#how are there two tom hanks movies on this list

[jeanmoreaue]

Petition to make Jean Moreau watch Toy Story 1, 2 and 3

this inspired me to make a list of worst movies/tv shows for Jean to watch bc while he would enjoy Toy Story 1 & 2, i think 3 might be emotionally devastating (which might have been your intention LOL) so:

• Midsommar - this would be absolutely devastating considering how close to home this would hit for him imo lmao (comparatively i could see him liking Hereditary)

• Toy Story 3 - i think the end scene where Andy drives away to college and leaves them all behind would remind Jean of leaving Elodie behind. i don’t think Jean is really the type to cry often (considering his current track record) but i think it might be a close call with that one

• Sully - okay LMAO yes Sully as in the Tom Hanks plane crash movie. i just think that Jean as a guy who is scared of airports and planes and was also on a flight to the US on or very near September 11th, 2001, that watching a movie about a plane crash would not be his vibe (Society of the Snow he would not like either. but Yellowjackets? yes. Jean’s favorite is Shauna)

• Finding Nemo - his dad never loved him and when Jean went “missing” (human trafficked) his dad was the cause and did not care lol so i think Jean would have to put a lot of focus on not paying attention to the scene where Marlin holds Nemo’s egg and says “i’ve got you, i’ll never let anything bad happen to you”

[yazzydream]

List of Direct Pop Culture References in Season 1 of Jujutsu Kaisen

I kept trying to find a comprehensive list somewhere but couldn't. So, here's one for me.

Ninja Warrior and Mirko Cro Crop (Ep1)

Sasuke, or Ninja Warrior as it's known as in multiple incarnations, is a sports reality show in which competitors attempt to complete a four-stage obstacle course.

Mirko Cro Crop is the ring name of Croatian mixed martial artist and kickboxer Mirko Filipović. And yes, Sasaki-senpai does clarify that Mirko's not dead.

Jennifer Lawrence (Ep2)

This one is possibly the most infamous reference in JJK actually. Of course, Yuuji is referring to American actress, Jennifer Lawrence. Gege Akutami said in the fanbook Yuuji became her fan after seeing Silver Linings Playbook (2012).

Super Smash Bros. (Ep5)

When the second years first ask Nobara and Megumi to participate in the Kyoto School Goodwill Exchange Event, Nobara's first thought is a Smash Bros. tournament. She'll use Meteor Smash so you can't get back up. All the better if it's the Wii version.

Onita (Ep6)

When Yuuji first starts lamenting his lack of ability to use a Curse Technique, Gojo cuts in that Yuuji can use a power bomb. Because it's something Japanese wrestler Atsushi Onita (who is not a sorcerer as far as we know) can do anyway.

Shonen power techniques (Ep6 cont.)

Yuuji then proceeds to list several other abilities from other shonen series. The Spirit Gun from Yu Yu Hakusho, Bankai from Bleach, and Dodon Ray and Kamehameha from Dragon Ball.

Lord of the Rings (Ep7)

For his training on controlling Cursed Energy, Yuuji is made to watch a variety of movies. For the adaptation, the animators interpreted the cry for Sam as a scene from Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).

Actually, in the manga, Akutami was referencing I Am Legend (2007). The movie stars Will Smith and his only companion, a dog named Sam, in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Uh, things don't go well for the dog.

Gojo's other movies (Ch13)

Additionally, there were a few specific movies Akutami had in mind that wasn't carried over to the anime. (Though, honestly, some of these DVD covers in the anime look so familiar and detailed I suspect they are references to other movies. If anyone can identify any of them lmk!)

Anyway, here are the ones we know of in the manga!

Léon: The Professional (1994), The Descent (2005), The Host (2006), The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1967). And the movie that Gojo spoils about the super annoying heroine who dies spectacularly at the end is Deep Blue Sea (1999). And yes, if you squint and zoom you can see which dvd has the cover for what movie.

Oikawa Tōru (Ep9)

A blink and you'll miss it stand-in of someone that suspiciously looks like Oikawa Tōru from Haikyuu!!

Castaway (Ep11)

Yuuji makes Junpei laugh when the former unexpectedly recreates the scene from Cast Away (2000) when Tom Hanks' character loses his illusory best friend...

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Ep11, Juju Stroll)

This entire Juju Stroll is a parody of Neon Genesis Evangelion episode previews. With shots that are reminiscent of NGE and a dramatic and frantic voiceover. The standout shot to me was the one of Yaga sitting with his hands folded in front of him in classic Gendo Ikari fashion. They even had Yaga sitting over a burning camp stove just so they could get the orange glow reflecting off his glasses. Ha!

Luncheon on the Grass

The full convergence of all the characters was completed by episode 13 in the first opening. The idyllic scene is based off of Luncheon on the Grass (aka Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe) by Claude Monet. I like how Panda is in place of the dog.

I wonder if Todo being half naked here is further reference to the more scandalous, The Luncheon on the Grass, by Édouard Manet which is what Monet's own painting is a direct take on. (That painting depicts a nude woman sitting with two fully dressed gentlemen.) ...Or it could just be Todo being Todo.

Ichiro?! (Ep15)

Utahime, incensed, tells Gojo to respect his senpai! I'm a bit hesitant about this one, but it may be a reference to Ichiro Suzuki jokingly complaining about not being respected as a senpai during the 2009 World Baseball Classic celebration. Baseball is HUGE in Japan, and the celebration looks wild. It may be iconic enough that it can be casually mentioned and most Japanese would know what Yuuji was talking about. Also, considering the Jujutsu Koshien episode about to come up, it may've been foreshadowing. (Found here)

Sebastian Stan (Ep15, Juju Stroll)

Another famous American celebrity! When asked about her type in episode 15's Juju Stroll, Momo was drooling over a picture of Sebastian Stan. Stan is most well known for playing the Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes in the MCU. I wonder why her answer didn't pass muster with Todo. Maybe she hadn't had the chance?

Pepper (Ep16)

Nobara, smack-talking to Momo, says the Kyoto school have their own "Pepper-kun" that she should turn into scrap. Mechamaru immediately knew she was referring to himself. 😆 Pepper is the semi-humanoid robot that SoftBank introduced at a conference in 2014.

Great Teacher Gojo (Ep18)

Great Teacher Onizuka, aka GTO, is a classic series about a former biker gang member becoming the best teacher to a class of problem children.

Boogie Woogie

Boogie-woogie is a genre of music, but Todo's Cursed Technique, "Boogie Woogie" is specifically a reference to boxer, Muhammad Ali, who was recorded playing boogie-woogie on camera. (Which ties into an even more extensive reference regarding his mentor. But I won't spoil it here for anime-onlys.) I dare say, Todo's attitude may be a bit Ali inspired too. Haha

Ma-kun of Tohoku (Ep21)

When up to bat during Jujutsu Koshien, Nobara says people call her "the Ma-kun of Tohoku" which... doesn't make sense, since Masahiro Tanaka (affectionately called "Ma-kun" by fans) is already a baseball player for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. 😂

Additional trivia: JJK did a collab with the Rakuten Eagles in September of 2022.

Game of Life (Ep24)

And finally, we end the season with some of our villains playing The Game of Life board game. That spinner, colors, and design are pretty unmistakable. Something extra I spotted is that Choso already managed to get married!

*Edit: Had to include this link to officially licensed JJK Game of Life.

Aaand that's everything, I think. But let me know if I missed anything!

*Edit 7/23:

Gojo Satoru's Go Go Gojo! (Ep6)

The Juju Stroll at the end of episode 6 references the Igo/Go game series Hikaru no Go. At the end of Hikaru no Go episodes were post-episode segments called "Umezawa Yukari's Go Go Igo!"

Props to r/sofastsomaybe for pointing this out, because like a fool, I dismissed the Go reference as a coincidence.

Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller, and Inoki (Ep15)

During Todo's nichijo fantasy of himself and Yuuji, Todo quotes, "What fool thinks of defeat before even trying?" Incorrectly attributing the quote to something teacher Anne Sullivan said to disability activist, Helen Keller. Todo is actually paraphrasing pro-wrestler, mixed martial artist, Antonio Inoki. Who said, "What kind of idiot thinks about losing before [the match]?" during a pre-match interview.

Seishun Amigo (Ep15)

At the end of that same daydream, with tears and snot streaming down his face, Todo says, "'In our hometown we were invincible,' huh." (地元じゃ負けしらず) Which are a part of lyrics from the popular song, "Seishun Amigo" (青春アミーゴ) by Shūji to Akira. "Seishun" means "youth" and "amigo" of course being the Spanish word for "friend."

Amusingly, I found this JJK fan cover video of the song. Lyrics translation included.

The two references above were found thanks to Aki Tanaka.

Continued in this reblog chain.

[ireadyabooks]

5 Book Recs Based on Your Favorite Holiday Rom-Com!❄️💝

The holiday season is special for many reasons, but one of my favorites is watching all of the cheesy and sweet holiday rom-coms every year. It always warms my heart and reminds me just how filled with love everyone is this time of year (unless you’re Scrooge). To celebrate this season, we tapped into our inner romantic to provide book recs for those of you who may have already finished your yearly holiday movie binge!

If you like You’ve Got Mail (1998), then you might like I Hope This Doesn’t Find You!

The intense and passionate internet romance that blossoms between Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks’ characters in You’ve Got Mail is one for the ages. It sets the benchmark for enemies-to-lovers romances as the two eventually discover that the person they’ve fallen for is the very person they’ve grown to despise. Fans of this burning romance will love Ann Liang’s newest novel, I Hope This Doesn’t Find You, a snarky academic rivals-to-lovers story that you won’t be able to put down!

If you like Single All the Way (2021), then you might like The Feeling of Falling in Love!

Single All the Way is a hilarious queer holiday rom-com centered around the chaos that ensues when your family is determined to set you up with your bff/roommate. And while this takes friends-to-lovers to a whole new level, maybe, just maybe, your family has a point. Fans of Single All the Way will be head over heels for Mason Deaver’s The Feeling of Falling in Love, a new kind of love story about bad decisions we make and the people (aka your roommate/reluctant wedding date) who help get us back on the right path.

If you like Happiest Season (2020), then you might like What a Desi Girl Wants!

One of the newest holiday movies on the list, this charming sapphic holiday rom-com starring Kristen Stewart is about wanting your family’s acceptance while staying true to yourself. Fans of Happiest Season will love Sabina Khan’s What a Desi Girl Wants, a brilliant love story filled with nuanced family dynamics and a sprinkling of sabotage that’s sure to set your queer (or not so queer) heart ablaze.

If you like The Holiday (2006), then you might like Stars in Their Eyes!

The Holiday, featuring an all-star cast of Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, and Jack Black, is one of the best meet-cute holiday romances of all time. The film not only puts you in the holiday spirit but also has heartwarming storylines that will make you believe in love again. Fans of The Holiday and quirky meet-cutes will fall hard and fast for Stars in Their Eyes from Jessica Walton and Aśka, a one-of-a-kind YA graphic novel that celebrates the excitement of meeting someone special for the first time.

If you like When Harry Met Sally (1989), then you might like Rosewood!

When Harry Met Sally might take the crown for one of the most famous rom-com movies of all time, the holiday celebrations in the film always leave me feeling so festive, but if I’ve learned one thing from this well-known romance, it’s that you should always, ALWAYS, follow your heart. Fans of this quirky love story will absolutely adore Sayantani DasGupta’s witty and bright Rosewood, a romantic and funny retelling of Sense & Sensibility set at a Bridgerton-esque summer camp, where Elia must choose to follow her carefully laid plans or let a certain someone derail them.

[noneedtoamputate]

Miscellaneous Tag Game

Thanks for the tag, @ronald-speirs.

Favorite place in the world you’ve visited?: Australia

Something you’re proud of yourself for?: For making it through a difficult time in my life with a greater understanding how hard life it and a greater compassion for people

Favorite books?: Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, Say Goodnight, Gracie by Julie Reece Deaver

Something that makes your heart happy when thinking about it?: My child's hugs and a night in my 20s when I was in the car with my friend and "Dancing in the Dark" came on when we were at stoplight and we started singing at the top of our lungs with carefree abandon. A car with people in their 50s next to us laughed and cheered us on. Now that I am closer to their age than the age I was when I was in the car, I understand the joy they felt at watching us.

Favorite thing about your culture?: Americans are weird that we consider ourselves from somewhere else. My great-grandparents were from Eastern Europe, and my favorite thing about that is the food. My favorite thing about being American is diversity we have here, and Independence Day. I know it's not poltically correct to say one loves Independence Day, but I do. Parades, baseball, day drinking, cookouts, fireworks - Americana all in one day.

When did you join the HBO War fandom? What was the first show you watched?: I joined the fandom rather recently in the summer of 2023, but I watched BoB when it first aired. I just watched The Pacific over the summer.

Have you read any of Easy Company’s books? If so, which ones were your favorite?: I've read Band of Brothers and bits of pieces of others. My favorite is "Easy Company Solider" by Don Malarkey. I just borrowed "Helmet for My Pillow" on audiobook read by James Badge Dale.

Favorite HBO War character and your favorite moment with them?: I can't pick one favorite, but one of my favorite moments is when Tipper goes along when Luz pretends to be Major Horton. He wants to laugh so much.

Do you make content for any fandoms, if so; what sort of content?: I am in the middle of a series called "Every Beautiful Thing" featuring Chuck and an OFC in postwar San Francisco.

Favorite actor/actress and your favorite film of theirs?: I love Tom Hanks ("A League of Their Own"), Jimmy Stewart ("It's a Wonderful Life"), Ingrid Bergman ("Casablanca") and Jodie Foster ("Silence of the Lambs")

Favorite quote/s that you wish to share with others?: "The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." -Gloria Steinem

Random fact your mutuals/followers don’t know about you?: You want me on your trivia team.

If you’re a writer, do you need a beta reader (say yes so I can be your beta reader 🤭)?: I've never had a beta and would be happy to let anyone read my WIP.

Three things that make you smile?: Finding money in a coat pocket the first time I wear it in the fall, little kids trying to play baseball or softball, a really cold beer on a hot day

Any nicknames you like?: My dad used to call me Pumpkin when I was little.

List some people you love to see around on tumblr!: There are so many, but some people off the top of my head are @xxluckystrike, @the-cinnamontography-is-amazing, @dcyllom, @latibvles, and @jump-wings.

What would you do during a zombie apocalypse?: Find the best people and do what I can to earn my keep in their group

Favorite movie?: Too hard to pick one but two of my favorites not listed above are "The Sound of Music" and "Hoosiers." I recently watched "1917" and the way the it was filmed like one continuous shot was really innovative.

Do you like horror movies?: I don't like slasher films, but I like psychological horror films. My husband made me watch "The Shining" about ten years ago, and it scared the crap out of me,

[destinyc1020]

Funny how Glen in doing remakes after remakes, his next movie is a Running Man remake. And he is has been considered a movie star.

But Tom that is the lead in 2 sucessful franchise is not one, but You know each one with what they think.

Agreed with that anon. Tom has said he is not interested to be this actor that is everywhere. He has been doing passion projects ( TCR, Romeo & Juliet) He could be getting so much money with brands. He has shown he can sell anything, but he is not interested. Tom is doing his things, We have to accept that , this is who he is.

With the other anon, Who the hell is Drew, working with Luca does not mean He is a household name yet, comparing him with Tom is laughable.

Tom probably will take another big brake after R&J, well deserved. His play is the hottest ticket in the West End, nobody expected this success. His PR team won't be payment the big outlets to write about his success, like other actors do with the bare minimum.

As you mention so many actors only appear to promote their movies/projects and then dissappear, this behavior doesn't make their career less successful. Tom is very young, usually male actors careers take off in their 30's. Tom will continue doing passion projects and his big IP's, We the fans have to deal with it, because that what he wants.

Ohhh Hollywood and their remakes 🤦🏾‍♀️

Anyway, I think the term "movie star" encompasses a lot of things. You can be a movie star and be in remakes. After all, isn't Tom's Spiderman man a remake as well? Pretty much, yea?

So, let's not discount remakes as being smthg that negates someone as a movie star. ANY actor can star in a remake.

I think the term just basically means someone that SHINES. Someone that commands your attention onscreen whether they're the lead or NOT. Someone that people love to see on the red carpet. Someone who most people know as a household name, or, at the very least, is recognizable in the face rofl 🤣 Someone who stars in films that people go see.

Like, it encompasses so much to me.

Now, an A-list movie star is someone who has all of that, but who ALSO puts butts in seats, who most people will go see just because that person is in it, and who knows that if that actor is choosing a movie to be in, then in MUST be somewhat GOOD. It's like, you trust their movie and film choices.

I actually think that's one of the reasons why people like Zendaya so much and consider her as part of the A-list. She chooses roles VERY well. Almost EVERY single film she's chosen this far has been well-received, made tons of money at the box office, and has literally turned to gold.

That's not a requirement of course for someone to be an A-lister (a LOT of A-listers have starred in flops lol ), but usually when you hear that Leo, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Viola Davis, Denzel Washington, etc. are in something, you typically know that it's more than likely going to be good.

People TRUST their film choices. And I think that's where Z is right about now. Just about everything she touches has turned to gold so far. 😊 (The Greatest Showman, Spiderman franchise, Dune franchise, Challengers, Euphoria with the two Emmy wins, etc) She makes excellent film choices as far as success and visibility as far as I'm concerned. But that might be where she wants to be. Maybe another actor isn't really looking to be a big box office king or queen. Not every actor has the same goals or interests, and that's okay!

[mattnben-bennmatt]

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's interview w/ Premiere (January 1998)

Boston Uncommon

Bean Town natives Matt Damon and Ben Affleck return home to shoot Good Will Hunting, a tale of growing pains, friendship, and dazzling talent. It might just be the story of their own lives.

By John Brodie

-

Ben Affleck pilots a Jeep Cherokee through the backstreets of Cambridge, Massachusetts. July twilight turns the red brick buildings around Harvard Square a fiery shade of orange. The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones play as Affleck, with his younger brother, Casey, and Matt Damon, gives a guided tour of their childhood haunts: Rocco's Place; the One Thousand and One Plays video arcade; the spot near the Weld Boathouse where a teenage Damon stripped and swam across a river famous for its dirty water; and Hi-Fi Pizza, which was always closing just as Damon and Affleck would show up for a late-night slice. "I was there a few days ago, and the guys behind the counter were, like, 'You're Chasing Amy! You're Chasing Amy!' " says Affleck, doing his best impersonation of the counterman's Indian accent. "And so I say, 'Yes, yes. I am. Now how 'bout a slice?' And they say, 'No, sorry, Mr. Chasing Amy, we're closed.' "

Tree-lined streets give way to the gray stone of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School's modern campus. As Affleck parks the car by their high school theater, Damon can no longer contain himself. "Say, Ben," he taunts, "why don't you tell us about the time you played the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland?"

"Yup, I was the zany, hookah-smoking caterpillar," Affleck says, gearing up for a cutting contest. "I chose to play the role wrapped in garbage bags held together by Scotch tape. Now, if I were to play that caterpillar today, I might do it another way."

"It was an underrated performance," says 22-year-old Casey. "Those trash bags were a bold choice."

"So, Matt, why don't you favor us with your version of 'Morning Glory' from Pippin?" says 25-year-old Ben, letting loose a left-right (Bob Fosse-Stephen Schwartz) slight to Damon's virility. Damon holds in his comeback until the Jeep is in motion and they pass his childhood home. Affleck's house is two blocks away, and as boys, he and Damon often walked to school together — even though Damon was two years older.

"Ben used to ring my bell and then cower on the other side of the street, because he was afraid of the little kids at this school right next door," Damon says and flashes a toothy smile as Affleck stops him midsentence.

"This was a delinquent school and all the kids were smoking cigarettes," Affleck says, as he quickly pulls around the corner and arrives at his mom's blue townhouse on Cottage Street. He is hoping to point out his birthplace and be on his way when he is waylaid by his mother, who, unimpressed by the presence of a journalist, wants to know when he plans on returning her Jeep.

"Are you going to be home for dinner?" the sixth-grade public-school teacher asks her son. "Mom, you're banned from talking to the press since you told the story about how I used to play with a Wonder Woman doll," Affleck warns, striding into the kitchen for a hug and a sample of freshly prepared guacamole.

Damon and Affleck could be any pair of twentysomething slackers enjoying a late summer idyll, but by the weekend, the hookah-smoking caterpillar will be heading west to costar with Bruce Willis in the megabuck asteroid movie Armageddon, and Mr. Morning Glory will be on a plane to England, where he will play the title role in Saving Private Ryan, opposite Tom Hanks, adding Steven Spielberg's name to the list of directors (Francis Ford Coppola, Gus Van Sant) with whom he has worked over the past year.

This summer has been a last gasp of childhood for the pair. They recently finished production on Miramax's Good Will Hunting, an ensemble drama Damon and Affleck co-wrote before leaving Harvard and Occidental College, respectively, roughly four years ago. The movie, due out at Christmas and directed by To Die For's Van Sant, is already being touted as Oscar bait. Damon stars as a South Boston juvenile delinquent who works as a janitor at MIT and just happens to be an unschooled mathematics genius; the Affleck brothers play two of his Southie pals; and Robin Williams plays it straight as the shrink who helps Damon's working-class hero realize his potential.

That this pet project should come to fruition with such strong Hollywood backing reflects the sudden industry heat on the young actors' careers. But Damon and Affleck have been together every step of the way — and they depend on each other to keep things real. "There's an emotional core to Good Will Hunting that came from Ben and Matt," says Williams, who plays therapist Sean McGuire with a gravitas similar to that of Dead Poets Society. "They have this unspoken twins thing. They care for each other, yet they bust on each other. And that was a great bass line to work with. I'm very proud of this movie. It has a resonance."

On November 13, 1994, the Good Will Hunting script became the object of an intense bidding war in Hollywood. Damon was living in a shabby two-bedroom house with a buddy from high school. Affleck was sleeping on his sofa, having fled a busted engagement back East. This was long before the actors' careers would simultaneously pick up speed — Affleck's thanks to Chasing Amy and Going All the Way, Damon's with Courage Under Fire and The Rainmaker.

Never during their shared childhood had they imagined that November day's outcome. "When the phone started ringing, we were ready to take the first offer, which was $15,000," Affleck says. "After each call," Damon says, "we were yelling at our agent, Patrick Whitesell, 'Take it! Just take the offer!' Then there was this moment when the phone rang and Patrick picked it up. It was for my roommate, and it was this girl he had dated in college, and my roommate was, like, 'Hey, how are you?' And we were, like, 'Hang the fuckin' phone up!' He was really bummed, because they hadn't talked in three years."

By dusk, Chris Moore, a friend with whom they had developed the script, burst through the door with a bottle of Cristal under his arm — a bottle he had been given when he left agenting and told not to open until his new life as a producer started. Moore popped the cork when Castle Rock's bid came in that evening: The studio offered Damon and Affleck more than $1 million for their script as well as their services as actors. They spent that night drinking at Damon's house.

Getting Good Will Hunting into production was less of a party: The script, director, and studio would all change before it reached the screen. The plot at the time of the sale was more of a thriller, with Will's mathematical powers attracting the unwanted interest of evil government agents. In the beginning, Affleck and Damon also talked about such movies as Ordinary People, Searching for Bobby Fischer, and Midnight Run as touchstones. Castle Rock partner Rob Reiner told them to lose the thriller element and concentrate on the relationship between Will and his psychiatrist. William Goldman, a sachem of the screenwriting trade, coached them as well. Even reclusive director Terrence Malick (Badlands) came out of his shell for a meeting and suggested ways in which Will's love interest, a Harvard med student named Skylar, could become a catalyst for his decision to leave Boston.

Then came the sticking point: Damon and Affleck heard that Castle Rock bigwig Andrew Scheinman wanted to direct. Considering that Scheinman's oeuvre consisted of Little Big League, Damon and Affleck were loath to turn their baby over to him. Rather than force the actors to work with Scheinman, Castle Rock's senior executives took the high road and gave them 90 days to set up the project at another studio. If they failed, the movie would go forward with any director Castle Rock dictated.

Affleck and Damon gave the script to Kevin Smith (director of Clerks and Chasing Amy), who pressed Miramax's cochairman Harvey Weinstein to look at Good Will Hunting as a possible producing vehicle for Smith's View Askew production company. After reading the script, Weinstein made one of Miramax's most expensive purchases at the time, paying Castle Rock slightly more than $1 million for the rights to Good Will Hunting.

Somewhere outside Needles, California, Christmas 1995, Ben Affleck's car phone started chirping. Damon was taking it easy in the passenger seat — still recovering from dropping 40 pounds for his junkie scenes in Courage Under Fire. Affleck, who dreads flying and frequently drives cross-country, was all poise when the voice on the other end said, "You have a meeting with Mel Gibson . . . in New York . . . in two days."

They spent much of the next 48 hours pounding coffee and quoting lines from Mad Max to each other as the Nevada desert faded into the Manhattan skyline. "We got to Miramax's offices just before our lunch," says Damon. "And Harvey tells us, 'Mel Gibson is a great director. You can see that from Braveheart.' And I said, 'Harvey, Ben and I have been working. We haven't seen it yet.' So without missing a beat, the head of Miramax sits there and says, 'Okay: Scotland, William Wallace.' And he told us the whole movie."

Gibson's involvement had a catch: He was just starting Ransom and would not be available for nearly a year, so Good Will Hunting would have to wait. Recalls Damon, "Mel was totally understanding when we said, 'This movie is our life. And we know you're, like, the biggest star in the world. But we need a decision.' '' He shudders now at the cockiness of it all. Gibson bowed out after two weeks.

Meanwhile, Van Sant had gotten his hands on the script and contacted Damon through Casey Affleck, who had appeared in To Die For. "I was attracted to the notion of Will trying to create a family," Van Sant says, observing that his movies (Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho) have often depicted street kids struggling to forge an alternative home for themselves. Van Sant also started talking about the project with Williams, whom he knew slightly from years before, when the two were developing a biopic about slain gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk.

Cambridge's Bow and Arrow pub has been dutifully re-created in a forgotten Toronto gin mill on a June morning. Affleck and actor Cole Hauser, who worked together in Dazed and Confused and School Ties, are in character as Chuckie and Billy, two Southies who have invaded a Harvard bar for the night. They play pop-a-shot basketball in one corner. "Brick!" yells Hauser in his best Bean Town accent. "Larry," coos Affleck as he emulates the last white Celtic legend's jump shot. Damon, as Will Hunting, sits with Casey Affleck, whose character, Morgan, completes the quartet of friends. They stare as Skylar, played by British actress Minnie Driver, approaches Will for the first time. The scene is meant to be a little cool, but neither Damon nor Driver can suppress grins. They furtively hold hands between setups. Damon, who in his brief career has earned a reputation as an on-set smoothie (after hooking up with The Rainmaker's Claire Danes), has struck again. The camera rolls and Skylar offers Will a crumpled piece of paper. "Here's my number," Driver says. "Maybe we could go out for coffee sometime?"

"Great, or maybe we could go somewhere and just eat a bunch of caramels," Damon says. "It's just as arbitrary as drinking coffee." Their eyes meet. The actors beam.

"Matt wasn't prepared for such a powerhouse acting against him," says producer Lawrence Bender of Driver, who auditioned by reading a love scene with Damon at New York's Soho Grand Hotel. "It was a scene where Will tells Skylar, 'I don't love you.' Matt literally had to stop the audition, apologize, and start over. There were five guys in the room and nobody wanted to look at one another because we had tears in our eyes."

Regardless of the extracurricular role she plays in Damon's life, Driver has become an expert at infiltrating close circles of male friends; she worked with Stanley Tucci and his screenwriter cousin Joseph Tropiano on Big Night, and played the chick-of-the-flick in Grosse Point Blank, which John Cusack wrote with longtime friends D.V. DeVincentis and Steve Pink. "[Being the girl] in these groups has meant that I've been allowed to do whatever I like," Driver says in her trailer as Damon and Affleck make catcalls from the curb. "Because all of these men have said, 'We've never got her quite right. We need you to fill in the blanks.' " Minnie and Matt — their names could be the title of a forgotten Cassavetes script — were together during the summer while she was shooting a period drama in England and Scotland called The Governess and Damon was soldiering for Spielberg in England. But it's hard to tell whether a Bogart- Bacall To Have and Have Not kind of magic filters onto the screen in Good Will Hunting.

"There's a rosiness that comes through, but that can be deceiving," Van Sant says. "A lot of times if you are told something before you see the film, you might convince yourself something's there when it actually turns out to be the opposite."

Stars' personal lives are a squeamish topic for the director, but not nearly as squeamish as the donnybrook he got into with Good Will Hunting producer Bender, a longtime Quentin Tarantino associate who was handed the movie by Miramax. Since Damon, Affleck, and Van Sant had already gelled by the time Bender came on the project, the tight-knit group viewed him as an interloper. And according to several of the principals, Van Sant told Bender during a preproduction meeting, "You don't have a creative bone in your body, and I just want to punch you in your face." Van Sant then called the leads into his hotel room and demanded that Bender make assurances to the group about creative control. Van Sant and Bender agree that the contretemps was mostly about staking out territory. "Yeah, it happened, then it blew over," Bender says. Van Sant, however, cut Bender's cameo out of the film. And according to the stars, they see Bender's top billing as the only blemish on what was otherwise a dream come true. "The first thing onscreen is a Lawrence Bender production," says one. "It makes me want to puke."

No one recognizes Damon or Affleck as they cajole a janitor into unlocking the doors to their high school theater, and now they're back on the proscenium stage where Damon performed "Burning Down the House" in a school talent show. Casey and Ben are telling horror stories about Damon's slovenliness. The clincher for Affleck was when he showed up at the pad he shares with Damon in Manhattan's Chinatown and found his friend watching TV seated next to an old box of sushi being devoured by maggots. "I can forgive him," Affleck says, "because I know in my heart that he was using all his energy to figure out how he was going to play Will Hunting."

The two actors arbitrarily decided five years ago that Damon would play Will and Affleck would play Chuckie, a supporting role. Damon, as a consequence, gets the girl and a chance to shine with Robin Williams. As solace, Affleck penned himself a pivotal scene, in which Chuckie grants Will permission to turn his back on his friends and rise above his working-class roots. "Every day, I come by to pick you up," Chuckie says, "and we go out and we have a few laughs. But you know what the best part of my day is? The ten seconds before I knock on the door, 'cause I let myself think, I might get there, and you'd be gone. I'd knock on the door . . . and you wouldn't be there. You just left." It's an understated moment of male intimacy, one that almost overshadows the emotional pyrotechnics between Damon and Williams.

When asked whether he ever thinks about how things might have been different had they switched roles somewhere along the line, Damon insists that on the next movie he and Affleck write together, Affleck will star and he will provide the comic relief. "The biggest sadness I have," Damon says, his voice breaking slightly, "is that I look at my role and I think that Ben could easily have played it. I think he let me do it because, literally, he's my best friend in the world and he's that selfless." Catching himself getting mushy, Damon adds, "But, hey, don't feel bad for Ben. He's saving the world. Didn't anybody tell you there's an asteroid the size of Texas headed toward Earth? And if it weren't for Bruce Willis and Ben, God knows what would happen."

[lenievi]

001 for both mckirk and spones please!

This is gonna be long :D I'm gonna have to use read more

001 | send me a ship and I will tell you: mckirk

when I started shipping it if I did: so when the lockdown in 2020 started, I had nothing to do and just watched stuff. I have this favourite dubber and I was looking at the list of stuff he dubbed, and saw Star Trek AOS on that list. This guy is the voice of 2000s Alan Rickman, Tom Hanks, Tony Stark, he also apparently dubbed Garak in that one Star Trek series, and so seeing the reboot films on the list and his name next to McCoy, I was like, gotta check how he sounds. The fact that Kirk was also dubbed by a guy I generally like was a plus. (funnily enough Captain America/Iron Man and Kirk/McCoy are dubbed by the same guys here, which is funny to me). So I checked youtube and the scene I saw was the scene in Beyond where Kirk and McCoy are alone and are having a drink. And that scene did something to my brain, and I was like this is the dynamic I want, I wanna read fics, so before that I had to watch the films. So I watched AOS, basically through McCoy (Kirk/McCoy) lenses and started to read fics. Three weeks later, I decided to watch TOS because a lot of the fics referenced Kirk's backstory, so I wanted to know about it. The three weeks reading fics and looking through livejournal, kind of made me think that McCoy wasn't really an important character in TOS and that AOS made up the mckirk relationship (such a lie), so when I started watching TOS, I only planned to watch episodes heavy on McCoy. Which like... were most of them at the beginning lol I kinda decided not to trust the fandom after like three episodes or something. I binged the three seasons of TOS in like three weeks. I've had a hard time seeing tos!Kirk with men for a long time (I've had a complicated "relationship" with tos!Kirk for so long), so my interest in tos!mckirk was primarily as a platonic relationship [but it was always my fave relationship, I liked it even more than spones, actually] (but romantic in aos), but I started to insert Kirk into my spones fics, wrote a part from his POV, and then one day I just woke up and decided to write a tos!mckirk fic (it was actually because I started to read aos fics again, getting back into aos!mckirk, but... the tos version has been calling me) and just embraced the romantic (and sexual lol) aspect of their relationship.

my thoughts: I love their friendship so much. It's very important to me. I like that McCoy knows what to say to pull Kirk back on the right path, I like that Kirk can be vulnerable around McCoy. In AOS I like that McCoy is the only one Kirk shares stuff with about his mother and his insecurities (in Beyond it looked like he never even allowed the other crew to acknowledge his birthday... until McCoy finally decided to give him a party, after 5 years on the Enterprise...)

What makes me happy about them: we see both of them the most at ease around each other. They can forget who they are around each other, for a moment, at least. McCoy gives Kirk some of his most brightest smiles; McCoy can make Kirk genuinely laugh. Kirk needs him. badly.

What makes me sad about them: I eat angst for breakfast, so uhm...

things done in fanfic that annoys me: the lack of their friendship even in gen fics T_T (we all know what annoys me in aos fic, we don't need a rehash)

things I look for in fanfic: having more fics would be fun lol You know, just a genuine intimacy they show in the the show. Jim's sense of duty being the cause of angst.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:  McCoy with Spock (I do like the idea of mckirk to spones after the movie era, more or less). tos movie era Kirk? Actually, no one.

My happily ever after for them: buying a cabin in the mountains and getting two dogs (one big and one small) post TUC (then we can stop time lol or not...)

who is the big spoon/little spoon: idk haven't thought about their sleeping position. It would probably change based on what kind of story I'd wanna tell

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: .... you know, they're happy when they find the time to have sex...

spones under the cut

001 | send me a ship and I will tell you: spones

when I started shipping it if I did: so above I said that I started to watch TOS because of mckirk, right? Mainly because of The Conscience of the King and Tarsus IV, right? Well... I finished that episode shipping spones LMAO It really was quite quick for me.

my thoughts: the most engaging dynamic in TOS imho

What makes me happy about them: The loyalty, the trust. They were in each other's lives for 100 years. 100 years. That they're more similar than different. That they actually understand each other, but would never admit it. "I don't think I could stand to lose you again." < what is that? so real to have McCoy say that

What makes me sad about them: that they would leave the other one behind and die if it meant to save Kirk (this isn't meant negatively, I'm not really explicit about it or talk about it, but my spones know that Kirk's life is a priority, sometimes even just to show that no, we're not emotionally compromised, we know what our duty is kinda way. I just think it'd be great to explore that in a fic)

things done in fanfic that annoys me: uhm (I'm speaking in general, it is just my opinion based on my taste; I believe that everyone should write what makes them happy, we can't ever please every single person) McCoy using hobgoblin, elf, jackrabbit (the last two are terms that Kirk used to make Spock angry) as a form of affection/endearment, or at all tbh. McCoy being insecure because of Kirk. (give me Spock being insecure because of McCoy-Kirk friendship) Some people feeling guilty about writing spones and therefore still making kirk-spock have the specialest bond *rolls eyes* I just don't get the need to quantify relationships, I guess. Any kind of pet names.

things I look for in fanfic: balanced relationship, mature arguments that don't rely on pettiness, trying to combine the different world views, not needing to express love in a traditional way, but a way that works for the two of them and their two differing cultures.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: McCoy with Kirk, obviously. Spock with Chapel or T'Pring (even during the movie era, yes).

My happily ever after for them: 100 years. What more do you want? LOL My personal hc is that when McCoy dies, and Spock goes to Romulus, McCoy's spirit is always there because a part of his soul stayed inside Spock's katra. So Spock is just haunted by McCoy's spirit until he dies on New Vulcan, and then they're put into the katra stone. Together forever.

who is the big spoon/little spoon: I imagine them more as Spock sleeping on his back and McCoy's head on his arm/chest.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: banter (they especially enjoy if it makes Kirk exasperated)

[ask meme]

[itzsanya]

Light's Out!!

“Cinema”, the word itself is derived from the Greek word “kinema”, meaning movement, short for the French word cinematographer, coined by two brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere. But in today’s time the word may beg to differ. It has different characteristics after all. In the 19th century the Lumiere brothers captured and demonstrated their first work in 1893 in Paris France which was a huge success, and after that, people from all around the world tried to capture and present their work and it was the start of what we call nowadays FILMMAKING. At this point we have numerous amounts of categories of filmmaking for e.g. (T.V, streaming series, AR-VR, movies).

The cinematic language can express as many emotions as human beings consist of. Can show sorrow/joy in the form of poetry, shows how a simple shot can impact a life of a human being so easily. People who are very much engaged in films are now termed as CINEPHILE. From shooting in analogue camera to Imax 4d, we’ve certainly come a long way and our audience has changed accordingly from time-to-time shaking hands with technology in a peaceful way. Well it is said that every single thing has its pros and cons , talking about the pros the films we watch today are more of clear vision and we can see many unreal things , thanks to computer graphics , but the cons are as sad as the pros are as good, film in today’s date has occupied a commercial base rather than just showcasing art , it has created a certain level for the coming audiences, that many people refuse to watch films made in the 70s,80s, which showed real things and gave a message in the end , but nowadays people refuse to watch real topic films, as they are more engaged towards things to do with computer graphics. People are also very much considering this as a profession and some of them are really in this field to showcase what they think film as an art. There are as many legends as possible in this field, but the missing point here is that this field is very massive, talking about (directors, actors, cinematographers, screenwriters, editors, etc.). some of the greatest directors to ever exist are, Satyajit Ray, Martin Scorsese, Akira Kurosawa, Stephen Spielberg etc. and talking about actors the list is never-ending, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Tom Hanks, Leonardo Dicaprio, Tom Cruise, etc

There are many films which are good but there are less films which are great, and by great, I mean great in everything in everything, the direction, the script, the acting, and the reality of the film. For e.g. The godfather trilogy is considered as one of the greatest movies of all time, it is said that many film schools teaches that movie to the students pursuing filmmaking as their career and the first Indian movie which got the attention of the west was Pether Panchali by Satyajit Ray.

Even the Bollywood is progressing now, some newly directors are bringing back the actual reality in films, with real topics like Masan by Neeraj Ghayan is an actual depiction of what a real heartbreak a person can go through.

And the very recent blockbuster, biopic of J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER. Well, it is a big hit in the country, not because of the story but because of the director which is said to be Christopher Nolan. It is becoming a matter of great pride that most of our audiences are getting to know great films.

Now we can say we have come a long way.

PHOTO CREDITS-

@la_photolover

[a-life-in-film-by-wc]

Changing Lanes (2002)

Did anyone notice the last four films had gerunds in the title? How many films do? Next time you’re bored on a car journey and want a game to pass the time; think of films that have ‘-ing’ in them. You’re welcome.

By the director of Notting Hill*, this stars Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Affleck, whose car crash makes them both late for court and pits them against each other in a tale of revenge. Looking back, this was Nick Fury vs Batman; who was the most resourceful? That’s something that’s arrived with the later invasion of comic book movie franchises is the ‘comic character’ vs ‘comic character’ meme fuel, when two comic book character actors star in another film together, as movie stars tend to do. Is it the Gen Z six degrees of Kevin Bacon?

Of course this isn’t the first time we’ve seen him on this list, but I am almost certain that Samuel L. Jackson will be the actor that appears the most. It’s the cameos and bit parts that do it. Who is your most viewed actor? There’s another game for you. It could be Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Brad Pitt, Bill Murray, Matt Damon, Tom Hanks or even Kevin Bacon. But it’s probably Samuel L. Jackson.

*Not a gerund but it’s up to you if you expand the game to include any ‘-ing’ word to make it easier. I won’t judge you/know/care.

[underestimated-heroine]

My 11th reference post 💀

These are all at.tumblr.com links until I can figure out how to fix that -_- So this was actually a pretty easy fix (see bold & three stars below) most of them should be good now, but one way or another I'll go back and fix them

General

Names between cultures

Staff post community labels

Staff: human moderators check blazed posts

Ghost stories 2000-2001 gifs

Horror movies for people who don't like horror movies

Party Girl Extinction

Lie Detectors are Bullshit

Every Horse Movie World Heritage Post

Strongly worded abortion post

FBI robbed security deposit boxes

Buzzfeed fed their employees Greyhounds

2 times I've been around that track and there is no queen of England

Ben Shapiro short stories

The two-headed calf poem's real meaning

Couldn't agree more and we're best friends now

Passive aggressive museum

How to reformat tumblr links ***

Spy X Family Loid thinks Yor Thinks

Writing research Google alternatives

Tom Brady's Witch Wife

Death of the Queen Tweets

Historical fashion resources and references doc

Quick and dirty laptop buying

BMI and weight loss scams

Loid sees yor looking a LITTLE bit sad and

British politics lettuce

Hundreds, perhaps billions lung expansion

"god gave us transness for the same reason he gave us yeast but no dough"

Elected fic of the year

Lone prairie traveller and their feathery steed

De-google your life

Child poets

Solid color guide

What main thing did you project onto your oc's

Navigating adult ADHD treatment shouldn't suck this much

Cop shows fuckhands the baby murderer

Tumblr folk stories

Soda cake

Death fetish

Elon musk isn't smart bought twitter dragWhat people have and didn't have in the middle ages

UBlock doesn't hurt YouTube creators

Lemon stealing whore lore (rats)

Chocolate guy food that looks like food

A class on what

Adobe Reddit gaslights you

Wish list for people who don't want anything

Fudgers->meaners world heritage post

Ringo Starr told me to fuck off story

Advice to get doctors to take you seriously

1947 anti-fascist video

The blue check debacle tweets

Are prisons obsolete

Changing people's minds

The grand unifying theory of the forger family teacups

Insight into the mind of Elon musk

NO YOU FUCKING CAN'T

Do people actually say things they don't mean when angry?

Anya being like "the fuck you mean we all like you?"

Crying world heritage post

Goncharov video synopsis

Contributions of Stephanie Meyer

Edward scissor hands (scissors when?)

Horrid dreadful atrocious sex scenes

3 yo learning to language

Trolley problem vid tom Hanks reaction 💀

Why can't Muslims tell other Muslims to stop killing people

SpongeBob movie is about coming out

Coward learns the futility of punishing evil comic

Water Biden catgirl

Personal

How I could tell the Twitter users were coming back after we were allowed to have tiddies again

The court of public opinion is inhumane

9/28/2022 Halloween Reference Post

Emotional Landscapes Audio

Red sniper dot porn

Try Guys Recent Nedless vid

"saw it coming/never trust a wife guy" discourse

On "you guys"

"and how can I ever thank you for this way home you've given me"

Doctors are almost all fatphobic

My sister's twin sister (Amber)

You win bitch

Happy rigamortis Wednesday

Pukicho asks "fake" internet culture

Natsu and Lucy Skipping Stones on a Lake

Typical dad polishing gun yor

Damian proposing to Anya spy x family

Nalu take that you fucking lake

Anya Damian balcony

Damianya typical dad polishing gun scene but it's Yor

Spy x family dog-owner mood

Healthcare providers are pretty much all fatphobic

The self-centeredness of bigots

Call-out liste

Spy x family chapter 72 predictions

I, an ADHD possible autistic person, am like mulan in my mind

Skin tag virgin

Tim omelet

"ban porn illegalize sex work" shut the fuck up

Laxus "small now go away

Franky & Loid best friends when Loid dressed him up as wife

[eliteprepsat]

I’ve always loved to read. I was the kid in high school who, when we watched the film adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 12th grade English, insisted that I read the book first. So, for those few days that the rest of the class watched the movie as a group, I literally scooted my desk out into the hallway with the paperback instead.

Major eye roll, I know.

Given my education, I’ve often wondered how my love of reading began. This is because the offerings in my middle school and high school English classes were pretty limited and far from interesting. And I gather that many people have had similar learning experiences. This is why, about 20 years and a few English degrees later, I’ve compiled a list of the 15 books I wish I had read in high school. I hope the list will come in handy for those young people who, like me in the 90’s, have an inkling that they love literature but lack sufficient guidance as to what to read next.

1. Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)

At some point during our school years, most of us are assigned either Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn, in particular, is thought by many to be the greatest American novel of all time for (among other reasons) its considerations of race, identity, and morality.

Yet, there is more to Mark Twain than these two novels. Twain was an incredibly prolific writer, penning not only novels, but also journalism and travelogues, essays, and memoirs. Twain stands out among the greats for his truly singular wit and insight into the human condition.

A lesser known (but no less incredible) novel of Twain’s is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, which tells the story of Hank Morgan who, after receiving a blow to the head, is transported back in time to Arthurian England. At its simplest, the novel is a fun tale of adventure set in a time and place of enduring interest. At its more complex, it challenges our assumptions of history. Are we really that much smarter or advanced, Twain asks, than people from centuries past?

2. Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979)

In a field historically dominated by white men, Octavia Butler, an African American woman, was a pioneer and a powerhouse of science fiction writing. Her most famous book, the haunting novel Kindred, combines elements of sci-fi (e.g. time travel) with elements from the tradition of the U.S. slave narrative, to tell the story of a young African American writer forced to shuffle between her present, 20th-century life in Los Angeles and that of a pre-Civil War Maryland plantation. A groundbreaking, genre-bending novel that explores serious issues of slavery and prejudice, Kindred remains as important today as ever, and it would be great for introducing such issues to high school students due to its exciting and thought-provoking approach.

3. Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)

Octavia Butler’s Kindred is a literary tour de force. Yet, it fits under the category of speculative fiction, or fiction that stands in some way outside of reality. For a real-life account of what it was like to live as a slave, nothing compares to Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Douglass’s Narrative tells the story of his being born into slavery in Maryland in the early 1800s, the many abuses he both witnessed and suffered within the institution of slavery, and his eventual escape from slavery to freedom. At turns starkly brutal and lyrically beautiful, Douglass’s memoir is a reflection on freedom, (in)humanity, literacy, and truth. Although the history of slavery in the U.S. is often taught in high school, such lessons are often limited and rarely told from the actual voices of the enslaved. While Douglass’s memoir is not the first slave narrative, it is certainly the most famous.

4. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952)

Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man follows an unnamed Black narrator who has chosen to live in an underground lair beneath a bustling city, a symbol for the social “invisibility” he has long experienced throughout his lifetime. Drawing from Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground and highly influenced by Ellison’s own mentor Richard Wright, Invisible Man is a lyrical and philosophical exploration of common issues faced by African Americans in the early 20th century. It is a wonderful read for high school students since it highlights the lasting oppressions experienced by African Americans post-slavery—most of which remain relevant still today.

5. James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

A classic of high school reading lists is J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. This novel is often a favorite of teens, too, since they can so easily relate to the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, as he questions many of society’s conventions. But there’s no doubt that Salinger was inspired by another book, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in which the reader similarly follows young, Irish college student Stephen Dedalus (Joyce’s literary alter ego) as he rebels against his upbringing. It’s a coming-of-age novel perfect for high school students, since it deals with many of the quintessential questions young people ask, including those involving their schooling, their religion, and their place within society at large.

6. Short stories (especially by women)

The curriculum of many high school English classes tends to privilege the novel. Short stories (especially those often anthologized in textbooks) tend to be assigned, as well. Often-anthologized short stories are usually classics, and for good reason. But there’s so much more out there—especially by women writers—where the unique art form of the short story is concerned. Masters of the genre include Flannery O’Connor, Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, Alice Munro, and Ann Petry. In our current moment, a rich and diverse range of short story writers is also producing incredible work. The anthology Rotten English (2007), for instance, presents a collection of international short stories (as well as poetry, essays, and novel excerpts) written in “non-standard,” vernacular English, exposing readers to the myriad ways authors continue to re-think language itself.

7. Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (2020)

Another extraordinary book that reflects upon the nature of language is Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings. In this collection of autobiographical essays, Hong plumbs—with humor and unique insight—her complicated feelings of racial identity. A native of Los Angeles’s Koreatown, Hong describes her experiences growing up as a child who was seen as not speaking English “correctly,” yet relates how these same experiences of coming to own what she calls “bad English” led to her becoming the dynamic artist she is today. An intimate exploration of Asian American identity and one’s relationship to words, Minor Feelings is a powerful offering for high school students, whether they can relate to Hong’s experiences or engage with an experience other than their own.

8. Tommy Orange’s There There (2018)

Much of the U.S. history and accompanying American literature taught in high school gives young people a limited, often romanticized, and ultimately inaccurate way of thinking about indigenous cultures. A prime example is James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, which presents native peoples as inherently “one with nature” and essentially part of the past. Cheyenne and Arapaho author Tommy Orange’s debut novel, There There, provides an alternative, corrective view of indigenous cultures to the one typically taught in high school. The book follows a cast of 12 characters from Native communities living in 21st-century Oakland, California as they deal with issues including addiction, depression, and cultural dispossession. In its consideration of modern-day indigenous peoples and their relationships to urban life, Orange’s There There refuses the limiting designations often promulgated in high school, showing readers how indigenous cultures have survived and thrived into the present day.

9. Contemporary poetry

The poetry that is typically taught in high school often leaves students disliking—or, worse—feeling alienated from it. But this is because the poetry that is typically taught in high school tends to be older, with archaic-sounding language that students find un-relatable. When I was in high school, I didn’t really understand that people still wrote poetry. And I think that many young people still don’t know that there is a thriving contemporary poetry world with many interesting writers doing interesting things. A few popular poets writing today are Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Sam Sax, Kaveh Akhbar, Donika Kelly, Terrance Hayes, Tracy K. Smith, Natalie Diaz, Katie Ford, Jenny Xie, and Layli Long Soldier. Literary journals are a great way to keep up to date on the latest in the poetry world. A few of the most popular literary journals out there include The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry.

10. Quality horror

When I was in high school, I was drawn to horror as a genre. Unfortunately, though, I didn’t really know where to turn for good literary horror content. I only knew of Stephen King, whose work was admittedly too mature in its subject matter for a teen. In school, we read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the occasional Edgar Allan Poe short story. Yet, as with the poetry that is typically taught in high school, these authors felt remote and almost ancient.

High schoolers who are similarly drawn to this genre should know that there is no shortage of powerful, artful horror literature out there. Some iconic examples include Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, which is widely considered the quintessential haunted house story, and Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black which, although written in the 1980’s, reads like a classic of the genre akin to Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. For more contemporary horror offerings, check out this list of 100 Favorite Horror Stories from NPR.

11. More nonfiction

Many high school students tend to associate nonfiction with academic textbook writing. I know I did. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized the category of nonfiction encapsulates everything from journalism, to memoir, to travel writing, to lyrical essays, to self-help guides, and more. There is quite literally a type of nonfiction writing for anyone and everyone’s interests. And, I think, if students were exposed to a wider range of nonfiction early on, they might find their own personal niche within it. To begin exploring this vast, diverse literary genre, high school teachers and students should look to what’s published in popular literary magazines such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Another great source for quality nonfiction is The Best American Essays. Part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin (which also includes titles such as The Best American Mystery Stories and The Best American Food Writing), The Best American Essays is a yearly anthology of magazine articles published in the United States.

12. Graphic novels

We’ve discussed how poetry can be alienating for high school students. The truth is, for many young people, just about any kind of literature can feel alienating, regardless of the genre. In a world that is currently so dominated by visual media, a solid introduction to literature often needs to come with the help of visual media. Graphic novels are a wonderful option in this case since, by definition, they blend visuals with literary narrative.

Though similar in ways, graphic novels are not to be confused with comic books. Graphic novels tend to be longer, non-serialized (i.e. standalone) books that combine text and illustrations in a comic-strip format to tell a story. And although there is incredible variety among graphic novels, some truly tend toward high art.

Examples of highly lauded graphic novels include Maus (1980), which relates the experiences of author Art Spiegelman’s father as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor, and Watchmen (1986), a genre-defining (and interrogating) graphic novel about a disgraced group of former super heroes. There is also a 2017 graphic novel adaptation of Kindred, which adds striking visuals to Octavia Butler’s already stunning story of history, race, and the treatment of women.

13. Magical realism

Much of the literature taught in high school is either from, or inspired by, the British realist tradition. This means that such literature attempts to detail real people, places, and things in as truthful a manner as possible. Yet, there are many other styles of writing out there—writing styles that, in many cases, appeal more to teenagers’ naturally imaginative natures than does British realism. One such style is magical realism.

In magical realism, writers don’t attempt to detail real people, places, and things in as truthful a manner as possible. Rather, they create compelling worlds that combine reality with fantasy. Gabriel García Márquez, a Nobel Prize-winning Columbian author, is widely considered the “father” of magical realism. His stories give one the feeling that anything can happen at any moment. In his short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” for example, an odd, angel-like figure falls from the sky one day in the middle of an otherwise normal village.

The events of magical realist stories are often as interesting as anything seen on television or film. And in a world with so much compelling content competing for our attention, it would behoove high school teachers to capture their students’ interests with literature from rich, exciting traditions such as magical realism. Contemporary writers who write within this tradition of magical realism include Aimee Bender and Kelly Link.

14. The Very Short Introductions series

By the time I reached graduate school, I had the feeling that my education had been lamentably pointy rather than well-rounded. I had been lucky enough to craft an education that was catered to my specific interests. However, I felt like I had missed out on the opportunity to think through other, essential subjects and ideas. This is where Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introductions series comes in. With over 700 titles covering an incredibly wide range of topics—everything from Accounting and Alexander the Great to Volcanoes and Zionism—the Very Short Introductions series is a great way to fill in any gaps that might exist in your knowledge. Was The Spanish Civil War not covered in your high school history class? Want to know more about Black Holes or Behavioral Economics? The Very Short Introductions series has informative, literally pocket-sized books on just about any topic about which you’re itching to know more.

15. A grammar book or two

Words come somewhat naturally to me. And by the time I graduated from high school, I had intuited many of the rules of English grammar. Yet, I didn’t understand why I made the choices I did when speaking or drafting a sentence. For better or worse, I had made it through school without a proper course (or even a proper lesson) in grammar. Years later, I now understand that knowing these rules is beneficial to communicating effectively. Perhaps more importantly, though, I understand that knowing these rules can help one to more effectively break the rules.

If, like me, your education in grammar is lacking, you’re in luck. There is a whole field of authors who write books to teach grammar skills in easily-digestible and even (if you can believe it) fun ways.

Two such examples are Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation and the oeuvre of Mignon Fogarty (a.k.a. “Grammar Girl”). A former BBC radio host, Truss mixes humor and practical instruction in Eats, Shoots & Leaves to highlight the importance of proper punctuation. A former professor of journalism, Fogarty has published three essential books on grammar. Her first print book, Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, made The New York Times bestseller list in 2008, and the audiobook version was named one of Oprah Magazine’s “must-hear audiobooks” in 2009.

Still looking for reading ideas? Check out The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Part of The Best American Series and edited by Dave Eggers and others, this is a yearly anthology of fiction and nonfiction selected by high school students.

[bitch-butter]

a podcast rec list

a list By a babe For babes of my fav and completely subjective podcasts (focusing primarily on smaller pods that people might not know about already but have given me many lols and expanded my wisdom).

My Year in Mensa

i always rec this pod to people who don't engage with a lot of podcasts because the episodes are pretty quick, it's a limited season, and jamie loftus is like pod royalty now but she wasn't really when she first made this so it's charming to hear how she's changed and yet stayed the same. essentially she joins Mensa as a joke and comes to discover that they're not like Charming Nerds as you would expect but that in actuality there's a very deep conservative bend to the whole organization that leads to a lot of in-fighting and bullying. it all culminates in jamie attending their annual conference, and she has some Really wild encounters there. also, IQ tests are complete and utter bullshit <3  

No Dogs in Space

what can i say except i love Marcus Parks (LPOTL would be on this list but everybody srs about podcasting kind of knows them already) and his Onions on music are Exactly right. if you are at all interested in the history of punk bands, alt bands, experimentalists, or just want to hear some folks who Know what they're talking about dissect some awesome music you can't do much better. i rec starting way back in the stooges era, but all of their series are fucking awesome.  

Saving Sex and the City 3

Lara is my fav podcaster of all time ever, she has another pod below that i recommend, but this one is so niche that it's ridiculous but it spoke so Distinctly to me at a point in time. basically if any SATC fans remember the beautiful universe we lived in pre-And Just Like That you'll know that there was a huge dust-up when the planned SATC3 movie was cancelled bc of Kim Cattrall and her Ways. Lara, like me, was deeply affected by this injustice, so she started this podcast where basically she and a different guest each episode storyline what a potential SATC3 movie would have been, and they range from an additional season of the show, to body-horror exploitation movie, to spy saga. it's funny, it's light, and it's so, so crazy i can't help but love it.

Mother, May I Sleep with Podcast?

one thing to know about me is that i'm obsessed with Lifetime movies and will watch pretty much every single one that comes my way, and Molls is so on my level. she's a pod queen, and she uses this one in particular to dive so deep into Lifetime movies that they cease to be farce and become Intensely high-stakes drama which is my brand honestly. every episode is like 3 hours long, which is my ideal length of a podcast episode because i hate having to stop what i'm doing to mess with my phone, and all her guests are hysterical. 

Babe?

the pod that made me who i am today. sometimes i'll be halfway through a  joke and i'll think 'did i hear this on babe' bc they are Such a portrait of an era. it's now defunct, but it's brief run was So iconic and hilarious and so deeply, deeply The Way We Were in 2017. it's just two friends shooting the shit every week, and they're both incredibly funny and yet go so deep with each other and are so insanely dysfunctional that ultimately the podcast disbands lol episodes 1-30 with Ryan are the best, but i enjoy Lara's solo version, too.

Dead Eyes

if you like Band of Brothers and have not listened to Dead Eyes legit what are you doing lol basically, Connor Ratliff was hired to play the role of Winters' orderly, Zelinsky, in ep 5 but he was Personally fired by Tom Hanks who said that he had "dead eyes". The whole podcast is like solving a mystery that's not really a mystery, and exploring how this one moment reverberated through this guys whole career. It's extraordinary, and you get to hear some fun tea and backstage stories ~

The Haunted Objects Podcast with Greg and Dana

spoooooky and silly. Greg and Dana Newkirk are the real deal, they have a traveling museum of haunted/cursed objects people send to them, and a few of them do have genuine and interesting stories attached to them, so each episode they dive into a different piece of the collection. Such a good listen if you're interested in hearing from people who have a lot of experience in High Strangeness and personal paranormal investigations but aren't Too deep down the "I Know What I Saw!!!" rabbit hole. 

[wfcn-co]

How do feature films and short movies differ in terms of budget, production value, and actors/actresses involved?

We've all experienced it: cuddled up on the couch, enthralled by a short film treasure on a film festival website, or nestled in a darkened theatre, mesmerized by a great cinematic spectacle. However, have you ever thought what makes these two formidable filmmakers different?  Let's explore the fundamental distinctions between feature films and short films in terms of money, production value, and the performers that bring these stories to life as we dig into the intriguing world of films.

Budgeting Bonanza: A Tale of Two Scales

The area of finances is where the differences are most noticeable. The big budget movies in the world of filmmaking are called feature films. Imagine enormous sets, ornate costumes, and high-paying A-list film actors. The cost of these film productions might reach the billions of dollars. On the other hand, short films have far stricter rules. Here, filmmakers need to be resourceful, using guerilla methods and making the most of every dollar. Financial constraints frequently encourage creativity, which results in creative storytelling that works within the constraints.

Production Value: From Grand Spectacle to Intimate Vignettes

Budgetary constraints inevitably result in variations in the value of film production. Modern visual effects, vast sets, and an army-sized staff are all hallmarks of feature films. Consider the stunning computer-generated imagery (CGI) landscapes in Avatar or the painstakingly authentic historical locales in period dramas. Conversely, short films frequently place an emphasis on intimacy and have a smaller film cast and crew. To make an effect, they might use artistic lighting arrangements, deft camera angles, and scenic locations.

Actors and Actresses: Established Stars vs. Rising Talents

The disparity in budgets is also reflected in the world of performers. Stars with a track record of success at the box office can be drawn to feature films. Consider the star power Scarlett Johansson possesses or Tom Hanks's ability to bring attention to any endeavour. However, in short films, emerging performers or even unknowns frequently make appearances. This gives emerging talent a platform before they make it to the major leagues, allowing for different stories and new faces.

Beyond the Differences: A Shared Passion for Filmmaking

Notwithstanding their differences, a devoted group of storytellers unites both feature films and short films. Filmmakers put their all into their work, regardless of the size of their budget—from multimillions to shoestrings. Their goals are to establish a connection with the film audience, arouse feelings, and make an impact.

So, Short Films vs. Feature Films: Who Wins?

In actuality, there isn't any rivalry. Both approaches meet distinct needs for storytelling and have special benefits. While short films are better at telling snappy stories or concentrating on a single, impactful moment, feature films are better at providing in-depth film character development and intricate storylines.

The Final Cut: A Universe of Storytelling Awaits

The format that is used ultimately depends on the plot of the story. While certain stories thrive in the constrained space of a short film, others require the enormous canvas of a feature film. It is our good fortune as viewers to have access to a varied cinematic environment that fosters the growth of both feature and short films and provides a wealth of undiscovered narratives. Thus, the next time you visit a movie theatre or peruse the website of a film festival, remember to look for both the large-scale film productions and the little treasures. You may find yourself astonished by the magical nature of filmmaking!

[crowdvscritic]

behind the scenes // ST. LOUIS FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION AWARDS (2022)

Have you ever wondered how Best of the Year lists are chosen? Each year publications like Entertainment Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter conduct anonymous interviews with Academy members to reveal their Oscar votes, often with article titles like “brutally honest” and “juicy.” I understand not wanting to burn any bridges with friends or colleagues, but I usually finish those pieces annoyed. If you’ve got an opinion, own it! How do know if I can trust your judgment or taste?

In the spirit of transparency, I’m doing my small part to be the change I wish to see in the world. (Exactly the scenario someone had in mind when altering Gandhi’s words to fit on a bumper sticker.) Last year I voted in the St. Louis Film Critics Association Best of the Year for the first time, and I’m sharing my behind-the-scenes look at how we narrowed down the 800+ eligible films of the year to our 23 winners and how I chose my votes. Apologies in advance it's not a "juicy" take—there's not a lot of drama in our group!

These were the key 2022 dates for our decisions:

Saturday, December 10th: Individual nominations due to SLFCA leadership

Sunday, December 11th: Tie-Breaker Meeting to determine final nominees

Saturday, December 17th: Final ballots due

As a reminder, I can’t speak for how every critic in the group prioritizes viewing or votes. Another critic in the group may have completely different strategy even if we end up voting for the same nominee!

How the Ballots Work

Like many awards shows, I’m kicking this explainer off with Best Supporting Actor and Actress. I didn’t have any cuts when I submitted my ballot—I was looking for people to fill my five slots. The real decision-making was about their order. 

In the first round of voting, our ballots are ranked, with our first choice earning five points toward the performer’s total and fifth place earning one point. For example, I contributed five points each to Andre Braugher and Carey Mulligan’s totals for their performances in She Said as well as two points to Angela Basset’s total for her Black Panther role. While those three made the cut for SLFCA’s nominations, not enough of the other critics ranked Adrien Brody, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dolly De Leon, Kate Hudson, Rami Malek, Pedro Pascal, or John David Washington highly enough for them to make the final nominations. Curtis and De Leon were just a few points away from making the cut.

More performers our critics loved: Jessie Buckley, Women Talking; Hong Chau, The Whale; Tom Hanks, Elvis; Brian Tyree Henry, Causeway; Anthony Hopkins, Armageddon Time; Nina Hoss, Tár; Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All at Once; Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin; Keke Palmer, Nope; Eddie Redmayne, The Good Nurse; Mark Rylance, Bones and All; Jeremy Strong, Armageddon Time

Watching as Many Movies as Possible

More than 800 eligible films were released in 2022 . (One of our members compiled them all into a Letterboxd list.) In the 10 days before my nominations were due, I watched She Said, Triangle of Sadness, Vengeance, and White Noise, all of which made my picks for Best Screenplay. I also watched titles I nominated in other categories (Babylon, Emily the Criminal, The Fabelmans, RRR, “Sr.”), plus a few that didn’t make the cut (Armageddon Time, Devotion, The Menu, Something From Tiffany’s, The Wonder). 

But what about the films I hadn't seen that SLFCA nominated? That’s what the week between the Tie-Breaker Meeting and the final ballot due date is for. In those seven days, I checked out The Banshees of Inisherin, Tár, and Women Talking, which were movies I had expected to be nominated regardless of my support. 

More screenplays on my long list: Amsterdam, The Menu, See How They Run

More screenplays our critics loved: After Yang, Aftersun, All Quiet on the Western Front, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Elvis, Empire of Light, Happening, Nope, Three Thousand Years of Longing, Till, The Whale

Choosing Nominees

In the Cinematography, Editing, and Visual Effects categories, I focused on an advocacy strategy. Before I met most of my fellow St. Louis Film Critics Association members, I was regularly updated with their film recommendations in a private Facebook group. As early as September, members shared headlines about the Awards Season, and based on chatter I’d seen in the group and in the film world at large, I figured support would be strong for films like Elvis, Everything Everywhere All at Once, She Said, and Top Gun: Maverick. I was less sure about sentiment for Amsterdam, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, See How They Run, Triangle of Sadness, and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, so I prioritized them on my ballot.

More films on my long list: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (VFX), RRR (Editing), She Said (Editing), The Woman King (VFX)

A few more films our critics loved: All Quiet on the Western Front (Cinematography), Avatar: The Way of Water (Cinematography, Editing), The Batman (VFX), Decision to Leave (Editing), Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (VFX), Empire of Light (Cinematography), Three Thousand Years of Longing (VFX), Women Talking (Editing)

Breaking Ties

After we submitted our ballots, we met as a group at a restaurant to hash out ties. The longest and most passionate debate broke out over the Best Scene category because there was a six-way (!) tie for third place. We ultimately decided to keep four of those six scenes and nominate six films total. We typically only include five nominees, but exceptions can be made in the case of a tie.

A few more scenes our critics loved: Scarlet Witch vs. the Illuminati in Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, the Home Alone-inspired sequence in Violent Night

Prioritizing Nominees

After nominations were finalized at our our Tie-Breaker Meeting, I counted 20 nominated films I had not seen, 14 of which were only nominated in 1 category each. (I did not join the group till the summer, so I was not watching for most of the year knowing about this deadline!) I knew I would not have the time to watch them all, so I prioritized by asking these questions:

How many nominations did each film have? The Banshees of Inisherin, Women Talking, and Tár each earned between 4 and 11 noms, so they were highest priority

Could I watch every nominee in a category? All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Apollo 10½, Jackass Forever, and Wendell & Wild each only earned one nom, but I prioritized them so I could complete the Animated, Comedy, and Documentary categories

Had I watched enough noms to vote in a category? To vote in a category, I had to watch at least three nominees. I prioritized the twice-nominated in Decision to Leave so I could vote in Best International Feature, but I decided to skip voting in the Horror category because I would’ve needed to watch four films to vote (and because this horror-averse viewer probably would have found all four of them quite upsetting!)

More films on my long list: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Action), The Lost City (Comedy), Marry Me (Comedy), Minions: The Rise of Gru (Comedy), See How They Run (Comedy), The Woman King (Action)

A few more films our critics loved: Bad Axe (Documentary), The Bad Guys (Animated), The Banshees of Inisherin (Comedy), Barbarian (Horror), The Batman (Action), Broker (International), Bros (Comedy), Clerks III (Comedy), Corsage (International), EO (International), Lightyear (Animated), Navalny (Documentary), The Sea Beast (Animated), Smile (Horror)

Announcing the Winners

For me, the final round of voting is a combination of picking clear favorites in a category and trying to get your favorite films represented somewhere on the ballot. Winners are announced in a press release and shared on the SLFCA website. And in just a few weeks the process starts all over again with the new year! 

You can see the full list of winners and nominees for 2022 at STLFilmCritics.org, and here are how my nominations shook out in the categories not featured above:

[criticalbennifer]

By: John Brodie

Ben Affleck pilots a Jeep Cherokee through the backstreets of Cambridge, Massachusetts. July twilight turns the red brick buildings around Harvard Square a fiery shade of orange. The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones play as Affleck, with his younger brother, Casey, and Matt Damon, gives a guided tour of their childhood haunts: Rocco's Place; the One Thousand and One Plays video arcade; the spot near the Weld Boathouse where a teenage Damon stripped and swam across a river famous for its dirty water; and Hi-Fi Pizza, which was always closing just as Damon and Affleck would show up for a late-night slice. "I was there a few days ago, and the guys behind the counter were, like, 'You're Chasing Amy! You're Chasing Amy!' " says Affleck, doing his best impersonation of the counterman's Indian accent. "And so I say, 'Yes, yes. I am. Now how 'bout a slice?' And they say, 'No, sorry, Mr. Chasing Amy, we're closed.' " 

Tree-lined streets give way to the gray stone of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School's modern campus. As Affleck parks the car by their high school theater, Damon can no longer contain himself. "Say, Ben," he taunts, "why don't you tell us about the time you played the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland?" 

"Yup, I was the zany, hookah-smoking caterpillar," Affleck says, gearing up for a cutting contest. "I chose to play the role wrapped in garbage bags held together by Scotch tape. Now, if I were to play that caterpillar today, I might do it another way." 

"It was an underrated performance," says 22-year-old Casey. "Those trash bags were a bold choice." 

"So, Matt, why don't you favor us with your version of 'Morning Glory' from Pippin?" says 25-year-old Ben, letting loose a left-right (Bob Fosse-Stephen Schwartz) slight to Damon's virility. Damon holds in his comeback until the Jeep is in motion and they pass his childhood home. Affleck's house is two blocks away, and as boys, he and Damon often walked to school together -- even though Damon was two years older. 

"Ben used to ring my bell and then cower on the other side of the street, because he was afraid of the little kids at this school right next door," Damon says and flashes a toothy smile as Affleck stops him midsentence. 

"This was a delinquent school and all the kids were smoking cigarettes," Affleck says, as he quickly pulls around the corner and arrives at his mom's blue townhouse on Cottage Street. He is hoping to point out his birthplace and be on his way when he is waylaid by his mother, who, unimpressed by the presence of a journalist, wants to know when he plans on returning her Jeep. 

"Are you going to be home for dinner?" the sixth-grade public-school teacher asks her son. "Mom, you're banned from talking to the press since you told the story about how I used to play with a Wonder Woman doll," Affleck warns, striding into the kitchen for a hug and a sample of freshly prepared guacamole. 

Damon and Affleck could be any pair of twentysomething slackers enjoying a late summer idyll, but by the weekend, the hookah-smoking caterpillar will be heading west to costar with Bruce Willis in the megabuck asteroid movie Armageddon, and Mr. Morning Glory will be on a plane to England, where he will play the title role in Saving Private Ryan, opposite Tom Hanks, adding Steven Spielberg's name to the list of directors (Francis Ford Coppola, Gus Van Sant) with whom he has worked over the past year. 

This summer has been a last gasp of childhood for the pair. They recently finished production on Miramax's Good Will Hunting, an ensemble drama Damon and Affleck cowrote before leaving Harvard and Occidental College, respectively, roughly four years ago. The movie, due out at Christmas and directed by To Die For's Van Sant, is already being touted as Oscar bait. Damon stars as a South Boston juvenile delinquent who works as a janitor at MIT and just happens to be an unschooled mathematics genius; the Affleck brothers play two of his Southie pals; and Robin Williams plays it straight as the shrink who helps Damon's working-class hero realize his potential. 

That this pet project should come to fruition with such strong Hollywood backing reflects the sudden industry heat on the young actors' careers. But Damon and Affleck have been together every step of the way -- and they depend on each other to keep things real. "There's an emotional core to Good Will Hunting that came from Ben and Matt," says Williams, who plays therapist Sean McGuire with a gravitas similar to that of Dead Poets Society. "They have this unspoken twins thing. They care for each other, yet they bust on each other. And that was a great bass line to work with. I'm very proud of this movie. It has a resonance." 

On November 13, 1994, the Good Will Hunting script became the object of an intense bidding war in Hollywood. Damon was living in a shabby two-bedroom house with a buddy from high school. Affleck was sleeping on his sofa, having fled a busted engagement back East. This was long before the actors' careers would simultaneously pick up speed -- Affleck's thanks to Chasing Amy and Going All the Way, Damon's with Courage Under Fire and The Rainmaker. 

Never during their shared childhood had they imagined that November day's outcome. "When the phone started ringing, we were ready to take the first offer, which was $15,000," Affleck says. "After each call," Damon says, "we were yelling at our agent, Patrick Whitesell, 'Take it! Just take the offer!' Then there was this moment when the phone rang and Patrick picked it up. It was for my roommate, and it was this girl he had dated in college, and my roommate was, like, 'Hey, how are you?' And we were, like, 'Hang the fuckin' phone up!' He was really bummed, because they hadn't talked in three years." 

By dusk, Chris Moore, a friend with whom they had developed the script, burst through the door with a bottle of Cristal under his arm -- a bottle he had been given when he left agenting and told not to open until his new life as a producer started. Moore popped the cork when Castle Rock's bid came in that evening: The studio offered Damon and Affleck more than $1 million for their script as well as their services as actors. They spent that night drinking at Damon's house. 

Getting Good Will Hunting into production was less of a party: The script, director, and studio would all change before it reached the screen. The plot at the time of the sale was more of a thriller, with Will's mathematical powers attracting the unwanted interest of evil government agents. In the beginning, Affleck and Damon also talked about such movies as Ordinary People, Searching for Bobby Fischer, and Midnight Run as touchstones. Castle Rock partner Rob Reiner told them to lose the thriller element and concentrate on the relationship between Will and his psychiatrist. William Goldman, a sachem of the screenwriting trade, coached them as well. Even reclusive director Terrence Malick (Badlands) came out of his shell for a meeting and suggested ways in which Will's love interest, a Harvard med student named Skylar, could become a catalyst for his decision to leave Boston. 

Then came the sticking point: Damon and Affleck heard that Castle Rock bigwig Andrew Scheinman wanted to direct. Considering that Scheinman's oeuvre consisted of Little Big League, Damon and Affleck were loath to turn their baby over to him. Rather than force the actors to work with Scheinman, Castle Rock's senior executives took the high road and gave them 90 days to set up the project at another studio. If they failed, the movie would go forward with any director Castle Rock dictated. 

Affleck and Damon gave the script to Kevin Smith (director of Clerks and Chasing Amy), who pressed Miramax's cochairman Harvey Weinstein to look at Good Will Hunting as a possible producing vehicle for Smith's View Askew production company. After reading the script, Weinstein made one of Miramax's most expensive purchases at the time, paying Castle Rock slightly more than $1 million for the rights to Good Will Hunting. 

Somewhere outside Needles, California, Christmas 1995, Ben Affleck's car phone started chirping. Damon was taking it easy in the passenger seat -- still recovering from dropping 40 pounds for his junkie scenes in Courage Under Fire. Affleck, who dreads flying and frequently drives cross-country, was all poise when the voice on the other end said, "You have a meeting with Mel Gibson . . . in New York . . . in two days." 

They spent much of the next 48 hours pounding coffee and quoting lines from Mad Max to each other as the Nevada desert faded into the Manhattan skyline. "We got to Miramax's offices just before our lunch," says Damon. "And Harvey tells us, 'Mel Gibson is a great director. You can see that from Braveheart.' And I said, 'Harvey, Ben and I have been working. We haven't seen it yet.' So without missing a beat, the head of Miramax sits there and says, 'Okay: Scotland, William Wallace.' And he told us the whole movie." 

Gibson's involvement had a catch: He was just starting Ransom and would not be available for nearly a year, so Good Will Hunting would have to wait. Recalls Damon, "Mel was totally understanding when we said, 'This movie is our life. And we know you're, like, the biggest star in the world. But we need a decision.' '' He shudders now at the cockiness of it all. Gibson bowed out after two weeks. 

Meanwhile, Van Sant had gotten his hands on the script and contacted Damon through Casey Affleck, who had appeared in To Die For. "I was attracted to the notion of Will trying to create a family," Van Sant says, observing that his movies (Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho) have often depicted street kids struggling to forge an alternative home for themselves. Van Sant also started talking about the project with Williams, whom he knew slightly from years before, when the two were developing a biopic about slain gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk. 

Cambridge's Bow and Arrow pub has been dutifully re-created in a forgotten Toronto gin mill on a June morning. Affleck and actor Cole Hauser, who worked together in Dazed and Confused and School Ties, are in character as Chuckie and Billy, two Southies who have invaded a Harvard bar for the night. They play pop-a-shot basketball in one corner. "Brick!" yells Hauser in his best Bean Town accent. "Larry," coos Affleck as he emulates the last white Celtic legend's jump shot. Damon, as Will Hunting, sits with Casey Affleck, whose character, Morgan, completes the quartet of friends. They stare as Skylar, played by British actress Minnie Driver, approaches Will for the first time. The scene is meant to be a little cool, but neither Damon nor Driver can suppress grins. They furtively hold hands between setups. Damon, who in his brief career has earned a reputation as an on-set smoothie (after hooking up with The Rainmaker's Claire Danes), has struck again. The camera rolls and Skylar offers Will a crumpled piece of paper. "Here's my number," Driver says. "Maybe we could go out for coffee sometime?" 

"Great, or maybe we could go somewhere and just eat a bunch of caramels," Damon says. "It's just as arbitrary as drinking coffee." Their eyes meet. The actors beam. 

"Matt wasn't prepared for such a powerhouse acting against him," says producer Lawrence Bender of Driver, who auditioned by reading a love scene with Damon at New York's Soho Grand Hotel. "It was a scene where Will tells Skylar, 'I don't love you.' Matt literally had to stop the audition, apologize, and start over. There were five guys in the room and nobody wanted to look at one another because we had tears in our eyes." 

Regardless of the extracurricular role she plays in Damon's life, Driver has become an expert at infiltrating close circles of male friends; she worked with Stanley Tucci and his screenwriter cousin Joseph Tropiano on Big Night, and played the chick-of-the-flick in Grosse Point Blank, which John Cusack wrote with longtime friends D.V. DeVincentis and Steve Pink. "[Being the girl] in these groups has meant that I've been allowed to do whatever I like," Driver says in her trailer as Damon and Affleck make catcalls from the curb. "Because all of these men have said, 'We've never got her quite right. We need you to fill in the blanks.' " Minnie and Matt -- their names could be the title of a forgotten Cassavetes script -- were together during the summer while she was shooting a period drama in England and Scotland called The Governess and Damon was soldiering for Spielberg in England. But it's hard to tell whether a Bogart- Bacall To Have and Have Not kind of magic filters onto the screen in Good Will Hunting. 

"There's a rosiness that comes through, but that can be deceiving," Van Sant says. "A lot of times if you are told something before you see the film, you might convince yourself something's there when it actually turns out to be the opposite." 

Stars' personal lives are a squeamish topic for the director, but not nearly as squeamish as the donnybrook he got into with Good Will Hunting producer Bender, a longtime Quentin Tarantino associate who was handed the movie by Miramax. Since Damon, Affleck, and Van Sant had already gelled by the time Bender came on the project, the tight-knit group viewed him as an interloper. And according to several of the principals, Van Sant told Bender during a preproduction meeting, "You don't have a creative bone in your body, and I just want to punch you in your face." Van Sant then called the leads into his hotel room and demanded that Bender make assurances to the group about creative control. Van Sant and Bender agree that the contretemps was mostly about staking out territory. "Yeah, it happened, then it blew over," Bender says. Van Sant, however, cut Bender's cameo out of the film. And according to the stars, they see Bender's top billing as the only blemish on what was otherwise a dream come true. "The first thing onscreen is a lawrence bender production," says one. "It makes me want to puke." 

No one recognizes Damon or Affleck as they cajole a janitor into unlocking the doors to their high school theater, and now they're back on the proscenium stage where Damon performed "Burning Down the House" in a school talent show. Casey and Ben are telling horror stories about Damon's slovenliness. The clincher for Affleck was when he showed up at the pad he shares with Damon in Manhattan's Chinatown and found his friend watching TV seated next to an old box of sushi being devoured by maggots. "I can forgive him," Affleck says, "because I know in my heart that he was using all his energy to figure out how he was going to play Will Hunting." 

The two actors arbitrarily decided five years ago that Damon would play Will and Affleck would play Chuckie, a supporting role. Damon, as a consequence, gets the girl and a chance to shine with Robin Williams. As solace, Affleck penned himself a pivotal scene, in which Chuckie grants Will permission to turn his back on his friends and rise above his working-class roots. "Every day, I come by to pick you up," Chuckie says, "and we go out and we have a few laughs. But you know what the best part of my day is? The ten seconds before I knock on the door, 'cause I let myself think, I might get there, and you'd be gone. I'd knock on the door . . . and you wouldn't be there. You just left." It's an understated moment of male intimacy, one that almost overshadows the emotional pyrotechnics between Damon and Williams. 

When asked whether he ever thinks about how things might have been different had they switched roles somewhere along the line, Damon insists that on the next movie he and Affleck write together, Affleck will star and he will provide the comic relief. "The biggest sadness I have," Damon says, his voice breaking slightly, "is that I look at my role and I think that Ben could easily have played it. I think he let me do it because, literally, he's my best friend in the world and he's that selfless." Catching himself getting mushy, Damon adds, "But, hey, don't feel bad for Ben. He's saving the world. Didn't anybody tell you there's an asteroid the size of Texas headed toward Earth? And if it weren't for Bruce Willis and Ben, God knows what would happen."

[the-cat-chat]

April 29, 2023

The Green Mile (1999)

The lives of guards on Death Row are affected by one of their charges: a black man accused of child murder and rape, yet who has a mysterious gift.

JayBell: I’ve seen this movie only maybe twice before, but it remains on my list of favorite Stephen King adaptations. It’s a looooong movie, but it’s pretty engaging throughout with only a moment or two that felt slow.

The story is sad, even more sad than the plot of Shawshank. And the ending is bittersweet. While I personally think Shawshank is my favorite, the acting in The Green Mile is superior. Everyone does a great job, especially Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan. Even the most annoying, sadistic guard (played by Doug Hutchison) has a great performance. He’s so easy to hate, and karma definitely came for his character in the end. And of course all the mice that play Mr. Jingles deserve little tiny Oscars.

It has slight supernatural elements, but not so much that it overtakes the plot. The “magic” is treated more of an aspect of John’s character. It’s not as in-your-face like Carrie or It, and I like how different it is. I also appreciate that we focus on a small group of prisoners and guards, so it feels like you get a real close look at who these people are and what’s going on. That way, the ending is a real emotional punch. All-in-all, it’s not my favorite Stephen King adaptation, but it’s definitely up there.

Rating: 8/10 cats 🐈  

Anzie: Nothing I ever picked up about this movie could’ve prepared me for the reality of this movie or its actual plot. It’s possible my brain mixed it together with Shawshank’s plot or something?? But my general consensus growing up was how is it on two VHS tapes???

That being said- as ick as the actual storyline is bc of the death row element and the electric chairs scenes that are absolutely HORRIFIC, (and that it’s 3 hours long), the movie is very good and original. Oh another big ick- I have no clue how Sam Rockwell was soo disgusting and the epitome of awful. I’ll never think of him the same. So bravo.

But anywayyys back to the good stuff. All the actors did a great job with their parts and with the exception of Percy whooooo I detest, the guards (and actors) show so much empathy towards the men in their care. And all the prisoners had very unique personalities. And for such a depressing topic- it had some funny parts. Not that the ending won’t leave you totally depressed bc it will.

The story was insane and I was just expecting a regular prison movie- not magic or angel powers or whatever- and definitely not expecting the whole UTI plot point. At all. And not to spoil it but I knew John Coffey was innnocent but I was not expecting who was the real killer but I should’ve known. I feel like the ending with Tom Hanks’ character was a little unnecessary/ like there was enough magic and all that and it was just like okaaaay. Like if it wasn’t in there- I wouldn’t have been upset bc the rest of the story felt like enough.

But pretty solid movie - and a biggggg special shout out to Mr. Jingles!!!! The true star of the show.

Rating: 7/10 Mr. Jingles 🐭