#bill henson vibes

[jinxproof]

Magda Frackowiak & Doutzen Kroes Love Magazine #8 ph. Mikael Jansson

[nessataleweaver]

I don't think I'd want to move out of my house. I rather love it here.

But I'd donate a million dollars to all the symphony orchestras in australia, but two million to my hometown and get them to do more concerts conducted by Guy Noble because Mum and I are both fans.

I'd also donate a couple of million dollars to the zoo so they can keep enriching all the animal environments. ditto monarto.

Oh, and I'd start a non-profit focused on paying vet bills for people on all kinds of pensions, so no one has to put down their furry friend because they can't afford an operation.

I'd find a decent entertainment lawyer so I didn't look like a nut when I get into contact with Complete Fiction and offer to fund the entire second season of Lockwood & co on the condition they do a complete physical media release including dvd commentary and all the deleted scenes.

and fuck it, for weekends and the hottest part of summer I'd buy a giant plot of land down in Victor Harbor (an hour drive away and fuck the Hills, man, I'm not risking losing this to a damn bushfire) and I would build a GOTHIC CASTLE with gargoyles based on How to train your dragon and maybe some B -movie aliens and yes, I will have stained glass windows from star trek AND a secret door to the library that looks like the tardis. The library itself will have enough shelves to give Belle an orgasm on the spot. It might just have a mosaic floor but it would be Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes.

The screening room would have recliners and a mural of the classic Monster mash - Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the wolfman, the mummy, jason, freddy, chucky, ghostface, michael and some kind of tentacled thing in there somewhere cause obviously.

Maybe I'll save Godzilla vs the Hogwarts giant squid for the bottom of the pool?

And a proper gazebo and/or a summerhouse in the back so mum can knit while she listens to talking books and my smallest nephew can have a sand pit big enough to run his own construction site.

And carefully disguised solar panels everywhere, because renewable energy is important but not to ruin the castle vibe.

And once a month I'll hire a cinema to do a film festival of anime movies, including ALL the Detective Conan movies so I can finally get to see them when they're actually coming out. Or Jim Henson studios. Or all the Agatha Christie movies I can get my hands on, including the BBC specials but not the most recent Marple series because fuck that shit, you do not change the murderer/s because gay people are fashionable - they are cool, but that does not justify changing the solution of some of the english language's greatest mysteries because you want something set in the nineteen thirties - fifties to be 'modern and relevant' Gay people have been around for thousands of years, there's nothing 'modern and relevant' about them.

Speaking of anime, I'd donate some to AVcon on the condition that they actually put some fucking A(nime) back on the schedule (what kind of anime and video game convention doesn't have a fucking screening room???? AVcon 2023, that's who!) and I get to curate the classics room. Same to oz comic-con and supanova so they can have a screening room again - seriously, four special guests who are anime voice actors and you don't get a screening room to see their work??

Oh, and I'd buy one of the empty warehouses down in port adelaide and rehab it into one or two bedroom flats because single women over fifty are the demographic most at risk of homelessness, with plenty of room for car parking because even couples have two cars these days.

And I'd bribe the government into high-speed trains between all the capital cities from brisbane down to adelaide because I'm sick of puking everytime I spend more than half an hour in a damn plane.

"you hate capitalism because you're jealous of rich people" well I wouldn't mind having an in-ground pool but there's also other reasons to hate capitalism such as the fact that owning a chocolate company that doesn't use fucking child slavery earns you praise because it's so uncommon, or the fact that it by design results in repeat economic collapses when the average consumer can't afford to stimulate the economy, or the fact that our future (and current) existence on planet earth is full of detrimental environmental disasters because pursuing fossil fuels was more profitable in the short-term, or the fact that entire wars are started specifically to make money, or...yeah the list goes on

[n1h-kee]

Proposals：

WHO- I invite my friend to be my model (p1). Her facial features are well-defined, giving off a fashionable model-like vibe. She has a tall and slender figure, exuding a sense of delicate femininity. The highlight is her exceptional talent for performing; she can appear incredibly natural yet captivating in front of the camera.

WHY- I really wanna try playing with double exposure in camera. At the same time, I also inspired by Bill Henson’s and Duane Michael’ works. The meaning of double exposure is that two separate photos are merged into a single layer, and the merging method I prefer is to add them together. Therefore, I want to utilize this feature to express the variability and dynamics of emotions in the context of emotional photography themes.

HOW- I plan to conduct the shoot in a photography studio with a black curtain that can block light as the background. I will use a controllable light source, such as a flashlight, positioned to the side of the model to provide partial lighting. A tripod will also be used to ensure consistency between the two exposures during the shoot.

WHAT- The theme portrays the dynamic expression of negative emotions in individuals. The model needs to demonstrate two different dynamics within a specific emotion. For example, when feeling anxious, the model can portray both looking up and scratching the head, as well as lowering the head and supporting the forehead.

WHEN- 5.19：Experiment with Lighting set up and Background. / 5.22 ： Shooting / 5.24：Second Shooting

[mikenips]

Do Sitting Ducks Take Acid

Woke up today with the same fear I wake up to everyday.  The mail on the table isn’t addressed to me.  But I’ve been known to break the law here and there.  So I read the open letter anyways.  The federal government with the news of the oncoming impending doom.  Twelve hundred in the bank account.  Sincerely.  President Donald J. Trump.  It feels surreal.  A sittin’ duck listenin’ the broken record skip for the past four years.  The loop echoes in the news and Facebook comments.  But just now recognizin’ that every revolution brings you back to where you started.  Recognize you’re stuck in the loop and there’s no way to spin on.  Move past it.  Pick up the needle at his signature copied to millions of people.  It’s real.  There’s nothin’ left to do now but face it.  And hope you can jump the acid loop.  Skip past election day.  And it’s all over.

All things must pass.  Everyone out here strokin’ the Beatles off.  But don’t wanna face the reality of George Harrison’s oncoming impending doom.  All things must pass.  The lines of ecstasy drip into the nosebleed.  Eventually come down.  Left sweaty and shirtless in your room.  Alone.  Watchin’ Big Bird sing at Jim Henson’s funeral.  Made it through years of revolution.  Revolution is comin’ to a doorstep near you come this November.  Look outside.  Wish the sun good morning.

Grow up.  Jim Henson’s dead man!  Step on the porch.  Nose clogged with baby lax and amphetamines as the hundred from unemployment unravel into ones.  Light a cig with coffee as the sunrises.  Maybe it’s the ketamine or acid or the fuckin’ coffee.  But step outside and realize you don’t remember how to get to Sesame Street.  And the neighbors you’ve lived next to for three years but don’t know their names don’t wanna see this shit outside their doors every morning.  Shit man.  There’s kids that live here.  They don’t wanna see you gaspin’ for air.  Hidin’ from the sunlight.

“I’m fine grandma.  Just sat down to play Scooby-Doo with the homies.”  Heathcliff the Big Cheese spits the oncoming impending doom into the phone.  Another story for her to tell her friends.  The needle keeps spinnin’ on the edge of the wax.  He tells you if you don’t beat the game the whole world is gonna implode.  Shit.  Between the Pentagon confirmin’ the dude from Blink-182 isn’t just a cook from our childhood but was onto aliens long before the CIA.  California is lookin’ like Blade Runner 2049.  Or some other movie set Hollywood uses to make underdeveloped countries look overly polluted.  A facist is paying our rent while plannin’ a coup.  And the hundreds of thousands dead are just sacrifices to keep Wall Street above the risin’ sea levels in the midst of a pandemic.  2020 is really turnin’ into some type of apocalypse film.  Arthur Lee always said the news of today will be the movies of tomorrow.  But I’m not so sure I wanna stick around to see the ending.  Not sure if I want this chapter included in my semi-autobiographical choose your own great American adventure novel.  I want the thrill of meetin’ new people and them sayin’ they’ve heard a lot about me.  Just don’t know if this is a part I want them to hear.

Drag on the cig while takin’ in the drag of reality outside the living room.  The grass seems more vivid.  More harsh.  But the neighbors don’t see the cosmos exhaled.  They don’t see the constellations of ash and clouds smoked through your nostrils to avoid a dry socket and another couple hundred dollar dental bill.  They don’t see the cliche survival story of hours spent researchin’ sellin’ plasma to pay the bill.  They don’t see that me and my friends are out here birthin’ our own cosmos.  We know the world can be as simple as Fraggle Rock.  And now without Jim Henson it feels like someone is pullin’ the puppet strings in a different direction.

We are the lonely and desperate people John Sinclair told you about.  We collage together sound bites and Harmony Korine B-rolls.  News broadcasts and Instagram photos.  Makin’ our own vibe boards.  Boredom is the vibe.  Cause no matter how far you move the needle.  You keep revolve in the same loop.  The constant struggle to make the moment bearable.  The Guilty Undertaker tries to drone it out behind chord organs and omnichord beats.  File it under the audiobooks on Bandcamp.  Like some self-help book that didn’t include an instruction manual.  It reads like noise.  But in relative pitch plays back like a symphony on the reel to reel.  But it just revolves back to where you started.  Nothing.

“Yeah.  I think hating yourself is just part of your twenties.”  PJ Banana tells you this.  While pissin’ into the oncoming impending doom in my front yard.  Takes a bump with a Gumby like omnipresence.  Downs the beer with toddler like chaos but is too old for childhood games like kick the can and nitrous oxide.  Somethin’ about that last third makes ya puke up all the drunken coherence.

We resist.  We take the streets.  We play rock and roll music in sweaty basements till one in the morning.  Record revolves in the living room.  Nobody is listenin’ to any of it.  No matter how much the record skips we just fall into the loop.  We grow into somethin’ we hate.  Throw in the towel after he says he deserves a third term for reckless endangerment.  Then pack it up for the burbs.  A place the news and movies don’t wanna go.  Replace the familiar characters of Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster with Phil the dentist who treats himself to another year of golf at the club on your unnecessary root canal financed by your plasma.  The lobotomizing mundane doesn’t hurt as much as the oncoming impending doom.  Call it god or Santa Claus.  But at the end of the day we’re still gettin’ punished.

Unwind in a hammock without the sound of duster cans firin’ in the distance.  Unsure if your actions are an ironic joke at your own expense.  You always said don’t take yourself so seriously.  Shove metal through your flesh.  The good memories never stay.  Only the nasty wounds scar.  You let your life imitate the art you once lived.  Masochistically ink yourself.  Tattoo the good memories that burnt up with the braincells from aluminum foil bowls.  You don’t remember the stories.  But you can still see Skaterino outside the club askin’ where the party’s at.

You can’t see his face or the Carhart beanie that probably stays on durin’ sex.  But you can see his smile.  Nicotine stains in his teeth glisten with childlike optimism at the oncoming impending doom.  Every morning I wake up with the same fear his question left with me that night outside the ol’ OLL.  Every morning I wake up to the shower head I don’t recognize.  But the familiar dirt on the ground.  Every morning I wake up to images of people that did terrible things to their bodies taped to my walls.  Everyday I wonder if I know where the party is at when I wake up.  A room of burnouts and drunks like sittin’ ducks gets you the fix we all crave when they say they’ve heard a lot about you.  We all live in the hopes someone else shares our urban legend to people we may never know.  A room of burnouts and drunks like sittin’ ducks in the rain dancin’ their cares away with the fraggles will always be more aware than Phil the dentist pullin’ a tooth from your skull with pliers in the most unprofessional medical procedure.  How much college do you need to learn how to destroy lives?

Everyday I wake up with the same fear that this is the day the party ends.  The drugs come down.  The fascists burn the Constitution in an Antifa organized wildfire to spread climate change propaganda.  Everyday I wake up with the fear that this is the day the fear ends.  I meet Jim Henson in the dead end alley where Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock converge with the oncoming impending doom.  Everyday I wake up with the fear someone just moves the needle forward and we’re still in a loop but with a different revolution bringin’ us back to where we started.

I see his name signed on a piece of government mail.  It surreally makes this apocalypse film a reality.  The Guilty Undertaker hits a bowl of salvia.  PJ Banana screams his head hurts.  His hands are sweaty.  And his face is hot, man!  His face is hot!  Before lockin’ himself in the bathroom with a fifth of Hornito’s.  But I know outside my door.  And outside my neighbors’ doors.  Revolution is happenin’ all around us.  People are birthin’ their own cosmos in the midst of space and time and whole damn continuum.  We’re all writin’ our own semi-autobiographical choose your own great American adventure novel.  Somewhere outside all our doors the ducks are on acid, dancin’ their cares away in the puddles and rain.  Somewhere Skaterino is askin’ where the party’s at.  Nicotine stains glistenin’ with childlike excitement and naivety.  Somewhere the angels are screamin’ at every single one of us sellin’ our bodies to the plasma bank.  While tryin’ to make the most of the oncoming impending doom and over inflated cost of dental work.

All of this must pass.  And we all wake up with the same fear that this is the day the scene ends.  This is when we forget how to get to Sesame Street and move to the burbs instead.  We wake up with the fear that someone is gonna skip our needle forward to a new loop on a broken record.  But hopefully someone sees the constellations in the clouds we smoke.  And are comforted by the hope someone out there is sayin’ they’ve heard a lot about us before we even meet ‘em.  But everyday we wake up with the fear that the reassurance our urban legends of cosmos we create are recognized won’t be enough to end the revolutions of the dronin’ loop of our oncoming impending dooms.

[insert-joke24]

hahaha I have more to say

So the best part of this movie for me was the energy. I don't know what the 70s comedy scene was actually like but according to this movie it was sexy, dangerous, high-brow. Lorne Michaels within the story represents almost like a mythic figure in the sense that he is The Creator. Yes, he's the Underdog too but he's also God here, the divine hand that we, the audience, knows will go on to shape the lives and careers of several decades-worth of comedy stars. This is the show that would give us Chris Farley, Bill Hader, Andy Samburg, Adam Sander Kristen Wiig, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and, unfortunately, Jimmy Fallon. This first iteration is not devoid of its own stars - Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Jane Curtain, Jim Henson, Gilda Radner, Andy Kaufman, and, most unfortunately, Chevy Chase. Lorne Michaels is the figure moving the pieces (with some resistance from NBC higher-ups who only deepen the mythology in the sense that they position Michaels and his ragtag, discombobulated cast and crew as Revolutionaries on the forefront of the Next Big Thing, an irony not lost on me given Michaels' real-life trepidation towards handing the reigns of the monolith show to literally anyone). Even if he's not quite there yet, he is still deeply deified by the movie. Any flaws he might possess are downplayed and overlayed thickly with scenes of Michaels running frantically, putting out fires, his resolve never really wavering and his passion remaining equally steadfast.

Which is...fine. it's good. it gives Saturday Night an almost Birdman-esque vibe minus the one-shot composition. It's fun and engaging, I mean what else can you ask for? It's funny in all the right places (Nicholas Braun's dual role of Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman were standouts, with Henson carrying an odd amount of emotional weight in one scene while Kaufman illicits the most genuine laugh that came out of me the entire time) and really sold me on some questionable casting choices (Cory Michael Smith and Dylan O'Brien as Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd ended up being some of my unexpected favorites), but its sometimes hard to buy.

The thing I keep coming back to here is that Jason Reitman has recreated what I'm sure was a tumultuous production leading up to the first showcase of Saturday Night Live in 1975. He's added some drama, I'm sure, some stress to keep up with the manic energy of the dynamic of camera to character. The movie literally jerks you around, it's honestly great because after seeing the last 2 Ghostbusters movies I didn't think he had that in him. But ultimately I walked away feeling full but not fulfilled. There was a lot to latch onto but the story itself, primarily the excellent supporting cast, ended up falling a little flat. It's like it's trying to distract you with all the pretty lights and chaos and oh, look, George Carlin is here! Oh look, it's Andy Kaufman's bit! JK Simmons is here!

There's a lot of ideas here and, much like his main character, I'm not sure Reitman knows what it's supposed to be. Much like it's titular program, Saturday Night is full of bits and jokes and music and turmoil and drug use and it's all VERY exciting. Sometimes the branches feel like distractions. Don't peek behind the curtain or you'll see the Wizard was just Lorne Michaels failing upwards all along.

About to see Saturday Night wish me luck

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

What Men Want

So first off, I thought this movie was going to be so cringey. I expected nothing less from director Adam Shankman, who you may know as the director and choreographer of Hairspray and who I may know as my favorite guest judge on the best seasons of So You Think You Can Dance. What Men Want is the gender-flipped version of the 2000 Mel Gibson movie, What Women Want. The answer to that movie’s question was 1) for men to just like, listen, and also not be assholes? and 2) stop letting Mel Gibson be in movies. Well it’s 19 years later, and at least we got half of one of those things still going strong. So what’s the answer to the 2019 version, which sees Ali Davis (Taraji P. Henson) suddenly privy to all the innermost thoughts of every man she’s near? Well...

Treat them like people? Like, with respect and dignity? I think that’s what the film was getting at, but it’s sort of obscured by all the bro-y dick jokes, racism, and misogyny. 

Some thoughts: 

I’ll be honest with you - I thought this was going to be SO stupid but honestly, this giant conference room full of men in which Ali is one of maybe 2 or 3 women in it? Yeah, that’s WAYYY too many men and this vibe is so real. So there are at least some glimmers of an actual point to this movie’s whole existence.

Also Taraji P. Henson’s wardrobe is incredible. She’s like a beacon of awesome style in the midst of all these boring suits. She’s magnetic, she’s vivacious, and I have no idea how anyone would possibly pick one of these boring dudebros over her, given the option.

Ok but wait, I mean, it sucks that she didn’t get the promotion but you can’t just call all your coworkers backstabbing bitches. That’s an HR violation, not cool, girl.

Damn Aldis Hodge is so charming and hot as Ali’s love interest, Will. I’ve loved him since season 1 of Supernatural and he just keeps getting better with age. He’s smooth, disarming, and the kind of hot that feels accessible, you know? This first sex scene is truly terrifying though - and I know you’re an A-list star now, but no one keeps their bra on, Taraji. Nothing feels less realistic in a sex scene than that.

Honestly the entire condom-on-the-back sequence is so horrifyingly unprofessional, it’s no wonder Ali didn’t get this promotion.

The main reason this film is rated R is because men are gross, and I just feel like everyone in the room deserves better than this. 

As far as performances go, though, everyone feels a little bit uneven or off their game with the exception of Hodge and Erykah Badhu, who is clearly having the time of her motherfucking life here as the psychic who helps guide Ali through her newly acquired men-hearing powers. But Taraji is pinballing between manic and brooding in almost every scene, and she doesn’t quite have the physical comedy chops of say, Aisha Tyler, or even Gabrielle Union to help sell this implausible premise when the script is lacking. I think I might enjoy her more as unintentionally funny rather than purposefully funny. Pete Davidson and Max Greenfield are basically just phoning in their supporting roles. And while watching athletes play exaggerated versions of themselves is delightful, no one is giving Reggie Miller or Shaq an Oscar for their performances here.

This soundtrack is very basic, very obvious song choices but damn, there are some good cuts here - like “Bills, Bills, Bills” during the poker scene, hell YES.

I know this is nitpicky, but it feels weird that the punchline to Kellan Lutz’s big “ooh let’s have a spontaneous hookup” scene is 1) he’s into BDSM and 2) he’s so serious about it that he has a whole room devoted to it. Like, it does not take an expert in the field to clearly see that there ain’t NO WAY that man buckled himself into all that gear in the 2 minutes it took her in the bathroom. So not only is your punchline lame, obvious, and totally off the mark when it comes to actual BDSM practices (because none of that was safe, sane, OR consensual), but it also doesn’t logically make any sense. I will admit that it made me laugh in the credits when his character’s actual credited name was “Captain Fucktastic” though. 

Turns out, even after all these years, I still hate hearing anything that comes out of Tracy Morgan’s mouth.

This promo video is so embarrassing, it looks like it was made on racist iMovie. Big booty hos and gold chains are the only way to get a young black basketball player to sign with you, right? God, it would be embarrassing for them if it wasn’t so damn appalling. 

Is the only narrative for sports agents pulling a Jerry Maguire and going free agent? That’s the plot of actual Jerry Maguire, Ballers, and now this. Are there any sports agents that just...stay where they are? How do they even get anything done if everyone’s just waiting for everyone else to Jerry Maguire?

Also, anything and everything having to do with queer issues in this film is pretty fucked up. Ali’s assistant Brandon (Josh Brener) is gay, and when he starts to date a fellow employee, per Ali’s mind-reading suggestion, they share one spinning hug, and that’s it. There’s no other expressions of desire or affection, not even one kiss, as there would be for any straight couple that Ali played matchmaker for. There’s also a revelation during a big wedding scene at the end where Ali gets drunk, decides THEN is the best time to stop the wedding (not in the weeks leading up to it when she definitely could have) and reveals a whole host of secret affairs, including one woman’s husband sleeping with another man. It’s played as THE most shocking revelation - a spectator literally faints - and the woman angrily accuses her husband of kissing her after he was sucking dick. It’s meant to be hilariously *shocking* but the pattern of jokes throughout the movie just feels gross and homophobic and woefully outdated.

I will say I’m glad there’s at least some acknowledgement of the intersection of race and gender and how it has affected Ali’s career in the film. I had hoped that this movie would use Ali’s powers to better undermine and exploit all the bullshit she has to put up with as a black woman working in a white male-dominated field, but I suppose even acknowledging intersectionality directly is a big get for a major studio movie.

The main message of the story is that black women literally have to have supernatural powers granted to them to have the chance to advance to the same level as a mediocre white man.

Also the ending is super abrupt because they clearly didn’t know how to end it besides just “aaaaaand everything is resolved!” 

What Men Want is uneven, but at least engages with some deeper issues than its Mel Gibson predecessor. It has its moments of humor (Shaq thinking about himself in the third person just GETS ME) but overall I don’t know that this movie is what men OR women really want.

[aion-rsa]

Labyrinth: the Unsettling Second Character Played by David Bowie

https://ift.tt/3A2oNto

Not everything we enjoy is good for us. A chocolate-filled doughnut, for instance, can be delicious even while it crams our arteries with trans fat. The simple fact of knowing that something is unhealthy doesn’t stop it from being fun, which is to say that it’s still okay to love Jim Henson’s 1986 cult kids’ film Labyrinth while acknowledging that its sexual subtext is creepier than a drunk uncle on a camping trip. 

It’s not as if nobody noticed the vibe between lead characters Sarah and Jareth at the time, or in repeated viewings since. Like Bowie’s codpiece, it stares you in the face all the way through the film. Jareth’s a 300-year-old Goblin King (played by a 38-year-old pop star) who wants to live within 15-year-old Sarah. Jareth spies on Sarah, comes into her bedroom, drugs her, dances with her, and promises to be her slave if she’ll love him, fear him and do as he says. Their dynamic is wrong in every size and colour, and – depending on whether you’ve spotted the other character Bowie plays in the film – could be about to get a little bit more wrong.

Sarah’s scrapbook in Labyrinth (1986)

The events of Labyrinth are a fantasy that takes place in Sarah’s mind. Using the childhood dolls, stories and ornaments spotted around her bedroom in the early scenes (Hoggle and Ludo toys, a Goblin King statue, a wooden labyrinth game, storybooks from Snow White to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland…), Sarah invents a scenario in which she’s a put-upon fairy tale hero who saves her baby brother. It’s a coming-of-age fantasy that teaches Sarah to leave her childhood behind, recognise her inner power and step into the adult world. The film starts with her dressed as a princess and play-acting, and ends with her literally clearing her room of toys and games, and symbolically passing on her beloved teddy bear Lancelot to her little brother Toby.

If Labyrinth were a ‘real’ fairy tale, then Sarah’s absent mother (the girl lives with her father, stepmother and new stepbrother) would be dead. She isn’t, as we can see from recent photos around Sarah’s mirror and the scrapbook of press clippings Sarah keeps about her, decorated with hearts, the word “mom”. Sarah’s mother Linda Williams is a theatre actor who’s famous enough for her love life to be written about in the papers. Several of the newspaper articles in the scrapbook show her mother pictured with another actor, topped by a headline about their on-again-off-again romance. The other actor in those photos is played by David Bowie. That means that when Sarah was dream-casting the much older lead in her personal coming-of-age fantasy, she gave that role to… her mother’s boyfriend. Therapists of the world, start your engines.

A.C.H. Smith’s 1986 novelisation of Labyrinth was written with input from Jim Henson and screenwriter Terry Jones. In this 2018 podcast interview, Smith explains that Henson gave him over 20 pages of feedback about the draft manuscript and invited him to visit the set and watch several days’ filming. Jones also spent an afternoon with Smith and gave him permission to use an abandoned boneyard scene in the novelisation which had been originally written for the film. The novelisation is canon, is the point. It bears the official stamp. And the novelisation gives us more on the characters of Linda Williams and her actor boyfriend Jeremy. Here, it describes Sarah’s bedroom press clippings:

Sarah’s mother and her co-star, Jeremy, were cheek to cheek, their arms around each other, smiling confidently. The photographer had lit the pair beautifully, showing her to be so pretty, he so handsome, with his blond hair and a golden chain around his neck.

Novelisation-Sarah clearly has a thing for Jeremy, who comes over in the book as louche and flirtatious. Smith describes Sarah as being thrilled by Jeremy’s French-speaking sophistication. She’s impressed by his language and mockery of others, and keeps repeating an actorly phrase she’s heard him say about “finding a way into the part.” 

Sarah’s bedroom mirror in Labyrinth (1986)

In one scene from the book, Sarah remembers celebrating her 15th birthday with Jeremy and her mother. The novelisation describes them giggling poolside at Jeremy’s members’ club before receiving his gift of “an evening gown in pale blue” (her mother gets her a music box, so the evening gown is a Jeremy-only deal). Sarah wears the dress that night to a musical, after which Jeremy takes them all to a dimly lit restaurant:

Jeremy had danced with Sarah, smiling down at her. He kidded her that a flashbulb meant that they’d be all over the gossip columns next morning, and all the way home he drove fast, to shake off the photographers, he claimed, grinning.

That’s not the only time Sarah dances with Jeremy/Jareth. Film audiences will remember the masked ball part of Sarah’s labyrinth fantasy, a hallucinatory scene that plays out in the feature as romantic yet sinister, but which is made explicitly sexual in the book. In this Sam Downie interview, Smith says of the novelisation’s dance scene, “It gets quite sexy when she is in the bubble and dancing with Jareth and so forth. I made a little more of that in the book because I felt the book needed that, it needed that extra little emotional kick at that point.”

Read more

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The book scene has Sarah being perved at by a stranger who “relished her face, then her white shoulders, her breasts, hips, and legs,” and sidled up to tell her that she was remarkably beautiful. Dancing with Jareth, the 15-year-old is described as feeling like “the loveliest woman at the ball” and finding “the touch of his hands on her body thrilling.” 

When he told her that she was beautiful, she felt confused. 

“I feel … I feel like … I — don’t know what I feel.” 

He was amused. “Don’t you?” 

“I feel like … I’m in a dream, but I don’t remember ever dreaming anything like this!” 

He pulled back to look at her and laughed, but fondly. “You’ll have to find your way into the part,” he said, and whirled her on around the room. 

Jeremy’s catchphrase, there. In the book, fantasy-Jeremy/Jareth then tries to kiss Sarah, when she realises that the whole room is watching them and laughing:

“Jareth seemed to be unperturbed, but she turned her face sharply away from his, horrified. He held her more tightly, and insistently sought her lips with his. Suffused with disgust, she wrenched herself free of him.”

This is supposedly Sarah’s fantasy. She’s the one in whose imagination all this is happening. In 2016, the film’s conceptual designer Brian Froud explained the thinking to Empire. Sarah, says Froud, is approaching the age of sexual awakening, and so has created Jareth as a composite image of the kind of men who turn her on. “We’re not looking at reality, we’re inside this girl’s head.” Jareth’s costumes were designed to reference “a leather boy”, the armour of a German knight, Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, and male ballet dancers. “He’s an amalgam of the inner fantasies of this girl. Everyone always talks about Bowie’s perv pants, but there was a reason for it all! It has a surface that’s fairly light, but then every so often you go, ‘Oh, my God! How did we get away with that?!’”

Telling a children’s story about a girl’s veiled sexualised fantasies of her mother’s boyfriend is getting away with a fair bit. There’s more to the film of course, and ultimately, Sarah vanquishes Jareth by rejecting his sinister allure and asserting her own power. Her attraction to him though, especially in the novelisation, is undeniable. What makes this uncomfortable isn’t the fact that Labyrinth is in part a story about adolescent female sexual awakening, but that its vision of that awakening was dreamt up by grown men and shows an underage girl drawn to a man of their age. Thought of that way and it’s less sure that Sarah’s is the fantasy we’re watching.

It was a different time, though, the 1980s. All this stuff was much more mainstream back then. 16-year-old Samantha Fox could be photographed topless for Page Three of national newspaper The Sun. Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones could openly ‘date’ a child. The charts regularly featured songs about adult men heroically wrestling with their sexual attraction to schoolgirls. And the 83-year-old writer of a children’s film novelisation could reminisce about how thrilling it was to have danced with the film’s young star at the wrap party, and laugh at how much more thrilling it might have been if only her mother hadn’t insisted on staying so close to her “very beautiful 14-year-old daughter” all night. A different time. (Except, that last anecdote was recounted in 2018. Perhaps the time isn’t quite as different as it should be.)

Don’t let any of this put you off though. Like a chocolate-filled doughnut, Labyrinth remains a sweet childhood treat… with a slightly sickening centre.  

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Labyrinth celebrates its 35th anniversary in the US on June 27th.

The post Labyrinth: the Unsettling Second Character Played by David Bowie appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[beatdisc]

RECORD STORE DAY BLACK FRIDAY

Here's a pic featuring some key titles of our Record Store Day Black Friday exclusive titles we'll have on sale tomorrow. See below for the complete list! - On sale from 10am Friday 29th November - - One per title, per customer - - Phone orders from the afternoon onwards - Albert Hammond Jr. - Off Cycle [10''] Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) / My Buddy [7''] Bill Evans - Live At Art D'Lugoff's Top Of The Gate [2LP] Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars [7''] Cheap Trick - Are You Ready? Live 12/31/1979 [2LP] Colonel Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade - Live Frogs Sets 1 & 2 [3LP] Comet Is Coming, The - The Afterlife [LP] Czarface - The Odd Czar Against Us [LP] Daryl Hall & John Oates - Home For Christmas [LP] DMX - The Smoke Out Festival Presents [LP] Elvis Presley - American Sound 1969 Highlights [2LP] Fight - War Of Words [LP] Frank Sinatra - My Way [12''] J. Cole - 2014 Forest Hills Drive [12''] Jeff Buckley - Live On KCRW: Morning Becomes Eclectic [LP] Katy Perry - Never Really Over / Small Talk [12''] Kings Of Leon - Day Old Belgian Blues [LP] Lisa Loeb -- Stay (I Miss You) [12"] Lou Reed - The Raven [3LP] Miles Davis - Miles In Tokyo: Miles Davis Live In Concert [LP] NAS - Stillmatic [2LP] Nick Lowe & Wilco - Cruel To Be King [7"] Paul Westerberg & Grandpaboy - Stereo/Mono [2LP] Paul Williams - Jim Henson's Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas [LP] Pearl Jam - MTV Unplugged [LP] Pylon - Cool + Dub [7"] Robert Johnson - Sweet Home Chicago / Walkin' Blues [10''] Royal Trux - Quantum Entanglement [LP] RUFUS - Bloom [2LP] Runaways, The - Live in Japan [LP] Sebastian Bach - Forever Wild (Los Angeles / 2003) [2LP] Sid Vicious - Sid Lives! [2LP] Tank And The Bangas - Live Vibes 2 [LP] U2 - Three [12'' EP] Various - File #733 U.F.O. [2LP] Willie Nelson - Sometimes Even I Can Get Too High b/w It's All Going To Pot [7'']

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/the-happytime-murders/

The Happytime Murders

Image: STX

The Happytime Murders wants to shock us with its Muppet-style puppets who curse, patronize porn shops, snort drugs, and jizz silly string, but the only truly shocking thing is just how inept the movie is. This is the kind of movie where a character whispers to someone a few feet away so that the person standing directly next to her doesn’t hear her (he doesn’t). This is the kind of movie that asks you to root for a P.I. who allows multiple sentient beings (of both flesh and plush varieties) to walk right into their deaths during his investigations. This is the kind of movie where we hear that an event happened 20 years ago, and then mere minutes later, that it happened 12 years ago with no accounting for the discrepancy. This is the kind of movie that kills a character in a fire and then brings her back during the climax, again with no explanation. The Happytime Murders wants us to delight in how grown-up these puppets are while treating viewers like they’re children. Or not even—Jim Henson’s work never insulted its audience’s intelligence. The Happytime Murders is one, big, 90-minute insult.

At their most charming, the Muppets communicated on multiple frequencies. They were cuddly and emotionally transparent enough to be loved by kids, sardonic and referential enough to be enjoyed by their parents (you see the same sort of winking to the elders in Pixar’s sensibility). While novel in the bleak landscape of contemporary comedies with wide distribution, The Happytime Murders’ conceit of breaking similar puppets out of the constraints of children’s programming is not new. It’s been done and then done again. The Muppets, ABC’s single-camera-style look at the flawed characters and interior lives of Jim Henson’s beloved creations, did that for a dwindling audience over the course of 16 episodes in the 2015-16 season. But Happytime is more in debt to Peter Jackson’s 1989 film Meet the Feebles, which probed the sex-, drugs-, and AIDS-filled offstage lives of a bunch of grotesque, Muppets-esque characters. As kaleidoscopic as a bad trip and as pleasant as scabies, Feebles nonetheless satirized the Muppets when they were still culturally relevant and in the process produced a nightmarish vibe that was all its own. It’s a hard movie to recommend, even harder to enjoy, but it is inarguably singular in its surreality.

The Happytime Murders, meanwhile, stuffs its deviant plush into a noirish procedural framework at a time when the Muppets’ cultural presence is virtually nonexistent (2011’s quite good The Muppets, and 2014’s Muppets Most Wanted feel like distant memories). It’s likely that for Happytime director Brian Henson, though, Muppets have never not been relevant—he’s Jim’s son and took over the Muppet movie franchise for a bit after his father died, directing 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol and 1996’s Muppet Treasure Island. Those, while not peak-Muppet, are canon, and never could have possibly predicted how The Happytime Murders would come to be so out of touch with what makes the Muppets great and pop culture worth commenting on at all. If you need proof, look no further than the scene that sends up Basic Instinct’s interrogation sequence. No amount of puppet labia can save that decades-old bit from staleness.

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The Happytime Murders takes place in a world where puppets are second-class citizens—early shots in the movie lay on the race metaphors thick, as we a variety of felt configurations being harrassed by police and growled at by dogs. There’s no insight on institutional racism, no interest in exploring its absurdities in this ridiculous framework; it mostly just provides context for the shit-talking Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy) does to her ex-puppet partner Phil Philips (Bill Barretta) when they reunite and start investigating a series of deaths of actors who worked on an old kids’ show, The Happytime Gang. For example, she comments that he used to be a lot bluer—“I don’t know if that’s P.C. to say… I can’t say ‘blue’?”—since they were partners (either 12 or 20 years ago, who knows), and he mutters that she’s racist under his breath. And that’s the joke. Todd Berger’s screenplay is chock full of barb-trading that is either nonsensical or unfunny, often both at the same time. Edwards makes a reference to David Copperfield, Philips asks, “What are you, Houdini now?” Edwards retorts, “Maybe I am Houdini.” Philips says, “I’d like to see you disappear.” It’s called witty banter, look it up.

McCarthy’s charcter isn’t a total bigot on the movie’s own terms, I guess, because she’s part puppet—she has a felt liver on account of an emergency surgery at a puppet hospital. How that worked, why only some puppets seem age, why Philips ejaculates so much silly string—none of it makes a lick of sense. Henson seems to have no grasp on the rules of the world he’s created, and thinks anarchy in the form of outrageousness is all it needs to get by. He squanders the considerable talent at hand, including McCarthy (whose addict-cop character is flatter and more trite than anything controlled by a hand up its butt) and Maya Rudolph, as the squeaky-voiced secretary Bubbles. Puppets are already already disconcerting to many people for being both humanlike and not quite human enough, but The Happytime Murders’ apparent failure to achieve just about everything it aspires to do makes for a grueling, multilevel tour of the uncanny valley. It ain’t pretty.

Source: https://themuse.jezebel.com/the-happytime-murders-puppets-can-suck-it-1828585391

[jeremystrele]

Unveiling Buxton Contemporary

Unveiling Buxton Contemporary

Art

by Elle Murrell

The countdown is on! Michael Buxton’s landmark philanthropic venture, Buxton Contemporary opens to the public on Friday March 9th. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Michael pictured with Mike Parr’s ‘Bronze liars (minus 1 to minus 16) #9 #13 #16’ 1996. ‘The most rewarding part about collecting art is meeting artists and learning about their work. Many in the collection have gone on to become close friends,’ he says. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Hany Armanious, ‘Forging the energy body (Swegypt)’ 2004. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Installation view of Buxton Contemporary’s ‘The state of things to come’ exhibition, on the museum’s ground level.’Supporting education for the long term was important to ensure we continue to support our generation of visual artists,’ explains Michael. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Juan Davila’s ‘Art i$ homosexual’ 1983–86. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Pat Brassington’s ‘Starlight’ (from Gentle series) 2001, alongside ‘By the way’ 2010. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

While having his portrait taken, Michael Buxton leans nonchalantly beside an epochal trio of busts by Mike Parr. With the reminder of a shutter click, he stands up tall and jokes of already having done his yoga workout for the morning. For a Rich Lister, he’s pretty easy going really.

Perhaps the good vibes are on account of the fact that, after a week away skiing in Aspen, Michael is finally seeing the art he gifted to The University of Melbourne in 2014 hung in its inaugural exhibition. ‘It is magnificent,’ he muses. ‘We’ve seen all the art before, but when you see it here you realise it really is a beautiful collection, there is such a variety.’

The 73-year-old instigated The Michael Buxton Collection back in 1995, and museum-quality was always his disciplined goal. ‘I believe if you are going to do something, you should do it properly,’ explains the mature-aged graduate of Melbourne School of Art. ‘Initially we were going to build on some land I owned in the Docklands precinct, but when we thought of the future of the collection and the educational offering that a university could provide, the idea to build and house the collection here made sense.’

Buxton Contemporary is embedded within Melbourne Uni’s Victorian College of the Arts – ‘a college that has helped develop many of the leading contemporary artists in this country allowed our vision to not only showcase the extraordinary talent our country is producing, but also help others to understand and collect challenging contemporary art,’ praises Michael.

He contrasts that the nearby Australian Centre for Contemporary Art does not have its own collection, and the neighbouring National Gallery of Victoria expands into architecture, design and fashion. ‘Buxton Contemporary will be the location to see Australian artists in-depth, which provides the ability for all to really understand an artist’s practice.’

We’re talking about 350 works by 59 artists – the likes of Peter Booth, Emily Floyd, Bill Henson, Patricia Piccinini, David Noonan, Peter Tindell – from 1980 onwards, and estimated at a value of $10 million. And that’s not all, Michael committed an additional $8 million to expand upon the museum’s heritage front (with the help of geniuses Fender Katsalidis), as well as donated an additional $4 million and financed a $5-million endowment fund to help cover operational costs in the years ahead.

  ‘The collection has been a great source of fun and education not only for me, but also for my family. The way we have collected has not only helped support our generation of visual artists but provided us with an in-depth understanding and appreciation of contemporary artistic practice,’ explains Michael. ‘It is our hope that the museum will provide this same education and enjoyment for everyone.’ Installation view of Diena Georgetti artworks, all 2006. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

You enter Buxton Contemporary from the corner of Dodd Street and Southbank Boulevard, where a widescreen is mounted to the facade (a former Victoria Police Depot building, c.1920). It’s currently a count-down clock to the opening, but will afterwards present the best of Australian video art, 24 hours a day.

Inside, the space is stunning, and encompasses varying scales of galleries, allowing for the presentation of diverse forms of boundary-pushing contemporary art. You can’t miss a portrait of Michael: a striking likeness (be it a sunburnt one), which was a 2012 Archibald Prize finalist work by artist Tim McMonagle.

Glossy concrete floors reflect light and the artworks of ‘The shape of things to come’. This forward-looking showcase includes 70 pieces by 26 artists, spanning audio-video installations to sculpture, and paintings. As Buxton Contemporary Curator Melissa Keys introduces, it explores the roles of artists in culture, society and politics, as visionaries and storytellers.

On the second level off the main gallery, a pentagram of screens displaying video works, ‘Whol Why Wurld’ by Jess Johnson and Simon Ward, but the space can also transform into an education zone for talks and the events. ‘A collection of the best art from the past 30 years can now be used to teach the artists of the next 30 years,’ tells Buxton Contemporary Director Ryan Johnston, guiding my tour.

Buxton Contemporary Curator Melissa Keys and Director Ryan Johnston. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

The portrait of Michael Buxton by Tim McMonagle. Painted after joining Michael on a sunburn-inducing fishing trip, the artwork was shortlisted for the 2012 Archibald Prize. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Going forward, Michael will have a seat on the Buxton Contemporary Committee, which has been set up by the Uni to oversee the running of the museum. While he is obviously invested, in every sense, it comes as a bit of a surprise when the philanthropist reveals he’s also anxious. ‘You always get nervous about these things, but this has probably gone beyond being nervous. Just putting it all together and expectations are very high, because this is probably the most public thing we’ve ever done.’

What then will success look like to someone already so successful? As to be expected, Michael will be crunching numbers: the data of visitors coming through the doors. But he’s also hoping for rave reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations long into the future. ‘Everything that is new like this is attractive, but you’re always hoping it will continue – I do think our extraordinary program over the next two years will help.’

As I make for the exit, Buxton Contemporary is a hive of activity – staff afixing caption cards, artists doing last look-overs, and more media waiting to interview Michael on his legacy in-the-making. There is also literal buzzing, the audio for Nicholas Mangan’s ‘The mutant message’ installation has just been wired, and is aptly unsettling yet intriguing. I have no doubt that by Friday awe-struck public and wide-eyed students will be swarming though these doors!

‘The shape of things to come’ Opens Friday, March 9th Buxton Contemporary Corner Dodd Street and Southbank Boulevard Melbourne

Gallery admission is free.

Opening Hours: Wednesday 11am-5pm Thursday 11am-8pm Friday 11am-5pm Saturday 11am-5pm Sunday 11am-5pm

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