#criterion release when

[dickfarmdunnz]

Say my name

[theseventhveil1945]

[andyridgeley]

[nonexistent-triangle]

engineer tf2 in a filipino movie from the 70s

[panimoonchild]

Russian culture is ethnic cleansing and islamophobia

Today is an important day to qırımlılar but many of them will be celebrating it in Russian captivity.

Ruslan Mesutov was illegally sentenced by the occupiers to 18 years in prison on charges of alleged "terrorism".

Even though the 58-year-old man's health condition has deteriorated, he is not being provided with appropriate medical care. Ruslan Mesutov is forced to go on hunger strike, because, contrary to his religious beliefs, he is fed food with pork in it. The prison where he is being held is called a "criterion" because of its harshness. There are four people in a damp cell, who are taken for a walk on the roof of the prison once a day.

Life before detention: Ruslan Ametovich Mesutov was born in Uzbekistan, in 1988 he returned to Crimea and got a job as a turner at a factory in Alushta, where he was allocated a land plot.

Later, he brought his parents and sisters to the Crimea, married Elzara Hodzhenova, and had two sons. Ruslan was a member of the Crimean Tatar People's Movement. In the village of Malyi Mayak (Buyuk-Lambat), Ruslan organized the Muslim community "Avdet", which is part of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Crimea, and became one of the founders of the religious community of Alushta. He was a security guard at the mosque, engaged in social activities, organized Muslim holidays, helped with funeral issues, took care of paperwork, and held prayers. Representatives of the occupation authorities detained the man on June 10, 2019, along with other Crimean Tatars. The occupation investigators charged Mesutov with violation of Part 1 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Organization of a terrorist organization"), which provides for imprisonment for a term of 15 to 20 years. And even Part 1 of Articles 30 and 278 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Preparation for the violent seizure of power by an organized group by prior conspiracy"), which provides for up to ten years in prison. In May 2020, Ruslan was transferred to the territory of the Russian Federation. An illegal sentence was handed down on August 16, 2021, and the man was sentenced to 18 years in a strict regime colony with a 1-year and 6-month restriction on his freedom after release. Mesutov was arrested two weeks before the court hearing, which was to consider the claim of the religious community of Alushta regarding the transfer of the city mosque by the occupation administration to the illegal formation of the "Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Crimea". The main real reason for Ruslan Mesutov's detention is his religious and public activities, identity, and support for his people. The 58-year-old man is being held in a Russian prison in the Lipetsk region. According to his lawyer, Siyar Panich, his client's health condition has deteriorated and he is not being provided with medical care. Since November 2022, Ruslan has had difficulties with nutrition, as pork has been introduced into the main diet. According to his religious beliefs, Ruslan Mesutov does not eat such food. The Muslims serving their sentences in this institution wrote an appeal to the administration, but the problem has not yet been resolved.

The political prisoner's Quran was also taken away from him. "The Quran in Arabic was taken away from Mesutov to be examined by a specialist, who said it was a 'normal Quran' and not an 'extremist' one. Since then, since November, he hasn't been able to get it back, and it depresses him quite a bit," said lawyer Volodymyr Bilenko.

Info from @ ppu_gov_ua

That how our people look like and behave when they're finally free from Russian captivity.

[the-blue-fairie]

@ariel-seagull-wings @themousefromfantasyland It remains fascinating to me that, in the US, the film Kirikou and the Sorceress is kinda obscure and only available in a blurry print and old non-anamorphic DVDs while in other countries it's just... a children's film? Like, a restoration was on the Criterion Channel for a few months some years ago, but that's been gone for ages now.

It's because of the completely nonsexual animated nudity that's so matter-of-fact within the film and normal among the culture it portrays that it becomes irrelevant. And some people might say, "Well, if it's irrelevant then they could have just censored it for the US release," but like... that would have been a loss to the film.

Like, it's all very well for people to say things like "Nudity in and of itself is nonsexual" but having a film where the nudity is so mundane you might even forget about it (or at least be forced to confront your own cultural biases regarding nudity) shows that.

This is the way these people live. It is ordinary. The film doesn't try to otherize its characters because of it.

It just is.

And that makes it integral to the film.

I only saw the film for the first time when it appeared on the Criterion Channel, but I feel like if I'd grown up with it (there would have been no chance of that; my family would have confiscated the DVD), I'd have had a less complicated emotional journey regarding my body.

[ezrazone]

criterion collection instagram: a great visit from andy serkis! check out andy’s picks DOG DAY AFTERNOON, MIKEY AND NICKY and more on the criterion channel.

commenter 1: release 4k of pier paolo pasolini’s PORCILLE when?

commenter 2: ����

commenter 3: did a lobotomized horse edit this fucking video? i’d like you to please name your editors for these clips, i’m sick of my friends and family asking if i put together these shoddy criterion closet content videos. i did not. i worked for you for several months in 2022 and you have already rotated out the collection previews i made for you.

commenter 3 again: blu ray THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM?

[whoiwanttoday]

Here is some Anna Kendrick because she directed a movie and so she is out everywhere promoting it. It's nice to get to see her. Both here and in general. She is a regular on this blog but has not shown up a ton in the past few years because I just don't see her so much. That happens with celebrity and she's one of those people who won and Oscar early and then the industry didn't quite know what to do with her. She was in a lot of things where she was very charming but the movie was whatever. I guess part of that is just the industry change, she probably would have had a very different career in the 90's or 2000's but the kind of movies people like her would make their star in don't exist anymore, everything is a franchise. I hope her Dating Show movie is good, I know the story behind it, so that's good. Anyway, she's here because of all that in general but more specifically because she was on the criterion closet and when recommending All That Jazz mentioned everyone wants to talk about how this movie or that movie has always been a part of their life because no one wants to seem late to the game but she just saw it a few years ago. That to me is an important thing. I know I am guilty on this blog of what have you done lately and certainly a lot of good art is of it's moment, it's in conversation with the world it was made in, and that's important, but truly great art is timeless because it isn't about right now it's about being human. This weekend I watched Demon Pond, which is also a Criterion release and one that caused a big stir in the film circles online because Criterion released it and no one had heard of it. It didn't have a wikipedia article, it had less than 1500 view on Letterboxd, it was like an unknown movie but entered the Criterion collection because it was a Japanese movie from 1979 made by an avant garde film maker and I guess was never that big a release. You know what? It was gorgeous and wonderful and made me sad and angry and happy. It's a nice reminder that something doesn't have to be brand new to do that and it's ok to revist things from the past. Anyway, Anna Kendrick talking about All That Jazz made me think of that and how even just one great work of art from someone is something to be thankful for. So I am posting her. Today I want to fuck Anna Kendrick.

[mariacallous]

In Hollywood, the present is the future is the past.

Twin strikes shut down production for six months last year, and with its workforce still on ice, the entertainment industry has been slow to recover. Domestic box-office revenue is expected to be 30 percent lower this year compared to 2019. By 2028, cable TV subscriptions are expected to decline by 10 million. And with the looming acquisition of Paramount Global by Skydance Media, the future of Hollywood is as it ever was: reliably uncertain. As one studio executive described it to the Los Angeles Times, it’s “something of an existential question mark.”

Of course, this isn’t Hollywood’s first—or second or third, for that matter—financial reckoning. “When we look closely at history, we realize that all the negotiations we have to make about character, about financing, about representation and all these things have been asked before,” says Maya Cade. “Ego tells us that we must be the first, but why would we want that to be true?”

This, in part, was Cade’s mission when she launched Black Film Archive in 2021. At a “moment when people were demanding the full totality of our lives to be represented in media,” she says, “they felt as if Black film could not hold the capacity for Blackness.” Cade knew better. So she got to work and built what is now the most exhaustive online database of Black cinema titles, spanning diverse, obscure, and well-known films.

A former audience development strategist at the Criterion Collection, she tells me people were missing a larger context to the issues at hand. The archive, which celebrated its third anniversary this August, features more than 300 films released between 1898 to 1999, with each title available to stream online. What Cade has accomplished is both rare and essential: She has indexed a century's worth of Black moviemaking and made it free to access.

Anxious to learn more, I reached out to Cade to help make sense of what’s happening in Hollywood. Over the phone from Los Angeles, where she recently relocated, Cade and I talked about the fate of the entertainment business, the grave implications of the Internet Archive lawsuit, and how we can better preserve history on an internet that likes to forget.

Jason Parham: Is it true that the idea for Black Film Archive sprang from a conversation on Twitter?

Maya Cade: I was on Twitter in June 2020, and I saw a lot of people talking about how racist or dramatic Black films are as a way to dismiss them. So instead of shaming people for that opinion, in my mind I was like, OK, how do I make an offering for people to discuss that belief, to contrast that belief, and also move us past it. I don't want to dismiss the truth because it's harsh. And I know there are many ways to get to the truth. I also don’t want to dismiss people who feel that way. But I want to offer another lens of how they're seeing it. Because when we talk about Black films as only being traumatic, we're reducing the art form in a very minuscule kind of way. This idea of like, “Oh, all these films are about slavery. All of these films are about trauma porn.”

Which, of course, isn’t true.

I did the calculations of how many films are about slavery—and they were quite few across time. But I understand that at the same time, what does it mean when a white decisionmaker wants to see Black people in a specific way? They have the power of how we're told in media. I also understand that film becomes the dominant narrative of how history is told. So there are multiple truths to contend with. But I think we're better prepared to contend with those things when we have a full look of what Black film’s history can offer.

The Internet Archive recently lost an appeal, which could have major ramifications to how we access information. Resources like Black Film Archive and the Wayback Machine are also part of this conversation. This is a bit of an abstract question, but how do we better hold on?

One goal of the early internet was to democratize knowledge. Whether everyone agreed with that is a different point. And the Internet Archive is one of the only things from the early internet to still exist in its same way. Wikipedia, too. These two things are constantly under attack, because to share knowledge freely means that someone wants to come in and control the free flow of knowledge. They want to profit from that.

In so many ways greed has become a default response to various public resources.

With that being known, what do we do? The world has been upended. The only truth that we know is in books. On the internet, AI has turned knowledge upside down. AI leaves out the essence of truth. For example, through summary, it assumes who you are and what you want to know quickly about something, which isn't the same as a human would do it. That process can remove layers of truth at a very basic level. With that being the foundation of the internet of the future, the Internet Archive is essential. In the last 10 years, we have moved away from the internet as a service to the internet of things. An internet as service—it was a destination. It was a place that you could freely roam, explore, and use as a guide.

Is there a way back to that?

If we want places on the internet that aren't run by AI, where knowledge is freely shared, where we can explore as we desire, then we must invest our time, our coins, we must advocate and protect as much as we possibly can. There’s so much on the internet that would crumble if the Internet Archive or Wikipedia falls. That's a threat to many people because, ultimately, when you control the flow of knowledge, you control everything.

The consequences would be extraordinary.

It's almost as if the basic concept of the library would be a pie-in-the-sky idea today, because someone would ask, well, how could I make money from that? When Black Film Archive launched, many people wanted to profit off of it. Many people asked to sponsor it. The thing is, once you create something that becomes a front line of culture, the question isn’t “How do I help sustain you?” The question is “How do I own you?” I said no because I’m firm in Black Film Archive being free.

On the subject of money and ownership: Earlier this year, following the cancellation of several Black TV shows, you wrote, “Studios and streamers no longer care about loyalty or enduring legacy.” Why does Hollywood, in 2024, still have such a difficult time aligning its legacy with its business?

Well, here's the thing, the legacy business, they feel as if that work is behind them.

But isn’t that what Hollywood is built on?

Yes, but to create new legacy and new inroads, to them, that is less important than extracting every possible dollar from existing IP. It’s more “expensive,” quote-unquote, to create something than it is to rest on existing laurels. The beginning of the end of this, to me, was when Warner Brothers and UPN merged into The CW. Now, 20 years later, the CW is a shell of itself. In mergers, you're no longer competing with someone to make the best content. With the merger of Warner Brothers and Discovery, they own, what, one-fourth of TV? That competition era of television—it's over.

Which has a direct impact on the creative side.

The legacy-driven model only happens now in vanity. So a lot of stars are using their own distribution or first-look deals to produce things. And these are the majority of people who are allowed to create. So what does Hollywood mean when the only people who are given freedom are people who have already done the taxing work—if they have at all—to become stars? Hollywood is not in the business of guarantee. Everything must be proven before it's even created.

And if that’s the case, so many people get left out.

And if everything must be proven before it's even created, then Blackness never had a chance. It doesn't have a chance. The fight for nostalgia as currency comes in a moment where some of the highest rated things are non-white. That's not an accident. It’s as if television, media, and filmmaking are becoming manifest destiny in the wrong ways. And there's nothing sadder.

Perhaps we need better frameworks.

People have upended industries to chase Netflix. And no one has caught up. Everything has fallen in this chase. What’s happening now is, people are only duplicating the best and the most watched. There is no diversity in how things are being delivered.

You once described “post-2020 Black media as akin to a modern day blaxploitation boom.” It got me thinking about platforms like Tubi and AllBlk, which are sometimes mocked as being a kind of streaming ghetto, but those same streamers have also given opportunities to young creators.

Blaxploitation, as I was saying, makes way for Spike Lee, it makes way for the '80s independent Black movement that, of course, shapes everything we know about modern Black film and modern Black media. At every valley, there is a peak. It’s the nature of life. So what do I think is ahead? We should be thinking about independent models that have existed before our current era. There are many ways to make media. With pilot season essentially dying, as the studios have announced, what are some ways that Black creators can forge together to make what they desire?

I mean, I don't know if I have the answers, but I do have the curiosity. And oftentimes curiosity and care—and leading with them—can transform how we understand history and the future.

[slavghoul]

Big news for Ghost this week, with the release of their brand new EP of covers, Phantomime, this Friday May 19th, and two days later, the launch of an eight-date French tour. Frontman Tobias Forge tells us more about the creation of this record, as well as his future projects and the few unforeseen events that have come his way...

I guess you must be very busy with the promotion of Ghost these last few days here in Paris, but have you planned any time for yourself, like a vinyl shopping session for example?

Yes, I have, but it's really just a hobby for me: whenever I go somewhere I go to record shops, it's kind of my own relaxation. As far as promotion goes, these few days are indeed quite productive with a busy schedule, but it's actually quite nice to sit here, watching what's going on around me, at least it's more pleasant than doing a day of interviews locked up in four walls. I'm more of a stimulus kind of person, so when I have a phone call with someone I play Playstation at the same time, so I can concentrate on something while I'm talking. My whole life has always been a bit like that, listening to a record at home with the TV on.

You're releasing an EP of five covers on which you cover Television, The Stranglers, Genesis, Iron Maiden and even Tina Turner. How do you choose the songs for the covers on your EPs? Are they songs that meant a lot to you, that you listened to a lot when you were young, or are you looking for lyrics or a theme corresponding to the Ghost universe with references to religion for example?

It's a little bit of all of that at the same time! But the main criterion, what counts the most for me, is really the lyrics. From the rhymes used to the existential, philosophical or biblical themes. Of course, we could have fun covering "Disco Inferno" and try to put our own spin on it, but I think we need to be able to add a little something to it. I actually like to take songs that are written in a different way to my own, so I'm always trying to find songs that I couldn't have written myself. If I opened a restaurant tomorrow, I would have to find different dishes to enrich and diversify my menu. It's also a way for me to learn, to experiment. Besides, the exercise of reworking is always interesting, and sometimes it works, other times it doesn't.

Does this mean that you have considered other covers than these five titles?

Yes, I did. And the covers that didn't work just don't appear on this record! My original idea was to do a whole album of covers. And I had to take half of the songs off, because five of them didn't really fit with what we wanted to do with them, or they didn't sound like they were finished.

For example, I recorded a Rush track, but I felt I wasn't adding anything to the song. Not to say that other bands are flawed, but I just think that Rush's music is too perfect. There is nothing to improve, nothing to emphasize or accentuate, no nuance to add this or that contrast to. I felt like I was playing Rush just like a lot of teenage boys do, and nothing more. I'm not implying that girls don't like Rush, of course, but you know, there's that old joke that Rush is a teenage boys band. In any case, I felt that my version was going to be a bit too redundant to the original song.

Then there were other songs that made it to the quarter finals, if I may say so [laughs], that we dropped because there was too much to improve on, or the overall quality was not good. I can have a really good idea on paper, and then listen to the piece and think it doesn't work very well, or it's not entertaining enough.

How did the recording of the EP go?

The demos of all these covers were made at the same time as the recording of Impera. The producer of the album told us that he didn't want to deal with covers. That's fine, and it's true that it doesn't pay to do covers. We had just come out of the Impera recording session and we were exhausted. It was very hard, after all it's often said that the fifth album is particularly difficult. We had quite a lot of ambitions for this record, it took a lot of time and energy, and when it was finished, my engineer Martin and I went back to the studio, with the idea of recording another album.

But once we'd recorded those demos, I realised that there were some things that weren't quite right and that we had to take out. We kept those five songs. Five rock songs, full stop. Keeping things simple, easy, and even for the recording: it was good to remember that not everything is as difficult as the album we just finished. This EP is ultimately something spontaneous, simple, and having the demos already made it easier for us. Anyway, I had a lot of fun making it, from the recording to the mix, the atmosphere was quite happy.

You can feel this on the EP, this lightness and a feeling of fluidity. Without it being too basic, because there is a serious work on the arrangements and the atmospheres, which sound very Ghost by the way.

I'm glad to hear that, because that's exactly what I was looking for: to convey that lightness without the final product sounding half-baked, if I can say that! What I mean is that when you go into the studio for an album, you're 110%, whereas for an EP, with only covers, it's normal to be 100%. But I didn't want the difference to be felt between the two, like between the first Star Wars and the 1978 Star Wars Christmas Special! [Laughs]

It's been a year to the day since the Impera album was released. How do you look back on this fifth album, which marked a turning point in Ghost's rise?

In a way I feel relief, because this album has fulfilled its mission, the one it was supposed to fulfill. I don't want to fool the fans into thinking that it's all about magic and believing in it and so on. You have to be pragmatic and think about the results you got with the album. Of course, with every new album you are convinced that it is the best, but after the release you have to see what it does on stage. It's only by seeing how well that performance worked that you can tell if that album is good or not, in the end. Today, one year after the release, I can say that Impera holds up well. What has distorted our perception a little bit is what happened on the side.

You mean what happened with "Mary On A Cross", a track released on a 2-track EP in 2019 but which went viral last year on TikTok?

Yeah, when it came out, it kind of messed up our album cycle. It wasn't a problem per se, but it's just that we didn't plan for it at all, it kind of got in the way. And the label panicked and said "What are we going to do?!" I told them we weren't going to do anything. It was already out of our control, already naturally present on TikTok, what could we do? As we didn't want to damage the Impera promo, but we didn't want to lose the song "Mary On A Cross" either, we did the bare minimum, but our priority was really to get back to what we wanted to do as soon as possible at that point, which was to focus on our Impera. And then, from a pragmatic and slightly cynical point of view, we didn't want our historical fans to think that we were going to stop everything to please these newcomers who discovered the band via TikTok.

As far as Impera is concerned, I only realised today that it was an anniversary. Looking back, I can see that the cycle that started with this album, from its release to the tours, has been one of the most important in the history of Ghost, and that's really great. Now we're preparing for the next tour, which will start at your place [the Re-Imperatour kicks off this Sunday, May 21st in Rouen], and there are future projects that we're trying to work on. It's been a year since the record came out, but really it's been two years since the recording, and now it's time to move on to the next thing... things will start moving in the autumn, I hope.

Are you talking about the sixth Ghost album?

Yes, that famous sixth album, as difficult to make as the fifth! I've already started working on it, and after the tours this year it will be time to go into the studio for that.

So for me, the goal is to manage all these things at the same time without losing sight of these goals and next steps. So of course I'm happy that there are lots of new fans coming through TikTok. And I also welcome those who don't like the TikTok track but discover the rest of our discography and join us. But the most important thing is really to stay on our trajectory, and not to stray from the path we've set for ourselves. We have to make sure that we don't forget our mission, just because someone says they like fucking gnocchi better when we serve sushi. [Laughs]

What you're saying here is a bit like what you were telling us earlier, when you were talking about your care in planning things and having a vision for the band.

Exactly, it's very important for me. Being an artist is not just about aesthetics, it's about many other things. I've always been interested in the holistic approach, in this more global vision of things. To use the image of the restaurant business that I used earlier: I like to cook, but I also like books, people, interior design. In fact it's a collection of many things, and they're all important, almost in equal measure. Some rock or pop artists, or even actors, have been able to break through almost by accident, but that's not usually how it works. You have to work a lot, but above all you have to make a lot of decisions yourself, otherwise others will make them for you, and it will be done in an unthinking way, without a long term vision. It's impossible for me, as a control freak, to consider that! [Laughs]

[nicki-lewis903]

I saw this film in my high school English class over ten years ago and it was one film I couldn’t exactly forget. Years later when I was hunting down another film I found this dvd in the store and never looked back. It’s one of the films I recommend to people who enjoy dark comedy or slapstick films. It has some jokes that are dark in tone but delivered so well it’s impossible not to laugh. Whether being charmed by the sweet unassuming aunts, intrigued by the silly brother who thinks he’s Theodore Rosevelt, enchanted by our lead and his love interest or fearful of the brother who returns with a plan to take over the household.

Arsenic and Old lace is a 1944 film that was originally filmed years prior but sadly studio distribution halted it for a while and it was until he was in the trenches of WWII that director Frank Capra heard a nearby soldier yell out “Charge” and run towards the enemy like the Teddy character in the film.

The premise of the film is Mortimer Brewster, played by Grant, visits his aunts after marrying their girl next door and their minister’s daughter. When he comes home however he discovers a secret kept by the two old ladies under the guise of a good deed. The brother who the neighbors fear helps to cover evidence as he knows no better, and once Mortimer learns this he feels he can get this situation under control if he can get his brother locked away. But things get even crazier when his other brother comes home with an accomplice. Mortimer and his aunts are not living in fear of brother Jonathan and what he’ll do, while Mortimer is struggling to cover up this family situation and keep his newlywed wife safe.

The brother Jonathan is played by Raymond Massey who was done up to look like Boris Karloff who originated the role on Broadway, Karloff wanted to play in the film as it would open more doors for him in a comedy but the producers of the play refused to part with him because he was the big draw. Josephine Hull, Jean Adair and John Alexander were the only cast members from the play who appeared in the film. Peter Lorre plays the accomplice Dr Einstein.

The film recently was released by Criterion Films and given a spot in the library of congress. Having this means prints of this film will be around for years to come and future generations to see. It’s absolutely worth watching around Halloween as that’s when the events in the film take place.

[brokehorrorfan]

Repo Man will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on September 3 via The Criterion Collection. Jay Shaw and Tyler Stout illustrated the cover art for the 1984 sci-fi comedy.

Writer-director Alex Cox (Sid and Nancy) makes his feature debut. Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez star with Tracey Walter, Olivia Barash, Sy Richardson, Vonetta McGee, Fox Harris, and Dick Rude.

Repo Man has been newly restored in 4K, approved by Cox, with Dolby Vision HDR and uncompressed monaural sound. Special features are listed below, where you can also see more of the packaging.

Special features:

Audio commentary by writer-director Alex Cox, actors Sy Richardson, Zander Schloss, and Del Zamora, executive producer Michael Nesmith, and casting director Victoria Thomas

Interviews with musicians Iggy Pop and Keith Morris and actors Dick Rude, Olivia Barash, and Miguel Sandoval

Deleted scenes

Roundtable discussion with Alex Cox, Sy Richardson, Dick Rude, Del Zamora, and producers Peter McCarthy and Jonathan Wacks

Conversation between Peter McCarthy and actor Harry Dean Stanton

"Cleaned up" TV version of the film

Trailers

Booklet with an essay by critic Sam McPheeters, an illustrated production history by Cox, and a 1987 interview with real-life repo man Mark Lewis

A weathered repo man (Harry Dean Stanton) in a desolate Los Angeles takes a nihilistic middle-class punk (Emilio Estevez) under his wing. The job becomes more than either of them bargained for when they get involved in repossessing a mysterious—and otherworldly—Chevy Malibu with a hefty reward attached to it.

Pre-order Repo Man.

[tiktaalic]

The crazy dean criterion collection: curated by ME!

Crazy in this parlance. means. “sam gives dean a strange look" natural. recommendations welcome. i dont read a lot of fic so there are maybe 5 on here. here we go.

ROMANTIC THEORY - 2STREET2CAR

“It was an accident,” Dean insists, as soon as they hear from Bobby. They’re sitting at a diner halfway back to the hotel room and these are the first real words Dean has spoken. “I know it was. He didn’t mean to.” Sam stares at him. “He?” “Castiel?” Dean says, shrugs. “Boy name, right?” “Are you insane?” Sam blurts out.

CHEAPEST ROOM IN THE HOUSE - BIGGAYBENNY

“Why is the app on Dean’s phone? Why is someone messaging you on Dean’s phone?” Sam asks and Dean knows Sam’s staring at him even as he stares at the page in front of him with an intensity he hasn’t had all afternoon. When no one answers, Sam tries again. “What –?” Irritation flares like electricity through Dean and it’s only that spark of anger that gets his words out. “I’m just helping him out, Sam! Jesus, he’s – he was – he’s an angel. Celestial intent! How is he meant to know what Grindr is? How to – how to – to talk to guys, how is he –” “Dude,” Sam says emphatically, placating him with wide eyes, holding his hands up. “Okay, okay. Listen, I know you’re not –”

THE DEAN WINCHESTER BEAT SHEET - SALTYFEATHERS

Sam snorts and puts down his phone. His bed creaks as he gets comfortable. “So, what’s up with Cas?” “What do you mean?” Dean says. “Nothing. Just, like, what’s his deal?” For all the fretting he did over this trip, Dean never once thought to prepare an answer for this question. So when he blurts out, “Well, he’s gay,” the only person he can be disappointed in is himself. “Uh, okay,” Sam says. “I was looking for more of a big picture type-thing, but I guess we can start there, too.”

BUILT TO ROAM - SLEEPYVAN

They both throw the ball, Cas controlling Dean’s swing with his own arms and his own legs, strong and firm at his back. If he’s a shifter, he could kill me right now, Dean thinks, and stays put right where he is. He releases the ball and they both watch as the ball travels straight towards the pins, hitting them with a good amount of force and knocking them all down. no sam pull quote for this one. but trust he would have things to say about the bowling alley.

TO BE RESTORED - SERENITYFAILS

"Nah, there's nothing wrong with it, if you like H&R Block chic. I'm just saying, if I was reborn as a hot chick I'd want to show off a little." The matching looks Sam and Cas give him make his cheeks burn. "What?" Dean tosses his hands indignantly. "You're telling me if you were a woman you wouldn't want to look hot?" "I can honestly say I haven't give it much thought, Dean," Sam says, looking like he's about to ask Dean if there's anything else he wants to admit to, and Dean doesn't want to give him the satisfaction, so he climbs inside the car and turns the music up before Sam can open his pinched little mouth again.

that's all i got boss. if you've read something where dean is Crazy drop it in my inbox.

[yeahiwasintheshit]

So I watched ‘seven samurai’ last night cause it was picked in the poll, and yea for the most part it lives up to its reputation. It’s really a good movie. But the fucker is 3.5 hours long, and yes for sure they could have cut out some… but not too much, tbh, maybe a half hour-40 mins only. I was pretty invested in all the steps it took to get to the end. It took its time and I was there for most of it. Only a couple times did I grab my phone, mostly in the last act when they were setting up for the final battle, it kinda dragged there for some reason. But very minor complaint. For a 3.5 hour movie and it’s in another language and I had to read the whole time, I kept along with it for most of it. I suppose it’s very trope-y and I could pretty much guess who was gonna die off the bat, tho I wasn’t right about all of them, but it is and old movie and they did kinda set the standards for the tropes, so you cant fault it for that. But some of it def did seem and feel very familiar. The magnificent seven being a complete remake of it. I was kinda disappointed in the quality of the restoration of it tho, it’s a fuckin criterion release and there were hairs in the frame, and sometimes in old black and white movies the under exposed areas in a scene can look like they are sorta kinda pulsing in being under and correct exposure. Which I assumed these criterion fucks would have fixed! It’s was kinda distracting! Lol anyway again minor complaints. The story was great, as were the performances for the most part. I even got a little emotional in a couple of scenes. It was very compelling. Of course toshiro mifune was the breakout most energetic performance and most fun to watch. I enjoyed it for sure and may watch it again, idk… 3.5 hrs is a good chunk of time to have to commit too.

[vital-information]

“Early Summer is about the difference between the married and the unmarried, how the married try to persuade or (worse) coerce the unmarried into getting married, and how maybe that isn’t always such a good idea. This theme is explicitly called out more than once in the film.

Early Summer further implies that there may be a good reason why some unmarried people, including Noriko (but not just Noriko), don't want to marry: they may be “that type of person,” as the young lesbian Fumi described herself in Takako Shimura's manga Aoi hana. This subtext rises briefly to the level of text at least once before being ambiguously dismissed.

Both Ozu and Hara remained unmarried until their deaths, and to my knowledge neither were ever credibly reported as having a romantic relationship with anyone. Per Donald Richie’s commentary on the Criterion release (referenced in the next post), Ozu was reported to become angry at any talk of his marrying. Meanwhile Hara, though termed “the eternal virgin” by a film producer for her film image, in real life had close friendships with many women, including a hair and makeup artist whose friendship with Hara began early on and continued after Hara retired into obscurity at the height of her career.

In modern terms we could therefore hypothesize Early Summer as a queer film subtly but firmly protesting compulsory heterosexuality, made by a (possibly) queer director and starring a (possibly) queer actor.

…

Early Summer opens with three establishing shots: first a shot of a dog walking freely on the beach with the ocean in the background, then a shot of a single bird in a cage outside, and then a final shot of birds in cages inside a house. This is the house in the oceanside town of Kamakura in which Noriko (Setsuko Hara’s character) lives, along with her brother Kōichi (Chishū Ryū), his wife Fumiko (Kuniko Miyake), Noriko and Koichi’s father (Ichiro Sugai) and mother (Chieko Higashiyama), and Kōichi and Fumiko’s two young boys.

If we wish, we can interpret the first and third shots as showing a strong contrast between freedom in nature on the one hand, and the restrictions imposed by society and the Japanese family system on the other. In this interpretation the second shot represents Noriko, who has a degree of independence that her mother and Fumiko do not have, but is still constrained by the bonds of family and society.

In the following scenes Kōichi takes an early train to his job as a physician, while Noriko goes to the Kita-Kamakura station to catch a later one. There she meets Kenkichi, another physician who works with Kōichi and who (along with his mother) is the family’s next-door neighbor. Kenkichi tells her that he’s been reading a book, implied to have been recommended by Noriko. The Criterion release describes it only as “this book,” but the BFI release names it as Les Thibaults.

Les Thibaults (published in Japanese as Chibō-ka no hitobito, and apparently relatively popular in Japan at the time) is a multi-volume French novel that begins as one of its protagonists is discovered writing passionate messages to a fellow schoolboy — something Ozu himself was apparently falsely accused of — and is then separated from his friend. Later volumes describe their diverging paths in life. Why might have Noriko recommended this particular novel to Kenkichi? Hold that thought.

We then see Noriko at work, as a secretary and executive assistant to the head of a small firm (Shūji Sano). As she talks with her boss regarding café recommendations, her best friend Aya (Chikage Awashima) arrives, there to collect payment for the boss’s spending at the restaurant her mother owns. Noriko’s boss wonders when they’ll both get married, and refers to them as “old maids.”

(Before becoming a movie actress, Chikage Awashima was a musumeyaku top star in the Takarazuka Revue and occasionally played “pants roles,” i.e., as a female character dressing as a man for plot reasons. Osamu Tezuka was a fan of hers, and she supposedly inspired the main character Sapphire, “born ... with a blue heart of a boy and a pink heart of a girl,” in his manga Princess Knight. Why might this be relevant to Early Summer? Again, hold that thought.)

After work, Noriko meets Kōichi and Fumiko for dinner. While they eat, Kōichi complains about post-war women (“[They’ve] become so forward.”) and Noriko corrects him: “We've just taken our natural place.” Kōichi then claims that’s why Noriko can’t get married, and she rebukes him: “It’s not that I can’t. I could in a minute if I wanted to.” (Note: a bit of foreshadowing here.)

Next occur the two key events that set the main plot in motion. First, Noriko’s great-uncle (Seiji Miyaguchi) arrives for a visit. He wonders why she isn't married yet. “Some women don't want to get married,” he tells her. “Are you one of them?” Noriko laughs and leaves the room, but the seed has been planted in the minds of her family.

Noriko’s boss also thinks it's time for her to get married, and he has just the man for her: “He’s never been married. Not sure if he's still a virgin.” Her boss has photographs to show her, and won’t leave her leave without taking them.

Meanwhile Noriko and Aya mercilessly tease one of their married friends, and after attending another friend’s wedding have dinner with that friend and another married friend, with a side dish of sexual innuendo. One of the married friends brags about how she spent a rained-out honeymoon playing with a “spinning top”: “My husband is very good at it.” Her friend cautions her: “You shouldn't flaunt it in front of the single girls.”

However, Aya is not impressed with the implied amazingness of heterosexual intercourse: “Silly! We don’t play with tops, do we?” Noriko enthusiastically agrees with her: “That’s for children, isn’t it?” The debate between the married and the unmarried continues, after which Noriko goes home, where Kōichi and Fumiko are scheming regarding the marital candidate proposed by Noriko’s boss.

Kenkichi’s mother then visits Noriko’s mother, and tells her that a man from a detective agency has been asking about Noriko: “I realized it was about her marriage.” We also learn that Kenkichi’s wife died two years ago (leaving him with a young daughter), and that he's not interested in remarrying: “All he does since his wife died is read books” (like Les Thibaults). Finally, we learn that Kenkichi’s best friend, Noriko’s brother Shoji, went missing in the war.

We now come to the climax of the first half of the movie. As Noriko’s nephews and their friends play with their model train set downstairs (one nephew asking if their father will buy them more train track), Aya visits Noriko and they talk in her room upstairs. Their married friends have made various excuses for why they couldn’t also visit; Noriko recalls how close they were at school and laments their drifting apart.

Throughout the first half of Early Summer Noriko and Aya are shown as mirroring each other’s gestures and speech. That mirroring continues in this scene (for example, they sit down next to each other at the exact same time and in the exact same manner), and then a very interesting thing happens. Ozu’s typical modus operandi is to continue a shot until someone stops speaking or moving, or even until they leave the room. But here he cuts immediately from Noriko and Aya simultaneously raising their glasses to drink, to Noriko’s father and mother simultaneously bringing food to their lips, as they relax sitting on a street curb in town.

If I were to speculate about what this juxtaposition might mean, if anything, I’d speculate as follows: that Ozu intended to show that, whatever Aya and Noriko might be to each other, they are as close, secure, and happy in their relationship as Noriko’s mother and father are in theirs — as much a couple as any other in the film, but not formally recognized as such.

Noriko’s father tells his wife, “This may be the happiest time for our family,” although he’s sad at the thought of Noriko leaving. They continue their conversation, and then are interrupted by the site of a balloon rising into the sky. “Some child must be crying,” Noriko’s father remarks. “Remember how Kōichi cried when he lost his balloon?”

…

The good times continue as Noriko brings home a cake to eat with her sister-in-law Fumiko, and their neighbor Kenkichi drops in unexpectedly and is invited to share it with them. The scene re-introduces Kenkichi and brings up the subject of his remarrying — something he doesn’t want, but his mother (played by Haruko Sugimura) does.

…

In the meantime Noriko’s brother Kōichi has been pursuing the idea of a marriage between Noriko and an unseen bachelor first suggested by Noriko’s boss, including asking his friends and associates for more information on the proposed groom. The results are “very promising”: “He’s in the social register, and seems to be a fine businessman.” “How nice,” replies his mother, but, “how old is he?”

…

Then Noriko’s boss asks a few questions that we’ve been asking ourselves. While Noriko is away from work, Aya stops by, and the boss questions Aya on whether Noriko will go through with the match or not: “I don't understand her ... Is she interested in men?” Aya at first demurs: “What do you think?” Noriko’s boss has seen indications both ways, and presses the question: “Has she always been like that?” Aya responds in the affirmative. The questioning goes on. Aya tells him that Noriko’s apparently never been in love, “but she has an album of ... Hepburn photos this thick,” holding her thumb and forefinger about 4 centimeters apart.

Here we have the first of two translation issues. Aya actually refers to “Hepburn” without mentioning a given name. The Criterion subtitles — by Donald Richie, who should have known better — make this a reference to Audrey Hepburn, who’d had only small roles by then. It’s almost certain that this is instead a reference to Katherine Hepburn, who was a major star by the time Noriko would have entered middle school. Was the teenaged Noriko besotted by the androgynous beauty of Katharine Hepburn (who would have made a stunning otokoyaku)? It sure looks like it.

The subtext now threatens to become text, as Noriko’s boss learns that “Hepburn” refers to an American actress, and asks the obvious follow-up question about Noriko. In the Criterion subtitles it’s translated as “So she goes for women?” The BFI translation puts it more bluntly: “Is she queer?” What is Noriko’s boss really asking? Japanese speakers can correct me here, but I believe his actual question uses the term “hentai.”

Western fans are used to thinking of “hentai” as referring to pornography. However, my understanding is that at the time of the film “hentai” in colloquial Japanese would have referred specifically to sexual behavior that was considered abnormal. So if Noriko’s boss did use the term, another possible translation might have been “Is she a pervert?” Both the Criterion and BFI translations soften the question; in particular BFI’s “is she queer?”, while defensible, risks projecting our current ideas about “queer” (including its positive connotations) onto a film created in a different time.

In any case, Aya is determined to shut down any discussion of Noriko’s proclivities. “No!” she firmly replies. Noriko’s boss is apparently unconvinced: “You can never know. She’s very strange, in any case.” His prurient instincts aroused, Noriko’s boss then envisions another solution to the problem of Noriko, and queries Aya about it: “Why don’t you teach her?” “About what?” “Everything.” “What do you mean, everything?” He pats her shoulder and admonishes her: “Don’t try to be coy,” as we viewers pause to consider the implications of what he’s asking her to do.

Aya rejects this line of inquiry as well: “Don’t talk to me like that! That was rude!” Noriko's boss laughs, offers a half-hearted apology, and then (after telling Aya that Noriko won’t be back that day) invites her to lunch and quizzes her on her preferences in sushi: “Tuna” she says. He continues, “How about an open clam?” (which Donald Richie's commentary helpfully informs us is a euphemism for the vagina). “Sure,” she replies. “And a nice long rice roll?” “No, thank you!” His final words are, “You’re strange too,” and again I think I hear the word “hentai” enter the conversation.

…

Recall that Kenkichi decided to accept an offer as a department head in a hospital in Akita, several hundred kilometers north of Tokyo and on the opposite coast. Noriko meets him in a café before her brother Kōichi is to host him at a farewell dinner party, and they talk about Shoji, Noriko’s other brother who went missing in action during the war. Kenkichi recalls how he and Shoji were best friends in school, often eating at this very café, indeed at this very table. Kenkichi tells Noriko that he still keeps a letter that Shoji sent him, with a stalk of wheat enclosed (probably indicating that Shoji was deployed in northern China). Noriko asks if she can have the letter, and Kenkichi agrees.

Afterward Noriko visits Kenkichi’s mother, while Kenkichi himself is still at his farewell party. Kenkichi's mother tells Noriko her secret dream (“please don’t tell Kenkichi”): “I just wish Kenkichi had gotten remarried to someone like you.” She apologizes and asks Noriko not to be angry (“It’s just a wish in my heart”), but Noriko stares at her with an intense expression (her usual smile absent), and asks her, “Do you mean it? ... Do you really feel that way about me?” Kenkichi’s mother apologizes again, but Noriko presses on: “You wouldn’t mind an old maid like me?” Then before Kenkichi’s mother can respond, Noriko speaks: “Then I accept.”

Kenkichi’s mother is incredulous. She asks Noriko several times to confirm what she’s saying, thanks Noriko effusively and weeps tears of joy at her good fortune, but continues to question Noriko about her decision even as Noriko leaves to go home. (Incidentally, this scene features a bravura performance by Haruko Sugimura.)

After she leaves the house, Noriko encounters Kenkichi, just returned from his farewell party. Noriko exchanges some small talk with him, but says absolutely nothing about what she just told his mother.

Noriko's decision then plays out across multiple scenes:

At first Kenkichi doesn’t understand what his mother is trying to tell him (“She accepted.” “Accepted what?”). When he finally gets the message (“She agreed to marry you. To become your wife!” “My wife?” “Yes. Isn’t it wonderful?”), he looks absolutely gobsmacked. His mother breaks down in tears again telling him how happy she is, and how happy he should be. He tries to play along (glumly echoing, “Yes, I’m happy”), but he looks for all the world like a man who would sooner eat nails than enter into another marriage.

Kenkichi’s mother doesn't understand why he’s not happy. She concludes, “What an odd boy you are.” The Japanese word here appears to be “hen,” which I understand to be a softer adjective than “hentai,” and not sexual in nature. But note that Kenkichi is now the third person after Noriko and Aya to be referred to as not normal in some way.

Meanwhile Noriko is interrogated about her decision by her family, especially by Kōichi, in a beautifully framed and shot scene — Noriko in white, her head bowed, her brother in black, barking questions like a prosecutor cross-examining a criminal. Noriko is unrepentant: “When his mother talked to me, I didn’t feel a moment’s hesitation. I suddenly felt I’d be happy with him.” Her parents retire upstairs to chew on their disappointment — Noriko walking silently past them on her way to her room — while Kōichi tells Fumiko, “What could we do now? She’s made up her mind. You know how she is.”

…

Meanwhile Noriko and Aya have their last scene together. It starts by echoing and completing the action at the end of their previous scene: then they raised their glasses together to drink, now they lower their glasses in a simultaneous gesture. Aya tells Noriko that she can’t believe Noriko would ever end up like this: she thought Noriko would be a modern woman living “Western-style, with a flower garden, listening to Chopin,” “wearing a white sweater, with a terrier in tow,” and greeting Aya in English — “Hello, how are you?”

Instead Aya now imagines Noriko wearing farmers clothes in rural Japan, speaking the local dialect. She playfully imitates country speech, and Noriko responds in kind: “Ya don’t look it, but ya talk like the locals.” “I figure to live in Akita when me and my man get hitched.” The subtext here I read as follows: Noriko knows how to pretend to be something she is not — a conventional heterosexual woman in a conventional heterosexual marriage — and she will accept doing so in her self-imposed exile from Tokyo, the price she must pay for avoiding what she considered to be a worse fate.

The tone then turns serious. Aya recalls meeting Kenkichi when they were in school, on a hiking trip with Noriko and her brother Shoji, and presses Noriko about her choice: “Did you already love him then?” “No, I had no particular feeling for him. ... I never imagined myself marrying him.” Noriko evades Aya’s questions about how she came to love Kenkichi, refusing time after time to acknowledge her feelings for him as those of love. Instead she insists, “No, I just feel I could trust him with all my heart and be happy.”

But trust Kenkichi for what? we want to ask Noriko. To respect her for who and what she is? To not want a conventional relationship with her? To not press her for sex or for children (after all, he already has one)? To keep her secrets, as she might keep any secret of his?

…

The family then gathers for one last commemorative photo. Without Noriko's salary they can no longer afford the house in Kamakura, so they break up: the parents to live with the great-uncle; Noriko to Akita with Kenkichi, his mother, and his daughter; and Kōichi, Fumiko, and their sons to some other less-expensive dwelling (perhaps an apartment in the Tokyo suburbs).

The parents recall when they moved into the house: “It was spring and Noriko had just turned 12.” Kōichi remembers that time as well: "She used to wear a ribbon in her hair, and she was always singing." But “children grow up so quickly,” her parents remark, and living together forever, "that's impossible."

Her usual smile nowhere in evidence, Noriko takes it all upon herself: “I’m sorry, I’ve broken up the family.” Despite reassurances from her father (“It’s not your fault. It was inevitable.”) she flees from the room, goes upstairs to her own room, and cries her heart out, distraught about the turn that her and their lives have taken.

The final scene shows Noriko’s parents at the great-uncle’s house, far from the sea. They glance at a wedding procession walking through the fields (“Look there. A bride is passing by. I wonder what sort of family she’s marrying into?”), think of Noriko, and resign themselves to the family's fate: “We shouldn’t ask for too much.” “We've been really happy.”

— Frank Hecker, “Ozu’s Early Summer Seems Pretty Darn Queer to Me”

[pilferingapples]

Hello! I'm having a hard time finding GOOD adaptations of Les Mis (apart from the musical of course) because so far I have only managed to run into the bad ones (BBC 2018, the Liam Neeson one, the whole nightmaris works). Anyway, I figured this would be a good place to ask for recs of adaptations that aren't just a complete butchering of the source material! (Oh and I HAVE seen Shoujo Cosette). Thank you :)

Ooh! I have some favorites!

Just good all around:

1925 , French(silent film! there's a fan copy going around with subtitles but honestly , it's a silent film; you'll be fine if you already know the story)

1934, French (ABSOLUTELY not 1935) - this one's a Criterion release so it's not too hard to find it subbed!

1964 Italian miniseries -ten parts, fantastic all the way through, actually paces itself well enough to spend real time on the politics in the second half! Good in Certain Specific Ways 1972, French: lots of focus on the Amis and Gavroche and Paris! Not so much on Valjean, Cosette, and Fantine. But what it does do well is SO good even if they keep stealing Bahorel's lines for other characters, do NOT talk to me about how he's a Minor Character when apparently he has enough scenes to feed an army , and not something easy to find in adaptations, that I think it's worth watching.

1967 BBC, English: a tv miniseries that is half about the best English adaptation I've ever seen, and half ...very not that. The original writer genuinely died halfway through the making of this and whoo boy you can tell, but those first few episodes are really good and in particular have some of the best work with Javert's character that I've ever seen. 1995, French: set in the first few decades of the 20th century, not a direct adaptation but rather a study of how the themes in Les Miserables repeat across multiple eras and lives. One of the most intense and painful Les Mis films I've seen but also one that really digs into its meaning , and the importance of how a story can affect people. VERY worth seeking out.

Not a Filmed Adaptation But Genuinely One of the Best:

The manga by Takahiro Arai, available in Japanese, French, and English ! the last of the 4 volume English omnibus editions is coming out this winter. Arai is a clear fan of the novel and there's so much care put into this, it's a great adaptation and a great manga in its own right.

As to where to find all these--well the English manga omnibus is being released by Seven Seas, but the others, it's going to kind of depend? There's so many Issues with various videos being available only in some locations, but I bet if you ask other fans here who are watching or have watched versions you're interested in, they can help you!

I hope you find some new favorites here!:D