#detective Abel turner

[academtits]

I love how Alex could have literally crossed the circle and yanked Darlington out of hell no problem, but instead the gang takes the long way, twice, as some demented team-building, trauma-bonding exercise.

[wingedshadowfan]

i swear to god, alex seems to be the only one unaware she's into darlington like that

turner

“Find something I can use. I need you and your demon boyfriend for the work I can’t do.”

mercy

“Is Darlington why you don’t date?”

even mf golgarot??

“Stay,” he said to Alex. “Stay and your demon consort returns to the mortal realm untainted. (...)”

[pridepages]

Silenced: Ninth House

I just finished Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. I have thoughts...

Here there be spoilers!

Ah, Dark Academia. The elusive genre. What is it, really? What does it require? A university setting? Studies into/around the arcane? Dabbling in evil? Whatever the recipe may be, all are present in Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House. But the evil worth discussing here has less to do with the ghosts, demons, or black magic running wild in this fictional Yale’s underworld and much more to do with the very real systemic and cultural injustices that women--particularly queer women--struggle against in the shadows.

Bardugo is no stranger to writing fantasy, but Ninth House is both her first new adult and her first foray into what might be known as ‘urban fantasy,’ the kind set against a very real, contemporary backdrop. As a real Yale alum, Bardugo would have been familiar with the very real ‘secret societies’ (aka ‘The Ancient Eight’) of the university. With that knowledge, Bardugo’s imagination ran to answer the question that all outsiders instinctively ask: what unsavory secrets hide behind these walls safeguarding power and privilege?

In Ninth House’s world, the answer is that the eight houses: Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Manuscript, Wolf’s Head, Book and Snake, Berzelius, St. Elmo, Aurelian, are all specialists in different kinds of dark magic that keep the students--and by networking the alums--in power forever. But leaving a supernatural arsenal in the hands of a bunch of rich, privileged college kids? A rather dangerous idea. So, a secret Ninth house--Lethe--was invented as a kind of watchmen.

Enter Galaxy ‘Alex’ Stern, a girl with an unusual gift: she can see--and at times commune with--the dead. This is no miracle, the torment of contact with the uncanny drove teenage Alex to seek oblivion when no one believed her. Shunned as crazy, she leans into it: disappearing into a life of drugs and consorting with criminals just as a way to survive the burdens she cannot share. But when tragedy strikes, leaving Alex the lone survivor of a supernatural mass-murder, Yale and Lethe step forward and ask her to join their team: Detective Abel Turner (codename Centurian), Pamela Dawes (codename Occulus), Daniel ‘Darlington’ Arlington (codename Virgil), and now Alex (codename Dante). 

Alex agrees, entering into training alongside Darlington about the ways of the societies, the history of New Haven, and the kinds of occult crime that Lethe stands against. But when Darlington disappears and the murder of a girl outside the university starts raising some questions...Alex is forced to question what it means to serve the Ninth House.

Arriving at Yale, Alex is an outsider in every sense. She’s a poor, biracial woman who has been repeatedly written off as an addict or crazy. Alex has experienced repeated abandonment by the Great and the Good who represent authority and regulation. Fully aware that her free ride to Yale is a gift, Alex doesn’t hesitate to take it. But Alex refuses to allow that gift to blind her to the nature of the givers. “Where were you? All you wise men of Lethe with your spells and your chalk and your books? Where were you when the dead were following me home?” The only reason that Alex gets to be ‘special’ now is because she has become useful to the people in power. This is what ‘trickle-down’ looks like in practice.

Even the hallowed halls of sterling academia cannot protect some of the most vulnerable people in society. Over the course of her investigation, Alex uncovers misuse of magical drugs that enable--and consequently cover up--a series of sexual assaults against women. When the murderer Alex is pursuing sets an invisible demon to attack her, Alex knows that the ultimate goal of the attack is to discredit her: “Did she seem depressed? She was distant. She didn’t make many friends. She was struggling in her classes. All true. But would it have mattered if she’d been someone else? If she’d been a social butterfly, they would have said she liked to drink away her pain. If she’d been a straight-A student, they would have said she’d been eaten alive by her perfectionism. There were always excuses for why girls died.” If Alex’s demise can be written off, then her suspicions will also be dismissed and the investigation into an innocent’s death will die with her.

The silencing of women lies at the heart of the novel. Some of the examples are lurid and obvious. A drug that compels people to serve makes it appear that the students who were assaulted were actually willing participants in their degradation. Therefore, they can’t possibly have been hurt, right? Nothing to ruin promising young men’s life over…The metaphor is about as subtle as a sledgehammer blow.

The Yalie girls who are victimized by men with this literal and figurative power deserve protection, but they already have some in the form of the credentials and the societies that they can fall back on. Girls like Alex, like the victim, Tara, or like Alex’s lost love, Hellie...they also deserve protection, but they can’t get it. They are dismissed by the powerful as unworthy, as easy to sacrifice because no one will need or miss them. In the eyes of privilege, some lives just mean more than others. And at the top of the pyramid are men, money, and memory--all of which are given priority over living women.

Some examples are more cunning. In a telling scene, Alex goes to report on her attack by the invisible demon during the course of her investigation. The dean she is reporting to refuses to hear Alex’s concerns or explanations. He neatly ties Alex’s unusual powers to the cause, that her nature must have drawn out something evil and unusual. Dawes steps up to challenge this approach:

“That sounds a lot like she was asking for it…Alex has indicated her own concerns regarding her assault, and instead of hearing her out, you’ve chosen to question her credibility. You may not have meant to imply anything, but the intent and effect were to silence her, so it’s not hard to think this stinks of victim blaming.” 

This kind of silencing is particularly insidious. It’s easy to for your hackles to raise when someone tells you to shut up, stop talking, be quiet. But when someone tries to get in your head with a plausible explanation...one that overwrites ill intent...one that circles back and seems to reasonably place the blame on you? That’s an easier spell to fall under. It’s one I certainly fell under when I was younger. I didn’t have a Dawes. Instead, I folded in, and I internalized the words. Of course it was my fault. Of course I was asking for it. And that narrative became one of the barriers along the way to my self-discovery as a queer woman. I became so consumed by the idea of needing to reclaim my memories of intimacy with men that I never stopped to question whether intimacy with men was something I even wanted.

Violence against women, particularly sexual violence, has become so common that it’s actually a default explanation for the bad things that happen to us. The easy solution to Alex’s case would be that Tara’s boyfriend killed her. It’s literally so common that no one thought to push harder without Alex, a kindred spirit, to demand justice be served. But even then, the institutions designed to mete out justice often let us down. The hint for us as readers was in the name...Lethe. The river designed to induce forgetfulness, to erase memories. Instead of punishment being publicly enforced, the deans speak of fines, of slaps on the wrist, of burying the truth in order to keep funneling alumni money and keep the magic flowing through the Ancient Eight. Despairingly, Alex wonders: “Had Lethe ever really been intended to protect anyone? Or were they just supposed to maintain the status quo, to make it look like the Houses of the Veil were being monitored, that some standard was being kept to without ever really checking the societies’ power?” 

I think that question is why we as readers are repeatedly bludgeoned with horrors against women. Some readers may be exhausted by the fact that pretty much every bad thing that happens to a woman in this novel involves violence against her by a man. It has been described as shock value, as excess, but I read it more as a kind of purging: this is the pain we see around us, the kind we carry inside, the kind we are told to bottle up and bury deep as it poisons us slowly over time. This is the pain that both makes us helpless victims (’oh no, poor girl’) and blameworthy harlots (’what was she wearing? who was she with? she should have known better. she was asking for it’). When we do ask for help, we are frequently silenced, internally and externally, told that we need to protect everyone else from the shame. Warned that if we don’t toe the line, we will be the ones to suffer more and more. So many of us, isolated and ashamed, lock that grief up inside ourselves and make ourselves a tomb. Bardugo has brought all the anguish, rage, and fear bubbling up, forcing us to see this phenomenon in every iteration. Whether the violence is against a princess of a private school or a poor, lonely, abandoned soul: none of us ever deserved it. All of us deserve to be heard.

But there is one bit of silencing that I have to lay at Bardugo’s door. Full disclosure: this was a re-read for me. I first read the novel when it was released in 2019, and when I did, I left without a single doubt that Alex Stern was a queer woman. I read it in her professed love for Helen “Hellie” Watson. Alex remembers Hellie as “golden...the girl she loved” with a “warm laugh, her easy way of looping her arm around Alex, the way she’d pluck a paperback from Alex’s shelf of thrillers and old sci-fi and say, “Read to me.” Hellie had made this life bearable.” On the day of Hellie’s death, Alex went out of her way to try and prevent Hellie from entering the den of a man Alex knew liked violent sex. Hellie went anyway, and ended up dying beside Alex due to some combination of injury and overdose. In the end, Alex sees her ghost and begs Hellie to stay. Possessed by Hellie, fueled by her rage, Alex is the one who commits mass murder against the men who killed Hellie and were preparing to get away with it. This deviation from Alex’s survivalist character, choosing fight over flight out of devotion to Hellie, to me translated instinctively as queer love. To my mind, Alex was a canonically queer woman. This time I realized: that’s never explicitly said. 

Some might argue that it shouldn’t have to be. That’s art, readers need to do some interpretive lifting. Unfortunately, the reality is that we live in a culture where women who love women are constantly dismissed: ‘they’re just friends! Sisters. Girls are just like that. Can’t anything just be platonic anymore? Why does everything have to be gay?’ We hear this cant over and over. To claim a woman as a queer character, their orientation has to be spelled out. It’s particularly a struggle when that character, like Alex, has also been connected romantically or sexually to men. A bi or pansexual woman has to all but scream out her queerness in capital letters to be acknowledged.

Well, Alex, I think Bardugo did you a disservice by not spelling it out. But I want you to know: from one queer woman to another, from one survivor to another, I see you. And I hear you: loud and clear.

[celmoth]

Ninth House

[grishaxverse]

Whoever thought it was okay for Leigh to pause on Ninth House because Grishaverse is superior, I HATE YOU

[jordanlynch]

“we are the shepherds.”

the house lethe: protecting the ancient eight from each other and themselves.

[i-can-stab-you-in-the-eye]

Ninth House as Instagram AU

[drklyritu]

AND I THOUGHT NINTH HOUSE WAS A STANDALONE NOVEL AND EXPECTED DARLINGTON TO COME BACK

Leigh Bardugo: “The golden boy of Lethe was gone.”

Me:

[shewholovestoread]

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo Review

Ninth House marks Bardugo's entry into writing Adult Fiction and it is a very worthy entry. She's also one of the few authors capable of dragging me out of a funk. Her plot and characters are like black holes (in the best sense possible) and before you know it, you'll be sucked in.

Blurb: Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. (via Bardugo's website)

At Yale, Alex is part of a society called Lethe, who are tasked with keeping the other secret societies in line. Though not nearly as powerful as the other societies, Lethe still has a few tricks up their sleeve. Their other members include Daniel Arlington, Pamela Dawes, Dean Sandow and Abel Turner (though he was probably the most unwilling member they had). With the exception of Turner who is a local law enforcement officer, the rest are either students or affiliated with the university in one capacity or another.

Bardugo herself is a Yale alumna and it’s evident in the way she infuses a certain life in her descriptions of the university, its buildings, its streets- transporting the reader not just to a place but to one that feels familiar. The place feels alive and becomes an integral part of the plot.

Ninth House is also non-linear. A bulk of the book weaves back and forth in time, inter-cutting from present to the past. I think this treatment enhances the plot and mystery at the heart of it. Bardugo lets us know from the beginning that there’s more to Alex than meets the eye and takes her time unveiling her secrets. The execution was spectacular.

Bardugo is an exceptional writer and I love that her books are beautifully layered. Ninth House was gripping and intense and she managed to maintain that intensity from beginning to end without it ever getting overwhelming.

The plot also seamlessly weaves in class divide and the entitled attitude of the rich. Universities like Yale, Harvard and the like take pride in that they are not for everyone, they have an elitist attitude and Bardugo doesn’t pull any punches making it crystal clear. The secret societies are exceptionally well-connected, deal with powerful magic without worrying about repercussions because they know that there won’t be any real consequences even if they did go too far. Too much money and prestige is connected to these societies.

There are also themes of sexual assault, rape and drug abuse and are treated with respect. There are some parts that are infuriating but they conclude in a way that is deeply satisfying. But if any of these themes are triggering for you, please proceed with caution.

The best thing about Ninth House is the mystery and its characters. There are two central mysteries; who and what is Alex Stern and Who killed Tara Hutchins. We learn more about Alex Stern as the plot progresses but the other mystery is so well executed that it every time we learnt something, it also raised new questions. There were so many red herrings and every time I felt like that we finally knew what had happened, some new information came along that upended that theory.

Daniel Arlington or Darlington as he’s often called is a little hard to read. Not the most open person, he has his own struggles to get past. Darlington comes from Old Money, he’s never been exposed to the kind of struggle that Alex has seen since she was child. Yet you know that he’s trying to do the best he can. He feels some bitterness because of Alex’s abilities but he soon recognises all the ways it hurt her as well. He’s a stickler for rules and authority, always wanting to do things by the book. He thrives in an organised environment, unfortunately for him, Alex is chaos personified, though that’s not exactly her fault.

I really liked Dawes. Though she was closer to Darlington at the start of the book, her tolerance of Alex gradually gives away to partnership, to something akin to friendship. They are so different from each other yet they find common ground and learn to work together. I also really liked Mercy, Alex’s roommate. She seeks her out when Alex is at her lowest and doesn’t let her disappear. She cares about Alex. Detective Turner was a bit of a surprise. My impression of him changed as the book progressed.

And finally we have Alex Stern, the protagonist and the narrator. Stern has been able to see Grays (ghosts), since she was a little girl, something that set her apart from her peers and isolated her. She is a survivor, she survived her traumatic childhood, drugs, toxic relationships and anything else the world threw at her. Her one silver lining was her friendship with Hellie. Bardugo writes that friendship and Hellie so well that you fall in love with her just as Alex did.  I love Alex’s drive, her resilience, that she refused to back down even when it would have been easier to do that. 

There is a dark undercurrent that runs throughout the course of Ninth House, like a dark, ominous cloud. It’s not exactly an easy read, nor a particularly happy one but one that draws the reader in nonetheless. There is a simmering rage in Alex that, unfortunately, a lot of women can identify with. The rage borne out of feeling helpless in the face of violence, both overt and otherwise.

This book resonated with me in a way few have, it feels like parts of it have settled in deep my core. Perhaps, it is Alex’s relentless drive to keep fighting even in the face of much greater odds. Or perhaps it has something to do with the way Alex and the other girls take back their agency, refuse to let the world run them down, dismissing them as collateral damage for the ambitions of men. Or perhaps it is the satisfaction of seeing Alex come into her own, take full ownership of her powers and abilities, no longer afraid.

Ninth House is easily one the best books I’ve read all year and it’s one I know I will revisit soon. It was the perfect balance of superb writing and imperfect characters that will burrow deep into your skin and stay there.

[wingedshadowfan]

does anyone else remember [hell bent, ninth house sequel spoilers] when alex, tripp, turner and dawes make the first descent, and this particular description in turner's flashback comes up:

From the time he was a kid, Turner had an ear for trouble coming. He could spot an undercover without even trying, always knew when a black-and-white was about to round a corner. His friends thought it was spooky, but his father told him it just meant he was a natural detective. Turner liked that thought. He wasn’t particularly good at sports or art or school, but he did have a sense for people and what they might do. He knew when someone was sick, like he could smell it on them. He knew when someone was lying even if he wasn’t sure how he knew. He’d just get that prickle at the back of his skull that told him to pay attention. He learned to listen to that feeling, and that if he kept smiling, kept the dark part of his heart hidden, people really liked talking to him. He could get his mom or his brother or his friends or even his teachers to tell him a little more than they’d set out to tell.

because i remember thinking there's no way this whole description is a random choice or a coincidence (considering the rest of the foreshadowing and chekov's guns in these books) and that turner's just got a very good "gut feeling", like i immediately thought this has to be magic in some way, just like in alex's case when it comes to seeing the grays/being a wheelwalker

i think turner doesn't know it's magic, but lethe does (which, when you think about it, must be precisely why he's centurion - despite him being very vocal about not wanting anything to do with lethe or the rest of the societies). my theory is he was essentially "recruited" just like alex, whom we know lethe was keeping tabs on because of her abilities, and darlington, whom we don't but sandow got him in the loop as soon as lethe found out he attempted to brew hiram's bullet to see the grays

what do y'all think, am i reaching or reading too much into it? does he just have good intuition cuz i think that can't simply be all there is to it

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND May 10, 2019  - POKEMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU, THE HUSTLE, TOLKIEN and More

It’s Mother’s Day weekend and while Avengers: Endgame seems to holding strong, we get four new movies in wide release, two of which I’ve seen, both of which are pretty decent. Unfortunately, due to illness, I’m running a bit late on this column, but I’ll try not to cut too many corners.

The big movie this weekend is POKÉMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU (Warner Bros.), starring Ryan Reynolds as the voice of Pikachu and Justice Smith from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, plus the likes of Bill Nighy and Ken Watanabe, the latter who seems to be Legendary Pictures’ go-to Japanese actor. (He’ll be appearing in Godzilla: King of the Monsters later this month.) I’m hoping to still get around to reviewing the movie, but I will say that I generally enjoyed it, even if my connection to the material was the old TV cartoon rather than any of the games. (Look for that review before Friday, if I’m able to get my ass gear. In the meantime, here’s my interview with director Rob Letterman.)

I’ve been interested in the Anne Hathaway-Rebel Wilson comedy THE HUSTLE (U.A. Releasing) since it was called “Nasty Women” and was a straight-up remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but I just haven’t had time to catch the one press screening, so it looks like I’ll have to catch this sometime down the road.

And then there’s POMS (STXfilms), a new Diane Keaton comedy featuring an ensemble of actresses in their prime, including Pam Grier and Jacki Weaver. While this doesn’t look like my kind of movie, I totally would have gone to see it if I could, but I’m less apt to see it than The Hustle.

The other movie opening Friday which I’ve seen and enjoyed is TOLKIEN (Fox Searchlight), directed by Dome Karukoski (Tom of Finland) and starring Nicholas Hoult as J.R.R. Tolkien and Lily Collins as his wife Edith Bratt. I’m hoping this finds an audience, even though it’s obviously competing with much stronger and more high-profile films.

Mini-Review: I began to watch this movie with some trepidation, because at least at first, it seemed to be a typical biopic, much like director Dome Karukoski’s previous film. At least as the film began, it cut between Nicholas Hoult’s Tolkien while on the frontlines during WWII and his early schooldays at King Edwards and then Oxford, where he formed a bond with three other students.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I necessary needed to see a Dead Poet’s Society type way of getting the viewer to know more about the fantasy author, but that’s just a very small part of the film. Where the film really picks up is when Hoult and Collins take over their respective roles, because this is when the romance between Tolkien and Edith becomes a larger part of the story. It’s a bittersweet tale where Tolkien is forced to pick going to Oxford over continuing this romance by Colm Meany’s pries, who has become Tolkien’s guardian after his mother dies suddenly. The majority of the film bounces between Tolkien in the trenches and dealing with school issues, being a poverty-stricken orphan, but he finds an ally in Derek Jacobi’s headmaster.

I’m constantly impressed by what Hoult has been doing as an actor as he gets older, but Collins really brings more to their scenes together than any of the classmates or acting veterans.

Tolkien is a flawed film for sure, but the last half hour is so abundantly full of feels it’s easy to forgive the earlier problems, as Tolkien seeks out one of his school chums on the battlefield, a part of the movie where Karukoski is allowed to shine as a director. (Honestly, I think Steven Spielberg would be quite proud if he made this movie, and that’s saying something.)

I’m not sure this movie will be for everyone, even those who love Tolkien’s work as much as I do, but as a testament to what an amazing life he had before he started writing The Hobbit, it’s quite an amazing story with a worthy film to tell it.

Rating: 8.5/10

You can find out my thoughts on the weekend box office over at The Beat.

LIMITED RELEASES

There’s actually some decent movies opening this weekend, but the one that I want to give special attention to is John Chester’s doc THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM (NEON), which is all about how he and his wife Molly left their California apartment living behind to try to develop a 200-acre sustainable farm outside L.A.  For months, my favorite doc of the year was NEON’s Apollo 11 about the 1969 moon launch, but this quickly took it over after I saw it, because it’s amazingly educational in terms of what it takes to make a farm work. It also looks absolutely fantastic, and seeing the trailer in IMAX in front of Apollo 11 made me really want to see it. If you want to see a great doc that hopefully will be in theaters over the summer, then definitely look for this one. I’m sure it will open in a few cities Friday but hopefully NEON will do another great job getting out there as they did with Apollo 11 and Three Identical Strangers last year. This movie is a MUST SEE.

Kenneth Branagh directs and plays William Shakespeare in his new historical movie ALL IS TRUE (Sony Pictures Classics) which also costars Dame Judi Dench and Ian McKellen. It follows Shakespeare on his return home to Stratford after the Globe Theater has burned down, as he tries to reconnect with his older wife (Dench) and his two estranged daughters. This is a fine film if you’re a fan of Shakespeare’s works and were interested in knowing more about his last days, because it features a great script by Ben Elton, and fine performances by Branagh and Kathryn Wilder as his younger daughter Judith, who gets caught up in controversy while trying to find a husband. It will open in New York and L.A. this weekend, and you should look out for my interview with Sir Kenneth over at The Beat in the next couple days.

Opening at the Metrograph this week is Abel Ferrara’s PASOLINI (Kino Lorber), an amazing look at the Italian filmmaker as played by Willem Dafoe. I’m not particularly familiar with Pier Paolo Pasolini’s work, although the Metrograph did a pretty extensive retrospective last year. Like with All is True above, the movie covers the last days in the filmmaker’s life, and it proved to me that Dafoe is doing some of the best work of his career these days and like a few others (Woody Harrelson and Ethan Hawke, for instance), you can put Dafoe in your movie, and it will immediately make it better. I haven’t seen much of Ferrara’s recent work but I feel it’s been a while he’s been at the height of his greatness with Bad Lieutenant and King of New York, so it’s nice to see him creating a new movie in that general vein.  Apparently, Ferrara’s movie premiered at Cannes many, many moons ago, but I think it was a smart move by Kino Lorber to save the movie and give it a release. By pure coincidence… or not… MOMA has been having a Ferrara retrospective (see below), so if you haven’t been able to get up there and see the movie, then you now have a chance with Ferrara and Dafoe doing QnAs after a few showings this weekend.

Matt Smith plays cult leader Charles Manson in CHARLIE SAYS (IFC Films), the new movie from American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page director Mary Harron along with her frequent collaborator, writer Guinevere Turner. As a huge fan of their previous moviesand with interest in the subject matter, I’m not sure why I never got around to watching the screener I’ve had for months, but much of it has to do with how generally busy I’ve been. Anyway, it will open in around 35 theaters and be on VOD this weekend if you have similar interest.

Opening at the Film Forum Wednesday is Almedea Carracedo and Robert Bahar ‘s doc THE SILENCE OF OTHERS (Argot PIctures). Executive Produced and presented by Pedro Almodovar, this is an amazing film about the horrendous crimes committed under the Franco regime in Spain by people who were able to get away scott-free when it was decided to create an Amnesty Pact of “Forgiving” after Franco’s death. The thing is that there are people who had been tortured or had loved ones killed who are hoping to get justice or just get their bodies back from mass graves, and this doc covers those amazing efforts. Frankly, I found this film to be far more interesting than Joshua Oppenheimer’s similar films about the crimes by the Indonesian government in The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence.

The Quad Cinema will have two new exclusive releases starting Friday, beginning with Christian Carion’s French thriller MY SON (Cohen Media), starring Guillaume Canet as a man whose son has been kidnapped, so he travels across France to where his ex-wife (Melanie Laurent) lives to try to solve the crime.

Also, the Quad will be showing Nicolas Brown’s doc The Serengeti Rules (Abramorama), which looks at five ecologists who broke new ground with scientific concepts we take for granted, and it looks at how the Serengeti might be the place to look for civilizaton’s sustainable future.

Amy Poehler makes her feature directorial debut with the comedy Wine Country (Netflix), which is getting the usual nominal theatrical release in a handful of theaters but mostly will be on the streaming network. It co-stars long-tie Poehler pals Maya Rudoloph, Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer and Paula Pell, but I’m excited to see it for Maya Erskine from the Hulu show Pen15 and the upcoming rom-com Plus One, which was one of my favorite movies at Tribeca. (Don’t worry.. I’ve started writing something about that festival, too, so stay tuned!)

Opening in New York at the Cinema Village and in L.A. at Arena Cinelounge is Akash Sherman’s Clara (Screen Media), starring Patrick J. Adams as Isaac Bruno, an astronomer looking for life beyond Earth. This becomes more of a reality when he meets Troian Bellisario’s artist Clara, who shares his interest in space.

After years of problems and lawsuits, Farhad Safinia’s The Professor and the Madman (Vertical) is finally seeing the light of day, no thanks to a lawsuit put on it by star and producer Mel Gibson, who plays Professor James Murray, who begins compiling the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, receiving 10,000 entries from Dr. William Minor (Sean Penn), who is a patient at a asylum for the criminally insane. I have no idea how bad this movie must be to be buried as long as it has, but it has a great cast including Eddie Marsan, Natalie Dormer, Stephen Dillane, Jennifer Ehle and Ioan Gruffudd, so how bad can it really be? Good luck finding it in theaters but it will prbobably be on VOD as well.

This week’s major Bollywood release is Student of the Year 2 (FIP), directed by Punit Malhotra. As you might guess, it’s a sequel to the 2012 romantic comedy, this one involving a love triangle between a guy and two girls, and it will be released in about 175 theaters on Friday.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Amy Poehler’s directorial debut WINE COUNTRY will begin streaming Friday, though I haven’t seen it yet, so instead, I’ll recommend Dava Whisenant’s fantastic doc Bathtubs over Broadway, which will premiere on Netflix Thursday. I missed this movie last year but I got to catch-up when it screened at the Oxford Film Festival in February, and it’s fantastic. It follows Letterman writer Steve Young as he follows his passion to find rare records featuring industrial musical numbers presented at corporate events throughout the ‘50s and later to energize employees.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

I’ve already mentioned how Playtime: Family Matineeshas become this cinematic comfort food that’s helped me relive my childhood, but this weekend, the shit gets real as they screen the 1977 action-adventure Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, featuring the stop-motion animation of the late Ray Harryhausen. I still remember first seeing The Golden Voyage of Sinbad at a drive-through in Framingham, Mass. when it first came out and I loved it so much I picked up the novelization. I wonder if I still have that somewhere. (I’m pretty sure I saw this sequel as well.) Late Nites at Metrographwill screen Lukas Moodysson’s 2002 film Lilya 4-Ever, as well as the not old enough to be repertory film Climaxby Gaspar Noe. (Lots of cool movies coming up in this series, as well.) Another series starting Friday is the first-ever New York retrospective of Japanese filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, whose new movie Asako I & II will have its theatrical premiere at the Metrograph starting next week. I’m not too familiar with Hamaguchi’s work – though I’ve seen Asakoand generally liked it -- but I don’t think I’ll have the time to see his 5-hour long 2015 family drama Happy Hourany time soon. The series features seven of his movies, almost all of them shorter than Happy Hour. (2012’s Intimacies, showing a week from Thursday, is four hours long.)

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

After showing the Judy Garland version of A Star is Born  (1954) today at 2pm, the New Bev has double features of Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends (1978) and It’s My Turn (1980), the latter starring Jill Clayburgh and Michael Douglas, on Weds and Thurs. Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995) and Lizzie Borden’s 1983 Born in Flames will screen on Friday and Saturday and then the 1933 film Christopher Strong (starring Katharine Hepburn) and Anybody’s Woman  (1930) will screen Sunday and Monday. The weekend’s KIDDEE MATINEE is the animated The Chipmunk Adventure  (1987) while the 1995 anthology Four Rooms (featuring one room by Tarantino) is the Friday midnight and Anna Biller’s 2016 film The Love Witch will screen midnight on Saturday. On top of that, there’s a special Cartoon Club on Saturday morning at 10AM and Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball  (2000) will screen Monday afternoon.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

It’s the last full weekend of Film Forum’s“Trilogies” series and on Thursday, they’re screening Whit Stillman’s (Is this a real title for the trilogy?) “Doomed. Bourgeois. In Love” trilogy Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona  (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998) with Stillman doing select intros and QnAs that day. Friday is Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “BRD” Trilogy, including The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978), Lola  (1981)and Veronika Voss, and this weekend is a Carol Reed Post-War Noir Trilogy, including The Third Man  (1949). Saturday also sees a Michelangelo Antonioni trilogy including L’Avventura  (1960) and two other films from the Italian master. Sunday and Monday sees a very rare screening of Wim Wenders’ “Road Trilogy” including Kings of the Roadfrom 1976 and Alice in the Cities. Also, on Wednesday and Saturday is a repeat of a John Ford trilogy, including Rio Grande and Fort Apache, plus don’t forget the weekend’s family-friendly Film Forum Jr, which this weekend shows a bunch of cartoons from Bugs, Daffy and Friends. Obviously, there’s a lot going on at this venerable NYC arthouse and I hope to get to some of these now that Tribeca is over.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

If you live in L.A., you can spend a good part of your weekend at Maltin Fest 2019, taking place at the Egyptian Theater, which includes a really incredible series of screenings and events with special guests. Friday is Nicole Holefcener’s Please Give with Holefcener and frequent collaborator Catherine Keener on hand, plus a screening of Sing Street! Alexander Payne and Laura Dern will be there Saturday afternoon to screen the filmmaker’s early work Citizen Ruth, plus lots more! I also want to pay special attention to them showing the late Jon Schnepp’s doc The Death of “Superman Lives” on Saturday night.

AERO  (LA):

Thursday is a Christopher Munch double feature of The Hours and Times (1991) and The Sleepy Time Gal (2001) with Munch and the great Jacqueline Biset in person! Then it goes right into Starring Europe: New Films from the EU 2019 i.e. new films, not repertory but still interesting.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Waverly Midnights: Parental Guidance shows James Cameron’s Aliens (okay, am I crazy or do they show this every other month?), Weekend Classics: Love Mom and Dad  shows Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) and Late Night Favorites: Spring is the Coen Brothers’ Fargo (1996).

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

In the midst of Black 90s: A Turning Point in American Cinema, which will include Ice Cube’s Friday (on Friday, of course), as well as Set It Off, New Jack City, Belly, Straight Out of Brooklyn and Menace II Society over the weekend. Also, the late John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood will screen twice on Sunday as well as on Monday as part of the series.

MOMA (NYC):

Abel Ferrara: Unrated continues this week with repeats of 1998’s New Rose Hotel, 1993’s Body Snatchers and more recent films like 2017’s Piazza Vittorio and 2007’sGo Go Tales, and this series will continue next week. The current Modern Matiness will conclude with Pixar’s Up on Wednesday and Vincente Minnelli’s Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) on Weds and Thurs, respectively.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

Panorama Europe continues through the weekend but that’s all new stuff, not repertory.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Friday’s midnight screening is Wes Craven’s Shocker (1989) with a QnA… but not with Craven.. unless they plan the creepiest movie tie-in possible!

That’s it for this week but next week, we get John Wick Chapter 3 and more!

[paylasimzamani]

Oscar Isaac kimdir

Oscar Isaac kimdir, 2013 yılıda “Inside Llewyn Davis / Sen Şarkılarını Söyle” filmindeki rolü ile tanındı. Oscar Isaac, 9 Mart 1979 tarihinde Guatemala‘da doğmuştur. Tam adı Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada’dır. Annesi Maria Guatemalalı, babası Oscar Gonzalo Hernández-Cano ise Küba’lıdır. Bir kız kardeşi vardır. Ailesi o beş aylıkken ABD‘ye göç etti. Oscar Isaac, Miami, Florida’da büyüdü. 2005 yılında Juilliard School’dan mezun oldu. On iki yaşından beri gitar çalmakta olan Oscar Isaaşlamadan önce lise yıllarında punk gurubunda ve Yavru Köstebek grubunda solistlik yaptı. Miami’de ‘The Blinking Underdogs’ grubu için şarkı vokallerini seslendirdi. Miami Sahili Area Stage Company ile oyunculuk yolculuğuna başladı ve 2000-2001 yılları arasında Miami’de bulunan City Theater’ın Summer Shorts kısa oyun festivalinde rol aldı. Oscar Isaac, 2013 yılında senaryosunu yazıp yönetmenliğini Coen Kardeşler‘in yaptığı “Sen Şarkılarını Söyle” filminde Llewyn Davis karakterini canlandırırken Oscar Isaac ayrıca filmde 5 şarkıyı seslendirmiştir. 2015 yılında yönetmenliğini J.J. Abrams‘ın yaptığı “Star Wars: Episode Vıı – The Force Awakens / Star Wars: Güç Uyanıyor” filminde Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Laurence Fishburne, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Max Von Sydowile birlikte rol aldı. 2012 yılından beri yönetmen Elvira Lind ile birlikte olup, 2017 yılında bir çocuğu olmuştur. 2016 tarihinde yönetmenliğini Bryan Singer‘in yaptığı “X-Men: Apocalypse” adlı filmde evreninin en güçlü mutantı olan En Sabah Nur, yani Apocalypse’yi canlandıran Oscar Isaac, bu filmde Sophie Turner, Jennifer Lawrence, Olivia Munn, Rose Byrne, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, James McAvoy, Hugh Jackman, ile birlikte başrolde oynadı. 23 Şubat 2018‘de vizyona girecek olan “Annihilation / Yok Oluş” filmin kadrosunda Natalie Portman, Oscar Isaac, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez ve Tuva Novotny yer alıyor Ödülleri: 2016 – 73. Altın Küre Ödülleri – En iyi erkek oyuncu – mini dizi (Show Me a Hero) Filmleri ve dizileri : Oyuncu : 2018 – Annihilation / Yok Oluş (The Biologist’s Husband) (Sinema Filmi) 2018 – Life Itself (Sinema Filmi) 2017 – The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mort… (Sinema Filmi) 2017 – Suburbicon (Roger) (Sinema Filmi) 2017 – Star Wars: The Last Jedi Star Wars: Son Jedi (Poe Dameron) (Sinema Filmi) 2016 – X-Men: Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur / Apocalypse) (Sinema Filmi) 2016 – The Promise (Michael) (Sinema Filmi) 2015 – Star Wars: Episode Vıı – The Force Awakens / Star Wars: Güç Uyanıyor (Poe Dameron) (Sinema Filmi) 2015 – Show Me a Hero (Nick Wasicsko) (TV Dizisi) 2015 – Mojave (Jack) (Sinema Filmi) 2015 – Ex Machina (Nathan Bateman) (Sinema Filmi) 2014 – Ticky Tacky (Lucien) (Sinema Filmi) 2014 – A Most Violent Year (Abel Morales) (Sinema Filmi) 2013 – Inside Llewyn Davis / Sen Şarkılarını Söyle (Llewyn Davis) (Sinema Filmi) 2013 – O 2013 – In Secret (Laurent LeClaire) (Sinema Filmi) 2013 – Another Day, Another Time: Cel… (Sinema Filmi) 2012 – Won’t Back Down (Michael Perry) (Sinema Filmi) 2012 – The Bourne Legacy (Number 3) (Sinema Filmi) 2012 – Revenge For Jolly! (Cecil) (Sinema Filmi) 2012 – For Greater Glory (Victoriano “El Catorce” Ramírez) (Sinema Filmi) 2012 – Learning To Fly (Michael Raymond) (Sinema Filmi) 2012 – Bourne’un Mirası (3 Numara) (Sinema Filmi) 2011 – W.E. (Evgeni) (Sinema Filmi) 2011 – Ten Year (Reeves) (Sinema Filmi) 2011 – Sürücü (Standard Gabriel) (Sinema Filmi) 2011 – Sucker Punch (Blue) (Sinema Filmi) 2011 – For Greater Glory (Sinema Filmi) 2010 – Robin Hood (Prens John) (Sinema Filmi) 2009 – Balibo (Jose Ramos-Horta) (Sinema Filmi) 2009 – Agora (Orestes) (Sinema Filmi) 2008 – Body of Lies (Bassam) (Sinema Filmi) 2008 – Che: Part One (Interpreter) (Sinema Filmi) 2007 – The Life Before Her Eyes (Marcus) (Sinema Filmi) 2007 – 1408 (Sinema Filmi) 2006 – The Nativity Story (Joseph) (Sinema Filmi) 2006 – Law & Order: Criminal Intent (Robbie Paulson)(TV Dizisi) 2006 – Pu-239 / Zehirli Element (Shiv) (Sinema Filmi) 2004 – Lenny the Wonder Dog (Detective Fartman) (Sinema Filmi) 2002 – All About the Benjamins (Francesco) (Sinema Filmi) 1998 – Illtown (Pool Boy) (Sinema Filmi).

Sinema Oyuncusu Oscar Isaac 

Read the full article

[indiesee]

  The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen

***

LOWELL WARD

 I love the book, it’s brilliantly written.  When I’m reading it I feel like I’m there among the characters, and part of the conversation.  The book is hard to put down to because of the adventure and intrigue that comes with a story as powerful as Mary Bowser’s is. I also find it fascinating how the Willy Lynch syndrome had already kick in. The self-hatred, envy and jealousy we were taught to have for each other ,way back when, let’s replace it with self-esteem, decent, and love. Mary Bowser is my HEROINE.”

Lowell Ward is an activist with the Massachusetts Coalition of Independent Voters.

***

DIANA DAKEY

Author, Lois Leveen transported me back to the Civil War era in The Secrets if Mary Bowser.

Although it is fact that its main characters lived, that there were spies for the Union, that the underground railroad existed, that a colored society existed in Philadelphia, there is limited record of what it actually was like for people who lived during these trying times. It takes the research and imagination of a writer to create the realistic setting and to develop the characters of the time, masterfully done by Lois Leveen.

Through the eyes of our heroine, Mary Bowser, we learn of the overt and subtle prejudice against colored freed people, as well as the social order among freed (e.g., to sew for charity) and enslaved.

A takeaway from the novel was that one could be sustained in one’s convictions by taking the long view that one’s efforts could eventually make lives better for others (e.g., Mary’s belief that she had a mission in life), embodied by Mary, Wilson, Bet and others, both white and colored. Also, the personal dignity of Mary, who envisioned a life of greater importance for herself than being an accessory to her first beau.  The novel also shows us the compassion of the individual for others, a counterweight to the prevailing inhuman treatment of slaves at the time.”

Diana Dakey lives in Pennsylvania and supports a number of good-government groups.

***

HARRIET HOFFMAN

I loved Mary Bowser, especially her contrariness.  She lived a life that made no separation between the personal and political. She was ruthless and astute in her analyses of the people and events taking place around her. And of course she had enormous courage.  I wish I’d known her.”

Harriet Hoffman is a consultant specializing in grant writing and helping people maximize their Medicare and social security benefits.  She is an activist with  IndependentVoting.org and the New York City Independence Clubs. She is also active with the All Stars Project’s Committee for Independent Community Action.

***

 MAUREEN ALBANESE

I had no idea who Mary Bowser was as we Americans are not good at teaching our history certainly not slave history. I want to thank Lois Leveen for giving me a history lesson I didn’t know I really needed.  In reading the book I was awestruck who by a slave who risked everything to get justice for her people.  They say some people are born great and other have greatness thrust upon them in Mary Bowser’s case it is both.  Although she was granted freedom and was able to be educated she wasn’t really free.  She realized to be free she would have to take matters in her own hand using a life of lessons learned against those who would enslave her people.  Her foes supposed smarts show they were not the masters of the universe they thought they were.  They never realized that Mary who toiled as a drudge in their midst was the one who ultimately brought them down.  Slavery has not gone away or has the institutional racism that still permeates our society today.  This book should be required reading in every high school in America.  We need to know our history to come to grips with it and this book can help us do that.”

Maureen Albanese is an administrative assistant and activist. She lives in Manhattan.

***

HELEN ABEL

I loved this book and read it in 3 days on Kindle. It is a page turner. This is a remarkable story and kudos to the author Lois Leveen for writing such a fascinating and meticulous account of a little known piece of history. Yes it depicts the difference in what racism looked like in the North and South during the era of the Civil War. One of the things that I found interesting was how the house slaves and plantation slaves were treated. Also Mary Bowser was lucky in that one of her masters, the daughter of the plantation was against slavery and helped her get educated and free. It also depicts some of Mary’s conflicts over how slavery was depicted. While it was awful, it wasn’t just people being beaten and hung on a tree which is the way it was portrayed in a lot of the political propaganda of the abolitionists. And since this is historical fiction we don’t know the extent to which Mary might have been abused physically.

She also had a gift of a photographic memory and decided to use that to help end slavery and be a spy.

One of the most astonishing parts of the book for me was how she extended the Civil War by withholding particular information so that slavery would become a main issue for Lincoln and not just preservation of the Union. Was this part true? A possible question for the author.

She was obviously very smart and able to evade detection. However the environment that she was in, i.e. when she lived in Jefferson Davis’s house, shows the level of racism where a black woman slave in particular would never be seen capable of reading, writing or thinking, and definitely not smart enough to be a spy. So she was able to use that to work in her favor. They tried to accuse a white man. And the person who guessed part of her secret was another female slave that she worked with.

As someone who is an activist in the independent political movement it gives the word “perseverance” new meaning. I look forward to other books by this author.”

Helen Abel is a political activist with Independent Voice in California and on staff of Life Performance Coaching in San Francisco.

***

Politics for the People

Conference Call

With Author Lois Leveen

Sunday, June 3rd at 7 pm EST.

Join us and Explore

The Secrets of Mary Bowser

641-715-3605 and passcode 767775#

 ***

Reader’s Forum — Lowell Ward, Diana Dakey, Harriet Hoffman, Maureen Albanese and Helen Abel The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen *** LOWELL WARD  I love the book, it's brilliantly written. 

[wingedshadowfan]

i swear they didn't do it for funsies 😭😭

the first time alex didn't even know she could cross the circle - dawes and cosmo got singed when they tried - let alone get to hell by herself or carry darlington's soul out (darlington seemed to know she could but was too busy being a cryptic demonic being with a glowsdick to actually tell her straight on), and the second time they needed to lure their demons back inside and close the door behind them, and darlington was even planning on sacrificing himself

I love how Alex could have literally crossed the circle and yanked Darlington out of hell no problem, but instead the gang takes the long way, twice, as some demented team-building, trauma-bonding exercise.

[wingedshadowfan]

favorite thing about the alex stern series is 90% of the characters have 0 desire to deal with their own emotions and it makes them hilarious, like wdym "opening up" just read each other to filth

[wingedshadowfan]

[ninth house/hell bent spoilers]

i don't believe we'll actually get it in the following book but i really want darlington's reaction to hearing about all the events that took place during his absence (since disappearing in the hellbeast's mouth in that basement and even a bit after being cast into the protection circle in the ballroom at black elm, since he only had knowledge of some events through the demon), like we know he met sandow in hell but there's so much sandow doesn't know about either

like guys... darlington doesn't know alex used a compulsion coin on the coroner to see tara hutchins' body, used that manuscript mirror multiple times, survived a gluma attack, tricked that kind morgue lady into letting her in, did the incantation to see tara's scars, stole that stupid wolf's head statue thing to bribe samole to let her in for the ritual with dawes (then threatened the fuck of of her when that didn't work), that she made dawes drown her to get to the borderlands, that she let not only the bridegroom inside, bonded him, used his power, fought tara's boyfriend when he could teleport, used tempest to get inside a prison with turner, found darlington's notes, did "work" for eitan, fought linus reiter

(i can't even remember all of these to sum them up or order them chronologically, help)

i'm just. so incredibly curious what his reaction would be to learning all of this, since he didn't know her all that long and he was just beginning to figure out what she was and what she could do (both that she was a killer/"survivor" and that she was a wheelwalker), he didn't get the chance to see her use her "street smarts" and essentially be the rattler she's always been - he was disappointed the first time she saw her afraid because he knew she had so much nerve