#best foreign films of the last 20 years

[latestnews69]

Babygirl to Gladiator II and Conclave: The 20 best films of 2024

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

It all started with a mouse

For the public domain, time stopped in 1998, when the Sonny Bono Copyright Act froze copyright expirations for 20 years. In 2019, time started again, with a massive crop of works from 1923 returning to the public domain, free for all to use and adapt:

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2019/

No one is better at conveying the power of the public domain than Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle, who run the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain. For years leading up to 2019, the pair published an annual roundup of what we would have gotten from the public domain in a universe where the 1998 Act never passed. Since 2019, they've switched to celebrating what we're actually getting each year. Last year's was a banger:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/20/free-for-2023/#oy-canada

But while there's been moderate excitement at the publicdomainification of "Yes, We Have No Bananas," AA Milne's "Now We Are Six," and Sherlock Holmes, the main event that everyone's anticipated arrives on January 1, 2024, when Mickey Mouse enters the public domain.

The first appearance of Mickey Mouse was in 1928's Steamboat Willie. Disney was critical to the lobbying efforts that extended copyright in 1976 and again in 1998, so much so that the 1998 Act is sometimes called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. Disney and its allies were so effective at securing these regulatory gifts that many people doubted that this day would ever come. Surely Disney would secure another retrospective copyright term extension before Jan 1, 2024. I had long arguments with comrades about this – people like Project Gutenberg founder Michael S Hart (RIP) were fatalistically certain the public domain would never come back.

But they were wrong. The public outrage over copyright term extensions came too late to stave off the slow-motion arson of the 1976 and 1998 Acts, but it was sufficient to keep a third extension away from the USA. Canada wasn't so lucky: Justin Trudeau let Trump bully him into taking 20 years' worth of works out of Canada's public domain in the revised NAFTA agreement, making swathes of works by living Canadian authors illegal at the stroke of a pen, in a gift to the distant descendants of long-dead foreign authors.

Now, with Mickey's liberation bare days away, there's a mounting sense of excitement and unease. Will Mickey actually be free? The answer is a resounding YES! (albeit with a few caveats). In a prelude to this year's public domain roundup, Jennifer Jenkins has published a full and delightful guide to The Mouse and IP from Jan 1 on:

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/

Disney loves the public domain. Its best-loved works, from The Sorcerer's Apprentice to Sleeping Beauty, Pinnocchio to The Little Mermaid, are gorgeous, thoughtful, and lively reworkings of material from the public domain. Disney loves the public domain – we just wish it would share.

Disney loves copyright's other flexibilities, too, like fair use. Walt told the papers that he took his inspiration for Steamboat Willie from Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, making fair use of their performances to imbue Mickey with his mischief and derring do. Disney loves fair use – we just wish it would share.

Disney loves copyright's limitations. Steamboat Willie was inspired by Buster Keaton's silent film Steamboat Bill (titles aren't copyrightable). Disney loves copyright's limitations – we just wish it would share.

As Jenkins writes, Disney's relationship to copyright is wildly contradictory. It's the poster child for the public domain's power as a source of inspiration for worthy (and profitable) new works. It's also the chief villain in the impoverishment and near-extinction of the public domain. Truly, every pirate wants to be an admiral.

Disney's reliance on – and sabotage of – the public domain is ironic. Jenkins compares it to "an oil company relying on solar power to run its rigs." Come January 1, Disney will have to share.

Now, if you've heard anything about this, you've probably been told that Mickey isn't really entering the public domain. Between trademark claims and later copyrightable elements of Mickey's design, Mickey's status will be too complex to understand. That's totally wrong.

Jenkins illustrates the relationship between these three elements in (what else) a Mickey-shaped Venn diagram. Topline: you can use all the elements of Mickey that are present in Steamboat Willie, along with some elements that were added later, provided that you make it clear that your work isn't affiliated with Disney.

Let's unpack that. The copyrightable status of a character used to be vague and complex, but several high-profile cases have brought clarity to the question. The big one is Les Klinger's case against the Arthur Conan Doyle estate over Sherlock Holmes. That case established that when a character appears in both public domain and copyrighted works, the character is in the public domain, and you are "free to copy story elements from the public domain works":

https://freesherlock.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/klinger-order-on-motion-for-summary-judgment-c.pdf

This case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, who declined to hear it. It's settled law.

So, which parts of Mickey aren't going into the public domain? Elements that came later: white gloves, color. But that doesn't mean you can't add different gloves, or different colorways. The idea of a eyes with pupils is not copyrightable – only the specific eyes that Disney added.

Other later elements that don't qualify for copyright: a squeaky mouse voice, being adorable, doing jaunty dances, etc. These are all generic characteristics of cartoon mice, and they're free for you to use. Jenkins is more cautious on whether you can give your Mickey red shorts. She judges that "a single, bright, primary color for an article of clothing does not meet the copyrightability threshold" but without settled law, you might wanna change the colors.

But what about trademark? For years, Disney has included a clip from Steamboat Willie at the start of each of its films. Many observers characterized this as a bid to create a de facto perpetual copyright, by making Steamboat Willie inescapably associated with products from Disney, weaving an impassable web of trademark tripwires around it.

But trademark doesn't prevent you from using Steamboat Willie. It only prevents you from misleading consumers "into thinking your work is produced or sponsored by Disney." Trademarks don't expire so long as they're in use, but uses that don't create confusion are fair game under trademark.

Copyrights and trademarks can overlap. Mickey Mouse is a copyrighted character, but he's also an indicator that a product or service is associated with Disney. While Mickey's copyright expires in a couple weeks, his trademark doesn't. What happens to an out-of-copyright work that is still a trademark?

Luckily for us, this is also a thoroughly settled case. As in, this question was resolved in a unanimous 2000 Supreme Court ruling, Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox. A live trademark does not extend an expired copyright. As the Supremes said:

[This would] create a species of mutant copyright law that limits the public’s federal right to copy and to use expired copyrights.

This elaborates on the Ninth Circuit's 1996 Maljack Prods v Goodtimes Home Video Corp:

[Trademark][ cannot be used to circumvent copyright law. If material covered by copyright law has passed into the public domain, it cannot then be protected by the Lanham Act without rendering the Copyright Act a nullity.

Despite what you might have heard, there is no ambiguity here. Copyrights can't be extended through trademark. Period. Unanimous Supreme Court Decision. Boom. End of story. Done.

But even so, there are trademark considerations in how you use Steamboat Willie after Jan 1, but these considerations are about protecting the public, not Disney shareholders. Your uses can't be misleading. People who buy or view your Steamboat Willie media or products have to be totally clear that your work comes from you, not Disney.

Avoiding confusion will be very hard for some uses, like plush toys, or short idents at the beginning of feature films. For most uses, though, a prominent disclaimer will suffice. The copyright page for my 2003 debut novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom contains this disclaimer:

This novel is a work of fiction, set in an imagined future. All the characters and events portrayed in this book, including the imagined future of the Magic Kingdom, are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. The Walt Disney Company has not authorized or endorsed this novel.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250196385/downandoutinthemagickingdom

Here's the Ninth Circuit again:

When a public domain work is copied, along with its title, there is little likelihood of confusion when even the most minimal steps are taken to distinguish the publisher of the original from that of the copy. The public is receiving just what it believes it is receiving—the work with which the title has become associated. The public is not only unharmed, it is unconfused.

Trademark has many exceptions. The First Amendment protects your right to use trademarks in expressive ways, for example, to recreate famous paintings with Barbie dolls:

https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/summaries/mattel-walkingmountain-9thcir2003.pdf

And then there's "nominative use": it's not a trademark violation to use a trademark to accurately describe a trademarked thing. "We fix iPhones" is not a trademark violation. Neither is 'Works with HP printers.' This goes double for "expressive" uses of trademarks in new works of art:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_v._Grimaldi

What about "dilution"? Trademark protects a small number of superbrands from uses that "impair the distinctiveness or harm the reputation of the famous mark, even when there is no consumer confusion." Jenkins says that the Mickey silhouette and the current Mickey character designs might be entitled to protection from dilution, but Steamboat Willie doesn't make the cut.

Jenkins closes with a celebration of the public domain's ability to inspire new works, like Disney's Three Musketeers, Disney's Christmas Carol, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Disney's Around the World in 80 Days, Disney's Alice in Wonderland, Disney's Snow White, Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame, Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Disney's Cinderella, Disney's Little Mermaid, Disney's Pinocchio, Disney's Huck Finn, Disney's Robin Hood, and Disney's Aladdin. These are some of the best-loved films of the past century, and made Disney a leading example of what talented, creative people can do with the public domain.

As of January 1, Disney will start to be an example of what talented, creative people give back to the public domain, joining Dickens, Dumas, Carroll, Verne, de Villeneuve, the Brothers Grimm, Twain, Hugo, Perrault and Collodi.

Public domain day is 17 days away. Creators of all kinds: start your engines!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/15/mouse-liberation-front/#free-mickey

Image: Doo Lee (modified) https://web.law.duke.edu/sites/default/files/images/centers/cspd/pdd2024/mickey/Steamboat-WIllie-Enters-Public-Domain.jpeg

CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

[exololyunho]

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You’re finally free to leave LA. However, Ateez’s final concert doesn’t go exactly as planned, although your reunion with Yunho is exactly as sweet and emotional as you expected. This time, though, it’s your turn to share some interesting information.

warnings: panic attack, general anxiety talk, pda, I just through in random people, proposals, a gift for yunho, oral sex, unprotected sex, soft sex, happy endings

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an: think of this as kind of a mid season finale. this was originally where the series ended, but I realized it needed more, so more is coming.

From the wrap party you had gone straight to the airport. The hours between check in and boarding inched by so slowly you felt like you were losing your mind. It didn’t help that you’d had to take a trip to the bathroom due to nausea. The stress of the long flight you were about to take, the general worrying you always did when Yunho was about to go on stage, plus your anxiety all surrounding the small present you had brought for him was eating you up inside.

By the time you boarded the plane and settled into your little first class cubicle, you had worn yourself out. As soon as you were in the air, you reclined your seat and passed out. 

When you finally woke, about half of the nearly 14 hour flight had passed. You found you were starving. Reaching for the small menu, you pondered the choices, opting for a fruit plate and some orange juice. Anything heavier would simply make you nauseous again.

Once the flight attendant had delivered your meager breakfast, you tucked in, enjoying the fruit while you scrolled through the movie options on the TV in front of you. 

Korean Air had a large selection of American and Korean movies with a moderate selection of other foreign films. You found yourself wincing and quickly moving past every one of your films until ‘Spiderwoman’ appeared on screen. You were only 19 when you had filmed it, 20 when it released, and it was the only one of your movies you could actually stand watching. You had been so incredibly proud of your work that you had gotten a spiderweb tattooed on your shoulder after filming ended. It had earned you the title of ‘Academy Award Nominated actress, Y/n L/n’. You hadn’t won, losing to a much older and experienced actress, but it had put you on the map.

It was also the film you had been in Seoul promoting when you had met Yunho. 

You shook yourself and moved past it. You continued scrolling until you stumbled upon Yunho’s first film. ‘In the Worst Way’, it was called. It was an action thriller that had done wonders for his reputation as an actor. It had even gotten him a Daesang. As much as you loved the film, you knew it would make you miss him so you carried on with your search. When nothing piqued your interest, you resigned yourself to watching ‘Spiderwoman’ while you ate your fruit.

It had been nearly a year and a half since you had watched it. The last time being when Yunho’s members had forced you to during a movie night you had been present for. You could have said no, but their pleading eyes and your pride for this one project had caused you to give in easily. 

You weren’t necessarily ashamed of your other movies. Well, aside from the reboot of the Alicia Silverstone movie, ‘The Crush’. Your version was an 18 year old college student falling in love with a much older professor and going crazy, instead of a 14 year like in her version, but it was still insanely fucked up and had been your third movie overall and your very first as an adult. It still made you cringe. It was a wonder Marvel had cast you in ‘Spiderwoman’ after that fiasco.

Trying to forget about your past bad career decisions, you focused on the movie. You had always been overly critical of yourself, but even you had to admit you did a damn good job on this film. Hopefully, the sequel you had just filmed was just as good. You had tried your best to fully immerse yourself as best you could, but most people could tell you didn’t have the same energy as you did 4 years ago. 

The movie eventually ended and the stewardess came by to take your empty glass and plate before returning with the green tea you had requested. Resigning yourself to listening to the music blasting through your headphones and staring out the window, looking at passing clouds, you sipped on the hot tea.

A little over a month ago, you had finally quit smoking. It had been hard but you’d persevered, knowing it was best for you and those around you. You had replaced that habit with lots and lots of tea. And a few nicotine patches for the first two weeks before you’d stopped using them. Yunho had been so incredibly proud when you told him and Joanne had brought home a cake on the one month anniversary of you throwing your vape and back up pack of cigarettes away. 

As you finished your tea, you finally checked your phone. It was on airplane mode and you hadn’t bothered to pay for wifi, preferring to disconnect for a while. Between your movie and cloud watching, you’d managed to eat up 4 more hours of the flight. In just under 3 hours, you’d be landing in Incheon at noon. An hour after that you’d likely be through border security and an hour after that you’d be in your apartment. 

Ateez’s concert started at 6 pm and would probably go until around 10. Excitement was already buzzing under your skin, along with nerves. You needed to calm down, it was still hours until you could see Yunho again.

Deciding to distract yourself, you asked for another cup of tea and flipped through the games on your phone.

You had been wrong. It took nearly 2 hours for the car service to get you to your apartment due to traffic. By the time you were dragging your suitcases through the door, it was almost 3. You had to arrive at Olympic Stadium at 5 to be escorted to the VIP box the boys had reserved for you and a few of their partners. Thankfully, Miyeon was going to be there

Yeosang’s girlfriend, Kim Doyeon, another idol, and San and Wooyoung's boyfriend, Lee Hosung, a non celebrity, were also going to be there. Jongho had been dating a Japanese idol he refused to tell the name of, but she was overseas promoting and couldn’t attend. That had given you all clues, but still, no one had been able to figure it out. Seonghwa had been flirting off and on with Yeri of Red Velvet for months, but they had never made anything official and you didn’t know if she was going to be there.

Pushing your thoughts aside, you focused on picking an outfit from what you had brought in your suitcases and what was still in the closet of your apartment. You wanted to look cute, but you definitely did not want to stand out. 

Sorting out what to wear proved to be very difficult, but by 4, you had settled on loose fitting jeans and an old Ateez shirt you had stolen from Yunho a while ago. You had just enough time to throw on some makeup, fix your hair, and gather up all the essentials to go in your purse. You were nearly out the door when you remembered to grab the newest version of their lightstick that the boys had gifted you when it was released. You even had some spare batteries hidden in a drawer. 

Quickly, you grabbed a flannel jacket and a black face mask before heading down the fancy hallway of the complex and into its equally nice elevator. Upon stepping out of the elevator, a man in a black suit you recognized as one of Ateez’s staff members waited for you in the lobby. Your steps rang out loudly as you hurried to follow him into the SUV that was waiting for you.

When he opened the door, you were happy to see Miyeon waiting for you. She had always looked good, but with her new blond hair, knee high socks, purple dress, and denim jacket she looked amazing. Even her oversized purse was a complimentary shade of maroon.

As soon as you had settled into the car, she pulled you into a hug.

“Y/n! I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too, Miyeon. It’s been too long,” she pulled away from you as the car started to pull away from your building. As her hands settled in her lap, you couldn’t help but notice the ring on her left hand. “Oh my god, it’s gorgeous!”

She slyly held her hand up so you could gawk at the ring you had yet to see in person. It was small and gold, but had a diamond in the center with a topaz and an emerald on opposite sides to represent their birth months. “I know right! It’s everything I wanted!”

The rest of the ride passed quickly as the two of you gushed about her upcoming wedding. It was only when the driver approached the stadium and was granted entry by the security guard at the back entrance that she asked about you and Yunho.

“So, when are you getting your very own ring?” She wiggled her fingers at you.

“Hopefully soon,” you were blushing slightly.

“Oh? So you’ve talked about it?” You had. Not too much more beyond that night when he had confessed to wanting children with you, as both of you had decided that was a conversation best had in person.

“We have a bit. And I hope we get married soon,” You bit your lip as the car rolled to a stop. “I’m-”

Before you could finish, your door was opened by another staff member. Miyeon gave you a look that said ‘later’ and you nodded before exiting.

The stadium was huge from the outside and you couldn’t believe Ateez had managed to sell out almost every seat in the venue. Olympic Stadium was massive from the outside, but the view quickly vanished as you and Miyeon were ushered inside to avoid any pictures being taken. The staff led you through a maze of hallways before opening the side door that led to the hallway containing doors to the VIP boxes. The two of you were led to one labeled ‘8’ and told that another staff member would come collect you before the last song so you could all meet the members backstage once the concert ended.

You thanked them before they were off, back down the hallway. Miyeon opened the door and you followed her through. There was one staff member wearing all black behind the bar on the right side of the room. On the left was a table full of appetizers. In front of you was a balcony that showed your box was directly facing center stage. There were dividers on the sides to block the neighboring boxes from looking in and several plush looking chairs and benches placed on the balcony. Inside, there were two tall cocktail tables with no stools.

Doyeon, Hosung, and, surprisingly, Yeri, were all crowded around one. Each of them had a beer in front of them and they were laughing.

Hosung’s eyes lit up when he saw you and Miyeon. His hair was silver and it matched the multitude of rings and necklaces he wore. He looked like he had stolen clothing items out of San’s closet, which was very likely. His black button down was half done up and tucked into black jeans. He had a dark purple velvet jacket thrown over the top. He was a year older than you and the two of you had become fast friends when San introduced him to everyone 6 months ago.

“Y/n!” You let him pull you into a hug as he immediately started chatting about how much he missed you and much he has to tell you.

Doyeon was dressed in a flowy blouse with black jeans and she simply gave you a nod and a smile. She had been friendly since she and Yeosang started dating a year and a few months ago, but she was relatively reserved and usually pretty quiet.

Yeri was greeting Miyeon, as they had worked together in the past. She had on an Ateez shirt not unlike your own, but hers was tucked into a flowy white skirt. 

“Hello,” she bowed slightly to you when she and Miyeon had caught up a bit.

“It’s nice to meet you, I’m Yunho’s girlfriend, Y/n,” you returned the bow and she smiled brightly. 

“Very nice to meet you. I’m Seonghwa’s something,” she waved her hand dismissively and everyone laughed. 

“Y/n! Have a beer,” Hosung dragged you to the bar. 

“Oh no I shouldn’t,” you thought quickly. “I just got off a plane, if I have a drink I’ll fall asleep.”

Hosung whined for a minute before he gave in and you asked the bartender for ginger ale.

With your drink in hand, you made your way back to the table as the conversation quickly turned to careers. You were peppered with questions about your movies, but each and every time you succeeded in redirecting the conversation back to one of the other four. 

Before you knew it, the arena started to fill up as fans filed in 45 minutes before the show started. The five of you disregarded the filling arena and continued to snack and chat until the lights started to dim. It was then that you took your seats, being settled between Hosung and Miyeon, preparing for the show to start.

It was about halfway through the concert when a fan seated below your box turned to scan the arena. It was during a moment when the venue was lit up as the boys performed ‘Aurora’ and you knew from the look on the girl's face as you made eye contact that she recognized you. Before she could raise her phone to take a picture, you turned your head and left your seat to go pace safely under the overhang where you weren’t visible.

Doyeon and Yeri had kept their masks on, but you had removed yours to laugh and sing with Miyeon and Hosung. It was stupid, but you had enjoyed the normalcy of it all until it bit you in the ass.

Miyeon had followed you when you got up and you knew everyone’s eyes were on you, but you couldn’t stop your hands from shaking as you walked back and forth. You didn’t really know why you were panicking so much. Yes the girl had seen you, but you had mentioned in interviews before that you were a fan of Ateez. It wasn’t that odd that you would be at their final concert. Your reasoning couldn’t stop your panic from building, though. 

Miyeon grabbed your hands, steadying them. You saw Yeri and Doyeon give you understanding but sympathetic looks as they stopped Hosung from approaching you after Miyeon, pulling him to sit between them and encouraging him to focus on the show. 

“Y/n. What happened?” Miyeon pulled you farther from the balcony. She had seen you panic before. She was 7 years older than you and could easily calm you down quickly. 

“I- a- a fan saw me,” you forced out even though your throat felt like it was closing up. “She recognized me.”

“Deep breaths,” one of her hands left yours to settle on her chest and demonstrate breathing for you to follow. It was hard with the loud music mimicking the pounding of your heart. 

“Air,” you croaked out. 

She nodded, keeping a tight hand as she pulled you through the door into the hallway. There were two bodyguards outside the door.

“Minyoung, we need to go outside,” the bodyguard on the left nodded and gestured for you to follow him. He led you quietly through the hallway in the opposite direction you had entered from before leading you out onto a secluded terrace. It was a bit chilly outside as the sun had gone down about an hour ago but it felt good. Minyoung stayed by the door, looking away from you respectfully, as Miyeon led you farther away from him to lean you against a wall.

You slid down to take a seat while Miyeon crouched next to you.

“Y/n,” her voice was gentle. “You’re safe. There’s no way that one girl saw you and figured out your whole life story from one second of eye contact.”

You knew that. You really did, but your heart wouldn't stop racing. You took deep breaths of the cool air and willed yourself to calm down, it was working, but your panic was leaving a pounding headache behind.

“Here,” Miyeon was holding out two small pills to you. Your confusion must have been written all over your face because she shook a small bottle of Tylenol at you. “I used to get panic attacks when I was your age. I always had headaches afterwards.”

You gratefully accepted the pills and the water bottle she produced from her bag. After swallowing them, you closed your eyes, leaning back against the cement walls of the stadium. 

“I’m a terrible girlfriend,” you said after a long moment of silence. “I can’t go anywhere without freaking out and being paranoid. I can’t even watch him perform.”

“That’s not true. You and I have gone out in public plenty of times and you’ve been perfectly fine. I’ve seen you relaxed and happy at his shows before, too,” she sat on the ground next to you, taking your hand once again. “You’ve just got your issues. We all have them and we all overcome them in one way or another.”

“Becoming famous as a teenager fucked me up,” your eyes opened and you looked at the smaller woman beside you.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “It probably did. But you’re getting better. Eight months ago, when you came back to Seoul, you couldn’t even walk outside but you overcame that. Remember? Within a month you were going to coffee shops and parks and taking walks with me.”

She gave your hand a reassuring squeeze and the memories brought a smile to your face.

“You’re probably never going to fully get rid of the anxiety, but you’re doing great, you really are. And you have all of us and your friends in the states. We all want you to be happy,” Miyeon leaned her head on your shoulder and you laid yours on hers. “Yunho wants you to be happy. And… Can I be honest?”

“Of course,” her question made you nervous.

“I think you should stop acting. At least for a few years. And I think Yunho agrees with me, too,” she lifted her head to look you in the eyes. “You do so well when you stop and come here to spend time with us, but as soon as you go back to working, you just reset. Its heartbreaking. I know I’m not that old, but you feel almost like a daughter to me and it hurts me to see you struggling.”

You nodded, fighting off tears. “You’re right. I- before I came back I told my agent I didn’t want to hear anything about another project for at least a year.”

She was nodding vigorously. “Good. Good.”

With that, you fell into silence, staring across the balcony at the faint lights of the city beyond the massive complex of the venue. You two sat like that before you nodded, mostly to yourself. “I’m ready. Let’s go back and watch our men one last time.”

When you got back, the song had changed to one of their new b-sides. Hosung gave you a worried look but you gave him a smile, sitting next to Yeri after replacing your mask. The five of you finished the show, cheering and screaming and singing along. 

For their last costume change, they were decked out in black suits with orange accents that were personalized to each member. You felt your heart stop as Yunho’s top was revealed to be backless during the choreography, showing off your matching tattoo. Screams and cheers echoed from the fans as Yunho gave a satisfied smirk to the crowd.

It was nearly 10 pm when the door opened and a staff member announced it was time to go. All of you quickly gathered your things. 

Anticipation was gathering under your skin, knowing you were minutes away from seeing Yunho again. Miyeon’s hand in yours was the only thing keeping you from running ahead of the staff member guiding you to the green room.

Once you had arrived, you refused to sit, instead choosing to pace and keep your gaze locked on the monitors that had a live feed of the final performance after you discarded your flannel and purse beside Miyeon on the couch. Doyeon and Yeri were entertaining Hosung, who was almost as excited as you were, despite the fact that he, San, and Wooyoung had moved into a new apartment a week ago and they saw each other everyday.

When the members froze in their final ending positions and the platform they were on began to descend, you shifted your focus to the door. You waited with bated breath for what felt like ages.

In reality it was only a minute before the door flew open. Yunho barrelled through, yanking his mic off and throwing it at the frantic manager who followed him. You ran at him, jumping into his arms as he placed one hand on your waist, the other on your thigh. With your legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his neck, you kissed him like it was your last chance. It was probably way too intimate for the setting you were in, but neither of you couldn’t help yourselves. 

Eventually you had to come up for air and you rested your forehead against his. “I missed you so much, love.”

“I missed you more, baby,” throats cleared behind you and Yunho sighed before he let you down after one more kiss that was a lot more appropriate for a semi-public setting. San and Wooyoung were waiting behind you. Hosung was between them, clinging both men.

“Hug. Now,” he said and you eagerly moved forward to let all three envelop you. As soon as they had, though, you regretted it.

“Ew sweaty!” Struggling against them was futile as San and Wooyoung were both stronger than you and Hosung was just giggling at your struggle. Yunho came to your rescue, pulling you from the group hug to tug you back against him. One of his arms stayed around your waist as you rested against his chest. His free hand took the water bottle that was offered to him.

“Oh so it’s not disgusting when it's him?” San gave you a mockingly offended look and Wooyoung slapped his arm.

“Of course not! She’s probably seen him much sweatier. You should know, you were his roommate!”

You buried your red face in your hands as Yunho chuckled behind you. When he finished drinking, he had slouched over to rest his head on your shoulder, still breathing heavily. 

You twisted in his arms to look at him, a hand coming up to cup his face. “You ok, Yun?”

He merely nodded and leaned into your touch, letting his eyes fall closed. You turned back to face the rest of the room, resting your head against his. Hongjoong was smiling like a lovestruck fool as he sat on the couch, letting Miyeon dab his sweat and flutter around him. San and Wooyoung seemed to have lost interest in you and Yunho, instead focusing on eying both each other and Hosung up and down as they all flirted. Doyeon and Yeosang were farther into the room, hiding from the mess of people as they conversed quietly and shared loving looks despite not physically touching each other. 

Movement caught your eye as Jongho and Mingi frantically searched for their phones in order to snap a photo of Yeri sitting sideways on Seonghwa’s lap as they made out. Your eyes went wide and you copied Jongho and Mingi, grabbing your own phone to take pictures of the pair. This would make great blackmail later on.

Yunho was stolen from you as one of the stylists insisted the boys change out of their costumes and get their makeup removed so they could go home sooner. He pressed a kiss to your cheek and allowed her to drag him towards one of the changing rooms in the back of the green room. She shoved him inside before continuing the task of collecting the rest of the men.

Yunho emerged with joggers and a sweatshirt on, dodging the makeup artist who had a wipe in his hand. “I can take my own makeup off, don’t worry. Gotta go.”

Before you could even say goodbye to the rest of the members and their partners, he was scooping your things off the couch and dragging you by the wrist into the hallway towards the exit. 

“What about-”

“I promise you will see everyone very soon, baby. Let’s go home.”

Without further complaint, you shifted so your hand was in his as the pair of you hurried down the nearly empty hallway. 

To your surprise, there wasn't a driver waiting for you. Instead, you were greeted with the sight of Yunho’s sleek black sedan. He led you over the passenger side and just when you thought he was going to open the door for you, he pressed your back into the cold glass. His lips were on yours, your hands knotted in his hoodie and his hands keeping your hips pressed tight to his.

“Yunho,” you broke away gasping for breath. “We’re in public.”

“Fuck,” he growled before kissing you again. This time, when he pulled away he did actually open the door for you. You got in quickly. He made his way around to the driver's side.

Once he was in and the doors were shut, he placed your bag and jacket at your feet before pulling you into a bruising kiss. 

He pulled away and without another word, started the car and immediately set off towards your apartment. His large right hand never left your thigh as he drove and at every red light he would kiss you senseless.

Your front door opened as the two of you stumbled inside, still locked together like you had been since the elevator had arrived at your floor. Kicking your shoes off proved to be difficult when your lips were stuck together, but you managed. When you broke for air, his lips went to your neck, sucking love bites underneath your jaw. As much as you loved the sensation, you had too much racing through your mind.

“Wait, Yunho,” he quickly pulled away from you, his hands still on your hips.

“What's wrong baby?”

You felt like you were on fire. Between your nerves about the present you had to give him and the heat pooling between your legs you could hardly think straight. “I-I have something for you.”

You took his hand and led him to your room. He let out a chuckle at the sight of your exploded suitcases from earlier but allowed himself to be sat on the edge of the bed.

You left him there to dig through the smaller of the two suitcases, producing the rectangular white box wrapped with a mint green ribbon. Clutching your prize, you made your way back to him. You stood in front of him, fidgeting with the box for a moment. 

“Y/n, what's this?” His hand reached up and you relinquished the box into his hand.

“A… a gift. One I’m really hoping you love,” you knew your nerves were showing on your face as you bit the inside of your cheek.

“I’ll love anything you give me,” he gave you one last smile before turning his attention to the shape in his hands. It looked so much smaller between his fingers than it had in yours.

You held your breath as he untied the ribbon, gently placing it beside him on the bed. Slowly and carefully, he lifted the lid. A million different emotions flashed across his face as he saw the contents. Confusion, shock, disbelief, hesitation, and finally, to your relief, happiness.

“Is this- are you,” he swallowed hard before starting again. “Is this real?

You nodded mutely. A moment passed before his hands were yanking you forward by the back of your thighs, his forehead resting against your sternum and his hand free hand migrating up to rest on your stomach.

“Oh my god,” his voice was quiet but it seemed to wake you from your daze. Carefully one of your hands caressed his head. After resting there for a moment he stood, holding you against him with the pressure of the arm still holding the box. His lips met yours, this time in a slow and loving dance.

“I’m pregnant,” you whispered into his mouth. He held you tighter at that comment. After kissing you for a while, he parted from you, setting the box holding the positive pregnancy test and the ultrasound of the small shape growing inside you beside the ribbon.

“I guess there's no better time to do this than now,” Yunho took a step back, digging in the pocket of his joggers. He produced a small, velvet pouch that he opened as he knelt on one knee. 

You couldn’t help the gasp and single tear that escaped you. With his eyes on yours, he pulled a silver band out of the pouch. It was thin and almost fragile looking. Two strands of silver branches cradled two small diamonds that were nested against each other. It was everything you could have hoped for.

“I was planning on stealing your parent’s numbers from your phone tonight to ask them for permission,”  his eyes were watery as they looked up at you as if you were his whole world. “And then I wanted to take you somewhere, somewhere we could walk on the beach and be totally alone.”

“It’s not the Victorian era, baby,” his words brought more tears to your eyes. “You don’t need my parents' permission.”

“I know, but I wanted my proposal to be as normal as possible,” he cringed slightly. “I also haven’t met them.”

That hadn’t even crossed your mind lately. Your parents knew you had a boyfriend, but that was about it. You had told them he was famous also and treated you well, but that you couldn’t tell them who he was for the safety and privacy of everyone involved. After a while, they had given up asking, but you knew they were curious. 

Oh god. His parents. You hadn’t met them either. The mere thought made you anxious. He had always been hesitant to bring them up around you. You’d heard the rumor that Korean parents didn’t allow their first born sons to marry foreigners plenty of times, but had never allowed yourself to think of it. You had figured that was a bridge you’d cross if the time came but here you were now, staring at that terrifying bridge.

As if he could sense your rising fear, he drew you back into the present with a gentle touch to your hand. The low light of your room illuminated half of his features, giving him both the look of the soft man you loved and the dark, passionate lover who stole your heart.

“We’ll deal with them later. The only people who matter now are you, me, and the little one who’s right here,” his hand not holding the ring traveled to rest over your stomach. “I didn’t have the time to rehearse my speech about how much I love you, but if I promise to perfect it and deliver it later, will you marry me, Y/n L/n?”

Before you even noticed you were moving, you fell to your knees and nodded. “Yes yes yes I will.”

His smile was blinding as he took your left hand, sliding the ring onto your ring finger. When it was settled, he pulled you into him, pressing his lips oh so sweetly to yours.

It wasn’t long until those soft, exploring kisses turned more intense. His hands were clutching you tighter to him. You felt him everywhere, surrounding you and filling your senses with nothing but Jeong Yunho.

When you broke for some much needed air, Yunho’s lips met your neck, leaving sweet, tender kisses instead of the harsh and heated bites and sucks he usually subjected you to. Not that you ever seriously complained, you loved those just as much as he did, but something about his touch now was more intense. Love poured out of his every action and you suspected his gentle movements were due to both the tenderness of the moment and the growing bundle of cells inside you.

As you panted, Yunho worked his way all the way down to the collar of your shirt before coming back up to rest his forehead against yours. “I love you,” he breathed out, eyes closed, panting just as hard as you were.

“Show me,” your words were breathy and pleading. His eyes snapped open, their proximity almost preventing you from seeing the way they darkened slightly, still holding all the love and feelings of before, but now tinged with longing.

“Gladly, baby.”

He laid you back on the plush rug at the foot of your bed. When he eased over you, his mouth returned to yours and your legs wound around his hips. One of his hands laced with your left as the other pushed every so slightly under the hem of the shirt you wore. It didn’t move much farther than your waist but just that small movement seemed to throw gasoline on the fire that was burning in you.

 You started whining into every slow and steady pass of his tongue over yours. Your back arched at a particularly aggressive probe of his tongue into your mouth. With your body pressed tighter to his, he broke the kiss with a groan. His head dropped down to rest where your neck met your shoulder. 

“I’m trying to be gentle with you, baby. I have to now.”

That drew a little chuckle from you. “I’m not going to break just because I’m pregnant.”

Another groan fell from his lips and his hips jerked into yours. “Say it again.”

“I’m pregnant,” your voice was weaker with need now.

He sat up onto his knees, both hands gripping your hips as you laid before him. “Thought you were on birth control?”

“Seems like you’re unstoppable, Yunho,” you were grinning at him.

His own smile twisted into a self satisfied smirk. “That I am.”

Soon enough, he had you stripped beneath him, back settled comfortably into the fluffy rug. He had removed his shirt when you whined about him being overdressed but had ignored your demands that he fucked you now. You were more than ready for him. The idea of the man in front of you, your boyfriend, no, fiance, fucking you so good he defeated your birth control was incredibly and twistedly hot.

With your mind lost in fantasy of the way he moved inside you, you missed him repositioning your legs as he laid between them. You only realized where he was when he pressed a kiss to your currently flat stomach. If you looked hard enough you could almost see the small bump. When you had looked up pictures of other people at your stage of pregnancy, most had noticeable bumps. Your doctor had quickly quelled your worries about not showing yet by telling you everyone experienced pregnancy differently and that you would start showing soon enough. 

Yunho didn’t seem to mind you weren’t really showing yet as he continued to pepper kisses across your stomach. His lips felt like they were burning in the best way possible. The heat was flowing through you, heading straight to your core.

It was when those plush lips of his connected with your clit that you truly thought you were losing your mind. Thankfully, he had decided that he didn’t care about going slow anymore. 

With his lips sucking and tongue giving you small licks, one of his long fingers inched its way into you. The only reason you weren’t thrashing was the broad hand that had settled on your stomach, applying just enough pressure to keep your lower half still. Through the haze that was invading your mind from the pleasure his mouth and fingers were bringing you, you reached one of your hands down to lace your fingers through his that were pressed against you.

He seemed to like this as the pace of both his lips, tongue, and finger sped up. The addition of a second finger into you had you whining. They were tilting up, hitting the perfect spot inside you while his tongue circled your clit. 

You could feel yourself rising higher and higher as he continued his work.

It was a combination of his eyes meeting yours and the knowledge that this was the man you would spend the rest of your life with, the man who had knocked you up, the man who cared for you, who broke the rules for you, who always put your wellbeing above his, that broke you. With tears in your eyes and his name on your lips you fell apart, gripping his hand tightly and shaking as he didn’t slow his movements until you were struggling to get away from him.

When he finally stopped his ministrations, you collapsed down, feeling boneless and light. Your reprieve didn’t last long as he was quickling lifting your limp legs over his thighs. With one swift movement, he pushed himself deep inside you, hips against yours. You let out a cry. It felt like you were having another orgasm all over again as your previous one had ended only a moment before.

His body fell over yours. He quickly took ahold of both of your hands, laying them by your head as his fingers threaded through yours. Thankfully, Yunho gave you a few minutes to adjust to his length before moving. In those precious moments of closeness, he kissed you, murmuring about how much he loved you between the slow movements of his mouth against yours. 

All it took was one nod from you after he gave a tentative thrust for Yunho to truly begin. This was nothing like your typical reunion sex. Usually it was hot and messy and rough as all the anticipation that had been building during your time apart was thrust to the surface. This sex was loving and soft.

Yunho kept his eyes on yours as every movement of his hips brought new sounds to your lips. Cries of his name were followed by ragged moans and high pitched whines that every slow, calculated, and deep thrust forced out of you.

At some point you had begun crying again from a combination of the heavenly pleasure he so easily brought you and the mounting emotions the evening had thrown at you. 

Yunho’s thrusts were starting to lose their calculated movements, falling into a faster, more unstable rhythm. He was nearing his high, but so were you again. When he gave a particularly hard thrust and your walls tightened around him, one of his hands left yours to find your clit. Immediately, you placed your now free hand in his hair, dragging him back to kissing you. 

With his lips against yours, his fingers rubbing circles against your most sensitive place, and his body crushing yours into the floor beneath you, you came. Hard. All the air in your lungs rushed out in one final moan. Your head dropped to the floor and your back arched. With your walls spasming around him and the sight of you, cumming beneath him, assaulting his senses, Yunho came with you.

His groans were loud as his body shook, from the orgasm he was racked by and the exhaustion of holding himself up after a four hour long concert. When he collapsed against you, he just barely managed to keep himself from fully crushing you. 

The two of you stayed like that for a while, allowing your highs to fully disappear before either of you dared to move. Until he realized with a start, that he was laying on you. More specifically, on your stomach. His sudden panic propelled him off of you. 

The suddenness of him pulling out of you, cock long since gone soft, drew shocked groans and gasps from the both of you and he landed on his ass between your still spread legs. 

“Yunho? What are you doing?”

“I-I was laying on you, on our baby,” he recovered from his shock and moved himself closer to fret over you, hands meekly darting from one spot to another, all over your body.

You were quickly growing cold from his lack of warmth but the words ‘our baby’ caused your heart to flutter. “I’m ok. We’re ok, I promise.”

That softened him and he gathered you into his arms. With his worry gone, the two of you stayed curled around each other for a while longer, until you noticed his eyes drooping.

“Bed time,” you announced as you peeled yourself away from him. Tentatively, you stood, and when your legs were steady enough, you moved to the bathroom to clean the mess between your legs. After a few years of unprotected sex with Yunho that had started when you’d both gotten tested, shortly after your relationship started and you got on what you had thought was reliable form of birth control, you were able to clean yourself up quickly and efficiently. 

You both still needed to shower, but upon your return to the bedroom, you gave up on that. Washing your sheets and taking a long bath tomorrow was favorable to dragging the giant that was dozing on the floor into the bathroom.

Prodding him with your foot quickly caused him to wake up. A smile took over the confusion on his face as you stood, naked over him. 

“Come on love,” with a little more poking, you got him into bed. With care, you placed the box containing the ultrasound and positive pregnancy test on the dresser nearby before you crawled in bed and weaseled your way into his arms.

He fell asleep fast, leaving you curled into his chest. Your mind drifted as sleep slowly took over. 

You dreamt of a house in the middle of an open field with Yunho chasing a little boy around the halls while you watched with the most content smile on your face that the world had ever seen.

[eomcheong-keun-megi]

ayo since youve been to seoul, can u recommend anywhere to visit? i went last year and im going again in a few months but besides myeongdong and the typical touristy places i didnt have time to go anywhere else

yooooh so in 2023 I was working twice in Seoul -

one time as a sound tech for a artist friend of mine who had their solo exhibit in Gyeongbokgung in the north of the city

and half a year later as a sound artist with a artist collective exhibiting and performing in Munjeong-dong in the southern outskirts of Seoul.

I entirely fuck with nature and tried to visit as many gardens, public parks, botanical gardens and mountain parks as I could. You cannot go wrong with any of those.

Aside from that I was really interested in art and artistic crafts - thanks to some korean friends who sent me instagram accounts of local galleries and events.

I was lucky to find some places showing sound and experimental art in Euljiro-Dong. This is a place that is RAPIDLY changing. The district is special because of its huge spectrum of artistic and technical manual craftsmanship. In the 6 months between my two visits an entire street block had been demolished and replaced by high rise buildings. The city changes crazy fast!

I also LOVE the Cheonggyecheon River stream - the ancient former city border used to have a multileveled highway constructed above it but since 20 years now flows over 10 km trough Seouls City center as a renatured river ecosystem.

Following the stream is a super lovely way to explore the city and also pass the famous textile and fabric district of Dongdaemun.

If you are interested in anything fashion or textile related, this is the place to be and you could honestly get lost in the universe of one of the building complexes.

I experienced the Itaewon district as one of the most diverse places I have ever been to - where else in the world can u find a central mosque down the street of the so called "homohill" of the gay- and transbars, the Nigerian community next to the Vietnamese Community and an elementary school in the middle of the most vibrant night life full of neon crosses and kebab stores in the HEART of Seoul.

I also recommend trying out any Jjimjilbang / Sauna you can find if you can go with a local. It is the most chill experience when someone first shows u around and then u can basically add 5 years to your life.

The Hongdae 24 H Sauna(the one skz filmed at) is actually super accessible to foreigners and a good place if its your first time at a jjimjilbang.

Every time I went to Korea I came back healthier and I am chronically ill - the saunas and nutrition was just on point and affordable.

Lastly, I recommend the Seoul National Museum. It's free entry and you legit can spend an ENTIRE DAY in that spaceship of a building. Many amazing topics and exhibits so explore also just a fun place. There r some stray cats living in the park in front of the complex and I recommend them too.

skz is actually not super represented in public. only by chance I saw a skz hilfiger ad billboard in Itaewon and a Lotte Duty Free ad at an airport. I saw way more bts, nct and many girl groups represented in public.

I did go up to Namsan Tower because I am insufferable and wanted to check out how gay it would be to kidnap your best bro up there for surprise dinner and take photos with a giant heart statue on a platform that is entirely dedicated for couples and has a specific proposal spot. yea.

It's getting long, so anyway, I recommend following your special interest and hanging out with people who live there.

have fun and eat a lot of good food!

[imagine-organization-xiii]

What "coffee table books" would they have/ what would they read at a doctor's office?

Xemnas - Bob Willoughby: A Cinematic Life - This comprehensive large-format monograph on renowned photographer Bob Willoughby's extraordinary, cinematic life is a tribute to his remarkable career. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Willoughby photographed many of the most significant stars of the era in film and jazz. 

Xigbar - Terry O'Neill: The A-Z of Rock 'N' Roll - A chronicle of rock 'n' roll history as seen through the lens of master photographer Terry O'Neill.

Xaldin - VHS: Absurd, Odd, and Ridiculous Relics from the Videotape Era - Comedy writers Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher have spent the last 20 years collecting the best odd and unintentionally hilarious videotapes ever produced. Since 2004, they've resurrected them for sold-out audiences across the country as part of their touring show, the Found Footage Festival. Now, for the very first time, they've collected the greatest VHS covers into one handsome compendium -- along with their priceless snarky commentary throughout.

Vexen - Evolution: A Visual Record - Stunning images to reawaken us to the scientific process that drives the amazing diversity of life on earth.

Lexaeus - The Art of the Cheese Plate: Pairings, Recipes, Style, Attitude - A perfect gift for any host or cheese lover, The Art of the Cheese Plate offers clear directions and expert tips for perfect cheese plates and creative condiments.

Zexion - The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos From Bookworms World Wide - A beautifully packaged full-color collection of literary tattoos and short personal essays, The Word Made Flesh is an intimate but anonymous confessional book, in the vein of thought-provoking anthologies like PostSecret and Not Quite What I Was Planning.

Saix - United States Coinage: A Study By Type - A definitive work on American history as illustrated by United States coinage.

Axel - Stuck Up!: 100 Objects Inserted and Ingested in Places They Shouldn’t Be - A very funny collection of 100 X-ray images showing foreign objects ingested or inserted into human bodies, accidentally or on purpose.

Demyx - Underwater Dogs - The exuberant, exhilarating photographs of dogs underwater that have become a sensation.

Luxord - Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found - Milk, Eggs, Vodka is a celebration of the humble grocery list. Almost anyone will find themselves engrossed in this voyeuristic look into everyday life—less than healthy lists, lists for parties, lists with personal and often odd annotations on them...and the list of lists goes on. Besides over 150 found lists, the book also includes short essays on collecting, shopping, eating, and list making. 

Marluxia - Queer Maximalism - Machine Dazzle is the much-in-demand designer and artist behind popular cabaret, drag, and performance stars such as Taylor Mac and transgender icon Mx. Justin Vivian Bond. For the first time, his over-the-top stage creations, made for himself and others, are collected here alongside stage environments, ephemera, and photos from his career.

Larxene - Women Before 10 AM - Following up on her highly praised bestseller Men Before 10 a.m., celebrity photographer Veronique Vial completes her wonderfully intimate and revealing portrait of the sexes with Women Before 10 a.m., a captivating collection of your favorite fashion, cinematic, and pop culture beauties, starlets, and models before ten o'clock in the morning.

Roxas - The Great American Cereal Book: How Breakfast Got Its Crunch - The Great American Cereal Book is the definitive compendium of breakfast cereal history and lore, celebrating the most recognizable brands and packaging, such as Cheerios, Cocoa Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Grape-Nuts, and Trix.

Xion - Wild Things Are Happening: The Art of Maurice Sendak - The most comprehensive survey of the work of Maurice Sendak, the most celebrated picture book artist of all time―with previously unpublished archival materials.

[charlesandmiranda]

Arrival!

Writing to you this morning from our hotel breakfast! Just wanted to fill in everyone about the rest of our trip before we start our first full day. I doubt we'll be able to post EVERY SINGLE DAY WE'RE HERE but we're definitely gonna try and keep it frequent enough to be interesting!

From our last post, we were heading from Baltimore to Toronto, which was a very quick hour and a half-ish flight. From Toronto, we headed straight to our gate to which started boarding shortly thereafter, so it was a pretty quick turn around. It was almost kind of a shame because airport was actually kinda pretty, and I wouldn't have hated a few extra minutes to look around at all the really lavishly decorated restaurants and stuff.

Then came the 14 hour flight. It IS a very long time, don't get me wrong, and by the end my back was VERY achy and my legs definitely craved stretching but also they keep the windows closed and the lights low for most of the trip so you honestly kind of lose track of how long you've been on there.

Charles and I both watched some movies on the flight; we started the first two episodes of Severance (which was also provided on the flight and I've been curious about for a while anyway -- anyone else here seen it?) and played games on our Switches. I also read a lot; I loaded my e-reader up before we left. In a weird way it was kind of nice to have such a long, uninterrupted time where there was nothing to do but leisure activities even if you're doing them in a mostly uncomfortable way --I think Charles and I (Charles especially) struggle with justifying how we spend our free time, always feeling like there has to be something else we can be working on or doing, but it's kind of a bad habit and terrible mental state to always be in, so we're working on it. Unfortunately, neither of us managed to get much sleep on the flight despite our best efforts, I think I managed maybe 20 minutes total?? So it wasn't super restful for sure.

Thankfully, our flight was kinda ahead of schedule, and we ended up landing around 5:00 PM / 17:00 which is like....3:00 AM for those of you in the Eastern US timezone! We're 12 hours ahead of y'all, so when I'm writing this, I'm writing to you from the future!!!

After getting through customs and immigration, baggage, etc. we were stopped by a news crew from a show called Why Did You Come To Japan? They seem to stop tourists at the airport pretty regularly, and we ended up talking to them for a while. Charles said that as someone who used to be a camera guy himself, he always tries to stop for folks filming stuff like that, because he knows how hard it can be to get people to talk to you and work with you. They were very interested in the fact it was our honeymoon, and that we got engaged here, and even more interested that we were really into Oishinbo, which is a food manga from the 80s/90s. It's not super popular in the US although personally I love & recommend it, and I kinda get the impression from the crew we spoke to that it's a classic but kinda old fashioned here. They said in all their years of doing these interviews, it was their first time having a foreigner mention it. They gave us a card and a slip of paper and asked us to contact them again, because they may be interested in meeting up with us again later in our trip to film more for the show (!?) so we'll see how that pans out I guess!

Speaking of, after we finally left the airport, we took the Skyliner train to Nippori, and then transferred to a JR Line train to get us to Shinjuku station. We've stayed in Shinjuku for at least part or all of our trips in the past, and it kind of feels like a home base for us now. We usually stay in or around the Kabukicho area, which is known as an entertainment district with lots of nightlife. If you want brilliantly lit signs and that crowded cyberpunk-y look, Kabukicho is a great place to be!

NOT THAT IT SUPER MATTERS, BUT the card in the photo, with Hello kitty and other Sanrio characters on it, is a Pasmo card, we each got one. Basically it's a little card that you can add money to, and you can use it to pay fare on most trains and buses, as well as lots of vending machines and stuff like that. You can top it off as you go as well.

We checked in to our hotel, the Shinjuku Gracery, and IMMEDIATELY needed to stretch out on the bed and shower the sweaty airport off of us, haha. The Gracery is built on top of a Toho Cinema movie theater, and the whole hotel has a very classy Godzilla theme to it. There's a to-scale Godzilla head built on top of part of the building, looking like he's about to demolish it, and he roars and blows steam out of his mouth, haha. To be honest, a night in the Gracery is one of our "we're on our honeymoon, we deserve this!" splurges -- it's one of the more expensive parts of our trip, given the rest of the time we'll be staying in smaller hotels and airbnbs and the like. We dished out a little extra cash to stay in what they call a Godzilla view room, where you can see the head of Godzilla that is mounted to the roof of the hotel from your room! Totally cool. I had to include specifically a picture of the shower, because I loooove these big hotel showers!

(sadly the filter for this exhibit not only doesn't fit my phone screen but also insanely reduced the image quality LOL)

We took a rest, then headed out to get a bite to eat. We hit up a ramen shop we'd been to in the past, and spent a while walking around the Kabukicho area, including the micro-bar district, Golden Gai. It was interesting to see what's changed and what hasn't since we were here last; for example, they were in the process of demolishing a VR arcade when we were last here, and now there's an ENORMOUS, lux-looking hotel in its place!

We ended up in the unfortunate position of feeling physically very tired but mentally pretty awake, and even though we spent time in our hotel room soaking in the bath, it was probably 1 AM our time before we actually fell asleep, meaning we were up for like....32 hours straight, I think?

Today, our plan is to check out a few shops in the area around Kabukicho, and a little later we'll be checking out and moving on to Akihabara, where our next hotel is. It's well known for being crammed with electronics and used and new like....nerd stuff, and is pretty close to a district jam packed with guitar shops, so we'll have a pretty full day! Stay tuned I suppose!!

Til next time!

[denimbex1986]

'Warner Bros Japan has criticised what it called “extremely regrettable” Barbenheimer tweets shared by their US counterparts.

It joins a growing backlash in Japan against the conflation of Greta Gerwig’s playfully marketed film with Oppenheimer, a biopic of the scientist behind the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A translation of the statement, which was posted on Japan’s Twitter account for the Barbie film, reads: “Because the movies Barbie and Oppenheimer were both released in the US on 21 July, there is currently a movement driven by overseas fans to watch them together (#Barbenheimer), but this is not an official movement. We find the reaction to this fan-driven movement from the official US account for the movie Barbie to be extremely regrettable. We take this very seriously and are asking the US head office to take appropriate action. We apologise to those offended by these inconsiderate actions.”

The release of Barbie and Oppenheimer resulted in millions around the world seeing the two vastly different blockbusters as an ironic double bill dubbed “Barbenheimer��.

On social media, users have been sharing memes and art combining the fun pink imagery of Barbie with mushroom clouds and fiery explosions in Oppenheimer.

But the hashtag #NoBarbenheimer has been trending in Japan in the last week, with some social media users criticising the concept of Barbenheimer as trivialising nuclear weapons and the impact the bombings had on Japan, the only country to experience a nuclear attack. One #nobarbenheimer post, viewed 7m times, reads: “The official Barbie movie account is completely on board with the atomic bomb and mushroom cloud memes, so Barbie is a no-go as well.”

Warner Bros Japan’s statement came after the official US Twitter account for Barbie, a Warner Bros film, reacted positively to several Barbenheimer images shared by fans, including a fan-made poster depicting Oppenheimer actor Cillian Murphy carrying Barbie star Margot Robbie in front of a backdrop of flames. In response, the @barbiethemovie account wrote: “It’s going to be a summer to remember.”

It's going to be a summer to remember 😘💕

— Barbie Movie (@barbiethemovie) July 21, 2023

Twitter later added a community note to the post highlighting the historical context of the image: “At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945 (Showa 20), an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima for the first time in human history. The particular nature of the damage caused by the atomic bombs is that mass destruction and mass murder occurred instantaneously and indiscriminately.”

Barbie is due to be released in Japan in August but Toho-Towa, Japan’s largest distributor of Hollywood films, has yet to announce a release date for Oppenheimer. Despite the sensitive subject matter, the country often shows foreign films depicting the events of the second world war without backlash. But Nolan’s film has been criticised by some for not showing the extent of the devastation wrought on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where it is estimated up to 220,000 people died in the bombings and their aftermath.

Barbie has so far made $775m globally and is already the third best-performing film of the year, while Oppenheimer has made $400m, already more than Nolan’s previous film, Tenet.

Warner Bros in the US has declined to comment.'

[whileiamdying]

A Close-Up on Iranian Cinema: On Godfrey Cheshire’s “In the Time of Kiarostami”

June 8, 2023   •   By Abe Silberstein

IN THEORY, a fundamentalist religious dictatorship should not be a hospitable environment for an extraordinary artistic flowering whose treasures continue—four decades later—to please, confound, and reinvent themselves to audiences around the world. Yet this seems to be exactly the case with Iran’s cinematic output since 1979, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his followers consolidated power in the wake of the Shah’s departure. (The Shah was himself a tyrant, but of the kind who sought to project a modern and art-friendly image.) We are all familiar with artists, writers, and filmmakers circumventing official and de facto censors to produce subversive masterpieces. But the consistency of Iranian cinema’s march across the world stage over the last 30-plus years suggests that something more powerful than individual creativity is at play—rather, a kind of relentless cultural force inexorably punching through whatever obstacles an authoritarian government places in its way.

The movies did not come especially late to Iran, nor was there a shortage of talented auteurs. This makes it all the more astonishing that so much of the international acclaim for Iranian cinema came after the establishment of the Islamic Republic. This artistic space was occupied by the most celebrated (at least in the West) of Iranian filmmakers: among others, Abbas Kiarostami, who died in 2016; Mohsen Makhmalbaf; Bahram Beyzai; Dariush Mehrjui; Jafar Panahi; and Asghar Farhadi, who in recent years has twice won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, putting him on a short and highly distinguished list with Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica, and Ingmar Bergman.

That information about Farhadi is a throwaway fact I learned while reading In the Time of Kiarostami: Writings on Iranian Cinema (2022), film critic Godfrey Cheshire’s account of his decades-long association with Iranian films. Born and educated in North Carolina, Cheshire moved to Greenwich Village in 1991 to write for The New York Press, at the time the main competition to The Village Voice for readers of Gotham’s alternative weeklies. Serendipitously, this was also around the time Iranian films began to crop up on the festival circuit and garner critical notice. Few of those observers, however, were as smitten as Cheshire, who went on to visit Iran seven times and become personally acquainted with some of the giants of Iranian cinema, including Kiarostami—whom he describes on the dedications page as a “phenomenal artist, inspiration, and ever-generous friend.”

Engagement with Kiarostami, who is today virtually synonymous with the movement known as the New Iranian Cinema, comprises the largest and most substantive section of Cheshire’s book. It is preceded by two autobiographical chapters on the author’s involvement with Iranian cinema, original writing as well as republished journalism, and followed by a too-brief treatment of other Iranian filmmakers via previously issued reviews and conversations. Still, In the Time of Kiarostami is a worthy and insightful companion for those looking to climb the heights of Iranian cinema, a journey on which scaling Mount Kiarostami is simply unavoidable and undoubtedly for one’s betterment.

The author’s admitted lack of critical distance from Kiarostami is not so much a problem as it might seem. Cheshire, along with a handful of other alt-weekly critics like The Chicago Reader’s Jonathan Rosenbaum, was an early champion of the famed Iranian director long before their friendship began, and his initial euphoric feelings have long since been vindicated. However, this discovery of Kiarostami was only “early” in the context of international film criticism: by the early 1990s, he had been making films for a little over 20 years, starting as a house director for the state-run Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (known colloquially in Persian as “Kanoon”). Kanoon, founded with the support of Queen Farah Pahlavi, was a redoubt for left-wing artists, including filmmakers associated with the Iranian New Wave (roughly 1963–74). Kiarostami’s career spans the Iranian New Wave, the tumultuous revolutionary period, and the New Iranian Cinema, but he first came to the attention of international critics with the release of Where Is the Friend’s House? (1987), perhaps the most sublime film ever made about childhood, which would become the first entry in his unofficial Koker trilogy.

Kiarostami was not one to make overtly political statements, in his films or in public commentaries. One major exception was First Case, Second Case (1979), his first film following the ouster of the Shah. This short work displays the ideological contradictions of postrevolutionary governance—when the act of defying authority, the very impulse which birthed the new regime, is criminalized. First Case, Second Case presents its argument as a classroom parable, in which a teacher removes an entire row of students from class because one of them repeatedly makes disruptive noises under the desk. In the first episode, one student decides to break this solidarity so he can return to his seat; in the next, the students leave the room and resolve not to betray the guilty student, even though it would allow them to reenter class.

Prior to showing the finales of the scenarios in First Case, Second Case, Kiarostami records interviews with the parents of the children playing the students, a diverse group that includes retirees, manual laborers, an accountant, and a navy colonel. What would they want their children to do? The answers vary but all center on whether the lesson of solidarity is worth more than a week of school.

Following the enactment of each finale, Kiarostami turns to prominent writers, experts, community leaders, politicians, and clerics to comment on the students’ choices. Most are sympathetic to the students who refuse to name the disruptive student and even condemn the teacher for practicing collective punishment. On these remarkable scenes, Cheshire writes: “Such anti-authoritarian views coming from the authorities themselves would have been unimaginable a few months before and would be so again a few months later—a prognosis that, as it turned out, was confirmed by the career of the film.” Fittingly for a film exposing the anxieties of a new political era, First Case, Second Case was first honored with an award and then totally banned (even for international export) by the young Islamic Republic.

Like the revolution itself, First Case, Second Case serves as a transition work from one period of Kiarostami’s career to another. In the decade before the revolution, Kiarostami directed four feature films, all of which are thematically rich and skillfully crafted but do not leave a distinct mark on the Iranian cinema of their time. They were squarely in the tradition of the Iranian New Wave, a realist cinema best exemplified by The House Is Black (1963), a raw 20-minute exploration of a leper colony by the poet Forugh Farrokhzad, and Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow (1969), which placed the social deprivation experienced by rural Iranians in stark, psychologically harrowing relief. (The latter film angered the Shah’s government but found a crucial admirer in Khomeini.) In part inspired by the Italian neorealists, these films sought to lay bare the social inequalities and economic injustices of the Shah’s Iran. The failure of the 1979 revolution to resolve these inequities serves as a running theme in the succeeding New Iranian Cinema, a cinematic “wave” that continues to this day.

In isolation, the same perhaps is true of Where Is the Friend’s House?, Kiarostami’s first fictional work after First Case, Second Case, and the first in his Koker trilogy. But it was also the beginning of a legendary run of films that would help define what was most intriguing about the New Iranian Cinema, at least for viewers outside Iran—a critical distinction because, as Cheshire relays, Kiarostami in his lifetime was seldom viewed domestically as the country’s best director. His reputation in the West largely rests on six films he made between 1987 and 1999: The Koker trilogy, Close-Up, Taste of Cherry, and The Wind Will Carry Us. During Kiarostami’s meteoric rise, it was not uncommon to hear him dismissed by Iranians at home and in the diaspora as a festival director indifferent to the desires of Iranian cinemagoers. There are echoes here of criticism made of Kurosawa, whose films were thought to reflect more what a Western audience wanted to see in Japanese cinema.

In the book’s most perceptive essay, Cheshire makes two requests for admirers and detractors of Kiarostami’s work during this time, which he calls the “Masterworks Period.” To those who have judged Kiarostami’s work to be overrated or tedious, Cheshire implores them to “realize that the order in which you approach the films is crucial to how you understand them. Above all, view the Koker Trilogy in sequence, as a basis for watching the other films.” To the enthusiasts, he implores they go beyond placing Kiarostami within the context of Great International Auteurs and instead locate his work within Persian literary culture—in other words, to momentarily resist the urge to universalize the director’s work.

Having entered Kiarostami’s masterworks oeuvre at the wrong place myself, the first piece of advice struck me as quite sound. Clearly, Cheshire was prompted to offer it by the polarizing response to Taste of Cherry at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. Though that film ended up sharing the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, it earned the jeers of certain critics and viewers who disliked this slow-moving account of a suicidal man traversing the outskirts of Tehran in search of someone willing to bury his body. Leading this pack was Roger Ebert, who called Taste of Cherry “excruciatingly boring.” Cheshire attributes this reaction to those critics not putting the film in its sequential and cultural context. (In fairness to Ebert, as Cheshire notes, he did add that Taste of Cherry generated many fascinating movie reviews—an indication that the late Chicago Sun-Times reviewer was really stating what he believed art films are for, rather than simply panning Taste of Cherry.)

To begin with the Koker trilogy is probably the best choice for the initiate, but it also helps to go in understanding how this unintended trilogy plays with temporality, genre, and form. Where Is the Friend’s House? is an affecting film about a child looking to return a notebook to a friend who lives one town over. The boy’s journey from Koker to Poshteh and back evokes for me the dramas of childhood that seem trivial in retrospect but once colored my entire world. Where Is the Friend’s House? unashamedly inhabits the child’s perspective, and Kiarostami shows that these experiences are as profitable a basis for good art as any other. For an artist operating under the Islamic Republic’s gaze, sometimes with its critical support, childhood also offers important narrative possibilities. If done less explicitly than in First Case, Second Case, student-teacher interactions can serve as a relatable demonstration of the capricious and unjust use of authority.

Where Is the Friend’s House? is the only entry in the Koker trilogy that resembles a conventional movie. The following two films, And Life Goes On (1992) and Through the Olive Trees (1994), were made in the wake of the 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake, which killed an estimated 50,000 people and left many more injured and homeless. The villages featured in Where Is the Friend’s House? were hit especially hard. Coming a mere two years after the end of the devastating Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), the earthquake exacerbated the pain and suffering rural families in Northern Iran were already enduring. Since Kiarostami seldom employed professional thespians for his films based in Iran, the actors in the film were drawn from the population of the villages, people directly affected by the disaster. In And Life Goes On, an actor (in real life, an unassuming economist whom Kiarostami encountered) playing Kiarostami returns to Koker and Poshteh with his son to find out if the cast members from Where Is the Friend’s House? survived. In Through the Olive Trees, another actor (this time a professional, Mohammad-Ali Keshavarz) plays Kiarostami, now reenacting the filming of And Life Goes On.

Watching these films as bodies continue to be excavated from the February 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the latter similarly pre-ravaged by man-made cruelty, it is impossible not to be moved by Kiarostami’s refusal to separate cinema from its participants. We are already emotionally invested in the characters of Where Is the Friend’s House? and, in And Life Goes On and Through the Olive Trees, we now care for them as people. Kiarostami’s simple humanity might be the skill most evident in these sequels. It is also, however, easy to understand why some Iranians at the time saw these films as exploitative, despite appearing to international audiences as overwhelmingly empathetic.

Intensely self-critical and autobiographical, Kiarostami would go on to make a film in 1999 (The Wind Will Carry Us) about a news-crew director visiting a rural Kurdish village in the hopes of filming their rustic funeral rituals. Is this a thinly veiled alter ego contending with the dark ambulance-chasing underbelly of the filmmaker’s art? As Cheshire writes, “Kiarostami leaves numerous gaps in the film’s surface that invite, even demand, our imaginative participation.” There are various other autobiographical and symbolic readings of Kiarostami’s work, which Cheshire explores. But the director’s idiosyncratic style casts an interminable, enigmatic shadow over his output—one reason why his films provide a hefty return on repeated viewings. There are always new layers to uncover, hitherto unseen symbols to be interpreted and subsequently reinterpreted. Reducing a Kiarostami picture to a specific theme or two (or worse, “morals”) is as futile as doing the same to one’s own life.

In addition to the natural disaster that provoked And Life Goes On and Through the Olive Trees, those films also reflected new artistic preoccupations for Kiarostami that arose with Close-Up (1990). In simple terms, Close-Up tells the story of a con man who convinces a stagnant upper-middle-class family that he is the socially conscious and politically audacious Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Makhmalbaf is, of course, a real person—and so is this story. But to say it is “based on a true story” would undersell its genius, as Close-Up itself became very much part of the story and has long since overtaken the events it supposedly depicts. Remarkably, Kiarostami secured the agreement of virtually everyone involved—Makhmalbaf, the fake Makhmalbaf (Hossain Sabzian), the victimized family, and the judge assigned to the case—to participate in the film. A bold mixture of reenactment, documentary footage, and a wonderfully staged climax, Close-Up was a complete departure from anything Kiarostami had done before and put him on a path of gutsy experimentation that would continue until his death in 2016.

To return to Cheshire’s second note on “reading” Kiarostami: if the order of watching Kiarostami’s films is critical in grasping their surface meaning and formal qualities, it takes a more serious engagement with Persian literature and history to apprehend his films’ cultural grammar. Cheshire writes,

Ultimately, the more one knows of their context, the more one realizes that Kiarostami and other Iranian directors need to be understood not so much in terms of Antonioni and Tati, say, but of Ferdowsi, Hafez, Sanai, Rumi, Ibn Arabi, Mulla Sadra, and other remarkable figures who share and illuminate their cultural lexicon. Cheshire, who admits to a shaky relationship with the Persian language, relies on scholars such as Henry Corbin, a 20th-century French Iranologist, to provide a basis for cultural interpretation, as well as extensive dialogues with Iranian artists and scholars. Cheshire particularly focuses on Kiarostami’s engagement with Sufism and how faith interacts with even more ancient Persian concepts drawn, in turn, from Zoroastrianism. To demonstrate these presences of Shiism, Persian poetry, and other culturally specific forms, Cheshire wisely chooses The Wind Will Carry Us as a case study. It is one of Kiarostami’s more difficult films, profuse in local references not immediately accessible to even the most attentive Western cinephile. It will be intriguing what specialists make of these cultural and historical readings, and one hopes In the Time of Kiarostami will hasten the publication of more academic literature on this subject. While Kiarostami receives by far the most coverage of any director in the book, other major figures are not totally overlooked. Keen observations on the work of Makhmalbaf (as well as his daughter Samira), Mehrjui, Farhadi, Amir Naderi, Beyzai, and Panahi are threaded throughout. But it is only Kiarostami who appears to merit an extended analysis in a dedicated chapter of his own. This regrettable choice is mitigated by a solid and exhaustive index compiled by the book’s editor, Jim Colvill. Those making their way down the treasure-lined path of Iranian cinema will have no difficulty navigating the text in search of specific titles and individuals.

Indeed, one of Cheshire’s enviable skills as a writer is his ability to take decades of cinematic history and seamlessly tuck them into newspaper features and film reviews. His references to a director’s previous films, or their influences, never feel perfunctory or like exercises in flatulent name-dropping. Cheshire’s extraordinary access to Kiarostami as both an interview subject and a dear friend allows us to replace speculation with—whether fully factual or not—what the director wanted us to know. It is right to assume Kiarostami did not reveal everything, but he gave more than enough to appreciate every phase of his career, including a mystifying final work from 2017 (24 Frames). Viewers will likely struggle with several of Kiarostami’s films, as many critics did, but In the Time of Kiarostami hands us critical interpretive tools to appreciate them.

I began this review noting the not-so-peculiar coexistence of an oppressive government and a flourishing, internationally respected cinema. The ingenuity required of independent filmmakers looking to challenge audiences and critique the status quo is surely an important factor. Such Iranian films that make it through government approval naturally demand of the audience a greater degree of critical attention than was perhaps initially paid by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. But even that window is closing as the Islamic Republic confronts an existential threat: its own people.

In recent months, Iranians have taken to the streets in support of Women, Life, Freedom—just the latest sign of dissent the Islamic Republic has tried to crush. The filmmaker Jafar Panahi is now deemed so dangerous that he has been banned from working (and imprisoned several times, including for six months last year). The genius of Panahi’s most recent work, No Bears (2022), one of the best films of this young decade, clearly cannot be disentangled from the real-life persecution faced by its director. The art is extraordinary in large part because of the circumstances in which it was made.

Might this be why Westerners have become so fascinated with Iranian film in the last few decades—real and perceived qualities that denote a certain cleverness under pressure? If so, one should not evade the terrible discomfort brought on by “enjoying” such art. Still, understanding these films as a product of a rich Persian culture that predates the present authoritarianism offers a measure of relief, even hope. There will come a day when these works will be newly appreciated in an Iran free of theocracy and dictatorship.

[kaleidoscopiccc]

yapping time!!

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

coffee mugs all the way

2. chocolate bars or lollipops?

chocolate bars, I hate lollipops I love chocolate

3. bubblegum or cotton candy?

bubblegum

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

loud. very very loud. lots of personality. (I was one of those kids who was convinced she was a grown adult)

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

can

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

grunge, i don't think i have a specific aesthetic i just kinda wear what i think looks cool, its just that most of the time what looks cool is black clothes

7. earbuds or headphones?

headphones, earbuds give me a headache

8. movies or tv shows?

tv shows, not the biggest film connoisseur

9. favorite smell in the summer?

I spend my more memorable summers in turkey so simit vendors next to the Mediterranean Sea, also more recently burnt popcorn

10. game you were best at in p.e.?

I was really good at solo badminton if that makes sense, not much else, not excited to have to take pe again

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?

toast. I love toast

12. name of your favorite playlist?

oh all of my rtc characters playlists, rn it’s “oceans gonna take you down // ocean oconnell rosenberg - rtc” and “like a lamb to the slaughter // penny lamb - rtc/legoland”, also “don't you worry about your curly hair” im very emotionally attached to

13. lanyard or key ring?

lanyard, I lose stuff too easily

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

 I can get behind anything sour 

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

to kill a mockingbird :3

16. most comfortable position to sit in?

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?

my pair of tennis shoes of the year

18. ideal weather?

RAIN GOD PLEASE I WANT RAIN

19. sleeping position?

ok the long side of my bed is up against a wall so there’s this perfect corner that I can fit my entire front body body into and it’s the comfiest thing ever

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

notes app but using the draw function or notebook, i like writing things

21. obsession from childhood?

I’ve retained a good amount of Greek mythology knowledge from 4-7th grade

22. role model?

it’s so cringe but basically all the cyclone actors that regularly interact w me i love all of them w all my heart

23. strange habits?

I meow a lot. but like. just the word meow. that might just be a stimming thing idk. idk a lot of things.

24. favorite crystal?

any one w pretty colors, I’m a little crow at heart

25. first song you remember hearing?

hello by adelle

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

stay home. its never just warm in az, always boiling

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?

again, its never cold, just a little cool. so hanging out w friends :3

28. five songs to describe you?

Letter to my 13 year old self (i too have curly hair and a foreign name and wish to be a star), pink pony club, the prophecy, the grudge, youre gonna go far

29. best way to bond with you?

ASK ME QUESTIONS! MAKE ME TAKE STUPID ONLINE PERSONALITY QUIZZES! LET ME INFODUMP!

30. places that you find sacred?

the theater, I LOVE the theater

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?

tank top, leather jacket, mini skirt, bandana, sick ass earrings

33. most used phrase in your phone?

btw

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?

ay. gaz. duh duh duh!

35. average time you fall asleep?

12ish

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?

vines compilations

37. suitcase or duffel bag?

dufflebag

38. lemonade or tea?

lemonade. lemonsssss……..

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?

lemon cake

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

kid dressed up as jesus went around dapping up 5th graders

41. last person you texted?

@wa3v3y

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

jacket pocket

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

leather jacket

44. favorite scent for soap?

rose

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

fantasy

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

my moms childhood clothes I stole

47. favorite type of cheese?

I hate cheese, if I have to pick, mozzarella 

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

vişne :3

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

fuck it, we ball

51. current stresses?

school soon…………

52. favorite font?

fonts are a pain

53. what is the current state of your hands?

long black nails idk how else to explain it I like my hands

55. favorite fairy tale?

NASRETIN HOCA

56. favorite tradition?

I make chocolate pudding every new years, thats very fun i think, i also just like chocolate pudding

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

November 2022, June 2023, September 2023

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

I’m really flexible despite not having much visible muscle, I have a really good semi-short term memory, and I can recite the entire script of ride the cyclone word for word

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

I should’ve stayed home …

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

magical girl, I really wanna be a magical girl

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

“I would gladly take my 17 years over nothing”

62. seven characters you relate to?

every cyclone character (this counts as 3), amity blight, lisa frankenstein, beth march, christine canigula

64. favorite website from your childhood?

friv 2016, I was SUCH a flash game girl

65. any permanent scars?

acne scars, don’t pick at your skin kids

66. favorite flower(s)?

call me basic but I really do love roses, and forget me nots! I love forget me nots!!

67. good luck charms?

not a charm but I always re-paint my nails when I REALLY need something to go well

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?

your skin doesn’t actually have sensors for “wet”, your brain uses surrounding context clues to figure out what actually feels wet

70. left or right handed?

right, I do use my left for basically everything else though

71. least favorite pattern?

fake paint

72. worst subject?

chemistry. it’s not even hard I just don’t listen in class

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?

like a 7

75. when did you lose your first tooth?

like 4 or 5, i was very early to everything

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

in n out french fries

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?

gas station coffee, coffee is coffee

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?

don’t have a drivers license but my school id is Pretty Damn Bad

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

earth tones, I love me browns and blacks and greens

81. fireflies or lightning bugs?

fireflies

82. pc or console?

PC PC PC I HATE CONSOLE PC AND ALWAYS PC

83. writing or drawing?

writing, my ability to draw is far too inconsistent

84. podcasts or talk radio?

podcasts

84. barbie or polly pocket?

Barbie, i have 2 sitting in my closet rn

85. fairy tales or mythology?

mythology

86. cookies or cupcakes?

Cookies! I make some banger chocolate chip cookies

87. your greatest fear?

everyone love leaving me, and death, isn't that everyones

88. your greatest wish?

come out wout anyone caring

89. who would you put before everyone else?

@wa3v3y hi tagged you twice. love you.

91. boxes or bags?

bags

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

lamp, dim enough for ambience, bright enough to comfortably see

93. nicknames?

hate them, hate them so bad

94. favorite season?

autumn! ultimate weirdgirl season!!!

95. favorite app on your phone?

tumblr, hi guys

96. desktop background?

trinity ride the cyclone!!!!

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?

one… my moms….

98. favorite historical era?

tudor dynasty!

weird asks that say a lot

in

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

2. chocolate bars or lollipops?

3. bubblegum or cotton candy?

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

7. earbuds or headphones?

8. movies or tv shows?

9. favorite smell in the summer?

10. game you were best at in p.e.?

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?

12. name of your favorite playlist?

13. lanyard or key ring?

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

16. most comfortable position to sit in?

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?

18. ideal weather?

19. sleeping position?

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

21. obsession from childhood?

22. role model?

23. strange habits?

24. favorite crystal?

25. first song you remember hearing?

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?

28. five songs to describe you?

29. best way to bond with you?

30. places that you find sacred?

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?

32. top five favorite vines?

33. most used phrase in your phone?

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?

35. average time you fall asleep?

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?

37. suitcase or duffel bag?

38. lemonade or tea?

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

41. last person you texted?

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

44. favorite scent for soap?

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

47. favorite type of cheese?

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

51. current stresses?

52. favorite font?

53. what is the current state of your hands?

54. what did you learn from your first job?

55. favorite fairy tale?

56. favorite tradition?

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

62. seven characters you relate to?

63. five songs that would play in your club?

64. favorite website from your childhood?

65. any permanent scars?

66. favorite flower(s)?

67. good luck charms?

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?

70. left or right handed?

71. least favorite pattern?

72. worst subject?

73. favorite weird flavor combo?

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?

75. when did you lose your first tooth?

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

81. fireflies or lightning bugs?

82. pc or console?

83. writing or drawing?

84. podcasts or talk radio?

84. barbie or polly pocket?

85. fairy tales or mythology?

86. cookies or cupcakes?

87. your greatest fear?

88. your greatest wish?

89. who would you put before everyone else?

90. luckiest mistake?

91. boxes or bags?

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

93. nicknames?

94. favorite season?

95. favorite app on your phone?

96. desktop background?

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?

98. favorite historical era?

[back-and-totheleft]

World War III may be inevitable

Iconic director Oliver Stone is not optimistic.

Fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War, and nearly 35 years since his film "Platoon" debuted, America is still hopelessly enamored with violence, and Washington, encouraged by the tandem power centers of Wall Street and the media, is still engineered for war.

“Our country is sabotaging itself. Why do we keep going back” in search of a necessary enemy? He asked. “We track a pattern of intervention, there is a repetition” that will eventually lead us to another world war.

Grim thoughts, given in a conversation moderated by (Ret.) Col. Greg Daddis, Iraq War veteran and director of the Center for War and Society at San Diego State University. Daddis is also USS Midway Chair in Modern U.S. Military History (Thursday’s event was held on the USS Midway museum) and a board member at the Quincy Institute, which partnered in the event.

Stone’s own experiences as a 20-year-old Army infantryman during the most tumultuous years in Vietnam (and politically, socially, back home in the U.S.) — 1967-1968 — formed the basis for Platoon, which won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director in 1987 and is considered one of the most important and viscerally impactful Vietnam War films in Hollywood history. It is the first in his Vietnam War trilogy, which includes "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), and "Heaven and Earth" (1993).

As a young man inspired by the tales of mythological Odysseus and a father who had served in World War II, he was driven to war by wanderlust and the frenetic unfocused energy youth. His time in combat there, in his words, took the scales from his eyes and upon returning to an “country he no longer knew” set him on a course of discovery, his mind and creativity coalescing around a burning skepticism of the government, social convention, and conformity.

This is all detailed in his excellent 2020 autobiography, “Chasing the Light” which charts Stone’s youth, his time in Vietnam, and his screenwriting/directing career though “Platoon.”

He didn’t directly mention the recent elections or the current conflict in Ukraine on Thursday night, but insisted that the “strong compulsion” to use war not only as a driver of industry but as the first tool in the box for resolving foreign disputes, still fueled Washington policy. Despite all of the failures of the last 50 years, “it’s impossible to break that lock” that war has on the collective psyche, he said. Even “Platoon” which is a searing indictment of the what he calls the Three Lies of the military and war, has failed to turn the society against interventionism.

“No film is going to change people if you don’t want to be changed,” he said, charging that military recruitment had actually gone up after the film was released.

In recent years, Stone has courted controversy with his series of interviews with Vladimir Putin and his questioning of the Washington/Western narrative of that war. The only mention he made to that was that “I have been passionately driven and for that I’ve paid a price,” and criticized censorship (his 2016 documentary "Ukraine on Fire" had been initially banned on You Tube and then reinstated).

“Free speech is a right, not a privilege” he said, to applause from the room. Of the current political dynamic, he lamented that the “neocons are here from the last administration as well as this administration, they are not going away."

“We’ve made one mistake after another on foreign affairs, there is no reason why we cannot be partners with Russia and China. We don’t need a war.”

Unfortunately, the country’s love for was is “a religion,” he said. All one can do is keep resisting it. His entire life after Vietnam seems to have sprung from that adage. “Be a rebel, and that’s the best way to be.”

-Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, "Oliver Stone: World War III may be inevitable," Responsible Statecraft, Nov 16 2024

[fearsmagazine]

15TH ANNUAL HOLLYWOOD MUSIC IN MEDIA AWARDS™ 2024 WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

The winners of the 15th Annual Hollywood Music in Media Awards™ (HMMA) were awarded in a star-studded ceremony held Nov. 20 at The Avalon in Hollywood, CA.

The HMMAs showcase and honor the most memorable film and TV music moments of the year with tributes to icons of the industry. HMMA nominations are often seen as a bellwether for the Academy Awards and historically represent nominees and winners at the Oscars, Golden Globes, Grammys, and Emmys, all of which follow the HMMAs later in awards season. The HMMA organization’s voting committees consist of prominent journalists and voters for the other prestigious entertainment awards.

Multiple HMMA awards went to Netflix’s EMILIA PÉREZ and composer HANS ZIMMER, which both received three, and Universal Pictures animated film, THE WILD ROBOT, which received two.

EMILIA PÉREZ won for MUSIC THEMED FILM, BIOPIC OR MUSICAL and SONG - ONSCREEN PERFORMANCE (FILM) by Zoe Saldana, who performed "El Mal." The film’s celebrated French composers and songwriters Clément Ducol & Camille also won for SCORE - FEATURE FILM. THE WILD ROBOT received top accolades in two animated film categories, for both its score composed by Kris Bowers and its original song "Kiss the Sky," performed by Maren Morris, who co-wrote it with Ali Tamposi, Michael Pollack, Delacey, Jordan Johnson, and Stefan Johnson.

Hans Zimmer received three HMMAs the most awarded this year to one individual, including one for SCORE - SCIFI/FANTASY FILM for DUNE: PART TWO, for his score to the documentary TV series PLANET EARTH III, which he composed with Jacob Shea and Sara Barone. He also won for SONG - TV SHOW/LIMITED SERIES for "Love Will Survive" from THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ, which was performed by Barbra Streisand. Zimmer shares the HMMA for the song with his co-writers Kara Talve, Walter Afanasieff, and Charlie Midnight.

Other HMMAs for film scoring went to Alberto Iglesias, who received an award for SCORE - INDEPENDENT FILM from Pedro Almodóvar’s THE ROOM NEXT DOOR. Robin Carolan received the HMMA for SCORE - HORROR/THRILLER FILM for NOSFERATU, and composer Ilan Eshkeri received the award for SCORE - DOCUMENTARY for SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY.

Additional HMMA highlights included the award for SCORE - TV SHOW/LIMITED SERIES to composers Atticus Ross, Leopold Ross, and Nick Chuba for the music to Hulu’s epic series SHŌGUN, which swept the Emmys this year, and A.R. Rahman received the HMMA for SCORE - INDEPENDENT FILM (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) for THE GOAT LIFE.

HMMAs for the best songs of the year in films went to several major recording artists and award-winning songwriters, including and Diane Warren, who won this year’s HMMA for SONG – FEATURE FILM for "The Journey" from THE SIX TRIPLE EIGHT, which was performed by H.E.R. "Never Too Late" from the Disney+ documentary ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE received the HMMA for SONG - DOCUMENTARY FILM. John and Brandi Carlile, both co-wrote and performed the song, and collaborated with additional co-writers Bernie Taupin, and Andrew Watt. "Kiss the Sky" from THE WILD ROBOT received the HMMA for SONG - ANIMATED FILM. Maren Morris both performed and co-wrote the track with Ali Tamposi, Michael Pollack, Delacey, Jordan Johnson, and Stefan Johnson. Miley Cyrus, Lykke Li, and Andrew Wyatt won for SONG - INDEPENDENT FILM for "Beautiful That Way from THE LAST SHOWGIRL. Cyrus also performed the track.

Legendary lyricist Bernie Taupin was also presented with the prestigious HMMA Outstanding Career Achievement Award.

2024 HOLLYWOOD MUSIC IN MEDIA AWARDS COMPLETE WINNERS LIST (FINAL)

SONG - FEATURE FILM "The Journey" from THE SIX TRIPLE EIGHT. Written by Diane Warren. Performed by H.E.R.

SONG - INDEPENDENT FILM "Beautiful That Way" from THE LAST SHOWGIRL - Written by Miley Cyrus, Lykke Li, and Andrew Wyatt. Performed by Miley Cyrus.

SONG - DOCUMENTARY FILM "Never Too Late" from ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE. Written by Elton John, Brandi Carlile, Bernie Taupin, and Andrew Watt. Performed by Elton John & Brandi Carlile.

SONG - ANIMATED FILM "Kiss the Sky" from THE WILD ROBOT - Written by Maren Morris, Ali Tamposi, Michael Pollack, Delacey, Jordan Johnson, and Stefan Johnson. Performed by Maren Morris.

SONG - ONSCREEN PERFORMANCE (FILM) Zoe Saldana - "El Mal" from EMILIA PÉREZ

SCORE - ANIMATED FILM THE WILD ROBOT - Kris Bowers

SCORE - FEATURE FILM EMILIA PÉREZ - Clément Ducol & Camille

SCORE - SCIFI/FANTASY FILM DUNE: PART TWO - Hans Zimmer

SCORE - HORROR/THILLER FILM NOSFERATU - Robin Carolan

SCORE - INDEPENDENT FILM THE ROOM NEXT DOOR - Alberto Iglesias

SCORE - DOCUMENTARY SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY - Ilan Eshkeri

MUSIC THEMED FILM, BIOPIC OR MUSICAL EMILIA PÉREZ - Directed by Jacques Audiard. Produced by Jacques Audiard, Pascal Caucheteux, Valérie Schermann, Anthony Vaccarello

MUSIC DOCUMENTARY - SPECIAL PROGRAM PIECE BY PIECE - Directed by Morgan Neville. Produced by Morgan Neville, Caitrin Rogers, Mimi Valdés, Joshua R. Wexler and Pharrell Williams.

SONG - TV SHOW/LIMITED SERIES "Love Will Survive" from THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ. Written by Hans Zimmer, Kara Talve, Walter Afanasieff, and Charlie Midnight. Performed by Barbra Streisand.

SCORE - TV SHOW/LIMITED SERIES SHŌGUN - Atticus Ross, Leopold Ross, and Nick Chuba

SONG - ONSCREEN PERFORMANCE (TV) Ashley Park - "Ruins" from EMILY IN PARIS

MAIN TITLE - TV SHOW/LIMITED SERIES MASTERS OF THE AIR - Blake Neely

SCORE - SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION) SPACEMAN - Spencer Creaghan & Chris Reineck

SCORE - SHORT FILM (ANIMATED) FLY HARD - Daniel Rojas

SCORE - SHORT FILM (DOCUMENTARY) MOTORCYCLE MARY - Katya Richardson

SCORE - INDEPENDENT FILM (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) THE GOAT LIFE - A. R. Rahman

SCORE - DOCUMENTARY SERIES -TV/DIGITAL PLANET EARTH III - Hans Zimmer, Jacob Shea and Sara Barone

SCORE - TV SHOW/LIMITED SERIES (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) WOMEN IN BLUE (LAS AZULES) - Lucas Vidal

SCORE – VIDEO GAME (CONSOLE & PC) DELTA FORCE - Johan Söderqvist and Zio

SONG - VIDEO GAME (CONSOLE & PC) "The People's Cry (Main Theme)" from AVATAR: FRONTIERS OF PANDORA - Written by Pinar Toprak and Paul R Frommer.

SONG/SCORE - MOBILE VIDEO GAME HONOR OF KINGS - Volker Bertelmann, Matthew Carl Earl, Laurent Courbier, Robbie Say, 2WEI, Zeneth, Henrik Lindström, Martin Landström and Rasmus Faber

MUSIC SUPERVISION - TV SHOW/LIMITED SERIES FALLOUT - Trygge Toven

MUSIC SUPERVISION - FILM DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE - Dave Jordan

MUSIC SUPERVISION - VIDEO GAME HONOR OF KINGS - Jing Zhang, Shuqin Xiao, Corey Huang, Peiyue Lu and Samuel Siu

SONG/SCORE - COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENT RAM "THE CONVOY" - Emily Bjorke / In The Groove Music

SOUNDTRACK ALBUM DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE - Hollywood Records

SONG - SHORT FILM "No Wahala" from ALKEBULAN II. Written by Matt B, Buguma Mark, Performed by Matt B and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

SCORE - TV/STREAMED MOVIE WINNER: THE SUPREMES AT EARL'S ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT - Kathryn Bostic

MUSIC DESIGN - TRAILER AMERICAN HORROR STORY - DELICATE PART 2 - FJØRA X NOCTURN

MAIN TITLE - TV SHOW (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) WINNER: HOTEL BEYROUTH - Suad Bushnaq

MUSIC VIDEO Lainey Wilson - "Out of Oklahoma"

LIVE CONCERT FOR VISUAL MEDIA OLIVIA RODRIGO: GUTS WORLD TOUR - Olivia Rodrigo

EXHIBITIONS, THEME PARKS, SPECIAL PROJECTS BRAVESHIP: THE LIVE SYMPHONIC SPECTACULAR - Matt Cook (Composer, Producer), Dan Merceruio (Producer), Leslie Ann Jones (Recording Engineer, Mixing Engineer), Mirusia (Soprano). 200+ contributors on over 20 countries, representing all 7 continents.

SPECIAL RECOGNITION - NEW MEDIA SPECIAL RECOGNITION: BULLET SYMPHONY - LIVE CODING FOR EVERYONE - Yang Zhang

[breaklifecircle]

S Sergei Iosifovich Parajanov(January 9, 1924 – July 20, 1990) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter of Armenian origin.He is regarded by film critics, film historians and filmmakers to be one of the best filmmakers in cinema history

Throughout Parajanov's life, he was met with increased scurity from Soviet authorities over his films, his personal life, and his political involvments surrounding Ukrainian nationalism.Nearly all of his film projects and plans from 1965 to 1973 were banned, scrapped or closed by the Soviet film administrations, both locally in Kyiv and Yerevan and federal, almost without discussion. Parajanov arrested in late 1973 on false charges of rape, homosexuality and bribery. He was imprisoned until 1977, despite pleas for pardon from various artists. Even after his release (he was arrested for the third and last time in 1982), he was a persona non grata in Soviet cinema. It was not until the mid-1980s, when the political climate started to relax, that he could resume directing. Still, it required the help of influential Georgian actor Dodo Abashidze and other friends to have his last feature films greenlighted. His health seriously weakened after four years in labor camps and nine months in prison in Tbilisi. Parajanov died of lung cancer in 1990, at a time when, after almost 20 years of suppression, his films were being featured at foreign film festivals. In a 1988 interview he stated that, "Everyone knows that I have three Motherlands. I was born in Georgia, worked in Ukraine and I'm going to die in Armenia."Parajanov is buried at Komitas Pantheon in Yerevan.

[seiko-chi]

Tumblr 30 Day Song Challenge! 6 years later edition?!!

(All days at once, fuck opening Tumblr daily we aren't about that life no more)

1. The last song you listened to

Yellow - Coldplay

2. Last song you purchased

😮‍💨

3. Song you discovered on youtube/tumblr

Kiseki no Umi - Maaya Sakamoto

4. Favourite Soundtrack piece

Landlords (Churning Mists' Day theme) - Final Fantasy 14: Heavenswards

5. Favourite Band

BTS

6. Favourite Solo Artist

Madeon

7. Favourite Album

Good Faith - Madeon

8. Best Live Gig OR Act you want to see live

None, I hate crowds and loud noises

9. Guilty Pleasure Song

If you live in a religious household every song is a guilt 😮‍💨

10. Song you used to hate but you now like

Likey - Twice

11. Song you used to love but now can’t stand

12. Group you wish had never split

None for both

13. Favourite song from a video game

Other than Landlords (and its piano counter Skylords), Close in the Distance - Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker

14. Favourite song from a film

15. Favourite song from an advert

Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield

16. Song you grew up with

Hips Don't Lie - Shakira

17. First song/album you ever bought

It was gifted but.... You Never Walk Alone - BTS

18. Album you found accidentally and love

Wings - BTS

19. Favourite foreign language song

Which one isn't 😮‍💨

20. A song from the year you were born

Wannabe - Spice Girls

21. Song from your favourite music genre

Sweet Time - Porter Robinson

22. Most Over-rated song

Stopped using TikTok so not sure what is popular nowadays

23. Song you would recommend to everyone

I don't recommend. I prefer people's recommendations

24. Song that reminds you of a specific event

😮‍💨😔

25. Song you can’t help but sing along to

Be Fine - Madeon

26. Favourite parody song

I don't like parodies 😮‍💨

27. Favourite slow song

We Don't Talk Anymore - Charlie Puth feat. Selena Gomez

28. Favourite fast song

Persona - BTS

29. Favourite song at the moment

Hands Up to the Sky/FAKEit - Sawano Hiroyuki

30. All time favourite song

Be Fine - Madeon

[adamwatchesmovies]

Short Circuit (1986)

Short Circuit may be a clone of E.T. and what it does has been done better later with The Iron Giant. Still, there’s room in your heart for one more kind-hearted, misunderstood, big-eyed outsider who befriends a fellow loner, isn’t there? While some aspects of this charming, often very funny comedy haven't aged well, it's got a lot of appeal.

When a military robot is struck by lightning and becomes self aware, its creators immediately assume it’s become a menace. Actually, Number 5 (voiced by Tim Blaney) just wants to learn about the world and make friends. After meeting Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy) the two must convince those after the robot - specifically its chief engineer, Newton (Steve Guttenberg) that its behaviour is not a mechanical malfunction; that “Number 5 is alive!”

Director John Badham gets key elements right. Firstly, the robot’s design. With its big eyes and voice (just the right mix of synthetic and goofy), you immediately fall for Number 5 even before you get to know it. As you spend more time with the robot, you get a good taste of its personality, including its fears and goals. The incredible special effects and puppetry help a great deal. What you’re seeing is an actual robot being interacting with real people and it works wonders. The special effects have aged incredibly well and call me crazy, but the machine has actual chemistry with Ally Sheedy? They’re so good together you almost wonder if she’ll end up going with the metal bookworm instead of the obvious love interest instead…

It’s tried-and-true stuff but it works. Kids will have a great time laughing at Number 5’s antics as it expands its lexicon and attempts to figure out this big world of ours. What about the adults, or those who might’ve grown up with the film but haven’t seen it in 20 or so years? For you, I say hold on. One aspect of the film will take you by surprise: Fisher Stevens as Ben. This character is an oddball. With his thick Indian accent and knack for mixing up idioms, he's a stereotype being portrayed by a white actor in makeup. What's strange is that dialogue reveals he’s lived in the United States his whole life. So it isn’t even that he’s a foreigner, it’s that… he’s such a nerd he doesn’t understand the basics of human communication? Seems so from the way he reacts to women. I can't tell you whether you'll be offended or not. All I can say is that he's got all the best lines in the movie. You’ll want to watch Short Circuit with the remote handy so you can pause and rewind it to write down and then memorize some of the dialogue. It’s memorable stuff but comes so fast you’re likely to drown out a good chunk of it with your own laughs.

Aside from one questionable aspect (that still somewhat works nonetheless), Short Circuit has the makings of a lasting childhood favorite you’ll want to show to your children someday. It’s got likeable characters, a story that's both fun and harmless, many big laughs (some of which only the parents will get) and incredible special effects. The script is memorable and endlessly quotable. I liked it even more the second time. (On Blu-ray, February 22, 2019)

[straydog733]

2023 Reading and Watching Resolutions

2023 Reading Resolution

A book written in North America: The Harrowing of Hell by Evan Dahm

A book written in Central America/Caribbean: 

A book written in South America: Space Invaders by Nona Fernández

A book written in East Asia: The Way of the Househusband, Vol. 1 by Kousuke Oono

A book written in South Asia: 

A book written in Africa: My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

A book written in the Middle East: Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

A book written in Australia/Pacific Islands: Better the Blood by Michael Bennett

A book written in Russia: The Incredible Events in Women’s Cell Number 3 by Kira Yarmysh

A book written in Europe: Fabulosa!: The Story of Polari, Britain’s Secret Gay Language by Paul Baker

A biography or memoir: Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth

A non-fiction book:  A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup

A collection of short stories: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

A collection of poetry: Harmless Medicine by Justin Chin

A play: 

A book you’ve seen adapted: Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

A graphic novel: Fence, Vol. 1 by C. S. Pacat, illustrated by Johanna the Mad

A children’s book: The Guardians of Ga’Hoole #1: The Capture by Kathryn Lasky

A book older than 200 years: Popol Vuh, translated by Dennis Tedlock

A debut novel: Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař

A novel by a famous author, other than the one(s) they are best known for: Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

A sequel: 

A book by an author you’ve never given a fair shot: 

A book you’ve heard bad things about: Killing Stalking by Koogi

A book released in 2023: Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

Wild Card: Strong Female Protagonist: Book Two by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag  

Wild Card: We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets

Wild Card: Money Shot, Vol. 1 by Tim Seeley and Sarah Beattie, illustrated by Rebekah Isaacs

Wild Card: Bad Girls by Camila Sosa Villada

Wild Card: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

List Progress: 25/30

2023 Watching Resolution

A foreign film: Talk to Me (2022)

A black and white film: Nightmare Alley (1947)

A silent or dialogue-free film: Different from the Others (1919)

An animated film: Pink Floyd- The Wall (1982)

A film based on a true story: Spoiler Alert (2022)

A documentary:

A film based on a book: Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)

An Oscar-winning movie:

A trashy movie: Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)

Your friend’s recommendation: The Blues Brothers (1980)

A children’s film: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)

A film released in 2023: Missing (2023)

List Progress: 10/12

Movies Outside of the List:

1. M3GAN (2022)

2. Knock at the Cabin (2023)

3. Dungeon & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

4. Firestarter (1984)

5. Renfield (2023)

6. The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)

7. Polite Society (2023) 

8. Blazing Saddles (1974)

9. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

10. Barbie (2023)

11. The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

12. Strays (2023)

13. Theater Camp (2023)

14. The Truman Show (1998)

15. The People We Hate at the Wedding (2022)

16. Bottoms (2023)

17. You Don’t Know Jack (2010)

18. Searching (2018)

19. A Haunting in Venice (2023)

20. Saw (2004)

21. The Boogeyman (2023)

22. Dream Scenario (2023)

23. The Holdovers (2023)

24. Creep (2014)

25. The Iron Claw (2023)

[whileiamdying]

With I’m Still Here,Brazilian Icon Fernanda Torres Goes Global

The Cannes-winning actor is stoking Oscar buzz for her revelatory performance in Walter Salles’s harrowing biopic.

BY DAVID CANFIELD NOVEMBER 26, 2024

It’s been nearly three months since Fernanda Torres was last home in Brazil. Over Labor Day weekend, the Rio de Janeiro native traveled to Venice for the world premiere of I’m Still Here, her first movie since the pandemic, which reunited her with Walter Salles, director of her 1996 film Foreign Land. Coming off rave reviews and a prize for best screenplay, I’m Still Here screened for a wider audience in Toronto, with Torres in tow. She then went down to New York for a month, where the movie made its US debut—and where she got to catch up on her competition: Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths (“Marianne Jean-Baptiste? It’s unbelievable”), Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door (“Wonderful”), Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez (“Zoe Saldaña: She sings. She acts. Come on. It’s almost annoying. How can you be so good at so many things?”). Finally, Torres wrapped a 25-day stint in Hollywood, presenting I’m Still Here to voters for the Oscars, Golden Globes, SAG Awards, and more.

Following her first trip to the Governors Awards just over a week ago, she’s returned home—for now. But as I’m Still Here continues to screen for industry members here in Los Angeles, one senses Torres’s life on the campaign trail is just getting started. (She’s flying back to LA right after New Year’s.) Anecdotally, the film is emerging as one of the most beloved discoveries around town, a lovingly crafted and rousing portrait of Eunice Paiva (Torres), a housewife turned activist in ’70s Rio whose husband, former congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), is apprehended by the dictatorial regime taking power in their country. Torres’s quiet, elegant, powerful portrayal has earned her a spot in a stacked best-actress conversation fronted by megastars Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, and Demi Moore.

Not that Torres is any slouch when it comes to fame. The 59-year-old is the daughter of iconic Brazilian actors Fernando Torres and Fernanda Montenegro, the latter of whom plays an older Eunice in I’m Still Here. At 20, Torres won best actress at the Cannes Film Festival for her spellbinding turn in the marital drama Love Me Forever or Never. She’s gone on to draw sold-out crowds onstage, including in a lauded solo show adapted from João Ubaldo Ribeiro’s novel A Casa dos Budas Ditosos; write scripts for feature films and streaming TV series; anchor hugely popular sitcoms like Slaps & Kisses; and sell more than 200,000 copies locally of her debut novel, The End.

“To be a modern artist nowadays, you have to be alive in many places in order to survive. If you keep waiting for an invitation for a film or whatever, you’ll be dead,” she says. “You have to reinvent yourself all the time…. So it’s very good to get older. That’s a very good fact of aging.”

I’m Still Here

While she was growing up, Torres’s parents rehearsed at the dining table. “I really enjoyed sitting there after school—they were doing Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller,” Torres says. From her early years, she felt her destiny was to be an artist, to carry on in their tradition: “Come on. My father was called Fernando. She’s called Fernanda. I’m called Fernanda. Freud should do a case about my family.”

She got her start on camera as a young teen, and by the time she turned 18, she found herself already being pulled in different directions. When Love Me Forever or Never premiered in Cannes, for instance, Torres was stuck back home. “I was the leading lady of a soap opera, and I was hating it. I was hating it with all my heart,” she says. “She cried, she was dumb—I couldn’t stand it anymore.” Rumors swirled that she was in the running to win best actress at the festival, but she couldn’t leave her day job. Sting wound up presenting the award without her in attendance. “I was so sad that I didn’t receive the award from the hands of Sting,” Torres says now. “But I received it in Brazil, so it was like the World Cup—I was walking in the streets with people screaming.”

At the same time, Brazil’s film industry was slowing down. “I thought I would do one movie after the other, [but] then cinema was over when I came back to Brazil,” Torres says. She did an acclaimed stage production of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando instead, while still dabbling in features when she could—including linking up with a then hotshot filmmaker in Salles. Foreign Land allowed Torres to shine in a searing tale of immigration and loneliness. “We were like kids. He was very fast. We did stunts together in a very old car he was driving without seat belts; the third time we did the spinning, the car almost rolled over—and then we said, ‘I think it’s fine!’” she says. “We could’ve died. It’s the kind of thing that you do when you are young.”

Salles developed a working relationship with Torres’s mother too. Generally, Torres has embraced the link to her parents, the feeling of carrying on Brazilian art. “Nowadays, in this mean world that we live in, it’s called ‘nepo babies,’” Torres says. “[But] this is such a tradition, the circus family—this is something beautiful. It is a job that you can learn by watching, by mimicking, by living in an environment. It’s like doctors. But no, nowadays they’ve decided that [we are] ‘nepo babies.’ Such a silly world.”

Onscreen over the years, Torres has come to be known for her work in comedy—specifically, broad TV comedy. In Slaps & Kisses, she played an outspoken bridal-shop employee dating a married man, amassing a significant fan base on the strength of her go-for-broke performance as a teary, sometimes rageful, often hilarious flirt. When I met Torres in Los Angeles earlier this month, she described Salles casting her in I’m Still Here as “rescuing” her from comedy—it had become all she was known for.

Over Zoom a few weeks later, she clarifies: “People thought I was a comedian because I was so popular,” she says. “Go on the internet. I mean, I’ve survived with the young generation because I became memes. My memes in Brazil were like a fever. I find memes a superior form of art. I’m very proud.” Of course, Torres also considers herself more than a meme, even if she still delights in that aspect of her career. “I like tragicomedies. Brazil is a tragicomic country. I’m a tragicomic actress.”

I’m Still Here leans toward heavy drama. It’s based on the memoir of the same name (Ainda Estou Aqui in Portuguese) by Eunice and Rubens Paiva’s son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, but rooted in Salles’s own memories of visiting the family home when he was a teenager. The director hadn’t made a Brazilian feature in 16 years, instead helming a Francis Ford Coppola–produced On the Road adaptation as well as a documentary on filmmaker Jia Zhangke. So it’s no coincidence that I’m Still Here opens like an intimate series of home videos, personal and familial and gorgeously local. When Rubens disappears, a terrifying uncertainty settles in.

The movie was shot documentary-style, in chronological order and with a sense of familiarity between cast and crew that was blurred between takes. That allowed Torres to forge a unique connection to Eunice. The film sticks to her character’s perspective and employs meticulous naturalism; the events unfold like an all-too-realistic gut punch. “It was filmed in a very simple way, and I spent so much time under her skin that it became a second nature to me,” she says. “When I watched the movie, I was a bit in shock because it didn’t look like me.”

The movie does not jump forward in time until its final act. Mostly, it unfolds in the family home immediately after Rubens disappears, as Eunice figures out what to do—keep raising her five children, try to find her husband, learn about fighting back against the military dictatorship? “She is very intelligent, very persuasive, but she’s never pushing—she’s just like the movie,” Torres says. “The whole fact that she never cries or screams—it was a kind of emotion that I never experimented with as an actress, to restrain emotion and to feel how it grows inside you. I didn’t know if that was going to work.” To watch Torres explore that space in real time, simultaneously keying into the birth of an activist and the grief of a widow, proves profoundly moving.

Sony Classics will release I’m Still Here in January, with a short 2024 debut for US awards. It’s likely to be Brazil’s first Oscar nominee for best international feature in some 26 years, and Torres could be the second-ever Brazilian star to get an acting nomination—following her mother, who was nominated for Salles’s Central Station. The film is already a phenomenon in Brazil, having grossed $6.6 million in less than a month—a massive haul for that territory, and the biggest for a local film in several years. “It became like a national passion—people are going to the movies here like I’ve never seen before,” Torres says. Paiva’s story of persistence and resistance has resonated nationally, and Torres sees signs of that appeal extending globally.

One fan of the film, Sean Penn, told Torres at a recent CAA screening that he watched the movie immediately after Donald Trump’s reelection as president. “[He’s] very inspired by this amazing woman that nobody knew about,” Torres says of Penn. “It’s an important movie for now.” Reflecting on these dizzying last few months from back home, Torres keeps stopping to smile at the response. She’s not complaining about getting back on a plane soon. “I don’t think this will happen again in my life,” she says. “So let’s enjoy it.”

David Canfield HOLLYWOOD CORRESPONDENT David Canfield is a Hollywood correspondent at Vanity Fair, where he reports on awards season and co-hosts the Little Gold Men podcast. He joined VFfrom Entertainment Weekly, where he was the movies editor and oversaw awards coverage, and has also written for Vulture, Slate, and IndieWire. David is a National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award finalist and GLAAD Media Award nominee, and has written cover stories on Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, and more. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband. Follow him on Twitter. SEE MORE BY DAVID CANFIELD »