#character: simone nichols

[flatbstanley]

From Poppy’s Simstagram (@.poppity.pops):

Finally 13 and finally on Simsta!!

@.just.simone: love you <3 <3 <3 @.gianna.grace: Happy birthday. Think about the message your dress is sending. @.just.simone: shut up gia @.gianna.grace: That's not very Christian of you. @.just.simone: and you're so perfect? please

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Wanna know about my history with soap operas? Well... I know that I’ve shared my love for Dominique Deveraux - TV’s First Black Bitch on the original Dynasty, but that wasn’t the only soap that I watched as a kid and while she was my first, here are a few more Black women in soap operas who I paid attention to (and mostly saw first on soaps).

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Senait Ashenafi ♡ Keesha Ward, General Hospital: This is one of my favorite soap girls of all times. She was sweet and pretty, and she was in one of my first ships as a preteen? I don't recall how old I was when I was watching this, but I was obsessed. I would rewatch her scenes with Jason all the time on VHS tapes. I stopped watching some time after they broke up.

Felecia Bell ♡ Simone Hardy, General Hospital: I did not watch General Hospital during the days of earlier Simone casting. But in my soaps heyday, and I mean I set the VCR for my soaps when I wasn't home and watched them when I got home, and Felecia Bell was Simone at that time period. I thought it was interesting to see a character that I was told had a historical landmark for daytime tv.

Renee Elise Goldsberry ♡ Evangeline Williamson, One Life to Live: I had many run ins with OLTL, but the last time I watched it, I had been lured back by one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life! I CRIED when she left the show. I tried to stick around to see what they'd do with her sister, but I quickly lost interest and have not seen the show since.

Rhonda Ross ♡ Toni Burrell, Another World: I wasn't extremely fond of this character, but she had the first Black rape survivor story arc that I can recall seeing and I still remember images of the court trail in my mind today. AND! She was the first Diana Ross child that I knew of. Diana Ross was so important to me in my childhood, her daughter was important by proximity.

Tracey Ross, Brook Kerr, Lena Cardwell ♡ The Russells, Passions: Sometimes... You see a show that is like a decade long fever dream. That show is Passions. Some might have called it a guilty pleasure, but I don't be guilty about my pleasures and Passions was my pleasure. NONSENSE! But very entertaining. I was not around for all them Simones, but Idk the two lightskint ones apart, so idk which one was on by the time I simply fell off this show.

Lynn Hamilton ♡ Cissie Johnson, Dangerous Women: I definitely didn't see her first in Dangerous Women, but her role in that, as Cissie Johnson was a pretty significant part of a short lived serious that I thought was amazing. It was about women who had been in prison, one fakes her death, escapes, Sqand gets plastic surgery, and there's a lot of stuff that revolves around the ex cons. Cissie was kind of a mammy character, in hindsight, but as a kid, she was a nice Black lady on a show full of snakes and liars.

She was also on Generations, a soap opera that I called, "The Black Soap Opera," because there were SO MANY Black people in the cast, and other soaps just did not do that back then.

Sidenote: Generations was the first time that I saw Vivica A. Fox, but I didn't learn her name until Patti Labelle's sitcom Out All Night. Y'all have NO IDEA how much I loved and watched any and every Black show they gave us, even though they never really lasted long. I missed Generations SO MUCH, despite it only being on for a couple of years.

Sharon Leal ♡ Dahlia Crede, Guiding Light: I thought she was the most beautiful woman ever to be on a soap opera. That was basically it. I was only sort of watching Guiding Light, so I barely remember anything about her character, but I collected every photo of her that they put into my mama's soap magazines.

Mari Morrow ♡ Rachel Gannon, One Life to Live: This character also has been recast several times, but during my consumption, it was Mari Morrow, when Rachel was in her addiction storyline.

Enuka Okuma ♡ Kelly, Fifteen: It took me a ridiculous amount of time to remember that Enuka had been Kelly on Fifteen!! I was excited to realize that, even though still to this day, nobody I speak with ever remembers this show. A Nickolodeon teen drama? Excellent, I loved it. Nick was so good in my day.

I included Arseman, even though I have not seen her since. But, she was rep too, so. There she is.

Sherri Saum ♡ Vanessa Hart, Sunset Beach: Now... this one is a little different, because I don't remember actually LIKING this character, but she's pretty and whenever I'd see people reblog that Fosters show, I'd always envision my older sister imitating her soap character's boyfriend saying her name (Because my sister hated his acting and imitated him funnily to me) First time I saw this lady and that man, but he later wound up in Shondaland.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Garcelle Beauvais ♡ Cynthia Nicols, Models Inc.: This show was a primetime soap. A spin off of Melrose Place. (Melrose Place being a spin off of Beverly Hills 90210), and Garcelle Beauvais gabe me EVERYTHING an angsty child needed inher soaps. This character went through SO MUCH and was SO important to me! She was bulimic. She had an obsessive ex who stalked her. Who KIDNAPPED her and assaulted her in front of her tied up new boyfriend. He had been sending her Black Barbie dolls bound and blindfolded, and when she got down with her new man, he yoinked her. She wound up having to kill him and I supported every moment of her in that one season of a show it feels like only me, my mama and my older sister watched.

[ezzysartifact]

Fandoms I Write For

School Spirits

Simon Elroy (i love him sm pls)

Maddie Nears

Wally Clark (will not post for him much since he has tons of content already)

Rhonda

Platonic! Xavier Baxter

Platonic! Charley

Z-O-M-B-I-E-S

Wyatt Lykensen (literally watched the movies because of Pearce so)

Willa Lykensen

Zed Necrodopolis

Eliza Zambie

A-Spen

A-Lan

Platonic! Wynter Barkowitz

Cobra Kai

Demetri Alexopoulos (aka my spirit animal)

Tory Nichols

Miguel Diaz

Samantha LaRusso

Aisha Robinson

Chris

Johnny Lawrence

Amanda LaRusso

Platonic! Robby Keene

Platonic! Eli/Hawk Moskowitz

Platonic! Kenny Payne (mentor vibes)

Mech-X4

Mark Walker

Veracity Campbell

Ryan Walker

Spyder Johnson

Platonic! Harris Harris Jr (whoever named him that sucks)

Blue Beetle

Jaime Reyes

Milagro Reyes

Jenny Kord

Platonic! Rudy Reyes

My Babysitter’s A Vampire

Sarah Fox (literally the only character)

Benny Weir

Ethan Morgan

Erica Jones

Platonic! Rory Keaner

Platonic! Horace “Jesse” Black

Julie and the Phantoms

Luke Patterson

Reggie Peters

Platonic! Alex Mercer

Platonic! Julie Molina

Willie

[buffdaddyphoenix]

What the gen z ace attorney characters watch on tik tok

Apollo

Cat tik tok!!!

Gets a lot of motivational vid tik toks and hes rly not sure why

But its coz he's also on self-depreciation + mento ewness tik tok 💀

Athena

Dog tik tok

Is on workout tik tok and bookmarks all the vids but never does them 💀

Maya

Cmon u already KNOW she's on cosplay tik tok

Also on the horrific obscure meme/comedy tik tok

Has been using tik tok since it officially became tik tok from musical.ly so she's been there since the "hit or miss" days

Simon

Also on cosplay tik tok

(He and maya follow each other and send vids to each other frequently)

Also on Japanese tik tok

On eboy tik tok but he doesn't know why and is trying to get off it by tricking the algorithm but what he doesn't know is that he's making it worse and putting more eboy content on his fyp

Franziska

On lesbian tik tok

Idk why but she strikes me as the kind of gal to be on cottagecore tik tok and fashion tik tok too

Ema

Animal tik tok

Science tik tok

Watches vsauce too, probably

Kay

Hacker tik tok (even tho she doesn't know shit abt computers she likes to daydream abt implementing it as a great thief)

Gets a bunch of tik toks with those filters and uses all of them and posts all of her results!

Klavier

Sorry to break it to you but he's on normie weird-ass-horny-teenager-dancing tik tok

Hes prolly a tik tok celebrity and is the ones posting the vids tbh

Has been using it since musical.ly days (and was a celebrity on it too) and effortlessly transitioned to tik tok

Daryan

Right up there with klavier

EVEN HORNIER THO LIKE GOD

hes the one who makes the "duet this vid!" coz its a weird horny roleplay one u know how they go

Didn't start using it until he noticed klavier getting popular on it too so he joined in

They make horny duo tik tok dance vids together with their shirts off

Nahyuta

When he first came to the US he was quickly enamored with travelling tik toks abt khura'in

Spiritual tik tok

Keeps getting like tarot and astrology tik toks but he hates it coz it's like blasphemy

Cat tik tok!!!

Wocky

I havent played aa4 in literally forever but tell me why I can imagine wocky being absolutely bombarded with the "Amazon finds" tik toks and buying every little thing he sees off tik tok shop

Vera Misham

Tutorial/diy tik tok

Lots of recipes, art tips, mental health tips, etc. in her saved/likes

Asmr tik tok too !

Juniper Woods

COTTAGECORE TIK TOK NEED I SAY MORE

Frog tik tok, nature tik tok, u know the deal

Farm animal tik tok too

Is on horny anime tik tok but you'd never mf know it

Penny Nichols

Ma'am this cute girl is providing content on horny anime tik tok pardon u..........

If u have more ideas or disagree pls feel free to add them!!! I couldn't think of anything for robin newman, hugh o'connor, clay, and ....eustace... coz I haven't played aai2 yet lolll

[pennysperfectpolls]

so what are the submitted Penny stats like so far? If you want to share anything before the polls, of course.

I’d be happy to share!

We have 55 submissions and 26 unique Pennies.

Only three submissions I had to invalidate, two for being real people including myself, one for being the victor of the first tournament.

The character with the highest number of submissions is Penny Lamb/Jane doe from Ride the cyclone and legoland with 10 submissions. I’m not surprised since she had the 2nd highest submissions the first time around and was the only one submitted to the adoption poll.

She’s followed closely by Penny Nichols from Ace Attorney with 8. This one is a surprise since she only got 2 the first time and didn’t make it as far in the tournament.

Penny from Pokemon has 6 submissions but only one short sentence of propaganda.

Strangest submissions: someone sent in their club penguin character which i aloud in as an oc bc funny. Persephone was submitted along with an explanation of Pennyness and it was weird enough that i allowed it. (I submitted Leonie Pinelli last year so I can’t judge, I will happen again)

There are 35 Pennies submitted to last poll that have not been resubmitted and 10 brand new Pennies so far.

Number of submissions will be used to determine tournament seeding so feel free to submit repeat characters.

Full list of submissions under the cut

Number on the left is the order of submission. NP stands for no propaganda. S[#] is the number of submissions.

1: Penny Polendina (RWBY) s5

2: Penelope Garcia (Criminal Minds) np

3: Penny Lamb/Jane doe (Ride the cyclone/legoland) s10

4: Penny (Pokémon) s6

5: Penny Carter (Project Blue Earth SOS) np

6: Pen Pen (Neon genesis evangelion)

7: Penny (Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog) s2

8: Penny Nichols (Ace Attorney) s8

9: Penelope Akk/Bad Penny (Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain) np

10: Penelope Eckhart (Villains are destined to die)

11: Penny Pointer (Tangle Tower)

12: Lieutenant Penumbra (Ducktales) np

13: Penny Pringleton (Hairspray) s2

14: Alfred Pennyworth (Batman) np

15: Penelope (The Odyssey) s2

16: Penny (stardew valley) s2

17: Penny Gadget (Inspector Gadget) s2

18: Penny (The Rescuers) np

19: Penelope "Penny" Bunce (The Simon Snow Series)

20: Penny (SpongeBob SquarePants)

21: Penny Luckstone (Dimension 20)

22: Penny Rescher (Hello From The Hallowoods)

23: Penny Fitzgerald (The Amazing World of Gumball) np

24: Pennyuin1 (Club Penguin OC)

25: Penn Zero (Penn Zero: Part Time Hero) np

26: Persephone (Greek Myth)

[deathmetalangel]

ENVY’S MASTERLIST

this includes every character i write for and a link to their current personal master lists if i have works out for them (warnings may vary and minors dni)

this is in no particular order of character btw but my favorites will have a neat little asterisk

refer to what i don’t and do write in my separate post. also this is constantly being updated so don’t mind it much. you can always request a character if it’s not listed there’s no harm in asking :)

ADVENTURE TIME

- marceline*

- princess bubblegum

- marshal lee*

- finn

- fiona

AKAME GA KILL!

- esdeath*

- tatsumi

- akame

- kurome

AMERICAN HORROR STORY

- tate langdon*

- violet harmon

- kyle spencer

- nora montgomery

- moira o’hara

APEX LEGENDS

- bloodhound (no smut)

- wraith

- wattson

- octane

- loba

- revenant

- lifeline

- valkyrie

- crypto

AVATAR

- jake sulley*

- neytiri

- kiri

- neteyam*

- lo’ak

- aonung

- tsireya

AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

- prince zuko*

- princess azula*

- sokka*

- katara

- aang

- suki

- yue

-jett

- ty lee

- mai

BIG MOUTH

- judd birch*

- val bilzerian*

- connie

- mona

BOKU NO HERO ACADEMIA

- izuku midoriya

- keigo takami

- touya todoroki

- shoto todoroki

- katsuki bakugo

- himeko toga

- tomura shigaraki

- tamaki amajiki

CALL OF DUTY

- simon ‘ghost’ riley

- john ‘soap’ mctavish

- könig

- valeria garza*

- alejandro vargas*

COBRA KAI/ KARATE KID

- robby keene

- miguel diaz*

- johnny lawrence

- daniel larusso

- tory nichols

- eli ‘hawk’ moskowitz*

- demetri alexopoulos

DARLING IN THE FRANXX

- zero two

- hiro

- mitsuru*

- ichigo

DEATH NOTE

- misa amane

- light yagami

- l

DEMON SLAYER

- tanjiro kamado*

- nezuko kamado

- kyojuro rengoku*

- giyu tomioka*

- shinobu kocho

- sanemi shinazugawa*

- genya shinazugawa*

- zenitsu agatsuma

- inosuke hasibira*

- muichiro tokito

- mitsuri kanroji

- iguro obanai*

- tengen uzui

HAZBIN HOTEL/ HELLUVA BOSS

- alastor* (i fully respect his asexuality so no smut :3 since he’s not canon aro i still write for him)

- angel dust

- charlie morningstar

- vaggie

- loona

- millie

- moxxie

- verosika mayday

- stolas goetia

- barbie wire

- striker

- octavia goetia

- adam*

- lute

- lucifer morningstar*

- rosie

- the vees

HOCUS POCUS

- max dennison

- thackery binx

- sarah sanderson

MARVEL

- peter parker

- wanda maximoff

- pietro maximoff*

- tony stark

- natasha romanoff

- k'uk'ulkan*

- killmonger*

- miguel o’hara*

MID90S

- ray*

- fuckshit

- fourth grade*

- ruben (no smut)

- stevie (no smut)

MY BABYSITTERS A VAMPIRE

- jesse white

- sarah fox

- ethan morgan

- benny weir*

- rory keener

- erica jones

NARUTO

- naruto uzumaki

- sasuke uchiha*

- sakura haruno

- minato namikaze

- hinata hyuga

- neji hyuga

- itachi uchiha*

- shisui uchiha*

- kakashi hatake*

- haku yuki

- pain*

- konan

- sasori

- deidara

RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2

- arthur morgan*

- sadie adler

- dutch van der lide

- mary linton*

- john marston

- lenny summers

- javier escuella

- mary-beth gaskill

SCREAM

- ethan landry*

- billy loomis

- stu macher

- sydney prescott

- tatum riley

STARDEW VALLEY

- alex*

- harvey

- haley*

- sam

- abigail

- emily

- shane

- sebastian

- elliott

- maru

- penny

- leah

STAR WARS

- din djarin*

- anakin skywalker*

- padme amidala*

- poe dameron

- luke skywalker

- leia skywalker

- ahsoka tano*

- han solo

- bo katan kreze

THE MIGHTY DUCKS

- charlie conway*

- adam banks*

- guy germaine

- dean portman

- julie gaffney

- connie moreau

- luis mendoza

THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY

- conrad fisher*

- steven conklin*

- jeremiah fisher

- belly conklin*

- taylor jewel

TWILIGHT

- alice cullen

- jasper hale*

- rosalie hale

- edward cullen

- jacob black*

- paul lahote

- leah clearwater

- seth clearwater*

- bella swan

- alec volturi*

- jane volturi

- victoria

[oscarupsets]

Sidney Poitier led two Best Picture nominees in 1967: In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Sadly, the latter is not the Upset this week, but that just means I'll have to return to it later.

Disregarding the fact that I feel like I just watched a Sidney Poitier film heavy-handed on race relations, In the Heat of the Night was a real treat to watch.

Poitier and Steiger's performances are the highlight of the whole film, even alongside some odd minor characters. The lighting and visuals are also super pleasing. There's a blip on the Wikipedia (that directs to a book I cannot access) that describes the attention to detail the crew used to light Poitier for a color film, opposed to his previous B&W.

The title song is also very catchy. It sticks in my head just as much as the song from High Noon.

The Graduate was the highest grossing film of 1967, and also had very catchy songs (given it's basically the same 3 Simon & Garfunkel songs over and over again).

Just as described in the Variety review, The Graduate is great for the first hour or so. I think Dustin Hoffman as a human can go kick rocks, but his performance in this one is just so ridiculous that it's perfect. He plays "overly anxious" so well, to the point that he's often caught in complete silence making small sounds at himself.

The ended seemed weird and incomplete, but I wouldn't discount the rest of the film because of it.

The 40th Academy Awards saw a major change - below-the-line crafts with B&W and Color categories (art direction, costume design, etc.) combined back into singular categories.

In the Heat of the Night dominated on Oscar night, but The Graduate and other top-nominated films still took home plenty of awards earlier in the season.

The Graduate was highly recognized for its direction from Mike Nichols. Last year's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was Nichols' directorial debut, and he will later become a competitive EGOT winner.

Surprisingly, In the Heat of the Night was not recognized by the National Board of Review in 1967, but has been recognized alongside The Graduate in all other major lists. The Graduate topped the original AFI list at #7, while In the Heat of the Night entered the updated list at #75.

Unofficial Review: This is not an upset. The Graduate was (is it still?) a classic and is fine to watch, but not even Mike Nichols can direct his way out of that unbalanced plot.

[trust-and-jump]

continuum (2012) CANADIAN SCI-FI

This show is great. I watched it in 2017. And i have no idea why there are almost no people talking about it. If you didn't watch it do it.it might be a little slow in the beginning but it's still great. Just. Nice.

There is time travel (from 2077 to 2012), good-to-bad and bad-that-looks-like-good and good-that-is-actually-not, dystopia, subtle details about the future, not subtle details of future, VERY interesting change of view on what is the 'bad' side and what is the 'good' one, and then there are just no sides at all, just people. AND ALSO THE BAD GUY SENDS PEOPLE BACK IN TIME TO FIX THE MESS HE'S DONE. Very cool.

By the way the main character doubting her side. 10000/10. Just watch it.

Created by Simon Barry. Starring: Rachel Nichols, Victor Webster, Erik Knudsen, Stephen Lobo, Roger Cross, Lexa Doig, Tony Amendola, Omari Newton, Luvia Petersen, Jennifer Spence, Brian Markinson, Ryan Robbins.

[justforbooks]

Alan Arkin, who has died aged 89, was a star at the beginning of his career and a beloved character actor until the end. Though best known for comedies, most notably Catch-22 (1970) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006), lightness was not necessarily his forte; even at his funniest, he exuded gravitas. “I’ve studied acting seriously,” he said in 1982. “I’m not the clown who wants to be Hamlet or anything like that. I just think that regarding oneself as comic means that one’s primary obligation is to get laughs.”

He could be a prickly figure. “Alan does not meet you halfway as an actor,” said the writer-director Marshall Brickman, who cast him as a brainwashed scientist in the science-fiction comedy Simon (1980). “He’s a very serious actor. I think he’s brilliant. But he’s not interested in winning you over via personality. The way he photographs has a kind of austerity that’s a little hard for an audience to take. You either like Alan or you don’t.” The Oscar Arkin won for playing a heroin-snorting grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine ratified his status as a US national treasure.

Arkin was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Beatrice (nee Wortis) and David Arkin, both schoolteachers. As a child, he attended acting classes. The family moved to Los Angeles when Alan was 11, but trouble befell the family when David was accused of communist affiliations (disproved posthumously) during the McCarthy era.

Alan studied acting at Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences (now California State University, Los Angeles) before transferring to Bennington College, Vermont. In 1955, he married Jeremy Yaffe, and became active in the folk music scene. Along with fellow members of his group, the Tarriers, he was credited as co-writer of The Banana Boat Song (Day-O), an adaptation of a Jamaican folk standard. (A different version was a hit for Harry Belafonte.)

After an inauspicious film debut with the Tarriers in Calypso Heat Wave (1957), he threw in his lot with acting. He made his off-Broadway debut in the late 1950s and joined the Chicago improvisational group the Compass Players in 1959. This led to a stint with the Chicago improv troupe Second City and his Broadway debut, in 1961, in the company’s show From the Second City, which he co-wrote.

Arkin did not forgo folk music entirely: he formed the children’s group the Babysitters, which also featured Yaffe until their divorce. The band was later joined by his second wife, the actor and writer Barbara Dana, whom he married in 1964.

He left Second City after landing the lead on Broadway in a 1963 production, Enter Laughing, for which he won a Tony award. In the same year, he wrote, scored and starred in the Oscar-nominated short film That’s Me. Norman Jewison gave him his first major film role in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), a comic take on cold war paranoia. Arkin received an Oscar nomination for his performance as a lieutenant on a Soviet submarine that runs aground in New England.

His range was indisputable. Comparisons to Peter Sellers abounded even before Arkin took the title role in the misguided, off-piste comedy Inspector Clouseau (1968). He accepted a rare villainous part in Wait Until Dark (1967), terrorising a blind Audrey Hepburn. In the same year, he played one of Shirley MacLaine’s lovers in Vittorio de Sica’s portmanteau film Woman Times Seven. He won a second Oscar nomination for playing a deaf man in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), adapted from the novel by Carson McCullers, and starred as a Puerto Rican widower raising his children in Popi (1969).

His landmark role came when he was cast as the anxious bombardier Yossarian in Mike Nichols’s film of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. The New York Times critic Vincent Canby summed up Arkin’s appeal: “[He] is not a comedian; he is a deadly serious actor, but because he projects intelligence with such monomaniacal intensity, he is both funny and heroic at the same time.” The eight-month shoot was an arduous experience for the actor. “If they had shot footage of the making of the film,” he said, “it would’ve been a hell of a lot closer to the book than the movie was.”

Arkin had already directed several shorts when he embarked on his full-length directing debut, an adaptation of Jules Feiffer’s blackly comic play Little Murders (1971), set in a fractured and hostile New York City. The film’s critical reputation has grown steadily along with that of Arkin’s follow-up, Fire Sale (1977). Both pictures exhibit an acidic, rueful comic tone consistent with the mood of 1970s independent cinema.

In the same decade, Arkin played a long-distance truck driver in Deadhead Miles (1972), scripted by Terrence Malick; unsure how to market this eccentric road movie, Paramount shelved it, though it has surfaced occasionally on television. He teamed up with James Caan in the action comedy Freebie and the Bean (1974), with Peter Falk in The In-Laws (1979) and with Jeff Bridges in the 1930s-set Hearts of the West (1975). In The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1977), he played Sigmund Freud, who welcomes Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson) as a patient. He was a washed-up superhero in the Australian musical comedy The Return of Captain Invincible (1983) and a concentration camp prisoner in Escape from Sobibor (1987).

During the 1990s, Arkin’s movie career began its second flourishing. He specialised in sympathetic father figures in Coupe de Ville and Edward Scissorhands (both 1990) and Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), and played a desperate salesman in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), the film of David Mamet’s play. He was also memorable as an assassin’s psychiatrist in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997). An acclaimed performance as a troubled insurance manager in Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001) attracted further awards.

The independent smash Little Miss Sunshine exploited Arkin’s contradictory qualities of coarseness and warmth. After that, most of his films felt minor: in 2008 he delivered another beneficent father routine in Sunshine Cleaning and a helping of spy antics in Get Smart, and was a twinkly editor in the family hit Marley & Me. More challenging was Rebecca Miller’s drama The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), in which Arkin played a man married to a woman 30 years his junior. His fond portrayal of a grizzled movie producer in Argo (2012), Ben Affleck’s thriller set during the Iran hostage crisis, was hugely admired and was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar.

He starred with Al Pacino and Christopher Walken as ageing crooks reuniting for one last job in Stand Up Guys (2012), and with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman as retirees who plot to rob a bank after losing their pensions in Going in Style (2017). He was also in Tim Burton’s live-action remake of Dumbo (2019) and played a Hollywood agent in the Netflix series The Kominsky Method (2019) with Michael Douglas.

In 2020, he published Out of My Mind, which detailed his 20-year friendship with his spiritual mentor John Battista, though Battista’s full name is not mentioned in the book, nor his fall from grace (Battista was charged with the sexual abuse of several women and one girl) and suicide. The scandal caused a kind of paralysis in Arkin for six months, he told the Guardian in 2020. “But I doggedly went on and I’m glad that I did.”

He is survived by his third wife, Suzanne Newlander, whom he married in 1996, two sons, Adam and Matthew, from his first marriage, and a son, Anthony, from his second marriage.

🔔 Alan Wolf Arkin, actor and director, born 26 March 1934; died 29 June 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[world-cinema-research]

Short Essay: The Graduate (1967)

by Rachel Powers

Mike Nichols’ The Graduate, starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, is the coming-of-age story of Benjamin, an aimless college graduate contemplating the direction of his life. During this tumultuous period, Benjamin is seduced by an older woman, Mrs. Robinson, only to end up falling in love with her daughter Elaine.

The film, adapted from Charles Webb’s novel of the same name, was released in December 1967, The Graduate has made a worldwide gross amount of $105,015,318 on an estimated $3 million budget. It was a huge success, resulting in Mike Nichols’ 1968 Oscar win for Best Director. Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, and Katharine Ross were also nominated for Oscars for their roles. The Graduate also won a Grammy for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture.

Mike Nichols winning Best Director at the 1968 Oscars

“'The Graduate,' the funniest American comedy of the year, is inspired by the free spirit which the young British directors have brought into their movies. It is funny, not because of sight gags and punch lines and other tired rubbish, but because it has a point of view. That is to say, it is against something. Comedy is naturally subversive… In the direct style of new British directors, the audience is the target of the joke, and the funny events do not happen in the movie -- they are the movie… When something funny happens, the actors don't react; the movie itself reacts by what it shows next.” – Roger Ebert (1967)

Even the original poster of the movie expresses the humor that Roger Ebert wrote about in his review. The quote "This is Benjamin. He's a little worried about his future," paired with an image of the character behind a woman's leg pulling on a stocking, portrays the comedy that is to be found in this film.

 A great example of Roger Ebert's observation of the movie reacting to comedy rather than the actors reacting to it is the scene where Benjamin grabs Mrs. Robinson's breast. Mrs. Robinson is unfazed and fusses with her sweater. Benjamin turns around, walks across the room, and bangs his head against the wall. In fact, this was all unscripted. Dustin Hoffman spontaneously improvised grabbing Anne Bancroft's breast and found her lack of reaction so funny that he almost broke character. To stay in character, he had to turn around, walk away, and bang his head against the wall to hide his laughter from Mike Nichols. This improvised scene made it into the final cut.

Any review of The Graduate would be remiss to leave out Simon and Garfunkel’s musical contribution. The famous song “Mrs. Robinson” was written specifically for The Graduate, and the film’s score hosts many of their other songs such as The Sound of Silence, Scarborough Fair, and April Come She Will.

Paul Simon describes the incarnation of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson”

"Simon and Garfunkel’s eerie and sublime The Sound of Silence perfectly captures both Ben’s alienation and bewilderment about what he should do with his life, and then his postcoital disenchantment and self-loathing. And Here’s to You Mrs Robinson, with its gentle reassurance that Jesus loves her, provides a note of final gentleness and forgiveness for this character that is really nowhere in the script." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (2017)

In the above clip, the Simon and Garfunkel song “The Sound of Silence” is used to join scenes of Benjamin's emptiness. Dustin Hoffman's vacant facial expressions pair well with Simon and Garfunkel's music to express the isolation the character is feeling. This adds to the films style, look, and feel as well with this demonstration of the passage of time.

The beginning of the song “Mrs. Robinson” starts at night when Benjamin is searching for Elaine. The intro of the song (instrumental, with the only lyrics being "de de de de") is dragged out while overlaying a few scenes as Benjamin continues his search. As dawn breaks, Benjamin drives onto the Bay Bridge towards Berkeley and the song breaks into its full version. I find Peter Bradshaw's observation of this song's impact very enlightening. Although not in the script, the use of this song and its lyrics does offer the feel of forgiveness towards Mrs. Robinson.

The style of the film is also quite consistent in it's camera work. At times, certain camera shots and angles are used to add or remove distance from characters. In the beginning of the film, the shot is framed tight onto Benjamin’s face at the party. Although all he wants to do is escape, the guest of the party proceed to invade his personal space as demonstrated through these crowded, tight shots.

Camera zooms were also used to create distance, as such in the scene where Mrs. Robinson says goodbye to Benjamin after he confessed the affair to Elaine.

A conventional film, The Graduate was made to make money and appeal to both older and younger generations. At the time, Mike Nichols was a relatively new director who had just seen success with his first film, Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf. Dustin Hoffman was virtually unknown as an actor, and this was his first feature film. The use of Simon and Garfunkel’s music for the score compounded the audience draw. Prior to The Graduate’s release, they performed at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, which is widely regarded as the beginning of “The Summer of Love.” Influential in their reach, it is no doubt that their participation in The Graduate drew larger numbers to the box office.

In 1967, the younger generations were becoming more rebellious, resistant, and unconforming, which was a fitting audience for those same themes found in The Graduate. This was also demonstrated in protest events such as the March on the Pentagon in 1967.

“Flower Power,” the famous photograph by Bernie Boston, taken at the March on the Pentagon in 1967. This image was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

The Graduate has inspired other movies, especially with its older-woman-younger-man relationship dynamic. Films such as Harold & Maude and American Pie notably use this same dynamic. The term “Mrs. Robinson” is still used to this day in popular culture to refer to age-gap relationships or attractive older woman (sometimes also referred to as “cougars.”) Although released in 1967, this film is just as entertaining and relevant today as it was then.

[momsforroadhead]

top 5 movies that you had to watch for uni

5. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance by John Ford (written by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck, based on a book by Dorothy M. Johnson): MY HUSBAND JAMES STEWART is in this movie. i watched it with hater friends who hated it but don't take their word for it please. if you like westerns but shy away from the violence you will like this movie (and probably already know it). imo it showcases an alternative side of masculinity in a genre that so often focuses on one single side. beautiful friendship between men. thematically extremely well done.

4. Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder (written by Wilder, Charles Brackett and D. M. Marshman Jr.): absolute classic, the atmosphere is perfect, the story is sooooo good, the characters are so well written and memorable. an iconic movie!!!

3. The Graduate by Mike Nichols (written by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry): Yeah i'm a sucker for a loser. again i watched this movie with my sister and we were both fighting for our lives cause whenever mrs robinson was on screen my sister would just say "milf." and whenever ben was on screen i would go heart eyes. again the soundtrack is noteworthy cause it's at the same time incredibly good (simon and garfunkel) and also absurd. awesome movie with one of my favourite endings of all time

2. THE MISSION (/Cheung Fo) by Johnnie To (written by Yau Nai-Hoi): This movie made me and my sister (who hates "serious" movies and subtitles) loose our shit. fr we were treating it like a drag race finale. vibes aside the movie is technically immaculate, looks amazing, hits impeccable emotional beats, plus the score goes INSANE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp0KiMQ9ock link to the iconic theme)

The Philadelphia Story by George Cukor (written by Donald Ogden Stewart): MY HUSBAND JAMES STEWART is in this movie also. polycule movie of all time. a cukor classic. heavy hitters stewart grant and hepburn. meta relationship to katherine hepburn's real reputation in hollywood (if you want me to explain message me lmao). what can i say it's a perfect movie. and it's aabria iyengar's favourite movie!!!! enough said.

[flatbstanley]

4:45 pm—Magnolia Blossom Park

Gia: My mom said that your grandma died.

Poppy: …Yeah.

Gia: Well, that’s too bad. Especially since she wasn’t a Catholic and she didn’t go to heaven.

Gia: Thinking everybody can go to heaven is called universalism, and Daddy says it’s one of the stupidest things our modern age has come up with.

Poppy: …

Poppy: Just get out of my face, Gia. I don’t want to hear about your stupid dad or your stupid religion.

Simone: Gia was wrong, you know. I mean, what she said about your grandma going to heaven.

Simone: Father Jim always says that only God can decide who goes to heaven. But we know that God loves everybody and wants all of us to be with him, so we can always have a lot of hope.

Poppy: I-I thought that you believed like Gia did. She told me you were best friends at church.

Simone: She just says that 'cause I'm the only one who's not super mean to her. My mom says we don't have to be friends, but I have to treat her with "basic respect." Everybody knows that she and her dad are crazy, though.

Simone: Anyway...besties forever?

Poppy: Besties forever.

[penny-nichols]

You ever think about some characters who like. are canonically the same age and thus like reasonably could've gone to school together but its also not something you think about really. Like. Simon Blackquill and Penny Nichols are The Same Age. but due to the trilogy separation and stuff you just straight up dont think about things like that (unless youre me, worlds most normal penny nichols fan).

Hell, there are also plenty of characters who aren't like, exactly the same age but could still reasonably have met in school.

[merrilark]

writing request guidelines

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what i will write!

✧— reader-inserts (in third person instead of y/n format) ✧— suggestive scenes ✧— heavy whump ✧— crossovers ✧— alternate universes ✧— fix-its ✧— most genres ✧— open to canon x canon ships no matter how cracky ✧— fics based on inbox memes or songs ✧— asks answered ic from the pov of a fictional character

what i won't write!

x— your ocs unless we're friends and i am familiar with them x— explicit smut x— fic that heavily focuses on pregnancy or childbirth, especially mpreg x— fics for fandoms not on my active fandom list

══════ ∘◦❀◦∘ ══════

fandoms and characters i will write for! (bolded characters denote who i am most interested in; strikethroughs indicate that requests for that franchise or character are temporarily closed)

✧— bad samaritan ↪ cale erendreich, derek sandoval, katie hopgood, sean falco ✧— the mentalist ↪ grace van pelt, patrick jane ✧— misfits ↪ alisha daniels, curtis donovan, jamie young, jeremy, kelly bailey, louise young, mike young, nathan young, ollie, simon bellamy ✧— my little pony: friendship is magic ↪ applejack, fluttershy ✧— red riding trilogy ↪ barry "bj" anderson, eddie dunford ✧— season of the witch ↪ kay ✧— the song of sway lake ↪ charlotte sway, nikolai, ollie sway ✧— sonic the hedgehog ↪ amy, bunnie rabbot, cream, emerl, maria robotnik, omega, rouge, shadow, sonic, tails, tikal, vanilla ✧— the umbrella academy ↪ allison hargreeves, ben hargreeves (umbrella or sparrow), diego hargreeves, grace hargreeves, klaus hargreeves, luther hargreeves, reginald hargreeves, viktor hargreeves (open to writing viktor pre-transition as well) ✧— wanted: dead or alive ↪ jason nichols, josh randall

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please do not repost or edit any of my written work without my explicit permission. i reserve the right to refuse any requests for any reason.

[thesconesyard]

got sum star trek questions for ya :)

🌀 If the holodeck was real, what would be the first thing you'd use it for?

🖖 First Trek media you encountered?

👋 What's n actor, writer or creator on the show you'd love to meet?

❤️ What are your ST comfort character/s?

Oooo! Giddily clapping over here 😁😁

🌀If the holodeck was real? First off, five minutes of quiet peace all by myself, alone, no hubs or little or kids from work or coworkers or random grocery store people, just ME and ME only. Probably a nice beach scene, waves rolling in quietly, warm sand between my toes, just the right amount of warm, little palm tree shade maybe. Then, after my five minutes of wonderful solitude, maybe something fun like a tea party (with sausage rolls from my favorite tea house that shut down 😫 [boo covid] and that prosecco I had at The Empress). Who’s coming to my tea party? Number one invite? Graham Chapman. I want to pick that man’s brain. After that maybe some fictional characters (can I have a Benji Dunn meets Scotty moment? lol!)

🖖 First Trek Media encountered? So back a few years when I actually went to the gym to go running (and when I actually still ran… maybe I should try that again…) I decided it was easier to run if I was watching something. Cutting to the chase, after I finished The X-Files again, I wanted something that would occupy most of an hour and decided why the hell not watch The Original Series of Star Trek. So I did. Then I got lazy and had a kid and quit my gym membership cause kids be expensive and that money was better used elsewhere and outside is free to run in. Long story to say The Original Series 😁

👋 Who’d I want to meet from the shows? All of them? DeForest Kelley for sure, Simon Pegg definitely, Nichelle Nichols, I think it’s obvious Karl Urban.

❤️ Who’s a comfort character? Dr. McCoy, Scotty and Jaylah. Oh and why not throw in a bit of Chekov. He’s a fun little guy.

[jonahdeforest]

Postcards from the Edge (1990)

Directed by Mike Nichols, screenplay by Carrie Fisher

Synopsis: Based on Carrie Fisher's rollicking roman à clef, Postcards from the Edge follows the misadventures of Suzanne Vale (Meryl Streep) — a detoxing actress fresh out of rehab. Attached to star in a mid-budget action comedy, she must move in with her mother Doris (Shirley MacLaine) at the behest of her film's anxious producers. Doris herself is a boozing veteran of the Hollywood trenches and their reunion is not without its share of prickly exchanges.

I first saw Postcards from the Edge in my freshman year of high school, shortly after Carrie Fisher passed away. The film perfectly encapsulates Fisher's signature brand of self-deprecating wit: acerbic but never mean-spirited, observant of all things stranger than fiction. The film itself is a hilarious and often heartbreaking send-up of show business survival, underscored by Mike Nichols' performance-focused direction.

Postcards has a comforting glow about it (characteristic of late 80s-early 90s dramedies) and boasts bravura performances from its two leading ladies. Streep in particular gives a masterclass in tragicomedy, seamlessly inhabiting the beat-down candor of her character.

Not for nothing is the memorable supporting cast: Dennis Quaid, Robin Bartlett, Mary Wickes, Simon Callow, Gene Hackman, CCH Pounder and a young (and very funny) Annette Benning.

I have carried Postcards with me throughout the years — it's the kind of movie I find myself always coming back to.

If anything, watch Postcards for it's double-hitter musical performances by Streep and MacLaine.

The film is free to stream on Pluto.