#everything Andrew does is magnificent he’s a brilliant actor I LOVE him

[flamingo-writes]

@midnightnoiserose I’m gonna reply here bcs tumblr doesn’t let me post one long reply in the comments djjdjfjf

@midnightnoiserose I think it’s a bit of a shame, because Hobie’s character actually allows for a lot of dark content. Like, punk in general discusses a lot of problems and the punk scene is actually pretty unsafe. From the friendly gigs, the mosh pits can be quite dangerous adjust but fun. And then there’s the not so friendly moments during marches and manifestations. And there’s a lot of things that haven’t been explored. (I mean understandable, people want the fluff and the smut and I also want those as much as the person next to me). And I —as someone who’s called herself a punk for literally half of my life— have a lot of very strong opinions on various topics, and one of the reasons why I loved Hobie’s character so much (from the moment his comic got serialised last year) is because of who he is as a person. I Can relate so much to him.

The fact that they made him so hot in the movie was 😭😭 chefskiss. but tbf Hobie already was my dream guy hahaha but I digress.

There’s so much potential in writing Hobie in a fanfic where punk ideologies are thoroughly discussed, and all of the hardships and unfairness that happens in the world are talked about. You can’t talk about rebellion without oppression, and all the things those entail. Hobie is just the perfect character to put through these scenarios, it’s literally his natural habitat. —Also me projecting myself bcs that’s why I wrote fanfics in the first place. I tend to project sometimes a little too much of myself in my fanfics.

I have another Spider-Man fanfic (incomplete, I will finish it I promise 💀) in which my strong opinions on power abuse and general rebellious traits shine through the MC/Reader.

I will also project in that other fanfic, but in this one MORE bcs I live for punk. I love talking about punk ideology.

I’m thinking of writing a multi chapter Hobie fanfic, but I need motivation and free time 🥲 it will have heavier/darker themes, a lot of things discussions revolving punk ideologies, oppression, corruption, feminism, as well as other ugly parts of reality such as drug consumption, physical violence, SA and so on.

What I don’t know is if I should post it on AO3, or perhaps here? Or maybe both??? Idk what do you guys think?

[intransigent-boy]

My Top Ten Films of The Decade.

10. Her

Okay, so whether you like it or not, this movie is about the present. This movie tells a very powerful story with an embarrasingly personal narrative. You feel sorry for the main character, it makes you so uncomfortable. And the reason is, because we are all in some sense are like this guy, Theodore. We have better relationships online, and with our advices, than with real people. It’s a really bizarre conception, but we should face it, and ask ourselves: Where is the limit?  The script is just brilliant, but also has very controversial scenes. Joaquin Phoenix is simply the perfect choice for a lonely man, like Theodore. Melancholy everywhere, and great visuals. Arcade Fire made the music for this, and it was pure melancholy. Very interesting film.

9. The Place Beyond The Pines

Derek Cianfrance is an exceptional director. He can wonderfully create an atmosphere with great lighting techiques, unique musics, and of course with talented actors. This movie has a linear, but quite unusual story-structure. The main theme haunts you after you watched this. Legacy! 

8. Nightcrawler

Louis Bloom is something of a loner who is unemployed and ekes out a living stealing and then reselling copper wire, fencing and most anything else he can get his hands on. When late one night he comes across an accident being filmed by independent news photographer Joe Loder, he thinks he may have found something he would be good at. He acquires an inexpensive video camera and a police scanner and is soon spending his nights racing to accidents, robberies and fire scenes. He develops a working relationship with Nina Romina, news director for a local LA TV station. As the quality of his video footage improves so does his remuneration and he hires Rick, young and unemployed, to work with him. The more successful he becomes however, the more apparent it becomes that Louis will do anything - anything - to get visuals from crime scenes. The conception is just brilliant, and screams to your face, what kind of society are we living in. I think Psychopathy is going to be one of the biggest issue in our generation asides with mental illneses. And this movie reflects perfectly. You understand the character, which is geniusly performed by Jake Gyllenhaal. 

7. Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coen brothers' exquisitely sad and funny new comedy is set in a world of music that somehow combines childlike innocence with an aged and exhausted acceptance of the world. It is a beguilingly studied period piece from America's early-60s Greenwich Village folk scene. Every frame looks like a classic album cover, or at the very least a great inner gatefold – these are screen images that look as if they should have lyrics and sleeve notes superimposed. This film was notably passed over for Oscar nominations. Perhaps there's something in its unfashionable melancholy that didn't hook the attention of Academy award voters. But it is as pungent and powerfully distinctive as a cup of hot black coffee. This movie is about sacrificing everything for your art, directionlessness  (is there such a word?) , and finding the right path. Existential theme, with surpisingly good acting from Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, and Justin Timberlake. This is an Odyssey-story from the 1960′s America. What more you could ask for? 

6. Dunkirk

Reinventing a genre is quite exceptional. And Nolan did it. The best war movies of the last 20 years, including Saving Private Ryan and Hacksaw Ridge, have also placed viewers in the centre of battle. Nolan has not reinvented that immersive approach, but he comes close to perfecting it. The story structure is-again- brilliant. There’s no main character in the movie-just like in a war-but only  scared people. They want to go home. But they can’t. We’re with them with their struggle, and fears. We’re in the air, land, or water, it’s just a haunting terror.  And the soundtrack from Hans Zimmer is really remarkable. You hear it, and you recognize the movie. That’s what I call a score. Reflects perfectly, and holds the attention throughout the whole movie.

5. Hell or High Water

Another genre-twister masterpiece. This Neo-Western is just pure art. Hell or High Water is a film about a criminal  who commits the ultimate offence of putting his gorgeous and much nicer brother in a ski mask for several minutes of this film. Okay actually it’s about a career criminal brother and his he-wasn’t-but-he-is-now criminal brother who team up to commit a series of small-scale bank robberies across Texas, with the aim, finally – after several generations – of lifting the family out of seemingly inescapable grinding poverty. The part of Texas they live in is dying on its feet so career criminal is pretty much the only career left open that doesn’t involve serving in a diner or herding the few remaining cattle. It would’ve been easy for Hell or High Water to to turn out a cliche-ridden double bromance as there are quite a few movie tropes in this love story / revenge thriller, so it’s a tribute to director David Mackenzie that it’s actually a very touching, at times funny, at times quite brutal story. With a bit of grudge-bearing thrown in at the end to stop it being too redemptive. Memorable scenes, great acting, and a deromanticized western-feeling. After this film, you want to live in Texas, where everything’s slower, but sometimes you can chase criminals. It’s nice, isn’t it? 

4. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonagh’s fiercely written, stabbingly pleasurable tragicomedy stars a magnificent Frances McDormand; watching it is like having your funny bone struck repeatedly, expertly and very much too hard by a karate super-black-belt capable of bringing a rhino to its knees with a single punch behind the ear. He’s a scriptwriter genius, it was shocking, how perfectly the dialouges and the actions were constructed. It is a film about vengeance, violence and the acceptance of death, combining subtlety and unsubtlety, and moreover wrongfooting you as to what and whom it is centrally about. The drama happens in a town with an insidiously pessimistic name – Ebbing, Missouri, a remote and fictional community in the southern United States, where the joy of life does seem to be receding. There is a recurrent keynote of elegiac sadness established by the Irish ballad The Last Rose of Summer and Townes Van Zandt’s country hit Buckskin Stallion Blues, a musical combination which bridges the Ireland which McDonagh has written about before and the America he conjures up here, an America which has something of the Coen Brothers. The resemblance is not simply down to McDormand, though she does give her best performance since her starring role as the pregnant Minnesota police chief in the Coens’ Fargo in 1996. It was brutal, controversial, and violent. 

3. Midnight in Paris

The definitive poem in English on the subject of cultural nostalgia may be a short verse by Robert Browning called “Memorabilia.” The past seems so much more vivid, more substantial, than the present, and then it evaporates with the cold touch of reality. The good old days are so alluring because we were not around, however much we wish we were. “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen’s charming film, imagines what would happen if that wish came true. It is marvelously romantic, even though — or precisely because — it acknowledges the disappointment that shadows every genuine expression of romanticism. The film has the inspired silliness of some of Mr. Allen’s classic comic sketches (most obviously, “A Twenties Memory,” in which the narrator’s nose is repeatedly broken by Ernest Hemingway), spiked with the rueful fatalism that has characterized so much of his later work. Nothing here is exactly new, but why would you expect otherwise in a film so pointedly suspicious of novelty? Very little is stale, either, and Mr. Allen has gracefully evaded the trap built by his grouchy admirers and unkind critics — I’m not alone in fitting both descriptions — who complain when he repeats himself and also when he experiments. Not for the first time, but for the first time in a while, he has found a credible blend of whimsy and wisdom.

2. Beautiful Boy 

This supersensitive and tasteful movie is all but insufferable, suppressing a sob at the tragedy of drug addiction afflicting someone so young and “beautiful”. It is based on what is effectively a matching set of memoirs: Beautiful Boy, by author and journalist David Sheff, his harrowing account of trying to help his son Nic battle crystal meth addiction, and Tweak – by Nic Sheff himself, about these same experiences, the author now, thankfully, eight years clean. Steve Carell does an honest, well-meaning job in the role of David and the egregiously beautiful Timothée Chalamet is earnest in the part of Nic, David’s son from his first marriage. This is like a modern-day Basketball Diaries. Honest, and Raw. Most underrated movie of the 2010′s, with an unquestionably important topic. 

1. The Social Network

Before Sorkin wrote the screenplay, Ben Mezrich wrote the book based on Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook titled: The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal. It was published in July 2009, and most of the information came from Facebook “co-founder” Eduardo Saverin, who in the film is played by Andrew Garfield. The screenplay that Sorkin wrote was blazing, he wrote the characters like they were in a William Shakespeare play, with a story full of lies, jealousy, and betrayal. I especially love how Sorkin balanced the story between 2003, 2004, and then 2010. It goes back and forth between the past when Facebook was just an idea for Mark, and in the current day when he is being sued by Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss for, in their minds, having stolen their original idea, and by his former best friend Eduardo for having him pushed out of the company. In fact, some of the very best dialogue (and the film is full of great quotes) happens during the deposition scenes. Well-recognizable, rapid-fire dialouges, wonderful directing, with Trent Reznor’s greatest soundtrack. The movie’s probably going to outlive the Facebook itself, and that’s just great. 

[oscar-isaacs-number-one-bitch]

“Mary Poppins Returns” Movie Review

Mary Poppins Returns is the long-awaited sequel to the beloved 1964 Disney classic, Mary Poppins, which originally starred Julie Andrews as the titular nanny who helped the Banks family to become closer in their time of need. Now, the Banks children are all grown up, and Michael Banks (Ben Wishaw) has fallen on some tricky financial hardship after the passing of his wife, and may be about to lose their home, which he lives in with the three children they had together. Jane (Emily Mortimer), his sister, is helping out as best she can, but it seems to no avail…until, that is, Mary Poppins (this time around played by Emily Blunt) comes back to Cherry Tree Lane. Her first order of business? That she may look after the Banks children once more, but is she can, she’ll help Michael’s children embrace their own worlds of imagination, and remind him what it’s like to be a child again.

As a disclaimer first, let me say this: many reviews are pointing out that this film seems to follow all the same plot beats as the original without adding all that much to the overall story. Given the fact that (although I’m sure I saw it many times) I do not remember the original Mary Poppins all that well, I cannot faithfully or in good conscience say the same. What I can say is what I did honestly think of the film itself, without such a note being implemented into my review. So, how does the sequel stack up now that it’s been 54 years since the original classic? It holds up just fine, albeit with a few noticeable (if ultimately inconsequential) flaws.

Mary Poppins Returns (from what I can tell) does serviceable justice to the original, while still trying to remain its own thing. Musical films are hard enough to do, especially as sequels to beloved classics, but director Rob Marshall and company have chosen perhaps the singular most beloved classic Disney musical (at least in non-animated form) of all time to test their sails out on, and for the most part, they pull it off. From the very opening frame, one can tell that we’re in for something that may not take off, but could still be quite a bit of fun while we’re on the ground, and fun, we do have. Even all these years later, if a sequel isn’t done correctly, one will fail to care about these characters between the showy moments and the blockbuster spectacle of it all, and while occasionally the movie takes some missteps in that department, for the most part we still continue to care for Michael’s plight. The scenes in which he and Jane are reflecting on their childhood, and in particular one where Michael is taken briefly into a song of sadness remembering the passing of his wife, are genuinely moving and do conjure emotional resonance in that very special Disney way they know how to do.

The magic, too, is not lost on anyone. The opening sequence/musical number may not be one of Disney’s stronger sequel introductions, but once Mary Poppins does show up, things begin to brighten almost immediately (quite literally as the clouds around her depart). This magic is nowhere more prominent than in the upbeat musical numbers director Rob Marshall and lyricist Scott Wittman have written, paired with a fun and soaring score from composer Marc Shaiman, the two strongest of which by far are “Can You Imagine That?” and “Trip a Little Light Fantastic,” on or the other of which I’m sure is locked in for a Best Original Song nomination at this year’s Academy Awards. But these aren’t the only Oscar nominations this film is sure to muster.

The visual effects of the film are also brilliant and astounding, reminiscent of the 2D-mixed-with-live-action style for which the film’s predecessor was known. Seeing the art pop into brilliant color on screen is a real treat, and if anything, this aspect of the film will charm you into utter bliss, if but for a small set of moments. The color is not just reserved for the visual effects either. The costume and production design in the film is simply brilliant, everything brought to life in such brilliant color you’d think you were watching The Wizard of Oz in 1939. One can safely expect a slew of below-the-line nominations at this year’s Oscars for things like Sound, Visual Effects, Production/Costume Design, and Original Song, but don’t be surprised if we also see one top-category nomination as well – that nomination being Emily Blunt as the title character.

Most of the performances in the film are anywhere from serviceable (in the case of Lin-Manuel Miranda, still a bit more comfortable of a stage actor than a screen one) to genuinely good (Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Colin Firth, Julie Walters), and the returning cameo by Dick Van Dyke is full of boundless joy, but absolutely no one outsteps the ever-lovely Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins. It’s a perfect recasting, and if it’s not, it’s certainly the closest we could hope for given Julie Andrews’ absence. Blunt embodies the charm, care, and comedy of the character of Mary Poppins so perfectly she’s well-deserving of a Best Actress nomination for her work here, should one come along. In every frame, with every line, she never misses a single emotional beat or drops the vocal cadence of the character and it truly is an astounding thing to see her move across the screen with the same confidence with which Julie Andrews did all those years ago. She is truly magnificent. It’s a marvelous, and (dare I say) flawless resurrection of the character, and marks a second banner performance in Blunt’s career this year alone (paired with her brilliant work in A Quiet Place), displaying her range as an actress like never before.

Then again, I did mention earlier that this film was not without some noticeable flaws. For one thing, it’s simply too long. That’s not to say that I was ever bored or that what I was seeing on screen didn’t add to the story at all, but there are sequences, even in the musical numbers, that could have been cut down for time; as long as they are, the movie feels like it’s taking its sweet time getting to wherever it’s trying to go and on occasion loses the sense of magic or urgency because whatever scene one is watching keeps going on…and on…and on…and on and on forever until finally you think you’re getting back to one of the quiet moments of the film…and the bombastic score takes over again instead of letting you rest. In fact, there’s an entire musical number placed between the second and third acts of the film that seems only to exist so that Meryl Streep can do one of the film’s less catchy musical numbers and never show up in the narrative again. It’s a fine performance, but it just seems so unnecessary by film’s end, one wonders why Disney would just stop the narrative cold in order to give some cinematic fan service that doesn’t add to it really at all (then again, this is the company that made Solo, so I guess it follows.)

Another thing the film suffers from, besides an over-emphasis on nostalgia instead of narrative, is a slight (if only barely so) lack of focus between its two conjoined storylines. Mary Poppins is off with the children having adventures while Michael struggles to save their home, and while all the magic and visuals of the Mary Poppins storylines are genuinely fun, I just wish we had gotten to spend a little more time with Michael as a character, to see the nuance of how he got to be where he is and how he’s responding to all of what’s going on. For long stretches of the narrative, he seems to have been forgotten almost entirely, only for the film to put him back on screen and say “oh, yes, the reason this is all happening, we can’t forget to let you know that’s still here,” as if an afterthought.

And speaking of afterthoughts, there are a few more of those scattered in the film, one of which has to do with a decision that was made about Colin Firth’s character that reminded me of Zemo from Captain America: Civil War. No, Colin Firth doesn’t have a master plan to drive Mary Poppins and the Banks’ apart and make them fight each other (though that would be an interesting thing to see), but without spoilers, the writers of Mary Poppins Returns do something with his character that seemed unnecessary given that Michael already has time to struggle against. In addition to this, while I certainly enjoyed the charm of Emily Mortimer’s performance, the movie just doesn’t give her much of anything to do other than be there, and seems not at all interested in exploring her life outside of her relationship to Michael. We never see where she lives or get to follow her to any of her pro-worker rallies or anything, she’s just kind of there, and feels like less like a character in her own right because we never see that she has a life of her own. That’s a real bummer considering how well Mortimer plays the character for what screen time she has.

Still, it’s not a bad film or even just okay by any stretch of the imagination (something this film relishes in stretching, by the way). Mary Poppins Returns is, simply put, safe. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t also fun. Emily Blunt is marvelous as the titular character, and despite some overlong pacing and unnecessary character/story beats, it mostly holds together as an enjoyable family film one can see over the holiday season. The visuals are fantastic, the music is good apart from two numbers that do reach that level of great, and on a costume/production design level alone, this film should show up at this year’s Oscars. It may not be practically perfect in every way, but it gets most of it right.

I’m giving “Mary Poppins Returns” an 7.8/10.

[acsversace-news]

Finn Wittrock received his second Emmy nomination this year for playing Jeff Trail, victim of serial killer Andrew Cunanan in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.” Wittrock was previously nominated in this same category of Best Movie/Limited Series Supporting Actor category for his twisted role as Dandy in “American Horror Story: Freak Show” in 2015.

Wittrock recently spoke with Gold Derby contributing writer Charles Brightabout playing Jeff and all of his “contradictions,” what it’s like to work with Ryan Murphy and the funny way he learned about his Emmy nomination. Watch the exclusive web chat above and read the complete interview transcript below.

Gold Derby: Finn Wittrock, you just received an Emmy nomination for your work in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.” What was your reaction to that when you read the episode script that you submitted, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”? What was your reaction to that?

Finn Wittrock: I continued to be surprised by the writing of that show. Really though, Tom Rob Smith, who wrote all of the episodes, continued to surprise me in the direction that it went. I knew a little bit about where they were gonna go with it but I didn’t quite expect the entire episode would follow Jeff’s own little arc, sort of mini arc. I really admired the way that he crafted these episodes in terms of having the basic through line of Cunanan and [Gianni] Versace and these offshoots based on sometimes the victims, at the end you follow the father figure, so each character gets their own self-contained episode and then that works its way back into the thing. I was very impressed by that. I was very surprised and happy how much time they took addressing Jeff’s own coming to terms with his identity and his sexuality and how complicated and contradictory it was for him to come out as a gay man and come out against a policy, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” which he disagreed with, but he was a fundamentally very patriotic, very loving of the military kind of upright, responsible young man. All those contradictions. I think often I’m looking for how many contradictions can we fit into one person. That just excites me and so, all those elements were there.

GD: I like that you mentioned how it was structured, because we first saw your character in the previous episode but we only saw you for like two minutes and then you’re bludgeoned to death.

FW: Yeah, my friends called me and they were like, “Man, you were filming that for so many months. That’s it? Just for those two scenes and then you were dead? What were you doing all that time?” I’m like, “Guys, it works backwards. Figure it out.”

GD: What was also brilliant about that was in watching the next episode, the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” episode, it just made everything in that episode all the more tragic, ‘cause in a way, Cunanan was this life preserver for Jeff but it was also his undoing, unfortunately. It just encapsulated the tragedy of it so much.

FW: Yeah, that is what tragedy is, knowing that the ending is gonna be terrible and yet being along for the ride and still hoping illogically that things will turn out differently. You can watch “Romeo and Juliet” as much as you want and if it’s well done… I mean they tell you at the very beginning, “Star-crossed lovers who die at the end.” The prologue says that, and still, if it’s well done production, you’re watching on pins and needles, like hopefully this time they’ll wake up and find each other. So I think that playing with that element of knowing what the end is, knowing it’s gonna end in tragedy, it does something specific to us as an audience, I think. It kind of engages us, hopefully, in a different kind of way.

GD: So in the lead-up to shooting your scenes for this series, did you speak with anyone who had lived through “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” in the military?

FW: I talked to some people who had been in the Navy at that time. We had a really good Navy advisor. It’s a sensitive subject. People don’t open up that easily. But the fodder that I really got was there’s that interview in the episode, my face is in shadow and then talking about the policy. That’s a very, very accurate reenactment of a real interview that I got to see that I had on-hand on my phone all the time to reference continuously throughout the shoot, which is really him trying to be anonymous, having this very, very honest, in-depth conversation with this reporter for the show “48 Hours,” I believe. So that was my biggest go-to in terms of character reference research.

GD: What was also really magnificent about it was the dynamic between you and Darren Criss as Cunanan, especially when it all just comes to a head, I don’t know if it’s the final scene but right towards the end with you just accosting him in your apartment. What was it like to film that? What was that dynamic like between you two?

FW: That was a long day. After that day was done it was like, “Clocked.” I feel like we put in a good day’s work. We played with it a lot. We did a lot of different variations in terms of how heightened and how confrontational it was versus some versions being more wanting to avoid it, wanting to be a little more self-torture, and ultimately the thing that was working was restraining, restraining, restraining and then finding a moment to just explode and go at each other. Yeah, no holds barred, take off the boxing gloves. Like all of working with Darren and Daniel Minahan, who directed the episode, it was a lot of great experimentation. A lot of finding as we went. There wasn’t really a pre-planned way that they wanted it to go. We were exploring new territory, really, finding it.

GD: Did it ever get you that when you realize you’re acting in something, showing how shitty things were for gay people, that was only 20 years ago? Is that a very startling thing to realize?

FW: Yeah, definitely it is, and how recent it was and yet how alien it seems to my own way I live my life. I have so many openly gay friends, but I also know lots of older gay people who really responded to that, people who lived through that period and maybe now are out but at the time weren’t. That really affected people. I had real heart to hearts with some people who saw that later and were like, “That was my life.” But yeah, it is crazy. It’s crazy how far we’ve come and how not far also.

GD: One of the other things that I thought was so interesting about this is that for a lot of the Cunanan story, there’s just a lot of stuff that we just don’t know for sure. A lot of stuff, even in the Maureen Orth book that the series is based on, some of it is kind of just filling in blanks and I was wondering, was that weird to try to portray something of which there’s a lot we don’t know about?

FW: We know where things ended and we know whether things began but a lot of the stuff behind closed doors, no one knows what really happened, ‘cause most of the people who were there are dead now. I think like anything, it’s historical fiction. These events really happened but we have to use artistic liberty to fill in all the blanks and that’s really where the emotional arc comes through. History has given us the exoskeleton, and so it’s your job as an actor and the writer and the creative team to fill in the blanks to bring that to life. It’s like that old saying about never let truth get in the way of a good story.

GD: It’s very true. So this is actually the third time that you’ve worked on a Ryan Murphy project. You were of course on “American Horror Story: Freak Show,” Season 4. Actually, I think it’s the fourth time you’ve worked with Murphy.

FW: Technically it’s the fifth ‘cause I did his movie “The Normal Heart” before that on HBO.

GD: I was counting that. I have “Freak Show,” “Hotel,” “Normal Heart” because oh god, I’ll never forget watching your scene with my roommate. We were a wreck at the end of that. And this one. What was the other one?

FW: Oh, well it’s almost unfair to say ‘cause I’m unrecognizable in my one episode of “Roanoke,” “American Horror Story.” Jether was my name. I died pretty quickly but I was one of the inbred hillbilly monsters and it’s all shot in grainy, like it’s shot on cellphone, so even if you could see my face, you probably couldn’t tell ‘cause I also had this crazy prosthetic stuff. But yeah, technically I was in “Roanoke.”

GD: You’ve worked on so many projects that have been associated with Ryan Murphy. What does he bring to a project that makes him so desirable to work with?

FW: A lot of things. The first thing is you know that you’re gonna work with great people, on-camera, off-camera. He has such an amazing repertory of actors that you’re gonna get to do some really juicy stuff with. That’s already fulfilling. Also, he’s gonna challenge you. You know he’s gonna challenge you in a way that is specific to you. He knows what you’ve done before and he’s gonna find something that sort of goes in the polar opposite direction of that, to stretch your actor muscles. And also there’s the fact that I feel like whatever he does generally is talking about in some way some kind of zeitgeist, some kind of cultural conversation that we’re having. Even “Freak Show” is really about, the freaks are any ostracized group of people. Be that for race or sexual orientation or what have you. Even the stuff that seems totally off the wall and bonkers, somehow there’s always some element of something that you find very current and alive and on the pulse of right now. It just always seems to affect people. That’s why these shows are so freakin’ popular (laughs).

GD: You brought up all these amazing people through the Ryan Murphy projects that you’ve gotten to work with. Is there any one person that you were most excited or most intimated to do scenes with?

FW: I’ve gotten pretty lucky. I had a lot of fun stuff to do with Sarah Paulsonthat first year, both of her heads. And it was like, I really like Bette but Dot was such a bitch (laughs). Oh god, not Dot again! No, she was really astounding in that. I obviously had fun working with Lady Gaga. That was sort of a pinch me, is this real life situation. She was really just such a brave, impressive force and it’s been cool to get into her sphere a little bit. I only had one scene with Jessica Lange but I want more. That was fun. Kathy Bateshas been an amazing person to work with and is also an incredible philanthropist in her own life. I’ve just been lucky.

GD: It’s one of those things where you look back and you’re like, “Wow, I’ve been a part of all of this.”

FW: “This really happened? Is this real life?”

GD: As I said before, you got nominated for your second Emmy this year, this one for “Crime Story.” You were nominated for “Freak Show” four years ago, I believe. What was nomination morning like for you, finding out that you had gotten nominated again?

FW: This was disbelief. Sarah, my wife, read me the list and I was like, “You must be looking at the cast list.” And she’s like, “No, this is the list!” It was truly an out of the blue, random Wednesday morning, like, “Oh, my life has changed now than it was five seconds ago.”

GD: So it wasn’t your agent or anyone calling you? It was your wife who was looking at the nominations and she said, “Hey look at this”?

FW: Yeah. I was making coffee, it was kind of early. It’s 8 a.m. and that happens, it was like, “What are you talking about?” Then suddenly yeah, my phone starts to vibrate for the rest of the day. It’s funny the way they do it, ‘cause they announce some of them live but then they put the rest up online. Television Academy, I love you, obviously, but the website could use a little guiding help. You have to click to a whole lot of things to find out what the nominees are. It really takes a second. They don’t make it easy for you.

GD: This year was weird because usually right after the nominations come out, you can go and find the link of the PDF of the whole 7,000 pages of all the different categories that they have, but this year it took a while. For some reason there was something going on.

FW: (knocks on computer) “Give me my trophy!”

GD: I almost threw a computer out a window but then I remembered that I was at a place of work and then I was like, “Yeah, that’s probably not good.”

FW: You need some young, tech-savvy people to come in.

GD: One other question. What else do you have coming up down the road? We were talking before we started this about some of your theater work. Do you have any theater work that’s coming up on the horizon?

FW: No plays on the new horizon. Last year I spent about seven months in New York. I did two plays back to back. I did “Othello” with Daniel Craig and David Oyelowo, which was amazing, and then I did “The Glass Menagerie” on Broadway with Sally Field. I really got the theater bug well exercised, if that makes sense. No plays that I know of, although I’m always hungry to do a play. There’s a movie called “Judy” which will be out next year, about Judy Garland that I’m in. Renée Zellweger’s playing her and I think it’s gonna be really cool.

GD: Oh, I know a lot of people are gonna be waiting for that one.

FW: I know. For better or for worse, right?

GD: Exactly.

FW: There’s a movie coming out soon called “If Beale Street Could Talk,” which is Barry Jenkins’ next film, which I have a part in, which is beautiful. That’s gonna be really cool. There’s also this movie called “Semper Fi,” this military film that I did. I think that’ll come out sometime soon. So a lot of things in the pipeline. There’s a couple smaller movies, some interesting Indies that I did that are making the festival circuit right now, too. We’ll see if they come to a theater near you, or a screen near you.

GD: We’re definitely hoping. Finn, I can’t thank you enough for this. We wish you all the best on Emmy night. Thanks so much for joining us.

FW: Thank you so much.

[janeaustentextposts]

Hi! You talk quite a bit about adaptations, could you give your thoughts on some adaptations of other classic novels, ones you particularly like or hate?

Well, let me think. I’ll give you the rundown on literary adaptations I like or love, as it’s getting late in the evening here and a bout of solid rage isn’t going to send me off to sleep so much as bring on a bout of indigestion. Also I went to review my DVD collection and for obvious reasons I don’t own many DVDs of things that I loathed. (I do recall nearly bursting into tears after a matinee viewing of I Capture the Castle because I felt the movie ended on such a bittersweet note that I was not prepared to walk out of a darkened cinema into a sunny day with birds singing while I was still Feeling a Lot of Unhappy Things, and so I felt like I hated that movie for a long time because of the sheer mood whiplash of it all. Also I wish I’d read the book first. The book is lovely, and I think I’d’ve stomached the film better, had I gone through the book first.)

Oh! I just remembered The Wings of the Dove (1997). I should have loved it, it had a lot going for it, buuuut fuck that movie and everyone involved in it, it just fell flat, for me. I don’t even care how critically-acclaimed it was, all the characters are The Worst and I never have a moment’s sympathy enough to care what happens to any of them. I hate even thinking about this movie and it is largely responsible for how much I despise Helena Bonham-Carter to this very day. Her and Jeremy Irons (who I admit I have many more personal issues with ‘cause he’s a silver-spoon gross-ass fuckshit.) A movie has got to be pretty damn brilliant on several other points for me to get past the knee-jerk rage I feel whenever either of them appear on-screen.

Also The Portrait of a Lady was terrible and riddled with pointless alterations and please just read The Making of a Marchioness, instead. Maybe I should add Linus Roache to my shitlist as he’s in this one, as well as The Wings of the Dove.

And now for adaptations I liked:

Wives and Daughters (1999) is quite good, in my view, and the ending they added to Gaskell’s unfinished work is quite satisfying, I think. (I don’t know about realistic, but it was sweet and simple and I dug it.)

Orlando (1992) Beautifully done. (Billy Zane! I love him in everything and I literally don’t even know why.)

Little Women (1994) is a classic, but I’m also very excited to see what Heidi Thomas and Vanessa Caswill do with the new miniseries from the BBC and PBS next year.

Daniel Deronda (2002) It’s prettyyyyyy. And so is Jodhi Maaaay.

Washington Square (1997) has a beautiful soundtrack, solid direction, and a stellar cast.

Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) had some great cinematography and a good cast.

Dangerous Liasons (1988) I have such mixed feelings about Malkovich in this one but Glenn Close, holy shit she’s good.

Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) A TRUE CLASSIC LITERARY ADAPTATION I WILL FIGHT EVERYONE. THEN PAY FOR THE RUINED GREEK RESTAURANT.The Remains of the Day (1993) A somewhat underrated classic that I think perhaps unfairly sits in the shadow of Howard’s End a lot of the time, what with the comparisons of the Thompson-Hopkins casting in a Merchant-Ivory film. (I do like Howard’s End, but, again, Helena Bonham-Carter, and I just connect a lot more with The Remains of the Day, as a story.)

Wide Sargasso Sea (2006) I don’t recall unabashedly loving this one, but I own it, so I feel like I must’ve liked it well enough. Then again, I also just found a copy of Sweeney Todd still in its plastic-wrap that I don’t know how I came by, I don’t even like the concept enough to want to watch it in the first place. Also, Helena Bonham-Carter is in it. And Johnny Depp. Why the fuck do I even own Sweeney Todd? Anyway, Wide Sargasso Sea is alright, though I feel like I preferred Karina Lombard’s Antoinette to Rebecca Hall’s.

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982) I’m pretty sure this is where Jane Seymour and Anthony Andrews made me bi and SIR IAN MCKELLEN HOW DO YOU DO?

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) HOW DO YOU FILM SMELLS? LIKE THIS. MY GOD. (Also please read the book.)

Dracula (1992) I mean, the cast swings between pretty good and absolutely wooden, but from a literary standpoint this is one of the more faithful adaptations of Stoker’s novel out there–though this movie is by no means The Best Anyone Could Do. There’s a lot wrong with it. But then Coppola didn’t need to include the blue fire thing, but he did, and I appreciate that.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) is worth it for Robert de Niro, alone; and maybe a handful of really, really good shots. Otherwise there’s too much Helena Bonham-Carter and also Ken Branagh just recently hauled himself onto my shitlist but GOOD NEWS the character of Victor Frankenstein was always an annoying fucko and that’s canon, so feel free to hate him throughout, anyhow.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996) Does not get enough love. A good antidote to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights for anyone who sat there thinking Rochester and Heathcliff were BIG PILES OF RED FLAGS. Wildfell is a cautionary tale, but actually ends reasonably happily (and more believably happily, IMO, than Jane Eyre.)

The Secret Garden (1993) Pure nostalgia for this one, excellent casting, and the same director as Washington Square.

Ivanhoe (1982) Sam Neill has no business making a villain that compelling. (I know, I know, Bois-Gilbert’s characterization is softened a lot in this adaptation.) And this time I’m bi for Neill and Olivia Hussey. Sorry, Anthony Andrews, you drop to second-slot in this love-fest. Also Rowena ruins everything but that’s canon, so what can you do?

Maurice (1987) Who doesn’t love a fluffy gay gamekeeper?

Cousin Bette (1998) Changes stuff from the book, and on the whole the story can be a bit rocky, especially in the second half or so, but it’s worth seeing for Jessica Lange, alone, I think, as well as some broadly comic notes from side-characters in Hugh Laurie and Bob Hoskins.

Possession (2002) Ignore Gwyneth Paltrow as best you can and otherwise enjoy the literary mystery unfolding in between some amazing flashbacks. Most of the good actors are crammed into the flashback bits, but at least there’s some snarky Tom Hollander and dastardly-but-personally-I-think-he’s-in-love-with-Roland Toby Stephens in the modern-day sections to give us some fun.

Twelfth Night (1996) Again, ignoring Helena Bonham-Carter, this one’s got a lot going for it. Trevor Nunn directing, Toby Stephens managing to be damn fine and somehow I don’t entirely mind that Orsino’s kind of a douchebag, Imogen Stubbs being cute as fuck, and stellar supporting actors.

The Inheritance (1997) Look, this is a little-known Louisa May Alcott thing, and I’ll be honest, it’s not Groundbreaking Television. As far as direction and score and acting and script goes, there is no danger of anyone ever losing sight of the fact that it’s a made-for-TV-movie from 1997 and Meredith Baxter was probably the biggest name they could get for it at the time. Anyway, there’s a reason I own it, and that reason is that watching it is the equivalent of a big mug of hot chocolate after a terrible day. It is pretty and sweet and funny and the villains and heroes are clearly marked from the moment they appear on-screen, and is it perhaps a bit too sweet? Yes. Embrace the sugar-shock.Titus (1999) Goes on a little long, perhaps, but you can’t look away. Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange go toe to toe and it’s a thing of horrific beauty. Shhh don’t question the batshit bloodbath, just let Julie Taymor do her thing.

Enchanted April (1991) Run away to Italy with your girlfriends. Just do it.

The Princess Diaries (2001) A modern masterpiece. GET OFF THE GRASS.

Bleak House (2005) Oh my God, this cast??? Is so magnificent?

Persepolis (2007) One of those films that are so good you need to lie down afterwards. Again, please also read the graphic novels.

Any Agatha Christie adaptation, ever–I am HERE FOR IT.

I know I’m forgetting one I thought of earlier, but oh well.

[midnightnoiserose]

Flamingo wanted to speak and decided to speak with the language of truth.

I’m thinking of writing a multi chapter Hobie fanfic, but I need motivation and free time 🥲 it will have heavier/darker themes, a lot of things discussions revolving punk ideologies, oppression, corruption, feminism, as well as other ugly parts of reality such as drug consumption, physical violence, SA and so on.

What I don’t know is if I should post it on AO3, or perhaps here? Or maybe both??? Idk what do you guys think?