#cagney blooms

[archive-of-the-incident]

More karma I just noticed.. Lmao. They have been struggling ever since they did this to us, more than before. Because they’re wrong, and they knew it, but continued.

The Muse Arg Account or whatever was Avalon’s biggest dream.. 🤔🤔 What a damn coincidence it was shut down, and also from CYBERBULLYING.. Ring any bells?

[marshmallow-biscuit-blog]

For Flower because she needs more love ^^

When did she feel comfortable and 'at hone' with Betty? Did it take a few years? A short while? I can see Betty being a tad anxious for Fkower to be as comfortable as possible in her new home, but for the most part, she let's Flower come out of her shell at her own pace.

I'm not sure if this has been asked, but how does Flower get along with Cuoheads siblings? We know about Mugman, but I'm not sure we heard about his sisters?

By the time she's a mother and has the twins, is she good at preparing them for when their flowers wither in the winter? Would you say they feel better than she did as a kid?

Did Cagney walk her down the isle on her wedding day? Or did she ask Betty or someone else?

I'm pretty sure this has been answered, but I feel I should still put this here (forgive me 😅). What kind of career does Flower have as an adult? Or is she a stay at home parent?

As a flower, does Flower get swarmed by butterflies or bees in the spring? Is she just, used to them at this point?

That's all I can think of for now, unfortunately. I really should be sending more asks :( but I hope you like these! ^^

I feel like Flower felt comfortable with Betty. But was more so quiet and keeping to herself because she was missing her friend that she grew up with, and being that Rooty was the only person she really talked to before being adopted, she didn't really know if she was 'allowed' to really interact with Betty like someone she could actually be 'friendly' with. Of course she understood that Betty being her new mom meant that she was in charge, but she wasn't sure if that meant it was the same kind of 'in charge' like how the orphanage's penguin ladies were, or if she was actually allowed to bond and become friends with her too. 2. When Rooty isn't babysitting the (younger) girls, Flower is because she likes to. Surprisingly babies don't like her as much as they like Rooty. She's kinda indifferent towards Chalice, doesn't like that she likes Puff. 3. Mint doesn't grow flowers since she's a teacup, but Flower does help Honey. Though, lucky for Honey, like mom, she only loses her blooms, not all of her leaves. The cold is still rough on them though, and they cover up. 4. Sadly, Cagney can't walk. So no XD He was there though. Flower ended up asking Betty even if it was untraditional. 5. She's pretty much a stay-at-home mom, but she continues to help Betty out with her floral business as well. She makes it super clear to her mom that she'll always try to be available if she needs her help. She may be grown up and not a butterfly like the rest of the family, but she's still part of it and the business. 6. Yes, and being a flower, she likes it. It makes her sad when she sees people mean to bees. She can get about why with hornets though- they get fiesty- she still feels bad that they usually end up on the end of a flyswatter. Thank you for the Flower asks! :)

[lunabearnight]

Bloom Le Grande Age: 7 Parents: Goopy Le Grande and Cagney Carnation Bio: Bloom is a chill hippie like person. She doesn't like violence and likes to chill in the gardens of ruins. She just wants to sleep in her flower pot and/or chillax with her fathers. She likes the chill in sun and rain. Likes: Sun, rain, falling asleep, ruins, chillaxing, sleeping, lullabies, and peace. Dislikes: War, fighting, loud noises, annoying neighbors, being woken up, bright lights, and storms. Abilities: Growth, plant control, and flowers summoning. Honey Comb Werman Age: 18 Parents: Werner Werman and Rumor Honey Bottoms Bio: Honey Comb is a fighter. She fights for her friends and  family. Honey's got a lot of bravery in her heart. Nobody knows how she lost her eye in the first place. She a warrior with a good heart. She can use magic and machinery very well. Likes: Machinery, magic, fighting, saving people, protect her kingdom, and service her kingdom. Dislikes: Bad guys, losing battles, unable to save someone, being wounded, and seeing someone being harmed. Abilities: Shape shifting, machine making, flight, staff summoning, and smarts.

Willy Warbles

Age: 24 Parents: Wally Warbles Bio: Willy has grown up and became an astronaut. In the Inkwell Isles, he's the first bird that's been launched into space. He loves to go to space and explore planets. He shares stories about his time in space. He is always excited to return to his dad after a space adventure. Likes: Space, rockets, exploring outer space, meeting new species of aliens, returning home to his dad, and discovering new planets. Dislikes: Accidents, staying on a planet for too long, unless it's earth, not returning to Earth, having his feathers plucked out, and being lost in space. Abilities: Flying, singing, and space smarts. Audrey Kahl  Age: 33 Parents: Dr. Kahl Bio: This inventor loves to share her inventions. Audrey will experiment with different inanimate objects, never on animals or plants. She studies different types of ologies. She helps with help with work too. Also she's a famous teacher at Inkwell Isle 4 and will bring Crimson, Galaxy, and their friends to Inkwell Isle 4 in The Adventures in Inkwell Isle 4. Likes: Teaching, studies, enjoying life, inventing, experimenting, helping others, traveling to Inkwell Isle 4, and her friends at Inkwell isle 4. Dislikes: Animal and plant experimentation, something going array, explosions, not being able to return to Inkwell Isle 4, and being called old despite being 33. Abilities: Book smarts, robot making, inventing, and potion making.

Chase and Ruby Ages: Chase: 12 Ruby: 13 Parents: Chase: Ribby and an unknown dragonfly mother Ruby: Croaks and an unknown butterfly mother. Bio: Chase and Ruby get along very well. These two cousins love to box and want to be boxers when they grown up. They teach people self defense at self defense classes. Chase is more prideful and Ruby is more gentle. Likes: Boxing, helping people, self defense, training, teaching, and sports. Dislikes: The press, the paparazzie, seeing people get killed during sports, people being unsafe, and getting injured. Abilities: Boxing. Bella, Ollie, Sid, Sam, and Tommy. Ages: Camren: 16 Bella: 7 Sid and Sam: 5  Tommy: 9  Parents: Bella and Camren: T-Bone and Blind Spector. Sid: Left Lollipop Ghoul Sam: Right Lollipop Ghoul. Tommy: Head of the Train.  Bio: These four sweet ghouls live on the Phantom Express. Camren's the most serious one of the group. She takes care of the train to make sure everyone's and everything's okay. Bella wants to be a Rock and Roll Musician. She loves to rock out and listen to music. Sid and Sam are a bit of trouble makers and usually cause trouble through the train. The two cousins try their best to get along. Tommy is the son and apprentice to the Head of the Train. He helps pull the train when the Head of the Train breaks down.  Likes: Camren: Keeping things in order, justice, and helping others. Bella: Rock n' Roll, singing, listening to songs, and going on adventures. Sid and Sam: Doing pranks and snacks. Tommy: Pulling the train, songs, helping his dad. Dislikes: Camren: Dealing with the pranks done by Sid and Sam, injustice, people not helping, and messes. Bella: Seeing people die, and Having to turn off her music rather than during it down. Sid and Sam: Getting in trouble, getting grounded, and causing harm with their pranks. Tommy: Breaking down, scaring people, and seeing his dad broken down. Abilities: Bella: Teleportation and going through walls. Camren: X-Ray vision. Sid and Sam: Stretching their necks. Tommy: Super strength.

Persephone Winchester Age: 18 Parents: Ester Winchester and Porkgrind Bio: Coming from Inkwell Isle 4, she runs her father's shop. She doesn't sell more questionable things, but she does sell potions to the Cupcousins. She likes to tell stories about her times in the Wild West. Dahlia has a crush on her, but Persephone doesn't really notice. She has two sister who still live on Inkwell Isle 4, along with their mom and dad. She's strong and very caring too. If her personality didn't tell you she's kind, then the donation jar on her sales desk will. Likes: Helping others, running her father's shop, donating to charity, visiting the Fourth Inkwell Isle, her younger sisters, and root beer. Dislikes: Bad guys, the black market, fighting, getting injured, and bad service. Abilities: Strength, book and street smarts, and good memory. Paprika Saltbaker Age: 18 Parents: Saltbaker and an Unknown deceased mother. Bio: Like with Persephone, Paprika comes from the Fourth Inkwell Isle. She's a bit stubborn though. While she does appear in the main story, in the Welcome to Inkwell Isle Four arc, she plays more of a main part wanting help to make the Wonder Tart, for very sad reasons. She's also banned from most of the places in Inkwell Isle 4, in case of being harmed by bad guys. Likes: Cooking, her father, seasoning, sweets, exploring Isles 1-3, and strawberries. Dislikes: Breaking, burnt food, rotten/moldy food, being tricked, and not being able to explore Inkwell Isle 4. Abilities: Size growth, paprika shifting, and knowledge of baking.

[agrpress-blog]

È morta a Los Angeles all’età di cento anni l’attrice teatrale, cinematografica e televisiva britannica Glynis Johns, nota per il ruolo di Mrs. Banks nel celebre Mary Poppins di Robert Stevenson. Nata a Pretoria - in Sud Africa - nell’ottobre 1923 durante una tournée dei genitori (una pianista e un attore di origini gallesi), Glynis Margaret Payne Johns debutta giovanissima, nel ’35, danzando al Garrick Theatre di Londra ed inizia a recitare nel teatro di prosa all’Old Vic con il dramma St. Helena, seguiti poi da La calunnia e The Melody That Got Lost, Judgement Day, e, nel ’37, in Cinderella. Pur continuando nell’attività teatrale, esordisce al cinema in La cavalcata delle follie (1938) di Victor Saville. Negli anni Quaranta appare in piccole parti in alcuni film, fra cui due di Alexander Korda: Intermezzo matrimoniale (1945), con Deborah Kerr, e Un marito ideale (1947), tratto dall’omonima commedia di Oscar Wilde. Negli anni Cinquanta ottiene ruoli di maggior rilievo e da protagonista con Il viaggio indimenticabile (1951) di Henry Koster, con Marlene Dietrich e James Stewart, Asso pigliatutto (1952) di Ronald Neame, con Alec Guinness, Roy Boy, il bandito di Scozia (1953), con Richard Todd, Penitenziario braccio femminile (1954) di J. Lee Thompson, Il giullare del Re (1956) di Melvin Frank e Norman Panama, con Danny Kaye e Angela Lansbury, Il giro del mondo in ottanta giorni (1956) di Michael Anderson, tratto dal romanzo omonimo di Jules Verne ed interpretato da David Niven, Shirley MacLaine, Cantinflas e Robert Newton, in cui fa una piccola apparizione, Il fronte della violenza (1959) di M. Anderson, con James Cagney, Don Murray, Michael Redgrave e Richard Harris (al suo secondo film), I nomadi (1960) di Fred Zinnemann, con Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr e Peter Ustinov, e con cui ottiene una nomination all’Oscar come Miglior Attrice non Protagonista, La tela del ragno (1960) di Godfrey Rayson, Sessualità (1962) di George Cukor, con Jane Fonda, Efrem Zimbalist e Claire Bloom, per il quale avrà una nomination per Miglior Attrice in un film drammatico. Due anni dopo arriva il ruolo per il quale è più nota, quello della mamma dei piccoli Jane e Michael Banks (Karen Dotrice e Matthew Garber) in Mary Poppins (1964) di Robert Stevenson, con Julie Andrews (Oscar come Miglior Attrice Protagonista), Dick Van Dyke, David Tomlinson e Elsa Lanchester. Negli anni successivi dirada le sue apparizioni cinematografiche, fino a Un amore tutto suo (1995) di Jon Turtletaub, una commedia degli equivoci con Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman, Peter Gallagher e Jack Warden. Nel frattempo rimane attiva a teatro e in televisione. Nel ’73 torna a Broadway - dove aveva recitato nel ’56 in Il maggiore Barbara di George Bernard Shaw - con il musical A Little Night Music di Stephen Sondheim e Hugh Wheeler - versione teatrale del film Sorrisi di una notte d’estate (1955) di Ingmar Bergman - per il quale ottenne grande successo di pubblico e di critica ed il Tony Awards alla Miglior Attrice Protagonista in un musical. Fu così la prima interprete della canzone Send in the Clowns. Sarà nuovamente interprete del medesimo musical al James Doolittle Theatre di Los Angeles nel ’91. In televisione, fra gli anni Cinquanta e i Novanta, appare in alcuni episodi di serie e miniserie - The Errol Flynn Theatre (1956), The Frank Sinatra Show (1958), Avventure in paradiso (1961), La città in controluce (1961), Il dottor Kildare (1962), L’impareggiabile Glynis (1963, tredici episodi), La parola alla difesa (1964), Batman (1967), Gloria Vanderbilt (1982), Love Boat (1984), La signora in giallo (1985), Benvenuti a “Le Dune” (1988-89, quindici episodi).

[chipssillyfunfun]

she cagney on my blooms till i cagneybloom

meat !!

feeling Happy with a Meat Farm ngl

[kuromispamton2000]

Spectral Bloom in her flower form and her father

[p0ply]

species swap?? ‘w’;;;

[innqufocus]

decided to try my hand at the very obscure My Type meme. requirements: choose up to 25 of your favorite characters and mash them together.

my result is Jerome. a self-assured but paranoid thrill seeker with more prosthetic limbs than organic ones. he’s lonely as feck and needs a friend.

[kiya-prinaje]

@p0ply drew a species swap between Cags and Hilds and i just wanted to draw a humanization of Hilda Bloom and BAM

I am smashed with this ship again.

BONUS

Seems like personalities have also been swapped.

[asktemmie-frisk]

I just felt like drawing some stuff randomly. Here's a bunch of anime eyes, some disembodied mouths and hands that might be attached to arms, some flowers, a couple of boss monsters, and a pair of hybrids.

[arthurkingsmen]

AU/Crossover Shenanegins! I’m posting this here too bc this is the most effort ive put into a drawing in 1 million years @suspicious-spirit

[neogirlart]

Happy Easter Day 2

[bee-shit]

the holy trinity

[its-cagney]

Baby boy, baby

[aion-rsa]

Once Upon a Time in America Is Every Bit as Great a Gangster Movie as The Godfather

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This article contains Once Upon a Time in America spoilers.

The Godfather is a great movie, possibly the best ever made. Its sequel, The Godfather, Part II, often follows it in the pantheon of classic cinema, some critics even believe it is the better film. Robert Evans, head of production at Paramount in the early 1970s, wanted The Godfather to be directed by an Italian American. Francis Ford Coppola was very much a last resort. The studio’s first choice was Sergio Leone, but he was getting ready to make his own gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America. Though less known, it is equally magnificent. 

Robert De Niro, as David “Noodles” Aaronson, and James Woods, as Maximillian “Max” Bercovicz, make up a dream gangster film pairing in Once Upon a Time in America, on par with late 1930s audiences seeing Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney team for The Roaring Twenties or Angels with Dirty Faces. Noodles and Max are partners and competitors, one is ambitious, the other gets a yen for the beach. One went to jail, the other wants to rob the Federal Reserve Bank. 

Throw Joe Pesci into the mix, in a small part as crime boss Frankie Monaldi, and Burt Young as his brother Joe Monaldi, and life gets “funnier than shit,” and funnier than their more famous crime films, Goodfellas and Chinatown, respectively. Future mob entertainment mainstays are all over Once Upon a Time in America too, and they are in distinguished company. This is future Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly’s first movie. She plays young Deborah, the young girl who becomes the woman between Noodles and Max, and she even has something of a catch-phrase, “Go on Noodles your mother is calling.” Elizabeth McGovern delivers the line as adult Deborah. 

When Once Upon a Time in America first ran in theaters, there were reports that people in the audience laughed when Deborah is reintroduced after a 35-year gap in the action. She hadn’t aged at all. But Deborah is representational to Leone, beyond the character.

“Age can wither me, Noodles,” she says. But neither the character nor the director will allow the audience to see it beyond the cold cream. Deborah is the character Leone is answering to. She also embodies the fluid chronology of the storytelling. She is its only constant.

The rest of the film can feel like a free fall though. Whereas The Godfather moved in a linear fashion, Once Upon a Time in America has time for flashbacks, and flashbacks within flashbacks, and detours that careen between the violent and the quiet. It’s a visceral experience about landing where we, and this genre, began.

Growing up Gangster

Both The Godfather and Once Upon a Time in America span decades; it’s the history of immigrant crime in 20th century America. But they differ on chronological placement. Once Upon a Time is set in three time-frames. The earliest is 1918 in the Jewish ghettos of New York City’s Lower East Side. 

Young Noodles (Scott Tiler), Patrick “Patsy” Goldberg (Brian Bloom), Philip “Cockeye” Stein (Adrian Curran) and Dominic (Noah Moazezi), are a bush league street gang doing petty crimes for a minor neighborhood mug, Bugsy (James Russo). New on the block, Max (Rusty Jacobs) interrupts the gang as they’re about to roll a drunk, and Max makes off with the guy’s watch for himself. He soon joins the gang, and they progress to bigger crimes.

The bulk of the film takes place, however, from when De Niro’s Noodles gets out of prison in 1930, following Bugsy’s murder, and lasts until the end of Prohibition in 1933. Max, now played by Woods, has become a successful bootlegger with a mortuary business on the side. With William Forsythe playing the grown-up Cockeye and James Hayden as Patsy, the mobsters go from bootlegging through contract killing, and ultimately to backing the biggest trucking union in the country as enforcers. They enjoy most of their downtime in their childhood friend Fat Moe’s (Larry Rapp) speakeasy. Noodles is in love with Fat Moe’s sister, Deborah, who is on her way to becoming a Hollywood star. The gang’s rise ends with the liquor delivery massacre.

The final part of the film comes in 1968. After 35 years in hiding, Noodles is uncovered and paid to do a private contract for the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Christopher Bailey…  Max by a different name who 35 years on has been able to feign respectability and make Deborah his mistress. An entire life has become a façade.

Recreating a Seedier Side of New York’s Immigrant Past

While The Godfather is an adaptation of Mario Puzo’s fictional bestseller, Once Upon a Time in America is based on the autobiographical crime novel, The Hoods. It was written by Herschel “Noodles” Goldberg, under the pen name of Harry Grey while he was serving time in Sing-Sing Prison. 

Coppola’s vision in The Godfather is aesthetically comparable to Leone’s projection. From the opium pipes at the Chinese puppet theater to the take-out Lo Mein during execution planning, the multicultural world of old New York crowds the frames and the players in both films. Most of Once Upon a Time in America was shot at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios. The 1918 Jewish neighborhood in Manhattan was a street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which was made to look exactly as it had 60 years earlier.

Leone skillfully, yet playfully, captures the poverty of immigrant life in New York. The first crime we see the four-member gang commit could have been done by the Dead End kids. They torch a newspaper stand because the owner doesn’t kick up protection money to the local mug. And like the Dead End kids, they needle their mark, and joke with each other. At the end of the crime, Cockey is playing the pan pipe, and the very young Dominic is dancing. They are proud of their work and enjoy it. It’s fun to break things for money. And even better when they get a choice between taking payment in cash or rolling it over into the sure bet of rolling a drunk.

Violence without the Cannoli

Gangster films, like Howard Hawks’ Scarface and William A. Wellman’s The Public Enemy, were always at the forefront of the backlash to the Motion Picture Production Code. Which might be why gangster pictures were one of the first genres to benefit from the censors’ fall. A direct line can be drawn from the machine gun death which ends Bonnie and Clyde (1967) to the toll-booth execution of Sonny Corleone (James Caan)  in The Godfather. Another from when Moe Greene (Alex Rocco) gets one through the glasses and Joe Monaldi gets it in the eye in Once Upon a Time in America.

The Godfather has some brutal scenes. We get a litany of dead Barzinis and Tattaglias, horse heads and spilled oranges. Once Upon a Time in America ups the ante though. The shootings and stabbings are neat jobs compared with the beatings, which allow far more artistic renderings of gore, and pass extreme scrutiny. The one time the effects team balks at a payoff is when it’s not as gruesome as the setup.

“Inflammatory words from a union boss,” corporate thug Chicken Joe asks as he is about to light Jimmy “Clean Hands” Conway O’Donnell on fire. The mobster has such a nice smile, and the union delegate, played by Treat Williams, looks so pathetic while dripping gasoline that it feels like it might even be a mercy killing. It is a wonderful set piece, perfectly executed and timed. When Max and Noodles, and the gang defuse the situation, rather than ignite it, it is a lesson in the dangerous balance of suspense.

Like many specific scenes in Once Upon a Time in America, Conway’s incendiary introduction would’ve worked in any era. This is the turning point for the gang. The end of Prohibition is coming and all those trucks they’re using to haul liquor can be repurposed for a more lucrative future. 

“You Dancing?”

Music is paramount in both Leone’s and Coppola’s films. The Godfather is much like an opera, the third installment even closes the curtain at one. Once Upon a Time in America is a frontier film. The score was composed by Ennio Morricone, who wrote the music behind Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The film opens and closes with Kate Smith’s version of “God Bless America.” Though the scene occurs during the 1968 timeframe, the song comes out of the radio of a car seemingly from another point in time.

Morricone’s accompaniment to Once Upon a Time in America is as representational as Nino Rota’s soundtrack in The Godfather. Characters, settings, situations, and relationships all have themes, which become as recognizable as the Prohibition-era songs which flavor the period piece’s ambience. Fat Moe conducts the speakeasy orchestra through José María Lacalle García’s “Amapola” while grinning dreamily to Deborah who is chatting with Noodles. He’s a romantic.

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The music becomes part of the action in Once Upon a Time in America. Individual couples cut their own rugs, doing the Charleston between tables as waiters and cigarette girls glide by. Cockeye, who has been playing the pan pipe since the beginning of the film, wants to sit in with the band. 

Forsythe almost steals Once Upon a Time in America. He cries what look like real tears at the mock funeral for Prohibition and drinks formula from a baby bottle during the maternity ward scene. The blackmail scheme, which involves swapping infants, plays like an outtake from a Three Stooges movie, something Coppola would never dare for The Godfather. The ruse is choreographed to the tune of Gioachino Rossini’s “The Thieving Magpie,” which elicits the youthful thuggery celebrated in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. 

Devils with Clean Faces

One ironic difference between the two films is whimsy. The Godfather, which glorifies crime as corporate misadventure, is a serious movie with no time for funny business. Once Upon a Time in America, which is an indictment of criminal life, has moments of innocence as syrupy as in any family film (of the non-crime variety) and can be completely kosher. It’s sweeter than the cannoli Clemenza (Richard Castellano) took from the car, or the cake Nazorine (Vito Scotti) made for the wedding of Don Vito’s daughter. 

The scene where young Patsy brings a Charlotte Russe to Peggy in exchange for sex is a masterwork of emotive storytelling. He chooses a treat over sex. On one level, yes, this is a socioeconomic reality. That pastry was expensive and something he could never afford to get for himself. But as Patsy sneaks each tiny bit of the cream from the packaging, he is also just a child, a kid who wants some cake. He learns he can’t have it and eat it. It is so plainly laid out, and so beautifully rendered.

The Corleone family never gets those moments, not even in the flashbacks to Sicily or as children on the stoop listening to street singers play guitars. We know little of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) or Sonny as youngsters, much less teenagers, and are robbed of their happier moments of bonding. We know they are close, they are family. But Michael has his own brother killed while Noodles balks at the very idea. Twice, as it turns out.

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“Today they ask us to get rid of Joe. Tomorrow they ask me to get rid of you. Is that okay with you? Cos it’s not okay with me,” Noodles tells Max after the gang delivers on a particularly costly contract, double-crossing their partners in a major diamond heist. They are not blood family, but from the moment Max calls Noodles his “uncle” to fool a beat cop, they are all related. 

Noodles then does what young men in coming-of-age movies have done since Cooley High: Something really stupid. An indulgence the Corleones could never enjoy. He speeds the car into the bay. The guys can’t believe it. It adds to his legend. The scene could have been in Diner, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, or even Thelma & Louise. It is hard to dislike the gangsters in these moments. We know them too well, even as they do such horrible things.

How Women are Really Treated by an Underworld

The Godfather is told from the vantage point of one of the heads of the five established crime families; organized crime is as insular as the Corleone mall on Long Beach. That motion picture reinvigorated the “gangster film,” long considered a ghetto genre, but its perspective is insulated. By contrast, no matter how far they climb, Leone’s characters never really get off the block. They are street savages, even in tuxedos. Once Upon a Time in America whacked the gangster film, and tossed its living corpse into the compactor of a passing garbage truck.

The Godfather doesn’t judge its gangsters. The Corleones are family men who keep to a code of ethics and omerta. They dip their beaks in “harmless” vices like gambling, liquor, and prostitution. While there are scenes of extreme domestic violence, and a general dismissal of women, the film stops short of challenging the image of honorable men who do dishonorable things. Leone offers no such restraint. His history lesson is unabridged.

Long before Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman stripped gangster lore to a tale of toxic masculinity, Once Upon a Time in America robbed it of all glamor. There is a very nonchalant attitude toward violence and other demeaning acts against women in Leone’s film, from the very opening scene where a thug fondles a woman’s breast with his gun in order to humiliate her civilian date.

This is deliberate. The director, best known for Spaghetti Westerns, wants to obliterate any goodwill the gangsters have accumulated through their magnetic antiheroism. One scene between Max and his girlfriend Carol (Tuesday Weld) is so hard to sit through, even the other members of the gang squirm in their chairs.

Noodles sexually assaults two women over the course of the film. While there is some motivational ambiguity in the scene during the jewel heist attack, the rape of Deborah is devastatingly direct. It kills any vestige of romance the gangster archetype has in film. The camera does not look away, and the scene lingers with terrifying ferocity and traumatic intimacy. There is a visible victim, and Noodles’ wealth and pretensions of honor are worthless.

The Ultimate Gangster Epic

Once Upon a Time in America brings one other element to the genre which The Godfather avoids, a lingering mystery. Coppola delivers short riddles, like the fate of Luca Brasi, which are revealed as the story warrants. But the 35-year gap between the slaughter of Noodles’ crew and the introduction of Secretary Bailey is almost unfathomable. How did Max go from long-dead to a man with legitimate power?

What happens to Noodles in those years is fairly easy to guess, without any specifics. He got by. The gang’s shared secret bankroll was empty when he tried to retrieve it as the last surviving member. He put his gun away and eked out a quiet life. But even as the details spill out on the true fate of Max, it is unexpectedly surprising, as much for the audience as Noodles.

“I took away your whole life from you,” Max/Bailey says. “I’ve been living in your place. I took everything. I took your money. I took your girl. All I left for you was 35 years of grief over having killed me. Now why don’t you shoot?” This final betrayal, and Noodles’ inert revenge, take Once Upon a Time In America into almost unexplored cinematic depths. 

Max has gone as low as he could go. The joke is on Noodles, everyone’s in on it, including “Clean Hands,” who is tied in to “the Bailey scandal.” The cops are in on it, and so is the mob. Max admits even the liquor dropoff was a syndicate set-up. He’d planned this all along. Just like Michael Corleone had a long term strategy to make his family legitimate. 

This is an ambitious story. Beyond genre, this bends American celluloid into European cinema. By sheer virtue of being outside of Hollywood, Leone transcends traditional boundaries. He has a far more limitless pallet to draw from. He can aim a camera at De Niro’s spoon in a coffee cup for three minutes and never lose the audience’s rapt attention. Leone can pull the rug out from everything with a last minute reveal. Coppola bent American filmmaking for The Godfather, but stayed within proscribed parameters. He never gets as sweet as a Charlotte Russe nor as repulsive as the back seat of a limo. 

Once Upon a Time in America ripped the genre’s insides out and displayed them with unflinching veracity and theatrical beauty. It is a perfect film, gorgeously shot, masterfully timed, and slightly ajar.

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[keyofjetwolf]

Pitch Me your thing!

HELLO HELLO MY SUNBEAMS. For most every category, there was an impressive turn-out for pitches, so I thought we’d utilize the weirdness of this year’s GIFTENING to give something new a try. The popular vote winner for each category will happen on the first day, but on the second, the winner will be chosen from YOUR PITCHES. Mostly those pitches will be to me. The exception is in Miscellaneous, where you’ll be pitching to my family, because what I want to do and what is most entertaining isn’t necessarily the same thing.

So! How will we do this thing? GLAD YOU ASKED. I’ll link you to a form in a minute with space for one pitch. Once you fill it out, you’ll be asked if you want to do another. There’s no limit to the number of pitches you can send in! But remember that if you submit multiple entries for the same category, you’ll basically be competing against yourself.

NOW WE’VE GOT SOME RULES FOR DOING THIS (which I mostly stole from Holligay, because I have no creativity this year). Please read them carefully! I’ll toss pitches that break any of these, and I’d rather your hard work not go to waste.

Pitch Me is open for your submissions from RIGHT NOW (22 December) through the very last day of this hellyear (31 December) at 11:59pm MT.

The thing you pitch must have come from what was nominated for THE GIFTENING 2020. (Full list of those nominations in every category below the cut on this post.)

Entries must be unsigned! I’m looking to chose based on the pitch alone, regardless of who submitted it.

The pitch itself must be 100 words or less. HAVE PITY ON ME I CAN ONLY CONSUME SO MUCH.

If you’d like to get some help, ideas, feedback, all that good stuff, the Discord is a FANTASTIC resource I encourage you to use.

HERE IS YOUR PITCH SUBMISSION LINK

And, as promised, below the cut you’ll find the list of all the nominees in every category you guys sent in this year. IT’S A LONG LIST HAVE FUN WITH THAT

Anime

A Place Further Than The Universe/Sora Yori mo Toi Basho Ace Attorney (Gyakuten Saiban) Action Heroine Cheer Fruits Aggretsuko Aho Girl Air Master Akuma No Riddle Alien Nine Angel Beats! Angelic Layer Appare-Ranman Aria Aria the Animation Arrietty/ The Secret World of Arrietty (Ghibli film) Ascendance of a Bookworm Azumamga Daioh Baccano! Beastars Black Cat Blood + (the series) Bloom Into You Blue Drop/Tenshitachino Gikyoku Bodacious Space Pirates (starting right where you left off) BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense Boku no hero academia Bubblegum Crisis Card Captor Sakura: Clear Card Cardcaptor Sakura Castlevania the Animated Series Cells at Work Chaos; Head Chihayafuru Code Geass cowboy Bebop Cyborg 009 Death Note Death Parade Deca-Dence Demon Girl Next Door Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) Diebuster: Aim For the Top 2 Dog Days dorohedoro Dot Hack//SIGN Dr. Stone Elfen Lied Erased (Boku Dake Ga Inai Machi) Escaflowne Excel Saga Fantastic Children Fate/Zero Flip Flappers Fresh Precure Fruits Basket 2019 Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Ga rei Zero GaoGaiGar gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex Ghost Stories (dubbed) Girls' Last Tour Great Pretender Hoseki no Kuni/ Land of the Lustrous House of Five Leaves/ Saraiya Goyou Inari konkon koi iroha Interviews with Monster Girls Inuyasha Isekai Izakaya "Nobu" Jellyfish Princess/ Kuragehime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable Kaguya-sama Love Is War Kaleido Star Kannazuki no Miko Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Kemono Friends Kiki's Delivery Service Kimi ni Todoke: From Me To You Kino's Journey/Kino no Tabi (2003) Land of the Lustrous (Houseki no Kuni) Little Witch Academia Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files EP0 {"A Grave Keeper") Love is Hard for an Otaku Love Live! Sunshine!! lupin the 3rd part 4 Madoka: The Rebellion Movie Magic knight rayearth Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha March Comes in Like a Lion Mardock Scramble Master of Martial Hearts Mawaru Penguindrum Megalobox Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid Mob Psycho 100 Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) Monster Mushishi My Bride is a Mermaid (Seto No Hanayome) My Love Story!!! My Neighbor Totoro My Next Life As A Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom My Roommate is a Cat NANA Naruto Natsume’s Book of Friends Neon Genesis Evangelion (hateblog) New Cutey Honey Nichijou Ōban Star-Racers One Piece Ouran High school Host club Outlaw Star Paranoia Agent Perfect Blue Please Save My Earth Pop Team Epic Pretty Cure Fresh Princess Jellyfish/ Kuragehime Princess Mononoke Princess Principal Princess Tutu Project A-Ko promised neverland (/yakusoku no neverland) Psycho-Pass Ranma 1/2 Re: Cutie Honey Re:Creators Read or Die (OAV) Red Garden relife Revolutionalry Girl Utena Rose of Versailles Ruroni Kenshin Sailor Moon Sailor Moon (viz dub) Samurai Champloo (english dub) Sarazanmai School Days School-Live! Scum's Wish Senki Zesshou Symphogear (listed as just "Symphogear" on Crunchyroll.) Serei no Moribito (Guardian of the Spirit) Shin Sekai Yori (From The New World) Shirobako Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle Smile Pretty Cure (Japanese original)/ Glitter Force (english adaptation) Snow White with the Red Hair Sound Euphonium Strawberry Panic (yuri) Sweetness and Lightning The Devil is a Part-timer The Devil Lady The disasterous life of saiki k (saiki kusuo no Sai Nan) The End of Evangelion (movie) the Promised Neverland The Twelve Kingdoms Tiger & Bunny Tokimeki Tonight ToraDora Tsubasa Chronicle Umineko When They Cry Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid Vinland Saga Violet Evergarden Whispered Words (Sasameki Koto) With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day is Fun Yona of the Dawn Yu Yu Hakusho Yugioh Duel Monster Yuki Yuna is a Hero Yuri Kuma Arashi Yuri On Ice!!! Zoids: Chaotic Century Zombie Land Saga

Non-Anime Animated

Adventure Time Amphibia Animainiacs (Original) Animaniacs (Reboot) Archie's Weird Mysteries As Told By Ginger Barbie Life in The Dreamhouse Batman the Animated Series Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot Big Mouth Bob's Burgers Bojack Horseman Bravest Warriors Captain N: the Game Master Carmen Sandiego (1994) Carmen Sandiego (2019) Castlevania (Netflix) Cats Don't Dance Coco Courage the Cowardly Dog Craig of the Creek Cyber Six Daria Darkwing Duck Dragon Booster Dragons: Riders of Berk DuckTales (2017) Exo-Squad Fern Gully Fillmore! Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Futurama Gargoyles Glitch Techs Godzilla: The Animated Series Green Lantern the Animated Series Hedgehog in the Fog (Ёжик в тумане) Hey Arnold Hilda Infinity Train Iron Giant JEM Kim Possible Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts Legend of Zelda animated series (1989) Legion of Super-Heroes Liberty Kids Magical Girl Friendship Squad Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart The Legend of Korra Moominvalley Motorcity My Little Pony (Classic, NOT FiM) My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks Onyx Equinox Over the Garden Wall Over the Moon (2020 film) Owl House Primal Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure Redwall Rise of the TMNT Roco's Modern Life Rugrats RWBY Samurai Jack Seis Manos She-Ra (1985) She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) Sonic Boom Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse Star vs. the Forces of Evil Strange Magic Super Mario Brothers Super Show Superman: The Animated Series Teen Titans The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo The Animals of Farthing Wood The Dragon Prince The Hollow The Legend of Tarzan (TV series) The Magic School Bus (1994) The Mysterious Cities of Gold The Pirate Fairy (Disney Fairies) The Powerpuff Girls (1998) The Real Ghostbusters Thundercats (1985) Thundercats (2011) Transformers: Prime Tuca and Bertie Twelve Forever Undone Venture Bros Wakko's Wish Wakfu Wander Over Yonder We Bare Bears (TV) Winx Club Wreck-It Ralph (2012) X-Men Evolution X-Men: The Animated Series Xiaolin Showdown

Live Action

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 28 Days Later 3rd Rock from the Sun A Series of Unfortunate Events American Horror Story: Asylum Babysitter's Club (2020) Batman (the old Adam West version) Better Call Saul Black Mirror Blackbeard's Ghost (Peter Ustinov) Boston Legal Boy Meets World Boys Over Flowers Bromance (Taiwanese tv series) Brooklyn 99 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cadfael Cagney and Lacey Charmed (2018) Chopped Cleopatra 2525 Cloak and Dagger Clue (1985) Community Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Dead Like Me Dead To Me Deadwood Death Note (Netflix) Derry Girls Dimension 20 - The Unsleeping City Doctor Who (New) Doom Patrol Dracula's Daughter (1936) Escape to the Chateau Farscape Fingersmith Galavant Godzilla (2014) Gokushufudo (2020 Japanese TV drama) Golden Girls Good Omens H20: Just Add Water (somewhere in seasons 1-2) Happy New Year Harley Quinn movie Hateblog a REALLY STRAIGHT soap opera. Haunting of Bly Manor His Dark Materials (HBO series) Holes Hot Fuzz House Inception Inside No. 9 Iron Chef America Joan of Arcadia Julie and the Phantoms Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Kamen Rider Build Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Kamen Rider Fourze Killing Eve Knives Out Letterkenny Leverage Little Women (2019) Lucifer Matlock Majisuka Gakuen MASH Merlin Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol Money Talks (1997 film) Motherland: Fort Salem Murder She Wrote Mythbusters Nailed It! Never Have I Ever Once Upon a Time Orphan Black Pen 15 PGSM Pi (1998) Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018) Pride and Prejudice: A New Musical Puppy Bowl Pushing Daisies Rome (hateblog) Russian Doll Sabrina Sense8 Sera Myu: Un Nouveau Voyage Shameless Sierra Burgess Smallville So Weird Star Trek: TOS (or their films) Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Voyager Stargate Atlantis Suckerpunch Supernatural (out of context speedrun the last three episodes) Sweetheart Switched at Birth Tall Girl Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles The Addams Family (1964) The Big Flower Fight The Booth at the End The Bride With White Hair The Crown The Fresh Prince of Bel Air The Good Place The Kissing Booth The L Word The Librarians The Magicians The Muppet Show The Pregnancy Pact The Room The Steve Harvey Show The Stranded The Untamed The Witcher The Wolfman (1941) Torchwood Twilight Zone (original) Twin Peaks Ultraman Nexus Umbrella Academy Van Helsing Warehouse 13 Warrior Nun What We Do In The Shadows (tv show) Will & Grace Wynonna Earp X-Men 2: X-Men United Xena: Warrior Princess

Miscellaneous

Alpha Flight #41-62 Anime music dance party, the logistics of which are to be determined! Ask Hot Pocket and/or Mina-pup AskSharknado: Giftening Edition Attempt to make French macaroons Commentary on old Goggles Critical Role Crowdsourced: A Black Mirror-style day where Jetty has to ask what her choices are of the audience for everything! I give you a menu, you decide what she has for dinner? What does she wear? Does she walk on the track or do the eliptical? Does she go to a movie with Doc or play a video game with Mike? Can be done alongside other stuff. Doodle Day Dramatic readings of fan fiction! Drunk History (or whatever your favorite subject would be) with Jet Wolf! Drunk Sailor Moon Exorcising Closet Ghost Fic Prompts Day Figuarts Day! (Not specifically freeing anyone, just various fun poses and such) Guess the plot of a show based on its opening Her Shim-Cheong (manhwa) House of X/Powers of X Hubby's Choice IDW Jem comics liveblog Intros Only (watch show openings, give commentary, guess what show is about, etc.) Jackbox Games Jet Wolf paints along with Bob Ross Jet and Doc go to Heaven/Hell, respectively: Jet gets to write reams of words about the awesomeness of Rei Hino and Doc has to read all of them and say ONLY NICE THINGS. Jet does Tiktok dances Jet Liveblogs Holligay: A Nature Documentary Jet Ranks Sailor Moon Image Songs Jet Reads Goosebumps Jet Reads Legion of Super-Heroes Jet redesigns the Wolf and Gay offices! Jet shows off her knitting Jet Wolf attempts to recreate scenes from Sailor Moon with Mina and Hot Pocket and/or whatever is in the house Jet Wolf reacts to Sailor Moon tiktoks (in blog form) Jet Wolf reads Love and Rockets. Jet Wolf reads the Jem comics by IDW Jet Wolf reviews her old top 100 Sailor Moon moments list Jet Wolf talks about Archie Comics Jet Wolf talks about each cel she owns and why they are so awesome. Jet Wolf writes Poetry Jet Wolf's Top 5's Jet, Hubby and/or family play board games Jetty Rants and Raves Jet Wolf tries to crack the Gravity Falls Codes Kiwi Blitz on Hiveworks Let's Play on Webtoon Liveblog: Favorite X-Men comic book arcs Livestream Pathfinder one-shot LOONA (Collection of music videos with an ongoing story/universe about GIRLS who are FRIENDS and SAVE THE UNIVERSE) Lore Olympus on Webtoon Mike regales us with "the story of your love" while you get increasingly embarrassed Mina and Hot Pocket day - liveblog like a nature documentary Mister Tsukino Does His Taxes and the Household Budget (Sailor Moon fan comic by Shadowjack) Nancy Drew: Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake Not So Shoujo Love Story on Webtoon Pitch Mishaps for Untitled Senshi Game (it is a lovely day in Juuban, and you are a Horrible Minako.) Pitching hubby's favorite media at (readers/holligay/jill/momigay) Playing with dolls (because how could 3 women not have any dolls between them) Re-Take By Studio Kimigabuchi (All Ages Version) Real or Fake Anime (people submit descriptions of anime you guess if it is an anime that actually exists or not) Reviewing succulents Scavenger hunt! Not entirely sure how it would work, maybe folks could send in asks for you to show things like your favorite Rei Hino object, or the thing that's been with you the longest, etc. sewing/knitting/baking tutorial Share or rant about a Roman history topic Sleepless Domain on Hiveworks Talking to Docholligay 2: Doc Harder (basically you talking to Doc's future womb evictee while still in there and telling them stuff like say the greatness of Rei Hino) The Monster Duchess and Contract Princess (manhwa) The Polar Bear Plunge--I take Jetty to our finest Lake Elmo in January, and she jumps in! Note: THIS IS NOT DANGEROUS, WORRYWARTS. I'll bring a life preserver, I've done it before, and I would do it with her if I weren't pregnant. The Senshi Helpline--The Senshi, taking your advice questions, here and now! The World of Moral Reversal Virtual knitting/crafting circle! Let us craft and chat with you! What-If #24 Gwen Stacy Lived Worm the web serial Write an explanation for a drawing we send you! Yuri Hell's Kitchen