Hello and welcome to Linaโs 1K Event! For this event, I chose 10 (fav # hehe) of my favorite songs and you guys will be able to pick a song and request who (F1 Edition)!
What to doโฆ
Select a song
Request the love interest with the song (same one can be for multiple songs!)
You are also able to come up with your own scenario as long as it correlates with the meaning of the song!
EXAMPLE: โHello! Can I request __(driver/song)__ with __(song/driver__? (Insert Explanation of what is wanted if there is one)โ
Rulesโฆ
Nothing that is considered โdark romanceโ (i donโt believe in anything called dark romance. Itโs either romance where the characters are actually LOVING, or a psychological thriller.)
Please be kind with requests! Kindness is key!
PLEASE PLEASE BE PATIENT!!
That is about it! Iโm very flexible with rules :)
Who I write forโฆ
Drivers: Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Pierre Gasly, Oscar Piastri, Daniel Ricciardo, Yuki Tsunoda, Logan Sargeant, Alex Albon
I also donโt mind incorporating the WAGS as another love intrest in with driver x reader fics! I
WAGS I can Write for if wanted: Lily M, Lily Z, Alexandra, Kika, and Rebecca
Authorโs Note(s)โฆ
just realized all my songs are angstyโฆ whoops!!
I do in fact see your requests!! I just prefer to upload the request and fic when the fic is ready ๐ฉท
i try to get my fics out fast but it takes time. please, please be patient.
Hi maggots. It's me, thinking thoughts, again. I do that far too often.
Monsoon has begun, I do believe. The stupefying heat wave broke to let water crash onto the soil, out of which puffs the scent of petrichor. Ever so often the heat builds in the day, but yields to a thunderstorm come nightfall. Perhaps it'll only last a few weeks, but I'm so glad anyway.
I made a mug of mint tea. By which I mean I dropped a teabag into hot water, in one of the five mugs Lina bought me. I was so delighted last night when the heat slowly revealed the images of a whale emoji, a photo of me edited with Crowley's eyes, and fanart of me that said happy birthday, maggot prince with the Spotify code of a playlist you all added songs to. It's been days since my birthday, but I still keep finding bits of love that you sent my way.
I love the playlist. It's as chaotic as we are. There's Cavetown and ABBA and Queen, Bollywood dance music and sad songs and rap, Taylor Swift and a Rickroll and silly songs and Disney soundtracks.
Everything looks different in the rain. The leaves lose their dusty shroud, glittering emerald and lime and quivering in the damp breeze. The light is quieter, softer, grey. It smells of life. The sky swirls with clouds like Van Gogh tried to make art but ran out of paint, with only the greyish paintwater left.
I'm sorry about all the DMs and asks I haven't replied to yet. I swear it's not because I care. It's because I care too much, I care so much that sometimes it overwhelms me. Please don't stop sending me asks because of that, though. I promise I do read them, even if it takes a while for me to reply. You aren't bothering me. You could never. I love you too much. Be as crazy as you like. It's me.
Weirdly enough, as I wrote that paragraph, Nothing New by Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift played. "Are we only biding time 'til I lose your attention? And someone else lights up the room? People love an ingenue." "How do I go from growing up to breaking down? And I wake up in the middle of the night, it's like I can feel time moving. How can a person know everything at 18, and nothing at 22? Will you still want me, when I'm nothing new?"
It's difficult to believe I'm 20 now. That shouldn't be allowed. It's such a weird age, isn't it, 20? It's so, so young, it's so new, it's so terrifyingly timid.
I swear I knew more at 14 than I do now. I swear so many of you know so much more than I do. I don't know anything at all, most days. I don't know who I am. But you do. Thank you for bringing out not the best of me, not the worst of me, but the realest of me.
I love you. I got into art school, by the way. Life is not going the way I expected it to. And the horrors persist, trapping me in my dreams, suffocating me the way a pillow never could. But then I wake up and I think about you, and that keeps me going.
Look at you, saving a guy, every single day. How insanely wonderful.
The rain has stilled. My brother will be pleased, he bought a ticket to go to a cricket match. I think I'll go for a drive with my mum and Roxie. She loves drives. She knows them as 'car byebyes'. She sits on my lap in the front seat and looks out the window, nose sniffing and getting excited whenever I say look, a bow-wow and a dog passes.
I'll scoot now. If this long letter landed up on your dash and messed it up, I really do apologise, I try not to tag these. If you read it this far, then wow, hi. I love you. If you skipped to the end, I love you. If you don't read this, I love you. I love you all, so much.
Hello and welcome back to The Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies in a 20-year period. Today I will be discussing number four on my list: MGMโs 1952 musical Singinโ in the Rain, directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and starring Gene Kelly, Donald OโConnor, and Debbie Reynolds.
It's 1927 and silent film stars Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) have just premiered another smash hit. To escape from a mob of fans, Don jumps into the car of Kathy Seldon (Debbie Reynolds), who is surprisingly unimpressed by him, which he is both insulted and intrigued by. Weeks later, when Don is still focused on trying to find Kathy again, and his friend Cosmo Brown (Donald OโConnor) is running out of ways to get him to snap out of it, the success of Hollywoodโs first talking picture prompts the studio head to turn the next Lockwood and Lamont film into a talkie, and Donโs life โ and Hollywood itself โ will never be the same.
This is a very important movie to me because in a way, itโs the one that started it all. My love for Old Hollywood began in a movie theater at a 50th anniversary screening of Singinโ in the Rain. Iโve mentioned in several previous episodes that I started getting into Old Hollywood in 2002 โ this is why. My mom took me to see it, and then based on my reaction started introducing me to more of her faves from around this era, and here I am, 21 years later, still loving these films. I canโt remember exactly when I watched Singinโ in the Rain the second time; I might have seen it again in 2002, I donโt know. But I believe it was 2003 when we bought it on VHS while on a family road trip. We had a little TV/VCR that we used to set on top of a cooler behind the front seats, held in place with bungee cords. I could not get enough of this movie and insisted on watching it probably way more times than my siblings wanted on that road trip, although I think they enjoyed it too, just not quite to the extent that I did. I watched it seven times in 2003, six times in 2004, three times in 2005, once in 2006, once in 2007, twice in 2009, once in 2010, once in 2011, twice in 2012, once in 2013, twice in 2015, once in 2016, once in 2019, once in 2020, once in 2021, and twice in 2022. I canโt remember when, but at some point I ended up with a DVD in addition to the VHS. And one of my 2022 watches was in a theater for the 70th anniversary. While in many ways that was a very different experience from the first time I saw it, since every moment of the movie was deeply familiar rather than fresh and new to me, it felt no less magical. I still love this movie just as much as, if not more than, the first time I watched it, and I am so grateful that it introduced me to a world of films from generations before my time.
There is so much to love about this movie that I donโt even really know where to start. The dialogue is clever and delightful, the casting was perfect and the performances are brilliant, the costumes, sets, and lighting are gorgeous, and the music makes you feel like youโll never be unhappy again. In some ways, itโs actually kind of similar to Mamma Mia, in that itโs a jukebox musical. Like how Mamma Mia took popular ABBA songs and loosely draped a story around them, Singinโ in the Rain took a bunch of old songs, mostly written by MGM producer Arthur Freed (who came up with the idea) and Nacio Herb Brown, and tied them together with a story. I will say I feel like the story of Singinโ in the Rain works quite a bit better, mainly because the subject matter fits the songs so well. It was a stroke of genius to make the movie that would feature songs from early talkies be about early talkies. Freed and Brown did write one new song specifically for this movie, โMake Em Laugh,โ but it bears a remarkable resemblance to Cole Porterโs โBe a Clownโ from the 1948 Freed-produced film The Pirate. Screenwriters Comden and Green wrote the โMoses Supposesโ song based on an existing tongue-twister, but all of the other songs in the film had been featured in at least one previous movie. These days, Singinโ in the Rain is such a beloved, iconic movie that many of the songsโ origins are all but forgotten, and theyโre generally associated with this picture. But itโs always kind of fun to be watching some random old movie that predates this one and hear one of these songs pop up. Probably my favorite instance of this is in Adamโs Rib, which was number 27 on this list and made in 1949, when Tom Ewellโs character is going to visit his mistress, played by Jean Hagen, heโs whistling โYou Are My Lucky Star,โ and I love that both that song and that actress ended up in this movie three years later.
A big part of what makes Singinโ in the Rain such a perfect introduction to Old Hollywood is that the songs are from Old Hollywood and the story is about Old Hollywood. Itโs so fascinating to watch the characters figuring out the technical aspects of adding sound to a medium that modern audiences automatically associate with sound. But even beyond that, this movie breaks the illusion of Hollywood glamor while still sort of trying to hide behind that illusion, in a way that almost feels like itโs laughing at itself. So much of the story is about how movie magic relies on facades and deception. The movie starts with a red-carpet interview where Don tells of his rise to fame and his motto: โDignity, always dignity,โ while the audience sees flashbacks of his very undignified beginnings. Lina is on screen looking quietly glamorous for about 10 minutes before she finally speaks, revealing what the silence of her films has concealed: her voice is almost unbearably squeaky and obnoxious. So in order to make her presentable in a talking picture โ which eventually becomes a musical โ her voice is dubbed by Kathy. Initially the plan is to credit Kathy as Linaโs voice and use this to help launch her to stardom, but Lina threatens to sue the studio unless they force Kathy to be her voice indefinitely without credit. I donโt think it was usually quite that dramatic, but uncredited dubbing happened all the time. In previous episodes, Iโve mentioned Marni Nixon, who dubbed the singing for many iconic performances, such as Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady and Natalie Wood in West Side Story, without credit at the time, although now her contributions are kind of general knowledge, at least among movie buffs. But we donโt even have to go that far to find an example: it happened in Singinโ in the Rain itself! Betty Noyes, also known for singing โBaby Mineโ in the Disney movie Dumbo, sang for Debbie Reynolds in a couple of her songs without credit, notably including โWould You?โ which Kathy is meant to be dubbing for Lina. So Betty Noyes sang for Debbie Reynolds when she was singing for Jean Hagen. (Part of the time, anyway. The โSinginโ in the Rainโ reprise that Kathy sings for Lina behind the curtain was definitely Debbie Reynoldsโs voice.) Even more ironically, when Kathy is dubbing Linaโs dialogue (โNothing can keep us apart, our love with last โtil the stars turn coldโ), that was Jean Hagenโs normal speaking voice, so Jean Hagen dubbed Debbie Reynolds dubbing Jean Hagen. I just canโt get over how blatantly these filmmakers went, โHollywood is fake and yes that includes usโ โ although I suppose it was much less blatant at the time, Iโm not sure at what point all of this became so well-known.
Learning about the dubbing didnโt decrease my love for this movie, although some of the other behind-the-scenes trivia kind of did โ specifically the fact that nobody seemed to have a very good time working with Gene Kelly because he was so demanding and impatient, particularly with then 19-year-old Debbie Reynolds, who was not a very experienced dancer, which Kelly found exasperating, even though he knew about it when she got the role. Apparently at one point Fred Astaire โ also a notoriously demanding perfectionist โ found her crying under a piano at the studio and offered to help her with her dancing. She learned fast and committed hard, literally bursting blood vessels in her feet during the โGood Morningโ number. Reynolds later famously said that Singinโ in the Rain and childbirth were the two hardest things she ever had to do. Not that she was the only one who worked hard. Gene Kelly was sick with a 103-degree fever when he performed one of the most famous scenes in Hollywood history, dancing and singing to the title song. I used to view this as admirable, but now Iโm like, maybe they could have waited to film it until he got better? Similarly, Donald OโConnor, who was smoking four packs of cigarettes a day at the time, had to rest in the hospital for several days after filming the โMake โEm Laughโ scene, and again, itโs like, itโs an incredible performance in a great number, but was it really worth going to the hospital for? Both the story within this movie and the story of how it was made raise some very interesting questions about the โpointโ of motion pictures โ as art, as entertainment, and as an industry โ that are still being wrestled with today. Personally, I donโt believe anyone should be forced to risk their health for their job, but at the same time I appreciate how dedicated everyone involved was to making this masterpiece the best it could possibly be. It certainly paid off in this instance. Itโs easy for me to say now that it would have been worth making a slightly worse movie if that meant protecting the well-being of the actors, but maybe if it was worse I wouldnโt have quite fallen in love with it to this degree and my life would look very different. So I still donโt know how to feel about all this. And I donโt even know how much it matters anymore, given that the only major cast member still alive is Rita Moreno, whom I absolutely would not have recognized without seeing her name in the credits, and I donโt think she personally was injured on this set โ although she was originally supposed to sing โIโve Got a Feelinโ Youโre Foolinโโ which then got absorbed into the โBeautiful Girl Montageโ that she wasnโt part of, which is a major bummer because she deserved a bigger role in this.
Anyway, speaking of complicated feelings, letโs talk about the romantic aspects of Singinโ in the Rain. The romance between Don and Kathy is an important part of the story, and while thatโs a little disturbing knowing how terribly Kelly treated Reynolds on set, and that he was approximately twice her age, their charactersโ relationship within the movie is mostly very sweet and I donโt really have a problem with it. And I appreciate how much screentime is devoted to the friendship between Don and Cosmo, which Don is shown continuing to value just as much as he always did even after he starts seeing Kathy. Itโs always great to see characters refusing to follow the amatonormative idea of a relationship hierarchy, with every other relationship falling far below oneโs romantic partnership. I love the scene in Donโs house that leads to the โGood Morningโ number partly because itโs an important turning point in the story and itโs a great song, but also because it shows Don and Kathy and Cosmo as a trio, not a couple with a third wheel, which is so lovely to see. But though Don does his best to resist amatonormativity, it still pursues him rather relentlessly in the form of his costar, Lina Lamont. The studio leaks rumors that Don and Lina are romantically involved to increase publicity for their films, and Lina seems to believe them, despite Donโs adamant assertions that, โThere is nothing between us. There has never been anything between us. Just air.โ Their relationship is yet another example of a Hollywood faรงade, and one of my favorite scenes is when theyโre working on a silent film and pretending to be madly in love when theyโre in the middle of a fight. Their scene ends with a kiss, and as soon as the director yells, โCut!โ Don pushes Lina away in disgust, but she is so sold on their romance that she says, โOh Donny, you couldnโt kiss me like that and not mean it just a teensy weensy bit!โ to which he retorts, โMeet the greatest actor in the world! Iโd rather kiss a tarantula!โ It would be easy to attribute many of Linaโs actions to jealousy after Don falls in love with Kathy, which was definitely an important motivation, but it wasnโt her only motivation. Because while she is portrayed as relatively clueless, she has to know that the rise of talking pictures is bad for her. Itโs not just that sheโs losing her man, sheโs also losing her career. When she tries to use her star power to force Kathy to work solely as her voice, part of that is certainly to get in the way of Don and Kathyโs happiness together, but I would argue that more of it was a desperate attempt to remain in an industry that was moving on without her. Lina is portrayed as the villain, and granted some of the things she does are pretty awful, but at the same time one canโt help feeling sorry for her. She was taken in by the glamor of Hollywood, unable to see that everything from her romance to her popularity was make-believe, and suddenly her entire life is crashing around her. We cheer when the curtain opens to reveal that Kathy is singing for Lina, but we also cry for her a little โ at least, I do. I find Lina to be a thoroughly fascinating and compelling character, and Jean Hagen gives one of my all-time favorite performances (she was nominated for an Oscar and absolutely should have won), and I really want to know what happens to her after the events of the movie. Hopefully she realizes that she doesnโt need a man, least of all one who hates her like Don does, and finds a new career that makes her happy.
If being a Lina Lamont apologist doesnโt get me kicked out of Old Hollywood fan circles, this might: I donโt understand why Cyd Charisse is in this movie. I get that the โBroadway Melodyโ number is a gorgeous spectacle, but it doesnโt have anything to do with anything and it goes on way too long, and in world it makes zero sense. First of all, they have six weeks to basically remake their entire movie, and that number alone would have absolutely taken more than six weeks to put together. Secondly, a big part of the appeal of that number is how colorful everything is, but their film is in black and white. And like, okay, we can suspend disbelief and just accept that, but there is absolutely no way that Lina Lamont would put up with a 15-minute musical number in the middle of her picture, in which, not only does she not appear at all, but Don is dancing very suggestively with another woman. Like, come on. I know that having a random ballet toward the end of a musical was a major thing back then, especially in Gene Kelly films, but that has never made sense to me and it never will. And like, why did they give Cyd Charisse a very distinctive look for most of her part and then change it for the ballet so that sheโs barely recognizable? Itโs so confusing. Donโt get me wrong, I mean no disrespect to Charisse, she was a wonderful dancer, and I think itโs great that her appearance in this movie helped put her on the map and lead to bigger roles for her, itโs just that that scene is my personal least favorite part of the movie. Although I guess the message of that whole number can be boiled down to, โwhen romance fails, turn to your hobbies,โ which is something I can definitely get behind. So maybe I wouldnโt cut it out entirely; I would just make it significantly shorter so we can get back to the main story faster.
The thing I find so compelling about this movie is that while it exposes Hollywood glamor as a sham, it also shows that when you see through that, thereโs often still something valuable underneath. The smoke and mirrors of movie magic add to the entertainment value, but fundamentally, movies are stories, and storytelling is a deep-rooted feature of humanity. Sometimes when I tell people that I enjoy old movies, they assume that means Iโm into the fancy costumes and larger-than-life stars, and like, I guess thatโs part of it, but mostly I just really enjoy good stories that are told well, and thatโs what a lot of old movies are. And itโs not just Hollywood that tries to glamorize people and their stories; our whole society does it, too, only to a slightly lesser extent. Just as Lina needed to conceal her unpleasant voice and the studio felt that Lockwood and Lamont would sell more tickets if people thought they were actually dating, or just as people thought Debbie Reynoldsโs voice wasnโt strong enough for all of Kathyโs songs, normal people in everyday life feel the need to disguise facets of their identity that are less socially acceptable. Donโt act too queer, conform to your assigned gender role, donโt infodump about your hyperfixations; in short, put on a show to pretend to be โnormal.โ But just as nobody is really as glamorous and flawless as movie starsโ personas pretend to be, nobody is really normal either. Hopefully our society will someday get to the point where people donโt have to keep up this faรงade, and perhaps future movies will reflect that. But for now, itโs difficult to imagine a more perfect illustration of how the film industry reflects society than the layered deceptions of Singinโ in the Rain. Itโs sort of halfway between satire and an honest reflection, and it works remarkably well as both. But itโs also very easy to just watch it as a fun musical without thinking too hard about any of this. I just happen to greatly enjoy overthinking the stories I love, and this happens to be one that lends itself to much overthinking, which is one of the many reasons why I love it.
Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most frequently rewatched movies. Itโs getting to the point where I know these movies so well that Iโm not really sure how to talk about them to people who havenโt seen them, so if youโve never watched Singinโ in the Rain and still managed to follow this episode, Iโm very impressed. Next up is a movie that Iโm pretty sure would be number one on this list if Iโd started keeping track about two years earlier because I already had it completely memorized before 2003, but in the 20 years I was tracking I watched it a mere 35 times, leaving it at number three. As always, I will leave you with a quote from that next movie: โWell. Someoneโs got to break the ice and it might as well be me. I mean, Iโm used to being a hostess, itโs part of my husbandโs work, and itโs always difficult when a group of new friends meet together for the first time, to get acquainted, so Iโm perfectly prepared to start the ball rolling. I mean, I have absolutely no idea what weโre doing here, or what Iโm doing here, or what this place is about, but I am determined to enjoy myself, and Iโm very intrigued, and oh my, this soupโs delicious, isnโt it?โ
Girl! Have you seen, one of Husseinโs cousins Aoun I think they are very close, is marrying Abbas granddaughterโฆ Canโt think of a weirdest time for the granddaughter of the Palestinian president to marry the nephew of the Jordanian kingโฆ that is just not a coincidenceโฆ everything the JRF do is so shady makes me believe in the convenience marriage theories around Rajwa ๐ And it also makes me think that Lena Abbas could have been a good match for Hussein LMAO
Lina Abbas is not Mahmoud Abbas's granddaughter she's his brother's granddaughter. Well everything is possible but I think it's just a coincidence tbh.
She's really pretty! But I like Rajwa more hhhh But I think Lina is more of a princess material.
The family left their homes on November 10 during the four-hour pause โ a day after Israel announced a daily four-hour window to allow Palestinians to flee from the north to the south.
At about noon, the family left the house waving white flags. Dinaโs two sisters, who are married to two brothers, had left their homes on the first day of the war to stay at their in-lawsโ villa, also in Gaza City.
Dina was talking to her youngest sister Rulla on the phone as the group cautiously moved forward when suddenly screams pierced the air. Their other sister Lina had crumpled to the floor, blood soaking through her shirt after an Israeli tank fired at them.
Rulla dragged Lina, getting her as far as the entrance of the Bakri building on Shuhada street, and tried to administer first aid. She saw a gunshot wound to her sisterโs chest.
But as the Israeli tank fire continued, Rulla had no choice but to leave her and run inside. Rullaโs husband Bashar Khayal was shot in his hand, and his sister Dalia was also wounded.
Behind them, Bashar and Daliaโs grandmother Feryal was lying motionless on the street, killed.
Rulla told Dina exactly where they were and begged her to get in touch with the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) to save them. The building was behind al-Zaytoun pharmacy, Rulla said, by the Abbas intersection.
Dina called the ICRC. They told her they couldnโt go to the area.
โWorst feeling in the worldโ
The next day, on Saturday, Dina got the news she had been dreading. Lina had died, her body still at the entrance of the building.
Dalia had also been killed, succumbing to her wounds.
Linaโs two young boys, four-year-old Mohammad and nine-month-old Majed, were among those trapped inside the building with their father Tareq Khayal, their grandmother Dalia, their aunt Suha, Rulla, and Bashar. They had no food, water or electricity.
Their phone batteries dying, Suha was able to send Dina one last message: โWe are aliveโ.
Dina flew to Cairo, Egypt, over the weekend, where her father lives alone, and was joined by her brother who lives in Dubai.
โJust the thought of those two young boys not having water to drink or food to eat, the thought that they could die of dehydration or starvationโฆโ her voice trails off, her breath catching.
316. Elefante-NK
317. HE YXOdN-LpNNA WEPN0
318. Taxi-Serpo, Foren, CallaFrank
319. Tbl HE AHLen-Aleksey Glyzin
320. Make it Rain Champagne-Verka Serduchka
321. CAMOleTaMN-HactacbR
322. R TE6R NCKALA-CO9N KARLBYEBA
323. NOHAEXAN-Sultan Uragan
324. OLOHb B N B)DA- Philip Karakorov
325. O6Laka-Andrey Gubin
326. 3aXNL&T OLOHbKN-Fabrika
327. COlHblWk0-Demo
328. NTNha CyacTbR-Vitas
329. 3to HeNpaBdA-Aleksey Glyzin
330. Dyman N Meytan-Aleksey Glyzin
331. A R BCE letara-Blestyashiye
332. TAHWbl-Reflex
333. XeHNXA-X0tela-Verka Serduchka
334. CepBEf-Chi Li
335. LINA LINA-Sofia Rotaru
336. leto- Chi Li
337. LpaHnya- Leonid Agutin, Olpetya Mushroom (MMM)
338. TahKbi-Andrey Gubin
339. Amor-Spanish Version-EMIN
340. Habiby Da-Hisham Abbas
341 . WANNA WANNA-Hisham Abbas
342. Eyes Open (Taylor's Version)-Taylor Swift
343. All of the Girls You Loved Before-Taylor Swift
344. If This Was a Movie (Taylor's Version)-Taylor Swift
345. State of Grace (Taylor's Version)-Taylor Swift
346. State of Grace (Taylor's Version) (Acoustic)-Taylor Swift
I think by this day, I FINALLY got thru all the russian songs on my russian playlist plus a few more. the playlist is STILL available to look thru on spotify
Movies I watched this Week # 155 (Year 3/Week 51):
My first Singaporean film, Anthony Chen's award-winning debut feature, Ilo Ilo. There is a new sub-genre emerging in recent years, realistic dramas about live-in maids and domestic workers (Many from South America and from South-East Asia: 'Lina from Lima', 'The second mother', 'La Nana', 'Roma', 'La cieniga', 'A simple life', and also others I haven't seen). Most are terrific, and so is this one, with 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
[That Wikipedia list of movies with 100% score on RT is often a reliable indicator for the type of fair I like to spend my time with]. Highly recommended - 9/10.
๐ฟ
2 more by Aki Kaurismรคki:
๐ฟ My 10th tragic feature by him, and possibly my favorite, The match factory girl. The great Kati Outinen is a sad and lonely young woman who has a one-night stand. Minimalist, bleak and unrelenting, this was no Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Considered by some as the "Best Finnish film". 9/10.
๐ฟ To Each His Own Cinema, a 2007 anthology of 34 3-minute shorts by different directors about how movies inspired them. Takeshii Kitano, the Dardenne brothers, Zhang Zimou, Jane Campion, Atom Egoyan, Gus Van Sant, Lars von Trier, Roman Polanski, Michael Cimino, David Cronenberg, Wong Kar-wai, Ken Loach, Claude Lelouche, David Lynch, Etc. It was commissioned to celebrate 60th anniversary of The Cannes Film Festival.
The often-repetitive stories were about old cinema houses out in the country, ticket taking, projectionists, watching Bresson and Fellini in small villages, and similar wet dreams for cineastes. A nice touch was that the credits were shown only at the end of each short, so you could try to guess who directed it while watching.
Most of the films were not very good. Among the few stand outs were Hou Hsiao-hsien (A family in 1940s Taiwan goes to see a film in a suddenly decrepit theater), Aki Kaurismรคki (Foundry workers on lunch break enjoy a Lumiรฉre silent film of workers on lunch break), Abbas Kiarostami (Iranian women watch 'Romeo and Juliet' and cry), Wim Wenders (The inhabitants of a remote Congo village watch Black Hawk Down) and The Coen Brothers (A cowboy resembling Llewellyn Moss at a repertory art house, debating if he should see Renoir or Nuri Bilge Ceylon).
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Ridley Scott's first stream-of-consciousness film, Boy and Bicycle. Made in 1962, when he was 23, and starring his 16 year old brother, Tony [who would jump to his death from the San Pedro Bridge exactly 50 years later]. A boy skips school, and wanders round the empty docks of his West Hartlepool industrial seaside town. Like a working class scene from 'Dubliners'.
It took Ridley 15 years before he was able to direct his next movie, during which time he specialized in producing commercial advertising. His most famous one, The bike Ride, an advert for bread, also featured a boy on a bike. It was later voted as the 'Best British Advert of all time'.
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My 7th and 8th films by Sofia Coppola:
๐ฟ Priscilla, another pretty young woman living in a privileged gilded cage (like Coppola's herself did). A beautiful romance without sex, and with an oppressive power imbalance. "The Elvis" and the 14 year old girl [and without a single Elvis song]. 7/10.
๐ฟ In her shallow The Bling Ring, a group of celebrities-wannabes Valley Girls burgles from Hollywood celebrities homes, and become mini-celebrities themselves. It was pretty, but I couldn't find any deeper meaning there.
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Danish cinema produced dozens of 'Danish Noir' works in the 1940's, during the Nazi occupation, and the 1950's. Mordets melodi ("Melody of murder") is considered Denmark's first horror film, and is my first movie directed by the great Bodil Ipsen. [The Danish "Oscars" are actually called "The Bodil's" after her and the other female influencer, Bodil Kjer].
Like Fritz Lang's 'M', a crazed, ambi-sexual killer continues to strangle women while singing a luring French cabaret song, and the dark, dramatic sets are visually stark.
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Bradley Cooper's new adulatory bio-pic Maestro, about the larger-than-life, overbearing genius that was Leonard Bernstein. Uncanny recreation of his life, but mostly his bisexuality vs. his love for his wife and family. Carey Mulligan was tremendous in it. So was Gustav Mahler. This is the year of the โGreat Manโ in movies, Napoleon, Oppenheimer, Ferrari, Bernsteinโฆ (Photo Above).
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First-watch earlier Buรฑuel X 2:
๐ฟ Nazarin, Buรฑuelโs own favorite work, about a saintly priest, who mistakenly tries to follow in Christ's footsteps. But all his literal interpretations of the dogmas are proven to lead him, as well as his small coterie of freaks and miscasts, into misfortunes. One of the last of his Mexican films, this religious parable is the one that convinced the Spanish censors to allow him to return from exile.
๐ฟ Bunuel's only documentary (pseudo-documentary rather), Land Without Bread, describing (exaggerated) misery in a remote Spanish town. Extreme poverty, hunger and destitute rarely seen on film.
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Dil Dhadakne Do is an Indian soap opera, staged on a first-class Turkish cruise ship in the Mediterranean, directed by a woman, and narrated by a dog. It's a 3-hour long American-style 'Rich and famous' sit-com of a large family, full of expected love intrigues of bland characters.
I was hoping for another hopping Song and Dance story, but there were only 3 dance numbers in it, Gallan Goodiyaan, Girls like to dance and the final credit scene.
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3 atypical Christmas fairy tales:
๐ฟ My second unusual anime by Satoshi Kon, Tokyo Godfathers (after 'Paprika'). An imaginative Christmas Miracle parable of The Three Magis. Except that here they are three unlikely homeless heroes, an alcoholic, a trans woman, and a teenage runaway who likes to spit on people from above. They discover an abandoned newborn while searching through the garbage for presents. Emotional and unorthodox. 8/10.
๐ฟ The Bloody Olives, a Belgian meta Film Noir of a husband, his wife and her lover who keep murdering each other again and again while decorating their Christmas tree. Full of twists and double crosses.
๐ฟ "One morning, as Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant banana..."
Malcolm Tucker's Oscar-winning parody Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life was not too convincing: It's too easy to parody Kranz Fuckfuck.
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First watch: Truffaut's second installment of the Antoine Doinel's saga, Antoine and Colette. The boy of '400 Blows' is now 17, and awkwardly falls in love for the first time. Youthfully charming.
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2 by Norwegian Kristoffer Borgli:
๐ฟ The first half of Dream scenario had me in stitches: Such an original thought experiment, and so unhesitatingly fresh. But exactly at mid-point, when everybody's dreams turn into nightmares, the story progressed into a underwhelming flirtation with broader contemporary themes, fame, cancel culture, public perception. The only anchor left in Paul's life is memories of his lovely wife, Julianne Nicholson. 6/10.
๐ฟ Checking out his only previous feature, Sick of Myself: That too was a story with an intriguing premise that opened very strong, end completely fizzled halfway. A young barista lives anonymously and unnoticed, being ignored by her self-centered boyfriend and acquaintances. One day at work, a woman is being mauled by a dog and she's the only one jumping to help her. While covered in blood, she is suddenly the center of attention. The rush causes her to start an insane dive into self-mutilation. The second half centered on narcissism, influencers, victimhood and social media, and was highly disappointing. My 5th film with Anders Danielsen Lie. 4/10.
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"Chip, you know how I hate the brown word"...
My first black comedy from John Waters' commercial period, Serial mom.
With Waters regulars Chesty Morgan, Tracy Lords, Mink Stole, Patty Hearst and Ricky Lake [But it could do better with less Fat jokes]. Also, with a lawyer named Nazelrod and a panties-sniffer named Marvin Pickles. The hot rock and roll girl band is called Camel Lips. So the anti-establishment humour is very elementary.
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โI Didnโt Come To Rescue Rambo From You. I Came Here To Rescue You From Himโโฆ
First watch: I did not expect Rambo: first blood to be that watchable, with such excellent Jerry Goldsmith score. A traumatized Vietnam vet feels spat on and maligned. And all the years I thought it but a thoughtless, jingoistic violent flick.
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3 more stand-ups:
๐ฟ Trevor Noah: Where Was I, his latest stand-up opens with his best line upfront: "I really enjoy every day in America right now. The same way you'd enjoy your last day on earth". It has a few other good jokes, but otherwise it's pretty tame. The venue, The Fox Theater in Detroit, looks magnificent. 4/10
๐ฟ Sane man, my first stand-up with heavy-smoker, politically incorrect Bill Hicks. I heard the name before, but never seen him perform.
๐ฟ So, for the second time in a week, I re-watched Dave Gormanโs Googlewhack Adventure, a contagiously funny presentation.
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4 Shorts:
๐ฟ Agnรจs Varda's Les Fiancรฉs du pont Mac Donald, a Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton-inspired silent comedy from 1962. With JL Godard and Anna Karina.
๐ฟ Re-watch: From David Firth's, the creator of 'Salad Fingers', the unsettling Cream. Inventing a single solution to all of the world's problems.
The credit page at the end is just as hilariously expansive as the bitter story itself.
๐ฟ Figs, a gentle 81-year-old black woman who survived a life of oppression, from the cotton fields of Louisiana to becoming a teacher in South Los Angeles.
๐ฟ The girl with the yellow stockings, a light German story of a young man asking his girlfriend to marry him again and again.
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One I couldn't finish even after trying hard for nearly 20 minutes: The toothless, 1990's Clintonite-lite, political romance Speechless. Trying to cash in on the then real-life hookup between James Carville and Mary Matalin, it was awful on every level.
โ*if* its true that Lina Abbas was a possible bride candidate for CP Hussein, there has to be a tiny feeling of awkwardness, maybe thats why they haven't published a photo of the Prince with his cousin and bride ๐คฃ๐คฃ๐คฃโ - Submitted by Anonymous
Hiam Abbass, attrice, regista e sceneggiatrice palestinese, รจ nata in Israele e ha la cittadinanza francese.
ร stata diretta da registi internazionali come Steven Spielberg, Amos Gitai,ย Tom McCarthy,ย Jim Jarmusch, Abbas Fahdel e altri ancora.
Nata a Nazareth, il 30 novembre 1960ย da una famiglia di arabi musulmani, รจ cresciuta nel quartiere libanese del vicino villaggio di Deir Hanna. Dagli anni โ80ย vive a Parigiย dove รจ iniziata la sua carriera artistica.
Ha cominciato a recitare nel film per la tvย La nuit miraculeuseย del 1989, di Ariane Mnouchkine, seguito da apparizioni in diversi telefilm.
Al cinema ha debuttato nel 1989 con il filmย La nuit miraculeuse.ย ร stata poi nel cast diย Ognuno cerca il suo gatto, Haifa, Histoire naturelle, Venise est une femme, Le mariage en papier, Aime ton pรจre, eย Bab el Chams.
Il suo primo ruolo di successo รจ arrivato nel 2004 quando รจ stata la protagonista inย La Sposa Sirianaย diretto daย Eran Riklis che le รจ valso la candidatura per la miglior attrice agliย European Film Awards.
Lโanno successivo รจ apparsa nel filmย Munichย di Steven Spielberg, in cuiย ha anche lavorato come consulente per il dialetto e la recitazione,ย vivendo per tre mesi in un hotel con attori israeliani e palestinesi che hanno avuto molte discussioni cheย hanno aiutato entrambe le parti ad avvicinarsi.
Ha recitato in diversi altri film prima del 2008, quando รจ stata la protagonista deย Il giardino di limoniย in cui interpreta una donna palestinese che lotta contro la decisione dei servizi segreti israeliani di sradicare il suo giardino perchรฉ avrebbe potuto essere usato dai terroristi per attentare alla vicina casa del Ministro della Difesa.ย Per questo ruolo ha ricevutoย il premioย Israeli Film Academy Awardย e lโAsia Pacific Screen Awardsย come miglior attrice.
Nel 2008 ha interpretato la madre di un immigrato siriano clandestino nel filmย The Visitorย di Tom McCarthy e la madre di un soldato iracheno nel filmย Dawn of the Worldย di Abbas Fahdel.
ร stata nel cast del filmย I limiti del controlloย diย Jim Jarmuschย e inย A Bottle in the Gaza Sea,ย tratto dal romanzoย Une bouteille dans la mer de Gazaย di Valรฉrie Zenatti.
Il regista Radu Mihaileanu lโha invece voluta nella commedia drammaticaย La sorgente dellโamore.
Nel 2012,ย ha fatto parte della giuria del Festival di Cannesย eย debuttato alla regiaย conย The Inheritanceย in cui affronta il tema dellโidentitร da diversi punti di vista, quello del ruolo femminile diviso tra modernitร e tradizione e quello dellโappartenenza nazionale di una famiglia palestinese che vive in Galilea.
Nel 2017 ha interpretato Freysa, la leader del movimento per la libertร dei replicanti, inย Blade Runner 2049.
ร stata laย protagonista femminile della serie tvย Successionย che ha ottenuto un enorme successo negli Stati Uniti.ย
Comeย acting coachย รจ stata impegnata sul set diย Alcuni giorni di settembreย di Santiago Amigorena con Juliette Binoche, John Turturro e Nick Nolte eย Babelย di Alejandro Gonzรกles Iรฑarritu con Brad Pitt e Cate Blanchett.
ร stata accanto a Tim Roth inย Come together,ย la storia di un terrorista che, a seguito di un grave incidente, perde la memoria dimenticando il suo passato e i suoi ideali sovversivi, per venire salvato da una medicaย siriana rifugiata che non conosce la sua vera identitร .
Inย Bye Bye Tiberias,ย selezionato perย rappresentare la Palestina agli Oscar 2024ย e presentato in anteprima mondiale alle Giornate degli Autori delย Festival del Cinema di Venezia, รจ stataย diretta da sua figliaย Lina Soualem. Nel film, cheย esplora le tradizioni orali di quattro generazioni di donne palestinesi, interpreta se stessa nel suo personale viaggio di ritorno al villaggio dove รจ cresciuta e da dove รจ partita per Parigi, quando aveva ventโanni, per intraprendere la carriera di attrice. Un ruolo che la spinge a mettere a nudo il suo passato, a guardare indietro a come la sua patria รจ cambiata e a riflettere su tutto ciรฒ che ha ereditato da sua madre e dalla generazione che lโha preceduta.
Hiam Abbass ha anche unโaltra figlia, Mouna, anchโella attrice, entrambe avute da Zinedine Soualem, noto attore franco-algerino, con una carriera trentennale nel cinema, nella TV e nel teatro francese.