#and the stories told through films that depict gruesome things

[notbecauseofvictories]

I think I saw you shared a list of books you’d read a couple years ago and was it you who read something like 350+ books in a single year? If so that’s absolutely remarkable and I’d love to see a list of top ten (or twenty or whatever number) of books you’ve read this year that you recommend

Don't be ridiculous, I only read 303 books in 2021! That's much more reasonable than 350. And I've read fewer and fewer each year since---this year I don't think I'm going to crack 50, though I still have a couple days.

Still, always happy to talk about what I enjoyed. Books are listed in vaguely chronological order, though I make no promises.

Patricia Wants to Cuddle, Samantha Allen

I've mentioned this book before, but essentially I put in the library request solely for the improbability of the premise---The Bachelor heads to the PNW and encounters Bigfoot? Fortunately, it delivered on that promise magnificently. A breezy and delightfully gruesome little novel with a bodycount.

Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel

I didn't viscerally connect with this one as much as "Fun Home" but I think it might be because it's…closer to the bone for me. When Bechdel writes about the longing for a mother that can't be answered, pulling back, pleasing, an anger that becomes unspeakable, re-routed to anxiety…it's uh. well it's churned up the silt, let's put it that way.

Greener Pastures, Michael Wehunt

I love short stories, but finding those authors who hit the right notes unerringly, in such a brief space, can be tricky sometimes. Wehunt is the rare exception, strange and unique as a writer, dream-like in his descriptions and images. "October Film Haunt: Under the House" was my favorite, though I can't say for sure whether it's because I recognized the framing device or it was just fun to read…

Running with Scissors, A Wolf at the Table, Lust & Wonder, Augusten Burroughs

I read these out of order (Lust & Wonder first, then the other two) but even so, I was wildly impressed. Lust & Wonder was a revelation; I stumbled on it in the library and walked out with it the same day. No wonder people tell you to read his books, he's got such a clear-eyed meanness, an interesting sort of canniness to his depiction of himself, the people in his life…it really does demonstrate that there is no such thing as a boring life, just a boring narrator. But if Lust & Wonder is Burroughs at the height of his power, Running with Scissors and Wolf at the Table are the necessary steps up to it. More unfinished, more raw---a litany of horrors, not even leavened by that same canny, mean humor that flashes through L&W. It's just horrifically sad to watch every person around this kid fail him, leave, or both; terrifying and unexpectedly funny and yet tender as a sucking wound.

The Princess Bride, William Goldman

I picked this up entirely by chance and ended up being deeply charmed. I don't know what I was expecting---well, no, that's not true, I was expecting the film. But what I got instead was something almost real, pleasantly rough around the edges as Goldman's caustic narration winds its way from Florin to the machinations of S. Morgenstern's lawyers, to his struggles with raising his son. (One of the funniest scenes was when he goes to meet S. Morgenstern's lawyer, and the ravishingly beautiful attorney becomes a horrible old hag the more she talks about how he won't be granted a license.) I was afraid the book would be twee, but at the center of it is a pure (if slightly embarrassing, but truth generally is outside of Florin) love of stories, and wanting stories told.

In the Woods, The Likeness, Broken Harbor, Tana French

As I've said before, I started reading this series because I was traveling to Ireland and thought it seemed appropriate. I didn't go too deep into French's oeuvre, mostly because I couldn't shake wanting the books to be urban fantasy rather than gripping psychological portraits with a decidedly noir sensibility. Still, the books themselves are taut and fascinating, the portraits they paint of the Dublin Murder Squad (all of whom are staggering, wounded in their own ways) and the blighted, post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, are deeply compelling. Also, I do still think The Likeness is a perfect answer to The Secret History.

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, Kim Fu

There's something truly powerful in a short story that doesn't answer any questions or provide you with any sort of guidance---just walks in and rearranges your photographs so they're slightly off-kilter, leaves you with that destabilization. It's almost spiritual, that sense. In particular, there's a story in the collection about the world's sense of taste disappearing; a woman begins crafting art installations to try and recreate the experience of eating a pear, what your favorite family meal tasted like. Short stories are like that.

Perilous Times, Thomas D. Lee

I was surprised by this one. I know that's how I've described half the books above, but truly, this surprised me---not so much the rising action or plot (there's a sleeping king, knights around a table, a dragon) but I loved the setting so much. The depiction of a slightly-futuristic UK as drowning land sold off for parts; figures like immortal spymaster Marlowe coexisting with reborn Lancelot and Kay; the fay hovering around the edges; and then just….all the factions, the Welsh royalists and men's rights group propped up by military contractors; environmental activists, the references to the hodgepodge that existed in the 4th century AD too. More than anything, the novel conveyed how Britain's always been a place of change, the movement of people and permeable barriers, and that more than anything worked for me. (Also, it's a small thing but I loved how the Camelot crew translated modern concepts and objects into their language and knowledge of the world. It was always shown as hesitation rather than total shock, and I found it both moving and persuasive.)

A Cup of Salt Tears, Isabel Yap

I read this in a series of speculative novellas, which impressed on me yet again how hard it must be to write novellas. (Last year, one of my least favorite books was a novella; I still think about it with joyful hate.) However, Yap takes care to focus on single, brief narrative, concerns herself solely with the very small yet very significant issue of a woman, her husband, who and how she loves, wrapped up together with a kappa. Excellent, haunting.

Books of 2020 | Books of 2021 | Books of 2022

[juiceboxman]

So I took Siobhan’s advice and listened to the BBC’s radio adaptation of the Lord of the Rings from the 80′s

It’s pretty good, you can listen to it here https://soundcloud.com/inkmore/sets/lord-of-the-rings-radio 

I had some issues with it but I liked it for the most part. I’m not a massive LoTR fan, only watched the films so I don’t know much, but here are the thoughts I had.

I once heard someone describe Hobbits and the Shire as “drama free people” after listening to this series, that’s obviously not the case. Hobbits seem to live for the drama, always talking shit behind one anothers back. I think Tolkien was trying to satirise rural or village life in England and I think he did a good job depicting how petty people can be.

Sam is a working class hero and Frodo doesn’t deserve him.

I understand how people can like Sam/Frodo because there is massive gay vibes coming off them. Personally I interpreted it to be unrequited and an example of some class division, with Sam being working class and Frodo being middle class. The amount of dedication and support Sam shows Frodo I don’t think Frodo would show back if the roles were reversed. I feel like its a very one sided relationship with Sam putting in way more effort than Frodo.

Bilbo’s whole thing seems to be that he went on a gap year once that turned out quite bad and now he kinda lives like a hermit.

I don’t know how reliable to the books the Radio series is, but I feel like the movies do more justice to stuff. Like in the Radio drama Gandalf makes his first appearance by just coming through the door and Bilbo is like “ah, Gandalf” and...that’s it. Movie version was better in my opinion.

I think the radio drama does a lot better to explain what the ring of power does than the movies. I always got confused by what the ring does, like in the movies all it seems to do is turn people invisible and make them into heroin addicts. With the radio I kinda understand more about it. Like the ring’s power kinda depends on the wearer, like a Hobbit could simply use it for invisibility and expanding their life force but a King could use it to control the minds of an entire enemy army and a Wizard could do even more. But it’s still vague and I presume Tolkien intended it to be, like it’s just a representation of the concept of power and this world’s equivalent of a deal with the devil. Power or wishes may be commanded but they will ultimately corrupt you.

Time in the books seem wild. Like at one point Gandalf says that Bilbo has gone off and he himself will start researching the ring and then twelve years go by and Frodo has just been fucking about, forgot that the ring even existed and Gandalf comes back and is like “oh yeah, ring is bad”

Also, Frodo is 50 when he leaves the shire???? Jesus 

Also, were the Nazgul just running about for 12 years looking for the ring? Like at one point the Nazgul knocked on some Hobbit’s door asking about Frodo and the Hobbit told him to go fuck himself and slammed a door- to a NAZGUL

Aragon’s voice in this radio drama is...way off. Like it sounds like Greg Davies. You don’t really have the soft voice of Viggo Mortinstein but the gruff righteous voice of the Principal from the Inbetweeners 

Elrond denying Aragon to marry his daughter until he becomes king of Gondor is like a stern dad refusing you to date his daughter until you get a real job.

Also Aragon gets the reforged sword, like, immediately when they leave Riverdale. Which is a bit weird to me.

It makes sense why Frodo is trusted with the ring. A king couldn’t be trusted because he’d use it for conquest. A Wizard could overthrow Sauron but in doing so would become just as bad so you’re back to square one. With a Hobbit, there is no desire for conquest or any wish for power outside of simply having the ring. Even when Golum had it all he used it for was to hunt fish and extend his life cycle. I’m curious of whether if Sam had carried the ring all the way to Mordor if he could will himself to destroy it or would he have failed like Frodo. 

Gimly and Legolas’ friendship is so cute. Like they start off disliking eachother but bond over their prowess in combat and plan out a gap year after the whole fellowship where they see the sights of middle earth. So wholesome

I don’t understand why they didn’t just kill Golum. Like I know he was important to find the way to Mordor and was ultimately necessary to destroy the ring after Frodo failed, but like the idea of “don’t kill him because of pity and he also probably has a part to play” is bullshit to me. Like he’s so gross and troublesome. It’s the same excuse Jedi have with “oh you can’t kill a Sith Lord because striking them down means you need to embrace the dark side” bitch Luke Skywalker round house kicked a guy into a Sarlack Pick- whaddya mean he can’t kill this wrinkly ass Emperor??? Ethical mental gymnastics are mind blowing.

For me the moment that made me really dig the series was when the Fellowship disbanded. Like shit hit the fan and everyone’s forced to do their own shit, really engaging storytelling.

The series is quite short when you consider all the battles are short cutted. Like in the radio drama you’ll hear a series of grunts for 30 seconds and then a song about how bad that battle was. I guess it would take a lot to depict a battle purely by means of audio.

Seriously the series is quite short, like it’s 13 hour long episodes and by episode five I’m like “oh shit we’re starting the second book already? Damn” It felt half the time there was so much stuff cut out I don’t know why

I think the radio drama is best suited for people who have either watched the movies or read the books. Like I don’t think it’s well suited for people who haven’t seen LoTR content before. Like the scene with the Balrog there is no description of what it looks like.

Also, Gandalf fought the Balrog from the deepest dungeons to the tip of the mountain? Damn, Gandalf’s leg day must be intense

I love the introduction of Treebeard and the Ents. Like you get this horrific imagery with warring Orcs and other evil creatures and then turn a hard 180 to these hilarious tree people. I guess that’s why the LoTR is so great. Because you do get those hard, gruesome battles but you also get these lovely peaceful wholesome scenes.

Quick question, how do you meet a guy called Saruman and then be surprised that he’s the bad guy? It’s the same deal with Victor VonDoom.

Also, did Tolkien have to have all the big villains names sound so similar?

Man, Tolkien loves having people end up together. With the Horse Princess who got friendzoned by Aragorn meeting up with that guy from Gondor. You love to see it

So like, was the King of Nazgul just talking shit or can he not be killed by a man? Like could anyone kill him by stabbing him the face or did the Horse Princess just find a loophole?

At one point this woman kinda makes fun of this flower called Kings Seed or some shit and Aragon basically calls her a THOT 

Kinda sad the series didn’t have more dragons. Like I would have liked to see a huge black dragon at the final battle at Mordor. But that’s just me, I love me some dragons

Also, the final battle at the gates of Mordor is so endearing. Like they don’t even know if Frodo and Sam are still alive but they go to war anyway because they believe they are and in doing so keep the eye of Sauron off of them. It’s really heart warming

The radio’s version of the destruction of the ring is kinda anticlimactic. Like I said it’s better with the dialogue than it is at the representation of physical actions like combat. Like if you didn’t know what happened at the end of the lord of the rings and you were listening to this you would have no idea that Golum fell into the lava with the ring 

I love the owner of the Prancing Pony’s reaction to Aragon becoming King of Gondor. It’s like “hey, remember that guy you saw shit in the woods that one time? Yeah he’s the President”

Also Sam’s Pony lives at the end of it. Love to see it. I feel like Tolkien read his first draft to his kids and they were like “what happened to Sam’s pony?” and he was like “uh, yeah, the pony....the pony lived! yes! the pony found its way back to town” you can tell this story is vibing on a different level than GoT or ACOC

Hobbits returning to the Shire fucking shit up like level 16 PCs returning to the town they started the campaign in

Also, all the Hobbits in the shire have no idea what the fuck went down? Like I understand they live in the middle or nowhere but that’s astounding 

It’s so funny what ends up happening to Saruman. Like he goes from being the second in command of the Dark Lord to being a shitty local businessman in a Village in Yorkshire

I can see how people can really get into the LotR. Like a world like GoT is just fucked beyond compare and any happy ending will be bittersweet at most. But here you have an ending where the characters leave the world better than when they found it

Frodo asking Sam to live with him was him totally trying to get with Sam, right? And Sam was like “oh that’s nice Frodo, but I have gf” and Frodo’s like “oh that’s alright, she can move in too!” it’s like watching a man back step his request for love by inviting a family into his home. You missed your shot Frodo! You had a whole year with Sam and you blew it!

Sam ultimately moving on from Frodo with his thicc Hobbit gf is the character development we deserved

That said, in the movies Sam getting a gf was a thing at the end of the third movie- like he’d been so shy before hand but after almost dying he’s like “fuck it, might as well give my shot” but here in radio drama he...had a gf all along? Like we only hear about her in the final episode and he’s like “oh yeah, my gf ain’t too happy. I left her for a year to fuck about with you so now I need to marry her. Woops” very startling

Also love how Tolkien represented PTSD with Frodo. I don’t think works of Fantasy like this before Tolkien really did this stuff justice. That said the ending is a bit weird. Like I understand that the “Undying Lands” are supposed to reflect Tolkien’s belief in Catholicism, Eternal Life and Heaven. But it’s really hard to not interpret the ending as Frodo as struggling to deal with his PTSD so he commits suicide. Because the Undying Lands is a place that Sam cannot follow. It’s heart breaking but that’s the vibe I got off the ending.

So yeah, there’s my thoughts. It’s pretty good but I’d only recommend the series to anyone who’s either seen the movies or read the books. If this was your first introduction to LOTR I don’t know if that would be any good. 

Also, while we’re here I recommend Escape from the Bloodkeep from Dimension 20. It’s  DnD actual play series that is a slight parody of LOTR. It’s really good.

[her-culture]

Medusa and the Tragedy of the Femme Fatale

The Femme Fatale

Translated from French, the term femme fatale means “fatal women.” A more in-depth description of this term as defined by Minowa, et al. defines the femme fatale as “an attractive woman, often a self-determined seductress, who causes anguish to a man who becomes involved with her” (270). 

The femme fatale archetype is present in literature, art, and film (especially in the film noir genre). The femme fatale is a familiar subject taught in public and private institutions, and the history of the femme fatale is astonishing. The origin of the femme fatale, however, might not be a topic that individuals are familiar with. Still, it is an important one, especially concerning the evolution of the ideologies of femininity. Consequently, understanding the historical context of the femme fatale would help us/one better comprehend the treatment of femininity and rethink the value of stories promoting the femme fatale ideals, such as Medusa’s story.

Origin Story

As I scrolled through my Facebook page one afternoon, a post caught my attention immediately. The post contained an image of a statue of a naked woman whose head was adorned with snakes, holding in her hand the decapitated head of Perseus. At first, seeing this image, one might have thought it was gruesome and intense. Yes, the description did make the statue appear that way, but it was not like that for me when I first gazed at the figure of what was Medusa. Without looking at the caption for the image, I knew that this statue was making a statement about femininity and women’s empowerment. 

For those unfamiliar with the story of Medusa, it is a myth from Greek mythology. There are different versions of the story of Medusa that have been told. One popular version of the tale claims that Medusa was the fairest of the Gorgon sisters. So fair was Medusa’s beauty that the maiden claimed to be more beautiful than the goddess Athena. Athena punished Medusa for her arrogance and vanity by turning her into a monster with snakes for hair, and giving her the power to turn any man who gazes into her eyes into stone. This interpretation of Medusa is the friendlier, simpler version. 

The other version of the tale of Medusa is more intense, shocking, and tragic. In the alternate version, Medusa is a priestess in Athena’s temple. Medusa’s beauty attracted the attention of Poseidon, the sea god. Poseidon attempted to seduce Medusa. However, she refused his affections. As a result of Medusa’s rejection, Poseidon raped and sexually assaulted Medusa. Since she is a virgin goddess, Athena punished Medusa for the desecration of her temple by turning her into a monster with snakes for hair and eyes that turned men into stone. 

The second version of the story, the rape of Medusa, is the basis of creating the statue of Medusa with the head of Perseus, a Greek hero who slays Medusa by beheading. The title of the artwork created by Argentine-Italian artists, Luciano Garbati, is called Medusa With the Head of Perseus. According to ARTnews, the statue is to be located in the park facing the New York County Criminal Court. This is the same place where Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood mogul, was charged and convicted of rape. 

#HERstory

The significance of the Medusa With the Head of Perseus artwork is to symbolize the growth of the #MeToo movement. For so long, ideologies, such as the femme fatale, were weapons of injustice against femininity and disempowering to women.

In “The Femme Fatale in Vogue: Femininity Ideologies in Fin-de-siècle America,” the writers ascertain that “the femme fatale clearly disrupts this supposed feminine ideal, and reflects a patriarchal unease about female empowerment through sexual dominance or indeed female empowerment per se” (Minowa, et al. 270). The Post-World War II era, in particular, demonstrates the emergence of women as independent, economic forces. The patriarchal powers that were and still are in full force today used the femme fatale to express their fear of female prowess and empowerment.

Figures like Eve, Lilith, Medea, Circe, Cleopatra, Delilah, Dahlia, real or fiction, have been figures of tragedy. For so long, these powerful and influential figures were depicted as evil, monstrous, and destructive because of the independent power they express. 

But, as the Medusa With the Head of Perseus installation artwork shows us, HIStory is not always what it appears to be. As with Medusa, HIStory wants individuals to believe that Medusa was a monster because she was prideful, vain, and arrogant (if we believe that version of the story to be true). But in my opinion, the myth’s portrayal of Medusa as the villain was a power bid by the patriarchy to justify its judgment of women as sexually dangerous and deceitful beings. However, it was the threat of women empowerment and the rise of feminine prowess that led to this reaction from the patriarch. 

Now more than ever, it is crucial not to take everything that’s been told or known to us as pure fact, for no such thing exists. Instead, we must be diligent and do our research. You deserve to seek and see the truth. And HERstory surely deserves our due diligence and responsibility as human beings to bring the truth to light. That means viewing every side of the story and understanding the context and reasoning behind decisions and actions that are taken by certain individuals or groups. Fortunately, in this day and age of technology, we have access to unlimited resources. Information is available, but it is important research ethic to verify sources and utilize trusted organizations and online/print resources (primary and secondary).

Once you obtain a clearer, comprehensive understanding of a topic/subject, especially a controversial one, it’ll help you be better able to discuss the topic in a professional and respectful manner. It’s not about how loud you are but how you present yourself. And that is why I stress the importance of speaking up and doing research on subjects like the #MeToo movement and the historical and social discrimination/injustice against the feminine community.

Samantha Diaz is an avid reader and loves anything fantasy related!

[sanderssides-springfling]

The Frogman

For @space-mothman 

Synopsis- Analogical cryptid-hunting AU in which they search for the mysterious Frogman for a college documentary project.

Warning- Swearing + Minor wound

Note- Hiya!! I’ve had a lot of fun working with the wishes you asked for and I’m super excited to see what you think of it! I hope you’re doing well :D

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Virgil held up the two near-identical hoodies in front of the mirror, deciding which to wear when a familiar head poked through the doorway. 

“Ooh, are you getting ready for your little date?” 

Virgil walked over to kick him out when Janus joined in. 

“Leave our darling little brother alone Remus, his boyfriend will be here soon. We have to find the baby pictures before he arrives.”

“He’s not my boyfriend! The teacher paired us up. I had no say in it.” Virgil said as he tried and failed to push the pair out. “And if either of you shows him any embarrassing pictures of me, you’re both dead.”

“Wow, how scary,” mocked Remus as Janus mimed a face of fear. He then added, “If I were you I’d go for the one on the left, it makes you look less…intimidating and murdery.”

Virgil swatted at him with the hoodie before putting it on reluctantly, huffing about how he was planning to choose it anyway because it was ‘warmer’.

Just then the doorbell rang. Virgil’s eyes opened wide as he ran down the stairs to get to the door first but he was no match for Remus. He shoved Virgil out of the way and opened the door wide. 

“You must be Logan. We’ve heard so much about you. Why don’t you come in?” He invited with a wild grin on his face.

Virgil stared daggers at Remus as Logan walked in, politely telling Remus he has a lovely home. He was wearing a jean jacket over an unbuttoned plaid shirt and a graphic t-shirt depicting Mothman. His soft-looking hair fell over the rim of his glasses, the eyes behind them taking in his new surroundings.

Before Virgil could tell Logan they should leave, Janus began his, rehearsed, warnings. “You better take good care of my brother, young man. I’m expecting you to bring him home with at least three remaining limbs and having gone through a maximum of one demon possession, preferably none, or else there will be hell to pay. I’m also expecting you to keep criminal activity to a minimum along with the use of venomous vipers, they’re nasty creatures.” 

To Virgil’s surprise, Logan had taken out a notepad and started to make notes, taking his speech seriously. Janus clearly wasn’t expecting this either as his expression softened towards Logan. “It’s obvious you’ll take good care of him. I’ll let you two go because I’m sure you have plenty of ‘work’ to do.” He winked at Virgil. “Just be careful.”

“But-”

“The baby photos and home videos can wait for their second date Rem, let’s give Virge a chance to embarrass himself without our help first.”

Virgil glared at his brothers as he dragged Logan outside, only mildly thankful Janus let him off that easy. What had he done to deserve being stuck with those two morons?

“Have fun!” Remus called out as the door slammed closed. 

“Come on, I parked down the road. It’s not far.” Logan set off walking away, Virgil joining him a moment later.

“I’m super sorry about them,” Virgil said. “Ignore everything they said, they’re not worth wasting energy on.”

“It’s quite alright Virgil, it’s clear they care for you. I have always admired the dynamic between siblings.”

“You’re an only child? Lucky.” He thought back to how embarrassing his brothers were. They took every opportunity available to tease Virgil, regardless of whether they were alone or with any of his few friends. In moments like that, it was hard to remember why he loved them. He reminded himself, trying to calm down.

On his worst nights, Remus would tell him a gruesome ‘bedtime story’ while Deceit badgered him to add a happy end. They would also take him to concerts of bands he liked and try to fit into the scene even though they hated the music and fashion. Seeing Janus in a My Chemical Romance shirt trying not to curse after jabbing himself in the eye with Virgil’s eyeliner was still one of his fondest memories.

“Although,” Virgil added, “It does have its advantages.”

Logan stopped in front of an old pickup truck. Despite the carefully polished hubcaps and fresh paint job, it had visibly been through a lot.

“Here we are, our ride for the evening.” Logan took hold of the passenger door handle. “The door can be a little tricky sometimes.” He rattled the handle, banging at a spot a few inches below it. The door sprang open. “Like to most things, there’s a trick.”

He pulled the door open fully, holding it for Virgil as he clambered up. “Uh…thanks.”

Logan proceeded to join him from the driver’s side. “It may not look it but it’s a strong and reliable vehicle, I spent all last summer fixing it up.” He said proudly.

“No, no, it’s nice!” Virgil reassured him. “Does it have a name?” 

“Why would my truck have a name?” Logan asked, appearing puzzled. He put his key in the ignition. The vehicle whirred to life.

“Nevermind. Are you excited to film our project?” 

“Incredibly so! When Mr Picani said we had to make a documentary on any subject I got super excited about the idea of cryptid hunting! Thank you for going along with it!”

“Whatever gets me to pass the class dude. Plus this seems like a better way to spend time than filming ladybugs walking on leaves and doing some boring commentary.” What Virgil didn’t add was that after seeing the excitement of Logan’s face when he proposed the idea, Virgil couldn’t find it in his heart to say no. 

He shuffled in his seat. “I’m also really happy I got partnered with you. I know we haven’t talked much but you seem a lot easier to get along with than the other people in our class.” Virgil smiled in Logan’s direction and despite the dim lighting, he could have sworn he saw Logan blush.

“Oh, thank you, Virgil. You too have ‘good vibes’ if I’m using the term correctly.” Virgil grinned, telling Logan he did. 

“How about some music?” Logan asked before turning on the radio. Pop music crackled out of it, gently playing for the rest of their journey.

~~~~

A cold wind blew through the dense, gloomy woods. In the clearing before it, stood a teenager speaking to a camera, visible in the dying light of the sun.

“There are many legends about the Sanders Wilds, however, most revolve around the same being. A creature said to lurk in the depths of these woods, waiting for unsuspecting victims. 

He has been described as a slimy beast with incredible jumping abilities, his hind muscular legs able to propel him forward metres at a time. He most often appears by the many bodies of water found in this forest.

Although no-one has ever disappeared in the woods, most locals swear they’ve met one of the unfortunate souls chased by the being whose very existence is in question.

He goes by many names. The Shadow, the Beast of the Sanders Wilds and recently he’s been referred to as ‘Scary Todd’ by a youngster from a neighbouring Elementary school.”

Virgil raised his eyebrows from behind the camera when he heard ‘youngster’ but Logan brushed it off and continued.

“The most common name of the cryptid we will be investigating today, inspired by its many characteristics, is” Logan stopped for dramatic effect. “The Frogman.“

“That’s quite the speech you prepared there” Virgil called out as he put down the video camera and rubbed his forearm. His arms had begun to stiffen during Logan’s monologue 

“Are you ready to go in?” Logan asked.

Virgil froze. There was only one problem, something he hadn’t told Logan- He was scared. 

Virgil knew that technically there wasn’t anything to be scared of. The frogman was nothing more than an urban legend, mere shadows and reflections mistaken for something, however, it was the what if’s that plagued Virgil’s mind. What if the frogman was real? What if he appeared? Worst of all… what if he caught them? Virgil wasn’t sure if he was willing to risk his life to pass a college class he didn’t even like that much.

“Virgil?” Logan looked concerned. “Are you alright?”

Great, Virgil scolded himself. This was exactly why he hadn’t wanted to tell Logan in the first place. More than anything he didn’t want Logan to think he was a nervous wreck, scared of a fake monster. Now he’d have to tell his handsome partner he was a chicken and he would totally think less of Virgil. Oh why does Logan have to be so handsome, Virgil thought to himself as he looked towards his cryptid hunting companion. 

He was tall, with a sturdy frame that was perfect for giving supportive hugs and his hair was unruly in all the right ways, looking good for running your fingers through. It was very difficult to focus on anything else, Virgil had to admit. Good looking people never failed to make things more difficult.

“I- I’m just… a little scared.” Virgil mumbled reluctantly. “As controversial as it is, I’m not too keen on the whole getting captured by a forest monster thing.”

“Oh.” Logan looked disappointed. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not too late to change the project. I can drive us to the library and we can get started in something different. All that matters is that you feel comfortable.”

Virgil felt touched. Logan was willing to give up something he wanted to do for his well being? It wasn’t often that happened. That’s why he was determined to go in anyway. “No way. We’re going in there and finding that frogman. Just… promise to protect me from any monsters?” Virgil managed a smile as he held out his pinky, holding the camcorder in his other hand.

“Pinky promise,” Logan answered solemnly, hooking his finger around Virgil’s. Then, he smiled wide. “Now, let’s go say hi to The Beast. And…” He paused apprehensively as if he was trying to pick out the right words. “If you’re alright carrying the camcorder with one hand, maybe I could hold your hand? So you feel safe?”

Virgil laughed, slipping his hand into Logan’s. It felt warm compared to the cool evening. “As long as you’re okay with shaky footage.” He joked.

Logan led them into the forest, pulling out a flashlight from his pocket while Virgil switched the camera back on. There was an eerie quiet only broken by the crackling of leaves and snapping of branches under their feet. 

“Hey, Logan, you know you can talk, right? We can edit everything out of the footage later.” There was still no response. 

Virgil glanced towards Logan, seeing him staring intensely at a spot in the direction they were walking. “Make sure you get this.” He murmured before rushing up, tugging Virgil with him. He crouched down next to an animal print in the muddy ground. Virgil let go of his hand so he could step back and get a better angle. 

“This right here is an animal footprint however it belongs to no regular being. While it seems to belong to an amphibian creature as is indicated by the pattern and the indentation from webbing, it is bigger than any regular amphibians could produce.” Logan splayed his hand above the mark to demonstrate. They were around the same size. “This must be the footprint of the Frogman.”

Yay, Virgil thought to himself. Evidence of a creature that might kill them. How wonderful. 

He walked to Logan and helped him up, keeping hold of Logan’s hand afterwards because there was no way he was going to risk getting separated from him now. He also enjoyed the feeling of Logan’s hand in his, it made him a feeling of joy that he couldn’t quite place.

They continued when there was a sudden rustling a few metres in front of them. Instinctively Virgil squeezed Logan’s hand harder, holding onto him for safety. They both froze. Logan’s torch turned to the source of the sound, a bush. A moment later a squirrel scampered out of the said bush, disappearing into the darkness as quickly as it appeared. Both Logan and Virgil sighed in relief.

“That sure was one terrifying squirrel,” Virgil said as they continued to walk deeper into the woods. 

Virgil attempted to strike up small talk again, not wanting things to become awkward. “I like your Mothman shirt.”

“Oh, thank you, Virgil.” Logan beamed, the way he only did when he was speaking about something he was passionate about. “I had a really big cryptid phase as a child, so big my parents decided to take us to Point Pleasant for the summer break one year. That’s the hometown of Mothman, they have a statue of him and everything. It was incredible. That’s when I got the shirt! It’s been a good luck charm. Not that I believe in luck but it never hurts something else on your side”

“You got it as a kid and it still fits? You must’ve been a tall kid.”

“It was the middle of their tourist season so they were sold out of all the youth sizes. According to my mother, it made a very fashionable dress.”

Virgil held back giggles as the thought of a smaller Logan wearing that shirt going down to his knees with a pair of fashionable red heels crossed his mind. For whatever reason, if Logan were to wear a dress, Virgil believed he’d wear it with stunning red heels. He seemed the type.

“Did you spot The Mothman?” he asked, only half kidding.

“Unfortunately not, although it was probably for the best as I was going to ask him for an autograph. I doubt that would have gone down well with Him.“

The idea of a smaller Logan wearing an oversized Mothman merchandise shirt going down to his knees and a pair of fashionable red heels walking up to the Lord of the Shadows himself, at least double his height, and asking him to sign his autograph book was so funny to Virgil that he stopped in his tracks wheezing, his eyes brimming with tears. 

Seeing Logan’s bewildered expression, he tried to calm himself. After a few moments catching his breath trying to keep a straight he was able to regain his composure. “Sorry Lo, I’m fine now.”

“Can I ask-”

“No” Virgil interrupted him. “It’s really for the best you don’t.”

“Alright Virgil, I’ll trust you on this one.” He hummed a song Virgil wasn’t familiar with for a few moments. Then, he said, “I had an idea for while we’re either walking towards the Frogman or further into the depth of woods we might get lost in.” Virgil wasn’t sure if Logan was kidding and frankly he didn’t want to know. 

“Yeah L, what is it?” Virgil’s mind started to race when he realized he had called Logan a nickname. While only a shortening of his name, it still seemed very personal and friendly. What if it bothers him? What if he thinks it’s weird? 

“Well Vee,” Logan paused to see Virgil’s reaction, looking smug. Virgil stuck his tongue out at him. He wouldn’t admit it but his heart would flutter whenever he got that self-righteous expression on his face, seen often when he corrected the teacher or had got full marks on a test. It was cute. Very annoying, but cute.

“We could directly target your fear of the Frogman. You would have to trust me though.”

“I trust you,” Virgil answered with no hesitation. He squeezed Logan’s hand in his.

“Oh…um…” Logan appeared flustered. “This is going to seem scary but there’s a very low possibility of a negative outcome. Now…repeat after me.”

Logan took a deep breath before yelling “Fuck you Frogman!”

Virgil startled, not expected Logan to be so brazen. Yelling was a common occurrence for Logan however such vulgarities? Directed at a possibly supernatural creature who was reported as dangerous? He shook his head in disbelief.

Logan looked at him pointedly. “Oh no Logan, there is no way-” He stopped realizing there would be no convincing Logan. “Fine.” He grumbled.

“Frick you Frogman.” The words sounded uncertain. 

“That was a good first attempt, Virgil. If you want to try again, you should really try to metaphorically shake off any inhibitions and really go for it. I did promise to protect you, the Frogman won’t hurt you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

They had come to a stop next to a running stream of water. Virgil slipped his camcorder into his hoodie pocket and let go of Logan’s hand, freeing both his arms. After running his fingers through his hair trying to build up enough confidence and jumping where he stood for a moment getting into an energetic mood, he felt ready. Or as ready as he could be. 

Angling his head to the sky he screamed at the top of his lungs “Fuck you Frogman!”

He laughed in exhilaration, adrenaline running through his veins. Virgil felt invincible. “And fuck your Frogmother too!” He raised his hand for a high five.

“Yes!” Logan exclaimed. As he stepped towards Virgil, he must have been too excited to look where he walked because his foot caught on a tree branch. 

Instinctively Virgil went to grab Logan’s hand to keep him up, however, Virgil started hurtling towards the creek as well, knocked off balance. He gasped as he hit the cold water, a moment later crashing into Logan.

The stream had been quite shallow, a foot deep at most. Virgil, quite luckily, didn’t experience the brute of the fall, having fallen on top of Logan. He rolled off and tried to stand. He would definitely have a couple nasty bruises later, he thought to himself. 

“Hey Lo, are you okay?” Virgil looked for the torch that fell out of Logan’s hand during his fall. It wasn’t far and within seconds he was shining it directly at Logan’s face. Logan didn’t appreciate it.

“I’m fine, I assure you but please get that out of my face. The light is blinding.” Virgil muttered a few apologies while helping Logan to his feet. Overall, whilst cold and mildly pained, Logan appeared to be okay overall.

The two were both standing up in the middle of the creek. Although their feet were still submerged in the freezing cold water neither seemed to notice nor care. Instead, they were both looking directly at each other. 

They inched closer and Logan began softly “Virgil, I’ve been meaning to tell you-” however he didn’t get to finish that sentence.

There was a raucous splashing sound from further upstream. Then there was another, this time louder. Whatever was making the noise was approaching. 

Virgil shared a look of terror with Logan. He grabbed the camera and started recording as a shadowy figure started to form. Its form was unclear, however, it moved forward the way a frog might, leaping up and forward. Virgil was sure, it was The Frogman. 

“What are you waiting for, Vee? Run.” Logan urged him to come however Virgil was frozen in fear. This was the end for him. He’d never see Janus and Remus again. He’d never tell Logan how he feels. 

Logan snatched the torch from Virgil and took his now-free hand into his. Glancing back to the shadowy figure a final time, he muttered a few profanities, irked, then started to run, dragging Virgil with him. This was enough to snap Virgil out of his state, as he started running alongside Logan as fast as he could. The sound of the Frogman thudding behind them, hot on their trail, motivated them to keep going.

Virgil would never consider himself particularly athletic, which paired with the fact his legs were quite short created a challenge as he attempted to keep up with Logan, however, Adrenaline paired with the fact Logan wouldn’t have let him fall behind if he wanted to keep him as far from the Frogman as possible.

The journey out the forest was a blur. Virgil remembered stumbling however he got back up immediately. Logan shined the torch in front of them so they didn’t run into any trees. As a few minutes passed the sound of the Frogman following them faded away but neither would risk stopping. They continued forward and by some miracle, they had returned to the clearing where they had started, Logan’s pickup truck only a few yards away.

Logan slowed down to a stop outside it. “It’s alright, he won’t follow us out here.”

“That’s… really… great… Lo.” Virgil panted. He could feel his heart pounding in his head as he breathed so heavily he thought he might cough his lungs out. “How…are you…back to normal…so fast?”

“Oh, I did track in high school. Now you stay there while I get something.”

Virgil leaned against the truck as Logan rummaged around in his glove compartment. He pulled out an emergency foil blanket. He wrapped it over Virgil’s shoulders. “I only have one so you better keep that on. That water was freezing and I don’t want you getting hypothermic. You’re still soaking wet after all. Are you injured anywhere?” 

Unsure, Virgil checked. Sure enough, he had a cut on his shin. Damn, it must’ve happened when I tripped, he thought to himself. Only as the energy from the run wore off, he started to feel it sting.

“Is it okay if I clean that cut for you? I have a first aid kit in the truck’s cargo bed.” 

“Thanks, dude, I would really appreciate that. You better get under this blanket right after though, you’re not allowed to get hypothermic either.”

Logan smiled then pulled out a first aid kit from the back of the truck. “You can have a seat on the grass.” Once Virgil did, Logan joined him. “How are you feeling?”

“Still in shock and denial. It’ll probably only sink in later tonight that we got chased by the actual Frogman. How about you?” 

“Honestly…I feel incredible. We saw the Frogman! The Frogman is real” Logan grinned. “Also, this might hurt a bit” he warned Virgil as he disinfected the cut. He was right. Virgil’s eyes pricked with tears.

“It’s a good thing my jeans were already so ripped, that way people won’t even question this one.” he joked. 

“Did your camera survive that? I hope it’s not water damaged.”

“Nah don’t worry, it’s been through a lot. A little fall and water aren’t going to be the thing to break it.” He inspected the camera. “Unfortunately…I can’t say the same for the footage. The memory card looks completely fried.”

Logan’s smile fell. “That’s a shame, although maybe it’s for the best. The Frogman can continue living his best life in the forest with no scientists looking for him since there’s still no evidence.”

“Really?” Virgil asked incredulously. “You. The smartest person I know. Is against scientists?”

“Well… I’m not against scientists but having watched E.T. as a kid, I wouldn’t trust them with any rare or unusual beings.” He put a plaster on the cleaned injury then looked at his handiwork proudly.

Virgil was bemused by this. “You do know that’s a fictional movie, right?” After Logan did not answer he decided it was best to change tact. 

“C’mon, join me under this blanket so you can warm up before we drive away. I’m thinking we go to mine? I can make us some hot chocolate and we can decide what to do with the assignment. I can also lend you some dry clothes if you don’t mind being dressed Emo.” 

Logan moved so he was sat next to Virgil, their shoulders touching as the blanket covered them. “Sounds great Vee.”

“It’s a shame we wasted the evening though.” Virgil moped, but then Logan turned to face him. Their faces were mere inches away.

“Actually, I wouldn’t call it a wasted evening. I had a lot of fun spending the evening with you. “ 

Virgil was more taken aback by that than he was by him cursing at the Frogman. “I enjoyed spending the evening with you too. You’re really kind and surprisingly easy to talk to. I hope we could maybe spend some time together after this assignment is over if that’s something you’d like?” 

Virgil felt the tips of his ears burning as his face flushed completely. He knew he was being obvious now but it seemed worth it. Putting himself out there didn’t seem as scary with Logan.

Logan spoke as gently as he had when they were standing in the creek together.

“About that. I wanted to tell you something before we were rudely interrupted earlier.”

“Mhm?” Virgil murmured, not trusting himself to say any proper words.

“I believe I have romantic feelings for you, Virgil. I highly enjoy speaking with you and when you’re around my heart begins to beat faster. If you were to feel the same way I would love to take you on a date perhaps? With fewer cryptids, I assure you. If not-”

“Me too,” Virgil said, in disbelief, cutting him off. He didn’t want to hear the ’If not’ because he liked Logan back. A lot. He took hold of Logan’s hand. 

“If it’s okay with you Logan, can I kiss you?” He was surprised by his own confidence, but it felt right. Everything felt right.

Logan answered not with words but by closing the gap between the two of them. It was short and sweet. According to Virgil, it was perfect. Perhaps the evening wasn’t a waste after all.

[thepermanentrainpress]

THE PERMANENT RAIN PRESS INTERVIEW WITH MADELEINE SIMS-FEWER AND DUSTY MANCINELLI

Violation is one of the most stirring films we’ve seen over the past year. Since making its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival last year, the Canadian flick has been busy on the film festival circuit; now available through digital-cinema on TIFF Bell Lightbox, with Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) Connect to follow beginning March 26th. 

What inspired the story behind Violation?

We were both dealing with our own personal experiences of trauma at the time, and wanted to make an anti-revenge film that deals with female rage, and emotional and psychological unravelling that trauma gives rise to.

We really wanted to make a revenge film that pushed the boundaries of the genre, challenging the tropes of the scantily clad woman becoming empowered by violent revenge against a menacing stranger, and that revenge is the cathartic climax we are all seeking at the end of the movie. Yes, it is a film about seeking retribution, but also about the cost of that retribution. It is a film about violation, but also about lack of empathy and selfishness, and how both can erode your morality and the relationships around you.

It’s been described as “twisted,” “feminist-minded,” and a “hypnotic horror.” At its core, how would you describe the film’s genre(s)?

Those three descriptors fit perfectly, actually! We weren’t thinking too much about genre when we wrote the script, mostly about the story and about how we portrayed Miriam’s journey. We were inspired by films that don’t sit comfortably in a genre box, like Caché, Fat Girl, Don’t Look Now. Films that are dramas with elements of horror.

When you were writing the script, can you elaborate on the dynamics between the two couples that you wanted to portray – Miriam and Caleb, and Greta and Dylan?

Miriam and Caleb are very much at an impasse in their relationship. The spark has gone out and they don’t know how to reignite it. Instead of doing the work it might take to get through a rough patch Miriam is very much running away. There is a real transience to modern relationships that we wanted to capture in their dynamic - this idea that when the romance is gone the relationship has run its course. Miriam wants to fix it, but doesn’t know how - she clumsily tries to fix it with sex (on her sister’s advice), and this echoes how she tries to fix her trauma too.

Greta and Dylan have a seemingly healthy relationship. But when you look a little deeper their outward affection and codependence masks a deep distrust. Dylan is having his ‘grass is greener’ moment, and he’s totally selfish to the impact this has on those around him. Greta can sense this, but she’s too enamoured by him to risk rocking the boat. It’s all a recipe for tragedy really.

Miriam and Greta have a complex relationship, to say the least. It’s natural to have distance between siblings as they grow older, did you always intend to have a sibling relationship be a centre of your story?

Yes, we always wanted to make a film about a person who suffers sexual assault and is not believed by their sibling. That was one of the first parts of the story that came together. There is so much to unpack in a sibling relationship like theirs. A rich history of mutual failures and resentments as well as so much camaraderie and love. The more painful betrayal in the story comes from Greta, not Dylan.

We wanted to explore the idea of trauma within families, and how abuse and violence affects everyone in the family, not just the person who suffers it. Everything else orbits around these two sisters — Miriam and Greta — as Violation mines the little resentments, commonalities, shared joys and sorrows that weave together a truthful portrait of these women.

A lot of the horror and dread in Violation comes from the way the sisters interact, and in the ways they react to each other from a place of fear. There is no filter in these close sibling relationships (we know this as we both come from big families!) which can be wonderful, but can also lead you to hurt and be hurt in ways that leave permanent emotional scars.

The non-linear editing engages viewers into the story, as do the jarring intercuts with imagery of nature, animals and insects. Tell us about the editing and post-production phase, and what you hoped to accomplish with the progression and symbolism.

The way we have edited Violation is very deliberate. We are forcing you to experience things you might not want to in a very specific way, guiding you through this post traumatic landscape where the past and present are constantly speaking to each other.

We chose to weave two timelines together — the 48 hours leading up to the betrayal and the 48 hours surrounding the act of revenge. This forces the audience to re-contextualize what they have seen, challenging their own opinions of the characters based on what information we choose to reveal and when.

Violation is told completely from Miriam’s perspective — we watch her emotional and psychological unravelling as she struggles desperately to do the right thing. There is a sequence in the middle of the film where we see this act of revenge. There is no dialogue for a long time, we just follow Miriam as she goes through these meticulous actions. And what we realize is that her plan, though well thought-out, is unbelievably emotionally and physically taxing. She’s not prepared, and we watch the real horror of her actions play out through her visceral emotional responses. It was important for us to really force the audience to experience things as Miriam does. The editing is focused and relentless; never letting you stray from her experiences and emotions.

Madeleine, for you, getting to play Miriam and connect with her pain and turbulent emotions through the course of the film, can you share your thoughts on that experience. How did committing to this character challenge you as an actor?

It was the most challenging role I have ever played, and in many ways was absolutely terrifying. I wanted to push myself as far as I could go as an actor and challenge myself to really find the truth of who this woman is, and reveal that to the audience. There are so many quiet moments where Miriam’s journey is so internal, so the challenge there was in truly living each moment as if I was her — getting lost in the role — so that I was not indicating what she was feeling, but living it.

What was it like having Anna, Jesse and Obi as screen partners?

Very liberating. They are all extremely dedicated, layered, engaging performers. They elevated me and challenged me every step of the way. Jesse and I have worked together before, and we have an ease that makes scenes with him very fun. The comfort level we share allows us to really experiment. It was my first time working with Anna and Obi, but it won’t be the last. They are both so open and sensitive that I felt our work was incredibly nuanced.

An overarching question is whether revenge is ever justified. Tell me about Miriam’s mindset, and the struggle between morals, motives and her actions. For you as individuals, is this something that you have had conflict with in your own lives?

In a way we wanted to make a sort of revenge fairy-tale. Fairy tales provide ways for children to think through moral problems, and to wrestle with life’s complexities. They aren’t depictions of reality, but reflect ideas about morality and humanity. We wanted the audience to think about consent, the rippling effects of trauma, how we judge women vs how we judge men, and perhaps consider those things more deeply.

In the end Miriam’s desire to punish those who have wronged her hopefully leaves the audience with a compelling ambiguity to be unpacked as they scrutinize her actions.

Tell us about the trust built between the cast and crew on-set, especially during the more intimate and grim scenes and tense conversations. How do you build that comfort level?

It���s really just about having open, honest conversations. We spent a lot of time with the actors during prep and rehearsals just talking, and building friendships. We are dedicated to creating a comfort level where actors can be completely transparent and open with us, so that when we ask them to go somewhere they know we are there guiding the process and aren’t afraid to take big risks.

To survivors of trauma, what do you hope this movie provides in its story?

We hope to provide a new take on the revenge genre - one that explores rape from a different angle and context - with the focus of the narrative much more on the psychological ramifications of trauma. We aren’t looking to tell anyone what to take away from the film, and we made Violation as much for people with no experience with trauma as for people who understand these murky waters. Really we hope the film sparks thought, discussion, and empathy.

You met at the 2015 TIFF Talent Lab; what drew you together as a filmmaking team? What advice do you have for artists/filmmakers looking for their own collaborators?

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what drew us together - it’s sort of an intangible thing. We developed a very candid friendship that we thought might translate well to a working relationship. Luckily it did!

Shortly after the Talent Lab we decided to work together on two short films, Slap Happy and Woman in Stall. Until directing these shorts neither of us had really had ‘fun ’making a film. Filmmaking was a drive, but it wasn’t a joy. These shorts gave us a totally new perspective, where we actually had a good time workshopping the script, creating a visual style, and just challenging each other. By the time we were making our third short, Chubby, we had decided to officially form a creative partnership.

We definitely approach filmmaking from different perspectives and with complementary strengths, but we don’t say ‘this is your thing and this is mine.’ We work collaboratively on every part of the process, and we built this unique way of working through our shorts, so that when we got the funding to make Violation (through Telefilm’s Talent to Watch program) we already had a solid method that works for us.

In terms of advice it really helps to know how you like to work before looking for a collaborator. Then it’s just about experimenting. It is very much trial and error. Don’t try to force a collaboration that isn’t working for you. There is no shame in a creative relationship not working out. But also it is important to be flexible and open to compromise - that’s how ideas flourish and grow. If you are too rigid then maybe collaboration is not right for you.

Going from short films to your debut feature with Violation, what new challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

The endurance required to make a feature was something we weren’t prepared for. At about day 3 we turned to each other, totally exhausted, and were like: “there’s 30 more days of this.” It was brutally draining. Honestly every day brought its own unique challenges and problems to overcome, but we had such a strong, supportive team that it made each mountain a little easier to climb.

Aside from yourselves, who are some other up and coming Canadian filmmakers viewers should keep their eyes on?

Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie are both doing really interesting work. Grace’s film Tito is a disturbingly good character study that builds a terrifying sense of dread. Ben’s short Her Friend Adam is one of our favourites, and he’s about to make his first feature.

Is there anything further you’d like to add or share, perhaps what you are currently working on?

Right now we are writing a slow burning mystery thriller and a twisted dark comedy. That’s about all we can reveal at the moment!

Thank you to Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli for providing us with further insight into Violation! Visit their official website for more information on their projects. 

[cicadagarage2]

<h1 style="clear:both" id="content-section-0">Getting The Capone Movie Accuracy: Fact Vs. Fiction In The Tom Hardy Biopic. To Work</h1>

Table of ContentsAl Capone - Movies, Quotes & Son - Biography Things To Know Before You BuyThe 'Capone' Review: A Gangster's Last Gasps - Wsj PDFsSome Known Details About Al Capone (1959) - Imdb Tom Hardy Is Al Capone: First Look At 'Fonzo' Gangster ... Can Be Fun For AnyoneThe Ultimate Guide To Al Capone: 9 Actors Who Played The Original Scarface - Den ...The Only Guide for Capone Movie Review & Film Summary (2020) - Roger Ebert

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He assembled a group of bold young men and made substantial usage of wiretapping innovation - al capone documentary movie. While there was doubt that Capone could be effectively prosecuted for Prohibition infractions in Chicago, the federal government was specific it could get Capone on tax evasion. In Might 1929, Capone went to a "gangster" conference in Atlantic City.

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When leaving the cinema, he was apprehended and locked up for carrying a concealed weapon. Capone was quickly put behind bars in the Eastern Penitentiary, where he remained until March 16, 1930. He was later launched from prison for good behavior however was placed on America's "The majority of Wanted" list, which openly humiliated a mobster who so desperately wanted to be considered as a deserving male of individuals. Agent Ness, angered by Capone for the murder of a good friend, handled to infuriate Capone by exposing Prohibition infractions to ruin his bootlegging market. Millions of dollars of brewing devices was taken or destroyed, countless gallons of beer and alcohol had actually been discarded and the largest breweries were closed.

The jury returned an indictment against Capone that was concealed till the examination was total for the years 1925 to 1929 - the revenge of al capone full movie. The grand jury later returned an indictment versus Capone with 22 counts of tax evasion totaling over $200,000. Capone and 68 members of his gang were charged with 5,000 different violations of the Volstead Act.

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Fearing that witnesses would be tampered with, and having doubts that the six-year statute of restrictions would be upheld by the Supreme Court, an offer was covertly struck between Capone's legal representatives and government district attorneys. Capone was to plead guilty to a lighter charge and would get a sentence of between 2 and five years.

The overconfident Capone, who thought he would get less than five years in jail, became less arrogant when he recognized that his plea bargain was now null and space. On October 6, 1931, 14 detectives escorted Capone to the Federal Court Building. He was dressed in a conservative blue serge suit and was without his usual pinkie ring and gaudy jewelry.

When Judge Wilkinson went into the courtroom, he suddenly required that the jury be exchanged with another in the exact same structure. alcapone movie and his attorney were shocked. The fresh jury was even sequestered in the evening so that the Capone mob could not get to them. Throughout the trial, Lawyer George E. Q.

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He stressed the hypocrisy of a man who would spend thousands of dollars on meals and luxuries however provides little to the bad and jobless. al capone movie with kevin costner. How, he asked, might Capone possess a lot property, automobiles and even diamond belt buckles when his defense attorney profess that their customer had no income?After nine hours of conversation, on October 17, 1931, the jury found Capone guilty of several counts of tax evasion.

Bail was rejected. In August 1934, Capone was moved from a prison in Atlanta to the notorious Alcatraz prison in San Francisco. al capone the movie. His days of benefits in prison were gone, and contact with the outdoors world, even through letters and newspapers, was very little. Nevertheless, Capone's sentence was eventually reduced to six and a half years for great behavior.

During his ins 2015 in prison, Capone's declining health was exacerbated by tertiary syphilis, and he ended up being baffled and disoriented. After release, Capone slowly deteriorated at his Palm Island palace. His other half Mae stuck by him up until completion - al capone movie youtube.

The Only Guide to Capone Movie Accuracy: Fact Vs. Fiction In The Tom Hardy Biopic.

Here is the tale of Al Capone, a legend told on movie time and again for almost a century and now again, in all its gruesomeness, in "Capone," starring Tom Hardy. But the more interesting tale is the story of writer-director Josh Trank, the wunderkind filmmaker who burst onto the scene in 2012 with his found-footage teen sci-fi motion picture "Chronicle," which became a surprise hit.

But then "Fantastic Four" went down in a blaze of reshoots, rumors and rotten evaluations, Trank gave up "Star Wars" before he might get fired and the young director found himself in the proverbial "director prison." The only factor for this contextual windup prior to getting to the assessment of his brand-new film is to try and comprehend Trank's mind-set when he envisaged and wrote this motion picture.

Tom Hardy as Al Capone Movie ...

Al Capone movie's first-look trailer ...

And so here is "Capone," which is sort of a giant middle finger, or rather a long wet passage of gas, directed towards the facility and the powers that be, wrapped up in a depiction of the last days of the gangster's life, invested in a haze of syphilitic dementia at an estate in Florida.

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Hardy doesn't "play" Capone, he sweats, grunts and throws up Capone, while caked in old-age makeup, bloodshot eyes darting, mumbling menacingly in Italian. Hardy, never one to pass up the chance to experiment with a crazy New York accent, takes his work to brand-new heights, or rather lows, with the gravelly Brooklynese he trots out for the role.

As he falls back physically, equipped with diapers and a carrot stogie by an infantilizing medical professional (Kyle MacLachlan), his family tends to his care, while gangsters (Matt Dillon) and FBI agents (Jack Lowden) come sniffing around about the reports that Capone has a fortune buried someplace. They're convinced that his ramblings will reveal a clue or more, but the only information Capone has for them is the abovementioned flatulence, part of a graphic scatological theme that Trank weaves throughout.

As an art piece, home entertainment or cultural ephemera, it is indeed strong, but it is considerable not for what it states about Capone but, rather, what it states about Trank and the continuous saga of his career. 'Capone' Rated: R, for strong/bloody violence, pervasive language and some sexualityRunning time: 1 hour, 43 minutesPlaying: Offered via video on need and virtual movie theater release.

The Buzz on Capone Movie Accuracy: Fact Vs. Fiction In The Tom Hardy Biopic.

Real life gangster Al Capone inspired dozens of representations, some were accurate, numerous were laughable. By May 15, 2020 Photo: HBO/ Vertical Home Entertainment/ Paramount Pictures/ Warner Bros. Mom of mercy, did the motion pictures mark the beginning of RICO? The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was called after the character Rico Bandello in what is mainly considered to be the very first gangster film,.

Robinson's Rico wasn't particularly Al Capone in that movie, the real-life gangster's signature stogie fumes are all over it. Josh Trank replaced the Cuban Corona with a carrot in the current Vertical Home entertainment film, which stars Tom Hardy as the title character in his golden years, suffering from a premature burial.

That speculative biopic likewise portrays Capone as a film connoisseur. He sings in addition to Bert Lahr's matchless "If I Were King of the Forest," from, and educates his gangster friend Johnny (Matt Dillon) as to the importance of screen legend Judy Garland. The real Capone was also a screen legend and a bit of a critic.

[imaginedmelody]

I just watched both “IT” movies this week and I have some Feelings.

I know, I’m 2 years and 4 months late to this fandom, respectively- but I spent the last few weeks trying to convince myself that I like horror generally (and Stephen King, specifically) enough to watch these movies, and now I have and I can’t get them out of my head. I already screamed about this on twitter, but I need to do it in more detail here, too. In short, my response was this:

It is very rare that a movie is exactly what you hoped it would be.

These two movies were.

(Spoilers under the break)

I’ve started coming to terms with the fact that I really like horror as a genre, in the last couple of years. It’s not something that I typically associate with myself, partially because I do have some limits in terms of things that disturb me too much to watch, and partially because the horror of the thing itself is not what makes me interested in the genre. I don’t want the primary emotion I feel when watching a horror movie to be dread, ironic as that sounds. I need it to have humanity and heart. But I had sworn off the genre in my mind because I believed those things were rarities in the horror canon.

Of course, that’s not true. It may mean that I’m never gonna be a fan of super-bloody slasher movies, and that I can rule out some horror whose only real purpose is to scare you and make you jump...but there’s a wealth of great stuff out there that doesn’t fit that description. And Stephen King is one of the best at it. I’ve liked his TV and film work since I was in my early teens- not just classics like The Shining, but less iconic work like Rose Red (which I still own on DVD), Storm of the Century, and that short-lived Kingdom Hospital TV series. And I had heard amazing things about the novel of IT, although I don’t think I’m going to have time to read a 1000+ page book like that anytime soon. So I should have known I would like it, even though I had studiously convinced myself that I wouldn’t until fandom exposure piqued my interest enough to push me through that door.

I did ultimately like the first movie better, but not by much. The first movie definitely feels like a flash in the pan gem of horror, but even when it’s brutal and scary, it still feels lighter because of the kids, and both the hope and the humor they bring to the film. (A 7-person friend group that incessantly bickers with one another is probably the most accurate depiction of childhood I can imagine.) The second movie is longer, and sadder too- more bittersweet and melancholy. But I think it has to be. It makes sense for a movie about people returning as adults to confront an evil they thought they’d vanquished as kids to be heavier and sadder. Though I enjoyed it a bit less, I thought it was exactly the movie it needed to be to convey the second part of this story. I don’t think I would have wanted it to feel any different.

I think what’s clever about the way the story of IT is told is that, while Derry has an outbreak of brutality and evil every 27 years, the curse of the town pervades during the in-between time as well. It poisons the people of the town even when it’s not actively killing children. That darkness simmers in them and makes them cruel. We see that in the adults the kids encounter, who are often ugly people even when a monster isn’t lurking in the shadows- Bev’s dad abuses her, Eddie’s mom gaslights him into thinking he’s sick to keep him reliant on her, Stan’s dad shames him for not being the perfect rabbi’s son when he struggles preparing for his bar mitzvah. Even Bill’s dad seems distant and critical of his son (although that may be partially due to grief over Georgie’s disappearance).

We see that impulse beginning in the other kids in town, too. Bowers is obviously most affected by It’s provocations toward gruesome violence, but the non-Losers that we meet are mostly all bullies too, and we don’t get the sense this is a new pattern of behavior. The darkness of the town is already working on them. They’re starting to become the monsters that many of the adults already are. Now, I’m not saying that these same sorts of behaviors don’t exist outside of Derry, but I’d argue that what makes the Losers so well equipped to defeat It is not just that they left the town and were therefore free from It’s influence. It’s that the other adults let the evil corrupt them. But the Losers made a promise not to look the other way.

This is why Mike is able to remain uncorrupted even though he stays in Derry. The childhood innocence of the Losers is what allows them to defeat Pennywise the first time- but it’s their grown-up selves refusing to allow evil to persist, vowing to come back and defeat it and then keeping that promise, that takes It down for good.

If they hadn’t made that blood pact as kids, they might have continued to forget the events of 1989 forever. The evil might never have been defeated. But as Bev says, it would have eventually killed all of them. They all die, and die alone, if they don’t come back to fight. Because that’s what evil does, if we don’t look it in the face and promise to stop it.

Anyway, as you might have guessed, I loved the movies. They had exactly the kind of emotional resonance, beyond just depicting brutality and scares, that I wanted so badly. This series scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had. I definitely want to go back and watch them a second time, and I welcome anyone who wants to come by and chat about them.

(Also, I’m glad I was exposed to some spoilers via checking sites like DoesTheDogDie for triggers, and for spoilery gifsets and fanvideos for getting me interested- because it meant that I knew which two characters get killed off, and I was able to yell “FUCK YOU!!!” loudly at the screen every time either movie foreshadowed their deaths. Which was QUITE A FEW TIMES. At the end of the first movie, when Stan and Eddie are the first two we see leaving the circle after the blood pact? I SCREAMED.)

[creativity-is-rebellion]

Top 10 Favourite Movies I Have Seen (So Far)

How to Make an American Quilt (1994)

I’m not sure exactly why, but I have always had a thing for intergenerational movies that go back and forth in time, which I think that this movie does superbly. You get to know each of the character’s backstories, and it is also a coming-of-age film where the main protagonist must choose a path and be happy with the one she goes down. This was a film I would watch again and again as a teenager when I was sad (movie marathons were always the cure for my blues back then). More recently, there are other reasons why this movie appeals to me; I can relate to Finn’s thesis-writing (I know it’s frustrating and easy to distract yourself from), and I can also relate with her dilemma in choosing what kind of future she will have. Also, Winona Ryder can do no wrong. Winona forever.

The Joy Luck Club (1993)

Another intergenerational film, I think it does a great job of juxtaposing the difference between parents who immigrate to another country and their children who do not really understand the sacrifices they have made to actually get there, which can cause rifts and divides. It does this specifically with the Chinese culture in mind, which is fascinating in its own right, and quite different to the US, which is where they immigrate to. The daughters who try to understand their mothers are able to bridge the divide when they are able to empathise with where their parents are coming from, by the parents telling them tales of their origins. My favourite character is hands-down Ying-Ying St. Clair, whose backstory is definitely the most tragic. In China, Ying-Ying was happily married to Lin-Xiao (Russell Wong) with a baby boy in China until Lin-Xiao abuses her and abandons her for an opera singer. Overwhelmed by her depression, Ying-Ying begins to dissociate and accidentally drowns their baby son in the bathtub during one of these episodes, which haunts her ever afterwards. Years later, she has emigrated to America and suffers from trauma of her past, worrying her new family, including her daughter Lena. When she is able to get Lena find her voice and to leave her own abusive husband, Harold. I have nothing but love for this film, which breathes life into Amy Tan’s equally beautiful novel. This film adaptation does the novel proud; It’s well-acted, well-told, and simply just heart-warming.

Sinister (2008)

I love myself a good horror movie, and Sinister flips the script by starting out as a crime mystery before going bananas and introducing Mr. Boogie (or Bughuul), a pagan demon who manipulates the lives of children, having them kill their families, until he can consume the child's soul. Ethan Hawke, who both directs and stars in this film, does a phenomenal acting job as washed-up crime author Ellison Oswalt, who moves his family into one of the homes which was the scene of one of the ‘crimes’, where a whole family has been massacred and one child is missing. It isn’t long until he finds a bunch of 8mm tapes in the attic, which represent the equivalent of snuff films, detailing previous family massacres occurring elsewhere. Seriously, some of these 8mm tapes are both difficult but strangely thrilling to watch, due to their haunting quality. It takes him a while before he becomes aware of Bughuul, who he discovers hiding in the corner of one of the tapes, and who he is able to get to know about with the help of a rookie cop and a professor. The ending is also a delicious twist, and indicates the inevitability of not being able to escape evil. Seriously, it’s a must-watch, as it breathes rare new life into the tired horror genre.

Insidious, Chapter One (2010)

Another worthy 21st century horror addition, the Insidious franchise (especially the first film) delivers some great twists, and creates a rich universe way beyond any ordinary haunted house or child-plagued-by-demon trope, by introducing some genuinely scary characters (The Lipstick Demon, Doll Girl, and the Bride in Black, anyone?!), and also introducing The Further, a dark and timeless astral world filled with tortured dead souls and nightmarish spirits. I love the twist that the end of this movie delivers, and also the appropriate jump-scares throughout. It is yet another horror movie that breathes life into a somewhat tired genre. 10/10, I highly recommend this movie, even if The Lipstick Demon looks kinda like Darth Maul, lol.

Reality Bites (1994)

Although it’s kind of aged badly, due to advancing technology, this movie was one of the first to introduce the idea of reality television, whilst also capturing the zeitgeist of Generation X, with it’s rather nihilist message about life after college, and the trials and tribulations of growing up. Some of the characters (especially Lelaina and Troy) are self-indulgent, immature, intellectually snobby and navel-gazing, but you root for Lelaina to succeed because she is played with enough sympathy by the amazing and incomparable Winona Ryder that we believe she deserves better. This is one of the reasons I hate that she ends up with Troy, even if he is the broody bad boy we are all expected to swoon over. Seriously, he treats Lelaina so badly that I just want to punch him in the face. It also has some great side characters, like Vicky, who works at The Gap, but is scared to find a real job, and Sammy, who is gay and afraid that he may have HIV. It is also relatable for me as a Millenial who graduated from university when the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) hit, making it complicated to find a good job, mirroring the recession that these characters graduated into. I love that it talks about pivotal Generation X issues, as well as universal issues that encompass growing up and moving into adulthood. Also, again, Winona forever.

Candyman (1992)

Candyman is a horror film that subverts horror movie expectations whilst still managing to deliver some great scares. Being set in the long-gone notorious Chicago housing projects Cabrini Green, a name synonymous with vice, violence and murder, and a place which instils non-supernatural horror in an individual all on its own, tells the story of thesis student Helen, who is researching urban legends, and through her participants, she learns the story of Candyman, a vengeful rendition of the classic Bloody Mary, who will split you from groin to gullet with his hook for a hand if you say his name five times in the mirror. 

The people who recount this legend go on to recount a notorious murder that has taken place recently in Cabrini Green which has been attributed to Candyman, and Helen chooses to investigate the claim. Helen rationalises that the residents of Cabrini Green use the legend of Candy Man to cope with their stressful daily lives. Before visiting Cabrini Green, Helen and her research associate decide to test the theory by saying ‘Candy Man’ five times in a mirror, but nothing happens, at least not yet. In real life, the murder rate in Cabrini Green peaked in 1992, the same year that Candy Man was made. Candy Man himself (played with great aplomb by the legendary Tony Todd) doesn’t show up until around 44 minutes into the movie, but when he does, he steals the show with his dangerous charisma. 

In total, Candy Man subverts 3 horror rules: Number one, that you need to have a high body count to keep audiences engaged. By doing so, it stretches out the tension for as long as it can. Number two, there is a Black antagonist. There were some issues addressed by Black critics that this depiction played into some racist stereotypes, such as the idea that Black people need a White saviour, that Black people are especially superstitious, and that Black men prefer to pursue White women. But one could say that Candy Man is more a depiction of the White fears associated with Black poverty, and specifically, White Liberal fears that Black poverty can’t be helped, despite their best efforts. Helen doesn’t mean any harm (some may even call her an ally), yet she dies anyway. 

By making the antagonist Black, the film becomes about so much more than just visceral horror, it is about societal, racial and historical horror as well, albeit told from a White perspective. It also plays into the fear that Black people, through no fault of their own, could be killed for no reason at all but panicky neighbours. Finally, number three, this film is more sad than scary; sadness tends to be the most common negative emotion that I experience, so I am drawn to movies that have something to say about it. The only reason Candy Man gives for wanting to kill Helen is that she demystified him, which seems pretty petty and vindictive. She is also supposed to resemble his long-lost love that got him killed in the first place. When Candy Man kills the psychiatrist in the movie, it is literally the only on-screen proof we have that Candy Man isn’t just a figment of Helen’s imagination. Candy Man, like my most favourite horror film, The Shining, begs the question: Are there really supernatural elements at play here, or is the main character simply going insane? Phew, this was more than I planned to write, but I guess this film is complex enough to warrant it. See it for yourself.

Final Destination (2000)

As time wore on, the Final Destination franchise became more well-known for its gruesome deaths (and tired plot) than anything else, but the first addition was a fresh take on the inescapability of death, and the vengance Death Itself may take if you screw with his Design. The first 15 minutes of the film are truly thrilling through the main character Alex’s premonition, and the wait after the gang have been kicked off the airline for the plane to blow up without them on board. Seriously, that scene gave me aerophobia more than any Air Crash Investigation episode. What follows are some truly twisted, macabre domino-like deaths that prove that Death has a wicked, dark sense of humour. That every character in this franchise dies eventually is kind of disappointing, and definitely places Death in this franchise as possibly the most diabolical villain in all of the horror genre (move over, Jason and Michael and Freddy). The mysterious undertaker played with delightful maliciousness again by Tony Todd adds to the mystery of understanding Death’s Design. and the reality that no matter what the survivors do, Death will eventually come for them, really adds to the overall hopelessness and nihilism of the whole situation. The way that the last film of the Final Destination franchise, which is really a prequel to the first film, rounded out the franchise really well, and provided a twist as good as the original film was epic. If you are going to watch any of the films in this franchise, I cannot recommend the first and last film enough.

Now and Then (1996)

I love this film more for the cheesy, feel-good memories of my childhood it gives me. Christina Ricci is also one of my all-time favourite actresses (I absolutely loved her as Wednesday Addams), which just bolsters this movie in my eyes. Thora Birch does a good job as well. But seriously, I can pop this movie on any time and it’ll just make me instantly happy for a simpler era. Even if I wasn’t born in the 60′s or 70′s, there is a lot to relate to about bridging the gaps between childhood and the inevitable teen cross-over. I mean, who didn’t have seances in graveyards with their friends as a 12-year-old girl? No-one?! Just me then. OK. Ahem. I think my favourite character was hands-down Gabby Hoffman’s Sam, who is trying to cope with her parent’s divorce in a town and time when divorce is unheard of. I like that her grown-up character played by Demi Moore is a successful writer, and is also the narrator of the entire movie. If you want to watch a truly feel-good movie that promotes feminist ideals, this movie is for you.

IT: Chapter One (2017)

Since I watched the 1990 TV miniseries in 1992 at the tender age of 7 (my parents never monitored what I watched - which sometimes led to some gnarly nightmares), I have been waiting for a worthy remake. I, like most of the aficionados that watched the miniseries, loved Tim Curry’s rendition of the demonic entity of IT, but weren’t quite happy about the spider ending. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean. You may be asking why I haven’t included Chapter Two that came out this year (2019), and the reason is, despite Bill Hader’s wonderful performance as the grown-up Ritchie, a cameo by Stephen King himself, and more screen-time for Bill Skarsgaard’s scary clown, the ending here was also disappointing. IT’s true form just doesn’t seem to translate well onto screen. It was adequate. Meh. Anywho.

IT Chapter One, however, is awesome. Instead of jumping back-and-forth in time like both the mini-series and the book did, it focuses on the well-acted ‘Loser’s Club’ as kids, and is truly scary like this story should be. The bully Henry Bowers is truly sociopathic, and Bill Skarsgaard as IT truly nails the fact that IT is so much more than just a killer clown. The death scene with Georgie at the beginning of the film is quite subversive and daring, as it actually shows you the death of a child in all its gory detail. My verdict? Watch the first with gusto, but do not expect anything great from Part Two. Part Two has to exist for continuity, but the first film outshines the second installment in every way possible.

Lady Bird (2017)

For an Indie sleeper film, this story is fantastic as both a coming-of-age film and a depiction of separating from your parents and becoming your own person. Ladybird’s mum is overprotective, and Ladybird needs to break free, whilst also trying not to cause a permanent rift. She’s a different kind of gal, sensitive, intelligent, artistic, and so not meant for a dead-end small town. Her transition toward independence is extremely relatable to me, as I grew up with an over-bearing, interfering mother myself. Also, it’s set in 2002, the year I graduated, with adds to my feelings of nostalgia. It’s the relatablity of Ladybird that makes it so re-watchable to me. I grew up in a dead-end town, was creative and different to my peers, and went to a fancy private school that I didn’t fit into as well. So Ladybird is a cinematic delight as you see her progress to something more hopeful in the future. A must-watch.

[clarabosswald]

this week on gallifreybase: my attention’s been turned to a brilliant post summarizing all the unmade episodes in new doctor who some of which i knew about, some i didn’t i love this kind of behind the scenes stuff to death so here is the post under the cut for everyone to enjoy

Series 1 -The Paul Abbott episode Originally in RTD's Series 1 Pitch document, Episode 11 was just called "The New Team" and just said "The Doctor, Rose and Jax. A small scale adventure, character stuff" presumably to be written by RTD himself. Then it was retitled "Pompeii" after RTD saw a documentary on the event and thought similar SFX could be used a Who episode. Then Russell managed to tempt his friend, successful showrunner Paul Abbott to write an episode. So the pitch document for Ep11 was re-titled "Paul Abbott Episode" There's no evidence that Abbott used the Pompeii idea. Instead, according to Russell, Abbott's story pitch was that Jax would discover that the Doctor had been secretly manipulating Rose's life, in order to make her the perfect companion and there would be conflict over whether to tell her. RTD was hesitant over the idea, because it ruined his own plans for the Doctor & Rose, but he allowed Abbott to continue to develop it. However after a few weeks it became clear Abbott wouldn't have the time to do the episode, Russell replaced with his own script "Boom Town" Series 2 -The 1920s by Stephen Fry In RTD's Series 2 story outline, Episode 11 was called "The 1920s" and was to be written by Stephen Fry, partly based on research for his film "Bright Young Things" The episode was also based on the story of "Gawain and the Green Knight" giving the story new alien origins. It included a scenes of the TARDIS landing on a strange planet. It was reportedly set in 3 different time periods (incluiding the 1920s) The story apparently involved the Gawain character falling in love with Rose in the wrong narratative order for viewers, and for Rose herself. However, late in 2006, it was decided that the story was too expensive for this point in production and it was pushed back to Series 3 & replaced with "Fear Her". It has also been said there were issues with violence. Unfortunately by 2007, Fry didn't have time to rewrite the script further or alter it for the new companion and so he wrote a letter to RTD and it was abandoned altogether. Some have said (off the record) that the script's tone was was very different from RTD episodes, closer to the Classic Series (e.g. It began with the Doctor & Rose playing chess in the TARDIS by candlelight) in 2011 Fry has said he would like to re-use the idea, taking out the Dr Who elements and turning into a novel, when he has the time, but since then nothing has happened. Series 3 -Ood story by Chris Chibnall After his first successful year show-running Torchwood, Chibnall was invited to write for Dr Who, Series 3 Episode 7. He told Starburst Magazine "Russell said, “Come and write this episode"... It was one with the Ood, and it had Zack and Ida from The Impossible Planet, and it was like going to see what had happened to them afterwards. There were tiny elements of it in Planet of the Ood but it wasn't the same story. And so we did a lot of planning on that; and it was an alien planet. And then I finished all my writing duties on Torchwood and we had the meeting and it was like, "Actually we can't afford to do that. We need an episode set in corridors, with no monsters, because we couldn't afford monsters. That's probably why there are no real aliens" Series 4 -The Suicide Exhibition by Mark Gatiss This was planned for Penny's (later Donna's) Episode 3 (which was later swapped with "Planet of the Ood") RTD's Series 4 breakdown describes this as "World War 2. Monsters on the loose in the Natural History Museum as a Nazi strike force invades...Plus an Indiana Jones-type chamber hidden beneath with sliding stone doors" Gatiss said the story was based on how, during the war, museums would put out less well-known exhibits, so that if they were bombed they wouldn't lose any great treasures-Suicide Exhibitions. He also said the monsters were based on the preserved bog-men found in the museums, like "The Lindow man" "After the first draft, Russell said, "Let's make it the Nazis and do the full Indiana Jones on it." The whole museum was a puzzle box of sliding doors and traps and stuff." Gatiss worked on the script for a year, and a script was ready to film, but when the production team discovered it'd be possible to shoot an episode overseas, the story was abandoned in favour of "Fires of Pompeii" -Century House by Tom MacRae An companion-lite episode. The Doctor goes live on reality TV show "Most Haunted" to track down a ghost known as The Red Widow. Donna & her family watch him at home on TV. It was set in a big old, abandoned, spooky house on a cliff top, with OB vans and tricks with cables rings around the house. Certain rooms would flashback to the 1950s/60s. There was a big fire sequence towards the end. If I remember correctly, MacRae compared moments in the episode to Sapphire and Steel. This was an idea RTD originally gave to MacRae to develop for Series 3 (so Martha and her family) Unfortunately they found there wasn't a place for it there, so it was held back for Series 4, episode 8. Unfortunately, despite MacRae working on it for over a year, RTD and the team were concerned that the setting was too similar to "The Unicorn and the Wasp" and that the concept they had given him wasn't strong enough. Shortly before pre-production, RTD challenged himself to try to come up with something better in a few days, and ended up quickly writing "Midnight". In a later interview, MacRae was quite sanguine about this, saying that if his episode had to be replaced, he was glad it was with one of the best. The Specials -Space Opera/Alien Hotel by Gareth Roberts and Russell T Davies One of RTD's earliest ideas for the 2009 Easter special would be have to the TARDIS arrive in the middle of an interstellar war, complete with aliens, spaceships, and dogfights in space. He gave this idea to Gareth Roberts who wrote an outline. RTD has issues with the result, including later scenes set in an outer space hotel where guests were having alien eggs secretly implanted (a gruesome reference to easter eggs) So the story was abandoned in favour of what became "Planet of the Dead" -A Midwinter's Tale by Phil Ford and Russell T Davies A grandmother (possibly to be played by Helen Mirren or Judi Dench) is trapped in a posh hotel with her unruly family at Christmas. Wishing that they'd all just disappear, she storms out, only to find the corridors deserted, her family has disappeared, and as she searches further, so has all of humanity. Finally, she comes upon the TARDIS and the Doctor. Investigating, they discover eight-legged centaur-like creatures abroad in London. It transpires that aliens from another dimension, the Shi'ar, have frozen time on Earth in order to hold a festival celebrating the marriage of their queen. The life of the grandmother's family becomes endangered, culminating in a race through secret tunnels beneath Buckingham Palace. This was a story idea by RTD given to Phil Ford, planned for when there would've been only 3 specials: Easter 2009, Christmas 2009 and the Doctor regenerating at Easter 2010, leaving a few weeks before Series 5. "Midwinter" would be the Christmas special. Eventually it was decided there wasn't enough incident for an hour. "Waters of Mars" was developed instead, which was then moved to November with a new two-part Christmas regeneration. Series 5 -Death to the Doctor by Gareth Roberts This was originally planned for Series 5: Episode 7, the "Amy's Choice" slot. According to Gareth Roberts on Twitter,it was set on a Holiday planet like Las Vegas in middle of huge star war. The planet totally peaceful, with the law rigorously enforced. , There were police robots called Fleetfoots. If anyone committed any crime they had to fight a duel with a giant cyclops, and then the Doctor got arrested on a minor offence... Amy and Rory would have to find a way to get him off world without whole planet going up in war. The story also involved a disgraced Sontaran character called Commander Skorn. This story got as far as CGI being designed for the cyclops. Unfortunately as Series 5 went on, there was a budget crunch and it was realised they couldn't afford their original plans. So Hungry Earth/Cold Blood was rewritten to be cheaper, Neil Gaiman's Episode 11 was moved to Series 6, and Roberts' episode was abandoned altogether. Instead Roberts and Simon Nye were hired to write new, cheaper stories for episodes 7 and 11. However, even though the episode was lost, Moffat reinvented Commander Skorn as Commander Strax for A Good Man Goes to War, delighting Roberts. -Fear Itself by Paul Cornell (from Paul Cornell's Newsletter https://paulcornell.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=198e8a011b70a7fa79dd704d6&id=de506d08cb) This was to be a companion-lite episode. It was a loose adaptation of Cornell's Christmas story "The Hopes and Fears of All the Years" The story involved the Doctor visiting a boy (Tom) every year on his on his birthday, because the Doctor knows he will, on one birthday, save the boy's life. It charted the life story of the boy, then the man, through the Doctor's regular visits on the same day. The story went through at least six drafts with the threat the Doctor was protecting Tom from changing during this process. By the Sixth draft it an alien computer that turned surrounding people into monsters for a few minutes each year. Tom had a green glowing lump on his neck & the computer's directive was to obtain it/destroy it. The story got as far as Cornell being brought in to to talk about casting, with some big names being discussed for grown-up Tom. Eventually it was decided the story was too expensive for Series 5 (Two scenes of birthday visits through the decades would've depicted the two World Wars) and the episode was pushed back to Series 6. However when Series 6 started, Cornell was told they weren't going ahead with his episode after all. Series 7 -Craig of the Gods by Gareth Roberts This was intended for episode 5 of the original Series 7b when Beryl the Victorian nanny was to be the companion. Craig was playing a computer game with real people trapped inside. The Tardis landed in game, Doctor and Beryl looked up through the clouds to see god and it was Craig. The story was seemingly abandoned when Beryl was replaced with Clara as the companion Roberts later observed that similar ideas were used in Series 10's Extremis. -Craig's Wedding by Gareth Roberts This would've featured the return of Craig, Sophie and their son. In one interview, Roberts said "I had this idea where Craig and Sophie were going to get married and were on this beautiful island somewhere near Greece and it was all going fine, then you turned around and saw the Doctor water-skiing away from a Sea Devil. Then you’d have Craig trying to keep him out of the wedding.” However someone who had read the Series 7 outline says that Sea Devils weren't there, instead a different monster was featured. Roberts later described the episode as "Nuts In May on Alzarius" Nuts in May was a Mike Leigh comedy about a slightly dull married couple (Craig and Sophie?) who try to go camping, but keep having their peace interrupted, often by the husband's jealousy. It may have been cancelled due to James Cordern's rising stardom in America. From what we can gather, it seems to have been replaced with "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" Series 8 -Strax on Trial by James Henry Detailed here http://jamesandthebluecat.blogspot.com/2018/01/always-spell-check-your-email-headers.html Briefly, James Henry (writer of Green Wing, Campus and Smack the Pony) was asked to pitch stories for Series 8. Eventually Moffat asked him to develop one his own ideas, where Strax is kidnapped by his fellow Sontarans, taken back to his home planet, and put on trial for helping humans and the Doctor. An outline was written (read the blogpost) and it appears it was in competition with "Mummy on the Orient Express" and "In the Forest of the Night" for the final two slots. For various reasons, those two episodes were chosen instead. Series 9 -Vampire story by Paul Cornell Paul Cornell was asked to come in and submit ideas for Capaldi's first series. One story idea was for the Doctor & Clara to encounter a community of peaceful vampires in London and for the Doctor to get bitten and become one. The story was a sort of inverse 'Human Nature', going with the idea that this was to be a Doctor who couldn't quite be trusted. This story idea was accepted and could've been made for Capaldi's second season (per Cornell's reddit AMA) but it was never developed further than a one page outline. Series 10 -Jamie Mathieson's New Monster In 2015, when Moffat was first talking to writers for Series 10 episodes, he told the Radio Times "[Mathieson] has just been in and pitched a brilliant idea, a brilliant new monster. I just read his first pass at a storyline for that and I’ve no idea where we’ll end up going with that story. But that’s him. Being Jamie, he came in with 20 ideas and this one is just a belter" Early next year, Mathieson told a convention he had received an email from Moffat beginning "I can't stop thinking about your monster" However, in a 2017 DWM, Moffat reported that although they had tried to make Mathieson's monster story, they'd never managed to get the script to work, Moffat thought that it would still make an amazing horror film. Instead he asked Mathieson to develop another different story based around astronauts. -Sleep No More 2 by Mark Gatiss When planning his story for Series 10, Gatiss originally planned to do a semi-sequel to "Sleep No More" He told the Radio Times "I had this idea [that] I'd like to do the double in a kind of Yeti way, to have two stories about the same monster.”  "Although it was still in space, 'Sleep No More' was originally going to be on a trading floor; it was a stocks and shares thing, with these executives who were trying to stay awake in order to be more productive...I thought there was something in that, and actually maybe I could do a modern day one, set in the City, where they’d invented the same process but actually thousands of years earlier, and it had the same effect.” So the story would have been more of a prequel, set in Modern day London, The Genesis of the Sandmen. Gatiss said he abandoned the episode when he realised that this could be his last Who episode, so he asked instead to write the story he'd always wanted to do: Ice Warriors on Mars. -Pride & Prejudice & Daleks by Paul Cornell Paul Cornell was again asked to submit ideas for a later Capaldi series. One idea he developed, involving Daleks in the Land of Fiction was paid for because it was similar to an idea another writer was working on and they wanted to be able to use his ideas (this is standard practice with writers) However the latter story was never made. List of writers that were commissioned, but we still know nothing about their stories Series 3: Matthew Graham (possibly the man who can drain color that he unsuccessfully pitched for Series 2) Series 5: Rob Shearman, Jack Thorne, Amanda Coe Series 7: Tom MacRae, John Fay, Jack Lothian, the mystery original writer of Series 7b Episode 2 Series 10: Russell T Davies (Moffat said at Cambridge that they had a story all worked out, but then he became too busy) At some point during the Steven Moffat era, Charlie Brooker & Jed Mercurio were asked by the showrunner if they wanted to write Doctor Who stories. However Brooker was too busy & Mercurio wasn't interested in 2018 acclaimed writer Sally Abbott said that she worked on a Doctor Who story for several months, but wouldn't say more except it was "a few years ago" Paul Cornell has also said that around 2011/2012 he worked with Caro Skinner on another TV Doctor Who spinoff, which he's going to discuss on his newsletter at a later date. So if you want to read about that in full, I encourage you to subscribe https://paulcornell.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=198e8a011b70a7fa79dd704d6&id=de506d08cb)

to those of you who are on gb, here’s a direct link to the post: 

[bubble-tea-bunny]

ma jolie

[connor x reader]

author’s note: inspired by the painting by picasso. we analyzed it in my art history class last spring and it went from my least favorite work we looked at to my most favorite. hope you enjoy <3

word count: 2,510

A glance at your watch lets you know there are thirty minutes left of your shift. You brush back the strands of hair that had slipped from your ponytail, but they slide back down and rest in the peripherals of your vision as you look down. With a quiet huff that ruffles them slightly, you instead tuck them behind your ears to keep them out of the way. Much better.

You’re sitting cross legged in the middle of the aisle alone, an open box next to you from which you grab a handful of books to position on the bottom shelf. There had been a shipment today of a new novel. It’s science fiction, the cover depicting a make-believe city with towering skyscrapers and a rail system that curled between them all like a snake. You’d scanned the summary on the back and it sounded interesting—something about a beautiful metropolis and the underground society that flourished just beneath it. Maybe you’ll buy a copy sometime.

“I was told I might find you here.”

Halfway through sliding a few copies into place, you hear the newcomer, and you look up to find Connor standing at the end of the aisle, grinning softly. You mirror the expression despite the exhaustion wracking your body (it’s been a long day). There’s just something about seeing him that relaxes you. He’s someone familiar, warm and welcoming, and your body can’t help but react to him. You wonder if he knows your very being has been Pavlov’d to his presence.

“Hey,” you greet quietly. There’s no need to speak any louder because it’s practically silent throughout the bookstore. “What are you doing here?” You notice he’s not in his normal uniform: he’s in jeans and a shirt, and he has a jacket thrown on with a beanie sitting snuggly on his head. He had work just like you did, and you got off at the same time, but it seems he had time to go home. (You struggle to say Connor ever really has an official “clock out time” to his job, since crimes don’t really happen on a conventional 9 to 5. He just goes in when he’s needed, no matter the time of day.)  

Connor starts walking towards you, hands tucked in his coat pockets. “The lieutenant gave me an early day. Got bored waiting at home for you so I thought I’d pick you up. Maybe go to that café you like?”

You stand since you’ve finished putting the books away, and your neck thanks you now that you don’t have to tilt your head back to look up at him. “That sounds good. But I still have half an hour of my shift.”

“I can wait.”

“Great.” You smile one more time before you pick up the empty box and continue on to your next task. As you leave the aisle, you look behind you to see Connor has bent down to glance at the novel you’d just arranged. Before you round the corner, you catch a glimpse of him grabbing a copy.

The last thirty minutes passes by quickly as you help all the customers stopping by the service desk in search of a certain book and even chat with one or two about recommendations or to discuss the new releases. As thirty minutes turns into twenty, and twenty into ten, you’re thinking of your favorite coffee order down at the café and how you can’t wait to get your hands on a fresh cup. You’re somewhat of a regular there, given that it’s on your commute home. Sometimes they give you a brownie for free. Maybe that’d be the case again tonight.

Once it’s time to clock out, you head towards the back room to grab your stuff. You pass through the science fiction section to get there and grin slightly to yourself when you see Connor has found a seat and made himself comfortable, nose buried in the book he’d picked up. His capacity to absorb and process a massive amount of information in a short time means he’s a good way through the story by now—nearly halfway there. You decide you’ll have to ask what he thinks of it.

Evidently Connor had noticed you stepping into the back room, for when you emerge, he’s no longer where you last saw him. Instead he’s by the front door, hands in his jacket pockets again as he shifts from glancing around the interior of the shop to gazing through the windows at the dark skies and bright lights. He turns to you when you approach and smiles, lifting his arm slightly and offering his hand palm-up.

“Ready?” he asks.

You nod and take his hand, and as he pushes the door open to lead you through, you glance behind you to say goodbye to your coworker.

It’s a cold night. They all have been lately. When you exhale, your breath materializes in front of you. You snuggle into Connor’s side as you start your walk through the plaza in the direction of the café, and he slips his hand from yours to wrap his arm around your shoulders and keep you close. The area is teeming with life as it usually is this time of day, but you never once have to change your path to go around anyone or slow down to prevent colliding with someone. You walk a straight line, the crowd parting almost as if they know you’re there and want to make room. You ask Connor how his day was (and ask after Sumo, your favorite dog, for you know he’d gone to Lieutenant Anderson’s residence this morning) and listen closely as he recounts it for you. (He spares you the confidential and gruesome details which honestly doesn’t leave much at all to talk about, but you’re hanging on every word there is left to say.)

You can see the lighted sign of the café coming into view, and almost on cue, your stomach grumbles. It can’t be heard over the hustle and bustle of the environment but you can feel it well enough. A part of you hopes there’s no line when you get there but you know there will be, if the rest of the plaza is this busy. They’re a popular establishment.

This whole time you’d been listening to Connor, but the shouts of a growing crowd have started to steal your attention away. And they’re what finally causes you to slow your steps. Connor’s own slow as well since he’s holding you to him, and he trails off since it’s clear you’re distracted. He glances down at you to find you looking at the protestors, and he sighs as he follows your line of sight. He’s sure you could feel the deep inhale and exhale with the way you’re pressed against him.

They have picket signs lofted high, painted with anti-android sentiments which also leave them in loud yells, cutting and venomous. The pang in your chest is hard to ignore as you watch the spectacle—one of few who do, who have stopped to see what’s going on. A majority carry on as if the protestors aren’t there, and you wish you could just keep walking, but you can’t look away. The longer you stand there, the longer you’re spending trying to wrap your head around why they say the things they do. They shoot glares towards the androids who walk past, and you know they’d lash out physically if there weren’t a few police officers who have taken point nearby in case anything gets out of hand. Those protestors are holding back, and it scares you to know they could (and would) do much, much worse.

Connor can feel how tense you are. Just ignore them he tells you softly, because you’re like a faun in the wild and a soft voice is most effective to coax you along. His words prompt you to look up at him—the look in his eyes isn’t angry, isn’t dejected. They’re indifferent, desensitized. And you purse your lips as your gaze slides to his temple where you know that blinking LED is beneath his beanie, and you want him to be mad because you’re mad—mad for him. He doesn’t react to any of it anymore and you’re frustrated that it’s come to this. Those protestors are nothing new, but you suppose hate is nothing new either.

He can see concern written all over your face. And he thinks to himself that’s just like you. Always so worried for everyone else, feeling so passionately for everyone else. He puts a grin on his face even if it’s not really genuine, and you know as much, but it’s the principle of the thing that counts, he guesses. I’m okay, he says. He does mean it. Their words don’t seep through his skin and crawl through his veins like black widows the way they do to you. It’s all impersonal. But he does hurt for you, because you’re not the one who should feel that way. You radiate empathy to a fault, and he wishes that weren’t the case. You’re not meant for a world like this.

With a quiet sigh, you finally continue walking in the direction of the café, and your eyes are trained on the lights inside like it’s a beacon and the demonstrators the jagged rocks you hope to avoid.

Connor thinks that’s the end of the conversation, for you lightened up when the two of you were at the table in the corner of the café and you were drinking your coffee and eating your brownie. He’d been asking you questions about your own day in an effort to take your mind off what you’d seen outside, but soon he doesn’t have to try. You appear to have moved on. But upon returning home, that turns out to not be the case.

You’re both on the couch watching movies on your laptop when, in the process of scrolling around for the next movie to watch, you speak up: “I just don’t get how they can think all of that.”

The statement requires no context as Connor glances at you. You’re not looking at him, eyes focused on the far wall. He can practically see the cogs spinning in your head, trying to reach a conclusion he knows you won’t reach because your nature has no grasp on the mindset of those protestors. You don’t block it out. It’s just not there.

He shrugs and slowly closes your laptop, then sets it on the coffee table. He knows you won’t be getting back to watching films anytime soon now that the conversation has circled back here. “They don’t understand androids,” he says. “They can’t make sense of them, how they can see this machine that looks so human but isn’t. So they view us as monsters.”

Your heart squeezes at the last sentence because that is the farthest thing you could ever see Connor being. And you wish those people understood, you so desperately do. There’s a rage bubbling in the pit of your stomach which always rears its head whenever this topic comes up, and you sense the corners of your eyes growing hot with tears you won’t let fall because your mind is trying to make sense of it all but it can’t. It just can’t and you’ll never understand them and you don’t think you’ll ever want to. How could you?

You clear your throat, waiting a moment until you think your voice will be steady enough to talk without it trembling. Connor sits there patiently, watching you closely.

“I visited the Cyber Life tower once in college as a field trip for one of my classes,” you start. This is news to Connor. He had no idea you’d ever stepped foot into the tower, even if this was a while ago. You’d never talked about it. “We got to look at the assembly line, see all the bits of machinery that went into making androids. And as I stood there, I wondered how all of that could come together to make something so complex. Something that looked and acted and felt so human. So much like me.”

There’s another brief bout of silence as you try to put the rest of the words together, and it’s Connor’s turn to hang off every single one like you’re giving the secret to salvation, and it’s hidden somewhere between the lines and so he better listen closely, because his life quiet literally depends on it. The LED is yellow as he takes in what you’ve said, and your eyes settle on it as you continue.

“Seeing all those parts individually made me… more appreciative. It’s different from viewing it as a whole. You have to look closer to truly understand, I think… It’s why I could never see you as a monster.” Slowly you lift your hand to brush back the strands of hair hanging over his forehead, and Connor’s eyes slide closed almost instinctively at the gentle touch, only to slide open as you then set your hand on the side of his face, and he’s falling into the infinite depths of your own eyes as you watch him. Your finger passes over the still yellow LED so lightly he might very well have imagined the sensation if he weren’t looking at you. You sigh quietly. “It’s why I love you as much as I do.”

It comes out so matter-of-factly, and Connor can sense the heaviness settling in your chest because sure the standard I love you’s and other such confessions of love for one another have been shared in the past, but this is something new entirely. You’re in love with him and you have been in love with him. You loved him before Cyber Life had even assembled him for the first time and dubbed him the RK800. Before they named him Connor. Because you fell in love with the machinery that makes him who he is, and you were floating along with all of that affection filling your heart until he came along, a culmination of all those bits and pieces that would take all you had to offer.

You gingerly stroke his cheek with your thumb, and you’re studying the back and forth motion until he sets his hand over yours, stopping your movement. Your eyes slide over to meet his. He doesn’t say anything, and the two of you sit there in a comfortable silence. You’re calming yourself down from the previous frustration you’d felt earlier in the plaza, and Connor is pondering over what you’ve just said. He swears he feels his chest tighten as he takes in the depth of it, of your feelings for him, and maybe it’s some wiring working hard as he processes things, or maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s more than that.

There aren’t many people out there who think like you do, but maybe one day, there would be.

[antikristvs]

Inktober Writing Challenge

(I have been really struggling with the challenge lately. This piece was especially hard given I accidently lost the whole work, thus had to re-write the entire story. I have little time to catch up, but I'm trying. Hope it fucking scares you)

Day 22: A Creepypasta

The Story

I debated bringing this story to light for weeks. It haunts me as clear and vividly gruesome as if the nightmare had unfolded a mere hour ago. I spent day after day wallowing in vodka, however no amount of alcohol rescued me from the bottomless gulf of heartbreak and guilt, or dimmed the abysmal horror lingering like poisonous thorns goring my ailed heart. It seems I have no choice… I shall succumb to insanity looming over me and pull the trigger if it  remains silently locked under my ribs, and my dear friend will have perished in vain. And her kid… He sincerely wanted to help. All this madness, death and agony he roused for me. I must unveil what happened, perhaps then I can breathe once again. I am to keep personal details as vague as possible, for if authorities find out my relation to the tragedy, I may land in more trouble than I can handle.

It began a few months ago. I was a horror author in the spring of career. My first novel, Miasma, had been published the previous year, I found myself in a storm of praises from readers and critics alike. Everyone was starving for my second book rumored to come out the following Halloween. Nobody could possibly know the truth… How hollow I had become, a mummified shell of the creator I once was. I drowned myself in spirits and melted my brain with cocaine to make existence bearable, distancing from friends and loyal admirers. Except one. For the story’s sake, I am going to name her Nellie. We… were morning against midnight, summer against dead of winter. Nellie was a single and eight months pregnant bachelor in family studies with a dream to one day run her own daycare. She had not as much as glanced at my book, far too squeamish for things I depicted, but cherished every part of me. I scorned Nellie for it. Who could adore the cynical addict I was behind a charming mask of blossoming talent… In my mind, no one. Nobody sane at least. I will divulge my soul and sincerely admit Nellie would have been the first person I shunned if not the stubbornness so aberrant to her naive and gentle self. She would not let me decay in peace, ringing the doorbell every fucking day with a flowery paper bag of home-cooked food and a rented DVD. Sometimes, she would even have me tag along to a tiny local coffee shop around the corner, where somehow, I smiled to the green-haired barista and signed a couple of autographs people asked me for. Nellie was the sole reason why I chose not to end it all. And I’m certain she knew. She was mellow, yet not a fool neither blind.  I loathed her, but found it impossible not to love her. She knew I could not bring myself to let her find my lifeless cadaver with skull blown off and brains all over the wall.

Upon stirring awake and noticing it was six in the evening, I caught myself both dismissively relieved and slightly concerned. Nellie always showed up around three in the afternoon to drag me out of bed and scold me for downing five cans of Red Bull to stay restless till ungodly hours of dawn again. Swallowing the worry and assuming she got caught up in university work, I stalked to the kitchen, only to freeze in sheer astonishment oozing with faint and abstract sense of primeval terror. Among the clutter on the table, sat an object which definitely had not been here before - a neatly folded piece of paper. Frowning, I snatched the mysterious item and frantically stared at the elegant note within. Gravely wind gushed through the balcony door I had not realized was open, and my skin grew pale as bone.

“End of the road behind the city park. I shall be waiting upon your wake”

Before spiralling into perpetual gloom, I used to be an avid urbex explorer. I’d gladly risk getting injured or arrested to sate my fascination for the cryptic and the macabre. Even Miasma, my novel, was inspired by an abandoned hospital a few streets away. Thus I certainly was aware about a deserted road behind the city park despite never having stepped a foot on it due to work and later misery devouring all my time. It was enlaced with legends and eerie stories told in slumber parties, university students organized ghost tours there for Halloween, high schoolers filmed themselves sniffing around to impress their crushes. Older folks feared the road like ants fear fire, claiming a curse plagued it, and monstrous specters roamed it on moonless nights. Nobody had dared to complete the route in last two decades, or lived to tell the tale, but an abandoned church was said to still stand at the end quite firm, held together by forces of ancient evil which infested it.

Though I doubt there is any need to mention urbex was no passion of Nellie’s.

I tossed the crumpled note away, grabbing my coat and bursting through the door, not bothering to brush my hair or change the jeans and shirt I had been wearing for last five days. All I hoped was that the hood will obscure my face enough for me not to be recognized.

The city park laid an hour away from my home on foot, and took an hour more to cross it. Without a physical possibility for the police to monitor the entirety of such a large area, the place could get extremely dangerous at night, lunatics, rogue criminals and homeless heroin junkies lurking in the bushes. Yet I could not care less about peril. Dread of something unnamed and far, far more cruel than a knife or a gun awaiting at the end of my destination pulsing like sick, festering aura around me likely  pushed any attacker to turn around anyway. My muscles were burning, sharp twigs whipping my face as I took every possible shortcut. The air was thick and heavy like butter, it felt as if my lungs had been flooded with slowly stagnating slime, robbing me of oxygen and making my head foggy, sight growing dark. I bit my lip harshly, rough, warm taste of iron dripping on my tongue, and pushed forward, struggling not to collapse.

I wish a gasp of ardor had erupted from my throat when indeed, outline of a small, crumbling church of gray stone emerged from the dark. I wish I had gingerly leaped forward, clutching my camera and already spinning a chilling tale in my head. Not limped towards impending doom growing clearer and clearer in front of me, ankle sprained in the rush refusing to obey my sizzling nerves.

What I found inside the forsaken sanctum surged me with such sepulchral, abysmal sensation I fail to flesh out earthly words to recount it. The horror… Oh, the spine-crushing horror. Nellie was here. She gazed straight at me, starry blue of her gaze now glassy, final visage of sheer fright and despair chained in the milky prison until maggots gnaw it away, mouth agape in a wordless greeting muffled by raw red muscle stuffed withing. She laid so heinously beautiful on the split, mouldy altar, broken arms motionless by her side, bare intestines slumped over the edge, blood and yellowish, reeking stomach fluids still trickling and spreading around as if a morbid halo. Her chest… Torn open, flesh and fragments of fractured bone scattered around, a dusty golden Chalice set in the middle. I stumbled backwards, screeching soundlessly. On top of it… placed a severed head of an in infant, so tiny, but almost fully developed, ruthlessly gouged out of a lifeless womb.

What… What in the name of all Saints and Sinners… Was this all a nightmare?.. A hallucination?.. Let it be, please, let it be!..

“Do you like it?” a voice rumbled from my left, guttural, yet serpentine,  shaking every fiber in my body with shock so intense I broke out of paralysis, jumping and turning around to face four blazing amber orbs in the shadows.

The figure rose seven feet above ground, without counting the enormous crooked horns sat upon his head that is. Black as obsidian, his skin merged flawlessly with the murk, or was he cloaked I could not tell.

“I beg you, fear not… I did this all for you” he continued without waiting for a response of mine “For your story. A child once lost a scripture of yours on the road that I wandered. I gave into curiosity, and the way you weave words of terror has bewitched me. I have watched over you ever since… I saw how uneasy your slumber was, I witnessed the pain drained ambrosia has brought you. Please…” he gestured towards the desecration “drink inspiration for your new story”.

[whatwillyoudodifferently]

Cold Sweats Were Made To Be Broken - How Emily Carroll Creates Effective Horror By Bending The Rules

I believe that, with enough time and resources, someone with a good eye for horror would be able to create a good horror story with just about any medium. With prose, you have the advantage of vivid description and getting to intimately know the character’s inner thoughts and fears, like in the works of Stephen King. With film, you get the advantage of visuals and audio along with the dread that comes with being a helpless audience member, such as the in the works of John Carpenter. And while the poor video game is often given a bad rep among other, older art forms, video games actually are one of the most ideal ways to experience horror stories, since the audience must become an active participant in the story to move it forward, not even allowed the escape of being a passive viewer.

It’s actually for very similar reasons that I find comics to be one of the ideal mediums for the horror genre. You get some of the benefits of prose, some of the visuals of movies, and even a bit of the forced participation of video games, in the fact that readers must choose to advance to each next page- a happy medium, if you will. There’s also one of my favorite features of sequential art as a whole- the fact that the artist has a tight amount of control over the pacing of the story. You can enhance the drop a world-shaking reveal on the reader by devoting a splash page to it, or pull out a scene with agonizing slowness with multiple, decompressed panels- storytelling devices that become lethal weapons in the hands of a good horror writer.

Keeping this in mind, it’s no surprise that horror comics have always been a huge part of comic history. In modern times, American comics are almost always associated with superhero stories, but there’s actually a rich history of horror comics- the rise of gruesome true crime stories and horror anthologies like Tales from the Crypt are why we have the infamous Comics Code, after all. Today we have titles like 30 Days of Night and The Walking Dead (though their more cinematic adaptations are typically more well-known). The huge world of European comics have given birth to a huge number of horror titles, like Italy’s Dylan Dog or Britain’s semi-tongue-in-cheek Scream! And of course, Japan has been the birthplace of great horror comics from the days of Mizuki Shigeru to the advent of modern horror with figures like Junji Ito and Masaaki Nakayama.

But of course, those figures and titles only exist in the world of print comics. In the age of the Internet, it would be remiss to ignore the staggeringly massive world of webcomics in any discussion of comics, let alone horror comics. This is due to any one of the many, many, many webcomics that exist online, but for this essay, I want to focus on an artist who doesn’t just happen to focus on horror comics while publishing them on the internet, but uses and utilizes both the medium of sequential art and the Internet to bring out the best in her comics.

Originally an animation student, Emily Carroll had only just begun to venture into the field of comics when she went hurdling to the attention of the webcomic community in 2010. His Face All Red was only her third comic, and its runaway success (helped by the recommendation of another name in horror comics, Neil Gaiman) was something she admits to be caught off-guard by. But she clearly has seemed to have taken it in stride, considering that her website now hosts almost 20 webcomics, many of them some sort of horror story. She’s also done print comics, including the original anthology Through the Woods and the upcoming graphic novel adaption of Laurie Halse Anderson’s powerful YA story Speak. As grandiose as it may be to say this, I believe Carroll’s style and approach to storytelling was made for the medium of comics, and I believe she deserves a spot up there along with Gaiman and Ito when it comes to naming masters of the horror comic.

But how does she do horror comics so well? It’s not just good writing, or good art, though she’s certainly talented on both those fronts. After spending an amount of time looking through her comics, I think I’ve come up with a solid answer, an answer that can be used to teach anyone interested in comics and in storytelling in general.

Emily Carroll is a master of breaking rules.

When I say rules, I don’t mean that there’s actual rules some God Of Comics has written down somewhere. Rather, the “rule-breaking” Carroll does refers to how she subverts expectations and goes against the conventions of storytelling that have become familiar over time. In doing this, Carroll’s comics have an air of unpredictability to them, and the reader must not only advance through the comic at their own pace, they must do it with the knowledge that the comic will surprise them in some way. In short, when a story breaks “the rules,” it creates the illusion of the audience’s safety being lost.

But how does Carroll break the rules? This is a bit of a nebulous thing to analyze- I mean, I don’t even think “breaking rules” is something Carroll consciously sets out to do. But over time, I’ve noticed recurring themes and storytelling methods in Carroll’s comics, and I think it’s worth analyzing them to gain a better understanding of sequential art and how sequential art can continue to evolve. 

Breaking “The Rules” of Each Comic

One thing I like about Carroll’s webcomics is that, since they’re all self-contained short stories, they each have their own unique visual “language.” This can apply to comic’s palette (like how The Hole The Fox Did Make is all grayscale), the format of panels (like how When The Darkness Presses is told through several 4-panel pages), or even the format of the writing (like how The Prince & The Sea is told as a poem). This gives all of Carroll’s comics a sense of cohesion, similar how to repetition is used in visual design to create a sense of rhythm and reason.

But, of course, what’s even more important than the “rules” Carroll establishes for each individual comic, is when Carroll chooses to break these rules.

The Hole The Fox Did Make is all grayscale- so when the colorless 4-panel strips are replaced with a mass of panels mostly rendered in an angry red, it comes as a shock. When The Darkness Presses is told through several 4 panel pages- so the reader knows that the long vertical segments that accompany each scene about the door are meant to be considered different than other scenes. And once the reader sees what is behind the door…

Suddenly changing the established visual language of a comic is easy shorthand to let the reader know that the scene is important in some way, but in a horror comic, it can also be a subtle way to catch the reader off-guard. Rebecca’s ghost story in All Along The Wall is told in a simple style and over-saturated colors to distinguish it from the “real” scenes, but the contrast in the story’s bright, colorful palette to the sketchy grayscale of the rest of the comic almost makes it feel more menacing in contrast. The fact that it’s explicitly a ghost story rendered in these almost cheerful hues make it even more uneasy- and ends up saying a lot about the kind of person Rebecca is. In short, it’s good, creative storytelling that also serves to scare.

These breaks in the established format work best when combined with one another. The Prince & The Sea takes part mostly on land- specifically, in single-panel illustrations that show only the meeting place of the prince and the mermaid- with a colorful palette that’s equal parts earthy and warm. When the story shifts under the sea, the palette shifts to eerie, cool colors that reflect both the dark atmosphere and the horrifying turn of the plot. But in addition to this, the story finally breaks the single-illustration format, going vertical to simulate the feeling of diving, and adding in “floaty” panels surrounded by black, giving a true feeling of being underwater. Carroll uses not only tone and format shifts but shifts in space- which, incidentally, brings us to one of the most notable and important features of Carroll’s work.

Breaking “The Rules” of Comics As A Whole 

In 2000, the comic book artist Scott McCloud published the book Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form, in which he made several predictions about the necessary changes that would need to occur in the field of comics in order for the medium to survive, with a major focus on the Internet and webcomics. One interesting idea McCloud proposed was the concept of “the infinite canvas,” the idea that a comic could have limitless storytelling potential thanks to the almost limitless size and space offered by a webpage.

In the year of 2000, the art of the webcomic was in its infancy, consisting mainly of typical comic strips like you’d see in newspapers, leading to a lot of skeptical response to these ideas-- but as it turns out, McCloud was basically completely correct. We’ve seen this from the long vertical formats typical of many Korean webtoons like The Sensual M and Chinese manhua like Tamen de Gushi to the textlogs, flash games, and fully animated segments of the ambitious multimedia-mishmash Homestuck.

Of these examples, however, I think Carroll’s techniques are closest to what McCloud had in mind when he proposed the infinite canvas. His Face All Red famously had the wonderful, wordless sequence of the protagonist descending deep into a hole, depicted by the downward scroll of the reader. When The Darkness Presses switched deftly between standard “real world” pages, long vertical dream sequences, and the dramatic horizontal reveal of what lay behind the door.

To this day, I think Carroll’s most impressive use of the infinite canvas is still Margot’s Room. Initially presented as a month-long event during October 2011, Margot’s Room starts with a grim poem over a grim image, with every important word in the poem relating to a part of the picture, which the reader would click to go to a new part of the story. Each week, a new line of the poem would be revealed alongside a new link, with the last part being released, of course, on Halloween. This creative use of hyperlinks is interesting enough, but the final, shocking scene is almost breathtaking- the events are violent, chaotic, and wild, heightened only by the wide spread of panels over a massive, empty blackness, linked only by words and furious splashes of blood. It’s something that couldn’t really exist in print comics (unless on a much smaller scale) and seeing how effective it is here, it almost make one wonder why it’s not more widespread among webcomic artists.

Without the limits of the printed page, Carroll has a better opportunity to break the typical conventions of sequential art. But she actually goes beyond that, using the medium of the Internet in even more creative ways than McCloud imagined. Besides her use of hyperlinks in Margot’s Room, links are also used to tell the non-linear “story” of Grave of The Lizard Queen, or show two sides to a tragic tale in The Three Snake Leaves. Carroll even employs animation in her work, to an extent. An animated GIF in Out Of Skin conveys the horror of seeing something terrible just out of the corner of your eye, and a certain “trick” panel in All Along The Wall may make you jump out of your skin if you don’t know what exactly it’s going to do. And that’s how it’s brilliant- comic panels aren’t supposed to change, after all. Carroll knows that, and knows just how to use the reader’s unconscious knowledge of the rule of well of course comic panels are always static against them. You don’t think twice about it... until the rule is broken.

Breaking “The Rules” of Storytelling

One of my favorite examples of Carroll’s unique take on the infinite canvas is in When The Darkness Presses. Despite being a short comic released all in one go, it’s presented as a recently completed longform webcomic, complete with animated ad banners. I don’t want to spoil what becomes of these ads later, but it’s very interesting to point out that one of them is for “Alo-Glo,” the skin product that features heavily in Some Other Animal’s Meat. This is especially interesting once you realize that Some Other Animal’s Meat is technically a sequel to When The Darkness Presses.

I say “technically,” because it’s actually entirely possible to read both comics and not know this, the way I first did. They’re two different self-contained stories that just happen to involve two characters at two points at their life.

There’s no real meaning to it- and in a way, this is perhaps Carroll’s favorite rule to break: the all-encompassing question of what does it all mean?

Ever since His Face All Red, Carroll has faced this question, or at least variants of it. How did the man’s brother come back? What was that thing in the hole? In a 2014 interview with Hazlitt, Carroll admits to feeling self-doubt when readers began clamoring for concrete answers:

“People were saying, ‘What’s the meaning of this? What’s the meaning of this?’ and … I felt very much like, I need to justify this somehow, otherwise they will see that I am a faker that has faked my way into some kind of Internet buzz, so there has to be a one-to-one meaning for everything.”

Thankfully, Carroll has been able to move past this initial doubt- I believe, very much for the better. Leaving unanswered questions is almost a trademark of Carroll’s now- from the tree in Out of Skin to the “mystery man” in The Groom to the door in When The Darkness Presses. The thing that plagues the main character of Some Other Animal’s Meat. The voice that calls Regan to the river in The Hole The Fox Did Make. The list goes on.

And it’s not just monsters. From early on in my love of Carroll’s works, I began to notice connecting threads through many of her comics. What did it mean that His Face All Red draws attention to “a tree with leaves that looked like ladies’ hands” (similar to the tree in Out Of Skin) and “a stream that sounded like dogs growling” (a sentence almost identical to how the stream in Margot’s Room is described)? What did it mean that The Hole The Fox Did Make and The Groom featured Regan, or that All Along The Wall is technically a prequel to a comic from Through The Woods? What did it mean that events of When The Darkness Presses are brought up by the main characters years later in Some Other Animal’s Meat?

The answer, of course, is that there is no answer- other than the answers and ideas that begin to form in our heads when we’re presented with an unsolved mystery. Ever since early humans looked up at the stars and put together shapes in the gaps, the nature instinct of human beings drives us to pick patterns out of randomness. Our brains try to find meanings or answers where there is none, whether we want to or not, or even if we are aware of our minds doing so or not. And of course, this almost whimsical trait of ours is also one of our most massive burdens- the horror of imagination. The infinite possibility of the conclusions each person reaches on their own will always be far, far more frightening than any single answer a writer can give.

In a way, Carroll’s most mundane “broken rule” may be her most powerful tool. In the age of endless theories and fiction analysis, in the light of humanity’s eternal, inescapable desire for the solutions for every puzzle, Carroll’s works are unanswerable. And because of this, I think the unexplained monsters of Carroll’s works are some of the scariest in fiction.

Funnily enough, despite basing this essay around the concept of breaking rules, I stated early on that I don’t think Carroll herself sees her approaches to sequential art like that. While researching for this essay, I came across an interview by The Comics Journal with Carroll from 2011, not too far after the runaway success of His Face All Red. It’s a great interview, but what probably stuck with me most is Carroll’s description of how she approaches comics:

“It stems more from just what I think will be most fun, really. And since—when I started doing comics—I’d never done comics for print, I wasn’t in the mindset of doing pages anyway, which maybe led to me not really adhering to that standard when I started in on my own attempts. I like the idea of scrolling just because it’s fun to play around with revealing images that way, but you can play around with the same thing using page turns too really.”

I wanted this essay to be a tribute to one of my favorite artists, but I also initially intended it to be a way to encourage artists to shake up typical comic conventions and try to create unique art. Upon reading this quote, however, I realized that I had one more thing to learn from Carroll, one thing I want artists to know as well. Carroll has carved out her own, unique approach to sequential art, and in the process has happened to buck several storytelling conventions. You too can learn from this and know that you have the freedom to break these same rules- but perhaps the most important thing to take away from this is that Carroll does this because she has fun doing this. Carroll’s comics work not just because they break the rules, but also because she enjoys creating them.

Your own unique style should be what is most enjoyable for you. Creating new and unique artwork is all well and good, but what will make or break your art are the feelings you have while creating it.

And if you have fun in breaking rules, then more power to you.

All of Emily Carroll’s online works can be found on her personal site (general NSFW warning for nudity and disturbing content). You can buy Carroll’s anthology Through The Woods here.

[acsversace-news]

[Caution: Spoilers about Episode 4 of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story ahead!]

FX's The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is now, and for the foreseeable future, the story of how Andrew Cunanan became one of the FBI's most wanted during his 1997 murder spree. That story becomes especially disturbing in Episode 4, "House by the Lake," which includes the gruesome depiction of Jeff Trail's (Finn Wittrock) murder, filmed more or less exactly as it happened according to the source material Vulgar Favors.

More will be explained later in the series, but Jeff, a clean-cut Naval alum who was closeted for most of his life, befriended Andrew (played by (Darren Criss) in San Francisco. Over time, he got fed up with Andrew's constant lies and manipulation and tried to cut him off. Andrew and Jeff were also friends with David Madson, a man Andrew dated briefly who eventually tried to cut him off for the same reasons. Jeff was the first person Andrew killed. It was his most barbaric attack too, ambushing him in David's apartment as depicted. But the terror didn't stop there. For several days after killing their friend Jeff, Andrew took David Madson (Cody Fern) on the run with him, and David made no known attempt to call authorities or escape.

As Ryan Muphy did with The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, Versace makes decades-old events, the outcomes of which are already public knowledge, feel like they're happening in the exact moment. Darren Criss' intoxicating performance makes Jeff's murder and David's unforced captivity urgent and believable too — so much so that it's almost impossible to watch the scenes play out and not hope, scream or pray that David runs. Of course, no one can know what was said between them in some of the moments portrayed — whether Andrew constrained David with explicit threats or by psychological manipulation will forever remain a mystery. But the tragic truth is that David died at Andrew's hand. From April 27, when Jeff was murdered, until David's body was found May 3, David stayed with the man who later killed him, likely terrified. But why didn't he run? For Fern, the question was central to playing David on screen.

"I think it's such a complex bag of questions," he told TV Guide. "He was Andrew's lover. He'd experienced something traumatic — he was in shock. He was afraid for other people's lives as much as he was afraid for his life."

David and Andrew met in December of 1995, according to Maureen Orth's Vulgar Favors. Their relationship was built on fraud and manipulation from the start: Andrew was living with an older rich man, Norman Blachford, during a good chunk of their relationship, so he didn't let David call him or send mail with a return address. Andrew plied David with gifts though, as he did many people, and indulged his S&M fantasies with David until Andrew's increasingly rough sexual demands became a source of strife between them. They broke up in the spring of 1996, but Andrew kept David's picture taped to his refrigerator door. When his life began to crumble as a result of constant deception and drug use, Andrew became fixated on the idea that David was his only love. As it happens, Andrew wasn't David's only unstable lover, either: a previous ex had become a stalker, calling David as much as 120 times a day and eventually being jailed for violating a court order to stay away. In any case, Madson was a "peacemaker," Orth wrote, a man who loathed violence and avoided confrontation. He frequently talked his way out of things.

Vulgar Favors' intensely researched study of Andrew and David gives it license to theorize why David didn't try to flee. Andrew knew David avoided confrontation and was squeamish around violence. Orth even speculates that the handcuffs and leg restraints Andrew enjoyed could've been used to hold David captive. More than likely though, Andrew simply kept David paralyzed with fear. Experts in the book said that Andrew could've easily convinced David that he'd be a suspect if he went to police, which is exactly how Versace depicted depicted their relationship. A law enforcement official said that the brute force shown in the murder would've easily convinced David that Andrew had power over him, instilling a fear that's common in violent abusive relationships. The intense fear of retribution — even after a break — makes the Stockholm syndrome theory in David's case not at all surprising. Other issues were at play too.

"He was also a man dealing with an intense amount of shame in the 90s," said Fern. Though David's father told Orth he never treated his son any differently after David came out to him, his religious beliefs mandated that David's sexual orientation was a sin he disapproved of. Though David wasn't religious in the traditional sense, he absorbed his dad's values. After the initial shock wore off, "[David] is asking himself, 'Is his man redeemable?'" Fern said. "He's asking himself, 'How am I complicit in this? I let my friend in — I brought him into the apartment. This my fault.'"

When he was found, David had been shot three times. Orth quotes a sergeant as saying David probably got taken by surprise: he had defense wounds on his hands and his body had apparently been dragged about 20 feet from where his killing took place. It's possible David was methodically plotting an escape — perhaps sweet-talking Andrew while psyching himself up to make a bold move. That thinking, Fern said, informs the scene with Andrew where David calls himself a coward and then attempts to commandeer the Jeep's steering wheel in a moment of desperate bravery. "The important thing to remember is that this is a man going through something more intense than anyone could ever imagine," Fern said.

It'll remain a tragic unanswered question, rooted in both men's deeply embedded shame and guilt over their sexual orientation, and fears how people would perceive them no matter what they did. "That was the whole journey of the character," Fern said. "The whole character arc is about that question. Why didn't [David] run?"

[iriyana]

unseen

The films I watched were Balahibong Pusa and Scorpio Nights. Balahibong Pusa follows the story of Sarah as she deals with her mother’s remarriage to a man named Michael who she doesn’t want to trust, while Scorpio Nights follows the story of a peeping tom who has an affair with the wife of the security guard who lives right below him. 

Both films follow a similar theme, that of being more focused on sexploitation with the plot revolving around the use and delivery of these scenes. The films were indeed straightforward in delivering their respective plotlines, despite how repulsive the story progressed to be, I wouldn’t say that the films were unrealistic as I’m pretty sure similar events have happened somewhere in the world at some time, or even more disturbing things, but the blatancy of how it is presented or how suddenly it develops does catch the viewer off guard and can really disturb you. 

In Balahibong Pusa, the main character is Sarah, and we see her trying to deal with her discomfort with her mother’s boyfriend. Sarah becomes the victim when Michael starts controlling her surroundings through threats and blackmailing, be it to her or her boyfriend. We can also see the focus on the oversexualization of any of the female characters. There's an extensive amount of time and attention given to show off and highlight what would be considered an “ideal” or attractive to others, or in the movie, specifically men. Majority of this is seen in the fantasies or the depicted point of view of Michael or the other male characters in the movie.

In Scorpio Nights, we see the wife willingly go along with Danny’s actions. Just like in Balahibong Pusa, an extensive amount of time is dedicated to the scenes with intercourse or to display the wife’s eagerness or wanting to tempt Danny, such as when he was peeping from above and when he visited the wife with another girl. In contrast to Balahibong Pusa, the scenes that put emphasis on the oversexualization are brought about by the wife herself, and not simply through a fantasy. 

The overlying similarity that both films presented is the depiction of women, be it in society, and in comparison to the opposite gender. The female characters within the film held little significance if not for the purpose of sexualizing. The plots themselves also revolve heavily around this. In Balahibong Pusa, we can see Sarah standing her ground and being depicted as quite strong willed, but in the scenes in Michael’s fantasies and where he threatens her himself, she ends up being silenced and having to recede to what he wants. While in Scorpio Nights, the wife herself doesn’t react in any way to Danny’s intrusion and even calls for him herself, be it through trying to interrupt his daily life or through the crack in his floor. The wife had little role or character and lines besides to seduce Danny and pleasure him, herself and her husband.

Given the time settings of the films, this could have also had significant effect on the role of the women, being more on the side of for pleasure, “trophy wives”, and being silenced, but as mentioned previously, there was a lot of emphasis on it through the extensive runtime of clips dedicated to show off their “femininity” or their “sexuality”. The emphasis on this can also be seen through the casting, most especially in Balahibong Pusa, where characters like Sarah and Becky boast features that aren’t as suitable for their age at the time. 

Although the concept of women as just objects for pleasure or marriage for appearances sake is an old-fashioned way of thinking, it's still something that can be seen in society today but probably not as blatantly as it was displayed in the films. We can also see how women are presumed to have a lesser position compared to men, be it in family or society, how women are often told to just follow, are not believed or listened to, or as in Scorpio Nights, the wife actually barely spoke. 

Both films explored the themes of sexploitation, and used fairly disturbing plotlines, be it in morals or visuals. As I mentioned earlier, such plots are not absolutely non-existent in society or history, but they are still happenings that will be and should be looked down upon by society and heavily disliked in general, due to the blatant grossness of it, and lack of morals, among other things. Such themes, by going “off the rail”, and showing something that wouldn’t normally be opted for in “everyday” cinema, you in contrast pique people’s interest. 

Wrongdoings shouldn’t be justified in fiction, but to create interesting storylines that an audience would want to watch, they are naturally used, and in some cases, even the unimaginable and gruesome plotlines are put into work too. But it could be because of their taboo-ness, and how uncommon they are in society that makes people naturally curious or finding themselves more interested in films of such genres. This can be the way of thinking for how exploitation films work and earn, by the use of such content that you wouldn’t normally see, they stand out. Even if a person reads a synopsis and can think something is disgusting or immoral, there’s still inevitable curiosity. 

Despite this, with the heavy focus on making such themes fit, the plot itself is written around the scenes they want to use rather than choosing the scenes for the sake of the plot. Although this gives very “memorable” scenes that you will probably never forget, and in some cases may even scar you, this makes the story itself lack substance to hold interest besides the curiosity of how it's going to end. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that all exploitation films are bad films, as I’m sure there are a lot out there that carry more substance and have been or are successful. 

As someone who gets nauseous easily and doesn’t fare well with very graphic scenes, I’m not very fond of this genre of film unless I’m assured it’s not extremely explicit, but I do understand exactly why people find these films interesting and also why these films continue to be made. I feel the main motivating factor behind the making of them and the viewing of them to be simply human curiosity for things that are definitely not part of our “normal”.

[cicadagarage2]

<h1 style="clear:both" id="content-section-0">Getting The Capone Movie Accuracy: Fact Vs. Fiction In The Tom Hardy Biopic. To Work</h1>

Table of ContentsAl Capone - Movies, Quotes & Son - Biography Things To Know Before You BuyThe 'Capone' Review: A Gangster's Last Gasps - Wsj PDFsSome Known Details About Al Capone (1959) - Imdb Tom Hardy Is Al Capone: First Look At 'Fonzo' Gangster ... Can Be Fun For AnyoneThe Ultimate Guide To Al Capone: 9 Actors Who Played The Original Scarface - Den ...The Only Guide for Capone Movie Review & Film Summary (2020) - Roger Ebert

Watching Movies For Free Here -> Capone 2020

He assembled a group of bold young men and made substantial usage of wiretapping innovation - al capone documentary movie. While there was doubt that Capone could be effectively prosecuted for Prohibition infractions in Chicago, the federal government was specific it could get Capone on tax evasion. In Might 1929, Capone went to a "gangster" conference in Atlantic City.

Capone (1975) - IMDb

When leaving the cinema, he was apprehended and locked up for carrying a concealed weapon. Capone was quickly put behind bars in the Eastern Penitentiary, where he remained until March 16, 1930. He was later launched from prison for good behavior however was placed on America's "The majority of Wanted" list, which openly humiliated a mobster who so desperately wanted to be considered as a deserving male of individuals. Agent Ness, angered by Capone for the murder of a good friend, handled to infuriate Capone by exposing Prohibition infractions to ruin his bootlegging market. Millions of dollars of brewing devices was taken or destroyed, countless gallons of beer and alcohol had actually been discarded and the largest breweries were closed.

The jury returned an indictment against Capone that was concealed till the examination was total for the years 1925 to 1929 - the revenge of al capone full movie. The grand jury later returned an indictment versus Capone with 22 counts of tax evasion totaling over $200,000. Capone and 68 members of his gang were charged with 5,000 different violations of the Volstead Act.

All about Netflix Film Is Grotesque, Inglorious Look At Capone's Last Year ...

Fearing that witnesses would be tampered with, and having doubts that the six-year statute of restrictions would be upheld by the Supreme Court, an offer was covertly struck between Capone's legal representatives and government district attorneys. Capone was to plead guilty to a lighter charge and would get a sentence of between 2 and five years.

The overconfident Capone, who thought he would get less than five years in jail, became less arrogant when he recognized that his plea bargain was now null and space. On October 6, 1931, 14 detectives escorted Capone to the Federal Court Building. He was dressed in a conservative blue serge suit and was without his usual pinkie ring and gaudy jewelry.

When Judge Wilkinson went into the courtroom, he suddenly required that the jury be exchanged with another in the exact same structure. Capone and his attorney were shocked. The fresh jury was even sequestered in the evening so that the Capone mob could not get to them. Throughout the trial, Lawyer George E. Q.

Get This Report about 'Capone' Fact Check: Is Tom Hardy's Gangster Movie Accurate?

He stressed the hypocrisy of a man who would spend thousands of dollars on meals and luxuries however provides little to the bad and jobless. al capone movie with kevin costner. How, he asked, might Capone possess a lot property, automobiles and even diamond belt buckles when his defense attorney profess that their customer had no income?After nine hours of conversation, on October 17, 1931, the jury found Capone guilty of several counts of tax evasion.

Bail was rejected. In August 1934, Capone was moved from a prison in Atlanta to the notorious Alcatraz prison in San Francisco. al capone the movie. His days of benefits in prison were gone, and contact with the outdoors world, even through letters and newspapers, was very little. Nevertheless, Capone's sentence was eventually reduced to six and a half years for great behavior.

During his ins 2015 in prison, Capone's declining health was exacerbated by tertiary syphilis, and he ended up being baffled and disoriented. After release, Capone slowly deteriorated at his Palm Island palace. His other half Mae stuck by him up until completion - al capone movie youtube.

al capone movie accuracy :both" id="content-section-3">The Only Guide to Capone Movie Accuracy: Fact Vs. Fiction In The Tom Hardy Biopic.

Here is the tale of Al Capone, a legend told on movie time and again for almost a century and now again, in all its gruesomeness, in "Capone," starring Tom Hardy. But the more interesting tale is the story of writer-director Josh Trank, the wunderkind filmmaker who burst onto the scene in 2012 with his found-footage teen sci-fi motion picture "Chronicle," which became a surprise hit.

But then "Fantastic Four" went down in a blaze of reshoots, rumors and rotten evaluations, Trank gave up "Star Wars" before he might get fired and the young director found himself in the proverbial "director prison." The only factor for this contextual windup prior to getting to the assessment of his brand-new film is to try and comprehend Trank's mind-set when he envisaged and wrote this motion picture.

Tom Hardy as Al Capone Movie ...

Al Capone movie's first-look trailer ...

And so here is "Capone," which is sort of a giant middle finger, or rather a long wet passage of gas, directed towards the facility and the powers that be, wrapped up in a depiction of the last days of the gangster's life, invested in a haze of syphilitic dementia at an estate in Florida.

How 'Capone' Review: The Gangster As Unhygienic Hero - The ... can Save You Time, Stress, and Money.

Hardy doesn't "play" Capone, he sweats, grunts and throws up Capone, while caked in old-age makeup, bloodshot eyes darting, mumbling menacingly in Italian. Hardy, never one to pass up the chance to experiment with a crazy New York accent, takes his work to brand-new heights, or rather lows, with the gravelly Brooklynese he trots out for the role.

As he falls back physically, equipped with diapers and a carrot stogie by an infantilizing medical professional (Kyle MacLachlan), his family tends to his care, while gangsters (Matt Dillon) and FBI agents (Jack Lowden) come sniffing around about the reports that Capone has a fortune buried someplace. They're convinced that his ramblings will reveal a clue or more, but the only information Capone has for them is the abovementioned flatulence, part of a graphic scatological theme that Trank weaves throughout.

As an art piece, home entertainment or cultural ephemera, it is indeed strong, but it is considerable not for what it states about Capone but, rather, what it states about Trank and the continuous saga of his career. 'Capone' Rated: R, for strong/bloody violence, pervasive language and some sexualityRunning time: 1 hour, 43 minutesPlaying: Offered via video on need and virtual movie theater release.

The Buzz on Capone Movie Accuracy: Fact Vs. Fiction In The Tom Hardy Biopic.

Real life gangster Al Capone inspired dozens of representations, some were accurate, numerous were laughable. By May 15, 2020 Photo: HBO/ Vertical Home Entertainment/ Paramount Pictures/ Warner Bros. Mom of mercy, did the motion pictures mark the beginning of RICO? The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was called after the character Rico Bandello in what is mainly considered to be the very first gangster film,.

Robinson's Rico wasn't particularly Al Capone in that movie, the real-life gangster's signature stogie fumes are all over it. Josh Trank replaced the Cuban Corona with a carrot in the current Vertical Home entertainment film, which stars Tom Hardy as the title character in his golden years, suffering from a premature burial.

That speculative biopic likewise portrays Capone as a film connoisseur. He sings in addition to Bert Lahr's matchless "If I Were King of the Forest," from, and educates his gangster friend Johnny (Matt Dillon) as to the importance of screen legend Judy Garland. The real Capone was also a screen legend and a bit of a critic.

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2016, Part IV

No, it’s not mid-February, Jack. Part I. Part II. Part III.

GOOD MOVIES

48. Jackie (Pablo Larrain) Pablo Larrain's aesthetic is rooted in the desire to demystify history. For a lot of the movie, I wasn't sure the week after JFK's assassination was history that needed to be demystified. Was it something that deserved more than Larrain's experimentation? Especially after a scene with John Hurt's priest that seemed superficial, after Portman's whispery impression went a bit too far, I didn't believe this game of dress-up.

But the pieces add up, especially the piece that is Mica Levi's score, which establishes the film's eerie intimacy and is one of the year's best. That priest I mentioned comes back for the best scene of the film, one that cements Jackie's role as a shaper of history herself, and he proves that the film deserved my patience. In the end, this is a movie with a real point of view, and I preferred it to the more expected approach. 47. Midnight Special (Jeff Nichols) Especially at the beginning, the mystery of Jeff Nichols' script works really well. People wrote that the film is indebted to early Spielberg, and I think they mean the sense of wonder. But it really has more to do with the way the information is parceled out in the parallel action. Like, a character will know a police call sign for some reason, and fifteen minutes later, when someone asks him what he used to do back home, he'll pause for a few beats and mutter, "State trooper." That doesn't seem like a big deal on paper, but those buttons at the ends of scenes create a lot of momentum. And while most people just see menace or inscrutability in Michael Shannon's square jaw, Nichols keeps capturing love and sacrifice. I don't know what I wanted from the ending, but its power is inversely related to how pompous the movie is about it. The film kind of lost me in the final third, but there's something to be said for a filmmaker who, instead of joining the franchise machine, just decided to make his own version of X-Men. 46. Don’t Think Twice (Mike Birbiglia) After an invigorating and true-to-life first half, Don't Think Twice suffered from insisting on balancing the ensemble. Every character gets a full arc and equal screen time, even though there are at least two that I didn't care about and two that could have been combined. Plus, a character makes a huge romantic leap that I didn't believe at all. But I don't care about those fairly major faults because the film gets the spirit of what it's depicting right. The improv bits are funny, but they're also believable as unwritten bits. Birbiglia's screenplay masters the subtle mixture of pride, envy, joy, and resentment that comes when a friend succeeds in something you can't. It also nails the weary desperation of artists of a certain age. And, thanks to yet another honest, soulful performance from Gillian Jacobs, the film is able to depict the blurry line between contentment and complacency. 45. Wiener (Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg) Weiner is exactly the movie it claims it is, which is sort of at odds with Anthony Weiner's presentation of himself. In other words, it's a straightforward, honest portrayal of a serpentine, dishonest man. Or maybe dishonest isn't quite the right word--though he does lie all the way to the end, even when it's unnecessary. It's more that Weiner convinces himself of things that are untrue. As far as that notion goes, the film is a compelling character study of the type of person who gets into politics in the first place, the specific chemistry of idealism and cynicism that it takes to believe that one man can and should represent everyone in the biggest city in the country. The filmmakers shape that analysis with a tight tragic hero structure to complement his foibles. That shaping is what gives me a little bit of reservation. From the cutesy titles to music cues to their tendency to not shut up, the directors connect a few too many dots for my taste, all to serve a "can you compartmentalize public lives and personal lives?" question that I'm frankly tired of. But if that's the trade-off for capturing the exact, raw moment of Huma Abedin hearing about Carlos Danger for the first time, then it's fine with me. Sydney Leathers is the definition of thirsty. 44. Born to Be Blue (Robert Budreau) It didn't vault the hurdle of greatness for me, becoming more conventional as it went, but Born to Be Blue's conceit worked well. The "starring in a film about himself" idea plays with reality in a sticky way. Unlike something like Miles Ahead, Born to Be Blue gives us enough of what made Chet Baker great that we can see the hole in his life as he tries to overcome addiction and re-teach himself the trumpet. A lesser actor would have found scenes to overplay, but Ethan Hawke's performance is just like Baker's style, "below the center, almost flat." And I mean that as a compliment. Playing most of the film out from a concentrated low point allows it to crest at a bittersweet moment, maybe not the perfect ending for Baker's life, but the perfect ending for this story. The coda of the film states that Baker continued to work "and" remained a heroin addict. Not "but." Budreau goes out on a limb and allows that some of the artist's greatness arose from heroin. Which proves that this is a film interested in learning about the actual man, not excusing away what made him complex.

43. Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-Ho) Have you ever written a sonnet? You have to understand the form before you start writing, and part of the writing is understanding how powerless you are to the form. It's one of the only mediums of art that squelches originality: A great sonnet is one that exemplifies the form, not necessarily one that transcends it. Zombie movies are kind of similar, and Train to Busan gets the form through-and-through. The rules are clear about how people become infected and what the zombies can and can't do. Then we meet fully-realized characters, some of whom we're rooting for, some of whom we're not sure about, and some of whom definitely have a bite coming. The economy with which the film makes those divisions is breathtaking. "Oh, he let the girl go ahead of him at the bathroom. Cool guy." "He told that colleague to straighten her tie. He needs to die." The effects are SyFy channel quality, and everything runs a bit long. But the film barely ever missteps. The central character's journey to, ahem, humanity is a familiar one, but it's not like I would want the final couplet of a sonnet in lines three and four. 42. Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson) Mel Gibson stays an auteur of suffering. The first third is imbued with a broad, Capra-esque tone that I didn't respond to but that was definitely consistent and intentional. Of course there's a coda with the real-life Desmond Doss, which makes Hacksaw Ridge another casualty to 2016's worst trend. As an action director, however, Gibson delivers the goods with coherent, visceral conflict. Did I write "action" above? Because what I meant was "violence." Like all other Mel Gibson films, Hacksaw Ridge is marked by nearly pornographic violence. He gets the post-Saving Private Ryan irony of war, and he stages Japanese seppuku with almost the same reverence as American sacrifice. After an hour of environments that Doss can grasp or control, the horror and chaos of war hits even harder. (One of the most gruesome moments comes in an extraneous nightmare sequence, the epitome of an uncontrollable scenario.) And after Doss has been hurt himself, after the stigmata on his rope-burned hands, after the ablution with water, after the shot that makes his descent on a stretcher look like an ascent to heaven--only then can he be redeemed. 41. Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier) As tense as it is realistic, Green Room does the hard work of developing the central band's dynamics before allowing all hell to break loose once that band is pushed. There isn't a wasted scene in the first half, and the characters and location seem lived-in and authentic. As the film became more grisly in its second half, it lost a bit of my interest. Part of it is that Saulnier isn't yet a skilled director of action, and part of it is that his script is trying so hard to be subtle that it sometimes sacrifices clarity. I'm of the minority opinion that he botched the ending of Blue Ruin, and I'll be of the minority opinion that he botched the ending here. (Excellent closing metaphorical note with the dog though.) Still, it's rare to see thrillers with such organic escalation of stakes and such committed performances.  40. How to Be Single (Christian Ditter) There's some good old-fashioned joke-telling going on here, and I laughed a lot. The film is light enough on its feet to be freewheeling in one scene and emotionally bare in the next. More notably, it finishes with the message that not everyone's happiness comes from romantic relationships, which is a refreshing note. Like many ensemble films of its type, it occasionally drops a character for way too long and treats that ellipsis as growth. And I would say that I want Rebel Wilson to do something different, but that's just kind of a nice way of saying that I want Rebel Wilson to go away. The rest of the cast, including potential Movie Star Dakota Johnson and undeniable Movie Star Jake Lacy, is aces. 39. Mustang (Deniz Gamze Erguven) At first I thought that the approach was too broad for what the film was trying to explore, but then it got more heartbreaking with each minute. The comparisons to The Virgin Suicides are obvious, (For my money, Coppola's film is a more lush and meditative work of art than Mustang ever is.) but there's a unique desperation at play here. Erguven's camera produces so much empathy that I felt active patriarchal shame when characters were asking to see a sheet stained with a girl's hymen blood on her (arranged) wedding night. That being said, I wish the film had ended two minutes earlier, on a note of tonal false security, rather than a note of narrative false security.

38. Love & Friendship (Whit Stillman) The marriage of Whit Stillman and Jane Austen makes almost too much sense because the pleasures of both of their works are entirely verbal. If you look up "droll" in the dictionary, it's Stillman giving Austen a behind-hug while she takes a selfie. The difference is that Austen uses superficiality as a jab, and it sets the reader up for a piercing moment of emotion. Think Darcy's proposal or (wink wink wink wink wink) Cher realizing that she loves Josh. Stillman never really gets there; he's content with the characters' vapidity, even if that vapidity is hilarious for the entire runtime. Beckinsale has been fighting werewolves for so long that it's easy to forget how enchanting she is. She slips right back into Stillman's rhythms, and the void of compassion that is Lady Susan might as well be an ancestor to Last Days of Disco's Charlotte. However, the real find is Tom Bennett, who plays Sir James Martin, a man labeled in one of Stillman's opening tableaux as "a bit of a rattle." Bennett fidgets on the periphery of each room, throwing in a silly walk, congratulating an author on writing "in both poetry and verse." Martin's motivations are simpler than any other character's, but Bennett does so much with the role. 37. Triple 9 (John Hillcoat) The rest of the movie never climbs back to the level of the gripping opening, but the exhilaration doesn't get that much lower either. Triple 9 is a bit overstuffed for its running time--there are actually two ingenious plots being developed when either one would have been enough. So sometimes you scratch your head about a connection that is most likely on the cutting room floor. But dammit if there aren't some actors punching way under their weight classes. (I'm particularly enjoying this stage of Kate Winslet's career, which I call "Yeah. Why not? I have bills.") A cast like this lifts the screenplay's twists because you end up going, "They're going to kill off X? Well, yeah, I guess it's him or that other famous person." In one of the filmmakers' smartest moves, Triple 9 takes place in Atlanta, avoiding other productions' habit of taking the city's tax credits and having it stand in for some other metropolis. The locations feel gritty and lived-in, and Casey Affleck provides a credible Georgia accent, not just a generic American South. John Hillcoat, a director I've been lukewarm on, isn't slumming it just because this is a genre picture. 36. Little Men (Ira Sachs) The best thing that Ira Sachs's films have going for them is that there are no good or bad guys. Here we have more characters trying to do the right thing and trying their best to get by. (The pet theme of gentrification is back as well.) Greg Kinnear nails two big moments, but the problem is that the kids are the main characters. And, not to be mean to pre-teen actors, the proceedings are kind of limited by their performances. One of the boys in the film might be gay--he's still figuring it out--and the between-the-lines writing of that idea is way better than the execution of it. It's unclear whether Sacks worked out the levels of camaraderie versus attraction versus confusion with the boys, and I think the overall piece suffers for it, though it is a type of character we don't see even halfway articulated enough. 35. Dheepan (Jacques Audiard) We've seen many films about surrogate families or adopted families whose members, against all odds, come together because they need one another. How about a loose, unofficial family that doesn't work? The adults never fall in love. The kid never feels protected or safe. No one is responsible for anyone else. Dheepan isn't as depressing as that might sound, but it is a slice-of-life that is exactly that matter-of-fact. As usual, Audiard excels with detail: He gets the daily challenges of immigration right. "Oh, people alphabetize by last name in this country, not by first name. How was I supposed to know that?" Some, uh, important stuff happens at the end--there's an almost Taxi Driver-like switch that gets flipped for Dheepan--but I needed more dots to be connected before that. I didn't want the characters' devolutions telegraphed, but I would like to trace them after the fact. 34. Blue Jay (Alexandre Lehmann) A modest but haunting production, expertly acted, that resists any temptation to go bigger and more movie-like until...the revelation that does just that. 33. The Wailing (Na Hong-Jin) Let's say you're watching a movie, and something bizarre happens, then the film cuts to a guy bolting upright in bed. It was all a nightmare, right? You've been taught to disregard the previous scene because it didn't actually happen. What The Wailing's style presupposes is...maybe it did, and the guy waking up is just an unrelated new scene? I spent most of the first hour wondering if I was even watching The Wailing correctly, and the destabilizing elements extend to the tone and the characters. In the way it threads the needle between scary and silly, the fluid tone reminded me of Bong Joon-Ho's Mother, to do that condescending thing in which a critic compares two movies from the same country. Do Won Kwak's police officer ends up trying on heroism, but for the first half he's a guy whose daughter has to meet him at the station with dry clothes. Eventually though, the film leaves the idiosyncrasy for the trappings of any other supernatural thriller. Granted, it's an artsy supernatural thriller--the cross-cutting exorcism sequence is a stunner--but the last leg of the film drags and amounts to something disappointingly literal. 32. Maggie’s Plan (Rebecca Miller) The characters of Rebecca Miller's script are all academics and, in quite a shocker, she treats them like the intelligent people they are. There's some farce here and some bad decisions, but they're decisions founded on smart people's accurate self-reflection. Couple that with a three-year flash forward as audacious as it is effective, and this is a nice surprise. Bill Hader's character is ye ol' screenplay's sounding board flatline, and Maya Rudolph is wasted even more. As far as the leads go, Julianne Moore's performance feels too broad, and I started to wonder, for the first time, if Greta Gerwig is a better actress than even the best actress on Earth.

31. Tower (Keith Maitland) There's quite a bit of novelty at work here. Maitland uses animation to recreate events of fifty years ago in a way that I never even really imagined could be done. By interviewing subjects, iPhoneing the (largely unchanged) setting, and rotoscoping over those backgrounds, it's as if the younger version of those people are going through that harrowing day all over again. When the novelty wears off, however, I don't think the film asserts enough. There's the montage of all the other mass shootings at the end, but too much of that connection--this as the day we lost our innocence--is implied. Charles Whitman is never shown, and his name comes up only twice. But by making him a faceless madman, Maitland might be over-simplifying the issue. I feel bad for pointing that out since this is a wholly compelling, admirable film that just didn't cross  over into greatness for me. It pushes the genre forward. 30. Don’t Breathe (Fede Alvarez) After a refreshingly economical setup (being set in Detroit adds automatic desperation), Don't Breathe is Pure Cinema through the night vision-y sequence. Especially if you read Rocky's family member as a daughter, not a sister--as I do--the characters' motivations come through loud and clear, preparing us for a breathless (ha ha) and visually confident second act. I would say that Fede Alvarez shows promise, but that sounds too underhanded for something that actually is a cashing-in accomplishment.The rest is fine. Something happens at the hour mark that was ballsy, then the screenplay kind of backtracked on it. And I'm far from Mr. Identity Politics, but how much more interesting would it have been if the Hispanic kid with cornrows was the calculating one whose dad owned a security company, the girl was the destructive hothead with criminal connections, and the White guy was the young parent with the terrible homelife? As opposed to the way it is, the matching quiz that you totally just aced. 29. The Nice Guys (Shane Black) With its crackly dialogue, west coast cynicism, and convoluted plot, The Nice Guys is a typical Shane Black film at a time when a typical Shane Black film is what we need most. If only it took place during Christmas time. Black sifts in ideas about alcoholism and What It Means to Be a Good Person; bystanders get clipped by stray bullets to remind us that the violence has actual consequences. But still, perhaps because the left turns and reversals are so relentless, the film feels a bit weightless by the end. Is it wrong for me to think this role as some sort of arch greyhound is Ryan Gosling's best performance? Even though I've loved him in the same pictures everyone else loved him in and some of the ones no one loved him in? He has to shoulder acting nightmares, like pretending to be drunk, and entire sequences depend upon his physical comedy. For most of the movie, it's unclear if Holland March is even good at his job, but there Gosling is crafting a character from the very first time we see him, crawling to catch a phone that stops ringing just as he gets there. It's not an easy role--somehow both adrift and paternal--but he attacks it with expressive, exuberant invention. He does everything shy of singing and dancing, and he does that in a film higher up on this list. 28. Sing Street (John Carney) It's nothing we haven't seen before--in fact, John Carney is remaking his own films in pretty clear ways--but Sing Street is a delight. The film is set in 1985, and its pre-Internet inspirations really suit Carney's optimism and the characters' guilelessness. The film is built upon the sort of serendipity and inspiration that is exempt from the anxiety of influence that a bunch of kids starting a band would have today. I could have done without so much of the performance in the school gym (about ten minutes could be shaved off easily), but both the romance and the big brother relationship rang true for me. Sing Street is the perfect version of what Carney has been trying to do all along. Now pick something else please. 27. De Palma (Noah Baumbach, Jake Paltrow) The more demanding part of me wants to say, "No, tell me more about when you tailed your own father as he was having an affair! Tell me more before moving on so breezily." But that would be discounting how candid De Palma actually is in, professionally at least, this insular, warts-and-all retrospective. He's honest about his work experiences, ("Cliff Robertson was terrible to work with.") his own limitations, ("I don't care for car chases. I'm not a car guy.") and the direction of cinema ("So what do you get? Visual cliches.") If nothing else, it feels like a privilege to see some of these indelible images on the big screen when I hadn't before. More importantly perhaps, the film doubles as a portrait of a time when artists were allowed to make mistakes. De Palma's a survivor, but in the high stakes corporate hellscape of global entertainment, that's a privilege. 26. Pervert Park (Frida Barkfors, Lasse Barkfors) Many people who are upset about current events are using movies as palliative care: a silly comedy or a mindless horror film to numb one from the horrors of daily life. I went the other way on the night after the election: a haunting, brutal documentary about the ugly depths of cycles of abuse. Pervert Park is a lean film marked by candid interviews with sex offenders. Those interviews are unpleasant, sometimes because of the selfish, misguided, even evil betrayals that the subjects committed. Sometimes because of the miscarriage of justice lurking on the margins of the piece. But if nothing else, the film teaches us that these are people, not monsters, who deserve dignity even if they took it away from someone else. I wanted more at times; a few of the subjects don't feel fleshed out, even though they reveal a damning amount already. But the saddest part is that the people who need to see this movie, the ones making policy about mental health and recovery, will not see it. So I'm back at being upset.

25. The Birth of a Nation (Nate Parker) (Yeah. What up?) The Birth of a Nation was independently financed, but it does what the best studio films used to: It rousingly hits its beats with power that is two parts sincere and one part overdetermined. It's far from perfect. There's a bit of me-first filmmaking, light streaming through slats type of stuff, and the less magic realism the better for me at this point. Maybe the final fifteen minutes are padded, and a crucial scene, in which Nat explains his plan, strains to connect the dots between his equanimity and rage. But Nat is more complex than he would have been in most hands, burdened by the same things that free him. Furthermore, the element of the film that feels new and sophisticated is his relationship with Samuel Turner, the slave master he has known since childhood. The two have an uneasy dynamic that they refuse to talk about; they would even be friends if, you know, Samuel didn't deny Nat's fundamental humanity. (The relationship is made more tenuous, of course, by--spoilers for history--the fact that Nat will eventually kill Samuel.) In what might be the first time I've bought him, Armie Hammer plays that plantation owner, who dances on the edge of benevolence but is capable of real hatred. He believes he isn't "one of the bad ones," but he has justification after justification for why Black anger, not White oppression, is the problem. It's one of the pieces that is meant to resonate sharply in 2016--like almost everything else, it's pushed right to the edge without feeling forced. 24. Gleason (J. Clay Tweel) There are a few times in the film when Steve Gleason and his wife Michel say that, rather than sainthood, they're just striving for authenticity and honesty. That's what this documentary is aiming for as well. I could probably nitpick, especially with the opening's stock footage or Scott Fujita's guyliner, but the film is founded on raw emotion and delivers with rare intimacy. I should note: I'm a recent father, and I know this film was poignant for me in a way that it wouldn't have been even a year ago. The closest antecedent for Gleason is Life Itself, but as articulate as Roger Ebert was about his illness, he didn't also have a baby to raise, a father to spar with, and as acute an awareness of the moments passing him by.