#but also getting the revelation that roy is lonely and such

[hood-ex]

World's Finest: Teen Titans #4

[albatmobile]

Starfire + loneliness (if you're still doing the prompt thing)

I've had this idea in my head the past few nights bear w me

i could be lonely with you (and you)

next: [2] || ao3

𓅪 Rated: E | 3.1k includes: possessiveness, realization, conflicted feelings, loneliness, eventual smut, voyeurism, ovipositor, alien dildo, egg laying, threesome, strapon sex, first times, double dildos, scissoring, oral, fem dom, multiple orgasms

𓅪 established kori x roy, eventual fem!reader x roy harper, eventual fem!reader x kori, eventual fem!reader x kori x roy harper

You’ve been in a depression funk ever since your friends you’d met freshman year stopped reaching out a year after graduation.

At first, the group chat remained populated with once a day, then once a week texts. Weeks turned to months, until it was only you ever reaching out.

Loneliness creeps up on you, slowly at first, then all at once like an all-consuming force. You barely have time to prepare before your normal routine is squandered as your depression settles over every inch of your body.

Eventually, you stop reaching out completely. 

You’d been drifting for a while ever since college ended, but you were left with the daunting question most people face at some point or another. The question being, of course, how do you make friends when you’re older?

First step, you realize with disdain, is getting out of the house. This is how you find yourself at a yoga class in a part of town you’ve never been to.

Have you ever done yoga before?

No.

Do you particularly like being surrounded by fuckers who seem perfectly content to solely talk about what they can and can’t eat on keto?

Also, no.

Yet, here you are with a loaner mat and the cutest gym set you own.

Everyone in the class seems to know someone, but there you are, standing off in the corner like a voyeur. Your arms come to wrap around your stomach self-consciously as your eyes flit across the room filled with perfect-looking women. 

Women who look nothing like you.

You look down at your outfit distastefully, second-guessing, well, everything.

You shouldn’t have come.

You don’t have time to leave, however, because class is being called into session. 

You swallow down your sigh and find a place in the way back. You keep your head down as you make your way across the room, not even taking in a single face as you busy yourself with unrolling the mat. 

You berate yourself as you straighten it out to avoid conversation. What’s the point in coming out to meet people if you’re just going to exclude yourself from the start? 

The instructor goes slow enough, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t know what you’re doing and your social anxiety is rearing its ugly head. 

Soon enough, you’re tumbling from tree pose and straight into the woman next to you in a horrific crash.

“I’m so sorry!” you immediately spew as soon you catch your bearings. You’re staring down at her Tom Nook inspired yoga mat while she semi-spoons you, semi-squashes you from behind. “I totally lost my balance and I-” you trail off as soon as you scramble up with some help from the woman and face… “Holy shit.”

She’s ethereal.

You wipe at your eyes to make sure you’re not actually seeing an angel in front of you. 

The red-headed goddess easily nears seven feet tall. She’s tanned, toned and… really fucking hot, okay?

“Are you okay?” The woman’s effervescent green eyes shock your soul back to life like a defibrillator. Her hand is still on your lower arm from helping you up.

Are you okay?

Your pulse is rapidly beating.

You can feel everyone’s eyes on you, but, surprisingly, that’s not the cause of your racing heart. No, that’s all thanks to this otherworldly beauty on the mat next to you.

“Good,” you mumble, nodding dumbly. The entire time, you’re reveling in the weight of her hand around your arm like a lifeline. “So good.”

She laughs, throws her head back and fucking laughs like she’s a headlining star on The Late Night Show.

She’s perfect.

You know, for a friend… 

Yup, totally just a friend.

The teacher’s gone on to the next position, though some eyes still remain on the two of you. 

“You are adorable!” she exclaims. The redhead woman looks at you like you’re the most precious kitten she’s ever laid eyes upon.

You got out of the house to make a friend and here you are in a position to seal the deal. Hell yeah.

You rub sheepishly at your neck as you build up the courage. “Would you want to ditch this place and grab a coffee?” you ask timidly.

Her eyes widen. “A coffee?”

You nod. “There’s a place down just a block over,” you offer. 

Without further mention, she’s bending down to roll up her mat. You try not to stare at her tits popping out of her sports bra, but bent over like she is, it’s nearly impossible. It seems like she can hardly see what she’s doing with the way they hang obtrusively in her face.

When she suddenly pops back up with a beaming smile, you hardly have enough time to cover up your line of sight. 

Luckily, she doesn’t seem to notice as she grabs your hand, yes, grabs your hand and leads you out of the room as everyone else looks on.

“You are not the yoga fan?” she questions you innocently, ducking her head to look at you as she waits for your response. “Please excuse my, uh,” she pauses, stopping to look at the sky as she ponders the word, “accent.” She nods to herself, leaving her red locks to cascade in her wake. “I am not from here, you see.”

She called you cute and, yet…

“S’cool,” you say, trying to sound nonchalant. Both of you start walking again and you can’t help but glance at her beauty from out of the corner of your eye as you do.

A quick look at your surroundings proves that nearly everyone on the street is in the exact same boat. All around the two of you, people instantly lock onto your yoga buddy. 

No, seriously. 

People all around begin openly gawking at her curves, literally STOPPING and staring, girlfriends hitting their boyfriends for not paying attention to her over them and even the obnoxious cat call from cars passing by.

She’s a bombshell and you feel starstruck in her presence alone.

“I’m Kori, by the way,” she says politely.

“Sounds good,” you mumble, not really hearing her until a few seconds later. “Oh, shit. I mean,”

She laughs, cutting off your rambling, “You are so cute!” The gorgeous woman beams down at you, eyes crinkling like you’ve truly overjoyed her with your awkward behavior.

You choke on your spit.

Definitely cute.

You tell her your name, quickly ducking your head as soon as you do. You hope she doesn’t think you’re some fucking creep like the rest of the people you’re passing by, but you can’t help that her stunning looks are rendering you speechless.

Kori seems completely oblivious to your plight, let alone the rest of the passersby. In fact, based on her ever-present grin, you might actually get the idea that she’s genuinely charmed by you.

Your heart’s racing, though you blame it on the anxiety of actually hanging out with someone for the first time in, well, too long. You really can’t afford to fuck this up because you’ve really been needing a good friend.

The coffee shop is quaint, nearly empty, when the two of you walk in and capture the attention of everyone in the small cafe.

She orders some insane sugary frappuccino drink and insists the two of you get a large to share because it sounds “so good!” 

Who are you to refuse this goddess?

The pink and purple (?) drink is delivered with mounds of whipped cream and pink and teal sugar dust on top.

What the fuck is this shit?

“This drink is as beautiful as you are!” she exclaims as soon as the treat with two bendy straws is deposited on the table.

You choke, but she’s too busy taking a picture of the drink to notice your predicament. 

“It’s, uh,” you trail off as you regard the drink in front of you as if it’s going to attack you. With its obscene neon swirls and indiscernible flavor, you’re not too sure it won’t. “It’s definitely something,” you finally manage.

With two straws, it’s all about timing, you realize. You, however, don’t understand this timing and go in at the same time she does. Instantly, you sputter backward with a hasty apology she doesn’t even seem to hear. What everyone else hears is a pornstar-worthy moan she makes as she takes the first sip.

You stare at her in shock and awe at her pure sexual prowess. 

It’s like she doesn’t even know she’s everyone’s wet dream and, yet everything she does only adds to her ethereal charm.

“It is incredible, no?” she asks, leaving you to nod instantly. You can’t help but revel in the blinding brightness of her smile at your response. “I will need to bring Jason and Roy here!”

Your brow quirks at the new names. “Who’re they?”

“We all share an apartment together,” Kori says. All the while, she twirls her straw around absentmindedly as she answers you, seeming to space out as she does so. “I’ve known them ever since I came here, so about four years or so. It has been,” her mouth quirks sadly, “Challenging getting used to your customs.”

You nod, not really wanting to pry too much. In the short time you’ve known her, seriously short time, this is the saddest you’ve seen her and you’re determined to make her smile again.

“Fitting in is lame, anyway,” you say.

Her face twists beautifully up into her signature model smile. “You are just like my friend Jason,” she confides. “He tells me that all the time, though I still can’t help but worry I’ll misspeak and draw attention to myself.”

You can’t help but shake your head. She’s worried her misspeaking will draw attention to her when her appearance alone is a magnet for it.

You guess everyone’s self-conscious about something, but seeing Kori be vulnerable when she was flawless in your eyes somehow makes you feel a bit better about your situation.

Speaking of situation, you’re picking up some serious flirty vibes. All the compliments, plus he ordered a bisexual frappe and insisted you share it? Now she’s opening up to you… 

Is this a date?

She mentioned Jason being a friend, but what about Roy?

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” you say with a shrug. “Plus, it seems like you have some good friends to back you up.”

“Oh, yes,” she doesn’t correct you, only nods excitedly, “they are the best. Jason always makes me laugh and Roy is the best friend who is a boy I could have!”

You try to remain neutral at the new information, choosing to remain discreet with your advances just in case you’re reading everything wrong. 

Again, you remind yourself, you need a friend… not a girlfriend. 

It doesn’t matter, regardless. She doesn’t seem to notice your flirting either way, but she doesn’t clarify their relationships any further, so you remain hopefully optimistic.

You both talk a bit more about yourselves before she moves on to all the adventures she, Jason and Roy have been on. Soon, she’s slurping up the last of the sweet drink with a pleased hum.

You try not to be salty that she has such amazing friends when yours can’t even bother to text you back after knowing each other for just the same amount of time as Kori and her friends.

“Hopefully, you will come along with us on our next adventure!”

You smile, genuinely smile for the first time in a long time. “Yeah, that sounds amazing.”

And it does.

“Wonderful!” she exclaims, clapping her hands together cutely. Everything is worth celebrating to her. This realization only serves to widen your grin.

Eventually, you’re splitting apart with the promise to meet up again soon.

She enters her number into your phone with her acrylics furiously tapping against your screen. When she hands you back your phone, you see she’s texted her number so she can have your number as well. Your first text message to someone in weeks.

Your heart swells, watching, thrumming as she walks away from you with a wave.

To Kori 🦄✨💟 Hello new friend!!! 💕

➳ ☆ ➳

Soon, you guys are hanging out every day. Whether it be meeting up early in the mornings to jog and grab coffee or walking to your yoga class together. Eventually, the meetups become actual hangouts. 

Two months pass and your friendship grows.

You can’t deny you wish it were more than just a friendship, but, hey, you’ll take what you can get. 

Eventually, she comes over after one of your daily walks in the park. 

You watch a couple of movies in your bed and by the time she realizes how late it is, she’s already dozing off with her head resting atop yours. Your heart swells, barely slowing its beating enough to fall asleep, but you do. In fact, you sleep better than you have in a long time.

You can’t help but feel it’s because you’re not alone.

➳ ☆ ➳

Here’s the thing; you’ve always been a touchy-feely person and it’s obvious from the start that Kori is the same.

It starts off completely innocent. A hand on your knee to let you know she’s listening, a gentle hand on your back to guide you around busy areas so she doesn’t lose you in the crowd, constantly playing with your hair just so she can run her fingers through it— her insane full body massages. You can’t get enough.

Then the cuddling starts.

You try to keep it innocent.

She tells you all the time about what she and Roy have been up to. She’s yet to clarify the label on just who this ‘Roy’ is since your first date, so, for now, you stake your claim as if she’s single.

Kori is the sun, chasing away all your shadows with just one flash of her brilliant smile. She’s the warmth when all your body has ever held onto was the frigid cold of the world you’ve always seen.

Now, she helps you see the world from her bright perspective.

You…

You love her.

➳ ☆ ➳

You’ve never been to her place until now.

It’s a quaint three-bedroom apartment, mostly devoid of any decoration aside from random photographs here and there. Mostly of Kori and two men, but there are a few of Kori and a black-haired woman who looks like the spitting image of her. 

She instantly herds you into what you assume is her room, though there’re men’s jeans on the floor. 

Your stomach drops, but her hands running up and down your sides, drawing you to her on the bed, distracts you quickly enough.

“You seem tense all of a sudden,” she says with a pout. All the while, your top rides up as you climb on the bed next to her. Her warm fingers press against your exposed skin and you fight back the urge to moan. “Let me massage you,” she insists.

You barely contain your carnal urge to mount her right then and there and claim her lips with your own, but you do.

“Yeah, okay,” you say with a nod, not really sure what to expect. After all, you and your friends had never been thisclose. 

No massages, no flirtatious comments, no cuddling. 

Nothing like this. 

Before you can lie down, you notice her contemplating something. When she finally speaks, it’s nothing you ever could’ve imagined her saying. 

“Can I remove this, yes?”

You look down to see her acrylics bunched up in your already-rising shirt and nod. You help her lift it off of you, albeit self-consciously, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Nor does she notice the light gasp that leaves your mouth once your lace bra is exposed.

She stares at you, leaving you to blush before she gently guides your back down to the mattress below. She motions for you to flip over, something you oblige easily before her hands are on you once again. Without hesitation, she unlatches your bra. Every movement of hers barely brushes against your bare skin, leaving goosebumps in her wake. 

“You know,” your words smoosh out against the mattress you’re currently pressed into as she begins to use steady pressure, “you don’t have to do this every time we hang out, Kori.”

She hums, knuckles digging gently into a knot in your lower back, just above your ass, “I love touching your skin. It is so soft.” 

The pressure turns to tickling as her acrylics tingle up and down your back. You arch into her touch, only barely holding yourself back from moaning. When she’s done, she rehooks your bra and moves to cuddle you, spooning you from behind. She sighs contentedly before beginning to gently scratch your scalp as she runs her fingers through your hair. 

You tap her and she immediately scoops you up into your favorite napping position.

You yawn, nestling between her thick, long legs. Once you snuggle in, you lay your head on her lower stomach, feeling as each breath of hers gets deeper and deeper until her light snores fill the room. You’re about to drift off, too, when the door opens. A deep voice rumbles playfully into her apartment. 

You don’t move. No, you hardly blink when another redhead makes an appearance in her doorway.

What is this? Some sort of redhead spawning point?

He looks over your precarious position with the smile he wore coming into the room, immediately freezing on his face.

So, this is the elusive Roy.

You smirk at him, nestling into Kori’s lower stomach slowly and coyly like a cat who got the cream.

He doesn’t say anything, which is just fine with you as you stretch all over Kori’s bare abdomen with your own, taunting the man who’s halfway across the room. 

Kori stirs slightly, moaning as she presses your head further into her tanned skin. You can’t help the pleased smirk that stretches across your lips as he stands there, still shell-shocked, as Kori forces your head further down her toned body. She’s still asleep when she does it. It’s as if it’s a natural reflex for her and it makes you want to nestle deeper into her delicate warmth, so you do. 

You languidly press into her warmth, pushing out your chest as you do. You give Roy a front-row seat to the cleavage that spills from your thin, lacy bra. 

His emerald eyes owlishly latch onto your erect nipples from across the room.

“Shit,” Roy curses breathily into the room. 

You shoot one more taunting look his way before he slowly shuts the door behind him.

By the time Kori wakes up from her nap, Roy’s gone.You don’t mention he was even there and she doesn’t ask. 

Instead, you spend the rest of the day painting each other's nails and watching dumb Youtube videos. Your relationship feels like it’s on the precipice of something, but what it is, you can hardly guess.

➳ ☆ ➳

The next time you hang out with Kori, she seems extra touchy-feely.

Perfectly fine with you.

You eat it up, returning the lingering touches with fervor. She stays over at your place, where you both end up shirtless and sleeping before the sun can even set. 

Completely platonic, of course…

You definitely don’t watch her hardened nipples rise and fall with her gentle breath. You definitely don’t touch yourself, imagining your face squished between her huge tits. No, definitely not.

You definitely don’t come on your fingers imagining fucking your come into her in front of that dumbass Roy.

No, definitely not.

A/N: inspired by these 2 songs by the kooks and this one as well as these sub!roy asks x x

[next] ||  ao3 || pinned || ways to support

[grasshopperdoingdogpaddle]

People are asking for random ratings from people so I request a ranking of Chase Young's top 5 attempted murders

Not sure what criteria to use to rank attempted murder... but I'm game?

A lot of the time Chase doesn't bother with actually trying to merk someone since he'd rather use them as pawns or intimidate and rule over them. So I'll only use the genuine, unambiguous times he was definitely trying to end someone's life on-screen.

5 - Jack, by trying to crush him with a boulder

The best part about this one was all the facial expressions we got. From Chase's smug smile as he says he's "finally about to get rid of him" to the look of absolutely shock and disappointment he shares with Wuya when Jack manages to get up. It’s golden, especially coming from someone as composed as Chase. It feels almost like a Swiper "aw man" moment, but about murder instead of petty theft.

He's pretty flippant about holding a life in his hands. He revels in it, in fact, says that Spicer’s painful death has been a long time coming. So seeing him so confused at not actually pulling it off was funny. This isn’t someone who’s used to messing up his assassinations.

Also, it's quite cute how the Xiaolin monks were the ones who saved Jack from this untimely fate.

4 - Raimundo, by almost biting him in half

It is a good thing Clay is a quick thinker, because Chase was really going for it. He was fully primed to bite someone in half for trying to take back Omi. 

It gives us confirmation that Chase will eat a human without hesitation, and the moment had some excellent tension in it. A nice quick show of the bond between the monks and how hard they try for each other.

A nice glimpse of how Chase's thoughts, too. The look on his face switching from that smug smirk as he caught the punches, into the murderous glare right before he shifted his dragon form, is very interesting to read into. It’s fun to get that occasional reminder that Chase is capable of being very brutal and evil, just in case him burning down that entire village for a laugh and plunging the world into darkness doesn’t quite doing it.

3 - Guan, by pushing him in the pit of fire

The first time we really see how far Chase is willing to go. It was a neat way to set the tone for what kind of villain Chase Young is, and the scene is definitely harsher in hindsight once we learn the history between Guan and Chase.

The other monks all on the sidelines reacting with such abject horror, and the visible beads of sweat on Guan's face while he struggles, before he finally managed to free himself just in time... This fight felt fun and intense to watch.

2 - Hannibal (disguised as Clay), by pinning him down and trying to stab him in the face

The only time on this list where I was actually rooting for Chase.

Usually Chase’s staff has blades at its ends, so I assume Chase was about to shoot out the blades and stab Hannibal? I’m not entirely sure that would even work on Hannibal, but Chase sure hoped it would.

This whole scene was such a great use of dramatic irony. It hurts all the more that this was their last chance at preventing the evil that is Hannibal Roy Bean from being released into the world and the monks themselves accidentally got in the way. Chase waiting by the temple gate and Ying-Ying being so happy to see Hannibal again that she flies straight to him really elevates the moment. It establishes a lot of interesting dynamics in just a minute.

1 - Dojo, by almost making him into Lao Mang Lone Soup

I love Dojo but this was just too hilarious.

Dojo sat in a simmering pot of soup and still needed more hints to figure out what was happening here. 

Chase introduced himself into the story by getting ready to murder Dojo’s legendary dragon, and he even makes a thinly-veiled threat to throw the monks into the soup and eat them, too. 

The usually cautious and skittish Dojo has lost his sense of self-preservation because he was given a nice cookie. And Chase has been planning this for apparently so long. Comedy gold, truly.

The animosity between Chase and Dojo is set up and stays consistent for the whole rest of the series after this. Chase puts the blame for his finale plan falling apart squarely on the fact that he was robbed of the chance to eat Dojo then and there.

[moviewarfare]

A Review of “Palm Springs (2020)”

I have always been a sucker for "infinite time loop" movies such as "Groundhog Day" and "Edge of Tomorrow". So I was already thrilled to see this movie and it was getting a lot of praise from all the critics. There was just one problem I've had when thinking of watching this movie. I am not a big fan of romcoms...

Let’s start with some of the praises I have with this movie. Firstly, one of the important aspects of a romcom is the chemistry between the two leads. In this case, Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah Wilder (Cristin Millioti) have great chemistry that is charming and effective. There are so many great moments between the two and seeing both of them perform silly antics such as a well-choreographed dance number is funny yet heartwarming. There are also strong performances from the supporting cast who play annoying over the top people to the point you can sort of see where the main leads point come from. Roy (JK Simmons) is the most relevant supporting cast as he is the third time looper and it is great to see him give a more wacky performance but I do feel he is sort of underutilised. Although, the main focus is on the main leads and in that case the lack of focus on supporting characters works in the movie's favour.

Another praise is that they found a unique way to tackle the time loop genre that differentiates itself from the other time loop comedy "Groundhog Day". Right from the get-go, it is obvious to us the audience that Nyles (Andy Samberg) has been in a long time loop and we are not learning about the loop with him but from him. Additionally, having multiple individuals in the time loop together allows for it to go in a unique direction. The director and writers utilising the time loop to show the relationship between the main leads developing and growing as individuals is fun to watch and sincere. They also use the time loop to as a plot device for surprise twist and revelations and the film certainly has a lot of great twists.

Now onto flaws of the movie and the first comes straight away in the first 10 minutes and it is how raunchy it is. The trailer for the movie made it seem like a sincere and heartwarming time loop romcom, which to be fair it is, but this movie is extremely R Rated with it's over the top sex scenes that made me question if I was even watching the movie that was advertised. It gives a wrong first impression of the movie and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if someone stopped watching after the first 5 minutes because of how stupid and unnecessary these scenes are. I finished the movie and I still didn't get what these added to the movie. The answer is that it didn't and I question why they thought it was a great idea.

The second flaw I have got to say is that this movie is defined as a "romantic comedy" and there are a lot of great romantic moments but honestly no moments that made me laugh out loud. They do a fair amount of "The Lonely Island" raunchy sex jokes but even then I still didn't find it funny. I got a couple of chuckles in some moments but none stuck out as memorable in the comedy department.

Overall, it is a surprisingly very good movie and I thoroughly enjoyed it but not to the extent of how everyone in the media felt about the movie. The most important aspect in a romance movie is to get the audience to root for the main couple and this movie succeeds in this case.  The movie is a great time if you ignore the first 10 minutes and you will no doubt come out enjoying it.

[holy-fate-worse-than-death]

is this an interesting take on Tim Drake?

(these are character notes for a fic I’m writing)

Tim is obsessed with cameras. There’s a line from a band called Camp Cope that goes “Each night I try to find that feeling in my bed / The two dimensional happiness / When you live your life through a camera lens”

Tim is the epitome of depression and symptoms of it: shy and reserved even though it’s not really within his personality, slow to open up, resigned to loneliness but still so heartbreakingly hopeful

He’s still finding his own voice, and is prone to outbursts of emotion (mostly anger and righteousness), but they’re few and far between and always tempered by fear. Jason thinks it’s a fear of losing control, but really it’s a fear of being seen -- of being noticed. Because once someone has looked at him -- really looked at him and seen him naked and bared to the bone -- it can’t be undone.

He has Imposter Syndrome but he’s also the most determined little shitbird there’s ever been, so he’s constantly over-consuming caffeine (something Roy helps him quit) and falling asleep at desks, workbenches, etc.

He has an insatiable desire to please authority figures, to be validated and understood. But simultaneously he’s terrified of anyone knowing him.

He’s wound so absurdly tight that his friends are always pushing alcohol on him, but he doesn’t want to drink.

Instead, Roy and Jason teach him how to open up and find himself while sober (something Roy has basically become a professional at doing).

They get him to loosen up during fights as Red Robin, they goad him into roasting them and then praise him when he delivers a sick burn.

They stay up late into the night with him watching movies and laughing and just switching their brains off in a way that all three of them so desperately need.

Sometimes they just sit and talk for hours and Tim dominates the conversation and prattles on and on. Jason and Roy are careful to show how interested they are, how much they like his long-winded stories and the way he always gets side-tracked and ends up explaining some scientific minutiae.

Tim is the kid who spends 1000+ hours watching YouTube tutorials of card tricks so he can master sleight of hand, and then never does a single trick for anyone. Until one day he’s working a case as a croupier (the people who sit at tables in casinos and deal the cards, etc). He ends up forcing cards to the top of the deck that make his target lose over and over again, until the guy feels like he’s losing his mind, and then Tim uses that to make him confess.

Tim can tell you everything about anything and he knows more about skincare than Jason knows about makeup, and they bicker in the bathroom about why Jay can’t just double-cleanse like a normal person, and don’t you dare fall asleep with that still on your face, you’ll get pimples. And Tim ends up building Jason a complex skincare routine (complete with detailed instructions) based on his skin type and unique needs.

Tim has a smile like a revelation: soft and pure and as bright as the sun’s lonely light in the dark depths of space. It’s the first time Roy’s felt the sun since Kori, and he aches to make Tim smile forever.

Tim is so afraid of commitment, so inexperienced and fragile around the edges from years of dating girls and repressing his sexuality. He’s like Bruce in that way: his sexuality forced into hiding by a life in the public eye, as well as his own fears of commitment. With girls there are rules: a set of well-defined social expectations and rhythms. Heteronormativity is a script that he can follow. But boys are complex and ugly and real, and when he’s with one (with Roy in this case) it’s like he has to be himself because there’s no script to read off and he’s terrible at improv

[suziechism]

Here is a clip from my new song Night Walks. I have been listening to a lot of Elvis and Roy Orbison, which inspired the stops between chords here (I envision a grand “Wall of Sound” style reverb happening, accentuate by horns, strings, and a variety of wood wind instruments in my day-dream of eventual production) but the song really turned out more 50s-Beatles-Meets-Patsy Cline. Growing up, my dad was (and is) a major Beatles head, while my vocal instructor when I was a kid was an Elvis impersonator named Steve Long; these two men had major influence on my music. My first-ever hold-the-microphone-on-a-stage “gig” involved Steve gathering the regulars at the casino he performed in (I am from Nevada) for a special performance by his daughter (Priscilla, my best friend from youth) and her friend, Suzie. We spent weeks perfecting our harmonies. We sang Patsy Cline’s Walking After Midnight, and I think eventually my sister joined our act, too. The tip jar runneth over, and I was hooked. 

My most recent breakup (can I call it recent when it was 8 months ago?I still haven’t recovered.) fueled an introspection that the likes of me had never seen before. I became so self-aware of my shortcomings, realizing I had been in no emotional place to have pretended to be available during that relationship. This revelation has been absolutely heart-wrenching, because although I was, well, kind of a mess during that relationship, I still loved the guy; I still wanted it to work, and I still invested my life into it. We were very involved musically, and also lived together (even moving from our home in TN to CA together and away from my friends,) so I lost every sense of home when it ended. Because I HAVE learned a lot through this, I cannot just throw myself into the usual distractions of partying away my feelings. -Maybe I am just getting older, but it doesn’t even begin to mask the issues anymore for me. That said, I am buzzing with unused manic energy which used to result in financial irresponsibility (”HOW MUCH did I spend last night at the bar!?,) physical endangerment, and a handful of phone numbers I would never again use...one-night friends.  I channel this into songs, sure, but the cabin fever of my sobriety is often excruciating. I feel like a new entity, my extrovertism both tired and retired. When I am angry, this energy is more than I can handle, and so I walk. It isn’t entirely safe, living in downtown Hollywood, to walk anywhere after dark. This is my one “wild” behavior (besides eating, but that is another conversation,) that I have control over. I don’t walk towards anything, or away from anything either, I just walk (like you have to on acid, kind of. My legs just gotta move.) All these years later, I get what Patsy was saying. The sky is so wide you can see no end, but you feel closer to the one you love knowing they are somewhere tucked under the same blanket of stars. Maybe I am delusional still; my therapist says my biggest struggle is accepting reality for what it is. But I miss him, and so I write and so I walk. I have had a single glass of wine (which I regretted instantly) in the last 49 days, making this the third song I composed sober. This is the bridge:

I talked it over again and again with myself, but I can’t shake the nights that we spent/just holding each other with ice cream in bed/no I can’t get you out of my head just yet, I’m so lonely/Try as I may and try as I might, you’re not out of mind like you are out of sight/I get the feeling it’s over this time, and so I take off in the night/missing my one and only.

[safereturndoubtful]

Day 28 - at Rörbäcks

Rain days require careful planning, as regards to movement around the van that is.

It was torrential all day today. Thunder mixed in. If it wasn’t for the dog I probably would have stayed in. But his expression in this photograph summarises much..

So we went out a couple of times, just a wander around the forest, and to the sea.

It was a week of rain in the French Pyrenees in October 2020 that helped my decision to upgrade the van. Those days I was in the T5 on a £15 Ikea bed with the dog next to me.

We coped much better in Grazelema last year, when it was four successive days of rain, but there were times when it eased off.

There’s no point in losing sleep about the interior of the van getting dirt and a damp floor. I’ve towels around also.

It definitely easier in the Crafter, but still somewhat restrictive.

One bonus is the amount of reading I get through. I read Morandini’s Snow, Dog, Foot this morning. It’s about an old man living alone in an isolated mountain shack, with just a dog for company, revelling in the silence and seclusion…sounds familiar. It’s really good. And also I finished Dan Saladino’s Eating to Extinction, which I’ve had on the go for more than a week now. It’s another really strong book from the Wainwright Conservation Prize Shortlist. I’ve reviewed them both, over at Goodreads.

I spent some time looking at the route ahead, and putting together a list of recommended books for friends who I stayed with in Provence last October, with apologies that it’s taken so long..

That list..

O Caledonia - Elspeth Barker (Scotland, coming of age)

This Thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson (historic, British, Fitzroys voyages)

The Proof - Cesar Aira (Argentina, humour, novella)

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers (America, southern)

The Restraint of Beasts - Magnus Mills (British, humour)

Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter (British, fantasy)

World’s Fair - EL Doctorow (America, historic, coming of age)

Train Dreams - Denis Johnson (America, novella, historic)

The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles - Roy Jacobsen (Finland, War)

A Woman in the Polar Night - Christiane Ritter (Swiss, Svalbard, non fiction)

Moon Lake - Eudora Welty (America, historic, novella)

The Gallows Pole - Ben Myers (British, historic, Yorkshire - Cumbria)

All The Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr (war, France, historic)

A Gentleman In Moscow - Amor Towles (Russia, war)

The Notebook - Agota Kristoff (Hungary, war, novella)

The Hoarder - Jess Kidd (Ireland, humour)

The Orphanage - Serhiy Zhadan (Ukraine).

The Colony - Audrey Magee (Longlisted for Booker 2022)

[aion-rsa]

McCartney 3,2,1 Review: Hulu Doc Examines a Beatle

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Hulu’s Original Docuseries McCartney 3,2,1 is a laid-back sit down with Paul McCartney, the man who believed in yesterday, reminiscing about all those years ago. Long-time Beatles fans will have heard most of the stories before, though there are a few new tidbits which have been buried in the mix. The casual conversation provides a wealth of tonality when McCartney talks about the sounds behind the music.

For the chat, McCartney sits down with Rick Rubin in the most familiar of settings: a recording studio, with easy access to the songs being discussed. The six-episode series explores McCartney’s work with The Beatles, Wings, and solo releases. Directed by Zachary Heinzerling, the interview is relaxed, although Paul is often very animated. He fiddles with console buttons, pops up for quick runs at a piano or guitar, and air drums throughout. The black and white filming makes the conversation feel intimate and timeless. It also calls attention to the splashes of color which come in archival footage and photographs. Some are so rare, they might be exclusive.

Besides footage of the Beatles and McCartney, we see clips of the artists who influenced the band, or who were with them at the start, like Little Richard or Roy Orbison. Most of this footage is used in service to a musical point. One clip, for example, compares two-part harmonies performed by McCartney and John Lennon with a performance by Phil and Don Everly.

The first episode, “These Things Bring You Together,” focuses on the early days. While we don’t get deep information on Paul’s early relationship with his songwriting partner, we get something from omission. Paul talks about his loving home, and how different his childhood was from Lennon’s. He points out that John lost his mother at 17. Paul lost his mother at 14, and most books on the Beatles emphasize this bond between the two.

Paul adds some depth to what we know about his pre-Beatle bond with George Harrison. The public knows they met on the bus to school, and connected over music when they were kids. But we didn’t know they cooked pudding on the side of the road. Paul also pulls out one of his pre-Beatles songs, “Thinking of Linking.”

One unexpected revelation comes with the song “Michelle,” which Peter Brown’s book The Love You Make categorized as McCartney’s attempt to class up his act for his then-girlfriend Jane Asher. Paul brings the song back to the parties he attended with Lennon while he was still at art school. Paul says he would put on a turtleneck and pretend to be a French coffee house singer. Sometimes it worked as far as connecting with the older, more sophisticated women, he says, humbly. It apparently made an impression on Lennon, who Paul remembers telling him to finish years later.

In “The Notes That Like Each Other,” McCartney admits that what made his musical styling unique was a combination of his influences from Bach, Fela Kuti or the tunes his father played at the piano, and lucky accidents. He also talks about keeping it all rock and roll. A studio musician would be too sensible to do the bass line on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Most of his innovations come through the energy of quick takes.

McCartney lays out structural lessons. He explains how to use a pick to bring out more treble in the bass. He points out how three fingers, evenly spaced, make a chord no matter where you put them on the piano, and why the possibilities are endless. He demonstrates his first song, an instrumental which begins with musical counterpoint, which was written before he knew what counterpoint meant.

“The People We Loved Were Loving Us!” highlights McCartney’s influences but also talks about why the Beatles needed to take the trip to India. The band met most of the artists they were listening to as they were coming up through the different levels of entertainment. But Paul also noticed his contemporaries. He’s told the story about seeing Jimi Hendrix ask Eric Clapton to tune his guitar before, but it’s a different whistling of the melody.

It is a special treat to hear Paul talk about the Kinks, who were a supporting act during some of the Beatles performances in 1965. Ray Davies spoke about enjoying his very privileged view of the band in his book X-Ray: The Unauthorized Autobiography. So, hearing that the Beatles stood on the side of the stage to take in their opening act is especially satisfying.

“Like Professors in A Laboratory” lets McCartney explain some of the experimentation which went into the output. The Beatles were allowed to break boundaries because they had success. If there was a way to get more treble on Harrison’s lead on “Nowhere Man,” they had the clout to ask the engineers to bounce a track for it. Paul also gets into what made him and Ringo Starr special as a rhythm section.

As always, Paul gives credit to the Beatles’ longtime producer George Martin, including one piano part which has gone heretofore uncredited. Martin did more than help the band translate their sounds, he often played on tracks, and as an in-house arranger, was invaluable. Paul has spoken about the intercontinental rivalry which saw the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds spurring him on to undertake Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But, until now, he hasn’t slipped in the bit about getting the title from mishearing someone ask him to “pass the salt and pepper.”

“Couldn’t You Play It Straighter?” gets to the bottom of the beat. McCartney admits he has been accused of overplaying, and has no regrets. The bass can lead a band, as he shows in the isolated tracks of “Come Together” and “Something,” or it can function as squarely as a tuba. Paul then demonstrates how he gets that effect on “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” through strict staccato playing. He also discusses how Mal Evans had a heavy hand when playing the anvil.

One of the most musically meaningful revelations is how McCartney’s playing was freed by listening to James Jameson, who played bass for Marvin Gaye, among others. Another interesting note is how McCartney intentionally juxtaposed older, more traditional melodies with the new sounds afforded by technology. He admits it was fortuitous to have Robert Moog on hand in EMI studios with one of the first synthesizers.

There were no portable phones, and most recording devices which were available during the Beatles’ most creative period were bulky devices. This forced the songwriters to write memorable songs. This is the basis for “The Long And Winding Road,” where McCartney focuses on the craft of songwriting and how he worked with Lennon. The duo’s earliest bond was creative communication. They spoke chords, not sports. He also discusses the importance of developing a separate musical vocabulary as a solo artist, and how he wouldn’t even Beatles songs onstage for years. The most important skill, he says, is knowing when to stop.

Every time a new interview special with a former Beatle is hyped, it makes me think of the David Letterman joke about a special edition of Anthology coming out because Ringo remembered a new anecdote. It is fun to hear McCartney retell the “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” story again, as if he’s telling it for the first time. It’s been told so many times, even Julian no longer buys it, and he’s the one who drew the picture.

Paul has never been a forthcoming public figure, historically. He has always been less communicative about his personal life than the other Beatles. It’s not that he’s being cagey, though he certainly can be when he wants. His song “Got to Get You into my Life” is his love song to marijuana, and who knows what he was carrying in “I’m Carrying.” But he is more practiced at the art of self-presentation. When John Lennon gave his Playboy interviews, the transcripts even caught Yoko asking if he might be sharing a little too much.

McCartney never had that problem. All the Beatles knew how to hide even the most controversial of themes behind humor. In a vintage press conference clip, when the media asked about prostitutes in “Day Tripper” and lesbians in “Norwegian Wood,” McCartney said he just liked writing songs about prostitutes and lesbians. He learned an invaluable lesson when he copped to taking LSD in front of a TV camera, even telling them not to air it. Paul sticks to too many known talking points.

The intimacy of McCartney 3,2,1 is deceptive, however. Each episode runs about 30 minutes, and the stories are shallow by necessity. Peter Jackson’s upcoming cinematic remastering The Beatles: Get Back will provide a much deeper dive into the mechanics and backgrounds of the band’s process. McCartney 3,2,1 feels like a countdown to something bigger.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

McCartney 3,2,1 debuts July 16 on Hulu.

The post McCartney 3,2,1 Review: Hulu Doc Examines a Beatle appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3eblDKy

[blairglitchproject]

Movies Masterpost (1/2) HUGE Post

- Films vus pour la première fois cette année / Movies seen for the first time this year

Janvier / Juanary 

- Dumb and Dumber

- The Revenant 

- Silent Hill : Revelation

- After - Chapitre 1 / Chapter One

- The Man Who Knew Too Much ( first version)

- Pan 

- You Get Me 

- Captain Marvel 

- Ocean’s 13 

 - Avengers : End Game (Vu en français - Seen in French)

- Lady Bird 

- The Fifth Wave

Février / February 

- Le Seigneur des Anneaux : Les deux tours / The Lord of The Rings : The Two Tours ( (Vu en français - Seen in French)

- Jojo Rabbit 

- I, Tonya 

- La Favorite / The Favourite (Vu en français - Seen in French)

- Halloween (I)

Mars / March 

- Aliens 

- Le Seigneur des Anneaux : Le Retour du Roi / The Lord of The Rings : The Return of The King  (Vu en français - Seen in French)

- Dunkerque / Dunkirk  (Vu en français - Seen in French)

- Assasination Nation

- Spider Man : Far From Home  (Vu en français / Seen in French , Titre Original)

- Knives Out 

- The Covenant 

- Venom

- Unbroken 

- Kong : Skull Island

- The Secret Scripture 

- The Stranger 

- What Did Jack Do ? (Court Métrage / Short Film)

Avril / April

- Delicatessen (Film Français / French Movie)

- Dark Shadows

- Aeon Flux 

- X-2 (X men 2 in French)

- Wedding Nightmare / Ready or Not (Vu en français - Seen in French)

- Instinct de Survie / The Shallows (Vu en français - Seen in French)

- Gisaenchung / Parasite (Vu en coréen avec des sous titres en français / Seen in korean with french subtitles)

- The Talented Mr Ripley 

- L'Âge de glace : Les Lois de l'Univers / Ice Age : Collision Course (Vu en français - Seen in French)

- Inside I’m Dancing (Vu en anglais sous titré , seen in original language /film sorti aussi sous le titre de Rory O’Shea Was Here / also released under the title Rory O'Shea Was Here)

Mai / May 

- Crawl 

- Green Book 

 - Freedom Writers 

- Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emanticipation of One Harley Quinn) 

- Rogue One : A Star Wars Story

- X-Men : The Last Stand 

- The Lone Ranger

- Sybil (Film Français / French Movie)

- Get Out

- Yes Man 

- X-Men Origins : Wolverine 

- Tom à la ferme (Film Québécois vu avec les sous en français , French Canadian Movie seen with French Subtitles) 

- A Cure For Wellness 

- Skin

- Atonement

- L’étudiante et Monsieur Henry (Film Français / French Movie)

Juin / June

- The Ruins 

- Hunger

- The Lucky One

- Gravity 

- The Losers

- Chef

- Push 

- X-Men : First Class

- Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Film Français / French Movie)

- Underwater 

- 2 Fast 2 Furious 

- Taxi 2 (Film Français / French Movie)

- The Cell

[nitrateglow]

Most memorable Buster Keaton performances (1920-1929)

To commemorate the 122nd birthday of my favorite filmmaker, I decided to list my five favorite silent-era performances of his. Keaton is often praised as a director, editor, and stuntman, but I feel even now, his acting is underappreciated. He was hardly emotionless, but rather an actor whose characters kept their feelings in reserve, with only those big, expressive eyes revealing the soulfulness and intelligence that kindled beneath the seemingly placid surface.

These are presented in no particular order—well, other than chronologically.

Evil Buster (The Frozen North, 1922)

Co-star Bartine Burkett once said no one could possibly ever be frightened of Buster or find him threatening—and I’m not going to argue that here. But damn, if The Frozen North (and Le Roi de Champys-Elysses) is anything to go by, he could be such an entertaining bad guy! TFN is one of Keaton’s less-accessible films for modern audiences, mainly because it’s so rooted in the popular culture of the early 1920s, with him lampooning Bill Hart and Erich von Stroheim’s anti-heroes/villain characters. Like Hart, he’s a tough guy. Like von Stroheim, he’s a would-be seducer. But unlike either, he’s also bumbling and rather inept at the whole villain thing, making his teeth-clenching ways all the more entertaining.

And as always, evil Buster is my kink.

The Boy/Sherlock Jr (Sherlock Jr, 1924)

Sherlock Jr. is a movie all about the divide between reality and screen-fantasy, so here Keaton plays both a down-on-his-luck projectionist and the suave, badass detective he imagines himself to be in his cinema-inspired dreams. As the projectionist, Keaton is an awkward everyman, dreaming of action and love while being quite passive in some ways. The opposite is true of his hyper-competent screen self, a charming sleuth who always knows what to do. As with his later Go West, Keaton is being gently satirical, making fun of movie conventions while showing just why they’re so appealing. That knowingness comes through his performances as well. While most praise likely goes to the showier role of Sherlock Jr, he is so charming as the Boy, especially in regards to how the character looks to the movies for wooing pointers. Keaton’s eager attention to the screen antics of his heroes does not make us feel that the projectionist is a loser; rather, we see ourselves in him.

Alfred Butler (Battling Butler, 1926)

Alfred is a prime example of one of Keaton’s favorite protagonist types: the helpless young aristocrat who develops resourcefulness and courage through a misadventure. However, Alfred may be the best rendition of this archetype, as he goes through quite the emotional wringer in Battling Butler (which gets my vote for Keaton’s most underrated movie). He falls in love with a tomboy from a rough-and-tough family and goes through an elaborate charade to make himself seem more macho than he is, despite the fact that the young woman loves him for being him. Alfred’s character arc is great: he goes from being a passive gentleman to a gentleman who will defend his friends with violence if need be, though unlike the villain, he does not revel in violence. In fact, he’s rather horrified by it! Nevertheless, he learns to stand up for himself, making the last five minutes of the movie a matter of immense emotional satisfaction.

Johnny Gray (The General, 1926)

Out of all of Keaton’s protagonists, Johnny is the most dashing: long hair, billowy shirt, heroic, intelligent, probably has a sexy southern accent. SWOON. But fangirlish drooling aside, Johnny is a great character, a blend of action hero and clown. He’s never really a parody of the conventional leading man hero; at least, his performance is not broad enough to be called parody. Keaton’s character takes the story and the events in the story too seriously for that. Though Johnny has his bumbling moments, Keaton endows him with a sense of dignity and intelligence that makes him admirable. Critic Tim Brayton said it best in regards to Keaton’s performance: “There's a lot of slapstick, and a lot of situational humor that are made all the better by the actor's incomparable discipline, refusing to mug for added yuks when simply inhabiting the role and playing it honestly and as straight is both funnier and more human.”

But really, that hair, y’all <3

Buster the cameraman (The Cameraman, 1928)

In The Cameraman, we see Keaton at his most vulnerable. He plays a lonely tintype operator who upgrades to freelance street cameraman when he falls for a pretty, sweet employee of MGM’s newsreel division. While Keaton’s heroes are often soulful, they often keep their feelings in reserve. Not here: the scene where Buster, believing he’s lost the woman he loves forever, sinks to his knees in despair without shedding a tear, is one of the saddest moments in all silent film. Keaton’s performance in The Cameraman is probably the most openly emotional of his career, yet true to his understated style, it is never sappy or maudlin.

[ash818]

happy birthday, terry mcginnis! (Can we pleaseeeeeeee get a terry Drabble, I miss him terribly)

“You’re on the next flight back to Starling,” said Mr. Wayne, sounding even more gravelly than usual by phone.

At baggage claim in Gotham International, Terry yanked his suitcase from the carousel one-handed and adjusted the phone against his ear. “You couldn’t have decided this before I got on the plane home?” Every minute in the air, he had resented being called back to work while Mrs. Queen was missing. Turning right back around was exactly what he wanted, but he could not let this pass without a grumble.

“We didn’t have the information we have now,” Mr. Wayne replied, even and businesslike. “Your flight boards in forty minutes. Before you go, there are some things you should understand.”

Terry had known Mrs. Queen for years, eaten at her dining room table, and laughed at her stories about the old man as she had known him twenty years prior. She had welcomed Terry into her house with cheerful equanimity, even moments after discovering him and Jon attempting to beat each other up in her backyard. “Boys! Dinner,” was all she yelled to stop them.

When they sat down in the dining room not long after, she had turned to Terry and said brightly, “So, you’re Jonny’s big brother. I don’t know exactly how fraternities work, but I think that makes you my Phi Psi son-in-law.”

“We’re not married, Mom,” Queen had groused.

“Son-in-bylaws,” she had revised experimentally. “Pledge stepson. Whatever.” Then she had smiled at him, warm and easy. “It means you don’t need permission to root around in the fridge.”

If there were new leads on her disappearance, Terry was champing at the bit to run them down. Not only was this a vote of confidence in him from Mr. Wayne - an away mission after only ten weeks in the cowl - but it was personal. “Do we know where she is, or at least who has her?”

“We do,” Mr. Wayne said, and stopped there. God forbid he should elaborate in a forthright manner.

“Then I need my gear,” Terry pointed out irritably, “so I really hope you’re waiting up there at departures with a bag for me to - ”

“You aren’t going in uniform,” Mr. Wayne said with finality. “Starling has her own vigilante, and you’re going to look after his family while he retrieves his wife.”

“No one’s seen the Arrow or the Canary or any of them for fifteen years! And I’m more help in the field than I am babysitting.”

“The decision has been made. Oliver was grateful to know you would be watching over his daughter and niece.”

It was at this point that Terry began to suspect he had parsed a sentence wrong somewhere along the line. A possessive pronoun had been misplaced. Perhaps there was a dangling modifier. “Wait. Back up.” It sounded a lot like Mr. Wayne was implying that Oliver Queen was the Arrow. “What’s going on, exactly?”

Mr. Wayne cleared his throat. “Oliver Queen was the Arrow.”

“Oh,” Terry said, as if that made sense. Then he waited patiently for the Tetris tile to slot in somewhere among his thoughts. It didn’t, quite. “He was the…” Don’t say it out loud in a crowded baggage claim. “Right, got it,” he muttered, which was something of a fib.

“It will make more sense the longer you think about it,” Mr. Wayne says dryly. “Neither of the children know, and you will not be the one to tell them. You’ll have to go back through security. Better get a move on.”

More instructions would follow as needed. That much, at least, Terry was used to. Mr. Wayne kept his cards close to the vest and played them only with the most judicious timing.

Terry had about five hours in the air to think about it.

When he first met Mr. Queen halfway through sophomore year, he recognized something of Mr. Wayne in him. The total self-assurance was easily explained as the product of a privileged upbringing. The alert watchfulness might have been a remnant of five years marooned; maybe instincts like that, once woken, never went completely dormant again. As for the uneasy suspicion that Mr. Queen could back up his death glare with actual death - that had never been confirmed.

Until now.

His quick reflexes were not Terry’s imagination. His bad knee was not a sports injury. The panic room on his first floor was not paranoia.

It was simple, once you knew the foundational secret, to guess at the structure of the rest. Spartan was a trained marksman with probable military experience, and there was John Diggle standing conveniently nearby. The team had tech support capable of repurposing the Pentagon’s favorite toys, and there was Felicity Smoak Queen humming innocently in the general vicinity.

“It was a disappointment, parting ways with him,” the old man once said of the Arrow. “He was one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever known.”

This, coming from someone who had traveled the world specifically to meet remarkable people and rip off their juju. That one comment had made a hell of an impression on Terry.

Oliver Queen was the Arrow. Oh, man, Jon was going to have a fit.

The sense of giddy revelation did not last. Terry touched down in Starling to news that shots had been fired on the Queen home. One injured. No word on who or how badly.

He had the whole cab ride to imagine that injury had been Jon - or worse, Abby. Terry had seen a handful of gunshot wounds up close over the past few months, and he had far too many fresh and oozing mental images at his disposal. Who would shoot at Queen and his baby sister? It was like stomping on a litter of golden retrievers.

The old man should have let Terry take the suit, damn it. There were some faces in this town that needed bouncing off a concrete floor.

At Starling General, it was not terribly difficult to find the Queen-Diggle encampment. All Terry had to do was follow the trail of Panoptic bodyguards back to the waiting room where Roy Harper stood watch. He was pacing from the doorway of a recovery room, past Jon sprawled out asleep across two chairs, over to the windows and back. That was two family members accounted for, then.

Harper turned smartly at the sound of footsteps, and Terry realized with a jolt that he was looking at another of the old guard. This was Harper the private security professional, who personally taught hand-to-hand to Panoptic employees and who, in his late forties, could still turn a backflip off a diving board. This man had been Arsenal, once upon a time.

“Terry,” he said, walking over purposefully, and there may have been a new flicker of recognition in his eyes. “I didn’t know you were still in town.”

“I’m - well, Mr. Wayne sent me back. What happened? Who’s hurt? The news reports were pretty vague.”

Harper filled in the details - Lyla Diggle gutshot on the floor of the panic room, both the Queen siblings covered in blood, Elaine shaking next to her mother - with remarkable equanimity. He also took care to provide Panoptic’s best guesses about the lone rifleman likely responsible and their threat assessment going forward. Yes, he knew who he was talking to.

“How are they now?”

“The girls are asleep in Lyla’s room,” Harper said, gesturing at the half-open door. “As for him…” He nodded at the pile of sleeping Jon in the corner. “Could you hang out here for a few hours? Just keep him company. I’ve got to take care of something.”

“Of course. Whatever you guys need.”

“Thanks.” And on his way to the door, the actual real life Arsenal clapped Terry firmly on the shoulder.

As soon as he was gone, Terry followed the route he had taken. Doors, windows, recovery room. He passed Queen and went to look in on the patient and the girls. Lyla Diggle lay pale and still in the near bed, a heart monitor beeping reassuringly. In the bed closer to the window, a mane of black curls stood out against the white pillow, and a blonde head lay next to it. Both Elaine and Abby had fallen asleep on top of the thin blanket, still in their jeans and socks.

Terry paced back to the windows. Visited the nurses’ station. Checked his emails. Glanced at Jon again.

He had every intention of letting the guy sleep. He’d had a hard day. People shot at him.

Five minutes later, Terry retrieved a bag of Cheetos from a nearby vending machine, pulled it open on his way across the waiting room, and leaned over and poked Queen in the ribs.

Jon was an agreeable sleeper, easy to wake and easy to drift right off again. You could say he was too agreeable. On road trips when half a pledge class squeezed into one hotel room, it was rock-paper-scissors to see who got stuck sharing with Queen. He was accustomed to having a huge bed to himself, and it showed. All attempts to shove him back on his side of the bed resulted in sleepy compliance followed by him starfishing out again or rolling over on your arm or doing some other jackass thing.

Since the morning Molaison woke up with an arm across his throat, Queen had been banished to the floor. “You’re my bro, and I love you, but the AC doesn’t crank high enough for your shit.”

He had taken it with good grace. Even brutally hungover, Queen woke up easy and pleasant.

This time, when Terry poked him, he sat up with a snarl.

Well, crap. “Queen.” The best thing was to do something normal, like this was a routine Sunday after a night at Fat Harry’s. Terry shoved the bag of Cheetos in his face. “You hungry?”

“What are you doing here?” Queen said, accusatory. “You’re supposed to be in Gotham.”

“I’m your big brother. Why do you think?” Terry did not say, because the kid was grumpy enough already without making a production of this. Instead he shook the Cheetos as if it were a bag of treats in front of a goldendoodle’s nose. “Hey, look, food.”

Jon extracted exactly one Cheeto from the bag, the weirdo. “How did you even know?”

The truth was unduly complicated, and a perfectly convenient explanation was hanging in the corner. Terry gestured up at the news coverage on the muted TV, where the Queen family’s business had become everyone’s business.

Jon’s lip curled faintly with resentment. “Oh.”

Serious question time: “How are you, man?”

A knee-jerk “I’m fine” was almost the answer, but to Terry’s surprise he caught himself and actually thought about it first. “We fight people for fun all the time,” he said in a slow, measured tone. “We’ve gotten in some real scrapes too.  You remember those bikers on spring break?”

The ones who hadn’t thought pool sharking was cute. Yes, they were memorable.

With his brow furrowed like that, Jon looked a lot like his dad. “But I didn’t know what it felt like to have someone honestly trying to kill me.”

The first time a bullet slammed into the Batman’s body armor and flattened Terry to the concrete, it had been rage and not terror that washed through his whole body. Some asshole had shot him. He was going to twist the fucker’s head off like a bottle cap.

“Remember that it isn’t personal,” Mr. Wayne had told him afterwards. “It’s not that they want Terry McGinnis dead in particular. They’re shooting at the uniform, at the obstacle in their way. You have to keep your head.”

“Dude shot me,” Terry had grumbled. “It felt pretty personal.”

Most people went their whole lives never knowing what it felt like to have someone look right at them and genuinely want them dead. Jon wasn’t going to be among them.

Terry sighed. “I’m sorry you found out.”

After that, neither was in much of a mood to talk. Terry kept up the occasional circuit of the doors and windows, and Queen worked his way through the bag of Cheetos. Eighty percent of managing life-or-death situations, in Terry’s few months of experience, was turning out to be waiting. You had to wait strategically, in the right place with the right equipment. But you definitely had to fucking wait.

Past midnight, something finally happened. Mr. Queen and Mr. Diggle came striding out of the elevators, and Terry was on his feet before he knew how he had gotten there.

He was acutely aware that he was no longer looking at Jon’s dad and Jon’s godfather. They were on the clock, and everything about the way they held themselves and the way they moved reflected that.

Terry reached out to shake the Arrow’s hand. “Mr. Queen.”

The recognition was clearly mutual. “Terry.” Mr. Wayne must have broken with tradition and done some explaining.

“Um,” Jon said awkwardly. “The hell are you doing?”

Shaking Spartan’s hand, that’s what. Terry had been occasionally hanging out with these guys for years and never given them their due.

“Bruce sent you?” Mr. Diggle said.

He had indeed, and Terry took more than a little pride in that. “The old man thought you could use a hand.”

“He’s not wrong. Panoptic’s compromised, and we need all the help we can get.”

“What can I do?”

“Our safe house is no longer secure,” Mr. Queen said. “Roy is making other arrangements now. If you could back him up for the duration, we’d appreciate it.”

A few hours ago, Terry had been bitching at the prospect of babysitting. Looking these two men in the face, he would gladly handle their dry cleaning if they told him it was vital mission support. “Of course. When do we leave?”

“Dad. Dig.” Jon shouldered into the circle the three of them had unconsciously formed. “You said soon. Is it soon yet?”

Terry felt bad for him - really, he did. It sucked, being locked out of the loop when your family was at stake. But he also had to bite the inside of his cheek at what a kindergartener Queen could sound like sometimes.

Mr. Diggle stepped right out of the line of fire. “I’ll go wake the girls.”

Mr. Queen watched him go for a moment, eyes lingering on the room where his daughter slept, and then he took a deep breath and turned to Jon. “We believe the organization that’s holding Mom is threatening our whole family to force her to comply with their demands. It’s not safe to rely on Panoptic’s resources right now, so Elaine and Abby only go with people we trust.”

“Um.” After a couple of startled blinks, Queen managed to say: “Oh?”

“An hour after the shooting, an extremely classified government agency suffered an attack on their secure system. Whoever did it clearly knew their way around the firewalls your mother designed.”

Jon’s head tipped slightly sideways, like a dog that’s heard a new noise. “Can you start again from ‘the organization that’s holding Mom’?”

He just needed a moment to process, and he’d catch up. Terry decided to keep the information moving. “They wanted her to hack her own work?”

Mr. Queen nodded. “Which meant putting her in front of a computer with an Internet connection.”

All unknowing, they put the Arrow’s hacker - whom the old man once described as “more frightening than an IRS auditor and a CIA analyst put together” - in front of a computer. With an Internet connection. “And they thought that was going to go well for them? That is adorable.”

“She got them in, and she did actually retrieve some files. Heavily-encrypted, extremely important-looking files. Requisitions for office supplies.”

Secret identities were the fucking best. “Adorable!”

“She also took the opportunity to pass us a message.”

“Polybius code?”

Next to Terry, Jon looked startled and slightly betrayed. “Dude, who even are you?”

Terry tried for a reassuring smile, because Team Arrow was obviously planning to explain themselves in a minute. But they were interrupted by two Diggles and a small Queen emerging from the recovery room. A pink, quilted overnight bag hung from Mr. Diggle’s shoulder. Time to relocate, then.

Abby went straight for her father - “You’re sending us away?” - and ouch, straight for the guilt trip.

“It’s only for a day or two,” he said, resting his hands on her shoulders. “Terry’s going to take you both someplace safe with Uncle Roy. Even I won’t know where it is.”

She glanced at her brother, who was still very clearly confused and very clearly pissed off about it. With big, pleading eyes, she said, “Why isn’t Jonny coming with us?”

What? Jon wasn’t coming?

“I need his help with something,” Mr. Queen said soothingly. “It’s important, honey. I wouldn’t ask either of you to do this if it wasn’t.”

He was taking Jon into the field. That was a bullshit decision if ever Terry had heard one. They had the actual Batman standing right next to them, but instead they were going to take a sophomore with zero combat experience. He could handle himself in a tournament, sure, but this wasn’t a game. For fuck’s sake, this was the guy who spent Christmas break with broken ribs because he couldn’t resist a dare. He was going to get himself killed.

The only person who looked more surprised than Terry was Jon himself. He was staring at his dad like he had just started speaking Tagalog.

“Roy is waiting for you downstairs,” Mr. Diggle said quietly to Terry, even as Mr. Queen bent down to console Abby. “East exit, over by the information desk. You know where?”

“It’s where I came in.��

Elaine sidled in close. “I don’t like leaving Mom.”

“She’ll have Panoptic looking after her,” Mr. Diggle said. “And she’d want you safe and away. I want you safe and away.”

Terry stepped back politely to let the family say their goodbyes. Mr. Queen and Mr. Diggle made a minimum of fuss, and the only hug that lingered was Abby hanging onto her brother’s neck.

All right. If this was the plan, Terry could roll with it.

“Thank you,” Mr. Diggle said quietly as he passed the pink quilted bag to Terry. “And take care.”

“Yeah, you too.” Terry hefted the bag onto his shoulder. It was surprisingly heavy. “You ready?” he asked Abby.

Finally, she let go of Jon’s neck, and she put on a brave face. “Let’s go.”

Terry led the Arrow and Spartan’s daughters away, and he felt their eyes on him all the way to the elevator.

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Jeff York on The Establishing Shot: MCKELLEN & MIRREN ADD WHAT SURPRISES THEY CAN TO “THE GOOD LIAR”

There are a number of delightful surprises to be savored in the new thriller THE GOOD LIAR. Director Bill Condon shoots the film with old school elegance and lends his taste and elegance throughout. The two leads are well past their 70s and the fact that they’re starring in a major motion picture is not only shocking, but it’s also a cause for celebration. (Take that, ageism!) Finally, the film manages to bring together Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren for the first time onscreen. They’ve been matched on the British stage and television screen many times before, but this is the first time at the cineplex.

So…why does THE GOOD LIAR still come up short and not quite satisfy?

Thrillers like this depend on the twists and turns in the plot and this film has many of them. Unfortunately, too many of such machinations can be spotted a mile out and the screenplay is never quite as clever as it needs to be.

That’s apparent from the very beginning when two septuagenarians meet in a tony London restaurant for a lunch date after finding each other on an online dating site. The two singletons present themselves as charming and lonely, almost coy in their banter, yet we can easily read that there is much more to their pasts and motivations. Sure, each mentions that they’ve lied in their online profiles, but we know that such confessions are small potatoes. There’s a lot more to each of their biographies yet the film will proceed to take a verrrry long time to get to such revelations.

Condon and his cast seem itching to get us there sooner. His camera catches all sorts of hesitations and sideways glances from the two obviously devious characters, and God knows the two accomplished actors can convey duplicity with the mere flicker of an eyelid. So, why does the narrative treat each twist as if it’s such a rug pull when we’ve spied them coming long before they arrive?

I’m giving nothing away here by revealing that it’s as clear as day that McKellen’s Roy Courtnay character is a con man. (Heck, the movie trailer alone divulges that and a whole lot more.) Just as apparent is the unbelievably obvious scam that Roy and Vincent, (Jim Carter), his fellow grifter, run on high rollers from London’s financial district. Theirs is the kind of con that the showrunner Tony Jordan would have rejected before scribbling it on a plot card for his British caper series HUSTLE over a decade ago. So, why is it such a dumb scam such and clunky and hoary part of the plot here?

Screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher does what he can with Nicholas Searle’s novel, but a lot of the material needed to be reworked to stay ahead of the audience. By the time most of us reach adulthood, we’ve seen over a thousand crimes presented on fictional TV series, so does this story act like we’re all so gullible?  That’s the greatest mystery here.

There are other problems too. It’s painfully obvious that Russell Tovey’s Stephen character, the grandson of Mirren’s Betty McLeish here, is not all that he appears to be. Then there’s the mid-story sojourn to Berlin that is so filled with portent that it could choke a horse. And any film that casts Mirren as a naïve senior is turning a blind eye to her steely screen reputation. She’s never played sweet and innocent, so why should she start at 76? The reveal of her various intellectual trump cards come late in the game, but even a casual viewer would know they’re coming at least an hour before they do.

Still, Condon does what he can, ensuring the frothy mix moves and is edited with crackle and precision. He aces some vivid moments of violence. And the film looks lush and expensive, even though the budget is a fraction of what it looks like. Most effectively, Condon lets McKellen and Mirren go to town, play ing off each other with relish.

McKellen is especially good here, but he almost makes his lout too lovable. When Roy starts to flail, drowning in his own lies and deceptions, we feel sorry for him. Too sorry than we should. And by the time he’s rolling around on the ground fighting Mirren like a wild dog, it isn’t really fun, it’s unsettling. It reminded me of watching the frail Laurence Olivier wrestle with Gregory Peck on the living room floor for the climax of  THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL back in 1978. Such scenes seem more unseemly than thrilling.

That Nazi-hunting thriller was also pulpy trash, similar to this one. Both are strong pieces of cheese wrapped up as expensive delicacies. McKellen, Mirren, and Condon manage to make this so-so material seem as fun and frisky as they can despite the story’s blatant shortcomings. Perhaps that is the best and truest con going on here.

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[trevorbailey61]

Jesus and Mary Chain

O2 Institute, Birmingham Friday 31st March, March 2017

The bright white light that illuminated the stage has been extinguished to leave a red glow in which shadowy figures take their place. One of these makes their way to the lone microphone that has been placed at the front of the stage, there is no light to pick him out so his expression remains hidden but as he leans forward it becomes clear that he is scanning the hall in front of him, peering down at those already pushing against each other at the front and then looking up to the balcony. “Happy?” he asks…….. happy - well lets just think about that. It is just two days since Article 50 was triggered and already the EU have told us that we have to meet our obligations before there is any talk on trade, the severance that few even on the remain side mentioned during the referendum. The veiled threats on security in the article itself gave a depressing indication of what awaits us over the next two years and no sooner was the ink on the paper dry than a former Tory leader issued a more direct threat to Spain over Gibraltar. With the Government being forced into a quick retreat, we ended our first week of regaining our sovereignty looking like complete fools.

That those who didn't want this are not happy is unsurprising but they can either be ignored or dismissed as "enemies of the people" or the sneering liberal elite. Those who campaigned and voted for this, however, are, if anything, even more unhappy, proving themselves to be both graceless and spiteful in victory. Expressing what you don't want is the easy bit, it is much harder to say what you do want allowing for different interpretations to be put on the result. For some it was about returning to a golden age that seemed to exist just before they were born. Whilst it would be unfair to categorise everyone who yearned for a past that seemed better than the present as a racist, there was no doubt that this nirvana was white. In mobilising the out vote, hostility to others was given a veneer of legitimacy which, in the minds of some, made it acceptable to express this hatred either verbally or physically. In the time we were at the concert, in Croydon a 17 year old refugee was beaten nearly to death by a mob of over 20. Immigration, however, will continue, the hijab will still be worn, no Mosques will close and there will still be those speaking Polish on Essex trains, The expectations raised will remain unfulfilled and a sense of betrayal means the anger will grow.

Then, the expectations of those who led and funded the campaign are very different to those the foot soldiers. For them, Brexit was only the beginning of the journey; rather than looking back wistfully at the past, their eyes are very much on the future, a future in which the function of Government is reduced to virtually nothing. The EU red tape they want to shred are protections for employees, environmental safeguards and safety regulations, anything that gets in the way of profit. In this tax free future, there will be no safety net provided by the state, no universal health or education, everything will be about the individual. Whilst Farage looked smug in his Union Jack socks and the government struggled to make sense of the “will of the people”, they have already moved on, creating a new political movement with the specific intention of removing anyone they can't mould. Pushed to its limits, which there is every indication that they would, we would lose our rights to clean air water and air, safe beaches, consumer protection, a functioning health, education and welfare system and a secure job. This is the consequence, the people we have used our votes to empower.

In answer to the question, then, we are far from fucking happy and the tardy arrival of The Jesus and Mary Chain hasn't helped. The support act; The Slow Readers Club, who despite not being able to finish a song, were very good, had left the stage 45 minutes ago and we were still listening to the music chosen for us. This was admittedly very good, The Ramones, Can, Roy Orbison, but it wasn't what we were here for and with the immovable deadline of the last train home approaching we were starting to wonder how much of the set we were going to see. Then the JaMC were never the most enthusiastic of performers, inspired by punk they added to it a fuck you art rock attitude that challenged the conventions of live performance. Like New Order, their shows were short, often poorly rehearsed and lacked an encore but the JaMC were to take this further with their sibling rivalry bringing the performances to an abrupt end when they started fighting. It is, therefore, something of a miracle that they have stayed together long enough to record their 7th album and that they can stand each others company long enough to embark on a tour to promote it.

The music that accompanied our wait not only shows their influences, it also shows how they put them together to create a sound that was their own. The spiky attitude of punk was to shape their confrontational live work and the electronic distortions of Can is heard in the fuzzy guitar and feedback through which their songs were presented. What set them apart from others who traded in noise, however, was that this was used to present songs that were pretty conventional, the verse/chorus structure and chord progressions based on the same rules that Orbison had used in creating his own perfect pop moments. Nowhere were they to combine these elements as effectively as they did on their debut album, showing the innocence of pop without the banal 80s sound that dates so much of the music of that era. The songs from “Psychocandy” appear towards the end of the set but they are still the highlights that everyone is here for. “Some Candy Talking” is hypnotic, each verse sung quietly, the words hanging in the air to be savoured in a way in which the acoustics would never have allowed when the song was created. The chorus, however, unleashes a ferocious high decibel burst of guitar, the force of each chord being felt as much as heard. “The Hardest Walk” is equally loud and seems to be propelled purely by feedback whilst “Just Like Honey”, performed as an encore, is a little more restrained but the perfection of the song requires nothing more. We catch the start of “The Living End” but unfortunately the train won’t wait which means we miss out on the brilliance of “Taste of Cindy”.

The problem with creating one of the defining albums their era is that everything else they did exists in its shadow. This is not entirely unjustified as whilst they could still write great songs, they were never able to quite recreate the startling sound of their debut, light on bass and heavy reverb making it sound as if it is being played very loudly in another room. In particular, for “Automatic” from a few years late, they went for a more conventional sound that tries, and fails, to capture the Balearic excesses of New Order. Hearing these songs live, however, is a revelation, adding an urgency to “Head On” and “Blues From a Gun” that underlines how tame the recorded versions were. “April Skies” and “Cherry Came Too” from “Darklands” are possibly their lightest pop moments, wonderfully simple, almost corny, lyrics hardened up by the ferocious sound in which they are set. “Reverence”, from “Honey’s Dead”, is much darker, the doomed rock myth of going out with a bang that brings the set to an end. The songs from the new album, “Damage and Joy” are a bit of a mixed bag, with its grungy riff, "Amputation" is an effective opener whilst also acknowledging that after all the years and the bust ups, the devotion of their audience is something that can't take for granted, "Try to win your interest back; But you ain’t having none of that.” Bernadette Denning's vocal adds colour to the charming  "Always Sad" but any notion that in late middle age they have gone soft is dispelled by "All Things Pass", a fury of fuzz and feedback that stands comparison with the brutal assault of their prime.

Loud, it was very loud, the assault of "Some Candy Talking" and "Reverence" punching a hole in the side of your head that was felt as we walked up to Moor Street, not so much a ringing but a dull throb. Then the ear splitting volume has always been their sound and there is no hint that age has mellowed them. Like New Order, they have accepted the conventions of a live gig but not quite developed the easy rapport with the audience meaning they still that they never feel quite at home on the stage. Despite his truculent demeanour, Jim Reid can still find the heart of a song and brother William shows no sign of reigning in his abrasive playing. The tension between the simplicity of the songs and the brutality of the music shouldn't work but it does. We board the train back to Stourbridge - happy - in spite of everything we just might be.

[aion-rsa]

The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness Review – Exhaustive Look Is Long Overdue

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Netflix‘s new docuseries The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness aims to restructure a deeply ingrained story. New York City’s most notorious serial murderer wasn’t a serial murderer after all. If David Berkowitz was part of a team of street level satanic power brokers, the entire story is a false narrative.

The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness is an impressive entry in the true crime documentary premiere run at Netflix. It focuses on the work of journalist Maury Terry, whose investigation into the Son of Sam case was criminally sidelined. Terry was convinced that convicted lone serial killer David Berkowitz was part of “a highly motivated and well-organized cult group whose various criminal enterprises included the .44 homicide.”

Terry’s 1987 book The Ultimate Evil: An Investigation of America’s Most Dangerous Satanic Cult, is a must read. But it got lost in the Satanic Panic, and Terry got sucked up into the world of the tabloid press. If Geraldo Rivera couldn’t survive The Geraldo Show with his journalistic reputation intact, how could Maury Terry? A wall of authority was built by a seeming Satanic cabal to shut out any idea the infamous murders could have been by anyone but a singular “Son of Sam.”

The “Son of Sam” spree captivated the world in the late 1970s. The chase for the killer was legendary, it made household names of investigators and district attorneys, careers and reputations were assured by it. All of New York City clung to its every detail. Berkowitz pled guilty to eight shootings in 1977, and the case was closed. Nobody else was charged with any crimes related to the shootings. The arrest and conviction of Berkowitz made people believe they were safe to go back out on the streets.

The documentary does a fantastic job showing how the police, press and the public all came together to create the lone gunman mythology. Berkowitz christened himself “The Son of Sam” in a letter designed to taunt police, and the documentary makes it seem like they never forgave him for it. He wrote to Jimmy Breslin, the recognizable “face” of The New York Daily News, name-dropping Beelzebub before promising to return. “Yours in murder, Mr. Monster,” he signed the letters, but the demonic names meant nothing more than lurid prose to the police.

The press fed the beast. The documentary vividly captures the mania which fell on New York City, as women cut or tied up their hair, because the roving gunman was targeting long-haired women, and stayed home anyway. Discos emptied. Neighbors followed neighbors. The documentary mirrors the rabid and rising hunt for the killer with Terry’s increasing obsession. The cops closed out the Summer of Sam by accident. A lucky coincidence linked a witness with a ticketed car. Berkowitz was arrested in front of his apartment complex on August 10, 1977.  

Filmmaker Joshua Zeman (Murder Mountain) expertly incorporates archival news footage, and damning snippets of conversations. Terry’s own words and case files are thoughtfully read by Paul Giamatti. The director had already found a Son of Sam connection with his 2009 documentary Cropsey, about missing kids on Staten Island, and had contact with the author during research. The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness opens with the director receiving boxes of files, including interviews, and correspondences with Berkowitz from Terry’s personal investigation. Among them is a letter the journalist received from the convicted killer in 1981, postmarked Attica Correctional Facility. “I am guilty of these crimes,” Berkowitz wrote, “But I didn’t do it all.”

The documentary shows how, while some authorities hinted claims about ritual murders might be credible, a thin blue line forms behind the “my dog told me to do it” story to stifle the fear, rushing the case to a close. New York Mayor Abraham Beame was up for reelection and the story was fast-tracked, almost in advance. This speedy wrap-up never fooled Neysa and Jerry Moskowitz, the parents of the victim Stacy. Queens District Attorney John Santucci, whose jurisdiction included five of the Son of Sam attacks, was mocked by cops like Joe Coffey for even reading Terry’s book. Carl Denaro, a surviving victim, was so enraged he joined Terry’s investigative team. Though he would later have to remind the journalist he got shot in the head for the case.

Maury Terry is more relatable than the documentary seems to realize. Friends and colleagues bring up how he goes from a drinking buddy to a drinking baddie, but every personal revelation ultimately gets tied to his descent into obsession. Terry really is the ultimate representation of a New Yorker who lived through the Summer of Sam. He has good instincts, but he’s stuck at the wrong job. Who wants to write about the newest laser printer when his gut tells him there’s more to another story in his own neighborhood?

The press claimed Berkowitz got the name “Son of Sam” because he was acting on orders of his neighbor’s dog. He reportedly believed the dog was possessed by the soul of a 6,000-year-old man named Sam. In 1979, The New York Times reported Berkowitz made it up, but Terry, breaks the code which led to the codified .44 caliber myth. There is a real Sam, he’s got real kids, they got real problems and he’s along for the ride. Sam Carr and his sons lived in the house behind Berkowitz. The Carr family owned the Labrador retriever Berkowitz hailed as the high demon.

The high point of the series is the interview at the Sullivan Correctional Facility recorded for Inside Edition. The co-producer of the installment, Wayne Darwen, succinctly sums up the emotion by describing the meeting as Sherlock Holmes meeting Moriarty and Ahab harpooning the great whale. Berkowitz says it doesn’t matter how involved he was in the crimes, he should be imprisoned for the rest of his life just for being there.

The documentary excerpts Berkowitz’s story. He joined the cult in 1975, after meeting Michael Carr at a party on Barnes Avenue in the Bronx. Berkowitz says he “was intrigued by the occult,” which was presented in a harmless way, “just witchcraft and seances. I never dreamed I’d eventually become a murderer.” Berkowitz describes late-night meetings in the woods of Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, and Untermyer Park in his own backyard, which was Pine Street in Yonkers. This inspires the name of Terry’s investigative team, The Pine Street Irregulars. Another tip of the hat to Sherlock Holmes. The description matched the “Twenty-Two Disciples of Hell” taunts in letters to Jimmy Breslin.

The convicted killer also describes his initiation at Untermyer Park. “I recited a prayer to Lucifer and then pricked my finger to draw a little blood. I also gave information about my family.” He names John “Wheaties” Carr. This points back to the letters “Son of Sam” wrote to Breslin.

Berkowitz admits he was present at each of the eight murder scenes. But wasn’t the triggerman at all of them. In the book, Ultimate Evil, Berkowitz says one of three women in the group shot Carl Denaro. Berkowitz also said “a Yonkers police officer who belonged to the group.” On camera for Inside Edition, he admits to shooting Donna Lauria and her girlfriend Jody Valente. He says there were three other accomplices at the scene, two men “in a tan car,” and Michael Carr, whom Berkowitz claims is the shooter in the Queens disco shooting. He says John Carr killed Joanne Lomino and Donna DeMasi. Earlier in the documentary, Terry says he thinks John Carr looks more like a likeness in a police sketch than Berkowitz.

The documentary sets up the segment brilliantly. We believe we have seen Terry’s vindication. Berkowitz confirms and expands on every aspect of the story he has laid out. The highlights were broadcast nationally on Inside Edition. The documentary then puts Terry’s questions about Arlis Perry, a 19-year-old student who had been murdered at Stanford University on October 12, 1974 under a magnifying glass. Was Terry leading? His follow-up interview is sad to watch, almost as infuriating for the viewer as it must have been for everyone in the room at the time.

The documentary shows how Terry chased some dubious leads to bad conclusions, from desolate small towns to the heart of Hollywood. Roy Radin was a producer on the 1984 movie The Cotton Club. His body was found on Friday, May 13, 1983, at a deserted site in northern Los Angeles County. He had been shot in the head 13 times. After the police scoured the crime scene, Terry, along with private investigators, found a Bible in a tree near the murder scene, opened to a passage which can be interpreted as pointing to a Satanic connection.

Terry lumps too much satanic activity together. He sees satanic symbols everywhere. He sees codes in everything. He hits on the Process Church of the Final Judgement in the book The Family by Ed Sanders. Terry speculates the murders could be connected to Charles Manson, but the Process Church has always downplayed anything having to do with the man who killed the sixties. He published an article in their magazine, probably got high with them, but the Process Church had a history of suing anyone who suggests a connection. The four-part documentary series skirts this by avoiding some of the more problematic claims of Terry’s book, which also describes a mysterious figure called Manson 2, who was apparently being groomed for mystical mayhem.

The other story being told in The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness is the rabbit hole Maury Terry gets lost in. The arc of someone ignoring family, relationships, health, and ultimately life. The theories never move into QAnon ridiculousness. Terry’s initial investigation is well-researched and investigated. The evidence strongly suggests Berkowitz did not act alone. The segments where Terry puts together all the pieces could have been longer, because so many esoteric clues fly by so fast, the audience doesn’t get the chance to luxuriate in the spidery webs which connect everything. It is fun to go down this rabbit hole and make all these connections. It fills a similar need to crossword puzzles. True crime obsession is a fascinating topic.

The focus of the series is as much Terry as it is the Son of Sam killings. Terry is also his ultimate victim, dying in 2015, and still yelling orders on who to call to follow up a lead. It is a cautionary tale about the dangers of true-crime obsession. Terry is a fascinating character. His obsessions with Satanism, snuff films, and cash are compulsively watchable. But the coincidences which frustrate him are as damnably indictable as they are effectively inadmissible. John Carr was killed in February of 1978 in a shooting in Minot, North Dakota. Michael Carr was killed in a suspicious traffic accident in October 1979. His car was apparently run off the road on the West Side Highway.

The intrepid journalist isn’t even the smartest guy in the room. It’s the serial killer. If Berkowitz acted alone, he’s got defenders fighting the police narrative, the press narrative and the public’s fear. If Berkowitz did act on orders, he’s managed to keep himself alive while even his superiors wound up dead. Ultimately, Maury Terry only has two goals. He wants the police to apologize, and he wants to make sure the victims knew who shot them. Berkowitz knew far in advance he’d never get either.

“Maury, the public will never, ever truly believe you, no matter how well your evidence is presented,” Berkowitz tells Terry at the end of their first meeting. No matter how much evidence Terry compiled, no one was prepared to take him seriously.

The Berkowitz case is responsible for creating the Son of Sam law, which says no criminal can profit from the publicity of their crimes. The state can take any money earned and donate it to the victim’s families. New York should have jumped on it, milking Berkowitz dry, and paying for an investigation. The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness is compelling, exquisitely inconclusive, and long overdue.

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The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness is available to stream on Netflix now. 

The post The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness Review – Exhaustive Look Is Long Overdue appeared first on Den of Geek.

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