#and on critique day my friend rolled up with a bunch of pet rocks from the beach and got an A

[cheekedupwhiteboy]

wish everyone took the same social structures of art & design class i took in college

[i-watch-too-many-movies]

5 Favorite First Viewings of July 2021

Quick note: Hi everyone, I'm back, things have honestly been getting better for me, and I'm glad to be on this site full of cinephiles, people that are too horny, and cinephiles that are too horny. I'll be more active on here. But anyway, let's talk about some movies.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) (dir. Russ Meyer)

CW: Abortion mention

What a picture. What a gorgeous, sexy, horrifying slice of what Hollywood and star life can do to a bunch of bright-eyed young people looking for success. Also is a critique of how macho nature can ruin friendships and romantic relationships with total ease. I was obsessed with the scene transitions, like Pet pouring pancake mix onto a plate after the abortion scene, or Kelly singing after someone screams before their murder in the opening scene.

Great, campy flick with exceptional music too.

Deep Cover (1992) (dir. Bill Duke)

Laurence Fishburne plays Russell Stevens, a Cincinnati police officer who hopes to do well by the community, to make a difference. He’s traumatized by the death of his substance-abusing father, and wants to make sure that he can help the people of his own town. He goes undercover on assignment as a drug dealer, where his boss orders him to take down the kingpin. Stevens realizes the police’s own failings while on assignment. The racist abuse he takes from Agent Carver, and the realization that the police department is protecting drug kingpins like Gallegos and Barbossa. Giving drugs to Black kids and Latinx kids so there will be less of them. The cops are no different than the drug kingpins looking to make filthy amounts of money.

Fishburne’s performance is excellent, as Stevens feels he has to maintain a stone face so he doesn’t get caught by Jason or Barbossa or any of his cronies, but also he maintains a stone face to try and hide his emotion, his trauma. But when he gets pissed, Fishburne acts it beautifully, as is when he has to deliver a funny quip to counter Jason’s douchebaggery. And the production design, holy fuck, the sets and the lighting.

A perfect neo-noir for the HW Bush years, arguably one of the most timeless commentaries on the era, as well as the police as a whole.

Fast Five (2011) (dir. Justin Lin)

I was torn between including this or Furious 7, but I ultimately went with Fast Five because it felt like an important turning point in the series, it's a great heist film, and it reached the same chaotic highs and genuinely excellent filmmaking that I had been waiting for since 2 Fast and Tokyo Drift.

Fast Five opens where Fast & 4ious left off. Dom is hauled away to prison on a bus. Mia and Brian drive in their high-tech cars and knock the bus over, helping Dom escape. The title drops. Fast Five. It’s such an intense yet short action scene, and dropping the title immediately after it lets the viewer know that this movie is not fucking around. It’s arguably gonna be more intense and insane than the previous one.

And it is. The filmmakers made the decision to use a lot more practical stunt work for the film, and as a result, it leads to, so far, the best action in the entire series, since 2 Fast and Tokyo Drift. It’s not just how it’s shot or edited, it’s the geography of the locations, the rooftop chase echoes the rooftop chase of Jackie Chan’s masterwork Police Story, particularly the way each character bounces from top to top.

And of course, there’s the silliest moment in the movie, the one that matches the intensity and kineticism of a film like 2 Fast, which is driving the Reyes’ bank vault throughout the street, getting chased by corrupt cops.

I know we make fun of Vin Diesel for saying “family” all the time in these films, but there’s a reason we remember him saying all of these impassioned monologues. Because he’s unbelievably sincere, and has so much love in his heart for every single person in the room. Anytime he delivers a speech to any of them, it’s genuinely heartwarming.

This is the film that finally shows La Familia in their best environment, which is working together, in a movie genre that allows them to work together, which is a heist film. And a great one at that.

Last Days (2005) (dir. Gus Van Sant)

CW: Mention of suicide

Several films have been made about legendary rock artist Kurt Cobain, and for good reason. He is one of the most tragic figures in rock and roll. A tortured genius who has written and performed classic song after classic song with his band Nirvana. He was called the voice of a generation, and helped change the face of mainstream alternative rock music as we know it. But with that fame, and all of those expectations came a worsening depression and further drug abuse, and his eventual death. But most of the films about Kurt Cobain ask one question which gets under my skin way too much:

“Who REEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLY killed Kurt Cobain?”

It was him. He did. And it’s okay, I’m sad too. Thinking that Kurt Cobain was murdered is completely ignoring the depression that he faced. And despite Last Days being more inspired by the death of Cobain rather than actually about it, it feels much more honest than the conspiracy documentaries on his death, wanting to leech off of his dead body.

This is the last installment of Gus Van Sant’s “Death Trilogy”, the previous two installments being Gerry (2001), and Elephant (2003). While I have not seen Gerry, I have seen Elephant though, and love that film for its minimalist, raw nature, and its boldness for not romanticizing the school shooter or the lives they had taken. Last Days falls into that trap once, as I don’t agree with the shot of Blake’s soul climbing up a ladder, that always struck me as cheesy in a film that is anything but.

Last Days is similar to Elephant in terms of the way it is filmed. Its usage of long takes, and still shots of characters doing various things, such as Blake playing his guitar behind a drum set. The way these moments are shot is similar to a Chantal Akerman film, particularly Jeanne Dielman. Where the acts of the mundane are the stars of the film. Blake wanders around an empty house, and the viewer can feel the pain, not just through Michael Pitt’s acting, but from the house itself. Its decay, its paint peeling from the walls, from the soft glow of the lamp that lights his face.

I say this is the most honest film about Kurt Cobain, because, despite the characters technically being fictional (the main character who looks, walks, and acts like Cobain is named Blake), this film focuses on the mental state of a person before they eventually take their own life. They’re still working, still making music, still trying to talk to friends and bandmates, but the depression lingers on. Not once does this film try to make you believe that someone else killed him, because you can see the signs of his own suicide taking place just through the film’s excellent cinematography by Harris Savides, showing his mental state only growing worse through the production design.

And it’s empathetic with him. There’s no judgement for leaving rehab, there’s no finger-wagging at him or the people he was with, there’s just a silent prayer at the end of the film, hoping that he is in a better place than he was.

Sometimes you don’t need to show every event that led you to where you are, all you can show is the moment, which also makes this better than most biopics as well, as it never feels messy or muddled, just showing one moment of Blake/Kurt’s life.

I really loved this film, and I’ll be writing about it in full soon.

The Village (2004) (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

The Cracked.com/Channel Awesome audience stuck in 2012 will tell you that this was the beginning of the end for Shyamalan. That this was when people stopped taking him seriously, that this was when he became more of a punchline because of his twist endings.

But why?

The Village was released in 2004, deep in the Bush administration, during the early stages of the Iraq War. The leaders of the time were talking about imaginary boogeymen, terrorists that would attack the civilians if they could. Because of 9/11, politicians could get away with these false ideas with the majority of Americans fully believing them. The boogeymen in The Village are “The People We Don’t Speak Of”, monsters attracted by the color red. Yet we find out that they are all costumes made by the Elders of the land, designed to prevent people from going outside the land. They rule by fear disguised as love. They’ve gone through their own traumas through the deaths of their family members, but they’ve decided to completely abandon the lives that they’ve had and have their children living lies.

9/11 impacted American life by teaching citizens to live primarily by fear, to not trust anyone but their own people. And yet, post-9/11, all that increased was not “coming together”, but hate crimes against South Asian people. The rage white Americans had felt led to conservative politicians pushing fear-mongering agendas, and said white Americans blindly accepted. The outside world was progressing, but too many people were fine with living with further conservative politics only regressing American life further and further back, all for the illusion of safety. Meanwhile, the only threats to them were not the brown citizens outside of America they were so afraid of, but the white elders, the white politicians.

The Village explores these fears so eloquently, all while having a terrifying atmosphere, an enchanting score, and brilliant sound design. I enjoyed this movie very much.

Other viewings I enjoyed:

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996) (dir. Mike Judge) (re-watch)

Blow Out (1981) (dir. Brian de Palma) (re-watch)

Clueless (1995) (dir. Amy Heckerling) (re-watch)

Furious 7 (2015) (dir. James Wan)

The Long Goodbye (1973) (dir. Robert Altman)

Lupin III: The First (2019) (dir. Takashi Yamazaki)

Unbreakable (2000) (dir. M. Night Shyamalan) (re-watch)

Velvet Goldmine (1998) (dir. Todd Haynes)

The Visit (2015) (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

[laurelwinchester]

laurel & nyssa :)

who hogs the duvet: Laurel. Definitely still Laurel.

who texts/rings to check how their day is going: Laurel texts Nyssa once to ask how her day is going and opens herself up to a flood of text messages from Nyssa that’s basically just a bunch of complaining about American coffee and questions about American junk food.

who’s the most creative when it comes to gifts: Laurel. Or at least she’s trying to be. The thing is, Nyssa has given Laurel a lot to be grateful for. She’s given her happiness, comfort, love, and support. If she’s being honest, Laurel had all but given up on ever getting that when Nyssa came into her life. They fell together at just the right time. She’d like to return the favor somehow. She’s doing her best to be the best partner she can be and to give Nyssa the same kind of love and support, of course, but she’d also like to give her something tangible as a way of saying both “thanks for putting up with me, that’s super cool of you” and “I love you, please never leave me.” She’s been trying to find the perfect gift that says that for a long time. She thinks it’s going to end up being a ring.

who gets up first in the morning: Laurel may wake up early but Nyssa wakes up at a truly ungodly hour to meditate. Sometimes Laurel will join her and they’ll meditate together and then go out for waffles, but even morning person Laurel doesn’t want to wake up at four thirty/five.

who suggests new things in bed: Well, Nyssa assumes that what they have in general is something entirely new for Laurel. She intends to go rather slow at first because she wants Laurel to be comfortable and she wants her to be sure that this is something she wants but when she says this out loud over dinner once, Laurel just stares at her for a long time before saying, “Um, yeah, I appreciate that, but you’re not the first woman I’ve been with.” And then all the plans go out the window.

who cries at movies: Laurel specifically chooses movies that she knows will make her cry because she enjoys Nyssa’s specific brand of comforting.

who gives unprompted massages: Whenever Laurel comes home sore and bruised from a night of Black Canary-ing, Nyssa draws her a bath and gives her a massage.

who fusses over the other when they’re sick: If Laurel “Mom Friend” Lance is going to dote on her friends when they have the sniffles, what do you think she’s going to be like when her girlfriend has the flu? It’s like a whole week of cuddling and hovering.

who gets jealous easiest: Nyssa does, but… In all honesty, Laurel kind of likes it.

who has the most embarrassing taste in music: I’m still going to say Laurel because Spice Girls filibusters. One time, she makes Nyssa a playlist to listen to when she goes out on her Saturday evening run and it’s all one hit wonders from the 80’s. It does make sense because one of Laurel’s favourite songs is “Tenderness” by General Public, but it’s still jarring when she hits play and the first song she hears is “It Takes Two” by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock. The first time Nyssa hits play and hears the music, she stops running to just stare. She rolls her eyes, shakes her head fondly, and listens to the playlist every night.

who collects something unusual: Laurel collects buttons. Just random buttons. She drops them all into a bowl she keeps on the china cabinet in the dining room. She doesn’t even think about it most time. If she sees a button, she grabs it and drops it into the bowl. Nyssa eventually asks her about this, if there is some specific reason for the buttons, some sort of meaning, and Laurel doesn’t really have an answer for her. She admits, like it’s the first time she’s ever thought about her strange habit, “I don’t know. My mom does it. So did my grandmother. I didn’t realize it was weird.” Instead of telling her something like well it’s weird and you’re weird for doing it, Nyssa just says something about the importance of family traditions and starts dropping buttons into the bowl whenever she comes across one.

who takes the longest to get ready: Nyssa, actually. Laurel did not expect Nyssa to be such a diva but she is.

who is the most tidy and organized: Oh, Nyssa. She keeps a clean house. She cannot stand clutter. Laurel, on the other hand, enjoys clutter. She doesn’t love huge messes but she likes when her home feels lived in. That’s what makes it feel like a home to her.

who gets most excited about the holidays: Nyssa is extremely excited for Christmas and Halloween and Valentine’s Day and all of the holidays. Not because of the holidays themselves but because she’s going to be spending them with Laurel. She’s never really had family holidays before. It just didn’t seem like something that was in the cards for her. Until Laurel came along. She is eager to see what all the fuss is about.

who is the big spoon/little spoon: Nyssa starts off being the big spoon because that’s what’s natural to her but then one night they switch and Nyssa learns just how nice it is to be the little spoon.

who gets more competitive when playing games and/or sports: Nyssa. She’s a little frightening actually. Nobody wants to play Monopoly with her anymore. Also, she cheats.

who starts the most arguments: They both start the arguments. They never intend to start fights but they can both be pretty volatile at times. Laurel has a habit of throwing herself into dangerous situations, especially if someone is in need of help, and Nyssa has a habit of being wildly overprotective of the people she loves. Both of these things can lead to a lot of fights between them.

who suggests that they buy a pet: Laurel is the one who brings up getting a pet first and Nyssa, kind of surprisingly, agrees right away. Laurel is thinking maybe they’ll get a cat or a dog or even a bird. Something normal like that. Something they can have at the apartment. That is not what happens. What happens is that one day, she gets off work and Nyssa is waiting outside to happily announce that she has a surprise for her. Turns out, she’s gotten them a horse. A horse. In Star City. Laurel doesn’t even know how to ride a horse.

what couple traditions do they have: Being a badass power couple. That’s a tradition, right? Oh, but also, they watch figure skating every year. That started when Laurel caught Nyssa watching it and critiquing the skaters one day and learned that Nyssa once trained to become a figure skater for “league business.” Laurel has no idea what that means or what on earth figure skating has to do with the League of Assassins, but she does enjoy hearing Nyssa talk about figure skating.

what tv shows they watch together: Oh my god, guess what? Nyssa - as in Nyssa al Ghul: Heir to the Demon - watches trashy reality television. She says that she only watches these things to “study humans at their worst” but Laurel is pretty sure she just watches them because she finds the ridiculous manufactured drama addictive and easy to watch. It’s weird and the shows are objectively terrible, but Laurel thinks it’s so hilarious that Nyssa’s guilty pleasure is shit like The Real Housewives and KUWTK that she even watches them with her.

what other couple they hang out with: Laurel winds up striking up a friendship with Iris, so they go on double dates with Barry and Iris whenever they’re in the same city.

how they spend time together as a couple: Saving the city and the world and looking amazing while doing it. Also, Nyssa’s still trying to teach Laurel how to ride a horse. Because they have a horse now.

who made the first move: Nyssa. She kissed Laurel first. When Laurel asks her what it was about that night that made her do it, Nyssa always says, “I just couldn’t help myself anymore.”

who brings flowers home: Nyssa does because she knows Laurel loves flowers and she likes to make Laurel happy.

who is the best cook: Nyssa. She’s only an okay cook - there are a few dishes that are her specialty but the ingredients are hard to find in Star City - but she is an amazing baker. Her scones are out of this world.

Send me a ship and I’ll tell you

[hakeberhooligan]

I had probably the best dream ever, and I'm trying so hard to remember all of it, but I know I can't 😩 it had a mix of characters and real people (so I promise I'm not hopping back and forth between calling them their real name and their characters name). First, I was standing outside my house with Sam and Dean after a hunt, and we were just leaning against the Impala sipping on our beers, relaxing. Then my asshole neighbor (completely made up skin head) pulls into his driveway and skitters rocks and dirt all over the Impala. Dean tells him off, and my neighbor gets all pissed off, is yelling at us, and then goes inside his house and comes out with a bat and a bunch of his buddies, saying that he's going to whoop Dean and Sam's asses. Dean and Sam just roll their eyes, and then start beating on these guys. There's too many of them though, and out of no where Lucifer jumps in to help, and then Jeffery Dean Morgan storms out of my house in a tye-dye shirt and funky glasses complaining that he was trying to sleep, and they're all beating these guys up like it's just another day 😂 I'm standing off to the side petting my neighbors "vicious" pit bull, who is incapacitated with belly rubs. So all of my neighbors buddies finally drag themselves back to their property, and of course there's a five guys right next door to me, so the boys are kinda ruffled with a few bleeding cuts and bruises, and Dean is like, "I'm getting a burger". So we all go to get burgers, and Negan is in there (even though JDM is still with us) and he's all, "Rebekah! How are you doing? Sit with me!" Because apparently we are good friends. So we get our burgers and sit, and Negan and I are joking about how are burgers are made with premium JDM meat, laughing our asses off, and JDM is sitting with the boys glaring at us. So then it's the next day and I'm driving around with some guy driving him somewhere, talking to him about how I was in prison for a year and I killed a man in prison (seriously, wtf 😂) After I drop him off I pull into a gas station and see Ron Perlman, and I'm like holy shit I need to say hi. So like a total dweeb I just plaster my face on my window as he's walking by and I'm waving like a freak, and he looks kind of confused and says, "uh, do you want a picture?" And I was like, "YES!!" So I get out and have someone take our picture, and then this group of people come over and want me to take their pictures with him. Apparently my iPhone pictures are amazing, because one of the fans is a fashion designer and she wants me to photograph her fashion show, which is happening tonight right at the gas station. She names her line after me (my pictures are this amazing), and everyone at the show wants to talk to me and take pictures with me. So I'm in the back room afterwards, and I have a ton of fan mail that I'm going through. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen of course) is sitting next to me, because of course we're friends in this dream, and he's critiquing all of the art that I'm getting from fans. Someone painted me this huge picture that looked like a Van Gogh, and he says in his Danish accent, "it's not that good. I could paint you one much better." So I'm like, um YES Hannibal Lecter, paint me something, and unfortunately that's where the dream ended. It was such an awesome dream with so much going on. My favorite part though was probably eating JDM burgers with Negan.