#award winning roller coaster

[avoyagetoarcturus]

De Vliegende Hollander from Efteling for @coastermaynia :)

This is my first watercolor of 2023 💖

[samsdisneydiary]

Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind Wins Award for Outstanding Attraction

We are so proud to announce Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind will be honored with a prestigious Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement – Attraction in 2024 by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). Internationally recognized, the Thea Awards acknowledge exceptional achievements in the themed entertainment industry and celebrate the creative teams who bring immersive experiences to…

[sleepyjim2]

i miss my roller coaster gf :(

[startrekprodigyfan]

So here’s a short recap of thing as they stand now.

Star Trek Prodigy was designed as a way to help kids and a new generation enter into the Star Trek franchise with a clean slate. It is entry level Trek which is ultimately a good thing for the aging Trek fandom.

It was initially dismissed by Trekkies as being “childish” just because it was on Nickelodeon, and initially a lot of long time Trekkies did not watch it.

Fast forward a few episodes and during the mid-season break of Season 1, Trekkies start to take notice. The show becomes popular and applauded. It wins some awards. It gets some much needed recognition. And it comes back from its break with a much needed BOOST thanks to a great episode featuring voices of longtime legacy Trek characters.

At this point Prodigy is still on Paramount+ and it’s doing GREAT…

Then shortly after the first season concludes and the creators are in the middle of wrapping up Season 2 (as in they were literally almost done with final animation) Paramount+ announces they will be removing ALL OF SEASON 1 from Paramount+ as a tax write off for their struggling streaming service. Season 2 will be allowed to be finished, but Paramount now has absolutely no intention of releasing it. wtf?

Trek fans go into emergency overdrive mode and begin a “save prodigy” grassroots campaign, begging some other network to pick up Prodigy so they can release the (now completed) season 2. And it works! Netflix decides to pick up the show and re-releases Prodigy on their service which actually helps INCREASE visibility of the show even more.

We still have no official release date for Prodigy Season 2, but we know the season is completed because THE ENTIRE SEASON is released over in FRANCE on TV! Without the creator’s knowledge or ability to advertise for it.

There is a possibility of a 3rd season, but only if enough people watch the show and Netflix (who is notorious for prematurely cancelling shows) deems the show worthy enough to continue (since they’re technically only licensing the rights and didn’t actually fund the creation of the show).

And now Paramount+ has cancelled the only other animated Star Trek show: Lower Decks which does not bode well for the Trek brand or the future of animated Trek shows going forward…

It’s been a roller coaster.

[snalsupremacy]

12 MANGA BY LGBT+ CREATORS

Happy pride month!! My time has come. Years of seeking lgbt manga lead me some great finds, and here's all the ones written by openly LGBT mangaka!

1- Our Dreams At Dusk by Yuhki Kamitani, an asexual x-gender creator!

A classic in the lgbt manga niche. Literally google "lgbt manga" and you'll find this one in the top results. It's popular for a reason! Starting Tasuku, a gay teen, the manga deals with members of the queer community from all walks of life living in a small town, and how being queer impact their lives. Yuhki Kamitani's poetic and abstract story telling abilities enhances a simple story line into one of the best emotional roller-coasters you'll ever ride on. TW: Attempt suicide, mentions of said attempt, groping of a minor, lots of homophobia

2- I Think Our Son is Gay by Okura, a gay creator!

An ADORABLE story about a progressive mom trying to learn more about how to support her closeted gay son without making it obvious that she knows. Super sweet and adorable, and the author's notes were so touching! queer joy all around

TW: Discussions and verbal displays of homophobia

3- Boys Run The Riot by Keito Gaku, a transmasc creator!

Another classic in this niche. The story follows a trans boy named Ryo who bonds with the trouble student Jin over men's fashion, and together they decide to start a fashion brand. It's refreshing to see the struggles of a trans boy portrayed so genuine and authentically.

TW: Gender dysphoria, outing

4- My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Kabi Nagata, a lesbian creator!

Kabi Nagata is an biographical essayist that publishes all her work in manga form. In one of her most popular works, My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, Kabi tells the series of the events that led her to sleeping with a lesbian sex worker. Bold and authentic, Kabi has no fear to portray the ugly and fucked up parts of mental illness, in turn crafting an intimate and touching story.

TW: Self-harm, eating disorder, lots of discussions of mental illness, sexuality, and gender.

5- The Bride was a Boy by Chii, a transfem creator!

The biographical tale of the author, Chii, from realizing she's trans to meeting her husband, all told through 4-koma stories! The adorable chibi art-style and light-heartedness of this manga is sure to warm anyone's hearts! It's great to see the story of a trans woman told in such an optimistic and happy way. Details like the pop-ups of information about LGBT and Trans issues to the game-board illustrating her transition journey really show how proud Chii is of her identity, as she should!

TW: None that I remember

6- My Brother's Husband by Gengoroh Tagame, a gay creator!

The #1 non-sexual Bara, made by the #1 bara author. Tagame may be more known for his NSFW works, but his first SFW serialization shows the experience he's gained through the decades working on manga, even winning multiple awards (-) . After single father Yaichi's estranged brother passed away, Yaichi gets visited by his Canadian husband, Mike. A beautiful and sweet story of dealing with loss and overcoming homophobia, ft the cutest little child character and a very healthy divorced couple!

TW: Nudity (Technically non-sexual, but Tagame is a bear and it shows), Grief and loss of a loved one

7- To Strip The Flesh by Oto Toda, a transmasc creator!

An anthology book of various stories by Toda. The first of which, To Strip the Flesh (Where the manga gets its namesake) is inspired by the author's experience with dysphoria and coming out as a trans men. Toda was the assistant of Tatsuki Fujimoto (Chainsaw Men) during the serialization of Fire Punch.

TWs: Gender Dysphoria, gore, mutilation (no blood shown), house invasion, nudity, hunting and skinning of animals, gunshot wound, mysoginy

8-Gay Fuuzoku no Mochigi-san - Sexuality Is Life - by Mochigi, a gay creator!

Originally published on Twitter, Mochigi tells of his experience running away from home and coming to work in the bustling Shinjuku Ni-Chome, Tokyo's gay neighborhood. Through his sex work and work in gay bars, Mochigi tells an authentic story of the ups and downs of the gay culture in Tokyo.

TWs: Though not visually graphic, it goes into a lot of details about gay sex work

9- Vassalord by Nanae Chrono, a transmasc creator!

Y'all aren't ready for the synopsis... ok so this cyborg vampire who works for the Vatican is frenemies with this fuckboy vampire. They fight then make up then kiss and break-up (YOU!). Together they go on missions set by the church. Extremely emo and edgy vampires, actually really great action, and all the charm of early 2000's BL, now with extra blood! Nanae Chromo came out on twitter as trans only recently, and many news sources including Anime List still lists him as Female unfortunately.

TW: Bloody fights, enough homoeroticism to make your teeth rot

10- X-Gender by Asuka Miyazaki, a X-gender creator!

Miyazaki (AFAB) realizes at age 33 that they not only are X-gender, but like woman as well! The relatable and awkward biographical story of the author's experiences and new discoveries about their identity and the community. The manga also takes the time to explain all the terms used in the LGBT community, making it very accessible to those out of the loop! Also, the art-style is very cute.

TW: Lots of talks about sex and gender, possibly other things as I have not read it yet

11- Why I Adopted my Husband by Yuta Yagi, a gay creator!

The cute auto biography of Yuta and Kyota, a gay couple who have been dating for almost 20 years. The manga talks about not only their relationship, but also what it's like to live as a gay couple in Japan, and the draws and benefits of adoption as a way to seek the same legal rights of straight couples.

TWs: None

• Final Word •

I made this list to celebrate all the brave people who are open about their identities, but I also wanna point out that there are incredible LGBT manga out there written by anonymous or even straight creators!

Happy pride month to everyone but specially all the people living in places where it's not safe to be openly LGBT, everyday that you breathe is an act of rebellion, and we should be proud of that!

Here's a quickie of some other LGBT manga that didn't make the list for some reason or another- hmu if u want more details on them or just wanna talk about lgbt manga in general!

[deebrisbyfish]

So, it's been a LONG time since I've used this particular character. In my previous strip, Dandy & Company, he was the demon Skeezicks and a general antagonist to the gang. In THIS strip, he's the voice of doom and despair that lives rent-free in my brain. I've used him in the past to give a voice to those dark thoughts that tear me down and make me feel awful. Those thoughts that somehow always seem to get LOUDER when I've got a win under my belt. I've avoided using him for the last few years because I learned that giving those negative thoughts a VOICE wasn't always particularly healthy for me. But since getting a nomination for a Reuben award for this very strip, that voice has been particularly loud. I do not do good with success. The roller coaster that has been my KICKSTARTER has not helped. I figured that it was worth a revisit to try and address some of my anxiety.

[secretmellowblog]

Okay, here are some random panels I’m personally looking forward to at the online Les mis convention Barricadescon starting tomorrow!! (note that this off the top of my head, and they’re in no particular order, and that I am excited for all of em.)

(Also note that it’s the last day to register, which you can do on their site here. You can also see the full program of all the panels/their descriptions here.)

1. I’ll say any of the Guests of Honor (Jean Baptiste Hugo, the descendant of Hugo will be talking about his project photographing his ancestor’s house; Christina Soontornvat, author of the award-winning Les Mis retelling “A Wish in the Dark;” and Luciano Muriel, playwright of a 2018 play about Grantaire.)

2. @psalm22-6 ‘s panel “Early Transformative Works,” which is about the earliest Les Mis retellings, parodies, and “fanfics” from the 1800s/early 20th century. They’ve shared deeply cursed sneak peeks with me. Apparently in 1863 a man wrote a “proper Christian” retelling of Les Mis where Javert is reimagined as a proper Christian woman following poor criminals around giving them charity while they keep rejecting her kindness. Powerful. Javert as Mary Sue. (Note that I may be explaining poorly because I haven’t seen the panel yet.

3. History podcaster David Montgomery’s panel “The Yellow Passport: Surveillance and Control in 19th Century France,” which dives into the role of the police and strategies of government surveillance at the time Les Mis is set!

4. My own panel “Why Is There a Roller Coaster in Les Mis,” which I shared the first five minutes of here. There’s an actual scene in Les Mis where Fantine rides a roller coaster so I made a full defunctland video on how that roller coaster got to Paris in 1817, the fascinating historical context behind early roller coasters, and why it became defunct.

5. @thecandlesticksfromlesmis ‘s panel “Beat for Beat,” analyzing the script of Les Mis 2012 and contrasting it with the book and musical. Discussion of 2012 is almost overwhelmingly always about its music or cinematography, and I’m fascinated to hear someone finally analyzing the screenplay/ structural changes.

6. Morbidly curious for “Lee’s Miserables,” the academic panel discussing the paradoxical popularity of a censored version Les Mis in the Confederate South (with all the references to the evils of slavery carefully removed of course)

7. “Barricades as a Tactic,” a panel discussing how barricades actually functioned as a tool of warfare historically and the echoes of them in the modern day.

8. All the little social meetups, including the Preliminary Gaieties drinking game!

9. I’m biased because I’m also helping present this one, but the @lesmisletters panel (on the Dracula-daily inspired Les Mis readalong happening now.)

10. “The Fallibility of History in Les Miserables,” by @syrupsyche. It’s a panel analyzing the way Hugo often treats Les mis as a story that he learned about through research/gossip, rather than a fictional narrative— analyzing where Hugo does that in the text and what it means thematically.

11. The Unknown Light Examined, by Madeleine— a panel analyzing the chapter where the Bishop confronts the elderly revolutionary, and is forced to re examine his political beliefs! An iconic chapter, and the abstract is very compelling.

But also a lot more, check out the exhaustive list here XD. And also register at this link!

[firstpersonnarrator]

Robert Sheehan News

of the Best News Ever variety

Robert Sheehan has been cast in the play, Withnail and I. (Brain explodes, can barely see as I type.) As Withnail. (Just pops entire head off, never to be seen again.)

If you’ve ever seen the original movie, you are already screaming in joyful exuberance.

Rob will play the deranged one at left.

I swear, on everything, this could not be a better casting. The manic roller coaster of Withnail being the bad influence from hell is literally a Robert Sheehan dream role. Like possibly award-winning if he doesn’t bungle it.

Withnail is a force of chaos who electrifies every room he enters, with incredibly compelling charisma that guarantees he’ll get away with every insane thing he does. He drags his best friend into every risky, certain to fail, sketchy, and rent avoidant adventure. Lots and lots and lots of intoxication. The drug deal is piss-your-pants funny, as is the dishwashing scene. Dishwashing? Yes, dishwashing is sidesplittingly funny. Uncle Monty will have you pissing everyone’s pants.

This is Role of a Lifetime level shit for Robert Sheehan. Here’s hoping it moves to London and on to Broadway. (This character deserves a film franchise, Withnail is that addictive.)

2 of my Top 10 favorite movie characters of all time. (Left: Paul McGann as I; Right: Richard E Grant as Withnail.)

Watch the original movie and improve your life in one easy step.

Announcement article: X

Thanks for asking, yes, the poster art is indeed by THE Ralph Steadman.

[jujumin-translates]

[A3!] ★ Main Story | Act 14 - DREAM CATCHER | Episode 11 - Overseas Training

Izumi: Umm, this is 7th Avenue, so…

Tenma: Is that it?

Muku: Ah, it is!

Misumi: We’ve arrived~!

Kumon: It’s so crowded here!

Kazunari: No matter where you snap a pic, it looks great and makes such a great ref~! Yukki, Kumopi, pose for the camera~!

Yuki: Sure.

Kumon: I love New York! (1)

*Camera clicks*

Kazunari: Here, here, Sumi and gang, you join too~!

Izumi: (Even after a little under 13-hour flight, everyone’s still full of energy. That’s Summer Troupe for you.)

Izumi: (But time really has flown by so fast from the time when we decided to go to the U.S. to now…)

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

*Flashback*

Yuki: Training in the U.S.?

Tenma: I got a call from my dad out of nowhere.

Tenma: There’s a film festival coming up in the U.S., and he suggested that all of Summer Troupe come for a training trip. He said the agency would cover the cost too.

Muku: Huh? The cost too!?

Kazunari: If the cost is covered, then it’ll be a-okay with Frooch-san.

Kumon: I wanna go to the U.S.!

Izumi: But is it really okay for him to do that much?

Tenma: Partially, it’s because he feels bad about not being able to do anything for the company back when we were struggling with the whole Amadate mess.

Tenma: I think we should just be grateful for it.

Tenma: Theater and musicals included, the U.S. isn’t only about entertainment culture.

Tenma: It’s also cutting-edge in design and fashion, so I think there’s a lot we could all learn from it.

Tenma: He said that if we want to win the Fleur Award, the highest theater award in Japan, we should experience some authentic theater as actors.

Yuki: I am pretty interested.

Muku: Issei-san does have a pretty significant presence in the world, so it’s a pretty convincing argument coming from him.

Izumi: Well then… I guess I’ll take your word for it.

Tenma: Yeah. I think it’ll be a good opportunity for us to relearn some stuff, too.

Misumi: Let’s go to the U.S.~!

Kumon: I can’t wait to be on a plane~!

*Flashback end*

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Izumi: (We didn’t exactly have the greatest experience with Issei-san during the debut performance, but…)

Izumi: (Now he truly is supporting Tenma-kun’s path as a stage actor. I really am thankful for that.)

Izumi: (I hope they can all return home full of excitement and having absorbed a lot during our short stay.)

Muku: If we move a little further left, we should be able to fit the building in.

Kazunari: C’mon, Director-chan!

Misumi: Take a picture with us~!

Izumi: Ah, sure!

*Camera clicks*

Kumon: I still can’t believe how many people there are~.

Yuki: I mean, it is a tourist attraction, so it’s no wonder everyone’s taking pictures.

Tenma: And with the film festival coming up, there will be even more people than usual.

Kazunari: I’m so hyped for the film festival~. It’s something we never would’ve gotten to go to if we weren’t invited.

Kumon: I wonder if we’ll get to meet some of the world’s biggest stars~.

Tenma: But first we’re seeing this play before any of that.

Muku: Ah, we should start heading towards the theater now.

Izumi: The theater should be around-- Ah, over there.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Kumon: That was so impactful~! I feel kinda fluffy like I’m still in the story!

Tenma: I’ve never seen a production like that before, so I was really amazed by the whole thing and overwhelmed by the performance skills of the actors.

Tenma: It really reminds you of the wide range of possibilities that exist within theater.

Kazunari: The lighting and music were supes cool. Everything was so powerful and the impact was insane~! I feel like I’ve got ideas bouncing all around in my brain!

Misumi: It was so much fun~. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, it was filled with so much heart-pounding excitement!

Kumon: Yeah, yeah, it was like an emotional roller coaster…

Kumon: I couldn’t understand the language, but it was still conveyed through all they did~.

Muku: There were so many different types of actors. Not just in age, but in the way they acted too…

Muku: They each seemed to be making the most of their abilities.

Yuki: The costumes were good too. Those are what stage costumes should look like.

Yuki: This place really is authentic, and you can see that the pros are working hard to improve each other and create the best things they can.

Izumi: (Looks like each of them was inspired in their own way. I guess there are just some things that you can only get a feel for when you actually see them in person.)

Izumi: (We’ve hardly been here a day but I’m already happy we came…)

Muku: It’s all in English, but I just had to get a brochure too.

Kumon: Me too! Even though I can’t read any of it~.

Muku: When we get back to Japan, let’s read some of it together with a dictionary.

Kumon: Yeah! Looking at the credits, there are some Japanese-sounding names, though. Like the costume person, Aiko Kataoka--.

Yuki: Ah--.

Muku: Do you know who that is, Yuki-kun?

Yuki: Yeah, they’re famous.

Kumon: Really~?

Yuki: I see, so that’s…

[ ⇠ Previous Part ] • [ Next Part ⇢ ]

• • •

(1) Kumon says this in English.

[talbatross]

If there's one thing I love about Tumblr, it's that you folks really enjoy people getting really in depth about niche subjects. It's one of my favorite genres of things to read. This one is so good, I had to share with my almost halfway to double digits following.

I grew up and lived most of my life near a theme park called Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia. It's a gorgeous place, constantly winning awards for the most beautiful park in the country.

Anyway, the park is always changing and updating, and for the last several years, there's been a lot of activity on some land in the park that was the former site of Drachen Fire, and great roller coaster that would beat the everliving shit out of your head.

That coaster closed in 1998, and that area has been mostly used for storage since then. Things were gearing up for a new ride to go there, but then covid hit and that came to a screeching halt.

But in late 2023, a site dedicated to Busch Gardens Williamsburg (BGWFans) discovered a site plan that gave (seemingly) very little information:

"Throughout the plan there are a ton of black rectangles and squares. These shapes mark areas where new impervious surfaces are to be installed as part of this project. "

From that site plan, a couple other public documents, and good old fashioned guesswork, they managed to put together the entire track layout as well as some educated guesses about theming and decoration. The park itself had still not made any sort of announcement at all regarding anything on the site.

Cut to now, 9 months later. A couple more documents have come to light, and just about every single guess that BGWFans made was correct. They even guessed that a part of the original site plan has a mistake, and sure enough an updated site plan had fixed that.

It's a long but fascinating read. These people, not getting paid, doing this for the love of the park, put so much work into squeezing out every bit of information they could from the sparse documents they found, and correctly predicted a whole ass roller coaster!

Links to both parts below. I don't know how far this will go from my very tiny Tumblr circle but I hope someone gets some enjoyment out of it!

[joannanora]

STARZ and Channel 4 have commissioned a six-part thriller, “The Couple Next Door,” starring Sam Heughan (“Outlander,” “Suspect”), Eleanor Tomlinson (“The Outlaws,” “Poldark”), Jessica De Gouw (“Pennyworth,” Our Man from Jersey) and Alfred Enoch (Tigers, “How To Get Away with Murder”) from Eagle Eye Drama. The series is a deliciously dark, psychological drama, exploring the stultifying claustrophobia of suburbia and the fallout of chasing your darkest desires.

When Evie (Eleanor Tomlinson) and Pete (Alfred Enoch) move into an upscale neighborhood, they find themselves in a world of curtain twitching and status anxiety. But soon find friendship in the shape of the couple next door, alpha traffic cop Danny (Sam Heughan) and his wife, glamorous yoga instructor Becka (Jessica De Gouw). Sam Heughan heads up the cast as Danny who shares a passionate night with Evie, his beautiful but troubled neighbor.

Sam Heughan said: “l’m thrilled to be working with Eagle Eye Drama and director Dries Vos again and adding a third series with my STARZ family. Dries has a unique visual flair and I’m sure we’re going to make something special.”

Eleanor Tomlinson added: “Evie is an exciting challenge for me – a girl whose world is turned upside down as she navigates devastating trauma, which isn’t helped by unresolved issues from her past. We have an excellent team on board, and I am looking forward to exploring this dark and complicated world alongside Sam and our director Dries.”

“Sam has truly found his home at STARZ as he continues to shine on our slate,” said Kathryn Busby, President of Original Programming for STARZ. “This marks our third series with the brilliant actor and we cannot wait to see the chemistry he and Eleanor will ignite together in this provocative series.”

Caroline Hollick, Head of Drama, Channel 4 said: “This series is an addictive, emotional roller-coaster with something to say about modern sexual mores, with an electrifying cast that will set our screens on fire.”

Jo McGrath, Executive Producer and CCO of Eagle Eye Drama, commented: “At the heart of this series are two couples who get increasingly close to each other, and one fateful night become sexually entangled in a way that will change the rest of their lives forever. You never really know what goes on behind closed doors but this series sets out to make you wonder.”

Loosely adapted from the Dutch series “New Neighbours” the series is written by David Allison (Marcella, “Bedlam”), directed by award winning director Dries Vos (“Suspect,” “Professor T”), Series Produced by Jen Burnet, and is Executive Produced by Jo McGrath, Walter Iuzzolino and Alison Kee. The Couple Next Door is commissioned by Channel 4’s Head of Drama, Caroline Hollick and Commissioning Editor, Rebecca Holdsworth. Karen Bailey, EVP of Programming, is the executive overseeing “The Couple Next Door” for STARZ.

The series is produced by Eagle Eye Drama and distributed worldwide by Beta Film. “The Couple Next Door” has begun filming in Leeds and Belgium. “The Couple Next Door” will be available on Channel 4 in the UK and on STARZ in the US and Canada, as well as on LIONSGATE+, the international premium streaming service from STARZ, in Latin America, including Brazil.

[bitter69uk]

Heartfelt gratitude to everyone who attended the Lobotomy Room film club’s presentation of Lady in a Cage (1964) on 20 July! What a roller coaster of emotions, from the opening credits of a world gone mad (unconscious wino! Couple having sex in a car! A radio announcer ranting about the need for an “anti-Satan missile”! The disturbing use of a dead dog that anticipates John Waters’ in Desperate Living (1977!) onward. Who couldn’t relate when Cornelia Hilyard (Olivia de Havilland) tries to stave off madness while trapped in her “small private elevator” by singing “Alloutte” and composing a poem in her head?

Some further thoughts: does Lady in a Cage represent the most cataclysmic 4th of July weekend captured on film? Is it one of the first-ever “home invasion” thrillers? The British Board of Film Classification was so appalled by Lady in a Cage, it didn’t receive a cinematic release in the UK at all – and in fact only became viewable here in 2000 when it was issued on video! De Havilland was only 47 years-old here and already playing matrons with broken hips! While it’s almost certainly unintentional, the central image of Cornelia in her cage-like elevator recalls Katharine Hepburn in Suddenly Last Summer (1959). Lady in a Cage represented the first time the genteel Academy Award-winning de Havilland dipped her toe into exploitation cinema, but certainly not the last. A year later came hagsploitation classic Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte, then she featured in 1970s “disaster movies” like Airport ’77 (1977) and 1978 “killer bees” film The Swarm! Ann Sothern as Sade absolutely excelled at portraying these blowzy middle-aged floozy roles – until later in the decade when Shelley Winters would increasingly monopolize them! Did you notice that in his close-ups James Caan (as Randall, leader of the juvenile delinquents) is wearing more eyebrow pencil and eyeliner than Elvis Presley? If you enjoyed Rafael Campos’ performance as switchblade flourishing Essy, search out the bizarre 1968 exploitation flick The Astro-Zombies in which he co-stars with Tura Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Satana! And what happens to Cornelia’s sexually ambiguous son Malcolm? Anyway, see you third Thursday of August for more lurid lowbrow fun!

[northwind808]

Chapter 18 sneak peak for When Angels Sin and the Devil Picks Me Up-- "Poison Flooding My Veins (I'm Just a Man, I'll Do Anything to Escape the Pain)"

Charlie could only keep her eyes on the television for a minute before she had to look away. She wished that she could dissolve into shadows like Alastor did. Meanwhile, Sir Pentious was covering his eyes with his hood flare, the face on his hat looking extremely uncomfortable. Nifty was gleefully kicking her legs in the air, laying on her stomach with her head propped up against her hands. Vaggie looked disgusted and rather annoyed, shooting a glare at Angel.

The star in question simply smirked and nodded at the television. “You know, this performance won me a ‘Sex-x-xy’ award.”

“Congratulations on that,” Vaggie snapped back sarcastically. Charlie had one of her hands in a death grip, the waves of uncomfortableness and mild disgust crashing through both of their thoughts like a roller coaster. “What the fuck made you think you should show this?”

“Well you two said it was ‘Show n’ Tell’ day! I’m showin’ you my best film and I’m tellin’ you that it scored me a win over that bitch Tiffany Titfucker!”

Vaggie took a sharp breath in through her nose and released it slowly. Exploding at Angel probably wasn’t the best idea now.

[dollarbin]

Sandy Saturday's #13:

Pass of Arms

I'll bet there are already far more words written about T. Swift's new record than in all of the Mahabharata (that's the Hindu holy book that contains the Bhagavad Gita; it's around 13,000 pages long).

The opposite can be said for Pass of Arms, a 1971 half hour film that contains two stand alone Sandy Denny songs. The film does not have a Wikipedia page and is not available in any form anywhere as near as I can tell: it exists but you literally cannot watch it.

Having a Wikipedia page is a pretty low bar. Without knowing, I bet there are extensive ones dedicated to Chewbacca's family tree and Joe Biden's dog. I'm right on both counts of course: I just looked.

But google to your hearts content: the internet confirms that the short film existed, that it claimed to be "award winning", and that a guy who worked marginally on the 80's buddy flick Spies Like Us, in which I seem to remember that Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase save the world from nuclear destruction while failing to make us laugh, directed it; and that's it.

Happily, we can still hear the songs at least, something I've never done with any real focus until this moment. Let's start with Here in Silence.

Okay, I'm digging it so far. I picture a knight in his pensive non-warrior boy clothes looking longingly at his maiden, fall grass billowing between them in slow motion; but then that scene gives way to that same knight, now in full armor, gearing up for gnarly battle and then we realize this is actually a film about the Children's Crusade, or maybe it's all a chunky metaphor and it's actually about angsty and hirsute teens in jolly old 70's England: they're looking to stick to the man, or bloke I guess - this is England - and, well, maybe there's a reason no one other than me is angry they can't watch this film anymore because this song, which Denny clearly did not write, kinda sucks. Sandy sounds glorious, as always, but I'd rather hear her sing The Wheels On The Bus.

Have some faith though, people. We've got the marginally more famous Man of Iron track left to consider. I've definitely heard this one before, but I can remember nothing about it other than the fact that it's really long and moody with strings. Here goes!

Yeah, those are strings alright. Today the students at my tiny high school were all bent out of shape - it's Spring and everyone's either breaking up, thinking about it or striving to create similar drama in their life asap, so I led a full school game of musical chairs on the basketball court and declared in advance that I would win at all costs. I did not win but I shoved a bunch of giant teen boys aside in the effort and everyone laughed at their weird teacher and got into it.

We're a pretty cool school so one of our tenth graders, who's already a semi-professional cellist, played whatever came into his head for each round, which sure beat dancing around the chairs while T. sang 65 new songs about her loser boyfriends or whatever. My student's cello sounded, some of the time, a bit like the vibe that starts the track, only better. Then for the next round he'd play Mozart at triple speed.

But now there's a whole mess of fifes involved and this thing is starting to sound silly. Bring in Sandy Denny soon, please.

Oh thank the sensitive medieval Jesus who probably repeatedly appears to the lead character in this film swathed in psychedelic splendor: here's Sandy, and she's brought a whole pack of Cinderella's helpful birds with her to twitter about, somewhat helpfully.

But these lyrics are unbearable. When I was in seventh grade I committed the cardinal sin of writing an earnest original poem about "the roller coaster of life" and then turned it in to my earnest, no clue teacher who of course then read it to the whole class while on the verge of tears - someone had finally attempted something, anything, of marginal note in his earnest but lousy class - which turned my pimply face red, then white, then putrescent purple with shame as the other 13 year olds around me murmured then moved on to mirth and then on to all out rage: never would I be forgiven for writing sensitive poetry in earnest. Jeff Stimpfig, the school's stock character bully, declared me both gay (it was 1989; "gay" equaled uncool and homophobia equaled cool; what a dumb world...) and soon to be dead through his potent fists. Anyway, my seventh grade poem was surely terrible. But it contained far fewer cliches than this claptrap.

Was this end you chose Sir Knight?

Was this why you were born so bright?

The wolves will chew your bones tonight...

Sandy clearly needed a sizeable offered payday to have ever uttered these words; Trevor Lucas, or perhaps Stephen Stills, surely talked her into the whole gig. The guitar is nice though... I wonder if Sandy plays it. Sounds like her...

But good grief, now we've got a stomach churning drum thing going on. I'm starting to think this whole film may have been a Stephen Stills vanity project: it probably centers on Stills's broriffic relationship with Joe Freakin' Lala; they're on a quest to no longer suck and it's going nowhere fast as their stuck in a room of lemons, all of them worth sucking, and buxom ladies who admire them for no discernible reason whatsoever; and then, at the end of the film / this terrible song, aliens in sunglasses descend and take Steve and Joe to their leader for an extraterrestrial blues jam complete with wolves and low production value fake wind. Clearly, they didn't have Neil Young's budget for fake wind: he's got a huge budget when it comes to producing fake wind.

I'm guessing that Sandy's estate is responsible for insuring this film can no longer be seen by anyone. Indeed, The Dollar Bin itself may soon be hacked so as to eliminated this entire post one conniving letter at a time in their nefarious quest to separate Denny from any observable connection to the film Pass of A....

[mattnben-bennmatt]

Ben Affleck's interview w/ The Hollywood Reporter (10 October 2012)

Confessions of Ben Affleck

Argo's Oscar-baiting director, newly 40, talks about his career turnaround, how anxiety drives him, what Matt Damon's wife might think when he comes over, and what he emailed J. Lo.

By Stephen Galloway

On Aug. 15, Ben Affleck — Oscar-winning wunderkind of Good Will Hunting, other half of “Bennifer,” skyrocketing superstar who soared, sank and sizzled again thanks to his directing endeavors Gone Baby Gone and The Town — turned 40.

He celebrated with a dinner party thrown by his wife, Jennifer Garner, at their Pacific Palisades home, attended by a handful of close friends on the brink of middle age, including Matt Damon, his WME agent Patrick Whitesell and Disney production president Sean Bailey.

“It was not fun for me,” says Affleck of entering his fifth decade. “It’s this moment of bifurcation between youth and middle age. One wants to think of oneself as young. One does not want to think: ‘Wait a minute! How can I be halfway to death?’ ”

Halfway to death, perhaps, but sitting with him one late September morning at Santa Monica’s Hotel Casa del Mar, this actor-turned-director — the Hollywood embodiment of nine lives — seems anything but as he bristles with nervous energy, words spilling out of him about his roller-coaster past and glittering present.

“He’s gone to the top and then to the bottom and now to the top again,” says Damon, his friend since the two met as children. “He’s gotten the full measure of what this life in Hollywood can offer, and now he is comfortable with it.”

Nearly a decade after Affleck had one of the most ignominious falls in Hollywood history — thanks in part to Gigli and dubious PR stunts like kissing Jennifer Lopez‘s derriere in a music video — he has emerged, unexpectedly and almost suddenly, as one of the best directors of his generation. Warner Bros.’ Argo, an Iranian hostage drama that he helmed, is an early leader in the awards race. Set to open Oct. 12, it was called a “tight and tense political thriller” by THR‘s Todd McCarthy and has earned the kind of raves that once would have seemed impossible for the star of Armageddon.

All this is the hard-earned climax to a deeply considered shift Affleck embarked on eight years ago, when he set out his goals and determined never again to do work he was ashamed of. “I made the decision: ‘I’m never, ever, ever going to do anything where I don’t absolutely kill myself to get it right,’ ” he recalls.

Vanished is the man who dwelt on his deep insecurity when he and this reporter last sat down about five years ago. During that conversation, he admitted the Gone Baby Gone shoot had left him physically sick from stress. “I’m very insecure,” he said. “I’m human, just like anybody else.”

Vanished, too, is the tabloid pinata with his colorful love life, personal drama (including a stint in rehab) and career highs and lows. “I tried to ignore it as much as possible,” he says of the fuss. “There was only one way to handle a situation like that: Go straight through it.”

He addresses all this with an openness and even sweetness that would surprise those used to the more coiled figure onscreen. “I was shocked at how warm he is,” says Alan Arkin, who plays a Hollywood producer in Argo. “He’s got a great deal of warmth, and he’s not afraid to show it. He has a wonderfully open, youthful quality that you don’t see a lot in the characters he plays.”

Sitting by a window overlooking the Pacific, in jeans and a blue-checkered shirt, unshaven and sipping from a plastic cup of soda, with flecks of gray in his beard and a gold tooth he’s never bothered to replace, he has embraced the very doubts that once assailed him. “Anxiety is a kind of fuel that activates the fight-or-flight part of the brain in me,” he says. “It makes sure that a velociraptor isn’t around the corner and that you do as much as you possibly can to survive. Because Hollywood has a lot in common with Jurassic Park and its primeval-dinosaur universe.”

Affleck, the one-time party boy, now gets up at 6, goes to bed at 9 and has been married for seven years with three children (Violet, Seraphina and Samuel) under age 7. As he discusses married life, Garner, about to fly to New York, calls on his cell.

“Hey, love, are you on the plane?” he asks gently. “I’m in an interview right now, but I love you very much.” Then he quips that her trip is doubly traumatic for the actress, “First, ’cause she’s away from the kids, second, ’cause I’m in charge.”

She might have reason to worry, given how consumed Affleck is by work. “There are so many decisions to be made, and it’s more than you can get to each day,” he says. “There is this underlying anxiety not just about getting the movie done but getting it done really well. It keeps my head spinning — even when I am giving the kids a bath. I can be giving them a bath or feeding them, and sometimes they say, ‘Dad, pay attention!’ ”

When he’s not with his family, he’s at home working in a “sort of little office hut” or developing material through Pearl Street Productions, the Warners-based company he runs with Damon, who has remained a lodestar throughout the ups and downs and who now lives down the street from him. “We see each other almost too often,” laughs Affleck. “I wonder if his wife is thinking, ‘Is he really going to come over every night?’ “

When he’s on his own, he reads and consumes films avidly. He has just finished Laurence Gonzales‘ nonfiction book Surviving Survival, about how individuals cope with horrific incidents like being attacked by sharks; he also has been reading novelist Gillian Flynn‘s suspense drama Gone Girl and David Mitchell‘s Cloud Atlas.

Rather than watch television, he recently has immersed himself in a trip through some of the greatest films ever made — from the 2011 Mexican movie Miss Bala to director Victor Fleming‘s The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, which he viewed back-to-back — as if he wants to quench a raging thirst for the knowledge that will allow him to seize the ring within his grasp. He is intrigued to hear about Memo From David O. Selznick, a collection of the Gone With the Wind producer’s notes, and orders it immediately by phone after his interview.

He also spends time at a coastal getaway near Savannah, Ga., and in his New York apartment, where he expects to move with Garner when their kids have grown up. He plays poker on a regular basis with actor Hank Azaria and his Argo producer Grant Heslov. “It’s very, very psychological,” he explains of his attraction to the game. “It’s about weakness and strength and divining whether the other person is strong or weak.”

He goes skeet shooting and admits to owning several guns — which he has embraced since his wife faced a stalker.

“The stalker had been to our house many times and ultimately came to my children’s school and was arrested,” notes Affleck of Steven Burky, who was deemed insane in 2010 then placed in a mental ward and ordered to stay away from the Affleck family for 10 years. “It gave me a stronger sense of feeling protective about my family. There’s a lot of crazy, weird people out there. It’s an ugly world.”

Affleck has given up any notion of reforming it. After once being rumored to want a career in public office, he now says, “I loathe politics.” He supports President Obama but has not actively campaigned — partly because of his workload, partly because of his political disillusionment and partly because he is convinced the president will win the election despite the Oct. 3 debate. “I watched it backstage at Jimmy Kimmel,” he says. “It wasn’t his best performance. But I am still going to vote for him, and I am very, very confident he will win.”

As to his other interests: “Kids eat up that kind of hobby time,” he admits. “I used to ride motorcycles. I used to play basketball. And now basically I’m at home with them, or I work.”

The work itself will have its greatest test with Argo. Affleck was fresh off 2010’s The Town and in talks to helm another movie at Sony when Warners showed him Chris Terrio‘s script about real-life CIA operative Tony Mendez and his little-known plan to free six men and women who had fled the U.S. embassy in Tehran when it was seized in 1979. The escapees took refuge with two Canadian diplomats, and Mendez set about creating a phony Hollywood film, Argo (that title derives from a CIA in-joke — “Ah, go f– yourself” — though it is not presented that way in the movie), as a front to squirrel them out of the country.

The moment he read it, Affleck called Heslov and George Clooney, who had been developing the project through their Smoke House production company, “and I just launched into what my take was and didn’t stop talking for 45 minutes.”

Heslov and Clooney were sold.

“This film tonally is a very tricky piece, and he had very intelligent things to say about that,” recalls Heslov, describing the movie’s tightrope balance of comedy and suspense. “His idea was to push the thriller aspect a little more than we’d originally talked about. And he was right.”

Initially, Affleck had envisioned reworking the script himself, but the draft was so impressive and his relationship with Terrio so good that he allowed Terrio to make the changes. Together, they added a new opening that succinctly explains the Iranian revolution and how it led to the capture of more than 50 Americans, who would remain captive for 444 days within the embassy.

They also worked on redefining Affleck’s character, based on Mendez. “He was a little bit more broken in the draft that we got,” notes Affleck. “He was older, an alcoholic. And I changed that and made his personal stuff revolve more around his family and losing his marriage.” Ultimately, he says, that was “the wrong choice because I ended up cutting most of it out. I cut out six or seven minutes from the final film, which is a lot.”

Other characters were merged, and some situations simplified, which later would lead to complaints from former Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor that his country hadn’t been given its due. Affleck addressed those concerns with a card at the end of the film that explains how the CIA plot complemented Canadian efforts, which he expands on in a long interview planned for the DVD.

In preparation for the movie, he flew to Maryland and met with Mendez, who took him to a bar that turned out to be a CIA hangout — the very hangout where agent-turned-spy Aldrich Ames had met some of his Soviet contacts. He was surprised how taciturn Mendez was. “He was extremely withdrawn and very unassuming,” says Affleck, adding that he only came to understand this when he saw the 2001 Errol Morris documentary about the operative, The Little Gray Man, showing how blandness was crucial to his work, allowing him to blend into alien environments.

With Mendez on board (joined by John Goodman as real-life Hollywood makeup man John Chambers, Bryan Cranston as a CIA staffer and Arkin as a fictionalized producer), the CIA opened its doors beyond anything Affleck had experienced when he’d worked with the agency on 2002’s Tom Clancy thriller The Sum of All Fears.

Invited to visit, he was astonished that “every hallway had a pretty elaborate lock on it, and every door had a lock, and there were no windows to see in any of the rooms, so everything was secure. Some of the offices had two computers at every desk, one with huge stickers that said: ‘This is connected to the Internet. No classified information.’ I wanted to use that, except there were no computers in 1979.”

He also was surprised how low-key the place seemed, even when he stepped into its holy of holies, the futuristic Operations Center, where supersecret material and personnel were whisked away before he arrived. His impression of inactivity changed two weeks later, “when they killed Osama bin Laden.”

Thanks to the CIA’s reverence for Mendez, Affleck received permission to shoot several sequences at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Va. — though “that meant having the trucks show up at 2 in the morning, so they could all be searched down to the screw. I’ve shot in a prison, and the search they put you through was nothing like this.”

Most of the film, remarkably, was filmed in and around Los Angeles, with a Hancock Park mansion standing in for the Canadian ambassador’s residence, where the escapees hid out. (In reality, they were kept in two separate places in Tehran.) Zsa Zsa Gabor‘s home was used for the Hollywood producer’s (she was upstairs during shooting, but too sick to come down), and the Ontario International Airport, 35 miles east of L.A., substituted for Tehran’s.

A 65-day shoot began in California then relocated to Istanbul, Turkey, for a month. Affleck had hoped to use real-life Iranian immigrants in Turkey for all the crowd sequences but well into filming found that “we couldn’t get one person of Iranian descent who speaks Farsi to be in the movie because they’re all so terrified of what that would mean for their family back home. We were completely f–ed.”

(Some of those scenes later were re-staged in Los Angeles, where there are about a half-million Farsi speakers, says Affleck. They and the CGI shots that transformed signs in English gave the film a rare authenticity and allowed it to be made for a modest $44.5 million.)

Shooting in Istanbul had its challenges, especially when Affleck came down with the flu while still acting and directing. “He was really, really sick, with a fever, the whole thing, and he didn’t take a day off,” says Heslov. “At the worst point, he left a bit early, and he had to be feeling really terrible to do that.”

His enthusiasm was matched by the extras, who often numbered around 2,500 and occasionally got out of hand, especially once when Affleck was in his car. “People were yelling and chanting and throwing stuff and having fun — and it all sort of bled over,” he explains. “I was a little scared, although I tried to summon up that director’s arrogance. All the great directors, I think, are arrogant; so I thought, ‘This is the time when I get out the bullhorn and say, ‘Back off!’ ”

He didn’t, alas. “I must not be doing something right,” he jokes.

Contrary to his image as a working-class “Southie” in Good Will Hunting, and later in The Town, Affleck, the elder of two sons (his brother Casey also is an actor), grew up in relative comfort in Cambridge, Mass. His mother, Chris, had been one of the original freedom riders who went into the Deep South during the 1960s to fight for civil rights. Both she and his father, Tim, were intellectuals who gave their son the middle name Geza after a Holocaust survivor they admired. (Affleck comes from Protestant stock but is agnostic.)

Damon — who was 10 when he met his 8-year-old near-neighbor Ben — remembers the cut-and-thrust of discussions in the Affleck home. “That dinner table was one of the funnest places to be growing up because of all the debates that went on — on any subject. You had to craft an argument and a good one to survive. Ben really honed his debating skills there. He’s not a guy you want to get in a debate with.”

Adds Affleck: “My mother taught public school, went to Harvard and then got her master’s there and taught fifth and sixth grade in a public school. My dad had a more working-class lifestyle. He didn’t go to college. He was an auto mechanic and a bartender and a janitor at Harvard.”

He also was an alcoholic, a predisposition Affleck inherited. “His life sort of hit the skids when I was in my teens,” he says. “It was difficult. When one’s parent is an alcoholic, it’s hard. It was a little scary and trying, but then he got sober when I was twentysomething, and he’s been sober ever since.”

The two maintain a cordial relationship, though they don’t see each other much, says Affleck. “My father has positional vertigo, and if he flies he gets really dizzy, so he has to drive out to California, which he does a couple times a year. We talk, but we e-mail mostly.”

The problems at home peaked when Affleck’s parents split before his teens and filtered into his life at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he sought refuge in plays, appearing as Damon’s son in Friedrich Durrenmatt‘s The Visit before both started auditioning for professional roles.

“I was a bit of a f–up,” he says. “I got really good grades until the last two years, and then I didn’t. I was having issues around my dad and my mom, and things just weren’t that stable — though that puts the responsibility on them, when really I just lost focus and stopped caring.”

While Damon went to Harvard, Affleck attended the University of Vermont, where he majored in Middle Eastern Affairs before switching to Los Angeles’ Occidental College, embarking on an acting career while he and Damon were roommates in Eagle Rock, an East Los Angeles neighborhood.

He found minor success with such films as 1992’s School Ties and 1993’s Dazed and Confused. But it was Good Will Hunting — the script Affleck and Damon sold to Castle Rock Entertainment for $600,000, which went to Miramax in turnaround — that made them stars. At the Oscars, they brought their moms and soon were double-dating with Gwyneth Paltrow (Affleck) and Winona Ryder (Damon). America was enchanted. With an Academy Award for best original screenplay, Affleck was a mere 25 years old and as hot as they get.

Then something went wrong. Instead of following Hunting with equally impressive material, Affleck chose roles in such action pictures as 1998’s Armageddon and 2001’s Pearl Harbor, while Damon starred in Saving Private Ryan. Partly, says Damon, this was because these were big breaks for a relative newcomer and partly because Affleck thought he could fix scripts that didn’t work — only to discover the director is the fixer.

His movie choices solidified a lightweight image that, combined with romantic escapades, made him perfect fodder for an exploding celebrity press. When he went from dating Paltrow to media-magnet Lopez (buying her a multicarat pink diamond ring, to boot), he no longer was just an actor — he was part of a phenomenon known as Bennifer (version one). Their Bentley rides, engagements, breakups-and-makeups were chronicled almost in real time. Affleck, who had risen to earn a reported $10 million to $15 million per picture, now was more infamous than famous.

“To watch the entire world have the totally wrong idea about somebody you care about and admire was painful, just as his friend,” says Damon. “I can’t imagine what it felt like to him. I remember Ben calling and saying: ‘I can sell magazines and not movies. I’m in the worst possible place I can be.’ “

Over the next few years, everything he had built came crashing down. He already had gone into rehab for unspecified causes in 2001; then came the disappointment of his superhero-in-tights spectacle Daredevil and the disaster of Gigli, the 2003 picture in which he starred with Lopez before their relationship collapsed.

“I went to rehab for being 29 and partying too much and not having a lot of boundaries and to clear my head and try to get some idea of who I wanted to be,” explains Affleck, declining to go into further detail. “It was more a ‘let me get myself straight,’ before it became a rite of passage.”

He stays in touch with Lopez, just as he does Paltrow and his high school girlfriend, Cheyenne Rothman. “We don’t have the kind of relationship where she relies on me for advice,” he says of J.Lo, “but we do have the kind of relationship where there’ll be an e-mail saying, ‘Oh, your movie looks great.’ I remember when she got American Idol. I said: ‘This was really smart. Good luck.’ I touch base. I respect her. I like her. She’s put up with some stuff that was unfair in her life, and I’m really pleased to see her successful.”

Despite the media onslaught, Affleck’s closest friends remained convinced his talent was supreme.

“What always struck me was how smart he is,” says his longtime agent Whitesell. “He had the biggest disconnect of anybody between the way the world saw him and the way he really is. We talked to each other and said, ‘It’s going to be a long road back, but we will get there.’ “

When Affleck took the risk of going behind the cameras with Gone — a mystery about two investigators tracking a missing 4-year-old girl, released by Miramax in the post-Harvey Weinstein era — Hollywood insiders were stunned that this apparent featherweight had such depth. But the movie still was perceived either as a fluke or too dark to make Affleck a candidate for bigger films. Only Warners executive Jeff Robinov pursued him with absolute conviction.

“Gone Baby Gone was not at all financially successful,” notes Affleck. “But Robinov brought me into his office and said: ‘I think you’re a hell of a filmmaker, actor. What do you want to do? Tell us, and we’ll do it.’ And I wasn’t having those meetings with every studio.”

Affleck opted for The Town, a $37 million drama that earned $92 million domestically. Its success shocked even cynics. The flameout, who had become a byword for has-been, was now one of Hollywood’s most promising directors.

Getting there was a direct result of the decision Affleck made around 2004.

“I was frustrated with the movies that I had done,” he explains. “I knew that I had something to offer. I said: ‘Here are the things I’d like to do: I want to direct movies, and I want to be in a movie that I’m enormously proud of. I want to have kids.’ I set out goals. It was a bold thing because when one is accustomed to falling short, as I had been, one becomes fearful of making predictions. But I did.”

Garner, whom he met on Daredevil, contributed to this thinking. “Jennifer played such a profound role in making me a better person,” says Affleck. “We don’t have a perfect marriage, but she inspired me; and finding myself in that marriage and having a child dovetailed with getting to be a little more mature.”

Asked what drew him to his wife, he considers. “She truly is kind,” he says. “She means no one any harm. She doesn’t have ill will for any person. She’s not competitive with other people. She’s not spiteful.” He laughs. “It’s one of those things where it becomes almost aggravating at times. Every time I go, ‘F– him!’ I see in her face that she just thinks that’s petty and small.”

Now Affleck is concentrating on the meaningful and large. He is developing a movie adaptation of Stephen King‘s The Stand and plans to reteam with Damon on Whitey, the story of James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger Jr., a Boston crime figure who went on the run for 16 years before being captured outside his Santa Monica apartment in 2011. Affleck will direct, and Damon will star.

But other matters are beginning to weigh on him just as much as film. “One gets older,” he reflects, “and the things that you didn’t realize were absences in your life now feel like real vacancies.”

In November, he will make his seventh visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where bloody civil war has lasted 14 years (despite peace accords signed in 2003) and cost 5.4 million lives. It has become his abiding concern ever since “I came across this passage about how 10 times as many people have died in Congo in the wars since 1997 [as in Darfur] and was stunned that I didn’t know.”

The filmmaker first went there in 2007. “I saw terrible things,” he says. “You know: the amount of sexual-based violence against women; people suffering from preventable disease; child soldiers who needed to be integrated into society; children without schooling at all. So we started to get involved in those areas.”

Two years ago, he helped form the Eastern Congo Initiative, which provides developmental aid for local communities, working with farmers who grow cacao, among other activities.

Affleck’s commitment to Congo has not been risk-free. On one occasion, he was in a single-engine plane caught in a hailstorm, with a pilot who didn’t know his way. “We were flying through Sudan, and the hail was really banging up the plane. The pilot was saying he didn’t have enough fuel to fly back to Juba. I was terrified. It was the only time in my life where I really thought, deep in my heart, I might die.”

It’s a flash of the old insecurity that still remains, buried deep inside. He’s older, wiser, glowing in the gleam of his new film, but the fears and anxieties still have to be held at bay. Even in his work.

“Sometimes I get insecure about being a real director because I look at the great directors, and they have such command,” he says. “But maybe that keeps me critical of myself. Maybe it keeps me moving forward.”

[chanelslibrary]

🌙𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰🌙

Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

@tiawilliamswrites

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotic author, who battles an invisible disease. Shane Hall is an award-winning author known for being a recluse. So when Shane shows up unannounced in NYC at a Black literary event where Eva is at everyone is shocked, but not as much as Eva herself. No one knows Shane and Eva spent a wild week madly in love twenty years earlier, and since then they have been secretly writing to each other in their books. Will this be the chance they have been waiting for to reconnect and rekindle the spark from their past? Or will the traumas that haunt them be too hard to overcome while reliving those seven days in June?

The emotional roller coaster this book put me through😩 I cried, laughed, sweated, screamed! It’s no surprise that I really enjoyed this book because I have only heard great things. Williams tackles themes like mental health, living with chronic illness, single parenthood, family issues/generational trauma, racism/systemic racism (and more!)!! The way she effortlessly sows these topics into this book is amazing and really helps you connect to the characters and identify with them! The romance and banter between Shane and Eva is *chef’s kiss* and her daughter Audre is hilarious. I’m not a huge fan of second chance romance trope but this was done perfectly, and the audiobook was great!!

Read if you love:

👩🏾‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏿 Second chance romance

🧠 Mental health rep

⚕️Chronic illness rep

✊🏾 Black rep

⚠️ Trigger warnings: mentions cutting, alcohol/drug abuse, sexual assault, violence/death