored her since he last gave her a part; perhaps she’s another conquest he’s cast aside. As she begs for an entrance, she faints, leading an outraged Hepburn to burst into Menjou’s office. There, she berates him and he answers in kind. Then she departs just as his lawyer arrives. It seems Hepburn’s wealthy father will bankroll the play if she gets a starring role. Hepburn, who has hitherto suggested the ladies’ lack of roles stems from laziness, remains tin-eared as she returns home. “It’s so silly of her to have gone without food,” she says of Leeds. When she hears Rogers discussing her date with Menjou, she tells her, “Why don’t you stick to your ideals? They’re rather crude, but they’re alright.” Rogers doesn’t answer, just points to the photo of the rich grandfather Hepburn keeps on her dresser. Ad in Altoona Tribune, Nov. 15, 1937. Hepburn can’t see how her privilege insulates her from the dilemma Rogers faces. For Hepburn, acting seems like a lark, something she tries out secure in the knowledge her family riches await if she fails. She won’t have to pay for her part because her father already did, but if Rogers spurns Menjou, she’ll lose not only her chance on stage but also her dancing job. Before her date, Rogers awkwardly tells her sometime boyfriend that she has to stop seeing him, but without giving any reasons. Then we cut to Menjou’s apartment where he and a drunken Rogers have just finished dinner, a meal she professes she didn’t dare enjoy because it would make it too tough to return to lamb stew. From there, things play out as Patrick predicted in an earlier scene—Menjou encouraging her to keep drinking champagne, dimming the lights, dropping to his knees and declaring himself a little boy in love. It’s all aided by an assistant, Harcourt the butler. “He’s very discreet though. You know, one of those butlers that tiptoes backwards,” Patrick had said. “And he’s very deaf. You really won’t have to bother to scream for help.” It’s a sinister note, a gesture to the reality of the casting couch experience that the film isn’t willing to represent. After explaining he can introduce Rogers to the right people, put her name up in lights, and ensure she never has to eat lamb stew again, Menjou clutches her hands and promises to be the Pygmalion to her Galatea. Drunk, Rogers fixates on the comparison, asking whether Pygmalion and Galatea ever married, getting weepy over it. Menjou tries to talk her back into romance, but—frightened by discussion of marriage—he soon ushers her out of his apartment. He shuts the door and pulls out his little black book to find a replacement. It all ends too quickly, Menjou’s sudden decency matching neither his eagerness to get her drunk, nor the ideas conjured by the mention of screams. VIEWERS OF THE FILM WERE ACCUSTOMED TO SEEING WOMEN NOT ONLY IN CHARGE OF THE COUCH, BUT ALSO OF THEIR OWN VICTIMIZATION.  The same routine plays out the next night with Hepburn. Her father has bought her the part already, but Menjou seems intent on exacting payment from her, too. It doesn’t work, as she mocks his every ploy. Then Rogers bursts in angrily. Whether she’s decided she likes Menjou or is upset over the loss of opportunity isn’t clear, but her anger is exacerbated by Hepburn, who has uncoiled herself on the floor like an eager lover. “What is this?” Menjou asks “A frame up?” The question is another hint of something sinister in Menjou’s life. The previous night, when trying to get Rogers to quiet down, he blurted out the non sequitur, “My lawyer will straighten the whole thing out.” Earlier, on seeing his lawyer, he lowered his voice and asked, “I hope this has nothing to do with that other matter; I thought that was all settled.” We don’t know what he could mean, but we’re continually reminded of a darker underbelly. But it recedes from view in the final act. Hepburn proves a wooden actor in her new part, but just before she is to perform, Leeds takes her own life. Filled with grief, acquiring in an instant all the depth of feeling her fellow actresses develop through years of struggle, Hepburn gives a star-turning performance. The film ends at the Footlights Club. The ladies welcome a new girl, congratulate another on a part, and say goodbye to a morose Ball, who has traded the excitement of the Club for the security of one of those Seattle lumbermen. Rogers is conflicted. Critics have often said the movie lacks a love interest, but in fact, there’s that guy she dismissed before meeting Menjou, and now, in the final seconds, she thinks of him. No longer courting a producer, genuine romance is available to her again, and watching Ball depart she wonders if the chance at “a couple of kids to keep her company in her old age” is better than a future of fruitless striving and “broken-down memories.” An earlier montage of theater marquees and newspaper headlines has assured us Hepburn has stardom in her future, but it’s not clear what to expect for Rogers, nor what to hope for. One of those newspapers describes Hepburn as Menjou’s “latest discovery,” reminding us that he and men like him stand in the way of success for any woman, and yet the sad look on Ball’s face has made it clear respectable marriage can also mean trading dreams for the certainty of a “meal ticket.” IN 2017, STAGE DOOR IS THE STORY OF THE HORRORS WOMEN ENCOUNTER WHILE TRYING TO PURSUE A CAREER IN ACTING.  As Rogers talks to her beau over the phone, Hepburn leans over the stair-rail to try to keep her priorities straight: “Don’t be sentimental. Remember, you’re a ham at heart.” She’s speaking from privilege again—the privilege of a steady career, and of her father’s money having preserved her from the casting couch. Passing her on the stairs is Patrick, out for a date with Menjou, dressed in finery but without a career. We’ve barely seen the guy Rogers is talking to, have no idea whether he’s an oaf, a wolf, or worthy of Rogers’ heart. And the fact that we don’t get to meet him means less that the film has no use for romance than that these characters exist in a world in which romantic and career aspirations are at odds, and doubly so because so often the men in a woman’s career demand roles in her private life too. Stage Door leaves us pleased at the knowledge the effervescent life of the Footlights Club will continue, but also a little disheartened, knowing that supportive cocoon only exists because of the threats that continue to reign outside. I first happened to watch Stage Door with my mom the day after the LA Times published its report on director James Toback, and we exchanged knowing looks at every expression of Menjou’s lechery. From the characters’ references to the dangers the producer presents, to the way he looks the actresses over, to the assistant who aids his maneuvers, it felt like what we’d been reading. Then I read the original reviews of the movie and began to doubt my understanding of what I’d seen. To critics at outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Christian Science Monitor, this was not a story of women subjected to predatory men. Many of the reviews don’t even mention the producer, focusing instead on the rivalry between Rogers and Hepburn, the remarkable dialogue, and the superiority to the play. When Menjou comes up, it is quite briefly, as though he barely figured in the plot. Even stranger is how he’s described. The character is said to be “suave,” “amorous,” and “gay.” He “has a way with the ladies,” and “a weakness for dimples and knees.” He “changes his affections with bewildering rapidity but is always polite and always ready with his little book of telephone numbers.” THE CRITICS MISSED WHAT WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM BECAUSE THEY HAD CONTINUALLY BEEN TRAINED TO DIRECT THEIR ATTENTION ELSEWHERE, ONSCREEN AND OFF. Some descriptors are more negative, including “sly and wily fellow,” “roué,” and “lowlife producer.” The most common label is “philanderer.” None of it suffices. Reviewers simply didn’t see how pernicious the character is. The Christian Science Monitor calls him a “semi-villain.” The New York Times review calls him a “villain” but for the wrong reasons, saying, “the villain of all serious acting fledglings is the Broadway producer who is too busy to look and listen.” But it’s his attentions that are the bigger problem. A piece in the trade journal Hollywood Spectator gets at why they all so eagerly miss the mark. In praising Menjou’s performance, the piece says, “There is no hero in Stage Door, no romance, and Adolphe is the nearest approach to a villain it has. The real villain is life, fate, the refusal of the wheel of fortune to stop at the right number; but Adolphe, who plays a theatrical producer, controls a spoke or two in the wheel, so to him the blame for its heartless stoppings.” The reviewer casts Menjou as another kind of victim, as though, once placed in his position of power, he has no control over how he operates—as though there is no other way to operate in that position. The critics would have the movie as a fable of the human condition, of how we all suffer under the vicissitudes of fortune. They take the casting couch as understood, not a scourge but a spoke in the wheel of fate, an open secret but only in the way that death is an open secret—something we abhor but must nobly accept as inevitable. It’s a painfully wrong reading, but not necessarily unintended. The film’s censorship records reveal changes seeking to obscure the theater world’s sordid undercurrent. Head censor Joseph Breen demanded Patrick’s character be presented as “a golddigger rather than a ‘kept woman’.” The latter puts a degree of moral opprobrium on the man, the former all on the woman. A corrupt woman is more palatable than a corrupt system. The earlier scripts were less vague about Menjou’s dark past too, with references to a diary he sought to suppress, an allusion to the previous year’s scandal entangling Stage Door co-writer George S. Kaufman. Finding the fruits of Thackrey’s excursions into the Studio Club “replete with loose, and suggestive, dialogue” the censors demanded heavy changes. A complaint about a handsy date had to go, along with phrases like “on the make,” “facts of life,” and “nuts to you.” So did a reference to mirrors above the producer’s bed and anything else that hinted at the casting couch. Menjou’s declaration, “It’s guys like me that make dames like you” was rejected, along with repeated references to actresses who only perform offstage: “Did you say producers?” “They produce taxi fare and dinner—and the girls produce as little as possible.” “Officially, she’s an artist’s model. But all her posing is done in apartments.” Over fifty “unacceptably suggestive” lines were cut, rendering the film a bit too equivocal. Some critics weren’t even sure whether they were supposed to read between the lines and assume Rogers slept with Menjou. The producer was not fully the villain in earlier scripts, but in removing the debauched atmosphere surrounding him his menace is further obscured. To contemporary viewers, the film was less in dialogue with the history of monstrous men of the entertainment world than with movies like Souls for Sale, where women are as dangerous as men. The critics missed what was right in front of them because they had continually been trained to direct their attention elsewhere, onscreen and off. Consider the 1934 Hollywood fan magazine article, “Are Pretty Girls Safe in Hollywood?” The title promises a direct engagement with a serious—if poorly framed—question. The subheading makes it clear such a question would not be seriously pondered for long: Hollywood, May 1934. Hollywood, May 1934. The question is deemed “moot” because it’s misdirected. If anyone is a victim, according to the experts in this article, it’s the poor producers. “The men who make pictures are human, just as other men are,” says a woman working in central casting, an office invented to forestall predatory behavior. “If a pretty girl shows a willingness to dally along the primrose path with them, they won’t refuse.” That is, the casting couch exists, but it’s actresses who control it. So while it is possible to trade sex for roles, the article insists it’s rare and unnecessary: “the girl who wants to travel straight will find her virtue as much respected and her person as safe in Hollywood as in any other city in the world.” In fact, the story insists, “Hollywood is the most sexless town in the world,” with movie people working too long or being too caught up in outdoor pastimes to bother with lascivious encounters. The piece quotes a “famous musical picture director” accused of leering at dancers and answering, “To me a leg is merely something to stand on.” It was surely hard to believe even then, but the idea still sows doubt, shifts one’s moral focus. Encouraged to see producers as mere men and Hollywood women as temptresses, why should Menjou be any more than a “half-villain”? Seen through this lens, Menjou is relentlessly pursued—by Leeds, by Patrick, and by Rogers, who only requires mention of “dinner” to drop all sense of being harassed. Rogers becomes a seducer. The moral choice is all hers. The viewer readily agrees with Hepburn that she’s making a big mistake and never considers the bind that puts Rogers in the producer’s apartment. IT’S TAKING SOMETHING EVERYONE IN BOTH ERAS IS WELL AWARE OF—AN OPEN SECRET—AND TREATING IT AS A PROBLEM TO BE REMEDIED, NOT A FACT OF LIFE TO LOOK PAST.  Focusing on the women as pursuers, it’s easy to miss Menjou’s subtle predations, the power he wields behind the scenes so that he doesn’t need to stoop to aggressive actions. He instead becomes a decent romantic prospect, not a cretin but a suave philanderer. Indeed, in discarded scripts, Rogers ended up with him. Lacking a script during shooting, everyone on set assumed one of the two leads would get him, and it became a point of rivalry between Hepburn and Rogers. That was the Hollywood they’d worked in, the Hollywood they’d been subjected to, the Hollywood they’d sold. Some critics thought Rogers’ character genuinely wants to marry Menjou, and her drunken fixation on marriage could support the interpretation. Likewise in other movies that mention the casting couch, there’s an uncertainty about whether the women would prefer a domestic role to a stage one. Young women in Broadway Melody, They Call It Sin, and Stage Mother (1933) pursue dalliances with lecherous producers as surrogates for the unavailable men they really desire. It’s easy to see Menjou not as the man standing in the way of Rogers’ career, but a welcome alternative to having one. Viewers of the film were accustomed to seeing women not only in charge of the couch, but also of their own victimization. As Joan Blondell sings of a wealthy man in Gold Diggers of 1937: I’d encourage his bold advances. And if he got reckless, I’d get a necklace. … A sudden love attack, and I’d have all his jack For love is just like war. Agency is off-loaded onto women precisely where men find their own power at its most self-destructive. Every misdeed of a character like Menjou’s can be re-framed as some woman’s secret design. Every truth has a counter-narrative. Everything was conspiring to keep audiences from seeing on that screen what is now so frightfully clear. In 2017, Stage Door is the story of the horrors women encounter while trying to pursue a career in acting. In 1937, it’s the story of the whims of fate, or the wiles of women. It’s the same awful events, just a difference in context and sympathies, in what we’re prepared to see and be appalled by. It’s taking something everyone in both eras is well aware of—an open secret—and treating it as a problem to be remedied, not a fact of life to look past. It’s taking women’s claims seriously, not assuming unscrupulous motives. “Are Pretty Girls Safe?” concludes with the perspective of Marjorie Williams, the head of the Hollywood Studio Club who let Thackrey in to gather material. “We have 150 of the nicest girls you ever saw in the club,” she said, “and they never complain about their virtue being menaced.” Perhaps had she listened in, listened when they weren’t talking on screen, but quietly among themselves, or in their jokes, their banter, their asides, she’d have heard their screams.

[withacorkscrew-blog]

Sherlock: The Lying Detective

**Sherlock analysis/spoilers below**

In which some people don’t understand what makes villains villainous, what makes characters human, and the difference between love and disaster (or style and substance). 

And in which, again, “some people” does not refer to Sherlock Holmes (mostly).

Also ft. the id!fic I very specifically asked to not ever see, and sadness. 

Starting with the easiest bits, going towards the hardest. 

Does this give us an arc? The return of Billy. The return of Irene Adler. Appearances by Mrs Hudson and Molly and Lestrade and Lady Smallwood. Redbeard, too. The return of a whole bundle of visual motifs: Sherlock’s case wall, Sherlock’s violence towards his case wall, an almost replica of the shot following Irene Adler’s drugging of Sherlock, Sherlock’s deduction with the window and the attendant visual affects, Sherlock’s juvenile wit with the Bollocks map, Benedict Cumberbatch seeming to infuse a certain amount of joy into the role again during Sherlock’s breakdown...a lot of old favorites returned to the show this week, and it felt good. In the moment. But, at least to this point, those pieces don’t feel like they fit together. The underlying logic that would unite them isn’t there. It could be! What if Billy had given Sherlock some of the memory drug? Or what if Mrs Hudson and Billy were in cahoots to get Sherlock the least damaging drugs since, as she points out, her husband was a drug dealer? What if more of the characters interacted with each other? Or did more than their professions, since we get Molly doctoring and Lestrade detectiving, and none of the cohesive human interactions that make the characters feel like more than props? But none of that happened. Maybe the next episode will create that, but at this point It isn't betting odds imo. Not impossible, but not looking great,

Do Mofftiss understand what makes villains villainous? Culverton could have been brilliant political allegory and a psychologically haunting villain. The idea that power creates opportunities for deadly, consequence-free callousness couldn’t be more timely for either European or US audiences. The idea of a rich, powerful man who takes joy in removing people’s agency, who will discard their lives for fun, and who gets away with joking about it on TV...well. The problem is that Mofftiss don’t understand the psychology of marginalization and precarity well enough to understand why that’s a horrific scenario, what’s at stake, how it feels to face down a power that can hold your life in its hands and decide what to do with you based on a whim. They’re closer to being that power than being subject to it (and that’s one reason why this story would’ve been better told in someone else’s hands). That terror is what would’ve made Culverton work. Instead, we get close-ups of his teeth which, like Magnusson’s face-licking, were affectively gross, but not worth more emotionally then a perfunctory wince, and that does more to tell us more how Mofftiss feel about ugly people than it does to establish investment in this nemesis or Sherlock’s victory over him. Reducing him to a fallible, clownish, one-off villain is a waste, and the lack of understanding is telling and terrible.

Did Mofftiss mean to write the TV equivalent of id!fic? Powerful middle-aged white men who make veiled confessions on TV can get away with murder. Are they even trying for subtlety? I mean, I figured that was just my own reading, but then the back to back “It’s amazing what people will ignore if you’re rich and powerful,” and “With this, I could crack America.” The TARDIS-esque hospital room wallpaper and quick shot to aliens on Culverton’s lot didn’t do much to put me off either. I can no longer tell whether this is self-aware wink-wink nudge-nudging, a total lack of self-awareness, or subconscious leakage. But has anyone checked their airing cupboards?

Do Mofftiss understand what people mean about strong women? Cue maniacal laughter, because we already know the answer. It’s just particularly disappointing in this moment, when these twists could have been really fucking cool. Mrs Hudson is a confident badass and there’s a Holmes sister? That would be brilliant! If it was done brilliantly! So...it isn’t. As much fun as I had watching Mrs Hudson - and it was a lot, until the unease set in - it was so far out of left field I almost hurt my neck trying to look for its source. This is the same Mrs Hudson who jumps at loud noises and cries while being tortured by Americans and can’t tolerate being yelled at by Mycroft - and she’s dodging gunshots and strategically dropping things to handcuff violent drug addicts and convincing the lads downstairs to stuff them in the boot of her sports car? I bought that she might hide a phone in her robe, that sort of matter of fact bravery. I bought her deduction to Mycroft and that she would kick Mycroft’s men out to preserve John’s privacy and emotional space. I’ve long bought that she was exceptional in a number of ways. But put all that in a classic mid-life-crisis-mobile and add a dose of violence, and I’m not sure whether I’m looking at a Mrs Hudson or a retired Bond Girl. I am pretty sure this isn’t the Mrs Hudson we’ve seen before. And Euros...the first thing we learn about her is that she uses her appearance to deceive. The Holmes brothers work on intellect and emotion. The Holmes sister? Straight to feminine wiles. Her first big reveal doesn’t center around her mind; it revolves around the audience watching her recreate a seduction and begin to undress. It’s as though Mofftiss can’t conceive of “strong women” beyond the femme fatale trope and that’s really limited. To say the least. I want to know what Mrs Hudson listens to on the radio and why. I want to know how Molly decides what to make for lunch and what it was like for her to realize who her boyfriend Jim was. I want to know how Irene Adler learned to adminster tranquilizers. I want to know how Donovan felt about Sherlock’s death and how it is for her working with Lestrade and Anderson. I want women with interior lives, with interests and motivations and relationships that don’t revolve around men. Kind of like all the ones I know in real life. 

Who are these people? I’m losing track. John is becoming a superspy, thanks to his internal marylogue, and making some very Sherlock-esque deductions, especially with that happy birthday at the end. He also can’t forgive Sherlock, even though he forgave him a faked death and a two-year-long disappearance, but still has chats with Mycroft (who he has to tell to stop calling?), and is hallucinating his dead wife, who he never really seemed to like very much, and also, in the midst of that, completely rolls with the fact that yet another person who he thought was dead is not actually? Sherlock was abstracted and  distant in the last episode, and in this one he’s half killing himself to provoke John into rescuing him and giving mini-speeches about how death affects people and confessing that he’s afraid of dying and admitting that he texts Irene Adler back and talking about how he has the terrible feeling that we might all be human and holding John in a soft embrace? Mycroft is calling John all the time and flirting with Lady Smallwood and letting information about Sherrinford/Euros slip out accidentally? Lestrade is unconcerned with Sherlock’s well-being? Mrs Hudson is treating central London like Thunder Road? Who are these characters, and where did they come from? And who will they be next week? 

John and Sherlock - what? This meta going around suggests that John has become abusive. Watching the episode, I wondered if Sherlock had. He self-harms as a form of manipulation, he tests John’s loyalty in all sorts of ways, he makes unilateral decisions about what’s in John’s best interest even when that puts John in danger, he puts responsibility for his well-being on John’s shoulders, he condescends to and belittles John regularly, he lies to him, hides things from him, he faked his own death for two years and abandoned him while there were dozens of other people who knew...while the aforelinked meta makes some great points, Sherlock’s behavior isn’t exactly healthy. My point here is not that Sherlock is the abuser, though. My point is that their relationship is deeply, dangerously toxic, and I’m not sure how, or whether, I can keep rooting for it as either a romance or a friendship. My instinct in watching their interactions is that these are two people who have been so deeply hurt by each other that there’s no coming back, no real possibility of trust and good faith. That doesn’t mean there isn’t also love there, or that there couldn’t also be forgiveness, or that there can’t be moments of connection based on their shared history, in which they try to keep being the sources of support and understanding that they once were to each other. I don’t think, for instance, that their hug was unrealistic. But I also don’t think it was a moment of great support and reconciliation so much as a moment of convenience and/or last resort because, as Mary points out, they don’t have other options. That’s not love, platonic or romantic; that’s codependence. And I can’t imagine a scenario in which they would still be able to have a genuinely healthy relationship. For that matter, I can’t imagine a scenario in which they would be able to have a relationship that’s anything other than mutual enabling. If there’s anything to grant here, it’s that they might both want to be in an mutually enabling emotional conflagration; they’ve both got self-destructive streaks a mile wide, and this way they get all the pain and someone else to blame for it, and humans are complicated. And hey, who knows who they’ll be next week? But it’s not a thing I, personally, can hope to see more of. It’s not a thing I want to watch. It’s not a thing that makes me care for the characters or their relationship. With my last reserves of caring about either of them, I no longer want Sherlock and John to be together, in any capacity. I want them at a good distance, preferably with therapists who aren’t villainous family members in disguise. 

And then there’s the show’s treatment of their feelings for one another, which I am too tired on too many levels to even touch with a damn bargepole.

Where does this leave things? If John and Sherlock - their relationship, their teamwork as partners in crime-solving, their interactions - are the heart of the show (which I think they are), and John and Sherlock have both become so destructive to themselves and each other that their relationship, in any capacity, is one I want to see continue - what’s left? 

This episode gives an answer: flash. There were moments that were genuinely exhilarating. Seeing Mrs Hudson play the badass, the reveal of a Holmes sister, the recurrence of ‘Miss Me,’ Benedict Cumberbatch’s joyfully unhinged drug-addled attempts at case-solving...it was exciting to watch. Stylish, quick, colorful. Empty. And a bit sad. This show was great because it was tight and interesting, because the characters were relatable, because viewers’ attention was rewarded. It was never the flash that made it. When the flash is most of what’s left...that’s not much. 

tl;dr:  :( 

Things to watch:

They’ve introduced a technology that can alter memories; on a show based on deduction and intellect that could be an exceptionally powerful plot device. Was it a one-off, or will they manage to make use of it? And if so, will it be as a weapon, or as someone’s choice? And who gets to decide? Or has it already been used?

See also, the trailer for The Final Problem: “Every choice you’ve ever made, every path you’ve ever taken, the man you are today, is your memory of Euros.” “Your memory of” is an interesting choice of wording, especially since the memory is neither so strong nor so recent that (an admittedly drug-addled but still very observant) Sherlock could recognize her in multiple disguises and on multiple occasions.

Potentially related, Sherlock is intrigued by what drugs do to his mind. Will that become a profitable line of inquiry?  

We keep seeing Redbeard, and it’s clear that that’s important. Is Rebeard an abstract representation of something? Did Euros kill Redbeard? Or is there some parallel there - Sherlock was told they both were sent to live on a farm? Sherlock has confused (or been made confused) one with the other? 

When Sherlock and Mary get shot, we see the bullet in slow motion. When Euros shot, we saw a wisp of smoke, but no bullet. Was it a blank? 

Sherlock not having recognized Euros will probs be a thing too, so therefore a thing to watch, idk.

The female detective who appeared briefly in TST, only to disappear again - was that a character who will recur, sloppy continuity/disposable women, or Euros?

What or who is Sherrinford? Another sibling? A location? A code name? 

What the hell was going on in the Holmes household? 

We still don’t know who sent Mary’s CD. Who? Or is this a continuity issue? Or is the explanation that Mary already knew it was going to happen, which I would roll my eyes v heartily about? 

Who will all of the characters be next week? (It’s an adventure!) 

Random thought: There was a person of color in this episode!  Just pointing it out because that doesn’t always happen. As is, of course, to be expected in contemporary London, where everyone is white. Good times, good times. In addition to all the words spilled on this show’s sexism, perhaps we should dedicate some to this show’s casual racist erasure.

[1wngdngl]

Daily Reviews - Thor: Ragnarok

I finally mustered up the courage and saw “Thor: Ragnarok”, with my parents, aunt, and uncle.

I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight.

The movie was just so intense. So many questions answered, so many questions raised, so much death, so much special effects, so much: “How do they say that with a straight face?!”, so much irreverent humor, so many times the movie turned to the fandom’s expectations and said, “Nope! This is how it happens!” The general tone is a bit lighter than the other Thor movies, more like “Guardians of the Galaxy”. (I wonder who directed it?)

It’s a very fun movie, and it will be seared on my brain forever, for good or ill. Sorry, but I’m spoiler-tagging the rest. 😉

(all stuff below is based on memory after one viewing, including quotes. So don’t expect 100% accuracy!)

Based on the previews and stuff, I’d been having a hard time figuring out the role of various characters like Hela, the Grandmaster, etc. and how they all tied in, and what order all the events happened in. But now I can provide a basic synopsis:

(First, you know how theatres play those little videos about ‘please turn off your phone before the movie’? They did one of those, but it was written so that Loki is watching Thor’s gladiatorial match, and Loki’s cell goes off, and Thor yells at him for ruining the moment. Why Loki would even have a cell phone, who knows... >.>)

The movie proper starts in media res, with Thor fighting Surtur (I thought that’s who that fiery demon guy in the promos was). Thor defeats him pretty easily and brings back the prize, Surtur’s helmet, to Asgard. It’s revealed that ever since his “vision” in “Age of Ultron” when Thor saw Asgard being destroyed, he’s been cruising the Nine Realms looking to vanquish any possible threats.

Anyway, Thor goes back to Asgard. Heimdall has been replaced as Gatekeeper by Skurge from the comics. I couldn’t recall what had happened to Heimdall at the end of “The Dark World”, but I guess he was banished or something. Thor’s friends seem to be free and well in “Ragnarok” though.

We get to finally see what Loki had been up to during his four years ruling Asgard as “Odin”. And apparently, he didn’t do a horrible job. The damage from the dark elves’ attack is cleaned up, everything is running smoothly. The craziest thing he’s done as Odin is have a giant statue of his ‘son’, Loki, commissioned. In fact, Odin goes so far as to deliver a sort of eulogy regarding Loki’s ‘sacrifice’ in “The Dark World”. And the eulogy is, it’s...I don’t even...

You know that scene in “The Dark World”, where Loki is seemingly dying on the sands of Svartalfheim, with Thor cradling him and murmuring: “It’s okay, it’s okay”?

That scene that showed that Loki was capable of doing something good at the last, a final moment of vulnerability in him, a moment of raw honesty between the brothers?

Of course, even “The Dark World” showed that Loki hadn’t really died, but the fans still debated whether the whole death was a ruse, or whether he simply survived when it wasn’t expected. Whether his ‘last words’ to Thor had been his true feelings.

Well, in Odin’s eulogy/memorial in “Ragnarok”, that ‘death scene’ is played on a big screen, in front of a huge crowd, with every moment exaggerated to comedic levels. Loki-on-the-screen easily confesses to everything he’s ever done (”Sorry for that thing with the Tesseract, and for trying to kill you, and being an incorrigible traitor.”), while Thor-on-the-screen easily forgives him (”Don’t worry about it! I know you didn’t mean any harm.”). When Loki-on-the-screen finally ‘dies’, Thor lets out a truly over-the-top, wailing, “Noooo!”.

Part of me wonders whether the scene was meant as a subtle “Take that” toward the fans that thought there might have been anything genuine in that ‘death scene’ (or about Loki in general).

Anyway, after the ‘video’, Loki-as-Odin gives a little speech that makes it sound as though Loki was a hero who conquered the dark elf menace single-handedly, all for the greater good. One line of “Odin’s” struck me, something like: “I never imagined when I took in that little blue icicle that he’d be the one to melt my heart.” Obviously it’s horribly cheesy and not something Odin would actually say, but it did hit me - that Loki here is casually admitting to where he had come from. Is that something that the Asgardians had even known about before? They don’t seem shocked by the line, so maybe word of Loki’s origins had gotten around after his initial “death” off the Bifrost, or after Loki had been brought back to Asgard as a prisoner.

Anyway, Thor arrives just in time to witness the ‘memorial service’. Loki doesn’t notice him at first, but when he does, he’s less than thrilled at Thor’s presence. I don’t know if it’s because he just doesn’t like Thor being around, or because the eulogy was not something Thor was meant to hear. Even if Odin could have had a way of knowing what had happened between Thor and Loki during the ‘death scene’, the fact is that Loki mis-represents that scene to make himself look better, something Odin would have had no reason to do.

So Thor gets suspicious, and he starts threatening “Odin” until Loki is forced to reveal himself, to the shock and horror of the Asgardians standing around. Thor forces Loki to come with him to Earth so they can find the real Odin and bring him back to Asgard. Now, I remember around the time of “The Dark World”, some interview had stated that Loki hadn’t actually killed Odin (though who knows why not, when it would have been simpler). Apparently, Loki stuck him in some retirement home on Earth, while also either putting him in a coma or removing his memories, I don’t remember which. Which is pretty horrible when you think of it, but Loki’s hatred of Odin shouldn’t really be a surprise at this point. (Why didn’t he just kill him, though?)

Well, Odin’s not at “Shady Acres” or wherever anymore, so the two go to Doctor Strange for help in finding him. And this is where that stinger from the “Doctor Strange” movie comes in, with Strange reluctantly agreeing to help if it gets Thor off the planet faster. We also get to see what Loki was up to while Thor and Strange had their conversation. I’d thought he was maybe waiting outside, or looking for Odin elsewhere, but instead: “I’ve been falling for thirty minutes.” Loki and Strange don’t get along at all in their brief interaction - Loki is indignant that a mere mortal dares call himself a sorcerer, while Strange treats Loki like a buffoon.

They find Odin in Norway or somewhere like that, but he’s not doing too well. Partly from age, partly from the still-raw pain of losing Frigga a few years earlier, partly from whatever spell Loki had used on him (about which Thor derisively commented, “Mother would be so proud”. Did Frigga actually teach Loki spells to manipulate thought/memory, or did he find that in a book somewhere?)

Odin is accepting toward his own pending death, but he’s worried about a forthcoming danger to the realms. As his last wish, he bids, “My sons, you must protect Asgard.” He says “My sons,” plural. As though he can’t even muster the energy to be angry at Loki’s treatment of him. Then he dies, and it’s a solemn moment, for a few seconds. Until Thor turns to Loki, enraged at his causing Odin’s death. Before a fight can break out, however, Hela appears.

[I’m really pleased that Odin got a proper send-off in this movie, when I wasn’t sure if he’d appear at all. You can tell he has a lasting legacy that affects the plot and the fates of the other characters.]

I’d known Hela was in this movie, and I wasn’t sure what kind of role it would be for her. I was happy to see that, despite her being shown as attractive and dangerous, she wasn’t dressed skimpily nor portrayed as a femme fatale who used her “womanly wiles” to get her way. She’s more just violent and power-hungry, and could kill everyone herself if it pleased her. She’s probably the only character in the movie (excepting maybe Odin), who’s portrayed completely dark and seriously.

Her backstory has been changed quite a bit from the myths and Marvel comics. In “Ragnarok” she is not related to Thanos in any way and is not his “mistress of death”. Nor is she shown to be Loki’s daughter or any other relation to him - she’s actually older than him. Rather, she is the sister of Thor and Odin’s firstborn child.

Apparently, back before Odin was the wise, peace-loving ruler Thor knew, Odin led many bloody wars against the other realms to place them under Asgard’s rule. Hela was his powerful heir, his sword arm against their opponents. But then Odin developed a change of heart, and decided to seek more peaceable relationships with the other realms. Hela didn’t want to give up the fight, so Odin eventually imprisoned her to keep the realms safe.

But now that Odin’s dead, the seal on Hela’s prison is broken, and she heads back to Asgard to claim her right of rulership there. Thor and Loki try to go after her, but due to some kind of wormhole/portal craziness, end up on the far end of the universe on the planet of Sakaar.

Thor wakes to find himself alone on a trash heap, and before he can fully orient himself, he is taken prisoner by a woman named...uh, what was her name? I think it’s Brunhilde, though I don’t know if they actually say it in the movie. Anyway, she’s basically like a slave trader, selling the ones she captures to the Grandmaster, who forces them to compete in his deadly games for fun and profit.

Thor is desperate to escape imprisonment and go back to Asgard at once to stop Hela’s reign. You see, she’s not the nicest ruler, and when the Asgardians refuse to accept her - apparently because she’s unstable and violent, and wants to lead them on a new bloody conquest of the universe - she starts killing people without discretion. That’s including the Warriors Three, which makes me sad :( . She even revives a bunch of people to be zombie warriors for her. That Skurge guy decides to ally with her, making her sort of fill the role of the Enchantress.

Hela takes a moment to explain to Skurge and the audience how she used to be esteemed by Odin until he became “soft”. This discussion takes place next to an interesting mural that depicts Odin’s interactions with the other realms. As an example of Odin’s “going soft”, Hela points at an illustration of Odin and Laufey making a treaty to end the Asgard-Jotunheim war. Hela acts as though she is familiar with this war and treaty, which means that Thor and Loki would have been young children when she was sealed away.

[Having Hela be related to Thor, having her be a relic of Odin’s dark past, really adds a lot to complicate Thor’s view of Asgard and his father. He never knew he had a sister, and now he has to kill her, poor guy. I wonder if Hela’s mother is meant to be Frigga? I don’t think the movie said.]

In order for Thor to get out of Sakaar, though, and get back to Asgard to stop Hela, he must survive his match against the Grandmaster’s reigning champion.

Meanwhile, Loki has also ended up on Sakaar, a few weeks before Thor somehow? He’s used that time to try to ingratiate himself to the Grandmaster, hoping it’ll help him make his way in this weird new world. He has a conversation with Thor via astral projection, reminding me of the convo between Loki and Frigga in “The Dark World”. It’s a good thing Loki isn’t physically present, because Thor might have punched him otherwise. He blames Loki for Odin’s death and the freeing of Hela. Regarding Thor being displaced as Odin’s true heir: “It hurts, doesn’t it?” Loki says. “Thinking you’re one thing and then finding out you’re not?” More tense words are exchanged, but then it’s time for Thor’s match in the arena. [sorry if I’m getting any events out of order!]

It turns out that Thor’s opponent is the Hulk. [Loki is watching the match from the balcony, and his reaction when the Hulk appears is, “I need to get off this planet. o.0″] At first Thor is happy to see his old buddy from the Avengers, his bash brother. But Hulk isn’t as receptive toward Thor. Turns out that Bruce was kidnapped along with the Quinjet right at the end of “Age of Ultron”, so he’s been stuck in Hulk form in the arena for the past two years, and doesn’t remember much from before that. So Thor is forced to fight him for real. He’s hampered a bit by his lack of Mjolnir, just using two short swords instead. Thor does show a brief display of being able to use electricity without Mjolnir, which confounds him. [spirit!Odin eventually explains that Thor had the power all along, and that Mjolnir was just a focus for that power.]

The match ends with both of them still alive, and they spend time afterward healing up, with Thor trying to get through to Banner. Eventually the two of them escape the arena complex together, and begin planning a way to get off the planet.

The Grandmaster isn’t happy about losing two of his strongest fighters, so he asks Loki (his newest ‘employee’) and Brunhilde to go retrieve them - for a hefty prize, of course. Brunhilde finds Thor first. She reveals that she’s had a change of heart and she wants to help him escape. You see, she used to be a Valkyrie - an elite female warrior of Asgard - but when all the rest of the Valkyrie were slaughtered by Hela, she fled, eventually ending up on Sakaar. She says she wants to regain some honor, and get revenge on Hela.

Thor, Hulk, and Brunhilde go and pick up Loki - whom Brunhilde had basically tied up in a closet - and then go to steal the Grandmaster’s spaceship and escape. But just as Thor is about to board, he stops, and suggests that Loki should stay on Sakaar. “We’re different people, and our paths diverged long ago. This world is lawless, chaotic - you’d fit in just fine here.” Plus there’s the fact that, now that Loki’s masquerading as Odin was revealed, the Asgardians might not be keen to welcome him back. Plus plus, going to Asgard means facing Hela, who will quite likely kill any who challenge her.

So it looks like Loki is going to stay on Sakaar, with Thor’s blessing - but then Loki reveals that he never actually gave up on capturing Thor. The prize money from that would set him up quite comfortably, he explains. I don’t know why this betrayal surprised me. It shouldn’t, it shouldn’t. But that’s the kind of duality Loki presents - you know you can’t trust him, he exudes an aura of suspiciousness; yet, like Thor in “The Dark World”, you wish you could trust him, to believe that you can make an ally of him, and benefit from his humor, and knowledge, and connections.

I’d claim that Loki’s constant betrayals show that he holds no loyalty to any other person and is acting out of simple self-interest, but many times his betrayals end up hurting himself in rather predictable ways. The way Thor treats it, it’s like Loki has a compulsion for betrayals, one which Loki and Thor are both aware of. Thor basically predicted that Loki would betray him in “Ragnarok”, and reacts with more disappointment than anger.

Even as he subdues Loki, Thor makes a simple but memorable observation: “Isn’t this all getting a little same-y? We team up, you betray me, I retaliate. Don’t you think there’s some room for change, for growth? I know you’ll always be the “God of Mischief” - but you could be something more.” Thor boards the ship and leaves Loki behind, and Thor and his two allies speed along toward Asgard.

Speaking of Asgard, Heimdall has come back from exile to try to help the Asgardians escape to another world via Bifrost. Hela isn’t too keen on that, though, and sends her zombie army to stop them. But then Thor arrives! He fights Hela’s army of undead, but Hela herself is too much for him. She even blinds one of his eyes!

Just then, however, Loki also arrives in another ship with some other escapees. I don’t remember the reasoning Loki gave for why he bothered to come back. Maybe he took to heart Thor’s challenge to do something brave, or at least unpredictable. While Heimdall hurries all the Asgardians onto the spaceship, Thor and the others try to figure out how to destroy Hela, who is clearly more powerful than any of them.

Eventually, Thor realizes that they will have to destroy Asgard with Hela on it, so she doesn’t escape to any of the other realms. The best way to do that is to summon Surtur - that demon Thor fought at the beginning of the movie - and doing that requires combining Surtur’s crown with the Eternal Flame that’s in the Vault.

Loki gets drafted to go activate this “Self-destruct” mechanism in the Vault (because they think he’s the fastest, or the best one at remaining unseen, who knows), while Thor and the others distract Hela. There’s a part where Loki runs right past the Tesseract in the Vault, before stopping to give it a long look. The scene cuts away then, but you just know he took it and put it in his dimensional pocket. After all, the Tesseract is one of the Infinity Gems, so it has to appear in the “Infinity War” movie. ;) (I wonder if he snagged any other relics while he was there, like the Casket of Ancient Winters, which I thought had fallen into the abyss when the Bifrost was destroyed?)

Anyway, Loki summons Surtur, who makes short work of Hela, before destroying the rest of Asgard. So in essence, Thor and Loki cause Ragnarok in order to defeat Hela.

The group of Asgardians that survived huddle together on the spaceship, their new home. Thor is now king of a new “Asgard”, one that is not a fixed world, but a migrant group of people. Loki, despite being at ground zero when Surtur was summoned, manages to escape onto the spaceship as well (maybe he used the Tesseract to make a quick getaway?).

In the stinger, Thor and Loki discuss where the ship should travel to next. Thor wants to visit Earth (maybe to set up a colony there?). But then some sort of other, gigantic spaceship appears right in front of them, looming menacingly… [Does Thanos have a spaceship?]

 Sorry for the longest summary ever. Here’s a few more general thoughts that didn’t go anywhere else:

Loki is like the butt-monkey of “Ragnarok”. Other characters share this role sometime, and Loki certainly provided comedic value in other movies, but in something like “The Dark World”, there was also a dangerous, angry aspect to him, and a thirst for revenge. In “Ragnarok”, he’s at the end of many jokes, loses most of his battles, and isn’t treated as a threat by anyone. Maybe spending four years as “Odin” without any battle practice made him get sloppy?

In “The Dark World”, Thor and Loki try for a bit to maintain a cool professional relationship (”We’re pursuing the same enemy, that’s all.”), before that attitude tumbles down. In “Ragnarok” they don’t even try to pretend at distance. They were brothers for a thousand years, and stored in their shared memory is every fight, every insult, every silly moment, every childhood fear, every catchphrase, every quirk and whim. The question in “Ragnarok” is whether they have any future together, or whether they’ve grown too far apart and should stay apart.

A couple of offhand comments mentioned that Loki once turned Thor into a frog, and himself into a snake (not at the same time, thankfully). In the first Thor movie, the most he seemed able to do was make duplicates. In “The Dark World” he can change his and Thor’s appearance using illusion magic, but that’s all it seemed to be – illusion with no substance. While saying he’s able to actually turn people into animals isn’t contradictory with past movies, it does make you wonder why this ability hasn’t shown up before. For instance, when he was fighting Kurse, why didn’t Loki just zap him and turn him into a mouse? Fanon can probably assist here. Maybe that sort of full transformation takes a lot of setup and isn’t suited for the battlefield. It might require the target to stand motionless for some time, or to be fed a special potion.

This movie seems to uphold the stance that “Loki doesn���t have children”. They made Hela be Odin’s child rather than his, the wolf Fenrir/Fenris was Hela’s familiar from before Loki was born. And I think Sleipnir has shown up during Odin’s battle against Jotunheim, so Loki couldn’t be his parent either. (Wonder what happened to Sleipnir – did he die when Asgard got destroyed?)

I don’t think Sif was in “Ragnarok” at all. Jane was mentioned briefly, with the comment that she had broken up with Thor. Maybe to make Thor available to pursue Brunhilde? I’m not so surprised Jane and Thor might not work out – they’re very different people, Thor has a much longer lifespan, he was always busy travelling the realms and couldn’t see her much. Too bad though, when much of “The Dark World” focused on keeping Jane safe, plus Thor gave up the throne then partly so he could be with Jane. Oh well, we’ll see what happens in the future.

I like that Bruce/the Hulk had a pretty big role in this movie, not just a cameo. There were loads of other callbacks to previous movies, quotes, music, etc., such that you’d need to see both other Thor movies and Avengers movies to get them all. Things like “A wise king must always be ready for war”, a song from the Thor I soundtrack, Odin’s Weapons Vault, Stan Lee making an appearance, Thor getting an eyepatch like Odin’s, Tony calling Thor “Pointbreak”, and so on.

One thing that struck me was how much fun Thor and Loki’s actors seemed to have in reprising their roles. I wonder what it was like for them filming together again after several years?

Now that I’ve finally seen Ragnarok, I can go back and start catching up on fanfic for it. I like fanfic. It fills in the gaps, provides explanation for confusing things, records your favorite quotes, and helps you make connections between movies.

Oh, and I should also check out that “Infinity War” trailer. Has the identity/location of the Soul Stone ever been revealed in the MCU? That’s the only Infinity Stone I can’t account for. >.>

I should also get a hold of the “Ragnarok: Prelude” book, to see if it helps explain anything further…

[i-am-very-very-tired]

Andrew Heisel Andrew Heisel 12/21/17 3:00pm For those curious, here are the films in the clip in order: The Bad and the Beautiful (1952); A Star is Born (1937); King Kong (1933); Sullivan’s Travels (1941); Show Girl in Hollywood (1930); You’ll Never Get Rich (1941); 42nd Street (1933); They Call it Sin (1932); The Mad Genius (1931); All About Eve (1950); Souls for Sale (1923); Stage Door (1937); The Stand-In (1937); Myrt and Marge (1933); The Broadway Melody (1929) Also, here it is with the original aspect ratio: