#i love the way the director filmed summer night

[moonkhao]

DUNK NATACHAI as WHITE in SUMMER NIGHT EPISODE 5

[b-skarsgard]

He shot the indie action film “Boy Kills World,” in which he stars as a brutal, mute fighter who’s got some serious John Wick-style moves, right before “The Crow,” so he was already packing on a lot of muscle. He kept up the same protein-packed, restricted diet and workout plan to stay in top shape heading into “The Crow.”

“I’d take Bill out to dinner. I’d always just order for him because I knew what he was eating,” “The Crow” director Rupert Sanders told Variety at the New York premiere Tuesday night. “It’s basically steak tartare and raw eggs. He was in the gym a lot. He ate very healthily and put us all to shame when we were eating burgers and hot dogs and working late at night in the Czech summer.”

“I’d already been training for quite a while. Me and my trainer kept adding a little bit of weight onto what I’d already be, but I didn’t want to be too big either,” Skarsgard said. “It was a tricky one, because they wanted the Crow to be ripped, but the character Eric shouldn’t be. I didn’t feel like the character should be thin, but you can’t afford to split it into six months, the ‘Raging Bull’ kind of way. So we did a lot of weight training and ate a lot of protein.”

One intense scene has Skarsgard’s Crow infiltrate an opera house and slaughter dozens of henchmen to reach the man who orchestrated his murder. Sanders called the sequence the “craziest day on set.”

“There was a lot of complex stunt work, and Bill did so much of it himself,” he said. “As you can see, he’s an incredibly physical person. His body in the movie is incredible. When he’s on, he’s a real machine of destruction, but also he played these incredible moments of softness and empathy, which really just give the action sequences a lot more of an emotional connection, which is why I think people are really responding to them. They’re not just gratuitous violence. You really feel that you’re in there with the character.”

Once filming was over, Skarsgard celebrated the end of his diet with a beer.

“I really loved what I was eating, so I didn’t feel like I had to cheat,” he said. “I didn’t eat sugar, but I’m not a big sweet guy. I guess my biggest cheat would be an alcoholic beer. I celebrated after the shoot.”

read more at the link

[oldiesstationlover11607]

Promise - Josh Dun x Fem!Reader

Pairing: Josh Dun x Reader

Warnings: Kiss, swearing, angry Tyler

A/N: Can't be bothered to do a word count bc i'm tired. its about tyler saying he'd wait for reader when she comes back to columbus but when she comes back for the high school reunion she finds out he's married to jenna. so she starts to hit it off with josh.

Worthington Christian High School reunion. 2015. 7 years after Tyler and I had graduated. 7 years after I moved from Columbus to LA in search of making it as a film director. Everyone at home had thought I was insane, throwing my life away for a career I was almost guaranteed to fail at. Except Tyler. The other crazy dreamer in our grade, except his passion was music. We spent two summers together, him helping me make films and me helping organize gigs for him. When I left Columbus we promised we’d wait for each other. I loved him and was willing to do anything to make him mine. 

“I’ll wait for you,” a couple tears dropped down his face as he tried to remain strong. I pulled him in close for a warm embrace, feeling his chest rise and fall with his breath. I knew I would be back, I was going to make it and then I was going to come back for Tyler. But it had been 7 years and all we’d seen of each other was a few video calls. Tyler had achieved massive success with his band and it was impossible to avoid their songs on the radio. I’d ended up becoming a director, making a few movies and music videos, winning me my first Oscar. I didn’t know why but I was nervous to see Tyler, worried that he’d changed. It was a cold night so I’d made sure to put on a sweater. I was at least half an hour late–being stuck in a meeting with producers was almost always the reason I was late to everything–the entrance to the school was dead, except one man sitting on a bench, staring up at the night sky. 

“The reunion’s tonight, right?” I asked him, trying to figure out if I’d marked it wrong on my calendar. He didn’t look familiar to me, there was almost no way he’d gone to Worthington Christian, I knew everyone in our grade. 

“Yep,” he nodded. 

“Then why aren’t you in there?” I folded my arms and my breath came out in steam, the air much colder than I thought it was. 

“I didn’t go here, my friend and his wife are in there. I drove them here from my house and just stopped to get some air. What about you? How come you’re so late?” He smirked. 

“Uh… I had a meeting. Some producer thing for a new TV show in production. I’m a director,” I spoke, still trying to figure out how the man looked so familiar. He had curly brown hair and arms covered in tattoos, and that golden retriever look about him. 

“That’s cool, I’m a musician, the name’s Joshua,” he seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, “have you made anything I might’ve seen?” I paused to think about what he might’ve seen. He was a musician so surely he’d watch music videos. 

“Well Joshua, I directed the music video for Green Day’s ‘Corvette Summer’ if you’re a fan of them,” I offered. His face lit up, clearly he had seen it. 

“Hell yes I’m a fan, the video was epic. Gosh, I love music videos, they’re awesome,” he grinned. Music blasted from inside the school, they were playing Tyler’s song, ‘Stressed Out’ which was my cue to go inside. 

“Sorry, I should probably get inside, it was nice meeting you Joshua.”

“Wait! What was your name?” He grabbed my hand. 

“Y/N,” I smiled. Joshua pulled out a business card from his wallet and passed it to me. 

“Get in touch with me, I live in LA too. We should get coffee sometime Y/N.” I nodded before slipping away through the doors. The song continued to blast through the speakers as I walked inside the gym. 

“Y/N! Hi!” a jock shouted, towering over me.

“How’s Hollywood?” a popular blondie who I was sure had peaked in high school preened, her phone flashing into my face. 

“Looks like we’ve got two stars in our grade,” Jack, the class president shouted over the mic. He was standing on stage, a can of beer in his hand like no time had passed at all. “Why don’t you two come up here? Talk to us about what it’s like to be better than all of us,” he let out a loud and obnoxious laugh which was then echoed back by everyone else in the room. I felt a hand on my back push me towards the stage, turning my head back to see him, Tyler Joseph. He looked so much older than the last time I’d seen him. His head was shaved in a buzzcut and head was wearing a yellow denim jacket. He looked famous. More so than me. He flashed a smile at me before taking the mic from Jack. 

“Hey everyone,” he waved, “god it is good to be back here with all of you, if you guys even remember us. If you don’t, then I was the basketballer who wrote poems at the back of Mr Stevenson’s math class while the rest of the team was failing his infamous algebra test,” he let out a loud laugh. “Now I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Worthington Christian, the people at this school shaped who I am as a person. I found the confidence to share my music with people here. I stayed in Columbus and I met my loving wife.” I’m sorry, wife? Tyler Joseph was married? My Tyler? The Tyler who’d promised he’d wait for me? I felt dizzy. But that didn’t stop Tyler from shoving the microphone into my hand. The room went silent as I stood there feeling like I was spinning. This wasn’t happening. 

“I–I’m happy to be here,” I tried desperately to smile but I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. “Thank you for having us back.” I handed the mic back to Tyler before leaving the stage and running out the gym. I felt warm, my cheeks flushing bright pink and the lack of water I’d drank finally catching up with me. I stared at the ground as I desperately tried to hold back sobs. 

“Y/N?” It was Tyler. 

“What the fuck do you want Joseph?” I spat, he knew exactly what he’d done. “I don’t want you here.” 

“I–I know you don’t. I effed up, I get it. But you never came back, you promised me you’d come back and you didn’t Y/N,” he sighed. 

“I fucking waited for you,” the tears started to pour down my cheeks. 

“I’m sorry,” he pulled me in for a hug, “I still care about you, okay? You’re still important to me.” I nodded my head, waiting for him to let me go. I needed to get back to my hotel before I screamed at him. Finally he pulled back, a sorry look clinging to his face. I pushed past him, walking into the parking lot, I was done. Joshua was still sitting out there looking up at the stars. He turned around as soon as I pushed open the doors, his eyes widening when he saw me. 

“Y/N? Are you okay?” 

“Joshua, now's not the time,” I snapped but all it did was make him look more worried. He stood up and started following me through the parking lot–my hotel was a 15 minute walk away. 

“What happened?”

“Just this guy I really liked, Tyler. When I moved to LA we promised we’d wait for each other but apparently he’d married,” I threw my arms up in frustration. Joshua looked confused.

“What?”

“I wasn’t aware you were that Y/N, if I knew I probably would’ve prepared you for what you were about to see,” he said. 

“That Y/N?” Joshua stopped walking and let out a sigh. 

“Y/N do you know anything about Tyler’s band other than radio hits and that he’s in it?” he asked. I shook my head, Joshua chuckled lowly. I probably should’ve known more about my best friend’s famous band but I had been busy. Making movies was tough work.

“Okay well… My name is Joshua but everyone calls me Josh–Josh Dun.” I still shook my head, having no idea what he was talking about. Should I have known who he was? 

“Okay Josh, what does that have to do with Tyler?” He looked baffled that I didn’t know what he was talking about. 

“Tyler’s band… twenty one pilots. I’m the drummer, the other member in the band.” My jaw dropped. Holy shit. Fuck. I just vented about my stupid crush on Tyler to his bandmate. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I’ll leave you alone now Josh,” I ran a hand through my hair and started walking away. 

“Y/N, wait!” Josh grabbed my hand, “I don’t want you to leave me alone. You seem cool, I want to get to know you. Tyler’s told me a lot about you and if it makes you feel any better he felt really bad when he started dating Jenna.” If Tyler felt bad then why did he do it? Clearly they were made for each other if he felt like he could break our promise. I was 25 and hadn’t dated anyone since I’d left for LA because of that promise. I’d wasted 7 years. 

“Thanks Josh. You seem cool too,” I smiled. Maybe Josh would be it, I’d only known him for an hour but he was friendly, interested in film and music, and incredibly attractive.

“You know, I haven’t had dinner yet, do you want to go get some food? Tyler said there was a diner nearby,” Josh suggested. I agreed and walked back to his car. 

Josh had a burger and I snacked on some fries. Things were going well, we’d talked about the band and what it was like touring and we talked about the film industry. We’d even realized that we were on the same flight back home. 

“When we get back to LA, I want to show you my place,” Josh held the door open for me as we left the diner. 

“I’d like that,” I replied, trying to hold back a smile. I climbed into his car as he drove back to the school to pick up Tyler and Jenna. “I should probably walk back to my hotel before Tyler comes out, I don’t want it to be awkward,” I sighed.

“It won’t be awkward, you’re with me. But I do want to give you something before you go back,” he replied. We drove into the school parking lot and waited while everyone walked out. 

“And what’s that?”

“A kiss,” he smirked, leaning in towards me. 

“Oh really?” I smiled, his hand coming to cup my face. I felt his lips brush mine and I closed my eyes, butterflies filling my stomach and cheeks flushing pink. 

“You’re really something else Y/N,” Josh whispered. Knock knock knock. I jumped, turning around to see Tyler standing there with his arms crossed and his wife hiding a smile. 

“You two have known each other for less than a day!” Tyler shouts, a hand rubbing his eyes. 

“And that’s my que to go. I’ll call you,” I laugh, getting out of the car. Josh says his goodbye and Jenna gets in the car. Tyler grabs my arm and drags me aside. He looked angry. 

“First you’re mad at me for marrying someone and now you’re kissing my best friend?” 

“Tyler, that's not fair. Josh and I, we’re just talking, it’s okay, he’s cool.”

“It better be okay because if he hurts you I’ll kill him,” he pulled me in for a hug. He still cared. He still cared.

//

Please submit any requests y'all have! I love to write so let me know if you've got any!

[firstelevens]

traveling on (and it won't be long)

sam/bucky | alternate universe (formula one au) | 2.6k words | rated g

The drivers from Team Stark get invited to the Met Gala and produce some content for their socials on the way. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

My beloved @sesamestreep texted me yesterday about the F1 AU boys attending the Met Gala, and naturally her wish is my command. Enjoy!

( also on AO3 )

Over the course of his career, Bucky has done no shortage of things that made him look stupid. There was his exclusively-cavorting-with-young-royals-on-yachts phase, the two years (pre-Alpine, of course) where his Instagram was exclusively thirst traps, that one summer when he decided to go blond…all terrible choices, in retrospect, and all things that he regrets. One thing he can say for all those phases, though, is that at least they were fun at the time.

He would give anything to be able to say that about today.

‘If one more person tells me to relax, I’m going to lie down on the floor and scream,’ he texts Steve, because Sam’s probably on lap twenty of a race right now, and Becca would probably just tell him to suck it up.

‘How are you still this bad at being on camera?’ Steve replies.

‘Peter used to just let me argue with Sam and hit record. These guys are making me read from CUE CARDS.’

Steve just sends him a laughing emoji in response, because he’s a traitor. (But then he follows up with a picture of Ellie and her baby brother playing with fingerpaint to cheer him up, because apparently siding with Steve in a fight against two boys twice their size was the right call when Bucky made it thirty years ago.)

It’s his own fault, maybe. If Bucky had spent less of his last year on the grid antagonizing the higher ups at Tuono, Rhodey and Nat would have had to spend considerably less time trying to placate them, and then they wouldn’t have had the leverage they needed to get Bucky to agree to this. 

The director calls for everyone to get set up for another take, and Bucky stands on his mark again, shaking out his shoulders and trying to reach for the charming version of him from the yacht parties and all those videos with Sam. When they call action, Bucky looks at the camera, pretends that it’s Sam, and lets the smile spread across his face as he reads from the cards: “I’m Bucky Barnes and today is the first Sunday in May. It’s time to get ready with me and Team Stark to go to the 2026 Met Gala.”

He doesn’t actually fall to the floor in relief when the director declares, after eighteen takes, that they’ve finally got it, but it’s a near thing.

After the cue cards, they film Olivia as she talks the viewers through Bucky and Sam and Joaquín’s outfits for the events, and Bucky just has to ask her questions and let her talk, which is a relief. Bucky gets about fifteen seconds after that to check the results of the race in Montreal and text Sam an emphatic, ‘CONGRATULATIONS I LOVE YOU SO MUCH’ immediately followed by an equally sincere, ‘they’re making me film my skincare routine you owe me so big after this.’

He knows that Sam won’t get around to checking his phone until much later, not until after the cooldown room and interviews and the presentation of the trophies, but still. If Bucky can’t pull him aside and kiss the hell out of him in a quiet corner the way did after all their races last year, the least he can do is be sure there’s a text waiting for whenever Sam gets to it.

Then he trudges to the bathroom vanity, where there’s a ring light and a camera set up by the mirror and a sound guy standing in the shower, reminds himself that he’s doing this because of how much he loves Sam, and launches into an explanation of the facial cleanser he uses and how important hydration is for race car drivers.

By the time the crew packs up for the night, they’ve filmed skincare, haircare (an overnight mask made by a New Orleans small business), and gotten footage of Bucky doing a Korean face mask (he looked ridiculous, but Olivia did one with him in solidarity, because she’s the best). As Bucky closes the door behind the last person to leave, he looks around the suite, now ringing in its emptiness, and falls into bed without even turning off the lights.

—

It’s not until morning that Bucky even remembers to check his phone. He’d plugged it in to charge far away from where they were filming, to avoid the temptation to check for replies from Sam every few minutes, and he’d been too tired to retrieve it at night. He swipes through his texts as he sits up in bed: selfies that he and Olivia took with the face masks on, pictures from Steve of Ellie and Jamie covered in paint after their art session, and then a stack of notifications from Sam. The earliest ones are from last night, a series of hearts and a ‘ thank you, baby’ in response to Bucky’s congratulations, then laughter at Bucky’s unwitting transformation into a skincare influencer, and a message that says, ‘guess I’ll have to think of some way to repay you for everything’ followed by that weird smirky emoji that shouldn’t make Bucky blush as hard as it does.

The rest are just updates: a good night text from when Sam went to bed, a message from around seven AM about a weird dream he’d had involving a tortoise, and then messages about heading for the airport and getting on the plane. Bucky replies to the very last one and then sets off in search of some kind of caffeine before the cameras come back in.

He doesn’t realize until much later that his ‘love you, see you soon’ text to Sam was only half true. They’re doing his makeup—eyeliner is involved, enough that he’s irrepressibly reminded of the era where his style icon was Pete Wentz—when Bucky notices that there’s only one camera in the room today instead of three. When he asks about it, the makeup artist tells him they had to split up the cameras between the three rooms, which she appreciated because she’d been worried that they would get in her way.

Bucky says something about how it must be hard to weave around all of that and do such delicate work, and she agrees, but really all that he’s thinking about is the fact that there are two other rooms. Some part of his brain had just assumed that Sam would be here getting ready alongside him, that they’d have at least gotten to see each other while being corralled into makeup and hair and wardrobe. He knows that Sam’s outfit has enough architectural detail that they can’t share a car there, but he’d hoped that they could at least swing a couple minutes with each other before he had to relinquish Sam to his adoring public. (And they are adoring, not that Bucky can blame them.) Something in Bucky’s chest sinks a little bit, but he swallows it and keeps chatting, very aware of the camera pointed directly at his face.

As it turns out, there’s a staggered schedule for Sam and Bucky and Joaquín to finish getting ready and head out, and Bucky’s up first. Olivia sweeps into his room right as they’re putting the finishing touches on his hair, one last tweak of the flowers tucked into the bun at the back of his head and a spritz of hairspray for the hair that’s down and brushing his shoulders as he turns his head.

“You look amazing,” she says, beaming at him. He grins and thanks her, then grins even wider when she takes a step forward and adjusts the lapels of his jacket, fussing with how the necklaces sit and adjusting the way his cape drapes over his shoulder.

He steps back for final approval when she’s done, turning to the side so she can get a better look at the cape. “Am I up to your standards? I won’t bring shame to your good name if people know you’re my stylist?”

“With your jacket collection? Never,” laughs Olivia. 

She gives his hand a squeeze before she shoos him out the door, and he calls over his shoulder, “Go get dressed already! How are you gonna upstage us if you’re not on time?”

“There’s one person here who’s gonna be doing the upstaging,” she says, “and it’s not me or you.”

As Bucky is ushered out towards the elevators, he sees Peter at the end of the hall, holding the door open for someone carrying an oversized garment bag. There’s a little bit of coral fabric peeking out, just like the material of Sam’s outfit, and for a second, Bucky thinks about making a break for the room. He’s an adult, he reasons. It’s not like they could stop him if he ran.

But then the elevator opens, and the camera operator gets in first, immediately turning to get a shot of Bucky at the doors, and he resigns himself to waiting a little bit longer as he steps in.

Bucky has attended exactly one other Met Gala before, when he was twenty-four and dating a British model who was maybe also some kind of duchess. He’d just been scenery back then, dressed all in black so as to avoid taking away from her outfit, which had involved so many ruffles in the skirt that she couldn’t even sit down in the car on the way over. As the door opens and he steps out of the car, Bucky finds himself wishing he was that invisible again, just for a second.

Then he remembers how hard Olivia has worked for months now, how excited the young designers had been when the team had gotten in touch about dressing the three of them. There simply isn’t a universe where Bucky allows himself to let them down, so takes a deep breath and straightens his back and steps out onto the red carpet.

Once he’s high up enough on the stairs, he undoes the tie that’s holding up the train of his cape, hopes that the damn thing works, and keeps walking. He only knows that the fabric unfolded properly when he hears the soft noise of silk flowers tumbling out in his wake, spreading out into a train as he goes. He tries not to look too pleased with himself and hopes to God that it was the right angle for photos. 

He’s just made it up to where people are being greeted and interviewed by a young woman who looks familiar. He’s seen her face on posters, and though he doesn’t know her name, she knows his. He tries not to feel too bad about it when she tells him how much she enjoyed this season of Need for Speed , and he opens his mouth to thank her when a ripple of gasps carry down the stairs, loud enough to be heard over shouting photographers and the ambient noise of so many people in one place.

“Did someone fall?” Bucky asks, looking ahead to where people are posing on the steps, but he doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary there.

“I’m pretty sure they’re looking that way,” says the interviewer, grinning as she points down at the very bottom of the stairs.

He turns to see what she’s pointing at and feels his breath catch in his chest, a second too late to join the chorus.

Bucky has only ever seen Sam’s outfit in parts: sketches on the wall of Olivia’s studio and individual pieces tried on during fittings, mockups shared on video calls and swatches of fabric pinned up next to a Botticelli painting. They were all too disjointed to form any kind of picture, and Bucky had trusted Olivia enough to know that the effect was worth waiting for.

Now, as he looks down towards Sam, he’s not sure that ‘worth waiting for’ does him any kind of justice.

His arms are bare, rings and bracelets glittering on his hands as a gold filigree cuff wraps around his bicep. The coral and gold fabric of his vest and pants must be tailored down to the millimeter for how they hug his body, and there’s a gold headpiece creating a halo around him like the one Bucky sometimes thinks he might have in real life.

And though Sam sometimes feels to Bucky larger than life—in his talent, in his kindness, in the vastness of his love—now he looks the part, too, the cape that’s settled on his shoulders arcing high up behind him in two curves like an enormous set of angel’s wings. It’s layer upon layer of soft, floaty fabric, coral giving way to pinks and purples and eventually a deep ocean blue that just sweeps the floor as Sam walks.

There are flashbulbs going off and people murmuring excitedly around him, but all Bucky can do is stare at Sam, watching as he jokes with a photographer and throws his head back in a delighted laugh. Bucky has taken his first step down before he even realizes it, then stops where he is.

He thinks again of the last time he was on this carpet, of how the greatest worry was that he would be a distraction and he was kept well clear of the pictures until it was decided that he could come back in. He couldn’t do that to Sam, not when he’s so utterly glorious a picture all on his own.

“He looks incredible,” says the interviewer, who Bucky really should apologize to. He’s about to do it, too, to say sorry and try to answer at least one of her questions before moving on, but his eyes are still on Sam, and he knows that he should tear them away except…except…

Except now it’s Sam who’s looking up at him , eyes wide. He would feel the weight of that gaze from a mile away, would know in an instant that it was Sam whose eyes were tracing the lines of his body. He would know the smile that spreads across Sam’s face, too:  slow and satisfied and with its own gravitational pull, for all that Bucky can’t turn away from it. 

The smile would be enough for Bucky, really. He’s well aware that he ought to be moving on, that people are looking impatiently at him from their various stations, but then Sam catches Bucky’s eye, raises a hand, and beckons him down.

There’s no way that people are supposed to be doing this, thinks Bucky, as he hurries down the stairs, but there’s no way that he’ll lose even a second of being at Sam’s side, not if he can help it.

He’s almost tempted to hover a few paces away, just so he’s out of shot, but Sam extends a hand to him before Bucky even makes it to the last step, interlacing their fingers as soon as Bucky’s hand lands in his.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says, all warmth as he pulls Bucky towards him.

Bucky shrugs, not even bothering to hide his smile. “Well, you know, I didn’t have anything else planned tonight, so I thought I’d see what the fuss was about.”

Sam raises their joined hands and kisses Bucky’s knuckles, his eyes never leaving Bucky’s own. “You want to find out together?”

“Always.”

—

The next morning finds about five dozen texts from Becca and Steve on Bucky’s phone, every possible angle on Bucky’s awestruck face as he looked at Sam on the red carpet. None of them are particularly flattering, his jaw hanging open and his eyes wide in pure wonder.

Still, Bucky thinks, as Sam curls an arm around him and wordlessly grumbles about being woken up too early, this time, maybe he’s okay with looking a little bit stupid.

[tarasmithshifts]

𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐃𝐑 𝐔𝐏𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄: 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐃 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐅𝐓

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐃𝐑. 4.5 months 𝐀𝐆𝐄. 26-27 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐏: timothee chalamet, jenna ortega, billie eilish, amybeth mcnulty 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐌𝐘 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓: pedro pascal, oscar isaac, emma watson, natalie portman, scarlett johansson etc.

𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐒. single :(

ＡＰＲＩＬ

well, there was a lot of going on in april :)

first: MY BIRTHDAYYYY i threw the whole party and invited the half of hollywood lmao. There was a lot of my co-stars, artists and singers. I did it like there was no tomorrow, the party was crazy, basically everyone got drunk and sang 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' like 5 times BUT IT WAS SO COOL UGHHHHH i love them all so so so fucking much. I caan't take it anymore.

I threw the party back in LA, where i was living since my hollywood debut in Ad Astra, but i was planning on moving into NYC fro like a year. SO I DID IT HAHAHAHAHHH it's so cool and i was so excited, but we will move to it later :))

What also happened: PEDRO'S BIRTHDAYYYYY my favourite (okay, he is not the only one BUT STILL) babygirl on earth turned 48 and he invited me to his party which was so COOL!!! idk how will i move on from this, i met BELLA RAMSEY (FINALLY???!?!?!? UGHHH) and met oscar isaac again (for those who don't know, he's my future s/o but it's a long slowburn lmao ✦ he was also my co-star in moon knight, but we knew each other for like a year before this series) after party he took me out to the city, we were talking and walking around LA for HOURS it was so cute he even bought me a rose literally when florist's wanted to close the shop, then we found out paparazzi took a pictures of us there 💀 they are so annoying i swear. but anyway, i had amazing night and oscar made it even better :')

Emma also had her birthday, but i couldn't show up, because of filming 'joker II' with JOAQUIN FUCKING PHEONIX I STILL CANNOT BELIEVE IT. But i sent her birtday present, which was the whole album of photos that i took on my digital camera on our summer & winter holidays - which i thought was super cute :')

April was super productive in a birthday-way as you can see, lmao

But also other super thing happened! Warner Bros. accepted my movie idea and hired me as a director of it. I'M SUPPER EXCITED TO BRING IT TO LIFE UGHHH

ＭＡＹ

talking, talking & talking about my movie and me as a director - which was super stressfull for me but everything turned out okay! I started writing the script at the end of april, so until i will write it and it gets accepted by Warner Bros. it will take a while for me to cast people :(( but still so excited for it!

and... MY DREAM ABOUT MOVING TO NYC FINALLY CAME TRUE!!!

i bought cute little flat in Manhattan, and started to plan how to move there with all my things. but you know, i didn't sell my old house - no no no. i would never do that, actually. It's the best house in the whole world duhh🙄. I will be still using it!

My friends helped me a lot with planning the whole 'mission' lmao. Shout-out to pedro he told me to move to NYC and live with rats under brooklyn bridge LOL

ANYWAYYY oscar & i met for some coffee instead of actually putting my things into huge boxes for my flat in NYC which was super cute BUT I CAN'T STAND THAT I SCRPITED THE SLOWBURN MAN.

so freaking annoying. why would i do that. AND ANGST which is also annoying

but yup, he helped me a lot, also bc he also lives in new york, so he can help me there :))

(he gives me a little flower everytime we meet, but we are still 'friends' so it should mean nothing BUT IT MEANS SOMETHING TO ME GUYS. it's super super super cute and i wanna hug him so badly, but i am not doing it bc of paparazzi, those rats are following me and oscar literally everywhere 💀)

the whole may was me writing script for a movie, shooting joker II, planning on moving out and meeting oscar just for 'helping me with this nyc thing'

ＪＵＮＥ

'Priscilla' movie with me in main role had its global premiere! I missed this vibe so so so so much, and being on the same red carpet as CILLA PRESLEY had me in tears. i think i've never been more stressed in this dr but she was sooooo kind to me like I CANNOT BELIEVE IT i will have this moment tatooed i swear to god!!!

(i hope this movie will give me an oscar nominee tbh OH WAIT I SCRIPTED IT)

i also got a 2 months break from joker II :) bc they are shooting the scenes without me, so i can finally 'rest' and get my life in new york together

well... beside that, nothing new happened. scripting, FINALLY all my things that i wanted in new york already are there, so week after the movie premiere i moved in :'))

also, i auditioned for some random (lmao) part in new kingsman movie that is in making

from funny things that happened: pedro locked himself in his car LMAO idk how did this happen but he literally called me and oscar to help him before calling the police or smth. HOW COULD YOU LOCK YOURSELF IN YOUR OWN CAR BRO this is too funny to be true. IF YOU COULD SEE OUR FACES

then we grabbed some coffee and went to central park (me and oscar of course were making fun of pedro but who wouldn't)

ＪＵＬＹ

I. STILL. DID. NOT. MOVE. ON. FROM. THIS.

my beloved billie want ME to sing with HER on her new single? LIKE WHAT

W H A T

ofc i said yes WHO WOULDN'T

this is ubelievable

i will NEVER shut up about this. we were working on this song for like the whole month, i came back from NYC to LA just to be close to her and finneas, so we would work together in one room, not online. UGHHH I CANNOT BELIEVE IT

❥•°❀°•༢

i had A HUGEEEEEEE break from my fame dr but i am back? and im SO HAPPY? i still cannot believe that i truly was there again ;'(

me in priscilla movie? WHAT

me and billie making song together? WHAT

me and oscar living in new york, so i can see him more? W H A T

[jokeroutsubs]

Joker Out in Tvornica Kulture - Jokeroutmania

On Friday, the first of two sold out concerts of the Slovenian music sensation, Joker Out, was held in Tvornica Kulture. 

“This is the first post-Yugoslav Slovenian band that sold more than 50 tickets in Zagreb”, Ivan Ramljak, a longtime music journalist who has since turned into one of the best domestic documentary film directors, jokingly commented to me on Facebook. The truth is an inseparable component of every good joke, including the joke mentioned above.

The last post-Yugoslav Slovenian band that performed in the same concert venue was the band Siddharta, who also filled Tvornica Kulture, two decades ago, but in unusual circumstances in which a considerable amount of buses full of their Slovenian fans also came with the band. In 2003, at the peak of their career, Siddharta filled Bežigrad Stadium in Ljubljana and their loyal followers really followed them everywhere, and to Zagreb as well. That was the only night in Tvornica Kulture in Zagreb when I couldn’t hear Croatian spoken in the audience almost at all, so in that sense maybe the theory that the Zagreb public didn’t buy even 50 tickets was correct, despite the euphoria that dominated in a full Tvornica. 

Twenty years later, Joker Out is a whole different story. Maybe it wasn’t obvious this summer, when they were the opening band for the popular Serbian duo Buč Kesidi at Šalata, but it definitely was at Špancirfest in Varaždin before Franz Ferdinand’s concert. To picture it, it’s enough to retell the story from the backstage, where the Scottish stars arrived right when the audience was screaming, saying goodbye to Joker Out. Alex Kapranos was delighted and surprised by it at first and asked if people were really so excited for Franz Ferdinand, but his mood was ruined when he got the answer that the reaction of the public was towards the opening group. On the other hand, maybe that was one of the reasons Franz Ferdinand delivered an excellent performance that night. Competition is a good thing. 

The Zagreb promoter of Joker Out’s recent concerts was also very surprised when the tickets sold out and the decision to add another date was made. The tickets for that concert sold out as well, and the final tally is approximately 3,400 tickets sold for Joker Out.

The Croatian general public found out about Joker Out from Eurovision, where this band represented Slovenia. “They’re really handsome guys. We’d love to play around with them, if we find the chance. Maybe we’ll stick carnations up our asses or have group sex”, Mrle from Let 3 joked around in his usual fashion, but in a somewhat patronizing way. However, now at the end of the year there’s no joking around with this Slovenian band, who’s not only in demand in our region, but also more widely, from Scandinavia to Gibraltar. In addition, they recorded the song “New Wave” together with the legendary Elvis Costello, and a fairly well known British agency took them under its wing. Translated from the promoter’s language: If you want to book Joker Out, calling Ljubljana won’t work, for that you’ll have to dial a number in the UK and agree on their terms and prices. Sharp, isn’t it?

Now, it’s not exactly appropriate to stick a carnation up someone’s ass when they can teach about success in jumping to the most lucrative position in show business, which is being a teen rock star. Carpe Diem? Joker Out have definitely ‘seized their day’.

The Zagreb concert, scheduled for 21:00, started at 21:00, accompanied by screams of the entire Tvornica Kulture. Yes, screams that are an integral part of the song “Sunny Side of London”, which starts with a Beatles polyphony from Joker Out, followed by a ‘Beatlemania’ from the audience when the frontman Bojan Cvjetićanin appears. Basically, a ‘Jokeroutmania’, without exaggeration. I haven’t seen or heard that kind of mutual engagement in a long time.

This wasn’t a case of initial enthusiasm, which usually lasts for 10-15 minutes and then the band has to pull it on their own in order to raise the tension again to a new peak, according to the invisible sinusoidal rule. No. Last night, the venue sang with the band from the first until the last song for almost two hours, and when “Sunny Side of London” was performed as the last encore, it was followed by even louder screams than at the beginning. As if the enthusiastic and adrenaline-charged youth in Tvornica Kulture didn’t dance and sing the whole time in between.

I dare to say that the Slovenian language has never been sung so heartily and accurately in Tvornica. English as well, and we can’t even talk about “Demoni”, which is in our language. The band itself is full of first-class musicians, and one of the more experienced visitors said that evening: “We watched far more unstable British bands at INmusic festival”.

Of course, Joker Out’s songs are in the rock sphere, which massively attracts the teenage audience. But these songs are neither bad, nor do they bring with them the well known “stink” of pandering to the public. Joker Out believes in their songs. There’s no fraud with them, and their strongest “joker up their sleeve” is Bojan Cvjetićanin, who is a born frontman - he learned all the lessons, and managed to maintain naturalness and spontaneity, especially in communication with the audience. 

With the exception of drummer Jure Maček, who cannot move around the stage due to “his job description”, the entire line-up alongside Cvjetićanin, i.e. guitarists Jan Peteh and Kris Guštin, as well as bassist Nace Jordan, formed a barrier at the very edge of the stage during the entire concert, which was an added bonus to the euphoria. No one turned their back to the audience during the performance, on the contrary, they were “on the front line” from the beginning until the end.

And of course, Joker Out are far ahead of similar bands that use pre-recorded instrumentals and samples during their performances. Namely, they have that old school, organic approach, which brings success in a time when there is a lot of talk about the popularity of trap music and similar genres, and about the lack of relevant young guitarist bands that could attract significant interest, primarily from a young audience.

And finally, we’re not talking about a band that was created as a project before the Eurovision Song Contest and is now flying on the wings of that success, but about the guys who have been working since 2016 on something they were recognised for across Europe six years later. As much as I appreciate Let 3, I have to express my doubts about who has better “group sex” with the audience. The only thing I have no doubt for is that Tvornica Kulture will be on fire tonight as well. The teenage audience chose their heroes and they didn’t choose wrongly.

Original article Ravnododna (11.11.2023)

Translation credit @moonlvster

[goldenempyrean]

Hi! Could I please request sick reader x Scarlett where R passes out from heat/exhaustion/whatever and Scarlett panics a little/ takes care of us until we come to? Maybe on set for a movie or sth? Just soft soft wife Scarlett please. Thank you so so much!

Way Too Warm

〚 Notes - Hey, hey, hopefully you’re having a great day. I’ve never really written for heat exhasution so this is new leaf for me, no promises of how medically accurate things are :P Anyways! Enjoy :D 〛

〚 Summary - Filming in the summer had its drawbacks. Especially when they came in the form of a rather unpleasant bout of heat exhaustion. But theres no way Scarlett is going to let you go through it alone. 〛

〚 Wordcount - 1312 〛

〘 Check Out My Masterlist! 〙

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The harsh heat from the sun beat down against you. It beat against everything really. Whilst filming in the summer was great, it really did have its drawbacks, especially when you had to film outside. One being the intense temperatures which you’d have to work in and today was no different.

Temperatures had reached an all-time high and if you were being honest, it had started to affect you. It had begun when you’d failed yet again to a decent night sleep. You’d hardly slept, mainly because of the sheer stuffiness of your trailer, another negative effect of the intense heat. The feeling of fatigue had gradually washed over you and before long you’d felt a headache begin to settle behind your eyes.

By some miracle, you’d managed to somewhat cover up how you felt, shrugging off your costars concerns, and everything had gone pretty smoothly too so far but as fate had it, that didn’t last long.

By the time lunchtime rolled around you felt awful, you could hardly keep yourself awake not to mention the thick cloud of fog which had taken refuge in your head. It felt like everything around you was being filtered through a sheet of cotton.

Looking down at your schedule, you saw that it was time to film your scenes with Scarlett. This was always your favourite part of the day. Scarlett was on the team of producers along with being one of your co-stars which meant during her work-hours were hectic meaning you only really saw her if you were filming together. Of course, you’d still see her after the day had finished, you did share a trailer afterall but it was always great to see her during the day too. So, you took a deep breath, readied yourself and stumbled down to set.

“Hi, my love,” Scarlett smiled wide when you finally made it onto set. It turns out walking is alot harder when your view of the world feels like it’s spinning around at 90mp/h, “You okay?” She asked, noticing your spaced gaze.

“Im fine.” You fibbed, waving off her concerns. You could tell she didn’t quite believe you but at that moment your director called for everyone to get into positions, so she had no choice but to drop it.

What happened next, in your mind, was nothing short of embarrassing. Scarlett gave her line perfectly but when it came to you… nothing? Your mind went blank, completely and utterly blank so instead of speaking, you just stood there awkwardly, looking off at some distant point.

“Cut! Y/N, what was that? Is everything alright?” The loud voice of your director snapped you out of your haze.

“Im sorry! My mind just went blank.” You apologised before getting back into your position, airily mindful of Scarlett’s eyes as she looked over you with an expression you couldn’t quite recognise. Was it worry?

"Just give me a minute."

You took a deep breath weary of Scarlet's eyes follow you, and not just her eyes. Her whole body seems to pivot toward you but still, she only watched as the both of you got back into your original positions.

"Action!" Your director shouted again.

You tried. You really did try. But that pain gnawing at your temples began too much, the world spun. it became hard to process what was going on around you and you found yourself tongue tied yet again.

Scarlett tried to cover for your mistake, inventing another line for her character. However, your director appears to be tired of your antics and calls out the command once again, "Cut. Y/N, I don't know what's going on with you today but if you're going to waste my time you can head back to your trailer."

Scarlett shot him a look that you’d hate to be on the receiving end of. You took a step forward as you began to stammer another apology, but a wave of nausea came over you, causing you to stop and cup your arm around your stomach as you winced.

The next thing you knew, your peripheral vision went black as your knees buckled, giving out beneath you sending you dropping to the floor with a thud.

“Y/N!” Scarlett shouted as she rushed over towards you, kneeling beside you in an instant, “Fuck. Are you okay?”

Your head felt unimaginably heavy as you struggled to fight against the urge to close your eyes. Barely registering Scarlett’s touch as her worried hands cupped your faces. But your efforts were in vain as only moments later, your vision swayed and dimmed as you inevitably blacked out.

You weren’t sure how long you were out. The next time you opened your eyes, your head was resting in Scarlett lap as she cradled you, quietly whispering words you couldn’t quite hear.

You made a noise of discomfort and confusion as you slowly came round, “Mm.”

“Jesus Christ Y/N, you almost gave me a heart attack.” Scarlett breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she helped you move up into a sitting position. She kept her arm around your shoulder to support you, but it was as her arm touched your exposed skin that she noticed the intense heat coming radiating from you. Prompting her to place her palm over your forehead.

“You’re way way too warm sweetheart,” Scarlett voiced as she kept her cool hand pressed against your forehead, calling over for the on-set medic so he could take a look at you now that you’d come too.

Ignoring your protests, the medic came over and knelt down with the two of you, he handed Scarlett cool, damp cloth which she used to gently dap along your forehead whilst making sure to keep her hand clasped around your own as the medic started his observation, looking over you with an unreadable expression.

“Headache?” He inquired.

You nodded.

“Fatigued?”

You nodded again.

“Have you been feeling nauseous at all?” He asked as he reached into his bag, rooting over before pulling out a thermometer.

“A little.” You admitted, not missing the small worried glance Scarlett gave you hearing your answer.

The medic hummed as he held his thermometer to your head. It was the fancy kind which required no actual contact for it work. Seconds later it beeped, the small digital screen gave off an orange light as it displayed the numbers ‘38.7’.

“You’re running a fever. A pretty high one at that, combined with your other symptoms I think it's safe to say that you’re experiencing heat exhaustion.” He announced before standing up, “you shouldn’t work for the next day or so, not until this heat dies down a little. Try your best to keep cool and your symptoms should slowly go away too.”

“Thanks.” You gave a weak smile as the medic left to go and sort out some paperwork and you slowly began to pull yourself up.

“Easy there,” Scarlett soothed as she helped you stand, “I guess we better get you back to the trailer, you should’ve said you weren’t feeling well. Heat exhaustion isn’t a joke y’know.”

“I know, Im sorry.” You sighed, taking Scarlett’s hand in your own, “I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“It's alright, let’s just get you cooled off, a cold shower should make you feel better too.” Scarlett smiled as she began to lead you away from the set, “you’ll be okay, is there anything else I can do to make you feel better sweetie?”

You shrugged, ignoring your discomfort as the hot sun shined down onto you, magnifying your nausea, “I just need to cool off,” You tried to sound assuring, giving a soft smile as the pair of you continued towards your trailer, “Thanks for taking care of me.”

“Of course, now, let's get you inside.” She smiled as you approached your trailer, “I promise you’ll start feeling better soon.”

[jgroffdaily]

Video from the red carpet at the world premiere of 'A Nice Indian Boy' and the full Q&A after the screening. Highlights:

Karan Soni at 1.34 is asked what it was like working opposite Jonathan:

"It was incredible. We had met once before. We had a dinner about a year before we started filming when we didn't know if the movie was going to happen. It was with Roshan, my partner, and we just had this four hour dinner and we were like, oh man, if we get to hang out with him and make this movie it would be perfect. It ended up being exactly that.

We got along really well. I'm joking, but it's kind of true, but I keep saying Jonathan is like Roshan and my third, emotionally, if not sexually. So we are an emotional throuple. We really became very close. He's on Broadway right now so he can't be here today but we are excited to watch the movie with him too at some point."

Sas Goldberg at 10.46 says she plays a very close friend of Jonathan:

"I'm friends with Jonathan in real life before this, so this was sort of like a little bit of a summer camp moment shooting this up in Vancouver."

In the Q&A after the film, a guest around 26.47 talks about Jonathan singing an Indian song during key moment and director Roshan Sethi responds:

"Jonathan Groff is very sad he couldn't be here because he is singing on Broadway. Jonathan singing [spoiler] is... I did not see that coming. Something about that song. That didn't happen exactly as scripted but Jonathan really committed to it in a way that only a theatre kid could."

[Host asks if Jonathan was the first person considered and how Jonathan got involved]

Roshan: "He was the first and only. We approached him shortly after I came on board and Karan came on board. We sent him 'Seven Days'. He really loved 'Seven Days' and Karan is the star of 'Seven Days' so he said 'That guy is obviously straight but could he play gay?'I am Karan's romantic partner so I was like 'He is gay. Like, he's gay.' But then we ended up getting him on board very shortly after.

We made the movie and it was just a magical experience with him, in particular. He is on Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway now and Jonathan is so committed to his performances in general that he has not missed a single night or performance of that show. Many of the other people in the cast have but he hasn't missed a single one. So I think that says a lot about Jonathan."

[eddie-redmayne-italian-blog]

Life Is a Cabaret! The Shimmering Kander and Ebb Classic Heads Back to Broadway Starring Eddie Redmayne

BY ADRIENNE MILLER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JULIEN MARTINEZ LECLERC

STYLED BY HARRY LAMBERT

March 5, 2024

When I was 15 years old, I saw Cabaret for the first time, at a community theater in northeast Ohio. Though I considered myself sophisticated in important ways (I recall that I was wearing a wide-leg Donna Karan bodysuit that evening), my experience as a theatergoer was then limited to The Sound of Music and Ice Capades: Let’s Celebrate. I wonder if my parents, who had season tickets to the theater, knew that the show wasn’t exactly “family” entertainment. Set in 1931 Berlin as it careens toward the abyss, Cabaret depicts alternating stories. There’s the doomed romance between a fledgling novelist named Clifford Bradshaw and a young singer of supreme charisma (and mediocre talent) named Sally Bowles. And then there’s the seedy nightclub, the Kit Kat Club, which is populated with a highly sexualized cast of misfits and overseen by a ghoulish Master of Ceremonies. The show’s ethos—the glamour and terror, the irreverence, the campiness, the unreality—shaped my taste forever, and I knew that I had just experienced one of the greatest works of art ever created. I would never look at theater, or life, in the same way again.

Over three decades later, I’ve seen more stage productions of Cabaret than any other show, including a revival starring the original Emcee, Joel Grey; I’ve seen the Bob Fosse film version over 50 times. I’ve pretty much always got one of Fred Ebb’s sardonic lyrics jangling around in my head. Today, it’s “You’ll never turn the vinegar to jam, mein Herr,” and I couldn’t agree more.

Youthful exposure to Cabaret also turned out to be a life-changing event for the star of the new production opening this month on Broadway, Eddie Redmayne. “Weirdly, when I was 15, it was the first thing that made me believe in this whole process,” he says. Redmayne was a student at Eton when he first played the Emcee; he had never seen Cabaret when he was cast. On this late-autumn evening, Redmayne is speaking to me from Budapest, where he is shooting a TV series. “It reaffirmed my love for the theater,” he says of his first experience. “It made me believe that this profession, were I ever to have the opportunity to pursue it, was something that I wanted to do.”

Now, as he prepares for the transfer of the smash-hit 2021 London production of Cabaret (in which he also starred), Redmayne is reflecting on the power and durability of the John Kander and Fred Ebb masterpiece. “The show was just so intriguing and intoxicating,” he says, adding that the character of the Emcee posed many questions when he portrayed him for the first time, but provided scant answers. A few years later, when he was an art-history student at Cambridge, he again tackled the part of the Emcee at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. At a dingy performance space called the Underbelly, he did two shows a night, the audiences getting rowdier and more intoxicated throughout the evening. He’d get up the following afternoon and stand along Edinburgh’s Royal Mile handing out flyers for the show, dressed in latex. “There was just a sort of general debauchery that lived in the experience,” he says. When his parents came one night, they were alarmed to find that their son had turned into a “pale, lacking-in-vitamin-D skeleton.”

Flash forward 15 years. The Underbelly cofounders and directors, Charlie Wood and Ed Bartlam, would approach Redmayne—now with an Academy Award for The Theory of Everything and a Tony for Red under his belt—with the idea of again playing the Emcee. Redmayne was eager to return to the role, but many questions remained—principally, who might direct it. In 2019 he happened to have been seated in front of the visionary young director Rebecca Frecknall at the last performance of her West End production of Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke. It was an emotional evening for Frecknall, who’d been working on the project on and off for a decade. She and Redmayne were introduced, but “I had mascara down my face and probably didn’t make a very coherent first impression,” she tells me from London, where her new show, The House of Bernarda Alba, has just opened at the National Theatre.

Redmayne was astonished by the depth and delicacy of understanding that Frecknall brought to Summer and Smoke, a romance with the classic Williams themes of loneliness, self-delusion, and unrequited love. A few months later, Redmayne asked Frecknall if she’d consider directing a revival of Cabaret. “I said, ‘Of course I’ll do it, but you’ll never get the rights,’ ” she recalls. Those rights were held up with another production but were shortly thereafter released, and Frecknall went to work assembling her creative team—among them musical supervisor Jennifer Whyte, choreographer Julia Cheng, and set and costume designer Tom Scutt. Frecknall’s transcendent production of Cabaret opened on the West End at the tail end of the pandemic and succeeded in reinventing the show anew, winning seven Olivier Awards, including one for Redmayne and one for Frecknall as best director.

When Cabaret begins its run in April at the August Wilson Theatre, starring Redmayne, Gayle Rankin, Bebe Neuwirth, and Ato Blankson-​Wood, it will be just the second major production of the show directed by a woman. (Gillian Lynne directed the 1986 London revival.) In Frecknall’s version, Sally emerges as the beating heart of the show. “I find that most of my work has a female protagonist,” says Frecknall, who has also directed radical new interpretations of A Street­car Named Desire, Chekhov’s Three Sisters, and Romeo and Juliet. “And I have a different connection to Sally,” she says. “I was really drawn to how young she was…and how she uses that sexuality and how other people prey on that as well.” The role of Sally Bowles, originated in this production by Jessie Buckley, who also won an Olivier for her performance, will be played this spring by the brilliant Scottish actor Gayle Rankin.

“When I first met with Gayle, I was blown away by her passion and fearlessness,” says Frecknall. “She’s a real stage animal and brings a rawness and wit to her work, which will shine through. She’s going to be a bold, brutal, and brilliant Bowles.” Redmayne also praises Rankin for the depth of emotion she brings to the part, and for the vulnerable and volcanic quality of her interpretation.

Rankin arrives at a candlelit West Village restaurant on a chilly winter evening in a sumptuous furry white coat that would put Sally Bowles to shame. Her platinum hair is pulled back from her face and her dark blue eyes project a wry intelligence. Rankin lives near the restaurant and mentions that she has recently joined a nearby gym—not that she’s going to have much time for workouts in the coming months. Over small seafood plates (of her shrimp cocktail, she shrugs and concedes, “It’s a weird order, but okay”), she shares her own rich history with Cabaret.

She grew up in a small Scottish village, watching Old Hollywood movies with her mother and grandmother. At 15, she left home to attend a musical theater school in Glasgow; on her 16th birthday, she visited New York for the first time with her family. “It sounds like a cheesy, made-up story,” she says, but when she and her parents took a tour of the city on a double-decker bus, they passed by the Juilliard School. “I thought,” she says, “ ‘I am going to go there.’ ” The following year, she and her father flew from Glasgow to New York for her audition. She would become the first Scottish drama student to attend the institution.

At Juilliard, there’s an annual cabaret night, in which all third-year drama students perform songs. Rankin sang “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from Funny Girl, but she recalls her acute sense that she could have chosen a number from Cabaret. “I think I secretly always wanted to be that girl,” she says of the classmate who did perform those songs.

A couple of years after she graduated Juilliard in 2011, Rankin’s agents approached her with an opportunity to audition for Sam Mendes’s 2014 revival of his celebrated 1998 Broadway version (first staged in London in 1993), with Alan Cumming reprising his Emcee role. She was cast as Fräulein Kost—an accordionist sex worker who is revealed as a Nazi—playing opposite a revolving cast of Sallys, including Michelle Williams and Emma Stone.

Rankin has recently emerged as a fierce presence in films and in television (The Greatest Showman and two HBO series—Perry Mason and the upcoming season of House of the Dragon), but then “it kind of came across my desk this summer to throw my hat in the ring for Sally.” How does Rankin make sense of this fascinating, mystifying character? “Everything is so sort of up for grabs…. People feel as if they have a claim over her or know who she is. And the real truth is, only Sally gets to know who Sally is.” She has been rereading Christopher Isherwood’s 1939 semi-autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin—the inspiration for the show—in which the English writer sets the dying days of the Weimar Republic against his relationship with the young singer Sally Bowles. (In 1951, the playwright and director John Van Druten adapted the book for the stage with I Am a Camera; in 1963, Broadway director-producer extraordinaire Harold Prince saw that the play could be musicalized and hired Joe Masteroff for the libretto and the songwriting team of Kander and Ebb.) Isherwood based Sally—somewhat—on Jean Ross, a British flapper and chanteuse who later became a well-regarded film critic, war correspondent, political thinker, and Communist. (He gave the character the last name of writer and composer Paul Bowles.) For the rest of her life, Ross maintained (correctly) that Isherwood’s portrayal of her diminished her reputation as an activist and as an intellectual.

“Ross wanted so badly to write to Isherwood,” says Rankin, “and to condemn him: ‘You slandered my name. You said all these things about me that weren’t true.’ And as far as she got in the letter was ‘Dear Christopher.’ ” As Rankin builds the character, it’s this notion of the real Sally—not the fictive version constructed by Isherwood—that she finds so captivating, and heartbreaking.

The upending of Sally as an “object” is another core conceit behind the production. “I felt that other productions I’d seen had this slightly stereotypical male-gaze idea,” Frecknall says. She views Sally’s musical numbers as describing different facets of female identity. “Don’t Tell Mama” deals with the fetishization of youth and virginity, and in Frecknall’s production, Sally, disturbingly, appears in a sexy Little Bo Peep costume; “Mein Herr,” a song about manipulation, control, and female sexual desire, is in conversation with the cliché of the strong, “dominant” woman. “I think Sally’s very clever at being able to play an identity, and also play it against you,” she adds. The character “has secrets to tell us,” Rankin says. “Important things to share with us. And I think that’s the umbilical cord between her and the Emcee.”

Although Sally and the Emcee share the stage for less than five minutes, the Emcee’s musical numbers can be seen as a kind of meta-commentary about Sally’s actions. “What interested me was the idea that the Emcee was a character created by Hal Prince and Joel Grey,” says Redmayne, referring to the actor who portrayed the Emcee in the original 1966 production. “He doesn’t exist in the book Goodbye to Berlin and was their conceit to connect the story of Sally Bowles.” Rankin believes that there is a kind of mystical bond between the two characters. “As to whether or not he’s a higher power, or higher being, he does have an access to a higher knowledge,” Rankin suggests. “I think Sally feels that too.”

And who is the Emcee? A supernatural being? Puppeteer or puppet? There are no clues in the text. Prince conceived of the character as a metaphor representing Berlin itself. “The idea of him as an abstraction,” Redmayne says, “and so purposely intangible, meant that I actually found a new way of working.” Redmayne built the character from the ground up, starting with big, broad gestures that would be gradually refined. The “very fierce, ferocious intensity” of Herbert von Karajan, the famously dictatorial Austrian conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and a Nazi party member, served as a particularly fertile inspiration.

Historically, the role of Emcee has been coded as gay, and embodied, in most prominent productions, by gay actors. Frecknall’s production had to address what it meant to cast Redmayne, a straight white male actor, in the role. “Tom [Scutt] and I felt very clearly that, well, it’s not going to be the Emcee’s tragedy,” Frecknall says. A person like Redmayne—given his class, ethnicity, and sexuality—would emerge from the catastrophe unscathed. Redmayne concurs: “As the walls of fascism begin to close in, he has the privilege to be able to shape-shift his way out of it.” The character’s journey is from Shakespearean fool to Shakespearean king.

In Hal Prince’s 1966 production, Grey’s delicate, meticulous performance as the cane-twirling Emcee is pure nihilism—as a representation of Germany’s conscience. In the later Mendes iteration, the Emcee emerges as the central victim: In that production’s chilling last scene, Alan Cumming’s louche Emcee removes a black trench coat to reveal a concentration camp uniform; a burst of bright white light follows, from, presumably, a firing squad. But in Frecknall’s version, the Emcee is exposed not as a victim of the system, but as the chief perpetrator. The show, she notes, “becomes the ensemble’s tragedy.”

“I was really intent that we cast it very queer and inclusive,” says Tom Scutt, Cabaret’s multitalented set and costume designer. We are sitting on a black banquette in the lobby of his hotel, across the street from Lincoln Center, where he’s working on Georges Bizet’s Carmen. To mount a revival of Cabaret in 2024, Scutt contends that “there’s no other way. That was really at the headline of our mission.”

There are two casts in the show: the main company and the prologue cast, which provides pre-curtain entertainment. In general, the members of the prologue cast don’t come from traditional musical-theater backgrounds, but from the worlds of street dance and hip-hop—“dancehall, voguing, and ballroom scene,” Scutt notes—and in the London production, some of the prologue performers have been promoted to the main cast. “There is something deeply, deeply moving about how we’ve managed to navigate the usual slipstream of employment.”

Part of Scutt’s intention with Cabaret has been to “smudge and diffuse’’ the audience’s preconceived notions. Inclusive casting is one mode for change; iconography is another. In this case, that has meant no bowler hats, no bentwood chairs, no fishnet stockings. The aesthetic is less Bob Fosse and more Stanley Kubrick. “We started off in a place of ritual,” he says. “I really wanted the place to feel as if you’ve come into some sort of Eyes Wide Shut temple.”

Scutt has reimagined the 1,250-seat August Wilson Theatre as an intimate club—warrens of labyrinthine new corridors and passageways, three new bars, and an auditorium reinvented as a theater-in-the-round. Boris Aronson, the set designer of the show’s iconic original 1966 production, suspended a mirror on the stage in which the audience members would see their own reflections—a metaphor that forced the audience to examine its own complicity; but in Scutt’s design, the audience members must look at one another. Access to the building is through a side entrance; as soon as you arrive, you’ve already lost your bearings.

In many ways, it’s remarkable that such a weird and complex work of art masquerading as a garishly entertaining variety show has had such longevity. Scutt has an explanation about why this piece—created by a group of brilliant Jewish men about the rise of antisemitism and hate, about the dangers of apathy—​continues to speak to us so profoundly almost 60 years after its Broadway debut.

“I can’t really think of anything else, truly, that has the same breadth of feeling in its bones,” Scutt suggests. “I honestly can’t think of another musical that does so much.” As grave, and as tragically relevant, as the messages of Cabaret are, he and the members of the company have found refuge in theater. Both Scutt and Frecknall grew up singing in their churches as children; theater is to them a secular church, a space where human beings can congregate and share healing. “It was made with such pain and such love,” Scutt says. “Which is absolutely the piece.” 

In this story: hair, Matt Mulhall; makeup, Niamh Quinn. Produced by Farago Projects. Set Design: Afra Zamara.

[wellntruly]

The 4077 Film Festival

I watched three (plus) movies that they watched on M*A*S*H; this is my book report.

“Marlene Dietrich is back in town.” / 2x24 ‘A Smattering of Intelligence’

Okay so this one is actually just referenced in dialogue, not a specific film we watch them watch, but it happened that I watched two of Josef von Sternberg’s Marlene Dietrich films right before starting the M*A*S*H fest programming in earnest, so prologue, baby, prologue!

I had moved Shanghai Express (1932) up my watch list ever since it kicked off the Little Gold Men podcast’s Pride month Oscar flashbacks series this year, reminding me that I really wanted to see another Marlene Dietrich movie. Just stepping forward a few years into the 1930s also felt good, felt right after watching just so many (all) of Buster Keaton’s movies from the 1920s. Hot Chronological Summer!

I ended up watching both it and Morocco, because Shanghai Express SO enchanted me. Morocco (1930) is the one where Dietrich dresses in a tuxedo and steals a kiss from a woman, but Shanghai Express actually felt more pervasively, albeit subliminally queer to me, perhaps because she and her fellow sapphically inclined co-star Anna May Wong were rumored to have had an affair at some point. There’s just something about the scenes of the two of them lounging in a train car together just listening to music or silently playing cards and coolly eyeing anyone who comes in that says ‘gay culture.’ The actual romance plot is heterosexual of course, but it was wild how much more I was into that relationship than I was her one with Gary Cooper in Morocco, a much more famous and famously handsome star than [looks him up yet again] Clive Brook, and yet Brook all the WAY for me, girl. If we have to choose between Marlene Dietrich’s male love interests in von Sternberg pictures.

Anyway in the second season M*A*S*H episode ‘A Smattering of Intelligence’, Radar is engaged in a bit of hoodwinking (the 4077th’s second favorite pastime after flirting), and to indicate that he’s surreptitiously swapped some papers to further confuse some spy vs. spy antics going on, lights a cigarette and strikes a leg-up pose silhouetted in the doorway, causing spy #2 to ask if that’s the signal, and Hawkeye to remark, “Either that, or Marlene Dietrich is back in town,” and honestly describing Radar as being in drag as a famous bisexual woman from the ‘30s is not necessarily the least accurate description of Radar’s gender that I can think of.

Should you watch Shanghai Express? Babe yes, so moody in the best way. The play of light and shadow! This mysterious cast of characters all thrown together on a train! The Chinese civil war??? SHANGHAI EXPRESS.

Should you watch Morocco? Also looks so so beautiful, but if you only have room in your life for one Marlene movie, easy choice it's the above.

Blood and Sand (1941) / 3x05 ‘O.R.’

And now we reach the movies they actually watch on the show, although the first is a slight feint: this one we only hear. Early in the third season episode ‘O.R.’, recognizing that they’re all going to be working through the night, Radar asks Henry if he should pipe the audio from the movie in over the PA system, and Henry approves of this. I IMMEASURABLY approve of this, and think hearing the sound of old movie dialogue and Spanish guitar playing half muffled overhead as they operate is one of the most spellbinding atmospheres this show ever captured.

But the interesting thing about the choice of Blood and Sand for this episode, is that what this movie was most known for was actually its bold Technicolor visuals. Reportedly, director Rouben Mamoulian would carry around spray paint with him so he could change the color of props at a moment’s notice, and was also known to just paint shadows onto the walls sometimes if he couldn’t get the effect he wanted with light alone. The efforts of Mamoulian and his crew nabbed them the Academy Award for Best Cinematography: Color for 1941 (this was the era where there were two cinematography categories for color and black & white; ran until the 1960s actually!), as well as a nomination for Art Direction.

Though the film got no other notices and somewhat mixed reviews overall, Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth were big deal movie stars, and their star-power is probably what contributed to much of this movie’s commercial success. When Father Mulcahy, hearing a scene playing over the speaker, asks what this is, Henry just states the title and their names. From another table, Hawkeye adds as a piece of description: “The Frank and Hot Lips of Old Seville.”

As it happens, Hawkeye’s joke is not so far off really! Tyrone Power is playing a passionate dumb matador married to a beautiful and innocent Linda Darnell (secret stalwart of the M*A*S*H programming, she's in two of these!), but gets swept up in a tumultuous affair with a powerful temptress played by Rita Hayworth. Something I learned watching Blood and Sand is that when Loretta Swit is playing Margaret in glimmering, half-lidded seduction mode, a big loose enticing smile on her lips, she is absolutely channeling Rita Hayworth in movies like this. And given the way Blood and Sand goes (I am so sure you can guess), Hawkeye would seem to be implying that Margaret is fully capable of destroying Frank’s whole hapless married ass.

Verisimilitude Corner: What plays over the speakers is 100% a scene in Blood and Sand, but I believe that the Spanish guitar I so love is actually lifted from a different part of the score and layered in with this particular Power & Hayworth dialogue. It creates a much more distinctive auditory profile to weave through the background of this scene; I completely understand why they would have done this.

Should you watch Blood and Sand? Naw, it’s sure got a look, but story and construction aren’t exactly anything to write home about

Leave Her to Heaven (1945) / 3x18 ‘House Arrest’

The first thing I noticed about Leave Her to Heaven should have occurred to me earlier: 20th Century Fox. All three of these titles turn out to be Fox movies, making all the sense in the world, as M*A*S*H the show was produced by the Fox television arm, after the success of the feature branch’s surprise hit, M*A*S*H the Altman film. Licensing clips of movies is definitely easier when they are also your movies.

The next framing element we need to discuss is that once more, this film was known for its vivid Technicolor cinematography, again the winner of the Academy Award for Cinematography: Color its year! And yet, what they’re watching on M*A*S*H is definitely Leave Her to Heaven, and definitely in black & white. Come to think of it, all films they watch are.

I have tried to figure out what’s going on here, and in the process have learned a lot more about the mechanics both physical and economic of Technicolor film, but have not come up with any definitive explanation (yet), just an educated guess. Which is, as it so often is, especially with the Army: cost. Shooting Technicolor film was outrageously expensive, involving huge cameras that you had to rent by the day from the Technicolor company, through which you would run three strips of film that were treated in different ways, so would respond to light and then dye differently (yes they dyed the film! incredible! are you seeing why it was SO ‘SPENSIVE), and then they’d all be layered together, et voilà: the richer-than-life colors you see in Technicolor films from the 30s-50s.

And as a side product this process also resulted in: a black & white negative. Now I have not yet found anyone confirming this, but my suspicion is that the studios would also make some copies off this negative that were not run through the pricey dye process, and those black & white reels would have been available for cheap if you were, say, the U.S. Army, looking for a discounted way to distract for a couple hours the people you’ve sent to fight a war from the fact that you’ve sent them to fight a war. I think it’s a good theory! But if anyone has actual info PLEASE let me know, I’m so so interested in what was going on here.

But meanwhile: in the third season M*A*S*H episode ‘House Arrest’, Hawkeye, on the titular house arrest, learns that Gene Tierney, striking in any color scheme, is in the movie they have that week, and is ready to move Heaven & Earth, or at least Father Mulcahy, to be able to see her. What Hawkeye does not know at this moment, nor would anyone watching this episode who has not seen John M. Stahl’s Leave Her to Heaven, is that it also predominantly takes place in SMALL TOWN MAINE. I love the idea of M*A*S*H writers putting this easter egg in here, winking “and this will be one for the Criterion crowd :)” (also predicting the emergence of the Criterion Collection ten years later).

Verisimilitude Corner: For reasons I cannot fathom, the Leave Her to Heaven clips playing on the wall of the Swamp are happening all out of order. The first scene we see set at a table takes place in the early middle of the film, then we cut way back to the beginning portion in New Mexico, before swinging all the way to a piece in the last act. There is no wedding scene in this film, no matter what Father Mulcahy says, but it is in fact even funnier that Henry cries at the one he does, as this is actually one of Gene Tierney's big dangerous femme fatale moments (for all that like, they all are—tbc!!), and his weeping at it tracks with how Nurse Able is mystified by his reaction, and earlier he'd complained that after looking away for two seconds he had lost the plot.

Should you watch Leave Her to Heaven? So turns out Leave Her to Heaven is considered one of the few COLOR NOIRS, and it kinda fucks totally. It looks so Douglas Sirk melodrama gorgeous, but with a plot straight out of Gone Girl. And like, you ever seen Vincent Price, young? NOT I. Impossibly tall. Shows up in a rain storm in the New Mexico desert. Martin Scorsese has said this is one of his favorite movies—the taste.

My Darling Clementine (1946) / 5x22 ‘Movie Tonight’

And finally, from the Potter era, and from Potter’s heart, comes the fifth season episode 'Movie Tonight', where we watch really a remarkable amount of the battered copy he’s managed to track down of his favorite film, the John Ford western My Darling Clementine.

Harry Morgan is so cute, the phrase “My Darling Clementine” is so cute—with its lilting song to match—and this episode itself: it’s cute. The film screening works just as Colonel Potter hoped it might: a way to bring his campful of grown theater kids together during a tense patch. It’s very funny how little urging it takes for them to begin using every unplanned projector failure intermission as an opportunity to get up and start doing impressions for each other.

But do you know what’s so intriguing? When I finally watched My Darling Clementine, I found it actually struck a kind of harmony with M*A*S*H’s more melancholy currents. Filmed in 1946, it’s been called one of the first true post-war westerns, and there does feel something sort of haunted in it, this sense of loss. It starts in the song even, which after those first lines you remember is actually about a young woman “lost and gone forever.” So many of the characters are carrying some sort of wound, physicalized in coughs or injuries if not simply the toll clearly being wrought on them by the deaths that keep falling around them.

And then there’s that the two main characters are a brooding, Shakespeare-loving, TB-stricken outlaw surgeon (oh okay!), and their reluctant but-I’ll-do-it new marshal, a mellow, even-voiced, semi-secretly then not at all secretly total fucking weirdo, who caused me to message a M*A*S*H friend part-way in, hey, did we know Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp is Such A BJ. Fun, FUN. That would have been fun in the mess tent.

The film itself isn’t devoid of humor, either, should mention! Particularly around Old West Hunnicutt. It's that element as well as its dreamy bleakness that pairs well with a mobile hospital post in Korean War sitcom purgatory. Colonel Potter, famously, loves horses, so his 2/3rds horse-based explanation for why he loves this movie raises zero questions, but what that doesn’t indicate is you’re also going to get scenes like one where Doc Holiday is having alcohol poured over his hands so he can do emergency surgery on a pair of scrubbed tables in the saloon. This was a good pick, M*A*S*H writers, is what I’m saying.

Should you watch My Darling Clementine? Oh yes if I was not clear: Yes

4077 Film Festival: Closing Remarks

I enjoyed this process so much. I love conceptual experiences and homework, so, really optimal for me. And I love old movies and I love M*A*S*H and I love their use of old movies on M*A*S*H! Contemporary cultural elements like this do wonders I think to recall you to their actual time period, as this show is so much about the 1970s and Vietnam, that remembering it's actually set in the '50s can give me an enjoyable swoop in my stomach as I suddenly fall back further in time. It was the 1950s... The records that show up in 'Your Hit Parade' are all jazz... M*A*S*H: good show, good movie & music supervision.

Up next: NOT Bedtime For Bonzo (1951), a real movie, that also underscores my statement above as I just need to express to you: starred future president Ronald Reagan. M*A*S*H!!!!

[grigori77]

Movies of 2024 - My Summer Rundown (Part 1)

Straight up front, I've decided not to include the Director's Cuts of Rebel Moon in here, ultimately realising I've got FAR TOO MUCH to say about the finished product to fit in either of these, so I'll be posting a complete rundown of how I feel about all that sometime in September. Instead I'm just gonna concentrate on REGULAR business right now, so ...

The Runners-Up:

20.  MYTHICA: STORMBOUND – The Kickstarter-funded D&D-inspired fantasy adventure franchise returns after the original series ended in high style with 2016’s The Godslayer, telling an enjoyably offbeat (mostly) standalone story about a disparate group of warriors trapped in a remote inn by an unseen force.  Former series star Jake Stormoen makes his feature debut as a director here, ushering the cheap-but-cheerful action in with clear love for the material, and the results leave strong potential for a fresh saga moving forward.

19.  JIM HENSON, IDEA MAN – Prepare to get hit HARD in the feels as director Ron Howard turns documentarian for this thoroughly fascinating and lovingly reverent examination of the life, career and legacy of the core creator of The Muppets, as well as one of the most important film and television visionaries to have influenced the lives and imaginations of a whole generation of proud geeks, myself included.  If this doesn’t make you cry by the end you just don’t get it …

18.  AM I OKAY? – As far as I’m concerned, any remaining debate on whether or not Dakota Johnson can actually act should be put to bed by her performance in Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne’s endearingly quirky comedy drama.  She’s simply MESMERISING as Lucy, a socially awkward LA thirtysomething who’s just come to the sudden realisation that she’s gay, floundering through her new dating life with the help of her far more confident best friend Jane (House of the Dragon and Crazy Rich Asians’ Sonoya Mizuno).

17.  ARCADIAN – This intriguingly lo-fi indie horror, starring Nicolas Cage as a father desperately trying to keep his two teenage sons (Jaeden Martell and Maxwell Jenkins) alive during a terrifying apocalypse in which bloodthirsty monsters come with the night, very much snuck in under the radar, but it deserves some SERIOUS recognition for its visceral thrills and unsettlingly unique creature designs, as well as impressive central performances and steady, unshowy helming from feature-debuting director Benjamin Brewer.

16.  NEW LIFE – Brand new writer-director John Rosman makes a very intimidating debut indeed with this impressively robust suspenseful pandemic horror about a desperate young woman hitchhiking her way across America, unaware that she’s the carrier of a lethal viral pathogen.  Hayley Erin (Pretty Little Liars: the Pefectionists) plays understandably paranoid to perfection, while Sonya Walger (Lost, For All Mankind) is equally magnificent as the world-weary corporate fixer sent to hunt her down.

15.  MAXXXINE – Mia Goth’s murderous porn star Maxine Minx returns in the third (but hopefully not final) instalment of prolific horror writer-director Ti West’s deliciously NASTY X Trilogy, following our viciously resourceful and ruthlessly determined young star-in-the-making as she fights tooth and nail to secure the role she knows will help her go legit and break into SERIOUS movies, all while dodging the threat of LA’s Nightstalker killer, the burgeoning Satanic Panic and her own dark past coming back to haunt her …

14.  HIT MAN – The latest cinematic offering from unapologetically unique writer-director Richard Linklater, based on a bizarre true story, might ultimately be one of his more light, airy and ultimately insubstantial films, but there’s no denying it’s also a hell of a lot of fun, Glen Powell (who also co-wrote the screenplay) clearly having a blast playing a college professor who moonlights as a fake assassin to help the New Orleans Police perform undercover stings in order to prevent potential murders-for-hire, only to fall in love with one of his marks (Good Omens’ Adria Arjona).  The end result is a wonderfully frothy screwball comedy that’s a winning laugh-riot from beginning to end.

13.  THE BIKERIDERS – Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Midnight Special, Loving), one of the most interesting and eclectic filmmakers to come out of the late 2000s’ indie scene, once again in fine form with a fascinating fictionalised take on photojournalist Danny Lyons’ photo-book chronicling the life and times of the influential Outlaws Motorcycle Club.  Tom Hardy stars as Benny, the laconic leader of the Vandals biker club and Elvis’ Austin Butler smoulders magnificently as his protégé Johnny, while Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer provides the narrative’s grounding anchor as the latter’s down-to-earth girlfriend Kathy.

12.  I SAW THE TV GLOW – Underground writer-director Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going To the World’s Fair) thoroughly deserves their newfound big-time breakout into the more high-profile scene due to the runaway success of this thoroughly twisted A24 existential horror revolving around awkward teen Owen (Justice Smith), who becomes overwhelmingly obsessed with 90s YA TV series The Pink Opaque, only to see his life become increasingly unsettled after the disappearance of his closest friend Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) makes him wonder if the supposedly fictional show might actually be TRUE, and having a direct effect on his own reality …

11.  LONGLEGS – Anthony Perkins’ son Osgood, who’s been making a name for himself in the indie horror scene for a while now (I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House, Gretel & Hansel), is breaking out in a major way as a filmmaker thanks to this deeply unsettling slowburn procedural mystery thriller.  Maika Monroe delivers a masterclass in subtle nuance as rookie FBI agent Lee Harker, an emerging clairvoyant whose uncannily accurate talents get her assigned to the manhunt for the titular, potentially supernatural serial killer (a virtually unrecognisable Nicolas Cage).

[loveothislife]

Inside Michael Stuhlbarg's Heartbreaking Monologue From 'Call Me By Your Name'

Cry with us, won’t you? As Professor Perlman says, “Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot.”

By Matthew Jacobs Feb 3, 2018

If you’ve heard rumblings about any particular “Call Me by Your Name” scene, it’s either Timothée Chalamet fucking a peach or The Monologue.

Those familiar with the movie, or the celebrated André Aciman book on which it’s based, will understand these references. 2017 was, after all, the year fruit sex went mainstream. As much as I’d love to spend the next 1,200 words dishing about that juicy peach, we’re going to talk about The Monologue. Oh, that sweet, picture-perfect monologue.

It’s the moment that clinches the film, delivered by Professor Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg), the father of 17-year-old Elio (Chalamet), who falls for a graduate student named Oliver (Armie Hammer) during one blissful, bittersweet summer at his family’s Italian villa. Elio has just bid Oliver adieu, and Perlman consoles him with delicately chosen words that are the envy of every queer kid who ever longed to hear a parent say, “It gets better.”

Director Luca Guadagnino and screenwriter James Ivory lifted the monologue almost word for word from Aciman’s text, excising only a few sentences. Even some of Aciman’s scene-setting prose finds its way into the script’s parenthetical directions, guiding the conversation as it unfolds on a couch in Perlman’s dim study. “His tone says: We don’t have to speak about it, but let’s not pretend we don’t know what I’m saying,” for example, appears in the novel and the screenplay, ensuring they mirror each other’s dulcet timbre.

Stuhlbarg’s speech is best underscored by these words (punctuation and capitalization are the script’s):

When you least expect it, Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot. Just remember: I am here. Right now you may not want to feel anything. Perhaps you never wished to feel anything. And perhaps it’s not to me that you’ll want to speak about these things. But feel something you obviously did.

You had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, to pray that their sons land on their feet. But I am not such a parent. In your place, if there is pain, nurse it. And if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out. Don’t be brutal with it. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster, that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything ― what a waste!

Two sentences nixed from Aciman’s rendering: “Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better,” and “Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between.”

During an interview ahead of the movie’s limited release in November ― it opened in wide release on Jan. 19, a few days before netting four Oscar nominations, including for best picture ― Stuhlbarg told me he delivered the monologue two different ways. His first take was more emotional, more impassioned; the second version, which Guadagnino “rightly” opted to use, was “a little more direct.”

On paper, the speech sounds very literary ― appropriate for an academic like Perlman who studies Greek antiquities, but still difficult for any actor to deliver with an organic cadence.

“You never know how a piece of text is going to live in you when you try to absorb it for all of its weight,” Stuhlbarg said. “I don’t think there was a conscious choice on my part for it to be any more or less professorial. I think the text does a lot of that for me, so maybe I was just concerned with it coming from a true place, and that he was choosing his words carefully. In another actor’s mouth, it would be different. ... I think the language speaks for itself. I tried to let it live in me over the course of the five or so weeks that we had, because we shot the movie in chronological order. [I wanted] to let it resonate with me that way I thought it could be said.”

Throughout the scene, the camera remains mostly trained on Stuhlbarg. He taps a cigarette on an ashtray perched on his lap and picks up a tumbler of whiskey to cut the silence between sentences. Sometimes he peers down, as if to reflect on his own youthful memories, but he largely holds Elio’s teary-eyed gaze. “Elio is dumbstruck as he tries to take all this in,” the screenplay notes, much like the novel’s first-person narration of the same sentiment: “I couldn’t begin to take all this in. I was dumbstruck,” Elio says.

“How you live your life is your business,” Perlman continues as the film’s gentle piano score kicks in. “Remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. And before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there’s sorrow. Pain. Don’t kill it and with it the joy you’ve felt.”

A pause, Elio nodding as he absorbs the advice.

“We may never speak about this again,” his old man concludes. “But I hope you’ll never hold it against me that we did. I will have been a terrible father if, one day, you’d want to speak to me and felt that the door was shut, or not sufficiently open.”

In Stuhlbarg’s mouth, Perlman’s words are poetry ― vestiges of a weathered existence and guidance for a life not yet touched by the wisdom of adulthood.

The scene reflects Guadagnino’s intentions for the film. Before the shoot began, “we all sat around his dining room table and read the screenplay together,” Stuhlbarg said. “That was all the rehearsal that some of us had. [Guadagnino] said, ‘I want this to be a story of love and light and buoyancy and fun, to be reminiscent of those idyllic summers that, if we’re lucky, we have when we’re young. Our eyes are opened, and perhaps we fall in love for the first time in a deeper way.’ That idea infected the way we told the story, and it made it such a joyous experience in a way that I never would have expected it to be.”

Stuhlbarg, who appears in two other best picture contenders (“The Shape of Water” and “The Post”), didn’t receive the Oscar nomination he deserves, and “Call Me by Your Name” produced middling box-office returns in wide release despite the fawning praise it received.

Regardless, his closing scene is a master class in acting and writing. It’s what sets this apart from most gay stories, where characters are judged or punished (by parents, peers, spouses, mentors, bullies) for their sexuality. Indeed, every graceful pause in The Monologue is calibrated to capture the movie’s optimism. It’s both heartbreaking and uplifting.

“I love the story and was so grateful to be asked to participate in it,” Stuhlbarg said. “It does seem to be having a lot of resonance and relevance and to be moving people, which is all you can hope for, really, because you never know what’s going to happen when you make something. And in different hands it would be a different telling ― it would be a different story. I think Luca’s a master and has masterfully articulated the story he wanted to tell.”

Huffpost February 3, 2018

[tm-trx]

currents.33[2024]

selections from my week in media [11-17 august 2024]

[celebrating]

My birthday was this week (one of the milestone ones 😬) and both Onew and Taemin are in the midst of album pre-release promotions right now, so it's been a fun week.

[listening]

[loving]

That pool scene in Sunset x Vibes.

Akira's coming out scene in Life: Love on the Line.

[reading]

Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater {5 stars} - A very sweet fae fantasy. Dora Ettings is one of my favorite book characters I've read this year.

Idol Lives by KT Salvo {3 stars} - A satisfying conclusion to the trilogy of books about these two. I say that because the author is continuing the series next year but changing protagonists to kpop idols competing in a survival show.

Light of Stars (and the Destroyer) by Sanguis - MDZS AU

My Summer of You, vol 2-3 by Nagisa Furuya {4 stars} - Finished up this manga series and loved it. Slowest of slow burns, but seeing Wataru and Chiharu get more comfortable with each other and their relationship over the summers was wonderfully nostalgic.

[thinking]

There is such an interesting contrast between the intimacy portrayed in two of the shows I'm watching as they air: Sunset x Vibes is suggestive and takes its time, leaving a lot to the imagination. 4 Minutes is filmed closely, sometimes bluntly and it feels like you see practically everything. I think in practicality, you don't, which is even more fascinating and just shows how important filming style is to the mood and feel of a scene.

[watching]

4 Minutes, ep 4 - I was happy to see more back story filled in for Tonkla and Korn's relationship, but it really highlighted how little we know about Tyme. He's the second lead and yet the show is very focused on Tonkla when it's not following Great. Yet another thing to pay attention to on my binge rewatch. The highlight of the episode was that last scene between Tyme and Great. The focus stayed with Great's adrenaline rush longer than expected and it was lovely how Tyme's tenderness in response led to their first sex scene. It was just very well done all around. (Even though I found myself wondering where Great found a glamping yurt at that time of night and on such short notice.)

Life: Love on the Line (Director's Cut) {finished: 5 stars} - Um wow. My heart is full and yet again I've got no way to describe how a jdrama has left me feeling. It lived up to every good thing I've heard about it over the years. And the framing device using their ages was genius.

Monster Next Door, ep 4 - I really liked how deftly the show treated Diew taking steps outside his comfort zone, with God's very sweet support and encouragement. Also, God is a very funny drunk. I do wonder what God's character development will be because if they've hinted at it I missed it completely.

Sunset x Vibes, ep 10 - The past life scenes I've been waiting for yay. Does Sun have a past life too? He's not having dreams so I'm inclined to think no, which is disappointing because I like the shared reincarnation trope. I am still all ::chinhands:: about the way Sun is with Lin. I love him.

previous Currents posts

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[jemmo]

ok so as soon as his man 3 ended, I binged watch the boyfriend in the night, and i just wanted to talk about some observations.

bc i had purposefully avoided a lot of stuff about the boyfriend so that i could watch it spoiler-free once his man 3 ended, bc asian gay dating shows don’t come around all the time, so i wanted to commit to both equally and not watch 2 at once. which meant I didn’t know a lot about the show besides what i got from the trailer, nor did i engage with any of the responses from it. what i did see though was people moving from his man 3 to the boyfriend, saying it was ‘better’, whatever that means. now, regardless of whether you liked this season of his man or not (i did), after watching the boyfriend, i really don’t understand how you can compare the two. they are different in so many ways, really the only similarity is that it’s a gay dating show with men living in a house. the set up of the show, the length of filming, the vibe, the things they do, they are all so different, and that’s not even to begin discussing the way the countries these shows are coming from mean the cast and the way these people behave are different too. im not about to pick these shows apart piece by piece, dont worry, but i just wanted to say that not only should you not compare them just bc they’re the same kind of show, but you also really can’t compare them bc of how different they are. and what’s more, you can’t compare the behaviour of people on the shows when they are in a completely different environment and exist in different societies. i think both shows have incredible merit and want both shows to continue bc it’s a great way to show queer love to the world, and in countries that still have progress to make in accepting queerness. and whether the show explicitly talks about queer experience or not (a complaint ive heard lodged against his man), it is still a thing that has something to say about queerness in that it exists, its here, its happening, men are forming relationships - they don’t have to talk about it when they are it, plus the show is about love and romance and the drama of relationships. just bc they don’t talk about queerness, doesn’t mean it’s removed. so we can shower praise on shows like the boyfriend who talk about different topics and problems within the queer experience without putting down his man. and this is not a his man defence, neither show is perfect, but reality tv should never be perfect otherwise it wouldn’t be real. the whole draw of reality tv is that you’re watch it bc it’s human nature to be nosy about other people’s lives, and while you can have opinions and disagree with people’s choices and actions, there’s a difference between that and making out someone to be a bad person bc of their behaviour. one is ‘i think’, the other is ‘it is’. there’s a difference between opinion and dictating what the truth is. reality tv is about having opinions about people, yes, you can think whatever you like. but that doesn’t make what you think true. people will behave however you like, that’s the joy of reality tv, no one is in control of these people, there’s no writer or director telling them what to say or how to feel, you’ve just got to accept that people make decisions as best as they can. idk what else to say, I just think that’s the best thing about watching these shows, it’s why i love them, and i just wish it didn’t come with all this discourse around it and we could just have fun watching real queer people on screen. but hey, what an ideal world.

anyway, i loved both shows and im sad my queer reality tv summer is over. fingers crossed for next year.

[hermitcaves]

back on my tatami galaxy extended universe bullshit and i need to yap about my thoughts and feelings rq

i watched the night is short walk on girl for the first time in like 2018 and it has been in my top three films ever since. the animation is gorgeous, the world is so vibrant and the roving, wild, night out story that's ultimately about the way we're all connected anddDddd ahhh it's so good. anyway when i was looking into the film more a bit later i kept seeing the tatami galaxy mentioned and when i checked it out, realized that it's by the same writer and adapted/animated by the same director (masaaki yuasa i love you!!!!!) AND that some of the night is short characters originated in tatami !!! so i watched it and then read the original novel in very quick succession and i've just FINALLY gotten around to reading tatami time machine blues ! which is so relevant as im also spending my summer in a hot ass apartment with a remote controlled ac. anyway i somehow love time machine more than i did the original novel? it feels like the characters are really pinned down and even more likable! it takes the almost-grating repetitive format of tatami and sharpens it down to a satisfying summer adventure that maintains the characteristic motifs of the world without dragging it out. embarrassingly im kind of a watashi/ozu truther (what color is the black string of fate when you shine a light on it..) but the protagonist's relationship with akashi is played as much more genuine in time machine which i loved! agh and i haven't even watched the series yet, which yuasa didn't direct but im sure is still going to be so fun. watch

[thecrazyone1990]

Five Nights at Freddy's Movie Review

Background:

In 2014, Scott Braden Cawthon, a video game developer had created a point-and-click survival game called Five Nights at Freddy’s. The game was made after Scott had gone through depression back in 2013 after his family-friendly game Chipper & Sons had gotten hit with negativity, while also dealing with financial troubles. It got so bad that he even had suicidal ideation. Thankfully he not only managed to recover, but had his faith restored.

            Scott took inspiration from Chipper & Sons and used it to help him create Five Nights at Freddy’s. The game was submitted to Steam in the summer of 2014, which ended up becoming a big success. The game grew in popularity online by YouTubers who did Let’s Play videos. This had YouTubers like Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, and PewDiePie play the game, while making reactions to their gameplay.

            This caused the game to gain such popularity from fans, which led to sequels being made and led to the story expanding as the years progressed. While I only tried out the first game, I can see why so many people loved it and how popular it got. Even nearly ten years later, the film has gained such a following. One that I knew eventually would lead to a film being made.

            A film that would of course, like all other movies, hit a few problems along the way to being made. Because when it comes to making a movie based off something popular, you can bet there will be a lot of issue that will rear its ugly head.  

Film Development:

Making a movie is not exactly easy and it is expected to run into trouble. This is not surprising since when it comes to trying to make a movie, especially one based on comics, anime, or video games there will always be trouble. Mostly because the studios didn’t want to follow through the source material, or wanted to do their own thing, or studio interference. In this case, the film was originally announced in April 2015 that it would be done under Warner Bros. Pictures.

            Before it was announced in March 2017 Blumhouse Productions, under Universal Pictures. With the aim to have the film released in November 2020, before it was announced the script was scrapped. While the film also had to deal with losing Gil Kenan, who was set to be the original director of the film, before he pulled out, and replaced with Chris Columbus. However, he later backed out and was replaced with Emma Tammi, who remained as the director for the film.

            The film was finally filmed February 1, 2023, under a working title called “Bad Cupcake” and finished filming on April 3. The film had a budget of between $20-25 million dollars, while making back in its opening weekend at $130 million dollars. And despite receiving multiple negative reviews from critics, most of the audience who went to see it praised the film. A sequel being announced after the film was released for the future.

            Despite its success in the box office and how it’s likely it’ll make more money as each weeks passes, are the critics right? Is this film flawed? Are the audience right that this film isn’t so bad? What are the positives and negatives of the film?

            And who’s in the right?

Plot:

            The film’s plot follows a bit of game’s plot where we have Josh Hutcherson playing as Mike Schmidt, a down on his luck guy trying to support his younger sister after the death of their parents. Mike unfortunately is dealing with the guilt of losing his younger brother to a kidnapper, who was never found, and the brother assumed to be dead. Despite this, Mike ends up taking sleeping pills at night to try remembering any details about the kidnapping. Hoping it’ll help him find who took his brother and get some peace.

            Mike ends up losing his job after assaulting a man who he assumed was kidnapping a kid. He’s also dealing with his aunt, who is trying to do everything she can to take custody of Mike’s little sister. Not because she cares for her safety, but more to get money from the state. This causes Mike to accept a night job as a security guard at a former popular restaurant, Freddy’s Fazbear’s Pizza.

            The restaurant was shut down due to five missing children disappearing in the place and rumored to have been killed, but the bodies were never found.

            After Mike takes the job, strange activities begin to occur. He ends up getting visions of the missing children and seems to know who took Mike’s little brother. He eventually finds out the animatronics at the restaurant are not only alive, but the souls of the children are trapped within the suits. And its later discovered that the man who kidnapped his brother, was involved in the murder of the children then stuffing their bodies into the mechanical suits.

            Trapping their spirits within the suits, which come to life at night, and end up killing anyone who they come across.

            What I love about this plot is that its kept simple. Much like what they did with the Super Mario, Detective Pikachu, and Sonic films, they made the plots fun. They didn’t try doing anything too crazy and kept it simple while also fun for those who are fans of the series. It doesn’t rely heavily on easter eggs or is filled with jump scares.

            The film does get a little slow during the middle part of the film, while also being predictable when its plot twist is revealed. Despite this though, the plot doesn’t seem to lose its audience as time passes. While also avoiding straying from the lore of the game, which a lot of people end up recognizing when they watch it.

Actors/Characters:

            As for the actors, Josh Hutcherson plays Mike Schmidt, the security guard from the game, but with his own background since in the original, there really isn’t an actual background for the game version.  I really liked Josh’s performance. You feel for him as someone who tries to do their best to raise his sister and deal with his own troubled past. Although, I don’t really see much chemistry between him and Piper Rubio, who plays the little sister, Abhy.

However, I did enjoy the chemistry between Josh and Elizabeth Lail who played Vanessa. Another character from the game, but different than the game version as well. She does a good job playing someone who knows more than she’s letting on, while doing her best to help Mike. Even be understanding and forming a bond with him.

Matthew Lillard does a good job with his role too, but you honestly know who he plays the moment he appears and the way he’s acting. So, when he appears later, you already saw it coming. Despite this though, he still did an amazing job with his role. And people seem happy with what he did.

            The only flaws with the actors I can think of is you don’t get invested with everyone else who are just there to be killed and be forgetful. So, we don’t get much character development with them. While not getting much development with Abby either or how she’s connected with the missing kids too. And some of the characters being a bit cliché.

Although, I did like the actor Michael P. Sullivan who plays the lawyer. When you see the film, you’ll know why.  Still, it didn’t feel like the actors were all half-assing with their performances. They did put as much work into this film as the people behind the scenes did in making it possible, we got the actual suits in the movie. Instead of it being all CGI like many feared the studio would go for.

 Special effects/Practical effects:

            The film doesn’t rely on CGI or a lot of special effects, except for a few scenes. As for the animatronics, which were there thanks to Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. They weren’t CGI, they were there for the actors to properly react to, and even touch. Something that I felt was a smart decision, especially how many people were happy to see them there.

            I love how they even give actual expressions and appear to give better character development than a CGI character we get in other movies.

            The way the film was shot and the references they threw in from the games. The film didn’t need to be shot in multiple locations. They simply had to have the film be shot in at least three to four locations, with the focus in the pizza restaurant. And I love the way they set the final act, which was a lot of fun.

            The only flaw I did find was the tone of the film. There are times they’re trying to go with it feeling like a horror movie, to trying to make it comedic, to then trying to be serious. It felt odd they did this, but it didn’t hurt the film too much. Although, I did wish it was a scary horror movie, but it doesn’t mean I hate what they went with.

            It does have some blood, but never went with gore, which honestly? I think they should have tried making this film Rated-R. I think it would have worked better if they did that. However, I can understand why the film kept it at PG-13. They knew kids love the games, its popular with them, and because of that they got to have the kids go out to see the film.

Final Thoughts:  

            The film has its flaws, there’s no question about it and can understand why critics didn’t like it, but it doesn’t mean they’re right. The film to me is kept simple and was made to be a fun film for people to watch. It’s the same decision that was made for the Super Mario Bros. Movie. The film doesn’t rely on easter eggs though, while also avoiding straying from the lore.

            They made sure it was a film that the audience will love and it pays off. Its flaws, but it’s not bad. I would put this with the Detective Pikachu movie. It wasn’t perfect, but I still found some entertaining moments. With this movie, I felt the same thing.

It’s a good fun movie that I recommend checking out with friends or your teenage kids who have played the game. It’s the kind of film you can sit down and have a good time watching. I’m looking forward to the sequel and hopefully it’ll stick to the formula with the first movie. While curious to see if we’ll even see more familiar Freddy characters appear in the next film, even have Markiplier make an actual cameo.