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infowrites · 4 years ago

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Godfather trilogy ( The best ever)

The Godfather is a couple of films part1 and part 2 there's also a part 3 most people think that part 3 made rather later is a bit of a failure I think that too I'm not going to say anything about part 3 they're based on a book written I think in 1969 called The Godfather which was a story about an imaginary mafia family in New York and the first film is based on that and the second film develops both forward and backward in time the story of the same family they are not only immensely popular and enduring films which people are happy to watch over and over again but they are rated as among the greatest films ever made by serious film critics and usually ranked between 1st and 4th in any in the serious ranking of great films of all time the films are very different from earlier gangster films of which there were many from the 1930s onwards previously gangster films had focused onthe violence the anti-social inclinations of the gangsters their brutality and had generally been very calm down a tray of gangsters though of the course at the same time

They took care to make their lives seem exciting and in some cases to produce riveting performances such as those of James Cagney in white heat Coppola who made the Godfather decided that he was going to make a film which would be sympathetic towards this Mafia family and in fact, that is what is achieved there's a connection here with something that Shakespeare was doing hundreds of years before because he has a series of plays the history plays which are based on late medieval kings of England and these people in reality were probably rather ignorant certainly brutal and unscrupulous people who were constantly seizing the crown from one another and then plotting to take the crown from whoever currently had it Shakespeare turns some of these people into vastly heroic figures and makes out of this history a marvelously artistic structure of the cycle of human psychology probably the highest achievement in Shakespeare's history plays is the Henry plays which are really three plays the two parts of Henry the fourth and then Henry the fifth and those three plays are really about Henry the fifth first of all when he's Prince how growing up learning to become a king and then in Henry the fifth being the King invading France and defeating the French in the Godfather we have the story of a family and it starts with a family led by Don Corleone II Don Vito Corleone II who's aging and who is in some danger of losing control of the power situation which he occupies and he has a young son Michael he has other sons as well but Michael seems very poorly suited to take over from his father

He has no interest in being a Mafia Don he seems to fit much better into mainstream American society and doesn't seem to have those sorts of ambitions the story of the two films is his progress if you can call it that from somebody who stands outside of the families ambitions to the person who takes over and leads the family with a degree of ruthlessness which if anything exceeds that of his father in Shakespeare we have the same structure in Henry the fourth parts one and two the King Henry the fourth is aging and not fully in control of the situation and he makes a number of strategic mistakes in dealing with his rivals which put the crown in danger and which are really rescued by the young Henry the fifth as he will be who kills Hotspur in battle Hotspur is one of the most significant potential enemies of the King similarly in the Godfather early on in the film things were very bad for the family little because if they're going to go under from the combined opposition of other Mafia families and from the corrupt police force but Michael the young son takes control and hatches a plan that will enable him to assassinate

The police chief and one of the other significant mafia figures in all this and that reverses the situation and puts the Corleone family back in control at least for some period of time there's a big emphasis on both these narratives on the idea of deception so one of the ways in which the Godfather differs from previous films about gangsters and mafia is that there's much less emphasis on physical power a much more emphasis on being able to read other people's psychologies part of the interest in watching those films is that many many conversations take place between people where you realize later on that neither of the people speaking in those conversations seriously meant anything that they said they were both trying to deceive the other parties and the people who win in these situations are the people who are able to deceive the others and to able to know when somebody else is trying to deceive them and that's what gives Michael his power over other people, it's not physical power he never except on one occasion early on uses any physical violence himself and although there are moments of extreme violence in the film most of the film is not a violent film most of it consists simply of listening to people having conversations and working out why they are saying

What it is they're saying now when you talk about deception it can sound as if you're talking about something which is very selfish about something which we would all feel very ashamed but in many ways deception is part of the fabric of our ordinary lives we deceive people sometimes for the best of reasons we do not tell people the truth when they ask us whether we like their most recent haircut we do not tell our children the truth always when they ask us whether that we like the painting that they have just done we are deceptive in many many ways some of those ways are ways that we would feel ashamed of if we knew if other people knew about it but many of them are really just part of our ordinary life our whole lives are made up of deceptions small and sometimes large so what we have in the Godfather is a picture of human deception Ritz much larger than any of us normally experienced in our ordinary lives and deception becomes for these people vastly more important than it normally is because their capacity to deceive other people and to know when other people are deceiving them can actually for those people mean the difference between life and death so we see the similar a similar level of interest in the idea of deception in the Henry plays and we see this particularly in the development of Henry Henry the fists personality Henry when he's a young man is a drunkard a carouser

Somebody whose friends are robbers and thieves but Henry makes it clear that he's quite consciously engaging in this behavior and that he intends later on to undergo a change because as he puts it by changing in that dramatic way he will bring more credit on himself than if he had simply been a good honest and sober a citizen from the beginning I suppose there are other stories in which deception and manipulation play an enormous part what both Shakespeare and the makers of the Godfather films managed to do was to show their heroes as Machiavellian and deceptive and yet at the same time to get us on their side and they do that partly by giving those characters other admirable trays so both the young Henry and my who are extremely brave physically and they're extremely resourceful they're able to rescue very dire situations that look as if things are going to go very badly Henry at the Battle of Agincourt ease facing defeat and the annihilation of his army by the vast superior powers of the French yet he manages to rally his troops give them the courage to defeat the French Michel is part of a the family that looks as if it's going under yet he manages to put together a plan that completely reverses their fortunes it could be simply that the Shakespearean Way of telling those stories are so much a part of our common culture that you don't have to think very consciously about these things in

order to produce something that's rather similar though of course as I've already said previous mafia films never dealt with the situation in the same way as this so I would put my money on it that he knew something about the Shakespearean background to this and quite consciously borrowed from Shakespeare here.

#godfather #al pacino #history #hollywood

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zen3to5 · 5 years ago

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J/H 6-01: The Kids Are Alright

Welcome, everyone, to Zenmasters: Seasons 3 to 5+!

I was pretty set on keeping this rewrite project limited to the titular seasons when I started. The only exception, I thought, would be to possibly do a rewrite of the series finale, working on the premise that Season 7 would be the last.

Then I rewatched Season 6 - which, if you’ll recall, didn’t go down so well. So I've decided not only to do a new series finale, but to make some more adjustments along the way there. In doing so, I've set myself the following hard limits:

1. I'm only rewriting what I find to be the rough patches in Jackie and Hyde's material (otherwise, I'd be overhauling virtually every single script of this season, and no way am I going down that road.) Since I think their relationship is generally well-handled in Season 6, that means we're only looking at two areas: their make-up at the beginning of the season (which I think was sloppy) and the Pam Burkhart arc (which has virtually no Zen, when it really should have.) Adding Zen, and still acting on the premise that these could be feasible scripts for the show, there will naturally be other adjustments, but those were only made on the basis that they had to be to make room for J/H material in these 22-minute episodes.

2. I have to be able to use something from the 3 to 5 rewrites, even if it's only a single line, as a basis for adding Zen to a given episode or run of episodes.

With that out of the way - let's get started!

(And, as with 5-01, I couldn't resist imagining a new credits sequence.)

FF.Net AO3

***

We open on a unique title card, patterned after the logo from THE GODFATHER. “The Godfather Theme” by Nino Rota plays as we cut to: INT. FORMAN BEDROOM - DAY DREAM SEQUENCE. The Forman master bedroom, converted to an at-home hospital bed. RED, as Don Corleone, lies in bed, propped up on pillows. Surrounding him are BOB as Tom Hagen, KELSO as Fredo, and HYDE as Sonny. Hyde has SCHATZI in his arms. Everyone is grim-faced and the room is dark, even in the day – very Coppola. BOB: Don Forman, it is an honor and privilege to receive you in your home in the wake of the heart attack caused by your daughter’s wedding. Red rolls his eyes, unnoticed by Bob. BOB (cont’d): While you’ve been away, they locked up that Son of Sam, Al Unser took the Indy 500, and that new movie Grease is such a hoot, boy. RED: What about the Family? BOB: Well, that little dame with the mouth has been hiding down at the pool all summer, on account of these two still being after her. He points to Kelso and Hyde, who shift on their feet. HYDE: Yeah, but that’s over now. We’re sending Kelso out west to learn the nutcracker business. KELSO: Nutcracker business? Why would I - Hyde kicks him in the groin, sending him to the floor. HYDE: (laughing) Loser. He sets Schatzi on the bed and crosses to the bedroom door. As soon as he opens it, machine gunfire rips open. Hyde stumbles back into the room, being thrown about by the many bloodless squibs going off, until he falls down on top of Kelso. Bob and Red briefly glance at the bodies, then return to their conversation. BOB: And your wife, she’s working double shifts again, on account of you not being able to manage the business. KITTY, as Mama Corleone in a nurse’s hat, bursts into the room, with a laundry basket under one arm and a pot of soup under the other. She hurries over to Red, kisses him on the forehead, glances down at Hyde and Kelso, looks up to God, and runs out of the room with tears in her eyes, all while spewing a non-stop torrent of obviously fake Italian. RED: What about my son, Bob? Where’s Eric? Bob shifts on his feet, looks away. We cut to: EXT. ITALIAN VILLA – DAY A picturesque little village in the Sicilian countryside, a lovely image to have on a cheesy backdrop hanging behind the cast. ERIC, as Michael Corleone in his military uniform, and DONNA as Kay stand in the middle of the street, arms around each other’s waists. “Godfather Love Theme” by Nino Rota plays in the background. DONNA: Eric, are you sure we should be going off to college and seeing the world when your father’s heart attack and our friends’ stupidity leaves the Family vulnerable? ERIC: That’s my family, Donna. That’s not me. I’m going my own way. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? CUT TO: EXT. CITY STREET – DAY The best New York backlot set available. Old roadsters line the street, steam comes up from the manholes, everyone goes about in hats and coats, and a fruit stand with plenty of oranges is set up on the corner. Red and Bob are at the stand, selecting oranges while Kelso waits for them by a black 1941 Ford. Shot-for-shot, the shooting of Don Corleone. A gunman steps out from behind a truck. Red notices their approach. He bolts for the car, knocking over the stand and sending oranges spilling into the street, but it’s too late. FEZ, as Sollozzo, sprays him with fire from his handgun. Slumped down against the car, Red turns around and looks up at Fez. RED: So... it was the foreigner all along. FEZ: Seriously? Have you looked around at this dream? You’re Italian, I’m Italian - we’re all foreigners, you cranky bastard! He fires off one more shot, and Red falls to the ground, dead. CUT TO: SPINNING NEWSPAPER. Headline: FORMAN SLAIN. CUT TO: EXT. ITALIAN VILLA - DAY Eric, clutching at the newspaper, with Donna reading over his shoulder. Eric crushes the paper in one hand, bites the knuckles of the other. ERIC: Oh, Pop. If only I had set aside all my own personal hopes and dreams for my life and stayed at home. If only I hadn’t gone against the Family. He throws his head to the sky in true melodramatic fashion as we crane up. ERIC: Why? Why? WHY? CUT TO: INT. DONNA’S BEDROOM – DAY Late morning. The window curtains are drawn, letting in the sunlight, and Jackie’s cot is empty. Eric and Donna are snuggled together in Donna’s bed, still asleep. Eric stirs, jolts straight up. He takes in where he is, lets out a long sigh. Donna, still groggy from sleep, sits up and puts a hand on his shoulder. DONNA: Eric, is everything all right? ERIC: (beat) Yeah. Eric pats her hand and slides out of bed. He starts to get dressed. ERIC (cont’d): I gotta go. My folks come home from the hospital today. Hyde and I are picking them up. Donna’s closet opens. Out steps Fez, all smiles. FEZ: Mr. Red is coming home? Eric jumps and Donna pulls the covers up to her chin. ERIC: Fez? DONNA: Oh, my God! Did you see anything? FEZ: Not much. You should really think about a night light. Donna and Eric both take pillows from the bed and chuck them at Fez, who retreats back into the closet.

MAIN TITLES INT. VISTA CRUISER – NIGHT A) The gang out on the road. Eric drives, with Donna next to him and Hyde in the passenger’s seat. Behind him sits Jackie, then Fez, then Kelso. THEME SONG: Hangin’ out... B) Hyde drives, with Eric in the passenger’s seat. Behind him sits Donna, and behind Hyde sits Jackie. The girls are leaning forward in their seats, their arms wrapped around the boys’ shoulders. THEME SONG: Down the street... C) Kelso drives, with Fez next to him and Hyde in the passenger’s seat. Behind him sits a scowling Red, then Eric, then Bob. THEME SONG: The same old thing... D) Red drives, with Kitty in the passenger’s seat, holding Schatzi. Bob sits in the middle of the back seat, hands behind his head. THEME SONG: We did last week... E) Fez drives, with Donna next to him and Kelso in the passenger’s seat. Behind him sits Eric, then Hyde, then Jackie. Donna leans into Fez as the gang sing along. THEME SONG: Not a thing to do... F) Jackie drives, with Donna next to her and Kitty in the passenger’s seat. THEME SONG: But talk to you... G) Hyde drives, with Eric in the passenger’s seat. Behind him sits Donna, and behind Hyde sits Jackie. The girls are leaning forward in their seats, their arms wrapped around the boys’ shoulders. THEME SONG: We’re all alright! H) Eric drives, with Donna next to him and Hyde in the passenger’s seat. Behind him sits Jackie, then Fez, then Kelso. THEME SONG: We’re all alright! I) The creators’ license plate, a 1978 sticker in the corner. HYDE (v.o.): Hello, Wisconsin! BUMPER INT. FORMAN KITCHEN - DAY Shortly after the pre-credits scene. Hyde sits at the kitchen table, a plate of eggs and bacon in front of him. He has Schatzi in his arms, cuddled close to his face. He picks up a piece of bacon and holds it up for Schatzi to eat. Eric, Donna (dressed in a bathing suit and dress) and Fez enter through the patio door. They freeze when they see Hyde, and he freezes when he sees them, causing Schatzi to strain to reach the bacon. Though all three struggle not to laugh, Donna finds her voice first: DONNA: (to Hyde) Are you feeding and cuddling with a wiener dog? HYDE: Are you planning to wear a bathing suit to a hospital visit? ERIC: (to Donna) Oh, please do. FEZ: Yes, please. Donna shakes her head and rolls her eyes. DONNA: I’m going to the pool with Jackie. HYDE: She choose between me and Kelso yet? DONNA: I don’t know. But Kelso’s been going down there to show off for her. He’s got a speedo with the Point Place Police Department badge printed on the ass. It’s really disturbing. Hyde pushes himself to his feet, Schatzi still in his arms. HYDE: Whatever, man. She thinks I’m gonna wait around all summer ‘cause she can’t choose between me and a guy who once forgot he was allergic to eggs? His head swelled up to five times its normal size. Screw that, man. I’m over her. Schatzi chooses this time to lick the corner of Hyde’s mouth. Eric chuckles, crosses to Hyde and puts a hand on his shoulder. ERIC: Hyde, the other day I was down in the basement and went to put on Zeppelin, and I found country music records hidden in the sleeve to Physical Graffiti. You’re not over her. Fez smirks, crosses to them. FEZ: (to Hyde) So, you console your loneliness with doggie kisses and country songs, while I am married to Eric’s slutty sister. HYDE: Yeah, how’s that going? FEZ: Oh, not great. But I’m pretty sure when she gets back from our honeymoon in Cancun, things will pick up. ERIC: Laurie went on your honeymoon alone? FEZ: Oh, no, that would be crazy. She took her friend Carlos along to keep an eye on her. But I paid for both of them, so everyone know who the man is in this deal. Eric, Donna, and Hyde all share a look. ERIC: (to Hyde) All right, let’s get going. (to Fez) You stay here. My dad doesn’t want you anywhere near the hospital. FEZ: Why not? I’m family. I want to support my new American dad after his heart attack. ERIC: Fez, you’re the one who gave him the heart attack. HYDE: By marrying his daughter, who’s on your honeymoon with another guy. FEZ: Oh, no, no, no. Carlos is just like, um... he’s kind of like a – a chaperone. He, uh... (beat) Son of a bitch! He stomps his foot and pouts, even as Hyde presses Schatzi into his arms. Eric, Hyde, and Donna file out the door. BUMPER INT. HOSPITAL - DAY A reception desk at the hospital. A DOCTOR leads Eric, Red, Kitty, and Hyde up the hallway. Red is in decent shape and rotten mood; same as always, really. RED: Come on, Kitty. Let’s get the hell out of this weird place. I think some of these nurses are stealing drugs. The doctor gives Kitty a look. KITTY: Red, I am a nurse here. (laughs) RED: I stand by my statement. DOCTOR: Okay, Mr. Forman, just to be clear: no going to work, no chores, no driving for three months. And let’s not forget the root cause of the problem. ERIC: Too much rage, right? Yeah, so he probably shouldn’t, like, yell at anyone anymore, right? DOCTOR: Actually, the reason he ran into trouble is he was holding stuff in. ERIC: (beat) He was holding stuff in? Okay, I weigh 42 pounds ‘cause of what he let out and – I’m sorry – you’re telling me that, uh, there’s more in there? Kitty hurries between her husband and son and takes both their arms. KITTY: (to doctor) No, no, no. He does not weigh 42 pounds. And these two are the best of buddies! (doing Eric) “Hey, Dad, wanna go fishing?” (doing Red) “Sure, son. Let’s hug.” (normal voice) That’s what it’s like at our house! (laughs) RED: (to doctor) See what I mean about the drugs? DOCTOR: (to Red) What you need to do is focus on things that make you happy. ERIC: Okay, but I don’t know where we’re gonna find a boatload of dead commies. HYDE: (points to Eric, himself) Yeah, but there’s two asses he loves sticking his foot up right here. Eric nods. Red gives him and Hyde an appraising look as Kitty shakes her head. CUT TO: EXT. POOL - DAY The Point Place public pool, a small and tidy swimming hole surrounded by a chain-link fence. Donna and JACKIE, in a tiny bikini and skirt, sip sodas at a small cable in the corner. DONNA: Jackie, the summer’s almost over and you haven’t decided between Kelso and Hyde yet. JACKIE: Why should I rush for them? The sun is out, the air is warm, I’m almost at my most delicious shade of cocoa brown – let that two-timing moron and paranoid hophead wait it out a little longer. DONNA: Well, Hyde might be done waiting, so you may not have a choice anymore. Jackie takes her sunglasses off and leans in toward Donna. JACKIE: What do you mean? Before Donna can answer, a shadow blocks their sun. It’s Kelso, fresh from the pool, dripping wet in his PPPD speedo. KELSO: Ladies. Ladies’ bodies. (to Jackie) So, Jackie, what do you think? He flexes, pushes up his shoulders. KELSO (cont’d): Yep. Police Academy starts in a week. All this swimming’s getting me into shape. DONNA: Wouldn’t getting into shape for the police academy mean eating donuts and growing a bad moustache? KELSO: Oh, I’m growing the bad moustache. Jackie rolls her eyes, looks around Kelso to Donna. JACKIE: So is Mr. Forman home yet? DONNA: Eric’s picking him up now. I don’t know what they’re gonna do once we’re in Madison. Kitty and Hyde are both working double shifts, but that still doesn’t cover the lost income from Red not working. JACKIE: Yeah... and what about medical bills? Price Mart offers terrible coverage, and you can forget about any help from the government now that health reform’s stalled. DONNA: I know, right? KELSO: Wait, hold up. (to Donna) You said a bunch of sad stuff... (to Jackie) You followed up with some money and health fact stuff... (to Donna) And you said “I know,” which makes me think Jackie used that right, which makes me think she knew what she was talking about. DONNA: Very good, Kelso. That’s what we call a “conversation.” KELSO: Well, I know some facts too. Jimmy Carter? He had a peanut farm. And the Dairy Queen down the street is selling half-off peanut buster parfaits today. Now, excuse me as I walk down there to get one – without pants. He turns his ass Jackie’s way before strolling off. The girls shake their heads. CUT TO: INT. FORMAN KITCHEN – DAY Welcome home, Red! The family file in through the patio door. Kitty keeps her arms ready to support Red, who looks done with this day already. KITTY: (to Red) Now, let’s get you upstairs for your nap. (to Eric, Hyde) And boys, he needs quiet, so no shenanigans. ERIC: Mom, please, we haven’t shenaniganed in about six years. HYDE: We’ve hooliganed. ERIC: We’ve no-goodniked. HYDE: We’ve ne’er done well. ERIC: And just last week, we found ourselves rabble-rousing. RED: Will you shut up? Eric and Hyde, both laughing, step aside so that Red can go through the door to the living room... INT. FORMAN LIVING ROOM – DAY And find Fez standing in front of his chair with a balloon and flowers. FEZ: Welcome home, Dad! RED: You. You’ve got a lot of nerve, showing your face around here after what you did to my daughter! He slowly advances on Fez, who somehow just doesn’t get the danger he’s in. FEZ: Hey, I did you a favor. That girl’s been passed around this town - KITTY/ERIC/HYDE: NO! Eric and Hyde pull Red back as Kitty rushes over to Fez and takes him by the shoulders. KITTY: Okay. You’ve already given him one heart attack. That’s enough. Now hush. She gently pushes a pouting Fez down to the couch. Eric crosses to the coffee table and grabs a small bowl full of candy. ERIC: (to Fez) Hey, look, buddy – raisinets! Instantly happy once more, Fez takes the candy and chows down. Kitty hurries back over to Red and leads him to the stairs. KITTY: (to Red) Okay, okay. Naptime. She sees him halfway up the staircase, then lets him go the rest of the way on his own as she leans over the railing. KITTY (cont’d): Oh, and Steven, he has a check-up next week during my shift, so I need you to take him. HYDE: Mrs. Forman, I told you, I’m working then. KITTY: Oh, that’s right. Eric, could you - ERIC: No, Mom. I’m not gonna be here, remember? I’m moving away. KITTY: (beat) Oh, so you’re still going? ERIC: Yes, I’m still going. It’s college. I have to register for classes. KITTY: Fine. ERIC: Mom, I gotta get out of here. KITTY: (short) Fine! ERIC: Great. KITTY: Great! ERIC: Fine! Kitty turns away and heads up the stairs. Eric scoffs, points after her and looks to Hyde, “can you believe that?” Hyde offers a shrug, “what can you do?” The front door opens. In walks LAURIE, suitcase in hand. She sets it down by the couch and crosses to the boys. LAURIE: (to Eric) Hey, little brother. (to Hyde) Hey, orphan. (to Fez) Hey, hubby. Fez stands. FEZ: Don’t “hubby” me! I’m mad at you. LAURIE: Aww. But I brought you a souvenir. She pulls a crystal shot glass from her purse and presents it to Fez. ERIC: Oh, look, Fez, a genuine Cancun shot glass still sticky with tequila. FEZ: (to Laurie) Aww, you shouldn’t have. LAURIE: No biggie. Some guy left it in my room. She struts her way into the kitchen. CUT TO: INT. HUB - EVENING A modest evening. “You Don’t Own Me” by Lesley Gore plays on the jukebox. At a center table, Jackie sits alone, reading a newspaper. Kelso, in a leather jacket and a PPPD T-shirt, enters, struts over to her table and leans on the back of an empty chair. Jackie barely glances over her paper to look at him, which Kelso takes for her checking him out. KELSO: Yep. Just picked up the shirt today. It’s a tight fit, so it really shows off all that swimming I’ve been doing. He makes a show of sliding his jacket off and showing his arms before sitting down. Only then does he notice what Jackie’s up to. KELSO (cont’d): Are you reading a newspaper? JACKIE: Yeah. KELSO: Are you reading the news part of a newspaper? Jackie raises her eyebrows at him. JACKIE: That is where the news is, Michael. KELSO: Yeah, but since when do you read it? JACKIE: Since I decided to keep up with interesting things going on in the world. She disappears back behind her paper. Kelso’s eyes dart back and forth; he’s not used to this from Jackie. He snatches one of the other sections from the table and struggles to get it open and propped up before him in imitation of her. KELSO: Well, here’s something interesting – Snoopy is playing in a tennis tournament. Jackie lets out a long breath, refusing to meet Kelso’s stare and smirk. FADE TO BLACK COMMERCIAL BUMPER INT. FORMAN KITCHEN – DAY The next morning. Kitty is at the stovetop in her somewhat untidy nurse’s uniform, hastily putting together breakfast plates – one with eggs and bacon, one with eggs and pancakes, and one with egg whites and lean ham. Hyde enters through the patio door in his half-open chef’s jacket, a small pharmacy bag in hand. He drops more than sets it on the counter. HYDE: Here’s Red’s heart medication, Mrs. Forman. He lets out a big yawn. Kitty presses a cup of coffee into his hands. He nods in appreciation, takes out a wad of bills from his pants pocket, and throws it on the stovetop. Kitty takes it and pockets it. KITTY: Thank you, honey. And I’ll get this money put into your savings account on my way home. HYDE: Mrs. Forman, I’ve told you I don’t need a savings account. Just pay a bill. Of course, this is the moment when Eric walks in from the living room. ERIC: “Pay a bill?” (to Kitty) Mom, what does he mean? Is money that tight? KITTY: It’s nothing. ERIC: No, ‘cause... I mean, Donna and I are both working, so if you need to take a little out of my college fund - KITTY: Listen, both of you – the money in those accounts is for you. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine. She takes the pancake plate and passes it to Eric. KITTY (cont’d): You just eat your breakfast. Eric examines his plate. ERIC: Chocolate-chip caramel whipped cream pancakes? Mom, you’re not gonna bribe me into staying home from school with super sweet breakfast food. (checks the plate) And where are the sprinkles? KITTY: No, no, the pancakes are an apology. I overreacted before. Of course, you have to go to school. ERIC: So... that’s it? No guilt? KITTY: That’s right. Now, I’m late for work. (to Hyde) I’ll pick up the dry cleaning and drop off the packages at the post office. You make sure Red eats his breakfast, and only his breakfast – egg whites and heart-healthy ham. Oh, and remember you promised to give Schatzi his bath. She pats Hyde’s cheek and hurries out the door. Hyde looks down at the plate meant for Red, pointedly avoiding Eric’s smirk. ERIC: Now you’re bathing our wiener dog? HYDE: (beat) He keeps coming down to the basement. His fur-stink’s become incriminating evidence. Red enters from the living room. Eric crosses to the kitchen table as Hyde presses Red’s breakfast into his hands. HYDE (cont’d): Here you go, Red. Red looks down at his meal. RED: Where’s the yellow part of these eggs? That’s the baby bird. That’s the part I want to eat. Hyde crosses his arms and shakes his head, while Eric chuckles and digs into his breakfast. CUT TO: INT. HUB – DAY On a slow afternoon, Donna and Jackie enjoy lunch at a center table. DONNA: Wow, Jackie. You’ve really been showing Kelso the cold shoulder. JACKIE: Well, he deserves it. I told him I needed the summer to think things over, and he’s been after me the whole time. DONNA: I guess that means you choose Hyde. JACKIE: No! I told him I needed the summer to think things over, and he hasn’t spoken to me that whole time! I am so over them both. Kelso enters, still in his police shirt and jacket. He strolls over to the girls’ table, grabs at the badge logo printed on his shirt, and stretches it out as if it were a real badge. KELSO: Ladies. You have the right to remain foxy. Donna shakes her head. Jackie rolls her eyes, stands, and pushes past Kelso on her way out the door. CUT TO: INT. FORMAN BASEMENT – NIGHT That night. Donna and Eric sit close on the couch, going through college materials. ERIC: Oh, my God, Donna. Madison has a course called “The Social Significance of Jedi Culture.” He makes a show of gaping in delight as Donna rolls her eyes. Kitty, still in nurse’s uniform, comes down the stairs with an entry laundry basket. She crosses to the dryer and begins unloading it. ERIC (cont’d): Mom, why are you doing laundry? It’s almost midnight. KITTY: Well, with the double shift, this is the only time I have to do it. Eric sighs. He sets down the brochure and stands. ERIC: Okay, don’t do this. KITTY: Do what? ERIC: Come down here in the middle of the night, doing laundry, looking like hell - KITTY: Oh, excuse me! ERIC: No, I – I’m just saying, you’re trying to make me feel guilty for not leaving, and it’s not gonna work. I can’t stay here, okay? I have to go off and live my life. I deserve that! Mom, I deserve a chance! KITTY: Okay, okay. No need to use your squeaky voice. I understand that you have to leave. I have bigger things to worry about than making you feel guilty. She gathers up the laundry and heads back up the stairs. Donna looks up at Eric, who looks after his mom. DONNA: Eric, if you feel like you need to stay... I mean, we can talk about - ERIC: No! No. He sits back down. ERIC (cont’d): We’re leaving next week and that’s final. DONNA: Okay. They no sooner turn back to the brochure than the basement door opens and Red steps in, wearing pajamas and bathrobe. He has a plate in his hands, with toast that he dips into very runny egg yolks. RED: (to Eric) Yeah. It’s egg yolks. And I don’t care if you tell your mother. She doesn’t scare me. KITTY (v.o.): Eric, I almost forgot... Red tosses the toast aside, drops the plate, and high tails it back up the outside stairwell. CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY – DAY The next day. The upstairs hall of the Pinciotti house. Kelso strolls up to Donna and Jackie’s bedroom door. He’s about to knock when he notices the sounds coming from inside – “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” by Led Zeppelin, and sniffling. Quietly, he opens the door, and we cut to: INT. DONNA’S BEDROOM - DAY Kelso finds Jackie curled up on the end of her cot. Her arms and legs are wrapped around a pillow stuffed inside a black Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and a tissue is in her hands. Tears are in her eyes. Kelso slowly crosses over to Donna’s bed. He points to the record player. KELSO: That’s Zeppelin. (points to pillow) That’s a Zeppelin shirt. That’s Hyde’s Zeppelin shirt, his favorite one. I know ‘cause one time I tried to use it to clean out a paintbrush. He kicked my ass, stole my shirt, and made me use it instead. A fresh sob wells up from Jackie’s throat. She turns around so her back is to Kelso. KELSO (cont’d): You still love him, don’t you? There was never really a choice, was there? JACKIE: What do you want, Michael? KELSO: (beat) Nothing. Look, Jackie... (sits) I know I’ve been with a lot of girls, but you’re the only real serious girlfriend I’ve ever had, and you’ll always be special to me. When I found out you and Hyde were together, I couldn’t believe I’d really lost you for good. And all I could think about was getting you back. But seeing you this summer... I mean, after being with Hyde, and then on your own, you’ve changed. You’re more thoughtful, more well-read – I think you’ve become a complicated woman. And I don’t want none of that. Jackie turns around just enough to glare at Kelso. KELSO (cont’d): But I think Hyde still does. And you obviously want him. And you should, because you two were good for each other. Not like us. So... so you don’t have to worry about me chasing you anymore. Jackie turns all the way around. JACKIE: Michael, do you mean that? KELSO: Yeah. I release you. He holds his hands out in front of him and mimes a bird’s wings flapping. KELSO (cont’d): Fly, little bird. Fly, fly away! He spreads his hands out, looks up, and makes a noise that sounds something like an object getting caught in a ceiling fan. KELSO (cont’d): (to Jackie) That was you. Jackie offers a weak chuckle and dabs at her eyes. CUT TO: INT. FORMAN BASEMENT - NIGHT Later that night. Eric and Donna are on the couch again, watching TV. The basement door flies open and Hyde staggers in. His clothes are dirty and torn, there are bite marks on his arm and claw scrapes on his shirt, and Schatzi shakes in his arms. Eric and Donna both stand. DONNA: What the hell happened? HYDE: I was taking Schatzi for a walk, and we got to the corner, and you know the Anderson house there, with the Great Dane? He got out of the yard. ERIC: Oh, my God. He went for Schatzi? HYDE: No, he went for me. Schatzi bit the bastard in the groin and then tore his ear and sent him running. It was so badass. Hyde sets Schatzi down. He struggles to stand back up straight. ERIC: Man, are you okay? HYDE: I’m fine. I’ve gotta get ready for my shift, but before that, I need to find that doggie thyroid crap for your little wiener dog. DONNA: What is with you and animals now? When did you get so knowledgeable on pet care? HYDE: I got roped into helping with the cat when me and Jackie were... He trails off; he can’t finish the thought. He drops down into the lawn chair and stairs blankly down at the coffee table. DONNA: You’re not over her, are you? Hyde doesn’t answer. ERIC: You still love her, don’t you? (to Donna) Look at him. So choked up he can’t even speak. Hyde’s throat pulses. He tugs at the top of his T-shirt. DONNA: More like he can’t even swallow. Hyde points to her, “bingo.” DONNA (cont’d): Okay... Hyde, we’ll take care of Schatzi’s thyroid. Why don’t you go take care of the rabies shot? Hyde points again, nods, and scrambles to his feet and back out the door. He’s no sooner gone than Kitty comes downstairs with another empty laundry basket. She goes straight to the dryer and unloads it. ERIC: Mom, you’re still behind on laundry? KITTY: Oh, I sat down just to rest my feet for a few minutes when I got home and – and before you know it, I... (checks watch) Oh, God, I’m late for work. ERIC: You’re working tonight? (points to door) Hyde’s working tonight? You both worked during the day. KITTY: Well, honey, nights can be our busiest time. Steven makes people a big, salty dinner, and then they come my way. (laughs) Now, there’s food in the... oh, who am I kidding? There’s no food! She hands Eric the laundry basket and scrambles back up the stairs. Eric walks over to the deep freeze. He sets the laundry down on it, leans against the basket. He whirls around to face Donna. ERIC: They can’t do this to me. They cannot do this to me. I gotta get out of here. Of all the people in the history of the world that have ever had to get anywhere, it is me having to get the hell out of here! I have to go! (beat) I have to stay. He drops down onto the couch. ERIC (cont’d): Donna, I’m sorry. Donna sits next to him. DONNA: Sorry? Eric, I think it’s amazing that you’d do that for your family. They kiss. DONNA (cont’d): And, you know, we’ll see each other on weekends. ERIC: Oh, so you’re still going? DONNA: Well... yeah, I mean... yeah. ERIC: Yeah. No. Of course. DONNA: Oh, come on. I think I know something that might make you feel better. She leans in to kiss him again. Before she can get things going, though, Eric puts a hand on her knee. ERIC: Hey, um... can we just, like... could we just sit for a while? DONNA: Yeah, sure. She scoots in closer to him. He moves his hand up to her arm, and puts his other arm around her shoulders. They lean their heads against each other and look down at their college brochures on the coffee table. FADE TO BLACK CREDITS EXT. STAIRWELL – NIGHT Another night. Eric and Donna descend the stairwell. They pause when they hear “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me” by Mac Davis coming from behind the door. ERIC: Uh-oh. Country. Hyde’s sad music. Hesitating, Donna opens the door. A wall of smoke rushes out to meet them, as we cut to: INT. FORMAN BASEMENT – NIGHT Eric and Donna step into a basement full of diffuse smoke. Hyde sits in his chair with Schatzi in his arms. He’s cackling like a loon, slapping at his knee and swaying in his seat. Snacks of all kinds litter the coffee table. HYDE: (through laughter) Hey, Forman! He waves. Eric and Donna give reluctant waves back. ERIC: So, Hyde... how’s it going, buddy? HYDE: (laughing) I’m freakin’ miserable, man! A fresh wave of laughter comes on as he swipes a piece of salami from the coffee table and holds it up for Schatzi. END.

#z's fics #that 70s show #zenmasters #jackie x hyde #zen3to5+#fan fiction #fan script

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letterboxd · 5 years ago

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Ghosted Films: A Director’s Nightmare.

To mark a conversation with Peter Medak about his new documentary The Ghost of Peter Sellers, which details a particularly tumultuous early 1970s film shoot, Dominic Corry looks at how the inherently nightmarish pursuit that is filmmaking has informed other movies.

“Every frame you set up references yourself and your entire life, so bits and pieces indirectly of your life go into every movie.” —Peter Medak

On a certain level, filmmaking is an essentially traumatic experience. The extreme number of moving parts, umpteen tiers of variables—both creative and practical—and the cacophony of egos involved all amount to what in the best-case scenario could generously be considered organized chaos.

And for the most part, it all falls on the director’s shoulders. Although the long-prevailing auteur theory is regularly and healthily challenged these days, our default perception tends to be that whatever happens, good or bad, it’s the director’s fault. Some directors process their filmmaking nightmares by writing a review of the film on Letterboxd. But in the case of journeyman filmmaker Peter Medak (The Changeling, The Krays, Romeo Is Bleeding), he chose to process his filmmaking trauma by… making a film about it.

The Ghost of Peter Sellers revisits the making of the 1974 Peter Sellers-starring pirate comedy Ghost in the Noonday Sun, an infamous folly of a film that has long haunted Medak. It’s also one of those rare films on Letterboxd: at the time of writing it has just two reviews, and only 26 members in a community of two million have noted seeing it. Giving it one and a half stars, EWMasters writes: “Pretty awful. I mean talk about throwing it on the stoop and seeing if the cat’ll lick it up. There is one very good sequence where the crew goes to town on this big plate of fish and vegetables that’s really well done—but otherwise, this is really only worth the time of a Sellers completist”. (Perhaps the main character’s name—Dick Scratcher—should have sounded alarm bells.)

Medak is not the first filmmaker to spin non-fictional gold out of a director’s nightmare (in this case, his own). His movie follows in the footsteps of legendary documentaries such as Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper’s 1991 film Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, which revealed the full extent of the already infamous insanity that comprised the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 classic Apocalypse Now, and used extensive footage shot at the time by Coppola’s filmmaker wife Eleanor (filmmaker spouses are handy to have along for the ride, as Nicolas Winding Refn also knows). And there’s Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s 2002 work Lost in La Mancha, which detailed Terry Gilliam’s (ironically?) Sisyphean efforts to film an adaptation of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

In both instances, the films in question were (eventually) made—and released to some acclaim (one considerably more than the other)—but as The Ghost of Peter Sellers shows, the shooting of Ghost in the Noonday Sun was such an epic boondoggle that the unfinished film sat unreleased for years and was much later released to no acclaim whatsoever.

The uphill battle to make his never-released horror movie Northwestern made indie filmmaker Mark Borshadt an unlikely filmmaking hero thanks to the breakout success of Chris Smith’s 1999 documentary American Movie. Like with Ghost in the Noonday Sun, the efforts to make a film proved more interesting than the film being made.

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kevin Bacon in ‘The Big Picture’ (1989).

There are several narrative films of note that have successfully captured the specific pandemonium of filmmaking. Richard Rush’s 1980 cult classic The Stunt Man follows a fugitive who stumbles his way into the titular job on a big chaotic Hollywood production (Peter O’Toole plays the Machiavellian director), while Christopher Guest’s under-appreciated 1989 comedy The Big Picture stars Kevin Bacon as a hot young director who is roughed up by the Hollywood machine. It’s a notable and often overlooked antecedent to The Player, and like the Robert Altman classic, is more about ‘the business’ overall than the specifics of filmmaking, although in both cases Hollywood proves itself analogically appropriate.

Playwright, writer and director David Mamet’s own filmmaking experiences obviously inform his 2000 comedy State and Main, in which a Hollywood production takes over and smothers a small town with its singular thinking. It’s not hard to imagine Mamet processing his own filmmaking trauma in State and Main, just as the Coen brothers famously did in Barton Fink, their ode to writer’s block supposedly inspired by the difficulty they had penning the screenplay for Miller’s Crossing.

Charlie Kaufman channeled his own creative struggles into the screenplay for the 2002 masterpiece Adaptation, then built on those themes with his wildly ambitious 2008 directorial debut Synecdoche, New York, whose more maddening aspects arguably capture the irrational nightmare that is filmmaking better than any film directly ‘about’ filmmaking.

With her 2018 documentary Shirkers, writer Sandi Tan gained some measure of closure regarding an indie film she had starred in and written in her home country of Singapore, in 1992. The documentary (which shares its name with the original movie) has her revisiting the footage from the never-released film, which was stolen (!) 25 years previously by its director—and Tan’s filmmaking mentor—George Cardona.

Back to Peter Medak. In The Ghost of Peter Sellers, which premiered at Telluride Film Festival in 2018 and has just had its virtual screening release, we learn that Hungarian-born Medak was a rising directing star in the early 1970s in London, hot off the Oscar-nominated Peter O’Toole film The Ruling Class. Unable to resist an offer to work with Peter Sellers, then comedy’s reigning superstar—mostly thanks to Blake Edwards’ Pink Panther films—Medak set about shooting a treasure-hunting pirate film on the island nation of Cyprus in the Mediterranean.

In addition to the usual production problems associated with shooting on boats, Medak had to contend with the titanically and infamously fickle Sellers, who quickly turned on him and attempted to get him fired. Sellers also antagonized the other actors, then, after failing to get the production shut down, brought in his friend and longtime creative collaborator Spike Milligan to try and salvage the film, but things kept going wrong, leaving Ghost in the Noonday Sun unfinished and Medak with the blame for the production’s troubles.

Director Peter Medak with Peter Sellers (as Dick Scratcher) and Spike Milligan (as Bill Bombay) on the set of ‘Ghost in the Noonday Sun’, finally released in 1984.

Although Medak’s career recovered, he has clearly been carrying around a lot of hurt associated with the experience, and it’s remarkable watching him work through that on screen by revisiting Cyprus, telling the story of the shoot, and talking to some of the people involved. Sellers (who died in 1980) looms large over the film, but it also has interesting content surrounding the great Spike Milligan, who died in 2002.

Why did you decide to revisit this experience with a documentary? Peter Medak: Because it’s been haunting me for all these years. Because it should’ve been a really very successful film and I was blamed for everything going wrong, when in fact it had nothing to do with me. It was due to Peter’s changing mind and state of mind, and all kinds of things had physically gone wrong on the film. It was always easiest to blame the director for everything and my career at the time was very high up after [The] Ruling Class and this should’ve been the icing on the cake and it wasn’t.

It really bothered me for many years afterwards, even though I went on working. I was asked to do it by the producer of the documentary and I originally said “It’s the last thing I want to do”, because it would mean I would have to go back to Cyprus where I shot the original movie and go on the water, and I never want anything to do with water anymore because a lot of the disasters on the film, production-wise, were all connected with shooting at sea, which is totally impossible to do. Then I thought: well, you know, I should just do it and try to explain what happened on the film. And because some of the explanations were funnier scenes than the original film. So that’s why I did it.

Peter Medak fishing for answers in ‘The Ghost of Peter Sellers’.

In the documentary, you talk about needing to free yourself from the experience by making this film. Do you feel like you achieved that? Well, I think I did because I had a wonderful time doing it. A very sad time at the same time because when you go back to places where you shot 45 years before, it creates a very strange kind of illusion inside your mind, your heart and everything of the time. And having been there then and then being there again, it’s a very strange kind of a supernatural feeling in a way. It felt like you have died and your ghost is actually revisiting all these things you know. I called it The Ghost of Peter Sellers because it sounds good and also because the original film was called Ghost in the Noonday Sun, and this ghostly feeling of mine of revisiting that island after all these years, it’s a very, very strange feeling and somehow the film captures that emotionally.

Do you feel like the large distance from the shoot was necessary to be able to revisit it? It’s not that I thought about it every day of my life, but I talked about it to all the people who I worked with in my following career. When I was doing Romeo Is Bleeding with Gary Oldman, my darling Gary said to me one day, “You know, we are crazy, what we should do is make a movie about your movie, but I don’t want to play Peter Sellers, I want to play you, with your Hungarian, broken-English accent.” We had a script written but we never did it. That was a good 25 years ago.

Peter Medak in front of a promotional poster for ‘Zorro, The Gay Blade’, his 1981 film starring George Hamilton and Lauren Hutton.

So you had considered doing a scripted version of it? Yeah, but I don’t know quite what we would’ve done. I said to Gary at the time: “I never want to go on a boat again”, and so I thought in my mind that the scenes would start each day [with] the characters getting off the pirate ship and they come ashore—that’s where the scenes would begin. I’m sure we would’ve done something quite wonderful, and it would’ve maybe explained the things the [documentary is] trying to explain because I guess that’s what has unconsciously driven me. Because [for the documentary], we didn’t write one word of it, I just completely did it out of instinct. Where I want to shoot, what I want to shoot, and how we should go from here to there. I loved it, so going back on to it was quite easy. It did show me actually what a wonderful medium it is, documentary, because you can do anything with it. It’s a much freer form than scripted movies. Which is rigid. And this is liquid.

Did you have any other documentaries about filmmaking in mind when you went into this? Not really. I knew Terry Gilliam’s Lost in La Mancha, because I love Terry and I love his films and we know each other and knew each other. Terry was very fortunate, because he had so much trouble before on Baron Munchausen, that he decided to have a documentary film crew filming the whole process, so he had the material available, which allowed him to make his film. I said to him after [a screening], “You were lucky because you didn’t make the movie. I had to suffer through 90-something days of shooting with Peter [Sellers].” But of course since then, Terry made the film, and he made something slightly different than what he was originally gonna do.

Peter Medak retraces his steps in ‘The Ghost of Peter Sellers’.

Did any of your subsequent films feel nearly as difficult? Most movies are very difficult to make, and always when you anticipate problems, they never seem to happen. When I did The Changeling, everybody said “George C. Scott is very, very difficult to work with” and he was an absolute angel with me and [it was] the easiest thing to do. It was a wonderful ghost story. I’m very proud of that film. It will live forever. All movies are like your kids, your own children, because you put so much emotion, so much of your soul. That’s what I’m saying to [Ghost in the Noonday Sun executive producer] John Heyman [in The Ghost of Peter Sellers]: the director’s viewpoint is completely different from the producer’s because every frame you set up references yourself and your entire life, so bits and pieces indirectly of your life go into every movie. Because of that it becomes an incredibly personal journey when you put your absolute soul on the line. When it gets criticized or not accepted or whatever, one takes it very personally because the whole thing came from a very personal experience, even though the subject may be nothing to do with you.

Peter Sellers on the set of ‘Ghost in the Noonday Sun’.

Even within the canon of famously difficult performers, Peter Sellers is notorious. How would you describe him to a modern audience? Well he was a genius, there’s no question about it. But he was a manic-depressive person. And it’s a generalization, but most of the great comics are manic-depressive. And he changes his mind all the time. One minute, he loves you, next minute, he hates you. One minute he loves the subject, next minute he doesn’t wanna do it, he wants to get out and all that. So it is very up and down. When you’re running film with a crew of 150 people, and boats on the sea, and weather’s changing and everything, you can’t have that, because you fall behind the schedule and things go wrong.

At one point very early on, all he wanted to do was get off the movie. And then he did everything he [could] to sabotage the film so the film would close down and he wouldn’t have to finish it. But it didn’t just happen on my film, it happened with all his biggest successes, including the Pink Panther movies. Because if you look into Blake Edwards, each one was an absolute nightmare for the director and for the film company, United Artists. And I was gonna include that in the documentary but it had nothing to do with the Ghost in the Noonday Sun so I didn’t. I actually shot some scenes with one of the executives from United Artists at that time who had to deal with the insanity of Peter and also Blake Edwards. I say ‘insanity’; I didn’t want to say it too much in the documentary because I love Peter, even today. And it’s wrong for me to accuse him of those things because it sounds like I’m excusing myself. Peter was crazy. There’s no other way one can describe it. Touched by God. And so was Spike Milligan. But Spike had the love of goodness. Peter had kind of a nasty streak on him when he turned on people.

There’s a moment in the documentary where you suggest that Spike Milligan is more influential than he gets credit for. Do you think he’s under-appreciated? Totally. Totally. Totally. Because his talent was absolutely, monumentally genius. I always say this, but Spike basically created Peter Sellers through [legendary BBC radio programme] The Goon Show. And he also gave him all those various characters and developed those voices for him. It’s all in The Goon Show. The Monty Pythons, they were inspired by The Goon Show and they made it into television. Not story wise, but style wise. That kind of zany, insane humor. Spike was a total genius. Not that Peter wasn’t, but they stood together, completely overwhelmingly wonderfully insane. But Spike was quite something. He was incredibly human, he was incredibly gentle. And incredibly kind. Peter was incredibly combative. And he had that most incredible ego.

But all our lives come from our backgrounds and what our past was and where we come from, and Peter had a very sad upbringing and a very sad life and he was tremendously influenced by his mother. When his mother passed away, he kept on talking to her for ten years. When he came to Cyprus to make the movie, he arrived with big blow-up [photos] of Liza Minnelli—who he’d just broken up with a week before—and his mum. And it sounds terrible when one says it, but psychologically, some of the answers are there. But at the same time, both Peter and Spike, I can’t tell you what a gift it was… I mean the reason I did the film is: who could give up the chance of actually working with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan? It doesn’t matter what the fucking script is, you know? It was a wonderful thing and I would do it all over again tomorrow.

Related content

Our Showdown on films within films

‘The Ghost of Peter Sellers’ is screening in virtual theaters now. It will be available via video on demand services from June 23. A list of all the films mentioned in this article can be found here. Comments have been edited for clarity and length.

#peter medak #peter sellers #ghost in the noonday sun #the ghost of peter sellers #filmmaking fails #directing #documentary #filmmaking process #filmmaking #spike milligan #the goon show #monty python #the specific pandemonium of filmmaking #epic boondoggle #letterboxd

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gretagerwigarchive · 7 years ago

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Greta Gerwig: “I have a lot to be euphoric about right now”

by Helen Bownass, Feb 27, 2018.

source: https://www.stylist.co.uk/visible-women/greta-gerwig-interview-lady-bird-oscars-2018/192489

Did you ever imagine that this tale of a teenage girl navigating her life would affect so many people on so many levels?

I certainly wrote it wanting people to identify with it or be able to see themselves in it somehow, but  I never expected it to be on the level that it has been. Doing the London Film Festival [in October 2017] was the first time I had this sense that it was connecting. People were saying, “I’ve never heard of Sacramento, but I’m telling you, that’s my story”,  and that was very emotional  for me.

What I’ve always  loved about movies is that they are something that allows people to understand commonalities between a human experience, even though it might be a highly specific story that doesn’t seem like it would be universal, but somehow it is.

How do you feel about the volume of conversation around your Oscar nomination?

I know how much it’s meant for me: the women I’ve looked up to and their visibility as artists of the cinema has shaped my ability to think that I could do this. Whether it’s Agnès Varda, Sally Potter, Sofia Coppola or how much it meant to me when Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar… I came to them through repertory programming [a cinema that shows a repertoire of old and art-house films] and that spotlight being placed on female directors changed things for me, so I can only imagine that it probably changes things for other people.

Until it’s closer to 50/50, I say keep shouting about it, because it might reach a girl or woman who hasn’t directed or is looking for the courage to do it and move them to make that step.

Fifty per cent of directors being female by 2020 sounds  great in theory, but  how will we actually get to that point?

When I think about  moving forward, I think  the fact that there aren’t  more female directors  has to do with a lack of  taking a chance on  someone. Experience  aggregates; if someone  doesn’t take a chance then they don’t get that experience. By the time [a woman] gets all the  way up the ladder when [producers] look round and say, “Who could  direct it?” – but women  weren’t given an opportunity in the beginning.

Fifty/fifty by 2020 is an incredible goal, but some of these things will need to be persistently tackled for years because you don’t get to an all-male hiring pool in five years – you get to an all-male hiring pool by having 90 years of ‘this is how we do it’. You need to actively push the other way.

I look at statistics of kids graduating from film school and it’s half women, so they’re there. Something happens between half of the people who graduate from film school who are women, to there being no women directors.  I think when these things aren’t talked about, they become invisible because it’s like the air we breathe, and pointing it out makes it obvious.

Have you thought about what your personal role is in changing this? 

I’ve been very impressed with women, like Reese Witherspoon and Margot Robbie, who have started their own production companies and hire female directors. This is something that has been percolating for me, and I would love to figure out how to help other women get movies made.

Did you do an inner cheer when Natalie Portman called out the all-male best director nominees at the Golden Globes?

I actually didn’t see that until the next day because I was backstage. My favourite part was the way she backed up from the microphone, as if she just dropped it.

We’ve all witnessed the power of Time’s Up in a post-Weinstein world. How do we ensure that isn’t just for an elite voice? How do we ensure that this is being talked about across all of humanity?

When the leaders of Time’s Up wrote their response letter, it was to women across all industries. Being able to back that up with a legal fund so that women who didn’t have resources could get legal aid if there was a harassment situation in a workplace is very thoughtful and it’s very important.

It’s something that’s obviously in all walks of life. It’s really important to move this on to people who don’t have resources or the same amplification of their voices.

So if you have a voice you should use it?

Yes, it’s partly that, and it’s also about where does the attention in the media go to? The New York Times did an incredible piece about auto workers [exposing how women working at two Ford plants in Chicago faced a culture of harassment, published in December 2017], which was using their powers of investigative journalism to shine a light on something important. Focusing on it in all industries is something that you can raise your voice about and that is another way to use that power to change something.

Do you think as a female filmmaker there is more pressure to prove that you can make a successful film?

I think some of that is changing now. Before, there was a sense that every time a woman directed a movie everyone would wait with baited breath to see if it did well or not, because the feeling would be that if it does well then this is good for women and film, and if it doesn’t then it’s bad. I think we’re looking at a time where the numbers, hopefully, are shifting, so every time it’s not a trial over whether people like films about and directed by and written by women; it just becomes another movie.

I certainly felt in ways that I wanted to be as prepared and as ready as I could be because I wanted to make a good film, and I also knew that if the experience of working with me was good, it might make it that much easier for the next woman who comes along.

Writer and director Aaron Sorkin said that a “cloud of euphoria” surrounds you wherever you go. Do you think that’s true?

I think I have a lot to be euphoric about right now; I’ve had a lot to be euphoric about for a very long time. I’m incredibly lucky that I get to do what I love – I get to be around people who are artists of the highest calibre and I am able to see a road where I continue to do this, so I think euphoria is a pretty [good] response to what is going on.

How do you maintain that with the volume of travel and press you’re doing for this film?

I’m pretty good at sleeping on a plane, but it’s never great sleep. I’ve always slept a lot. If I don’t have eight hours of sleep I tend to see everything more negatively and it takes me longer to finish things. When I began my sophomore  year [at Barnard College, New York] I made a list of priorities  and number one was to get eight hours of sleep. Everything else fell under that.

Do you still write a list of priorities? 

Sometimes I have too many  things that are important to me. When you’re writing resolutions or priorities you can get very ambitious, and it creates mores stress because you’re not accomplishing the things that you didn’t have time to accomplish in the first place.

It’s helpful for me to focus on ‘What is the actual thing you’re going for? Sure, it would be lovely if you had an extra three hours  in the day, but if you don’t, what is the thing you really want to do?’

Do you find it easy to recognise what it is you really want? Often many people know there’s something but don’t know how to get to it.

If I’m honest with myself I generally know what it is that I want, it’s just it can get covered over by other things. Sometimes it takes a long time to achieve those goals – for example writing a movie takes a while. Because it’s such a long process, when I would think about the whole thing it would overwhelm me, and I would get scared and think, ‘What if it’s terrible; maybe I should let someone else direct it?’ I would go through whatever my insecurities were.

In a way, it was always, ‘Get it to the next step: just get this scene done. Just get this draft done. Now just give this draft to a friend to read…’ Taking every step as its own action was helpful because it broke it into something that I could wrap my mind around.

You’ve been in the film industry for many years, but this is your first solo-directed project. Where do you go when that is recognised at the highest level critically?

I think no matter who you are, making a film always feels like jumping off a cliff. But if I had to choose my problem, I’d chose this one. If my biggest bellyache is, ‘How will I ever top this?’ then I think that’s OK [laughs].

How do you think Lady Bird will change your career?

When I was going into this, my concern was that I wanted it to reach as many people as it could, but I was mainly thinking about trying to make it easy to make the next one because I want to make a lot of movies. So much of filmmaking is meeting people who will take a chance on you, and it’s easier to take a chance if it worked out the first time. What’s beyond lovely about this moment is that it makes it easier for me to make films now because it went well.

Which other women in the arts should people know about?

Novitiate by Maggie Betts is a beautiful film – and an interesting companion piece to Lady Bird. It’s a completely different vision of Catholicism. It was her first film and I thought it was great. But Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Oh my God I love her – I eat her books whole.

I also love the writer Maggie Nelson. I first read The Argonauts and now I’ve read almost everything she’s written. And Durga Chew-Bose is a brilliant writer; she’s published a book of stories that are beautiful called Too Much And Not In the Mood.

How do you think female artists will evolve with the culture around them now?

I think whether it’s in cinema or other mediums, there will be more and more women contributing their voice to the story of what it means to be human, and that voice has been left out for almost all of human history. I always think about the fact that it was less than 100 years ago in the United States that women got the right to vote, so it’s a crazy amount of transformation that is going on and I couldn’t be more excited.

I love literature from the 17th century, but I’m also vividly aware that there is so much of that time that we don’t know because [women] weren’t writing or participating. As you increase the number of people who are women that are making art, you get a much richer vision of what it means to be human.

#2018 #Greta Gerwig #Lady Bird #Interview

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disappearingground · 5 years ago

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Jenny Lewis is following the magic

The Line of Best Fit March 20, 2019

Major life upheavals led to Jenny Lewis’ first solo album in five years but Josh Slater-Williams finds her embracing the stranger things the universe throws at her

Words by Josh Slater-Williams

“People always want to know what, why, how, when. I don't know. Which? Who? Whom! Whomst!”

Jenny Lewis has told me she doesn’t have a problem talking about new record, On the Line but there’s a certain reticence to divulging much about intent or any unifying connection between the thumping, lush ballads she’s assembled. It sounds like even she won’t know what the songs are about for a while.

“I don't even really consciously write songs,” Lewis says of whether the meaning of her music is clear by the time it’s recorded and released into the world. “I believe in the magic in a way, so I'm not sure how they begin. I'm not even sure how I finish them, but I tend to understand them years later. I don't understand this new album yet because I haven't toured it. Of course, you have an intuitive sense, but I can't really tell you exactly what it's about.”

Under the Blacklight - the final record she made as part of Rilo Kiley - is perhaps the one case of knowing what an album was about before taking it on tour. “Under the Blacklight is a concept album in a lot of ways,” she says. “That was really the first time that I wrote from a character perspective or I leaned on that a little bit. But again, I'm not sure where this stuff's coming from.”

Lewis’ relationship to her former band’s music has changed over the years, from ignoring it almost entirely at shows - bar maybe one song in an encore - to seemingly embracing it with gusto. I’ve seen her in concert on three occasions since Rilo Kiley toured for the last time in 2008, and the last of those shows, at The Art School in Glasgow in 2014 in support of The Voyager, saw Rilo Kiley tracks comprise roughly a quarter of the setlist.

“For years, I didn't really dig into the back catalogue,” Lewis says. “The first time I played a Rilo Kiley song without Rilo Kiley was when I was sitting in with Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band and he asked if I would play ‘Portions for Foxes’; Conor's always this incredible guide in a way. I hadn't really gone there before, but once I opened that door, it just opened the floodgates to the past. So now, I can go back and choose songs and some of them feel good. Some of them feel inappropriate. Or not inappropriate, more just really youthful in a way that doesn't suit me now. But it's surprising, which songs feel relevant. We’ve been doing a version of “Portions for Foxes”, a slowed down version that I've renamed “Bad News”. And that's been feeling really good.”

In a 2016 interview Lewis discussed her tendency to compartmentalise eras of her career describing herself as “not really one for nostalgia”; something of an ironic statement in light of the fact she was speaking in support of a tenth anniversary tour of solo debut Rabbit Fur Coat. A few years prior, she also participated in an anniversary tour for The Postal Service’s Give Up, having provided backup vocals for that platinum-selling collaboration between Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello that was a poster child for early aughts American indie music. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the first Rilo Kiley EP, an initially self-titled release later re-pressed as The Initial Friend EP.

I wonder if this inspires any particularly strong feelings for her? Apparently not. “It’s interesting to acknowledge the past,” she says. “And all the songs fit into the puzzle,” that puzzle presumably being the overarching story of Jenny Lewis. “But that was then, this is now. Can’t go back.”

When Lewis does acknowledge her past work in her music or the surrounding visual material, it tends to be focused on her acting career - which lasted from her early childhood to roughly around when Rilo Kiley started recording. Bar the odd cameo – including a spot in Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray’s Netflix special, A Very Murray Christmas – Lewis’ acting credits are mostly relegated to the ‘80s and ‘90s. She paid homage to some of her more recognisable family film credits and TV guest spots in a self-directed video for The Voyager’s “She Not Me”, wherein various celebrity pals were brought on board to re-enact moments from much-loved US sitcom The Golden Girls and cult comedy Troop Beverly Hills.

Saturday Night Live-alum Vanessa Bayer was one of those celeb friends, and reappeared for a livestream listening party of On The Line that also featured the likes of St. Vincent, Jeff Goldblum, Jason Schwartzman, Beck, Danielle Haim and comedian Tim Heidecker. The three-hour “telethon” of music, comedy and interviews raised funds for the LA Downtown Women’s Center and Lewis describes the event as “kind of a disaster in the best way.” It opened with a rendition of “The Frug” from the first Rilo Kiley EP, somewhat contradicting her reticence to return to the earliest Rilo Kiley material - although the song was admittedly performed by a barbershop quartet rather than by Lewis herself. “That was the director's idea,” she clarifies, “because that song is nowhere… it's just not in my consciousness right now. But it was really fun to open the show with that. Even though the refrain is, ‘I cannot fall in love / I cannot fall in love / I cannot fall in love’, which is a weird way to start off a live stream.”

"Sharing about addiction and mental health can hopefully provide a little insight or comfort for others going through it. And it's not taboo. It's okay to talk about it and it's not the whole story. It's part of the story."

“But I can fall in love,” she assures me with timid delivery, but a wry smile. “I hadn’t then [at the time of the EP], but it’s happened since, if anyone’s wondering.” I tell her I’ve gathered the likelihood of that from the multitude of songs since that have suggested as much. I would also assume her 12-year relationship with fellow singer/songwriter Johnathan Rice may have involved some degree of love; the two reportedly mutually parted ways after the release of The Voyager.

“I’m not in love currently, but I have been in love. Once… twice. Maybe twice.”

Lewis breaks into laughter here, which happens quite a few times in a conversation that proves surprisingly prone to detours into bizarre comedy tangents. Perhaps it’s a welcome change from some of the other interviews she’s already done as part of this album’s promotion cycle. A few days before we speak, Rolling Stone publish an interview where Lewis talks openly about her troubled childhood and late mother’s history of addiction that she’s never really spoken of in public before, and a recent Mojo interview is also candid in this area too. There have been many lyrical allusions in the past, but these interviews certainly clarify the distinction between memoir and fiction in some of her songs.

Her mother’s passing in 2017 played a big part in Lewis feeling open to speak about that backstory definitively. “I now have mixed feelings about sharing that honestly,” she tells me, “even though I've spilled the beans, you can't put the worms back in the can. I guess I waited to exploit her from beyond the grave, so I would imagine someone will do the same to me.”

“I'm understanding why I feel compelled to share that,” she says. “And I think that it's part of the healing process. Not that it's anyone's business but my own and my family's business. But for me, sharing about addiction and mental health can hopefully provide a little insight or comfort for others going through it. And it's not taboo. It's okay to talk about it and it's not the whole story. It's part of the story.”

The world won’t know the full story and we don’t have the right to it, I say. “But you have a right to whatever I share,” she points out. “And then it's part of the consciousness. I guess I don't want to hurt people even if they're gone. But it is my story and it is a big part of why I’m a writer.”

If Lewis herself won’t necessarily know what the new album is ‘about’ for some time, insobriety, addiction and self-medication stick out as recurring topics throughout her lyrics for On the Line. Various combinations of drink and drugs are called out by name, not least on “Red Bull & Hennessy”, while the refrain of “Little White Dove” plays with the homophone of ‘heroine’ and ‘heroin’.

Topics of sexuality have always been a thread through Lewis’ music, even dating back to the earliest days of Rilo Kiley, but with On the Line they seem particularly pronounced; often intertwining with nods to addiction and self-medication. Album opener “Heads Gonna Roll” starts with wondering “Why you stopped getting high” and closes with the suggestion that “A little bit of hooking up is good for the soul.”

“I guess it's all the same thing if you're using it in that way,” Lewis says when I ask if sex falls under the banner of self-medication in the lyrics. “But I don't necessarily think it's an unhealthy relationship with sex that I'm talking about on this album. I think it’s just an ability to articulate and use it to punctuate a moment. Like at the end of the song “Dogwood”, I didn't know what the lyric was going to be. And I was in the studio, just trying out a couple of options and then I landed on, “There's nothing we can do but screw.” That seems like a good way to end a song.”

“No subject is off limits,” Lewis continues. “Sex has always been a theme in my music.” She pauses. “And let’s hope it will always be a theme in my music! Fingers crossed.”

“Dogwood” is her favourite song on the album by a landslide: “That’s my most proud vocal performance,” she tells me. I’m personally drawn to “Taffy”, a ballad with a noticeably different rhythm to the rest of On the Line. It also happens to feature one of the album’s more attention-raising lyrics: “Nudie pics / I do not regret it / I knew that you were gone / I did so freely / I wanted you to see me off that throne you put me on.”

“Taffy was a poem that I wrote on the back of a barf bag on an airplane,” Lewis tells me, then reassuring me that the bag was unused, fresh and clean. “That was words first and then I sat down at the piano and figured out how to fit them into the puzzle. You can tell it’s a poem. That one almost didn't end up on the record. I sent it to a friend of mine who I consult with every time I make a record, as far as order goes, and there was some discussion of cutting one of the ballads. But then I thought, well, this is a record of mostly ballads. Why cut one now, we've already gone down that path. Again, you can't put the worms back in the can.”

“Beck is such a meticulous listener and producer. There's no stone left unturned...down to the last step in mastering. I'm not alone and he's thought of everything.”

Another major consultant for On the Line was Beck, who previously collaborated with Lewis on The Voyager highlight “Just One of the Guys”. He produced and played on multiple tracks on the new album. Lewis tells me she feels an affinity with him as someone who also plays with genre and personas between records. “We both grew up in Los Angeles and we remember a different kind of LA and share a lot of the same tastes in music. And I have just been a fan of his for so long; aesthetically, especially. I made demos on my GarageBand on my phone and sent them to him and he was immediately like, okay, we can do this. I am so happy with the way “Just One of the Guys” turned out and when I play it live, his arrangement really holds up. It's so thoughtful.

“He's such a meticulous listener and producer. There's no stone left unturned. I don't have to worry. Whereas with some of my other collaborators, I have to finish the heavy lifting. Or where I question: 'Is this finished?' No, it's not finished yet. I have to get it done on my own. But with Beck, down to the last step in mastering. I'm not alone and he's thought of everything.”

We don’t mention him by name but the “heavy lifting” undoubtably alludes to Ryan Adams, who reportedly left before finishing his production work on both The Voyager and On the Line. Following the recent allegations of sexual misconduct against Adams, Lewis tweeted a statement of support for the accusers.

A collaborator Lewis is happy to discuss is Ringo Starr, who plays drums on “Heads Gonna Roll” and “Red Bull & Hennessy”. The Beatles are mentioned in a lyric on album closer “Rabbit Hole”, though Lewis tells me there’s another nod to the band on the track “Party Clown”: “I was a beetle floating in a bottle of red.” Lewis says, “And in my mind, after that, I say to myself, I was Ringo.”

How exactly does one get a former Beatle to play on their record? Lewis still isn’t sure. “Again, magic. May I redirect you to the magic of life and when things are truly serendipitous. It felt like a glitch in the simulation when we were in a room with Ringo. How did I end up here? I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but it happened. Why? Why? It’s crazy. I've met some cool musicians over the years, but that was tippity top.”

If there’s a major running theme to my conversation with Lewis, it’s this idea of happy chances surrounding On the Line, from the collaborators and recording to, as I’ll later find out, the look of the album and, as she’ll later find out, a surprise connection in the promotion of it. Considering a lot of the record’s material appears rooted in her breakup and mother’s passing, that maybe wasn’t applicable to the initial inception of the lyrics. But the strange fortuity even extended to her LA home almost becoming a set for a major movie production while the album was being made.

“There was a knock at my door one day about a year ago,” Lewis tells me, “and it was the location scout for Quentin Tarantino, just randomly on my street. And, he was like, “Hey, do you mind if we come in and take pictures for Quentin? We’re looking for a location for the [Charles] Manson movie.””

Tarantino’s 1969-set Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, starring Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino and the late Luke Perry, is due for release this summer. “I was like, “Come right in, photograph my house!” It didn't work out, which is probably for the better because to have a murder scene in your bedroom is probably not a good idea, but that would have been the coolest thing that ever happened. I'm such a deep movie nerd.”

Being an LA native, I wonder if Lewis still gets starstruck at all at this point in her life. “Not by musicians,” she says. “I think if I were to meet Bob Dylan, that would probably be the exception. But maybe not, I don't know. I feel very comfortable among our people. I met Bill Clinton once and I wasn't nervous at all, and I asked, “Is it okay if I take a picture of you?” Because he's a musician.”

As someone 14 years her junior (Lewis is 43), I tell her my only reference for Bill Clinton being a musician is a moment of him playing a saxophone in the opening credits of the ‘90s Warner Bros. cartoon series Animaniacs. “The best show,” she says. “Did you see Daffy Duck on my live special?” Lewis being signed to Warner Bros Records is presumably how someone in a Daffy Duck costume was among the guests in her telethon. “Daffy was such a dick. They’re rebranding Daffy for the millennials, where Daffy’s vaping. And they were trying to pitch me on a sort of a co-branding opportunity for myself and Daffy. He's gonna come out on tour with me, Bez-style. Daffy’s my Bez.”

Remembering that a sequel to the Looney Tunes movie Space Jam has reportedly been greenlit, I express horror that an onscreen vaping Daffy could soon be a real possibility. “Wow,” she says, “Space Jam. What a movie.” This would rank rather high on a list of quotes I wouldn’t have expected to get from this interview.

We spend a minute or so wondering who else among the Looney Tunes would probably vape. “Is Taz too fast to vape? Maybe Porky Pig. No, no, not Porky Pig. He’s a little uptight, Porky Pig. Daffy’s cool because he doesn't know he's the way that he is. And he thinks he's like Bugs Bunny. He thinks he's Bugs. I think Bugs might vape. I could see Bugs vaping. I don't condone vaping, by the way. I don't think you should smoke anything that smells like cotton candy. I wouldn't vape if I were you. I feel like we don't know. We just don't know. There's a giant question mark on vaping, in general.” We conclude that Foghorn Leghorn would vape.

"I have the most incredible friends who are very patient and loving and are always there for a late-night Facetime session if I need them. When you're in a relationship, it's harder to maintain those friendships."

Be it with Daffy Duck or Beck, Ringo Starr, producer Shawn Everett and others, Lewis tells me a love of collaboration is one of the things she’s learned from making On the Line. “I just followed the songs and I pull from the people that I'm hanging around that inevitably become my collaborators because I can't not play music. I have a problem. If you come over to my house, it's just an immediate jam.”

That said, she doesn’t think she needs to rely on people. “I believe now that I can go anywhere with my songs and work with anyone and make something that makes me happy. I tend to get caught in the process of making a record where I want more from someone, or I want more of their time or more of their energy, and I feel like it's them and not me. But really, they're my songs and maybe it's less about who I choose to work with. It's easier to deflect, especially in the room with someone who's an artist in their own right. I can like feeling small and in the background when I'm creating in that way, as there's less pressure, but sometimes you’ve got to just step up and be yourself.”

“Autonomy, that’s been the key thing learned,” she continues. “I've connected with my female friends over the last couple of years and I've made a lot of new female friends, and that has really been one of the best things that's come out of being single in the world and autonomous. I have the most incredible friends who are very patient and loving and are always there for a late-night Facetime session if I need them. And there are three of us who live in Los Angeles, where we are just communicating constantly with each other. When you're in a relationship, it's harder to maintain those friendships.”

To quote one of Lewis’ own lyrics for Rilo Kiley’s “Breakin’ Up”, it feels good to be free.

One of Lewis’ longtime friends is photographer and director Autumn de Wilde, who shoots for all of her solo projects and also shot the material for Rilo Kiley’s Under the Blacklight back in 2007. “Once I finish the music, I send it to her and then we start brainstorming and we come up with a colour palette and a concept. We never really know until we know. Like how the songs find me, I think that visual component also finds me. We prepare to get there, but we never know what the actual cover is going to be.”

This time around, constructing the visual component involved a couple more instances of that serendipity we’ve already talked about. If you were to place the two covers of The Voyager and On the Line next to each other, you’d be forgiven for thinking the latter was an outtake from a shoot for the former. The outfit’s not the same, but the crop of Lewis’ upper frame, with her head missing, is almost identical. But, according to Lewis, this was another happy accident that revealed something about the new record, conceptually: “Autumn just did a quick Polaroid with that crop, testing the light, and it fell to the floor and I saw it and I knew that was the cover. At that point, I realised they're bookends, The Voyager and On the Line.”

The front cover of On the Line features Lewis in an outfit she describes as something that her mother would have worn in the late ‘70s in Las Vegas. For a deluxe edition of the vinyl version of the record, the cover unfolds to a poster-size image of Lewis in the full outfit, head and lower half intact from merging that original Polaroid crop with a full-length outtake. “That [deluxe] cover is a reference to an Isaac Hayes record, Black Moses,” she tells me. “And the outfit that I'm wearing on the back of the record, with me on a horse, is one of Isaac Hayes's stage costumes that my friend gave to me right before the photo shoot. Just randomly. And so, there's this deep Isaac Hayes connection that was unintentional. Again, why? I have no idea why.”

"Instagram has been really the first social media that I've engaged in personally...but I do feel like it's a very dangerous world to be in and the less I engage, the happier I am. It's really fucked up on there. It's bad."

There are many meanings behind the album’s title, she tells me: “I think it will be relevant for people to think about what it means to them. It's such a dumb thing to say ‘relevant.’ I don't know what's relevant to people, but we spend our lives communicating via text and it's really hard to detect tone. I mean there are so many meanings here, but really just waiting around for someone to change or come back and they're not going to do either.

“Taffy” features one of the most overt nods to our relationship with devices, with a snapshot of infidelity glimpsed through looking through someone else’s phone: “I wanted to please you / My dress was see-through / as I looked through your phone / I am such a coward / but how could you send her flowers?"

“Instagram has been really the first social media that I've engaged in personally,” she says. “I started it as an artistic outlet for weird, abstract short films during The Postal Service reunion tour. It really was a personal creative outlet that then became like a social network. And then of course, putting out albums, there's expectation to fold in a promotional aspect. So, I use it mostly for that, the creative thing being first, and then the promotional stuff. It’s hard to navigate without feeling super cheesy, especially when all your friends are looking at everything that you post. But I do feel like it's a very dangerous world to be in and the less I engage, the happier I am. It's really fucked up on there. It's bad.”

In light of the social media discussion, I can’t help but bring up an interaction of sorts that we had via Twitter once before. In the run-up to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in autumn 2015, having just learned of the name of Adam Driver’s antagonist character, I tweeted: ‘Is Jenny Lewis still the frontwoman of Kylo Ren?’

I didn’t tag in Lewis’ Twitter handle for this dumb joke, but a few hours later, I discovered she’d somehow seen it and retweeted it, and my notifications went wild, with fans and famous folk alike chiming in with reactions and replies.

“Oh, that was you?!” she asks without a second’s pause after I simply quote the tweet, before mentioning what happened around it. “I remember that because I've never seen Star Wars. And I thought, who is Kylo Ren?”

I tell her it was a funny experience to suddenly be getting notifications of likes, for either my tweet or the creative fan-art replies, from such accounts as Warner Bros. Records and actor Brie Larson.

“Daffy Duck is on your case now… vaping,” she says of the Warner appreciation. “But isn't it weird that we have that connection and I didn't know that was you until you told me, but I remember it distinctly?” To quote her own earlier musings: may I redirect you to the magic of life. |

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papermoth-bird-blog · 6 years ago

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San Francisco: The setting sun.

Early morning in San Francisco, might be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced. Especially in the quite of the Sunset district, which is the more “boring” part of town in which a lot of immigrant families have settled. The houses, though more simple in decoration than the Haight-Ashbury district, are still painted in all sorts of beautiful colours- many of them pastel tones; pinks, baby blues, pale greens & yellows. Walking in the empty streets of the region alone in the warm reflection of the houses has to be a version of heaven. At the very least, it would be an excellent location for a Sophia Coppola film- or girl gaze photo shoot (looking at you Ali).

My friend Asa’s friend Carolina lives in the sunshine district & that’s where I ended up staying on my second night in San Fran. The area has plenty of Chinese restaurants- that I wish I could say I went to, but alas, I didn’t. Apparently it’s some of the best Chinese food outside of China. I’ll have to make a point of going next time I’m in San Fran.

When I awoke at the hostel, I moved pretty quickly- packing everything away & hurrying down to get breakfast. Honestly, I loved the hostel & would be totally keen to stay there again. It’s the right amount of people, so you can be as social or as lonesome that you’d like without it being weird. It also just generally has good vibes. Plus the breakfast was included- so you know I tried to eat a days worth of food all in the morning to save monies. Although it is in the Tenderloin- which is where all the homeless people got pushed into when aggressive gentrification came and swept the city. After breakfast, I decided to check my bags there & pick them up later since I was already downtown. I left the building without even glancing at a map- happy to exploring in the way of getting terribly & wonderfully lost. Over the course of this trip I’ve become so comfortable & confident in doing so. I think part of my previous distress with the city is being inherently nervous there- so many people, so much to pay attention to in order to navigate it properly/safely. In working through my personal anxiety, I’ve also been able to inadvertently mend my relationship with cities themselves. That being said- I think I still have a country heart & will always crave place that don’t require shoes. Spending time in cities has been really good for me in a way I didn’t expect. I am happy for it.

I wandered through much of the city- first starting off conservatively in the flatter neighbourhoods; the mission, the Castro. Kluane said one of the things I must do is visit the Tartarine Bakery- one of her favourites in the entire world. By happy coincidence I stumbled upon it during my wandering. The line up was around the block- so you know it had to be good. Like everything in Sa Fran, it was a little expensive- but I got some small little bits in a box & took it with me to eat in a near by park. My favourite little bit was the raspberry meringue with cacao nibs. SOOO good. Not too sweet, wild texture. In the line, I heard some pretty funny conversations that showed the heart of San Francisco. The lady in front of me spoke loudly about the tenants of Eastern European Clowning. Others spoke about the odd theatre projects they hoped to get off the ground somehow. There was died hair & texture & wild patterns in the get-ups. I was starting to feel really good about it all.

After I finished eating (& drinking my Komboucha—which I promptly sent a review of to Ryan) I wandered over to Ashbury Heights. Hands down this is the most famous part of San Francisco. Complete with colourful “painted lady” Victorians, winding hills & people wearing outfits straight out of the late 60s. Haight street is the main hub of the area. I have to say, Haight probably has some of the best vintage stores I’ve ever been to. I’m not gonna lie.. In one store (that was gathered like a library of vintage, sorted by year) I had tears gathering in my eyes. The clothing there were each individual works of art. I spent a good chunk of time studying the hats stacked high to the ceiling, and then the beaded gowns from the 20’s. Again, all these things inspiring so many ideas for future themed parties & White Rabbit. I don’t have much room in my pack (or money for that matter), but I couldn’t leave without buying some beautiful silk scarves- so I could play the part of 50s femme fatale. I also found some really beautiful old postcards from San Fran, which I added to my collection.

The area is also home to some really fun cafes & great record shops. I partially wished I could have spent more time there, but I was craving the park. I wandered over to Golden Gate park which was near by. As I basked in the sun, looking at the fresh tree blossoms, I heard bongo drums carrying over the wind. In those moments, I felt the echoe of the 60s in such a real way. I picked some pear blossoms & stuck them in my hair, nestled under by new blue silk scarf & found a low twisted tree to settle into. I sat in the tree for what felt like forever, looking out over the hills towards the Spanish church steeples & the Golden Gate bridge peeking out over the city haze. I breathed deeply, basking in my peaceful lonesome thoughts. It felt so good to be my myself again. I thought of friends & home, and what it would take to make me feel more grounded there going forward. I feel so much more prepared to be steadfast in what I wanted in my life, the things I would no longer tolerate because they would not allow me to live in the peace I crave. I learned a lot about that through my inner turmoil in the Gopala situation. I talked to my friend Stephanie (who had just been in San Fran a few months back). We talked about the beautiful Botanical gardens in the park, but also exchanged some brief life updates.

Not long after that, as I wove on down the path from the hilltop of Beuno Vista park, the sole of my shoe (on my favourite fringe-toes boots) fell off. So I hobbled along with my sole flopping around like cartoon character. Despite my slight distress over the situation, I still had some stuff I wanted to do, so I continued wandering- albeit at a more manageable pace for my failing footwear.

I got myself back over to the mission area in search of a burrito. For some reason, there seemed to be a lot of pumpkins about- sat out on front porches of the colourful houses. Don’t know entirely what that was about- maybe its pumpkin season insanely early in Cali (doesn’t entirely seem sensicle to me), maybe they thrive in the zeitgeist of Halloween?? Anyways, I found the section that is the capital of burritoville. I chose taqueria Cancun- both because it’s supposed to be one of the best & I am heading to Cancun too.. so might as well get prepped. Despite it being massive, I ate the burrito in about two minutes. I have to say- it has got to be one of the best burritos I’ve ever had & I mean that. Pure & simple & perfect little baby sized wrap. After I polished off that baby off, I stumbled over to get my pack from the hostel.

In a series of unfortunate mis-understandings, I accidentally took an uber over to perhaps the sketchiest parts of the whole Bay area. Two hours later though, I found myself at Carolina’s in the quiet of the Sunset district- ready to crash on that basment couch. I had some quick conversations with the roommates- queer artist types- and then went to bed.

I woke in the early morning, before anyone else in the house. I went to the downtown area to a place called Mel’s diner to meet an old friend I knew in High School. My partial motivation for this, was to get more content for my friend’s diner instagram account. Seeing Monica was so nice. We were not particularly close in high school, but took all four years of visual arts together. She’s been living in California on and off for the last 5 years or so. Originally she was living in the mountains of Santa Cruz & found a really lovely community out there. Eventually, San Francisco lured her in. She told me of the awesome non-profit she first worked for, but eventually the astounding living costs forced her into the tech sector. She enjoys her job at a video game company, but after studying art history & global development, I think her heart still craves work in that area. We talked about how San Francisco’s tech boom is making it impossible for artists to stay here, creating work. Most of them have been pushed out to Oakland, but even Oakland is seeing such rapid gentrification, it is making it quite difficult for artists to stay- let alone continue to show their work. The same is happening in many other west coast art hubs like Portland & Seattle. Of course, once the artists leave, San Francisco will die in the ways it was. Which is terribly sad- confirming it is no longer the city of love it once was in decades past. For the moment, there are still glimpses of it though, and I hope to be back while it still exists in this manner. It was nice seeing Monica & see her doing so well now, even though she will likely soon have to leave San Francisco too. She definitely inspired me to go back to Santa Cruz for longer next time- there are some cool land projects & anarchist communities out there she thought I’d really jive with. She also told me about some cool farms in Big Sur. I can’t wait to get back there with my sisters. Monica was bullied in High school and it makes me so happy & relieved knowing that she found peace and acceptance away from Toronto. Giving me added hope for love & harmony around the world.

I walked Monica to work (she often has to work 7 days a week to make enough hours to get by- which is insane to her too). After that, I wandered by myself again- as it is my very favourite activity. I walked along the piers- that is to say for a few hours. I slowly made my way towards the golden gate bridge. I eventually got to the park just past the maritime museum in the fisherman’s warf. It was there that I got a message from my best friend Kluane. “Is it okay if I call you” she said. Of course, we often try and chat on the phone, but I had a feeling in that moment it was something important. I crossed my arms & called her in Winnipeg. She picked up right away & hurried into it. It echoed a call I had with my father last fall. She asked me if it was a good time to hear some difficult news. I mean I was in public, but once hearing that sentence it’s hard to delay hearing it anyways. Plus, I heard in her tone she needed to talk about something really important too.

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Danielle Moore.

As I looked out over the Golden Gate Bridge, Klu gently let me know that our friend Danielle Moore was on a flight heading to Kenya for a UN conference. She continued that the plane had gone down & there had been no survivors. I could hear the shock in her voice still. I didn’t even really notice that I had started crying. After a relatively short chat, we hung up the phone & agreed to talk soon. I spent the next half hour crying in that park alone- trying my best not to full out sob loudly- I don’t know how effective I was in that effort.

I met Danielle in university. In second year we had been nextdoor neighbours- living in twin houses Victorian houses. Due to the fact that they looked exactly the same, we our separate friend group inadvertently often waltzed right into the other’s apartments. Once, Danielle’s partner so far as walked into my roommate’s room, only then realizing he was in the wrong place. During warmer months, both of our house hold would spend days drawing in chalk on the sidewalks outside & strumming ukelele’s & doing crafts. We went to eachother’s house parties. A year or so later, we found our paths crossing even more often, trading often on BUNZ & finding ourselves at a lot of the same events. Danielle had some of the most brilliant optimism & energy I’d ever witnessed. She tirelessly worked towards making the world a better place- widely diversifying her causes. She was honestly so inspiring & hands down one of the friendliest people I’ve ever met. I know a lot of people say that about people that have passed away. I can’t emphasize how true it was; Is. If Danielle was still here, the same things would still be said. I am in a state of absolute shock. I know the wider community is too.

As Klu said, it just seems so wholly unfair, that something so horrible would happen like that- especially to Danielle. There is no making sense of it. Kluane & Danielle had become really close over the last year- as they had both been living in Winnipeg. When Leon, Klu’s brother was to visit after Klu returned to Winnipeg (after meeting us in Mexico), they had made plans to go skating all together. My heartbreaks for her in such a really way too. She’s been doing her very best to honour Danielle in anyway she can & has been spearheading a ritual for all of Danielle’s loved ones across the world. I am doing my best to support that goal, despite my physical distance.

After my good public sob-fest, I called my sister on the phone to tell her. I decided to by my ticket back to LA there & then. I wanted to be around someone I knew, even just to be there quietly next to them. Having family near-ish felt like a good option for me. I soon texted Mia that I would be coming back earlier than expected.

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I still owed Gopala money from our roadtrip up the coast. I met up with him & tried my best to be brief. He told me he had been worried about me. I told him I was sorry, but that I had really needed to be alone for the past day & had purposely not been looking at my phone. I also briefly mentioned the news I had just learned about Danielle. He said some swift thing like “Well remember what Krishna told Arjuna, when Arjuna expressed his fear of his friends dying”. The thing is I knew. I still know. I haven’t lost that picture. I have better tools now, and do not feel the urge to fall apart like I did when my cousin died (although even then I managed not to). Ellie’s death was perhaps the most difficult thing I’ve ever been through in my entire life. And I am surviving that. It has prepared me for so much, including Danielle’s horrible death. I kinda wanted to smack him… just a little. Okay, maybe just pinch him a little. I just feel huge resentments towards people who speak to me like I am being some overdramatic-woman-type creature. As if being upset at my friend’s death was an overreaction of some sort (I had resolved my composure at this point). As if I was some person that needed to be lulled back into a rational state of mind. In fact, I think I am quite good at that- the key being that I allow myself to fully feel my feelings through a purge of emotion. I guess it’s not my buisness what other people’s opinions of me are. Their opinions are only a reflection of their own inner psyche. So, I learned in that moment not to give single shit about what he thought & do whatever I needed to do to feel okay.

Danielle wasn’t in my everyday anymore, though, I suppose she had been for a few years. I cannot imagine the heart pain of the people that were so deeply intertwined with hers. For Kluane who did have her in her everyday. For her partner Colby, who had had her in his everyday for so so so many years at this point. I have such fond memories of Colby & Danielle doing goofy sung duets- Colby occasionally pulling out his Kermit the frog puppet. They had hosted countless potlucks gathering the community throughout university & beyond. My heartaches for her family. How absolutely horrible & out of the blue. She had flown so many times- travelling all around the country with her job. There is just no making sense of it, even though I am still trying for some reason.

I got myself to the bus stop & climbed onto the bus feeling partially numb. I did a pretty good job of not crying- though I still welled up with tears on a semi-regular basis, trying not to freak out the girl that was sitting next to me. I checked in on Klu, who went ahead with performing in her Hip-Hop dance recital- which I am so unbelievably proud of her for. Katie told me that yesterday, a letter arrived for Klu from Danielle. From what I know, the letter contained fairly ordinary, but non-the-less lovely thoughts & dreams. I can’t imagine what getting a letter like that would be like. I do remember how scared I was went they first found Katie’s tumour though. How precious it was to have time to process all of it. With Danielle’s passing, there was non of it.

I got into LA & after a rather fumbly uber ride, I found myself on the couch of my uncles house yet again. In the morning, Tom woke me up & asked if I wanted to do yoga on the beach with Mia & him. Of course I said yes. I feel more grounded now that I have the tools do deal with all these emotional difficulties. But I can’t help have my mind wander over to thoughts of Danielle quite often.

So too, were my thoughts wandering over to the imminent flight I too was supposed to be boarding in order to travel to Mexico. Mia & Tom were both flying out the following day too- and we tried to keep our fear to the minimal, by not talking about it too much.

We were gentle with out last day in LA. We rode those uber scooter’s back and forth between Venice Beach and Santa Monica. I’m glad I finally got to find them- they are so fun. More importantly that gave me that same wholly free feeling I had in riding that rusty old bike around New Orleans. I had a rush of realization with how much I loved LA. Venice Beach in particular. I have such gratitude for the laid back warmth this area provides. It was like a really soft cushion to fall onto after a challenging week.

We ate at swinger’s diner & talked about family dynamics, Danielle & Ellie & about what we would all do in Toronto when we got there. Of course, my thoughts flickered to the fact that that meant more plane rides. I had only extremely recently become completely comfortable with planes after all this time. My flights are already booked though, and I am determined not to have fear steal my wanderlust. Anyways, I miss my sisters. And seeing them means going to Europe.

I caught up with some friends while I walked around Venice beach by myself later that day. Stopping to look at the deep fried oreos that were calling out my name, until I decided to ignore them. I hung out with Tom & Caroline in the apartment for the rest of that evening, as Eric & Mia went out for dinner just the two of them. I passed out on the couch a little cookie drunk. We had been watching Christopher Robin (after it became very clear that Blood Diamond was WAY too violent for me these days). Of course normally I would have been sure to pack my bag meticulously the night before, but in my altered state I chose to fall asleep instead. I resolved to wake early & do it then, meaning I knida rushed it, packing in the dim morning light of Mia’s still darkended bedroom. Tom Left early, then it was me, then Mia left an hour later- all at differet terminals, so I guess it didn’t really matter we weren’t able to hang at the airport together.

In my haste, I forgot to take my grohman pocket knife out of my purse…which I only realized as they searched my bag. The lady at TSA looked at me like I had done it on purpose & was an absolute criminal. She noted it down on my record. I cried. Honestly because that knife meant to much to me & was one of my prized pocessions. I reminded myself there was more important things in the world & that I could always eventually get a new one. But I continued crying a bit anyways- my thoughts drifting along other paths. Danielle. The coming plane ride. My knife. My frustration with myself. But mostly it became about the plane.

After that incident, I pretty well ran through the airport to make the flight, so there wasn’t that much to think afterall. When I got onto the aircraft I forbaid myself from thinking any bad thoughts. “not in here” I repeated internally. I closed my eyes once I was settles & chooed the thoughts out of my brain. Repeating my mantra over and over and over. Somewhere in there I came back into awareness enough to fill out my immigration form.

When I landed in Cancun I was exhausted & downed a whole bag on banana chips out of frustration. I took the bus into Playa del Carmen where Katie was waiting for me. The humidity here struck me immediately. Especially seeing as I had a huge pack & was still wearing my jeans- which seemed wholly reasonable in California, but ridiculous here. Seeing Katie felt unreal. When I saw her face, it was like I came into realization that I was really there- that I had survived my flight & I could enjoy the next couple weeks with my friends.

Katie had offered to stay on the phone with my as I boarded. I was relieved I didn’t need that, although I was grateful for the offer. The past few days we have been scheming ways of supporting Klu on her journey here. Not only is she sure to be exhausted, I understand the fear she is experiencing in getting on the plane. Anything we can do to help her, Katie & I are determined to carry out.

For right now, for me, that looks like doing some of the footwork of contacting some of the organizations Danielle was a part of to inform them of the ritual. And also check on Klu and do my best to support her in these moments- though I know she’s thrown herself fully into planning (which she thrives in anyways). I don’t know what support will look like here in Mexico, but we will have to play it by ear. We will only be able to tell when it happens. All I know is that during a time like this, it’ll be so nice to have some of my best friends all together again.

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ottcs-blog · 7 years ago

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hello, pals! i passed out last night and couldn’t join you, but here i am! with this child. back to the basics, i’m liv and i’m a college student enjoying a much-needed break ( thank any & all gods out there ) and i probably talk too much so feel free to tell me to shut up. i use she/her pronouns, and i’m all about some beautiful plotting making so hit me up ( i listed some basic ones, but send me all your ideas!! ) ! as usual, i didn’t write up a bio for my child ( i am also very trash ) so you get badly written bullet points instead. just come love ( or hate ) him !

a little background

this handsome boy is otto hayworth, he’s the son of hollywood royalty, idk his family is like one of those big hollywood dynasties like the coppolas and everyone is involved in some way (i was planning on requesting some sibs but changed my mind for now)

so yeah he grew up in the spotlight and there was a lot of money being offered for his first picture as a baby, just lots of craziness, which was why his parents decided to raise him in london and not la (his mom is brit too but his dad’s american).

when he was like 10 he was cast as harry potter and the rest is history. he spent the next ten years of his life working on that franchise and all his parents' trouble to try and keep him away from the limelight were for nothing lol.

after he was done with harry potter he chose to do smaller movies because he wanted a break from blockbusters and honestly he doesn’t like doing the same role over and over again. so he tries to find roles that are always challenging for him.

but then he found himself as part of the star wars franchise because everyone i hollywood went after those roles and who doesn’t want to play around with lightsabers anyway.

the personality

if one thing can be said about leo though is that he is one charismatic guy. he is outgoing and has a sort of magnetic personality that draws people in. and it’s not like he wasn’t raised to be like this am i right? after twenty-six years dealing with it, being in the public eye is sort of second nature by now.

it should also be noted that otto is a sarcastic little shit. he will constantly say things for his own amusement and sometimes people won’t even realize that he doesn’t actually mean it, and he won’t correct them because, again, he’s doing it for his own amusement and being a pos.

he is very confident and a bit narcissistic too (find me an actor that isn’t). he’s very outgoing and can own the room and just loves the attention. but he’s not as open as people might think. he keeps his private life very protected from the media craziness. that’s something he learned from his parents.

he is stubborn af and when he puts something in his mind no one will be able to make him change it. that also makes him very driven -- if he sees something that he truly wants he won’t stop until he gets it, and he will do anything in his power to achive it.

he’s a bon vivant, and enjoys the luxury and all the nice things in life. fast cars, hot people, aged scotch and expensive toys. honestly, he’s all about enjoying his life the best he can. he’s super self-indulgent and spares no time, money, or achieved just that. he doesn’t settle and if he isn’t satisfied he will just move on to bigger and better things.

otto would never be happy doing anything else, honestly. he’s restless and needs the dynamism that acting allows. he doesn’t like being still or not having something to do. he is always on the go. if he isn’t working, he’s partying. what is sleep and where does he find it?

and speaking of parties, yes, he is a party boy and yes he enjoys those a lot! otto’s aestehtics is leo dicaprio’s parties on a yacht in saint tropez surrounded by hot models or something like that. he loves people and he loves entertaining, so yes he loves playing host to parties.

he is a bit of a casanova – okay it’s more than a bit. he really enjoys sex. he doesn’t go giving people false hope that sex will lead to anything else (what is commitment), but has probably broken a few hearts. tbh his relationships are always messy because of that.

though he parties hard, he works hard too. he does love what he does and when he gets a role he will study hard to become that role and understand his character’s motivations and thought process. and he is very professional when he is working. directors just love working with him because of that.

he has a constant need to prove himself to pretty much everyone. when he first started people were fast to say he got the roles because of his parents and nothing pissed him off more than hearing that.

he is also bisexual, but he hasn’t come out to the public or the media. his friends and family know, of course. a lot of talk about it came up when he did brokeback mountain, but it didn’t faze him, he was more interested in the oscar nomination he got for that one.

he is very thick skinned, and unless the blow comes from someone whose opinion he sees as important or someone he cares about, he won’t let it get to him. sometimes he likes to google himself just for the laughs tbh.

with all his flaws, otto is a very caring guy. he will go to huge lengths to make sure his family and friends are happy and well, and he’s incredibly supportive of people he cares about.

plot ideas

brotp: this is the ultimate bro! they would have known each other for years now, they’re best friends and everyone knows it. the ben to his matt! otto loves this guy as his own family tbh.

practically sibs: otto and this girl grew up together and have known each other since diapers. their parents are friends and they were probably each other’s first friends. he trusts her a lot and knows he can talk to them about anything and not be judged.

firsts: these are the two (one guy and one girl) that were otto’s firsts. maybe they weren’t even together at the time, but just friends who were curious and thought the other was hot and trusted them enough to explore their sexuality together. they could still hook up sometimes or just have that connection.

the broken heart: otto is oblivious to this, but the character is someone who had his heart broken by otto. maybe they are friends, or maybe it’s just someone who had a crush and was turned down for some reason.

close exes: this would probably be someone otto dated when he was much younger, and they have remained close because it was a relationship he didn’t destroy. they probably just broke up because they were too young and didn’t know what love was or something.

like you better when we’re wasted: this friendship relies on nothing more than going out and having a wild time. these two are friends when they’re partying but for some reason, they don’t get along when sober.

friends with benefits: these are just friends who hook up and haven’t blurred the lines between the physical and emotional connection. it’s easy in a very no-strings-attached sort of way, but it doesn’t mean they don’t care about each other as friends. i can imagine post-sex conversations about life.

the friendly competition: the media keeps on trying to pit these two against each other and trying to create a rivalry, but they act like it’s all friendly when in reality it isn’t. they are trying to outdo each other and be the best at what they do.

mr. steal your girl: these had a somehow civil relationship, but that changed when otto hooked up with his girlfriend/ex-girlfriend, and since then this character has hated otto. think indirect on twitter and all that fun stuff.

hot and cold: they say there’s a fine line between love and hate and that is true between these two. one minute they’re having a friendly conversation the next they’re bickering nonstop. sometimes you can tell the two care about each other, but the next it looks like they’re about to go for each other’s throats. it’s your classic love/hate relationship, and these two care more about each other than they like to let on.

#✦ — ( out of character ) ʟᴇᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴇɴɢɪʀʟ sᴘᴇᴀᴋ. ❞#alister:intro #did i even list the intro tag???#hey pals!

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pinelife3 · 6 years ago

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Pain Is Love

‘Twas the modern poet Ja Rule who said “Pain is Love” - and he proved his point by getting it tattooed on his tit.

What I particularly admire is the subtle font styles he’s opted for here - slimer for ‘pain’ and romantic cursive for ‘love’. Really captures the duality of man: part slimer, part romantic - all hairless, nipple-free pectoral.

Anyway.

Sit down, ash your cigarette on your mum’s carpet, crack that can of sugarfree Red Bull and let me pitch you a show: a show where Academy Award winners collaborate with authentic amateur performers. A show that combines drama, comedy, and spectacular CGI-free stunts to conjure a profound message about the state of modern masculinity and the importance of brotherhood in the face of adversity. Is this the sequel to Band of Brothers?, you may be thinking, am I about to have my heart and mind touched by HBO’s newest masterwork? Close. We’re talking about Jackass.

Academy Award winner Spike Jonze co-created the TV show Jackass c. 1999. Jonze was freshly married to Sofia Coppola and had just released the indie boner pill Being John Malkovich. Chock full of highbrow cred (I can only assume that being married to a Coppola opens pretty heavy doors in the film industry), he tied his fate to a rambunctious bunch of stunt performers and created a TV show that would horrify lameos across the planet. (Obviously Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine were also instrumental in founding Jackass - but that angle doesn’t play as well).

Quick Jackass filmography:

Jackass TV show (2000 - 2002)

Jackass: The Movie (2002)

Jackass Number Two (2006)

Jackass 3D (2010)

If you’re curious about the history or cultural significance of Jackass (you mean you didn’t live it in the 2000s?), Wikipedia and any Reddit thread about Steve-O or Ryan Dunn will cover that for you. I’ve got an argument: Jackass is profound because these dudes love pain and enjoy suffering for each other - and all of that has secured them a place in the pantheon of eternal public adoration. Of course, this is all based on you buying into my original Ja Rule-based premise that pain is love. If you’re not with me on that, I can’t be bothered to persuade you so seeya.

Cast your mind back to the year two thousand, to a show which specialised in revolting, brain-dead comedy and stunts designed to humiliate and hurt their stars for the audience’s amusement, and significantly, for the amusement of the star’s friends. Babies born that year are just now becoming legal romantic prospects. New York still had two towers. Clinton was still president (FYI: the jizz on Lewinsky’s dress had dried more than three years ago). Monster energy drinks were just a glimmer in the eye of Monster Beverage Corp. - which is actually a real shame because the Jackass aesthetic seems very similar to Monster’s: a bunch of guys standing around bare chested in low rise jeans with bad tattoos, all attempting to whack each other in the balls, braying like donkeys and waiting for something interesting to happen.

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A lot of the guys in Jackass were trained stunt performers or had attended clown school type places - they were really great at falling over and basically forged a career in getting their asses kicked. Most people probably would be hesitant to staple something to their friend. These guys relish it. There’s some kind of twilight Jackass zone where doing something stupid and violent to your friend has no negative impact on your relationship.

They were also creatively revolting. Who in their high school days didn’t see a guy snort a shot of wasabi and then vomit out his eyes, brain exploding from his ass as his toenails popped off from the shock of the spice? Who amongst us didn’t pay their friend $4 (this was 2007, so work that into your inflation calculations) to see how many rotten Four‘n Twenty pies he could eat in a minute? These are common forms of disgustingness, the kind of disgustingness which any bored teenager can conjure. No, on Jackass they invented an elaborate rig to facilitate drinking each others’ ball sweat.

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Another attraction of the show: in addition to seeing some great creative minds at work (Spike Jonze, Lance Bangs, Brad Pitt, the genius who thought of the flying portaloo) you can also see those great minds become violently ill when confronted with the bodily fluids of their coworkers. Lance Bangs in particular (camera dude in the video above with the wicked sun visor) seemed to develop a rep as an easy puker. Anytime something gross is going on, cameras are on the billed stars - and also on Lance to see if he’ll puke. It’s important that we see him puke.

I think what differentiates Jackass from other gross-out, stupid comedies is the relationship between the dudes. When writing Superbad (a really great, filthy film) the jizz jokes came easily to Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, but they have admitted it took some time to add ‘heart’ to the movie:

Apatow kept steering them toward a stronger emotional story. The script had always had a decent arc for Seth and Evan in terms of the girlfriend quest, as they eventually learned some lessons from the night’s disasters, but nothing satisfying for the pair of young men themselves.

Rogen says, “As we got older, we started realizing [the story] needed more, and Judd helped with planting the seed of that, I have to say. We just were thinking what could be funny and kind of relatable.

“We thought it would be funny to have a sweet movie, a sweet story going on in the midst of the filthy sexuality of it all. That was something we thought would play well against it and would add more layers to the movie.”

With prodding from Apatow, and through many conversations, they made the primary plot an unlikely love story between the two buddies.

“We always view our movies as male love stories in a weird kind of way. Which is funny, because Evan and I are totally not like that at all. We don’t hug each other. It’s always amusing to us.

“It’s like any other movie with a man and a woman, we just want to see them tell each other how much they love each other. And I think we may have even started there and thought what other kinds of things these guys could be going through, and the whole college Dartmouth thing was what we thought would work best for the movie,” says Rogen.

In the case of Jackass, the heart is implied. Surely you could only be so awful to someone you really loved. (See also: divorce, Othello, The Staircase.)

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Johnny Knoxville is the closest thing to the show’s straight man (in that he is the most conventionally attractive and seems to eat it less than the others) but other than that it’s 100% fool. A lot of gay jokes (calling someone a cocksucker is the worst insult because, as we all know, there is nothing more terrible and degrading in life than sucking a dick). A lot of self-deprecation. A lot of ball whacking. A lot of falling over. A lot of laughing. It’s relentless. Like I mentioned earlier, the comments section of Reddit and YouTube (and possibly the world at large) have a lot of affection for the cast of Jackass, based essentially on their willingness to humiliate themselves and eat shit for our amusement.

Watch Steve-O smash everything he owns for your entertainment:

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In some way there is an undercurrent of sadness that they need to kick their asses like this. It’s really bordering on self-flagellation at times. They egg each other on so much - yeah do it, man, decapitate yourself, it’ll be hilarious.

Danny Brown fired off the tweets below c. 2014 and I remember being really moved by them. He was trying to quit lean (which he refers to as ‘po’ below) and went on the bleakest Twitter spree:

(Apologies if it looks a bit janky - I patchworked it together in MS Paint.)

As time has passed many of the people from Jackass have had issues. Ryan Dunn died in a drink driving accident. Steve-O had terrible substance abuse problems but is straight-edge now. Bam Margera got scammed by a mail order bride or something. Johnny Knoxville voiced Leonardo in the 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and was then replaced in the sequel :’(

So many lives torn apart.

But not uncommon for people who make a fool of themselves for the enjoyment of others.

#Jackass #Spike Jonze #Lance Bangs #Brad Pitt #the joker #alan moore #Danny Brown #superbad #seth rogen #evan goldeberg #judd apatow #johnny knoxville #ryan dunn #bam margera #steve-o

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lumierebros · 8 years ago

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Movie Buff Questions

1. Favorite action film?

Imogen: Die Hard, Terminator 2

Shakya: The Dark Knight, Terminator, Alien, Ip Man +any Tarantino

2. What movie(s) could you watch over and over and not get tired of?

I: Grease, Inception, Gone Girl, Superbad, Hot Fuzz

S: There Will Be Blood, Deathproof, Grease, Django Unchained, Birdman, Whiplash, plus again, any tarantino let’s put it at that)

3. Any old school favorites (pre-70s)?

I: Rear Window, North By Northwest, Breakfast at Tiffany’s

S: On the Waterfront, Citizen Kane, Rebel Without A Cause, Psycho, A Streetcar Named Desire, Casablanca, Singin In The Rain, Dr Strangelove, 2001, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Apartment, The Graduate, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 12 Angry Men, Ben Hur are allllllllll amazing

4. Top 5 directors?

I: David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, Denis Villeneuve

S: Paul Thomas Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, Coen Brothers, Damien Chazelle/Alejandro G. Iñárritu

5. Favorite dead actor/actress?

I: Grace Kelly, Heath Ledger, Audrey Hepburn, Anton Yelchin

S: Heath Ledger had a lotttt of potential and Brando was great too

6. Favorite movie from the 90’s?

I: Clueless, Fight Club, Seven, Saving Private Ryan, American Beauty

S: Goodfellas, American Beauty, The Big Lebowski, Boogie Nights, The Usual Suspects, Good Will Hunting, Reservoir Dogs, Fargo, Dances With Wolves, Scream, Sister Act, Trainspotting. American History X, Forrest Gump, Casino, Leon, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park I could go on and on

7. Ever been/are you such a hardcore fan of an actor actress you watched/will watch any movie they were/will be in?

I: James McAvoy

S: Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Leonardo DiCaprio

8. What movie are you looking forward to coming out the most?

I: Star Wars the Last Jedi, Blade Runner 2049

S: Alien: Covenant, Dunkirk

9. Pixar or Dreamworks?

I: Pixar

S: Pixar, but Dreamworks for Sinbad, Prince of Egypt and Spirit

10. Favorite animated movie?

I: Fantastic Mr Fox

S: Spirit, Fantasia, Ferngully

11. Favorite musical?

I: La La Land, Grease, The Lion King

S: Singin’ In The Rain, Grease, Moulin Rouge, La La Land, Oliver!, The Sound of Music, (does High School Musical count )

12. Are you against book-to-movie adaptations?

I: Nope

S: Noooo

13. Your guilty pleasure movie(s)?

I: The Narnia movies, X-Men Apocalypse, The Proposal

S: Burn After Reading, Snatch, In Bruges + Independence Day, Ace Ventura hahahaha

14. Robin Williams or Eddie Murphy?

I: Robin Williams

S: Robin Williams easily

15. Favorite chick flick?

I: Clueless, Ever After

S: When Harry Met Sally (is that a chick flick or)

16. Ever watched a movie just because you heard the effects were awesome?

I: Star Trek (ending up loving it), Avatar

S: Avatar, Gravity, District 9

17. Favorite indie film?

I: Memento, Lost in Translation, Drive

S: Reservoir Dogs, Drive, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, American History X

18. Favorite movie heroin?

I: Sarah Connor, Princess Leia, Liz Bennet, Lisbeth Salander

S: Ellen Ripley

19. Favorite movie action hero?

I: John McClane, Indiana Jones

S: Jason Bourne, The Terminator (arnie)

20. Ever read a book so you could understand the movie?

I: Gone Girl, The Life of Pi

S: A Clockwork Orange: Watched the movie to understand the book, but never got past the first 20 pages or past the rape scene in the film

21. Favorite kids movie?

I: How To Train Your Dragon, The Parent Trap

S: Space Jammmmmmmmmm

22. Favorite Disney movie?

I: The Beauty and the Beast

S: Snow White (childhood fav)

23. Favorite movie soundtrack?

I: Anything by Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore (LOTR)

S: Anything by Hans Zimmer, Justin Hurwitz and Howard Shore. PLUS Proven Lands - Jonny Greenwood, Dirty Walk and Doors and Distance - Antonio Sanchez, Revenant theme- Ryuichi Sakamoto, Nightcall- Kavinsky, The Child Pt. 1 & 2- Jed Kurzel, any classical pieces in Kubrick films.

24. Movie that makes you cry every time?

I: Atonement, Schindler’s List

S: Schindler’s List, Titanic hehe

25. VHS, DVD, or Blu-ray?

I: I watch my stuff online srry

S: VHS was amazing, we had a massive collection when I was younger. Nowadays I would say Blu-ray purely because of quality. Quality of sound is more important to me though (BOSE!!!).

26. Best experience going to the movies

I: Seeing Star Wars The Force Awakens in Gold Class

S: When my boyfriend randomly picked me up at 10pm to go see Arrival as a surprise because I’d mentioned I wanted to see it once.

27. Top 5 actors?

I: Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Ethan Hawke, Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day Lewis, Ewan McGregor plus all the ones Shakya mentions that I don’t mention-- I LOVE EVERYONE

S: Daniel Day Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kevin Spacey, Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Gary Oldman, Christian Bale, Ed Norton, Benicio Del Toro, Christoph Waltz, Javier Bardem

28. Top 5 actresses?

I: Amy Adams, Lupita Nyong’o, Viola Davis, Naomie Harris, Felicity Jones, Natalie Portman, Kate Winslet, Brie Larson

S: Natalie Portman, Frances McDormand, Emma Stone, Ellen Page, Julianne Moore, Amy Adams, Michelle Williams, Kirsten Dunst

29. Movie you completely regret seeing?

I: X- Men The Last Stand

S: 2012, The Accountant, Pacific Rim, Nymphomaniac P1 & 2

30. Movie you wish was never made?

I: X-Men The Last Stand HAHAHA

S: Eragon

31. Movie your parent showed you?

I: The Wizard of Oz, Grease

S: Legit everything, we still have Movie Night every Friday (and we’re not allowed rewatches)

32. Last movie you watched?

I: The English Patient

S: The Apartment

33. An overrated movie?

I: Batman (1989), also agree about The Notebook

S: The Notebook, Super 8, 500 Days of Summer, Brokeback Mountain, Zoolander, Rain Man

34. An underrated movie?

I: Before Sunrise, In Bruges, The Nice Guys

S: Nocturnal Animals, Drive, Snatch, Blood Diamond, Dogma, Biutiful, Tree of Life

35. Favorite comedy movie?

I: Hot Fuzz, Superbad, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Blazing Saddles

S: Burn After Reading, Tropic Thunder, Annie Hall, The Big Lebowski, Wayne’s World, Snatch, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, Borat

36. Movie quote you live by?

I: “I’m so much happier now that I’m dead. Technically, missing.” You know, bc fuck Nick Dunne.

S: There’s not any quote I LIVE by but I do love this scene:

‘Michelangelo? You know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations. Him and the pope. Sexual orientation. The whole works, right? I bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. Seeing that. If I ask you about women, you'll probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. I ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right? "Once more into the breach, dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap and watch him gasp his last breath lookin' to you for help. If I asked you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet, but you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes. Feelin' like God put an angel on Earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell.’

37. Movie quote that will always make you laugh?

I: “Where the white women at?”

S: ‘I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast!’ ‘You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?’ -long pause- ‘No!’

‘Shut the fuck up fat man this ain’t none of your goddamn business’

‘I have uh..uh.. lactose reflux’ ‘You’re lactose intolerant or you have acid reflux? They’re different things’

‘A shootout is a fucking shootout!!....Like a Western’

‘You think that’s a Schwiiiiiin’

‘I eat the Canadian? I don’t know what you’re talking about’

‘I don’t read the script, the script reads me’ ‘What the hell does that even mean??’

‘oh nothing Tommy, it’s….tip-top, it’s just i’m not sure about the colour’

All the other quotes I find funny are completely random movie quotes that my family has just turned into a joke and that we can easily incorporate into conversation e.g. ‘whadaya gonna do ranger rick, shoot me?’ ‘I could do that’, ‘you sir, too sir’, ‘I don’t want Nenat’, ‘I drive’, ‘you want uhhh money or something’, ‘yeah i like dags’, ‘there is no spoon’ ETC you get the point

38. Film(s) you’ve watched on a date?

I: Any action/superhero movie that has come out recently.

S: The Conjuring 2, La La Land, Arrival, Sausage Party, The Accountant (bf loves accounting but it was shit), Fantastic Beasts, Captain America: Civil War, Shine (anniversary reshow with Geoffrey Rush doing a q&a after teehee), Nocturnal Animals, Suicide Squad, Moonlight, Sully, War Dogs, Jason Bourne, heaps more that I can’t remember

39. Favorite cult film?

I: Pulp Fiction, Fight Club

S: The Big Lebowski, Taxi Driver, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction

40. Directors you’d like to see work together?

I: David Fincher and Denis Villeneuve could be interesting

S: Coen brothers and Guy Ritchie would be fkn awesome OR Coens and Tarantino would be screenplay heaven

41. Actors you’d like to see work together?

I: Felicity Jones and Oscar Isaac (can you imagine the chemistry)

S: Miles Teller and Emma Watson ;---)

42. Films you wanted to watch, but never got around to watching?

I: American History X, 28 Days Later

S: Amadeus, The Deer Hunter

43. Favorite teen movie?

I: Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, Fast Times at Ridgemont High

S: Juno, Grease, The Breakfast Club, Rebel Without A Cause

44. Top 5 favorite films?

I: American Psycho, Her, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Seven, Inception, There Will Be Blood, Inglourious Basterds, LOTR, No Country For Old Men ARGH SO MANY

S: There Will Be Blood (no. 1 fav), Good Will Hunting, No Country For Old Men, Raging Bull, Fargo, The Dark Knight, Goodfellas, LOTR, American Psycho, Deathproof, Tree of Life, The Usual Suspects, So many so many.

45. Favorite superhero film?

I: Logan, X-Men Days of Future Past, The Dark Knight

S: The Dark Knight, The Incredibles

46. Favorite cop film?

I: 21 Jump Street, Hot Fuzz, The Departed

S: Reservoir Dogs, Fargo, Seven, Mystic River, The Departed, Silence Of The Lambs

47. Favorite road trip film?

I: Fear and Loathing Las Vegas

S: Borat HHAHAHAH

48. A disappointing film from your favorite actor?

I: Pick any rom-com of Matthew McConaughey’s

S: Jack Nicholson in The Bucket List and Anger Management. So fucking bad. Good actor, shit movies.

49. A disappointing film from your favorite director?

I: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

S: The Lovely Bones, Only God Forgives

50. The first movie you ever remember watching in theaters?

I: I don’t remember any, but the first film I saw was A Bug’s Life

S: I genuinely have no idea

51. A movie that was better than the book?

I: The Shining (lmao bc Stephen King hates the movie)

S: Yeah The Shining and There Will Be Blood (based on Oil! which was beautifully written but nothing beats PTA’s adaption)

52. Vin Diesel or Bruce Willis?

I: Vin Diesel is so cute but I like Bruce better

S: it’s not a motorcycle baby it’s a chopper

53. A movie that not many have heard of that you’ve seen?

I: Hunt For the Wilderpeople

S: Vampire’s Kiss, Children of Men, Ip Man (VERY good foreign film), Dr Strangelove, Inherent Vice, Shame, Biutiful, Macbeth, Cool Hand Luke, Room In Rome, To Sir With Love

54. A movie that changed the way you view the world?

I: To Kill a Mockingbird

S: American History X

55. Favorite sci-fi movie?

I: Star Wars, Star Trek, Interstellar, Arrival, Gattaca

S: Alien, Predator, The Thing, Interstellar, Arrival, Terminator, 2001, Matrix, The Fifth Element, E.T

56. Movie you completely nerd-out over every time it’s mentioned?

I: X-Men, Star Wars, LOTR

S: LOTR obviously

57. Movie that you’ve seen all the behind-the-scenes action for?

I: Inception

S: LOTR again, hours on end of it omf

58. Movie where your favorite actor was the only good part?

I: Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor in the Star Wars prequels

S: Leonardo DiCaprio in The Basketball Diaries

59. Movie from an actor you hate that was better than you expected?

I: Kristen Stewart (Adventureland), but I don’t hate her at all, I was just surprised at her performance.

S: Mo’Nique in Precious, never hated her, she’s brilliant, it was the first performance I’ve seen of hers and it made me despise her character so much. SO GOOD but so awful.

60. Most visually stunning movie you’ve seen?

I: The Revenant

S: Tree of Life, 2001, The Revenant, Apocalypse Now, The Master, Interstellar, LOTR, Jurassic Park

61. A movie your parents introduced you to?

I: The Wizard of Oz, Life is Beautiful, Grease

S: Hahahaha basically every movie no joke, but my dad showed me lots of Chaplin

62. Favorite genre?

I: Thriller/crime/mystery/suspense

S: Drama, gangster movies, thrillers/horror/psychological thriller/horror you get the jist

63. Least favorite genre?

I: Romantic comedies

S: Romcoms or superhero movies (not including tdk)

64. Comedy movie that you didn’t find funny?

I: Sausage Party

S: How to be single, Anchorman, Sausage Party

65. Horror movie that didn’t scare you?

I: The Conjuring, Paranormal Activity

S: Insidious just so bad, The Exorcist, The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby, Let The Right One In (Swedish version NOT American Let Me In). None are terrifying, just extremely unsettling and disturbing

66. Favorite remake of an old movie?

I: The Departed, True Grit

S: True Grit, The Thing, Scarface, The Departed

67. A movie that started a passion for you?

I: Her. The first “good” movie I watched that got me into film culture.

S: Well I was brought up with hundreds of great movies from my childhood which made me love film as a child, but standout ones from my childhood I can remember especially well are LOTR, Spirit, Fantasia, all very music based films too

68. A movie that sparked an interesting conversation?

I: Interstellar (about time, paradoxes, and space)

S: Donnie Darko, No Country For Old Men, Psycho, The Usual Suspects, 2001, Whiplash -- all have brilliant final scenes, Split: my bro and I spent an hour talking about what makes a good movie and why it was so bad

69. The main movie you remember from your childhood?

I: Grease… slightly inappropriate for a kid but most of the adult stuff went over my head anyway

S: Lord Of The Rings of course, first full length film I was shown and Neverending Story is another one I remember well.

70. The first movie you saw on it’s opening night?

I: Star Wars The Force Awakens

S: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows P1 and P2, La La Land

71. A move that made you ache for love.

I: Before Sunrise

S: Blue Valentine

72. Favourite foreign film/s?

S: Let The Right One In, Life Is Beautiful, Cinema Paradiso, Ip Man, City of God, Pan’s Labyrinth, REC, Biutiful

73. Favourite horror film/s?

S: The Shining, The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, Carrie, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw, Psycho, REC.

#q #lumierebros #questions #sorry for long post

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fuckyeah-esmeralda-seay-reynolds · 8 years ago

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One Model’s Road to Recovering from an Eating Disorder

"DIETING" SINCE CHILDHOOD, HER EATING HABITS SPUN OUT OF CONTROL UNTIL SHE GOT HELP AND FACED HER ISSUES HEAD-ON. By Esmeralda Seay-Reynolds [ http://www.toneandstyle.com/one-models-road-to-recovering-from-an-eating-disorder/ ] I began modeling when I was sixteen years old. I was tall and blonde with pale skin, big eyes, and even bigger ambitions. I was going to become a supermodel and drink tea with Grace Coddington, paint watercolors with Karl Lagerfeld, and rub shoulders with Sofia Coppola. It was a big plan for a young girl from rural Pennsylvania, but I was smart, hardworking, and loved the industry. In the end, I didn’t land so far from my dream. I was a rising model, traveling the world and making serious connections, but inside, I was falling apart. Almost a year ago I entered Evergreen Eating Recovery Center in Denver, Colorado, considered by many as the premier facility for eating disorders in the United States. It was a locked facility of grey and green walls, and much of my time there I was filled with resentment. But never in my anger, did I blame fashion for what I’d done to my own body. Modeling wasn’t what made me sick; conversely, it’s what saved me. My whole life, I was raised to believe perfection was not an idea, but an achievable goal. My mother—a strong willed woman whom I love dearly, but who had exacting standards when it came to my appearance—had my hair dyed starting in second grade and chose what I wore every day. She also, with my father’s support, put me on “diets” starting at seven. Given this, it’s not much of a surprise I developed an eating disorder, but what is surprising is how long it took people to notice. I was 15 when my problems truly began. I was already fairly thin, and it’s hard to say exactly what triggered it, aside from the obvious desire for recognition from my otherwise oblivious parents. It started with salads and what I perceived to be a normal amount of calorie restriction for a girl who wanted to lose a few pounds, but within a month, I was eating nothing for days and purging what little I did eat. I recall once crying over eating a mushroom, then running upstairs, blasting my bathroom radio, and climbing into the shower with my clothes on so I could vomit without being heard. My diet had stopped being a diet. I kept cutting out foods and purging because I got a rush from it. With every new bone that appeared in the mirror, I got a kind of euphoric high—a feeling of pride and accomplishment that even being a straight A student didn’t give me. I began leaving classes to look for ribs and bones in the bathroom mirror, and when I was in class, I would find myself stroking my collarbones and wrapping my hand around my upper arms (always my least favorite part of my body). If my index finger and thumb couldn’t meet, I’d fly into a panicked fury. It was an addiction, not just to“thinness,” but to the feeling of control it gave me, the sense of power and achievement that came with knowing I could control the way my body looked, when everything else was in chaos. The problem was, I wasn’t in control at all. My sickness was. A year later, my eating disorder had become a way of life, and it could easily have continued that way, but then something big happened: I got signed. It was Monday, June 10th of 2013, when I walked into a modeling agency’s open call and was offered a contract. I was 16, and by that September I was traveling the world, deemed a “top newcomer” and “one to watch.” I was working with the best in the business, with more money at my fingertips than I knew what to do with, and it seemed as if all my fashion dreams were coming true. But all the glamorous parts of my job that I should have been enjoying, I couldn’t. I remember being in Paris, staring out my bedroom window at the bright lights of the Eiffel tower and the dark mysterious winding streets lined by ornate houses and cottages, too tired and too cold to dare to wander outside. I remember photographers stopping me in the streets after fashion shows and the little girls clamoring in wonder at “the model” before them, but being too distracted by my own disordered thoughts to even remember to smile. I was hungry, exhausted, and my brain clicked so slow it was hard to even talk at a normal pace. Everything around me seemed to fade into a grey of depression and anxiety. Then, just after I turned 17 and had been modeling for a little over a year, my bookers told me they were “concerned.” About what? I thought to myself, though deep down I knew exactly what they’d meant. They told me that clients (designers, casting directors, etc.) had called asking if I needed help. I was, apparently, way too thin. I remember feeling embarrassed, humiliated, and completely furious. I couldn’t see what everyone else saw when they looked at me. Where they saw illness, I saw control and self-discipline. A few days later, after my agents had sat me down, I had a seizure. I was in a doctor’s office because I’d cut my finger, and then, suddenly, everything went black. All I could think was that I was going to die without ever having been kissed. When I woke up I was on the floor, a disarray of knocked over papers and bins all around me, my body pinned down by my doctor, his eyes filled with a mix of concern and terror. My organs were going into failure. My parents yelled at me to eat, offering options of food, under the delusion that I’d “accidentally” gotten so thin. My mother screamed at me and told me how “ugly” and “disgusting” I looked. Never once did she or my father ask if I was ok. They couldn’t fathom that I’d done this to myself on purpose, or that their little girl had something “wrong” with her. Only my bookers understood the complexity of my situation. They told me what I needed to hear: that they cared about me and that they just wanted me to be healthy. They were kind and supportive, but most importantly they got me exactly what I needed, or more precisely “who” I needed. Her name was Heather Marr. Heather may be one of the top trainers in the U.S., but to me, she’s the woman who saved my life. Heather listened to me and didn’t make me feel ashamed or embarrassed for my messed up eating habits or thoughts. She taught me how to eat and exercise, that protein wasn’t going to make me fat and that I didn’t need to exercise for hours to stay lean. She changed my body, but she also changed the way I viewed it. Instead of bones I started looking for abs, and instead of trying to encircle my arms, I felt for their strength. My body was strong and capable, and my brain was speeding faster than a Ferrari. It made me feel powerful, important, and beautiful. My organs completely recovered within a month and I went on to have the best runway season of my career. In the Fall/ Winter 2015 shows, I walked for Marc Jacobs, Giles, Fendi, Saint Laurent, Dolce and Gabbana, Gucci, Vionnet, and various others whom I was also offered campaigns with. Every day I made the choice to get up and eat, despite the voice in my head telling me not to. My ED (eating disorder) would say don’t eat, you can be in control, just put down the plate, you don’t deserve to eat today, you don’t matter anyway, nobody really sees you anyway, why not disappear? but this time, I knew not to listen to them. I knew that I had people around me who were watching out for me, whom I could depend on, whom I did matter to, and who did see me. It was hard, some days so hard I’d break down and scream into a pillow, but I did eat, everyday. I stayed strong throughout the rest of my modeling career, and after I switched out of the field last year to my agency’s acting and artist boards, I went—with their support—to Evergreen to finally tackle some of the deeper issues related to my eating disorder. In the insanity of being in a locked building for four months where you have supervised pee times and daily vitals taken, I had the hardest and best experience of my life, because not only was it recovery, it was discovery. I discovered the truth about my disorder and about myself. And that was this: My disease had become a part of me, but it wasn’t as the friend I thought it was. It was a safety blanket. Unlike jobs, unlike affection, I could rely on my not eating to make me thin. It always came through for me. But my anorexia was an addiction, and the safety blanket it provided was killing me. So what kind of safety was that? Now, almost a year later, I have an apartment in the West Village, a new kitten and a pint of Chocolate Mint gelato in my freezer. I’ve been out of treatment for nearly eight months, and being healthy is still difficult at times, but I refuse to relapse. I eat three meals and snacks a day, meet with a nutritionist and a therapist once a week, take long walks by the Hudson, and occasionally grab a cupcake from Magnolia’s Bakery while I stroll through Bloomingdales and giggle at the ad campaigns of my model friends. I no longer see my body as an art project, but rather the portfolio holding the art. Now when I put on my sneakers or put down a fork it’s because my body is telling me to, not a voice in my head. As for my appearance, I try not to look in mirrors too often, or even photos of myself (which as a former model, can be rather hard to avoid), but when I do, I remind myself that my body is something that needs to be taken care of so I can achieve the things I really want in life, not the thing to be achieved. And also, that the way my body is, is beautiful, because it’s the way it was meant to be, and that’s all that matters. I am 19 years old, and am currently working on getting two books published. One is a novel with artwork and the other is an art and poetry book; both were written during my stay in treatment. I’m pursuing acting with a fire-like passion and working on a script for a movie. I’m aiming for the stars, for the whole freaking universe, and maybe that’s a lot, but I’ve fought for this life, and I’m going to sure as hell going to make the most of it. (Author’s note: If you’re out there reading this, and you recognize yourself in this story, even a small part, know you’re not alone, you are not insane, and just because people may not see you, or the pain you’re in, that does not mean you are not worth seeing or the pain you are in is not real. You matter and you can get better.)

#eating disoder recovery #esmeralda seay reynolds #esmeralda seay-reynolds #model #female model #I'm so proud of her #so happy #this is so important #eating disorder

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mastcomm · 5 years ago

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Kids to the Rescue: Film Festival Shines a Light on Activism

Over the next four weekends children will help save endangered species, prevent a jetliner from crashing, rescue girls from forced marriages and even marshal a revolt against a sitting president (but not the one in the White House).

All these deeds will take place onscreen as the New York International Children’s Film Festival brings works from more than 30 countries — including a new program of Spanish-language short films — to theaters in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. But even though some of the cinematic actions are fictional, the 18 feature presentations and 93 shorts add up to an overwhelming celebration of young people taking charge.

“We are always looking for films that show kids who are empowered to make change,” said Nina Guralnick, executive director of the 23-year-old festival. But along with the recent global rise in youthful activism, she added, “we were seeing movies that reflected that trend.”

One of the most striking is the French documentary “Forward: Tomorrow Belongs to Us,” which has its first of three festival screenings on Saturday. Its director, Gilles de Maistre, profiles seven young activists, including Aissatou, 12, who in the course of the film (and with police assistance) actually interrupts a marriage procession in Guinea to inform the 14-year-old bride-to-be of her rights. The movie also includes Hunter, 11, who helps rehabilitate rhinos in South Africa, and José Adolfo, who at 13 won the 2018 Children’s Climate Prize for a bank he founded in Peru: Young people establish accounts by being paid for the recyclables they collect. (He will lead a post-screening Q. and A.)

Young moviegoers can find fictional characters who are just as forward-thinking in titles like “Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale” and “Rocca Changes the World.” The animated “Fritzi,” from the German filmmakers Ralf Kukula and Matthias Bruhn, follows an East German 12-year-old girl who is caught up in the fall of the Berlin Wall. “Rocca” concerns the breaking of different kinds of barriers as it focuses on an intrepid 11-year-old whose father is an astronaut. Directed by Katja Benrath, who will visit the festival on March 7 for a Q. and A., this German feature begins as the aeronautically savvy Rocca (Luna Marie Maxeiner) calmly lands a plane whose crew has food poisoning, and then skateboards away. But that is not the end of her resourcefulness. She also combats bullying and homelessness.

“It’s like a modern Pippi Longstocking story,” Benrath said in a telephone conversation from Hamburg. She noted that the film’s message was simple: “It’s easy to change the world. Everybody can. Just start with themselves.”

The annual festival, which begins on Friday night with “Children of the Sea,” the Japanese director Ayumu Watanabe’s manga-inspired animated feature about three adolescents with a mystical connection to ocean life, has always been a pioneer, too. It consistently offers titles for teenagers as well as for younger audiences. It is also one of the few children’s film festivals that is Oscar-qualifying: The shorts that win prizes from its adult jury can compete for Academy Awards. (That jury’s longstanding members include the filmmakers Sofia Coppola and Taika Waititi, who just won a screenwriting Oscar for “JoJo Rabbit.”)

And while diversity still seems to be a challenge for Hollywood, this festival cultivates it. In 2020, women directed 53 percent of its shorts. This is also the first time the events will include an industry forum, Towards an Inclusive Future, at which gender and ethnic representation in children’s media will be discussed.

“We’re really trying to complete a circle, and go from our audiences and what they need and what they’ve been asking for, to our filmmakers and what they need,” said Maria-Christina Villaseñor, the festival’s programming director.

Some of those filmmakers have created works that might initially seem disturbing for young audiences. But the festival does not shy away from subjects like death and divorce.

“If you’re not shaken up a little, you shouldn’t be doing it,” Villaseñor said about her role as programmer. “That’s what art should do, and it doesn’t matter how old you are.”

One film she at first found unsettling — starting with its title — was “The Club of Ugly Children,” a Dutch feature adapted from Koos Meinderts’s 1987 book. Set in a rigidly ordered dystopia whose motto is “Keep It Clean,” the movie concerns an autocratic president who decides to intern all children he finds unattractive. After a boy escapes, a youth-led underground rebellion starts.

The film is “like a celebration of diversity,” said Jonathan Elbers, the director, speaking by phone from Amsterdam. “There is not a stand on what is pretty or what is not. The kids are just kids.” That approach, said Elbers, who will take part in a festival Q. and A. on March 7, puts the focus on “Who are you to decide I don’t belong in this society?”

The festival also addresses revolutions that are less political than personal. The shorts programs “Girls’ POV” and “Boys Beyond Boundaries” explore and expand gender roles. Géraldine Charpentier’s “Self Story,” an animated Belgian short, is screening in both programs because its subject, Lou, is nonbinary. An American film in the “Boys” slate, “Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad,” by Camrus Johnson and Pedro Piccinini, delves deeply into grief. Johnson conceived the film after the unexpected death of his father’s best friend. Memorializing the older men’s bond, it urges male viewers not to leave love unspoken.

“Express what you feel,” Johnson said, “because sometimes you can make someone’s day — or someone’s life.”

The festival, however, is not all weighty themes. Aardman Animations’ latest Shaun the Sheep comedy, “Farmageddon,” and “NYCIFF Rocks,” a new all-ages shorts program that celebrates music, are among the lighter fare. Teenage rockers can also expect humor — and plenty of beats — in Kenji Iwaisawa’s “On-Gaku: Our Sound,” about Japanese high school musicians, and Simon Bird’s “Days of the Bagnold Summer,” a British movie with Earl Cave (son of Nick) and an original score by the indie band Belle and Sebastian. Villaseñor expects that title to continue a festival tradition of engaging grown-ups as much as their offspring.

“I’ve had conversations with people who have adult children now, and they talk wistfully about the festival,” she said. “And they tell me, almost as a little secret, that they want to come back this year.”

The New York International Children’s Film Festival Through March 15 at various locations; 212-349-0330, nyicff.org.

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ryanmeft · 7 years ago

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Isle of Dogs Movie Review

Who’s a good boy? Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs is a good boy. The film takes place in a future Japan that has a serious anti-dog problem. Spurred on by the machinations of an ancient pro-cat cult, a disease affecting man’s best friend has been used to put them on elevated wire-run carts and dump them on an island of trash.I like the films of Wes Anderson because plot description is goddamn boring, and it’s nice when I can write one that will never apply to any other movie.

The hero of the piece, at least on paper, is a 12-year-old boy named Atari, voice of Koyu Rankin, who travels to the island to find his dog Spot (Liev Schreiber). He also happens to be the nephew of the tyrannical mayor (Kunichi Nomura). The mayor’s plan involves suppressing anything that might solve the disease problem, including a cure developed by a taciturn scientist (Akira Ito). The reason to get rid of the dogs is…well, I’ll leave that to you to discover. The dogs make it clear they are agents of their own devices. Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray and Jeff Goldblum provide the voices of the main pack, all of whom are former pets who want to help Atari, who they call The Little Pilot. Their self-proclaimed leader, Chief (Bryan Cranston), a stray who has seen the cruelty of the world, does not. He is routinely overruled. I’d be lying if I said each dog character feels completely unique, but they all do what they are supposed to, and Chief gets a satisfying arc that isn’t as cloyingly delivered as you might expect.

Other voice talents include Scarlett Johansson as a show dog, Frances McDormand as a wonderfully excitable radio translator, Greta Gerwig as a foreign exchange student who tries to make herself the hero, and a wealth of supporting characters lent words by Anjelica Huston, Yoko Ono, Ken Watanabe, Courtney B. Vance, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham and Mari Natsuki, voice of the big-headed witch in Spirited Away. Many of these are, of course, repeat customers for Anderson’s films. If the film has a flaw, it’s a notable lack of importance for female characters, as the one who has more than a couple of scenes doesn’t have much impact on the story. It’s enough to notice, but Swinton, McDormand and Gerwig do get some excellent bits.

Stop-motion is a painstakingly arduous process that produces painstakingly lovely results, which means that if someone is going to go to all that trouble, they’re not going to just fart something out. So it is here. Reading an article on Animation World Network, I discover that 1,105 animatable dog puppets were created. Let us stop for a moment to reflect on the fact that, somewhere in the world right now, Duke, King, Boss, Rex and Chief exist, and imagine that they play when the humans go to bed. Surely we’re not all so perfectly mature and respectable that we don’t want a world in which Toy Story meets puppet dogs.

This effort has produced characters which, unlike the frenetic results of computerized animation, cannot rely on exaggerated movements for effect. What seems like a limitation is a strength. The dogs can walk, run, turn their heads and jump. The humans can do these things and also gesticulate. From such movements, and a small number of facial expressions, life is made. There is a scene with the dogs and Atari being transported on a moving cart through one of those machines conveniently designed for the possibility of squishing movie characters, rendered far funnier than it would have been if the dogs were capable of freaking out. And the measured, methodical way the actors deliver Anderson’s well-known style of dialogue, somehow both dry and removed but full of wit, is even more pronounced when it is coming from the mouths of animals.

Anderson and his visual designers simply aren’t interested in creating things to look at whose only purpose is to be looked at. That’s something of a change from the MO of his most recent films; The Grand Budapest Hotel definitely included some confections that were on the screen solely for how tasty they looked.

Instead, Anderson plays this time with language. We’re let in on the secret at the beginning, that most of the Japanese voices will not be translated, and as a lover of cinema history I found that my skills developed reading body language in silent films were put to very welcome use. This seems to be because we are seeing the story from the perspective of the dogs, to whom most human communication is pointless (apologies to anyone who still thinks their boxers take in every word of their conversations). Translators often add their own touches. In a particularly funny bit, a pug dog the others think of as being able to tell the future is in reality simply capable of understanding weather reports. Anderson and co-creators Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman and Kunichi Nomura have developed a world with lots of little nudges and nods for the attentive viewer. The adventure is underlined with music borrowed from Akira Kurosawa and a score from Oscar winner Alexandre Desplat. The use of a song called “I Won’t Hurt You” stood out for me enough that I sought out the music of The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band.

You can’t talk about Anderson these days without hearing about his assumed privilege, which is often spoken of as though he somehow has more than every other white male filmmaker in Hollywood. The words cultural appropriation have been thrown around like a fetid slab of meat, and for those who don’t hang out in that part of the web where content is generated purely to cause outrage, “cultural appropriation” means “taking ideas from any other culture ever, especially if you’re American”. You don’t have to own a box of MAGA hats to recognize this for the inanity it is; most of cinematic history wouldn’t exist without heaping helpings of cultural borrowing. In a particularly rancid piece, a critic I will not name claimed, wild-eyed, that the scene in which the grime-caked stray Chief is given a bath and comes out white is…well, you can guess what he claimed about it. There must come a time when one is more interested in watching a movie than appearing to be down with a cause, no matter how many wrongs still need righting. I read a New Yorker piece from a Japanese writer who praised the film for having many sensitive touches directed only at Japanese viewers. I doubt it would change the minds of critics who have staked their claim on “defending” cultures that never asked for or needed their vanguard.

I digress. It is possible to look at Anderson’s film, which takes in intolerance, language barriers, communication, humanity and the love of really good friends and has a lot of fun with it while saying some very important things that require more than one viewing, and force your own agenda on it. It’s possible, and it’s boring. For all that revisionist wags want to force Anderson into a box made of liberal causes and judge him harshly therein, he still applies the same quality to each of his films that he was originally praised for: namely, that you’ll never see another one quite like it.

Verdict: Highly Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars but here are my possible verdicts. I suppose you could consider each one as adding a star.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

Ryan is not a good boy. You can follow his reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

Or his very infrequent tweets here:

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

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justinmoviereviews · 7 years ago

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The Class of 2017

This one is starting early, inspired by my least favorite movie of the year. I’ve got a bunch more on my list I’ll get to at some point.

Strong Island - Yance Ford

I don’t watch documentaries, but of the three I saw from last year this portrait of a family’s grief was my favorite. Because it was visceral and simple, catching a family as it processes the death of its oldest son, and then learns the circumstances surrounding why his murderer was never charged.

Columbus - Kogonada

It’s not just the architecture, which is fantastic throughout--every shot is set up to look as striking and pretty as it can, like a movie that was filmed entirely inside the Met.

Last Men in Aleppo - Feras Fayyad and Steen Johannessen

I’m not gonna say anything bad about this movie. I’m not a lunatic. It’s not an easy thing to see real footage of dead babies, but one of several interesting things in this documentary is how these guys go from digging bodies out of rubble to attending a wedding. Life goes on, it turns out, even in a place like Syria. These are people who fantasize about going to Turkey, but recognize that they’d be greeted with resentment and bigotry there, and anyway feel a responsibility to stay in their homeland. Their happiness comes from being with their friends, and occasionally planting trees, or buying some pet fish. Their day job is rescuing people from random air strikes perpetrated by their own government. They’re legitimate heroes, and Bashar al-Assad is a legitimate monster. One funny thing, the user score for this movie on Metacritic is a bizarrely low 3.3, with a handful of reviews that accuse it of being Al-Qaeda propaganda. The reviews are written by people with user names like MetacriticSuccs, so credit to the Russian cyber agency for their thoroughness.

Detroit - Kathryn Bigelow

Kathryn Bigelow has become the master of telling macro stories about chaos. The first half hour about how riots turned Detroit into a war zone are perfect--maybe her best contained piece of filmmaking yet. When this movie settles into its plot--about how a bunch of racist cops tortured a group of black people in a cheap hotel--it’s such a natural extension of what she’s good at that it doesn’t feel like it all takes place in a single location, even though it does. As the night wears on you start to realize that in black cities like Detroit police were and maybe still are barely disguised domestic terrorists. When a character asks someone “will we be safe?” she’s referring to the cops, but she might as well be referring to the villain in a horror movie. This one shoulda got a lot more attention.

Personal Shopper - Olivier Assayas

I’ll start with a criticism: Kristen Stewart is really bad here. I actually think she’s a great actress, but here she’s a collection of her worst impulses: tics and stuttering, like an SNL parody of her. It’s actually not much of a liability though, because this is a movie that’s entirely about events and mood. I’m like six viewings away from understanding what the hell is going on in it, so here are just some thoughts: the movie does away with any ambiguity about whether ghosts are real. They’re all over the place, haunting houses and generally causing mischief. But the clarity on an afterlife does nothing to explain the plot of this movie. The bulk of it takes the form of an extended conversation over text between the main character and a mystery presence. It’s never explained whether this presence is haunting her or helping her, if it’s a ghost or a person or a figment of her own imagination. I half-heartedly entertained a theory that it was the boyfriend of the woman she worked for her screwing with her, which would make enough sense to be plausible, but not enough to provide the movie with any sense of resolution. Basically I have no idea what Assayas is trying to say, or what any of this means. I don’t know if I’m supposed to. It doesn’t matter. This movie is creepy as hell, and incredibly, superlatively good.

Lady MacBeth - William Oldroyd

This movie is called Lady MacBeth because it’s essentially a retelling of MacBeth, if his wife had been more willing to get her hands dirty. It looks and feels like a period drama about a marriage arranged between families for financial reasons and a resulting affair of passion, but it never actually is that. From minute one it’s pitched at such a tense, bizarre level, that when Mrs. MacBeth switches from a sympathetic if inscrutable kept woman to a full out psycho, it’s not all that unexpected or surprising. It’s still heavy though, because MacBeth is a heavy play. And this movie absolutely lives up to that ambition.

The Florida Project - Sean Baker

Sean Baker’s last movie was about two black transgendered prostitutes in LA--a demographic that to my knowledge has never been the focus of a movie before--and rather than ask his audience to pity them he just told a story about them. It worked so well for me because it never felt like he was trying to please the cultural moment. He just realized this was an underreported American vibrancy. Here he takes a slightly different approach. Everyone and their mother has taken a stab at American poverty, but Baker manages to tell a story about adults living in harrowing conditions from the point of view of children who don’t realize their situation is difficult and so don’t feel any difficulty. Actually, now that I think about it, they are pretty similar. Both movies are about how daily life can keep the sadness about one’s condition at bay. For the prostitutes in Southern California, it’s whatever workaday stuff they have to deal with at any given moment. For the left behind margin-dwellers in this movie, it’s either children or childhood.

The Beguiled - Sofia Coppola

90 minutes on female horniness and the color white. Who says no?

Beatriz at Dinner - Miguel Arteta

You’ll forgive me for thinking this was going to be the cringe comedy it was billed as, with a Trumpian bent as a casually racist rich old guy makes increasingly inappropriate comments to an unexpected Mexican houseguest. But in retrospect, doing that would have put the onus on the Mexican to be uncomfortable, and that’s not what this movie wants to do at all. Instead she spends the whole night making everyone else deeply, cringingly uncomfortable. Which makes this movie much more interesting than the one it was billed as.

Gerald’s Game - Mike Flanagan

I’m going to reiterate an earlier point, which is that for a basic bang for your buck, it’s hard to do better than well made low budget horror flicks. Get Out may win the best picture Oscar, but at it’s heart it’s really just a best case scenario for what these movies can be--fast, fun, small, structured around really good ideas. They’re the best playgrounds for smart filmmakers. Gerald’s Game includes a scene near the end in which a woman rips the skin off her entire hand--a scene that stressed me out more than my first first date--but ignoring that I could easily watch it 600 more times. The most watchable movie since, well, Get Out.

Roman J. Israel, Esq. - Dan Gilroy

Here’s a not terribly controversial opinion: Denzel Washington is the greatest movie star of all time. Who’s better? Jack Nicholson maybe? Cary Grant? His total comfort in front of the camera, his powerhouse intensity, his towering presence, the way words roll out of his mouth like a waterfall from the fountain of youth. He’s been doing this shit now for four decades, and none of his movies are less than good. He is the king. I mostly loved this movie. Completely ignored by a general audience, I thought the trailer looked great and was disappointed it was removed from theaters before I could see it. For the first hour it’s rather near perfect. Denzel Washington talks and talks, citing legal statutes, expressing disdain for the obviously fucked up legal system, stuttering through social situations he never bothered to learn how to navigate. He’s confident but not comfortable. The second half goes off the rails. It’s the kind of mess you want to blame a studio for, or an angry producer who was annoyed there weren’t more car chases. But maybe Gilroy--who’s Nightcrawler was a more coherent movie--just lost the plot somewhere along the way. No real matter. More legal dramas should be this sharp and this fun. And one must hail the king.

Mudbound - Dee Rees

For the first 45 minutes this movie has an As I Lay Dying quality, where multiple narrators lay out the state of their moral and historical situations in portentous southern language that always sounds profound when done well, like it is here. It never gets quite that deep again, but it becomes a sober and accurate look at what this country, particularly the south, would have been for blacks, women, and even white men in the 1940s. Halfway through I started to wonder if any movie had ever shown how plain old fashioned American racism strips away the dignity of blacks and the humanity of whites as well as this one does. 12 Years a Slave, maybe, but even that one cheated a little bit by being a horror show. Also, Rob Morgan, who plays the paterfamilias of the black tenant farming family, especially finds the Faulkner in his character’s position. For my money he’s the breakout star here.

Icarus - Bryan Fogel

A problem I have found with certain documentaries that rely on their primary sources to tell their story is that the narrative can get blurry. This is a movie that would benefit from a narrator just to keep an eye on the spine of this fascinating true life event. The premise seems to be that a filmmaker stumbled completely by accident onto something so interesting that it obviously needed to take over his movie. Maybe a better filmmaker would have stepped back and asked some of the bigger questions presented by this narrative, like, why did this scientist seem compelled to run Putin’s national doping program? Maybe a master filmmaker would have dug into the heart of a man like Vladimir Putin who felt compelled to orchestrate a national doping program, a true story of global deception and malevolent corruption that deserves dozens of movies. But you’d have to be a walrus to not be intrigued by this guy, or eternally grateful that someone with a camera managed to catch him as his crime was discovered by the IOC and his government threw him under the bus and forced him into witness protection.

The Discovery - Charlie McDowell

I’ll get this out of the way first: the twist is not good. A squander of a pretty great concept that they could have anything with. But the rest of the movie is. The concept really is neat, and the whole thing looks great. This is a small, self-contained movie that chugs along at a heady pace. It’s a perfect Netflix movie, a genre I suspect we will all learn to recognize pretty soon.

Wonderstruck - Todd Haynes

I’m Not There is a profoundly silly movie, but Carol was made by a consummate pro, so I’m inclined to like Todd Haynes, and trust him when he experiments by, say, making a silent movie that intersplices stories from two generations and shoots them to look contemporaneous to movies of their respective eras. Like The Shape of Water, there must be a wavelength that really gets this movie. Maybe one day I’ll give it another shot, but fuck it’s slow.

Good Time - Ben and Josh Safdie

Woah. Let’s see here: This is a grim, ugly, unpretty neon movie about a side of New York that most people don’t like thinking about and will generally choose to ignore. It’s not just the poverty--there’s a darkness here, an ugliness and a savageness that’s usually examined sociologically if it’s examined at all. But this movie lives in it like it grew up in it, which for all I know it did. It’s about a white guy--and his skin color is very relevant--careening through Queens, ruining lives along the way in a single-minded quest to raise enough money to make his autistic brother’s bail. Mostly it’s so exciting and unpredictable that it flies by, telling a story about a guy with the survival skills of a cockroach getting through a night we might describe as eventful. And I need to give special mention to Jennifer Jason Leigh. She’s only in one scene, but she takes it to a dark, viscerally disturbing place. I don’t know that much about her as an actor, I don’t know what kind of work she usually does, but in a movie populated by characters I sincerely wish could have better lives, she will stand out in my mind for awhile.

Song to Song - Terrence Malick

Part of me wants to like this movie, or at least respect it. Every shot is interesting--in fact that might be most of the point: every scene takes place in a visually arresting location, the actors do odd things with their bodies, the camera shoots them from weird angles. And I admire that Malick has mastered an impressionism that is uniquely his. But I also suspect that maybe this is just a bunch of bullshit from a guy who’s talented enough to make decently interesting work without trying very hard. I mean, he used to take 20 years to make his movies, now he’s pumping out one after another like he’s Woody Allen. And I think a movie can only have so much emotional resonance when the average scene lasts about 5 seconds. I don’t know, I can sort of see why a person might like this sort of thing, if a person was so inclined, but man did I think it was boring. If he’s just gonna make ponderous nonsense now, then at least The Tree of Life had the decency to be about the meaning of the universe.

Hostiles - Scott Cooper

This is first and foremost a really solid western. Stoic and sharp and very well made. Christian Bale is amazing at this and should do one of these every couple of years. My only complaint is that it could have been better. It could have been a masterpiece. But it points to ideas about the inhospitality of the American frontier that it never really manages to show. People knocked the Revenant, but that movie really slaps you on the ass with how tough it was to hang in the old west. Hostiles wanted to do the same thing, but it settles instead on the simpler thesis that we stole this land from it’s rightful inhabitants. Which, I mean, fair enough I guess.

Molly’s Game - Aaron Sorkin

If Aaron Sorkin wants to write a novel and release it as an audiobook narrated by Jessica Chastain, guess what, I’ll listen, but he is not a director. This is a movie where the voice-over will voice over dialogue because good lord does he love to write, and a movie where the main character at her lowest point will narrate her depression over a shot of her in bed, because good lord does he not know how to show. So this movie loses something his screenplays don’t when they’re filmed by top shelf talents like David Fincher or Danny Boyle. But Sorkin is one of my favorite guys to write about because he’s so talented and also so flawed. He’s in love with academia, and with knowing things. I can’t imagine what he’s like to shoot the shit with, but I assume that the person he wants to be is the person he keeps writing--the hyper-literate Renaissance man (and now woman) with a top 99 percentile intellect and some kind of pathological drive. Lots of movies are about everymen, but neither you nor I will ever be a Sorkin protagonist. His doormen are wittier and better educated than we are. Anyway, his biggest flaw in my opinion, besides a tendency to get high on his own supply, which we might as well call a feature in this case, is his tipsy uncle sentimentality. But other than a scene at the end between Molly and her father, which is a cinematic crime against humanity, this movie mostly avoids that. It’s too busy being his most fun movie yet. Even more than Steve Jobs, which is where I learned to tear down my cynical walls and lean into his brand of goofy pop intellectualism. Here’s my take on this one: it will not stand up to repeat viewings. At all. Like, at all. But it made me want to get a job in finance just so I can start going to high stakes poker tournaments.

Kong: Skull Island - Jordan Vogt-Roberts

2017 was such a good year for movies that even bullshit like this was great. This movie pulls ideas whole cloth from the last Godzilla movie--here there’s also a benevolent monster god, a showdown between giant creatures over the soul of man, and almost contemptuously fantastic cinematography (because if something this corporate can look this good, than how much should we even value high priced photography?)--but it takes itself a fraction as seriously as that one did, and is by legions less stupid.

Call Me By Your Name - Luca Guadagnino

More movies should have stakes this low. There’s a lazy confidence here that I like a lot. This is how a movie about a 17 year old boy’s summer should feel. Nothing really matters, and every day is pretty good. Over the course of two hours he will swim, smoke, read, and fuck a boy, a girl, and a peach. He’ll grow up to become a gay man with a pretty normal and hopefully happy life. He’ll remember this summer very fondly.

Win It All - Joe Swanberg

If every movie were like this, movies would be a lot more boring. But I suppose there is a space out there for simple stories told simply. The best scenes are the ones with Keegan-Michael Key, who is so charismatic that he risks derailing the utter unexceptionalness that is this movie’s point.

A Ghost Story - David Lowery

Does it seem gimmicky to make a movie about a dead husband as a guy in a white sheet with two eye holes cut out out like a child’s Halloween costume? I don’t know, the effect in practice to me was to make this celestial being look lonely and sad. He hangs his head in a silent longing and watches time hurdle through space from a fixed point he either can’t or won’t leave. This is a quiet, still movie; the kind that doesn’t cost much and is probably over-represented at film festivals. But it is, and forgive the sincerity here, devastatingly beautiful.

Phantom Thread - Paul Thomas Anderson

I wanted to give this a few more days to sink in before I wrote about it, but I’m nothing if not a content provider, so here we go. As the greatest artist of a generation ought to do, PTA upended my expectations about his style with this one, creating something new and challenging and not beholden to his previous work. His last couple movies have been about tension and release. This one really isn’t. Instead it’s a love story, or actually I mean it’s a relationship story, about the hunt for connection that all relationships become after the initial euphoria wears off. It’s still a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, so it’s haunting and strange and made up of tense dialogue that obfuscates it’s artistic intentions, spoken by strange people with unclear motivation. But it’s also funny, and mostly straightforward. It’s centered around a relationship, but this movie is as impossible to reduce as the last one, or the one before that. There are limits to my partisanship--there’s a dandyism to this movie that I don’t like at all, but this guy is consistently setting his sights up past the rafters, and throwing walk off touchdowns every single time.

I Love You, Daddy - Louis CK

Louis CK’s disgrace is the only one I’ve had trouble reckoning with, because he’s the only person so far to go down who really had more to say. Unfortunately, if this ends up being his last project, it’ll have been a disappointing note to end on. Louis’ artistic problem is that he’s too hard on himself. Very often he will set up a disagreement between himself and another character and have the other character essentially school him, even if he’s not wrong. He has a tendency to shortchange his own point of view. But it’s never been detrimental to his work until now. This movie is essentially a professionally successful version of the pathetically passive guy Louis always plays getting chastised by a series of articulate women. The writing is very often great--he’ll probably never get his due now, but he’s the best writer of dialogue since Woody Allen--and it’s a little sunnier than his usual point of view allows for, but it’s less focused and less interesting than either of his two TV shows.

The Post - Steven Spielberg

Like Bridge of Spies, this is a minor work from the master. The only bad thing I can say about this movie is that he’s not doing anything new, and the subject matter invites comparisons to more interesting movies, like Spotlight, and All the President’s Men, which would make a hell of a second billing here as a diptych about the rise of the Washington Post. Unlike Clint Eastwood, I believe Spielberg still has extra gears. He still has a few more home runs in him. But like Eastwood even his most workmanlike products are made with a level of casual mastery that makes them perennial top tenners. I don’t know that this movie was made for any reason other than to express a distaste for the current occupant of the White House. It still earned Meryl Streep another Oscar nomination.

It Comes at Night - Trey Edward Shults

Why are all these low budget horror indies so good?

The House - Andrew Jay Cohen

Will Ferrell movies have reached this weird place now where the concepts are funny but their executions aren’t. They’re coming up with good ideas but filming them straight because at this point they’re businessmen with schedules to keep. There’s none of the peripheral lawlessness that made up his earlier work, or makes up really any good comedy, especially in the Apatow era. This movie is only worth watching for two reasons: 1. it will pump you up if your on the way to the casino, and 2. evil Amy Poehler is so much better than civic do-gooder Amy Poehler.

Snatched - Jonathan Levine

Is Amy Schumer the first comedian since Jerry Seinfeld who’s funnier in their scripted work than they are in their stand up? Anyway, until she starts phoning it in like elder statesman Will Ferrell, or is supplanted by someone newer, she’s my comedy protagonist of choice. Why did people take on a pass on this? Cuz the plotting is lazy? When isn’t it in a comedy?

Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House - Peter Landesman

This movie is a huge mess but I refuse to not like it. It’s murky, paranoid, serious; in other words a great spy movie, about institutions of American government that dislike, distrust, and actively work to undermine one another. Nixon is barely even mentioned until the end, and the Washington Post is barely mentioned at all. But this should have been a miniseries or a novel. It’s a ten hour story condensed into two, and thus makes even less sense than a good spy movie ought to.

The Dark Tower - Nikolaj Arcel

As someone who has not read the books and wasn’t even aware there was a cult behind them, I can say this is a perfectly enjoyable plane watch.

Battle of the Sexes - Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

I suppose this is the safe and logical choice for the recent Oscar winner, and it’s not a bad movie by any stretch. The actual battle scene at the end is quite excellent. But ignoring the current political environment, a movie where a tennis prodigy discovers her sexuality and takes on a boy’s club is much less interesting to me than a movie about a hustler who’s past his prime, gambling with his buddies and turning himself into a heel. Steve Carrell plays it as a good natured ode to a dopey strand of American hustle. He’s the best thing in this. But of course that’s not why this movie got made. I guess I’m ultimately just a member of the boy’s club.

American Made - Doug Liman

Speaking of American Hustle, this Goodfellas in planes strikes me as more Hustle with drugs, inasmuch as the ostensible good guys, the feds, are really just a bunch of selfish ambitious cowboys playing with house money. Where Bradley Cooper’s FBI agent was too stupid to realize how bad he was at his job, American Made’s Domhnall Gleason, who I understand is now in every movie, is some kind of CIA stud with no accountability and no budgetary restraints, coming up with increasingly outlandish ideas for which there are no consequences at all. When Tom Cruise starts working with Colombian drug cartels, the implication seems to be that everybody knows and nobody really cares. I’m not sure this movie makes any sense at all, or if it’s supposed to. It’s buoyed by movie star Tom Cruise at his movie star best, bringing a slight, slight maturity to his Top Gun self.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Rian Johnson

In The Force Awakens Adam Driver was the only good part of a bad movie. Now he’s the best part of a great movie.

The Lost City of Z - James Gray

The epic as a genre seems to me inherently flawed; who wants a movie that goes on too long and changes tone 7 times? This is an interesting one: it's first foray down the river comes with Apocalypse Now ambitions that it holds its own next to. The second trip is fun and captivating. The third trip, after extended scenes of World War One and, I don’t know, some family stuff, is too little too late. Basically, when this movie is in the jungle, it’s great. When it’s not, it’s not.

Lady Bird - Greta Gerwig

Let me stand apart from the glut of people my age who thought this movie was made specifically for them, and say that this movie was made specifically not for me. I can’t think of anything I want to see less than a coming of age tale called Lady Bird about a high school senior who decides to call herself “Lady Bird.” But the thing about good movies is that they transcend premise. Greta Gerwig isn’t dogmatically sticking to genre here--the dialogue is sharper than the average movie about an idiosyncratic high school senior, the parents and their financial situation occupy a more central role, and when the protagonist briefly tries to fit in with the cool kids, she kinda pulls it off--but really she’s just made a better coming of age movie than most people who try ever do. This is what we all would like to turn our childhood memories into. And for those concerned, like I was, by a trailer full of precious dialogue, the movie is so snappily edited that lines that would read as self-indulgent or treacly come out down and dirty in practice.

The Disaster Artist - James Franco

One of the impressive things about this movie is that it’s a comedy that doesn’t come at the expense of it’s subject: a man who in a slurred Slavic accent tells a room full of theater students “I’m not villain, you are villain!” A man who in other words could have an entire Office-style show built around him by a less charitable filmmaker. But James Franco is here to celebrate this bad movie, and honor the weirdo who made it. This isn’t the direction I would have gone in: I’d be too curious about the why and the who. But Franco does a really good job with his material. This is a really good and funny movie, with a murderer’s row of supporting actors who should all be doing stuff like this rather than whatever the fuck Seth Rogen is working on right now. Franco paints Tommy Wiseau as a pretty damaged guy with boundless ambition and absolutely no understanding of how human beings behave or how to interact with them--at one point he talks about wanting to run his own planet--but he keeps it light. Our man Tommy gets a standing ovation at the end, which I don’t believe really happened, but in this context I support.

I, Tonya - Craig Gillespie

One thing about Tonya Harding is that if she were coming up now, in the era of Lavar Ball and Jezebel, she’d be uncontroversially loved, and never would have had to club anyone in the kneecap. As far as I’m concerned she’s owed a revisit, which this movie gives her, and makes her look sympathetic and talented and fundamentally decent, if a little unwilling to take responsibility for anything at all. Anyway it’s a pretty damn good movie. Not quite as wild as it’s masterpiece of a trailer suggests, but pretty fun and breezy the whole way through.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle - Jake Kasdan

Nowadays, most theaters will let you bring alcohol into the screening. So here’s a fun game: go see comedies you have no interest in, and drink steadily throughout them. Preferably with others. I’m not being a dick here, I found this experience highly enjoyable.

The Shape of Water - Guillermo del Toro

Pan’s Labyrinth has earned Guillermo a ton of goodwill. And I mean, I caught part of Hellboy 2 on HBO the other night and that is a flick. This may be his next one-for-me, but it’s not Pan’s Cold War. The genius of his earlier masterpiece was that the descent into nightmare of its real life surroundings was mirrored by the descent into nightmare of its fairy tale. This is a pretty simple love story between a mute woman and a fish man, set during the Cold War. It’s a ripe premise and a ripe backdrop that Guillermo weirdly squanders. Any movie that casts as its villain Michael Shannon, the strangest and most intense man alive, and then makes him just another square 1950s Keepin’ up with the Joneses asshole, isn’t going to stand up to Pan’s Labyrinth. This movie is a love story between a mute woman and a fish man. It should be a whole lot weirder, is my point.

Logan - James Mangold

What this movie gets so right is rather than make super hero movies that could conceivably take place in our world, directors should make super hero movies that would take place if they were the real world. Hence the cursing, the ultraviolence, and the theme of consequence which hangs over Logan like a lampshade. Watching Wolverine and Professor X say “fuck” and brutally murder government agents feels like removing the sanitizing goggles that the older movies were shot through and seeing them for the first time as they really are. These are two badly broken people keeping each other alive. It’s also by happy accident a movie for the era of Trump, where a shitty present has the bad guys in the driver’s seat and forces everyone in the margins back into hiding. Patrick Stewart brings warmth and realism to a new version of an old role. This is the best super hero movie ever made.

Darkest Hour - Joe Wright

So Gary Oldman’s definitely going to win the Oscar here, right? It’s fine, he deserves it. I could have used more about who Winston Churchill was, why he was such an eccentric alcoholic, but as a portrait of a great man working through his defining moment this is a great movie. Between this and Lincoln I hope every new biopic is about the defining moment of a great person’s life. So much more interesting than biopics about great people.

Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri - Martin McDonagh

At first I thought he was just making fun of American hillbillies. But if this isn’t his best movie, it’s definitely his deepest. Like a darker redneck Batman it’s main character lets a justified anger turn her into kind of a monster, and maybe gets redeemed at the end. It’s funny and entirely surprising. Sam Rockwell should get nominated.

The Big Sick - Michael Showalter

A movie about two saintly parents dealing with not only their comatose daughter, but an overgrown forty-year old child who’s rude to them yet refuses to leave them alone, and never has to face his own pathetic shortcomings because sometimes people are racist to him. Fuck this piece of shit movie.

Thor: Ragnarock - Taikki Waititi

Chris Hemsworth seems cool.

Last Flag Flying - Richard Linklater

Eh. I’m much less of a Linklater partisan than most, but this movie actually wasn’t that well received. It’s not bad, it just kinda meanders, and I actually don’t think Bryan Cranston or Steve Carrell are particularly good actors. It’s anger is righteous though, and Lawrence Fishburn is a titan.

Blade Runner 2049 - Denis Villeneuve

This one slows down a little once the plot kicks in, but holy god does it look good. A worthy heir to the original.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer - Yorgos Lanthimos

I think I figured it out--this guy likes to set up insane premises, force his characters to speak so flatly that it seems absurd, and then lift the gate and see how the ball rolls down the hill. Every character in this movie acts calm and rational and mostly human in the face of something so bizarre and terrifying as to defy logic. I like The Lobster more because I suspect it had more to say, but this one keeps you on a knife’s edge and forces you to prepare yourself for anything.

Wind River - Taylor Sheridan

This is the third screenplay and first directorial effort from the guy who wrote Sicario and Hell or High Water, two of the best movies of the past few years. This is his worst movie. I suspect the culprit is novice direction. Despite this having a 501(c)4 title card at the end, for the first time I’m not sure what the point is or what he was trying to say. But I hold this guy to a high standard, it’s still pretty damn good. It looks great and the story’s good.

The Foreigner - Martin Campbell

This is a movie about Jackie Chan--still kicking ass in his 60s--avenging his dead daughter by boobytrapping a woods outside of a mansion, and another movie about a radical Irish politician and his cronies agitating for Irish independence, possibly through terrorism. Both of these movies should be awesome, although only one of them is. I don’t want to spoil by giving away the answer, but you can probably guess.

Marshall - Reginald Hudlin

A pretty simple courthouse movie about the future Supreme Court Justice when he was just a lawyer who apparently never spent a day in his life being intimidated by racism or the second smartest guy in the room. Sure, why not?

The Babysitter - McG

The second best horror/comedy of the year. My man McG is still killin’ it.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) - Noah Baumbach

Noah Baumbach is a guy who likes a lot of stuff I don’t, but he’s enough of an adult here to write adults who don’t seem trapped in the imagination of a guy who hasn’t grown up yet. This is a really entertaining movie. Adam Sandler is very good.

It - Andres Muschietti

I’m a little surprised this didn’t take more flack for being the R-rated Stranger Things. This is also about a group of oddball friends dealing with something weird and scary in that sleepy town called 80′s Nostalgia. It even has one of the same damn actors. But maybe it didn’t take more heat for the simple reason that it’s really good. It might not hold up on repeated viewings the same way Stranger Things really doesn’t, but it’s the best horror/comedy of the year.

mother! - Darren Aronofsky

The more I think about it, the more I like it. I went back and watched some of his other movies, and concluded that Black Swan might be his masterpiece by default, but he’s never made something I really loved. He still hasn’t, but this might be his best movie yet. It’s about Adam and Eve, and it’s about mother earth, and it’s about a self-absorbed artist wrenching everything he can out of his muse. But it seems like Aronofsky is having fun screwing around with all these concepts rather than somehow trying to tie them all together or say something profound about any one of them. Which makes the movie a lot more fun than it’s reputation suggests. In any case, my immediate take walking out of the theater was that it more than anything was about some poor guy who gave up everything he had just to write a damn poem.

Logan Lucky - Steven Soderbergh

This one didn’t do nearly as well as I thought it would, which might have more to do with its distribution model than anything else. Ocean’s 11 for hillbillies couldn’t be more accurate, but it’s not criticism. At least not coming from me. First of all, Ocean’s 11 is like the perfect movie. Second of all, I mostly love redneck culture. Adam Driver has an amazing ability to land roles that shortchange him and make great work out of them anyway. And every real man knows Channing Tatum is a better star than George Clooney.

Dunkirk - Christopher Nolan

Chris Nolan isn’t any good at telling stories, and anyway doesn’t seem to like doing it, so it’s no mystery why his best movie bags the plot completely. Even with it’s time looping gimmick premise this movie takes place entirely in real time, in the present, which is, it turns out, by far the best way to shoot a war movie. It’s hard to imagine something better coming out this year.

Baby Driver - Edgar Wright

The best music video ever made. Pour one out for Kevin Spacey.

Wonder Woman - Patty Jenkins

I resist these pieces of shit like Roy Moore resists girls who can buy their own alcohol, but every year I end up seeing one or two. This is probably the best case scenario for a DC comic book movie in 2017. Gal Gadot is a very pretty lady. This coulda been a good WWI movie.

Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer - Joseph Cedar

Richard Gere plays a possibly homeless and mostly benevolent conman who befriends an Israeli bureaucrat and sees his fortune briefly change when said bureaucrat stumbles into the Prime Minister position. I walked into this one completely blind because it was March and I wanted to see a movie. I might be the only person outside of Israel who’s ever seen it. Which is unfortunate, because it’s better than a movie dumped out in March has any right to be. Kinda funny and kinda sad. Kinda satirical and very warm.

Get Out - Jordan Peele

Of course it’s a little overrated at this point. How could it not be? But the first hour of Jordan Peele’s cultural explosion is perfect--a breakdown of every awkward moment between black people and--let’s be honest--all white people. The second half is less deep and a little less fun: it’s when the social commentary flick turns into a genre film. But it’s a damn good genre film. Deservedly on everyone’s top ten list.

A Cure For Wellness - Gore Verbinski

I caught this one of the strength of it’s trailer and thought it was excellent, a creepy kind of horror movie that not enough people saw, about a health clinic that either prolongs or sucks the life out of rich retirees. Kind of a Shutter Island for a crowd less inclined to have its mind fucked.

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