#in another life these two were in a nora ephron movie

[sneverussape]

ngl september struck and i was suddenly missing 90s romcom movies 🍂🍁✏️

[letterboxd]

Work Horse.

Taking on a rare leading role in his decades-spanning career, national treasure Tim Blake Nelson speaks with Mitchell Beaupre about demystifying heroes, reinventing genres and something called a quiche Western.

“This film is unapologetic about all the tropes that it’s deploying in service of telling the story... You’ve got a satchel full of cash. You’ve got gunslinging, physical violence, and feeding somebody to the pigs.” —Tim Blake Nelson

Described by Letterboxd members as “a national treasure” who “makes everything better”, Tim Blake Nelson is a journeyman actor who has tapped into practically every side of the industry since making his feature debut in Nora Ephron’s This Is My Life back in 1992. Whether you are a Marvel fanatic, a history buff or a parent trying to get through the day, the actor’s distinctive presence is a charming sight that’s always welcome on the screen.

Tim Blake Nelson is one of those rare actors who unites all filmgoers, a man genuinely impossible not to love, which certainly seems to be the case for Hollywood. Checking off working relationships with directors ranging from Terrence Malick and Ang Lee to Hal Hartley and Guillermo Del Toro, Nelson has covered the boards, even crossing over into directing and writing, both in films and on the stage.

Yet, despite being a renowned talent who can take a smaller supporting role in a massive Steven Spielberg blockbuster starring Tom Cruise and carry the film, Nelson-as-leading-man sightings have been few and far between. In fact, it’s quite a struggle to find a film with Nelson in a leading role, as even playing the titular role for directors who understand his greatness still results in him only appearing in the opening section of an anthology feature.

At last, the leading role Nelson fans were in need of has arrived in the form of Old Henry, a new Western from writer/director Potsy Ponciroli. Nelson plays the eponymous Henry, a widowed farmer with a mysterious past who makes a meager living with his son (Gavin Lewis), doing his best to leave his old life behind and hide away from the world. Things get complicated when Henry stumbles upon a satchel of cash and a wounded stranger (Scott Haze), bringing them both into his home. Soon, a dangerous posse led by an intimidating Stephen Dorff comes calling, setting the stage for an old-fashioned throwdown in this twisty Western siege thriller.

Premiering at the Venice Film Festival, Old Henry has been warmly received on Letterboxd. “Old Henry feels like the culmination of Tim Blake Nelson’s twenty-plus-year career, but from another dimension, where he’s highly regarded as a leading man”, writes Noah, speaking not only to the strength of Nelson’s performance, but also to the fact that this leading role shouldn’t be such a rarity. Todd awards Nelson the prize for “Best Facial Hair in a 2021 film”, before applauding the actor for pouring “every emotion in his body to play Henry”.

Letterboxd’s East Coast editor Mitchell Beaupre saddled up for a chat with Nelson about the intentional hokiness of the Westerns that made him fall in love with filmmaking, how the Coen brothers put other directors on notice, and the fatherly joy of keeping it all in the family.

I’ve seen a lot of interviews with you discussing your career as an actor, a writer, and a director. You always speak with such reverence for the art. Where does that passion come from for you? What made you want to pursue this field? Tim Blake Nelson: It’s funny, doing these interviews for Old Henry has been reminding me of my introduction to filmmaking as an art. I’ve realized that I had never quite located it, but it really started with the Sergio Leone Westerns, which I would see on television when I was growing up in Oklahoma in the ’70s. Before that, going to the cinema was always invariably a treat, no matter what the film, but I would just be following the story and the dialogue.

The Sergio Leone movies were the first ones that exposed subjectivity in telling stories on film to me. That was where I became aware of the difference between a closeup and an extreme closeup, or how you could build tension through a combination of the angle on a character with the editorial rhythm, with the lens size, with the music in addition to the dialogue and the story.

How old were you when this shift in your understanding of cinema was happening? I think it was across the ages of ten and eighteen, where I suddenly realized that this was an auteur here, Leone. There was a guy behind all these movies I was seeing—and in Oklahoma, you could see a Sergio Leone movie every weekend. This was a man making deliberate and intelligent decisions in everything that I was seeing.

I started noticing that a character was in a duster that goes all the way down to his boots, even though that’s not necessarily accurate to the Old West. That’s something else. Also, why is he wearing it in the desert? Would that have been very practical? And look at that cigar Clint Eastwood is smoking. It’s not smooth, it looks like it was a piece of tree root. Then later I learned it’s a particular kind of Italian cigar, but somehow it was defining this genre of Western. I marveled at that, and found it unbelievably thrilling to discover. I loved the stories and the dialogue and the intentional hokiness of it all. All of it was conspiring to teach me to venerate this form.

Sergio Leone, his daughters, and Clint Eastwood on the set of ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ (1966).

The connection there is interesting between the Leone Westerns to where Old Henry is at now. You’ve talked before about how the Western genre is one that is reinvented over and over throughout the years— Oh, you do your homework!

I try my best! What would you say defines the current era of Westerns that we’re seeing, and how the genre is being reinvented? Well, Joel and Ethan [Coen] did a lot of mischief, in a good way, with The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Genres are always about genres, in addition to their story. So, I would say that Buster Scruggs is the quintessential postmodern Western, if you look at it as one movie instead of as an anthology, because it celebrates the history of the form. The magic of that movie is that it engages you in each story while also being a meditation on death. That’s what connects each one of those tales, and then it’s also a meditation on storytelling to boot. In the final chapter, you have a character talking about why we love stories, and he’s telling it to a bunch of people who you’ll learn are all dead.

The stories are a way of delaying the inevitable mortality. I mean, look at that. It’s such an accomplishment. With that movie, I think Joel and Ethan put filmmakers on notice that Westerns had better always be also about Westerns, because whether you like it or not, they are. I think they probably came to understand that when they were making True Grit, although knowing the two of them they probably understood it already.

Do you feel there’s a direct correlation between a movie like Buster Scruggs and Old Henry, in this era of postmodern, revisionist Westerns? How it impacts a movie like Old Henry is that you have Potsy embracing the Western-ness of the movie. This film is unapologetic about all the tropes that it’s deploying in service of telling the story. You’ve got the cantankerous old man hiding a past, who’s a maverick who wants to keep the law and the bad guys off his property. He wants to be left alone. You’ve got a satchel full of cash. You’ve got gunslinging, physical violence, and feeding somebody to the pigs. Yet, it’s all accomplished without irony in a very straightforward way that is utterly confident, and in love with the genre.

I think ultimately that’s why the movie works, because it’s very front-footed. It’s not hiding from you. It’s not deceiving you and trying to tell you it’s something that it isn’t. It’s a good, straightforward Western.

Tim Blake Nelson as the titular singer in ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ (2018).

That’s a bit different from those Leone Westerns, with all of their anachronisms. I remember when the movie Silverado came out when I was growing up, and people were calling it a “quiche Western”, which was funny. That was what they would call it in Oklahoma because it had a bunch of movie stars in it, who weren’t known for being in Westerns. It was the Sergio Leone crowd calling it that. I went and saw it, wondering, “Well, if it’s a quiche Western, then why is everybody talking about it?” I saw it, and I loved it. Those folks putting it down like that were wrong. It’s actually a straightforward, hard-boiled, hardcore unapologetic Western. You don’t like some of the movie stars in it, but get over it. The reason that movie works is because it’s straight-ahead and well-told, and I think that movie holds up.

Old Henry is the same kind of animal. It’s more in the tradition of Sergio Leone—or, actually, I would say more in the tradition of Unforgiven. That was a big influence on Potsy.

Unforgiven was marvelous in the way it demystified that old black hat/white hat mentality of Westerns, opening up a more multi-dimensional understanding. You’re no stranger to that. A series like Watchmen takes that approach with superheroes, who in a sense hold the position now that Western heroes used to hold culturally. Do you find there’s more of a demand these days to challenge those archetypes who used to be put on pedestals—be they superheroes, cowboys, police—and provide a deeper analysis? Absolutely, yes. At the same time, I think the demystified Western hero goes back to John Wayne in The Searchers. I think it really started with that character, one of the greatest characters ever in a Western. There’s One-Eyed Jacks, with Marlon Brando, which was made just after The Searchers, and again embracing this concept of an extremely complicated man. I don’t think you get the Sergio Leone movies without that.

I always think of McCabe & Mrs. Miller as a Western that was doing something totally different than anything I had seen before. That’s another one, with that final image with the character smoking opium, going into oblivion after the demise of Warren Beatty’s very flawed character, after you’ve watched what it has taken to really build that town. You have a director, Robert Altman, making the deliberate choice to shoot in order so that they can build the town while they’re shooting the movie, and you really get the cost of it. I think there’s a lot of history to get to a place where a movie like Unforgiven can happen. Then Clint comes along and, as he often does, moves it forward even more.

Gavin Lewis as Henry’s son Wyatt in ‘Old Henry’.

That’s a film that tackles legacy, as does Old Henry, which at its core is ultimately about the relationship between a father and his son. You got to work on this film with your own son, coincidentally named Henry, who was part of the art department. What is that experience like, getting to share your passion with your son on a project together? Well, I think something that is true for the character of Henry and for myself, and perhaps all of us, is that we all want our kids to have better lives than ours. I want that to be true in every respect. Mostly, I want them to be more fulfilled than I have been. My kids look at me when I say that and say, “Thanks a lot Dad for raising that bar”, because they see that I have a pretty good life. Which I do, but I still think they can be more fulfilled than I am, and I want that for them. One of the great privileges of this movie was to watch my son—who was the on-set decorator—work his ass off.

Those are the words of an incredibly proud father. He’s a work horse, and he’s learning about filmmaking, and I think on his current trajectory he will go beyond where I’ve gone as a filmmaker, directing more movies than I’ve been able to direct. Do a better job at it, too. He’s also a singer-songwriter, and I think he can have a venerable career doing that if he wants, but he wants to make movies too, and I hope that’s going to happen for him. It was a thrill to watch him do the work, the twelve- and fourteen-hour days, and after every take resetting and making sure everything was right. It felt like an accomplishment to see him take on that responsibility and do the real work every day.

Related content

SJ Holiday’s lists of Essential Neo-Westerns and Essential Modern Westerns

The Best Neo-Westerns of the 21st Century, according to JS Lewis

Our interview with Slow West director John Maclean

Follow Mitchell on Letterboxd

‘Old Henry’ is in US theaters now and on VOD from Friday, October 8.

[elfenbensord]

Hey I hope you are doing well. I have missed your writing and wanted to check up. For inspiration for the Loki series could you do something about the reader getting super sick? I understand if you don’t want to. I just have been thinking about your blog and this series💕

sorry if this is a double ask I don’t think my first one went through.

daisies

26.1.21

note: hi, lovely anon! i’m doing well, just went back to school so that’s why i haven’t had so much time/energy to write so much. i’m still really excited about this series, just tryna take things slow at the moment. but you’re so nice for checking in, that made me so happy!!

and you know what this gives me?? ‘you’ve got mail’ vibes! like the last scene, when tom hanks visits meg ryan when she’s sick and he brings her daisies.

loki series masterlist / request! / masterlist

---

“I can’t come in today.”

“Why not?”

 A cough rattles your lungs, making for a sickening sound through the phone. The room seems to bob slightly, like a boat. You close your eyes in protest, hoping the sea sick feeling will go away.

“... You have a point”, he says.

“There’s fries to heat in the freezer. Or just get McDonalds. But don’t be rude to the cashier!” You feel like a mother hen, which doesn’t fail to bug you. Loki’s clear voice tells you that he feels fine, even good. And here you are, feeling like a slow death is coming for you. But still, you're not the one getting fries for lunch.

Life isn’t fair, you think.

You can still hear him breathing down the mic of the phone. A stubborness in you eggs you to keep going, to be the last to hang up. Another cough rattles through you. Loki says nothing. You wonder if you’re gonna die here on the phone to him. There are worse ways to go, you guess.

“Fine. See you tomorrow.” He sounds harsher than he means to.

You’re already half asleep.

---

The shrill ring of your phone wakes you from a much needed slumber. The caller id says ‘Loki’. If it didn’t hurt so much, you’d roll your eyes.

“I’m coming over.” He close to shouts the words the second you pick up.

“You’re what?” you cough. 

“You’re clearly not well.”

“You’re really bored, aren’t you?” If you’d had the energy, you’d smirk.

The silence that follows confirms your theory.

“... I’ll be there in half an hour.”

---

Loki makes it to your apartment in less than the thirty minutes promised. You’re impressed -- with the state of the traffic, he’s done the seemingly impossible. But it also gave you less time to hurryingly trying to tidy up the mess in your apartment.

He arrives, all bright-eyed and slightly out of breath. He must’ve walked the final distance between your home and the closest subway station. His lungs heave in, out, in, out, with fully functioning breathing. A strong feeling of jealousy flares up within you. Jealousy mixed with… something else. Something warm. You let it linger.

“Hi.”

His eyebrows draw together. “Why are you standing up?”

“Well, I had to let you in.”

He looks at you, after close to forcing his way through the door. It’s an undeniably soft look. He reaches his hand out, touching your arm ever so slightly.

You sniffle.

“You should go lie down now”, he says softly.

“Okay, mum”, you mumble, trudging off to fall into your bed. 

He gives you a look for that final comment as he shrugs off his coat and neatly places it on the coat hanger by the door. He reaches into his coat pocket, and takes out a bouquet of daisies. 

He looks at you, almost bashful about the sweet gesture.

It’s enough to bring tears to your eyes. You're not yourself today. All your hard outer shell has been removed, leaving a soft and gooey center.

It suddenly becomes hard for you to meet his eyes. Loki doesn’t seem to have the same problem. He watches you with a tentative gaze, waiting for you to accept the flowers.

“I thought you’d like it because of that movie… ‘Collect your post’”, he says.

Collect your post?

Then, it suddenly clicks, “Do you mean ‘You’ve got mail’?”

“Yes.”

You remember when you watched it together. It was early days, really early days. Loki had mentioned briefly how he’d never seen a whole Midgardian movie, and you’d found it to be up to you to change that. But where do you start, with all the films ever made? You decided that Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in Nora Ephron’s classic ‘You’ve got mail’ was the way to go. But you didn’t think Loki would remember that much about it, especially not since he’d forced you to pause the movie during several occasions, so he could go into the kitchen to calm down from the cringe of the big misunderstandings between the two main characters. In summary, you didn’t think he’d liked it, or even remembered it.

But he did. Another one of those warm, fuzzy feelings bubble up inside you before you have the chance to push down. 

This is ridiculous, you find yourself thinking. You’re like two bumbling teenagers, trying to figure how to act around each other again. Now that you’re more than you were before. Nothing has changed, yet it feels like everything has.

You pluck slightly at the petals of the small, white flowers. “Thank you. They’re lovely.”

He smiles the tiniest smile. “I’m glad you like them.”

---

A grey haze settles over the evening, as your fever turns worse. Loki is there. Around dinner time, he makes you some kind of soup. You don’t remember what he said it was called, but you remember the taste. Like saffron and golden butter. It tasted divine, out of this world. A bit like him. 

After dinner -- did you watch a movie as well? You can’t remember -- he left you to sleep. 

When you wake up the next day, you feel close to restored. Your fever isn’t as dramatic, and the cough is close to gone. 

There’s a note on your bedroom table. You recognise it as Loki’s neat scribbles. It’s beautiful, with long, swiping gestures. Penmanship fit for a prince. The words written make you smile. They’re careful, and trying, and very new, coming from him. Your mind sticks to the way he’s written ‘Darling’ and referred the rose coloured word to you. The last sentence easily brings a smile to your lips. 

Be well, darling. 

I miss you.

---

taglists

permanent: @rocking-like-a-ravenclaw / @kapolisradomthoughts / @siriusement / @classy-sith-lady / @hermione-who / @theseuscmander / @sleepingalaska / @moatsnow / @trueheroesneverdie

loki series: @lucywrites02 / @delightfulheartdream / @emilythezeldafan / @shesakillerkween

[deja-you]

foreign affairs | part one | paris

m. de lafayette x reader

summary: In 2020, Representative Y/n L/n is up for reelection. Lafayette, Y/n’s former best friend and current French socialite and playboy, decides this is the time to walk back into her life.

word count: 6.8k

trailer | next

2012 was the year he broke his arm and broke her heart.

During her sophomore year of college, Y/n decided she wanted to study abroad in France. She had taken a few years of French in high school and college, not enough to be fluent, but enough to hold a short conversation. Lots of college students studied abroad, and seeing as Y/n was majoring in Political Science and International Affairs, it made sense.

Paying for a year abroad was another story. Since her senior year in high school, Y/n had been saving up the money she earned from waitressing, and with the help from her parents, she was just able to afford the trip to France. 

During the first week in Paris, faculty members took students around the city to see different attractions. Most students went to see the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe. Y/n preferred to see France’s president’s residence, the Élysée Palace. It was built back in 1718, and the beige colored stone -- we don’t really care what this building looked like, do we? It’s a building in Paris, of course it had beautiful architecture. We’re all wondering why this is significant, right? 

Okay, so Y/n loved politics and history and foundations of democracy and republicanism. She was standing outside the French White House (it’s not really white, we’ve covered this, it’s more of a beige color, but I think “White House” is a term we all understand). Y/n was probably admiring the architecture that your author is refusing to describe. Now this is where it gets more interesting. 

“Pretty building, isn’t it?” 

A man leaning against one wall was watching Y/n while he lit his cigarette. He had spoken plainly in English; was it that obvious that Y/n was American.

“It’s beautiful,” Y/n replied politely.

“Very. Soon it’s going to be my home.”

This piqued Y/n’s interest. “Are you running for president? I can’t remember anyone that looked like you in the polls.”

If she was being honest, she had never met anyone that looked like him in general. Charming brown eyes, curly hair, neat stubble, and a smile she would’ve remembered. He gave her an amused look and raised his cigarette to his lips. 

“You wouldn’t,” he replied, then offered his hand for her to shake. “You can call me Lafayette.”

Y/n shook his hand, but she was still confused. “And you’re running for president, Lafayette? I have to say, you might need to work on your name recognition.”

“I am not running for president, chérie. Perhaps you’re more familiar with my mother, Jolie de la Rivière?” 

He watched as the realization hit her. 

“Jolie de la Rivière? As in the frontrunner in the presidential election?”

“The very one. I am surprised an American keeps up with French politics.”

It made sense now. Y/n could see the resemblance between this stranger she had just met and the future French president. De la Rivière had been leading in the polls since she announced her campaign, and it was almost certain that she would win the election in April. Y/n just happened to run into de la Rivière’s son?

“You want to get something to eat?” Lafayette asked, seemingly out of the blue.

Y/n was still in shock, but she nodded, wanting to know more about the man she had just met. “Okay.”

They crossed the street to a café (there was a café at nearly every corner in Paris) and took seats outside. Y/n let Lafayette order for both of them even though she knew enough French to order herself, she didn’t want to give him any reason to make fun of her poor French accent. 

“So,” Lafayette said, watching Y/n curiously, “you’re an American in Paris, huh?”

“I suppose so. But less “starving artist” vibes and less musical numbers,” Y/n quipped. Was she really talking to the son of the future French president, and he was asking about her?

“So if you’re not a starving artist, what are you doing in Paris?”

“I’m a student at Georgetown and I’m spending the semester studying abroad,” Y/n informed him.

“What are you majoring in?”

“Political Science and International Affairs.”

“Political Science at Georgetown? You must be smart. Will I see you running for president some day?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. 

She laughed. “I don’t know about that. Maybe I’ll find a job working on a campaign or for a Senator. I don’t have it all worked out yet.”

“Neither do I,” Lafayette said. This made Y/n pause. She could tell he was a few years older than her. He was also Jolie de la Rivière’s son. How could he not have his whole life worked out?

“What’d you mean?” Y/n asked.

He shrugged. “Everyone expects me to follow in my mother’s footsteps. It’s not that I’m not interested in politics and government, I just... I just don’t want to live in her shadow forever.”

“I see,” Y/n said. “At least you’ll have connections no matter what you decide to do.”

“That is very true.”

They continued talking for an hour or so. Lafayette would ask her what it was like living in the United States. Y/n would ask him what it was like having a powerhouse mom. The conversation came easily to both of them, something Y/n had never expected from a stranger. 

When the bill came, Y/n ultimately let Lafayette pay for their lunch after much protesting (Y/n only allowed for him to pay because she was a broke college student). Then Lafayette asked for Y/n’s phone number, which she gladly gave to him. He promised he’d call or text sometime and they went their separate ways.

He said he’d call, but Y/n was expecting within the next few days or weeks. She was not expecting him to call her only a few hours later.

“Y/n, hey!” Came his voice from the other line.

“Lafayette? Hi?”

“I know this is sudden, but there’s this concert at a small venue tonight. I have a few tickets, and I was wondering if you and some of your friends wanted to join me tonight?”

“Um, okay, yeah?”

“Great! I’ll send you the information.”

And then he hung up. True to his word, he sent her a text with the time and address a few minutes later. Y/n invited two of her suite mates, Rebecca and Joe, to come with her. Then a few hours later, they showed up at a small but lively concert venue. Lafayette met them there, wearing a more casual outfit, and they all went in together.

Y/n honestly couldn’t remember who was performing that night. She didn’t remember much, but she knew she had more drinks than she should’ve, that the music was loud, and that the room was incredibly hot. What she couldn’t forget was the headache she woke up with the next morning. At the very least, she had made it into her own bed even though she hadn’t made it out of the clothes she had worn out the night before. 

She grabbed her water bottle from beside the bed and took a long drink. When that didn’t help, she went to find Rebecca or Joe to ask what had happened the night before. Rebecca’s room was closer, so she knocked on the door before opening it.

“Hey, Rebec-- Oh my god!”

She quickly shut her eyes but she wouldn’t be able to unsee partially naked Lafayette struggling to quickly put his clothes back on. Y/n cringed and closed the door quickly behind her. What had she just seen? Why was Lafayette in Rebecca’s room? And why was he naked?

“Y/n, mon dieu, you weren’t supposed to see that!” Lafayette had finished dressing and followed Y/n out of the room, closing the door behind him.

“What exactly was that?” Y/n asked.

He held a finger to his lips and motioned at the door. “Rebecca’s still asleep.”

“So you and... that happened?”

Lafayette rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Ah, I guess so. It was all a blur... but, yeah.”

“We all got pretty drunk last night,” Y/n justified. 

“Er, not exactly. You and Joe had a lot of drinks, but Rebecca and I decided to stay sober enough to get everyone back. So once we got you and Joe home, well, we kind of...” He trailed off and his eyes dropped to the floor.

“Oh. I see.” Y/n didn’t know what to say. “Are you and Rebecca like... a thing now?”

He shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t know.”

Lafayette really didn’t know. Neither did Rebecca. 

In the next two weeks, they hooked up a few more times before deciding they were best off as friends. After that, it was a Parisian girl named Celeste. Y/n quickly got used to Lafayette’s flirtatious nature and him constantly bringing around a new girl. Sometimes it was annoying, sometimes it was a point of humor. It didn’t matter too much to Y/n, she was content being friends with him. 

They grew close quickly, and soon enough Y/n couldn’t remember what her life had been like before him. There was no one Y/n preferred to discuss foreign policy with than Lafayette, and there was no one Lafayette would rather annoy than Y/n. At one point, Lafayette took Y/n to one of his mother’s rallies, and Y/n spent more time than necessary explaining to Lafayette’s mom how big a fan she was. Lafayette nearly had to drag her away so that actual constituents could talk to his mom. 

But most days it was more casual stuff. Sometimes Lafayette would sit on Y/n’s phone and take a ridiculous amount of selfies on her phone while she worked on homework. Other times they would take spontaneous trips to the grocery store at night to pick up ingredients for fried rice. Every Tuesday, Lafayette and Y/n’s roommate, Molly, would listen to Y/n rant about wage gaps between different demographics in America after her Economics class. And sometimes they would make fun of cheesy romcoms together.

“I don’t understand your obsession with Nora Ephron, Y/n,” Lafayette complained, although he was dutifully pouring extra butter onto their popcorn for the movie.

“She only directed the best romantic comedies ever!” Y/n defended. 

“But why is Meg Ryan in all of her movies?”

“Because Meg Ryan is the best!”

“I still don’t understand the appeal of this movie. So a kid calls a radio show and Meg Ryan falls in love with him?” Lafayette asked.

Y/n rolled her eyes. “No, Meg Ryan falls in love with the dad! Don’t be ridiculous.”

“But she’s never actually met the dad?”

“...well, no.”

“I don’t understand Americans.”

“You just need to watch it!”

Seeing that he wasn’t making any headway with Y/n, Lafayette sighed and resigned to his position on the couch. Grabbing a blanket, Y/n happily settled down on the couch beside Lafayette and started the movie. Every now and then Lafayette would scoff at some cheesy line or make some comment and Y/n would be quick to shush him. Eventually all the popcorn had been eaten and the end credits began to roll.

“So what did you think?” Y/n asked eagerly.

Lafayette shrugged. “I don’t know. I just can’t get over the fact that she just left her fiancé like that.”

She rolled her eyes.

Months ago, Y/n never would have imagined she’d be invited to an election watch party for Jolie de la Rivière, but now she wasn’t so surprised. De la Rivière’s campaign had rented out an upscale restaurant that was packed to its max occupancy. Lafayette’s mother spent most of the evening schmoozing her voters and speaking with interviewers, allowing for Y/n and Lafayette to sit by the bar and mess around.

“Okay, okay, be serious this time. Don’t smile.”

“I won’t! I promise I won’t,” Y/n said.

“We’ll see. On the count of three... one... two...”

“Wait! I’m not ready!” Y/n couldn’t help but burst out into laughter, a smile spreading across her face. 

Lafayette rolled his eyes. “I do not know what to do with you.”

“I can be serious.”

“No, you can’t.”

“I can! Just watch.” She looked away and focused on making her expression resolute and steely.  Y/n slowly looked up to meet Lafayette’s eyes and they stared at each other for a few seconds with straight faces. Then Lafayette had the gall to arch one of his eyebrows and Y/n broke once again. 

“That’s not fair. I was doing perfectly fine before you cheated!” Y/n complained.

“It’s not my fault that you can’t keep a straight face, Y/n.” He sighed and took a sip of his drink. “I can’t blame you. I’m so devilishly good looking, most women can’t keep it together around me.”

Now it was Y/n’s turn to roll her eyes. “I can assure you that’s not the problem here. Maybe I keep laughing because you’re so funny looking.”

“Haha. You think you’re so clever, don’t you?”

When she didn’t respond, Lafayette tried again. “Y/n?”

“Lafayette, look.” She pointed to a TV hung over the bar.

A reporter on the screen was announcing that De la Rivière had won a landslide election. Then the screen cut to another reporter who was at the restaurant interviewing De la Rivière in person. Y/n and Lafayette’s eyes traveled across the room to see his mother talking to the reporter. The same scene playing on the TV overhead. 

“Did that really just happen?”

Lafayette’s mom had been ahead in the polls for months now, and everyone expected her to win the election. But now she really had won. Lafayette was the President-elect’s son. Both Y/n and Lafayette knew this was probably going to happen, but now that it had, neither of them really knew what to do. 

Everything after that was a blur. They celebrated that night, having a few more drinks. Enough alcohol to have a good time, but not enough to get totally drunk in an effort not to embarrass Lafayette’s mom on her big night. After that, Y/n didn’t see Lafayette for a while. He was busy getting prepped by his mom’s staff to be the perfect son and getting assigned a new security detail. 

Y/n didn’t mind all that much. Sure, she missed him, but now that he was gone, she could spend more time actually working on her school work and getting more sleep. How had she gotten anything done when he was around? It was during the month when Lafayette and Y/n didn’t see each other at all that Molly slapped a magazine down on the table where Y/n was eating breakfast.

“What’s this?” Y/n asked, picking up the glossy magazine.

“Apparently Lafayette is France’s most eligible bachelor,” Molly informed her.  

Y/n scoffed and looked over the cover of the magazine. Lafayette was casually leaning against a wall in the photo wearing a fitted suit and a colorful bowtie. He had a casual grin on his face, and his facial hair was trimmed neatly. 

“Has Lafayette always been this hot?” Y/n muttered.

Molly gave her a look. “Yes. Yes, he has.”

“He might be a bachelor, but I don’t know if I would call him eligible.”

“What’s wrong with Lafayette?” Molly took the magazine from Y/n and flipped to the fluff piece written about him. “He’s handsome, and charismatic, and intelligent. I would date him.”

Y/n watched her roommate admire the photos of Lafayette and realized this wasn’t the first time Molly had considered the thought. How many times had Y/n watched Molly laugh at something Lafayette said that wasn’t even funny? 

A buzz came from Y/n’s phone and she welcomed the distraction from her thoughts. Of course the text just had to be from Lafayette. She hadn’t seen him in forever, and he just happened to next her now? Yes, because it’s going to move the plot along. 

Paint the town red w/ me tonight? The text read. Bring some friends and we’ll make it a party.

She shot back a text asking him if he was even allowed to hangout with commoners now that his mom was the president. He sent back a sarcastic haha and assured her he had it all worked out.

Molly was a little too excited when Y/n asked her to come hangout with Lafayette, but what did Y/n care? If Molly liked Lafayette, Y/n didn’t care. Why should she care if her roommate wanted to date her best friend? She did her best to stop thinking about it. Molly let her borrow a dress that was shorter than Y/n was comfortable with and they headed out with a few of their friends to meet at a bar Lafayette had texted them about. 

He was thirty minutes late, and Y/n would’ve been annoyed she hadn’t expected it from him. He fed everyone some charming story about having to ditch his security detail. Y/n wanted to point out to him how irresponsible he was being, but honestly, she was just glad to see him again. When he was done enchanting their friends with his stories of his grandiose lifestyle, everyone returned to their drinks and Lafayette finally had the chance to sidle up to Y/n and sling an Armani-clad arm around her shoulders. 

“Been a while, stranger?” He gave her an impish grin.

“And who’s fault is that?”

Lafayette’s eyebrows shot up and he pouted. “Aw, chérie, you know I couldn’t help it. I’ve been busy, it hasn’t been easy, this last month.”

“Right. ‘Cause living in a literal palace must be so difficult.”

“I forgot how sarcastic you can be.”

She shrugged and gave him a self-satisfied smile. 

“Maybe you’ll be nicer after a few drinks,” he suggested.

“...it wouldn’t hurt.”

His smile was wide and she had forgotten how much she had missed it. Lafayette leaned forward and ordered a round of drinks, and just like that, it was like they hadn’t been apart at all. Their friendship was easy like that. 

After two drinks, Y/n was laughing louder than anyone in the bar. Lafayette urged her to quiet down, but by the way wrinkles formed by his eyes and he laughed along quietly, they both knew he wasn’t serious about it at all. It was after they had started taking shots that they decided they were too hot to stay indoors. The night was young, and Lafayette had already hatched a plan in his mind.

“Let’s go to a park,” he announced to their small group.

There was a chorus of enthusiastic agreement. Y/n, more than a few drinks in, was still hesitant. 

“Everything is probably closed at this time. Don’t you think you should be getting home?” She asked. 

“C’mon, Y/n,” Molly chimed in, “it’ll be fun. There’s no harm to it.”

Y/n wanted to argue that there very well could be harm to it, but Lafayette was too fast.

“Molly’s right. Besides, I don’t know when I’ll get a night of freedom again. Better make the most of it, oui?”  

Lafayette must’ve earned his magnetism from his constant exposure to politicians. He would make a great politician if he ever decided to apply himself, Y/n thought. It wasn’t the first time she had thought this. 

Everyone listened to him almost like they were hypnotized, and before she knew it, they were standing outside a small park. A small closed park. Y/n knew she shouldn’t be committing a crime with the French president’s son, but the group had a mob mentality now. Anyway, Lafayette had his mind set on breaking into the park now. There was nothing anyone could’ve one to change his mind at this point. 

Y/n still felt she had to try. “It’s closed. Everyone should just go home.”

“Nonsense,” Lafayette said. 

“What’s your plan? Hop the fence?”

“Why not?” Molly asked. “It’s not that high.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Y/n responded. 

But seeing the look on Lafayette’s face, she could tell he didn’t share her opinion on fence hopping. She watched him give a curious look to Molly. A look she recognized. There was always a twinkle in his eye when he was about to do something stupid to impress a girl. Y/n sighed, threw her hands up in defeat, and let him make his idiotic decisions.

And idiotic they were. Enough alcohol will give you the mindless bravery needed to attempt to jump a fence to impress a girl. That’s how Lafayette broke his arm. 

Dealing with drunk, twenty-something-year-old French boys seemed like a walk in the park compared to dealing with the morons that, by some miracle, had been elected to the United States Congress. Y/n didn’t consider herself to be one of those moronic representatives, but she was sure some members of the Republican party had some choice words they used to describe her. 

“We have a system that is fundamentally broken,” Y/n spoke into the microphone in front of her. Today she was asking questions at a hearing concerning campaign finance laws. Tomorrow it would be working on passing a bipartisan bill or going to some fundraiser for her reelection campaign. 

“So would you say that Congress is held to the same rate of accountability as the president, the executive branch? Are there more regulations for Senators and Congressman, in regards to campaign financing than the president? Or less, Mr. Conway?” She asked. 

The man in question, Mr. Conway, shifted uncomfortably in his seat before responding to the question, “there are almost no laws at all that apply to the president.”

Y/n was satisfied with his answer, but still she pressed on. “Are you saying that I, and every member of congress, are being held to a higher standard than the president of the United States?”

“...yes.”

“Thank you.”

The hearing wrapped up with all the formalities, and Y/n gathered up all her notes. She made her way from the committee hearing room to her office, knowing that her campaign manager and second-in-command, Nathan Hale, would be ready to tell her what else she had on the schedule for today. She found him sitting on the visitor’s side of her desk, his feet propped up on a chair.

“You did great in there,” he said casually.

She raised an eyebrow as she dropped all her notes from the hearing on her desk and sunk down into the seat. “You stayed and listened?”

“For most of it. I had to leave early,” he admitted. “There were some... issues I had to look at.”

“Issues?”

“Secretary Jefferson tweeted about you. You’re going to want to see it.”

Y/n groaned outwardly. “No, Nathan, I don’t think I will.”

“You’re probably right, but you should be informed nonetheless.” He handed her her phone, already opened to Jefferson’s tweet. It was nothing she hadn’t seen or heard before. Just another politician attacking her character and claiming she was a talentless kid who didn’t belong in politics.

She furrowed her brows as she quickly typed out a response to his tweet. That’s interesting, coming from a man whose entire career was built off his daddy’s money. 

“What do you think?” She handed the phone to Nathan to read over her tweet. “Too harsh? Not harsh enough?”

He laughed. “It’s perfect. Anddddd... send tweet. Did we just enter into a twitter war with the former Secretary of State and the Republican presidential nominee? This feels like middle school drama, not running a country.”

Y/n only shrugged. “All I have to say,” Y/n muttered as she attempted to organize the clutter on her desk, “is that politics is nothing like The West Wing.”

“No?”

“No. Nathan, what do we have scheduled today?” She asked.

“An interview with The Times later, but I’ve lined up some meetings with a few of your largest donors.”

“That’s my least favorite part of the job. Who am I meeting with?” Y/n set aside her organizing and leaned forward on her elbows.

Nathan pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and read off a few names from his clipboard. “We’ve got Mercy Otis Warren at two. Mr. and Mrs. Randolph for lunch—”

“Oh, I can’t stand them.”

“—and a Mr. de Lafayette in an hour.”

Y/n’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline and she was convinced she had heard him wrong. “Who was that last one?”

“Mr. de Lafayette, the French president’s son,” Nathan explained.

“Since when has he been a donor to my campaign?” Y/n frowned.

“He reached out a few months ago. I thought it was strange that a foreign leader’s kid wanted to donate to a U.S. representative’s campaign, but I wasn’t about to stop him.”

“I don’t want his donations,” Y/n said.

This caught Nathan’s attention. “Y/n, he made a very sizable donation to your reelection campaign.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want his money.”

“It’s too late. We’ve already spent the money on buttons and whatnot.”

“Nathan, no!” Y/n groaned. “And you said I’m supposed to meet with him today?”

“Yes, in an hour. I don’t understand what the problem is.”

Y/n pursed her lips and finally admitted, “We used to be best friends.”

“And you don’t want to see him because...?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well regardless of the length of the story,” Nathan said, “we can’t cancel on him. We need every donation we can get since you refuse to accept money from any PACs.”

“That’s because it’s the right thing to do,” Y/n pointed out. 

“Maybe so, but that doesn’t make my job any easier. You’re not getting out of this meeting, Y/n. You should start mentally preparing yourself now.” 

It had been eight years since she had last seen Lafayette. Eight years. And yet, she wasn’t exactly in a rush to see him again. They hadn’t exactly left things on great terms. Now he was making sizable donations to her campaign? None of this made any sense to Y/n. 

An hour passed too quickly for Y/n’s liking. Nathan had arranged for a photo op between Y/n and Lafayette in the lobby of the hotel Lafayette was staying at. After all, the endorsement of a foreign dignitary would be good for her campaign, it would probably make the front page of local newspapers. On the ride over to the hotel, Y/n rehearsed how the meeting would go in her head.

She’d walk into the lobby and greet Lafayette politely. The photographers would capture a few pictures of them smiling amicably and shaking hands. Y/n would thank him for his support and his donations, inquire on the wellbeing of his mother, and then Nathan would pull her out and tell everyone she had another meeting she had to be at. Y/n would apologize, thank Lafayette again, and then they would part ways. And if she never saw him again after this, that would be fine. 

Maybe she should have let Nathan in on her plans, because he had different ideas of how this meeting would go down. 

“The Randolphs had to cancel on us, but I’ve pencilled them in for next weekend. That means we can take more time talking with Mr. de Lafayette,” he told her. 

“What? But I don’t want to spend more time talking with him. I just--”

“We can discuss it later,” Nathan cut her off and pushed her into the hotel lobby where half a dozen photographers and journalists were already waiting. The cameras began to flash.

“We have a lot to discuss later,” Y/n smiled for the cameras, but Nathan was the only one able to hear the poison underneath her words. She meant them. But chewing Nathan out was for later, right now she had an ex-best friend and current campaign donator to deal with. 

Standing to the side of the lobby was Lafayette. He was wearing gray slacks and formal shoes, but he had opted to ditch the suit jacket and wore his white button down with the sleeves rolled up, revealing his rather muscular fore arms. He grinned when he saw Y/n headed his way, and all of a sudden it was like she was a college student again. Memories of her year in Paris came back to her. Drinks at a local bar, watching romcoms together, attending rallies for his mom.

But bad memories returned to her as well, and they seemed to out weigh all the good ones she could remember. She had to focus not to let her smile falter in case a photographer took a photo of her looking anything less than happy to be seeing Lafayette. Journalists always had a way of spinning things. 

“Congresswoman L/n, I am so glad you could make it,” Lafayette said. There may have been some things Y/n had forgotten from her year abroad, but the sound of his voice wasn’t one of those things. 

“There’s no place I’d rather be,” Y/n lied through her smile. “How was your flight?” She stepped forward and offered her hand for him to shake. Cameras flashed. 

“Pleasant enough, I suppose.” He gripped her hand and gave it a firm shake. More cameras clicked. “It’s good to see you again. What has it been, eight years?”

They turned to face the cameras, letting the photographers take pictures of the smiling side-by-side. 

“Must be. It’s been too long, hasn’t it?” She was doing her best to be professional. 

He placed a hand on her back that could easily pass as just a friendly gesture between two professionals, but Y/n knew him better than that. Lafayette kept smiling, but he lowered his voice so only she could hear him. 

“I’ve tried getting in contact with you so many times, Y/n. We used to be best friends, remember? Although now you seem to be doing fine for yourself.”

Y/n continued smiling, but she spared Lafayette an uneasy glance. “I am doing fine, aren’t I?”

“I just don’t understand why the only way I can get you to talk to me is to make large donations to your campaign and schedule meetings with your campaign manager,” he said quietly. “What happened to us?”

“Lafayette, this isn’t the time or place to address that issue,” she said with perfectly masked annoyance. Y/n smiled for a couple more photos, then the journalists seemed to have gotten enough content of the two of them. “Besides, I think we both know perfectly well what happened.” 

The end of Y/n’s year abroad came quicker than she had anticipated. Paris had been fun, but if she was being honest, she was ready to return home. Molly and Lafayette had begun dating shortly after that night when he jumped the fence and broke his arm to impress her. After that, Y/n couldn’t help but feel like a third-wheel around the two of them. 

It wasn’t easy. Lafayette was still her best friend and she couldn’t avoid him as much as she wanted to without him asking questions. Since Lafayette decided to date Molly, and since Molly was Y/n’s roommate, seeing them around together was nearly unavoidable. 

Y/n had reached the end of her year abroad now, so... that was good? Molly had already left for the states a week and a half ago due to a family emergency or something. Y/n wasn’t completely sure, she had gotten good at tuning Molly out when she was talking about how great a boyfriend Lafayette was, that she must’ve started tuning out everything Molly said. 

With Molly gone, Y/n was left alone in an apartment and with her thoughts. She didn’t see Lafayette as much, as he really only came over to the apartment to visit Molly these days. Now that she was left with nothing to do except pack and think, she was finally hit with the unsettling reality that the real reason she didn’t like being around Molly and Lafayette when they were together wasn’t because they made her feel like a third wheel. 

She shoved those thoughts deep down her throat, worried what might become of her if she let herself dwell on them too much. When ignoring the thoughts didn’t work as well as she had hoped it would, she turned to an alternative medicine. The bar was an antidote for anything and everything. 

That’s where Lafayette found Y/n. Drinking by herself on a weeknight.

“What are you doing here? I’m supposed to be the drunk one that you find and drag home.”

She looked at him lazily over her third glass of wine. “One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters. But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.”

“We’re quoting poetry, now?” He sighed. “You are more drunk than I thought.”

“I thought you would like it. Charles Baudelaire. He’s French. He said to get drunk, and wine tastes better than virtue.”

Lafayette took her glass of wine and drained it. Partially to prevent Y/n from drinking anymore, partially because he needed it. He looked at his best friend who was watching him with wide eyes and parted lips.

“What?” He asked.

“What,” she repeated, in a daze.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m okay. You’re the one getting drunk alone.”

She grinned sloppily. “I’m not alone. You’re here. And you’re getting drunk with me.”

Lafayette appraised Y/n for a moment. She was watching him so earnestly, her eyes bright and lively from the alcohol. He had to look away. Eventually he gave in and ordered another glass of wine for himself. Then, halfway through that glass, his lips loosened.

“Molly broke up with me.”

For a second, Lafayette could have sworn he saw a smile on Y/n’s face. But he must have imagined it, because when he looked again, she was giving him a pitiful look.

“She did? I’m so, so sorry. Did she say why?”

“No, but I think I know.”

“Care to share?”

He shook his head and took a long sip from his glass. “Not particularly. You care to share why you’re getting drunk alone in the middle of the week?”

“Not particularly.” She repeated his words and attempted a wink.

Then the two of them fell into a contemplative silence. There was no doubt that they were extremely close friends. But that didn’t mean they told each other everything, it just meant that they always knew how the other was feeling, even if they didn’t know why.

“We’ve got so much wasted potential, don’t we?” Lafayette finally said.

Y/n raised an eyebrow. “Wasted? I may be wasted tonight, but I’ll pull it together tomorrow.”

He groaned and hid his smile, not wanting her to know that he actually found her amusing. “Shut up, Y/n. You know what I mean.”

“Maybe you’re wasted potential. You could be a president or a CEO, but instead you’re drinking with your best friend at 10:48 p.m.,” she pointed out. “But I’ve got it all figured out. Tomorrow, I’ll pull myself together from this feeling-sorry-for-myself night. And when I go back to America, I’ll pull my life together again.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Tonight is a microcosm of my time here in Paris. Paris was just a drunk mistake. A really fun, really delicious mistake. When I return to the U.S., it’ll be my Paris hang over. I’ll deal with the consequences, be miserable for a little while, but then I’ll be great. Maybe be president or meet a penguin, whichever is easier.”

“I hope Paris wasn’t all mistakes.”

“It was.”

It should have hurt more to hear her say that. They were both a few glasses in at this point and felt invincible. Everything would hurt a lot more in the morning, but they felt so good then. Lafayette spared another glance at Y/n. This was his best friend, the only girl he really cared about. The girl he had promised himself he wouldn’t ruin things with. But one look at her lips made him lose any inhibition he had left.

He stared a second too long. Y/n noticed his eyes on her lips, and as if she knew what he was thinking, her lips were pulled up into a troublesome smile. A voice in the back of Y/n’s head warned her that she could ruin their friendship if she didn’t stop, but then again, she had never wanted to be his friend. Never.

“Come home with me?” She knew what his answer would be before she had even asked the question.

His response should’ve been “I don’t think that’s a good idea” or “we’re both drunk, we should both go to our own homes.” Or anything else. Anything else would’ve been better than his easy grin, his warm hand in hers as they exited the bar, and his sharp whistle as he hailed a taxi.

She could count this, right?

Lafayette had never told her he loved her. As a friend, at the very least, Y/n was convinced that he loved her. She had watched Lafayette express his affections and love for so many women before her. Y/n would be lying if she said that she didn’t die a little bit every time she saw him with someone else. She had watched him say “I love you” to almost everyone but herself.

In the back of the cab, flooded with orange light from the street, Lafayette’s hands felt warm on her body. He tasted like cheap wine even though Y/n knew he could afford something more expensive. He tasted like smoke as well, even though Y/n told him often how bad cigarettes were. The way he looked at her, the way he kissed her, it said “I love you.” Didn’t it? 

 I can count this, she decided with his lips pressed against her neck.

He only took his lips off her to quickly pay the cab driver, and even then he kept one hand on her thigh. Walking up a narrow flight of stairs is harder when you’re drunk and don’t want to let go of another person, but Lafayette and Y/n managed to do it. They stumbled into her apartment, not bothering to turn on any lights. 

The next morning Y/n’s apartment would look like a crime scene; furniture out of place, clothes littering the floor, but she didn’t care at the moment. Any consequences for tonight’s actions would be her problem tomorrow. Tonight, all she could think about was the way he pushed her up against the wall and left bruises on her shoulders with his mouth. 

By the time they made it to her bedroom, she had managed to remove all his clothes and he was taking off her panties with two fingers. Lafayette whispered something sweet in her ear, but Y/n really wasn’t listening at this point. He wrapped an arm around her waist and laid her back on the bed, placing a desperate kiss on her lips. Something in her knew that he wasn’t kissing her because he felt something, but because he wanted to feel something. Did it work?

Y/n would not know all the details of what happened the next day. All she would remember was the feel of his skin against hers, the taste of him on her tongue, and feeling more alive than she had ever felt before.

Drunken mistakes were something Lafayette was used to. Y/n had her fair share of drunken mistakes as well. Nothing compared to the moment Lafayette woke up next to Y/n in her bed with a terrible headache from the night before. He could feel nothing but dread and it was beginning to eat him alive.

“Mon dieu, what have I done?” The fact that he had really fucked up this time hit him like a train. 

“I know,” Y/n replied. She didn’t share his same level of concern. “How much did we drink last night?”

“I need to go.” 

Before she knew it, Lafayette was out of bed and pulling on articles of his clothing that were strewn across the room. Y/n was perplexed by his urgency and propped herself up on her elbows. 

“Lafayette, relax. We were drunk, okay? It’s not a big deal.”

He shook his head. “No, you don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand.”

“This shouldn’t have happened. I never wanted this to happen.”

Y/n didn’t even mask her pain, but Lafayette wouldn’t even look at her. Still, she tried to reassure him. “You hook-up with girls all the time. This isn’t that much different.”

“No, it is,” he said firmly. “You’re not just another girl, Y/n. We’re friends. I never wanted this to happen between us.”

Just like that, Y/n felt her heart plummet in her chest. Did he really regret sleeping with her that much? He couldn’t even fathom the idea of them together without panicking? Y/n’s mouth hung open but no words came out. What would you even say in a situation like this?

“I need to leave now.” He still couldn’t look her in the eye. Lafayette left her apartment without so much as another word to her.

That’s how Lafayette broke her heart.

Tag list: @fanfic-addict-98 @wordvomit-foryourmind @farihafangirls @actuallyanita @cubedtriangle @katierpblogg @ballerinafairyprincess @dannighost @ateliefloresdaprimavera

[bewitching-elizabeth-olsen]

Press: Streaming, With Only a Little Trepidation

“I’ve never had more fun on a job before,” says the WandaVision lead who spoke with the Ted Lasso star about their shows, the Scarlett Johansson lawsuit, and what happens to the theatrical moviegoing experience now.

In Reunited, Awards Insider hosts a conversation between two Emmy nominees who have collaborated on a previous project. Here, we speak with WandaVision star Elizabeth Olsen and Ted Lasso co-creator and star Jason Sudeikis, who previously starred in the 2017 film Kodachrome.

VANITY FAIR: Elizabeth Olsen and Jason Sudeikis met for the first time just before filming their 2017 indie Kodachrome, but they already had at least one thing in common: a “big old crush” on Ed Harris, as Olsen describes it. “He did not disappoint at all,” adds Sudeikis. “He stuck up for us. He cared about us. He cared about the movie.”

A guide to Hollywood’s biggest races

Now, the two have much more in common, as first-time Emmy nominees. Olsen is nominated for lead actress for her work as Wanda Maximoff in WandaVision, a Disney+ limited series that explores grief and loss, through a superhero story wrapped in a parody of TV sitcoms. Sudeikis earned four Emmy nominations for Apple TV+’s darling Ted Lasso, which he cocreated, cowrote, and stars in as Ted, a cheery American football coach who attempts to coach an English Premier League soccer team.

In early August, Olsen and Sudeikis reunited over Zoom to chat with Vanity Fair about transitioning these characters to TV, their views on the new streaming empires, and what they think of the lawsuit Scarlett Johansson recently brought against Disney regarding the strategy to stream Black Widow simultaneously with its theatrical release.

Vanity Fair: It’s been quite a few years since you shot Kodachrome. What do you remember about where you were on your trajectories at that time?

Elizabeth Olsen: Of life? It was when I was at a down trajectory.

Jason Sudeikis: Personally or professionally? I feel like from the outside, it only seems like you operate in one direction [motions upward].

Olsen: From a personal standpoint. So, I was excited to get to do a small movie, an intimate job that had some levity. And that was really nice. And I have a big old crush on Ed Harris and I still do.

Sudeikis: Yeah. To know that the director was like, “hey, we’re thinking about Jason Sudeikis for this role” and then Ed Harris stayed on, It was like, “all right, pleasant surprise. Pleasant surprise.”

Your current projects, WandaVision and Ted Lasso, may seem very different but do have one thing in common: they both feature characters that originated elsewhere. Wanda is obviously from the Marvel films and Jason you played Ted Lasso in commercials. Why did you feel these characters would work on a TV series?

Olsen: I got really comfortable in the Marvel movies, taking up my piece of the story and my piece of, how does my little arc work in this much larger arc with 30 other characters? And so the idea of all the focus being on me and Paul [Bettany] totally freaked me out. And that it was on television felt weird because these characters are superheroes and maybe they should be seen on big screens and not televisions. But the entire DNA of the show was meant for television. It was written for television. The arc has to be told through television. And from an actor’s point of view, it was something I’d never done. I’ve never done sitcom acting, let alone go through the decades with it.

And I’ve never had more fun on a job before. We got to go to work and just feel like an idiot all the time. And all of us, we’d be like hamming, hamming, hamming, and use each other as these barometers of “are we doing this too much? Is this now just a parody? Is this a joke? At what point are we supposed to dial it back?” And at one point I did, I think, a quadruple take, and that was the first time the director asked me to pull it back and just do a double take. So it was pretty incredible to get to expand on the character and this world, but do it from a totally different perspective. I’m so grateful for that job.

Sudeikis: Have you hosted SNL yet?

Olsen: God no!

Sudeikis: No? Well, I’m not going to agent you and be like, “if they ask, would you ever want to?” But, look, I know you’re funny. It was really fun to watch you do multi-cam sitcom acting. And then the genre thing, it made me be like, “oh, she would crush on SNL”. You’re always going to internalize stuff because you’re, in my opinion, very, very talented and very, very smart. So then even when you externalize things, like a quadruple take, it would be joyful to watch even in the attempt. Watching the show, it didn’t seem at all like an aberration or like you were putting it on. It felt well conceived and well thought out. And it almost made me wonder if the creator was aware of that or was it all just an act of faith on their part.

Olsen: It was a total act of faith. What they did is they took comedy actors who are really funny and gave them the more dramatic stuff. Because they thought that would balance out when we failed. And we’re like, “You guys are very smart for doing this.”

Sudeikis: Now, are you putting that on them or was that articulated to you day one?

Olsen: We talked about it. We were so open about it. We’re like, “this is very clever that you guys put some of the funniest actors in MCU in these dramatic parts.” But SNL, I watch it every Saturday when it’s live. I’m obsessed with SNL and that’s why I would never! It’s like the ocean. I respect the ocean so much and that’s why I don’t need to go in it.

Sudeikis: I don’t know. I think we’ll see. This is going to be like Charles Foster Kane’s declaration of principles. “I would never host SNL.” And then, “And your host, Elizabeth Olsen.”

Olsen: So tell me about Lasso: small to big.

Sudeikis: Me and my buddies, Joe [Kelly] and Brendan [Hunt], did those commercials in 2013, 2014, and we then sat down to talk about it in 2015. And it was kind of like, “okay, is it another set of commercials? Is it a movie?” I knew what the character was and we all grew up with great sports films, by Ron Shelton and Rudy and Hoosiers and things like that. But then also liked Nora Ephron, you know? We wanted to make something that had a little bit of romance. And romance may not be sexual, it’s also a platonic version of romance. And the story just sort of spooled out of us in a way that garnered a pilot episode and then a well-beat-out outline for a season. Because we were kind of modeling it after the British Office where it’d be like six episodes, six episodes, and then maybe an hour and a half special, like a movie type thing. Not wanting to take up too much space and not knowing how long it would go. And so it only could be a TV show, was the way it felt.

And so then it went away for a while because that was in 2015. And then lo and behold, it comes back around when I met Bill Lawrence for this other project. That one didn’t work out, but he was like, “Do you have anything?” I said, “Well, we have this.” And I remember having a whole bunch of stuff in this office, more work than I think he realized. He’s like, “Oh yeah, this is definitely, this is a whole thing. Okay. Wow. You guys have really thought this through.”

Olsen: Did you have a [writers] room or did you already write most of it?

Sudeikis: No, we definitely had a room. It was like I knew the chords, I knew the structure of things. We had a great room of 11 people for the first season. With hiring people, we just had good fortune. I didn’t know it was interesting at the time, but asking people during the interview process who their mentors were, who were the people that encouraged them, who made you think you could do this for a living—you can learn a lot about a person by listening to them talk about their mentors, their heroes.

Olsen: With the jokes, I feel like they’re so quick, but they’re so specific to people who watch sports and who knows sports. Well, not all of them, but a lot of the jokes are. Do you have a list of ones that you want to get in there or are these coming up in the room? Because it gets me as a big sports person.

Sudeikis: It really depends on it. There’s some ideas that I’d had for years and years that are just from old notebooks that I used to carry around when I worked on SNL before you would type things into a phone. And storylines and themes and characters that have just been ruminating in my head based on other ideas for either movies or sketches that didn’t make it. And then a big part of the room is that we have this collective consciousness that isn’t all sports.

And then with specific soccer jokes, we do try to include jokes that we call “two percenters” that only football fans would like. Just as our little tip of the cap because we wouldn’t be here without that group of people digging our shit back in the commercial days.

Your shows were on Disney+ and Apple TV+. Did you have any concerns about them being on streaming services, which were relatively new at the time, and finding an audience?

Sudeikis: It’d probably be more so if it was like Goodyear TV+, if it was some brand that didn’t already rule the world of entertainment and technology.

Olsen: I did a version of that with Facebook. And I didn’t like that experience. I loved my show [Sorry for Your Loss] and I loved everyone that I worked with. But the Facebook relationship was frustrating because of the lack of television experience and how the platform is organized. When we went to season two, we had a meeting that our show called for Facebook to have with us, so that we can give them our notes about their platform and why we think it’s really hard to find our show on their platform and how it’s congested. So I was anxious going into Disney+. But I knew it was Disney. And I think I was more anxious with the Marvel characters being on television than I was about the Disney+ element.

Sudeikis: Golly, I didn’t even consider that. And you’re absolutely right, because Facebook would be closer to Apple. Truth is we didn’t have a choice. We pitched it to a bunch of different places. They were the only ones that would open the door and say, “yeah, come in out of the rain, you can hang out in here. You can do your little show in here.” And so, the trepidation was alleviated by the fact that there was nowhere else open to us.

Olsen: Facebook and Apple I feel like aren’t that similar.

Sudeikis: No, but they hadn’t created content before.

Olsen: Well, Facebook now is [scaling back] scripted content.

Speaking of streaming, both of you have starred in big theatrical movies. Are either of you worried about the theatrical experience, in the way that COVID has changed how movies are being released at this point? We saw how that’s playing out with Scarlett Johansson’s recent lawsuit.

Olsen: I’m worried about a bunch of things. Not worried on Scarlett’s behalf. But I’m worried about small movies getting the opportunity to be seen in theaters. That was already a thing pre-COVID. I like going to the movies and I don’t necessarily want to see only an Oscar contender or a blockbuster. I would like to see art films and art house theaters. And so I do worry about that, and people having to keep these theaters alive. And I don’t know how financially that works for these theaters. I do hope that there’s some sort of solution that the larger companies are coming together to keep, at least in L.A. this is going to happen. But I do think it’s going to be how it kind of used to be when studios owned theaters. And I have a feeling that we might go back to that being the only way to keep them alive with such expensive real estate. But when it comes to actors and their earnings, I mean, that’s just, that’s just all contracts. So it’s either in the contract or it’s not. What about you? Are you worried about Scarlett?

Sudeikis: Of course. How could I not? She’s married to my comedy brother [SNL’s Colin Jost].

Olsen: I think she’s so tough and literally when I read that I was like, “good for you Scarlett.”

Sudeikis: Well, I mean, it is appropriately bad-ass and on brand. I think it’s also married to yes, the COVID of it all and success of the streaming sites. But also just technology. I mean this thing [points at his TV] is as good as any movie theater, and all that stuff is getting cheaper and cheaper. If you’re a family of five and you’re going out there and it’s a whole thing. And yet the communal experience, towards Lizzie’s point is, is one that you can’t replicate in home. You can’t replicate through social media. I think both of our shows have succeeded greatly on their own merit, but it’s certainly written further through people’s love of them socially. Which would have happened back in the day around a water cooler. And while that’s nice, it’s still not the same as sitting next to everybody and getting scared at the same time or cheering at the same time and laughing at the same time.

I do think though, if we just use anecdotally, Kodachrome as an example, more people probably have seen it because it got on Netflix than they would have in the theater. And the more that happens, the better. So it’s like there is that reach that as long as those streaming sites are still paying to make those little movies, they have the opportunity to be seen. And so it is this balance. I just hope that with that still comes creative autonomy, and we don’t lose sight of that.

What about the experience of making these shows will you take on to your next project and the one after that?

Olsen: Well, I definitely had a shake-up to use my full body as an actor. I had to create a character and voices. And just all the technical stuff that I have loved doing my whole life was just shook up a bit. And so I’m now really excited to do more of that and to feel a bit freer in building characters. And so that has really informed the next thing I’m working on now and preparing for. It’s just kind of put me back in my actory body in a really good way.

And hosting SNL.

Olsen: Of course, now I’ll host SNL because stage fright has nothing to do with that. I can do a monologue in front of people and make them laugh.

Sudeikis: Not a prerequisite. Having worked there for 10 years, not a prerequisite. Well, the tacky answer is it’d be tough not being the boss again. And I’m fucking flabbergasted that people have picked up so much what we set down for them. You know what I mean? From colleagues on the writing and acting side to just regular folks back home, people I’ve never even met. It’s thrilling. I have to try to make sense of that for myself. And I think a lot of it has to do with it being something so personal. And so that might be the thing to lean into.

Olsen: It’s interesting you say that because immediately three days after wrapping, I had to go into a film where we’re not in WandaVision land, obviously. I mean, they kind of are a muscle, these Marvel movies. Instead of going back to that routine of it, I tried to do what you’re saying. I was like, “okay, so what can I play with that I haven’t gotten to that’ll at least satisfy something inside me that I want to play with right now?”

Sudeikis: I don’t know when I’ll get to do that again, when I’ll do that next. Because yeah, it’s Lasso—

Olsen: Lasso forever.

Sudeikis: At least for a little bit longer.

Olsen: Is it what you said, three seasons and then a special?

Sudeikis: I mean, the special would have been the third season with the initial thing. Now you sound like you’re my agent or manager.

Olsen: Oh good, that’s what I came here for. That’s what I wanted to do.

Sudeikis: Who sent you? I know the end of this story. I mean, the fact that we have a third season could fucking blow it all and ruin what would people like so much of the first season. We might be in the middle of doing it now in the second season. I don’t know. We’re just doing it the same way we did it last time. So we’ll see. But yeah, that’s a big old, long winded question mark.

Olsen: Or an ellipsis.

Press: Streaming, With Only a Little Trepidation was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

[eurynome827]

When You Met Chris Beck

For @the-ss-horniest-book-club Romcom Drabbles!

Pairing: Chris Beck x Reader

Word Count: 1,670

Warnings: Language, mention of sexytimes and angst following.

A/N: Direct dialogue from the movie When Harry Met Sally will be in italics, but there's a lot paraphrased to match this scenario and if you are as familiar with this movie as I am, you will hear the original in your head as you read. All credit to the genius of the late, great Nora Ephron. If you've never seen this movie ....please do as soon as possible. It is the greatest romcom ever.

*

"Chris Beck. It's nice to meet you," he said smoothly, and you took his outstretched hand, shaking it and introducing yourself.

"So," you shook off the pleasantries, jumping right in. "As you know this lab project will take 12 hours. I've taken the liberty of sketching out where we can each take breaks, and which parts of the project should be completed by a certain time, and," you paused at his slight chuckle, looking up from your notebook. "Something wrong?"

"No, no..." He waved you off, that smirk still on his face. "You're clearly very organized. Don't let me get in your way."

Your eyes narrowed. "I hope you're planning on doing your part of this project."

"Hey," he said quickly, clearly offended. "I'm just as serious as you about being here. I'm just a little more relaxed than you are."

Ignoring the 'uptight' implication in his words, you threw yourself into the project. You gave him one word answers to his questions, and dodged his personal queries as best as you could.

"Are you seeing anyone?" He finally came right out with it and you sighed, not even looking up at him from the microscope.

"Look, Beck, I don't really want to talk about my personal life. We're not friends."

"Ouch. Why don't you want to be friends? We're going to be in this training program together for two more years, you know."

"On different career paths," you clarified. "There's a good chance we don't see each other again after tonight."

"Well, have a nice life then, I guess."

*

Your boyfriend handed you a champagne flute and you sipped it gratefully. The welcome home party for Ares III was not your usual scene, and you were grateful for his support. You pressed a soft kiss to his lips, and pulled back to see a face you hadn't seen (in person at least) for years.

"I thought that was you!" Beck clapped your boyfriend on his shoulder and they shook hands, catching up for a few minutes. Every once in a while Beck's eyes would wander over to you and a tiny look of confusion crossed his face. Each time you met his eyes directly, just daring him to remember. Finally, he said his farewells, gave you one last lost look, and wandered away into the party.

"Thank goodness he didn't remember me. I had to do a 12 hour lab project with him in training and it was the longest night of my life."

Your boyfriend looked curious. "What happened?"

"He wouldn't stop asking me all these personal questions and finally I told him we weren't going to be friends."

"Twelve hours with someone is a long time. Maybe he was just being polite." Holding his hands up and stepping back in retreat, he grinned at you. "Just playing devil's advocate!"

"Okay, okay. Maybe I was rude, but it meant a lot to me to be accepted to this program and I never want to be narrowed down to 'someone's girlfriend'. No offense," you winked at him.

Beck found you again later, leaning against the bar waiting for a refill, and greeted you by your full name.

"Did you ask someone, or did you finally remember?"

"Who could forget that 12 hour project?"

"You did, an hour ago."

"Are you always this direct?"

"Always." You cleared your throat, and attempted a smile. "So...how was space?"

Beck choked on his drink. "I'm sure your daily briefings told you everything the news didn't. Maybe they missed one thing," he beamed at you. "I'm getting married."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Who is she?"

"You know her, Beth Johanssen."

"Oh." She'd been on the mission, too. "Well, good luck to you both."

"Thanks," he nudged your shoulder with his, "how about you two?" He asked nodding over at your boyfriend.

"Still can't stop yourself from asking personal questions, hmm?"

"Ah, right, I forgot. We're not friends," he picked up his drink and winked at you before walking away.

*

At the soft sound of a throat clearing, you looked up from the journal article you were reading, put down your cup of coffee, and stared for a moment before speaking. "Dr. Beck...hello."

"Hi," he gestures to the empty seat at your table. "May I?"

"Of course," you watched as he sat down. He looked different, was acting different. The light in his eyes was out. "I didn't know you'd transferred here."

"Yeah," he breathed out slowly. "I needed a change."

"How's..."

He shook his head, cutting you off. "We're getting divorced."

You nodded, looking over his changed appearance. His eyes met yours.

"How's..." He started and stopped as you sighed and bit your lip.

"We just broke up."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too. I'm sorry, Beck."

It was the quietest and most sincere conversation you two had ever had. He picked up his own cup of coffee and took a sip before asking, "so what happened with you guys?"

A long lunch of sharing sad stories became dinner...became friendship.

Best friends.

You helped him decorate his new apartment. He helped you bring home your Christmas tree. The two of you spent so much time together there almost wasn't time to see other people, but then you both did and told each other your terrible dating stories.

An attempt to set each other up with your other best friends backfired spectacularly as your best friend and his best friend fell for each other instead.

You were stuck with each other.

*

"Hello?"

Your tearful voice filled the phone line. "Can you come over?"

"What's wrong?"

"He's getting married!"

"Who?"

"MY EX."

"I'll be right there."

You opened the door, sniffling into a tissue, eyes red-rimmed and full of unshed tears. He followed you back to your bed, holding you while you cried and explained that even though you had thought he never wanted to get married, he had just never wanted to marry you.

"What's wrong with me?" You wailed.

"Nothing." Beck brushed his fingers through your hair.

"I'm difficult. I'm too structured and hard to deal with."

"But in a good way."

You laughed, despite yourself, and nuzzled closer to him. "Can you hold me for a little, please?"

He did - and when one thing led to another you both should have put a stop to it. You were vulnerable and so was he, in his own way. In the morning you could barely look at each other, and he dressed quickly and left.

Even though you agreed that it had been a mistake, a tiny bubble of resentment began to grow and grow inside you, filling up your veins and stretching from your fingers to your toes. When he finally confronted you and was met with your fury, he replied with indignation.

"You were laying there looking at me - don't go, hold me - what was I supposed to do?"

"Are you saying you took pity on me? Fuck you!"

The sound of your hand slapping his face echoed throughout the room.

*

You hadn't spoken in weeks.

You screened your calls relentlessly.

"The fact that you're not answering leads me to believe you're either (a) not at home, (b) home but don't want to talk to me, or (c) home, desperately want to talk to me, but trapped under something heavy. If it's either (a) or (c), please call me back."

*

One day, there was something about his tone of voice that made you answer the call.

"Hey, hi!" He sounded like an excited puppy.

You answered him flatly. "What do you want?"

"Um...are you going to the NASA mixer next week? Because I am, and if you are...we always said we could go together to those things so we wouldn't be alone..."

"I can't do this anymore, Beck," you cut him off. "I am not your consolation prize."

You hung up the phone without another word.

*

Standing in the corner by yourself at the NASA mixer, you finished your second glass of champagne and sighed. One more round through this room and then it's home with a bottle of wine, comfort television and your own self-loathing.

You stopped short in your tracks on your way to the door as Beck appeared, leaning in the doorway out of breath, as if he had run here. He spotted you, and rushed over, and you couldn't make your feet move. You were frozen in place as he approached.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking, and the thing is, I love you."

You blinked.

"What?"

"I love you."

"How do you expect me to respond to this?"

"How about, you love me too."

"How about, I'm leaving."

He grabbed your arm and you were too shocked to try and shake him off. "Listen to me! I'm sorry about what happened. I'm so sorry. I didn't realize how much I wanted you and then I was scared to lose you, and then I was an asshole and I lost you anyway. I can't be without you anymore, you have to believe me!" Your eyes filled with tears as he spoke, and you watched him - he was full of that light, the light that had been missing, and you knew he was telling you the truth. "I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

You shrugged away from his hold, only to pull him close with both arms and kiss him, somewhat indecently, in front of all your colleagues at the NASA mixer.

*

Beck: The first time we met, we hated each other.

You: No, you didn't hate me, I hated you. The second time we met, you didn't even remember me.

Beck: I did too, I remembered you. The third time we met, we became friends.

You: We were friends for a long time.

Beck: And then we weren't.

You: And then we fell in love.

[birdlord]

Everything I Watched in 2020

We’ll start with movies. The number in parentheses is the year of release, asterisks denote a re-watch, and titles in bold are my favourite watches of the year. Here’s 2019’s list. 

01 Little Women (19)

02 The Post (17) 

03 Molly’s Game (17)

04 * Doctor No (62)

05 Groundhog Day (93)

06 *Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home (86)

07 Knives Out (19) My last theatre experience (sob)

08 Professor Marston and his Wonder Women (17)

09 Les Miserables (98)

10 Midsommar (19) I’m not sure how *good* it is, but it does stick in the ol’ brain

11 *Manhattan Murder Mystery (93)

12 Marriage Story (19)

13 Kramer vs Kramer (79)

14 Jojo Rabbit (19)

15 J’ai perdu mon corps (19) a cute animated film about a hand detached from its body!

16 1917 (19)

17 Married to the Mob (88)

18 Klaus (19)

19 Portrait of a Lady on Fire (19) If Little Women made me want to wear a scarf criss-crossed around my torso, this one made me want to wear a cloak

20 The Last Black Man in San Francisco (19)

21 *Lawrence of Arabia (62)

22 Gone With the Wind (39)

23 Kiss Me Deadly (55)

24 Dredd (12)

25 Heartburn (86) heard a bunch about this one in the Blank Check series on Nora Ephron, sadly after I’d watched it

26 The Long Shot (19)

27 Out of Africa (85)

28 King Kong (46)

29 *Johnny Mnemonic (95)

30 Knocked Up (07)

31 Collateral (04)

32 Bird on a Wire (90)

33 The Black Dahlia (05)

34 Long Time Running (17)

35 *Magic Mike (12)

36 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (07)

37 Cold War (18)

38 *Kramer Vs Kramer (79) yes I watched this a few months before! This was a pandemic friend group co-watch.

39 *Burn After Reading (08)

40 Last Holiday (50)

41 Fly Away Home (96)

42 *Moneyball (11) I’m sure I watch this every two years, at most??

43 Last Holiday (06) the Queen Latifah version of the 1950 movie above, lacking, of course, the brutal “poor people don’t deserve anything good” ending

44 *Safe (95)

45 Gimme Shelter (70)

46 The Daytrippers (96)

47 Experiment in Terror (62)

48 Tucker: The Man and His Dream (88)

49 My Brilliant Career (79) one of the salvations of 2020 was watching movies “with” friends. Our usual method was to video chat before the movie, sync our streaming services, and text-chat while the movie was on. 

50 Divorce Italian Style (61)

51 *Gosford Park (01) another classic comfort watch, fuck I love a G. Park

52 Hopscotch (80)

53 Brief Encounter (45)

54 Hud (63)

55 Ocean’s 8 (18)

56 *Beverly Hills Cop (84)

57 Blow the Man Down (19)

58 Constantine (05)

59 The Report (19) maddening!! How are people so consistently terrible to one another!

60 Everyday People (04)

61 Anatomy of a Murder (58)

62 Spiderman: Homecoming (17)

63 *To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (95) Of the 90s drag road movies, Priscilla is more visually striking, but this has its moments.

64 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (92)

65 *The Truman Show (98)

66 Mona Lisa (86)

67 The Blob (58)

68 The Guard (11)

69 *Waiting for Guffman (96) RIP Fred Willard

70 Rocketman (19)

71 Outside In (18)

72 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (08) how strange to see a movie that you have known the premise for, but no details of, for over a decade

73 *Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country (91)

74 The Reader (08)

75 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (19) This was fine until it VERY MUCH WAS NOT FINE

76 The End of the Affair (99) you try to watch a fun little romp about infidelity during the Blitz, and Graham Greene can’t help but shoehorn in a friggin crisis of religious faith

77 Must Love Dogs (05) barely any dog content, where are the dogs at

78 The Rainmaker (97)

79 *Batman & Robin (97)

80 National Lampoon’s Vacation (83) Never seen any of the non-xmas Vacations, didn’t realize the children are totally different, not just actors but ages! Also, this one is blatantly racist!

81 *Mystic Pizza (88)

82 Funny Girl (68)

83 The Sons of Katie Elder (65)

84 *Knives Out (19) another re-watch within the same year!! How does this keep happening??

85 *Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (10) a real I-just-moved-away-from-Toronto nostalgia watch

86 Canadian Bacon (92) vividly recall this VHS at the video store, but I never saw it til 2020

87 *Blood Simple (85)

88 Brittany Runs a Marathon (19)

89 The Accidental Tourist (88)

90 August Osage County (13) MELO-DRAMA!!

91 Appaloosa (08)

92 The Firm (93) Feeling good about how many iconic 80s/90s video store stalwarts I watched in 2020

93 *Almost Famous (00)

94 Whisper of the Heart (95)

95 Da 5 Bloods (20)

96 Rain Man (88)

97 True Stories (86)

98 *Risky Business (83) It’s not about what you think it’s about! It never was!

99 *The Big Chill (83)

100 The Way We Were (73)

101 Safety Last (23) It’s getting so that I might have to add the first two digits to my dates...not that I watch THAT many movies from the 1920s...

102 Phantasm (79)

103 The Burrowers (08)

104 New Jack City (91)

105 The Vanishing (88)

106 Sisters (72)

107 Puberty Blues (81) Little Aussie cinema theme, here

108 Elevator to the Gallows (58)

109 Les Diaboliques (55)

110 House (77) haha WHAT no really W H A T

111 Death Line (72)

112 Cranes are Flying (57)

113 Holes (03)

114 *Lady Vengeance (05)

115 Long Weekend (78)

116 Body Double (84)

117 The Crazies (73) I love that Romero shows the utter confusion that would no doubt reign in the case of any kind of disaster. Things fall apart.

118 Waterlilies (07)

119 *You’re Next (11)

120 Event Horizon (97)

121 Venom (18) I liked it, guys, way more than most superhero fare. Has a real sense of place and the place ISN’T New York!

122 Under the Silver Lake (18) RIP Night Call

123 *Blade Runner (82)

124 *The Birds (62) interesting to see now that I’ve read the story it came from

125 *28 Days Later (02) hits REAL FUCKIN’ DIFFERENT in a pandemic

126 Life is Sweet (90)

127 *So I Married an Axe Murderer (93) find me a more 90s movie, I dare you (it’s not possible)

128 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (67)

129 The Pelican Brief (93) 90s thrillers continue!

130 Dick Johnston is Dead (20)

131 The Bridges of Madison County (95)

132 Earth Girls are Easy (88) Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum are so hot in this movie, no wonder they got married 

133 Better Watch Out (16)

134 Drowning Mona (00) trying for something like the Coen bros and not getting there

135 Au Revoir Les Enfants (87)

136 *Chasing Amy (97) Affleck is the least alluring movie lead...ever? I also think I gave Joey Lauren Adams’ character short shrift in my memory of the movie. It’s not good, but she’s more complicated than I recalled. 

137 Blackkklansman (18)

138 Being Frank (19)

139 Kiki’s Delivery Service (89)

140 Uncle Frank (20) why so many FRANKS

141 *National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (89) watching with pals (virtually) made it so much more fun than the usual yearly watch!

142 Half Baked (98) another, more secret Toronto nostalgia pic - RC Harris water filtration plant as a prison!

143 We’re the Millers (13)

144 All is Bright (13)

145 Defending Your Life (91)

146 Christmas Chronicles (18) I maintain that most new xmas movies are terrible, particularly now that Netflix churns them out like eggnog every year. 

147 Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse (18)

148 Reindeer Games (00) what did I say about Affleck??!? WHAT DID I SAY

149 Palm Springs (20)

150 Happiest Season (20)

151 *Metropolitan (90) it’s definitely a Christmas movie

152 Black Christmas (74)

THEATRE:HOME - 2:150 (thanks pandemic)

I usually separate out docs and fiction, but I watched almost no documentaries this year (with the exception of Dick Johnston). Reality is real enough. 

TV Series

01 - BoJack Horseman (final season) - Pretty damned poignant finish to the show, replete with actual consequences for our reformed bad boy protagonist (which is more than you can say for most antiheroes of Peak TV).

02 - *Hello Ladies - I enjoy the pure awkwardness of seeing Stephen Merchant try to perform being a Regular Person, but ultimately this show tips him too far towards a nasty, Ricky Gervais-lite sort of persona. Perhaps he was always best as a cameo appearance, or lip synching with wild eyes while Chrissy Teigen giggles?

03 - Olive Kittredge - a rough watch by times. I read the book as well, later in the year. Frances Mcdormand was the best, possibly the only, casting option for the flinty lead. One episode tips into thriller territory, which is a shock. 

04 - *The Wire S3, S4, S5 - lockdown culture! It was interesting to rewatch this, then a few months later go through an enormous, culture-level reappraisal of cop-centred narratives. 

05 - Forever - a Maya Rudolph/Fred Armisen joint that coasts on the charm of its leads. The premise is OK, but I wasn’t left wanting any more at the end. 

06 - *Catastrophe - a rewatch when my partner decided he wanted to see it, too!

07 - Red Oak - resolutely “OK” steaming dramedy, relied heavily on some pretty obvious cues to get across its 1980s setting. 

08 - Little Fires Everywhere - gulped this one down while in 14-day isolation, delicious! Every 90s suburban mom had that SUV, but not all of them had the requisite **secrets**

09 - The Great - fun historical comedy/drama! Costumes: lush. Actors: amusing. Race-blind casting: refreshing!

10 - The Crown S4 - this is the season everyone lost their everloving shit for, since it’s finally recent enough history that a fair chunk of the viewing audience is liable to recall it happening. 

11 - Ted Lasso - we resisted this one for a while (thought I did enjoy the ad campaign for NBC sports (!!) that it was based on). My view is that its best point was the comfort that the men on the show have (or develop, throughout the season) with the acknowledgement and sharing of their own feelings. Masculinity redux. 

12 - Moonbase 8 - Goodnatured in a way that makes you certain they will be crushed. 

13 - The Good Lord Bird - Ethan Hawke is really aging into the character actor we always hoped he would be! 

14 - Hollywood - frothy wish-fulfillment alternate history. I think the show would have been improved immeasurably by skipping the final episode.

[oscopelabs]

Unbroken Windows: How New York Gentrified Itself On Screen by Jason Bailey

It was 1972, and Lewis Rudin had a problem—specifically, a Johnny Carson problem. Rudin, a real estate developer and committed New Yorker, had founded the Association for a Better New York (ABNY), an organization dedicated to cleaning up the city’s image (and thus, its attractiveness to corporate clients) via aggressive campaigning and spit-shine marketing; the organization was, for example, instrumental in the development of the iconic I ❤ NY campaign.

But all the good work ABNY was doing, Rudin fumed to the organization’s executive director Mary Holloway, felt like pushing Sisyphus’ boulder when he switched on NBC late at night: “How can we change the image of New York when Johnny Carson's opening monologue every night is about people getting mugged in Central Park?”

As reported by Miriam Greenberg in her book Branding New York: How a City in Crisis Was Sold to the World, Rudin went to the trouble of meeting with network heads, imploring them to pressure personalities like Carson to lighten up on the “New York City is a crime-ridden cesspool” jokes. In 1973, Mayor John Lindsay himself called network executives and even some comedians to a City Hall meeting where he made a similar plea. This was in stark contrast to the usual modus operandi of the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting, which prided itself on avoiding censorship or editorial interference in the making of motion pictures in the city—indeed, several of the grimmest, grimiest portraits of life in New York (Death Wish, Panic in Needle Park, Little Murders, The French Connection) were borne of this period. But people had to go out to see those. Johnny Carson came into their living room every night to tell them what a shithole New York was.

Rudin and Lindsay’s efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. Johnny Carson continued to roast the city—especially after escaping it when The Tonight Show relocated to Burbank, California in 1972—and prime-time comedies like All in the Family, Taxi, and Welcome Back, Kotter mined similar veins of urban unrest. Meanwhile, gritty crime series from Kojak to Cagney & Lacey to The Equalizer presented a similar picture of the city—dirty, grimy, and dangerous—to that of films like Taxi Driver, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Warriors, and Fort Apache, The Bronx.

But in the 1990s, that all changed. And there’s a compelling case to be made that the change began with Jerry Seinfeld.

*

If we talk about Jerry Seinfeld, of course, we have to talk about Woody Allen, and not just their obvious similarities (roots in stand-up comedy, neurotic Jewish New Yorker persona, tabloid mainstay). In the 1970s and 1980s, while most New York movies were dwelling in the horrors and shortcomings of the city, Allen insulated himself in his upper-class Upper East Side neighborhood and made movies about people who were mostly untouched by crime, homelessness, and graffiti. In films like Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Crimes and Misdemeanors, Allen’s characters sip wine and trade hard truths and pointed witticisms at the city’s finest restaurants, parties, and apartments as the city burns around them; in Manhattan (which, by its own opening monologue admission, romances the city “all out of proportion”) he even edited out a joke about muggings from a Central Park carriage ride sequence, so as not to spoil the delicate mood. Allen’s New York was “not another world,” Martin Scorsese once said. “It’s another planet.”

That vision of New York—upper-crust, erudite, sophisticated—wasn’t entirely absent from the big and small screen in the ‘70s and ‘80s, thanks to films like An Unmarried Woman and Kramer Vs. Kramer, and such TV shows as Diff’rent Strokes and The Cosby Show. But Allen’s films, and even more so Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron’s Allen-esque When Harry Met Sally (a far bigger commercial success than any of Woody’s work), created a vision of comfortable, upscale, wise-cracking New York living that would reach a mass audience via Seinfeld, which debuted in 1989.

The first two brief seasons of Seinfeld (or, as it was originally titled, The Seinfeld Chronicles) struggled in the ratings, but it slowly built an audience and climbed in the Nielsens, and by season five (1993-1994) it was one of the top five shows on the air, anchoring NBC’s “Must See TV” line-up of Thursday night sitcoms. In September 1994, it was joined on Thursdays by another comedy, in which urbane New York pals joked, dated, and shared the horrors of city living. Friends, however, was a rating smash right away, and not only because of its killer schedule placement. It sanded away the rougher edges of Seinfeld; its characters were more likable (or, at least, intended to be), and its humor was less spiky. It ran even longer than Seinfeld, ten seasons, every one of them in the top ten, all but one in the top five.

*

Even as these New York comedies—and others that followed, like Mad About You, Caroline in the City, and The Single Guy—were topping the ratings, the face of the city was changing. “Don’t forget to in the late ’80s, you came off of a couple of financial crises, some bad times,” explains agent Chris Fry, of Elegran Real Estate. ”It was a little bit more affordable, things were dropping. And I think the shows that you’re talking about definitely had a positive effect on what people perceived New York City to be.”

Crime was on the decline across the country, but especially in New York City, a drop that began under Mayor David Dinkins and continued under Rudy Giuliani. The latter, in coordination with NYPD commissioner William Bratton, instituted an aggressive policy of enforcing so-called “quality of life” crimes like graffiti, turnstile-jumping, and panhandling; this philosophy, modeled on James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling’s controversial “broken windows” theory, held that if these comparatively minor yet highly visible crimes were eradicated, the city would look clean and controlled, and thus psychologically discourage a lawlessness that would result in fewer serious offenses like murder, rape, and theft.

This vision of the city was certainly reflected in NBC’s Thursday night lineup. The early ‘90s comedies found fodder in the minor inconveniences of city life, but rarely trod into the seediness and crime that defined such earlier sitcoms as Night Court and Barney Miller. Paul and Jamie Buchman’s apartment wasn’t burglarized; none of the Friends were mugged in Central Park. When a blackout hit New York City in the summer of 1977, there were over one thousand fires, over 1500 damaged and/or looted stores, and nearly four thousand arrests. When a blackout hit NBC’s Thursday night New York City in the fall of 1994, Chandler Bing got trapped in an ATM vestibule with a supermodel.

If these sitcoms were the television reflection of the “broken windows” theory, their creators had a much easier time cleaning up New York City—in part because they weren’t shooting in it. Much like the films set in New York City before Mayor Lindsay established the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting, all of these series were shot on soundstages and backlots in California, with the exception of the occasional second-unit exterior establishing shot. So they took place in New York City, but the version of New York City they presented was highly fictionalized. Just as Paul and Jamie, Jerry and the gang, and the Central Perk crew were funnier and sharper than real New Yorkers (and lived in apartments far beyond their means), the New York they lived in was squeakier and clearer.

“I love Friends,” says Sire Leo Lamar-Becker, who was inspired by the shows of the ‘90s to leave California and move to New York, where he currently works in the fashion industry. “But Friends was so sterile. It didn’t feel real. And what Sex and the City offered was, I felt, a more nuanced portrayal of the city.”

Like the New York movies from the late 1960s onward, Sex and the City had the advantage of authenticity: It was shot entirely in New York, the exteriors and the sets (constructed and filmed at Silvercup Studios) and everything in between. “If you’re familiar with this series, and the movies, the city is integral to it,” explains tour guide Lou Matthews. “They've called it, like the fifth girl is the city. It's really crucial.” As a guide for the “Sex and the City Hotspots Tour,” which On Location Tours has conducted since 2001, Matthews has seen, firsthand, the psychological effect of that particular show.

“I've definitely met girls in their twenties, or maybe they’re still in college, on the tour who are saying, ‘Yeah, I fell in love with Sex in the City and New York City because of Sex in the City. And like, I’m already trying to figure out how I can get a job here.’ And then I’ve definitely met a few where the reason they moved here was because of Sex in the City, like they wanted the life that Carrie has. And here they are.”

The life they found was, in most cases, not exactly what these shows promised. “As someone who has lived here for 10 years,” laughs Lamar-Becker, “sure, there are some things that are unrealistic—like, Carrie being able to afford all her shoes. That’s unrealistic. But the feeling of the city is always captured well.”

And that indefinable but unmistakable quality, that feeling of the city, is what’s shifted most over the past quarter-century or so – through Seinfeld and Friends and Sex and the City into 30 Rock and Gossip Girl and Girls, through When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail to The Devil Wears Prada, Trainwreck, and even The Avengers. Some of that shift in public perception is merely a reflection of reality, of filmmakers and show-runners pointing their cameras at the city and capturing the gentrified, yuppified, Disney-fied mutation it’s become.

But some of that is also life imitating art. Every day, Lou Matthews’s tour bus is filled with people like Sire Leo Lamar-Becker, members of a generation of viewers whose impressions of New York were formed not by Taxi Driver and Kojak, but by the Sex and the City films and Netflix binges of Friends. They watched those shows and memorized those movies, and then migrated to New York City like so many immigrants before them. Their predecessors flocked to Ellis Island, lured by promises of a new world. These settlers came to the Magnolia Bakery, seeking not so much a new world as a better one, full of enviable careers, witty friends, and all the cosmos they could drink.

Lewis Rudin would have been proud.

[filmadaydiary]

9/20/19

Julie & Julia – Nora Ephron, 2009

Fun fact about me – I have only ever seen two Nora Ephron movies, and they were both rom-coms (When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail). I have also never sought out a Nora Ephron movie specifically because she was the one who wrote it, despite meaning to on multiple occasions because I really enjoy her style. This was another case of me not knowing who had written the film before I started it and being pleasantly surprised once I hit play.

This is just a sweet movie. Julia Child is irresistible in any form, especially if she is being played by the Oscar queen herself, Meryl Streep. Her passion for life and for food really comes through, and I think this film did her justice. Amy Adams’ Julie was fine; she is of course a very talented actress, but I didn’t love the character. But I did really like the parallel structure of the film, going through the lives of Julie and Julia. It was enjoyable to watch two ambitious women achieve their dreams side by side. 

[hallmark-movie-fanatics]

The Secret Formula Behind Hallmark's Christmas Movie Empire

Hallmark's holiday lineup has gone from guilty pleasure to appointment television. How? Glamour's Jessica Radloff explores.

BY JESSICA RADLOFF NOVEMBER 30, 2018

Decorating for the holidays is serious business for many—but if you're CEO of Crown Media Networks (aka the Hallmark Channel) the bar is on a different level. "Oh, I'm a Christmas nut," William J. Abbott, Crown Media's CEO and president, tells Glamour.com. "We actually built [an addition] in our house so we could accommodate a 12-foot tree in the middle of our den, so, yeah, we just love the holidays." The same goes for Michelle Vicary, the network's executive VP of programming and publicity. "Christmas decorations go up the day after Halloween," she jokes. "I'm a little [like the] Griswolds."

Tinsel and trees aside, Abbott, Vicary, and the entire team at Crown Media actually live the business they're selling. And they're selling it well. Vicary says nearly 85 million people lay eyes on the network between Halloween and New Years. If that sounds more like a Christmas miracle than reality, you haven't been paying attention to the Hallmark Channel—or its sister property, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries—the last few years. When the network says it is "cable's biggest success story," it's true.

This year Hallmark is in the midst of airing 37 original holiday movies for its Countdown to Christmas programming (and planning the 2019 holiday slate). And watching these movies is no longer a guilty pleasure—it's appointment television. From unofficial drinking games to a user-friendly app, it's become cool to stay home and watch two people in sweaters fall in love in a town named like a Bath & Body Works lotion.

(PHOTO: HALLMARK 'Christmas at Pemberley Manor,' starring Jessica Lowndes and Michael Rady.)

Abbott says Netflix is partially to thank for changing viewer habits, particularly among millennials. "They have a formula that certainly has worked for them in terms of driving people toward watching on their smart TVs," he says. "Ultimately the more people that consume entertainment, the better off we all are."

But Netflix is only a small part of Hallmark's success. Vicary cites the constant, and often depressing, 24/7 news cycle as another factor. "I think people can only take so much," she says. "We purposely look to be an escape. We try not to be issues-oriented in terms of creating polarizing conversations, because there are places to get that. We are a place that is a haven from that. We're just a different conversation."

Abbott agrees. "I think it’s not only the political landscape, but the entertainment landscape to a degree too. There are just very few options that are not shocking, looking to shock, or looking to be over-the-top in terms of violence or salacious for salacious sake. I think people tire of that." Abbott admits that's not the only reason people tune into the channel, it is a big one—and something that Hallmark has included in its strategy. "It's tapping into emotion in a positive way and making you feel a little better about relationships and how people interact," he explains. "The Hallmark brand is all about people connecting. The secret, I think, to our success is that we focus on that relentlessly."

This secret to success doesn't come without detractors, though. Abbott and Vicary know there are plenty of people who think the content is cheesy, but to them, that doesn't have to be a negative. "I have to be honest, I don't always think predictable is a bad word," Vicary says. "I think of every Nora Ephron comedy I ever watched—the first time I saw Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan on screen, I knew they were going to end up together. But it was the journey! So I don’t mind when you tune in that you know our characters—who are on two separate journeys—are going to end up together by the end. It's about how they get there."

OK, so how did Hallmark get here? How did it go from a brand-new network in the early aughts to a holiday empire? For one, consistency. Hallmark premieres most of its original movies on Saturdays and Sundays, a time when other networks air sports or reruns. "It's the perfect time to unwind and get away from reality," Abbott says. "We appeal to people wanting that escape over the weekend."

Second, it's investment. "Our movies are so much better because our production value, our stars, our music, our scriptwriting, our development, and our production are so much better than they’ve ever been," Abbott says. "Success snowballs. The more you do right, the more people notice; the more people notice, the more you invest; the more you invest, the more you pay attention, and the better it gets."

(PHOTO: HALLMARK CHANNEL LeAnn Rimes in 'It's Christmas, Eve'.)

And finally, as Vicary points out, it's about creating an experience. "We’re an emotionally driven brand. We’re about enhancing relationships and enhancing life." She says in the last decade the network has tapped into viewers' love of celebration. "The Hallmark brand already lives in that space, so it really is about delivering on the experience of the brand."

And then there's the wish-fulfillment aspect, those picturesque, snow-capped towns and leads in color-coordinated holiday attire. "We’re not embarrassed to say, ‘Let’s make it sound even more holiday oriented,'" Vicary says with a laugh. "We are not shy about creating an environment that compliments and enhances that great story."

Still, that "environment" has come under more scrutiny in the past few years for being predominantly white, straight, and without much diversity. The network needs to do more to reflect America today—and Abbott says the Hallmark Channel team is aware and working on it. "Absolutely, no question about it," Abbott says. "We've worked really hard at it. It's the type of thing we should have been doing all along, but we're pleased at where we are."

Where they are is a more diverse slate of programming than years past. It's not perfect yet, but one example of progress is a recent full-page ad Crown Media took out in The Hollywood Reporter to showcase its holiday slate. Of the 14 actors in the ad, nine were women, seven were people of color, and five were women of color.

"Our goal is to do everything we can to represent the public faces on television and represent the United States as it really looks on our air," Vicary says. "I think we have some terrific casting this year with Tatyana Ali, Dondre T. Whitfield, Patti LaBelle, Christina Milian, Jerrika Hinton, Tia Mowry, and more. We have our most diverse slate ever."

In addition to what viewers see on air, Vicary notes that "more than 50 percent of the scripts that were written this year were written by women." She also said they're consciously trying to hire more female directors and behind-the-scenes crew. "I think in the last year we have added three more women to our roster of directors," Vicary says. "We are very conscious of it."

But Abbott or Vicary know that's not enough. The executives are discussing a possible Hanukkah movie to join their holiday lineup ("One of my development execs brought me one this week that they were really excited about," Vicary says. "I said, 'Great, let's meet and talk about it for 2019.'") According to Abbott, he's even open to a Hallmark movie where the main couple doesn't end up together. "As we delve into our content and [look for] a more authentic way, we’ll progress," he says. "Everything is on the table."

(PHOTO: HALLMARK Danielle Panabaker and Matt Long in Christmas Joy.)

That progress is important to Abbott and Vicary, who want Hallmark to stay current and evolving. "It's particularly important that we represent the reality of the 21st century in that everybody is different and unique," Abbott says. "It's a pet peeve of mine when I read a story and kids are portrayed a certain way. The reality is girls can play baseball or be into science or play with dolls."

Abbott even acknowledges that the network's older movies were guilty of playing into stereotypes."You look back at some of old, old movies, and it's kind of the stereotypical situation of the woman at home," he says. "We work very hard to stay out of that stereotypical dialogue and situational behavior because it’s just not reality, and it’s not authentic. We really try to empower women. We really work hard to ensure that our women are strong—while they don’t need a man, they’d love to fall in love. But at the end of the day, that is not what they need to be successful or happy or fulfilled or have a good career. That is something that is very important to all of us to portray."

That awareness is one of the reasons Abbott credits the Hallmark Channel's growth in markets like Chicago, New York, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, and D.C. "I think there’s this feeling that we’re 'flyover country' and that it’s all red-state people," he says. "That’s just completely not true. Everybody likes to feel good. I don’t care what political party you’re part of or where you live, people like to feel positive." Yes, Hallmark's content isn't edgy—"and never will be"—but it's certainly smarter than it's ever been, he says. "And that wins."

It's been a stressful year, but at least you can count on Hallmark, Lifetime, and Netflix to come through with the holiday cheer. After all, what's more relaxing than watching an overworked woman fall in love with a Christmas tree farmer? So decompress with all of our delightful holiday content right here.

Source: glamour.com

https://www.glamour.com/story/hallmark-christmas-movie-secret-formula

[gdelgiproducer]

DOTV AU: An Exercise in Alternate History (Part VII)

Parts I, II, III, IV, V, and VI offer more detailed context. (To briefly sum up why these posts are happening: alt history – as in sci fi, not “alternative facts” – buff, one day got the idea that DOTV could have turned out hella different if Jim Steinman looked for a star lead in other places, decided to reason out how that might work.) This is still getting a good response, so I’m gonna keep the train rolling.

Parts of the AU timeline established so far:

Instead of stopping at recording two songs from Whistle Down the Wind on a greatest hits compilation, Meat Loaf wound up taking more of an interest in Steinman’s new theater work than he did in our timeline, and through a series of circumstances found himself volunteering to play Krolock in the impending DOTV when Jim poured out his woes to him about needing to find some sort of star to attract investors. At a loss for any better ideas, Jim accepted Meat’s impulsive proposal, but not without resistance from his manager, David Sonenberg, who proposed Michael Crawford as an alternate candidate. Through quick thinking on Meat’s part, and inspiration on Jim’s, Crawford left the room accepting an entirely different role than he walked in hoping to get, leaving Krolock still open for Meat.

There was a brief speed bump, when Meat disliked Jim’s English script for the show, but after meeting with the original German author Michael Kunze and convincing Jim to compromise, things were on the road to being back on track… at least until 9/11 occurred.

Following a brief hiatus, everyone involved met to re-assess their options. The current game-plan was to put the new script on paper, schmooze with potential investors or producers, and put together a new creative team. Preferably not all at the same time, but with the crunch on, they’d do whatever needed to be done.

So far, the schmoozing has gone well, but everybody that Meat, Jim, and the crew would like to be involved is tentative. The newest conclusion is that they need to show them there’s a working show, and a concert of selections from the score seems to be the route they’re taking, possibly financed by an unlikely source.

Continuing the alternate DOTV timeline, a little differently this time! This time we get a feature on the concert from the New York Post’s own Michael Riedel. Take it away!

VAMPIRES: NEW MUSICAL BLOOD by Michael Riedel

If you’ve heard the buzz on the Rialto of late, you’d be forgiven for wondering if you were having a particularly nasty acid flashback. Dance of the Vampires, a new $15 million musical of the macabre based on the 1967 Roman Polanski movie The Fearless Vampire Killers, is already a monster hit in Austria and Germany, and it’s starting to gather steam here in the States as well, with some... we’ll call it unlikely... star power attached. After all, what other musical (even in a preliminary concert presentation) can boast Courtney Love as an emcee slash investor, and such disparate names as Meat Loaf and Michael Crawford as co-headliners?

Admittedly, Meat Loaf’s presence is slightly less surprising, as the driving force behind the show is Jim Steinman, who wrote Mr. Loaf’s classic Bat Out of Hell albums as well as the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Whistle Down the Wind.  He has written the score and is co-adapting the book for Vampires with playwright David Ives (All in the Timing), who is also currently at work with Steinman for Warner Bros. on a musical version of Batman, from German dramatist Michael Kunze’s original script. He also co-directed this concert with Starmites composer Barry Keating, though early reports that Steinman would be co-directing the eventual Broadway run with Jane Eyre creator John Caird have ultimately been dismissed.

“Roman directed it in Vienna, but he can’t work here because of his legal problems,” Steinman said, referring to Polanski’s indictment for statutory rape in the 1970′s. “He may be the first director who can’t work over here because of a statutory rape charge.” When queried about who then would be directing the New York run, Steinman was tight-lipped, but among those in attendance at the evening’s proceedings was Urinetown’s Tony-winning helmer, John Rando, who is now rumored to be in talks for the slot. Said Rando of the new show, “It takes the vampire myth and pokes fun at it, but it also embraces it. Its message is about the excesses of appetite. It has wit and an edge to it. I’d love to be involved!”

The presentation (at the 499-seat Little Shubert Theatre, about half a mile west of Broadway; events like this cause us rightfully to wonder why it doesn’t see more use) for a by-invitation-only crowd was kicked off by Ms. Love, Hole rocker and widow of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, in memorable form. Says a source in attendance, “You could sum it up in two words: too drunk. She was literally falling over. She wasn’t coherent at all.” Managing to gather herself enough to announce that Dance of the Vampires is a musical for people “who think musicals suck,” she didn’t manage to say much else of importance. “It just became a little too sloppy, and she was removed.” Insiders report that Steinman’s manager, David Sonenberg, who is also one of the show’s producers (and a first-timer at that), worried that those involved would be seen as taking advantage of a troubled addict. Ms. Love’s performance did little to dispel this perception. Lucky that representatives from noted L.A.-based promoter Concerts West, major music manager Irving Azoff (who numbers The Eagles, REO Speedwagon, Journey, Christina Aguilera, and Sammy Hagar among his clients), film and music mogul Jerry Weintraub, and Broadway’s own Barry and Fran Weissler were in attendance; a cash infusion from such sources may well be needed to save face if she can’t “live through this,” to twist a phrase from her 1994 album of the same name.

In addition to Sonenberg, already attached to Vampires on the producing side are Andrew Braunsberg (another first-timer, who also produced Polanski’s 1971 film version of Macbeth), Leonard Soloway, Bob Boyett (Sweet Smell of Success, Topdog/Underdog), Lawrence Horowitz (Electra, It Ain’t Nothing But the Blues), and Barry Diller and Bill Haber’s USA Ostar Theatricals. Boyett, a TV producer turned legit entrepreneur, used the phrases “trial by fire” and “going to war,” perhaps because while some novice producers just put up the money, get the credit and run, Boyett says he’s been taking the process very seriously: “I went to all the meetings and learned, like it was grad school.” While some Hollywood types find Broadway “less cutthroat,” Boyett finds it “more restrictive.” He mentions the sheer physical space of the theaters but also all the rules and regulations: "I’ve dealt with unions all my life, but I do find Actors’ Equity is very restrictive to the creative process.” Further, he regrets that Vampires will not have an out-of-town tryout. “I loved the experience of taking Sweet Smell of Success to Chicago,” he says with real enthusiasm, as if the project ended happily. “It was helpful to have the critics say what they did.” Not that Boyett thinks the right message from the critics got to the creative team. 

As for Boyett’s teammates, Bill Haber attended on behalf of USA Ostar, and although he wouldn’t consent to a formal interview, he couldn’t resist answering one question -- and it has nothing to do with Dance of the Vampires. Why is Haber’s other fall production, Imaginary Friends by Nora Ephron, being called a play if it has six songs by Marvin Hamlisch and Craig Carnelia? “It has nothing to do with how many songs there are,” he shot back. “It has to do with the fact that if you took all the songs out, it still works and you still have a play.”

And all this before we even get to the show itself. Vampires is your typical erotic musical about an innocent girl (played this evening by impressive newcomer Mandy Gonzalez, currently standing by for the role of Amneris in Aida and late of Off-Broadway’s Eli’s Comin’) choosing between two lovers, in this case an older, aristocratic vampire (Loaf, whose appearance here marks the first time he has worked with Steinman in theater since the early Seventies) and a hunky young grad student (Max von Essen, who reportedly also appeared in the Steinman/Caird-helmed reading in April 2001) under the tutelage of a rather intensely wacky vampire hunter (Crawford). Given the level of Loaf’s obvious commitment to the piece, it is surprising that his manager (Allen Kovac, of Left Bank Management) was a no-show, and in that light, rumors that Loaf has yet to formally sign on the dotted line for Vampires (in spite of previous announcements to the contrary, no less) prove even more curious. Calls to Kovac’s office were not returned. The rest of the cast, boasting some fine voices indeed, was filled out by assorted Broadway names and members of Meat Loaf’s long-time touring band, The Neverland Express, which also provided accompaniment for the evening under the crisp musical direction of veteran rock bassist Kasim Sulton (best known for his work with Todd Rundgren and Utopia, among others).

Speaking of the music: the score, as per Steinman’s usual style, is appropriately big and Wagnerian, with plenty of luscious, operatic melodies, including one familiar favorite that sticks out like a sore thumb: Steinman’s famous “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” under whose operatic pretensions I swooned as a teenager. “I couldn’t resist using it,” he says of a song that goes, ‘Once upon time there was light in my life / But now there’s only love in the dark.’ “I actually wrote it for another vampire musical that was based on Nosferatu, but never got produced.” Close listening to the CD sampler for interested investors also reveals a rehash of the vigorous “Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young,” his song for the film Streets of Fire, which I saw in Los Angeles in 1984 and sent me racing along Mulholland Drive to keep up with the propulsive beat.

As for the new stuff, maybe 50′s rock ‘n’ roll with a 70′s preen isn’t what the 80-year-olds who constitute Broadway’s audience want to hear (and Jim’s rock-mock-Wagnerian shtick admittedly tends to play better in London and Las Vegas than in Manhattan), but my sources say they knew from the first number --  an angelic trio with a beguiling (what did they used to call it?) melody and some expert (the Andrews Sisters used to do it) harmony -- that this would be my kind of score. Frankly I’m glad; since the prehistoric vinyl days, Steinman has been the guy I keep calling for to rejuvenate, or just plain juvenate, the Broadway musical, in a world where the musical theater establishment pronounces old ABBA records a hip pop sound.

The book, while reportedly in better shape than the April reading, is something else again. From the excerpts on display last night, the mix of bawdy humor and eroticism still needs fine-tuning. Says Sonenberg, “By the time we open, it will be a new version of the show, significantly changed with a view toward a New York audience, but right now it plays very much like the original in several respects.” Adds David Ives, “The German production is probably more faithful to the film, but it’s a fairly humorless show, with people getting hit on the head with salami. And I’ve been brought in to take out the salami and put in the chorus girls, without veering into camp in the process. Now it’s just a question of finding the balance, which, needless to say, isn’t easy. But I like what we’ve accomplished so far: Meat’s character is vastly different, a much more multifaceted, dynamic, complete figure. We’ve also made other changes and cuts and restructured the show into a book musical, with dialogue; the original is all sung. I think we’ve made it a much more interesting story.”

Time, as always, will be the ultimate arbiter of fate.

[heavymachineindustry92]

A Conversation With Chuck Palahniuk, the Author of Fight Club and the Man Behind Tyler Durden

It’s been more than 20 years since Chuck Palahniuk first unleashed Fight Club on the world and simultaneously inspired legions of impressionable young men and appalled their parents. But the themes Palahniuk explored in that book — the emasculation of late-capitalism and the creeping sense of worthlessness and dread that accompanies it — seems more relevant now than it did even back then. Modern men find themselves in a precarious position, where masculinity itself is being (justifiably) re-evaluated, and in some cases, derided as the source of all society’s ills. And many of them are facing the troubling realization that they will never be as successful as their parents.In response, a substantial number of them have dug in to oppose that evolution — men who seem to worship at the altar of tyler durden, the Fight Club character who was a paragon of unfettered, unapologetic machismo. If Durden were alive today, he wouldn’t inspire Project Mayhem — he’d be wearing a MAGA hat, leading a group of disaffected young men through the streets with pitchforks and staging #GamerGate-esque online harassment campaigns. And so, Fight Club seems to be a rallying cry for their anger.MEL recently spoke with Palahniuk about the book’s influence on the toxic ideologies that have taken hold in our culture today; why he thinks another kind of toxic ideology — toxic masculinity — doesn’t exist; the meaning of Harvey Weinstein, Joseph Campbell and John Lennon’s assassination; and how he coined the derogatory term “snowflake.”A lot of the things you wrote about in Fight Club and revisit in Fight Club 2 seem even more pertinent today than when you originally wrote them more than 20 years ago. Specifically, the disillusionment of men who haven’t radicalized but have adopted radical ideologies and the infantilization of the modern workplace. You were able to see the seeds of what has now grown into these very toxic elements in our culture.In Slaughterhouse-Five, there’s a comment about how many people are being born every day. Someone else responds by saying, “And I suppose they’re all going to want dignity and respect.” This dovetails into a grueling dread that I felt as a younger person — that status and recognition would always be beyond my reach. I think subsequent generations, larger generations, are coming up against that same realization: That despite their expectations, they might never receive any kind of status. And they’re willing to do whatever it takes at this point to make their mark in the world.It seems like a lot of these movements, though, have seized on the ideas expressed in Fight Club. They’ve co-opted these things that you wrote about and made it a part of their own ideologies. Do you feel any regrets or resentment about this? Or better put, how does it make you feel when you see men’s rights activists on Reddit quoting your work to rationalize the terrible shit they say online?I feel a little frustrated that our culture hasn’t given these men a wider selection of narratives to choose from. Really, the only narratives they go to are The Matrix and Fight Club.Yes, they get red pilled and then they look at tyler durden as the platonic ideal. Exactly. Almost all the narratives being sold in our culture take place in this established, very static sense of reality. We have very few narratives that question reality and give people a way to step outside of it and establish something new. So far, the only two things are The Matrix and Fight Club. I feel bad that people have such slim pickings to choose from.But it almost sounds like you have a certain level of sympathy for these guys as well.I have sympathy in that I was young a long time ago. And I know the terror of worrying that my life wasn’t going to amount to anything — that I wouldn’t be able to establish a home or create a career for myself. I can totally empathize with that panicked place young people are in.What are your politics?My politics are about empowering the individual and allowing the individual to make what they see as the best choice. That’s all Fight Club was about. It was a lot of psychodrama and gestalt exercises that would empower each person. Then, ideally, each person would leave Fight Club and go on to live whatever their dream was — that they would have a sense of potential and ability they could carry into whatever it was they wanted to achieve in the world. It wasn’t about perpetuating Fight Club itself. Have people come to you and said, “Fight Club helped me realize my potential”?In a lot of different ways. Many people decided to, as a permission through nihilism, to go ahead and do the thing that they’ve dreamt of doing. And a lot of fathers and sons were able to connect to this story and express their frustration about what little parenting they themselves got from their fathers. A lot of people think of you as a nihilist. Do you bristle at that label?You know, I am kind of a nihilist, but I’m not a depressive nihilist. I’m a nihilist who says that if nothing inherently means anything, we have the choice to do whatever it is we dream of doing. You’ve been known to go after some of your critics throughout your career. Is that something you wish you hadn’t done in retrospect?I willingly did it twice. And they were both instances very early in my career. I’ve never done it otherwise, so I can forgive myself for maybe taking actions I shouldn’t have taken. But what the hell? I had to learn.This was before social media had taken off, too, and everyone was a critic. What is it like now when everyone can either directly give you praise or tell you what a terrible writer you are and how you should go die in a fire?You have to completely ignore it. Because if it’s all praise, it just gets you high and that’s not healthy. And if it’s all criticism, it just gets you depressed and that’s not healthy. So I ignore it as much as I possibly can. And the people who bring me the news, I know those people aren’t my friends. It’s like Nora Ephron, one of my favorite writers, once wrote: It takes two people to hurt you — one person to actually say or do the thing, and a second person to tell you that this thing has been done against you.Both Fight Club and Choke have been made into movies. Did you take any issue with the film versions?No. You know, there is no point. The book will always be there. The film needs to be its own thing; it’s a different medium. It needs to express itself through different aspects of this story. So you can’t expect the film to be completely the book.But with Fight Club specifically, there were so many people who got rich and famous and whose entire careers were changed by that movie. I mean, David Fincher became one of the biggest directors in Hollywood afterwards. Is there any type of resentment that people are dining out on this thing that you created and that maybe your role in it has been lost somewhat?Not in the slightest. Because when that movie came out, it was an enormous failure. It was a failure in a way that Blade Runner was initially a failure. It was out of release within maybe two weeks and considered a massive massive tank. Pretty much everyone associated with the movie lost their jobs. It took a year or two of putting together the meticulous DVD to dig that movie back into profitability. Earlier, you mentioned the terror you experienced as a young man about maybe never being successful. But now that you are successful — and I imagine successful beyond your wildest dreams — are you fulfilled? Or do you have the same sense of dread?I’m very fulfilled. Because I get to work with many gifted creative and passionate people. That’s great because we all want to live our lives in the company of other people who love what they’re doing. There’s no better life than that. On the other hand, I’ve started to teach because I do want to be back in touch with what it was like to be that kid who couldn’t write a great story. I want to be able to be with those people until they break through and can write something fantastic. I ask because in Fight Club 2, we find that the narrator has successfully put his tyler durden alter ego to the side. He got married and had a kid and is living the American dream in his house in suburbia. But he’s deeply unfulfilled. He worries his wife doesn’t love him, and he’s worried his kid doesn’t respect him. So tyler durden starts popping back up. To me, that seemed to express that there’s a certain hollowness or lack of fulfillment in achieving what you want.It’s funny, it isn’t the process of getting stuff, it’s the stuff itself that becomes the anchor. It’s buy the house, buy the car and then what? It’s that isolated stasis that’s the unfulfilling part you ultimately have to destroy. That’s the American pattern — you achieve a success that allows you isolation. Then you do something subconsciously to destroy the circumstance because you can come down into community after that. Maybe you’ve got this great career where you can do whatever you want, but on the side, you’re sexually harassing and assaulting women. You’re doing something that’s going to force you out of the isolation of success. It’s going to push you back into the community with other people. We like to move between isolation and community and back to isolation again. Are you referencing Harvey Weinstein specifically?Well, whether it’s Weinstein or successful people who abuse drugs or have affairs like Tiger Woods, people always create the circumstances along the way that will destroy the pedestal that they’ve found themselves on. Then they can come back to earth and just be a person among people. Lance Armstrong is another good example.So more of a self-destructive impulse. But is there any way to keep those two things in balance? Can those two things co-exist as a part of a man’s personality? Or are they irreconcilable?Can you build a house on a plot of land without tearing down the house that’s already there? I think it’s inaccurate to call it self-destructive. In a way, it’s a different form of self-improvement or a different form of creativity. That act of demolition in order to replace the thing with a more profound and better thing.In the book, you also seem to portray suburbia as an affront to masculinity and manhood itself. Do you personally feel that way? I know you’re an outdoorsman and live in a rural area. Is that something that you seek out to maintain your edge?That’s a tough one. Because I’m not so much talking about suburbia as I am talking about this self-isolation that goes back to the whole snowflake metaphor where we’re taught that we’re special and hyper-individualized by being told that we’re unique and innately a treasure. It’s that idea of ourselves as different that drives us apart from one another. It was only once I realized, No, actually, all of us have far more in common than we have differences, and I’m not a snowflake, that I recognized myself in other people. That’s when I started to write about myself as part of a larger pattern of a larger experience. “Snowflake” is an interesting word. It’s what tyler durden uses to tell men that they’re not unique or special. But now it’s been coopted by the alt-right as their favorite epithet of liberals and people who have no toughness. Which gets back to what we were talking about before…You know, you want people to adopt the thing. You want to put the book in the movie producer’s hand and have them adopt it like a baby, raise it and put a huge amount of energy into it. In doing so, the movie producer is going to change it so that it reflects the movie producer’s experience. And once that material passes on to an audience, the audience adopts it. It will become the child of the audience and will serve whatever purpose the audience has for it. It would be insane to think that the author could control every iteration or every interpretation of their work.So you just feel like an innocent bystander to how it’s being used? You don’t feel any type of feeling either way — good or bad?No, I do not. You know, it’s like J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye and the death of John Lennon. I don’t think Salinger felt huge remorse that he’d written a fantastic book, and this book was interpreted by a damaged person. Nor do I think it was Salinger’s fault.There’s one passage in Fight Club 2 that I found particularly interesting. You write, “Throughout childhood, people tell you to be less sensitive. Adulthood begins the moment someone tells you that you need to be more sensitive.” Is that something that you’ve specifically had to work on as you’ve grown older?Oh, hell yeah. It’s one of those little truisms. You have so many people telling you, “Don’t be so sensitive.” Then, suddenly one day, it turns around.You seem very soft and gentle over the phone, I’m surprised that the man who wrote Fight Club seems so tender in his voice. I’m a much older man now too. Fight Club was 20 years ago for me. It seems like you’re saying that you’ve released a lot of the rage you had as a young man.I was going through a huge disillusionment. I’d been a really good student. I kept my nose clean. I followed this blueprint society had presented to me that said that if I did all these things — get my degree, pay back my student loans and work very hard — eventually I’d achieve some sort of satisfying success. But it just wasn’t working. Around the age of 30, all of that good boy stuff starts to fall apart. You have to make a choice as to whether you’re going to continue along that road, or whether you’re going to veer off that road and find ways to succeed you weren’t taught. That’s where I was. I was really disillusioned that I’d been given the same roadmap everyone else was given, but that none of us were finding it effective. We hear the term “toxic masculinity” a lot these days. As someone who writes a lot about manhood, what does it mean to you?Oh boy, I’m not sure if I really believe in it.Why?It seems like a label put on a certain type of behavior from the outside. It’s just such a vague term that it’s hard to address.Let me take the opposite approach then: Who would be the male role model in today’s culture? Is there somebody who young men have to look up to as the ideal man and is someone who I should aspire to be like?Joseph Campbell said that beyond a person’s biological father, people needed a secondary father — especially men. Typically that was a teacher, coach, military officer or priest. But it would be someone who isn’t the biological father but would take the adolescent and coach him into manhood from that point. The problem is that so many of these secondary fathers are being brought down in recent history. Sports coaches have become stigmatized. Priests have become pariahs. For whatever reason, men are leaving teaching. And so, many of these secondary fathers are disappearing altogether. When that happens, what are we left with? Are these children or young men ever going to grow up?Is that what you fear — that we’re going to have a generation of young men who have never been fully socialized? Who have never been fully taught, not just how to be men, but how to be fully realized people?I’m not afraid that it won’t happen, because it’s gonna happen. One of the things that I loved about Campbell is that he explained gangs by saying this is what happens when there’s no secondary father. These gangs are taking young men and giving them impossible tasks, giving them praise and rewards and coaching them to an adulthood. But it’s a negative adulthood. And so, as these secondary fathers disappear for everyone, there will be similar forms that will appear and fulfill that function. But they will coach these young men to maybe more negative manhoods. Yet it also seems like there’s a lack of universally accepted male role models at the national level. There’s no Frank Sinatra or Hugh Hefner anymore — no one who, for better or worse, everyone looks up to. Do you think I’m wrong in that assessment?I think you’re wrong in that these were maybe not the healthiest male role models to model yourself after. I prefer to think of someone like John Glenn.Okay, I’ll buy that. Is there a modern-day John Glenn?Maybe not on the big, big level that everyone can emulate. But I think that on a more local level, there are teachers who mentor students. The man who taught me minimalist writing, Tom Spanbauer, was very much the master of this workshop of students. And among his apprentices — the people who could produce work that was marketable — bought their way out of his workshop. They achieved a mastery of their own. I’d like to see more of that happening. Instead of people just being given grades and being given loans to repay. I’d like to see them actually demonstrate a mastery in something useful in this kind of apprentice/mentor student role.You’ve experienced a lot of death in your life and even volunteered at a hospice for a time. Why were you drawn to something so morbid?It panicked me as a young person to first get a sense of my mortality — that at some point, I was going to be called upon to die. Because I had no idea what it was like to die. By working at a hospice, I was able to see what the process was like — that some people die beautifully and some people die horribly, but that if they could do it, I could do it, too. It gave me a greater sense of ease around the inevitability of dying. Later in life, your father was murdered by the ex-husband of his new girlfriend. When something that terrible and seemingly random happens, how do you try to make sense of it?By using my journalism degree. By going to the trials and talking about all the details. By understanding moment by moment everything that took place. And by establishing a sense of, not quite control, but a sense of having mastered the narrative of what led to what.On another strange and inevitable level, my father had almost been killed as a child. His father had become very upset and killed his mother and himself. But he also tried to kill my father. He just gave up searching for him before he committed suicide. When my father was finally killed by this woman’s ex-husband all these years later, a mattress fell on top of his body as the building he was in burned. The mattress is what preserved his body well enough that they could identify him as my father. Crazy enough, the reason my father survived as a child when his father went insane was that he had hidden underneath a mattress.There were so many coincidences like that. So in a way, my father’s death seemed like this perfect circle back to this past event actually coming to fruition. There were just too many odd coincidences to completely ignore them all.And yet, despite all these coincidences, you still identify as a nihilist? Something like that is uncanny. It almost seems otherworldly that there would be that many parallels.There’s a choice — you can either identify as a nihilist, or you can try to impose your own belief system on something you don’t understand. The latter option says more about controlling other people, and I prefer not to do that. I’d rather work from a position of nihilism, because I think that’s the best base for creativity and play.Still, you needed to process your father’s murder as a story and have some control of it in order to get past it.I treat storytelling as a digestive function. You ruminate like a chewing animal. And you chew a story over and over again until it has absolutely no emotional reaction, and you’ve resolved your emotional reaction to it. First by distancing it as a craft exercise — by turning it into a story — that’s one step. But the big step is to tell that story over and over again until you’ve completely assimilated the event into your identity, and you’ve exhausted your emotional reaction. You are no longer used by the story; you’re using the story at that point.You also supported your father’s killer being sentenced to death, a sentence that ended up getting commuted. I can’t imagine you arrived at that conclusion lightly. Some of the officials showed me documents from this man’s lifetime of incarceration. It was unethical, maybe even illegal, but there were a long string of things that he’d been convicted of doing since childhood. This man had created so much pain and had destroyed so many people’s lives that it just seemed like the cleanest way of resolving his life. What was the most important thing that your dad taught you?When I was little, we lived out in the country and had this chopping block where we killed chickens. My father had told me not to put metal washers over my fingers and get them stuck. But I did it anyway. The washer got stuck, and my finger turned black. I went to my father, and he said, “We’re going to have to cut this off.” It was completely clear to me that it was my fault, that there was a price to pay and that my father was doing me a favor by washing my finger and putting rubbing alcohol on the axe so it would be sterile.When we got to the chopping block, my father had me kneel down and put my finger on it. Then, he swung the axe and missed by an inch. Afterward, he took me inside and took the washer off with soap and water. But in that moment, I was very clear — and I’ve been very clear since — that if things are going to happen in my life, I’m gonna have to make them happen — and if they don’t happen, I’m going to have to take responsibility. That’s one parenting technique…He was like a 22-year-old guy. So I don’t want to be too hard on him.That’s very gracious of you. Nowadays, someone would call DCFS if something like that happened.Again, he was a 22-year-old guy whose father had killed himself and his mother in a murder suicide. He’d been beaten as a child and had grown up to the best of his abilities. He had no parenting skills. I think he did a marvelous job when you consider his circumstances.Aside from your father’s murder, the other big element of your personal life that’s become public is your sexuality. You didn’t, however, come out until 2003. And, in fact, even gave the impression that you were married to a woman. Why?Because of my partner. He doesn’t want to be a public person. And the next question they ask you after coming out is, “Who are you with?” So I chose not to go down that road. For the same reasons so many celebrities will refuse to talk about their children — they don’t want to make their children into public figures.If you were to start your career today, would you be more willing to come out? I imagine it would be much easier now socially speaking.I’d probably do it exactly the opposite way. I’d say no picture on the book. I’d use a pseudonym like the author of The Hunger Games. I’d refuse to do any kind of public relations. I’d keep myself entirely out of the process. Why?Because I’d like the work to stand on its own and to be judged on its own. I’ve become exhausted with the constant explanation of the work, which I don’t think is necessary. Too much of the presence of the author can get between the reader and the story. Afterwards, the reader will no longer see themselves in the story; they will see too much of the author.That’s interesting because there’s a certain kind of bro-y, straight white guy who really loves the Fight Club movie — and the book if they happen to read it. I imagine that they’re a little surprised when they find out the author is gay. Would you consider that accurate?They are, and they aren’t. I don’t think it’s a big deal. I also wrote Invisible Monsters, which gay guys love as well as straight women because it’s all about that panicky feeling that this beautiful thing isn’t going to be beautiful forever and that you’ve got to transition that beauty into a different, more lasting form of power. That’s something so many beautiful women face and why people really attach to Invisible Monsters. And so, I think that by the time that book came out, I had such a variety of books in the world that the particulars about me were less important.You’re really downplaying your own role in this. You don’t take pride in the fact that people really resonate with your work and want to discuss it with you?That’s because my degree is in journalism. My job is to listen to people at parties and to identify their stories and to find a commonality in the pattern between them. Because when someone tells an anecdote that goes over well, it evokes other people to tell almost identical anecdotes from their own life. Then you choose the very best of these to demonstrate a very human dynamic. In a way, what I do isn’t so much invent things as it is identifying them. Later, I just put them together in a report that looks like a novel.You think of your fiction as reporting?It is. I have so little imagination. But I have so much admiration when I hear a great story from someone — the journalist in me wants to preserve it, archive it and honor it in some way.Not long ago, we were talking about male role models, but it just dawned on me that I never asked you who yours was when you were growing up.Dr. Christiaan Barnard. He was a heart transplant surgeon in South Africa. There was an article about him in a magazine when I was a small child, and something about him just completely captivated my attention.Do you know what it was exactly?The idea that he had dedicated his life to heart transplant research but that he had developed arthritis so severe that he could no longer do the work himself. That seemed like such a tragedy and made him infinitely more appealing. John McDermott is a staff writer at MEL. He last wrote about how we need a better name for net neutrality to get people to start caring about it.More conversations:A Conversation With Conner Habib, the Syrian-American Gay Porn Performer and Radical PhilosopherMoments after the solar eclipse peaked over Los Angeles on Monday, I found Conner Habib perched on his porch. We sat on…melmagazine.comA Conversation With Chris KluweThe outspoken former NFL punter whose mouth got him blackballed from pro footballmelmagazine. comA Conversation With Dan Wilson, the ‘Closing Time’ Singer Who’s Written Hits for All Your Favorite…How the former Semisonic frontman became a hitmaker for womenmelmagazine.comA Conversation With Keith Law, Baseball’s Foremost Intellectual and FirebrandESPN’s sabermetrics guru discusses antidepressants, the importance of logic and his great new book about the future of…melmagazine.comA Conversation with Langston Kerman, the ‘Insecure’ Star and Slam Poet-Turned-Standup-ComicLangston Kerman is an L. A. -based comedian who tours the country performing stand-up and is on the verge of starring in…melmagazine.com

[samdukewieland]

Stuck Inside Media Diary Week 7

I realized that I didn’t include my watching of the Parks And Rec special thing that was on. By no means was it perfect, though I imagine that it was the best case scenario for something like that (in terms of being an original story, as opposed to a table/script read that the Community cast put together that’s coming out...ur, at some point). Is it necessary as a piece of media? It raised a lot of money for Feeding America and did its best in trying to shine some optimism in really unsettling times. Kinda nice.

Sunday, May 3

Filmworker, Zierra 2017 [as of now this is available on Netflix]

Interesting take on a documentary about, but not about Stanley Kubrick. It would be unusual for any Kubrick dude to not know or have some kind of inkling that he was a complicated figure (an asshole), especially when it came to making movies, so the point of the movie isn’t really to inform that aspect of of it (though it probably confirmed suspicions, should you have any). It’s more a case example of how toxic relationships like these work and how dangerous it is to deify people, especially your own heroes. Of course, should any of us be given the opportunity to work or be near someone we look up to, how’re do we know what our breaking point is for them before we reach it (unfortunately for Leon Vitali, it wasn’t until Kubrick passed away that he could see just how far deep he was). This is also a pretty good example of how companies and corporations will treat you like garbage just to advance their credibility and how sometimes it feels like a documentary’ll show you that but not really do anything change that (as far as I know).

Mad Men, [season 4 premier] “Public Relations”, “Christmas Comes But Once A Year”, “The Good News”, “The Rejected”

So I definitely haven’t watched Season 4 as a more grown person than I was back in high school when this first aired. So I’ve known Don’s life is a nightmare, but never really processed why or thought about why; I was not the most keen observer (probably because I was thinking about not turning in homework). Now with all that said, jeeeeeeez Don’s life is a super depressing nightmare oooof. Now Season 4 feels like it needs some more runway to catch up with itself and its momentum it revved up to at the end of season 3, so the first couple of weeks feel a little wobbly (though wobbly Mad Men is leagues better than some other dramas at their best). However, the Don and Lane friendship does gets established in this slew of episodes, two men who couldn’t be more different, but can’t help but be bonded by a miserable moment in time. 

Three Busy Debras, “Barbra”

Holy shit this episode is so genius. So many shades of Stangers With Candy in this one.

Rick And Morty, “Never Ricking Morty”

Believe me, I don’t want you to know that I watched this either.

The Last Dance, Parts 5 & 6

These were probably my favorite parts of the doc so far, probably because its the most enjoyable stuff you can watch (hold for destroying any chance Charles Barkley had at winning a championship). Jordan as a brand, both figuratively and literally-the concept of celebrity through a Michael Jordan lens; I could lap that up for hours. It makes me mad that there’s only two hours left (now), because there’s clearly so much more that could be covered, but will leave unturned (more on this next week).

Monty Python: Almost The Truth (Lawyers Cut), “The Not-So-Interesting Beginnings”

Good example of the subjects not getting in the way of the subject matter. Probably the thing that leaves to be desired is seeing the remaining members (this was made in 2009, so Chapman was the only deceased member at the time) together and interacting with one another. You get a little bit of Michael Palin and Terry Jones together, but not in an interviewed capacity, which faintly scratches that itch. If I had to guess, I’d say that they all don’t love being together without Palin there as a buffer, just based on what I know about Monty Python. Lotta strong and brilliantly smart personalities with no real acknowledgement on who’s the best, because they all think they’re the best (maybe not Palin or Jones). Also, this is a surprisingly self-aware interview with Idle, which really shattered any preconceived notions I have for him-might have to do some self-evaluation.

Monday, May 4

Escape From New York, Carpenter 1981 [as of now this is available on Prime]

I’ve definitely lied to people about having seen all of Escape From New York before. Why? Because it made me appear better than I actually was. It and Die Hard With A Vengeance (another great New York movie, though for the record, I’ve still never seen all of it) seemed to be two movies that I kept catching just enough glimpses of throughout the years without having actually seeing all of it. For instance, I had no idea that Harry Dean Stanton was in Escape From New York, which instantly elevates movies for guys like me from being “pretty good li’l B movie” to “this is actually advanced and high art” (this isn’t always the case on the HDS matrix, but it is consistent, see Repo Man). 

Mad Men, “The Chrysanthemum And The Sword”, “Waldorf Stories”

Real fool me once with your racism shame on you you, Roger Sterling. Fool me twice, shame on me (re: “The Chrysanthemum And The Sword”). “Waldorf Stories” is really the first episode put in gear this season, maybe it’s because we’re getting Ken Cosgrove back (hell yeh) or maybe it just feels that way because “The Suitcase” is next and I know it; it’s an incredible build-up, what with hindsight and all that. 

Tuesday, May 5

Mel Brooks: Unwrapped, Yentob 2018 [as of now this is available on HBO]

Listen, this isn’t very good. I think some of it has to do with Brooks, who kind of gets in the way of it all, which is a very hard thing to admit. It’s got some moments, when it actually tells you something about Mel Brooks, but for the most part its just a British guy not taking command of his own documentary and subject and that’s just like barely interesting. Mel Brooks is still a king, though.

Mad Men, “The Suitcase”

This is regarded as the best episode of Mad Men and one of the best episodes of television in the 2010s. I don’t know how it stands up by itself, like I don’t know if it resonates well with someone who’s never watched Mad Men outside of the vacuum. Usually going into one of these episodes that almost transcends its own show I tend to be weary, be it brand new (like when I watched “Pine Barrens” for the first time when I watched The Sopranos) or on a re-watch like this. I trick myself into thinking “well I bet its not that good” because you’re told to the contrarian take is the most interesting take, but I didn’t with this one. I remember the first time I watched it and I don’t think I’ve gone back and watched it in years, so I had forgotten almost all of the context around the episode, except for the argument. This episode is really special, hands down. Don’t love the ghost, but pobody’s nerfect. This podcast talks about it way better than I ever could, listen to that instead of reading this (I just want yer clicks, suckers!)

Wednesday, May 6

Heartburn, Nichols 1986 [as of now this is available on Prime]

I say this as someone who doesn’t travel in Mike Nichols circles (though this is the fourth movie of his that I’ve watched during all this, so maybe I do and I just don’t know it), but why isn’t this trotted out more as one of his best movies? My Nora Ephron bias might be showing a lot here, someone I didn’t really appreciate until I watched Everything Is Copy about a year ago (it’s an HBO doc-meaning it’s available on that platform if you want nice documentary to watch sometime), but this movie’s great! And it has two of the most famous movie stars to ever live as the two lead roles and Jeff Daniels as a bit player. And yet its legacy only feels relevant to those who seek out Mike Nichols or Nora Ephron movies, which feels odd, considering one half of that creative team is best known for The Graduate and the other for When Harry Met Sally (or Sleepless In Seattle or You’ve Got Mail).

Thursday, May 7 

Kingdom Of Heaven (Director’s Cut), Scott 2005

I’ll be honest, I wanted to watch Return Of The King, but that just wasn’t an option. This movie’s technically good, like more Ridley Scott movies are than they aren’t, but really lacks any kind of new message besides “Religion’s pretty fucked up how it made people do that, huh?” Which to a lot of people is super appealing, but when you make a movie that only exists because of Lord Of The Rings’ success, you’d hope for something more (though isn’t this always the case with these kinds of movies?) Like make the movie about David Thewlis or Jeremy Irons. Obviously the battle/fight sequences are really cool to watch and look at, and that’s not an at all terrible critique to give it either. It’s fine that there’s dumb-guy Lord Of The Rings (which is semi-controversial considering a lot of the book nerds already consider Lord Of The Rings [movie] is dumb-guy Lord Of The Rings).

Mad Men, “The Summer Man”

Ah yes, the Don journals and goes swimming episode. It’s good considering it has to follow up “The Suitcase.” I can’t think of any from this particular episode, but (and I think it checks out, cultural timeline wise too) this is the season where it almost feels like the writers/directors figures out that their show was ripe for meme-dom and .gifs-sometimes when that happens it goes real south for the sake of quality, but luckily not Mad Men. 

Friday, May 8

Jiro Dreams Of Sushi, Gelb 2011 [as of now this is available on Netflix]

I bet David Fincher loves this movie. I’m not a huge sushi lover (it’s fine, but way too expensive) so I guess I’ve figured that’d be a huge barrier for me to jump over to enjoy this doc. This thing’s got a weird, but great energy to it, where it feels like four twenty-minute segments sewn together; right when you think “well this should’ve just been a quick package on Frontline” it adds another wrinkle. Would probably be constructed more differently now, considering how food docs/series’ work now, but its strengths lie in its simplicity.

Top Chef, Season 17 episode 8

Great Restaurant Wars this season. Very compelling stuff and almost athletic. Andy Greenwald said it best.

Mad Men, “The Beautiful Girls”, “Hands And Knees”, “Chinese Wall”

“Beautiful Girls” is another entry into the best Mad Men episodes (though like “The Suitcase” I don’t think it would necessarily resonate out of context). Iconic closing shot and a great Sally Draper episode, who I’ve feared I might’ve been overrating for the last couple of years. Nah, Sally Draper is underrated even. Big spiral moves for Don as well in here, though hopefully he can course correct after tasting Sally’s rum-cooked French Toast (it won’t!)

Saturday, May 9

Basic Instinct, Verhoeven 1992

I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be completely neutral about this movie; your life must be so care-free, so calming, so unconcerned with trying to figure out how exactly to start calling your close friends either “cowboy” or “hoss” as if you’ve been doing it your whole life. Also, listen, I get it about that one shot and it being the thing people kept talking about and the thing most associated with this movie, but nothing and no one prepared me for seeing Gus in a cowboy hat in that bar/club before the Nick/Roxie chase. That and all the ice-pick stabbings. And the opening crime scene. And a whole lot of other stuff that takes place in this movie.

Mad Men, “Blowing Smoke”, “Tomorrowland” [season 4 finale], “A Little Kiss Part 1 & 2″ [season 5 premier]

The letter! Disneyland! Marriage again! A lot of things happen in these four episodes that are the end and beginning of seasons. But when I realized that I was going to get “Zou Bisou Bisou” in this block of episodes, it was game over. I’ve had it stuck in my head every day for a prolonged amount of time since Saturday and the only thing that makes it not terrible is knowing how pissed off Don was that it happened to him. Don’t marry a 25-year-old. Season 4′s a weird one for Betty as the show tried to navigate how to keep her involved with the show even though she and Don aren’t married anymore and it’s not....great. Probably because they keep making her “true” emotional foil children (specifically Glen and to a greater level Sally, but the tribulations that come between a mother and almost teenage daughter shouldn’t be the same as a mother and some weird kid down the block who just happens to be the son of the show’s creator).

[arplis]

Arplis - News: My 22 Goals for 2019

Goal #1 — Spend More Time Doing What I Love Just look at that forecast! Fall has finally arrived and before you know it I’ll be wearing my beloved puffy coat and snow will be on the way! I couldn’t be more excited. And those nighttime temps! I’ll need to bring Miss Lemon in. Goal #2 — Garden, Garden, Garden The HH broke out Manny yesterday after he dug up a beautiful 18″ planting space for my baby gem boxwoods and muscari border. We added a few bags of compost to the spot to help the plants get established. We will probably need to expand the planting space in a few years once the boxwoods get a little bigger, for now, scale wise, everything looks as it should. I’ll do a proper post later in the week and show you the new boxwood border. If you haven’t ordered your spring bulbs yet, I ordered 400 tulip bulbs and 500 muscari bulbs from Van Engelen Wholesale Bulb Company and the bulbs were fantastic. The bulbs arrived in about a week and were packaged very well. I highly recommend them. Goal #3 — Plant an Orchard {Calling it Quits on this one.} Lemon is about ready to have babies!!! Two of the Meyer lemons have gone from a dark green to a pale lime green color over the past few weeks and I don’t know for sure, but I think we have another week or two to go until it’s time to harvest our first two Meyer lemons of the year. HOW EXCITING! It will have to be a home birth though {as opposed to an outdoor one} because temps are dropping below 50 tonight {and for 6 of the 7 days in the upcoming forecast} and the lady at the nursery told me when outdoor overnight temps are consistently below 50 degrees at night, that’s when you know it’s time to bring your citrus trees in for the winter. Luckily we have the perfect sunny indoor spot plants, so all is well. Goal #4 — Gussy Up the Potting Shed Done! Goal #5 — Grow Enough Extra Vegetables, Eggs and Flowers to Earn $1500 at my little roadside vegetable stand. It was totally my intention to grow a ton of fruits and vegetables to sell at the farm-stand when I made my list of goals for 2019 last winter, but then we moved. So, that whole goal was sort of a bust. The new peeps wanted the vegetable stand, and we were happy to leave it for them since it was made specifically to match the front of the house, so hopefully the tradition will continue. Goal #6 — Finish Every Single Unfinished Rug Hooking Project in My Pattern Bin + 10 Things from back Issues of Magazines/Books I’ve Been Meaning to Make.  I was able to hook 3 small pieces last week {2 from my pattern stash} and once I get the backing on the make dos and finish the back of the rug I’ll add them to my Etsy shop {hopefully in the next two days}. 73 rugs in my pattern bin {now down to 32} 183 hooked flowers {finished 133, now down to 51} 10 “things” from back issues of magazines {finished 0} Goal #7 — Create 12 New Rug Hooking Patterns {with at least half of them being large ones} DONE! So far this year I’ve added 12 new rug hooking patterns and 13 beginner rug hooking kits to my Etsy shop. New rug hooking patterns I’ve created and added to My Etsy Shop this year: Tullia and Thomas Turkey Double Nantucket Whale Runner Miss Henny and Penny Miss Penny Simple Kitty Primitive Flowers 2 Fat Cats Annabell’s Big Day Old Fashioned Double Tulip Fat Brown Hen Busy Little Bee Queen Bee Rug Hooking Kits Busy Little Bee {in 2 different colors} Folk Art Heart Small Nantucket Whale Primitive Crow Miss Robin {in 2 different colors} Simple Kitty Primitive Flowers Sunflowers A Basket of Spring Posies Fat Brown Hen Chicky’s Garden Goal #8 — Split and Stack 2 Cords of Wood for Next Winter  All that firewood! We sold it. 😉 Goal #9 — Do Something with the 5,002 Photos on My Phone Current number of photos on phone is 11 million. Goal #10 –Lose the Muffin Top Actually doing well on this goal and fully expect to fit into my pants by the end of the year. Apparently living in the city and walking for pastries is an excellent workout regimen. Who knew? Goal #11 — Run, Walk or Crawl a 5k, 10k, Half Marathon and Marathon I have signed up for both a half marathon and a 5k! 🙂 Looks like this baby will be checked off around Thanksgiving. Goal #12 — Read or Listen to 26 New Books {17 down, 8 to go} This past week I listened to I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron. It was okay. The first half was basically a {funny} list of complaints, but the second half was much better in my opinion. The audio version was short {around 3 hours I think} and so it passed the time as I painted a closet. If it was in paper form would I sit down and read it all the way through? Probably not. I did enjoy her book, I Remember Nothing much, much more. Currently on Request: Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley Books I’ve Read or Listened to So Far This Year: Marilla of Green Gables #1 Still my favorite The Great Alone #2 The Aviator’s Wife #3 Before We Were Yours #4 Secrets of a Charmed Life #5 Where’d You Go, Bernadette #6 Carnegie’s Maid #7 The Gown #8 Unbroken #9 The Alice Network #10 The Shape of Mercy #11 Will’s Red Coat #12 Big Little Lies #13 I Feel Bad About My Neck Bunny Mellon  {Doesn’t count because it was my second time} On Writing {Doesn’t count because it was my third time} Walden Finder’s Keepers Delicious! Following Atticus Goal #13 — Try 52 New Recipes. 24 down, 30 recipes to go. OCTOBER. October is going to be my month for cooking! Goal #14 — Clean Up 52 Old Recipes on the Blog 9 down, 44 to go. I’ll get crackin’ once fall {and cooler temps} come around. Goal #15 — Fill 100 Canning Jars 48 down, 52 to go. Anyone ever canned quince jam before? Using quince from an ornamental bush rather than a tree? Gaaaa. These suckers are ROCK hard and tiny {1″ – 2″} and I’m not even sure I’d have enough to make the effort worthwhile. {I’d need about 2 pounds of quince for a batch of jam}. I mean I like jam and all, but I’m not sure I want to go through all the trouble. Any advice would be AWESOME. So far this year I’ve I canned: 7 jars Peach Jam 7 jars of Strawberry Jam 15 jars of Carrot Cake Jam 15 jars of Spiced Pear Jam  4 jars of Almond Pears. Goal #16 — Finish Furnishing Our House A couch and two chairs have been ordered! Once we get those in place I’ll order a rug {I’m not 100% sure on the size we need yet} and then I’ll paint the walls and create some artwork to hang up and we’ll be good to go. I am SO looking forward to getting the family room all done up in a beachy, nautical theme. Classic New England, that’s what I’ll be going for. Weeeeee. Goal #17 – 52 Dates with the HH {29 down, 23 to go} Bakery dates are the best! Goal #18 — Take One Adult Education Class Done {I’ve taken 3!} I’m keeping the first class I took with my neighbor top secret for now {Mel know’s what it is though} 😉 Spoon Carving Class with Heather. Mini pottery lesson {I loved it! and now I want to sign up for a full class} Goal #19 — Secret {for now} Holiday Project The big reveal will be on Friday, November 1st. Goal #20 — Create 12 Wowie Zowie Party Platters 5 down, 7 to go. Cooler temps mean CHEESE. Right? 😉 I’m looking forward to making up another platter this week. Goal #21 — Visit 12 General Stores 8 down 4 to go. So far this year we’ve visited: Chase’s Daily {I think it should count} Squam Lake Marketplace Harrisville General Store Dodge’s Store in New Boston, New Hampshire Zeb’s General Store in North Conway, New Hampshire Dan and Whit’s in Norwich, Vermont Hussey’s General Store in Windsor, Maine Goal #22 — Compete with Carole….. Get on My Front Door Game On While I currently have a bundle of Indian corn hanging on the front door, once we get closer to Halloween I’ll hang Mrs. HB’s beautiful wreath she made me up on the door. Have you ever seen the movie You’ve Got Mail? You know the part where Meg Ryan is walking through the downtown area in the fall with her pumpkin and just soaking up the city? Well that’s how I feel right now. I still cannot believe we bought a home in a walking downtown area. I’ve think we’ve met at lest 75% of our immediate neighbors already. The house is much smaller than we’re used to, the lot is small too, but I can walk to the bakery, to the farmer’s market to buy a pumpkin and get an entire garden section planted in a day. And you know what… I kind of like it. I don’t even mind all the people walking their dogs past my door {probably because there is no HOA}. Man oh man, what a difference that makes. Change is good. Front Door Bling I’ve Made So Far This Year to Compete with Carole: Late January : Valentine Heart Late February : Shamrock Late March : Giant Carrot May: White wave petunia hanging basket June/July: Tin Star and Flag Bunting August : Sunflower September: Indian corn and pumpkins ************** How about YOU? What are your goals for 2019? If you told us about them HERE, check in! We want to know how you are doing. Because seriously, it’s so much easier to get those goals checked off your list when you have people rooting for you! 🙂 Have a great day everyone, Mavis You can read more about my 22 goals for 2019 HERE. Have a Great Day! The post – Week 39 of 52 appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month. This content was original published at One Hundred Dollars a Month and is copyrighted material. If you are reading this on another website it is being published without consent.          Comments Mavis Congrats on the move! I've always thought that your's and ... by Judy You can get a pair of over-the-ear style wireless headphone, so ... by Crystal We had a beautiful quince bush in the front of a previous ... by E in Upstate NY I listen to audio books and podcasts while washing dishes. I ... by Mrs. M Thanks! That answers that…I may need to wait until some ... by Mama Cook Plus 5 more... Related Stories – Week 40 of 52 – Week 38 of 52 – Week 37 of 52 #12GoalsForTheNewYear

Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/my-22-goals-for-2019

[wannabelovespizza]

Shoot Romcom Reimaginings

Just playing around, I can’t seem to watch any romcom now without imagining my favorite duo Root and Shaw. Just a silly scene remake from the movie ‘When Harry Met Sally’ – one can not improve upon Nora Ephron (well except for maybe gaying it up). Happy Shoot Week!

Shaw and Carter practiced their batting with coin activated pitching machines at a local borough park. A line of kids waited to use the machines after the ‘old ladies’ finished, the kids kept whispering and getting mean looks from Shaw and Carter.

Carter got ready for the first pitch from the machine, “I don’t understand this relationship you’ve got with Root.

“What do you mean?” asked Shaw with a confused look on her face to her friend and colleague.

“You enjoy being with her?” Carter swung and knocked the ball out of the stadium, if there had been a stadium; as it was a batting cage the ball slammed with a huge boom against the back wall.

“Yah.” Shaw swung her arms around and moved her shoulders up and down getting ready for her next pitch.

“You find her attractive?” asked Carter cautiously, knowing how her friend tended to blow up at slightly datey stuff or remotely relationship talk.

“Yah.” Shaw begrudgingly shrugged her shoulders. Okay, so Root was hot Shaw admitted to herself sometimes; and maybe from the very first time they met. Actually, sometimes too damn hot for her own good. Luckily, she annoyed the shit of the Persian detective so most of the time the hotness factor wore off.

“And you’re not sleeping with her,” Carter said this as stating a fact, yet her voice still kind of delivered it as a question.

“Nope. Gawd no,” Shaw scowled back at her fellow detective. Okay, she might have played ‘the lady doth protest to much card’ because the thought had crossed her mind a few times, or a lot of times of sleeping with Root. And in the beginning Root flirted shamelessly with her which was hard to turn down, yet she always managed to do so.

“You’re afraid to let yourself be happy,” Carter hit another home run and then stared intensely at Shaw, confident in her theory on her friend.

“Why can’t you give me credit for this? This is a big thing for me. I don’t have many friendships with women that don’t involve sex,” Shaw whacked her baseball pitch fiercely hard sending it smashing against the back wall with a loud thud.

“Or men,” Carter smirked at Shaw.

Shaw didn’t do feelings well, sex was a way to get close to someone sometimes without having to actually talk to them; and yes she knew now that always backfired even with men. She decided she had to take a new approach in trying to relate people. “I feel like I’m growing,” Shaw paused and looked at Carter.

“You never slept with me,” Carter shot back at Shaw and the ball just pitched to her; which she might have hit too hard to prove a point.

“I don’t ever remember you offering or being interested,” Shaw replied back quickly.

“I was drunk that one time and you turned me down. Did you grow that night?” Carter stared and did a head tilt towards her friend.

Shaw sighed. She didn’t know exactly why she never slept with Carter, she thought maybe because the woman reminded her of a cool, big sister. The main reason she thought probably why she never slept with her because she had been one of the few people in her life she could talk to about some stuff. Carter was practically the only woman she had met in her life she liked hanging out with, she didn’t want to ruin that with sex. Same thing went for Root. The annoying computer programmer was mostly tolerable, she didn’t like overly girly stuff and she seemed to loved having verbal insults hurled at her. She had met both of them in college but lost touch with Root for over ten years ago; only reconnecting in the last few months. Still, when she met both of them and put them in the no sex zone in her head back then, that status stayed in her head.

Shaw paused for a moment to stare at Carter again to get her point across, “I feel like I’m growing.”

Suddenly, one of the kids was getting impatient with the less batting the two ‘old ladies’ were doing and all the talking so they started getting rowdy and mouthy.

“You finish yet lady?” shouted one tall lanky kid.

Shaw looked over with a scowl and growled at the kids, “Hey, I got a whole stack of quarters and I was here first.”

“Were not,” the kid yelled back on the verge of sticking his tongue out at the short ‘old lady.’

“Was too,” Shaw walked over closer to the fence where the tall lanky kid was standing, she was shorter than the kid so at first he wasn’t overly intimidated by her.

“Were not!” Once again the kid yelled back.

“Was too!” Shaw yelled back this time raising her voice. The look in her eyes slightly scared the kid and he stepped back from the fence to go sit on the bench near by until the two ‘old ladies’ were done hitting balls and talking about their boring love lives

“Stupid jerk,” the kid mumbled from the bench.

“Little creep,” Shaw mumbled back to the kid, then turned her head back to Carter, “Where was I?”

“You were growing,” Carter said with a slightly flabbergasted face watching her friend go from getting into a fight with a little kid to also watching her friend try for the second time in her life to make a connection, a real connection with someone. This was big for Shaw, she didn’t have many friends, she scared most people off. There were a few people that were tough and stupid enough to stick around the Persian firecracker like her and Fusco but not many. Shaw’s newfound friendship with long lost one-time road trip companion Root was something different. Carter wanted to support this new platonic friendship because as much as she loved Shaw, her dear friend was not only a dating disaster she was an extreme introvert and maybe something else. She worried if Shaw might ever find someone to settle down with; especially after her breakup with Tomas. The one time Shaw took a chance on a relationship and the asshole cheated on her.

“Yeah. It’s very freeing with Root. I can say anything to her,” Shaw was focused once again on hitting balls, working on perfecting her swing.

“Are you saying you can say things to her you can’t say to me?” Carter hoped she didn’t let a tinge of jealously seep through her voice.

“Nah it’s just different. It’s a whole new perspective. I get the nerd’s point of view on things. Like you she tells me about some of her dates, all women of course.” Shaw smacked another ball, so far she had hit non-stop home runs.

“You tell her about your dates or shall I say, hook-ups…they’re not really dates are they?” Carter teased Shaw.

“Tease if you will, but my three-night rule works mighty fine. Like the other night. I hooked up with this guy, I took him to a place that wasn’t even human. He actually meowed,” Shaw glanced over to Carter with an extreme smug look on her face.

“You made a guy meow?” Carter stopped hitting balls and stared at Shaw dumbfounded.

“Yah. That’s the point, I can say these things to Root you know like I do to you. And the great thing is, I don’t have to lie because I’m not always thinking about how to get her into bed. At first she was always trying to get me into bed, but now I can just be myself,” Shaw was oblivious to Carter still standing motionless in her cage with balls whizzing past her.

“You made a guy meow?” Carter asked again.

[secretschuylersister]

Meet Cute (Leslie/Reader)

Summary: Nobody really meets people in crowded coffee shops, right? And they certainly don’t meet their favorite artists. And they definitely don’t get a date out of the whole deal. Except, sometimes, they do.

Note: My first Leslie fic! This fills a request for a fan of Leslie’s meeting him and him being sweet about it, and #48 from the prompt list:  “I can’t believe I just asked them out!” “And I can’t believe they said yes.” 

Rating: G. Pure fluff.

Word Count: 1485

You closed the door to the coffee shop behind you, not wanting to let the cold air inside.

“Hey, Eliseo,” you greeted the shop’s owner. “Good day so far?”

“Always,” he winked, handing you your regular order.

You grabbed your table in the corner and pulled out your computer and your notebook, slipping on your headphones once everything was spread out in front of you. You had barely made it through a single song when someone hesitantly waved their hand in front of your face to get your attention. You moved your headphones around your neck and looked up.

“Hi, I’m sorry to bother you, but all the other tables are full. Would you mind if I joined you? I normally wouldn’t ask, but,” he trailed off and lifted the food he was holding in explanation.

While he was asking for a seat, you were quietly having a panic attack. You were almost positive that the man in front of you was Leslie Odom, Jr., and you could feel yourself on the verge of doing something embarrassing.

“...is that a no?” he asked when you were silent for a beat too long. Yup, that would do it.

“Oh, no, of course you can sit here,” you rushed, feeling your face flush. “I’m sorry.”

“No worries,” he smiled. “I’m Leslie.”

“I know.” You closed your eyes and shook your head as you heard yourself say it. “I’m kind of a fan. I’m not usually so weird, I swear.”

“That’s cool,” he chuckled. “Hamilton?”

“Well, yeah, Hamilton is great, but you were actually the reason I made sure to get a ticket back when you guys first opened,” you explained, hoping you weren’t creeping him out.

He pulled a face and tilted his head.

“I’m serious!” you laughed. “I actually saw you in Venice and then I happened to see you in Tick, Tick...Boom! a few years back. When I realized you were the same guy, I knew the show would be good.”

“If that’s true, that puts you in a club whose only other member is my mom.”

“I know, the two of us meet up once a month to discuss how pleased we are with how your career is taking off,” you joked.

You let out a sigh of relief when he leaned back in his chair and laughed loudly.

“I’m glad you laughed,” you remarked. “I have a bad habit of making terrible jokes and not realizing it until they’re already out of my mouth.”

“I assure you, you’re as funny as you are cute.”

“And you’re as cheesy as you are talented,” you teased, deflecting the compliment.

“I’d say my cheese far outweighs my talent,” he shot back with a wink. “So what are you working on?”

“This?” you motioned to your laptop and the papers you had out. “Ah, this is my lunchbreak job. My friend is planning her wedding, and I’m the only person who knows her family’s...colorful history as well as she does, so seating charts have fallen to me.”

“I see,” he said, glancing down at your notes. “Why can’t Aunt Susie and Aunt Irene sit near one another?”

“Well, Aunt Irene stole Aunt Susie’s husband back in 1984. Tensions have been high ever since.”

“Damn, I can imagine. I bet Thanksgiving is an ordeal.”

“Maybe one day I’ll tell you about the time they were accidentally invited to the same Fourth of July barbecue. It involved threats involving fireworks that I can’t repeat in polite company.”

You smiled to yourself as he laughed again. You liked the way he threw his whole body into it.

You glanced at the time on your laptop screen. “I have to head back to work soon, but it was really nice to meet you, Leslie.”

“Oh, same here,” he said, standing up as you did to gather your things. He gave you a quick kiss on the cheek and you started to walk out of the coffee shop.

“Hey,” you said, turning around just before you reached the door. “I know this is the result of watching one too many Nora Ephron movies, but I had fun this afternoon. Would you want to go out sometime? It’s totally fine if it’s a no!”

Your blush returned in full force as he smirked. “It’s definitely not a no. This is short notice, but are you free tomorrow night? Because it’s my night off and I’d definitely like to spend it with you.”

“Tomorrow night works,” you confirmed, feeling flattered and nervous at the same time.

After exchanging numbers, you made plans to meet the next night for dinner.

You felt like you were bursting to tell someone, and as soon as you left the coffee shop, you texted your best friend. 

“You are not going to believe my life. I just met Leslie Odom at my coffee place. WE ARE GOING OUT TOMORROW NIGHT.”

“You are correct: I don’t believe your life.”

“You’re awful. We had coffee. I embarrassed myself. I asked him out.”

“...are you serious? If you’re lying to me, friendship over.”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE I ASKED HIM OUT.”

“I can’t believe he said yes.”

“I repeat: you’re awful.”

You snorted at your friend’s version of “support” and slipped your phone back into your bag.

You were glad the date was only a day away. Yes, partially because you were excited, but also because it gave you less time to turn into a nervous wreck about the whole thing. You chose an outfit before bed and did your best to put it out of your mind until the time came to get ready.

Your heart fluttered when you saw Leslie’s bright smile as you approached the restaurant that night.

“You look handsome,” you complimented as he pressed another kiss to your cheek.

“I knew you’d look gorgeous so I tried to clean myself up. I was right, you’re beautiful.”

“There’s that cheesiness again,” you said and nudged his shoulder.

“Nope, that’s just my honesty,” he answered smoothly and led you inside the restaurant. “I hope you don’t mind a cliche dinner-and-a-movie date. I thought low-key might be nice.”

“Low-key is the nicest, I don’t mind at all.”

After dinner and your movie, you wandered the city with Leslie for a bit. He kept you laughing all night, and you teased him about his leading man potential when he wrapped his coat around your shoulders.

He walked you to your apartment and you looked up at him as he trapped you against your door with his arm. “Are there any romantic comedy rules I should be following here?” he asked with a smirk.

“I think this might be where I get my kiss and then go inside to pine over you until you call me for a second date.”

“I can manage that,” he said before meeting you in a kiss. You rested one hand on his chest and the other on his neck, and you could feel him smile against your mouth. When he pulled back, you felt dizzy.

“I forget my line,” you laughed, sounding a little breathless.

“I could say this is where you invite me inside, but I think your line is actually just “Goodnight.’”

You stood on your toes for another quick kiss and unlocked your door. “I’ll be waiting on that call,” you said with a grin as you said goodnight one last time and closed your door behind you.

You hadn’t even gotten your coat off when the phone rang and showed Leslie’s name.

“And just what is it that you want?” you asked, humor in your voice. You pulled your door back open and there he was, phone to his ear.

“To set up that second date,” he replied. His eyes were gleaming and you really wanted to kiss him again.

“So cheesy,” you chuckled. “But I like it. Tonight was the best first date I’ve had in a long time. I’m glad I worked up the nerve to ask you out.”

“I’m glad I worked up the nerve to say hello to you at the coffee shop after chickening out every day this week.”

“I’m hanging up and closing the door before I embarrass myself and blow our second date before it even happens.”

“You couldn’t, but you can close the door. I’ll see you soon.”

You never did hang up the phone that night. You smiled to yourself the next morning when you realized you could hear Leslie softly snoring on the other end of the line.

You sent him a text after finally ending the call.

“You were asleep so we couldn’t do the cute back-and-forth over who would hang up first. I trust you’ll make it up to me.”

You were surprised when a response came through a moment later.

“Already firing up Netflix for inspiration. Prepare yourself.”

Somehow you didn’t think any amount of preparation was going to help.