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blackfemmecharacterdependency · 2 years ago

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BFCD Not a Review, by Nesha

The “Not Gugu,” and that Lyndie girl

@sleepyfangirl18

I finally got both time and my thoughts together and just decided to make a post.

First off, you might be wondering, “What TF is Nesha talking about with this “Not Gugu” thing?” So, I’ma start where that started. With Georgina Somebody.

She was in Broadchurch, and I remember asking myself out loud when she showed up, “Is that that Gugu girl?” You may have guessed that I was thinking of Gugu Mbatha-Raw (who I only knew as “Gugu” at the time and I couldn’t really tell you much about her work. I just knew her face and that I thought she was pretty good when I’d seen her and mistook this other lady for her. I finally learned Not Gugu’s name is Georgina, once and for all after I watched Barbarian, but I do still have to look up her last name.

So. I’m watching this lady and she doesn’t have a huge role, but Broadchurch is one of those shows where several people get a small bit of time and for the most part, the performances are extremely great. So, if somebody like this lady was on and not acting that dynamically, it really stood out, because of the surrounding performances.

At this point, I was thinking... Well, maybe I am misremembering Gugu’s acting chops or this is not Gugu. And I looked it up and it was not Gugu. It was Georgina... Campbell! Georgina Campbell, and I wasn’t going to remember her name for years, unfortunately, but instead, ask myself every time I saw her, “Okay, is this Gugu or is this Not Gugu (and Not Gugu was specifically her at the time, but later grew in my lexicon of Neshaisms.

Not Gugu became any lightskint lady, the ones that put the “u” in “colourism,” who seemed like they were only hired because they were that aesthetic that has blown up so much the past few years as we start to get more “representation,” through primarily ambiguously Black/biracial/multiracial/just plain ol’ light skinned women playing characters ranging from their own makeup, but extending into monoracial Black characters and canonically dark skinned characters as well.

I do not know if Gugu ever swiped any roles that should have gone to a dark skinned actress, but I know this - I have never seen Gugu perform and it not be great. So, even if she might have gotten in on colorism, she is giving you work. She earns the paycheck and makes it make sense that they gave her the job.

Unlike, say a Zoe Kravitz, who has two facial expressions, never seems to even acting? Like... she learns her lines. I guess that’s fine, but watching a Zoe Kravitz performance is always giving me, “This is an appearance, not a performance. She is being paid to show up and look how she looks and truly nothing else.” (And this heffa done took at least two dark skinned roles to sit up there and waste your time with, but I digress)...

So, since there are many of these women that really read the same on paper, I frequently get them mixed up, UNLESS -

They are big stars, like Zoe or Tessa. Tessa is trying, but not doing amazing. Sometimes, she’s almost there and I’m like, “It is missing SOMETHING,” but I try to give her credit, because she seems like a good person and she does strike me as she’s at least working, unlike previous, who seems to be modeling in motion.

They are great performers, like Gugu or... I mean, I’m drawing a blank right now, but it don’t matter, because I always remember Gugu, so Gugu became the example.

If you are going to bombard me with fithyleven lightskints across every genre, movie, show, channel, etc, Give me Gugus.Gugus across the board. Because if you tell me Gugu is in something, I am interested in checking it out. If you tell me some unremarkable lightskint is in it, or one unproven yet, I am waiting for them to get like Gugu before I’m interested...

OH! JURNEE SMOLLETT! THAT’S the prototype for me. I’ll give anything she in a shot. But, she wasn’t on my mind when this Not Gugu culture set into motion in there.

A lot of roles go to people who are not American. Canadians, folk from the UK, etc, and I rarely know where they’re from, but Gugu is like what I am looking for whenever they come into something. And either I am looking at a Not Gugu, or I am given a performance to make me learn their name. Now that you have that longwinded explanation, let’s dive into Miss Ma’am from the Lil’ Hollow Show.

First off, I initially saw her in Nikita, so when she showed up on Sleepy Hollow, in my brain, she was “Ol’ Girl from Nikita. The like... computer chick or whatever,” literally did not know her character’s name. Now... it may seem like I am shading her, and I am today, but I wasn’t from the jump. In fact, I was glad to see a Black woman working, particularly one who, in my mind, had escaped The CW. Always happy when a nigga gets free from them.

I truly enjoyed her. I didn’t think she did bad in the show. I was very invested in her character and her storylines, etc. I began to feel some type of way when she began getting these arcs that felt somehow better than Nicole’s, because not only was Nicole the star, but the only reason I showed up. I hated the premise. Last white man I wanna see is one from olden times, and then next to a Black woman? AND THEN SHE A COP? I hated every inkling of it and when it began and people immediately began shipping them, I was already fuckin’ tired. But I had been waiting for this woman to star in something for a long time.

I had seen her in a few things and Apartment 4E, I think I’ve told you before affected me to my core. I was invested after a short while in Abbie and in her relationship with her sister. Then. The bullshit. And Idk if I had began to resent Sis or if I simply was tired of the abysmal writing, but I was getting irritated that she wasn’t as good an actress and that they should be giving good stories to the GOOD actress, to the STAR. and then you started to hear about instances where she’d be shady about Nicole when all that was going on, and then all bets are off. Not, she’s just a Not Gugu I’ll be petty about.

Truth be told, when I even try to remember her face, I don’t even think of her face. I literally have to be looking at a photo to remember that she is this person

And not adorable queer actress Maisie Richardson-Sellers

I apologize, but I absolutely was like, “They got Jenny on Legends of Tomorrow? She done got snatched back up by The CW,” and used to truly mix them up. I was all set not to like Maisie, too, because ANOTHER lightskint Vixen? Megalyn already DID that. Give it up. We don’t need it. But, I enjoyed Maisie’s characterization, and grew to love her and learned her name and realized that she in fact was not Jenny. Or, I guess more significantly, Jenny was not her.

I thought that Lyndie was one Not Gugu and she wasn’t even that Not Gugu, but once Maisie grew on me, Lyndie actually became Not Maisie. Very specific to her in that way that Georgia had been Not Gugu, before Not Gugus were Not Gugu. Very specific to her in that she ain’t “Another Tessa,” or “Another Zoe...” No... She’s just so simply not That Girl, TM.

Lyndie did not have IT.

Baby, when these people gave you storylines that were so good and star worthy and every week the girls (not me, but the other girls) were still coming to see how it was gonna go down with Abbie and that mediocre British man with soulless eyes... When you were thought you’d be replacing Nicole, a STAR, and they gave you multiple lightskint love interest arcs, and the people ain’t even care like they cared for Abbie and Nicole, and after all the mess, and they finally got her up outta there while you was looking shady boots with the obvious beef you had with her and they looked at ya lil’ lightskint Not Gugu ass and said, “On second thought...” AND THEY PULLED IN SOMEBODY ELSE SIS

Now... I don’t personally know anybody who actually WATCHED the show after Nicole (I actually left before she did), but one thing I do know is whenever I did see a promo, I seent Papi from The L Word in the ads. Not you, Not Gugu. Not you, Not Maisie.

I actually have not seen this woman SINCE.

#Nesha Rants #BFCD Reviews by Nesha #Not really but feels like it is of that ilk #Not Gugu #Nesha Does Things #rant #sleepyfangirl18

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mothbii · 7 months ago

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Intro

Disney has made a handful of movies specifically featuring indigenous culture through these past few decades, including “Pocahontas,” “Brother Bear,” and “Emperors New Groove'' for (North and South) Native American representation, and “Lilo and Stitch” and “Moana” for Polynesian representation. Today, I aim to review their newest and oldest indigenous movies (Pocahontas and Moana) respectively and rank them on four main categories: representation, the story, characters, and artistry. They will be ranked out of five stars, with a final score tallied at the end. With that being said, let's start with our first movie…

Pocahontas

Pocahontas was Disney’s first official indigenous focused movie. Compared to their earlier depictions of indigenous people, (like the violently red coloured, simple men in Peter Pan,) Pocahontas was definitely a step up. They had indigenous people that felt like they had real personalities and relationships, and they were fully immersed in their indigeneity; they weren’t whitewashed, they used indigenous tools in the song that introduced their town, and that same song also used some elements of indigenous music so much so that it actually reminded me of genuine indigenous music like “Women’s Warrior Song,” and “Okawîmâw Askiy.” Something that this movie did right as well was cast indigenous voice actors. Admittedly, not all of the actors were indigenous- when Pocahontas sang they switched to a white actress- but considering the state of voice acting in that period where they were blind to the race of the actors when they were casting (take Avatar the Last Airbender for example), I think we can give them a bit of leeway. Anyways, this meant that they used their platform to uplift indigenous actors, giving them work and boosting their popularity for future success. They also actually spoke real Algonkian in the movie and they didn’t just throw it out in one scene, they continued the use throughout the movie- a vast improvement to the mockery of the Plains Sign Language in Peter Pan. All of these aspects sound really great- and yeah, they are. However, this is just the surface of the movie, some flaws are revealed once you look further into its implications.

Now that I got all of the praise for the representation out of the way, it’s time to delve into the criticism. I have a bit of a problem with how they portrayed the (at first glance,) main character. In the beginning, they lead us to believe that Pocahontas wants adventure, discovery and freedom, but they don’t end up fulfilling that. Listening to the lyrics of “Just Around the Riverbend” with lyrics like “To be safe, we lose our chance of ever knowing, What’s around the riverbend,” paired with “Why do all my dreams extend, Just around the riverbend?” a seed is planted that this will be a coming of age story, where we see this young indigenous woman find her way in life, her purpose and break through. However, surprisingly (or unsurprisingly- depends on how pessimistic you are) this is not what the story ends up being at all. This film culminates into being an indigenous x coloniser Romeo and Juliet story. Despite the fact that she sings “Can I ignore that sound of distant drumming? For a handsome sturdy husband, Who builds handsome sturdy walls, And never dreams that something might be coming, Just around the riverbend,” by the end of the story she is suppressed into John Smith’s manic pixie dream girl- a quirky, “exotic,” hopefully naive woman who teaches this man how to live truly and let loose. She doesn’t get any development in the story and has no flaws to be seen, she’s just an indigenous woman there to provide for the white protagonist. “Wait,” you may say, “but Pocahontas wasn’t perfect, she definitely had some flaws,” and you would be right to some extent. She was naive and stubborn, but they made sure it never got in the way of her beauty- she was never ugly. She didn’t cry with snot running down her face, she didn’t scream or flail around, and she didn’t do anything embarrassing that couldn’t be written off as quirky. She got angry one time in the movie when Smith told her how he would wipe away their culture, and destroy their lands to put up white homes, but even then she was only mad for five minutes, and “mad” just meant calmly trying to leave (Smith stopped her boat telling her “[don’t] leave,” she then tried to climb a tree but he followed her, treating her like a stupid child) and then singing to him to explain that you shouldn’t be a self-serving, genocidal maniac. It made me uncomfortable multiple times in the movie how they presented her; it felt like we were a wolf hiding in the bushes stalking a lone deer. They made her move in a way that humans would never realistically walk: she walked slowly and languidly, her hips swayed, and her hair always flowed in the wind like a Covergirl model. She wasn’t allowed to be ugly even when she was pleading for her lover’s life; they made her fall on John with her back arched to show off her curves, her hair tossed over her head beautifully laying on top of Smith, and they picked an angle that perfectly emphasised her chiseled jawline. She was just something to be viewed and make the white man seem like a great guy. “Look at how this man who came to colonise these lands is so kindly teaching this poor indigenous woman about white, advanced technology!” She’s plastic and something to be devoured. She has a slit up the side of her dress, it’s off the shoulder, and she has a tiny waist and stick thin arms that do not match up with how she jumps off cliffs nor rows from shore to shore, nor climbs through the trees. Now I’m not saying that the filmmakers were womanisers and racists, but looking purely at the drawings, and especially the treatment of indigenous women in real life, it definitely tells some kind of story.

Did you know that in Ontario it was found that Indigenous women were 3.5 times more likely to be abused by a spouse (Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women and Children, Indigenous Women, Intimate Partner Violence & Housing) than a white woman? Looking at the way John Smith treated Pocahontas in the story, the way indigenous culture and life was treated, it can definitely leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Not only was she presented like an object to the audience, the dashing, white male lead also treated her like it. He followed her around, didn’t let her leave, and belittled her constantly throughout the story, and he was met with absolutely no repercussions. Like I touched on before, the punishment for trapping her is a lullaby, he told her to calm down and grabbed her after she told a man who killed someone she’s known her whole life to “go away,” and he touches her and directs way too much for only knowing her for something like two days, and you know what? This was all treated like it was absolutely normal. This makes me a bit sick now, but looking at the way he acts and speaks, he gives me the same unease that the man who ended up assaulting my friend gave me. I know that when creating entertainment you have no responsibility to educate, but it came off strange how this was heavily marketed as Disney’s first indigenous movie, but then they showed a concerning relationship with a controlling white man and treated the indigenous ways as lesser than. I mean really, they made Pocahontas learn the white language, be taught all about white technology, and as soon as she opened her mouth to teach him how to greet people, John immediately shut her down with “I like hello better,” and pulled her hand down. Given the statistics of violence against indigenous women and the fetishization that’s already embedded in the world, how much damage did Disney do showing a submissive, “dumb” indigenous women who could be shoved around like it was nothing? I feel like the fetishisation of indigenous women also absolutely appeared in the indigenous design as we actually saw white women in the beginning in the Virginia Company sequence and they looked like normal women. They were plump and frail alike, and covered head to toe in skirts and dresses with their hair covered with a scarf. Compared to the indigenous women, when we first see the indigenous people in “Steady as the Beating Drum,” I would say the majority of the women have hourglass figures, and the designers were specifically told to make Pocahontas “sexy” (I’m not kidding, that’s actually real). Though Pocahontas was meant to centre indigenous people and be this big show of “look at us, look at how great we are gracing people with representation,” it just felt like they were just cardboard cutouts in the background to make John Smith look great and be eye candy for the viewers. Think about it: we never got any sign of great indigenous accomplishment in the movie except for maybe teaching John Smith, but they were taught about white culture, they got one of their men killed, and John sacrificed himself and it was all focused on how they just couldn’t kill him. The whole plot revolved around Smith finding the indigenous people, and the whole journey of the movie was Smith’s discovery of acceptance. I don’t know, something about it made me feel like Disney was just trying to say “look, they weren’t all bad!” about the white people. It’s a bit funny that this movie was meant to fight against racism and prejudice, but they still made an emasculated, greedy Jewish caricature be the villain and have him be combated by someone who looks like they would be one of Hitler’s favourites. It’s not actually funny, but it’s really telling of the fact that they tried so hard to make a politically correct story, but they just couldn’t get around their implicit biases. Though this was a good first step, they had indigenous actors, they weren’t painfully offensive and stereotypical, they still had a bias towards white people and the whole Eurocentric way.

I promise this is the last negative point about Pocahontas’ representation, but did it feel weird to anyone else how they chose to make a love story? I know that Disney’s whole schtick pre-2010s was around romance, but this one felt distinctly… off. Breaking it down to just a few sentences, Disney’s Pocahontas sounds absolutely insane: “While the genocide committed against the indigenous people was just budding, an indigenous women who was granted the divine power to speak English had an affair with John Smith, a man who dreams of stealing the land and erasing indigenous culture.” Now I know that the characters aren’t actually supposed to be the actual historical figures, but come on. We know what colonisation did, no matter how hard anyone tries to deny it, and in what world is it appropriate to age up a girl who was stolen by England to push a romance between her and an avid coloniser? In real life Pocahontas (Matoaka) chose to marry Kocoum (National Park Service, Historic Jonestowne), but then was coerced into leaving, the English had Kocoum killed, and she was kept in captivity, raped, and the English feared that she would kill herself because of how depressed she became (American Indian, Pocahontas’ First Marriage: The Powhatan Side of the Story). Is this the woman you want to write a romance movie about? It just feels disrespectful to take a woman who was sexually, emotionally, and mentally abused by the English and change it up to make it look like a “love wins” fairytale. I wish I could say that it would have been ok if they didn’t base it on flawed historical figures, but I honestly don’t think it would have been. There’s just something so wrong about writing a love story envolving the colonisation and genocide of a group and land. The only time they really acknowledged the conflict was in “Savages” where we saw the white people’s harmful views of the indigenous people, but at the same time they put the same amount of blame on the indigenous for some reason? The movie penalised both the white people and the indigenous people just for trying to break up the main leads, which is just so weird to me. It’s just all so tone-deaf and I think it really speaks to the fact that people will stay blissfully ignorant to avoid hard conversations (this, systemic racism, Palestine, etc.). Realistically, this was racially charged violence that they were romanticizing, so it brings one to question, did this movie have any right to exist in the first place?

Moving on from the questionable representation, the plot itself just felt ok to me. It didn’t have great motion to the story, and it didn’t feel like there was any clear reason for its existence. The characters didn’t have (or lost- looking at you Pocahontas) any motivation, and although there was a bit of a prophecy, it didn’t feel like it was actually important. The whole story felt a bit like there was a bunch of events happening in limbo- there weren't many clear links throughout the story. For example, they could’ve connected all the white objects Pocahontas had with finding her with John, but instead they just had Kocoum follow Pocahontas to “keep her safe” and then boom, he’s dead. It just didn’t feel very strong. Also, I wasn’t convinced at all by the main villain, Ratcliffe. It seems like a lot of the things he did could’ve happened naturally without him (like, they don’t need him to tell a mining company to dig), and the one thing he did that was of consequence- telling the white people to fire on the indigenous people- didn’t have any result, his men just said no to him and that was that. But again, this wasn’t a big revelation because the men didn’t even need a turning point; John Smith and Pocahontas had already convinced the men that the indigenous people were ok, so that whole scene in my opinion was pretty much unnecessary. You know what, examine Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2. Ratcliffe and him had the same ideals and motivations (they were both genocidal and greedy villains in a movie aimed at kids), but Shen carried so much more of an intimidating aura and you thought of him as an actual threat because we had real evidence to support that; he didn’t just sit around being an unfortunate gay and antisemetic caricature, he went out and created conflict for the main characters, and acted in ways that supported the views the movie said he had. They should have made Ratcliffe an actual villain or just gotten rid of him altogether. Circling back to the prophecy, the whole thing just felt like a cop-out. There was no evidence that prophecies are a common, or even special thing in this universe, it just felt like it was kind of there and was a last minute addition because they realised there was no driving force in the movie. The same problem goes with Pocahontas’ special English powers; the only time we see any kind of magic in this movie is to save the story (make it so the two leads in a love story can actually talk, and give a reason why the story exists), so it just comes off feeling a bit lazy and disorganised. They needed to add more spiritual aspects to make it work. Last off all, John Smith felt so bland to me. Sure he wasn’t like a cardboard cutout, he still was shown to be headstrong and confident, but he was just so boring. I do admit that he made me feel angry throughout the movie (which you could definitely tell) so he did illicit some emotions, but he just felt like a basic white guy to me. I just wish he had more depth. Overall, in my opinion the whole movie was just so “ok.”

What’s this? I’m not going to complain for another four hundred word paragraph? Yeah, the artistry in this movie actually really impressed me. Animation is art, but you wouldn’t normally want a still of the movie to just be hanging on your wall. However, the backgrounds and colour palettes of every scene make every frame just an absolute treat for the eyes. I know I said the animation of Pocahontas’ hair made her look like a Covergirl advertisement, but I’m going to contradict myself for a second; the movement of her hair shows such an understanding of the craft, expression, and of course, artistry. The artistic team made such a bold choice not using many lines in her hair, because usually studios add those in to try to emulate the shape and form of the hair, however, Pocahontas’ hair was always so dynamic and alive that they mitigated the need for it. The way they animated it convinced me that it was really floating on the wind, which really shows the understanding they have of physics, but they were still able to make it look, well, beautiful. I know I criticised its beauty earlier, but that doesn’t change the fact that objectively, it’s nice to look at. In the same vein, even though I critcised the reason for “Colors of the Wind,” I still think the whole visual depiction of it in the movie is absolutely breathtaking. Once it picks up, the transitions between scenes are so effortless and clean, and carries such a nice sense of motion. The scenes themselves are also really strong on their own, one that stood out to me in particular is the pastel sequence of Pocahontas where you see her get built up and then jump over the waterfall with wispy deers. I found that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen during the music video because of how creative and just the time and skill put into it. Though I may have problems with the movie, I think this film is near the top in visual quality.

Now that wraps up this film review! Overall, I thought this movie was middling. I found that the characters relied on archetypes and didn’t have a whole lot of depth, and the film didn’t have a clear line connecting all the scenes. I also found that the magical aspects came off as more for convenience for the writers than actually for the story, and Ratcliffe was a lacking addition. Even though the film did trailblaze in showing indigenous characters with their language being prevalent, not being based in stereotypes, and having some autonomy in the story, there are still some issues. It was very focussed on the white people, the indigenous women had aspects of fetishisation and it presented toxicity in relationships with no nuance or discussion- they just treated it like it was normal. Also, the premise of the movie was a bit odd as well and (in my opinion) slightly disrespectful to the real figures portrayed. However, I loved the visual aspects of the movie and it’s my opinion that it’s of the best in this regard in Disney’s catalogue.

Overview:

Though the indigenous characters weren’t built on harmful stereotypes and had real personalities and relationships, the characters themselves were treated weirdly by the narrative, and was harmful to the women.

Representation: 2/5 ☆

There was nothing abysmally awful about the plot, but it was basic and didn’t leave me feeling anything.

Story: 3/5 ☆

It didn’t seem like the characters had any clear motivations. Also, Pocahontas fit the manic pixie dream girl type of character, Ratcliffe was an antisemitic caricature, and John Smith was as bland as a slice of stale white bread. I couldn’t see a whole lot of depth.

Characters: 2.5/5 ☆

Absolutely breathtaking backgrounds and movement of animation, the art shocked me with it’s beauty multiple times throughout the movie.

Artistry: 5/5 ☆

Overall Score: 12.5/20 ☆

Moana

After watching this movie with fresh eyes (I think think the last time I watched this movie was about five years ago,) I can finally see all the greatness in it. The characters have so much depth to them, the plot itself is interesting and unique, the message is great- in fact the whole thing is just great. Comparing this to all the films they’ve put out in the last decade, this is among the strongest, and I’ll explain why.

In order to illustrate my other points, I’ll have to first present the characters and what makes them so great. Starting off with the titular character Moana, she doesn’t have the curse that a lot of main characters have where they’re just a bit blank and hollow. She has so much depth to her, and I really started to empathize and feel for her as if she was a real person; in fact, that’s what relates all the characters together: they all feel real. Something I really appreciated about her character was how connected she was to her family and culture. Usually when stories do the storyline where the main character’s dream is combatted by their family, they automatically make it very black and white, making the family abusive and very obviously horrible people. However, I feel like her love for her family makes her strife even more tragic. Take “Where You Are” for example: you can see her fighting so hard to keep her family happy and abandon the dream, because realistically, there’s no clear reason she should want to leave. She has a loving family, a great community, and most of all a duty. No matter how much she emmerses herself in her village and tells herself that “this is enough,” she can never quite convince herself of it. If she had a horrible life, in the back of my mind I would be saying “man, just leave already you’re not going to be losing anything,” but in this situation I can actually understand why she would be repetitively trying and trying and trying to abandon her dreams. I also appreciate that this struggle is carried out throughout the movie- you can see the tension she feels as a result of how she left her family and island, and you can clearly see the imposter syndrome she goes through- especially the scene where her grandmother’s spirit comes to her. Now I’m not emotional when I watch movies or consume any other media- I’ve never cried while watching something unless if it’s for a joke. However, Moana (the character) actually almost broke my streak because of the conflict between her dream and family. Like “How Far I’ll Go”? I don’t think it’s physically possible to not feel at least a little prickle in your eye listening to that song. Anyways, it’s not just her conflict that I thought was really well made, I thought her whole character and how she fit in the movie was well written. I especially liked how she was very obviously a leader, but they didn’t feel the need to take away any stereotypically “feminine” traits to achieve that. Sure, she was headstrong, ambitious and took control on her island, but she was also not afraid to show her emotions, be sincere, and most of all she was caring and kind. It takes a certain kind of person to verbally berate a demigod, and then turn around and show kindness to a flaming inferno of a monster. Because of how outlandish the movie is with all the supernatural elements, and the secondary main character Maui being more comedic and larger than life, it works out well to have such an emotional heart at the centre of the story.

Now for the deutoragonist, Maui. He actually surprised me so much on the rewatch. Going into this movie again, I had the impression beforehand that he was just a comedic relief with some cool powers, but I was met with much more than that. He had so much depth in backstory, and you could definitely see how his past made him the character we see in the movie; like I said earlier for Moana, he felt so human. He’s actually pretty easy to analyse because everything just made sense about him. Like yeah, of course he would immediately seek out the love of others after being thrown into the ocean by his own parents, and of course he would be defeated after he was thrown out yet again despite his trying. Actually, just the other day when I was walking home just casually listening to music, I started absentmindedly connecting Maui’s character and story to the song I was listening to- this shows that it isn’t really a chore to find depth (like if you were analysing a character like Humpty Dumpty for example), there’s a lot to work with because they did such a great job writing his character (if you’re interested in seeing how right I was, the song was “Remember My Name” by Mitski). But anyways back on topic, I’ve seen the same issues that Maui has in so many real people, and I thought this was such an interesting way to go with the already established mythological figure. Adding in that need for acceptance, devoting his life to what gets him even the tiniest semblance of love, and putting all his worth on what he can do is something so distinctly human, and I think it adds a nice contrast to his godly powers. At the end of the day, he is part human as a demigod; he isn’t omniscient and all knowing- he has flaws, makes mistakes, and has insecurities. The only other higher power we see is Te Fiti (a goddess) and she acts very serene, and very one-dimensional- the same goes for Te Ka on that one-dimensional aspect. I think it’s beautiful that we get to see all the flaws and it presents a good message that no matter what- no matter how put together they seem or how powerful you think they are- we all have things we’re ashamed of, and we all struggle. I thought it was such a beautiful arc seeing him grow from a man that put all his stock in love that was always conditional and what he could provide, to a man that basically gained a younger sister and persevered even after what seemed to be the permanent end to his powers. I cannot express enough how much I appreciate and love his character now after the rewatch, and I feel like I’ll talk for way too long if I’m given the opportunity, so I’ll just end it right here.

With the two main characters out of the way, now I can finally get into what I love about the plot and message. Throughout the movie we see multiple characters go through hardship and then withdraw or get stuck in that failure. We see Moana’s father get into an accident on a boat that ends with his friend drowning and so he stops his daughter from sailing, Maui gets thrown out yet again and then becomes a bitter, withdrawn man, and Te Fiti gets her heart stolen and gets hyperfixated on that loss, becoming a monster. However, we see Moana get knocked down so many times, and yet she stands right back up. Her father tried to bar sailing from her and yet she does it anyways, Maui denies her request to help restore the heart of Te Fiti and steals her boat but she still manages to get him on board, she’s in the ocean and doesn’t know how to sail but she just learns, and Maui abandons her before the fight with Te Ka, but she finds it in herself to sail out anyways. I feel like what really strengthens this message though is that we actually see that it is hard to get back up and it’s a constant fight. Moana was on the brink of giving up and turning around, getting caught up on all her failures, what she has left behind, and beating herself up on all of her shortcomings, but she reminds herself what she has done right with tears still on her cheeks and continues her journey. Seriously, the song that I’m referring to, “I Am Moana” is so powerful. Her grandmother’s spirit coming back to her telling her that going forward may be hard, but it makes you who you are, and Moana shouting out to the world “I am Moana” basically a declaration saying “I am whole, I am enough, and I have done so much and will continue to do so” is so beautiful and such a strong message. I know I’ve called a lot in this movie “beautiful” and “strong,” but it’s just a beautiful and strong movie, I don’t know what to tell you. Anyways, even though in movies writers can pretty much present their characters as these perfect beings, it loses that human sense to them and makes us less invested in them. That struggle (heroes fall) we saw was orchestrated so wonderfully, and made me root for Moana even more than I was before (which was a lot). Back to the story, not only does she pick herself up, she carries the burden and helps others up as well, as evident in her support for Maui and in the song “Know Who You Are” the line: “They have stolen the heart from inside you, But this does not define you.” This broadens the message, showing that not only is it important to pick yourself up, you should also strive to lend a helping hand to others as well.

Compared to other Disney movies out right now, the plot for Moana goes above and beyond. These past few years, Disney's movies have been oversaturated with twist villains- I mean, look at Big Hero 6, Wreck it Ralph, Frozen, Zootopia, and that's only a small portion of the whole list- so flipping that trope on its head was a really interesting take. I really appreciated the deviation of the typical “hero vs the big bad antagonist” model that movies typically follow, it made the movie feel like a big breath of fresh air. I mean, really the movie essentially followed the road trip model that was usually seen more from the 80s to the 2000s where they have a destination set and get into a bunch of wacky hijinks on the way, but adding in all the action and heartfelt moments and growth added in a lot of texture to the film, and set it apart as something different. Because they were also moving around so much in the movie we needed something to anchor us- something that could act as a homebase- so we didn't feel disjointed while watching, so the fact that they mainly focused on Moana and Maui, adding a constant throughout the whole movie, was really smart. A side effect of this fact as well was that the writers really got the opportunity to flesh out their backstories, motivations, characteristics and their arcs and as you can tell, I really thought they did a masterful job in this respect. This whole movie just had a whole lot of heart and they did keep it small and simple (in the regards of the cast, and the lighter plot) but they took every small moment and made it something big.

While I've been writing this section on Moana I've been listening to the soundtrack to get myself in the headspace and remember the points I want to write, but admittedly I can't even count how many times I've had to hold back tears just from the songs. I'm pretty sure that I've already mentioned that I'm not really emotional when it comes to media, but the songwriters just absolutely burned down the studio when they brought the songs in. I don't know how, but they were able to fuse in such yearning and sincerity into all the tracks that called for that, and the songs that didn't call for that were still pretty damn catchy. Listen, I know that right now we love to rag on Lin Manuel Miranda for his singing (and yeah, I'm not going to stop that), but anyone who doubts his talent in lyricism is just fooling themselves, I'm sorry I don't make the rules. The fact that he can use such tact and precision in “I am Moana” and then also write the big show tune that took all the elementary schools by storm, “You're Welcome” shows such skill and range. I do want to add that Miranda wasn't the only musical talent on this, they also brought on Mark Mancina, a composer, and another songwriter, Opetaia Foa’i. Really all three of them did an absolutely phenomenal job as a team, and the movie wouldn't be the same without them. The animation also impressed me quite a bit. To be honest, the scenery didn’t really wow me like the backgrounds in Ghibli movies and even Pocahontas do for example, they just seemed like basic islands without any artistry to them, but the water animation makes up for all of that. Water animation has always been stereotypically really hard, so the fact that they were able to make it look so crisp and inviting is genuinely so incredible. Especially looking at the scene where the grandma give Moana the heart and the ocean contorts and puts on a whole show, you can see that a lot of work was put into the physics and programs, and I honestly feel like at least some of the reason that sequence was added was just to brag about how great their sims are. But on the other hand with the water being a sort of character on its own, the animators did such a great job being able to put such expressions into a plain blob of water. I could tell when it was agitated, when it was hopeful, and when it was dejected. I could tell that they had such talented artists working on this movie across the board.

The last thing I'm going to talk about is Moana’s representation of Polynesian people. Bringing Pocahontas back into the ring, Moana is leaps and bounds ahead of it in respecting their indigenous characters. First off, they actually let their indigenous woman be a normal person and be the main character. Though she wears clothes that the west would typically consider “revealing” (a cropped tube top and skirt), it never comes off that way. She's built like a real person, she moves normally, and there's no borderline insidious camera angles. She comes off as a strong, empathetic leader- a person- not as an object for all the men that animated her to leer at. Another thing is that they didn't feel the need to have any white influences in the movie- this whole movie is rooted in Polynesian culture, mythology, artistry, and tools. The story is kickstarted with Maui and Te Ka- two Polynesian mythological figures- and they use Polynesian wayfinding and sailing to navigate the film. I mean, admittedly there was a reference to Twitter (there's no way I'm calling it X,I ’m sorry) which isn’t exactly realistic to the time period. I personally didn't find an issue with it, but I'm also white, so I'm not exactly the grand authority on this, so feel free to make your own opinion. Anyways, the whole movie treats Polynesian culture as something entirely normal/non-foreign and not something to be afraid of, and this may be something that you think is weird to bring up, but looking at the Royal BC Museum where they have indigenous masks locked in a box in a dark corner with ambient noise playing and dim spotlights shining on the mask, it always creeped me out as a kid and it internalised the thought that it was something “different.” They didn't show any of the dancing or how it was used, they had it lifeless in a corner, and that's why I appreciate how immersed in the culture Moana was and how open and normal the people and the customs were portrayed. The people in the movie all had different personalities- ones you would see in real life- and you really saw the joy in their eyes to partake in their culture (“Where You Are”). Going on the thread of normality, I like how the movie wasn't focused on “these are Polynesian people, they do this, this, and this,” it wasn't like they were trying to teach white people about the culture, there was a strong plot behind it, and even stronger characters. They included Polynesian music and customs, yeah, but that was just the life of the characters, it wasn't for us. They let the Polynesian character just be, and put as much time and love into this movie as all the other ones. Looking at the workers on the film as well, you can tell that there were Polynesian people involved. All of the voice actors were Polynesian, even the throwaway crab character and The Rock, and they let the voice actors actually sing. They also had Polynesian singers in the chorus and the wonderful Opetaia Foa’i working on the songs. Keeping in mind that I am white and I don't experience any kind of racism as a result of that, I can naively say that I think Moana is among the best in Disney's catalogue representation wise, and it does a decent job of portraying the culture.

Overall I think Moana is an absolutely fantastic movie. Rewatching this it blew me out of the water, and while writing this review it strengthened my view of the movie even further. The movie is packed full of heart and sincerity, and the plot and characters are presented in such a masterful way. The representation in my eyes paints a favourable picture of the Polynesian people and they did well in casting Polynesian voice actors. Disney's Moana is a fantastic film, and it gives me hope that they have potential to create films as good as this in the future.

Overview:

I personally thought that Moana’s representation was great. The female characters weren’t fetishised, the characters weren’t stereotypical at all and acted normal, and there was no white influence in it. Something they could’ve improved on was incorporating more Polynesian people behind the scenes and in the writers room.

Representation: 4/5 ☆

The story was incredibly unique and simple, but that simplicity allowed them to really hone all parts of the movie. The message is also not one that is seen often, and again, done really well.

Story: 4.5/5 ☆

The characters were my favourite part of the movie. They had such amazing backstories and motivations that one, actually made sense for the characters and two, could see informed their actions. The arcs were so masterful, and they felt so painfully human. Phenomenal job.

Characters: 5/5 ☆

The water animation was amazing, and the songs hit hard everytime, however the scenery was a bit bland, and they didn’t have a lot of creativity with colour.

Artistry: 4 ☆

Overall Score: 17.5/20 ☆

My schools going to delete my google account in 3 days, so I'm putting my work that I want here because the internet's forever. Feel free to read it if you want, but this is literally highschool homework assignments, don't be expecting masterpieces.

#mothbii old english assignments #film review #film critique #pocahontas #moana #disney criticism #disney critical

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leah-bobeea · 4 years ago

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Magazine Girl; Steve Rogers

You ever start writing a fic about a journalist reader at two am who’s eventually gonna end up doing steeb, over his desk, biting down on his expensive leather belt?

❀ ❀ ❀

Warnings: CEO!Steve x Journalist!Reader, Angst, Steve’s a little mean, Bossy Steve, Shy/Anxious reader, Dom!steve, mentions spanking, oral (m receiving), unprotected sex, coercion (a little teensy bit), Bad writing lol

Word Count: 3.9k

A/N: Terrible writing w/ a terribly rushed ending. Written on my phone, in my notes app, not beta read, and barely proofread.

❀ ❀ ❀

Yes, your hands were busy. Not busy typing out a rough draft of this stupid article on Steve Rogers, not busy calling his secretary to set up a meeting with the man, or the closest to him you could get, not busy doing their job at all. They were busy tapping your pen against the glass tabletop of your desk, successfully annoying Wanda, who sent you an aggravated look from across the room.

“Seriously, Y/n?” Wanda moved from where she was at her desk, clearly not making a breakthrough on her article for this month's issue either. You could only shake your head in reply. Throwing your head back to stare at the ceiling, you starting explaining. “Maria gave me this huge article, Wanda. Cover! And, trust me, I know she’s testing me and doesn’t think I’ll actually be able to do it so she can fire me, or belittle me, or- or something! I don’t know what to do, help me, bestie.” As you finished rambling you looked up at her with your best puppy dog eyes, hoping for some of that amazing advice she gives.

Wanda laughed and pulled a chair over from an empty desk, sitting down and haphazardly throwing her feet on top of your cluttered tabletop. “She wouldn’t give you an article you couldn’t handle, she loves you, Y/n. If it’s truly as difficult as you’re making it out as that means that she knows you’re ready for it, and you’ll do amazing. Who’s it on anyway?”

She was doing such a good job at easing your nerves until she brought up the topic. You whined high in your throat and threw your head to the side before uttering, “Steven Rogers,” you turned your body back to Wanda, “What more do I need to say?” Her eyes widened just a little. “Sheesh...I’d start making phone calls, and praying, maybe?”

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“Hello, Miss. Carter, um- this is Y/n L/n with Shield Mag-“ “Please hold, dear.”

You pulled the phone away from your head and let it rest on your naked thigh, quickly pressing the speaker button. It was times like this when you were grateful that you let your grandma convince you to buy a house phone. Peggy Carter was the fifth person you’d contacted trying to get an interview with this man and she was the second lady that humored you enough to at least pretend like she’d get back to you.

She’s his main assistant so you might have better luck this time...

Thirty minutes later you had your head inches off the ground and your toes wiggling in the air. Humming the annoying hold music to yourself, you braided, unbraided, and re-braided a single strand of your hair. At thirty-nine minutes you were ready to give up until you heard a click on the other line.

You scrambled to turn off the speaker and press the phone back to your ear.

“Miss. Carter I was hoping to set up an interview with Mr. Rogers, over the phone, in person, or through email, if that’s possible?” You asked, hopeful that she wouldn’t shoot you down immediately like everyone else.

“Well, Magazine Girl, I only do in person. But I am a very busy man, so I need to know right away, what’s in it for me?” Your breath hitched and you almost fell and cracked your head open from how startled hearing his voice made you. Then, you nearly gave yourself a head rush from how fast you sat up.

“Well, um, Sir, you would get a headlining article, and uh, a cover on the June issue of Shield Magazine. That’s um, that’s if you want a cover- you don’t have to be on the cover if you don’t want to, just the interview would be mentioned on the cover, but-“ His chuckle was gritty and vivid, effective in stopping your babble. “I’ll see you Friday around noon. Goodbye Magazine Girl.” He hung up on you before you could even comprehend anything but that captivating laugh.

You rubbed at your eyes and grabbed your planner and pen. “Friday at noon...”

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The next day you were back in the office, sitting in Wanda’s stiff chair with twin caramel lattes sitting in front of you. That was the thing about you, you’d come to work early bearing gifts just to tell your closest friend your good news. You’re sweet like that.

When Wanda arrived it was fifteen minutes later and your latte was halfway gone. Hearing her black stilettos click on the glossy linoleum made you perk up immediately. As she approached, you stood, handing her the latte and wrapping your arms around her lithe body.

“I got an interview!” You squealed, rocking your bodies side to side. She stilled you and smiled. “Gosh, that’s great, Y/n. How’d you get it?”

“Well, I called, like everyone, and he picked up, Wanda! he picked up! I’m scheduled for Friday, and my Lord, Wanda, his laugh, it's like honey...” You trailed off, sighing at the thought of him. Your head was rested on her shoulder, a faint smile on your face. “You’ve got a crush on him!” Wanda exclaimed, grabbing your shoulders and holding you an arm's length away to get a good look at your bashful face.

You gasped, “No I do not! That would be totally unprofessional!” The cackle that erupted from her made her sound like the wicked witch of the west. And honestly, under her stare, you felt like Dorothy stuck under that house.

When Wanda was finally done laughing maliciously she let you go, plopping down in her desk chair and sipping her latte. She pointed over and your desk and gave you a look. “Better start drafting those questions... we wouldn’t want you to blank on your crush.” “Wanda!”

❀ ❀ ❀

The days leading up to Friday were excruciatingly long, yet the hours until twelve flew past all too quickly.

It seemed as if your wardrobe was never ending, full of clothes that you deemed inappropriate for a meeting with the CEO of American Enterprises. You threw yourself back onto the bed, hair and makeup done but body still wrapped in a fluffy white towel. “Oh Milky, what am I gonna wear?” The soft white kitty glared at you from the pillow she was perched on, meowing at you aggressively.

Ten thirty blinked on the clock and you sat up, glancing at all of the clothes that were scattered on the floor. “I guess this will do.” You picked up the same emerald blazer you had chosen originally and layered it over some basic Levi’s, and gray low cut blouse flowing over your form. A belt was necessary, so you grazed over your options. Brown wouldn’t go, even though it was your only fancy belt. The only black one you had was old, the leather cracked and worn, but it had to do. You slipped on some pretty black heels, lucky that you painted your toes a similar color to your blouse. After accessorizing you sprayed your signature perfume, the one that got you your first college-aged boyfriend, and the same one that you were wearing when you got your first real job.

By the time you were on the Metro, it was eleven o’ six, and you were worried. If you were late you’d lose this chance, and probably your job. The car stopped around eleven fifteen, giving you fifteen minutes to make your way to the building, check-in, and try to not seem so nervous.

Finding the building wasn’t difficult at all, after all, it is the second biggest building in New York City, competing with Stark Tower. The “A” at the top wasn’t illuminated, but it still stood out against the other buildings, cowering over them.

You found that the doors were heavy and if you denied Wanda of going to those burn boot camps you would have extreme difficulty prying them open. The inside was classy, just as you expected. The lamps had blue shades and the front desk lit up with a design that resembled the American Flag, but with less curved stripes and only one large star.

The receptionist was one of the women who shot you down immediately when you called and was a little surprised when you checked in. “Hello, I’m here for Mr. Rogers, twelve o’clock?” She searched for something on her computer, clearly trying to see if the appointment was legitimate. When you were proven correct, she handed you a temporary security badge and a sharpie to write your name on it. “Have a seat over there when you’re finished. I’ll call for you when Mr. Rogers is ready for you.” She smiled, it was fake, but it helped you feel more comfortable.

The red couch was stiff and small, clearly not meant for long periods of sitting. The badge was clipped onto your blouse, not your blazer, and the weight of it was pulling at the already low cut neckline. You thought about moving it, but your attention was quickly turned to the coffee table, where your magazine sat, opened to an article you wrote. Your hands were a little shaky as you went to close the magazine, but you were interrupted before you could grasp the bent pages.

“Miss. Y/n? Mr. Rogers is ready for your interview. Head up to floor thirty six, the door on the right.” Miss receptionist sounded bored, her eyes never left the monitor in front of her. “Thanks.”

Some of the others in the waiting area looked up to you after hearing where you were going, causing you to blush.

You felt lucky to get the elevator to yourself. Thirty-six floors is a long way to go, yet you got there in under three. In the elevator you adjusted your outfit and flattened your hair, hoping it wasn’t frizzy.

The door on the right was clearly not just a meeting room but an office, which you thought was odd. You also found it odd that no one was in the room, you expected to at least be met with his assistant or secretary, if not Steve himself.

Your eyes scanned the room to make sure it was completely empty before taking a seat on the leather chair on the opposite side of the big desk. You opened your notebook and got out your lucky rooster pen before going over your questions once again, hoping he didn’t think they were stupid.

You waited fifteen minutes for him, growing increasingly irked as the minutes built up. When he walked through the door you felt like your heart stopped.

Six-four build covered in a black suit and tie, white undershirt pristine. Blonde hair disheveled and a perfectly manicured beard. The door slammed shut and you heard the clinking sound of a glass being set down. Steve lifted his head and you snapped yours to the front, hoping he didn’t catch you checking him out.

The room was silent besides a rustling coming from behind you. You busied yourself with your notebook, highlighting the questions you wanted to ask most.

“You’re a very patient girl.” He observed. Steve made you wait on purpose. He knew from the first person you called that you wanted an interview, he was friends with Maria Hill after all. But he wanted some entertainment, and after looking into you, he knew you were the right girl. So far he’s made you wait an hour and fourteen minutes for just a smidge of his attention.

“Yes, Sir.” You mumbled, accidentally stopping the highlighter too soon, pressing it down, and letting the pink ink bleed to the next page. He hummed in approval as he rounded the corner, drink in his hand, coat jacket discarded, sleeves rolled up, first couple buttons loose. Finally, Steve sat in the big chair, keeping eye contact with you as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the mahogany table.

“Give me that.” Your eyebrows furrowed at his statement, “What?” You asked, putting your pen down on your lap. Steve motioned for your notebook, and you opened your mouth, starting to stumble over your words. “Oh? um- Okay?” You handed it over to him and he relaxed back into his chair. A question bubbled in your throat, but you didn’t let it escape. Instead, you watched as his eyes scanned the papers, blue cursive, and pink highlighter, little stars and flowers drawn in the corners. “Mr. Rogers, are you ready to start the interview?” You tapped your watch, twelve twenty four.

He nodded, “Yes, I’m ready.” You cleared your throat and went to ask for your notebook, but he beat you to it. “Miss. L/n, is there an achievement or something that you’ve contributed to me that you are most proud of?” Why was he asking you your own questions? “Sir, I-“ He cut you off once again. “Answer the question, doll.”

You huffed and crossed your arms over your chest. “I- um, no. I haven’t contributed anything to you that I should be proud of, Sir.”

“Is there a particular moment or memory of building this relationship that stands out to you?” He continued with the questions, tilting his head to the side. Why was he twisting the questions onto you? When you didn’t come up with an answer he chuckled, sounding sickly sweet like molasses dripping straight from the sugarcane. “Patience finally wearing thin, honey?” You nodded eyes staring at his chest, you couldn’t quite muster up the courage to look him in the eye.

He snapped your notebook closed and slid it towards your side of the grand desk. “You couldn’t answer my questions correctly, Y/n.” You nodded, eyes now downcast, admiring the pattern on the blue carpet. You felt like you were going to cry. This big scary man was mean and just wouldn’t let you conduct your interview and you didn’t know why. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

“I know you are, doll. But, if you can’t answer my questions how can I answer yours? You have nothing to offer me.” This was it, you were losing your chance. “Business wise, that is.” Your head shook, and your hands were clasped together, your left thumb rubbing your right nail back and forth. “I don’t understand, Sir.”

“I’m friends with Maria, Y/n. If you’re able to get this article done and get me on the cover you’re gonna get a promotion, you want that, right doll?” Your eyes went wide, “Yes, Sir.” Now, he stood, coming around to the front where you are and leaning against the desk. “She said to make it difficult, but I don’t care enough to do all that. So, doll, I’ll answer your questions. They’re quite good actually. And I’ll do a little photoshoot for the cover, but you’ll need to pay me back.” You gulped, hands suddenly sweaty, you felt like a little chihuahua, trembling under his gaze.

“How? Um, how do I pay you?” Gosh, even your voice was shaky. “Stand up. Lose the blazer.” Steve commanded, slowly unbuckling his belt. You could faintly tell from the buckle that it was Hermès. You stood and took off your blazer in a rush, folding it poorly and setting it on the arm of the chair. “Atta girl.”

He placed his hands on your shoulders and then ran them down to your hands, giving them a little squeeze before he hooked his index fingers into your belt loops, pulling you closer. So close that the tips of your shoes were touching. He leaned down to kiss your neck and you stiffened, but when he grazed his teeth over the bruised spot he just created you melted into him, your hands grasping at the pristine white button up, letting out a little whimper.

Steve pushed you back a little and took in your form, then he pulled the little security badge off, tossing it to the side. Like a little kid, he pulled at the neckline of your shirt. “Off.” You would’ve giggled at him if he didn’t look so scary right now. His blue eyes were piercing into yours, left hand so tight on your hip you thought he might leave bruises.

By the time your shirt hit the floor, he was pushing at your shoulders, hinting at you to go to your knees. “Sir, I don’t know-“

You started, knees hitting the carpet underneath you. He shushed you and guided your head to look up at him. “It's okay, baby, you don’t have to know how. I’ll do all the work, doll. Now, undo your bra.” As expected you did as he asked immediately, fumbling with the clasp until it fell down your arms. It ended up next to your thigh as you watched him pull his belt through the loops.

Steve walked around you and kneeled down, belt in his hands. “Put your hands behind your back.” You nodded immediately, so submissive, completely at his mercy. “Yes, Sir.” Steve loved how polite you were. He made quick work of restraining you, tying your hands to rest against your jean clad ass. The metal felt harsh against your skin and the soft, expensive leather snaked up your arms.

When he was back in front of you he sighed and shook his head. “I should’ve had you unzip me first.” Hearing Steve say that finally brought you to the reality of what was about to happen. You watched with big eyes as he undid the button and then the zipper, the sound making you tremble. His dress pants puddled on the floor and you were in awe as he massaged his bulge through his boxers. Slowly, he pulled them down to the middle of his thighs. His cock bounced up to hit his abdomen and he hissed as he stroked it a few times. “Open as wide as you can, honey.”

As always, you did as asked. Your tongue stuck out a little, wetting your bottom lip. He grasped the back of your head and leaned you forward a little, then you felt his blunt tip on your tongue. You gagged and spluttered when Steve was about halfway seated, he pulled out and leaned down, kissing you sloppily. “Breathe through your nose, baby. Don’t forget.” Then he was back at slowly entering your throat. “Fuck...” he grunted, finally fully seated in your throat, your nose pressed against his nicely groomed pubic hair. He caressed your throat then, rubbing the bulge in your throat, resisting the urge to press down and have you choke on his cock even more. “So good, Y/n.”

Steve started rocking into your throat, slowly fucking it as spit leaked from the corners of your mouth. After minutes of abusing your throat, he finally pulled out, adoring the way tears ran down your cheeks and how you hiccupped, wanting to desperately rub at your raw throat to soothe it. Your hands pulled at the belt and your eyes begged Steve to undo it. “Up, doll.”

He hoisted you up from your armpits and bent you over the desk. Steve pressed kisses down your back and reached in front of you, unbuckling your belt and throwing it somewhere to the left of you, then he unbuttoned and unzipped your pants, tugging them down with fervor.

Steve undid your restraints and left more kisses down your back until he reached your ass, spreading your cheeks to reveal your tight hole and glistening cunt. “I’d love to see this ass all bruised and red, but I’ll have to save that for another day.” His index and middle finger ran circles on your clit, your back arching to press into him more. “Sir, please!” You gasped, your hand flying out to the edge of the table and nearly knocking over the glass of whiskey he left on a coaster when Steve finally pushed two fingers into your aching hole.

“Gotta open you up first, doll, get you all sloppy and ready for my cock.” You cried out as he hooked his fingers, rubbing the magic spot inside of you. “Please, Steve, please.” He cooed at you, pulling his fingers out, and instead traced his name over your clit. “You gonna come, baby? Huh? You gonna drench my fingers, little girl?” You were moaning in wanton, hips humping his hand desperately. He brought his other hand down and started fingerfucking you again, giving you just enough to push you over the edge.

Your moans were breathy, your legs twitching, and you were panting by the time your orgasm faded. “I hope you know I’m not done with you yet, doll, I still haven’t come inside you.” That made you whine high in your throat and you tried, to no avail, to slam your legs shut around his hand.

Steve’s right hand fisted his cock a few times, making sure he’s rock hard and dripping with pre-cum, while his left kept your lips spread, showing him your gorgeous pussy. The blunt head at your entrance shocked you, and you yelped at the intrusion. “Sir!”

He leaned his head down and spit where you were joined, trying to make the glide even easier. “Shut up, doll.” He snapped after you cried out. Once he was as deep as possible inside of you he reached for his belt, looping it over as if he was going to spank you, and stuffed it into your mouth. “Bite down,” Steve demanded, a hand snaked around to the front of your neck where he was applying light pressure.

When you tried to push back against him he held your hips down against the wood steadily and started snapping his hips at a fast speed. Each thrust pushed you down onto the table, letting your clit rub against the mahogany wood.

Your vision felt spacey like you could black out any moment as he choked you. Your orgasm washed over you and you had to use all the strength you had in you to keep biting down on the belt. You didn’t want to know what would happen if you disobeyed his and let it go. Steve’s hips harshly snapped against your ass a few more times before he stilled inside of you, filling you with his spunk.

Before Steve cleaned you up and let you leave his office he had to finger his cum back inside of you, making sure none of it went to waste. Then, he made sure you had a way home, and a way to contact him, because, “Now you’re no longer Magazine Girl, but My Girl.”

@lo-bells

#steve x reader #steve rogers x reader #steve smut #steve rogers smut #dark!steve #dark!steve x reader #marvel #avengers fanfic #captain america #ceo!au #chris evans #leah-bobeea

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yawchannel · 4 years ago

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INTERVIEW: The Falcon And The Winter Soldier for SFX Magazine (Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan Part) (Issue 337, February 24th, 2021)

By Tara Bennett

WING MAN

Anthony Mackie is Sam Wilson / Falcon

SFX: You’ve admitted that initially you weren’t sure on the idea of doing an MCU Series. Why?

ANTHONY: To be honest, I’ve had trepidation from the beginning. I was really afraid of the idea. Working on so many Marvel projects, and seeing the end result and the effect that they have on people, I was afraid that the quality of the production would be taken down for television. I was afraid that you can’t do things on television that you can do in theatres.

Seeing people’s reactions to Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame in the theatres, and hearing the connection that the audience members have with these characters... that’s every actor’s dream, to affect an audience and expose them to a different way of looking at culture and the world around us. I was really afraid that I wouldn’t have that opportunity to step out on that ledge like the actors before me had.

But once we talked, and once they brought on Malcolm and Kari, I knew it was going to be something different. Kari is a phenomenal leader, and Malcolm is an amazing writer. And Kevin promised me that it wasn’t going to be different. He’s not going to tarnish the Marvel brand by trying to just blow out as much content as he could. And I trusted him on that. They haven’t let me down yet, so I just went along for the ride on faith of their past work. And I was really pleasantly surprised by how great everything turned out.

SFX: Steve was an integral part of both Sam and Bucky’s lives. How does the show explore his absence?

ANTHONY: With Sam and Bucky, the idea of losing Steve looms heavily in their day-to-day-life. Captain America - not just a moniker, but the person - was a huge influence on both of them. The idea of the moniker is not as important as the person that they lost. Their whole goal, and their whole focus, is to honour Steve, because he left them with such a huge task to pick up where he left off. Just the weight of the shield with no Steve leads us to believe that there might not be another Captain America. There will never be another Steve Rogers, so for the two of them, the idea of the Captain America moniker is more of a burden than a blessing. They really try and allow that to be an influence of the legacy that he left, and how they can keep that legacy alive and support him - while also missing him and being very sad that he’s not around any more.

SFX: Will we see more of Sam’s regular life?

ANTHONY: We get to see more of them in their surroundings, their personal life, with people who influence their life day-to-day: family members, friends, co-workers. You got a little bit of it with Sam when Steve went to the VA when they first met. But now you really get to see his twists and turns and where exactly he fits in his nine-to-five, as opposed to him just sitting around waiting for Cap to call. That was one of the biggest pitches that Nate and Kevin gave to me that really intrigued me and excited me about this story.

SFX: Exploring Sam’s big choice when it comes to taking up Cap’s shield encompasses so many real-life issues, including race. Was Malcom a solid partner in conveying that?

ANTHONY: You know, it wasn’t just Malcolm and I. What was really interesting was Kari [Skogland] and Zoie [Nagelhout] were very local in the idea of who this man was, and what he was going to mean to the society that we were presenting him to. It’s funny, with Kari being a white Canadian woman, and Zoie being a white American woman, they had such strong parts of opinion and such interesting ways of seeing this character that were way more aggressive than anything I could have imagined. Their perspective and bravery, as two women leading the charge, to show the situation that this character was being thrust into in the world that he lived in, was very humbling. I always felt support. It always felt like there were people around me who were paying attention to what we were saying as a show.

BUCKY STAR

Sebastian Stan is Bucky Barnes / The Winter Soldier

SFX: After Endgame, how did you feel overall, about staying in the MCU?

SEBASTIAN: At the end of Endgame it was sort of strange and emotional. At the time, it was the 10-year anniversary, so everything felt like an ending, of sorts, even though we recognised that there was probably going to be more to it. But it was great to be able to have a discussion about the future.

SFX: Who at Marvel Studios initially pitched the idea of this series to you?

SEBASTIAN: I sat with Kevin [Feige] initially. And then with Nate Moore, who I had done Civil War and Winter Soldier with, and had an unbelievable experience. I think I was a little nervous, because part of me felt like “I’m not even sure if I know what’s left to be explored with the character”. But we actually discovered so much more. And I feel like the character now is coming off in such a different, deeper and more complex way than we’ve seen him. I thought I had explored the character, as he was, enough, but we actually had only scratched the surface. What we’re able to do with him in this series is just on such a deeper emotional level, and we didn’t have that opportunity before.

SFX: What was most interesting to you about doing a series?

SEBASTIAN: The idea of exploring this character now, separately, from Steve Rogers and from that storyline, and putting him in the world, and giving him an opportunity to really, truly, have to face who he is - everything about that was exciting. And the idea of working with Anthony was exciting, because I know we have something special and we’ve never gotten a chance to explore it.

SFX: Who are Sam and Bucky to one another in this series?

SEBASTIAN: They both despise each other equally! [Laughs] I mean, there’s some truth to that. But it’s also a discovery for both of them to realise that they actually have much more in common than they thought. They come at it from different backgrounds. But essentially, they’re both two people trying to find their new identity, and that really has nothing to do with Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers is much more the catalyst, like the event that sets off the bomb that causes both of them to go, “Okay, that happened. Now, let me deal with these things”. I think it’s about them figuring out that they need each other much more than they want to accept.

SFX: With no Steve to lean on, what is Bucky focused on?

SEBASTIAN: It’s a bit of re-educating that happens at the same time. He’s learning a lot about Sam, and he’s also learning about the world, because it’s a very different world than when we was last “James Bucky Barnes” in the ‘50s. He’s always got to deal with the shadow that’s following him. Now it’s more of a question of, how does he take what he’s learned and apply it for himself, going forward? How do you go out there in 2021 and function, knowing what he knows and what he’s bee through? And also, how do you do it without somebody who was a brother by his side, who was a staple of strength, or familiarity? You take away even the last comfort zone - what does he have? That’s what the show is about for him.

SFX: Why do you feel that Bucky has been able to retain fan sympathy during his dark arc?

SEBASTIAN: He felt much more reachable and reachable than other characters, perhaps because of the arcs of trying to cope with the past, or getting over some trauma, or PTSD. And his level of finding oneself again, redefining yourself, your morals, your values, who you are, what you believe in, the challenges that you have - in terms of accepting the world a certain way - understanding that maybe how you grew up and what you’ve learned isn’t going to always help you find your path. You’re going to have to maybe go against the things that you’ve been used to. Those are all things about this character that are very interesting.

There are two more interviews with Showrunner Malcolm Spellman and Director Kari Skogland included in the issue!

If you'd like to get a copy, SFX Magazine Issue 337 is available to purchase both physically and digitally worldwide! https://magazinesdirect.com/mobile/az-single-issues/6937139/sfx-magazine-single-issue.thtml

#anthony mackie #sebastian stan #sam wilson #bucky barnes #sambucky #stackie #falcon and winter soldier #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws #disney plus

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nitannichionne · 4 years ago

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If He Was Your Fan, Chapter 59: Prerogatives (A Henry Cavill Fanfic)

Chapter 59: Prerogatives (Henry POV)

CHAPTER 59: Prerogatives

NOTE: Thanks for your support and input, especially last chapter!

(Henry POV)

I lay in bed, looking at her. I made it priority to wear her out last night:

“Aaahhhhh!” she screamed as I drove her hips up and down an my cock. She gripped my shoulders, her head falling back riding out the previous orgasm. “I can’t—”

“You can,” I growled, turning her under me. My tongue snaked to her mouth, moistening her dried lips and the insides of her mouth. I went down on her again and she let out a whimper. We both moaned as we felt her passion flow again. “Ah, that’s it.” Her hips raised off the bed and I crawled between her legs, nibbling her torso on the way back up, and aligned my hips with hers again. I rubbed my meatus against her slit, kissing her neck.

She gave a kitten cry as my tongue surged inside her mouth, my cock thrusting into her at the same time. The sound struck the base of my neck and lit a path down my spine, making me ache to pound her again. How I loved hearing that sound, feeling her body become pliant in my arms but feeling her fingertips rake my back deliciously as her sex pulsed and pulled me, her eyes half open as if under a spell…my spell. Doesn’t she know what that does to me?

I sigh, blinking back to present. I am trying get it. She wants to establish her own identity in this new life here in the U.K. She didn’t see it coming, and she wants to try to start anew, get her bearings, as it were. I understand.

But I DON’T understand why she has to do it this way. I am being selfish, and I know it, but I barely care, I think as I lick my lips watching her. Yet I do care about her and how she feels, and I am going along with this. Did I sweep her off her feet? I must have not done a good job. She seemed stable the whole time we were together in all three film sites.

I hate games. Is that what this is? It’s hard for me to believe that. Our relationship started so differently from most. Our whole history is different from most. And I have never ever had a woman be so understanding of my quirks, like my gaming and such. She seemed fine when I went to work, didn’t even show a bit of insecurity until…until I put it there…damn, am I still paying for that?

And I gave her my ring! How can she question everything when she is wearing my crest on her finger? She had to know I was working up to popping the question. I looked down at the one she gave me. She thought it wasn’t good enough. How can she think that?

“Henry?”

I look at her. I’d been quiet too long.

She looks dejected. “Can we just…go outside awhile?”

I swallow hard. “Yeah, in a bit.”

“Oh, okay,” she nods, but she looks like she’s going to cry. “I’ll take Luna out. You bring Kal, alright?”

“Yeah.”

She gets Luna’s harness, and she, thinking she is part dog, trots over to be leashed. I can’t help but smile at that. “Okay, then.”

The second she’s alone, I get on my phone. I see all these numbers I’d conveniently blocked out—actresses and such, women I could call up. I slowed at Emma’s.

I call up my brother. I can’t believe I’m calling him. As the line rings, I realize how serious I am about her and how much I want to truly understand and not lose her.

“Hold on,” he says. “Let me get this right. She wants to not move in with you yet?”

“No.”

“Oh, she might be a proper lady, Henry.”

I roll my eyes at that. “She is.”

“No, you know what I mean,” he chastises. “She wants to establish her own status.”

“She wears my ring.”

“A ring, or the ring?”

“The ring.”

“Well, Good Lord, Henry, the horse is out of the barn!” he is quiet for a moment. “Did you ask her? Does she know what that ring means?”

“No.”

“Henry!”

“Good Lord, you sound like Mum.”

“No, she’d probably hit you in the back of the head with a paper,” he mutters.

“You’re not helping.”

“She loves you, and she wants to make a name for herself before you change it. She wants to be sure it isn’t proximity but really a desire to be together. She wants other people to at least have reason to feel that way too. Good enough?”

I sigh. “Good enough.”

“I kind of like her already.”

“She’s American.”

He lets out a low whistle. “Told Mum?”

“Met Mum online.”

“Well, well, well,” he teases. “When are the rest of us going to meet her?”

“Soon.”

“Good man,” he encourages. “Remember, it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind—”

“--And a man’s prerogative to change it back,” I finish with my brother. We have a laugh. Mum always hated that quote.

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.” I hang up and look at Kal. “Well, I guess that’s that, Kal. Let’s go.”

We join her and Luna outside. She looks worried. I can’t help but soften. She wants my understanding.

“So, tell me about this place at Stella’s,” I exhale.

“It’s in Brixton, not far from you,” she says hopefully, her eyes widening. “It’s a studio.”

“Small?”

“I don’t know, but it’s furnished and I can still afford it even with the pet fees.”

I look at the stars in the sky, the Northern Lights beginning to fade. For the first time I hold to the fact that they are still there. I take a deep breath. “I can help you settle in.”

“You will?” Painful relief crosses her features as she leans into me.

I drag her to my side. “If this is what you need, pet, but I want you to know that ring means something to certain parts of society.”

She is quiet for a moment, and swallows hard, looking at the ring on her finger. “Should I give this back—”

“No,” I say flatly. “And you can take my ring off my cold dead hand!” I earn a laugh from her. I gather her close. “I don’t fully agree, my love, but if this is what you need—” I was cut off by her pulling me down for a kiss. It was tender and vulnerable, tasting of tears.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

We look at the skies. “They are fading.”

“They’re still there,” she whispers with a shrug. “They’ll be back. We’ll be back.”

“We should camp next time.”

“No plumbing?” Her eyes widen. “No thank you.”

i couldn't help but laugh at that, and honestly I couldn't agree more. We finished our playtime with Luna and Kal and head inside. We ate all of our leftovers and curled in bed that night, warming each other. Snow and rain had fallen in the time we were here, only to melt and warm again. “Brixton.”

“Yes, Brixton,” she whispers. “It’s not Group A, but I can afford it and Stella says it’s nice. I know it’s not the most desirable area.”

It dawns on me that she is afraid of London, really afraid of it-the society.

may be in middle middle and you are upper, and I know that I think your line was Baronet but now Gentry, and that I am…well, essentially, no one to that, but…”

“I assure you, it’s not as strict as you think.” I look into her eyes and see real fear.

“Well, your father is in finance, so he still has the status, your brothers are in professions that adheres to the same—”

“And I’m an actor, love.”

“Line and wealth, Henry.”

I chilled at her words. She was truly afraid of not being considered good enough. And what’s more, she really thought I cared. “I love you.”

“I love you,” she whispers, framing my face in her hands. “but what of James Bond? What of the Knighthood?”

I laugh, albeit nervously. “Knighthood?” I pull her on top of me. “Stop it.”

“What?”

“Do you really care about all that?”

“I guess the real question is, do you?”

The question hung in the air. “If it comes, it comes, darling.”

“And if the door is closed without consideration?”

“If I do great works that improve or enrich over time, I can be considered.” I tell her.

“Like Durrell?”

“Among other things.”

“I want to be an asset to you—”

“You already are,” I pull her down and squeeze her for a hug. “Good God, woman.” I pull her back, looking at her. “You are beautiful and brilliant with a heart bigger than the skies we’re under. That’s why I love you.” I slap her arse. “This bum doesn’t hurt, either.”

“You’re so bad!” she playfully slaps my chest, making me laugh.

I take a deep breath. “I will back you, whatever you do, pet. I see you need this now.” But in my eyes it was far from necessary.

“Thank you,” she whispers in my ear, hugging me. “thank you for understanding this.”

I hug her close. I hug her as if she is all I have. I hate that she feels this way, though there may be some truth to it, but it will be so subtle that she shouldn’t notice. Smart as she is, I should have known she would. But I have never felt like this before. I get the feeling she hasn’t either. It means something-we mean something…

@mistress-of-ward @nuggsmum @messyinsomnimaniac @jencanbeyouryengeralt @sweetdreamsofgelato @mary-ann84 @omgkatinka @the-soot-sprite @viking-raider @keanureevesisbae @henryobsessed @summersong69 @sunshine96love @michelehansel @thelastsock @tumblnewby @tenaciousneckpartypainter @rn7rocks @daydreamin83 @ruthoakenshield @musicartmayheminmyheart @kaatelyynn-blog-blog@forallthebrokenheartedthings @alphacancrii @liquorlaughslove @designerwriterchic @tamychm @nikkilynn303 @circesgirl1 @xoxohannahlee @pixie88@fckdeusername @maan24 @kaatelyyynn @october505 @absentmindr @introvertedmouse @sassy-pelican @griscka75

#henry cavill #henry cavill fandom #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill smut #henry cavill fluff #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill x you #august walker #captain syverson #clark kent #geralt #sherlock #superman #walter marshall #will shaw #witcher

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thegirlfromoverthepond · 4 years ago

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Jingle Bells

Hello !

Here’s a little piece I wrote for @talesofpanem‘s Everlark Holiday Bingo...

I think I tick D2 (thank you @xerxia31) ... Plus, can you spot the sentence that was a challenge to put in the story ? (Evil grin)

Oh, and this fic is totally based on this K-mart ad. Just saying.

I want to thank @hutchhitched and @xerxia31 for the organization. Might I had this story wouldn’t be there without @xerxia31‘s stellar betaing skills. Enough talking ....

JINGLE BELLS

“I can’t even believe they’re doing this. I mean… I can believe Finn is doing it, but Darius? Gale? PEETA? I mean, into what universe have we fallen?”

I chuckle at Madge’s words. Because I truly have no idea why my best friend, my friends and my secret boyfriend will be the next ones on stage, jingling bells to raise money for the food bank.

They could have picked anything. Last year, Peeta was Santa, taking pictures with the kids, and Annie and I were his devoted little helpers. That’s when I discovered there was much more to Peeta than met the eyes. He wasn’t only the perfect American poster boy, he had layers that I didn’t expect, and damn was he an awesome kisser. And lover.

That’s also the year Gale finally decided to ask Madge out, the rest is now history. They are talking about moving together, seeing as she spends almost every night at his place, instead of in her bedroom in the apartment we share.

Which is totally okay by me, since Peeta can come over quite often too.

“Did I miss anything?” Annie, Finnick’s girlfriend has finally arrived. She works on the other side of Panem, and was afraid to be late for the show.

“Well, apart from Glimmer trying to prove she can sing, no.”

“Again?”

I nod at Annie’s words. We all know, well, the whole world knows Glimmer can’t sing to save her own life. She’s the only one totally oblivious to it. So, every single year, she graces us with the worst ever rendition of “All I want for Christmas”.

“Did Jo perform?” Annie asks, taking her phone from her jeans pocket.

I laugh at her question.

“Effie forbade Jo to perform.”

“Why?”

I turn to look at Annie, startled she doesn’t know. Madge is the first to talk, barely hiding her smile.

“You weren’t there last year?” Madge asks. That’s when I remember Annie was sick with Covid for last year’s Christmas Charity Concert. “Let’s say Jo did quite an unbelievable number, finishing completely nude.”

“Oh my God, no wonder Effie didn’t want her back.” Annie laughs, before looking at her phone. “Why is Finn sending me a picture of boxer briefs?”

I look at Madge, who seems unaware of what’s happening with the boys. We both look at the picture Annie shows us, and indeed, it’s a pair of blue boxer briefs, with Christmas ornaments on it. A sleigh, Santa, tinsel, every Christmas cliché seems to be there.

“Seems like Finn wants to play Santa to Mrs Claus tonight” Madge replies, amused, as her own phone beeps too. She quickly looks at it, before turning her phone to us.

On the screen there’s a pair of red boxers, also adorned with Christmas ornaments.

“Must be a joke of theirs,” I shrug, as I feel my own phone vibrate. Thank god I put it on silent. ”Or it’s a message for you to really go buy some Mrs Claus outfits!”

“Didn’t Gale tell you? He’s your cousin!” Madge looks at me as if I had a clue of what’s going on.

“You think I talk to Gale about his choice of boxer briefs? I have no idea what’s going on, Madge!”

“Sorry, I just thought they were pranking us or something.”

“Well, they must be pranking us,” I agree, as my phone vibrates again. I take it out of my pocket as Madge turns towards Annie, the both of them staring at the pictures they received minutes ago. I smile when I see Peeta has sent me two texts.

Two pictures of a green pair of boxer briefs, adorned with christmas ornaments too.

What the hell are they doing? I ask myself, as I look at the pictures.

“That’s the question, right? You got one too? Who sent it to you?” Madge can be a phenomenal investigator when she puts her mind to it.

I am literally saved by the bell. A concert of bells. When the curtain opens we see five men, waving the bells they are holding in their hands, in a concert of ho-ho-hos.

Of course Finnick is in the center, winking at Annie as soon as he sees her. Those two are so sweet it hurts my teeth. Gale and Peeta are at his side, adjusting their tux jackets while talking with their respective neighbours, Darius and Thresh.

Needless to say, five handsome men in tuxedos on a stage radiating confidence provokes quite an uproar from the crowd of women around me.

They start to whistle and shout as soon as Finnick starts paying attention to them.

“Are we ready, ladies?” Finnick says. That’s when I realize they all have mics. I sincerely hope they won’t sing because one thing is for sure: he’s my boyfriend and I might-kinda be in love with him, but Peeta can’t carry a tune.

The crowd echoes with shouts. I always wonder how he can turn women on like that. I mean, of course, he’s handsome, all lean muscles and bronze hair, green eyes shining, but he’s … too much for me. I do prefer my own stocky built man, with his luminous blue eyes and his mop of curly blonde hair. He’s so cute when he’s smiling.

“It’s starting!” Madge pulls me out of my thoughts of Peeta’s cuteness to bring me back to the view of my boyfriend in a tuxedo with bells in his hands.

Winking.At.Me.

The bastard.

We both agreed to go slow with this relationship as we both don’t have stellar history in that field.

“Who is Peeta winking at?” Of course, Madge notices. Remember what I told you about her being a star investigator?

“No clue.” I shrug, as I try not to falter under her staring eyes. She’s perceptive, and I think she guessed that something is going on.

I look back at the stage when I hear the bells jingling.

It’s surprisingly short. They just bell “sleep in heavenly peace”, then put the bells down.

I am not alone wondering what’s going on when the table in front of the men moves away revealing … oh my …

The five men on the stage are wearing tuxedo jackets… but not pants. The five of them are adorned in boxer briefs of different shades, all Christmas-y themed. Red, blue, green, grey and yellow.

I guess that explains the pictures we received, right? I can’t help but look at Peeta’s legs, covered in blonde hair, muscular from years of wrestling and lifting heavy bags of flour at his parents’ bakery. I know exactly where the scar from his torn ACL is. Know exactly which place to touch to elicit moaning.

I’m not willing to share him with the horde of women now shouting.

I’m about to walk up and show them he’s mine when the boys line up again. Finnick calls the room to attention.

“Ladies ,we would like to introduce you to a totally new, never seen before rendition of Jingle Bells.” He turns towards someone, nods once, and the lights dim. The boys stretch out their hands, before linking them behind their heads.

Peeta’s tuxedo jacket rises a little. I recognize the trail of hair on his stomach, the hair I play with when we lay together in bed.

I am so focused on his stomach that I would have missed their choreography if it hadn’t been centered on their hips.

It starts with Finnick, of course. He’s always the first when there are crazy things to do. He starts thrusting his groin along with the sound of the bells.

One after the other the guys start to jingle their bells on the stage. Along to the music.

“Can you believe this?” Madge asks as they take their bows, large grins on their faces.

“Alas, I can, as I’ve seen it. I am very frightened for next year, they might call Johanna back,” I say, as I feel my phone vibrate again.

“I’m going to ask Gale for a private performance tonight!”

“Oh, I’m definitely doing the same with Finnick!” Annie says, as she looks at the crowd of women surrounding the guys.

“TMI, TMI!” Why do they feel the need to share such private information with me ? “You’re not going in for a rescue?” I ask as I watch hints of red bloom on Madge’s cheeks.

“Yeah, you’re right, I should. Won’t you go help Peeta?”

“Why would I go help Peeta?” I hastily reply.

Madge shrugs. “Isn’t it what you two usually do? Protect each other?”

I sigh, before taking my phone out of my pocket and typing a quick message to Peeta.

“Here. Are you happy, Margaret?”

She quickly reads the text and shows it to Annie, before giving me my phone back.

“Katniss, you’re going to need to improve your sexting skills. I doubt ‘ Do I need to send in the SWAT team?’ is considered flirting, you know?”

I take back my phone and send it before smiling at my friends.

“Who said I needed help? Your men, on the other end…” I point out the group of women still in front of the stage, and happily see my two friends walking towards their men.

My phone buzzes in my hand. I smile as I read Peeta’s text.

No need to. But be ready to jingle my bells tonight.

I already am.

_____________________________________

That’s it ! Let me know what you think and Merry 2020 Christmas! May the odds be in your favor !

#everlark holiday bingo #tales of panem #everlark #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark

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myhockeyworld87 · 4 years ago

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Not So Dangerous Liaison - Sidney Crosby - Part 20

Word Count: 3,745

POV: Sid’s

Warngings: Language, Smut, NSFW but also kind of fluffy

Notes: It’s late, so no one will probably read this...haha But I’m putting it out there anyhow, because I need to hold myself accountable and I said I would post it after the Stars game. (Sidenote: I’m still upset about that loss) Anyhow, this is basically all smut. I was just in that kind of mood with Sid this week what can I say. As always love your feedback and Happy Reading!

Not So Dangerous Liaison Masterlist

Paris was everything you'd ever dreamed it would be and so much more now that you'd finally told (Y/N) that you loved her. Being there with her was like living out a fantasy vacation. The two of you spent the day soaking in the French culture. Holding hands as you went from exhibit to exhibit in the Louvre was everything, as (Y/N) shared your love of history. You weren't sure who was pulling who, into the next room to see each display. One of the most magical moments had to be when you were standing atop the Eiffel Tower, holding her in your arms and kissing her senseless. Though the one that stood out the most to you was standing inside Notre Dame Cathedral. Maybe it was the lighting at the moment, or the beautiful white summer sundress (Y/N) had on but you were overwhelmed with thoughts of her walking down the aisle towards you. Never in your life had you thought about marriage like you did right at that moment. You could picture her in this beautiful gown carrying a bouquet of roses as she stood amongst all your family and friends. Suddenly, you wanted to make this dream a reality, but you'd only declared your love for her a few short days ago. This was going from point A to Z in like sixty-second flat, but if there was one thing that you knew, it was how to work hard and see things come to fruition, and that started by making sure this was the best vacation that (Y/N) ever had.

The time in France had been jammed packed, for it seemed you two were always on the go. Though you did enjoy the long nights at the hotel where you spent making love to (Y/N) every and any chance you could get. She'd even been adventurous enough to have sex out on the balcony one night. It wasn't something that you'd normally do, but there was just something about this woman that had you wanting her anywhere and everywhere. Which neither one of you seemed to mind.

Thankfully, you'd booked a resort in the quiet town of Estepona, Spain, instead of Ibiza or Barcelona like you'd originally planned. The beaches were beautiful there and you enjoyed seeing (Y/N) just lounging on the chaise in her bikini. "Want to hit the water?" You asked her after closing the book you'd been reading for the last hour.

"Sure," she agreed and you both headed into the warm ocean. The waves caught you both up, as you frolicked in the sand and surf, both of you giggling. Every now and then a wave would crash along the shore almost knocking you both to the ground until you were finally able to drift beyond their breaking point. "This place is truly amazing Sid," (Y/N) told you as you swam closer to her, so you could loop your arms around her.

"You're amazing," you said nibbling on her ear which was only slightly salty from the water.

"Stop, you're making me blush."

"I like it when you do." Your hands roamed down her back to her ass, where you slid your fingers underneath her bikini bottoms before kissing her soundly on the lips.

"What are you doing?" She giggled as you attempted to pull those same bottoms to the side.

"I can't help it, you look so fucking sexy in this suit. I just have to…" you followed your words up by pressing a finger between her folds.

"Sid," she half moaned, half chided you. "Someone might see."

"Babe, look around. This beach is pretty private, for one thing, and for another, there are a couple women running around half nude." Europeans were much more liberal when it came to their sexuality then both Americans and Canadians, and you were one who wouldn't mind (Y/N) running around topless. Well, you might if you weren't by her side. "No one is going to pay any attention to us."

"But what if you're recognized or something?" You'd been lucky so far and only had a couple people come up to you in France and ask for autographs, hopefully, that streak would continue over the next week.

"No one even knows that I'm doing anything to you. Unless you decide to scream out my name. Which I'm not opposed to." (Y/N) shook her head at you, so to emphasize your point; you slid your finger deep inside her. She bit her lip to suppress the moan she so wanted to release. You continued to toy with her until she snuck her hand in your swim trunks and started to stroke your cock. "Oh, I see how it is."

"What? Two can play this game, Mr. Crosby." It was deliciously naughty to be doing this out in public with (Y/N).

"Mr. Crosby is it? I don't think that's what you called me last night." Her palm slid down your length then back up, twisting as she went and you had to grit your teeth together from the pleasurable sensations she was creating.

"Mmm, no I don't think it was." She pressed her cheek to yours, as she sucked on your earlobe. "Would you prefer Captain, or maybe Daddy, or…" She didn't finish that sentence as your thumb pressed down on her clit. Her head sank down to the crook of your neck and you thought she was going to bite you as she held back a groan. Your fingers worked faster and so did her hand, and soon she wasn't the only one stifling her moans. You were almost regretting this decision to have a little fun with her in the ocean, but then she was cuming and you were too and as your hips thrust into her hand you knew this would be one vacation memory neither of you would ever forget. "Fuck baby, that felt so good."

"More refreshing than the ocean?" She said with a little wink.

"Definitely," you kissed her then, pouring all the love you had for her into it. (Y/N) was truly one of a kind and you thanked your lucky stars, and the Fleury's, for bringing her into your life. She was exactly what you needed.

Over the next couple of days, you spent time at the beach as well as in Estepona. You took (Y/N) on a romantic carriage ride through the city streets one night, then ended up back at the hotel where you made love for hours. It was the following day that you noticed her stretching her neck more. "Babe, what's going on?"

"My neck's a little sore is all. I don't think it liked that one position you put me in last night," she said teasingly.

"Here let me massage it for you."

"Wait let me write this down because you never offer massages. It's always me giving them to you."

"That's because you're really good at them." You gave her a little wink then let your fingers rub her shoulder. "You're really knotted up."

"Yeah, but it'll work itself out eventually." She sighed contently as you worked on her muscles.

"We should get one of those couple's massages." You told her, thinking that it would be a nice way for both of you to relax. "I saw them mentioned in the brochure."

"You'd really be into that?" (Y/N) asked.

"I mean ya, if it means I get to lay next to you half-naked; I'm always in."

(Y/N) laughed before reminding you, "you know there's no 'happy ending' during these things. Well, that is unless it's different over here."

"The only happy ending I want is with your babe." You told her as you let your arms slide around her waist. "So what do you say? Should I book it?"

"I think you're trying to get out of giving me a massage once again, but I'm game. Make the call." You dropped a kiss to her neck before heading over and grabbing the phone. (Y/N) scooted into the bedroom to change into her swimsuit as the two of you had planned on going to the beach. After a call to the spa, they told you they would have everything set up in your room in an hour. You'd ask to have it there for privacy's sake and they were more than happy to accommodate you. "Babe, we've got an hour, then we've got to be back."

"Wow, you work fast," she said as she sauntered back into the living room area clad in a white bikini that had you rethinking going to the beach as well as getting those massages.

You grabbed at her waist and pulled her in close. "I'd rather work on you."

"Slow down there hot stuff. You are not getting me all….sexed up and then having someone else rubbing their hands all over me in an hour. Maybe after that hour."

"Sexed up?" You cocked your head in inquiry.

"You know what I mean." Her arms wrapped around your neck then. "You did it in the ocean the other day. We are PG until after these massages." She kissed you quickly, then slipped out of your arms before you knew what was happening. "Now are we going to the beach?" When you just stuck your lip out pouting, she added. "I'll let you put sunscreen on me."

It wasn't exactly what you were looking for but you'd take her up on it and see if you could sneak in a few kisses and feels here and there. "Deal." (Y/N) evaded all your attempts at seduction in your hour at the beach, which only had you frustrated and you hoped that you weren't sporting wood as you made your way back to your hotel room for your massage. It would be sort of awkward, but then again maybe that's what couple's massages were supposed to lead to. The room was draped in darkness as you made your way inside. Furniture had been cleared so that two tables could be set up. Rose petals were scattered all over the room with soft candlelight glowing and the relaxing sounds of the ocean playing in the background. It really was quite romantic and you found yourself pulling (Y/N) closer to your side as the masseurs introduced themselves. There was a female and a male, and you kind of wonder who would be doing who, for the guy was kind of muscular and handsome and you weren't sure you wanted him to be touching your girlfriend, especially the way he seemed to be eyeing her in her bikini.

After introductions were made, they then had you lay on top of the massage tables face up. Only a couple feet separated the distance between the two of you, so you reached out and grabbed (Y/N)'s hand, as the therapists began to work. Thankfully, the male masseur worked on you instead of (Y/N). You didn't realize what a jealous streak you had until the thought of some other guy touching her ran through your mind. "Feel free to talk to each other," the masseuse said as she kneaded (Y/N)'s shoulders.

It seemed kind of awkward to carry on an intimate conversation in front of strangers, so you stuck to just keeping things basic. "So this is nice, huh babe?" You threw in the word babe for the male therapist knowledge, letting him know that (Y/N) was indeed taken, not that he shouldn't know that given that this was a couple's thing.

"It really is. This whole vacation has been magical." She gave your hand a little squeeze. "I don't know how you want me to go back to real life after this."

"Well, we don't have to just yet. We still have a couple weeks in Cole Harbour, before heading back to Pittsburgh." You had your two days with the Stanley Cup coming up and while that would entail a little bit of work, as there was a parade planned as well as other things; there was also a big celebration that (Y/N) and your mom had been working on.

"That's true, though I'll be heading back before you."

This was news to you and had you almost rolling on your side so that you could face her. "What do you mean?"

"You know I have to be back on the twentieth to get things ready for training camp."

"Yeah, I'm going with you then." Had you forgotten to tell her that?

"Um…" she hesitated, weighing her words in front of the strangers currently massaging you. "You'll be mid training with Nate, so that's probably not going to work."

"I'll just train in Pittsburgh."

She turned her head completely so that she could look you in the eye. "We can discuss it later." The look on her face told you that there would be no arguing the point and you figured it was best to have this conversation when she was in a better mood. The two of you fell into a silence as what was supposed to be a romantic time to bring you both together now had this icy chill to it. The masseurs asked you to flip over and now you couldn't really even look at your girlfriend to gauge her mood. Instead, you started to work on a plan that would hopefully turn this time around. It was about fifteen minutes into your back rub that you sprung up from the table with an idea. You silenced the massage therapists with a finger, then wandered over by the phone grabbing the pen and paper and asking if it was possible for the two of them to leave you alone, but not let (Y/N) know. The masseur nodded his agreement a silent look passing between him and the masseuse working on (Y/N).

In a soft voice, (Y/N)'s massage therapist leaned down to her and said. "We're going to switch a moment. There's a knot that I just can't work out." (Y/N) hummed out her agreement, not moving and then the two quietly slipped out the door. You went to work, kneading the muscles of her back, hoping she wouldn't notice it was you. Years of getting massage work done on your body had taught you a thing or two, though you had to admit you loved when (Y/N) gave them to you more, hopefully, you giving her this one in return would win you some brownie points after your earlier discussion. You toiled over her upper body for quite some time before moving down to her legs. Folding the sheet up to reveal her lower half, you slathered more oil on your hands and let them glide up and down her calves working your way up her thighs. When her legs drifted slightly apart you couldn't help your hands as they traveled to her inner thighs. Each pass had you inching closer and closer to her core. All you would have to do is shift her bikini bottoms to the side, that or undo the strings, and she would be exposed to you. Instead, though, you moved your hands higher to ass, the sheet sneaking higher up.

By now you did have to wonder why she was letting some strange man touch her ass like this, but you still kept caress her globes, until temptation got the better of you, and you tugged at the strings. On your next pass of her bottom, you flopped the material down between her legs. This time letting your fingers slip between her folds. Fuck she was wet and now you didn't know if you were pissed that another man was turning her on or if your brain was just consumed with lust for this woman, but either way, you kept fondling her. You waited for her to tell you to stop, or more like the masseur to, but she didn't instead she just moaned. You couldn't help what fell from your lips. "Babe, why are you moaning?" Hopefully, it sounded like you were on the table next to her.

"Because I always do that when you touch me like that." She giggled then and you knew she'd found you out.

"How'd you know it was me?" Your fingers slipped out of her, as you were slightly stunned.

"I'd know your calloused hands anywhere Mr. Crosby." Damn, years of hockey had made your hands rough, and not nice and smooth like someone who basically bathed them in oil all day. She flipped over to her front. "But please continue, as I have to say it was quite an enjoyable massage. Do you promise a happy ending?"

"Oh baby, do I ever." You ran both hands up her legs, then moved so you were in the middle of the table, your fingers slipping down to her pussy. Taking your thumb and index finger you rubbed her outer lips together while your other hand caressed her breasts. This time when she moaned you took comfort in the knowledge that she knew it was you who was bringing her pleasure. It was easy to slip two fingers inside her with all the oil on your hands and all of the wetness on her cunt. You pumped them in and out her, your thumb flicking across her clit as you went. She spread herself wider for you, lifting one knee so you'd have more access to her. (Y/N) looked so beautiful laying there, glistening from the oils on her body and you told yourself then, that there was no way you were not going back to Pittsburgh when she did, for you didn't think you'd be able to stand being without her even for a few short weeks. Her cries brought you back to the present, and you slid your free hand to put a little pressure on her mons.

"Sid, please…" she begged and her hips started to rise which only had you adding more pressure. You worked her little nub furiously as your fingers thrust inside her. It didn't take long until you felt her pussy walls contract on your fingers, sucking them deeper inside her as she came. A rush of wetness followed and (Y/N) called out your name as the orgasm overtook her. God, she was beautiful, her body slightly flushed from climax and a sheen of both sweat and oil on it. If it was possible your cock became even harder at the sight. You watched as this euphoric transformation came across her face and took satisfaction in knowing that it was you that could make that happen to her. Her hand grabbed your wrist and hauled you close to her, so she could clamp her mouth on yours. The kiss was full of heat and desperate, turning you on even more. "Will this hold both of us?"

"I don't see why not, and if it doesn't, I'll pay for it." You stripped out of your swim trunks in record time before climbing over the top of (Y/N), and though you were confident in your reply to her; you still moved gingerly in case the massage table didn't hold up. Thankfully, it did as she wrapped her legs around your waist. The oil on both your bodies made it a challenge for her to keep the position but she did her best as your cock slid inside her slippery cunt. (Y/N) gasped at the feel of you. Buried to the hilt inside her, you almost came right there. It was like the first time that the two of you slept together and you loved that every time with (Y/N) felt new and exciting.

"Sid," she panted out, and you gazed down into her gorgeous eyes that were shining with love. "Please move…I need you." It was all she had to say, as your mouth came down on hers stealing both hers and your breath away before you slowly pumped in and out of her. She felt amazing as always, hips thrusting to meet yours as your tongues entwined. This was exactly where you saw this romantic massage leading. Well, maybe not on the actual table but this joining of your bodies and heart. (Y/N) had swept into your life and just made everything perfect and you wondered how you'd ever lived this long without her in it.

"I love you, so much (Y/N)." You felt the raw emotion in your voice and hoped she could hear it as well. They weren't just words you were saying to her, it was how you truly felt. You would do anything for this woman, give up anything as well, though she'd never ask that and you knew it. You needed her to know this but didn't know how to say it, so you let your body do the talking for you, thrusting deep inside her.

She arched her back in pleasure, though her eyes never left yours. "I love you too, Sid," and you felt it with every move of her body and gasp of her lips. You knew she felt the same way about you; needed you as much as you needed her. The first spasm of her walls milked you inside as you noticed her climax hit her. Her legs tightened around you, as they started to shake, and then she was there, pleasure cascading over her as the orgasm struck. You locked your lips with hers as she cried out and followed her down the path of climax, spilling your seed inside her.

There were endless kisses as you both came off the high and as much as you wanted to stay inside her forever; it wasn't the most comfortable position for the two of you on the small table. So dropping one last kiss to her lips, you slid out of the haven that was her pussy, lifting her up in your arms and carrying her to the bedroom. "What about returning all that?" She questioned referencing all the massage equipment in the living room.

"They'll be well compensated for waiting until tomorrow. I have other plans for us tonight." It was that way for the rest of your vacation. You couldn't get enough of (Y/N). The public displays of affection between the two of you were ridiculous, and if your teammates had seen it they would chirp you endlessly, but you didn't care. In fact, you had a feeling it would become something that happened regularly during the season, so you prepared yourself for the ribbing you would happily take.

#Not So Dangerous Liaison Series #sidney crosby #sidney crosby imagine #Sidney Crosby Imagines #Sidney Crosby Smut #Pittsburgh Penguins fanfiction #Pittsburgh Penguins imagine #Pittsburgh Penguins imagines #nhl imagines #nhl imagine #nhl fanfic #nhl smut #hockey imagine #hockey imagines #hockey fanfiction #hockey smut

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spnwatch · 4 years ago

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Season 1: The Rankings

WOW it’s been ages since I’ve posted here. But before moving on to s2, I wanted to talk about my TOP TEN FAVE EPISODES.

Something that surprised me about spn now i’ve finally watched some of it is how variable the episodes are in terms of quality. They’re not afraid to experiment either, and that flexibility is probably one reason this show lasted so long. Some things worked for me, some things didn’t. ANYWAY these are my opinions etc. just from a first time watcher!! 1.) Episode 6: SKIN. This episode, man. Where to even begin: I could be here all night. Suffice to say that the sequence where the shapeshifter sheds his Dean skin to “Hey Man Nice Shot” is just. Chef’s kiss. For the first time, the true depth of Dean’s self loathing truly came to the fore. How socially outcast he knows himself to be, all that hidden shame, that resentment he harbours towards Sam for having (potentially) a way out of the hunter life, coupled with his desperation not to lose him to the “normal world”: somewhere that Dean knows he can’t follow him. After so much posturing and bravado, that inner parodox was SO interesting to witness - he SHOOTS HIMSELF at the end -- and, for me, really steered the character into more *~ thematically complex territory ~* All the songs were good tbh. In-a-Gadda-da-Vida? Yes. 11/10

2.) Episode 11: SCARECROW. There was just so much going on in this episode, but the thing I liked most was the setting. It looked so good!! Autumnal and pastoral. After a couple of (in my opinion) not very good-looking episodes, it was a real breath of fresh air. I also loved Sam in this episode: he looked so small standing by the side of that road. I fully understood the argument, but I also loved how dean just... called him intermittently to update him on the case?This episode really drove home to me how alone they are, how they really have no-one but each other. It also really highlighted how far Sam has drifted from episode 1: he’s on the fringes now, too. All too quickly backsliding into the role of rootless grifter, an identiy he’d tried so hard to claw his way out of. Also, there’s a tome. 10/10

3.) Episode 12: FAITH. This. Episode. Slaps. To be honest, this is probably technically the masterpiece of the season in terms of plot, visuals, antagonist, music etc. but w/e it’s my list. Right off the bat Dean is dying and he’s like it’s fine Sammy, I’m not even mad about it, which is fucked up but then what is more fucked up is that his dad doesn’t even come when Sam leaves him a message? Dean seems to view dying as like. A thing grownups just have to do sometimes. Like jury duty. It’s extremely,extremely sad. Anyway I love the drama of Sam smashing apart the altar, I love the big tent, I love the “don’t fear the reaper” montage. It’s all, quite simply, a *~cut above~* 10/10

4.) Episode 7: HOOK MAN. I don’t know if I was meant to love this episode so much?? I just really, really liked it. I loved the central mystery, and I thought Sam in particular really shone when it came to dealing with the townsfolk and the afflicted girl. It was one of the most thematically coherent episodes when it came to tying the monster to sublimated fear, in this instance, sex and sexuality! Damn do Americans have a weird relationship with sex. And not just with women; this episode really shone a spotlight on Sam’s sexuality wrt his guilt over Jess, his desire for normality, his coltish nervousness in Lori’s presence. There was SO. MUCH. Bonus points for ugly mid-2000s fashions. 10/10

5.) Episode 3: DEAD IN THE WATER. This was the first episode which really made me sit up and go, oh, okay. I can see why people lose their minds over this show. When it’s good, Supernatural just. Shoots a volt of pure catharsis straight into your chest. This was also the first time I really sat up and took note of Jensen Ackles’ acting chops. There’s just so much going on with him every time he’s onscreen, and each little paradoxical turn he gives to Dean’s character is a joy to witness. It was a visually beautiful episode, with a strong supporting cast. The moment I saw her in her silky lavender nightgown, twisting up her unrealistically perfect chingoin, I wished to marry Amy Acker’s character. I know she doesn’t come back to spn but she should’ve!! She should’ve!! 10/10

6.) Episode 5: BLOODY MARY. I’ve heard tell of this episode being a bit of a fandom classic, and I support it. The last few minutes at the end? When Sam sees Jess at the side of the road in that slow panning shot, to the Rolling Stones song Laugh I Nearly Died? It was just... I think it changed me as a person, honestly. This show. It’s lower down on the list for me because how how freaking dark the lighting was at the end, but that might have just been the poor quality stream I found. But yeah, I really liked the plucky teen girl who helped them; I was pleasantly surprised to see a glamourous queen bee-type portrayed as smart and competent, and remain alive by the end. Gold star for you, spn. I know it’s all downhill from here. 9/10

7.) Episode 15. THE BENDERS. First off, I have to give it points for the production design on that house. My brother was of the opinon it would’ve made a good video game enviroment (according to him a lot of spn is akin to a video game which... yeah). This episode also made me really acutely feel for Dean. Could it be because I’m an older sister and this was a literal nightmare scenario? Perhaps. But again what really came to the fore was the single-mindedness with which Dean acted. Sam being dead was literally not an option for him. On a lesser show that might have been left as a given, but the time was really taken to give an almost sinister intensity to Dean’s thoughts and behavior. Some really pretty car shots too. 9/10

8.) Episode 17: HELL HOUSE. What can I say about this? It’s just fun. I love the two conspiracy guys, I love the sibling prank war, I love the concept of a monster created by shared belief. The set design was cool, as was the montage at the beginning where they’re interviewing all the witnesses. It’s a briskly paced and lighthearted episode, which was a breath of fresh air and welcome break after last episode left the Winchester boys abandoned by their father. Yet. Again. Ugh. Throw the whole dad away. 9/10

9.) Episode 19: PROVENANCE. Haunted painting! Haunted! Painting!! This is a simple lil episode but it receives points for Sam and Dean’s best and least convincing disguises thus far -- art dealers -- and a fun, sweet love interest for Sam. He’s so bashful! I thought she was smartly written and I especially liked that she took a more active role and actually helped them solve the case than other side characters we’ve seen so far. I also liked when they were standing over the grave and she was like wow, your lives are really fucked up... it’s true wtf these poor guys?? Anyway 8/10

10.) Episode 14: NIGHTMARE. This spot was a real toss-up between this and SOMETHING WICKED, but NIGHTMARE just edged it out because of the strong supporting character Max, as well as the sheer conceptual power of psychic Sam. Something about the way Dean treats his brothers latent psychic powers as... kind of a concern, but ultimately about on a par with him developing, like, a shellfish allergy, is hilarious to me. They have so many problems, it’s just low priority! Sorry Sammy. But what really clinched this episode for me was the three second-ish sequence where Sam shoves the dresser free with his mind, Dean gets shot in his vision, and Sam bursts into the room. Brilliance. Someone call the x-men. My heart was in my mouth. BIG minus points however for the extensive heart-to-hearts. It was just too much for me. It went on for so long. 7/10

This certainly is a show. I see that now. Anyway. Onto season 2!

#supernatural #long post #supernatural s1 #some dishonorable mentions: ep 4's frankly insulting attempt to convince me a flight attendant would allow the winchesters to drag a man off #and perform an exorcism on him #ep 8 for its Many Crimes #ep 22 when dean said that can't be dad #he told me he was proud of me!#JAIL #JAIL FOR SUPERNATUAL

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watching-pictures-move · 4 years ago

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Movie Review | Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001)

This review contains spoilers.

David Lynch's Mulholland Drive was released in recent years by the Criterion Collection, that great home video company that's probably the OG of boutique labels, known for putting out acclaimed, significant or otherwise interesting films in really nice packages. (For some reason I had been thinking they put this out only last year until I actually looked it up. I guess my sense of time has been a little warped as of late, and as much as I'd like to tie this review into pandemic-era life, the fact is other labels have captured my attention lately, as can be evidenced by my embarrassingly large and extremely shameful Vinegar Syndrome haul from their Halfway to Black Friday sale from a few months ago.) Now, nobody in 2021 is going into this movie truly blind, but if I happened to pick up the Criterion cover and perused the back, aside from the list of special features and disc specs, you'd see the below (which I grabbed off their website):

Blonde Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia (Laura Harring). Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman’s identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project. David Lynch’s seductive and scary vision of Los Angeles’s dream factory is one of the true masterpieces of the new millennium, a tale of love, jealousy, and revenge like no other.

Now, this is a tough movie to evoke with only a blurb, but I'd say that does a pretty respectable job. I however do not own this release. What I do own is the barebones Universal DVD that was released a few months after the movie, back when going into the movie blind would have been far more likely. This is the description on the back:

This sexy thriller has been acclaimed as one of the year's best films. Two beautiful women are caught up in a lethally twisted mystery - and ensnared in an equally dangerous web of erotic passion. "There's nothing like this baby anywhere! This sinful pleasure is a fresh triumph for Lynch, and one of the best films of the year. Visionary daring, swooning eroticism and colors that pop like a whore's lip gloss!" says Rolling Stone's Peter Travers. "See it… then see it again!" (Time Out New York)

Now, the previous description probably couldn't fully capture the movie's essence, but this one makes it sound like an erotic thriller. (Could you imagine somebody going into this thinking this was like a Gregory Dark joint? I say this having seen none of his thrillers and only his hardcore movies, although I must admit an MTV-influenced Mulholland Drive starring, say, Lois Ayres is something I find extremely intriguing.) But you know what? Good for them. Among other things, this movie, with its two all-timer sex scenes, feels like one of the last hurrahs from an era when mainstream American movies could be unabashedly horny, before we were sentenced to an endless barrage of immaculately muscular bodies in spandex (stupid sexy Flanders) somehow drained of all sex appeal (god forbid somebody pop a boner...or ladyboner, let's be egalitarian here). I apologize if I'm coming off as a little gross, but having been able to barely leave the house for practically a year and a half, watching sexy movies like this is one of the few remaining thrills at my disposal. Please, this is all I have.

Now I suppose I should say something about the movie itself, but it might be a challenge given how elusive it is in certain respects (Lynch is notoriously cagey about offering interpretations of his movies) and, as a result, how heavily it's been scrutinized over the years. No doubt any analysis I offer as to the movie's overarching meaning will come off extremely dumbassed. What I will note however, is that for whatever reason, the scene I remembered most vividly is where Justin Theroux walks in on his wife with Billy Ray Cyrus, particularly the candy pink paint he dumps on her jewellery as revenge. We've been following Theroux, a movie director, as he's been having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, having had control over casting his lead actress taken from him, which he proceeds to process by taking a golf club to a windshield of his producers' car and then reacting as above when he finds his wife with the singer of "Achy Breaky Heart".

With his Dune having been notoriously tampered with by producers, I suspect there's a bit of Lynch's own experience in the scene with the producers, which plays like an entirely arbitrary set of rituals deciding the fate of his movie with no regard for his opinion or even basic logic. While I don't know how particular Dino DeLaurentiis was about his espresso, I did laugh. Now, taking the reading that the first two acts of the movie are a fantasy of Naomi Watts' character, who is revealed to be miserable and ridden with jealousy in the third act, the amount of time we spend with Theroux is maybe hard to justify. Is this perhaps her "revenge" on him, his romantic and professional success having been flushed away while he flounders in search of greater meaning to his arc? Aside from possible autobiographical interest, these scenes do play like a riff on the idea that everyone is the main character in their own story, and if the Watts and Laura Harring characters can be thought of as having merged or swap identities, then perhaps Theroux's arc is the remainder of that quotient. (Now, it's worth noting that aside from being insecure and arrogant, Theroux in this movie is a less stylish than the real Lynch. If Watts conjures the best version of herself in her dream, Lynch maybe doesn't want his dream avatar outshining him.)

Now why did the Cyrus scene stick with me all these years when other details had slipped? Mostly because I'd found it amusing, partly because of the extra specific image Lynch produces, and somewhat because of the casting of Billy Ray Cyrus. Now, I don't have any special relationship to the Cyrus' body of work, but Lynch's casting of him, with his distinct mix of bozo, dudebro and hunk, results in a very specific comedic effect. This is something Lynch does elsewhere in the movie, like when he has Robert Forster show up as a detective for a single scene. The Forster role is likely in part a leftover from the movie's origins as a TV pilot, but the effect is similar (albeit less comedic). Melissa George appears as a woman who may or may not be a replacement for Watts in some realm of reality. Other directors obviously cast actors for their screen presence and the audience's relationship to their career, but the way Lynch does it feels particularly pointed, as if he's reshaping them entirely into iconography. The effect is particularly sinister with the presence of Michael J. Anderson, with whom he worked previously on Twin Peaks, and Monty Montgomery as a mysterious cowboy who dangles the secret of the movie over Theroux's character.

Cowboys in movies are frequently heroic presences (see any number of westerns) and are otherwise innocuously stylish (I confess I've come dangerously close to ordering a Stetson hat and a pair of cowboy boots), but the presence of one here feels like a ripple in the movie's reality. A dreamy, brightly lit mystery set in Los Angeles should have no place for a cowboy. It ain't right. (It's worth noting that Lynch at one point copped to admiring Ronald Reagan for reminding him of a cowboy. Is this his expression of a changed opinion? I have no idea, but Lynch has never struck me as all that politically minded.) Neither is the hobo that appears behind the diner. Certainly hobos have made their homes behind diners, but this one's presence and the way Lynch produces him feel again like a ripple in the the movie's narrative. Jump scares are frequently knocked for being lazy and cheap devices to generate shocks, but the one here gets under your skin.

Now about the movie's look. This starts off like a noir, and the mystery plot on paper would lead you to think that's how the whole movie plays, but the cinematography is a lot brighter, with almost confection-like colours, than that would lead you to believe, at least during the daytime scenes. This is another element that likely comes from its TV origins, but it does give the movie a distinctly dreamlike, fantastical quality that a more overtly cinematic look, like the one Lynch used in Lost Highway a few years earlier, might not capture. This is one of the reasons I think this movie works better than that one, and there's also the fact that the amateur sleuthing that drives the bulk of the plot here serves as a more pleasing audience vantage point than the male anxieties that fuel the other film. I also would much rather hang out with Naomi Watts and Laura Harring than a charisma void like Balthazar Getty.

The manufactured warmth of the daytime scenes also results, like in Blue Velvet, in the nighttime scenes feeling like they're in a completely different setting, one which perhaps offers the key to unlocking the mystery, or at least revealing the phoniness of the movie's surfaces. I think of the evocative Club Silencio sequence, which comes as close as anything in the movie to laying its illusions bare. ("No hay banda.") But at times Lynch will throw in disarmingly childlike, inexplicable imagery, like the dancing couples against a purple screen in the opening, something that would seem tacky and amateurish elsewhere but feels oddly cohesive here. There are a number of directors whose work I admire for being "dreamlike", and putting them side by side they all feel quite distinct (you would never mistake a Lucio Fulci film for a Lynch), but they have the unifying idea of imbuing the tactile qualities of film with the truly irrational to really burrow into your subconscious. Other directors have made movies with some of the same elements as Mulholland Drive, but none have put them together in quite the same way.

#film #movie review #mulholland drive #david lynch

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tillidontneedfantasy · 5 years ago

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A Track-by-Track Breakdown of Taylor Swift’s 8th Studio Album: ‘folklore’

Taylor Swift’s 8th studio album, folklore, starts off with the lie, “I’m on some new shit.” Perhaps to someone who hasn’t been paying attention this would seem to be true. But to those listening, folklore is the essence of her skill and success throughout her entire career stripped down for all to see, but more refined, enhanced, and impressive than ever.

Even prior to her pop-world domination with 1989 (2014), Taylor’s storytelling ability has always been her most compelling strength as a writer. In 2010, she released her third album, Speak Now, penned fully solo to prove to the cynics that she does, in fact, write her own music. And it’s damn good. Widely considered her best song, “All Too Well” from Red (2012) is a five and a half minute epic about love had and lost, all in walks through autumn trees, almost running red lights, dancing round the kitchen, and a scarf reminiscent of innocence, unreturned.

Yet her pop prowess over the last six years perhaps leads to her storytelling being overlooked to those more focused on the music. There is a particular genius in writing a successful pop song, let alone three successful pop albums, that still has hard-hitting lyrics underneath the synth. Take the excellent “Cruel Summer” from Lover (2019) for example. The song is just under 3 minutes, and the production is so enthralling and infectious that it can take such a hold on you, you might miss the tale being told along with it about a fraught summer relationship that was actually just the beginning of her own love story.

But without the pop production, her stories on folklore demand attention. Swept up by a strong wave of creativity and inspiration, Swift secretly wrote and produced this album in around three months with Aaron Dessner of The National, one of Swift’s favorite bands, and long-time collaborator and friend Jack Antonoff. A surprise album is a new endeavor for Swift, as she generally spends months meticulously planning an album rollout. It is refreshing, and as a dedicated, long-time fan of Taylor, it is thrilling. Due to the album cover where she is standing in the woods, and the genre of the album itself, there have been think pieces regarding the “man in the woods” trope and what it means that Taylor seems to be embodying it. As a result of over-exposure, people are unable to stop focusing on her image and the way she presents herself. It’s understandable, as she is a very smart and deliberate businesswoman, and clearly cares about how she is perceived. But with this album, it is clear that none of that was at play. We are in the middle of a pandemic. Her mother has been battling cancer for years. Isolate a creative person in a dangerous world and they will dream up an escape. She understands more than ever how precious each moment is, and does not want to waste another one. The woods being the landscape for the photo-shoot is most likely attributed to the fact that it is the safest place to have one under these circumstances. She’s not pretending she removed herself from society and became enlightened, she didn’t dabble into a more alternative sound to prove anything; she is just sharing stories she wants to tell that she is proud of, and nothing more.

Of course the music of the album is important, but the lyrics are the heart of it all, and I wanted to focus on them. Upon its release, Taylor explained in a foreword that the album was a mixture of personal and fictional accounts. The beauty of stories is that once they are shared, they never live one single life; each person who consumes a story interprets it uniquely, and the story becomes a multiverse, with different meanings and outcomes than what initially drove the pen to the paper. As explained by Swift in a YouTube comment prior to the album’s release, three songs on the album are all one story, which she has dubbed “the teenage love triangle.” The three points of the triangle are “cardigan,” “august,” and “betty.” But if someone had not seen her say that, they might not have figured it out. Maybe they’d interpret each song as their own story, and connect it to their own. Taylor knows this. It is why she loves storytelling and is why she is so good at it. The album itself is a mirror ball, shimmering with every version of the stories being told, reflecting a bit of each person who listens. These are my interpretations, but they can mean whatever you make of them.

1. the 1 The melody of this song helps set the scene; picture yourself skipping rocks on a lake, reminiscing on the one that got away. “the 1” is about learning to assimilate into a life without them, resentfully accepting that they might be moving on, too. She ruminates on what went wrong and what could have been. In a very Swift fashion, she puts the blame on herself when she sings, “in my defense, I have none / for digging up the grave another time.” Perhaps this song is fictional, perhaps it’s a revisit of a past feeling or relationship, but its relatability makes it feel real and present. She searches for explanations, restraining herself from asking, “if one thing had been different, would everything be different today?” But it’s good she didn’t ask, because she’d never find the answer, anyway. Best lyric: “We never painted by the numbers, baby, but we were making it count / You know the greatest loves of all time are over now.”

2. cardigan (teenage love triangle, part 1: betty’s perspective) “When you are young they assume you know nothing,” Swift sings in her smooth low-register on this Lana del Rey-esque single. “But I knew everything when I was young,” she asserts. They say wisdom comes with age, but there is wisdom lost, too, of what it felt like to be young; but she has held onto it. In this track, the narrator (Betty) is looking back on her relationship with someone she once loved (James, as name-dropped in “betty” later on in the album). Her insight on his character was always spot on; she knew he’d try to kiss it better, change the ending, miss her once the thrill expired and come back, begging for her forgiveness in her front porch light. As soon as she was feeling forgotten, he made her feel wanted, his favorite. The ending in question is unclear, whether she granted him her forgiveness or not. But what is clear is Taylor’s understanding of the pull of young love, the intensity, the immortalization of all the smallest of details, the longing to be someone’s favorite. It’s why we look back on it so often, read stories and watch films about it, even as we grow old. It’s the cardigan we put back on when we want to be Peter Pan and remember what it was like to fly with Wendy. Best lyric: “You drew stars around my scars / but now I’m bleeding.”

3. the last great american dynasty The story of Rebekah Harkness and her destruction of the last great American dynasty, Standard Oil, is documented in this track, as each verse covers a different part of Rebekah’s life, going from a middle class divorcee to one of the wealthiest women in America by marrying into an empire. Swift paints Rebekah as an outcast, the Rhode Island town blaming her for her husband’s heart giving out. Rebekah used her inherited fortune on her ballet company, throwing lavish parties with her friends who went by the “Bitch Pack,” playing cards with Dali (Yes, as in Salvador Dali. It’s not clear if they actually played cards together, but her ashes were placed in an urn designed by him), and feuding with her neighbors. Then, fifty years later, Taylor Swift bought that very house and ruined the neighborhood all over again, bringing with her the triumphant return of champagne pool parties and women with madness, their men and bad habits. It’s a note on how women will be blamed for tarnishing what is sacred to men rather than celebrated, specifically when its related to wealth and power. They will call them mad, shameless, loud. But just like Rebekah, Taylor learned to pay them no mind, and just have a marvelous time. It is also interesting to note that Rebekah went by Betty. Perhaps Taylor felt inspired by and connected to her and gave her a whole backstory, and thus the birth of “the teenage love triangle,” or maybe it’s just a coincidence; but that’s the fun of it all. Either way, this track is a standout showcase of how Swift has truly mastered her craft as a songwriter. Best lyric: “Holiday House sat quietly on that beach / free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / and then it was bought by me.”

4. exile ft. Bon Iver You know that feeling when your parents are fighting and it’s upsetting you but you can’t help but listen? That’s kind of what listening to this song feels like. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon co-wrote the track, and he lends his gorgeous vocals to play a man who has been exiled by his ex who has moved on with someone else while he desperately tries to understand where it all went wrong. The bridge is particularly poignant, both proclaiming, “you didn’t even hear me out,” while talking over each other. He thinks he was expected to read her mind, but she is adamant that she gave him plenty of warning signs. Miscommunication is one of the most common downfalls of a relationship, and the emotion in Swift’s and Vernon’s voices really draws you into the argument with them, transporting you back into your own exile from people you once called home. Best lyric: “I couldn’t turn things around / (You never turned things around) / ‘cause you never gave a warning sign / (I gave so many signs.)”

5. my tears ricochet Taylor describes this song in the foreword as “an embittered tormentor showing up to the funeral of his fallen object of obsession.” If you know enough, you can put the pieces together that the tormentor is Scott Borchetta, the head of Big Machine Records, and the funeral is of their professional and personal relationship. Taylor was the first artist ever signed to Big Machine. Borchetta and Swift had to trust each other in their partnership for it to be a success, and oh, how it was. But prior to Lover’s release, Taylor announced that she would be signing to Republic Records as her contract with Big Machine had ended and Republic offered her the opportunity to own all of her masters moving forward and negotiate on Spotify shares for all their artists. It all could have ended amicably there, but then Scott Borchetta sold all of Big Machine, along with Taylor’s masters from every album prior, to Scooter Braun. Braun manages some of the biggest stars out there, and had previously managed Kanye West. Taylor publicly spoke out about this purchase, stating that she was not made aware of this before the announcement, and how much of a betrayal it was considering she had cried to Scott before about Scooter’s mistreatment of her. Taylor has continued to be vocal about this, and so she sings, “I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace.” There is a lot to unpack in this song, but the main takeaway is that this betrayal hurts him just as much if not more than it hurts her, because his career was built on her achievements. He buried her while decorated in her success, becoming what he swore he wouldn’t, erasing the good times for greed, all just to be haunted with regret for pushing her out and stealing her lullabies. The pain is palpable, and it is notable that this is song is placed at track 5, the spot generally reserved for the most vulnerable on the album; it shows that there are different types of heartbreak that can shatter you just as much as those from romance. Best lyric: “If I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake? / Cursing my name, wishing I stayed.”

6. mirrorball On Lover’s “The Archer,” Taylor expresses her anxiety over people seeing through her act, her own grief at seeing through it herself, wondering if her lover does and whether he would stay with her regardless. “mirrorball” is about the act, one of the more obviously confessional songs on the album. She talks about how a mirror ball can illuminate all the different versions of a person, while also reflecting the light to fit in with the scene. Taylor’s critical self-awareness is heart wrenching, and it’s clear that the anxiety that surrounds the public perception of her is still prevalent. She describes herself as a member of a circus, still on the tightrope and the trapeze even after everyone else has packed up and left, doing anything she can to keep the public’s attention. It hurts to hear the desperation in her voice, but there’s hope in the song, too. She is speaking to someone (we can assume her long-term boyfriend, Joe Alwyn) and thanking them for not being like “the regulars, the masquerade revelers drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten.” In 2016, the height of Taylor’s fame and subsequently her farthest fall from grace, all the people who pretended to be her friends and attended all her parties celebrated her (temporary) demise, continuing to dance over her broken pieces on the floor. But he stayed by her side as she put herself back together. And so now, when no one is around, she’ll shine just for him, standing even taller than she does for the circus. Best lyric: “I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why / I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try / I’m still on that trapeze, I’m still trying everything / to keep you looking at me.”

7. seven Her voice gentle and haunting, Taylor recalls the freedom and innocence of her childhood in Pennsylvania. She asks to be remembered for how she was, swinging over the creek, before she learned civility when she would scream anytime she wanted, then letting out a very pretty one. She sings to her old friend soothingly about taking them away from their haunted house that their father is always shouting in, where they feel the need to hide in a closet, perhaps literally, or figuratively, or both. They can move into Taylor’s house instead, or maybe just to India, just be sure to pack their dolls and a sweater and then they’ll hit the road. She can no longer recall her friend’s face, but the love she had for them still lives in her heart, and she wants it to live forever through story. Just in the way that folklore itself blends reality and fiction, but the truth within it passes on, so will the purity of that love and friendship. Best lyric: “Please picture me in the weeds / before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously / any time I wanted.”

8. august (teenage love triangle, part 2: the other girl’s perspective) If you had to assign the feeling of longing to a song, it’d be “august.” It’s when you’re teetering at the edge with someone, unsure of where you stand with them, clinging to anything they give you and doing anything just to raise your chances, “living for the hope of it all.” August, the last month of summer, its heat causing it to slip away the fastest in a haze before reality hits. This track is a display of how sometimes losing something you never had causes an even deeper ache than losing something that was yours, and Jack Antonoff’s signature production intensifies the emotion even more. It’s the story of shattered hope, and the longing for the days where it could still fuel you. Best lyric: “To live for the hope of it all / cancel plans just in case you’d call.”

9. this is me trying “this is me trying” is like a drive through a tunnel at night, hearing your loudest anxieties and insecurities echo all around you, caving in. The track is another apt insight into Swift’s struggles with her self-image, with the pressure she puts on herself, so much so that she sometimes pushes herself too close to the edge, her fears luring her out of the tunnel and down, down, down into her own cage, stunting her own growth and keeping those who care out of reach. She tells us how she was “so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere.” Every action has an equal, opposite reaction, meaning that she was pushing herself so hard, she rolled back to where she started, and now has to reset. This could be referring to the period between the end of the 1989 era and the release of reputation (2017), or a different time in her life, or just a general sentiment. It doesn’t really matter, though, because no one’s growth is a neat, straight line; growth is jagged. Just like any of us, Taylor will always have to face new obstacles, new pitfalls, new reasons to get back up. She sounds most vulnerable as she cries, “at least I’m trying,” and you feel comforted knowing someone so beautiful and successful has to push herself to try, too, and yet that motivates you more to try yourself. Best lyric: “They told me all of my cages were mental / so I got wasted, like all my potential.”

10. illicit affairs A quiet, slow-build testament of the passion, the tragedy, the secrecy, the inimitability of a romance that shouldn’t exist, “illicit affairs” demonstrates how you can ruin yourself for someone from just one moment of possibility or truth, quite like the narrator of “august” does for the hope of it all. An illicit affair can be many different things: infidelity, forbidden love, a love that can never be fully realized, a relationship that is inherently wrong but electrifying all the same. It’s a reminder of what so many of us would do just to see new colors, to learn a new language, even if the one moment of enlightenment destroys us forever. We might lose the iridescent glow but we don’t forget it; we carry it with us, but must be careful to remember its blinding effect, to remember how fatal the fall is from the dwindling, mercurial high. Best lyric: “Tell your friends you’re out for a run / you’ll be flushed when you return.”

11. invisible string Clearly the most outright autobiographical track, “invisible string” is the plucky pick-me-up needed. The song is like sunshine, as Swift endearingly links all the little connections between her and her boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, since before they even met. She compares the green grass at the Nashville park she’d sit at in hopes of a meet-cute to the teal of his yogurt shop uniform shirt, and gives a nod to her smash hit “Bad Blood” from 1989 with the delightful line “bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to LA.” She reasons these coincidences as a fateful, invisible, golden string tying them together since the beginning, always destined to meet at the knot in the middle. She thanks time for healing her, (a callback to “Fifteen” from Fearless [2008]), fighting through hell to make it to heaven, transforming her from an axe grinder to a gift giver for her ex’s baby (the ex in question, Joe Jonas, and his wife Sophie Turner, happened to have their first daughter two days before this album’s release). As she has on her previous two albums, she uses the color gold to illustrate how prized their love is to one another. It’s sweet to know in all the gloom that the string has not been severed, and the trees are still golden somewhere. Best lyric: “Cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart / now I send their babies presents.”

12. mad woman Throughout her entire career, Taylor Swift has defiantly defended female rage, all the way back from throwing a chair off a platform on her Fearless Tour during the impassioned “Forever & Always,” to her patient, vengeful reliance on karma in reputation’s lead single, “Look What You Made Me Do,” to her most recent tackling of the matter on Lover’s last and final single, “The Man,” where she explores society’s acceptance and encouragement of angry men yet disdain for angry women. “The Man” is catchy and upbeat, and a fun thought experiment into how Swift’s career would be perceived if she was a man, something that is even more interesting to think about now as she releases an album in a genre heavily dominated and lauded by males. But on “mad woman,” she further explores the creation and perception of female rage, though masked under a smooth, haunting piano melody, her vocals subdued, taunting. In the album foreword, she describes the inspiration behind this song as “a misfit widow getting gleeful revenge on the town that cast her out.” This could be the continuation of Rebekah “Betty” Harkness’s story at her Holiday House in Watch Hill, RI, and how she further alienated herself from the rest of the neighborhood as they cast stones at her for the collapse of the last great American dynasty. (Or perhaps Daenerys Targaryen’s descent as the Mad Queen played a part in the song’s inspiration, as Swift has spoken of her love for Game of Thrones and her character specifically.) Taylor herself could also represent the widow, her music and masters as her love lost, and the men behind the crime as the “town that cast her out.” In the first verse she sings, “What do you sing on your drive home? / Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn? / Does she smile, or does she mouth ‘fuck you forever’?” It’s the first f-bomb of Taylor’s career (though a much more playful one will come two tracks later in “betty”) and it speaks volume. Taylor has received a lot of condemnation for expressing her anger at their transaction, for calling out their greed for what it is. Some view Swift’s stance on the ordeal as petty and trivial; they see the men as orchestrating a good business deal, and Swift as the girl throwing a tantrum. Ask any woman, and they can tell you about a time a man told them they were crazy for being justifiably angry; it only makes us angrier. “No one likes a mad woman,” Taylor states, “You made her like that.” Swift underscores that here, how they will poke and poke the bear but then blame it for attacking, as if they had never provoked it at all, and how dare it defend itself. Just as they blamed Rebekah for her husband’s heart giving out, they somehow manage to blame Swift for not being allowed to purchase the rights to her own work. And yes, she’s mad, but the song is measured and controlled; she’s used to her anger now, and knows just how to wield it. Best lyric: “Women like hunting witches, too / doing your dirtiest work for you / It’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together.”

13. epiphany This is another track Swift provided some background on, stating it was inspired by her “grandfather, Dean, landing at Guadalcanal in 1942” during WWII. The first verse paints this image, while the second verse depicts a different kind of war, happening right now, fought by doctors and nurses. She speaks of holding hands through plastic, and the escape folklore has granted you suddenly lifts. Watching someone’s daughter, or mother, or anyone suffer at the hands of the COVID-19 pandemic, just as watching a soldier bleed out, helpless, is too much to speak about. As she points out, they don’t teach you about that vicarious trauma in med school. We are living in a tireless world with barely any time time to rest our eyes, but too much going on while we’re awake to make sense of any of it. “epiphany” is a cinematic prayer, pleading for some quiet in order to find an answer in all the noise. We’re still waiting for that glimpse of relief. Best lyric: “Only twenty minutes to sleep / but you dream of some epiphany / Just one single glimpse of relief / to make some sense of what you’ve seen.”

14. betty (teenage love triangle, part 3: james’s perspective) It makes sense that a song reminiscent of Fearless would exemplify some of the best story-telling on folklore. The final puzzle piece of the teen love triangle, “betty” is a song sung by Swift from the perspective of the character of her own creation, James, attempting to win back his true love, Betty, who he slighted in some way. He proclaims that the worst thing he ever did is what he did to her, without explicitly stating it. Though the infamous deed is unclear, here’s the information we collect from this song: James saw Betty dancing with another boy at a school dance, one day when he was walking home another girl (from “august”) picked him up and he ended up spending his summer with her yet still loved Betty, and though he ended things with his fling and wanted to reconcile with Betty, he had returned to school to see she switched her homeroom (James assumes, after saying he won’t make assumptions. Classic men). So in order to make it up to her, he shows up at her party with the risk of being told to go fuck himself (the second and charming “fuck” on the album! Which is repeated!). Upon his arrival, there is a glorious key change (ala “Love Story”) and all the pieces fall into place for the listener; we realize Betty is the girl singing in “cardigan” as he lists the things he misses about her since the thrill expired, like the way she looks standing in her cardigan, and kissing in his car. He’s 17 and doesn’t know anything, but she knew everything when she was young, and she knew he’d come back. The way I see their story conclude is that she led him to the garden and trusted him, but as they grew older they grew apart, but the love she had for him never faded completely. Listening to this song is like being back in high school, whether you were the person who did someone wrong or the person so willing to forgive in the name of young love, or Inez, the school gossip, you’re right there with them. The other great thing about this song is that it is sung to a girl, and though it is set up so we understand it is most likely from a boy’s perspective, it doesn’t have to be. It’s really great that girls in the LGBTQ community can have a song in Taylor’s voice to fully connect to without changing the pronouns or names (even James, which is unisex and is one of the names of the daughters of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, Taylor’s close friends, mentioned in this song). That is the beauty of folklore: the infinite ways a story can be told, perceived, retold from a different perspective, and told again. Maybe you’ll hear it from Inez. Best lyric: “But if I just showed up at your party / would you have me? Would you want me? / Would you tell me to go fuck myself, or lead me to the garden?”

15. peace One of the most beautifully solemn songs of her career, “peace” echoes the same fears explored in “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” from reputation; will the person she loves be able to weather the ever-present storm that comes with the life of a superstar, but also dwells within herself? Will holding him as the water rushes in be enough? Will giving him her wild, a child, her sunshine, her best, be a fair consolation? Presumably another confessional track and about Alwyn, Swift puts him up on a pedestal, praising his integrity and his dare to dream. She proclaims that she would die for him in secret, just as she told him she’d be on her tallest tip toes, spinning in her highest heels, shining just for him in “mirrorball.” She highlights some of the greatest gifts of love, such as comfortable silence and chosen family. She knows what they have is special, but she also knows the value of peace, the ultimate nirvana, and does not want to deprive him of that. It is so deeply relatable- to me, at least- to feel like you can give someone so much of yourself but know it still may never be enough, and to fear either losing them or robbing them of something better. But looking at what they have together, maybe peace is overrated. Or maybe, she’s looking for peace in the wrong places. The calm is in the eye of the storm, and sometimes, there’s nothing more freeing than throwing away the umbrella and soaking in the rain. Best lyric: “I never had the courage of my convictions / as long as danger is near / and it’s just around the corner, darling / ‘cause it lives in me / no, I could never give you peace.”

16. hoax The truest enigma of the album, the closer, “hoax” is a devastatingly dark ballad about the uncertainty, or perhaps incredulity, of someone’s love for you, a love that is your lifeline. The lyrics are ambiguous, which gives way to a plethora of interpretations. Perhaps she is speaking about a hypothetical situation that has yet to happen (and hopefully doesn’t) in which someone she loves and trusts betrays her. Maybe she is talking about a relationship, real (hopefully not) or fictional, in which despite the torment it brings her she holds onto it for dear life. I’m most inclined to believe that the song represents her difficulty in accepting that someone is willing to love her through such dark periods, that their love must actually be a hoax, but she chooses to believe in it anyway and uses it as the motivation to rebuild her kingdom, to rise from the ashes on her barren land. And even through the downs that come at some point in every relationship, she can still see the beauty in it all. Yes, their love is golden, but waves of blue will crash down around any partnership, because life does not exist without them. So even when things are as blue as can be, she’s at least grateful it’s with him. Best lyric: “Don’t want no other shade of blue but you / no other sadness in the world would do.”

Although we still have yet to hear the deluxe track, “the lakes,” as a fan of Taylor for almost 12 years, it feels so obvious that this is her strongest work yet. The storytelling I fell in love with on Fearless as a teenager (which, much like folklore, was highly inspired by imaginary situations and real emotions) is even sharper now as we have both grown into adults. The music on this album might not be everyone’s speed, and that’s okay. But it allowed Taylor to dip back into what made Fearless such a success: using pieces of her own truth and the whims of her imagination to develop a multi-faceted narrative that becomes universal. During her Tiny Desk concert, before performing “Death By A Thousand Cuts” from Lover, Swift explained the anxiety she felt around the possibility of stunted creativity when people would ask her what she would write about once she was happy. Taylor has released an abundance of beautiful, fun, complex love songs since the start of her relationship almost four years ago now. But “Death By A Thousand Cuts,” which is a fan favorite, helped her prove to herself that she can still write a killer breakup song while being in a happy, fulfilling relationship; the song was the last track written for Lover and was inspired by the film Something Great on Netflix. And so it makes perfect sense that Taylor used folklore to continue exploring this new avenue for songwriting. All of her discography and all of her life experiences have culminated to the folklore moment: as all the best artists do, she will never stop finding inspiration in hidden corners of this dark, mystical, wondrous universe, and falling in love with new ways to share those wonders. And that love will be passed on.

DISCLAIMER - REVIEWER’S BIAS: I love Taylor Swift more than any person in my life, yes including my parents, they are aware and have accepted this fact long ago ❤️

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sacred-algae · 4 years ago

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In celebration of The Great Gatsby entering public domian, I would like to publish an essay I wrote a few years back. Because I hate The Great Gatsby with the burning passion of a thousand suns.

A Character Analysis of The Great Gatsby:

Gatsby, Nick and Daisy

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is often revered as one of the greatest American novels of all time. It makes us take off our rose-colored glasses and look at the rich whom we idolize so much. But are our perspectives of this book also tinted by its title of the great American novel? We are often misdirected in this book to forget many important quotes that change the way we look at the main characters completely. Authors make sure that everything in the book has a purpose. If it was included, it’s important and shouldn't be ignored. Readers often place certain expectations on the characters due to its high status, however, this paper will show that the characters in question are not as they are commonly perceived, whether good or bad, and explore the complex writing behind the characters, Nick, Gatsby, and Daisy.

Although Nick Carraway is seen by many for who he is, arrogant and judgemental, they still miss out on the bigger picture. He glorifies violence and he is a cheater. The problem with Nick and the book is that rather than the book being written by Fitzgerald, it is written by Nick. Because of this, we see him in a glorified manner. The first few lines of the book show this. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” (pg. 3) Using the words “younger”, “vulnerable” and even “father” he immediately ensures that we have his sympathy. He does the same thing again later, and more directly, at the very end of chapter three. “Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.” (pg. 65) This is where most people begin to see his true self shine through. However, it should be seen much earlier. In chapter one he mentions something very sinister. “I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe” (pg. 5) Nick says directly to the reader that he enjoyed WWI. Only second to WWII (85,000,000 or 3% of the entire world’s population), WWI is the bloodiest war in world history with a death toll of 16,000,000. 40,000,000 if you include deaths resulting from the Spanish Flu. (statistics from Wikipedia) For someone to enjoy being at war there has to be something majorly wrong with them. Not only that but it can be said with near certainty that Nick was cheating on a girl out west when he had his fling with Jordan. In chapter one after dinner with the Buchanans this conversation tasks place. “As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called ‘Wait! ‘I forgot to ask you something, and it’s important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.’ ‘That’s right,’ corroborated Tom kindly. ‘We heard that you were engaged.’ ‘It’s libel. I’m too poor.’ ‘But we heard it,’ insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. ‘We heard it from three people so it must be true.’” (pg. 23) For there to be rumors that someone is engaged with someone else it has to be commonly known that they are in a relationship. Nick is a severely flawed, if not evil, character.

Many people strive to be like Jay Gatsby, with his charm and “extraordinary gift for hope.” Even then, the biggest argument of the book is whether or not he truly loves Daisy. Most clues point to no. Gatsby even remarks that “‘Her voice is full of money,’” (pg. 128). He sees her as a prize to be won. He chases her, she’s the final thing he needs to have his perfect life. And during a flashback to his first kiss with her, right before the iconic passage where “she blossomed for him like a flower,” Fitzgerald describes his desire for her like this: “The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees—he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.” Possibly the most frightening passage in the book. It sounds like some bestial craving. But that is just his relationship with Daisy. Tom accuses him of bootlegging. “‘I found out what your ‘drug stores’ were.’ He turned to us and spoke rapidly. ‘He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him and I wasn’t far wrong.’” (pg.143) We never are told explicitly that this is true but it is left to the reader to decide this. And there is plenty of evidence. When Gatsby is giving Daisy a tour of the mansion we hear him on his side of a phone call. “...the phone rang and Gatsby took up the receiver. ‘Yes…. Well, I can’t talk now…. I can’t talk now, old sport…. I said a SMALL town…. He must know what a small town is…. Well, he’s no use to us if Detroit is his idea of a small town….’” (pg. 100-101) This again isn't explicit but why would the person in question be of no use to him if they think that Detroit is a small town? They need a small town. If it is a big one it is easier for the police to track his business. And after Gatsby dies Nick answers another business call. “...said Chicago was calling...‘This is Slagle speaking....’ ‘Yes?’ The name was unfamiliar. ‘Hell of a note, isn’t it? Get my wire?’ ‘There haven’t been any wires.’ ‘Young Parke’s in trouble,’ he said rapidly. ‘They picked him up when he handed the bonds over the counter. They got a circular from New York giving ‘em the numbers just five minutes before. What d’you know about that, hey? You never can tell in these hick towns——‘ ‘Hello!’ I interrupted breathlessly. ‘Look here—this isn’t Mr. Gatsby. Mr. Gatsby’s dead.’” This is a hint towards Gatsby making money selling counterfeit bonds. A business that he tried to recruit Nick too. “‘Why, I thought—why, look here, old sport, you don’t make much money, do you?’ ‘Not very much.’ This seemed to reassure him and he continued more confidently. ‘I thought you didn’t, if you’ll pardon my—you see, I carry on a little business on the side, a sort of sideline, you understand. And I thought that if you don’t make very much—You’re selling bonds, aren’t you, old sport?’ ‘Trying to.’ ‘Well, this would interest you. It wouldn’t take up much of your time and you might pick up a nice bit of money. It happens to be a rather confidential sort of thing.’” (pg. 88-89) Why is it confidential? Because it’s illegal. Not only is Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy toxic, but he is a mobster. This in itself isn’t problematic, but people may have died because of him, and the book shies past this point.

Daisy Buchanan is hated by most people who read the book. It is said that she is shallow and arrogant. This is a look to the surface. First, it is important to understand Daisy and Tom’s ages. When the book takes place Daisy is 23, Tom is 30. Making Daisy 18 and Tom 25 at the time they were married. While she is legal this marriage is incredibly creepy. She is stuck in a marriage with a racist, cheating, borderline abusive husband. And she knows this. Even then she is brave enough to call him out (and mock him) on his racism in chapter one at dinner. “‘Tom’s getting very profound,’ said Daisy with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. ‘He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we——‘ ‘Well, these books are all scientific,’ insisted Tom…” (pg. 16) She’s trapped in a situation where she has no control. She tries to reclaim her life through Gatsby but she quickly learns that he isn’t different. “‘Please don’t.’ Her voice was cold, but the rancour was gone from it. She looked at Gatsby. ‘There, Jay,’ she said— but her hand as she tried to light a cigarette was trembling. Suddenly she threw the cigarette and the burning match on the carpet. ‘Oh, you want too much!’ she cried to Gatsby. ‘I love you now—isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.’ She began to sob helplessly. ‘I did love him once—but I loved you too.’” (pg. 141-142). Daisy lives in a society where women are seen and not heard. She knows this but still does what she can to speak for herself. She is incredibly smart. People don’t give her enough credit. Take the iconic line, “Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’” (pg. 20)

She is smart enough to see what is happening around her and it breaks her, that's why she wants her daughter to be a fool. She’ll never have to question it, she’ll never know it, she’ll always be happy.

“The Great Gatsby” indeed is a great book. One with deeply complex characters. But we need to take a second look at them, not just accept what others tell us. Because of its high status, the characters of “The Great Gatsby” are often subject to preconceived notions, through discussing and analyzing quotes in the book you can begin to see both sides of Nick, Gatsby, and Daisy. When we see someone say something about them, or any person, or anything, question it. As the great Albert Einstein once said-“The important thing is to never stop questioning.”

We need to stop idolizing Nick and Gatsby, and stop victim blaming Daisy. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

#the great gatsby #Scott f Fitzgerald #I hate this book #and everyone in it #*except Daisy #excuse my rant #and the possible crappy essay #not my best work #but yes #i hate this book

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mst3kproject · 4 years ago

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Invasion of the Star Creatures

I promised you guys something truly awful this week, didn’t I? Well, how about a space invasion ‘comedy’ (big emphasis on the air quotes there) produced by Samuel Zarkoff to be a double-bill with The Brain that Wouldn’t Die? The closest thing it has to a star is Frankie Ray, whom MSTies might know as the writer of Laserblast. He also wrote Zoltan, Hound of Dracula, which I really, really need to see one of these days. Film Historian Bill Warren described Invasion of the Star Creatures as ‘so helplessly bad it’s almost unwatchable’. Let’s find out if he was right.

Fort Nicholson is the world’s center for atomic research, despite apparently being staffed entirely by idiots. The two biggest idiots are, unfortunately, our main characters. Their names are Philbrick and Penn. No, I don’t know which is which. No, I don’t care. I’m gonna call them Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice. The first ‘comedic’ sequence involves Rick With The Squeaky Voice sitting in a barrel pretending he’s going to space, and getting his ass set on fire.

That sets the tone for the whole movie quite nicely. It’s stupid and it’s not funny, and it never gets any better. In fact, as we shall see, it gets significantly worse.

For some reason, Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice are assigned to a mission to explore a cave recently exposed by a nuclear test. This turns out to be the base for two seven-foot space women, Tanga and Pona, and their tuberous minions, the Vege-Men, and the entire party is soon in their clutches. The aliens say that they have come to save humanity from destroying ourselves through nuclear war, but naturally the army isn’t into that. Rick With The Squeaky Voice discovers that kissing the women puts them into a daze, allowing the two idiots to escape, but of course nobody back at Fort Nicholson believes their story. Is it really up to these two to stop Tanga and Pona from heading back to their home planet with their report? We’re doomed.

I don’t remember which review it was, but I once invited you to imagine a movie in which every character is Dropo or Watney Smith. This is that movie. This is proud of being that movie. The aliens try to read the two Ricks’ minds and one is completely empty while the other is full of superhero fantasies. Pona calls what she sees ‘completely illogical and infantile’, which is a fair description of the whole movie.

There’s a sequence where one of the army men shoots a rattlesnake that was about to bite one of the Ricks, and then cries because ‘he might have had a family’. They try to lampoon the thing in old movies where the characters walk through the same set from different angles by doing it without cutting away or changing the camera angle, but it just looks dumb. The Colonel gives a long-winded speech about the merits of getting straight to the point. A forced march stops for a lovely picnic and wine tasting. A guy gets his ass kicked by a Vege-Man and declares, “that’s the first time a salad ever tossed me.” There’s a running ‘gag’ about fans of ‘Space Commander Connors’ recognizing each other’s secret decoder rings and immediately going into a full-on geek-out.

None of this is funny, much of it is downright embarrassing, and the worst part is that the writers have no idea how to include their attempts at comedy in the story. Rather than the hijinks advancing the plot, every time something that’s supposed to be funny happens, the whole thing comes to a dead halt. This gives the impression that the movie is stumbling around in the dark with no idea where it’s going. It finally seems to settle on a plot when we find out that the spaceship is about to leave and must be stopped. After some bullshit the Ricks convince the Colonel (and only the Colonel) to help them take on the aliens. At this point I was thinking that this movie was pretty terrible but it hadn’t actually pushed me to the point of being tempted to turn it off…

And then it got racist.

The last ten minutes or so of Invasion of the Star Creatures are a downward spiral in which it seems like they gave up trying to be funny in favour of being actively offensive. First, they encounter what’s supposed to be a group of Native Americans on horseback. Rick With The Squeaky Voice tries to get their attention by saying “hey, Kemosabe, I wanna buy some blankets!” The Natives don’t speak much English but they do a lot of grunting, and threaten to kill the Colonel because they think he’s General Custer (?!). Then they kidnap everybody and force them to smoke the peace pipe and drink firewater and the white guys only escape once the Natives have passed out.

Holy shit. Not only is this repulsive, it is, as previously noted, irrelevant. It has no effect on the plot other than to waste time. The Natives do not help them defeat the aliens and neither does the Colonel, who is also in a drunken stupor. And then, just when we think this can’t possibly get any worse, the defeated alien women declare that they must throw themselves on the mercy of the Earth Men. This turns out to mean marrying them, and the dialogue specifically likens marriage to slavery, which Tanga and Pona seem to consider a point in its favour! The end of this movie left my head spinning. It’s like I watched a guy get ‘comedically’ knocked over by a punching bag for forty-five minutes and then he suddenly turned around and punched me in the face.

(Hey, I just realized… remember how I said the cave was exposed by a nuclear test? The dialogue emphasizes how this whole area is irradiated and dangerous – and then totally forgets about it. It’s never mentioned again and the characters take off their protective gear and never put it back on. So… that was useless, too.)

There is stuff in this movie that could have been funny. The secret decoder ring stuff almost got a smile out of me once or twice, because the characters seemed so earnest in their love for ‘Space Commander Connors’ and his lore. The ‘Vege-Men’ also had potential. We get to see a greenhouse room where they’re grown to be the women’s slaves, and the seedlings are hands or feet sticking out of flowerpots with a few leaves around them. This is fairly amusing and I could see it being the juvenile form of a sentient plant on Star Trek TOS. Adult Vege-Men are actors in stupid carrot costumes that they obviously can’t see out of very well, which should have been funny just because it’s so terrible, but Invasion of the Star Creatures is so bad you can’t even laugh at it ironically.

The idea of using a bumbling idiot as your main character, let alone two bumbling idiots, frankly baffles me. Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice are supposed to be the guys we, the audience, identify with. We’re supposed to like and root for them and to perhaps be able to imagine ourselves in their places, but the only thing I feel for them is contempt. Why would anyone want to see themselves in these guys? Perhaps it’s an attempt to say that anybody can be a hero, but the two Ricks don’t even qualify as that. When they save the world, it’s basically by accident. The ending, which rewards them with promotions, medals, and beautiful wives from outer space, actively makes me angry because they didn’t earn any of that!

Invasion of the Star Creatures works very hard at being pointless, and there’s very little in it that comes anywhere near a theme. If any such thing exists, its in Tanga and Pona’s insistence that they’re here to save humanity whether we like it or not, and how the humans react to that idea. The women say it would be a shame to see a young civilization destroy itself because nations were too stupid to work together. Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice reject this entirely, which is supposed to be a joke: these guys are in the army, so if humanity transcends the need for conflict they’d be out of a job. The rest of the plot then seems at pain to emphasize that humans cannot work together, and do not want to.

After all, the two Ricks’ attempts to summon help come to nothing. The Native Americans never understand that these men want assistance, and the Colonel thinks it’s all a Space Commander Connors game before sliding under the metaphorical table, having never done anything useful. The Ricks themselves spent most of their time arguing and complaining and in the end succeed only through good luck on their part and poor timing on that of the invaders. Usually a story that begins with ‘aliens want to save primitive humans from ourselves’ would end with ‘the aliens were wrong about us’. Invasion of the Star Creatures seems to want to say the aliens were right the whole time!

So there you have it – Invasion of the Star Creatures. It started off kinda bad and not funny, then swirled down the cinematic toilet into outright offensive, racist, sexist drivel. I’m trying to think of some small thing I can say about it that’s nice, but I’m having a very hard time. I guess I kinda liked the rumbly noises that represent the alien language – that was more fun than just having the actresses spout random gobbledygook. Other than that, I’m at a loss. The actors suck, the sets suck, the effects suck, the costumes suck, and everybody involved was a bigoted dickweed. Fuck this movie.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #invasion of the star creatures #fuck this movie #60s

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starwarsnonsense · 5 years ago

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Top 10 films of 2019

Here’s my very belated top 10 films of 2019! Note that this is a list of films that were released in the UK theatrically in 2019, meaning it includes certain releases that would be considered to belong to 2018 by others.

Honourable mentions: Joker, Hustlers, Booksmart, A Private War, Fighting With My Family

(And don’t worry - Little Women, 1917 and Uncut Gems are all already on my list for 2020.)

Look out for my most anticipated films of 2020 list, coming soon!

With that out of the way, here’s my list (in ascending order)! Do share your picks in the comments!

10. The Irishman (dir. Martin Scorsese)

This is clearly the work of a master filmmaker with much on his mind. In telling the story of Frank Sheeran, Scorsese is telling the story of a man who makes his trade in violence. Instead of elevating Frank as a hero or a figure of glamour, he’s consistently shown to be rather pathetic. He stumbles into the role of hitman for various factions of the criminal underworld, and sticks to it seemingly because it’s what comes most easily to him. The violence enacted by Sheeran is inane and routine, with no thought given to the personal cost until it is far too late. The final 15 minutes of this film show a life petering out with a whimper, laying bare the indignities of old age and the cold, empty horror of enduring it with no company besides your own regrets. The Irishman is a portrait of a life lived badly, and in the hands of anyone besides Scorsese it could have been dry and tedious. Instead, the filmmaking is incredibly assured and the editing is whip-sharp (in Thelma Schoonmaker we trust), making it a pleasure to watch even with the lengthy runtime.

9. The Farewell (dir. Lulu Wang)

The Farewell is a personal story about a young Asian-American woman (Awkwafina) struggling to reconcile her heritage with her current situation and values - specifically, she is tested when her grandmother is diagnosed with cancer and the wider family make the decision to hide the truth from her. The Farewell does a fantastic job of generating empathy for all the different perspectives and positions in play, but it’s truly anchored by Awkwafina’s amazingly nuanced and tender performance - basically, anyone who’s ever loved a grandparent should leave this feeling incredibly moved and inspired. The themes of The Farewell are both specific to the Asian-American experience and general to anyone who has struggled with maintaining bonds over a vast distance, whether physical or cultural. Lulu Wang is an exciting new voice in cinema, and I will watch her career with great interest.

8. Pain & Glory (dir. Pedro Almodóvar)

Almodóvar is one of my favourite filmmakers, and one of the reasons I love his work so much is its wild diversity. My favourite from him is The Skin I Live In, a film that could not be more different than Pain & Glory. This is a small, very personal film telling the story of a middle-aged director (Banderas, clearly playing a version of Almodóvar himself) who’s struggling with his legacy as a filmmaker and the increasing privations attached to middle age. Suffering in the present, Salvador finds himself retreating into memories of his childhood - particularly of his mother (Penelope Cruz) and his first crush. The childhood sequences were where the film really sung for me, perfectly capturing the sun-dappled glow of reminiscences of childhood. And the ending, where Almodóvar truly shows his hand, is delightfully mischievous and the perfect cap on this very personal picture.

7. Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood (dir. Quentin Tarantino)

This is a slice of life movie, but while that might call to mind ‘kitchen sink’ dramas, this is unabashedly a ‘slice of life’ movie about Hollywood and the mythology that has developed around it. It’s meandering and feels rather aimless for the bulk of its runtime, but that’s kind of the point. It’s exactly what the title promises in that it recaptures what life was like in a very specific time and in a very specific place - it’s an idealised, loving depiction of the Hollywood of the time, with the movie stars, flawed and fading as they are, cast as heroes menaced by the drugged-up hippies poised to dismantle the status quo. It ends in the fashion you’d expect from Tarantino, but here I found his revisionist approach to history remarkably poignant and effective. Film is a magic medium, with Hollywood serving as the ultimate dream factory - it feels completely right that Tarantino would attempt to use celluloid to right one of the great tragedies of Hollywood history.

6. One Cut of the Dead (dir. Shinichirou Ueda)

I went into this with no expectations whatsoever - and what a treat it was! One Cut of the Dead is easily one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in years, taking what initially seems like a trite concept (a crew is filming a zombie movie at a desolate location ... only to discover that the zombies are real!) and twisting it in a truly ingenious way. The comedy is very broad, but it is consistently delightful and always manages to avoid becoming crass - the movie even has some really sweet family dynamics at the centre of it, which gives it some real emotional heft. The success of this film is heavily reliant on a major twist that occurs part-way through, so the best advice I can give you is to stay as far away from spoilers for this one as possible - go in blind, and you will be amply rewarded for your faith.

5. Midsommar (dir. Ari Aster)

I went into this film with reservations, since I wasn’t a huge fan of Hereditary (by the same director), which I found to have extraordinary moments but iffy execution overall. This movie, however, wowed me. While marketed as a freaky/arty horror film, the director has described it as a fairy tale, which is the level on which is spoke to me. Midsommar follows Dani (an incredible Florence Pugh), a young woman who has suffered a terrible loss, as she travels with her boyfriend and his friends to a pagan festival in the Swedish countryside. Dani is painfully isolated, and her grief is hers to shoulder alone since her boyfriend is un-receptive and entirely unprepared to help her. Over the course of the film, destruction and creation are conflated in ways that are both beautiful and horrific - this film spoke to me on a profound level, and the way it ended gave me an incredible sense of catharsis. This won’t be for everyone, for I found it to be a deeply special film. Let’s all raise a toast to the imminent, and much welcome, reign of Florence Pugh.

4. Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-Ho)

Parasite is that rare film that more than lives up to the massive hype surrounding it (you don’t get more hyped than winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards!). It’s hard to write about this film without spoilers, since so much of the joy of Parasite lies in discovering what the hell is going on. This is an ‘upstairs downstairs’ movie for the 21st century, where the downstairs people have fierce designs on the lives and pleasures enjoyed by their social superiors. The rich people here are not vilified, though they are depicted as vapid and shallow, perpetually searching for new ways to fill their lives with meaning. Their struggling counterparts from the rough side of the city are struggling only to get by - their lives too hard to allow time for such indulgences. This is a film about the fantasy of social advancement, and the power that dreams have to hold us in thrall to hopeless ambitions. It’s masterfully directed, acted and designed, and it has been extremely gratifying to see it receive such widespread recognition.

3. Marriage Story (dir. Noah Baumbach)

I was always going to see this (hey Adam Driver!) but I was entirely unprepared for how great Marriage Story was. Easily Baumbach’s best film, Marriage Story is a masterclass in acting and character writing - it’s fiercely intelligent in how it constantly forces you to reassess what you’re seeing and where your sympathies lie. Does Charlie seem like an oblivious, navel-gazing asshole? Sure, but he’s also confused and vulnerable and thrown entirely off balance by his awakening consciousness of his wife’s dreams and ambitions. Nicole is self-effacing and self-denying, as so many women are, which makes her emerging confidence and newfound sense of direction incredibly satisfying to witness. In the second half of Marriage Story, Driver’s Charlie undoubtedly takes the spotlight - it’s clear to me that he becomes the focus largely because he continues to flounder as Nicole finds her footing. Baumbach, wisely I feel, is most interested in his characters when they’re lost, struggling to be better but barely understanding what that means. Even if you don’t sympathise with Charlie by the end of Marriage Story, I can promise you will come away with a thorough understanding of him thanks to Driver’s extraordinary performance. Superlative work, all round. (It’s also, just for the record, the only film of 2019 to make me cry.)

2. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (dir. Céline Sciamma)

This is the 2019 film I am most excited to see again (it’s coming out in a week in the UK - I’m so excited!). Sciamma’s film is an incredibly moving and deeply beautiful love story, depicting how a female artist in 18th century France falls in love with the woman she has been covertly employed to paint. Portrait is very much a film about the act of looking, and in many ways it’s the ultimate female gaze film - it’s all about women looking at women, as depicted by a female filmmaker. Gazes are political as much as they’re romantic - here, our two heroines drink each other, aware of exactly how dangerous and forbidden their mutual intoxication is. The woozy thrall of their relationship is exquisitely conveyed through the cinematography and direction, and the final shot - which I won’t spoil - is an all-timer that serves as an exquisite coda to the entire film. This is a truly superb film, and I’m still incensed that it received no substantial awards recognition. Let’s hope it goes down in film history as the masterpiece it is, yet another omission proving the limitations of the Oscars as a metric for great art.

1. The Favourite (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

This completely wowed me, and against all the odds it stuck with me as the best film I saw in 2019 - it features a trio of magnificently compelling female characters (played by Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone) operating at the court of Queen Anne (Colman is Anne, Weisz and Stone are courtiers), and is laser-focused on the shifting sands of the power dynamics between them. The script is savage without sacrificing poignancy, witty without ceasing to be emotionally honest. And while I’ve seen some react to this film as a comedy (and it certainly has laughs, most of which are tightly packaged with shock), for me it was very clearly a drama about the inscrutable and complicated relationships that exist between women. Specifically, it is about how those relationships run the gamut from sincere affinity to ruthless manipulation. This is a spectacular movie, visually and thematically rich in every frame, and it also has the best use of an Elton John song in 2019 (sorry, Rocketman!).

Fly away, skyline pigeon fly, towards the things you’ve left so very, so very far, behind.

#the irishman #portrait of a lady on fire #the favourite #midsommar #adam driver #marriage story #florence pugh #the farewell #awkwafina #parasite #once upon a time in hollywood #film #cinema #best of the year #2019 #one cut of the dead #pain and glory

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nettlestonenell · 4 years ago

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Armie Hammer wants a sequel to The Man From U.N.C.L.E.—shouldn’t you?

This post is a long time in coming, Gentle Readers and @jammeke, but now, though it might be here, before your very eyes, to think it will be well-laid out would be a mistake. It’s set to be just about as messy as Ilya’s misplaced loyalties and murky motivations.

How dare!

I probably first watched this film well over a year ago (courtesy @jammeke posting things about it). I used Sling OnDemand (I think on TNT). In the ensuing viewings I also watched it in that way, but as I was sitting down for a fourth(?) viewing, it kept coming to me that I was tired of watching it with commercials I couldn’t skip, and I had a sneaking suspicion that it had been edited for time and I was missing out on scenes. [pointless aside: I was also watching the film in chunks, and never as a whole]

Where is she now? What’s the time stamp? How far along did she get? Are you shagging the hotel hostess yet?

So, I, uh, set out to buy it on DVD—without any luck! In the sense that copies I could find cost more (w/ shipping) than buying it to stream. So, I bought it to stream on Amazon. Do I regret my choice, Gentle Readers? No, no I don’t. I do regret burden of knowledge in learning that TNT was already playing the entirety of the film. That was a hard pill to swallow.

Nope, I’ve looked. That’s absolutely everything. Nothing additional lurking around here...

So here it is, as it is, @jammeke, “My Notes on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”

Look, I don’t know what this film is. I probably can’t fully articulate its appeal. Or maybe I can--certainly after transcribing four page I’ve tried. Number One thing to know about me and fiction/films is that a top draw for me is seeing something out of the ordinary, such as beautiful locations, a historical era, delicious costumes. There are times, frankly, this can trump weak story and undefined character for me. (The best films, of course, combine all three) Certainly, The Man... delivers in the delight of the eyes. Additionally, I must confess that growing up as a person older than @reblogginhood but younger than Miss Fisher, so much of what was on TV was essentially reruns of this film’s iconic Look(tm). So, when I see women dressed like Gaby I am just another three-to-seven-year-old overcome with the drop dead glamour of it all.

Darling, tell me how you really feel...

Some questions I have:

· IS Armie Hammer a hulk of a man? Everyone in this film seems to think so, yet he always tracks to me as trim (rather than hulking)

· Why translate via captions some Russian speaking, but not all?

· IS Napoleon’s backstory directly cribbed from USA’s White Collar?

· DOES Gaby have a German accent?

· Does Ilya get preternaturally attached to all the people he’s ordered to look after? Also, what is his bonding rate with kittens?

Sorry, wrong iteration.

· If Lady Villain knows the lens is wrong—if her technical understanding is that in-depth--does she really need Gaby’s dad to make the bomb?

· How old was Gaby during the war?

· What happens when Ilya gets a NEW puppy assigned to him? (please let this be addressed in film #2)

Hooray for:

· That bathroom fight! *all the Burn Notice feels!

· Gaby is her own lady, and chooses sides as necessary—not always unilateral in her support for either male character. Case in point: she sides with Ilya over the clothes, and Napoleon over the incident of the wallet.

· That delicious (speaking as Rusty, here) Ocean’s 11-stylized action. It’s pretty, so I’m not bored with it. Sometimes a sandwiched montage gets shown, so I’m REALLY not bored. I’ve got 18 tiny moving boxes of things to look at!

· Pinkie rings. There, you’ve told me everything I need to know about that character.

· Solo in a beret. English has not yet found a word for the feeling it evoked in this viewer. Somewhere between ‘precious’ and ‘oh, no’.

See, there? Now you’ve felt it too.

· Goggles! All the accessories! Dune Buggies! (I mean, that’s what I’m calling Napoleon’s chase-scene ride)

Things I adore:

· It seems (after some research) that more than a few folks view Gaby as a third wheel, and though she’s not exactly a Princess Leia commandeering her own rescue and exuding competence and a deserved take-charge-attitude at every corner, she IS a foci for both male characters (though romantically it would seem only for one), just as Ilya is a foci for both her and Napoleon [no one seems to worry about Napoleon, though they should--film #2, anyone?]

· Mechanic Gaby not needing a beauty makeover, or being dragged into one. She gets some nice clothes, but it’s never suggested that she’s not attractive or acceptable before putting them on, and I respect, nay, embrace it.

Oh, my heart. She’s still not as tall as them!

· Ilya, drab pigeon Ilya, knowing fashion

· Oh man, don’t even get me started on the power of the statement, “it doesn’t have to match”

· You knew it was coming on this sublist: the wrestle-fight. I mean, c’mon. Poor little Gaby, locked behind the Iron Curtain, living a life of always being watched. She’s in the swankest hotel (I mean, Napoleon chose it, so we can be sure it’s swank with an E). She’s trying to celebrate her freedom, her liberation. She’s playing verboten music, she’s drinking to excess. Girl wants—and deserves—a party. And Ilya is…not built for that (that he knows of). For some fun, just imagine if she had been given Napoleon to room with instead.

o I will say that this scene, and some of their other interactions have what I would call early (non-sibling) Luke and Leia energy. Ilya seems to have moments of being struck by Gaby in a way Luke is struck by Leia in the early part of the trilogy. When Leia takes charge, and Luke accepts it. When Leia does something incredible, and Luke is left open-mouthed. *no, I don’t see OT Star Wars in everything. Shut up.

· “He fixed the glitch.”

· Again, shout-out to the non-action action.

· “I left my jacket in there.”

· The whole race to rescue Gaby I am in love with beyond words. [I have noted it as “Crazy Jeep Drive with Warhead!”] Probably b/c it comes across as totally egalitarian. Both men want her rescued. They’re no longer in competition. It’s just as important to Napoleon as it is to Ilya to catch up to her. Also, it is bonkers, like some sort of X-games version of a commercial for the vehicles they’re driving. And screaming Willie Scott does not make an appearance.

Someone says “winkle” out.

· Look! Another note about the screen divisions and how I love it, shout-outs to the original Steve McQueen The Thomas Crown Affair (a contemporary of when this movie is meant to be set), and TV’s 24.

Things that get a great, big NOPE:

· Jerrod Harris: you’ve been in so much streamable content in the last decade I can’t hate you, but frankly, you’re terrible here—unless you’re supposed to be giving a mannered, not-campy-enough-to-be-enjoyable performance here. Your American English puts me in the mind of Alex Hawaii 5-0′Loughlin where it feels you’re concentrating so hard on your accent that you fail to convince anyone that you’re a harried, over-worked and exasperated spy handler. Your performance is at odds with every bit of dialogue you’re given to say.

· That awful, mishandled title that doesn’t even connect to the film until the final moments (a sequel set-up, for sure)

· Look, you don’t introduce Hugh Grant casually mid-way through your film in a throwaway appearance. I mean, he’s HUGH GRANT we all know something’s up now.

· This is not exactly a great big NOPE, b/c I love a flat cap, Tommy Shelby—but I feel like a less tall man with a far rounder face in a flat cap would track more as Russian to me that AH does. To me, he just looks like he’s about to go golfing.

Over par? Unacceptable!

· Is Victoria a British-accented Italian? A British woman who married—what? Gaby’s uncle isn’t Italian!? An Italian who went to school in Britain? My head hurts. Also, is her hair meant to be unconvincingly bleached?

Other commentary:

· Napoleon’s adult ne’er-do-well backstory is so far from being emotionally equivalent to Ilya’s childhood trauma [and his enslavement to the USSR] it seems bestial when he calls it out on multiple occasions. Badly done, Solo.

· Gaby is the film’s key (sorry, Buffy fans). Everyone is connected to her. Yes, she could have been given a bit more on the character front, but I don’t see her as as much of a flaw in the film as some others/reviewers seem to.

· Look, essentially (and not very nuanced-ly), Ilya is a stalker. I think the film goes a certain distance in establishing that his early behavior toward Gaby is not normal, but concurrently it does not truly call him out on it. He’s essentially viewed as an odd-duck, sure, but not a true threat to her (should she not reciprocate or tolerate his intensity toward her). I think I might be able to cite his behavior when Gaby comes on to him (that he doesn’t jump at a chance with her) that maybe he’s given a little more nuance than a straight-on stalker, and it helps that he and Napoleon never get into a pissing match over Gaby’s person, only over her new clothes. But overall the film has to walk a fine line (and the jury is still out on how successful it is, I’d say) between playing Ilya’s laser-like attention to Gaby for its humor, and calling it out for the unsettling, threatening behavior it is.

· Honestly, it wasn’t until I engaged the Closed Captioning that I understood Napoleon was calling Ilya the ‘Red Peril’. So, that was nearly three viewings in.

· I give the screen credits A+, on both ends. Not to mention the end credits are actually INTERESTING with lots to see and learn! (Certainly we learn more about HG in them than we do at any time during the film)

Things I would have liked:

· More of fish-out-of-the-Iron-Curtain Gaby moments

· A better dichotomy shown of East vs. West Berlin/Germany. There’s nothing easy either visually or otherwise to distinguish the two.

· HC being given a more specific American accent (from an actual locality). This, for an American viewer, works better than the flat, unlocated American accent many a British actor will bust out. *Mind you, HC does a generally good job, but he fails utterly on both “Immediate” which he pronounces at least twice as “immeedeejt” [rather than imm-E-deeot] and “Nazi” as “NAHT-zee” [rather than “NOT-zee”]. And let’s not get started on that late in the film use of ‘earnt’, a word that—well, it’s just not in the American English twentieth century lexicon.

· C’mon. You gotta tease the Hugh Grant more.

· Solo is a blank before the war. I’ve read thoughts on the film calling out Gaby as the blank character, but they’re wrong. Solo is the blank. He’s the ‘made’ man, his identity seemingly assembled during the war and after. For example, he doesn’t go into the war a thief, nor (it would seem) a particularly educated or urbane individual. Now THAT’s a juicy backstory I’d love to learn about, perhaps in film #2--or #3? What creates a Napoleon Solo? What would he be doing if he weren’t on the government’s leash/incarcerated? Is anyone left caring about him back wherever he calls home? I mean, who doesn’t love a gender-flipped 60s-era Holly Golightly backstory? [And yes, I would love there to be an ex-wife or even a current wife mixed up in his origins as well—Guy Ritchie, call me!]

Notes I have that I’m not sure if they still make sense to me:

· Only mom calls me Napoleon (do he say it ‘mum’?) Is he a secret Canadian?

· Solo’s torture, 1st view recall Napoleon’s childhood? *I think this means that after watching the first time I somehow erroneously believed that during the torture Napoleon’s childhood was a topic gone over. This was wrong. HOWEVER, this would have made far more story-sense than the backstory we’re given on an easily disposeable villain.

· “Even the average Russian agent. You’re special.” ?

· Uncle is Baddie (*so glad I made this note to myself)

· Ilya’s dad IS an embarrassment. I’m not sure what genius commentary I had in my mind, here. Perhaps that Ilya himself is embarrassed of him? Not just Ilya’s handler’s? [Also, aside: Napoleon totally slut-shames Ilya’s mom, which is the doublest of double standards from ‘I got myself the biggest and most ornate suite b/c I-wanted-plenty-of-space-for-my-random-seductions’ and I really wish Ilya had thrown that back in his face] *yes, of course I know that Ilya and Napoleon would not likely equate a wife/mother’s sexual exploits with that of Solo’s, but let’s be honest, this film tweaks the nose of (I won’t say reverses, it doesn’t go that far) plenty of tropes and gender expectations, and this certainly seems like a missed opportunity to call Solo on the carpet (which I hope film #2 does far more)

Things I wrote down so long ago I don’t recall what they mean:

· CC-save

In conclusion:

What does film #2 look like? What title does it get? Will the Peter/Neil White Collar dynamic continue to grow? *note that I have no confidence a second film will ever come to pass...

In the end, all I know is, “It didn't help when American Tom Cruise, who was slated to play U.S. spy Napoleon Solo, dropped out, prompting the casting of Cavill (who had previously read for the Russian role).“ I would not have watched that film.

#tmfu #tmfu 2015 #ilya kuryakin #napoleon solo #gaby teller #henry cavill #armie hammer #alicia vikander #the man from uncle 2015 #the man from u.n.c.l.e.#the man from uncle #i don't know what this film's tags are meant to be to keep it from popping up in the TV series searches Sorry

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