#confession scene of the century where are the awards

[lesbicosmos]

[thatslikely]

Fred Weasley’s Day Off (Part 1) - F.W.

Fred Weasley’s Day Off- Fred Weasley x Gender Neutral!Reader [Ferris Bueller’s Day Off AU]

Warnings: only occasional mild language

Word Count: 4.2k

A/N: this is Part 1 of my new 5 part series, Fred Weasley’s Day Off! You can find the series masterlist here. This part is going pretty similar to the movie, but as the story unfolds, I promise it isn’t a carbon copy of John Hughe’s masterpiece. Hope you guys enjoy :)

Just a reminder: Y/N is Your Name, Y/L/N is Your Last Name, and thoughts are in italics.

Taglist: @amourtentiaa @anchoeritic @probably-peeves @horrorxweasley @weasleywh0r3s​

if you want to be added to be added to my general (or this series!)’s taglist, send me a dm or ask!

If you haven’t seen Ferris Bueller’s Day off or just need a refresher, HERE all all the scenes included in this part in chronilogical order! I HIGHLY reccomend giving these a watch, for they make the situations a lot easier to understand (and they’re hilarious).

----

It’s a beautiful day today, temperatures in the upper 70’s. You can expect plenty of sun and not a cloud in sight. Right now, it’s 75 at lakefront, 74 at Midway, 73 at the O’hare.

“Arthur!” Molly Weasley screeched, beckoning her husband to Fred and George’s messy bedroom. The walls were plastered with large posters of their favorite bands and sports teams (mainly Fred’s), and an expensive computer sat on the desk in the corner. The door to the room was ajar, a frantic mother feeling a haggard Fred Weasley’s forehead.

“What's the matter?” Arthur asked, briefcase in hand.

“It’s Fred, for Merlin’s sake look at him!”

Fred laid slumped under the hand-knitted quilt like a corpse, his hair tousled and his chin unshaved. She continued, “he doesn’t have a fever, but his stomach hurts and he’s seeing spots!” Fred peeled his pained, umber eyes open, his weak gaze pointed to his suit-clad father.

A sympathetic Arthur reached for Fred’s cold and clammy hands, feeling them with a shudder. He’s got a bad cold, he thought, poor boy needs to stay home and rest.

“I’m fine, I’ll get up. I have a test today.” Fred leaned up slightly, his stuffy nose attempting to breathe. His baggy eyes drifted around the room, glazing the empty bed parallel to his’. “No!” Molly and Arthur Weasley stated firmly in unison, pressing his aching chest into the soft bed.

“I have to take it. I-I wanna go to a good college, so I can have a fruitful life.” Fred kept attempting to get out of bed, only for Molly’s gentle hands to guide him back down.

“Oh fine, what’s this? What’s his problem?” Ron leaned against the untidy bedroom’s door frame, his arms crossed, his face donning an unamused expression tinged with jealousy. He was looking daggers into Fred, who reciprocated nothing but a wink.

“He doesn’t feel well,” Molly stated, not pleased in the slightest with Ron’s distasteful demeanor.

“Yeah, right,” Ron rebutted with a scowl. The tips of Ron’s ears seared with resentment for his brother and anger at his naive and biased parents.

“Ronnie? Is that you?” Fred asked, his blurry vision making the outline of his brother near indistinguishable from the rest of his room. “Ronnie? I can’t see that far.” Fred leaned up in an attempt to see his brother, before falling backward with a dramatic moan.

“Dry that one out, you could fertilize the garden,” the younger ginger spat, tapping his toe furiously.

“Ronald, you get to school!” Molly demanded, vehemently gesturing for him to leave.

“You’re letting him stay home? If I was bleeding out my eyes you’d still make me go to school! This is so unfair.” Jealousy oozed from Ron’s clenched jaw like venom.

“Ron, please don’t be upset with me. You have your health, be thankful,” Fred said coolly. His eyes remained glinted with mischief, causing a furious Ron to storm off in a huff.

The concerned mother and father turned back to a wheezing Fred. Molly tucked him in tighter, cooing, “Now listen, I’ll be showing that new family some houses today, so I’ll be in the area. The office will know just where to find me if you need anything, okay?” A wave of gratefulness swept over Fred’s face.

“It’s nice to know I have such loving, caring parents. You’re both very special people.” Molly caressed Fred’s ashen cheek before planting a compassionate kiss on his warm forehead.

“G’bye champ,” Arthur said to his son before carefully shutting his door and walking to the garage.

They bought it.

Incredible. One of the worst performances of my career, and they never doubted it for a second. Fred peeled back the curtains blocking the beautiful view from his large windows with a smirk. He looked out the panes, admiring the gorgeous weather. How could I be expected to go to school on a day like this?

This is my ninth sick day this semester; it’s getting pretty tough coming up with new illnesses. If I go for ten, I’ll have to barf up a lung, so I’d better make this one count. Fred carefully adjusted his extortionate stereo, his fail-proof plan slowly piecing together.

Fred then stepped over to his desk, reaching for an old, hefty soccer trophy of his and some rope. The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. He started knotting the rope around the shiny golden award methodically. A lot of people’ll tell you to go for the old ‘phony fever’, but if you’ve got a nervous mother, you could wind up in the doctor's office. That’s worse than school.

“It’s a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school.”

He scrupulously placed the trophy contraption behind his door with a satisfied nod, proceeding to the bathroom dressed in his grey and maroon striped bathrobe. Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Fred undressed and stepped into the steamy shower, quickly shampoo-ing his ginger mop into a spiky mohawk. He gave some thought about his plans for the leisurely day before removing the showerhead, gripping it like a microphone, serenading an imaginary audience, “I recall Central Park in fall. How you tore your dress, what a mess, I must confess…”

----

“Spinnet?” A greasy Mr. Snape drawled, spectacled eyes darting around the dingy classroom, illuminated with corporate fluorescent lights. “Spinnet?”

“Here!”

“Smith?” Silence. “Smith?”

“Present.”

“Weasley?” Snape asked, scanning the room for any signs of the irresponsible redhead.

“Weasley?” he repeated, uninterested and monotone. “Weasley?”

“Um, he’s sick,” a perky Cho Chang cut through the tense silence with a smile, “my best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy, who knows this kid who saw Fred pass out at Florean’s last night! I guess it’s pretty serious.”

“Thank you, Cho,” Snape said impassively.

“No problem, whatsoever!”

----

A robotic ring emitted from the phone next to Lee Jordan’s bed, disturbing the perturbed ambiance of the inert bedroom. The hypochondriac occupying the sheets clicked the silver ‘answer’ button with a shallow sigh.

“Hello?” George Weasley asked, his voice deep and groggy.

“Georgie, babe, what’s happening?” Fred’s exuberant voice questioned from the other end of the line, starkly contrasting his twin’s nonbelligerent energy.

“Very little,” he responded in a trance-like state, eyes spacing out at the blank ceiling, his mind nearly detached from his aching body.

“How do you feel?”

“Shredded.” Half-empty pill bottles and antihypertensive drugs lined the bleak nightstand to his left.

“Get dressed and come on back home. I’m taking the day off,” Fred imposed. He sat in a lounge chair, next to the turquoise pool, soaking in the bright morning sun, which starkly contrasted George’s dark atmosphere. He held a Brick to his ear, sipping an iced Hawaiian drink from a swirly straw. The only thing covering his body was a pair of floral swim trunks; plastic sunglasses rested in the ginger nest atop his head.

“I can’t stupid, I’m sick. I think I got food poisoning from Lee’s awful cooking.”

“It’s all in your head, George, come back home,” Fred said more firmly, taking another sip of the fruity drink in the souvenir cup.  

“I feel like complete shit, Fred. I can’t go anywhere.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Now come on over here so I can have a fun day off!” Fred demanded, hanging up the phone promptly. “Sheesh.”

George remained stiffly on the sheets, still as a statue, muttering, “I’m dying.” The phone chimed again with another call. Click.

“You’re not dying, you just can’t think of anything good to do!” Fred’s voice echoed through the dimly-lit room before the tone of an ended call took its place.

“Pardon my French,” said Fred to no one in particular, “but George is so tight, that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks, you’d have a diamond.”

Fred quickly abandoned the pool deck, instead continuing random antics around the vacant house, whether it was (horribly) playing his centuries-old clarinet, or prank calling gullible freshmen claiming he had an impending kidney transplant. This was the life.

“I’m so disappointed in George. Twenty bucks says he’s sitting in his car debating whether or not he should go out.”

Fred had hit the nail on the head. George sat in his four-wheeled hunk of junk for minutes, muttering to himself, “He’ll keep calling me. He’ll keep calling me until I go home. He’ll make me feel guilty. This is ridiculous! Okay, I’ll go, I’ll go, I’ll go, I’ll go.” He turned the key of the run-down car, only for the engine to cough and heave. “Goddamn it!”

----

“Molly Weasley,” Molly introduced herself to the caller from her desk at the local real estate office. She held the landline phone in one hand, the other scratching numerals and figures onto some spreadsheets.

“This is Dolores J. Umbridge, Dean of Students. Are you aware that Fred is not at school today, Miss Weasley?” she asked punctually, her voice laced with irritation.

“Yes, I am. Poor Fred is home sick.”

“Are you also aware that Fred does not have what we consider an exemplary attendance record? He has missed an unacceptable number of school days.” Umbridge looked icy and collected on the outside, but deep down she was fuming with anger. “I have no reservation whatsoever about holding him back another year.”

“This is all news to me,” Molly replied, taken aback by Umbridge’s blunt threats.

“It usually is.” Dolores turned her attention to the hunky computer opposite her, ready with Fred’s academic profile, scanning the pixels signifying his number of absent days. When she finally opened her jaw to announce the number to Mrs. Weasley with a devious grin, she was horrified to see the number of days slowly ticking down to two.

“I asked for a car, I got a computer,” Fred said with an unamused but smug smirk as he typed lines of code into his computer back at the Weasley household, “how’s that for being born under a bad sign?”

“I can appreciate how this time of year, children are prone to taking the day off. However, in Fred’s case, I can assure you, he’s a very sick boy.” And with that, Dolores hung up on a sympathetic Molly, her tight brunette curls gradually frizzing from aggravation.

“I don’t trust this… Fred Weasley,” Umbridge confided to her secretary, Augustus Filch. “What’s so dangerous about a character like Fred is that he gives good students bad ideas. The last thing I need is fifteen-hundred Fred Weasley disciples running around these halls. He jeopardizes my ability to effectively govern this student body.”

“Well, he makes you look like a bitch is what he does, Dolores,” Filch said with a smirk.

“You’re wrong,” Dolores asserted, fiery gaze piercing through Filch’s soul.

“Well, he is very popular. The sportos and motorheads, geeks, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads, they all adore him. They think he’s some righteous dude,” Filch said astutely.

“That is why I’ve got to catch him this time. Show these kids that you can’t just skip school nine times a semester like he has and get away with it!”

----

Mr. Binns, a prehistoric-looking man with novel-thick glasses, stood at the head of the classroom, giving his usual dull lecture. While he etched utter nonsense onto the chalkboard, you couldn’t help but release a bone-cracking yawn.

After years of sitting in your uncomfortable plastic chair, drowning out Mr. Binn’s boring babble, your saving grace arrived in the form of a grave Nurse Pomfrey.

You quickly slipped on your pale, leather jacket and stuffed your blank notebook into your backpack at the sight of the frail woman donning white scrubs like a dove, eager to escape class. Nurse Pomfrey had on a solemn face as she quickly whispered something into Mr. Binns’ ear before announcing to the uninterested class, “Y/N, Y/L/N, may I have a word with you?” You painted a look of surprise on your face before stepping into the hallway with the disturbed grey-haired woman.

“My dear, I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad tidings,” she said sorrowfully once out of the earshot of the small lecture hall, “your father called. Your grandmother has just passed.”

Your eyes welled with artificial tears, face drenched with heartbreak.

----

The landline echoed through Umbridge’s dreary, pale pink office.

“Dolores Umbridge,” she said pseudo-cheerfully into the handset held by her thulian claws.

“This is Phil Y/L/N,” a middle-aged man said, his voice slathered with a thick Chicago accent.

“How are you today, sir?” Dolores asked suspiciously.

“Well, today we’ve had a bit of bad luck. It’s been a tough morning,” he croaked, “now if you wouldn’t mind excusing Y/N, we have a lot of family business to attend to.”

“I’d be happy to, just produce a corpse and I’ll release Y/N. I want to see this ‘dead grandmother’ firsthand.” She peeled the phone away from her face, smiling valiantly at a mortified Filch, saying slyly, “It’s okay, it’s Fred Weasley. I’m setting a trap for him.”

“Dolores, I’m sorry, did you say you wanted to see a body?” an ill-tempered Mr. Y/L/N questioned in disbelief through the speaker.

“Yes. Just roll her old bones up here and I’ll gladly retrieve Y/N for you. That’s school policy.” Dolores looked so pleased with herself, a devilish smirk resting on her lips. The telephone in Filch’s office chimed, and he quickly dashed to answer it.

“Hello, Dolores Umbridge, Dean of Students’ office,” his gravelly voice answered.

“Hi. This is Fred Weasley. Can I speak to Miss Umbridge, please?” Filch’s mouth went desert-dry in horror, his aged, grey eyes bulging out of his skull. He dashed to a taunting Umbridge, jumping and waving for her to shut up.

“I’ll tell you what, if you don’t like my policies, you can come down here and kiss my-”

“Fred Weasley’s on line two, Dolores!” Umbridge’s eyes went as wide as saucers; her whole face, even her bright fuchsia lipstick, turned as white as a sheet.

She was quick to switch to line two, listening to Fred Weasley’s voice which filled the otherwise silent room.

“Miss Umbridge, I’m not feeling too well today,” Fred started, a smug and valiant grin on his face. He adjusted his clean and gelled hair, which perfectly complemented the perfectly-tailored suit he donned. “Would it be possible for Ron to bring home any assignments from my classes? Have a nice day.”

The only sound left in the office was the droning disconnect tone.

The ‘line one’ buttoned flashed bright red like a siren. With a shaky, wrinkled pointer finger painted with a coat of magenta nail polish, she hesitantly pressed the button, sucking in a breath.

“Mr. Y/L/N, I-I think I owe you an apology,” she said, mortified.

“I should say you do!” the deep voice on the other line boomed. Umbridge peeled open her lips for an apology, only to be cut off with, “Well I think you should be sorry for Merlin’s sake! A family member dies, and you insult me! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“W-well I really don’t know. I didn’t think I was talking to you, I thought you were someone else,” Umbridge barely managed to spit out. “You know I would never deliberately insult you like that!”

“Find out where she is!” Umbridge hissed to an idle but nervous Filch, her palm covering the phone’s mouthpiece. He promptly scrambled around the surrounding metal filing cabinets, reaching for various binders and manilla folders.

“This isn’t over yet, do you read me?” The infuriated voice’s threat yelled into the frantic principal’s ear.

“Loud and clear, Mr. Y/L/N!” she responded while scouring the various sets of drawers for Y/N’s schedule.

“Call me sir, goddammit!”

“Yes sir!”

----

“That’s better. Mind your P’s and Q’s buster, and remember who you’re dealing with!” an exasperated George Weasley shouted into the kitchen’s phone, his voice at least an octave lower than usual. His look of fury was soon replaced with a smile from ear to ear, quite proud of the convincing-ness of his impression.  

A dashing, suit-clad Fred Weasley soon strutted into the lemon-yellow kitchen, charismatically introducing himself, “Weasley, Fred Weasley.”

George held his palm over the mouthpiece of the phone, asking, “I’m scared. What if she recognizes my voice?”

“Impossible. You’re doing great.”  

The self-conscious redhead brought the phone back to his ear, shouting “Umbridge!” furiously. Groaning echoed from the other end of the line. “Umbridge, calm down!”  

“I don’t have all day to bark at you, so I’ll make this short, and sweet. I want my child outside of the school in ten minutes by themself!”

Fred gave George a harsh tap on his shoulder, hissing, “That’s too suspicious! She’ll think something’s up!”

“You do it then!” the other twin whispered back.

“Talk.”

“You!”

“Talk.”

“Fine!” he fizzled. “Umbridge! Pay Attention!” The magenta-suited principal was scuttering around her office, frantically searching for your schedule and something to repair the escalating situation.

“Umbridge! Changed my mind. I want you out there with them, I’d like to have a few words with you!” Fred swiftly slapped the phone from George’s clutches, causing it to fall on the tile carelessly. The identical gingers both scrambled for the phone, ending up in George’s grasp once again.

He yelled to the mouthpiece rapidly, “On second thought, we don’t have time to talk right now! We’ll get together soon and have lunch!”

Fred kicked George’s rear hard, causing a small yelp to escape George’s lips. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he spat at Fred, who quickly slammed the phone back to the base.

“Where’s your brain?” he harshly asked his irritated brother.

“Why’d you kick me?” George retorted, hurt.

“Where’s your brain?”

“Why’d you kick me?”

“Where’s your brain?”

“I asked you first!”

“How are we gonna pick up Y/N if Umbitch is out there with them?” Fred rhetorically asked, seething.

“I- I said for them to be alone and you freaked,” George stated, reverting back to his timid tendencies.

“Now, I didn’t… I didn’t hit you. I lightly slapped you.”

“You hit me.” Tension sliceable with a butterknife filled the kitchen.

“Look, don’t ask me to participate in your stupid antics if you don’t like the way I do it. You make me get out of bed. You make me come over here. You made me make a phony phone call to Dolores Umbridge? That woman could expel me, expel us, and then, you deliberately hurt my feelings!”

“No… I didn’t deliberately hurt your feelings,” Fred said, his words tinged with guilt. “What’re you doing?” George grabbed his red hockey jersey and keys that previously laid on the island.

“I’m going back to Lee’s, Fred. I need some rest. Have a nice life.”

“No, no, c’mon. Don’t do that, George,” Fred pleaded ruefully, “George, come back. I didn’t mean to lose my temper. I’m sorry.”

“You serious?”

Fred gave a slow and sincere nod. George swiveled back around, setting his belongings back on the counter, his face lightened slightly.

“Now, to fix the situation, we’re gonna have to do something you’re not going to like.”

----

Fred and George peeled the sliding glass doors of the luxurious garage apart, revealing the interior, which was mainly lined with thousands of dollars worth of vintage car memorabilia, save for the treasured vehicle in the center.

“The 1961 Ford Anglia 105E Deluxe,” George said, his eyes pointed down at the prized pompadour blue car resting idly in front of the duo. Fred's eyes were also fixed on the vehicle, though his’ were illuminated with awe and mischief.

“Dad spent 3 years restoring this car,” he continued, hands behind his back, not daring to leave fingerprints on its shiny surface, “it is his love, it is his passion…”

“It is his fault he didn’t lock the garage,” Fred smirked, sauntering around the exterior of the automobile, slobbering all over the surface like a dog with fresh meat.

“Fred, what are you talking about?” George asked nervously, already knowing what Fred was plotting, “Dad loves this car even more than he loves you!”

“Fred, no.” Fred swiped his fingers over the perfect coat of paint, occasionally posing with the car as if he was a model on the front cover of a magazine.

“Que Bella!” he said with a chef’s kiss, still drooling over the car’s magnificence.

“Remember how insane he went when I snapped my retainer? And that was a tiny piece of plastic!” Fred paid an anxious George no mind, instead continuing his admiration for Arthur’s most valuable possession.

“George, I’m sorry, but we can’t pick up Y/N in that piece of scrap. He’d never believe Mr. Y/L/N would drive something like that!”

“It’s not a piece of scrap.”

Fred opened the driver’s side door, slowly sitting down in the comfortable cushioned seat, his umber eyes never breaking contact with George’s identical ones.

“He knows the mileage, Fred.”

“Look, this is real simple. Whatever miles we put on, we’ll take off.” Fred said, barely giving George the time of day.

“How?”

“We’ll drive home backwards.”

“No,” George said firmly, almost like a mother. Fred turned the key of the Anglia, its restored engine roaring ten times better than George’s hunk of junk’s.

“How about we rent a nice Cadillac, my treat!” He yelled as Fred slowly drove away, the revving of the vintage engine drowning out his voice. George stood frozen in disbelief, before Fred slowly backed up, beckoning George to join him.

With a heavy heart, George warily climbed into the back seat of the vehicle. And with that, Fred floored the gas, speeding off towards the Shermer High.

----

“I had a grandmother once,” Umbridge awkwardly stated, in an attempt to soothe your heart overcome with (fake) grief. “Two, actually.”

The suburbs outside of the Windy City lived up to their name today; Umbridge’s frizzy brown curls swayed in the strong breeze. The temperature today was the best it had been since last Autumn; it was a given that Fred would skip.

You patiently waited on the concrete steps outside the school, Umbridge continuing her “comforting” words, attempting to stitch the wounds caused by your grandmother’s staged death. You weren’t focused on the thulian tyrant, however, instead, your eyes waited on the road for the sight of a ruby-red-haired boy.

“Between grief and nothing, I’d take grief,” Umbridge said flatly.

“Great,” you replied softly, eager to shut the toadish old lady up. She opened her magenta-tinted lips to add something else, but she decided against it, promptly shutting her mouth without a sound escaping.

The stentorian roaring of the engine residing in cerulean Ford Anglia filled the silent air and idle parking lot, lightening your spirits instantly. While you didn’t doubt that Fred would’ve shown up eventually, his timing was impeccable. It didn’t hurt that he showed up in a killer ride, either.

A tall, lanky man drenched in a long beige trench coat, horn-rimmed sunglasses, and a businessman-looking fedora, which masked his fiery orange hair, emerged from the car, leaning against its body.

“Oh Y/N honey, hurry along now,” the stranger in disguise bellowed, his voice slightly higher pitched than ‘Mr. Y/L/N’s’ from the phone, a thickly-slathered Chicago accent present nonetheless.

“I guess that’s my dad.”

You grabbed the annoying principal’s wrinkly, cold hand, reciting, “Miss Umbridge, Dolores. You’re a beautiful woman, I wanna thank you for your warmth and compassion.”

A furious Ron watched from the scene play out from the large front windows of the school, immediately recognizing Fred and his infuriating antics with a scowl. Why should he get to skip while the rest of us have to stay? I’ve gotta catch him.

Umbridge looked near disturbed at your counterfeit words on thankfulness, before you eagerly stepped down to the car, giving ‘Mister Y/L/N’ a quick hug.

“Do you have a kiss for Daddy?” Fred jokingly asked with a smirk.

“Are you kidding?” you replied, leaning into his soft lips for a passionate kiss, which maybe would have escalated a little further if he didn’t drag you in the passenger seat of the Anglia.

“So that's how it is in their family,” Umbridge uttered as she watched the nearly-French kiss perched from her spot at the top of the stairway. She swiftly pivoted around walking to the front entrance to the school, when Fred floored the Ford again, its loud engine roaring off into the distance.

“Hi Georgie, you comfortable?” you asked, eyes towards the crampted back seat.

Once the three of you were out of Umbridge’s eyeline, a compact George sprung up from the lonely backseat, saying, “Hi, Y/N. No.”

“So, what're we gonna do?” you asked the dashingly handsome driver next to you with a smile.

“The question isn’t: What are we going to do? The question is: What aren’t we going to do?”

“Don’t say we’re not going to take the car home. Please don’t say that we’re not going to take the car home,” George mumbled, hopeful that Fred would comply, though he already knew that Fred would be doing the exact opposite.

If you had access to a car like this, Fred mentally narrated, gesturing to the amenities-rich Anglia, would you take it back right away? Me neither.

And with that, Fred recklessly rounded the bendy road, speeding off towards downtown Chicago.

[mysticalarbitertyrant]

Home, Hearth and Magic - The Swiss Witch Trials

While researching my book “The Magic Within Us,” I ended up going down a few rabbit holes as I researched: meaning, I started out looking up something, and ended up doing several really long, late deep-dives.  The story that got the most research was the “My Favorite Story” segments.   "My Favorite Story" is about a book that becomes whatever you would like it to be, to lure you in with beautiful imagery, and a storyline you feel like you must read.

As Helena told her friends in the staff room when they asked her about it, “From what I was told, it…changes itself.  It can become any book you want it to be.  If you loved Egyptology, it would be the most amazing, beautiful book on Egyptology you’d ever seen.  If you loved romance stories, it would be the best one you’d ever read.  No matter what the subject, to you, the cover would be exquisite.  The characters and everything about it is meant to draw you in; to make you want to be part of the book.”Outside of the book, it’s the current day; here and now.  What the book becomes is determined by the person who picks it up.  By the fourth and final segment, a powerful witch is lured into the book, and the glamour that changes the book into literally anything fails, and you see the inside of the book from the perspective of Evelyn, the modern-day witch, who sees it in the same way that those trapped within it see it.  It is a powerful glamour of 15th century Fribourg, Switzerland, which was the last time the protagonist, Rodrick, saw it with his own eyes.This meant I did quite a bit of research on 15th century Switzerland; particularly the Cantons of Valais and Fribourg.

There’s a reason that Rodrick is from when and where he is.  Switzerland is where the witch trials as we know them first occurred.  Prior to Valais and Fribourg, there were towns throughout Europe where witches might have got themselves into a jam, but the Church mostly saw it as individual beliefs that needed to be corrected.  It didn’t always end in a witch burning on a pyre.

That’s where Valais and Fribourg come in.  In Valais, in the year 1428, there was an actual ‘witch-hunt.’  It was the original witch hunt, meaning a systematic campaign and Inquisition by and through the Church to find witches.  To set our scene, in the years prior to the first Swiss witch trials, there had been a great deal of political upheaval in this part of Switzerland.   In the ten years before, people you used to be friends with and knew might very well not be friendly anymore, sitting instead on the opposite side of a political divide.  Peace came eventually, but trust took a lot longer: the man who sold you bread today might have been someone who burned down your house ten years before.  In the midst of the mistrust, soon every bad thing that occurred needed someone to blame it on.  Soon, neighbors were charging neighbors of sorcery and witchcraft, as well as murder, heresy, and being in pact with the devil.

When an Inquisitor came to a town, all the residents were given a 40-day grace period to get right with God and Church.  At the end of the 40 days, every person in town was called in and interviewed, about themselves, and about others that might be heretics.  If accused, a person was to be put in jail, and their goods confiscated. According to the official proclamation, all it took for a person to be arrested and imprisoned was the talk of three or four neighbors.  To be tortured, only five to ten neighbors were required to speak against a person, or by as few as three people if they had already been tried and sentenced to death.  As in other parts of Europe that would happen later, the accusations leveled against others ran the gamut of all the ills that could likely befall the people of a town.  Neighbors accused one another of everything from causing lameness, blindness, madness, miscarriage, impotence and infertility, to even killing and turning babies into “newborn juice”, reputed to give you all the knowledge of witchcraft, instantly.  Some were even accused of being werewolves or shapeshifters in addition to being witches.

For a hundred years, life was turned on its’ head in Switzerland.  If a person was married to someone accused of witchcraft, they had to swear an oath that they had no knowledge of it, or their property would be confiscated.  If the accused was a vassal to a noble, the noble had to pay for the imprisonment, but if the person burned, the noble was awarded the property in question. Fribourg was one of the first places where the secular government and the church were in cahoots, and prosecuted witches jointly.  Not so surprisingly, usually either the local government or the church ended up with the property of those who were tortured. In the early days of the witch trials in Switzerland, it was possible to admit guilt, recant and go back to life as usual. By the end, that wasn’t possible.  At some point, it became a moneymaking venture, and the powers-that-be realized prosecuting witches (whether they really were witches or not) was profitable; if a person confessed, they were burned as a heretic.  If they didn’t confess, they were tortured until they did.  Whether a person confessed or not, they lost everything, and met their end either in a dark, dank cell, were tortured to death, burned or crucified.

Something did separate these witch trials from their counterparts that occurred elsewhere later in Europe. Curiously enough, half to two-thirds of those accused/executed in Switzerland were men. Later on, throughout Europe, but particularly England, France and Scotland, the targets would be women who didn’t fit in so well, who lived on the edges and margins of society, or made a habit of speaking their minds.

Writing this, I realized something funny.  "The Magic Within Us" included a series of four stories whose protagonist was current to the first of the witch trials in Switzerland.  One of the stories in my upcoming book “The Magic Around Us” has me now researching the Bideford witch trials, where some of the last witches were put to death in England.  I guess I’m not through with witch trials yet.

The exact amount of how many were killed as witches is unknown.  Low-end guesses are 40,000-50,000.  Others say maybe as high a number as 1 to 2 million.  Others say higher still.  Whether you go with the higher numbers or the lower numbers, someone will argue it.  I try not to think so much on how many people were accused and died.  I try to remember that while we know the names of some of the men and women who died, there were many, many more who are nameless, faceless, and lost to history.  Many likely weren’t witches, and were probably guilty of nothing other than being female, outspoken, old, or unpopular.  May we remember those who died, even as we are free to embrace who we are today.  May we never take that freedom for granted.

Ellie

(For a list of resources used in the writing of this blog, and more information on my book “The Magic Within Us,” here’s a link to my webpage!

https://www.homehearthmagic.com/

[the-marx-brothers-will-live-on]

Leonard Joseph "Chico" Marx (March 22, 1887 – October 11, 1961) was an American comedian, musician, actor and film star. He was a member of the Marx Brothers (with Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, and Zeppo Marx). His persona in the act was that of a charming, uneducated but crafty con artist, seemingly of rural Italian origin, who wore shabby clothes and sported a curly-haired wig and Tyrolean hat. On screen, Chico is often in alliance with Harpo, usually as partners in crime, and is also frequently seen trying to con or outfox Groucho. Leonard was the oldest of the Marx Brothers to live past early childhood (first-born Manfred Marx had died in infancy). In addition to his work as a performer, he played an important role in the management and development of the act in its early years.

Chico was born in Manhattan, New York City, on March 22, 1887. His parents were Sam Marx (called "Frenchie" throughout his life), and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx. Minnie's brother was Al Shean. The Marx family was Franco-German Jewish. His father was a native of Alsace who worked as a tailor and his mother was from East Frisia in Germany.

Billing himself as Chico, he used an Italian persona for his onstage character; stereotyped ethnic characters were common with vaudevillians. His non-Italian-ness was specifically referred to twice on film. In their second feature, Animal Crackers, he recognizes someone he knows to be a fish peddler impersonating a respected art collector:

Ravelli (Chico): "How is it you got to be Roscoe W. Chandler?"

Chandler: "Say, how did you get to be an Italian?"

Ravelli: "Never mind—whose confession is this?"

In A Night at the Opera, which begins in Italy, his character, Fiorello, claims not to be Italian, eliciting a surprised look from Groucho:

Driftwood (Groucho): "Well, things seem to be getting better around the country."

Fiorello (Chico): "I don't know, I'm a stranger here myself."

A scene in the film Go West, in which Chico attempts to placate an Indian chief of whom Groucho has run afoul, has a line that plays a bit on Chico's lack of Italian nationality, but is more or less proper Marxian wordplay:

S. Quentin Quayle (Groucho): "Can you talk Indian?"

Joe Panello (Chico): "I was born in Indianapolis!"

There are moments, however, where Chico's characters appear to be genuinely Italian; examples include the film The Big Store, in which his character Ravelli runs into an old friend he worked with in Naples (after a brief misunderstanding due to his accent), the film Monkey Business, in which Chico claims his grandfather sailed with Christopher Columbus, and their very first outing The Cocoanuts, where Mr. Hammer (Groucho) asks him if he knew what an auction was, in which he responds "I come from Italy on the Atlantic Auction!" Chico's character is often assumed to be dim-witted, as he frequently misunderstands words spoken by other characters (particularly Groucho). However, he often gets the better of the same characters by extorting money from them, either by con or blackmail; again, Groucho is his most frequent target.

Chico was a talented pianist. He originally started playing with only his right hand and fake playing with his left, as his teacher did so herself. Chico eventually acquired a better teacher and learned to play the piano correctly. As a young boy, he gained jobs playing piano to earn money for the Marx family. Sometimes Chico even worked playing in two places at the same time. He would acquire the first job with his piano-playing skills, work for a few nights, and then substitute Harpo on one of the jobs. (During their boyhood, Chico and Harpo looked so much alike that they were often mistaken for each other.)

In the brothers' last film, Love Happy, Chico plays a piano and violin duet with 'Mr. Lyons' (Leon Belasco). Lyons plays some ornate riffs on the violin; Chico comments, "Look-a, Mister Lyons, I know you wanna make a good impression, but please don't-a play better than me!"

In a record album about the Marx Brothers, narrator Gary Owens stated that "although Chico's technique was limited, his repertoire was not." The opposite was true of Harpo, who reportedly could play only two tunes on the piano, which typically thwarted Chico's scam and resulted in both brothers being fired.

Groucho Marx once said that Chico never practiced the pieces he played. Instead, before performances he soaked his fingers in hot water. He was known for 'shooting' the keys of the piano. He played passages with his thumb up and index finger straight, like a gun, as part of the act. Other examples of his keyboard flamboyance are found in A Night at the Opera (1935), where he plays the piano for a group of delighted children, and A Night in Casablanca (1946), where he performs a rendition of "The Beer Barrel Polka".

Chico became the unofficial manager of the Marx Brothers after their mother, Minnie, died in 1929. As manager, he cut a deal to get the brothers a percentage of a film's gross receipts—the first of its kind in Hollywood. Furthermore, it was Chico's connection with Irving Thalberg of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that led to Thalberg's signing the Brothers when they were in a career slump after Duck Soup (1933), the last of their films for Paramount.

For a while in the 1930s and 1940s, Chico led a big band. Singer Mel Tormé began his professional career singing with the Chico Marx Orchestra. Through the 1950s, Chico occasionally appeared on a variety of television anthology shows and some television commercials, most memorably with Harpo in "The Incredible Jewelry Robbery", a pantomime episode of General Electric Theater in 1959.

His nickname (acquired during a card game in Chicago in 1915) was originally spelled Chicko. It was changed to Chico but still pronounced "Chick-oh" although those who were unaware of its origin tended to pronounce it "Cheek-oh". Numerous radio recordings from the 1940s exist where announcers and fellow actors mispronounce the nickname, but Chico apparently felt it was unnecessary to correct them. As late as the 1950s, Groucho was happy to use the wrong pronunciation for comedic effect. A guest on You Bet Your Life told the quizmaster she grew up around Chico (California) and Groucho responded, "I grew up around Chico myself. You aren't Gummo, are you?" Groucho is heard in videos pronouncing it "Chicko", as in a Dick Cavett episode with Groucho talking to Dan Rowan.

During Groucho's live performance at Carnegie Hall in 1972, he states that his brother got the name Chico because he was a "chicken-chaser" (early 20th century slang for womanizer).

As well as being a compulsive womanizer, Chico had a lifelong gambling habit. His favorite gambling pursuits were card games, horse racing, dog racing, and various sports betting. His addiction cost him millions of dollars by his own account. When an interviewer in the late 1930s asked him how much money he had lost from gambling, he answered, "Find out how much money Harpo's got. That's how much I've lost." Gummo Marx, in an interview years after Chico's death, said: "Chico's favorite people were actors who gambled, producers who gambled, and women who screwed." Referring to Chico's love life, George Jessel quipped, "Chico didn't button his fly until he was seventy."

Chico's lifelong gambling addiction compelled him to continue in show business long after his brothers had retired in comfort from their Hollywood income, and in the early 1940s he found himself playing in the same small, cheap halls in which he had begun his career 30 years earlier. The Marx Brothers' penultimate film, A Night in Casablanca (1946), was made for Chico's benefit since he had filed for bankruptcy a few years prior. Because of his out-of-control gambling, the brothers finally took the money as he earned it and put him on an allowance, on which he stayed until his death.

Chico had a reputation as a world-class pinochle player, a game he and Harpo learned from their father. Groucho said Chico would throw away good cards (with the knowledge of spectators) to make the play "more interesting". Chico's last public appearance was in 1960, playing cards on the television show Championship Bridge. He and his partner lost the game.

Chico was married twice. His first marriage was to Betty Karp in 1917. Their union produced one daughter named Maxine (1918–2009). His first marriage was plagued by his infidelity, ending in divorce in 1940; he was very close to his daughter Maxine and gave her acting lessons.

Chico's second marriage was to Mary De Vithas. They married in 1958, three years before his death.

In the 1974 Academy Awards telecast, Jack Lemmon presented Groucho with an honorary Academy Award to a standing ovation. The award was also for Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo, whom Lemmon mentioned by name. It was one of Groucho's final major public appearances. "I wish that Harpo and Chico could be here to share with me this great honor," he said, naming the two deceased brothers (Zeppo was still alive at the time and in the audience). Groucho also praised the late Margaret Dumont as a great straight woman who never understood any of his jokes.

Chico died of arteriosclerosis at age 74 on October 11, 1961, at his Hollywood home. He was the eldest brother and the first to die.

Chico is entombed in the mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Chico's younger brother Gummo is in a crypt across the hall from him.

[freshlyjuicedbeetles]

Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century Fanfiction

Meet the Family 

Sherbeth

Holmes meets the Lestrade family.

Sherlock Holmes would admit to rarely feeling nervous. He had stared down James Moriarty numerous times, fallen from great heights and found himself in life-threatening situations on an almost regular basis and never bat an eye at it. The situation he currently found himself in was not like any he had found himself in and he was a bit anxious.

Having been courting Beth for almost a year, it was time to make the trek to meet her family in America. Holmes had spoken to most of her immediate family previously, her parents, her twin brother and her grandfather, the Lestrade family patriarch via holophone but they were not the ones who concerned him. He was being introduced to the entire Lestrade family, aunts and cousins at a family dinner at her grandfather’s house, in Holmes’ honor. Beth explained to him that he was sort of a mythic hero to the family, his cases told to the younger generations like fairytales and how Gregory Lestrade worked right alongside the famous detective.

While he does own the infamous Inverness and deerstalker, that is decidedly ‘country wear’ for him. He had to wonder if he needed to pull out those iconic items just for the family. Holmes always dresses smartly; a finely tailored suit and tie are his staples while conveying an anachronism. His pocket squares always accent the color of his tie and his black leather shoes are always shined to perfection.

“Should I bring these?” Holmes asked as they packed, holding a brown deerstalker and matching Inverness with a gold clasp and buckles on the sleeves.

Beth cackled, “First, you’ll swelter in the heat. Second, they know you’re not the character the world knows. Just be yourself.”

Holmes never felt compelled to live up to his literary caricature, not that he believed that that was what the family was expecting, but when you are meeting your significant other’s family who seem to have a high regard for you, you feel a tad nervous regardless. Not only that, but this was the family he had put in charge of his final wish, to be reanimated. If the process went sideways, he feared that anyone else would not be objective enough to know when it was time to reinter him. He couldn’t express how grateful and indebted he felt. Still waters run deep within the great detective and he steeled his nerves. Sherlock Holmes had other matters to worry about during this holiday.

Inspector Gregory Lestrade’s great-grandson, Andrew left London and moved to America where he started a family. The Lestrade family still resides in the same city Andrew settled in. Policing was a strong tradition in the family, with Beth’s great grandmother, grandfather, father, brother and forefathers and foremothers working with the local police department.

Holmes and Lestrade had flown from London early in the morning. Beth spent most of the flight asleep on his shoulder. He with noise-canceling earbuds, listening to an audiobook. Matt left a car for them at the airport. Once Holmes stepped out of the air-conditioned building, the oppressive heat and humidity of Beth’s home state assaulted him, despite the night air. Beth wasn’t too keen on going back home during the summer months, saying that the weather was one of the reasons she left. This was the only time she could get enough time off work to do so.

“How do you stand such weather? I feel as though I need gills just to breathe!” Holmes complained.

Beth laughed, “You’ll get used to it. Wait until its noon and it's one hundred plus degrees, then you can complain. Ever see a tornado, Holmes?” She teased.

“I’d rather not.”

As Beth drove, she pointed out local interests; this place is where famous so and so got their start, someone of prominence died right there. They left the small metropolis and drove on a dark, rural skyway dotted with houses, cemeteries, farms and the county water tower. After a twisty skylane lined with the tops of trees, a small burg emerged.

“I wrecked my first car there. Totaled it. Wasn’t my fault.”

“That place has the best cheesecake.”

“That’s Grandpa’s house,”

“I had my prom here,”

Beth dropped the speed as they pulled into a neighborhood and a home at the center of the cul-de-sac. Matt’s car was in the driveway, no less too excited to meet the great detective to wait until the dinner.

“Ready?” Beth asked.

Holmes beamed confidently, “My dear, you make it sound as though I am meeting my judge, jury, and executioner.”

Beth made a face that cast doubt on that logic. He may be Sherlock Holmes, but he was still the man dating their daughter/sister/niece. He needed to live up to their standards.

They walked in and the sleeping home sprung to life. Matt and her father David, previously asleep on the couch and recliner in front of the tv jolted awake at the sound of the door opening.

“Beth?!” Tresa Lestrade called from the hall, eager to see her daughter. Tresa was a sprite of a woman, short and petite with brown hair and warm brown eyes.

An old brown, greying boxer with floppy jowls named Stewart hid conspicuously behind the couch, warily watching this new human. His stranger danger alarms were going off.

Matt scrambled from the couch to Holmes and Lestrade. “Oh my god, you’re really him! Holy shit, dude!” he gushed, “I mean, yeah, I’ve talked to you on the phone but gah! You’re really here! Can I get a selfie, an autograph? Oh my god, this is so cool! Hey, so about that Red-Headed League plot hole…”

“Matt, calm down. You’re going to have a heart attack,” Beth chided, “Sorry about him, I think that cage training isn’t working,” She teased her twin. He was so awestruck by Holmes that he let it slide.

Holmes smiled good-naturedly, shaking Matt’s hand, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”

“Out of the way, out of the way, shoo!” Tresa urged, trying to get to her daughter, pushing her son and the 250-year-old detective.

She hugged Beth tightly, showering her with kisses, “You need to come around more! I can’t go so long without seeing you!”

“I know, mom, I know.”

David Lestrade joined his family at the door. David was a tall, burly man with more salt than pepper hair and beard, “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Holmes. I’d never thought I’d ever get to see you standing, let alone in my own doorway.” He said, offering his hand.

Holmes took it, “Yes, I do owe your family an abundance of gratitude. I would not be here today without you all. I simply cannot express it.” Holmes was struck by how much David looked like a larger Gregory Lestrade.

Tresa turned to Holmes, “I’m speechless. It’s really you.”

“You have a lovely home, madam.”

“She’s cleaned, like, all day for you guys,” Matt said.

Tresa laughed, “Well, on that note, I’m going back to bed. Matt, can you grab their bags, please? Put them in Beth’s old room. Beth, I’m sure you can show Mr. Holmes around from here?”

“Please, call me Sherlock.”

“You’ll have to give them time, something about showing proper respect and whatnot,”                Beth said.

“Why do you still call him Holmes?” Matt argued.

Beth shrugged, “Force of habit. Hafta on the job though.”

“Whatever,” Matt said dismissively as he and David carried in the luggage.

Matt stretched and groaned like a Yeti, “Yeah, I’m going to bed, too. Night.”

“Don’t you have a place of your own?” Beth jeered.

“Yeah, I don’t feel like driving back only to come back in a few hours,” Matt answered simply.

“You live, like, five miles from here. You just want to hang out with Sherlock, you nerd!”

“I’m a nerd!? You’re dating him! What does that make you?”

“Kids!” David barked.

Holmes was enjoying the comedic scene in front of him. The Lestrade residence was so different than his own growing up. It felt like a library where you couldn’t speak. Here, it was lively. It truly was a home.

Matt grumbled as he stalked off down the hall. David turned to his daughter. David hugged Beth, their foreheads touching, “Oh how I missed you.”

“I missed you, too, Dad.”

David regarded his daughter for a moment, then Holmes and followed Tresa to bed.

“I’m sure you noticed the elephant in the room; Stewart over there trying to hide. He’s a few bulbs short of a full Christmas tree. He’s friendly but a doofus.”

Holmes slowly approached the dog. When he was at a respectful distance, he offered his hand. Stewart sniffed it and promptly sneezed into his hand.

Beth howled with laughter as Holmes cleaned his hand with a kerchief.

“C’mon, I’m beat.” Beth said, leading Holmes to their room for their stay.

It wasn’t lost on Beth that her childhood idol was now sharing her childhood bedroom with her. Most of her things had long since been packed away and sent to London, leaving little trace of a young Beth Lestrade who spent hours reading Watson’s journals, the published casebooks or watching anything Holmes related. Now, it was simply a guest bedroom with neutral bedding and accents. The garish red walls that Beth begged to be painted when she was fourteen was covered up by Tresa as soon as possible.

Pictures of the family dotted the room; on the desk was a replica of a daguerreotype of Inspector Gregory Lestrade himself. The senior pictures of Matt and Beth framed the window; Matt with an aw-shucks grin in blue jeans and his letterman’s jacket and Beth, her hair and makeup expertly done, in a blue dress. Her eyes, even then, soul-piercing, could make you confess your mortal sins.

Matt and Beth’s childhood and teenage trophies remained. Countless awards of varying sizes, colors and shapes stood on a bookcase by the door; Beth’s for karate and gymnastics, Matt’s for American football.

In the dark room, the lovers turned to face each other in bed, legs intertwining under the sheets. They whispered as to not wake the family.

“You’ve never told me what your parents were like.”

Holmes shrugged, caressing Lestrade’s arm with the tips of his fingers, watching goosebumps arise. “There’s nothing much to say, really. They were both teachers and strict authoritarians. They were firm believers in the ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ method. Once, when I was a young lad, eight or nine years of age or so, I punched Mycroft in the face, knocking out one of his teeth. Mother shut me in a closet and promptly forgot about me until morning.”

“Jeez, Holmes, I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, my dear. I bear no resentment for them. Mycroft and I both knew we were loved, though the sentiment was rarely uttered. We were not abused and rarely went without. Our parents simply had their own way of doing things.”

“I once punched a boy who had been teasing me and Dad took me out for ice cream as a reward. Okay, what about Mycroft?” Lestrade asked.

“I suppose you can say we had the typical older brother/younger brother relationship. He found me annoying and to be a burden. I do not wholly disagree with this assessment. When he went out with friends or to buy candy, Mother would insist he take me. I was a curious child and had to examine anything I found interesting, rocks, dirt, discarded newspapers. I would follow people I found interesting, wanting to learn about them. I most certainly slowed him down. My turn. Why did you leave?” Holmes asked, admiring how the moonlight cast its glow on her face.

“I wanted to make my family proud and join the Yard.” She replied, toying with and caressing his hand and arm. She locked eyes with him, a mischievous glint sparkling in her eyes. “Besides, someone had to take care of your wrinkly ass while you were in that honey.”

Holmes drew her close, Lestrade giving a startled yelp, “I didn’t hear any complaints from you about it before we left London,” he husked in her ear, kissing her neck.

~*~

Morning came far too early for the weary travelers. All Beth wanted to do was stay under the covers with Sherlock and sleep until dinner. The way Beth’s warm body was curled into his own was divine. Holmes, usually hating inactivity, was thinking along the same lines until he heard sniffing at the door.

“Stewart!” Beth exclaimed, not moving or opening her eyes, “Chill out. It’s just a new person, not a pox upon the house.”

The old boxer sighed and laid down, his tags clanking on the wood floor as he did. The world stilled once more for several moments. Eventually, Beth sighed and sat up, “Well, I’m awake.”

Taking Beth’s cue, Holmes got up and dressed for the day as Beth played on her phone. The sounds of a home waking up could be heard; running water, a coffee maker, the opening and closing of cabinets.

Holmes offered his hand to Beth as encouragement to start the day. She took it and groaned as she was pulled from the comfy bed.

As they passed Matt’s room, Beth used her best ‘cop knock,’, yelling, “Get up loser!”

They could hear Matt startle awake and a flood of profanities aimed at his sister. Beth giggled.

The scene in front of them in the kitchen was an utterly domestic one. Beth’s parents in their robes and pajamas, the morning news on as they started breakfast. The table was already laden with syrup, butter, jams and steaming coffee. Though Stewart sitting on a chair at said table was a bit out of place.

“Don’t ask,” Beth said. “It’s his chair.”

“Good morning!” Tresa said cheerfully in a singsong voice, “I hope you’re hungry!”

“Because it’s waffle time!” David announced excitedly as though he was a sports commentator.

“Dad makes the best waffles. I have literal dreams about them.” Beth did like her carbs.

“It’s the nutmeg,” David said proudly, grinning ear to ear.

Matt shuffled tiredly in the kitchen and plopped down. Holmes noticed how Beth and Matt both sat, their legs on the chair curled into their bodies. Beth only sat that way when she had just woken up.

Stewart visibly avoided looking at Holmes.

“Beth, Matt, will you take Stewart out please?” Tresa asked.

The twins groaned and complained, but ultimately acquiesced, taking Stewart out the backyard.

Holmes was left inside with Tresa and David. He knew what was coming, the ‘if you hurt my daughter’ speech. Holmes’s mind was divided if he should ask David first while they were on the subject, but he doubted Beth would like that.

David wasted no time and Tresa leaned in. “Now, man to man, I need to know that you have Beth’s best interests in mind. I’m in an awkward position here. I feel like I’m speaking to an elder and I’ve only read how you were characterized. I don’t know exactly what was truth and what was fiction. You have been described as cold and had an utter apathy towards the law. Gregory always complained that you were hard to work with and to be blunt, utterly misogynistic. However, from the few times I have spoken to you, you don’t seem anything of the sort. You certainly respect and care for Beth, and I haven’t seen anything troubling. Basically, I’m asking, what’s true?”

“Shall I say I have softened in my old age?” Holmes countered. He took a drink of his coffee, strong coffee only a police officer could brew. “What you have read was about a proud man. Later in my life, I was humbled by my own mistakes, namely the case of Ann Kelmot, my friendship with the Munro boy and my own defects; my deteriorating brain. I have always strived to not look at myself as the character Dr. Watson has portrayed me to be, but I will admit, that fame got to me at times. I have what a precious few have received and what many more pray for; a second chance. While morals and values fluctuate from person to person and pious will never be an accurate descriptor of my person, I do intend to do better this time around.”

David listened intently and nodded. He took a drink of his own coffee, “Well, in that case, welcome to the family, Holmes,” he said holding out his hand to the elder.

Holmes shook David’s hand. David looked to Tresa and nodded. She agreed.

A peaceful silence settled for several moments.

“Beth leave Matt alone!” Tresa chided, “a bunch of wild animals they are. Can’t say a nice thing about the other! Knock! It! Off!” She said as she tapped on the window, getting their attention.

Both men stood up from the table. Beth had tackled Matt to the ground and were wrestling over an unknown argument, Stewart running and jumping around them as though he were a part of the game he thought they were playing.

“You sure you want her?” Tresa asked Holmes, sighing.

The twins trudged in, Stewart rushing ahead of them, their heads down, ready for a lecture.

Tresa put her hands on her hips. “Well?”

“Beth said – “

“Matt said – “

They said simultaneously, pointing at each other.

Tresa held her hands up, “I don’t even want to know anymore. You’re both adults. Just keep it out of the hospital, okay?”

The twins muttered affirmatives. Matt started to walk off, but Beth feigned a lunge at him, startling him for a second, before heading to the living room.

Beth looked back and forth towards both men at the table, “Dad…why do I feel like I just walked in on something? Oh zed, you didn’t give him the ‘I’m not afraid to go back to prison and to chop you into a million tiny pieces’ talk? Do you know how many boyfriends you’ve scared away?”

“No need to fret, my dear,” Holmes said standing up and taking Beth’s hand in reassurance, “It was a simple talk between a father and his daughter’s suitor. I am no worse for the ware, though I do believe we all agree that I have passed the test, at least the preliminaries?”

David winked in response. “You should thank me for scaring away those boys, Beth, you would have never met Holmes!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Beth muttered as she skulked off to change.

Beth emerged in a pair of denim shorts, a tank top and a simple grey shrug with three-quarter sleeves. Around her neck, she wore the delicate gold locket Holmes had given her. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, revealing the geometric tattoo of a sigil long thought to bring protection. Simple studs in each piercing of her ears complimented the gold necklace.

At first, it had been a bit jarring to see the modern fashions women wore, so uncovered. In Holmes’s time, their bodies were hidden and shapes altered. Now, women were encouraged to wear what they pleased. Though Holmes couldn’t deny the benefits of being able to regard Beth’s beauty without having to account for layers and layers of fabric and boning. Beth wasn’t much of a girly girl, but she endeavored to always look nice and put together.

“Hey, Sherlock, let’s take a walk around the block before it gets too hot,” Beth said after breakfast.

Holmes nodded and followed Beth outside.

Though the pavement was cracked and pitted, the neighborhood was a nice one with well-maintained homes and mature trees and gardens. There was just enough shade and a breeze to keep the walk enjoyable.

“I kinda need to tell you what went down right before you were resurrected,” Beth said once they were a few houses down.

Holmes nodded, listening.

“Obviously, I had to get my family involved ‘cause dad had the code to the lockbox that had all your papers in it. We basically had a big family meeting to discuss if this was a good idea.”

“Someone was against my reappearance,” Holmes stated.

“Kinda. It’s my Aunt Maggie. We won her over. She was very against the idea while she was your caretaker. She worried that you may not have been able to take all the stress. If you were on her watch, you wouldn’t be here. Look, the last thing I want to do is to put drama between you two, but I know she may say something, and I just wanted you to be aware of that.  Just give her time, give her space. Everyone else is really excited to meet you.”

“Yes, a formerly dead man is a great party guest.” Beth wasn’t sure if he was joking until she saw the grin on his face. She matched his but knew this was a symptom of a bigger issue, it just wasn’t the right time to talk about it.

“Oh, and my cousin Luke thinks you’re Jack the Ripper.”

Holmes stopped in his tracks, “Excuse me?”

Beth laughed, “I mean, the evidence lines up…I bet the only person in the world who can get away with murder is you.” She teased.

Holmes huffed, “I know you think you’re complimenting me, but you’re really not.”

By the time the couple made it back, Tresa was scurrying around the kitchen, her arms laden with groceries and utensils, “I’m heading to Grandpa’s early to start cooking with Jett, Mag, and Kas. We don’t want Grandpa trying to cook for all of us by himself.” She explained. She gave Beth a peck on the cheek and flew out the door.

While David puttered around the garage and Matt played a loud video game, Beth and Holmes went back to their room for a nap. Travel may have advanced since Holmes’ time, but jetlag was still a thing. Beth sat an alarm for ten minutes before dinner.  

~*~

They pulled into an older neighborhood and landed in a driveway littered with cars and a blossoming magnolia tree to the side, partially obscured by a fence. Beth led him into the open garage and opened the door to the home without knocking. Inside the Lestrade clan was scattered around the living room, on the sofa, loveseat, recliner and the younger generation sitting on the floor. The house was already smelling of a delicious dinner cooking. They were in the midst of conversation when they heard the door open and the room fell silent.

“My word, it’s actually him.” Grandpa Adam said.

“Hey everyone,” Beth greeted, “Holmes, let me introduce you; that’s my grandpa, Adam, next to him is my Aunt Jett and Maggie. Maggie’s daughter Kassie, her kids Brittany and Wesley. Jett’s son Luke and his daughter Lucy and son Ben.” Matt and David had arrived a little before Beth and Holmes.

“Hello,” Holmes nodded.

Holmes and Beth took an empty seat.

“How are you finding the 22nd Century, Mr. Holmes?” Adam asked, not taking his eyes off the man.

“I am adjusting well, thank you. Without all of you, I may not be here. I truly thank you all for the care you have provided. I know it was a hard and inconvenient task, one you did not volunteer for.” Holmes knew that the now American based Lestrade family would make regular trips to London to check on him before his return.

“It was my pleasure,” Adam said.

“Think nothing of it,” David said.

“Can you deduce anything about me!?” Brittany, a young girl with long brown hair asked excitedly, running up to the detective.

Holmes examined the girl for a few seconds, rubbing his chin as he took inventory. He wasn’t one to use his talents as parlor tricks, but he did want to show off a bit.

“You are an artist and a quite good one at that. Before Beth and I arrived, you were helping your great grandfather in the garden and lastly, you were given the unfortunate task of giving Spike the pug his medication.”

Brittany gawked. “How did you do that?” She asked, as though she had just seen a magic trick.

“Easy. There are paint stains on your shoes. While inexpensive paint nowadays washes off easily, allowing for a novice painter to make mistakes, the more costly products do not, due to the ingredients that give them their quality. Your parents would not buy you such costly paint if you were not any good. There is also dirt clumped on your shoes, as well as your great grandfather’s, and no one else’s. Notice the color and consistency of the dirt, red, almost clay-like that is common in these parts. You do not just pick up the clumps from walking around, but from working in the garden where the soil has been tilled and the red clay dirt exposed, from the garden I saw as Beth and I came in overhead. There is also fresh produce on the counter. As for the pug family,” Holmes said, looking past the young girl to the family of snorting pugs itching to come inside, staring at the human family through a nose smudged glass door. He returned his attention to her, plucking off several white hairs from her shirt, showing her. “You are positively covered in dog hair. From what your cousin tells me, Spike puts up a fuss when it’s time for his medication.”

The room clapped. Oh yes, Holmes was going to enjoy this night. He regaled the family in the tales of his adventures, new and old, with Gregory and with Beth. Soon dinner needed to be tended to. Most of the older Lestrade family had gathered in the kitchen, preparing dinner as the younger generation showed Holmes around. Beth sat on the counter with a can of soda.

“What’s he doing?” Kassie asked. The family soon gathered round the window, watching the famous detective.

“It looks like he’s hunting for something?”

“Did he drop something?”

“He’s probably looking for bees. He’s been wanting to diversify his colony that he keeps in Sussex, part of his original brood.” Beth answered, with the mild interest of someone who has heard enough about bees.

“He’s gonna get stung!”

“He can tell you how many times he’s been stung, in both lives.”

Aunt Jett shivered, “’ Both lives’, ooh that gives me the heebiest of jeebies. He seems so…calm. Acclimated? How did he take when he was first…revived?”

“He took it in stride. He knew what he was doing. He really misses Watson, the real one.”

“Does he talk about it…y’know death?” Matt asked.

Beth shrugged, “He says that all he remembers is going to sleep in 1947 and waking up in 2103 as though it were the next day.”

“What about the depressive episodes? Dr. Watson said he could starve himself for days!”

“He does have his issues, I’ll give you that, but he made first chair violin in the London Symphony Orchestra. He’s already gotten music to learn. That should keep him occupied enough. I’ve never seen anything alarming when cases were scarce. I think he’s figured out how to actually live with himself. If he gets freaky, well, I’ll get Matt’s pea shooter and shoot a Valium down his throat.” Beth said, mimicking a slingshot as Matt grabbed his throat and pretended to choke.

“And what about his other vices?” David asked, his large arms crossed over his chest.

“Not a thing. He barely drinks.” Beth answered, shaking her head.

“He could be hiding it,” Maggie said, stirring at the stove.

“He could, but I would have seen evidence or track marks. We’ve been having sex for quite a while. Pretty sure I would have noticed.” Beth replied casually. The family stared. “Hey, you asked. All he wants to do is play the violin, solve cases, play with his bees and occasionally box and fence. He’s doing great, I promise.”

Matt took the opportunity to change the subject, “So has he got a new batch of Irregulars?”

Beth took a drink and nodded, “Yeah, they’re pretty good kids. They’re getting close to graduating. They’re almost always over after school. Guess it helps when you have homework about the Victorian Era, and you know someone who lived through it. He’s teaching one of the kids, Daniel Wiggins, how to box actually. The resident computer whiz, Joshua Tennyson manages Holmes’ social media presence. Deidre Owens keeps him up to date on the new slang which is absolutely hilarious. It’s like a foreign language to him!”

“They aren’t homeless, are they?” Luke asked.

“Oh no, not at all. They all have decent enough families. I ran a background check on all of them long ago. Though Deidre and Wiggins aren’t above exploiting tourists for cash.”

“So,” Grandpa Adam said, “What’s it like working with him, the Master?” Pride and joy swelled in his voice.

The family listened as though they were about to hear the conclusion to a long-awaited saga.

Beth smiled, “It’s pretty great actually. Well, afterward, during the matter it’s like pulling teeth. He does what he wants which temporarily puts me in an awkward position with Greyson but who cares, Greyson can go fly a kite. He’s gotten too comfortable behind that desk, which he promptly forgets about once Sherlock closes the case.

“He comes on strong when excited about a case, asking questions and making deductions in rapid-fire,” Lestrade said, snapping her fingers in time, “He’ll rarely tell you what his plan is and you’re just caught up in his storm, along for the ride.”

By then, the kids and Holmes had settled in the living room and were giving Holmes a crash course on all the incarnations of his persona. They were hanging on to every word.

“In this one, they made Watson a girl and you have a lot of tattoos!” Lucy said.

“Tattoos? Me? Heavens!”

“You’re a mouse in this one!” Ben said, showing Holmes the character on his tablet.

“And a dog in this one!” Brittany said.

“Where’s Watson now? The robot, I mean?” Wesley asked.

“Probably playing mother hen to the Irregulars, watching too many soap operas and American baseball with Wiggins,” Holmes answered.

“Did you really shoot words into the walls of Baker Street, Mr. Holmes?” Ben asked, his eyes wide.

“Unfortunately, I did. I never got the deposit back from Mrs. Hudson either. I wouldn’t suggest it.”

The kids laughed, awestruck at the man.

“Do you really go in disguise, Mr. Holmes?” Lucy asked.

“I do! My closet is comprised mostly of costumes and disguises rather than my everyday clothes.”

“I bet you’re a really good actor, Mr. Holmes. Can you do an American accent?”

The question and answer session turned into the kids asking Holmes to do various accents and nailing them.

“I’m surprised at how well he’s taken to them,” Kassie said.

“Well, they are flattering him. He’s peacocking if anything.” Beth replied.

“So, he’s normal now?” Luke asked, continuing the conversation from earlier.

Beth snorted, “Normal isn’t even a setting on the washer at Baker Street. He still argues with the Yard and he’s still arrogant as can be. He still gets up close and personal with the crime scenes. He’s still Holmes, but maybe a better version of him.”

By then, the kids had lost interest in Holmes and had wandered off or to play with the dogs. Holmes found a large assortment of family photos on a shelf.

“That’s my mom,” Maggie said, noticing Holmes was looking at a certain picture.

“She’s beautiful,” Holmes remarked. Beth had that same bright grin as the woman in the photo.

“She was something else. She could drink coffee, crochet and watch tv at the same time. Those fish on the wall? Dad didn’t catch them, she did.”

There was a pause.

“Mr. Holmes, there are things you may not be aware of in this family, some past trauma if you will. My mom died of Alzheimer’s right before your return. It was an ugly battle, unfortunately, Beth and Matt saw a lot of it. I don’t want to see a repeat performance.” She said, looking squarely at the detective, almost accusatory.

“And you have my word that neither do I. Sir Hargreaves has ran my genome backward and forwards. He has seen no mutations in any of the genes pertaining to my memory. While he cannot prove that I will succumb to senility once more, he can neither do the opposite. I must remind you, as bizarre as the sentence sounds on my lips, that I died of old age. Far before any more distressing symptoms or more dramatic memory loss could occur.”

“Sir, I saw you dead. I saw your corpse. You scare me, a little bit. I vouched for your return, but it’s different seeing you, standing there. I don’t mean to put pressure on you, but you don’t know how much you mean to this family. We grew up hearing your stories. Do you know the impact you made on the world? Modern forensic science would literally not exist without you. When Beth was in the Yard’s academy, there was a mandatory class on your deduction techniques. Dad, David and I certainly used what we learned from you when we wore our badges. There are countless other ways you were remembered.”

“Yes, there is quite an ugly statue of my likeness far too close to Baker Street.” Holmes knew there was no logic behind this meeting. It was merely an aunt, traumatized by the prolonged death of her mother, trying to shroud her niece from another round. There was nothing either of them could do but Holmes knew that she had to get it off her chest.

“Just please, Mr. Holmes, take care of yourself, for Beth?”

“It is my every intention,” Holmes loved Beth dearly, more than he thought he could love a woman, anyone. At times, he felt in his past he was a robot, cold and analytical but now, he was alive, human. He wanted to do right by Beth and even the Irregulars.

“Dinner’s ready!” Adam called from the kitchen, a welcome reprieve for both Maggie and Holmes.

The meal was set out on the dining room table and everyone took a seat.

Adam carefully stood up, his aged knees slightly shaking as he did so. He raised his glass in the air, “I would like to raise a toast to our guest, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. It is truly an honor having you at this table. Your visage is a sight I thought I’d never see in my lifetime. You, alive and well, is the culmination of generations of hard work for this family. We also must raise a toast to Beth, for it was her tenacity to finally go through with it. We were so very proud of her before our guest was resurrected, and we are just as proud that she continues to work with you. You may be adding our Beth to the Holmes family, but we can assure you, you are a part of the Lestrade family as well.”

“And good luck with Beth, you’ll need it,” Matt said behind his glass.

The table laughed as Beth slugged him in his arm, teasingly.

“Kids…” Tresa warned.

“Sorry mom,” The twins muttered, the smirks on their faces saying it wasn’t over.

“And Beth, let’s keep Holmes from heights, whaddaya say?” David teased after the toast.

“Can I just point out that one of his latest batch of Irregulars speaks only in Binary and only Holmes can understand him without looking at his readout?”

“I merely recognized the pattern over time,” Holmes replied, simply.

The dinner was a jovial and warm one. Holmes had been welcomed into the Lestrade clan. Family stories were told, old cases were discussed, and laughter was all around.

After dinner, the couple slipped out the back door.

“As you can see, Grandpa Adam and Grandma Hannah had a bit of a green thumb,” Beth said. Along the edge of the fence and property line that dipped off into a shallow creek were several tall pear trees that provided a shaded path. There was a blossoming dogwood tree in the corner and off to the side of the house was a produce garden.

Holmes and Lestrade walked hand in hand under the grove of pear trees. A mighty oak, stories tall dominated the back corner of the backyard, a rope swing swaying in the breeze hung from a low, sturdy branch.

Beth sat down on the old piece of wood that made up the seat, “Grandpa made this for me and Matt when we were little. I spent a lot of time out here. Push me.” She said as she kicked off.

He pushed her for several minutes before he could wait no longer. Holmes caught the ropes as it came back towards him and steadied Lestrade. He moved to face her.

“Know that I do not take this proposal lightly. I may have caught up with times in some ways, but in others, I have not. I do not care for this so-called serial monogamy for myself. Forgive me if I do not have a flowery speech made up, but I never thought I’d meet a woman like you, who has enraptured me since day one. Will you marry me?”

Sherlock Holmes for the first time, dropped to one knee for a woman, not caring about the dirt below him. From his pocket, he pulled out a velvet ring box and opened it, revealing a Marquise cut diamond on a gold band, flanked by a dainty round diamond on each side.

Tears of joy welled in the Inspector's eyes, “Do you need to deduce my answer?” She said, pulling Holmes in for a kiss.

[tcm]

A Celebration of Gary Cooper by Susan King

I confess, I fell hook, line and sinker in love with Gary Cooper at the age of 13 when I watched the 1941 Frank Capra/Robert Riskin political drama MEET JOHN DOE on television. I became so engrossed in the film that I even started yelling at the TV screen trying to tell John Doe not to jump off the building. My parents were probably wondering what was happening to their usually quiet daughter.

Cooper was the complete package. He was tall, gorgeous with beautiful blue eyes and had “It”— that magical star quality that leapt off the screen and made him a star for over three decades. And he was the perfect Everyman, whether he was playing the vulnerable poet in his first film with Capra, MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN (’36); the World War I hero Alvin York in SERGEANT YORK (’41), for which he received his first Oscar for Best Actor; the beloved New York Yankee Lou Gehrig in THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES (’42); and the brave sheriff Will Kane in HIGH NOON (’52), for which he was awarded his second Oscar.

When I interviewed film historian/writer/documentarian Richard Schickel for my 2002 Los Angeles Times piece on Coop’s centennial, he explained the actor still resonated with contemporary audiences “[because] I don’t know if there is another actor, maybe in all of movies, who had more good movies to his credit. There are maybe 15 or 20 movies of Cooper’s that really continue to be movies that you watch with pleasure. I don’t know anybody other than Cary Grant who had a similarly strong filmography.”

Plus, Schickel added: “I think that inherent sense that this was a nice guy has made him wear well. People who have a more adverse edge to them wear out their welcome sooner, whether they are dead or live. Cooper has movies that are played constantly, commented upon, kind of iconic movies of their type.”

In celebration of what would have Cooper’s 118th birthday on May 7, I want to highlight two of my favorite Cooper films: William Wyler’s FRIENDLY PERSUASION (’56) and the underrated Western THE HANGING TREE (’59).

FRIENDLY PERSUASION is also one of Maria Cooper Janis’, Cooper’s daughter, favorite films of her father’s. She described it as a “film I love. Willy Wyler was a wonderful director, my father loved working with Willy on that.” She told me in 2001 that her father always wanted his characters to illustrate “’the best a man can be – the best human behavior as possible.’ So, I think he chose roles that exemplified that. Being a hero doesn’t mean you are unflawed. We are all very human.” But when push came to shove, Coop’s characters would “behave in a noble way where you put right and wrong and principals before personal needs or satisfaction or comfort.”

Based on Jessamyn West’s best-seller and nominated for six Oscars including Best Film, Director and Supporting Actor for Anthony Perkins, FRIENDLY PERSUASION casts Cooper as Jess Birdwell, the patriarch of a Quaker family living on a farm in rural Indiana in the 19th century. Their family’s peaceful existence is upended when the Civil War invades their lives, leading their son (Perkins) to sign up to fight.

The drama marks the first time Cooper played a parent with grown children and initially he didn’t think his fans would accept him in such a role. But they did. Cooper beautifully portrayed Birdwell’s complex feelings when his son goes off to war and his own desire to avenge the death of a friend.

According to the TCM.com overview of the film, Cooper thought his character should take up arms and fight. “There comes a time in a picture of mine when the people watching me expect me to do something,” he told West. The author told him that refraining from violence was doing something. “You will furnish your public with the refreshing picture of a strong man refraining,” West told Cooper.

Thanks to TCM and Warner Archive, Cooper’s fans are getting a chance to see THE HANGING TREE, a fabulous Western that was not a hit upon release. Cooper again stretches his range as the mysterious Dr. Joseph Frail who arrives in a Montana mining town and sets up his practice. Though Frail is compassionate to his patients, he also can transform into a man capable of violence.

Cooper wasn’t in the best physical shape at the time (he was suffering from a bad hip), but he still proved he could be a romantic lead in his scenes with Maria Schell, as a young woman who was temporarily blinded in a stage coach attack he takes in and nurses back to health. Karl Malden, who took over directorial duties when director Delmer Daves was hospitalized, is at his slimy best as a miner who also has eyes on Schell. And Ben Piazza plays an injured young thief who is also taken in by Frail.

Cooper died just six days after his 60th birthday on May 13, 1961 of cancer. His final film, THE NAKED EDGE (’61), was released posthumously. Despite his tremendous success, Janis said her father always regretted that his fans wouldn’t let him play the bad guys. “He had to end up being the good guy,” she said. “I think, sadly, the last film he made, THE NAKED EDGE, didn’t work for that very reason. The whole movie hinged on you believing Gary Cooper was a murderer. Well, no way. The public didn’t buy it and rightfully so, you might say.”

[nikitasbt]

Yi Yi (2000) by Edward Yang: We are all born alone and we die that way too

Taiwanese-Japanese film Yi Yi directed by Edward Yang is widely regarded as one of the finest films of the XX century and the best film made by the Taiwanese directors. It was the final feature-length film directed by Edward Yang who would pass the rest years of his life fighting with health issues. Yi Yi had won him an award of the Best Director at 2000 Cannes Film Festival. This film summarizes all the achievements and experience of Edward Yang. The visual style can be compared with his older feature Taipei Story and A Brighter Summer Day, while the way of storytelling resembles the finest pieces of the Japanese Golden Age of cinema.

 In a magical Yasujiro Ozu-way, Edward Yang paints a family portrait which contains many different layers of life to be shown during enchanting almost three-hour runtime. The sketches of Jian family struggles and tribulations are told in connection of different generations and they let the viewers live the lives along with the characters, not just observe it. Yi Yi creates a broad space with an impressive cohesiveness of characters’ stories and emotions. The story is very gentle, clever, and deep, yet it is delivered in a simple slow-paced way.

 The plot of the films structures around the most important family events - a birth, wedding, and funeral. It concerns the love stories of protagonists, their search for reasons to live the life and work, little tragedies, disappointments, confessions, changes. The number of subplots is impressively high, though all the parts of the Jian family's story remain coherent, convincing and profound. Edward Yang in this film decides to talk about nothing but the life of an unremarkable middle-class family with their trials, and this task is very difficult to execute. Yang has proved to be a master making it very entertaining and thought-provoking, from the first moment till the very end.

 The first important layer of the story shown a gap between generations in the context of a grandmother’s stroke and subsequent comatose. The family members taking care of her are advised to speak with grandmother while she is in a coma, in order to help her regain consciousness. Some of them are not even able to speak, while the other realize during their monologues their life is so empty that they’ve got nothing to say but twaddle. Characters find out during these talks the life is not really going anywhere as they live blank being unsure about anything. They love the grandmother but they have been always lacking real emotional connections with her. Moreover, it appears even the bonds between father and wife and kids are also quite formal, not so sensible. The older daughter of Jian family approx. 14-tears old Ting-Ting (portrayed by Kelly Lee) seems to be the one who is close to the grandmother.

Ting-Ting is one of three main characters whose perspectives on the narrative are being depicted. We see her relationships with the family, a close friend and troubled childish boyfriend. At some point, Edward Yang crosses the love stories of Ting-Ting and her father NJ (Wu Nien-jen) who met his first love after 30 years from their separation. The way a girl and boy hold their hands applied on the same way NJ and his former love Sherry used to do. The scenes are identical, as well as hotel scenes were both couples were involved in within 30 years of time difference. Ting-Ting is shown as she is already following the same path of her parents, and the similarity of their paths is inevitable. The rehearsal of this motif is very important in Yi Yi: in the end, the young son Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang) feels like he is taking a place of grandmother, and Ting-Ting gets a feeling of mother’s Min-Min (Elaine Kin) tribulations who struggles to get through the middle-age crisis.

 The patriarch NJ also experiences the middle-age crisis learning he has lost hopes for his own life to get changed. This is the time for him to reconsider relationships with the family members and the first love he suddenly encounters for the first time since they broke up at school. He also doesn’t feel right about the business he is involved in. NJ is shown as a man of honesty and good manners, and there is no room for such qualities in a large business. The life seems pointless, as he’s been doing this business he is not meant for throughout his life. Surprisingly, he becomes close to the Japanese software mogul Ota (Issey Ogata) who understands his feelings and helps him to regain the sense of the meaning of life. A mysterious Japanese happens to be an open-minded type talking about his poor childhood and tremendous changes his life had gone through. He insists that every day and week of life brings something new, but he remains a rare person to think so. His ideas are tantalizing and attractive, but very few people can share this approach. NJ can hardly follow him as well.

 The third perspective is the story shown from the eyes of NJ’s son Yang-Yang who attends elementary school. Edward Yang in a sublime and gentle way shows the relationships of Yang-Yang with classmates, first feelings for the older girl, troubles with the teacher and first own interests a kid develops willing to become a photographer. He clicks pictures of people’s back of the neck as they are not able to see what is behind them. So Yang-Yang helps them his way. His artistic approach doesn’t find an approval, though. A child has just started to live and he slowly learns the simple things about the world. However, he is already shown with a touch of sorrow and loneliness as neither parents nor classmates seem to be close to him.

 All the perspectives of the characters cross brilliantly and fill the space of Taipei with curious scenes of family life with their sublime and piercing emptiness at the same time. There is always a gap between generations, but all the characters will follow the more or less same path which is inevitable. The characters’ names such as Ting-Ting, Min-Min or Yang-Yang resemble the film’s title Yi Yi. It is literally translated from Chinese as “One and One” is used to show the oblique way of looking at the events of life. In order to demonstrate the ambiguity, the director often films the characters in an inventive way placing the camera behind the glass and filming them sitting and talking somewhere from outside. There are several scenes where the camera is far on the other side of the glass, yet we hear characters speaking in the café or room. The point of ambiguity is that everybody lives their own lives, yet we all experience the same things. In the end, life would be nothing, but disappointment, as the stories of protagonists tell. Even the kids are already on the way to end up like their parents. The parents had comprehended it and they already know for sure, we all born alone and we die that way too.

What is the difference between the generations in Yi Yi? In fact, the differences are just in the age, innocence, and expectations the children still possess. The crossing scenes and subplots show how similar people are. Nothing new is going to happen in the lives of these kids. The parents have already gone this way seeking harmony and had come in terms with the pace of life after failing. Yi and Yi, children and parents like one and one – we see them on the same track to learn life is quite meaningless.

Three-hour Taiwanese family drama concerns many more motifs, protagonists, subplots and stories. It would take a long to describe the stories of NJ’s brother marriage or his affair with Sherry or family drama of Ting-Ting’s neighbour and friend. It reminds of Ozu’s Tokyo Story with numerous wonderful things and drastically important features the viewers immerse into and slowly comprehends. Yi Yi is an encyclopedia of life with many dimensions and fantastically elaborate attention to the details and littlest things.

 Yi Y by Edward Yang is a visual delight with fantastic photography and the innovative camera work. The style of the film is catchy and exhilarating. However, the style delights are only employed to complement the philosophy of the story. This is the whole world depicted on a sophisticated canvas of Edward Yang. It can be certainly interpreted in different ways, as there are both beautiful, touching moments of Jian’s family life and a feeling of inevitable despair as the people are meant to live the same lives by the fact of their birth.

 Yi Yi is the most significant and acclaimed film of Edward Yang summarizing his filmmaking career. The cinematography of Wei-han Peng and brilliant performance of actors, as well as complicated and sublime story make Yi Yi one of the greatest ever produced by the Taiwanese filmmakers.

[weirdletter]

London Lovecraft Festival: A Teatrichal Celebration of the Works and Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. February 3-9, 2019 at The Old Red Lion Theatre, 418 St. John Street, London, UK. Info: oldredliontheatre.co.uk; londonlovecraft.com.

Taking place over seven nights, the festival will have original and gently-loved productions presented to London audiences deep in the depths of darkest pub theatredom. With world premieres as well as tried and true creations, both Lovecraft novices and deeper initiates should find their palates tickled and their brains disturbed.

6:00pm Sunday, February 3rd Pickman’s Model Meet Richard Upton Pickman, an artist shunned by the establishment because of his horrifying paintings. But what kind of company has Pickman been keeping? And who — or what — pays a visit to his studio on one terrifying evening? The story is perfect material for Nunkie Theatre — one-man performances by Robert Lloyd Parry, who is best known for his adaptations of the work of PD James. He’s an amazing actor, with a real talent for bringing a story to life and sending a shiver down your spine. Although this is a rehearsed reading, the fright factor should be very high as the original story is one of Lovecraft’s best and Parry is an expert at filling intimate spaces with lurking horror.

7:30pm Sunday 3rd Night of 1000 Tentacles Clocktopus Cabaret presents: Night of 1000 Tentacles! On their second expedition,  Captain Bang Bang and her trustworthy first mate, Stormina Teacup, set out for eldritch realms. Join them and a host of London burlesque and cabaret favorites, including Dolly Trolly with a brand new Lovecraft themed act, and necromantic sorcerer – er, magician – Chris Benkin with his sleight of tentacle, for an outstanding steampunk/transdimensional night of wonders. You will gasp, you will gibber, you will wonder … where did they hide those eyeballs?

9:15 PM Sunday 3rd Cool Air Dr. Muñoz has spent their life battling the forces of death. When Miskatonic University student Natalie Peaslee comes looking for help for her heart, she has no idea how far Muñoz will go to win that fight. As summer rages, they’ll both need to keep a cool head to make it out of Arkham alive. This staged reading directed by Emma Muir Smith marks the European debut of Ron Sandahl’s stage adaptation, originally presented at Seattle’s Open Circle Theatre in 2005.

7:00pm Monday 4th Lovecraft Shivers Do you like stories that make the hairs stand up at the back of your neck? Sam Enthoven’s Shivers nights have been giving aficionados that sensation of spiders down the spine for more than a year now. Sam picks and adapts the finest frightening literature and finds great performers to read it. The twist with Shivers is that these tales are then paired with live sounds from his uniquely uncanny instrument, the theremin, and some of the best up-and-coming artists from London’s experimental music scene. The result is a kind of cinema for the ears and imagination, with storytelling and sound combining to draw you irresistibly in, to reach cold fingers into your mind, to give you Shivers. The stories of H.P. Lovecraft have, naturally, featured at previous Shivers nights. We’ve performed From Beyond in the chapel of Abney Park Cemetery and Dagon in the hold of Spanish galleon The Golden Hinde. The opportunity, however, to put together a new all-Lovecraft Shivers for the festival that celebrates Horror’s dark prince himself is, like his legacy, irresistible. We look forward to scaring you.

7:00pm Monday 4th Albertina West: Reanimator Schoolmates Albertina West and Carla Milburn are scientists in  pursuit of knowledge – about reanimating the dead. But when the formula only seems to work on the freshest of bodies, it’s a small step to take from robbing graves to murder. And for some reason, the awakened dead don’t seem very happy about it… In this work commissioned especially for the London Lovecraft Festival, TL Wiswell extends her suite of genderswitched Lovecraft tales to this perennial favorite. Come and see a play Borne and Walk (but not come back for revenge).

7:00pm Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th Providence “Life is a hideous thing.” Prepare to be amazed, terrified, and driven insane! Great Cthulhu may be sleeping beneath the sea, but in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft can’t get a wink. Join the morose and miserable Howard Phillips Lovecraft, author of ‘The Call of Cthulhu’, ‘Shadow Over Innsmouth’ and other incredibly weird tales, as he contemplates the many mistakes that make up his life. His father went mad when he was four. He suffered a mental breakdown when he was eighteen. He lived with his overprotective mother until he was thirty. He loathed seafood, loved coffee and hated immigrants. Indeed he despised anyone who wasn’t an 18th century English Gentleman.  But he hated himself most of all. Lovecraft’s losses were fortunately our gains as his enigmatic, tortured mind gave birth to a body of work we now consider as the foundations of the modern horror genre. Using physical comedy, live music and all the classic horror tropes you can rattle a chain at, Dominic Allen (Belt-Up, A Common Man) and Simon Maeder (Superbolt Theatre) explore a wretched life and ask a haunting question: can any love be salvaged from one so filled with hate? Winner of Vaults Festival ‘Pick of the Week’ award.

9:00pm Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th The Lurking Fear and other stories Nestled in amongst the Catskills, sits Tempest Mountain. Far from a vacation destination. This mountain is shrouded in death and destruction. At the heart of all the horror, sitting empty and imposing atop the mountain, is the legendary House of Martense. No-one from the town below, that lies quivering in the shadow of the Martense mansion, ever dares venture up there. Especially when there’s a storm brewing. That is until an inquisitive young journalist, with a self-confessed ‘Love of the grotesque and horrible’, finds herself alone, following the trail of what the locals will only call “The Lurking Fear”. Broken Word Productions Presents The Lurking Fear and Other Stories, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Lurking Fear”, as well as an introduction to some of his shorter stories. With the aid of puppetry and storytelling, follow our Hero as she faces one of Lovecraft’s deadliest monsters. This is Broken Word’s second theatre production, following it’s 4 star debut with Train Journey at the Camden Fringe earlier this year. They are excited to be taking, somewhat of a darker turn in presenting the World Premiere of (in their opinion) not one, but two of Lovecraft’s finest horrors.

9:00pm Thursday 7th The Witching Hour Montague Rhodes James returns with another selection of unsettling tales of antiquarian terror! Brave the horrors lying in wait within “An Episode of Cathedral History”! Witness the spectral malevolent seeking revenge in “A Warning to the Curious”! One-man show and follow-up to our successful touring production of “Old Haunts”. Jonathan Goodwin plays M.R. James in a show scripted by himself, and directed by Gary Archer.

7:00pm Thursday 7th Lovecraft After Dark Allow the cosmic horror of Howard Philip Lovecraft to envelop your senses and blast your imagination! At any moment, the terrors of the Ancient Ones may be unleashed upon the world. The Elder Gods scrutinise our every deed, awaiting their opportunity to reclaim what was once theirs. Madness will be a blessing to those mere mortals who witness the crawling chaos soon to be released upon mankind! Jonathan Goodwin plays Cornelius Pike in Lovecraft After Dark. The show is scripted by Goodwin, and co-directed by Goodwin and Gary Archer.

7:00pm Friday 8th & Saturday 9th 3:00pm Saturday 9th Late Night with Cthuhlu It’s been a few hundred years since the Great Old Ones awoke from their ancient slumber and enslaved humanity. Yet somehow, against all the odds, life has gone back to normal…ish. Thankfully, the people of London now have something to look forward to at the end of a long day of suffering and toiling. A being known only as THE PRODUCER has ordered the city’s best Television Station (or maybe the city’s *only* television station) be reopened, and for the broadcast of a new state-approved talk show “Late Night With Cthulhu” to stretch its tendrils onto the airwaves. Join your hosts Arabella Fenneck Reid and Sebastian Baxter Thompson for the newest instalment of your new favourite (and mandatory) evening of post-apocalyptic light entertainment. Late Night With Cthulhu is a heart-shuddering romp through a world after the return of the Great Ones. So come along and tune in for an evening of all stars, guest stars, and things beyond the stars! If you’re lucky, you might just go insane…” Trigger warnings: Strobe Lights, Loud Noises, Creeping Dread.

5:00pm Saturday 9th Writing Lovecraft A rehearsed reading of the winning play written for the London Lovecraft Festival.

9:00pm Friday 8th and Saturday 9th The Colour Out of Space With their signature live-Foley treatment, Shedload bring the already potent storytelling of Lovecraft to life through a carefully structured mix of live readings by highly-trained and experienced actors, and sound effects, performed by our very own Foley experts. For this, we rely on a whole ‘shed’s’ worth of sound makers, including every day items such as gardening tools, coal scuttles and salad spinners, as well as more niche instruments such as the ‘sea hoops’, grapefruit (and other choice fruit & veg items), and our prized possession: the Waterphone; an instrument that will no doubt be familiar to every horror film fan. So picture the scene – a dimly-lit stage, with a set comprising Arkham’s town sign and boundaries; a lone narrator, centre stage, using to great effect Lovecraft’s faithfully-adapted writing to describe the horror of the disintegrating farm animals before him – but hang on! – not only are you picturing this, you’re hearing it too: A pig barks out its last rattling breath as its skull collapses – its rotting flesh spills out onto the ground… – voice actor, red pepper, grapefruit, and a hammer – The RØDE mic does the rest. Chilling screams from the attic, complete with nails scratching on wooden floorboard, and the palpable wail of the strange celestial matter plaguing the farm… namely, The Colour out of Space.

12:00pm through 10:00pm, Sunday 3rd through Saturday 9th Patient 4620 Gretel Sauerbrot: a once famous artist, admitted to the Raventhorne Institution and then never heard from again. You are invited to the Royal Museum of Contemporary Art, and through a series of audio guides you explore and uncover clues to Gretel’s past. This unique theatre show is a blend of immersive theatre, auditory storytelling, and art installation; resulting in a rich and sensory experience that won’t be easily forgotten. To experience the show at its fullest, audiences should bring a Smartphone or WiFi enabled device, along with a headset. In the event you cannot provide your own device and/or headset, you will be loaned items on entering the show.

[winonalakefossils]

The Boy Problem

Boys City Drive is a short stretch of road in Winona Lake, Indiana. It terminates abruptly at the entrance to what was for decades known as Chicago Boy’s Club. This street name and an old sign with the word “Chicago” may appear as misnomers. In fact, they preserve a critical moment in both local and American history. Here is that story.

Judge Willis Brown, touted as the first judge of the first juvenile court in Salt Lake City, Utah, stood confidently before an audience of thirty men, all fairly advanced in age when compared to him. Yet the enthusiasm, knowledge, experience and wisdom of this clean-shaven twenty-four-year-old prodigy shattered any preconceived notions that youthfulness might otherwise have elicited. Besides, his reputation preceded him.

Before his judicial appointment in Utah, Willis Brown had served as a national leader in the war against cigarettes. He campaigned vigorously throughout the United States on behalf of the Anti-Cigarette League whose hard work had resulted in legislation outlawing “coffin nails” in Indiana. Cigarettes, league members argued, threatened to lead young people, especially boys, into other vices.

Judge Brown’s dedication to this national cause and his focus on recovering misguided youth led a Salt Lake City commission to install him as judge of its first juvenile court. Who was better fit for the task than Willis Brown?

That same question had the identical answer in the fall of 1906 at a meeting organized by Sol Dickey, Secretary of the Winona Assembly which was considering the establishment of a camp dedicated to the betterment of boys. At Dickey’s invitation, Judge Brown addressed the assembled benefactors.

“At the turn of the twentieth century, America faces a problem, one greater than the building of the Panama Canal or the sale of alcohol. One that is even more important than world peace! What is this crisis? Why, it’s the boy problem!”

The attentive men in expensive suits nodded as they glanced about in agreement with the speaker’s astute observation. All America fretted over what had come to be called the boy problem.

 “The training which made a strong man a few years ago will not do for today. A boy is surrounded by temptations. He is lured by alcohol, indecent photographs, tobacco, and pool halls. Boys determine the destiny of this country because they are the foundation stones of our great republic.”

The judge paused before emphatically declaring, “We must fit the boy for useful citizenship!”

Brown’s vision enchanted his audience, for Boy City was to be a city run by boys. What genius!

The judge laid out with precision his plan for electing a mayor and a city council. Politically minded boys, he said, would run a campaign. Their peers would vote. Laws would be drawn up and enforced.

He described competitions among athletic teams, a band to entertain the Assembly’s summer guests, and a choir of at least three hundred voices.

“Every boy with a camera will bring his, and we will have a photography club with contests and awards.”

The captivating crusader proposed real commerce in the form of a functioning bank. He pledged a grocery store, restaurant, an ice cream shop and a daily newspaper. Boy City, the judge added, would be a tent city with eight wards. Each tent would have an address to which mail would be delivered by the city’s duly appointed postmaster.

“We will have utilities in the form of a telephone company and limited electricity.”

Judge Brown excited his listeners further by projecting a startling attendance of five thousand boys. The young denizens would have total charge of their city while the judge, his staff, and chaperones supervised them in drafting, implementing, and upholding its laws.

“A boy must be trusted or he will rebel,” the judge warned with all of the authority of a man who knows. “Winona Assembly need only provide the setting and the initial financing. All other responsibilities will fall to me.”  

Brown’s magnetic delivery won over his enthusiastic audience. Sol Dickey and the Winona Assembly wasted little time in publicly announcing its partnership with Judge Willis Brown, promising a novel and effective approach to making boys into good citizens. Such a promise went a long way to comforting the many who despaired of the seeming inevitability of a boy’s corruption in the modern world. Mr. Studebaker, the automobile manufacturer from South Bend, proudly accepted to be Chairman of the venture.

That spring, a dozen workers set about clearing the southern end of the Assembly grounds. They removed thick underbrush and marked off an acre for each ward. They installed street signs and erected a huge tent at the entrance to the camp. They graded and rolled an athletic field and brought in sand for a beach. They installed piers for fifty rowboats. They built a mammoth toboggan chute down which wooden sleds crashed into the lake. Mr. J. G McGee delivered an authentic Columbia Voting Machine that his company manufactured. The new-fangled machine had survived the “voting machine war” a few years before and was recognized as an infallible invention.  

By the end of June, the only thing missing was boys.

On July 26, 1907, a sunburned and dusty contingent arrived on bicycles from Marysville, Ohio, after a one hundred and eighty mile adventure. The Huntington delegation hiked fifty miles to Boy City. A company of twenty-five made their way on foot from Wabash. Hundreds more arrived by train. Uniformed regiments of the Indiana Boys Brigade marched onto the Assembly grounds with Springfield rifles. Under the command of Capt. Biddle, they set up pickets to keep gawkers out. By order of Judge Brown, Boy City fell under military rule until after elections in which the boys overwhelmingly chose fifteen-year-old Frank Abbott of Goshen as the first mayor of Boy City. A watermelon feast followed the ceremonial induction of Abbott and the newly elected city council members.

Before the historic first encampment at Boy City pulled up stakes, the Muncie Evening Register reported its astounding success. Judge Brown had delivered on his promises, and the Winona Assembly wanted to make Boy City a permanent Chautauqua event.

“In a few years,” Judge Willis boasted, “every state will have its own Boy City.” In fact, Judge Brown let slip a plan for a European tour with a group of fifty boys slated for the following year. This news sent a thrill of excitement through the ranks.

More glowing reports poured out of Boy City the second year, giving account of yet another spectacular season. However, in May 1909, two months before the third annual encampment, Sol Dickey issued a surprise press release to the effect that the Winona Assembly had severed all ties with Judge Willis Brown.

When Brown pitched his elaborate—and expensive—vision for Boy City in 1906, his audience did not know that Utah’s State Supreme Court was about to hand down a ruling regarding Brown’s supposed first juvenile court of Utah. Details about his credentials and his antics began circulating in 1907 when former associates set out to expose him as a fraud.

Initially, Sol Dickey defended his young colleague by explaining in a newspaper article that Judge Brown had purposefully legislated himself out of the court, which was Brown’s explanation of the matter. Over time, however, as complaints trickled in, doubts about Brown’s character plagued Dickey. It was the following letter from Judge Benjamin Lindsey that warranted decisive action.

Mr. Dickey,

I am writing concerning an impostor in your midst in the person of Judge Willis Brown. I have no desire to injure the man. I confess I was taken in by him myself several years ago. The truth of the complicated matter is that the man is not a lawyer, and the court he presided over in Salt Lake had no legal standing. I’ve learned that he has bragged of the thousands of dollars he has made on the lecture circuit calling himself a judge and that he jokes of the ease with which he foists himself upon the public. I am not aware of any unscrupulous conduct at Winona Lake. However, you should be warned that he is not an honest man. 

For all of his talk of drawing thousands of boys to Winona, Judge Brown’s Boy City drew only seven hundred the first year and five hundred the second year. Press releases celebrated the camp’s successes, but the balance sheet told a different story. The investment was not paying for itself as Brown had promised. Besides the disappointing budget shortfall, Brown’s methods of overseeing the boys had sparked a number of embarrassing episodes.

The first summer, when two members of the Indiana Boys Brigade were on night patrol, one of the boys accidentally shot the other in the face at close range. The rifle fired a blank that left the other boy with serious but non-life threatening wounds. Mr. Dickey had been called out of bed and had rushed to the scene. The injured boy rode the train home where doctors intervened to save his eyesight. Papers carried the story, and the Assembly responded by actively assuring parents that Boy City was safe for their sons.

On another day, members of the Boys Brigade pursued the milkman through the Assembly grounds all the way to the Winona Hotel, firing volleys (more blanks, thank goodness) before taking the poor fellow into custody. The disturbance brought the sheriff to the camp with the warning that if another gun were fired, everyone would be arrested. The following morning, the boys found themselves without fresh milk and ice, and the Winona Assembly found itself the subject of another embarrassing news story.

Similar problems mounted the second season when over one hundred boys failed to show up—yet another financial loss. And then there was the bizarre circus with a host of strange sights including a sideshow featuring a five hundred-pound “woman” played by a two hundred-pound boy in a dress with a plunging neckline, red lipstick and a blonde wig made from straw. The Assembly’s leaders found the acclaimed circus a considerable deviation from the original vision of a well-run municipality.

Mr. Dickey got up from his desk and walked to the window. The steamer City of Warsaw chugged across the lake. Exhilarated passengers waved to the crowds on the beach. Rowboats bobbed in the steamer’s wake. He thought of the hundreds of patrons filling the auditorium for the afternoon concert and imagined the Shakespeare cast rehearsing for its next performance. He recalled the glamorous floats from Venetian Night the week before when magnificent creations coasted along the canal leaving spectators awestruck.

A barely perceptible smile reflected on the windowpane. Dickey held in his hand the evidence he needed to rid Winona of this huckster once and for all. He tucked the letter into his breast pocket, grabbed his hat and walked in the direction of Willis Brown’s summer cottage.

Boy City operated on an ever-diminishing scale for the next several years. Enthusiastic headlines announcing teenage mayoral candidates disappeared from local papers. Bold forecasts for thousands of boys descending on Winona Lake fizzled. The boys’ bank, grocery store and post office closed for good. An unnatural quiet enveloped the wooded hills. It hovered above the deserted athletic field and snaked its way to the water’s edge to linger among forlorn boat piers. Melancholy waves lapped the desolate beach.

In the summer of 1916, Boy City was recalled to life when the “Witter boys” arrived in Winona Lake. John Witter, a sincere, soft-spoken man and superintendent of the Chicago Boy’s Club, led a band of seventy-five ragtag boys through the Winona Assembly to the camp. Bystanders smiled at the heartwarming procession on its way to founding what would become a lasting model municipality.

Mornings began with reveille. A shrill trumpet signaled an early swim, followed by a flag raising ceremony and then a feast of eggs, pancakes, bacon, fruit and cool buttermilk. The Witter boys—a picture of America’s melting pot—learned to bait a hook and row a boat. They enjoyed swimming and diving lessons. Youth from a congested, hectic metropolis waded into Cherry Creek to catch bullfrogs and snapping turtles. They picked raspberries and mulberries and learned to differentiate between oaks, elms, pines and maples. For ten blissful days, boys from impoverished families worked a vegetable garden and gathered eggs from a chicken coop. Nature studies brought them into close contact with blue herons, red hawks, barred owls, warblers and finches. Locals pitched in by generously providing barrels of apples, fresh baked cookies and canned goods. Women’s sewing circles got to work making new garments for the boys and patching tattered ones.

For the first time in their lives, this group of boys from different faiths experienced the magic of a campfire.  Every night they gathered in a circle to share stories, sing hymns and say their prayers.

When it came time to return to Chicago, the boys marched in their new clothes across the Assembly grounds to the train station. Theirs was a parade of energetic youngsters lugging jars of wild berries, clutching leaf collections and hauling pet turtles and frogs in small wooden crates. Every boy’s pockets overflowed with an assortment of feathers, rocks, shells and sticks.  

The Witter boys represented a mixture of races and creeds of underprivileged kids, often the sons of immigrants whose mothers and fathers worked in factories made busy by the onset of WWI in Europe. A sudden rise in juvenile delinquency at this time troubled John Witter, so he set about finding a respite for troubled boys roaming the streets of Chicago. His search had led him to Brown's abandoned Boy City on the southern edge of Winona Lake.

The first Boy City had ended precipitously with the termination of that infamous rascal Willis Brown. Nevertheless, Sol Dickey did not give up on the nation’s boy problem created by an increasingly industrialized America. In 1916, he welcomed John Witter, a man who had been raised on a farm. He brought the boys to Winona Lake and taught them to plow, plant and weed. He and his wife cared for the property and invested themselves in these youngsters.

A benefactor purchased Boy City from the Winona Assembly for the Chicago Boy’s Club to establish a “city” which endured for three generations and which brought thousands of disadvantaged boys to a wooded haven where they escaped the temptation of joining street gangs, interacted with nature, learned important life skills and enriched their spiritual lives.  

Willis Brown proved to be a dishonest man, but for the sincere in heart, even the visions of a scoundrel can be turned into something wonderful.

[acsversace-news]

AN IMPRESSIVE PREMIERE SETS THE SCENE FOR A VERY DIFFERENT CRIME

How do you follow the crime of the century? That’s the question Ryan Murphy and FX must have been asking after the monumental success of American Crime Story’s first season. Brushing off charges of exploitation and insensitivity, The People v O.J.  Simpson was a surprisingly detailed and compassionate tale with the racial politics of the early 90s and 2016, and how they mirrored each other through the filter of the O.J. Simpson murder trial. It topped many best of year lists, won a ton of awards, and briefly put Cuba Gooding Jr on the map again. The question must be asked again: how do you follow it?

The Assassination of Gianni Versace has a lot to live up to, and by the basis of The Man Who Would be Vogue it’s safe to say that Ryan Murphy has another hit on his hands. In many ways, season two of American Crime Story is completely different than season one. Sure, there are lots of similarities: it’s 90s setting, the crime featuring a number of famous faces, actors from Ryan Murphy’s previous projects, but The Assassination of Gianni Versace has a completely different feel than its predecessor.

One of the most important differences is the cut and dry nature of the crime itself. There is absolutely no ambiguity about who murdered Gianni Versace: that would be serial killer Andrew Cunanan, played by Darren Criss. Also, if you think that season two will have the same structure of the first season, which isn’t unusual if you aren’t familiar with the crime, don’t get your hopes up. There will be no trial, instead there will be what the author of the book this season is based on Maureen Orth called “the largest failed manhunt in U.S. history.”

If the crime seems straightforward, the lead up, and consequences of it are anything but. The Man Who Would be Vogue spends its first ten minutes showing the contrasting circumstances of victim and killer. Ryan Murphy’s camera follows Versace (Edgar Ramirez) through his palatial mansion much like a king wander around his castle. As he makes his way through his morning routine, we are shown the same time frame from Andrew Cunanan’s perspective. It’s here that the contrast becomes so effective. As Versace is calmly waking up for what might be an unremarkable day, Cunanan is on the beach, which is stained red in many places, preparing for the act that will make him as famous as the man he is about to kill.

I didn’t like Glee so I wasn’t that aware of Darren Criss until he started popping up in some predictable places: as a dead hipster in American Horror Story: Hotel, and some unpredictable places: as the Music Meister in the Supergirl/Flash musical crossover. None of these roles prepared me for his magnetic performance as Andrew Cunanan. Clearly the most eye-catching part of this premiere, at least until Penelope Cruz turns up, Criss, along with Murphy, and head writer Tom Robbin Smith, have crafted a captivating sociopath who, if he wasn’t a real person, I would have called a larger than life imitation of Tom Ripley.

With this season placing such importance on circumstances leading to the murder, going as far back as 1990 when Cunanan allegedly met Versace, Criss has to craft a character in which the lengths of his insanity went to make narrative sense. This is harder than you would think as real-life people don’t tend to stick to character architypes, or act in ways that make logical sense within a story. The advantage of Cunanan is that he is constantly inventing himself over and over again in every situation he finds himself in. This is shown effectively through his accounts of that possibly made-up meeting with Versace. We first see it as it supposedly happened: with Cunanan sensing an opening that frequently closes only for him to rip it open again. It’s this persistence, and a story about his family ties to Italy, that helps him connect to Versace enough that the designer invites him to the opera. From here we hear two alternative versions of this story from Cunanan’s point of view that put him in a more cool and favourable light. He’s a pathological liar that creates himself anew over and over again: symbolised by his nearly empty wardrobe and his confession (even if it is superficial) that he has nothing.

The best scene of the episode is a culmination of all of Cunanan’s skills. In a borrowed suit, he improvises a privileged history of himself to put him on somewhat equal footing to Versace. The way Criss moves around the stage is almost comically that of an actor putting on a performance, which is exactly what he is doing. This is complicated further by the niggling thought that this entire scene could be a fiction as well. What is real though, is Cunanan’s crimes, which turn out to be more serious than just Versace.

Apart from the meat of the episode between Ramirez and Criss, The Man Who Would be Vogue has got some season-long plots to set up. It’s here where American Crime Story feels the most familiar. Not only is law enforcement involved, including Miami PD and the FBI, there is also the media, and bystanders that are on hand to hustle for profit or souvenirs.

8/10 – The pieces have been put in place, the big players introduced, and the story set in motion. American Crime Story has figured out how to follow its first season: go bigger.

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY Vernon Coyle (Pasdar), a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department, is trying to solve a series of bizarre murders. His girlfriend, Grace (Polo), turns into a werewolf and is kidnapped by Crispian Grimes (Wise), a vampire and owner of the nightclub House of Frankenstein. Meanwhile, a man, claiming to be Frankenstein’s monster, comes to Los Angeles to find the vampire that killed his creator 200 years ago.

NBC120 7/18/97 PRESS TOUR — HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN — PICTURED: The Creature — NBC Photo: Paul Drinkwater.

He had lived in the Arctic Circle for centuries and had been thawed out recently. A medical examiner comes in and is shocked that he has no heartbeat and that his blood consists of that of several different people. The creature escapes and confronts Grimes in an alley, but gets arrested. Coyle realizes that the creature is really a creation of Frankenstein, and helps him track down Grimes and put a stop to his reign of terror. Grace turns into a werewolf and goes on a rampage, where she gets captured by Grimes and will be a part of his exhibit forever.

Coyle and the creature destroy Grimes’ army of the undead, but he escapes. The creature also escapes, having finally avenged his creator’s death. He sneaks aboard a research vessel on its way to Antarctica. Grace revives after a successful blood transfusion makes her human again. Coyle and Grace later visit his partner’s grave as he was the first victim of Grimes, who is watching them from afar.

BEHIND THE SCENES The miniseries’ title and the very basics of its story were taken from the 1944 Universal picture directed by Erle C. Kenton. “Karloff wasn’t playing Frankenstein’s Monster any longer,” explains executive producer David Israel, “but played Dr. Niemann. It was the first of the Universal horror films to feature Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula and the Wolf Man in the same picture. So we used that as a jumping-off point.

“We didn’t feel we could directly remake House of Frankenstein, because with today’s sensibilities it just wouldn’t be scary.” adds screenwriter J.B. White. “We went back and forth as to whether we were going to do this as a period or contemporary piece.”

Israel admits that this is his first experience with the horror genre. “I’ve dipped my toes into the water, and I’m kind of enjoying it. This movie is not a parody. It’s a drama with elements of a police story, but three of the characters happen to be a werewolf, a vampire and Frankenstein’s Creature.” And don’t look for the latter to echo the appearance of Universal’s famous creation. “We had total say on what the Creature would look like,” Israel says. “We hired Greg Cannom, who is an Academy Award-winning makeup artist, one of the greats in the business who usually only does features. He did Bram Stoker’s Dracula, so he’s had experience doing vampires. He was clearly the best choice.

“Cannom had always wanted to have the opportunity to do his artistic interpretation of Frankenstein’s monster,” Israel continues. “I think this is by far the most ingenious interpretation; there are no bolts. Also, this is a sympathetic creature for whom we should have empathy. The actor who plays him, Peter Crombie, makes you feel that remarkably well.”

While the producers and Cannom were given artistic control, Israel confesses that they were careful about being too graphic in the horror and violence department. “We’re pushing the envelope as far as we can, but we still have to keep in mind that this is going to be available on every TV set in America,” he notes. “Kids are going to watch it, and sponsors have their needs too. It’s as graphic as it needs to be, but it’s never gruesome.”

Israel was involved in all aspects of the production, but the one element which gave him the most worry during the 48-day shoot was the training of real wolves for the lycanthrope scenes. “Our werewolves are not going to be hairy people,” he reveals, “The actors are going to morph into actual wolves. But we had to train the animals to do different types of stunts, which is probably the single most important thing we have to do on the show. Only the stunt people and the trainers work with the wolves; they’re too dangerous.”

Responsible for scripting all these hazardous scenarios was White, who was tapped by Universal and NBC to work on House of Frankenstein after the success of Beast last year. That two-part miniseries was his first exploration into monster movies, and though he’s not a complete fan of the genre, White admits, “It’s impossible not to be influenced by the past [horror] movies. It’s part of our collective consciousness vampires, werewolves and certainly the Frankenstein Creature. So my approach to this story is not as a genre picture, but just as another dramatic story which happens to have these rather extraordinary elements.”

One aspect which may surprise some connoisseurs of vampire lore is White’s concept of them as fallen angels. “It was just a notion that came to me while I was writing,” he recalls. “Part of the iconography of vampires is their abhorrence of anything religious, they often fly and they have power over people—they bring evil into people’s lives. This is a very satanic idea. Satan and his minions are fallen angels, and the concept felt right.

“One of the things I wanted to do was to humanize all of the creatures in the script,” White continues, then adds, “I don’t know if humanize is the right word, but to make us understand them better. I’ve always found something poignant about fallen angels. They lived in grace and fell from it; they always want to get back to it, but they can’t. They are creatures condemned by their own natures, and it’s heartbreaking.’

White also took a few liberties with the classic European mythology of vampires when it comes to the sun’s effect on them, acknowledging that he took inspiration from Coppola’s movie. “In that version, Dracula moved around freely in the daylight,” the writer says. “He protected himself from the sun, making sure his face and hands were covered. but that’s a practical consideration. If you’re going to tell a story like this in modern Los Angeles, you don’t want the vampires to only be out at night; it gets kind of tired. Also, these vampires have assimilated themselves; they have intermingled with us. I thought we could get away with making them a little more versatile.”

Yet White’s favorite character is undoubtedly the Creature. “I remembered clearly how the Mary Shelley book ended,” he explains. “It always seemed to me that she was setting herself up for a sequel, because she had him floating off into the darkness on an ice raft. I made it a mission in this script to make the Frankenstein Creature a real hero that and Grimes’ relationship with Grace Dawkins are the real heart of the movie. Boris Karloff’s original creature was sympathetic, but over the years, just because he’s designated as a monster, he has gotten a bum rap. I’m hoping that this, in some small way, will restore the Creature’s reputation. We wanted to show all of his aspects. He is a man out of time. His whole motivation from the moment he is awakened is to get back to where he came from.”   Great care has been taken to preserve some of the feel of and connection to the original Frankenstein movies. As an element of homage to the first House of Frankenstein, the man who searches the North Pole for the Creature is named Dr. Niemann. Also referenced is one of the most stein: the encounter between the Creature and a little girl. This often misunderstood and usually censored scene is now transposed to a meeting between the two on a bus, but the compassion will hopefully still be there.

Of course, none of the emotional scenes or extensive makeup can work if cast in the part. And for the role of Frankenstein’s creation, Crombie appears perfectly suited. The actor always refers to his character as the Creature, never “the monster,” which is the first indication of how carefully he respects the part. Even being subjected to almost three hours of makeup doesn’t deter Crombie’s enthusiasm; in fact, he believes that this long process is the best preparation he could have to get into the part. “I stare at myself in the mirror as Bill Corso, my makeup artist, puts each piece of the mask on my face,” he says. “I can’t really do anything else. I’m slowly putting the skin, metaphorically and literally, of this character on me.

“I remember an acting class I had at Yale’s drama school,” Crombie continues. “They had a closet filled with costumes and masks. You’d take a mask and sit in front of these mirrors and see what it did to you, what would arise emotionally. As bits of character would emerge, you’d put on costumes, compiling more and more of a character. You don’t get many opportunities to do something like that, especially using such elaborate masks as these. I knew I wasn’t going to begin to find this character until I had the makeup on. It was going to do things to me-affect the way I carried my head or make me move my mouth in a certain manner. And sure enough, that’s what happened. It turns out that the voice I had developed (for the audition) was too much. You can allow the makeup to do the work for you, and it will, if you let it.

“I was a little anxious at first,” Crombie admits. There was a touch of claustrophobia, especially when they did a full head cast. It was like being entombed. They told me it was going to be about 12 minutes, and it was 35. I just meditated to myself and managed to hold it together. They also did a cast of my chest and arms, because they were thinking of doing a kind of glove. But they abandoned that idea, and I think rightly so. The chest makeup was only used for one shot, when I first appear as the Creature and he’s still in 19thcentury clothes.”

The actor agrees with White’s inspiration to humanize this particular creation. “The idea is,” Crombie explains, “the Creature doesn’t totally look like a monster when he’s walking down the street. He could be mistaken for some homeless guy. If I were in New York, where I used to live, I would have just hit the streets in preparation for this character, because I would have found some version of him there. I’ve certainly seen enough of them over the years, and I’m working that into the Creature.”

Crombie also had to work carefully in animating his facial expressions, since his movements tended to become muted under the layers of makeup. However, this was not the first time Crombie had worked with such extensive makeup. Playing the Creature couldn’t prepare Crombie for the astonished reactions from the extras or the busloads of tourists who saw him on the backlot at Universal Studios, where some of House of Frankenstein was shot. “The trams ran by every three minutes in front of my trailer,” he remembers with a laugh. “I’d be waiting, and the trams would get backed up and I couldn’t get across the street. So I’d be standing there in my undershirt and full makeup, and the people wouldn’t know what they were looking at. They didn’t know if they should point their cameras or run and hide. I think they got their money’s worth.”

Serving as the movie’s resident expert on vampire and werewolf lore is the Professor Kendall character played by awardwinning actress Pounder, who devoted plenty of careful study to her eclectic role. “I love her handle,” she say proudly. “Associate Professor of Cultural Symbolic Anthropology. I think she invented a department for herself, and she’s got a lot of theory experience in a number of subjects. One thing I liked is that when I went into my office, the set designer had used ritualistic and mythological objects from all over the world-a very smart move.

“Kendall is incredibly curious about these legends and whether they were myths or reality at some point,” Pounder continues. “She’s a strong character and definitely an authority in her field. I play her dead serious. I don’t think that in the annals of horror films there has been a black female lead of this kind. If you’re going to act, you might as well go through this kind of door of opportunity. You know me,” she laughs. “I like to go where no man has gone before.”

As far as Pasdar was concerned, the best thing about playing Detective Coyle was that he didn’t have to spend hours in the makeup trailer.

  “I’m sleeping while they’re in there with the prosthetics,” he says. “That’s the best part. I don’t have to get up at 5 a.m. and sit in the chair. Every once in a while, I have to get a little dirt put on my face, a little smudge here and there. That’s the extent of it.”

Pasdar confesses to being a major fan of horror movies—“I like the ones that are done right almost as much as I love watching Plan 9 from Outer Space”—and is proud of having starred in the legendary cult movie Near Dark. “We don’t take credit for improving the genre, but we certainly took it in another direction. That was fun. House of Frankenstein is a different side of the coin. I’m not on the monster squad, I’m on the vice squad. It’s much more fun playing a straight cop chasing these guys. While the genre might be the same, my approach to the characters is completely different.

“Coyle is a by-the-book cop,” he adds. “He’s a detective trying to make the best of his job, to protect and serve in LA. He’s an average person confronted by a situation that is a bit above average. That’s when you get a real dichotomy between what needs to be done and what has been done before.

“To me,” Pasdar admits, “one of the most interesting aspects of the script is bringing the Creature into Los Angeles and keeping him as unmolested by human intervention as possible. He’s as pure as he can be. The irony is that the Creature seems more human than most of the people you run into on a day-byday basis in this town. He has an inherent soul that’s a beautiful thing to watch. That was one of the reasons I wanted to do this movie – to work with the Creature and a werewolf at the same time.”

Regardless of the thoughtful approach the actors might have towards their craft or the otherwise demanding schedule of a TV miniseries, Pasdar has some wicked ideas for a few good gags. “I’d love to walk into a 7-Eleven with the Creature to get a Slurpee; that would be fun,” he says, laughing at the idea. “Drive down the freeway in a convertible listening to Bon Jovi, or go down to the beach and have him try to get a little sun. Put him on rollerblades in the bike path. If I get a chance, I’ll tell you.” But at the time of this writing, neither Detective Coyle nor the Creature had been spotted at any of the beaches, or seen speeding down the freeways of Los Angeles.

Cannom doesn’t usually work in television. “It was really fun to be able to do a Frankenstein like the real character, plus all the werewolves and flying vampires,” said Cannom. “We had to do it. It was just too much fun to turn down.”

Though the Frankenstein monster is the character of the Mary Shelley novel, White’s script is contemporary and downgrades both Dracula and the Wolfman to a generic vampire and werewolf. Eighty percent of HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN was shot in and around Los Angeles on practical locations, including some exterior filming at the Ennis-Brown House, a residence designed in the 1920s by Frank Lloyd Wright, representing the mansion of Crispian Grimes (Greg Wise), the master vampire.

Wise is a British actor, who nonetheless portrays Grimes as an American. Wise explained how his approach is both similar to, and different from, what has come before. “I think the primary root of it is that he has to assimilate into the society. That’s why I’m playing an American. We’ve given him a very small scar and darkened my eyes using lenses, so I don’t think it’s too out of the ordinary. For a vampire to survive, he has to be able to fit within the society he finds himself in.”

Grimes can transform himself into an inhuman bat-monster, but there is a part of him that retains what once made him human. Noted Wise, “This piece looks at the period of his existence when he’s getting tired. It’s looking at the existential question of why we’re here. His story becomes a morality tale. He discovers we’re here to love and be loved. He’s a terrifically lonely man. I think that’s one of the more interesting ideas, that if you have been around for so long, nothing excites you anymore. You’ve said it all, you’ve done it all, you’ve seen it all.”

Grimes’ inamorata is Grace (Terry Polo), who gets bitten by Grimes’s werewolf protector and starts to change herself. “When she rebuffs him at the end, he stops his existence,” said Wise. He throws himself into fire. He kills himself because he realizes there is no point in walking this Earth without love.”

Cannom had fun working on Grimes’ bat transformation, a being which brings to mind the Man-Bat of BATMAN fame. “I wanted to create something for TV more elaborate than some

one would normally do,” said Cannom. “Because this was a flying bat-creature, a fallen angel type of thing, we wanted to really do a spectacular suit, but still keep it within limits for TV. Miles Teves designed the creature. He designed ROBOCOP and LEGEND.” The human-sized vampire bat not only has a bat-like head, but huge wings as well, suspended from a helicopter for the flight sequences. Hand-held controls make the movement of the wings.

Into this mix is thrown the Frankenstein monster, who is found by Grimes and originally brought to Los Angeles to be featured in his new night spot: The House of Frankenstein. The monster is sympathetically played by Peter Crombie. Crombie had to sit through a two-hour makeup application process which completely hid his features under a pliable latex mask. Unlike other versions of the Frankenstein monster seen in the past, this one isn’t a lumbering menace. “He actually turns out to be kind of a good guy, a hero,” said Crombie proudly. “What he really wants to do, like ET, is to get home, back up to the ice flows up north. It becomes a revenge mission for the creature to get Grimes, who ends up teaming up with the lead detective, played by Adrian Pasdar.”

Even though this version of the Frankenstein monster is supposed to follow more closely the description in the Mary Shelley novel, Crombie admitted that they did have to backoff a little since the production was being done for television. “Part of the description is that the skin is very translucent you can see through layers of it, to see veins and arteries. And to a extent you get some of that with this. An undead sort of look. I think the whole idea is that it’s much less of a monster, and much more of an innocent, an outcast, just a very vulnerable being, who is much more real emotionally, than the more traditional monster. That’s what I’m shooting for.”

The character Adrian Pasdar plays, Vernon Coyle, isn’t meant to be an unusual man, but instead is a man forced to make unusual choices. As Pasdar observed, “He’s your average cop. What’s interesting is having an ordinary cop confronted with an extraordinary situation. We tried to cut the dialogue down to as minimal as we could and it’s been effective in establishing the fact that it’s a realistic approach. He’s by the book and then gets confronted by a monster that you have to throw the book away and deal with a little more abstract solutions.”

In describing why a modern interpretation of an old idea can be both interesting and important, the actor stated, “There’s always room for a contemporary interpretation of a classic tale, from Shakespeare up to Bram Stoker and to Mary Shelley. There’s room for both interpretations. I think it’s interesting to watch a welldone classic. I think it’s much more difficult to do it contemporary.”

CAST/CREW Directed Peter Werner

Written B. White

Adrian Pasdar as Vernon Coyle, a police detective trying to solve the case of “The Midnight Raptor”

Greg Wise as Crispian Grimes, a Dracula-like vampire who is known to the police as a serial killer nicknamed “The Midnight Raptor”. He is the millionaire owner of the nightclub House of Frankenstein, which is secretly a haven for vampires.

Teri Polo as Grace Dawkins, a newly bitten werewolf who is also the love interest of detective Vernon Coyle and the heart’s desire of Crispian Grimes

Peter Crombie as Frankenstein’s monster, discovered frozen in a block of ice and planned as an exhibit for House of Frankenstein, but escapes

CCH Pounder as Dr. Shauna Kendall Miguel Sandoval as Detective Juan ‘Cha Cha’ Chacon Jorja Fox as Felicity Richard Libertini as Armando Karen Austin as Irene Lassiter

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique v29n06-07 (Nov 1997)

  House of Frankenstein (TV Mini-Series 1997) SUMMARY Vernon Coyle (Pasdar), a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department, is trying to solve a series of bizarre murders.

[sleepykittypaws]

A Christmas Wish

Original Airdate: November 28, 2019 (Lifetime) Where to Watch?: Lifetime will re-air it in this, and future seasons; It’s also available to purchase on iTunes or to watch, for a limited time, on mylifetime.com (cable login, required).

Hilarie Burton has become a Lifetime Christmas movie staple, and her movies are always fun, and a little bit different from the rest of the pack. One of Burton’s holiday movie hallmarks (ironic pun intended) is bringing her former One Tree Hill cast mates along for the sleigh ride.

Right as Christmas break begins, art teacher Burton learns her job is being eliminated at the end of the school year, as the art program is being cut to afford state-mandated technology requirements which, unlike the set-ups in most of these made-for-TV movies, actually is a real thing that happens all the time. Burton is devoted to her students and understands the importance of art for many of them so this very bad news, though she tries to keep it quiet so as to not ruin Christmas.

On the less realistic track, this Louisiana town has a Christmas wish box that goes back at least a century and has a historic ability to actually grant real wishes, though in more recent times a “wish committee” has formed to help goose the magic. 

Burton’s sister, who has recently (accidentally) found a ring box in her boyfriend’s things, wishes “true love’s kiss” for her single sister and, given that Burton knows the wish committee has already made its selections, she puts it in the box as a gag.

But, wait, the wish flies out of the box, and into the hands of Pam Grier, who is playing a sassy, magical version of Little Red Riding Hood. And who earlier appeared to take little girl Burton’s wish in a flashback, and has since borrowed her shoes.

Suddenly, the cute guy Burton’s been eying at the coffee shop for months asks her out, and her hot new neighbor (OTH alum Antwon Tanner) is also exceedingly interested in her. (Perhaps because she meets him pantless? Oh no, must just be the wish.) 

Also, side note, love that Burton’s art teacher realistically lives in a tiny duplex, contrasting mightily with Vanessa Hudgens’ teacher who lived in a literal mansion complete with guest house in The Knight Before Christmas.

Meanwhile, fellow public school employee (he’s a very non-glam school nurse, which I like), Tyler Hilton, is Burton’s BFF but, duh, clearly also the perfect guy for her. I mean, c’mon, he wears a giant Christmas wreath brooch she made for him.

Coffee shop guy turns out to be a bit of a jerk, trying to give her a book about turning art into profit (how dare he!). A book “written" by Emily Moss Wilson, according to the cover, who happens to be this movie’s director. (We see you.) Yet, Burton still tries to make it work, agreeing to additional dates, because she’s a single woman in her 30s and that’s how it works.

All the wish business was really funny. And the recurring drink spilling guy made me laugh out loud, especially with Burton’s last, exasperated, "Why are you even here?” And the speech Burton gives about what is or isn’t really romantic? Genius! And a real balm for the often creepy rom-com tropes we see employed in these movies over and over. 

Hilton’s brother Grant, played by Colin Fickes, also arrives unexpectedly for Christmas with his husband and daughter, when their cruise is cancelled due to that pesky Winter Storm Meghan, and immediately gets in on the save-the-art-program hijinks.

Grant is way, way over the top and, I’m going to be honest…I was here for all of it! Though I was worried about how blasé these dads are about their last minute change of plans, as their daughter seems to be expecting Santa to show and they didn’t appear to arrive with much in hand. (This is my parent anxiety writ large.)

Eventually, Burton tries to save the art program by cornering the school board chair at a holiday party, and if there’s anything local politicians are always willing and eager to do, it’s discuss, at length, already-voted-upon decisions with those they directly effect. Except this one would, if only all these darn guys would just stop hitting on Burton! (The singer getting in on it, too, was very well done.)

So, enough is enough and Burton resolves to get back her wish but, oh no, the wish box was stolen, so she can't. (Think this actually happened before the party; it’s been a couple days since I watched.) Then, Hilton confesses he’s in love with her, but she doesn’t believe him because, you know, magic wishes and all, so he goes away in a huff.

Honestly, I felt like Hilton and Burton have big friend energy, rather than romantic. My husband watched with me and actually thought the new neighbor was gonna be “the guy,” as he felt they had more spark, and I don’t disagree. (Maybe Tanner can be Burton’s next Christmas co-star.) 

Then, huzzah, the wish box is found and it was just kids trying to get back their wishes so they could instead wish to save the art program and…Aww. This reinvigorates teacher Burton, as it would, and she assembles the kids to paint like they have never painted before and then turns a holiday-wish Christmas Carol performance—that Grandpa looked fine to travel to me, by the way, just get him a wheelchair van—into an impromptu art show, and the school board chair is so touched she (somehow, they hand-wave the details) saves the program. Yay! 

Plus, brother Grant tells Burton that, no dumb-dumb, of course he really loves you, and she runs out to the wish box and there Hilton is (and Pam Grier, too), and even though I wasn’t totally buying them as a couple, I got unexpectedly emotional during this scene, which hit me in the feels. 

Oh and, when the sister’s boyfriend finally proposes Christmas morning he confirms he knew all along she’d found the ring box…Again, aww. A very cute, realistic twist, I didn’t see coming. 

Tough to decide which of Emily Moss Wilson’s Lifetime Christmas films I liked better this season. They had similar sensibilities and settings, but very different stories, which is great in a made-for-TV universe that can be so same-y. Burton is awesome, but, overall, I think the cast in Christmas in Louisiana was better, but Wish still gets the edge for me, as I think it had the superior ending. 

I’ve still got Holiday for Heroes as my top made-for-TV movie of the season, mostly because it made me cry, like, four times, but this one is so close for me, it really should be a tie. Also, I’ve been either stingy or overly generous with the paws this season, as this and Heroes both deserve the four-paws I’m retroactively awarding them, and some of the lower-ranked three-paw properties probably actually should have been two but, here we are. 

Final Judgement: 4 Paws Up

[broadwaybydesign]

Paris is Paris Again: Costuming the 2015 “Gigi” Revival

Welcome back, everyone! I was planning to take a break from some of my usuals, but I had a request to add Gigi to the rotation, and I am always trying my best to do so. Prepare for some truly sumptuous costuming in another beautiful Catherine Zuber-dressed production. Bringing the best of Broadway back to the Great White Way was a wonderful way in which to celebrate the 2015-2016 theatrical season, and I cannot wait to get started with this review.

This was, in fact, one of two sets of Zuber designs on Broadway that season, with Ms Zuber’s Tony Award-winning costumes for The King and I debuting at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre just a few days after these costumes were first seen at the Neil Simon Theatre. As is the hallmark of Catherine Zuber costumes, these are absolutely stunning in terms of both their fabrics and their colors, and they are a great update of one of the Broadway classics.

Gigi is a musical set in one of my all-time favorite eras and locations of history, belle époque (or turn of the century) Paris, and follows a teenaged girl as she’s raised into young womanhood and ultimately--through a series of dramatic turns--ends up marrying a man she loves instead of becoming a, ahem, courtesan in the tradition of her family. For the revival, the main role was played by singer and television actress Vanessa Hudgens (in her Broadway musical debut), with her suitor played by Corey Cott; in the role of Gigi’s grandmother was Victoria Clark, who picked up a Tony nomination for her performance.

With Ms Zuber already nominated for Best Costume Design in a Musical in The King and I, I’ not surprised these designs didn’t score a Tony nod; they did, however, win the Drama Desk Award for Best Costumes, and when we look at the designs themselves, hopefully the reason will become apparent. They bring classic Parisian looks into the modern age in a beautiful way. Let’s take a look:

I’ll start here with one of Gigi’s best-known costumes. The character of Gilberte (Gigi’s proper name) is supposed to be a young, somewhat innocent figure in the early part of the musical at least, and her costumes reflect that to an extent. This costume in particular puts me in mind of a school uniform (confession: I grew up watching Madeline!) with the way it is simple, does not reveal too much of the wearer’s figure, and has a bow-like jabot at the neck. The shade is a beautiful sky blue that is consistent from head to toe, with some simple white satin ribbon about six inches above the hem. The top of the dress has a bit of creasing to give it some design elements, but they are cut from the same cloth and simply stitched.

The accessories for this outfit are rather simple. There is the aforementioned bow/jabot at Ms Hudgens’ neck, which is made of a material that is almost corduroy but is a little lighter and without the same piling. This allows it to have some body without being too heavy, and the color is beautiful against the blue of the dress and the white of the collar. It is matched well with the belt, in a similar fabric to the bow, with a somewhat oversized blue clasp. The overall effect of these accessories is to contribute to the seriousness of the costume. There is a demure nature to her that comes across well: for now, she is the picture of the waifish ingenue.

Over time, however, our main character changes quite a bit; she is being groomed, after all, to be the mistress of Paris’ upper crust, or so the story goes. Catherine Zuber’s designs for Gigi’s transformation into an object of sensual and even sexual desire. Take a look how that transformation takes place through the use, first off, of color (a color which ties in with another character--more on that later):

From sky blue to rose pink, this dress retains some of the gentility of the blue dress but because of the shift in color and the change in overall design, there is something more flirtatious about it. The color is a rich, soft pink in a sateen fabric that flows and drapes a bit more freely than the heavier blue fabric used in the first costume. She’s beginning to slowly accept her role--a future courtesan/mistress--and embracing the freedom, if not the love, that comes along with it.

We see that this dress as a subtle hat-tip to the blue dress through the striping on the cuffs of the sleeves, which bring to mind the satin ribboning around the bottom of that costume. The design elements here are a little bit more revealing while remaining in the realm of propriety for 1900 Paris. The collar this time has a slightly plunging neckline that is disguised with a single ruffle of the same fabric and color as the main body of the dress. The adornment comes in the form of a wide, red belt around Ms Hudgens’ waist.

Notice that despite the length, this costume is much more form-fitting than the first. Sensible, given the number where it appears (”The Night They Invented Champagne”) is a light and airy number as Gigi moves further down the road to being Gaston’s (Corey Cott’s) mistress. Having a tight belt to hug the figure would have been a sign of overtness for the era, and Ms Zuber has clearly done her homework with this production as with many of her others.

The character of Gigi has two more costumes that I feel are of particular note before I touch briefly on the other characters. Here, we see the dress used for the cover of the Playbill and many of the promotional stills:

I don’t rightly know the term for this style of dress, but I know it’s a hallmark of early couture. There is the traditional bell shape to add volume, but a panel is removed from the front to reveal not only the white lining of the underskirt, but an entirely separate black layer that clings to the wearer’s legs much more closely. It gives an overall elegant effect that I think is interesting, because I see it so rarely, even in productions that borrow from couture in their costuming.

Because the dress’ cut is so visually interesting, it’s unsurprising that there is very little in the way of adornment or detail work elsewhere. The silk and satin of the dress are allowed to speak for themselves, though there is a belt at Ms Hudgens’ waist; it is in the same color black (and as I’ve said before, black is not just one color!) and again has a bit of an oversized clasp. The only other accessories are Gigi’s opera gloves (a must in the era) and a beautiful geometric emerald necklace. Using square-cut gems here is the right choice, in my opinion, because it balances nicely with the cut of the fabric below without being too distracting.

The black dress is balanced by one of the most beautiful of Ms Zuber’s designs for this production, a white number that makes an appearance in the climax of the musical, as Gigi finds love with Gaston at long last, rather than simple physical desire. And in that sense, I love that Ms Zuber reverts to a color that screams purity, but in a fashion that reveals Gigi’s complete awakening as a woman rather than a girl (as at the start of the musical). Prepare for something visually stunning:

This is a sleek, classic, beautiful Parisian number in white satin with black accents, and a massive feather boa/stole that adds some whimsy and couture elements to the overall effect. The gown flows all the way to the floor, but this time leaves swaths of Ms Hudgens’ chest exposed, with her bust covered by black lace that is almost assuredly intended to be reminiscent of that other Parisian innovation, lingerie.

The boa serves a triple purpose. First, it adds volume to the dress itself, which would otherwise be a lengthened version of an A-line. But second, it allows the actress (and thus character) to have more control over how the costume looks to the audience. Some of this will be decided through stage direction and directorial notes, but there is still a little discretion for how the actress moves when on stage. Third, it helps the dress to catch more of the light, allowing more interplay of light and shadow on the blank canvas of the white satin.

For an idea of how the boa adds volume, consider this shot of the last pre-finale scene, where Gigi and Gaston are dancing the night away:

What was previously a relatively simple dress has been made more visually stunning and given greater stage presence through the drapery of the boa. Hanging off Ms Hudgens’ shoulder, it offers a textural contrast to the smoothness of the satin in the dress itself, and also adds to the amount of space she occupies despite a slender figure.

This lighting is also one of the reasons I find a snow-white dress and boa to be so compelling despite their simplicity. The blankness allows the stage lighting to do some remarkable things; the blue light turns into shades of blue, green, aqua, and teal as it hits various parts of the dress, giving an otherworldly and ethereal feel to an otherwise simple design. Yet again, we have an example of a costume where the designer had to work incredibly closely with other members of the creative team to make sure that everyone’s vision for the production came together.

Gigi herself, of course, is not the only character who is costumed beautifully in this production. Earlier, I noted that Gigi’s red dress seemed a nod to another character, her grandmother Mamita (played by Victoria Clark in this production). Take a look at the coloring of Mamita’s costume and notice how the red makes one think of Gigi’s pink-red dress from earlier:

The style is, naturally, much different and a little more old-fashioned, but still steeped in belle époque styling. The stripes combine a rose pink with a deeper red, and yet a third shade is used for the cummerbund element at Ms Clark’s waist. The bust is covered with a ruffle and a bit of pink and red lacework, while the dress is completed with two tail-like elements that hang down in a kind of salmon-pink silk.

I talk on occasion about millinery, which is to say hat making, and this is a place where I do want to mention the hat. The straw base in a red to complement the dress is absolutely covered in roses, giving the effect that Mamita has an almost literal bouquet of flowers on her head. Little surprise, given that of the older characters, she is by far the most fun and flirty of them, indulging her granddaughter and reminiscing about her own glory days as a courtesan. Her costume gives off that fun feeling, and I think it really works well as a design.

But now consider it in contrast to the other female character, Gigi’s great Aunt Alicia, played in this production by Dee Hoty:

While still styled like an aging courtesan, Alicia’s dress (left) is more sophisticated than that of her sister Mamita. It’s a cream shade decorated heavily with ruffles, and she has more in the way of jewelry (note the lengthy necklace hanging down). The cummerbund is a softer, more lush pink silk, and the dress itself is lightly patterned with an almost cloud-like design.

The contrast in these two costumes is pretty neat, because the personalities of each character are brought to the fore. Mamita is the showy one, while Alicia is the more practical one; her art of seduction must have been far more subtle, which is an interesting thing to consider in the altogether risqué theme of the musical (though, I would note, the musical never strays from being classy into the vulgar).

Ms Hoty actually gets to wear my favorite costume in this production, from the finale itself. Take a look at this visually impressive Catherine Zuber design in violet and purple, with Ms Hoty looking like a million dollars:

There is just something so Parisian about this design. Close-fitting, with beadwork cuffs and embroidery on the bust, some floral design elements in the upturned hem of the dress, and with lacework to cover the chest, this is one of the costumes that just feels so utterly belle époque. The purple is an absolutely darling shade regardless of the lighting, and the hat is dramatic and adds a little bit of flair to the Aunt Alicia character. You can get a little bit more of an idea what the hat looks like here, during the final bows from opening night of the production:

That is a hat designed to impress and leave the audience wowed, even with the other characters on stage. It adds height and volume, and the feathers are straight out of the designers’ handbook for how to wow a viewer. There are bows on the top portion of the hat, and what originally looked like just a circular brim is revealed to have a slight bend, which causes the whole piece to arc a little. It’s definitely a form over function piece--this would do very little to keep the sun out of Alicia’s eyes--but it’s a beautiful entry into Ms Zuber’s body of work.

To wrap up this review, I want to include the lineup from the final bows, because Alicia’s costume once again stands out:

Every single one of these costumes is beautiful in its own way, but the lavender of the dress Ms Hoty wears just pops in a way I have rarely seen even in other Catherine Zuber productions. Simply seeing it is enough to bring a smile to my face--and that’s one of the things costuming is all about in a production that is fun and lighthearted like Gigi.

Overall, I am once again awed by Catherine Zuber’s designs and work on this production, and it makes me feel privileged to have had the chance to review and analyze them. Each costume helps to tell the story not only of the musical, but of the characters themselves, even those (like Mamita or Aunt Alicia) who may not have much stage time because they are in a supporting role. No expense was spared, no detail left unchecked, and no character given short shrift. It’s really a masterful production, and I highly recommend it!

That wraps up my review of Gigi and another week of (despite the technical glitch early on) reviews. I’ll be taking a look at my queue this weekend and deciding what to bring up next; if you have requests or suggestions, please drop me an Ask or send me a Message!

Until then, dear readers, stay tuned!

[nfatlitw]

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee - Review

Here it is, my very first book review! I feel like I should put a discaimer on this, to clarify things: first there’ll be a smaller part with my overall considerations and feelings about the book without going into details and spoilers, to tell you if it’s worth picking up or not and why. Then, separately, I’ll talk spoilers. Because I’m gonna want to talk spoilers. Let’s be honest.

Here it goes!

With this book I say: hell yeah, go pick it up! The main character alone it’s going to be enough to win you over: he’s this rich english boy who likes to drink and party and get it on with both men and women. For this he gets thrown out of Eton and when the books begins he’s going on a Grand Tour of “the continent” with his best friend Percy (with whom he’s in love) and his sister Felicity. And the entire story is set in the 18th century. I mean. I didn’t need anything else when I decided I was going to read it. But if you do need something else, bear this in mind: in this novel, one of the main plotlines is the romance between our main character Monty and Percy, but, unlike many YA with romantic aspects in them, it is not the only center of the story. You’re not going to read the book thinking every five minutes “but when will they interact again?!” because all of the other things that happen in this story (so. many. things.) are going to grip you and they won’t let go. It is truly marvelous.

So if you’re convinced (which I hope you are! It’s a really great read!) please go and read it. Then come back to read the rest of the review, where I’ll probably scream about all of the things that happen. In detail.

××× FROM NOW ON BE WARY OF SPOILERS. Read at your own risk.

Welcome to the rest of the review, where I’ll talk details and stuff that I really loved or hated or whatever-feeling-i-felt. I’m going to have to pace myself because I really have a lot of stuf to say on this book. My gosh. Let’s do this in chunks. First let’s talk characters: Monty I loved since page 1. He’s truly #relatable and hilarious. He was perfect as a narrator because even when terrible things were happening (i.e. the highwaymen, the pirates...) he just kept saying dumb stuff. He never stopped talking. I love him. Percy is honestly a bless. Without him Monty would be a mess all the time. More than he already was. He’s very strong and smart and I felt bad for him when Monty was being an ass (= all the time. Geez, Monty) and for the entire time I hoped that at the end he wouldn’t be cured because I wanted Monty to understand that even though Percy’s ill, they can be happy anyway. I got what I wanted and I was so happy :) Felicity was #goals through and through. At first depicted as the loser who just keeps on reading, even at the table (#relatable if you get me), then is revealed to be a friggin bad ass who wants to pursue a medical career but cannot because of the stupid social laws of that time. Felicity, you’re an inspiration. The Dana Scully of your time, maybe. I mean, I could totally see her say “I’m a medical doctor, step aside” when she helped Percy through his first seizure at the port in Marseille. Or maybe that’s just plain ol’ me, obsessed with them X-Files. One of my personal favorites is Scipio, the captain of the pirate boat. HE’S GREAT. I wouldn’t have minded a little more book time with him, and I’m kinda hoping that the author will write a spin-off on Felicity and the pirates at sea. I’d LOVE that. As for the bad guys of the book, I really didn’t like any of them. Even if Helena kinda redeemed herself in the end... I still don’t like her. Sorry? The award for Most-Hated definitely goes to Monty’s father. You’re an Asshole, sir, and I wanna punch you in the face. With a brick.

But, let’s talk plot. This book was so full of twists and turns that I would never have expected. The highwaymen? The alchemy? The pirates? WHAT EVEN. But it all worked really well and I loved all of it. I’m not even exaggerating. Maybe one part that I liked less was the scene with the highwaymen, but honestly, Percy knocking one down with his fiddle case was golden, so I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy it. About the love story I will say this: to me, it felt very real. And because it felt very real it was also absolutely heartbreaking. Monty may be a bit foolish and impulsive, but he has a big heart and he loves Percy so so so so much. Having read other YA/romancey novels with this trope, I really thought we were going to wait until the end for them to even acknowledge that Monty had feelings for Percy so I was pleasantly surprised when I was proved wrong and they kissed very early into the book! YAY! But also nay, because they wouldn’t confess their mutual affection for each other, so it was a miserable moment :( This book also deals with a lot of relevant and serious themes like racism and homophobia, and I thought it was fantastic seeing how Monty himself grew and developed his opinions on certain matters. All in all, 100% on character development.

Despite all the (very few) sad moments, I found the whole book very amusing and funny, and I was having a wild time. Laughing aloud and snorting all the way til the end. So great! I never really pick up books that are funny or comedic in a way. I guess that’s what happens when you only read horror and dystopians for months on end. Well, what can I say. I don’t even know how to end this with. Please read this book. I would also like to express my love for the author’s notes at the end of the book, because they were great. Mackenzi Lee, you are wonderful.

[husid]

Uncle Huey’s 2019 Oscars Post!

A confession: I love the Oscars. 

A confession, extrapolated: I am an unabashed Oscars fanboy, who legitimately looks forward to the Academy Awards all year long. I love the opening montage where the host skewers self-righteous Hollywood stars, I love the cringeworthy banter of presenters pretending to have a non-scripted conversation (as if they were actual actors!), I love the montages reminding us why we should keep liking movies, I love seeing which recently deceased actors (it’s always the actors) cause people to break the “no-clapping-until-the-end” rule during the In Memoriam clip (Hollywood’s version of “you can only bring Valentine’s Day Cards to class if you give one to everybody”), I love the wildly reactionary vitriol thrown towards the Academy every time they make a decision about anything, I love the Academy reacting one-year too late to everything, I love the politics, I love the self-seriousness, I love the acceptance speeches in which you can tell the actor deeply resents his or her family, I love seeing the loser shots and trying to decide whether they’re legitimately happy for the winner (spoiler: they’re not), and I love seeing the same tired, rehashed Twitter jokes about how long the Oscars telecast is. 

Reading back through that paragraph, I realize how disingenuous my love for the Oscars sounds, but I do love the Oscars, if for no other reason than I really fucking love movies. And while I’m no critic, I do fancy myself a semi-educated film buff, and with that, as well as an uncredited extras role in The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas! that I ask that you indulge me in the first annual Hu’s the Boss Oscar Preview!

In the interest of full disclosure, this is where I tell you that I’ve only seen 11 of the movies nominated (Avengers: Infinity War, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Isle of Dogs, Roma, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, A Star Is Born), but whether it’s the utter predictability of some films (Green Book), or familiarity with a director’s work (Vice), I feel reasonably confident in my admittedly underinformed predictions.

You might have heard that the Oscars will not have a host this year, for the first time since 1989, and we all remember how that went! (I was 2 years old, I definitely don’t remember how that went, but the internet does, and yikes, it wasn’t good. Side note: I’d sooner tell my own grandmother that her matzo ball soup was overseasoned than do anything horrible enough to warrant Julie Andrews calling me an embarrassment in an open letter).  How did we find ourselves in this predicament? Blame the Academy. Well, also the internet. Maybe Kevin Hart too. President Obama as well. Let me explain. 

While in office, Obama had the opportunity to sign an executive order mandating that Amy Poehler and Tina Fey host every major awards show, but failed to do so. Given President Trump’s current feelings towards S&L, it feels like that window has closed. The Oscars are generally hosted by a mainstream comedian, and this year was shaping up to be no different, with Kevin Hart signed on to host. But then the unthinkable happened. The internet internetted, and found that Hart had performed some homophobic material back in 2009 and 2010. The backlash got real loud, real quick, and the court of public opinion sentenced the Academy to 10 years without Kevin Hart as host, with the possibility of parole once we realize that every comic who started writing before 2010 has included something homophobic in one of their sets. So you can blame Kevin Hart, whose jokes were clearly offensive; you can blame the Academy for either not vetting their host, underestimating the research capabilities of internet denizens, underestimating the outrage of the general public (hard to imagine, given the public reception of most of the Academy’s decisions of late), or, depending on your viewpoint, bowing too easily to internet outrage; or you can blame the outraged, for not understanding the evolution of standup comedy, or for making a stand when one may not be warranted.

I’ll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions on who’s to blame for Hart not hosting, but I can tell you who’s to blame for there the absence of a host, period: Critics. Not since Billy Crystal hosted the Oscars for a 73rd consecutive time has any host be universally lauded. The host isn’t funny, the host is too mean, the host is too sophomoric, the host disappears for extended periods of time, etc. It’s been a thankless job for years now, and that was before a dissection of your extended comedy catalog became a prerequisite. Personally, I’d love to see the hosting job go to an up-and-coming comic and let them roast Hollywood for a bit. It would be a way to take the self-reverential mask off of Hollywood for a couple hours, and provide a massive opportunity for an up-and-comer. But ratings dictate that stars and stars alone must host, so I’m not holding my breath.

Ok. That sound you just heard is me jumping off my soap box. Back to movies.

“The field is wide open this year” is a great way to build up buzz for an awards show, but when it comes to Best Picture, it’s also a euphemism sugarcoating the fact that there were truly no great movies this year. Personally, I think nearly every contender has at least one seriously fatal flaw, and that, coupled with the rare lack of a huge late PR push for one movie above the others (a la The King’s Speech, The Artist, Argo, Birdman, etc.) mean that “wide-open field” isn’t just lip service, it’s true. Just not for the best reasons. Still, it makes for an exciting awards show, if you’re into that sort of thing, and probably means that the Academy won’t be on the hook for buying into one film’s hype and looking terrible for it down the line (Shakespeare In Love over Saving Private Ryan, The King’s Speech over The Social Network, Birdman over Boyhood, etc.). But these things aren’t always predictable, and maybe in ten years we’ll be talking about what an underappreciated movie Vice was in 2018.

Now on to the awards, where I’ll give my two cents on each nominee for Best Picture, then a brief thought on each subsequent category declaring my best guess for the actual winner and my personal favorite. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve watched the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, and usually pay a lot of attention to movie/Oscars buzz, but I’ve generally tried to avoid Oscar prediction articles for the sake of this post. Again, I don’t claim to be a film critic, but I do have lots of opinions on movies, so take everything with a grain of salt. To further highlight any conscious or subconscious biases I have,  I’ve put the films I have seen in bold in each set of nominees.

THE OSCAR GOES TO

Best Picture

Nominees:

Black Panther – A wildly entertaining and legitimately good movie, but it’s not even the best Marvel movie ever. This feels more like an acknowledgment from the Academy that it respects superhero movies, than a legitimate contender for best picture.

BlacKkKlansman – Given the wild true story the movie is based on, it probably didn’t even need Spike Lee’s direction to shine, and yet I left somewhat underwhelmed. Everything was solid, but very little really stood out, aside from costume design and a few warranted but ham-handed references to our current political climate.  Spike is one of the most provocative filmmakers of the last quarter-century, but with a story that I expected he’d be able to knock out of the park, I didn’t fell like I gained an interesting perspective or was shocked by anything; a rarity for one of his films. Maybe that’s more reflective of the times we live in, or maybe I just set unfair expectations for Spike, given the subject matter. Either way, despite enormous potential, this had all the trappings of a good-but-not-great movie.

Bohemian Rhapsody – Rami Malek’s performance and the final Live Aid scene alone catapult Bohemian Rhapsody into this year’s contenders. Unfortunately, that was all that was Oscar-worthy about this movie. The rest was a by-the-numbers music biopic that tried to pack way too much into 133 minutes. It’s no wonder this movie took so long to get made and so many writers/producers/directors/actors were involved and uninvolved at one point or another (Sacha Baron Cohen was originally slated to play Freddie Mercury), because there’s a lot to untangle between  the rise and “fall” of the band, Mercury’s sexual awakening, and his HIV diagnosis, all while the real-life remaining members of the band did their best to ensure that we got a PG-13 version of Queen history devoid of any real dirty laundry. The final result was a watered down, factually dubious mishmash that doesn’t go deep enough in any direction to have a true lasting impact. Those music scenes though, still make it one of the best music biopics ever filmed.

The Favourite – Of all the Best Picture nominees, the Favourite and Roma were easily the least digestable for mass market audiences. Period pieces aren’t for everyone, especially ones that have little in the way of plot, and take place exclusively on the grounds of an 18th century British palace. But the Favourite managed to be thoroughly entertaining thanks to top-notch set design, Oscar-worthy performances by Olivia Coleman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone, sexual intrigue and two hours of steady, if a bit slow, mischievousness. 

Green Book – I have not seen it. Obviously the reviews are positive, but no one has yet convinced me that this movie isn’t entirely formulaic. I haven’t seen this movie, but I’ve seen this movie, and I’m pretty sure it’s fine.

Roma – A beautiful movie about an underrepresented social class in an underrepresented era in an underrepresented country. It’s shot well and acted well, and the camerawork makes up for a meandering plotline. It probably is the class of this category, but I can’t help but think that it might be 15% worse if it wasn’t shot in black and white. That was clearly a conscious choice by writer and director Alfonso Cuaron, who, between Gravity and Children of Men, among others, has more than proven he knows how to make a film beautiful, regardless of subject matter. But the Artist won Best Picture for its two-part gimmick of being black and white and silent, and I’m not entirely sure that Roma’s colorless palette shouldn’t be considered gimmicky as well.

A Star Is Born – The most classic Best Picture fodder on this list, by leaps and bounds, and not just because previous versions of this movie have been nominated for Best Picture, among a host of other awards. But Hollywood loves a movie about the entertainment business, not to mention a story about underdogs and redemption. This was a really well done movie across the board, and while I thought the Grammys scene was a little over the top, I now realize that was an integral scene to the previous three versions of the movie, so its inclusion is a lot easier to justify here. Aside from the acting, which was exceptional across the board (Andrew Dice Clay!), I think the most impressive part about this movie was that it was a big-budget film about superstardom, yet managed to feel very intimate, and resisted using tired crutches of story narration/plot forwarding by way of TV/radio news reports or newspaper headlines – something Bohemian Rhapsody was unable to pull off.

Vice – I have not seen it, which is odd, because of every movie nominated, it’s probably the most up my proverbial alley. The initial mixed reviews were a part of my missing it, though I imagine my love for Adam Mckay’s masterful balance between humor and the depression of irresponsibly-wielded power in the Big Short and Succession (to say nothing of his comedy genius displayed in Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers et al.) would make me a more likely candidate than most to appreciate Vice. Alas, that’s all I’m able to really opine on.

Will Be: If there wasn’t a strong anti-Netflix bias in the Academy, as has been reported, I would go with Roma, but I fear that the safest choice here is Green Book, and in the absence of anything truly groundbreaking, that’s going to be the pick.

Should Be: I’m on the fence between Roma and A Star is Born. To me, Roma’s lack of plot and failure to explore its main character in depth separate it from A Star is Born, which really has no obvious flaws.

Actor in a Leading Role

Christian Bale – Vice

Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born

Willem Dafoe – At Eternity’s Gate

Rami Malek – Bohemian Rhapsody

Viggo Mortensen – Green Book

Will Be: Having only seen two of these movies, it’s hard for me to make a real educated guess, but it’s also hard to imagine that Rami Malek won’t be rewarded for flawlessly playing one of the most eccentric entertainers in music history. All I know for sure is that Willem Dafoe will not be winning.

Should Be: Malek. Malek’s apparent real-life persona is shy and understated –essentially the exact opposite of Freddie Mercury’s – making his transformative performance that much more jaw-dropping.

Actress in a Leading Role

Yalitza Aparicio – Roma

Glenn Close – The Wife

Olivia Colman – The Favourite

Lady Gaga – A Star Is Born

Melissa McCarthy – Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Will Be: Glenn Close. When an actress from a movie you’ve never heard of keeps racking up awards, it’s a pretty safe bet the Academy will follow suit.

Should Be: I’m going to stick with Close, given how much consensus this pick seems to have. Of the movies I saw, I think Colman and Gaga are both very worthy. I can’t quite figure out Aparicio’s nomination. Given that she had never acted before, she was incredible, but the lack of dialogue and depth that the script afforded her puts her performance in stark comparison to the other women on this list. Close is the biggest lock in any of the acting categories.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams – Vice

Marina de Tavira – Roma

Regina King – If Beale Street Could Talk

Emma Stone – The Favourite

Rachel Weisz – The Favourite

Will Be: Amy Adams. This is a really tight race that could legitimately go to anyone. With five very deserving nominees, the biggest differentiator is the fact that Adams has been nominated for an Oscar five times before, with no hardware to show for it. In situations like this, the Academy has shown it’s not above the unofficial lifetime achievement award.

Should Be: I’m a huge fan of every actress in this category, though my two favorites – Adams and King – are nominated for movies I haven’t seen. Given that, my pick would be Emma Stone, who portrayed innocence, quirkiness, resourcefulness, wittiness, ruthlessness and helplessness in one winkingly dry performance. Weisz was just as game from an acting perspective, but the script gave Stone a lot more to work with, making her performance more memorable.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Mahershala Ali – Green Book

Adam Driver – BlacKkKlansman

Sam Elliott – A Star Is Born

Richard E. Grant – Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Sam Rockwell – Vice

Will Be: Mahershala Ali. The Academy loves him, and with good reason. In a tight race, the fact that Rockwell deservedly won this award last year for Three Billboards probably disqualifies him. Elliott was exceptional in A Star Is Born, but had a considerably smaller role than the other actors on this list. I thought Driver was good, but not Oscars-good, and obviously I haven’t seen Grant’s performance, but the buzz is very positive, despite being in a movie that not a ton of people saw. There’s definitely a cynical side of me that thinks Ali is the most justifiable selection among all the minority Oscar acting nominees, and its hard to imagine there aren’t at least some voters who are still trying to erase the scars of #oscarssowhite (to say nothing of minority representation over the course of film history) by essentially casting a vote for inclusion. But ultimately he may just be the best choice in a tight category.

Should Be: Ali. I’ll be rooting hard for Elliott, both because he tends to be my favorite part of any movie or show he’s in, and because it’s nice to see the older guys finally win one. Since Ali and Rockwell already have a statue, there may be some sentimentality votes going his way, and his career in mainstream American cinema spans much longer than fellow elder statesman Grant. Again, I haven’t seen Green Book, but I know Ali is as game as any of the actors in this category, and had the biggest role of anyone in the category. That’s good enough for me.

Directing

Spike Lee – BlacKkKlansman 

Pawel Pawlikowski – The Cold War

Yorgos Lanthimos – The Favourite

Alfonso Cuaron  - Roma

Adam McKay – Vice

Will Be: Alfonso Cuaron. There’s talk of this going to Spike as a “my bad” award from the Academy for never having even nominated him for best director (not giving him even a nomination for Do the Right Thing borders on criminal). But he did receive an honorary Oscar from the Academy in 2015, and that, coupled with BlacKkKlansman being just a good movie make me feel like this isn’t Spike’s year. Vice is a very hype-typical movie that isn’t getting much hype, and Cold War is the only movie on this list not nominated for Best Picture. That leaves Roma and the Favourite, and the Academy has proven it loves Cuaron’s work, not to mention Roma is the most unique, visually stunning film on this list, which are usually two of the major criteria for this award.

Should Be: Cuaron, for all of the reasons listed above, but I wouldn’t be upset with Lanthimos taking it.

Adapted Screenplay

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

BlacKkKlansman

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

If Beale Street Could Talk

A Star Is Born

Will Be: I really have no clue on this one, but I’m confident that The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and If Beale Street Could Talk are the first two out. The remaining three are all unlikely to win in the other major categories so voters might simply choose their favorite of those three to ensure they win something. If that’s the case, my guess is the most popular among them is A Star Is Born.

Should Be: I won’t rehash my thoughts on BlacKkKlansman again, and I haven’t seen Beale Street or CYEFM, but when considering adapted screenplays, I like to vote based on degree of difficulty jumping from the source material to the screen. That’s why A Star Is Born falls short for me, given that it was adapted from three previous versions of ultimately the same movie. To me, that makes the writer’s job easier, not harder. I definitely have a Coen Brothers bias, so my vote goes to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which managed to take a collection of short stories written over the course of 25 years and transform them into a series of visually stunning, dialogue-rich (aside from Tom Waits’ story) vignettes that somehow formed a (great) movie.

Original Screenplay

The Favourite

First Reformed

Green Book

Roma

Vice

Will Be: First Reformed is getting buzz for this award, and it might be a way for voters to give some gold to a movie than many felt was snubbed in other categories. My take is that if voters loved the screenplay so much, it would have been nominated for those other categories. So the most likely pick here is Roma, a movie about an upper-middle-class family in Mexico City with a relative dearth of dialogue or plot lines that somehow ends up being as captivating as any other movie this year.

Should Be: I thought The Big Short’s screenplay was incredible, so if Vice is comparable in both style and quality, I’m sure I’d love it. But critics are saying otherwise, so I’m going to go with The Favourite, whose screenplay managed to make a thoroughly beguiling and darkly humorous film out of what could easily have been just another dry period piece.

Foreign Language Film

Capernaum – Lebanon

Cold War – Poland

Never Look Away – Germany

Roma – Mexico

Shoplifters – Japan

Will Be: We can pretend Cold War has a chance, but the award has all but been handed to Roma already. If it’s the only movie on this list that managed to be worthy of a Best Picture nominee, logic would dictate that it’s the only movie worthy of winning Best Foreign Language Film

Should Be: Having only seen Roma, I don’t have any great insights to add here, but I’m still confident in saying it deserves this one.

Best Animated Feature

Incredibles 2

Isle of Dogs

Mirai

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Will Be: Despite winning two of the last three years, Pixar doesn’t have the stranglehold over this category that it once did. In most years, Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs or Ralph Breaks the Internet would have a great shot to win, but this is simply Spider-Man’s year.

Should Be: I liked Isle of Dogs, but Spider-Man was probably my favorite movie of the year, and quite possibly the best. Sorry Pixar.

Cinematography

Cold War

The Favourite

Never Look Away

Roma

A Star Is Born

Will Be: Roma. Sweeping cityscapes, countryscapes and beachscapes (are those things?) + historical time period + black and white = Oscar.

Should Be: Roma. Sweeping cityscapes, countryscapes and beachscapes (are those things?) + historical time period + black and white = Oscar.

QUICK HITTERS

Production Design

Black Panther

The Favourite

First Man

Mary Poppins Returns

Roma

Will Be: Roma

Should Be: The Favourite

Costume Design

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Black Panther

The Favourite

Mary Poppins Returns

Mary Queen of Scots

Will Be: The Favourite

Should Be: The Favourite

Death, taxes, and a Victorian(ish)-era drama winning Best Costume Design are the only certainties in life.

Visual Effects

Avengers: Infinity War

Christopher Robin

First Man

Ready Player One

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Will Be: Avengers: Infinity War

Should Be: Ready Player One

This pick is based entirely on the trailer and my 1980s and 90s nostalgia.

Original Song

All the Stars – Black Panther

I’ll Fight – RBG

The Place Where Lost Things Go – Mary Poppins Returns

Shallow – A Star Is Born

When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings – The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Will Be: Shallow

Should Be: Shallow

Along with Roma winning for best Foreign Film, this is easily the biggest lock of the night. It’s also a really good song.

I don’t really have anything of substance to add for the rest of the categories, and if you’re somehow still reading, you’re probably not anxiously awaiting my take on all the documentary shorts I haven’t watched.

Happy Oscars Night, everyone! Looking forward to seeing you again next year, when we’ll get to predict the winners of the Academy’s new categories:

Worst Performance By A Best Actor/Actress Loser At Time of Award Announcement

Most Terrifying-Looking Live-Action Genie

Best Performance By People Trying to Bring Matt Damon Home

The Wes Anderson Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to Whimsy

Worst Acting Performance by a Musician Who Now Thinks He/She Can Act Because of Lady Gaga

Worst Singing Performance by an Actor Who Now Thinks He/She Can Sing Because of Bradley Cooper

Best Use of “That Guy” (Andrew Dice Clay!)

[comm4000]

Ransom, Rugs, and Rules: How Bowling in The Big Lebowski Embodies Social Issues and Perpetuates Gender Roles

By Emmie Madison

9 April 2017

“It’s a foot foul, Larry! Mark an X on it!” Arguably one of the most quoted and quotable movies of all time, The Big Lebowski was released in 1998 by Joel and Ethan Coen, the directing duo of brothers commonly referred to as the Coen Brothers. Now highly regarded as a cult classic that has experienced lasting success well into the twenty-first century, the Coen Brother’s film experienced little initial success in the theaters due to an elaborate plot that is not easy to follow and an ambiguous and often varying genre throughout. This could also be due to the astounding success of the Coen Brother’s previous film, Fargo, that earned seven Academy Award nominations and won two. Following the life of main character Jeffrey Lebowski, who is referred to exclusively as The Dude, Jeff Bridges brings to life a White Russian drinking, laidback bowler who quickly becomes entangled in a dramatic, twisted plot of bowling, rugs, and missing toes.

Set during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, the plot of the movie takes many twists and turns that are difficult to comprehend on the first viewing. At its base, the movie portrays a case of mistaken identity, when The Dude’s most prized possession, a rug that really tied the room together, gets peed on and must be replaced. The culprits were initially trying to extort The Big Lebowski, a pseudo rich businessman also by the name Jeffrey Lebowski. The Dude finds his namesake and, after a rude encounter, helps himself to one of the many rugs decorating The Big Lebowski’s mansion. From there, the plot escalates quickly as The Big Lebowski is forced into delivering the ransom to the alleged kidnappers until Walter interferes with a briefcase full of dirty underwear. The kidnappers do not take this lightly and set The Dude’s car on fire. The Dude and Walter’s friend Donny has a heart attack and they go to spread his ashes on the Pacific Coast, most of which end up on The Dude in a well-timed bout of physical comedy. Ultimately, the movie concludes with Bunny not kidnapped but on vacations with her friends and stating she simply “forgot” to tell anyone, The Big Lebowski confessing he did not even want Bunny back and just wanted the ransom money for himself as he is broke, and The Dude chatting with the cowboy narrator at the bowling alley bar.

While there is a clear lack of a cohesive plot, one element remains constant throughout the movie: Bowling. For the main characters, the bowling alley and the game of bowling are the largest, most important part of their lives. The Dude allows for most of his life to have little structure, caring not for money, love, or work, but always returning to the bowling alley as his arena to work out and discuss the larger issues in his life. Ultimately, the bowling alley is the one place in the movie that sees death, giving it an ominous power within the movie over life, death, and society. Many of the characters latch onto bowling as something that provides meaning to their otherwise meaningless lives, such as Walter (a crazed Vietnam veteran) and Jesus (the bowling pedophile). Additionally, throughout the movie, viewers are presented with only men in the bowling alley and on the bowling teams. Women are not portrayed in the sporting aspect of the movie and instead are portrayed in stereotypical gender roles: they are weak (able to be kidnapped) and free spirits focused on having children. Overall, bowling in The Big Lebowski represents the notion that sports in America are rarely just sports; they are often a representation for larger social issues. Bowling also portrays a clear lack of women within the world of sports, opting instead to portray the female characters in traditional gender roles.

While the plot presents itself as largely whimsical, there are two strong themes that deal with larger social issues and substantial ties can be made to the topics discussed in class. The first theme, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, connections to the idea presented by Jay (2004) that “sports are far more than just a game” (p. 1). This is shown in the movie through the use of bowling as the area in which the ideologies of the different characters are explained. More than half of the scenes are shot in the local bowling alley and often occur after a substantial event in the plot. Characters are quick to compare the game of bowling to larger issues, such as Vietnam veteran Walter who yells out “this [is not] Vietnam, there are rules!” For Walter, it is clear that bowling is a way of applying rules back to his life and dealing with the lasting effects of a war without rules or reason. Walter’s character is most concerned about the following of the rules of bowling, as it is his coping method to deal with Vietnam and the horrors he experienced there due to the lack of rules. For other characters, such as Jesus who is often referred to as the bowling pedophile, bowling is his escape from the horrors of his life. While his aggressive behavior remains apparent within his play (he threatens to kill The Dude upon learning they had made it to the semifinals), he is able to be the version of himself that he wants to be in the bowling alley.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjN5q9Ixen4 

Second, The Big Lebowski falls short in its representation of women, not just women in sports; there are no women in the bowling alley or on any of the bowling teams at any point within the movie (while Walter does once bring his ex-wife’s small dog to the bowling alley but even it is not allowed to bowl). Instead, the two predominate female characters that we are presented with are Maude and Bunny. Maude is presented as a free spirited, often naked artist who wants to have a child with The Dude but does not want him to be involved. While Maude’s scene does involve bowling, it is present in a dreamlike, unrealistic state of bowling with The Dude and is a clear metaphor for sexual encounter they are having. While the athletic prowess (or lack thereof) of the male characters is portrayed within the bowling alley, we are offered a “hypersexualized [image] of their female counterparts” (Kane, p. 2). Throughout the movie, the idea of women in sports is “almost nonexistent” similar to the coverage of women’s sports as a whole (Messner, p. 119).

While the redeeming quality of Maude’s portrayal is that she is actively wanting to break gender roles and have a child with no involvement from the father, worse yet is the hypersexualized portrayal of Bunny, The Big Lebowski’s much younger wife. The character of Bunny plays into all stereotypical gender roles of the younger wife who has married an older man for his money. She even offers to suck The Dude’s cock for money at one point during the movie, as she is sitting out by her pool in a skimpy swimsuit while painting her nails and drinking a beverage. Bunny’s character is the embodiment of the “sex sells” notion that Kane (2011) found to be counterproductive when attempting to sell women’s sports. It is important here to take into consideration that she is not an athlete but the Coen Brother’s still play her in this overdone and over sexual female stereotype. As one of just two female main characters we are presented with, both of their roles are problematic for audience, in particular a female audience trying to find parts of the movie with which to identify.

Minor other connections to in class themes presented themselves at times throughout the movie. There is a clear connection to the ideology of sport fan cultures shown through the varying interactions and level of seriousness found by the regulars at the bowling alley. These “sport fan cultures are likely to evolve and develop dependent on the sport type and level at which it is played” (Billings, Butterworth, & Turman, p. 68). While it is clear that the characters are bowling for fun, the sports fan culture is so deeply ingrained in their minds that they have a hard time not taking it so seriously, even to the point where guns are pulled, people are threatened, and Donny has a heart attack. Additionally, the majority of the bowlers are white males, leaving the representation of minority players to be presented as Jesus, the bowling pedophile. Minorities are left out of what is already a marginalized, less popular sport in a fictional world with fictional characters. 

The lack of representation of both minorities and females throughout the movie presents a one-sided view of the world of bowling and bowling as representative of a larger culture or larger social issue. While the idea that bowling can be a representation of individuals’ ideologies, in particular Walter, is a shining positive throughout the movie, the lack of representation for new, different, or less popular ideologies dealing with women and minorities is a large pitfall for The Big Lebowski. At the bowling alley, the women (such as Walter’s ex-wife) and the minorities (such as Jesus, the pedophile) are often mocked and degraded. The movie makes clear that there is no room for women in the bowling alley and although we are presented with just one minority bowler, the minority population is segregated from the rest and belittled. 

As someone who has seen The Big Lebowski many times, it was a new challenge and enjoyment to watch it again through a critical lens. I was six years old when the movie was released to theaters and therefore did not see it until after I had graduated high school. To come back and look for themes relating to sports and American culture presented was not an easy task, as there are many working elements to the plot and structure of the movie. As a whole, The Big Lebowski is an entertaining movie but looking for a deeper meaning was no easy feat. While there are dozens and dozens of quotes that I laugh at each viewing and utilize in my own conversations and life, I felt disconnected as someone who is not really into bowling and as someone who views bowling as more of a leisurely activity rather than a competitive sport or an expression of my own ideology. By looking at what bowling meant to the characters instead of looking at what it means to me and my enjoyment of bowling, I was able to shed light on the notion of sports as always being more than just sports. The lines of different characters, in particular Walter who often likened bowling to different war experiences of his own and of the current political climate during the time of the movie, stood out in a new way as I looked for deeper meaning rather than just funny one-liners.

My relationship with the movie as a woman has now also been complicated as I dove deeper into its portrayals of women. While the character of Maude is a clear attempt at a representation of modern women and femininity, from a gendered sports view she falls short as she is placed into the hypersexualized notion of women in athletics. She challenges The Dude and the audience to view her and the form of the woman body in a new way but ultimately only has a sexual relationship with bowling. She pushes the audience to become accepting of words like vagina and the female form, but her motives are undermined by the hypersexualized portrayal of her “bowling” which is just a large rouse for sex. Previously, I have been able to view Bunny as the innocent yet opportunistic young woman in the movie, but it is hard to view her the same when compared to a female athlete placed on the front of a Sports Illustrated cover. She may not be a female athlete, but she is definitely portrayed in the same light.

While The Big Lebowski may be a cult classic, its representation of women (both in sports or otherwise) is problematic and a perpetuation of traditional gender roles. The two dominant female characters are overly sexualized, similar to women in sports magazines, and any additional positive qualities about them are all together left out. It also presents a negative view of minorities, presenting us only with one minority athlete and referring to other minorities as “Chinamen.” While the largest theme seems to be that sports are always more than just sports, the pitfalls of the negative representations of women and minorities taint the positive message that is apparent. The Dude and the other bowlers use bowling to represent their ideologies about life, war, and marriage but fall short in their stereotypical views of women, minorities, and any other category of other. But, as the Dude famously says, that’s just, you know, my opinion, man.  

Billings A. C., Butterworth, M. L., & Turman, P. D. (2017). Communication and Sport. Sage Publications. Jay, K. (2004). More than just a game: Sports in American life since 1945. Columbia University Press. Kane, M. J. (2011) Sex sells, not women’s sports. The Nation. Messner, M. (2012). Reflections on communication and sport: On men and masculinities. Communication & Sport, 1, 113-124. doi:10.1177/2167479512467977