#in fact the stage directions actually state that the two actors should deliver their lines in 'atrocious' Italian accents

[mariocki]

Pope: Becket maintains that the election of Clarendon was not a free one, that he owes his nomination solely to the royal whim and that consequently the Honour of God, of which he has now decided he is the champion, does not allow him to bear this usurped title any longer. He wishes to be nothing more than an ordinary priest.

Cardinal: [after a moment's thought] The man is clearly an abyss of ambition.

-

Jean Anouilh, Becket (tr. Lucienne Hill, 1960)

[writingtoforgetreality]

Saturday Night Special (Jensen Ackles x Reader)

[Actors-Masterlist]

Summary: Tonight would be your first time singing on stage. And if it were not enough, you wanted to dedicate your song to a special someone. Expressing your feelings was not one of your strengths but putting them into a song? That worked quite well.

Words: 2,339

Warnings: best friend!Rob, fluff, just a cute story with a lot of fluff, so much fluff, language, in this story you wrote “Song On Fire”, (Y/L/N) = your last name

Song used: “Song On Fire” by Nickelback

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

Another Convention weekend. Another Saturday. Which meant that the concert would be tonight. And you had asked the Swain boys if they could squeeze you into their set list. Wanting it to be a surprise, you begged them to keep quiet for now. Practicing was done in a room separate from where the others were.

“You wrote that?” Rob asked after you handed each of them a page with the notes & lyrics.

“Yeah?” suddenly, you were unsure. “Is it bad?” now growing concerned that maybe whatever you wrote was absolute crap.

“No, oh my God, not at all. This is perfect.” he was still eyeing the words closely. “We got this, right guys?” turning around to shoot a look at the rest of the band, you saw all of them nodding. Releasing a breath you did not know you were holding, you took a seat next to them & started explaining what you had in mind for your performance.

“So, I thought that you could maybe do some backing vocals, Robbie? I think I’d be less nervous if you did.”

“Of course, no problem.” immediately being on board, the two of you arranged who would sing what. Billy, Mike & Stephen were already onto practicing the notes & from what you had heard so far, it sounded great.

“I hope I won’t mess up.” chuckling quietly, you prayed that tonight would turn out to be fine. Suddenly, Rob’s eyes shot up to yours, shock written all over his features. “What?” you asked him when he did nothing but stare at you.

“This is about Jensen, isn’t it?” he hit the nail right on the head with his assumption. Rob had been one of your closest friends & it was hard to keep something from him. A while ago, he picked up on the fact that you liked Jensen. A lot. Of course he teased the living shit out of you, but he always made sure that he was serious about one thing. That you should tell him how you felt. Every time, you had reasoned that he could never like you back. Besides, you were horrible when it came to talking about your feelings. Obviously, Rob was aware of that. But the lyrics in front of him were proof enough.

“It doesn’t matter.” looking back down to your lap to focus your gaze on something else than Rob’s face.

“Yeah, it does.” he started. “’Cause he’ll realize it’s about him.” stating casually.

“And why is that?” furrowing your eyebrows & snapping your head back up again. The man in front of you simply rolled his eyes at your question.

“I’ve told you a million times that he likes you, too.” before you had time to disagree with him, he kept going. “And Jensen knows about you liking him.”

“Wait. How?” eyes growing wide at Rob’s statement, you believed that someone had spilled the beans to him. Not a lot of people knew about your crush. And if Rob told Jensen, he would not be alive much longer to experience tonight’s concert.

“You’re not really being subtle about it, you know?”

“Am I really that obvious?” sighing loudly, you put your face in your hands. Great, you had been embarrassing yourself for the longest time & nobody had mentioned it to you.

“Only if you pay close attention. Which Jensen does.” Rob’s eyes showed sincerity. Maybe he was right. And if he was not then Jensen would not understand the song. Win-win situation, right?

~at the concert~

The last notes of the song were played & you knew that it was your turn to hop on stage in a second. Nobody of the cast had a clue about you singing tonight. Now, being backstage, your nervousness was awful. Your hands were trembling & you were scared that you would forget the words. What if you embarrassed yourself in front of such a huge audience? Yes, Louden Swain was there to back you up but still. You were the one who had to deliver perfectly.

“Thanks guys. Actually, we have a little surprise tonight. Well, it’s not so little. You guys know that a lot of the cast joins us on stage every now & then. For this concert, we’ll have a debut. Someone who has never sung in front of people before. But we know that you love her a lot. (Y/N) (Y/L/N) everyone!” Rob yelled into the microphone & when he finished, the crowd broke out into cheers. The applause was insane. Nobody knew that you were that much into music.

Taking a deep breath, you started taking the steps to the stage. The curtain opened enough for you to walk through & immediately, you were blinded by the bright lights that illuminated the stage. Yet, your smile was wide. Risking a look to the side, you saw the rest of the cast with shocked faces, all watching you. Jensen was in front & for a second, your eyes locked. In this moment, the cheering of the crowd died down & you remembered who you were doing this for. Him. His smile was enough for you. Billy nudged you slightly & handed you a guitar. Thanking him quietly, you walked over to the microphone Rob had already prepared for you. His nod calmed you down. He knew you would be just fine.

“Um, hi guys. This is weird.” chuckling, the audience soon followed. “Like, I know I’m confident when it comes to panels & all…but standing here, knowing that I’m about to sing. Well, let’s just say I’m a little nervous.” your voice was shaking a little & your fans knew that it was not normal for you. Usually, you were the one to crack a joke, to throw in a sarcastic comment. Right now, though, you were stiff. “Anyway, enough of that crap.” laughing shortly. “Y’all wanna listen to some music, right?” the audience agreed loudly, whistles & cheers could be heard all across the room. “You haven’t heard this song yet. It’s an original, I wrote it not too long ago & I hope you’ll like it. This is called “Song On Fire”.” waiting for Stephen’s sign, you started off the song together. Playing the guitar quietly. And while you shakingly made your way through the first few words, you gathered yourself enough to sing the rest perfectly.

The first words that come out

And I can see this song will be about you

I can’t believe that I can breathe without you

But all I need to do is carry on

The next line I write down

And there’s a tear that falls between the pages

I know that pain’s supposed to heal in stages

But it depends which one I’m standing on

 I write lines down, then rip them up

Describing love can’t be this tough

 I could set this song on fire, send it up in smoke

I could throw it in the river and watch it sink in slowly

Tie the pages to a plane and send it to the moon

Play it for the world, but it won’t mean much

Unless I sing this song to you

 When you sang these words, you made sure to look in Jensen’s direction & again, your eyes locked. This time for a lot longer. It was as if you two were the only ones in this room. Just you & him. Pouring your heart & soul into this one song. Hoping he would realize what you really felt for him.

 I’m dying to show you

This could end happily ever after

There doesn’t ever have to be disaster

And all you have to do is sing along

 I write lines down, then rip them up

Impossible describing love

 I could set this song on fire, send it up in smoke

I could throw it in the river and watch it sink in slowly

Tie the pages to a plane and send it to the moon

Play it for the world, but it won’t mean much

Unless I sing this song to you

 Rob’s & your voice blended together seamlessly & the band managed to make this song sound like it had been one of theirs. Like you had played it together a million times before.

 I could set this song on fire

Sing this song to you

I could set this song on fire

 Light this old guitar on fire, I’d still hear the notes

Drown the melody in water, I’d still hear its ghost

Sing it with somebody else, but we’d be out of tune

Play it for the world, but it won’t mean much

 I could set this song on fire, send it up in smoke

I could throw it in the river and watch it sink in slowly

Tie the pages to a plane and send it to the moon

Play it for the world, but it won’t mean much

Unless I sing this song to you

 I could set this song on fire

Unless I sing this song to you

I could set this, I could set this

I want to sing this song to you

I could set this song on fire

Sing this song to you

I could set this, I could set this

 The last part, Rob let you sing alone & as you belted out the last words, your eyes closed briefly. Only after hearing the cheers & the clapping did you open them again. Immediately, Rob went over & took you in for a quick hug. Whispering in your ear how proud he was of your performance. That you nailed it.

“Wow, guys. Thank you.” you were overwhelmed by the response of the fans. But your adrenaline washed away when you noticed Jensen no longer watching you from the side of the stage. Still, you had a smile on your face. There was no way you could let the people see that something was wrong.

“That was (Y/N) (Y/L/N) with “Song On Fire”. Let her hear you guys!” Rob urged the audience on & again, the room erupted into loud cheers. Waving before leaving the stage, your smile fell the moment the curtain closed behind you.

“(Y/N)?” there was not even time for you to drown in self pity when a voice yelled for you. Turning around, you were shocked to see Jensen jogging up to you. His hands went to cup your cheeks. Pulling your face closer to his, your eyes closed as his lips pressed softly onto yours. Was this really happening right now? Melting into his touch, you could feel yourself getting lost in the moment. Fireworks were going off inside of you. No matter how many times you had imagined this exact moment, nothing could compare to what you were feeling right this instance. When the two of you needed to pull away for air, you found yourself staring straight into his beautiful eyes.

“God, I hope this song was about me or I just embarrassed myself.” he whispered, afraid that someone else might listen in on your conversation even though you were completely alone backstage. A sheepish smile spread across your face & you interrupted his rambling by kissing him again. If you had known that a song was all it took for the two of you to take that next step then you would have performed on stage way sooner. His hands were at your waist, yours around his neck. Standing close to each other, scared, that you might lose each other. Which would never happen. Not that you finally found to each other.

“I’m sorry.” you started apologizing to which Jensen only furrowed his eyebrows.

“What for?” he had no clue why you felt like you had to say sorry.

“I’m really not good at this entire feelings stuff.” giggling at how stupid you sounded, your eyes shot to the floor.

“I don’t know, that was pretty damn romantic.” he joked & made you laugh with his words. True. Dedicating a song to someone was probably one of the most romantic things one could do.

“Jensen?” your forehead pressed against his chest. Arms tightening around you, he enjoyed having you this close to him. Rob had told him that you liked him & after paying more attention to it, he could see it, too. Yet, he was too much of a coward to do anything about it. Because he got incredibly shy whenever you were around. You could feel him humming so you continued. “I’m actually planning on recording the song. In the studio & all. Jason offered to help me.”

“That’s gre-“ you did not even let him finish because you had another idea in your head.

“And I wanted to ask you to be a part of it.” pulling away slightly to catch his reaction, you were surprised to find a shocked face. “Of course only if you want to. I get it if you don-“

“I’d love to.” his look changed into pure adoration for you. You swore that this man took your breath away by simply looking at you. All of a sudden, Jensen started laughing.

“What?”

“This is gonna be such a cliché story to tell at upcoming Conventions.” he was right. Honestly, it would make a good plot for a movie. Shaking your head at him, you hugged him tighter again. No way in hell would you ever let him go. It took you a lot of courage to take that step & you were more than happy that your plan was successful. You were glad that Louden Swain supported your idea. You thanked Rob for being a great best friend. Finally, Jensen & you had each other. And as much as you loved the idea of it, you were sure that the fans would freak out even more. They had been shipping you for ages. After all, you guys had a connection nobody else shared but everybody else noticed. You guys were bound to end up together from the very beginning.

Published (05/06/2021) by Cathy

✨MY Ko-fi PAGE✨

Tags: @peachescream06 (thanks for your support <3)

[lesbian-jo-march]

Hamlet Act 5 Scene 2 directed as informed by My Chemical Romance/”Emo” aesthetics

(After so many “Hamlet is an emo” jokes studying the text, I put my money where my mouth is. Thus, this is less a joke itself than an attempt to run a joke to a somewhat informed conclusion.)

Introduction - defining emo

Modern productions of Hamlet such as Olivier’s or Hansguther’s have often cut or reduced the final scene of the play, which broadens into the tragedy of state post-Freudian productions tend to extract a personal and familial tragedy out of. Modern productions should ideally consider both psychological turmoil and tragedy of state. It is not enough for Hamlet to ‘theorise modern selfhood’ (Emma Smith), but it should utilise a modern aesthetic and philosophy which encapsulates both personal and political turmoil, which are inextricably linked throughout the play. The answer is obvious: emo. Unlike punk, it cannot effect meaningful political change but self-exploration, frank to romanticised descriptions of mental health issues, collapse of gender roles and the anxiety of a generation growing up in the instability of a post-9/11, post-recession America are all key tenets of emo perfect for the themes explored in Hamlet as a whole, especially the final scene.

Emo as a genre is much contested but here, I am basing my understanding of emo as that espoused by mainstream fans, so My Chemical Romance who describe themselves as pop-punk instead are considered emo. My focus will be on My Chemical Romance specifically because they are the most popular and recognisable “emo” band. The genre is tied to the collapse of gender roles, society and the self. My Chemical Romance is the best example of this, formed after lead singer Gerard Way was travelling into New York when 9/11 occurred. This stimulated him to check up on old friends and eventually to form a band together.

Prince Hamlet and emo

Hamlet initially seems to be tied to the genre of emo by his depression and suicidal tendencies, clear sexual confusion however that is interpreted, propensity towards wearing black, and inaction taking the form of malcontent’s satire rather than meaningful action. However, by Act 5 Scene 2 there are several more reasons in which he should be tied to the genre. L.C. Knight describes Hamlet’s suicidal desires as ‘a desire to lapse back from the level of adult consciousness’, a common theme for Gen Z explored in the book ‘iGen’ by psychologist Jean M. Twenge who adds colour by her research by pointing to the billboard success of Twenty One Pilot’s song ‘Ride’ containing lyrics ‘Wish we could turn back time, to the good old days’ and ‘Out of student loans and tree-house homes we all would take the latter’. Hamlet ought to be placed in that generation, following Robert Cohen’s convincing arguments that Hamlet is intended to be sixteen, and especially in conjunction with Hamlet’s weltschmerz Eduard and Otto Devrient described as containing (in translation) ‘all the thousand things which betray youth and excuse it’.

(Among these, Hamlet’s ‘pessimism born from idealism’ in particular speaks to the impulse of the young and discontented.)

After Hamlet’s excursion with the pirates, however, he returns with renewed purpose and has to move past this constant clinging to the past. Jon McRae would argue Hamlet has to shed his black clothing by this scene to show he has moved on, since there are no mentions of Hamlet’s father in this scene and Hamlet reaches some kind of acceptance: ‘if it be not now, yet it will come’. Then – should Hamlet shed his emo attire by this point?

I would not agree.

Direction of Act 5 Scene 2

The purpose of Act 5 Scene 2 is to resolve the themes of the play and it does not make sense for Hamlet’s melancholy to just disappear for empty catharsis. Instead, I would argue that while he acknowledges at the beginning to Horatio ‘in [his] heart there was a kind of fighting’ he settled upon the fact that ‘there’s a divinity that shapes our ends’. There is a kind of peace he finds within himself, especially compared to the fact that he initially saw that world as an ‘unweeded garden’, suggesting a distant and uncaring God.

Thus, in this scene Hamlet should be wearing the military jacket worn by My Chemical Romance during the ‘Black Parade’ era. This album is arguably the best in the genre, ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ is a cultural staple and the music video for that song alone is one of MTV’s ‘50 Greatest Music Videos of the 21st Century’. It is extremely recognisable and will conjure to mind the themes of this album, which is a rock opera about a character dying of cancer and his afterlife. Specifically, the final song of the album ‘Famous Last Words’ is a defiant cry of acceptance and confidence in one’s own individuality which sings ‘I am not afraid to keep on living/ I am not afraid to walk this world alone’. In order to accept death Hamlet must reject suicide, the same way that emo does as a genre. The military aspect and black of mourning also recall Hamlet’s father while putting a twist on the masculine, feudal ruler that Old King Hamlet represents – emo, unlike Hamlet, is unabashedly more feminine. The duel is a parody of the martial world of Old King Hamlet, and although Hamlet makes no reference to his father, he does revenge the murder of his mother. Metatheatricality is a key theme which is resolved in the final scene, this is a show battle and Hamlet, dead, is lifted ‘high on a stage’ and the actor takes his final bow. ‘The Black Parade’ is a masterwork in theatre and is visually striking. Bold stage makeup would add to this sense of theatricality as well as showing a completion of Hamlet’s self-fashioning which happens throughout the play. The more feminine aspect hardly absolves him of his blatant misogyny but should tie him to Gertrude as in many ways his fatalistic approach and composure mimic her in Act 1 Scene 2, and it is her death which spurs her revenge.

Claudius should be in a suit; a corrupt, corporate politician, who, like current leaders like Trump and Johnson, has negative qualities mirroring the society he presides over. Direct compromise to either is inadvisable and would not fit, but in an era of increased populism and focus on individual leaders over party policy, the language of corruption of the ruler as in the state in Hamlet definitely mirrors the state of current politics. His grey suit should mirror his ambiguous morals.

However, Laertes, who was previously in a suit, should be in a black one. He is a step closer to Hamlet and while not completely aligned with him he should be visually distinct from the (moral) grey of Claudius and instead share the doomed black of Hamlet as both will die.

The pivot of the scene is Hamlet’s death. It should be focused on with a spotlight over him and Horatio, with the ‘warlike noise’ in the distance muffled. The audience should be drawn into the moment between the two of them, and after the line ‘the rest is silence’, there should be a fade into darkness and silence to mirror Hamlet’s death and suggest that this is indeed the end.

However, it is important that after the cathartic collapse of the family and state there is a new dynasty in place, unlike the bleaker endings such as the ones in the Olivier production. Fortinbras is able to marry both the martial skill of Old King Hamlet and the diplomacy of Claudius in his rhetorical skill. (To demonstrate the latter, ‘I have some rights of memory to this kingdom’ should be emphasised as it is a final comment on the manipulation of history after the hope is raised Hamlet might be correctly remembered after his death). Unlike Hamlet’s role as an outsider malcontent, Fortinbras is a perfect embodiment of someone who can make the system work well. The final line ‘Go, bid the soldiers shoot’ shows how he efficiently takes control of Elsinore, and should be delivered with natural authority. The line could allow the interpretation that the surviving characters, including Horatio, are killed and purged by Fortinbras. This is perhaps overly bleak, but it is important that Fortinbras is a foil to Hamlet who stands apart from both him and the previous kings.

As Fortinbras becomes the new establishment he leans back into martial power and thus although it would be comforting to align him with the black of Laertes and Hamlet so all the foils are visually connected, he should be more closely connected with Old King Hamlet and Claudius. He is a new order between martial power and political manoeuvring, so it would make sense for him to be surrounded by soldiers in actual combat uniform but to contrast them by wearing ceremonial dress. In contrast to Hamlet’s black he should be visually striking in a vivid red.

Legacy

Emo and alternative music like punk have made a recent resurgence to combat the rise of the right globally, with Billie Joe Armstrong speaking out against Trump and the recent My Chemical Romance reunion concert taking place against the background of the Angel of the Waters statue, an important LGBT monument. Palaye Royale style themselves after the rock movements of the sixties up to inspiration from My Chemical Romance and focus on authenticity and philosophy conveyed by their music and a magazine made up of fan poetry and writings.

While Fortinbras co-opts the symbol of the military jacket for himself, he twists it, and twists Hamlet’s legacy as a ‘soldier’. He is perhaps a provider of a more stable dynasty than Claudius, but Horatio, left with the legacy of Hamlet and bound like Hamlet by the promise of memory, stands against Fortinbras’ erasure of the very near past. Although Hamlet and the old emo movement bows off the stage, as long as there is an establishment there will be counter-movements.

Therefore, though Fortinbras has the final line and control of the stage, the final image of the play should be Horatio, taking up Hamlet’s jacket not as an act of military resistance but the insistence of vigil, mourning, and awareness of tragedy which emo represents.

[sanoiro]

Lucifer 5x08 - Spoiler Alert - Spoilers & Speculation (Midseason Finale)

Warning! There is always the possibility that certain scenes might have been mixed up under their non-respective episodes.

Written By: Chris Rafferty

Directed By: Kevin Alejandro

Chris Rafferty has written/co-written the episodes:

1x09 - A Priest Walks into a Bar 2x06 - Monster 2x13 - A Good Day to Die 3x05 - Welcome Back, Charlotte Richards 3x07 - Off the Record 3x15 - High School Poppycock 4x04 - All About Eve 5x08 - Spoiler Alert

Cast: Tom Ellis as Lucifer, Lauren German as Chloe, DB Woodside as Amenadiel, Lesley-Ann Brandt as Maze, Kevin Alejandro as Dan, Scarlett Estevez as Trixie, Rachael Harris as Linda Martin and Aimee Garcia as Ella.

Season 5 Recurring Characters: None Officially Announced Guest Cast:

David Figlioli…Les Klumpsky

Behind The Scenes

The midseason finale…

In order to go through the S&S of the Midseason Finale, we will have in many points to go back to the rest of the S5P1 episodes, especially the 5x07, but also explore a part of 5x09 which up to this day remains untitled due to the spoiler it seems to give away.

This episode can be better explained as the action and effect pattern. Whatever you do in due time it will catch up with you and that seems to be the theme here. We are not talking just about consequences although there will be plenty however the fact that in this episode we will probably realize that Lucifer’s decisions brought him to this point and the same applies for Chloe’s existence in his life and perhaps her entity as well. But I get ahead of myself…

Okay so as you have noticed throughout the season we have several subplots going and most of them will give way to 5x08 which in turn will lead us to the second part of S5.

First, we need to talk about the bracelets. I have mentioned many times that 5x08 will provide a permanent solution to whatever is going on with them and active seekers of that solution seem to be mainly Amenadiel and Maze. That is because most probably little Charlie provides part of that solution. If I’m correct then Charlie exhibits something that aids Lucifer and Daniel to a point but the real answer lies on 5x04. Additionally do remember that Dan seemed to be able to battle the influence of Azrael’s blade so keep that to the back of your head as well.  

As promised to many I will not reveal nothing of the script but I’ll provide you with a prop that laid in plain sight yet only the people who knew what it was about could decode it. That will be mentioned at the end of the episode as it is also connected to 5x09 so be sure that the bracelet issue will be out of the picture in this episode but we have so many things to cover still.

Second, comes the Serial Killer who appears in the episodes 5x07 and 5x08. It is true that on Twitter we were informed that Chloe and an Officer are in a very small freshly painted room and they had to act distresses and shaken. (I contemplated on hiding the name but then I decided against it mainly because she has already tagged Lauren in her posts. I’m still a bit uneasy about this to be honest).

Many believe that Chloe gets kidnapped and that would be a good explanation yet as I have mentioned before do not expect her to die or at least to have a conventional ‘death’ believe the writers will not take that route. In this story we either get Lucifer to act impulsively and reclaim Chloe from death or in a very uncommon fashion we get that Chloe is more than a Miracle but do not go again to this poignant discussion she is an angel etc. Let’s speculate that Chloe is something more connected to Lucifer’s past and we will get how only at the end of 5x08 perhaps even in 5x09…

So enough with the small S&S of the two main subplots and let’s gate to what is happening during the episode!

Let’s talk locations something that I didn’t do in 5x07 because I wanted to focus more on the ones in 5x08.

- Precinct

- LUX

- WB lot house

- Bronson Caves

- Linda’s house

- Freshly painted room

In order to break down the locations we need to see who is working with whom in this episode.

First, let’s start with Amenadiel and Maze. For the past episodes they have come very close and in this episode, they once again aim to deliver. There is a dedication there a need to protect their newfound family. Charlie, Lucifer, Dan and of course the rest of the not so much affected parties from the multiple threats they face in S1P1.

We know that there is something like a fight breaking in at the precinct. A crowd gathers quickly I believe from the interrogation room to the main area. I believe it is mainly related to Chloe and the Officer being stuck in the small room (notice here she said room not cave) but that remains to be seen. 

Lucifer and Maze seem to be rather pissed at least Maze that is and leads to probably the photo where Lucifer is behind an officer (the actor is a friend of Kevin Alejandro) where Lucifer shows him something (a photo? a number? a location?) and threatens to have some results. You can see that Maze is at the left side of that photo.

Of course, the above scene might be happening somewhere else but my gut at the moment tells me that Lucifer has had enough and wants answers. I do not believe he ever recovered completely from 2x13 so that opens the proverbial can of worms…

If I’m correct about this then Lucifer is wearing blue at the beginning of the episode and then purple. The reason for that speculation is because in one of Lesley-Ann’s videos Ellis’ stunt wears a purple shirt while Lucifer when he demands answers from that officer/security he wears the dark blue so I guess that the purple shirt is what we will see at the second half of the episode. PS I love the silver cufflinks on the blue shirt arrangement. That is also supported by Ella’s t-shirt in the precinct and then the car meaning Lucifer and Maze go in the precinct and then he leaves with Ella. 

So perhaps that’s when Ella finds out? I’m not sure but it\s nice to suppose she does in 5x08. 

Btw Alejandro here reminds me so much of James Marsters aka Spike in Buffy :P 

Maybe today Satan... :D Rafferty was always a great tease... 

In this episode, we have also seen Lucifer with some bullet halls but his shirts in 5x08 do not seem to fully support that incident in that episode as he wears deep purple and midnight blue shirts. Of course, that scene might be happening early on the episode but I could be cautious here.

Now probably after the precinct scene, we had Amenadiel and Maze patterning up and of course Lucifer and Ella. Amenadiel and Maze seem to be again preoccupied with the bracelet mystery but also we have a scene where Maze is at Linda’s house with the same clothes and we also have Charlie in a beautiful onesie in light blue with moons and stars.

^The baby proofed ceiling... 

At the same time, Lucifer and Ella with his car pay a visit to a house at the suburbs which we know it’s at the lot and might or might not be connected to previous episodes of S5 yet I’m not certain about that one. In order for that to happen

Okay so! We know that at some point Lucifer and Maze end up at the Bronson caves. Now here is a not so secret secret. Lucifer this season has three stages and many sets are constructed in order for the cast to not leave the lot often and for the requests of the writers' room to be easier to be full field. Of course, that has happened before with the country bar that was constructed in 4x04, or the hospital in 3x16 where Lucifer gets Abel’s soul back from Hell but in S5 they are doing some spectacular things with the props. Actually, one of the parts of the cave has been built in the stages so Lesley-Ann’s photo at the cave is in reality at the stages not on location.

So we have Lucifer and Maze and also their stunts there (Well at least Lucifer’s that is). I do not know if the small room is supposed to be in the caves or somewhere completely different but for the most part of the episode our leads are trying to resolve the issue of the bracelet combined with Chloe and the Serial Killer.

You can see that on location they changed the arrangement of the rocks a bit adding some bigger rocks to look perhaps like a planetary system. Also in Lesley-Ann’s photo, you can see at the right some stairs. I wished it was part of the prohibition tunnel Lucifer claimed LUX to be full with but only time will tell if that is true or it’s simply part of the cave system of the Bronson Caves.

Notice the difference between the rocks that were placed from the production and down how the arrangement was a day before the shot on location. 

A small trivia here. The Bronson Caves is mainly known as the Batcave as it was used as the Batcave for the Batman series back in the 1960s. Originally a quarry it remained unused in the 10th century and use for series and films have earned it a spot as an L.A. landmark from the state f California.

Moving on!

The last acts of this episode will be interesting to see… We do have some unbelievable revelations and consequences in my opinion and in Lucifer series fashion we should be ready to perhaps welcome a hard to swallow, truth.

Lucifer in this season had an unparalleled growth. If you seek for Deckerstar romance I’m not sure we will get to have them in a relationship just yet and although that saddens me, in 5x09 it’s promised to finally move on towards that. Yes, they are in love and they appear to be also committed to each other but I do not think we have enough evidence to claim they are in a relationship but then again what happens in the stages between Ellis and Lauren as Lucifer and Chloe almost never gets out.

Concluding the 5x08 episode we should expect the following. Sure the serial will be killed or arrested with the probability laying on being killed but when have the writers ever played fair? I do not think that the officer who was with Chloe will make it either but here is into hoping! Usually, the reoccurring character that is mentioned or has few lines goes unsung into the light or fire…

We expect that Charlie will manifest an interesting side we were expecting since S4 but will become more prominent in S5 and even though it is expected it will probably catch us by surprise.

As I have said to expect Dan to be now aware of what is going on and who Lucifer actually is.

There is a young girl in the cast which I have no idea what her role is. Also, there is a small LUX scene in this episode for which we know next to nothing I’m afraid as it must be something really quick.

Another information is that there was a bts with a flying harness. The bts says for floating only and I’ll believe that but I cannot swear to you it will be used for Lucifer. Sometimes stunts are employed in different jobs or have different routines so although I’m positive about it I cannot guarantee it’s for our show. Plus, we know that there is a lot of CGI happening in this episode.

Now the last part I want to talk about before adding a small mention to 5x09. I have said many times that everything in this season is connected. When I saw that prop I wondered whether to not mention it or to do so with the minimal effect possible. So I did the second. I covered the extra spoilers around it and I left two things. Lucifer’s suit jacket and the engraved ankh on that prop. When the season drops you will get the whole thing but for now it.

Borrowing some lines from Wikipedia you will probably realize where this is going:

This sequence was found in several Egyptian words, including the words meaning "mirror", "floral bouquet", and "life". In art, the symbol often appeared as a physical object representing either life or substances such as air or water that are related to it. It was especially commonly held in the hands of ancient Egyptian deities, or being given by them to the pharaoh, to represent their power to sustain life and to revive human souls in the afterlife.

Early versions bear a resemblance to the tyet symbol, a sign that represented the concept of "protection". In many respects the tyet resembles an ankh, except that its arms curve down. Its meaning is also reminiscent of the ankh, as it is often translated to mean "welfare" or "life" it’s also a symbol that came to be connected with the goddess Isis. In some decorative friezes in temples, all three signs, or the ankh and was alone, were positioned above the hieroglyph for a basket that represented the word "all": "all life and power" or "all life, power, and stability”.

For the ones who fear I have gone too far, fear not. Even with the above the actual plot is still well concealed but two things are exposed.

1) Everything at some point backfires.

2) AGN might have been into something.

That’s, of course, a spoiler based speculation but the spoiler is still there. The supernatural aspect of S5 rearranges things and views on people, reals and even entities. When they ask me - no idea with what authority I can answer those question as I’m but a fan - whether one will live more or they will both die or even if they will grow old etc the reality lies on a very simple truth. 

Most fans envision of Deckerstar and the series finale is based to what we know not what S5 introduces us to. New episodes mean new information and new facts to take into consideration. Above all? Lucifer as a series is not a regular show that abides to human rules meaning time, life, death and procreation. It goes beyond that and that is why we can rarely speculate about where it leads us as that damn Lightbringer shines too bright for any of us to see clearly where that path leads us.

Finally, I would like to add an observation from 5x09 but without bts. In one bts we saw that Lauren had certain marks but none noticed the deathly pale make up. 5x09 does not support Chloe’s death as you know but Deckerstar moving forward with also a romantic scene on location at Grand Park of L.A. So why should we so worried about?

Nothing really aside from the fact that Chloe was probably wrong as was Lucifer. Past and Present seem to be merged and new realizations arise thus giving our leads an equal footing but the consequences have most probably hit Chloe at the beginning of 5x09 not in a bad way necessarily yet enough for the whole mess of Dan, Charlie, Lucifer and Chloe to bring forward God’s appearance in 5x10 for some answers to be finally given as new problems once again plague the main storyline of the series. Nothing drastic ever brings forward only good or evil. Sometimes it makes you Fall, sometimes it makes you Rise Sometimes both happen and sometimes, sometimes everything is reinstated to the preconceived era of everything.

Spoiler Alert indeed…

^That photo is placed chronologically at the time Lesley-Ann posted her stage ‘cave’photo. 

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 160

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 12 - “Protect Urara’s Stage!” Date watched: 23 November 2019 Original air date: 22 April 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/KiGZvA2 Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

When did this become the Precure stage show?

As I indicated in the last review, this is one of those episodes that just really sticks out in my memory, but it turns out I don’t actually remember much about it at all. It’s not as impactful as I recalled, but it represents a step forward for Urara and it has a kickass fight. Let’s get started!

The Plot

Urara has been tapped to host a stage show at an amusement park, which is a big break in her career. She meets her friends at the park, along with her overly prepared manager Washio and Masuko Mika, who’s there to write about her for the paper. Mika and Washio hit it off right away, speculating about where Urara’s career could go from here, culminating in a Hollywood movie and an Oscar nod.

Urara arrives at her rehearsal, goes through wardrobe, and starts going through her routine. Unfortunately the star of the show has had an emergency and called out. Nozomi quickly volunteers to play her part in the show, to save Urara’s debut. Unfortunately, she isn’t a very good actress, but it’s too late to cancel the show now. Outside, we see Girinma handing out fliers for the show and making ominous remarks about its content....

At showtime, the stadium is filled with children and their parents, wanting to see the forest animals show. Nozomi is extremely nervous, despite Urara’s reassurance, and trips and falls during her entrance.

Before she can recover, Girinma drops a mask onto a prop tree, which turns into a giant Kowaina. Out in the crowd, Mika is confused by this strange story direction but the audience all thinks it’s part of the show. (no magical falling asleep here!) Rin, Karen, and Komachi all rush onto stage with Nozomi and Urara but aren’t sure if they should transform with all these people watching. However, Urara’s actor instincts kick in and she tells the audience to look at up just as Karen convinces the stage manager to turn on the spotlights, blinding the audience members momentarily. The girls seize their opportunity and transform into Precure. They fight the Kowaina as the opening theme starts playing, and it’s a very visually spectacular fight as they run, jump, and dive through tree branches and vines to try to land a few solid hits on the monster. It tries to shoot a leaf storm at the audience but Mint blocks it with her shield, and then Girinma tries to attack a nosy Mika, who is protected by Aqua. Dream manages to shoot off a Dream Attack, defeating the Kowaina, as Girinma retreats. There’s a gag during all of this where Washio is worried because he can’t see Urara, and somehow didn’t connect the dots when the five girls transformed on stage.

Mika, recognizing the Pretty Cures from her first meeting with them, takes lots of pictures of the battle and plans to write a piece about them. They’re sure that this time they’re busted, but once again Nuts runs interference, going up to her in his human state and saying hello. The next day at school, all the students are crowded around the newspaper again, and wouldn’t you know, it’s an expose on Nuts and Mika’s fated reunion, with a tiny article about Urara’s stage show at the bottom. Washio comes up and asks Urara to put on that show again, because the Precure fight was a smash hit with audiences, but the other four girls wave it off, and the episode ends.

The Analysis

I don’t know where to start. Urara is giving it her all in this stage show, and she even improvs a bit to keep their cover and distract the audience while they transform. She’s really good at what she does, and she has a promising future as an actor ahead of her. She presents a really energetic performance for the kids and tries to mitigate the danger by making it seem like the monster attack is part of the show. The show must go on, indeed! Additionally, when Nozomi steps up to play the part of the rabbit, despite fumbling in the costume and having trouble with her lines, Urara just rolls with it. I love that all the girls are really rooting for this to work out for her, and during the fight they defend the sanctity of the show and Urara’s part. And honestly, props to Nozomi as well. She’s trying her best here. She’s clumsy and has been kicked out of the drama club before, but her heart is in the right place, and there are no better options so the other three girls agree to help her with cue cards.

there’s a new kaiju in town

The battle itself is action-packed and filled with some dynamic scenes that I will turn into gifs. It’s one of the better fights in this show so far. I love how the girls fly around through the vines and branches, delivering some swift ass-kickings. There is some reused footage from the opening, namely the part where the five girls line up as the song counts off “One, two, three four five!” The kowaina makes itself a difficult target, despite its large size, and that keeps the battle interesting. It takes some work for the girls to actually get to the mask and break it. The large amount of civilians keep the stakes high, as they’re easy targets for a massive attack. This lets us see Mint use her shield in a more interesting way than normal (because I’ll be honest, a lot of the times she blocks the enemy’s attack when she could just dodge). I love getting to see her make use of her strengths. Shield cures are highly situational, but this was a situation in which it was very effective. Also, I liked how Mika’s insatiable lust for a scoop put her in danger. She won’t learn from it, but it’s an action that had nearly fatal consequences because Girinma was out for her head, and it took Aqua intervening to save her. When she did that, she referred to her by name, which might cause Mika to recognize them down the road... I don’t think so but we’ll find out.

Speaking of special attacks, there’s something I want to discuss about them. In the FW shows, the special attack was only ever used as a finisher. They never used Marble Screw or Twin Stream Splash to attack in the middle of a battle, but they do use their special attacks in Yes 5 as both attacks and finishers. Some of their attacks simply don’t work as finishers (I mean, I’d like to see them TRY to finish a monster off with Mint Protection, that’d be cool), and pink rules so you usually see Dream Attack used to take down the monster. What they don’t have is a clear group finisher. That will change, of course, but as long as this persists, I get a sense of inconsistency about what will and won’t destroy a Kowaina. The use of special attacks that aren’t finishers is a bit of a deviation from the original concept but it’s still tame here. I don’t think they ever go too far down this rabbit hole, but it’s worth noting.

This episode manages to mix in a good amount of comedy on the side, without overwhelming the main plot, and I admire the balance. Washio is a fun manager but he is really over-prepared. He appears carrying two giant duffle bags for Urara, despite the fact that her outfit is provided, and among the many things he has brought are some charms for....

Nono Hana could use that last one

He and Mika play off of each other really well, they’ve got a nice comic relief duo schtick going on. Mika, of course, is mainly in this to get a good story for the paper, and having a local celebrity at school is a good outlet. Reporting on her career advancements is a big step up from reporting what she ate for lunch. Both of them readily buy into the fight scene, assuming it’s part of the show and not that there was some kind of actual danger, and Washio is just distressed that Urara has disappeared instead of fearing for his life. At the end of the episode, both of them ramp up the comedy in their own way. Mika’s crush on Nuts has not yet gotten old, and probably won’t for a while yet (don’t quote me on that), so continuing the running gag where she gets distracted from a big story by a chance (or intentional) encounter with him gets a thumbs up in my book. I don’t get tired of seeing Nozomi and Rin’s exasperated faces when they see her reports.

Also, Urara has a nice little gag there where she’s hopping up and down trying to read the paper because she can’t see over their shoulders. I’ll gif that soon.

Urara gets a couple of other moments of note, where she seems to be breaking the fourth wall. At the very start, when she’s sort of practicing her introductory speech to the crowd, she turns to speak to the show’s audience, and Rin questions who she’s even talking to. (Rin makes a good straight man, by the way).

The last gag of note is when Coco and Nuts say they tagged along because you never know when a Pinky could show up.... and then a Pinky shows up right then. Yeah, Pinkies, remember them? They’re kind of supposed to be driving the plot. There’s more of them than there are Heartiels and Miracle Drops combined, yet they’re barely mentioned.

Just some other small observations before I wrap this up, I love everybody’s street clothes in this episode. They’re a little different from what we’ve seen them wearing before.

except for Rin

Urara’s sailor blouse and knee-length skirt make her look a little more mature than her normal attire of puffy shorts and sleeves. The other four are wearing outfits strongly reminiscent of their clothes from the ending. Rin and Nozomi’s outfits are exactly that, except for the butterflies. Komachi and Karen’s outfits are the same as what they wear in the ending, but the colors are a little different.

for reference

And for some reason the art in this episode is very hit-or-miss. A lot of good shots still seem slightly off model. It’s a little jarring, it’s not low-detail (except for one laughably bad frame), it’s just that faces are drawn with warped shapes. Yes I am going to chronicle every time this happens in every show, it’s notable.

What happened here is that they quickly zoomed out to show the whole stage, and they wouldn’t need to show much detail, so to achieve the effect, they started way zoomed in on the cell before pulling back, rather than create a new drawing for one just frame. It’s not really visible when watching.

So, animation stuff aside.... this was a great episode! Since the major theme of this show is finding and chasing your dream, showing each girl’s different progress in that regard is important, and they do it so well. Urara is a bit further ahead than the others, but she still has a lot of work to do to become a famous actor, and her friends want to help her however possible. It’s what this show does best, and this was a fun stepping stone.

Next time, Rin is getting pulled in every direction at once! Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 “kettei” by Nozomi herself, 1 each by Washio and Mika (spoken together)

NOTE: I’m going to come back to add some gifs to this post at a later date. I really wanted to include them the first time around but due to unforseen circumstances, this review was delayed several days past when I wanted to get it out, so I didn’t want to delay it any further. I’ll make a post on @pcd-status​ when I update this.

[schmergo]

The Winter’s Tale at American Shakespeare Center: Informal Review

It’s less than two weeks until auditions for the production of The Winter’s Tale that I’m directing this summer, so my friend and I went down to the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton last weekend to get some inspiration and get hyped… and it worked! Ever since, I’ve felt compelled to write one of my little informal reviews, so here goes!

If you’ve never been to ASC, first of all, you should. It’s my favorite place to see Shakespeare’s plays in the entire world. They’re this little recreation of Shakespeare’s indoor Blackfriars Playhouse (fancy people saw shows there in winter months in London), a cozy and intimate place that replicates Renaissance traditions like keeping the lights on through the show and using a small ensemble of actors to play multiple roles. But just because they take Shakespeare seriously doesn’t mean they take themselves seriously. Their shows are always fun, energetic, pleasantly irreverent, and full of creative little surprises in staging. They always pull out the spirit of the show. Another thing that they do is incorporate lots of music into the shows—they present a lively preshow and intermission mini-concert featuring the talented troupe of actors playing instruments and singing folksy renditions of contemporary tunes. My favorite this time was “Mr. Brightside,” sung by the actor who played  King Leontes. For those unfamiliar with The Winter’s Tale… well, that song is extremely fitting for Leontes’ state of mind.

The Winter’s Tale is—there’s no doubt about it—one of Shakespeare’s weirder plays. One part tense psychological drama and one part comedic pastoral romance separated by a 16-year time gap, it somehow all comes together in the end with a magical, intensely moving family reunion. I used to dislike this show, and I still think that on paper, it’s not Shakespeare’s best work, but seeing an imaginative production at the Folger Shakespeare Library the other year was a revelation to me: this show could be unbelievably powerful to watch if acted by passionate actors who are truly absorbed in their characters journeys without winking. As one character, Paulina, says in the play’s final act, “It is required that you awake your face.” Even the smallest shred of cynicism can shatter the delicate illusion that Shakespeare creates in The Winter’s Tale. Its plot is as fragile, intricate, and impractical as a Faberge egg.

I’ve seen six productions of The Winter’s Tale. Four of them only reinforced my snarky feelings about it. The Folger’s reimagined, highly original take on it was a breath of fresh air. ASC’s was different. It completely captured and reflected Shakespeare’s play for better AND worse, without doing any rewriting or reorganizing to cover up some of the play’s more awkward moments. It was unapologetic and authentic. All in all, it was emotionally exhilarating yet messy.

The story goes thusly: King Leontes of Sicilia is hosting his best friend, King Polixenes of Bohemia, for a long stay at his palace when he suddenly begins to suspect that his wife, Queen Hermione, has been cheating with his bestie. This is especially worrisome because Hermione is pregnant. Although she is actually totally innocent, Leontes’ paranoia spirals out of control until he tears apart his own family and destroys multiple lives—yet lost family members sometimes come back in the most unexpected way.

The final scene of the play, when done well, is a transcendent moment that brings tears to the most jaded eyes. I always judge a production’s Leontes—and, really, the production itself—on whether that final scene feels deserved, whether I want that happy family reunion for the penitent king. ASC’s Ronald Roman-Melendez completely delivered. I wanted his happy ending so badly that my heart was pounding.

               Roman-Melendez took a surprisingly long time to fully inhabit his character, however. In Act 1, he struggled a little with Leontes’ fragmented speech, sometimes seeming not to understand when Leontes’ phrases change direction. Some lines came out disappointingly Shatnerian. “Oh boy, this’ll be a long night,” I thought glumly, anticipating four more acts of this. But I needn’t have worried. When Leontes’ madness hit its full pitch in Act 3, Roman-Melendez crafted an incredibly complex portrait of conflict, sleep deprivation, rage and mental disorientation that was so believable that it was scary—and pitiable. After the play’s time skip, he beautifully reflected the passing of sixteen years of guilt, grief, and pious contemplation, his eyes sad but his voice warm. Leontes is, in my opinion, one of the most challenging roles ever written by Shakespeare,  and even the most talented actors often don’t seem to get it. Roman-Melendez is one of the few actors I’ve seen who seem to understand that Leontes’ tyranny is not an expression of strength. He craves control only because he’s completely out of control.

               As Leontes’ queen Hermione, Ally Farzetta resembles a Renaissance painting of the virgin Mary, with beautiful long dark hair, pensive features, and a halo-like headdress that seems to hint at her virtuous nature. Her Hermione is both playful and elegant, gentle yet strong. When she tells us in Act 2 that she is not prone to weeping as many of her sex are, it’s not bragging but overly naïve: she has no idea what kind of horrors will befall her. When she later appears bedraggled at her public trial, too soon after childbirth, her husband resolutely facing away from her, she cries.  I cried with her. Farzetta doubles delightfully as a ditzy shepherdess named Mopsa before a stirringly emotional turn in Act 5.

               The most powerful player in the ensemble was unquestionably Annabelle Rollison, who plays Leontes’ sharp-tongued advisor, Paulina. This may be a little unfair because Paulina is probably the coolest character in the play, with daring one-liners like “It is a heretic that makes the fire, not she that burns in it,” but Rollison takes a role that could be a one-note ‘strong female character’ and makes her utterly real: proud, emotional, manipulative, loving, devastated, hopeful, and much more. Her words feel like a punch in the gut half the time and an encouraging arm around the shoulders the other half the time. She commands the stage in every scene with a confident, stately bearing. (Her shepherdess character is even goofier than Ally Farzetta’s. The character’s name is Dorcas. That’s all you need to know.)

               Topher Embrey stole every scene as the adorably gullible Shepherd’s Son, an overgrown child with a sunny disposition and a fondness for the ukulele. Embrey plays the Shepherd’s Son (aka Clown) as unaware of his own strength to hilarious effect and, with his warm voice and wide eyes, is one of the most lovable lugs you’ll ever see. No wonder the two shepherdesses squabble so much over him—that and the fact that he carries more money than is good for him.

As young lovers Perdita and Prince Florizel, Constance Swain and Josh Clark show strong chemistry and energy and wonderful dance skills, as wild and free as you’d expect Bohemian revellers to be. They’re a treat to watch, yet I couldn’t help but feel some elements of their characterization could have been more carefully calibrated. Swain’s Perdita, though utterly lovely, came across as more 'manic pixie dream girl' than regal, no matter how much other characters commented that she seemed too great for her humble surroundings. Clark’s Florizel was a hair more petulant and irritable than I’d like to see in the impulsive poet-Prince.

The rest of the ensemble was good, though some characters (especially wise advisor Camillo) made less of an impression than I'm used to seeing. The energetic Madeline Calais failed to entertain as the mischievous peddler and scam-artist Autolycus, but that's not exactly her fault-- I've never found that character amusing in any of the productions I've seen. The scenes featuring Autolycus dragged even with the presence of audience favorite Topher Embrey.

Jessica Van Essen's sumptuous costumes enhanced every scene. She dressed Sicilia's royals and courtiers in formal Renaissance garb, with Leontes decked out in regal purple, while creating colorful costumes for the foreign land of Bohemia that seemed equally inspired by traditional Turkish, Ukrainian, and Bavarian dress. Plenty of flower crowns, silk jackets, intricate patterns, and a cool turban for Kenn Hopkins' commanding King Polixenes. In Act 5, Leontes appeared in a huge fur cape that seemed to represent the weight of sorrows heaped upon his shoulders.

Special effects were simple, as is common at ASC, but well-timed thunder sounds were often used to dramatic effect. The famous bear, simply played by an actor in furry costume, was nonetheless effective, both brutal and darkly comedic. One more modern touch included an automated pedestal that glided out across ASC's stage in the play's final scene-- a departure from the usual low-tech staging conventions, but magical enough to fit seamlessly into the play. "If this be magic, let it be an art as lawful as eating." I sobbed through the final scene.

Though this may not have been a perfect production of Winter's Tale, it was a wonderful recreation of Shakespeare's charmingly imperfect play. If you get the chance to go down to Staunton, don't miss it!

I can't wait for auditions!

[filmista]

Lost In Translation (2003)

“You’re probably just having a midlife crisis. Did you buy a Porsche yet?”

Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola’s second feature film seems to prove that talent does perhaps lie in the genes to some degree, after all, her attempt at acting with her father directing her, proved unsuccessful and earned her a Razzie.

It was just like her father with directing that she would find her way in life, her passion and she probably certainly picked up some elements from her father’s filming style.

I think that’s only normal when you literally grow up in that world, for instance when her father made Apocalypse Now she was taken along with her dad and her mom. So ever since she was a little girl she has seen her father behind the camera, of course, that was going to have an influence on her.

Her first ever film was The Virgin Suicides, which I think is a good adaptation of the book with the same name, and while some consider it her masterpiece, for me up until now and according to many others as well that’s Lost In Translation.

Lost In Translation is one of my all-time favorite films and one of those films that I can keep on revisiting time after time I think I’ve seen it about eight times by now, not sure exactly, definitely many times.

It’s one of those films that makes me calm when I’m watching it, I can watch it when I’m really agitated and I’ll be calm after just a few minutes of watching the film…

I find that there’s something soothing and comforting in the familiarity of the emotions and the feelings of the two main characters. There’s something universal about the things they feel, most of us have felt like at least either one of the characters at least once in our lives.

Visually Coppola is calm, there’s great attention to the aesthetic of the environment and Coppola shows us her two characters and their dynamic naturally so that when we feel like we know them, they really almost have become real people and it really, actually almost hurts to say goodbye to them.

While Coppola takes her time, and while at first sight not really that much seems to happen at all, there’s really many different subjects and the human emotions attached to them explored. While Sofia’s father Francis Ford Coppola, is sometimes poetic in the brutality in his films; he makes violent stuff look extremely beautiful and pleasing to the eyes.

She, on the other hand, is sometimes brutal, in the calmness of which she shows us certain emotional states with such spot on, merciless precision. In a way succeeds in making you feel like her characters, or getting that certain emotion, that you already had in you out of you.

Lost in Translation for me at least, is a film that can make you feel utterly alone even if you may be watching it with an entire classroom. Because it painfully confronts with the fact that few people really truly care about us and know us, and that certain subjects are really truly explored best with strangers, who for a particular moment in time, might connect with us deeply, perhaps better than anyone has before…

So while Lost In Translation seems to be about not all that much at first glance, it treats relationships, difficulties in marriage, or feeling alone next to your partner, your friends even your family. Feeling completely alone in the world even when you are next to people because you can’t really talk about what really matters to you, or fully share the things that occupy your mind the most.

Or being tired of the repetitiveness that may inevitably to some degree come with certain things in your life like your profession, or on the contrary being young, inexperienced when it comes to certain things, and feeling hopeless and scared.

Because you don’t yet know how It’s all going to work, and you fear that it might not even work at all, and being awake and unable to sleep at night because It’s all mulling around in your head, driving you insane…

Now, in this case, all this angst, insomnia and loneliness, are felt by two Americans, (but they could literally be from any country) a middle-aged actor who’s very likely experiencing a middle life crisis, and a young woman.

That doesn’t fully know what she wants to be and how she should live her life, she is somewhat impulsive and has tried her hand at numerous things, and now slowly comes to realize she may have married the wrong man.

That he doesn’t really know her, or even sees or cares about what goes on in her mind, and that he probably won’t ever do so, she has a deep depression; her husband can’t even tell his wife is suffering on the inside…

He has more in common with an airhead starlet (who my intuition suspects he was having an affair with, why else wouldn’t want his wife to come with, if there’s nothing to hide?, according to him It’s because she’ll get bored) who stars in bad films and he seems to love his camera and his own ego more than her.

She’s afraid she’s never going to have a purpose, that she’s never going to find a place, her niche in the world, something that fits her and that fulfills her. She’s afraid she’s never going to amount to anything, and that she’s never going to be fully loved, that no one is ever going to see and hear her.

He’s tired, afraid that It’s all been for nothing, that he’s never been much at all, and that his wife doesn’t really get him, and that he perhaps wasn’t ever fully loved, he doesn’t see the sense and the purpose in it all anymore. These two people find each other, meet and they connect, in each other, they find comfort and support.

They find someone who has tolerance, patience and who wants to listen, someone who perhaps doesn’t necessarily offer that many solutions, but who understands how the other feels completely and who won’t ever judge.

With each other they talk about all that stuff that they can’t talk about with anyone else because those people press for details, they criticize and judge, from the existing perspective that they have on them, not even always with bad intentions.

Bill Murray plays Bob Harris, an actor who parts with ill-concealed reluctance to Tokyo to film a commercial for whiskey. In fact, he would rather be on stage, but as he would later say, “This gave me the chance to escape from my wife, miss the birthday of my child and to pocket two million dollars.”

Let’s say that Bob has become a bit cynical about his profession. But the whiskey does at least what it should do, and Bob retires at the chic hotel bar where he resides, lonely, sad and almost continuously drunk.

There, he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a young woman who has just graduated and now does not know what to do next. She is in Tokyo with her husband, a photographer for whom she is clearly a burden, and while he goes to work, she spends, just like Bob, too much time alone.

In her room in the crazy, chaotic city that Tokyo is apparently,  and in the hotel bar, where she meets Bob. The two differ thirty years in age, but together they finally find some kind of support and understanding. During the next few days, they disappear into the city together, and they talk about their life, marriage, children and all those things which you can apparently only discuss fully with strangers.

Coppola’s personal experiences color the whole film - she travels to Japan, her (notoriously) failed marriage with director Spike Jonze, her background as a photographer … From beginning to end you feel that this is a very personal project, you sense that she was in a way trying to rid herself of some of her demons.

She is not interested in telling a traditional story - she just has these two characters, who she knows through and through like they’re her own children and she wants to present them to us and share them with us. Coppola knows how to lead us into the life of Bob and Charlotte, and by the end of the ride, we know them they are our friends.

How does she do that? First, she gives the two characters time to spend alone in some scenes. We see Charlotte sitting melancholy, lonely in front of her huge, panoramic window or lying on her bed, always in a fetal position.

Hugging herself, as if to protect herself against all that is outside her room, and maybe also as a way to console herself. Because her husband won’t ever do it and won’t give her, the whole measure of affection she needs and craves and in my eyes deserves!

The last time they slept together literally seems ages ago, and they’ve unfortunately only been married two years… she tries, but she only receives a sporadical hug or a sporadical kiss once or twice a day, if he remembers or cares to do it at all.

Her husband might just as well not have been there, and when they come together with friends, we are seeing her almost out of her mind, visibly suffering from the banality of their “hip” actually painfully self-righteous, egotistical conversations. And no one sees it… Fundamentally she is alone, and Coppola gives her, especially at the beginning of the film, the time to be alone.

She needs that, otherwise, her later scenes with Bob wouldn’t have worked as well. Visually Coppola stressed that feeling by always surrounding Charlotte with vertical lines, the space in which she is located, seems to make her smaller, and gives off a claustrophobic, stifling feeling.

Bob gets more of the same, almost psychopathic of the jet-lag and sleep deprivation, he is overwhelmed and exhausted by the relentless, somewhat practiced, friendliness of everyone around him. But no one with whom he can talk. Tokyo as a city is also not very helpful for our hero and our heroine.

From the hotel rooms to the streets, the metropolis comes out here as a kind of hellish amusement park for adults, full of neon lights, where technology has swept away all sense of humanity and personality

Early scenes in the film, in which Bob is woken up at night by a fax machine, and in which he delivers a desperate fight with a shower and a training device are particularly funny - but on another level at the same time yet again very sad.

Bob arises from this as a man who could be funny and hugely charming but who doesn’t feel like it anymore, doesn’t see the sense in it anymore and Bill Murray knows precisely how to play him.

Murray is probably the only Saturday Night Live (I’ve actually never seen an episode, not that it isn’t available in the cave in which I’m living, I just never have for whatever reason, but I know Murray appeared on it ), comedian from the eighties who has prevailed in both comedic and dramatic roles and has retained his credibility. And here he is smart enough not to be overtly funny, that would have been distasteful.

That would not fit his character at all. Lost In Translation is often a  genuinely hilarious film, but the humor comes precisely from the way Murray responds to the very different behavior of the Japanese in a somewhat undercooled way. A people that he does not understand, he does not understand the language and customs.

Scarlett Johansson is just as understatedly, silently powerful, at the time of filming she was only eighteen, nineteen years old, but she plays emotions and thoughts that are older than that, without losing her credibility. As a couple, the opportunity of a sexual relationship is presented right from the beginning, but no.

That obvious trap, is avoided skillfully, elegantly the whole story would have fallen dead if the two had gone to bed with each other since all the tension between the characters would have disappeared. And the tension between the characters there is it crackles between Murray and Johansson from their first to their last scene.

Especially they’re last. The farewell that they share is one of the nicest, most sincere emotional scenes I’ve seen in a film in a long time, Lost In Translation ends with a kiss and Murray’s character that whispers something in Johanson’s ear and her saying okay, then she is teary-eyed and smiling simultaneously.

We never know what he whispered, and you do not need to because we know that it was something positive, otherwise she would not smile at him would she? And they feel so real that they deserve their privacy.

The kiss they share is not intended to turn each other on sexually, no foreplay and sex will follow even though it is right in the mouth. It is a calm, friendly, kind of kiss, there’s no get your shirt and your pants off right now! the urgency to it, it is a sort of kiss between friends which literally says: I love you, thanks for everything, I will never forget you, I will miss you.

There are many people that say that what Bob and Charlotte have is an affair of the mind, an emotional affair. they can’t find emotional understanding and support with their own spouse, they don’t sleep with each other, but they get intimate in a mental way, they share the stuff with each other that’s on their minds that their spouse doesn’t have the time for.

Murray’s character at one point has a one night stand, It’s not with Charlotte, and It’s only sex, nothing more to it for him, it was to fulfill a sexual need, with Charlotte he fulfills an emotional need. Charlotte comes to know about the one night stand, and seems a little annoyed, perhaps even somewhat jealous and hurt, perhaps she in that instant wanted to be that other woman, or it could even be anger at the other woman for taking Bob away from her, even if it was only for a few hours.

To some degree there is the attraction there, otherwise, she would not have reacted the way she did:

- Charlotte: “She’s older. At least you’ll have lots to talk about…” - Bob: “I can’t believe you couldn’t find anyone else to lavish you with attention.”She then after Bob’s answer, brusquely takes the menu, almost buries her face in it, turns away from Bob and refuses to face him for a while. No woman reacts like this with a man she doesn’t give a fuck about, or perhaps she’s silently judging him for having cheated on his wife.

There’s definitely an attraction of the mind, they think and feel alike and probably to some degree physical attraction, but they respect each other too much to ever act on it.

And after a while when they get to know each other fully, the sexual tension that might have been there seemingly has dissipated, they no longer feel any need to sleep with each other, It’s about being intimate on a level that goes beyond pure physical contact.

They find an understanding with each other that they don’t have with their spouse, in a good relationship or good marriage, your partner should be able to satisfy both your bodily and your mental needs, ideally, in a perfect, beautiful utopia.

To put it like this: Good sex every now and again, a good conversation, a genuine exchange of thoughts or a nice trip to some museum or a good dinner at a restaurant. If the latter is left unsatisfied and you go to another man or woman for that is that cheating? According to some people, it is.

I think It’s the case if It’s really constantly like that… But you can’t think like that all the time, because then any really good friendship, of the kind where the two people share all that’s on their own mind, between a man and a woman can be regarded as a form of cheating.

And that would incredibly limit people in their relationships with each other and even their way of viewing the world, men and women can learn from each other, help and support each other, so if you demonize they’re being friends, only friends literally a whole world of beautiful, enriching possibilities fall away…

Through Bob Charlotte really begins to realize that she married the wrong man because in this man she finds what she’s been missing emotionally, there’s a theory that what Bob whispers to the end to Charlotte is something along the lines of:

Tell that man the truth, or you do the right thing and you tell that man the truth, meaning that she should ask him for a divorce because she feels unloved. I don’t know if he directly said that, and it doesn’t matter because indirectly he has made her realize it, and Charlotte has also made Bob realize certain things.

And maybe if there hadn’t been that 30-year difference between them, both would have divorced and ended up together, but I don’t think so. What they had was just a genuine, deep friendship that lasted for a certain time, and they both helped each other realize certain things.

As I’ve said before they don’t really offer many solutions, because both are lost in their own way, but they reassure each other. Make each other feel better and make the perspective of what’s to come lighter, bearable they have given each other a renewed mental strength because now they both know that is possible to be understood by someone else.

There’s no doubt that they love each other but It’s as friends, there’s initially a few scenes where they seem somewhat physically attracted to each other, but as time progresses, it evolves and moves past that, in a way that feels completely unforced and believable.

It is possible for a man and a woman to love each other, in a non-physical way, for instance the love that a father feels for his daughter, (if there’s certain physical stuff going on there, something’s very seriously wrong) or that a brother feels for his sister, or that a son feels for his mother, it is not the same as a couple’s love, but it is strong and it is love nonetheless….

So I find what Coppola did really interesting, she doesn’t deny the possibility of a physical attraction (because maybe that to a certain extent is always gonna exist between a man a woman, that aren’t related, that’s simple biology) It’s explored a little, subtly but the characters accept the situation as it is and naturally move past that.

They no longer feel any need to consume the love they have for each other physically and they’re perfectly comfortable in each other’s company, they can stare into each other’s face for minutes and not feel the need to move in for the kiss.

Lost in Translation is a beautiful film, in every sense of the word and in all of its aspects. It’s a film with a sensitive yet acid, quite dark humor, a humor that’s based on loneliness and confusion.

It knows how to make busyness look calm and strangely serene in an almost otherworldly way. And how to capture the sometimes overwhelming emotion, the mental busyness of calmness, of utter tranquility. Of being completely on your own, or sitting by yourself and hearing your own thoughts deafeningly loud in your head.

In its cinematography and soundtrack, it adapts to the mood of its characters with ease, reflecting the city and the places that surround the characters according to their emotional perception, often by playing with contrasts. Coppola knows how to capture both pieces of mind and feeling locked in and stuck, just with her camera, while all the way preserving a tranquil, though never tiresome pace.

One of my favorite scenes: an attempt at conversation between Murray and an old Japanese man in a waiting room of a hospital. The Japanese man is incessantly talking, Murray understands zero, but agrees calmly and nicely with everything the man says as if he spoke perfect Japanese.

In the background we see two extras choke with uncontrollable laughter, and immediately we get the impression that at the time it was not planned, that the two Japanese ladies had indeed gotten the giggles and that Coppola simply chose to keep it that scene. And rightly so, because it is a wonderful piece of spontaneous cinema.

Lost In Translation is emotional in a good way, captivating, witty, honest, intelligent, … you can still throw in a few more adjectives if you wish to but it remains without a doubt one of Sofia Coppola’s best and my personal favorite of hers.

“The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.”

[remainseatedatalltimes]

And the decade ends with a...

So concludes another year, and with it, another decade as well.  Now, I wish I could sit here and reflect on what a game-changing, exhilarating and revolutionary year 2019 was in the world of cinema.  But I can’t.  In fact, in my 8 years of writing this one time annual blog, there has never been a year that was as insipid as this past year was.  So much so, that unlike in previous years where I have always started this blog highlighting some of the greats of the year that was, this year I’ve decided to start with the bottom of the barrel. But don’t fret, there are a few glasses of the good stuff left.  Not many, but a few.  

To set the scene, my least favourite film of 2019 is a movie (and no, it’s not the one you’re thinking of), that will likely go on to be nominated for several Academy Awards in just a few short weeks’ time.  And it should be nominated. There is plenty to praise about this film.  But incredible performances, stylish directing and a story centered around one of the most fascinating events in modern history does not always a good film make.  Not when it’s told in such an obnoxious, pretentious and self-indulgent way.  So, to kick things off, I present to you, my least favourite film of 2019 – Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

I should say straight off the bat that I am only a moderate fan of Quentin Tarantino’s work.  I love his film knowledge and his passion for making unique, and also highly nostalgic films.  But I’m also a firm believer that storytelling is at the heart of great cinema, and I often feel Tarantino sacrifices storytelling for brilliant, but often bloated camerawork and cinematography.

I had high hopes for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood however.  This was Tarantino working with an incredible cast, telling an original story set within one of Hollywood’s most infamous eras – and when the wonderfully retro and charming trailer dropped, I couldn’t have been more excited. This should have been the perfect canvas for Tarantino to shine.  

But instead, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is a frustratingly tedious, hedonistic film that almost feels like it’s mocking its audience with its in-jokes and smarmy blurring of lines between real events and fiction.  In just shy of 3 hours, Tarantino essentially conveys 3 things: actors are self-doubting creatures that need constant re-assurance (no surprise); Hollywood is a game of relationships where not rocking the boat is paramount (again, no surprise – most industries are the same); and that shocking audiences is apparently very easy when you take a non-fiction story and completely change the ending (1 plus 1 equals 7).  I know what you’re thinking.  How can that possibly make for a near 3 hour film?  Well, I refer you back to Paragraph 2 of the Remain Seated At All Times Tumblr blog post titled “And the decade ends with a....”, where I stated that this film is “obnoxious, pretentious and self-indulgent”.  Just like that entire last sentence is superfluous…well…you get the point.

So to prove that moving on once you’ve made a point IS achievable, let me then proceed to the other atrocity of 2019:  Roadkill.  Sorry. I mean, Cats.

Now before anybody jumps up and down and complains that a movie that is – in fact – so much worse than Once Upon A Time In Hollywood isn’t my worst film of 2019, I offer you this one short piece of commentary.  Cats is the kind of epic, unequivocal, indescribable disaster that actually transcends awful into a place of almost fascination and reverence.  You know what I mean.  Like watching a YouTube video of someone mixing paint. You know it’s ridiculous to sit there and watch it – but you can’t look away.  You’re transfixed.  And I will take that over boring arrogance any day.

Cats is NOT boring.  It’s far from it.  Much like the musical that inspired it – which so happens to also be one of the worst musicals ever created – Cats is a bold, daring attempt to deliver something no one ever wanted to see.  Humans behaving like cats singing boring ballads.  Add to it an insipid score that needs serious remastering, awful special effects, and an enhanced story-line that makes zero sense (yes, I know, they’re dancing humans dressed as cats – why am I surprised by a ridiculous story-line?), and you have 90 minutes of sheer bewilderment.  The only saving grace:  Hopefully the movie has sufficiently taken the last of nine lives from this atrocious musical so that we never have to endure another performance – either in film, OR on stage.

So now that we’ve taken out the kitty litter, let’s look at some of the brighter sparks of 2019. Because, whilst there were actually NO films last year that I reviewed higher than 4-stars, there were still a few gems that warrant some attention.  These include last year’s Best Picture winner, Green Book; the dark and twisted take on one of DC’s greatest villains, Joker; the hilarious and earnest original whodunit, Knives Out; and the epic end to the greatest movie franchise in history, Avenger’s Endgame.

But taking the spot of my 3rd best film of the year was the latest film in the franchise that constantly delivers the impossible – a better film with each and every sequel.  In its simplest form, Toy Story 4 is a beautiful romantic comedy featuring two stand-out lead characters.  But whilst the lovely romance of Woody and Bo Peep take centre stage, it’s the gobsmackingly clever new characters including the show boater with no self-confidence – Duke Caboom– and my absolute favourite new character of 2019 (and spirit utensil) – Forky – that ultimately steal the show.  Pixar never ceases to amaze, and Toy Story 4 is no exception. The idea of creating a kids movie positioned around a romantic comedy, where a core character is made of trash, thinks of himself as nothing more, and needs to learn self-worth from scratch, is something truly extraordinary.  So thank you Pixar for giving me Forky.  A character that taught me so much, even at my age!

Speaking of education, slipping into 2nd place is Olivia Wildes glorious directorial debut – Booksmart.  This joyous, hilarious and utterly original coming of age story is spearheaded by stellar performances by its two leads.  But it’s the way the film manages to use its often absurd humour to elevate its very sincere reflection of growing up in today’s day and age that really set this film apart.  Booksmart continues the trend of unique, smart coming of age stories where young love is not the focus.  Instead, it simply heroes its two smart and strong female leads and showcases that there’s no one more important than your best friend.

And so we come to my favourite film of the year – although, favourite is probably not the best word to use given how uncomfortable I found this film to watch.   But it’s precisely that discomfort that elevates this harrowing and heartbreaking film to my number one spot.  That film:  Hotel Mumbai.

I understand that putting a dramatized version of a horrifying real-life event at the top of my list may seem odd – and for many reviewers, this movie felt exploitative. But I couldn’t disagree more.  For me, Hotel Mumbai deftly balances the fears and bravery of its protagonists with a dismaying reflection of the motivations (or often lack there of) of the terrorists.  Add to that some social commentary on the political failures that made the tragedy far worse, and you have an uncomfortable to watch, but ultimately poignant reflection of just one of recent history’s most horrifying incidents, and my number 1 film of 2019.

Now, to avoid ending this recap of 2019 on such a dire note, I should point out that there are a large number of additional films I feel should be included in this list including Roma and The Irishman.  However – given I don’t review movies I see outside of cinemas (how can I honestly review a film I watch on a plane the same way I do on a giant immersive screen), I’ve intentionally left these off the list.  Likewise, there’s a number of films I missed this year – including the well-reviewed Parasite, and the latest from the genius that is Taikia Waititi – Jojo Rabbit – that I feel would likely have been quite high up in my rankings had I seen them in cinemas earlier in the year.   Although, given Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was my least favourite film – and yet it just walked away with a Best Picture award at the Golden Globes – then perhaps not.  Which is probably why I shouldn’t give up my day job.  Call me old fashioned, but I like my movies to have a plot.  And a point.

But for now, that’s a wrap on 2019.  Lets home this new decade brings with it more reasons to return to a cinema near you.  See you next year!

[thepenumbrapodcast]

An open call for episode transcripts from our Travelers, struggles in creating the Penumbra as a small team, and why we need your help

UPDATE: Some extremely generous fans have stepped up to organize @thepenumbrapodcasttranscripts , so please head over there if you would like to participate! We are deeply touched by the speedy response to this post.

Hey there Travelers,

Kevin here. Over the thirteen months since the Penumbra’s first episode, we’ve received a lot of requests from fans for access to episode transcripts. Many of you have contacted us with well-reasoned arguments about accessibility for those with hearing and processing disabilities. Many of you have expressed frustration about the $7 Patreon reward level, at which donating patrons get to look at the scripts the actors see.

We’ve stayed quiet on this so far, but we haven’t been ignoring you. We recognize your frustration. We apologize if the packaging of our show has made you feel like we don’t notice you, or listen to you, or care about you. We do. Internally we’ve been discussing this for months – and after debating it and trying a lot of things, we’ve come to what we think is the only conclusion that makes sense given our situation. I’ll tell you the conclusion first, and then move backward to our reasoning:

We are asking for help from you, the fans, in making these transcripts a reality. If fans create a tumblr or website that features fan-made transcripts of every episode, we will gladly post a link to it on our website and promote it whenever a new transcript has been completed.

We have asked for this from you all before, but it understandably got lost in the weeks and months that have passed since. As a result, should fans express interest in creating transcripts, we will be reblogging this post once every two weeks until all of the transcripts have been completed.

We recognize that it is frustrating not having the supports you need to access our show as others can. We recognize that asking fans to create those supports is also frustrating. Please know that we are frustrated, too. We are living a very uncomfortable, very difficult reality in creating this show, and up until now we’ve kept the details of that reality invisible to you all. But if I can ask for just a few minutes of your understanding, I hope I can communicate clearly about the obstacles in the way of us creating these transcripts, which are also, not coincidentally, the biggest threats to the Penumbra’s continued existence in general.

What follows is an in-depth look at my reasoning. If you’re satisfied with the above, hey, skip it! You can find the couple of transcripts we had time to make here (as well as one by a fan who asked to be credited as subtlepuns), so go for it, work together, create a platform for them, and feel free to use what we’ve made to get you started. If you’re still bothered, or you don’t understand why we can’t just make all the transcripts ourselves, I ask only that you read and think about our position, here. It is not one made hastily.

My reasoning is this: 1) Our scripts are not the same thing as transcripts, and 2) it takes a considerable amount of time to turn a script into a transcript. This prevents us from being able to create the transcripts because 3) our time is extremely finite, and 4) we’re already using more time than we can afford (in multiple ways).

I’ve broken each of those four individual points in that argument into further reasoning below:

1)    Our scripts are not the same as transcripts

I’m going to take the blame for any misunderstandings here, since I’m the one who writes the language for the Patreon and I think my description of the $7 level is very unclear.

At $7, Patreon supporters get access specifically to the scripts our actors see – and as $7 supporters will tell you, there is usually a big difference between the scripts our actors get and the actual words that are said in the episode. There are many reasons for this: often during a recording I will on-the-spot rewrite a line if it’s just not working, or when editing Sophie might cut a few lines, or sometimes our actors just deliver lines with a different phrasing from what I give them. And that’s only considering dialogue: because I create this show collaboratively, and Sophie and Ryan work together on its soundscape, every sound and music cue in the script is only a suggestion I’m making to them – and very often they’re suggestions that they don’t take, for creative or logistical reasons. This means that for the purposes you all are asking, our scripts are not useful because they are not an accurate log of what is actually being said in the episode. They are only a log of what the actors had in their hands when they showed up to recording.

They are intended as a bonus because, ultimately, most of these actors are my friends and I like to make my friends laugh, so I load the stage directions and sound descriptions with stupid jokes and pieces of insight that I thought you all might enjoy. But ultimately, the difference is that the scripts are a behind-the-scenes peek, not a useful support for our fans with hearing and processing disabilities – and as a result giving them out for free doesn’t solve the central problem.

(It actually creates a separate problem, too – but I’ll get to that in a minute.)

2)    It takes a considerable amount of time to turn a script into a transcript

Believe it or not, we’ve actually tried to create transcripts on multiple occasions. Sophie and I had a group of our actors over a few months ago for a “transcript party,” during which we sat people down with snacks and headphones and asked them to listen to episodes and convert the initial script of an episode into the actual words that made it into the final cut.

Here’s the issue: with 6 people working consistently for 3 hours straight, we only completed 3 transcripts. That means a transcript takes us approximately 6 hours to put together, and with our 28 episodes published so far that comes out to 168 unpaid hours our tiny staff would have to work to create these transcripts – not to mention the additional 6 hours this would add to every episode’s production time.

(I know my math is a little shaky there, because this doesn’t account for bonus episodes being shorter; but given the length of the Season 1 Q&A and the fact that it had no script, I’m assuming that would take at least the leftover time to complete.)

Accessibility is important to us. That’s why we tried to create the transcripts in the first place. But when we did the math and looked at that number, we bumped up against an essential problem that our good intentions alone could not overcome:

3)    Our time is extremely finite

Between writing, editing, rehearsing, recording, acting, and giving feedback, I spend roughly 60 hours on every episode of The Penumbra Podcast. Between sound editing, directing, acting, rehearsing, recording, and giving feedback, Sophie spends about 90 hours per episode.

I apologize for drowning you all in numbers, but I think these are significant and misunderstood figures that go into the creation of our show, because it means that creating this has very real effects on our life that cannot be wished away. When we started this show, Sophie had a full-time job. Over the course of creating it it’s become clear to us that there is literally not enough time in the week for Sophie to create these episodes and work a full-time job. That’s how much time this takes us. As a result, we cannot take on the 168 unpaid hours to create the backlogged transcripts, and we cannot add to the per-episode totals Sophie and I already take on.

We want to. We can’t. Literally. That is how the math of the situation works out. We’re frustrated, too.

There’s an easy rebuttal to what I’ve said above, of course: you could counter my math with more math. There are 168 hours in a week; if you account for 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of work every single day, that leaves 56 hours a week for us to work on The Penumbra; and if you factor in the numbers I gave above, given a biweekly schedule, I work on The Penumbra on average 4 hours each day and Sophie works on it for 6 hours a day.  That should leave me and Soph with roughly 28 free hours each week, right? Couldn’t the transcripts get done then?

(Again, my math is very rough, but please note that it’s rough on both sides. These hard numbers don’t even account for time spent eating, grocery shopping, doing household chores, upholding responsibilities to family, exploring other creative projects to support ourselves financially and keep ourselves sane and excited about our work, or anything else that keeps our lives in order. They’re intended to be rough.)

Technically, the transcripts could get done in this time. Technically. But that’s where we bump into our last – and biggest – problem.

4)    We’re already using more time than we can afford (in multiple ways)

There are two ways we’re going to cover here. The first, which I hope fans of our show in particular will understand, regards mental health.

I’m going to be direct with you all: at the start of this process, I really did put almost every waking second that I wasn’t using on my day job into working on this show. I took no breaks. I skipped time with my family and friends. I started skipping therapy sessions. Sophie and I skipped spending time together and working on our relationship. And in me, a person with some heavy predispositions to mental health issues, depression and panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder? It led to a nervous breakdown at the end of last year that I’ve only just recently pulled myself out of, one that I cannot and will not repeat again. If I’m going to make this show, I have to enjoy my life enough to do it. That’s not negotiable for me.

The second, and much more dire, way in which we cannot afford this time regards money.

As I stated above: there is literally not enough time in the day for Sophie to have a full-time job and work on the Penumbra. And because Sophie is our one-woman sound designing team, this leads to a very uncomfortable but very important truth: if the Penumbra does not make money, it will cease to exist.

The fact of the matter is that Sophie and I have put ourselves in a dangerous situation financially by carving out the time for this show, and that means the show is only possible so long as the money that comes in through Patreon, the store, fan donations, (some day) sponsors, and any other creative projects we carve out time to explore is at least enough to cover the difference between what Sophie makes part-time and what she could be making full-time.

And to be clear: the show does not cover that difference yet.

We’re not talking about money-grubbing, here, twiddling our moustaches and demanding to be paid in big sacks with cartoon dollar signs on them. We are talking about the actual, literal survival of this project hinging on whether or not it makes enough money for Sophie and I to live. That’s not greed. That’s us trying to stay alive and healthy. It’s the reason we actually can’t afford to do work for free anymore: our lives don’t have the time to support it. And it’s the reason that we are so endlessly grateful to our patrons, because we mean it literally when we say that the show would not exist without you.

This is why we can’t take on extra work for free by creating these transcripts. This is why we can’t ask our friends, many of whom are in similar situations to us and many of whom already do work for us for free, to make them for us either. This is also why we can’t give the scripts away for free: if all of our $7 script patrons became $4 early-release patrons because they could get the scripts otherwise, we would lose a significant amount of the money we need to make this show happen. And coming up with a different reward for the $7 level would necessitate even more unpaid work – which, again, we have neither the time nor means to do.

So should we provide you with transcripts for the sake of accessibility? Absolutely. It really frustrates me that we don’t. But the fact of the matter is this: given our constraints in time, energy, and money, we cannot do this for you.

I am so sorry to our fans with hearing and processing disabilities for whom this has been a frustration. We’ve been trying. But it’s taken us months to come to this, our unavoidable conclusion: we literally cannot do this for you.

—–

So tl;dr, Vibert, get to the point. The heck does all that mean?

It means that we want you to have transcripts, but cannot make them ourselves yet, and cannot afford to lose money because of the transcripts. It means that we need your continued financial support to keep this show running, and we need your help to make these transcripts a reality in the near future. When creative projects make enough money that we can pay everyone already on staff, it’s on our shortlist for the near future to pay someone to make transcripts. But if we’re going to have transcripts before then, we need your help.

We’re happy to get you all started with the transcripts we’ve already made, and we’re excited to promote the transcripts you make once they’ve been created, but before we do so we ask that they follow these guidelines so as not to contradict any of the points I’ve laid out above:

1)    The transcript cannot include any of the “bonus content” from the actors’ scripts, including character descriptions, parenthetical directions, sound or music suggestions, and silly jokes from silly lead writer Kevin Vibert (that’s me).

2)    The transcripts must be accurate to the actual lines, music cues, and sound effects in the episode, so as to be a useful tool to our fans with hearing and processing disabilities.

3)    We need several fans to read each transcript while listening to the episode to confirm its accuracy.

We want these to exist, Travelers. We want them to be part of the culture of our show because we care about accessibility, we care about telling stories for all people, and we care about you. But even checking the transcripts requires time we literally do not have. We need your help to make this happen, because we can’t do it alone.

So that conclusion, one more time, is this:

We are asking for help from you, the fans, in making these transcripts a reality. If fans create a tumblr or website that features fan-made transcripts of every episode, we will gladly post a link to it on our website and promote it whenever a new transcript has been completed. And should fans express interest in creating transcripts, we will be reblogging this post once every two weeks until all of the transcripts have been completed by you.

We hope some of you will help us help your fellow Travelers. We can’t do this alone.

With love, and stay healthy,

Kevin

PS: Once again, you can find a Google Drive folder with the transcripts we’ve already created, as well as a transcript that one of our intrepid fans created months ago, here. A big thanks to subtlepuns for taking the initiative for getting a transcript for the original Murderous Mask (Part 1) to us months ago, and apologies for not posting it sooner. We’ll do what we can to help make these supports a reality, Travelers – just know that trying to make this art for you and stay alive simultaneously is already stretching us to our limits, so unless you’re going to wait until we can relax those limits a bit we need your help now.

[dannyreviews]

The Douglas Campbell Effect

Today (6/28), I was watching an episode of the BBC mini series “Bill Brand”, which is about the trials and tribulations of a Labour MP played by Jack Shepherd. But Mr. Shepherd has nothing to do with the topic at hand in this conversation. One of the supporting actors in the big ensemble was Scottish born, Canadian based actor Douglas Campbell. His most notable or in this case most overacted performance was as Oedipus Rex in the 1957 version of the same name. His mix of stale and hammy mannerisms makes his take on the Ancient Greek hero a laughingstock of the ages. In my opinion, Canadian productions lack good performances, resulting in a whirlpool of mediocrity. He also was the title role in “The Great Detective”, where he was like Leo McKern’s beloved “Rumpole of the Bailey” but without the personality and heart. When Campbell returned to his native UK to play fellow MP Reg Starr in “Bill Brand", he retained the aforementioned stale acting that he achieved due to acting in Canada. While he’s nowhere near as bad as his Oedipus portrayal, he could have been a lot better if he stayed in English theater where there are better assembled films, television shows and theatrical productions. With much more superior British co-stars like Shepherd, Geoffrey Palmer, Colin Jeavons and one time appearances by Nigel Hawthorne and Jonathan Pryce, Campbell sticks out like a sore thumb. Out of nowhere, I came up with a term entitled “The Douglas Campbell Effect”, which denotes any UK/Irish born actor who emigrates to Canada to jump start their career, but wind up on cheaply made programs and stage productions that highlight their less than stellar acting abilities, that may or may not be present if they stayed in their home countries. For this post, I will detail some of these performers like Campbell who uprooted to Canada and as a consequence, turned out performances that did not show their true potential. These do not include actors who eventually made a name in American shows like John Neville, Barry Morse and Brian Bedford or British born people who moved to Canada when they were children. This is by no means a personal attack on these actors as people or on the country of Canada as a whole. It’s a critical study that I’ve made in the last few years that has a name.

My first actor is Nigel Bennett, who started out in small theater productions with co-stars like “Are You Being Served” actor Frank Thornton and “Monty Python” starlet Carol Cleveland. In the mid-80s, he emigrated to Canada, where he came into prominence as vampire Lucien LaCroix on “Forever Knight”. Bennett’s British mannerisms should make his character seem more charismatic and almost likable. From what I’ve seen, Bennett doesn’t bring much personality into the LaCroix character, instead appearing like a children’s entertainer, speaking somewhat interesting lines with no finesse. His recurring part in the horrible “Murdoch Mysteries” doesn’t fare much better, where he also looks like someone with no distinguishing traits that signify his character’s corrupt nature. When like Campbell, he returned to British television, playing a villainous part in the miniseries “The State Within”, I found his character to be unbelievable. In a scene where he frames a guy for murder, his blackmailing speech came down to a poorly made direct to video movie, which Bennett has done a lot of. By his voice and appearance, you’d think Nigel Bennett could be doing a Royal Shakespeare Company production, but you’d be disappointed.

Michael Sinelnikoff is another one who looks like he’d hobnob with the likes of Olivier and Gielgud as the upper crust of acting royalty. However, his best known role is that of Professor Summerlee in the cheaply made adaption of “The Lost World”. His RADA educated posh mannerism is replaced by a helium sounding voice that affects the delivery of his performance. He seems very fake in the way that he projects his character’s emotional state. Where there should be a first hand look at the mood shifts, there’s a hollowness that stifles the scene’s purpose and therefore the development of the person. My other exposure to Sinelnikoff was a shoestring budgeted MST3K like debacle entitled “The Last Heist”. I won’t go into detail as to the plot, but it’s pretty cringe worthy and Sinelnikoff is a crucial reason for its failure. More fake behavior that would make Dolph Lundgren seem like a Tony Award winner. The fact that this guy’s classmate was Alan Bates is just ridiculous, because Bates is considered an acting legend. Sinelnikoff, on the other hand doesn’t deliver and cannot make anything he touches have any believable aspect to it. 

I’m going to briefly discuss other people like Campbell, Bennett and Sinelnikoff who fall under this category. They are as follows:

Domini Blythe - In the “Tales of The City” series, “The Trotsky” and “Affinity”, Blythe has great dialogue to work with, but not enough range in her voice to allow any unique markers in her roles. She looks like Jenny Agutter, but doesn’t have her convincing prowess.

Donald Ewer - As stated before, his performance as Alfred Doolittle in the Peter O’Toole/Margot Kidder version of “Pygmalion”, I likened to a poorly done dinner theater job. He surely is no Stanley Holloway or Arthur English. A smaller role on the TV series “E.N.G.” also illustrated that he’s in the wrong kind of show and should be in some Masterpiece Theater saga.

Peter Messaline - Making two appearances on scary kid shows “Goosebumps” and “Are You Afraid of the Dark”, he plays devilish roles, without the devilishness that should be there. I’ve seen children’s programs where the actors put just as much enthusiasm and devotion as in their adult roles, but it just wasn’t present in these cases.

Kay Tremblay - In an episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark", she played an elderly woman longing for her boyfriend who passed away years ago. When recounting the story, it seemed like she was reading from the script, not actually reliving the pain like her character. She also made an appearance on “Goosebumps” in a smaller role and was no better in that.

Julian Richings -  Like Nigel Bennett’s LaCroix, playing “Death” in “Supernatural” he represents the dark side, but he’s too calm where there should be a mix of the calm and the outrageous. Maybe it’s the writing, but I think more could be done on the part of the actor. Richings has also popped up on other Canadian shows like “Murdoch Mysteries” and “Ready Or Not”, more milquetoast than ever. There’s a petition for him to be the next Doctor Who. If he stayed in England and projected his talent on more superior programs, that might happen. 

Daniel Fathers - I’ll let this video do the talking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AoYK4dl_Ks

I want to be proven wrong and be shown some footage that demonstrates these actors in a good light. Maybe I’ve seen the wrong acting roles and need to see something that illustrates them as decent actors. Feel free to include some suggestions in the notes section. 

[adrian-paul-botta]

The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me By Lillian Gish & Ann Pinchot (Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1969)

D. W. Griffith (1875–1948) was a popular and innovative Hollywood film director who made silent films in the early 20th century. His most famous film was Birth of a Nation, which appeared in 1915 and drew criticism from many African Americans for its depiction of blacks and its advocacy of white supremacy. The NAACP organized protests and boycotts of the film nationwide. In this selection from her autobiography, the actress Lillian Gish describes Griffith’s conception of the film.

One afternoon during the spring of 1914, while we were still working in California, Mr. Griffith took me aside on the set and said in an undertone, “After the others leave tonight, would you please stay.” Later, as some of the company drifted out, I realized that a similar message had been given to a few others. This procedure was typical of Mr. Griffith when he was planning a new film. He observed us with a smile, amused perhaps by our curiosity over the mystery that he had created. I suspected what the meeting was about. A few days before, we had been having lunch at The White Kitchen, and I had noticed that his pockets were crammed with papers and pamphlets. My curiosity was aroused, but it would have been presumptuous of me to ask about them. With Mr. Griffith one did not ask; one only answered. Besides, I had learned that if I waited long enough he would tell me. “I’ve bought a book by Thomas Dixon, called The Clansman. I’m going to use it to tell the truth about the War between the States. It hasn’t been told accurately in history books. Only the winning side in a war ever gets to tell its story.” He paused, watching the cluster of actors: Henry Walthall, Spottiswoode Aiken, Bobby Harron, Mae Marsh, Miriam Cooper, Elmer Clifton, George Siegmann, Walter Long, and me.

“The story concerns two families—the Stonemans from the North and the Camerons from the South.” He added significantly, “I know I can trust you.” He swore us to secrecy, and to us his caution was understandable. Should his competitors learn of his new project, they would have films on the same subject completed before his work was released. He discussed his story plots freely only over lunch or dinner, often testing them out on me because I was close-mouthed and never repeated what anyone told me.…

Mr. Griffith didn’t need the Dixon book. His intention was to tell his version of the War between the States. But he evidently lacked the confidence to start production on a twelve-reel film without an established book as a basis for his story. After the film was completed and he had shown it to the so-called author, Dixon said: “This isn’t my book at all.” But Mr. Griffith was glad to use Dixon’s name on the film as author, for, as he told me, “The public hates you if it thinks you wrote, directed, and produced the entire film yourself. It’s the quickest way to make enemies.” After the first rehearsal, the pace increased. Mr. Griffith worked, as usual, without a script. But this time his pockets bulged with books, maps, and pamphlets, which he read during meals and the rare breaks in his hectic schedule.… At first I didn’t pay much attention to Mr. Griffith’s concept of the film. His claim that history books falsified actual happenings struck me as most peculiar. At that time I was too naïve to think that history books would attempt to falsify anything. I’ve lived long enough now to know that the whole truth is never told in history texts. Only the people who lived through an era, who are the real participants in the drama as it occurs, know the truth. The people of each generation, it seems to me, are the most accurate historians of their time. Soon sets were going up; costumes arrived; and mysterious crates, evidently filled with military equipment, were delivered.…

When the final casting was announced, we learned that Ralph Lewis was to play the Honorable Austin Stoneman, the “uncrowned king of Capitol Hill.” The character of Stoneman, a fiery political fanatic from the North, was patterned after the real-life Thaddeus Stevens, one of the legislators whose harsh policy toward the South wrecked President Lincoln’s postwar plans. Bobby Harron and Elmer Clifton were to play Stoneman’s sons, and I was given the role of his daughter Elsie. Mary Alden was to be Stoneman’s mulatto mistress Lydia Brown, whom Dixon described as “a woman of extraordinary animal beauty and the fiery temper of a leopardess.” George Siegmann was awarded the part of Silas Lynch, who, according to Dixon, was “a Negro of perhaps forty years, a man of charming features.…” Walter Long was to be the renegade Negro Gus, and Elmo Lincoln, a magnificent strong man who would later swing through the trees as Tarzan, played the Negro who attacks Wallace Reid, the stalwart blacksmith. There were practically no Negro actors in California then and, as far as we knew, only a few in the East. Even in minstrel shows, the parts were usually played by whites in blackface. The only scene in which actual Negroes appear in The Birth is the one in which the Stoneman boys, visiting the southern Camerons, are taken out to the plantation to see Negroes working in the cotton fields.

When this scene was filmed in Death Valley, where the Negroes worked, they danced andplayed their banjos for the visiting actors. But one young Negro woman did play in the film—Madame Sul-Te-Wan. (We never did discover the origin of her name.) She was first employed to help us keep our dressing rooms clean at the studio. She was devoted to Mr. Griffith, and he in turn loved her. Later, when Madame was having financial difficulties, he sent her money to help herself and her small sons. She was one of the few friends near him when he died years later in Hollywood.… For President Lincoln, Mr. Griffith chose Joseph Henabery, a tall, thin man who could be made up to resemble Lincoln. The search for an appropriate Mary Todd Lincoln ended when he found a woman with an uncanny similarity to the First Lady working in wardrobe. Raoul Walsh was picked for the role of John Wilkes Booth. Members of Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet were chosen on the basis of facial resemblance to the historical characters. The other historical characters were recreated by Donald Crisp as General Grant, Howard Gaye as General Lee, and Sam de Grasse as Senator Sumner.…

Although fact and legend were familiar to him, he did meticulous research for The Birth. The first half of The Birth, about the war itself, reflects his own point of view. I know that he also relied greatly on Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War, Matthew Brady’s Civil War Photographs: Confederate and Union Veterans— Eyewitnesses on Location; the Nicolay and Hay Abraham Lincoln: A History; and The Soldier in Our Civil War: A Pictorial History of the Conflict 1861–1865. For the second half, about Reconstruction, he consulted Thomas Dixon, and A History of the American People by Woodrow Wilson. President Wilson had taught history before going into politics, and Mr. Griffith had great respect for his erudition. For Klan material, he drew on a book called Ku Klux Klan—Its Origin, Growth and Disbandment by John C. Lester and D.L. Wilson. But he did not use the uniform that is worn by Klan members today. Instead he used the costumes that, according to Thomas Dixon, were worn by the earlier Klans—white and scarlet flowing robes with hood and mask to hide the features of rider and horse. Brady’s photographs were constantly consulted, and Mr. Griffith restaged many moments of history with complete fidelity to them. The photographs were used as guides for such scenes as Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and Sherman’s march to the sea. He telegraphed a newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, for photographs of the interior of the state capital, which held a majority of Negro representatives after the war, and constructed the legislative chamber according to the photographs.

The largest interior was Ford’s Theater, the setting of the assassination scene, which was done in one day on the lot. So great was Mr. Griffith’s obsession with authenticity that he unearthed a copy of Our American Cousin, which had been performed at Ford’s Theater on the night of the assassination, and restaged parts of it. In the actual filming, as Raoul Walsh, gun ready, steals into the Presidential box, the lines being spoken on the replica of the stage are precisely those spoken at the fateful moment on the night of April 14, 1865. This fidelity to facts was an innovation in films. Mr. Griffith knew the terrain of the battle fields, and he hired several Civil War veterans to scout locations similar to the original ones. After exploring the southern California country, they chose what later became the Universal lot for the countryside around Petersburg, Virginia, site of the last prolonged siege and final battle of the war. He had studied maps of the major battles of the Civil War and, with the help of the veterans, laid out the battle fields. Trenches, breastworks, roads, brooks, and buildings were constructed to duplicate those of the actual battle fields. Troop movements were planned with the advice of the veterans and two men from West Point Military Academy. Civil War artillery was obtained from West Point and the Smithsonian Institution, for use when the camera was close. Mr. Griffith also sent to the Smithsonian for historical records and then went over the documents with his advisers. But in the end he came to his own conclusions about historical facts. He would never take the opinion of only one man as final.

Source: From The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me by Lillian Gish with Ann Pinchot. Copyright © 1969 by Lillian Gish and Ann Pinchot. Copyright renewed © 1997 by James Frasher and Ann Pinchot. Reprinted by arrangement with James Frasher, Susan Pinchot, and the Barbara Hogenson Agency.

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Colorful, lively, and moving memoir of a giant of the early screen, actress Lillian Gish. Her story is inseparable with the history of the movies, from the early days, when the pioneers of the industry worked long hours through hardship and cold, public criticism through the horrors of war, and the proverty of the Depression. She knew them all: Mary Pickford, Greta Garbo, Rudolh Valentino, Noel Coward, Erich Von Stroheim, and many more. She talks about the director of many of her films, D.W. Griffith (David Wark Griffith), whose consuming passion creating new ways to tell stories on celluloid. A long-time member of his company, she separates the man from the legend. She exposes the very personal, human side of this early Hollywood legend, warts and all.

True to her own philosophy, Lillian Gish in this book tells the story of her own era and of the personalities who built the movie industry to its present greatness. With candour and wisdom, humour and pathos, Miss Gish relates her own experiences and fascinating memories of the growth and development of motion pictures. This is the story of a great industry, from birth to maturity. It is also the story of the people who struggled, dreamed, and strove unceasingly to make the film industry the giant that it is today.

The subtlety and passionate conviction of her work with Griffith revolutionized the art of screen acting. In 1920, she became one of the first women to direct a feature film, REMODELING HER HUSBAND. Soon after that, she assumed artistic control of the films in which she appeared; her contract with MGM in the late silent era gave her a power few other women have achieved in Hollywood. With such productions as LA BOHÈME, THE SCARLET LETTER and THE WIND, she brought the silent film to the summit of its art.

Peter Warrack: Lillian Gish signing her book, The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me

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The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me – Photo Gallery

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The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me – 1969 The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me By Lillian Gish & Ann Pinchot (Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1969)