#hes trying to help but this is not an uncomplicated effort to help harry in his time of need yknow?

[frodo-a-gogo]

Also I dont wanna get too "inside baseball" but the relapse in "thought project: relapse" does not strictly refer to harrys substance abuse related relapse but also jeans relapse into enabling behavior

[saintsenara]

thank you very much for the ask, anon! it turned out that questions 1 and 2 sent me a bit feral, so they're queued up in a separate post... allowing this one to focus on the unhinged and deranged potential of ronius.

which - i'll be honest - is not quite as unhinged and deranged as one might think...

although my answer about it as a pure crackship would be influenced by a headcanon i remain committed to purely for my own amusement that harry is the only person who believes sirius to be unfathomably good-looking pre-azkaban [the girl in the defence against the dark arts exam was actually checking out lily! harry saw what he wanted to see!] and still retaining vestiges of these magnificent looks after it.

i like the idea of ron - canonically a real hottie himself - not being entirely sure what all the fuss is about, not least because sirius hasn't seen a dentist in fifteen years. harry's sighing every night about how lucky ron is while everyone else pats sirius on the back for bagging himself a tall and sporty legend with great hair, a chill personality, and a fourteen-inch wand.

but my more serious response to this ship would be that it joins the pile - with snon and ronmort - which are made plausible by the fact that ron is, at heart, someone who cares.

in goblet of fire, harry, ron, and hermione all have broadly similar views of sirius - that he's a clever, sensible adult who can be trusted to help them with the mystery they find themselves in. ron is reassured that harry tells sirius about his scar hurting, for example, because he thinks it's a given that sirius will know what to do about it - and he believes that any information sirius gives harry throughout this book is completely above reproach.

ron also clearly thinks that sirius is cool - him trying to get sirius to agree with him that hermione's passion for house elf rights is ridiculous very much has the vibe of him wanting sirius to acknowledge him as a sophisticated man-of-the-world; which him being pissed-off when sirius suggests the trio are too young to understand what things were like in the first war also illustrates.

[which i think sirius respects him for - he obviously admires a bit of bolshiness, and he also obviously adores the loyalty ron and hermione have for harry.]

and so i think that you can absolutely imagine ron developing a little crush on sirius - to go with his broader bisexual awakening over viktor krum - during his fourth year.

more interestingly, though, is that the trio's view of sirius diverges in order of the phoenix.

in harry's case, there is a reversal of the reasonably uncomplicated parent-child dynamic of goblet of fire, as sirius' depression - as well as the regression he feels from being stuck in his childhood home - robs him of the capacity to provide harry with the paternal emotional support he needs. instead, harry ends up being the one taking the adult role in their relationship - viewing it as his responsibility to be the sensible one in order to keep sirius safe.

hermione notices this role-reversal, but her view is broadly that sirius would be able to restrain his emotional instability if he simply tried hard enough. she's the one of the three who thinks that sirius' grimmauld-place-induced regression is accompanied by a desire to relive his glory days with harry standing in for james - and while both she and harry find sirius' more reckless behaviour [such as his suggestion that he might come to hogsmeade to see them] frightening, hermione evidently regards it as reckless arrogance, while harry sees it as reckless desperation.

ron - on the other hand - approaches order-era sirius not from the adult position in an adult-child dynamic, but as a peer.

he's the member of the trio who best understands the impact feeling useless to the war effort, lonely, and trapped has on sirius, without adding the qualification that he should be an adult and deal with it [which has the negative result that he's easily convinced that harry's vision of sirius in the department of mysteries is real, because he thinks it's completely plausible that sirius would have left the house and been captured].

he has no time for the idea that sirius views harry as indistinguishable from james, or that sirius is deliberately or childishly reckless. he's the only one of the three to give sirius the credit of listening to dumbledore and working to keep himself and harry safe - even if he doesn't like what he has to endure in order to do this. he treats sirius as someone who deserves to not be condescended to and to be acknowledged as having authority in his own house - for example, when he tells hermione that she needs to respect sirius' justification for why kreacher can't be manumitted when he thinks she intends to give him clothes for christmas [that hermione is completely right that slaves should be freed is by-the-by here].

he also understands harry's grief over sirius' death - and what sirius meant to harry - far more instinctively than hermione. but he's also the only one of the trio who really gets how sirius was understood by the order more widely - for example, he's the only one of the three who correctly points out that tonks didn't actually know sirius well enough for the intensity of grief harry and hermione are ascribing to her to be plausible. while harry - completely understandably - sees sirius as so important in his own life that he can't help but imagine him as the central figure in the life of everyone he encounters [which is unrelatedly interesting in that it's how each of the three marauders saw james], ron has a more pragmatic, big-picture view of him as a man. a good man - absolutely - and a fun and clever and admirable one, but still a man like any other.

ron understanding sirius - but not idolising him - creates a pretty strong potential for a relationship between them in a world in which sirius survives into the trio's adulthoods. this is especially the case when this understanding is combined with the fact that ron is shown - throughout the series - to be very good at providing comfort.

sirius survives azkaban and his time on the run through sheer, desperate resilience - but, as his collapse when he's back at grimmauld place shows, this resilience can't keep his demons at bay when he's not just fighting, at the most basic level, to stay alive.

if he survives the war, then he - like his narrative mirror, snape - is going to find himself feeling terrified and unmoored and completely unsure about who he is and what he'll do in a world in which voldemort is dead - and i suspect that his self-destruction would be extraordinary.

ron - alone of the trio - has the capacity to understand how sirius would end up in a place where "all was well" is more frightening to him than the potential of dying any minute. and he also has the capacity to provide an anchoring force through cups of tea and chit-chat which makes sirius think it might be possible to survive the day... and then the week... and then the month - which can then transition into him having the capacity to understand the big questions of guilt and grief and love and loyalty which define sirius' adult life.

so yes. i back it entirely.

[mariekavanagh]

Love this! 8, 10 and 19 please :)

8. Who do you think was the best father figure to Harry?

Oh man, that's a tough one. So many to choose from xD

They all have their flaws. In the case of all of them, they've helped him in some way but have also done the opposite in at least one circumstance, which leaves us to sort out which negatively-impacting father figure was least damaging to the poor kid.

In terms of trying to decide who is the least problematic, I'm inclined to say Arthur Weasley. He's definitely not the most popular choice, and his actions towards Harry are far less heroic than the other candidates, but it's for that reason that I'm drawn to choosing him. He's a very ordinary family man who, along with his wife, gave Harry a taste of what being a part of a normal family is. He welcomed Harry into his home and treated him no differently from his sons for being "The Boy Who Lived/The Chosen One/etc". Harry expresses in the books how happy he is with the Weasleys, and this uncomplicated, happy refuge from the darkness and pressure on the world was something very special to him. Arthur also supported Harry during his trip to the Ministry in OOTP - a very fatherly role which his own father (or Sirius if circumstances had allowed) would have filled, but Arthur was the next best thing, in my opinion. Arthur has no agenda beyond Harry's best interests (I mean there's also wanting Voldemort gone but that's definitely a wider public interest than his personal wish). He has no hidden motive, nothing he requires of Harry for his benefit or for the wider war effort, just this poor parentless boy's wellbeing. A very normal, uncomplicated father. Something Harry certainly craved, and needed.

10. Which character do you relate to the most, and why?

Luna, to an extent. I was the sort of person in school who didn't have a lot of friends and didn't like a lot of the things that others were into at the time. I has interests others didn't, and I was content to enjoy them on my own when others expressed a dislike or decided I was "weird". In that respect, I can sympathise with Luna's experiences.

19. Favourite Weasley?

Already answered, I'm afraid!

[monkeysatemylastrolo]

Safehouse

So I actually wrote this after Patience (13.03) first aired (hence the reference to Cas still being dead), then dug it up again today and decided to post it. The basis? Well, basically, I just wanted Jack (and Sam) to get as far away from Dean as possible, before Jack ended up with any more psychological damage from Dean’s threats etc. And so this was born. Hope you like it!

---

Sam was already packed, Jack waiting in a car in the garage (an old ’58 Cadillac which Sam hoped wouldn’t stand out too much) before he told Dean outright.

Dean just stared at him in complete incomprehension, dismantled gun spread out across the table in front of him, the bore brush he had gripped loosely in his hand ignored (or perhaps forgotten completely) in lieu of this new conversation.

“What the hell are you on about ‘you’re leaving’?”

Sam forced himself to straighten up and keep his gaze steady. “Exactly what I said. You can’t be around Jack right now, Dean, and it’s not good. For any of us. I’ve been trying to-” He cut himself off, all his carefully thought out reasonings suddenly seeming useless under the weight of Dean’s betrayed stare. But this had to be done. He couldn’t back out now. Not when so much was at stake. (He tried not to remember the last time he’d made a similar (but oh so different) decision. Tried not to remember the repeated accusations of ‘you chose a demon over your own brother.’ Tried not to imagine the similar accusations which would likely come this time if things didn’t go as hoped.) He needed to do this. Needed to make Dean understand.

“Cas is gone, Dean,” he explained, the loss curling in his stomach mirrored in the widening of his brother’s eyes and in the clenching of his hand. The bore brush tilted slightly with the shift in pressure. “Cas is gone, and we’re the next best thing that Jack has. We’re supposed to step in here and do what’s right- raise him the way Cas would’ve wanted to. Help him to work out that he can be good. You going on about how he’s evil-”

“He is evil, Sam, and if you weren’t so-”

“You going on about how he’s evil,” Sam repeated more forcefully, his palms tingling in his effort to appear unfazed, “is doing the exact opposite. You’re piling your own issues onto him, and it’s making him miserable. You’re driving him away. And that just makes him that much more susceptible to manipulation- we’ve already seen that with Asmodeus. I won’t let history repeat itself. Not this time. Not with him. He doesn’t deserve it.”

Without giving Dean time to try to convince him otherwise (and trying also not to let his mind linger on the question of whether he, himself had truly deserved the same treatment), Sam turned in the doorway, only glancing back over his shoulder because there was one last thing Dean needed to know.

“When you’ve figured that out for yourself, Dean, call me. We’ll come back when- if- Jack can feel safe around you.”

--

Jack still wasn’t entirely certain why, exactly, Sam was taking him away. Sam had talked to him about it, of course- explained about safe environments and negative influences and what was and wasn’t acceptable for him to have to endure, but honestly he wasn’t sure why Sam seemed to think Jack, of all people, was worth it. Especially when it meant he would be moving away from the brother he obviously cared about so much. It just didn’t make sense.

A sudden ray of light caught his eye, and Jack turned his head, watching as Sam entered the garage and made his way over, sliding quickly into the driver’s seat and pretty much instantly starting the engine. It was a little strange, seeing Sam instead of Dean behind the wheel, but stranger still was the blank, almost unnaturally still expression on what had, up until now, been the most expressive face he had yet encountered. The sight of it had something in Jack’s chest seizing- similar to the clench of fear he got whenever he was afraid something he’d done had proven Dean right, but this time without the actual fear included (and, somehow, much closer to physical pain because of it).

The door opened again when they were already half-way across the room, the dark shadows on Dean’s face made that much more ominous by the blackness which stretched out from his feet, twisting its way across the room and trying to entangle itself around their car. Sam kept his eyes fixed firmly ahead, though, the tightening of his fingers against the steering wheel the only sign that he’d even noticed, which meant that Jack was the only one privy to the shifting emotions which shifted across Dean’s features as they drove away- the mix of anger and fear turning into something closer to determined fury and accusation as, for just a second, his eyes met Jack’s own.

For the first time, Jack wondered whether them leaving only confirmed what Dean had always been so vocal about knowing.

After all, only a true monster would break apart family, right?

They were outside before he could find a way to share his thoughts, but even if that weren’t the case Jack didn’t think he’d have been able to do so anyway- a single glance at the sheen of moisture in Sam’s eyes enough to silence even the most rebellious of protestations.

--

Conversation in the car was limited, neither inhabitant making much of any effort at all to really start any talks of substance, so Jack had plenty of time to think during the journey, even after he’d gained Sam’s permission to read some of the well-thumbed novels he discovered during a rest stop that the Hunter had packed and had become distracted by the stories contained on the pages within. When they finally stopped for good, though, three days and several hundred miles away from the Bunker, outside a single, ramshackle cabin in the middle of nowhere, he still didn’t have any real answers.

“Where are we?”

“Montana,” Sam answered, gazing at the building with an indecipherable expression. “One of the Campbell properties, so Dean doesn’t know about it. The Campbells were our mom’s family,” he clarified, no doubt anticipating the question on Jack’s lips. “All gone now, though…

“Sorry it took us so long to get here, Jack. I needed to make sure Dean couldn’t pick up the trail.”

Pulling their bags from the trunk, Sam passed them to Jack to hold as he unfolded a large sheet of plastic and tucked it over the car, before taking his own bag back and leading the way inside. The room within, once enough light had filtered in for Jack to be able to truly see it, turned out to be smaller than most of the rooms they had left behind, but still somehow larger than he had expected. Books stood in haphazard piles which crowded shelves and cupboards along every wall and in every corner, the symbols and lettering which decorated their spines reminiscent of some similar tomes he had seen in the Bunker’s library, while a single threadbare couch sat in the centre of it all, half-covering a dusty rug so faded only the basic variations in colour were visible.

“Those two rooms there have beds in them,” Sam gestured to the right, neither of them yet moving from their spot by the entrance. “There’s a kitchen through there-” the westernmost door opposite them, half-hidden behind a protruding bookcase- “and the one next to it is the bathroom. There should still be towels and soap and stuff in the cupboard under the sink in there, but I brought some extra stuff with us just in case.” Turning a sad smile Jack’s way, he twitched a single finger towards said bathroom and held out a bag Jack assumed held the extra stuff Sam had mentioned. “You should freshen up first. We can talk about what comes next once both of us have had a decent night’s sleep, yeah?”

Jack studied him for a moment, wondering how it was possible for someone to appear anxious, hopeful, sad and still so gentle all at the same time. Reaching out a single hand, he took the proffered bag with a half-smile of his own. “I think I’d like that.”

When he emerged eight minutes and twenty-three seconds later, his hair still concealed under the towel he wore draped over his head to shield his nightclothes, Sam was on the couch, sitting in the glow of a small lamp Jack hadn’t noticed before and appearing much calmer as he typed something onto his laptop. He looked up when Jack stepped forward, though, speaking softly a few seconds later.

“You done?” He smiled at Jack’s nod. “Alright. I’m gonna shower too, then. You figure out which room you want and try to settle in a bit, and I’ll sort something out for us to eat when I get out.” Then, after setting the laptop down in the centre of the couch, he withdrew his own nightclothes from the bag by his feet and made his way into the bathroom, placing an uncertain hand on Jack’s shoulder as he passed. “Hey, don’t look so anxious, okay? We got this. I promise.”

--

The bedroom farthest from the building’s entrance was smaller, but it had an uncomplicated air to it which appealed to Jack somehow so, hoping that Sam wouldn’t find it presumptive of him, he set his bag on the bed in there before making his way back into the main room and perching on the final couch cushion, waiting. By the time Sam emerged seven and a half minutes later, he was already re-immersed in the world of Harry Potter’s second year at Hogwarts, but he looked up anyway when he sensed the older man’s pause.

“Gilderoy Lockhart is a very strange person.”

“Yes he is. How does Minestrone soup sound for dinner? Only canned stuff for now, though- we’ll have to go shopping soon if we want anything fresh.”

“Is Minestrone soup good?”

Sam just shrugged. “I like it. You might not. But we can always find you a different flavour if it’s not your thing.”

“You won’t be angry? Dean would probably be angry.”

Something dark and sorrowful, yet also tinted with wistful yearning, descended upon Sam’s face. “Jack, just because Dean was angry about things, that doesn’t mean he was right about them.” Features softening into the gentle half-smile he wore so often when trying to sooth Jack’s fears, Sam tilted his head a fraction of an inch. “You’re allowed to not like stuff. It doesn’t make you bad.”

In the face of such honest, straightforward kindness, Jack felt only one answer was truly appropriate. “Then I would be happy to try Minestrone Soup.” Perhaps he would enjoy it as much as he had the nougat Clark had introduced him to.

He doubted it, though. He had tried several foods since he was born. None of them had compared to nougat.

(Part two)

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 9/11/20 – I AM WOMAN, BROKEN HEARTS GALLERY, RENT-A-PAL, UNPREGNANT AND MORE!

Thankfully, we’re getting a slower week this week after the past few weeks of absolute insanity with so many new releases. This week, we also get a nice string of movies about women that are mostly made by women directors, so hopefully these won’t get lost in the shuffle of theaters reopening.

To be perfectly honest, I went into Unjoo Moon’s I AM WOMAN (Quiver Distribution) – this week’s “Featured Flick” -- thinking it was a doc about ‘70s pop sensation Helen Reddy. Imagine my surprise to discover that it actually was a narrative film with Tilda Cobham-Hervey playing the Australian singer who moved to New York in 1966 after winning a contest, expecting a record deal but only winding up with disappointment.  Once there, she’d meet journalist Lilian Roxon (Danielle Macdonald, being able to use her real Australian accent for once) and Jeff Weld (Evan Peters), the man who would become her manager and then husband. Once the couple move to L.A. with Helen’s daughter Traci (from her previous marriage), things began to pick up at the same time as Reddy starts dealing with issues in her marriage and friendship with Roxon.

Listen, I get it. To some (or maybe all) younger people, including film critics, Helen Reddy represents the cheesier side of ‘70s music. I only know her music, since I was a young kid who listened to AM Top 40 radio for much of the ‘70s, but by the end of the decade, I had already switched to metal, punk and noisier rock. As you can tell from watching I Am Woman, Reddy is a particularly interesting music personality, particularly once you realize how hard she struggled to get into the business with a husband who only feigned to support her after dragging her to L.A. for “her career.”

There were many takeaways from watching Moon’s film, but one of the bigger ones is how amazing Cobham-Hervey is at portraying a woman that few of us may have actually seen perform even on television. I’m not sure if Cobham-Hervey did any of her own singing or is lip-syncing the whole time, but it doesn’t matter because she instills so much joy into the performances, especially the two times she sings the highly-inspirational title song live.

Although there isn’t a ton of major drama in Reddy’s life, most that does exist revolves around her relationship with Wald, who is depicted by Peters as an out-of-control coke-sniffing monster. Those in Hollywood may have dealt with Wald as a movie producer or during his stint as Sylvester Stallone’s manager, and only they will know how exaggerated this performance is. Far more interesting is Helen’s friendship with Macdonald’s Roxon which would inspire her to perform the song “You and Me Against the World.”  (Seriously, if you want a good cry, throw that song on after watching I Am Woman.)

Moon does a great job with the material, whether it’s recreating New York in the ‘60s – often using music to set the tone of the period -- or by framing Reddy’s story with Phyllis Schlaffly’s fight against the ERA, as depicted in FX’s mini-series Mrs. America.  Still, it never loses track of Reddy’s journey and her role as a mother to Traci and slightly less to Wald’s son, Jordan. The movie ends with a wonderful and tearful epilogue, and I will not lie that I was tearing up more than once while watching this movie.

I Am Woman may be relatively uncomplicated, but it’s still a compelling relaying of Reddy's amazing story bolstered by an incredible knock-em-dead performance by Tilda Cobham-Hervey. It’s also one of the most female-empowering film I’ve seen since the Ruth Bader Ginsburg movie On the Basis of Sex, starring Felicity Jones.

This week’s primary theatrical release is Natalie Krinsky’s THE BROKEN HEARTS GALLERY (Stage 6/Sony), starring Geraldine Viswanathan as Lucy, a young woman who works at a gallery who is still obsessed with her ex-coworker/boyfriend Max. On the night of her  disastrous break-up, Lucy meets-cute Nick (Dacre Montgomery from Stranger Things), who later inspires her to rid of her hoarding issues by creating the “Broken Hearts Gallery.” This is a place where people who have broken up can bring the remnants of said relationship by donating the mementos they’ve maintained from their partners as sentimental value.

I’m a big fan of Viswanathan from her appearance in Blockers and TBS’ “Miracle Workers” series, as she’s clearly very talented as a comic actress, but I couldn’t help but go into this with more than a little cynicism, because it does follow a very well-worn rom-com formula that can be traced right back to When Harry Met Sally. Yup, another one.  Much of this movie comes across like a bigger budget version of a movie that might play Tribeca Film Festival, and I wish I could say that was a compliment because I’ve seen a lot of good movies at Tribeca. But also just as many bad ones.

The problem is that The Broken Hearts Gallery isn’t very original, and its roots are especially obvious when it starts interspersing the recently-heartbroken giving testimonials. It’s also a little pretentious, because rather than the real New York City that would be recognizable to anyone who lives there, it’s more of a Millennial woke fantasy where everyone is a 20-something LGBTQ+ of color.  Even so, the main trio of Lucy, Nick and Nick’s business partner Marcos (Arturo Castro from Broad City) do keep things fun even when things are getting predictable.

To be honest, I’ll be perfectly happy to see Viswanathan become the next Meg Ryan, because part of the reason why I warmed up to the movie is because I thought she was quite great in it. (I hate to say it but she’ll definitely need a simple name to remember to make that happen. I’d like to suggest G-Vis… as in G-Vis, she’s awesome!) There’s no question she’s the best part of the movie, but it also thrives from some of the other women cast around her, including Molly Gordon, Phillipa Soo and (surprise, surprise!) Bernadette Peters. (At times, I was worried Lucy’s friends would get particularly annoying, but you’ll warm up to them as well.)

Krinsky’s movie is cute, and while it certainly gets a little overly sentimental at times, there are also moments that are quite heartfelt, so basically, it’s a tolerable addition to the rom-com genre. The fact that the characters are so likeable kept me from outright hating the movie, especially once it gets to its corny and somewhat predictable ending. Another thing I like about Broken Hearts Gallery is that at least it’s making an effort to have some sort of theatrical presence, including drive-in theaters.

Next up is Jon Stevenson’s RENT-A-PAL (IFC Midnight), a rather strange and very dark horror-comedy. It stars Brian Landis Folkins as David, a lonely 40-year-old living with his elderly mother suffering from dementia, who has been using the services of a dating service called Video Rendezvous. This is the ‘80s after all, so it involves getting VHS testimonials from various women. One day, David finds a tape labelled “Rent a Pal” and he decides to check it out. It turns out to be a video of a guy named Andy (Wil Wheaton aka Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation) who David begins having conversations with, but once David gets his chance to have a real relationship with a nice woman named Lisa (Amy Rutledge), he’s been dragged too far down the rabbit hole with Andy’s evil urgings.

This was recommended to me by my own personal rent-a-pal, Erick Weber of Awards Ace, who saw it weeks ago. I totally could understand why he would have liked it, because it’s pretty good in terms of coming up with an original idea using elements that at least us older guys can relate to (especially the living with your Mom part which I had to do a few years ago).  I wasn’t sure but I generally thought I knew where it was going, because David’s trajectory always seemed to be heading towards My Friend Dahmer or Maniac territory. What I liked about Folkins’ performance is that you generally feel for him right up until he gets to that point. I also really liked his innocent relationship with Lisa and was hoping things that wouldn’t get as dark as where they eventually end up. I also have to draw attention to Wheaton’s performance, because as one might expect if you only know him from the “Star Trek” show he did as a kid, this is a very different role for him similar to Seann Michael Scott in last year’s Bloodline.

Either way, Stevenson is a decent writer and director who really pushes the boundaries with where Andy takes his new friend, and it’s especially great for its synth-heavy soundtrack that reminds me of some of John Carpenter’s best scores, as we watch David’s inevitable descent into madness. You’ll frequently wonder where it’s going, but for me, it just got too dark, so I only really could enjoy it up to a point.

A little cheerier is UNPREGNANT (HBO Max), the new film from Rachel Lee Goldberg, who directed the recent Valley Girl remake, although this time she’s adapting a book written by Jenni Hendricks. It stars Haley Lu Richardson (from Split and Support the Girls) as 17-year-old Veronica who discovers that her dopey boyfriend Kevin has gotten her pregnant. Since women under 18 can’t get an abortion in Missouri without a parents’ consent, she goes on a road trip with her estranged childhood friend Bailey (Barbie Ferreira) to New Mexico to get the job done.

It’s more than  little weird seeing this movie come out in the same year as a much more serious version of the same movie in Elyza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometime Always. That aside, Goldberg and her cast do their best to make this something more in the vein of last year’s Book Smart, although that’s also a fairly high watermark for any movie.

Because this is a road trip comedy, it tends to follow a fairly similar path as other movies where they meet a lot of strange characters along the way, as they try to get a ride after being busted cause Bailey stole her mother’s boyfriend’s car for the trip. For instance, they meet a friendly couple who tend to be pro-lifers who want to change Veronica’s mind, and the best side character is Giancarlo Esposito as a conspiracy theorist named Bob.

I guess my biggest problem with the movie is that it just isn’t that funny and feels fairly standard, but at least it has a decent ending to make up for the predictability of the rest of the movie.

Now streaming on Netflix is Maimouna Doucouré’s French coming-of-age film Mignonnes aka CUTIES, a film that premiered at Sundance and then stirred up quite a bit of controversy last month due to its marketing campaign, but is actually not the pervy male gaze movie which it may have been sold as. It’s about an 11-year-old Sengalese girl named Amy Diop (Fathia Youssouf) who wants to join the school’s “cool girl” dance group, known as the “Cuties,” even though it goes against her family’s Muslim beliefs.  Amy learns to dance so she can be part of the dance team and take part in a dance competition, but you know that this decision will led to trouble.s

Cuties got a lot of backlash from for the trailer and Netflix’s decision to release Doucouré’s movie, which is about a young girl discovering her sexuality, although it isn’t really something lurid or gross but actually a very strong coming-of-age film. I haven’t seen the trailer, but I can only imagine what scene it focused on that got people so riled up, since there are dance scenes that felt a little creepy to me. Other than that aspect of the film, Cuties is as innocent as a Judy Blume book. I mean, how else do you expect kids to learn about real life than movies like this? (Unfortunately, the movie is TV-MA so young teens won’t be able to watch it.)

The big problem with the Cuties is that they’re actually kind of bratty and bullies, almost like a younger “Mean Girls” girl gang, so it’s very hard to like any of them. They’re also trying to act way older than they really are, and you can only imagine what dark places that might led, as you worry about Amy getting dragged down with them, just because she wants to have friends and feel popular.

Despite my issues with Cuties, Maimouna Doucouré is a fantastic filmmaker, and this is a pretty amazing debut, especially notable for how she’s able to work with the young cast but also make a movie that looks amazing. That said, Cuties is a decent coming-of-age film, although I feel like I’ve seen better versions of this movie in films like Mustang and The Fits.

Also from France comes Justine Triet’s SYBIL (Music Box Films), starring Virgine Efira (who appeared in Triet’s earlier film, In Bed with Victoria) as the title character, a jaded psychotherapist who decides to return to her passion of writing, getting her inspiration from an actress patient named Margot (Adèle Exarchopoulos), who she becomes obsessed with. I don’t have a lot to say about this movie other than it wasn’t really for me. As far as French films go, a movie really has to stand out from the usual talkie drama filled with exposition, and though I thought the performances by the two women were great, I didn’t really care for the script or the pacing on this one. After playing at last year’s Cannes, Toronto and the New York Film Festival, Sybil will be available via Virtual Cinema through Film at Lincoln Center and the Laemmle in L.A. as well as other cities. You can watch the trailer and find out how to watch it through your local arthouse at the official site.

Now seems like as good a time as any to get into some docs…

 Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés’ doc ALL-IN: THE FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY (Amazon) follows Stacey Abrams through her run for Atlanta Governor in 2018, but it also deals with the laws that had been put in place to try to keep black voters from taking part in their right as Americans to be able to vote. I’m not sure what’s going on with me right now, but I generally just don’t have much interest in political docs right now, maybe because there’s so much politics on TV and in the news. I also have very little interest in Abrams or even having the racist history of the American South drilled into my head by another movie. I was born in 1965, my family didn’t even live in this country until 1960, and I’ve spent my life trying to treat everyone equally, so watching a movie like this and being preached to about how awful African-Americans have been treated in parts of the South for hundreds of years, I’m just not really sure what I’m supposed to do about it here in New York. I guess my biggest problem with All-In, which is a perfectly fine and well-made doc – as would be expected from Garbus – is that it lacks focus, and it seems to be all over the place in terms of what it’s trying to say… and I’m not even sure what it is trying to say, nor did I have the patience to find out. I thought Slay the Dragon handled the issues with gerrymandering far better, and I think I would have preferred a movie that ONLY focused on Abrams and her life and political career than trying to make a bigger statement. All-In will open at a few drive-ins (tonight!) and then will be on Amazon Prime on September 18.

I was similarly mixed on Jeff Orlwosky’s doc, THE SOCIAL DILEMMA, which debuted on Netflix this week. This one looks at the addiction people have for social media apps like Facebook and Twitter, and how the information of what people watch and click on is collected into a database that’s sold to the highest bidder. Basically, it’s your worst fears about social media come to life, but my issue with this one is that the filmmaker decided to hire actors to dramatize parts of the movie, showing one family dealing with social media and phone addiction, which seemed like an odd but probably necessary decision other than the fact that the topic is so nerdy and so over my head that maybe it was necessary to illustrate what’s being explained by programmers. Again, not a terrible doc, just not something I had very little interest in even if it is an important subject (and I’m probably spending too much on social media and essentially more of the problem than the solution).

I saw S. Leo Chiang and Yang Sun’s doc OUR TIME MACHINE at Tribeca last year, and I quite liked it. It follows influential Chinese artist Ma Liang (Maleonn) who collaborates with his Peking Opera director father Ma Ke, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, on an elaborate and ambitious project called “Papa’s Time Machine” using life-sized mechanical puppets. I don’t have a ton to say about the movie but it’s a nice look into the Chinese culture and traditions and how the country and art itself has changed between two generations.

One doc I missed last week but will be available digitally this week is Michael Paszt’s Nail in the Coffin: The Fall and Rise of Vampiro about semi-retired professional wrestler Ian Hodgkinson aka Vampiro, who is a Lucha Libre legend.

There’s a lot of other stuff on Netflix this week, including THE BABYSITTER: KILLER QUEEN, the sequel to the Samara Weaving-starring horror-thriller, again co-written and directed by McG (Charlies Angels: Full Throttle). This one stars Bella Thorne, Leslie Bibb and Ken Marino, as it follows Judah Lewis’ Cole after surviving the satanic blood cult from the first movie.

I don’t know nearly as much about the British comedy series The Duchess, other than it stars comedian Katherine Ryan as a single mother juggling a bunch of things. Julie and the Phantoms is Netflix’s latest attempt to be the Disney channel with a movie about a young girl named Julie (Madison Reyes) who decides to start a band with a group of ghosts (hence the title). It’s even from Kenny Laguna, who is best known for the Disney Channel’s biggest hits High School Musical and The Descendants.

Other stuff to look out for this week include Kevin Del Principe’s thriller Up on the Glass (Gravitas Ventures), which is now available On Demand, digital and Blu-Ray; the Russian dogs doc Space Dogs (Icarus Films) – available via Alamo on Demand; Phil Wall’s doc The Standard  (Gravitas Ventures), and Andrei Bowden-Schwartz, Gina O’Brien’s tennis comedy All-In (on Amazon Prime and VOD/Digital) and Sam B. Jones’ Red White and Wasted (Dark Star Pictures).

Next week, more movies not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[mechagalaxy]

The Spirit of Victory

Paul Knight strode into the Full of Spirit command center the way only a giant talking lightning shooting dinosaur can and boomed out his news.

 “Sal, we have a request from the Bouncing Blue Berserkers, that is the home of most of the lower ranked players from our Clan Families and allies, they need us to take and hold the Mountain so they can assemble their clans and evacuate before the local authorities try to disarm them”

 Sal looked up.  “The whole Mountain?  That’s asking a lot.  Can we do that?”

 John checked his screen, ran the latest scans of the mountain from his own Bunnies database, and answered “I don’t think we need it all, if we hold the top three tiers, we can land enough drop ships to take off our troops, and keep anyone from shelling them while they are trying to take off again”

 Sal moved from the command console and began typing commands into the mecha bay for rapid rearmament of his chosen lineup.  On the overhead gantries the cranes started to cherry pick mecha from the cradles for rearmament.  Commissar after Commissar moved past as Sal prepared to unleash his single favorite mayhem makers.  “Well, if we must, we must”  His grin was wide and uncomplicated.

 Eric Bell keyed his own implant and ordered his own Commissar readied for armament.  “Consider Division Three locked boss.  I got this”

 A grim chuckling went around the room as the massive Commissars were banged by the free swinging rust coloured Red Ant bearing the Maple Leaf of John Mainer’s Suicide King moved to the front of the queue.

Ales Hasala pointed to his own scarlet and white Axebot and asked “When are you going to get a real mecha, and stop fighting in trainer mecha?”

 John had already swapped out of the high tech integrated combat helmet/HUD system used for BFM and put on the old, sweat stained leather and steel helmet of the basic Red Ant pilot, and grabbed three bottles of mead for his cockpit cupholders.  “You have to be joking, Red Ant piloting is the purest form of piloting in existence, nothing but skill, fury, and alcohol between you and oblivion, dancing in the storm of falling rockets with your balls out and hair on fire!  We will see how your fancy Axebot matches up with mead powered Suicide King!”

 Sal’s Shocklites lead the way, his bay doors opened to unleash a storm of seeker heads as his scout troops cleared the path by fire as he stormed the lower slopes.  Now and again, mighty Leviathan champions battered their way through the Shocklites to reach the brutal killing power of his Commissar corps, and nothing short of a Novum could stand against them, and nothing over twenty tons was allowed on the mountain this day.  Sal moved to the upper slopes, and planted the banner. His machine sounded the call to arms, summoning all of Full of Spirit to answer, and take the Mountain.  Within an hour, eight of the ten top spots, and all of the top three were firmly held by Full of Spirit fighters.  Division One was locked. Division 2 was a harder fight, Leviathan had its champions here, as did the HF Dragoons in their own specialist leaders, and Death Faction’s AFF hardliners.  Full of Spirit put their efforts into breaking trail for the Bouncing Blue Berserkers, pushing to allow their top troops to take positions on the slope to organize the evacuation of their troops.

 Bob Goetz of the Death Faction held the top, the grinning silver skull stylized cockpit of his Anzu promising swift death as it moved almost too fast to see.  A storm of missiles from John Mainer’s Shocklites hammered the upper slope, but the Anzu charged under them with the speed and fury of stooping falcons. From the smoke of the rocket exhaust stalked a blood red killing machine, Suicide King cut loose with a Hammerhead, forking lasers carving through one Anzu engine compartment and blowing it apart, while the forking beam severed the leg of the second Anzu, leaving it shut down and wobbling helplessly.  Sten Hugo Hiller, Michael Coxon and Lewis Reed drove in behind in wedge formation, engaging Mellissa Powell and Travis Retherford to clear the upper slopes.

 Ales Hasala turned his Axebot on the bottom of the tier and carved a line in the stone, “Thus far and no farther, the Mountain is ours!”  He would hold, the Berserkers would evacuate from here.

 Down in Division 3 Eric Bell fought hammer and tongs with Michael Beagle, pushing the AFF Champion back from the heights.  Looking up, Eric could see that the third peak of the Mountain gave you a perfect shot up the engines of any dropship taking off.  He would have to hold the top as long as the evacuation was going on. How the hell was he going to do that? He did not have enough ammunition to fight that many battles, not using as much ammunition as stopping Michael took. “Hey guys, a little help here!”

  Aleš Tomášek from Full of Spirit lead two of the Berserker champions forward, Caitlyn Mainer and Eric Loar of the Star League joined him and kept the bulk of the Death Faction troops out of range while Eric held the top slope. Dropships descended on columns of fire, the Bouncing Blue Berserkers boarded their ships while the troops of the Reaches massed outside the Craftsman’s defenses to watch in helpless horror as one by one the mercenary clans they were here to disarm rose into orbit to join the fleet of their Faction and evacuate from Reaches space.  First the Bouncing Blue Berserkers, then HF Dragoons, Death Faction all took advantage of the Craftsman’s King of the Mountain gates to evacuate their troops under the protection of Full of Spirit, who held the top three peaks of the Mountain, and let no one hinder the Factions departing for war.

 A harried Sten Hugo Hiller was drafted to coordinate the orbital traffic so that none of the Faction dropships crashed an inbound into an outbound as Clans used the Mountain of Glory as a glorified spaceport, sucking back stim packs and screaming in three different languages at clan pilots from dozens of competing factions as he strove to get off all the Clansmen who would join into the great Factions and go to war. Sal, Eric and John all called out as they passed him “Hey Sten, got time for an interview, I got gold!”  We cannot repeat to our readers here what Sten replied, due to censorship rules, but it should be understood, he was pretty deep into the Stim Packs at that point, and the evacuation was a success.   That day Full of Spirit owned the Mountain, and the Factions were free to escape the various governments attempting to disarm them.  There would be war, because the Spirit owned the Mountain.

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