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engagemachine · 7 years ago

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@valyriansword and I have been talking about TLJ and it’s been the most rewarding/validating conversation and I’M SO GRATEFUL to have someone who is able to express how they feel (AND HOW I ALSO FEEL) so articulately. I’m just so excited because walking out of that theater was such a conflicting experience and I didn’t know how I felt or how I was supposed to feel or what to make of what I’d just seen, but I feel more at “peace” after discussing so thoroughly the film’s high and low points. I’ve also just come back from seeing the film for a second time and feel that I’m better able to express a lot of my thoughts.

So with all of that being said, SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF THINGS KATRINA SAID and then my own additions added on at the end (spoilers ahead):

“what I really disliked was the little “oh I feel the force” joke, mostly because it felt like I was seeing Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill fooling around then actual Rey and Luke. I don’t know, the humor did not work for during a lot of parts.” –This is something I echoed several times to different people after seeing the film, because there were a couple points in the film where the humor felt entirely misplaced and even inappropriate at times. The scene where Rey is meditating on the rock and thinks she is feeling the Force (when in actuality it is Luke waving a plant over her hand) was one of those scenes that felt overtly comical. I don’t appreciate humor when it feels so forced. There were moments meant to be funny that simply did not feel genuine. Maybe the humor felt oddly placed at times because there wasn’t really time to properly laugh over it before the characters were moving on and were back into serious mode. The “reaction time�� felt cut short, in a sense, and I’ve never seen that happen in a film before.

“Yeah the pulling her [Rey] around the room stuff was weird. He [Snoke] was the most one-dimensional character in TFA but I liked him so much better back then? I liked how mysterious he was? But here he was SUCH a twirling-mustache villain in this movie, and he talked way too much. Actually, everyone in this movie talked too much. what made TFA so great was the subtext, the things /not/ said, like the interrogation room scene, peppered with so many ambiguous moments “don’t be afraid I feel it too” “I see it, I see the island”…so ripe with tension because of that, and so magical. But this movie kinda broke the fourth wall a few times and was very self-aware and I was not a fan of that.” –I firstly wanted to address Snoke, because I agree full-heartedly with what Katrina said about him being such a mustache-twirly villain in TLJ. He was mysterious in The Force Awakens, and while I don’t think anyone really liked him much in TFA, he was, at least, much more threatening and scary than he ever was in TLJ; I think there was some initial disappoint in seeing him in non-hologram form—before, he was only this crackly, large shadow figure. Now we’re seeing him in all of his full glory, and not only is he wearing this sparkly, gold bathrobe, (which: what the FUCK?) but he’s talking way too much. The speech he delivers moments before he is killed probably bothers me more than anything else he said. He goes on and on about how he sees everything, that nothing surprises him… and then is killed by the lightsaber sitting next to him. It was too easy. I also thought him pulling Rey around the room was very strange, perhaps it was the way it was filmed, but there was just something off about it to me.

About characters saying too much—I’ve never agreed with a comment more. There was so much dialogue that was just flat-out bad, so many moments that felt so strangely out of character. I think my biggest grievance with the dialogue was that a lot of it felt so circular. (The whole film felt circular, but I’ll save that for later) in that it never actually accomplishes anything or establishes a theme that we didn’t already know. Certainly the most revealing dialogue came from Kylo and Rey’s shared moments. But I’m still scratching my head over some of the dialogue between Rey and Luke, and the scene on Ahch-to where we’re led to believe that Rey’s parentage is about to be revealed, and then… isn’t. What was the point of the multiple reflections of Reys? Even the moment between Yoda and Luke wasn’t as impactful as it could have been—the piss-poor dialogue being the causative factor, in my opinion.

There are several other moments where I wished the actors had been given the ability to just act—this is one of the most talented ensembles of actors in a single film, and their freedoms to do what they do best have been stripped from them, and they’re instead forced to spout all this useless dialogue that doesn’t really advance the plot, and that doesn’t reveal to us anything we don’t already know.

Yoda’s speech wasn’t all bad—what he said about failing to teach your failures, and how that can be just as harmful as hiding them completely was very poignant, I thought.

“Rian just seemed weirdly obsessed with the Resistance storyline when it was a much simpler, off-to-the-side thing before. I came in ready to see a movie about Rey’s growth as a person, learning the ways of the force, learning about balance, having mixed feelings about Kylo. instead it was more like… “you’re a MONSTER… but I forgive you and I want to save you and I’ll recklessly give myself up to the first order just to be with you, baby” which. was so. out of character. I had way more issues with that than with the force bond itself. And then the rest of the movie was a cheesy story about how heroic the resistance is and a tiny subplot about Rey bickering with retired Luke. Who apparently disconnected from the force but then reconnected with no issues?” –I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: there was no forward momentum in this film, no real advancement in the plot beyond what happens to Kylo, and I’m so baffled as to why. The Resistance spent the entire film running away from the First Order (all on the premise that their fuel supply was running low, which… what???), a storyline that could have been effectively told in under 15 minutes.

I’m also crushed by what was done with Finn. Such a central character in TFA, in TLJ, he was reduced to completing some side quest that ended up having no relevance to the film. And why the fuck did Rey and Finn NEVER EVEN SPEAK? They hugged, yes, but the fact that no dialogue was shared between them practically kills me. If Poe and Rey can share a split-second of dialogue, surely that same courtesy could have been extended to Finn and Rey, who share one of the most beautiful friendships in the Star Wars universe.

Katrina pointed out something else that I would have loved to of seen, which is more of an internal struggle within Rey, specifically her growth as a Jedi, and my desire to see more conflict between her and the Dark side. There was so much conflict driving her in TFA, and in TLJ it felt as if her conflict was presented and then solved within an hour into the film, tied off with a neat little bow on top, and that was that. I just feel very sad for her character. I wanted more for her story.

As for Luke, which I’ll get to more in a minute—it goes without saying that I am sad about what became of him in this film as well, everything from his portrayal to his subsequent death. (Which, by the way: WHY MUST THIS NEW TRILOGY KILL OFF EVERY SINGLE TRIO MEMBER FROM THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY. W H Y.)

“Yeah Luke was extra and I feel like that Fashion statement was the only truly in-character moment for him. I feel like they did not do him justice, certainly not enough justice for him to be offed in the end like that. It’s weird because with Han I felt his death so, so deeply, even when I didn’t know anything about him, but with Luke I was just way too “the FUCK” to really react emotionally.” –This is exactly how I felt about Luke’s death, which was so jarring in a way that’s difficult to even put into words. Luke deserved a proper burial, something commemorative, something honorable, something more than just a split second scene of him disintegrating into dust, and his Jedi robe mystically blowing off into the wind. Darth Vader got a proper burial, it just stands to reason that Luke should have gotten one too. I felt like I’d been robbed of the moment to properly mourn Luke’s loss, Luke—the character who is arguably the centerfold for the entire Star Wars universe.

Some of my other grievances include whatever the fuck that casino scene/subplot was supposed to be, which was just so messy and jarring inside the Star Wars universe that I didn’t feel like I was watching a Star Wars film at all. I hate admitting to experiencing boredom in a Star Wars film, but both times I’ve watched that scene, I found my thoughts drifting to ways they could have better utilized that time and space in the film. It’s such a tragedy to me.

Another thing that I strongly disliked—and I wasn’t able to put my finger on this until the second viewing—but some of the transitions are so poorly done, I couldn’t help but notice how much they stand out, and not in a good way. There’s something very clunky and awkward about how the scenes cut from one to the next, it doesn’t feel smooth and organic like in TFA. I felt as if I was being tugged from one storyline/set of characters to the next and then back again, leaving me with a sensation that felt almost like whiplash.

Which brings me to my final point, which is that TLJ is simply not a cohesive film within the Star Wars universe. It doesn’t feel like a Star Wars film to me, and that perhaps is what saddens me more than anything else. I know a lot of fans criticized J.J. for what they assumed to be his apparent lack of imagination, or his lack of risk-taking within the Star Wars universe when it came to TFA, but what I appreciated were his subtle nods to the previous SW films, I appreciate him reinventing the Star Wars universe while still maintaining the feel and tone of the previous films. It felt honorary and appropriate.

To me, TLJ falls into a pitfall that I’ve seen too many times before, which is that it is extremely difficult to carry on a story and trilogy of films that is cohesive when you have different directors overseeing them. Regardless of the decisions that were already predetermined at the time that the plans for this new trilogy were mapped out, there’s no doubt that the director oversees and greatly affects the overall tone and feel of the film.

And look, this isn’t a totally awful film—I think we can all agree, collectively, that while the prequels are pretty bad, we like them because they’re Star Wars films, because we grew up watching them and there’s a pretty strong sense of nostalgia we’ve tacked onto them. Maybe in some years’ time, The Last Jedi will acquire that same sense of nostalgia. One can only hope.

#Star Wars #The Last Jedi #spoilers #don't want this to wind up in the SW tags but do wanna have my bases covered so I don't spoil anybody #was going to talk about all the high points and the things I loved but this is almost 2k so like...#maybe in a separate post #there are lots of things I Loved #namely Adam Driver's incredible performance

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these-are-the-first-steps · 2 years ago

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Here’s a random reylo ask for ya- did you ever have any theories/HCs early on in shipping reylo (cuz I believe you’ve said you were shipping since TFA) which you didn’t end up being into as much, or at all anymore as TST progressed?

Hello! Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this.

Story Time

So I saw TFA the second day it came out. I left rather bewildered- one, because a new actor I'd never seen before in my life (adam driver) gave such an unorthodox performance I couldn't stop thinking "The fuck does this guy think he's doing???" namely the interrogation scene where I don't think any other actor would have, nor could have, played it the way he did. I'm still shocked by the choices he made with his line delivery in that scene but in the best way possible. It's hard to explain. Anyway, that's one. Two also goes back to that scene. In middle school, back with Tokyo Pop was big, they held their very first manga contest for us regular american people to try our hand at Japanese style manga. Well, I felt like I could write, and my good friend at the time (she still is- we keep in touch!) could draw like a crazy person. So we decided to try for it. The only problem was, being middle schoolers, motivation and scheduling wasn't our forte. I did manage to write a short script excerpt of a story that had been brewing in my head for awhile at the time, and while I think I did eventually hand it over to her (I was suffering from perfectionism), the art never happened. We tried again in high school but then high school angst got in the way and it still didn't happen. Regardless, I still now had the only real concrete piece of writing for this story I had been sitting on for a couple years now.

Eventually....well, time moved on.

Cue "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", a sequel film I was INCREDIBLY skeptical about. I'd been watching star wars my entire life. My dad took me as a little kid to the big deal re-screenings of the original trilogy they did nationwide before the prequels came out. I had a lot of Opinions on this movie series. I had just moved to NYC and was out for a walk when I passed by Bloomingdales and saw, a bit to my shock, that their store windows were full of (allegedly) screen-used costumes and props from the upcoming TFA movie. I crept closer, had a look. Han Solo was the only thing I recognized. The rest? Unfamiliar. Alien. I had seen zero promotional images for this movie before encountering these windows and had only heard some things. I made guesses as to what everything was, before rounding the corner and being confronted with an irrationally tall costume. "Oh, is this the darth vader rip-off? lmao" (the only thing I had concretely heard about). "This guy had to be on stilts surely??" Kylo Ren. Funny at first, but the longer I stared at it, I shit you not, the more unsettled I got. I actually got *scared* staring at this costume. I took one very poor, very shaky picture, and basically ran away. (I regret not taking a better photo but oh well). I run into an article the next day at work about the movie and it happens to have the trailer and I decide, sure, ok, I'll give it a watch. Those windows were interesting at least. I basically had my tickets bought by the end of the day. So here we are, back to the theatre, sitting here as this audacious actor delivers the most ballsy performance I've seen the whole film as he interrogates the heroine, and I listen to what he's saying, and then, it hits me.

This. Is my story. These are my lines. I wrote this exact same exchange in middle school.

What the fuck??

This meant a lot of things to me. This meant that I knew where this story was going, and where it was going I liked very much. I went back to see the movie again a second time about a week or two later. I had to be sure-- I wasn't just imposing what was already inside my brain all these years onto a totally different story on the screen, was I? I watched, and waited. And sure enough....no, no it had to be it. These two? I know exactly how this is going to go down.

A few months later I visited back home and even managed to dig through a box and find my old script. I read through it, sort of shaking a little. My heroine- Light- had also been captured- by the Dark- and the song and dance were the same- Where am I? Does it matter? I can see everything. I'm not giving you anything. A summary, and as some years have passed again I have lost the print out in a box again, but some of the dialogue was ver batum.

I knew exactly where this new star wars story was going because I already wrote the damn thing in middle school, word for word, and if you thought for one second I wasn't going to tune in and defend this arc, that I never managed to get published myself at 13, with swords and shields and knives for my own personal middle school catharsis then you were dead wrong, my friend.

This may have seemed like a very round-about way of answering this question, but I wanted to give context, substance, because all of this ^^^^^ up here? It defines, explicitly, why I'm even here to begin with, and why I fought so hard from day one. There was nothing to abandon, or question, or shed. Because I already knew this story by heart. I had already written it!! And I still think ants and DLF and JJ Abrams and Terrio and the rest of those bastards can pry it from my cold dead hands, because truly they butchered my baby and while I may live with that, I'll never forget it.

Thank you for the ask, friend.

#reylo #reylo stories

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arabian-bloodstream · 3 years ago

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I saw ‘Annette.’ I haz thoughts.

This movie was brilliant. I can't wait to watch again because the brilliance of it didn't really truly hit until the final scene. It was in that final scene when it all came together. Leos Carax didn't waste a single frame, a single line of dialogue, music, etc.

There are MAJOR SPOILERS!!

The performances were brilliant all around. Adam was fantastic. Simon Helberg's stand-out scene with his solo was absolutely stellar, at turns funny and heartbreaking. Marion Cottilard was beautiful and haunting. Devyn McDowell as the (finally) human Annette was wonderful, holding her own against Adam Driver while singing!

Henry McHenry truly is a monster. I mentioned above that Carax didn't waste a line. Henry mentioned in his comedy act early on that he became a comedian to say things he could say without being hated/judged. He says awful things. And there are so many little things that point to that he IS a monster so that...

* When Ann dies it's a little ambiguous. There *is* a storm. He is drunk. He isn't in full control of his facilities. * When Baby Annette begins singing, it's less ambiguous, he *is* using her, but it's still a miraculous thing and Simon Helberg's character, the Conductor, is in on it because sharing the miracle of Baby Annette with the world is amazing. * When Henry finds out that the Conductor could likely be Annette's father and that the knowledge of it could take away his free ride, he murders him. Yeah, no ambiguity there.

So after Henry has been outed and is in prison, Annette comes to visit. Up to this point, Annette has been varying aged up freaky looking puppets (like a female version of Chucky, but less malevolent like). Henry points out she looks different, the puppet-Annette sitting in from of him agrees, but the voice comes from across the room and lo and behold! It's an actual little girl standing there.

The rest of the scene continues between Henry and this real girl and I was astounded. Everything fell into place. Annette told him it was good he was in prison because he couldn't kill anymore. She also told him he couldn't love anymore. He tried to tell her he could love her. But she wouldn't let him love her. They began to sing. She wanted to forget, couldn't forgive both of her parents. He didn't want Ann blamed. It was a back and forth, beautifully done. Young Devyn held her own so well opposite Adam. He again tried to tell her he could love her, but no, no, she would not let him.

What was so incredibly powerful about this scene, how this scene and how it ended once Annette left -- which I will not describe -- is that it brought the entire film into focus. Everything made sense. Prior to this scene, Annette was a puppet because the entire film up until this scene was from HENRY's POINT OF VIEW.

Remember when I said that at the top that "Leos Carax didn't waste a single frame, a single line of dialogue, music, etc. " That's where this really comes into play.

The film begins with the director, Sparks, cast and crew singing "So May We Start," let's break a few things down in there. First of all, Adam is the first actor who sings, and more importantly the first character that is addressed is his character, Henry McHenry... meaning it is HIS story that we're watching unfold. And almost every single scene includes Henry, focuses on Henry, but if you look at the scenes that don't... ah! That's when the latter scenes come into play and show that, yes, it's ALL from Henry's point of view indeed.

The Conductor's solo scenes has information that, again, in retrospect we know that Henry must have known from Ann. Henry knew, Henry absolutely knew...

All of Ann's opera scenes focus on her dying because Henry's jealousy grows and grows until he's ready to take her out, and his love for her becomes twisted into monstrous hatred. And in retrospect, no, her death was not ambiguous, he meant for her to die, absolutely.

Then there is Ann's #MeToo dream, why that? Well, again, Henry's point of view. Take that scene paired with Henry's later scene when he's surrounding himself with all of the different women. Ann's dream was foreshadowing Henry's treatment of her, and paired with his callousness towards women in the latter scene, how he has always used and manipulated people.

Which brings us to who Henry is as a user and a abuser. Someone who used everyone as puppets. He manipulated everyone, using them to do what he wanted, to make him happy, to give him what he wanted, to thrill him, to give him a high. His back-up singers. His audiences. Ann. The Conductor (who didn't even have a name, he was just "my conductor friend"), and then, of course, Annette. Annette was literally a puppet.

Annette was LITERALLY Henry's puppet until the final scene when he was locked away and he could use her no more. That is when she was finally able to be a real girl, when she broke free from him and it was no longer Henry's story. She was no longer his puppet.

Aah, so brilliant. So beautiful.

A few random comments...

- The song "We Love Each Other So Much" that I didn't think much of when I listened to some of the soundtrack, I remember remarking that I hoped it worked better in the context of the film. It does. It DOES SO MUCH. It's absolutely perfect in the context of the film, and then is a sucker-punch when it's true origin is revealed later.

- The courthouse scene was the first (but not the last) time I teared up. Henry desperately searching for, singing to the sweet Ann, but in the end, the vengeful Ann found him. So, so well done.

- Now why was Ann always eating an apple? Because of Eve. Eve ate the apple because she was tempted by the devil. Henry is the devil. Henry is evil, a monster. That's why we saw Ann always eating an apple. And in her solo song, she was describing the sweet, innocent girl--the voice of an angel, a good girl, who was used and abused by men when she came into her beauty. At the end of that scene, then who showed up when she had Annette protectively with her? Henry, looking quite malevolent indeed.

- The mark on Henry's face -- which one critic was like 'wtf? is up with that? random! -- appeared after Henry killed Ann and kept growing. Was it an outward reflection of Henry's guilt over what he had done to Ann? No. Henry always had that mark on his face. We just didn't know that until the final scene because prior to that it, we'd only seen Henry's version of himself, not the REAL Henry. Think of it, Annette was barely older than we'd last seen her before he was jailed when she went to see him in prison, but Henry looked SO different. Why? Because that was the REAL Henry McHenry. Not the stylized, romantic version of himself that we'd seen through his eyes. After he killed Ann we started to see him look more and more like the real Henry. In prison, that was the real Henry.

Again, this film was just absolutely magnificent. I simply can't wait to watch it again. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

#adam driver #annette #leos carax #marion cotillard #simon helberg #movie review

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hoochy-coo · 3 years ago

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I just thought the acting was poor, Lady Gaga was truly the star of the movie imo and I kinda knew it was going to be camp and artisy but though it was a tad overhyped.

Last night in soho I thought was really good and I agree it’s something that will be potentially more appreciated in the future than currently but Thomsin was incredible and I think she got a future a head of her, definitely think she was underrated

Was Adam Driver any good?

And yeah, Thomasin definitely has a bright future ahead of you! She should look at getting herself a role in a Netflix show where there’s not a lot of big names involved. She gave an amazing performance in ‘Last Night in Soho’ but obviously because Anya is who Anya is, she overshadowed her

#ask #answer #house of gucci #lady Gaga #thomasin mckenzie

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tros-for-dinner · 4 years ago

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Like, okay, I need to talk about trauma a second

I’m reading The Body Keeps the Score right now - it’s a pretty comprehensive book about PTSD and trauma, and treatment of trauma-related mental illnesses and, like, I just keep thinking about Kylo (Ben)

In one sentence: Kylo is a deeply traumatized man and I can’t stop thinking about it.

As a general rule I don’t care about the ancillary materials, but “absentee parents” and “being left with droid caretakers that tried to kill him” is trauma - he didn’t have someone to comfort him and his usual caretakers weren’t safe. He probably started acting out, as what happens to kids that go through that. He was also deeply empathetic (metaphorically represented by being strong in the Force) so every lie that was told to him, every time someone feared him because of his ancestors, every time someone tried to use him because of his family - those are all wounds, too. Then, maybe because he was acting out, maybe because he was a deeply religious kid, he goes to live the ascetic life with his beloved Uncle Luke.

And I know this is my own headcanon, but knowing what I now know about trauma: he was still suffering the emotional effects of trauma. The fear, the mistrust, the anxiety, the anger - his fellow Force-sensitive students (and Luke) could feel those emotions. In the Jedi tradition, you either shut that shit down or you’re assumed to be on the road to the Dark Side.

Here’s the problem: the fear, the anxiety, the anger triggered by the pain of trauma can’t just be meditated away. It’s fight/flight instinct; it’s literally the oldest, most sub-conscious part of the brain reacting to the memory of pain and trying to prevent future pain. You can’t control it. You can’t reason with it. You either heal it or it controls you.

Luke can feel that his methods aren’t working but he hasn’t been trained in psychology so he has no idea how to fix this problem. Luke is deeply afraid of the Dark Side, and he was taught that emotions - a deeply-rooted function of the brain - are inherently ‘evil’ and cause self-destruction for the Jedi. Luke has a “all or nothing” “either I do it all or I’m a failure” mindset so he starts feeling despair at the bitter taste of failure. One night, out of pure fear, he takes an uninhibited look into his nephew’s mind (notably, without his consent) and sees how bad things could be in the future. For an instant, he honestly considers killing Ben to prevent that future from happening.

Here’s a question: what would you do if you woke up to a trusted, beloved family member pointing a loaded, safety-off shotgun at you, and you could feel without a doubt that they were definitely ready to kill you?

You would feel abject terror. Wounds from trusted loved ones can be the most painful, and this was a wound that eclipsed every other in Ben’s life. He escapes, and then falls into the hands of Snoke.

(I hate how the ancillary materials totally erased Ben’s agency by making Snoke influence his mind even before he was born. Grooming from a young age? That would have been fine. But as it is, it’s a supernatural element that oversimplifies and makes unbelievable a story that could have been more powerful.)

In my mind, Snoke doesn’t even have to be Force-sensitive: his gift is that he can tell what people wants, and he controls those people by promising what they want (and getting his victims just close enough to what they want so they keep coming back for more).

So he sees Ben and sees the perfect mark: someone who believes they’re inherently a bad person (drowning in shame, an instinct that is extremely self-isolating), enraged with pain, who has been indoctrinated into black-and-white thinking by the culture/religion he grew up in.

Snoke promises Ben 1. respect (i.e. a form of connection in which you don’t have to be vulnerable) and 2. power (which appeals to Ben’s helplessness).

All of us wear different “hats” depending on the situation we’re in: at work, we wear Customer Service or Manager hats. At home, we wear Caregiver or Partner or Roommate hats. Walking out to our cars in the dark, or taking the bus in a bad neighborhood, we might swagger with a Don’t Fuck With Me attitude. We hide or reveal parts of our personality depending on the tools we need in the situation.

Ben creates a persona to hide his shame, protect himself from vulnerability, and deaden the part of his conscience that objects to being part of an organization that is hurting people like his family was hurt. This persona is named Kylo Ren, and it uses the mask and robes like a magic spell to summon the gravitas and influence of his ancestor. But most importantly, the mask and robes shield him from the outside world as protection, but also to hide his shame and any emotions that aren’t ‘acceptable’ (’acceptable’ being anger, mostly).

The thing about shame is that it separates us from the people around us, preventing us from making meaningful connections. This is devastating to the human mind, because humans survive in groups (and our brain evolved to seek groups out). Bringing shame out into the light in the presence of someone you trust is usually enough to exorcise it.

Kylo doesn’t have anyone he can trust, and he is drowning in shame. He is totally isolated and knows he’s nothing but a weapon in Snoke’s hand. Snoke cultivates his shame and isolation because it makes Kylo easy to control. But then, totally by happenstance, Kylo meets Rey.

I hear people talk about ‘the power of love’ and I used to think it was total bullshit. I realize now that’s because visual media usually simplifies ‘love’ into ‘physical attraction’. In reality, love contains a spectrum of elements that are essential to a healthy, functioning mind. Specifically: a place you feel safe (a place where you feel trust, where you feel genuine connection, where you feel wanted, where you feel heard and seen and understood). The entire spectrum of intimacy (emotional, physical, and sexual) spans this need for a place to feel safe and known.

So Kylo meets this girl and a couple of things happen. 1. he realizes he isn’t actually alone. There is someone in the whole of the galaxy who might be his equal. 2. Totally inadvertently, Rey exposes his deepest shame (that he can’t live up to the legacy, that he is hurting himself for nothing) and brings it out into the light.

And, like, all of that would be disrupting enough, but then something even more important happens. See, Snoke built the expectation in Kylo’s mind that if Kylo cut away everyone who loved him, Kylo would be stronger, would be more powerful. Kylo gets the opportunity to cut away his father in the most final way - to kill him - and he takes the opportunity.

As soon as he kills Han - the very second after he ignites his saber - he realizes that Snoke was lying. It didn’t make him more powerful, it just makes things worse.

So while he’s reeling from that realization, his mind instinctively reaches out for connection, for people who might understand. I once read a meta that the Force Skype scenes in TLJ are initiated when Rey feels lonely, which I totally 100% buy into, but I’d suggest the connection happens when both of them are feeling lonely or hurt.

As far as I’m concerned, they bridged their own minds - Snoke took credit because he knew that would be devastating to Ben. Ben and Rey experience emotional intimacy and through their connection, they both start to heal a little from their individual traumas.

I went on a bit of a tangent there but here’s what I’m trying to get to: trauma doesn’t just go away. You don’t just flip a switch, forget about the past, and move on with your life. If you don’t heal, then that trauma and the damage to your brain persists. It takes time and an enduring safe place to heal. So I’m sitting here, trying to imagine what that healing could look like in-universe. And I’m just thinking about the fact that Episode 9 could have been about healing. They gave Rey the gift of healing. The moviemakers had a love story all wrapped up in a bow that could have been a metaphor for the healing power of love. They had all these traumatized characters that could have experienced healing. We, the audience, could have experienced the healing power of catharsis.

And in conclusion, I’m just thinking about Adam Driver performing this incredibly relatable character and TLJ’s Reylo and Luke&Rey plotlines being what they are - and just feeling deep gratitude.

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hollyethecurious · 4 years ago

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CS AU: A Different Kind of Fun (3/?)

Summary: Emma Swan felt like she finally had her life together, or at least well on its way. A little over five months ago, she’d kicked her dead beat, philandering boyfriend to the curb and moved in with great friends who supported and encouraged her to follow her dreams. Dreams that included landing a great role on stage, finally putting that theatre arts degree to good use. Now, she was living the dream; making money as an artist, doing what she loved, and loving life - at least that’s what she tells herself. When Killian Jones, front man of a new local band, saunters into her life, he brings with him a different kind of fun. The night of her 26th birthday is when it all begins.

A/N: Apologies again for the wait! I have so many irons in the fire right now, but I am focusing my efforts on my current posted wips so I get them finished, or on a better posting schedule. So, please bear with me!!

Shout out to @snowbellewells for coming up with Killian’s band’s name. The moment you suggested it, I just knew it was right!

Also, a thousand flails to @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 for the incredible art she made for this fic, posted below. Go flail at her! She does amazing work and deserves all the love!

Rated M for language and eventual smut / Thanks to my betas @kmomof4 and @artistic-writer for giving this the once over for me / Available on ao3 and ff.net / buy me a coffee

Catch up: Chapter One / Chapter Two

Chapter 3

Emma tipped her Uber driver and hurried out of the car, cursing how late she was. Of course tonight would have been the night their producer would keep them past curtain call for a big announcement. The night she was supposed to meet her friends so they could all watch The Dashing Rapscallions’, Killian’s band, perform at The Poison Apple. At this rate, she’d be lucky to catch the last few songs.

In the days since meeting Killian Jones, he’d become the main topic of conversation amongst her friends. Well, him and his band. Ruby had been relentless in her demand for every last juicy detail of their walk back to her house that night, which had spurred a myriad of questions from her housemates, friends, and, unfortunately, her brother, David. Curiosities piqued, they’d all insisted on coming to see his set, so she wasn’t at all surprised to find them all huddled around a few cafe tables halfway between the stage and the bar. She was also not at all surprised to see the throng of women pressed against the front of the stage ogling the sinfully attractive frontman strumming his guitar as he crooned into the microphone perched atop its stand.

Outfitted in a thin, black t-shirt that stretched wonderfully across the hard planes of his chest and tucked into an obscenely tight pair of black leather pants that laced up the front, Killian’s guyliner was on point, making the blue of his eyes pop even from beneath the fringe that had fallen over his forehead. He was all sex, leather, and smoulder, serving himself up with a tone of seduction that rolled off his tongue in a sultry timbre, the music of which radiated a dizzying desire throughout Emma’s entire body.

Fuck, was he hot.

One of her friends spotted her and flagged her over to the tables as the song came to an end. Impossibly, he must have heard her name being called out over the roar and whistles of the crowd, because she saw him scan the area around their tables, a broad smile pulling at his lips when his eyes found hers.

Setting his guitar on its stand, he wrapped his hands around the microphone and announced their final song for the night.

“It’s a cover you lot might recognize, by a gent named Adam Lambert.” A cheer went up within the crowd that made Killian chuckle. The deep resonance crackling through the speakers sent a ripple of wonder over Emma’s entire body. “It’s titled Runnin’, and it's dedicated to someone with whom I’d like to do the exact opposite.”

Emma flushed at the way his gaze flicked over to her before Will counted them off, and that heat only deepened throughout the performance, sinking into the very core of her being. Though she had heard the song before, this time the lyrics resonated with her in a way they never had before. She could only surmise it was the way he poured out his own soul with every verse, as if they were a confession, a testimony of the pain he himself had walked through.

His hands continued to grip the microphone as he attested,

Now I can't seem to breathe right

'Cause I keep runnin' runnin' runnin' runnin'

Runnin' runnin' runnin' runnin'

Runnin' from my heart

Words Emma could relate to a little too well.

She picked up on the emotional strain in his silky voice when it punctuated,

'Round and around I go

Addicted to the numb livin’ in the cold

The higher, the lower, the down, down, down

Sick of being tired and sick

And ready for another kind of fix

The damage is damning me down, down, down

When the tempo kicked up, the bass drum taking over at the bridge, Emma could feel not only the deafening beat reverberate through her body but the rhythm of something else she connected with in Killian’s eyes as he held her gaze and professed,

Oh, I’m coming alive

Oh, I’ll wake up now and live

Oh, I’m coming alive

A life that’s always been a dream

I’ll wake up now and live

I’ve been standing here my whole life

My heart’s beating faster

I know what I’m after

Emma was breathless by the time the set ended, only vaguely aware of them thanking the crowd and waving as they exited behind stage. She was yanked out of her lust and longing induced stupor by a sharp tug on her arm from Ruby beside her.

“Holy. Shit,” her friend exclaimed with wide eyes. “They were amazing!” Taking in whatever expression was currently residing on Emma’s face, Ruby narrowed her eyes mischievously and a smirk lifted at the corner of her lips. “You might want to see if they have something at the bar to catch all that drool,” she teased.

Emma rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the rest of their group. David and Graham were busy discussing some of their favorite bands, and which songs they themselves would cover if they were even remotely musically inclined. Mary Margaret, Elsa, and Belle were all eager to catch Emma up on the other songs she’d missed, with Ruby interjecting all the visuals she deemed necessary in order to give Emma the full picture; from the way Killian held his guitar and how deftly his fingers moved over the strings, to the way he moved his body, how it rocked and rolled to the rhythm of the beat, his hips speaking some sort of forbidden language Ruby felt it imperative that Emma learn first hand.

By the time Killian and his bandmates made it to their table (having been intercepted a few times by eager fans requesting autographs, selfies, and lord only knows what else), Emma had been fully debriefed on all she had missed.

“Hello, love,” Killian murmured into her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. “I was starting to worry you wouldn’t make it.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. The producers called a cast meeting after curtain.”

“Everything alright?”

“Everything’s great, actually. Apparently some investors are coming to see the show this weekend, and there’s a possibility they might fund a national tour.”

Killian’s face lit up. “That’s brilliant news, Swan! Let me get us some drinks so we can celebrate.”

“I should introduce you to everyone first,” she said, halting his departure by grasping onto his arm. His very toned arm.

“No need,” he replied, “Ruby took care of that before our set. Brought everyone up to the stage as we were setting up.”

“Of course she did,” Emma muttered on an amused breath, only now noticing how easily Robin and Will had managed to enter into the discourse David and Graham were still engaged in… and how Will’s eyes kept slipping over to Belle.

“So, what will it be? Your usual martini, or the rum we both know you’ll steal from me anyway?” Killian asked with a cheeky smirk and lifted brow.

“Why don't you let me go get the drinks?” Emma insisted. “Given the amount of times you were accosted from the stage door to here, I’m not sure you’ll make it back from the bar in one piece. Much less with my beverage.”

Killian laughed at that, and Emma hoped the tiny bit of envy (okay, the giant jealousy monster. Whatever.) she was feeling wasn’t evident in her tone or expression. Fortunately, he relented, and some of Emma’s insecurities at seeing all the women in the bar devour him with their eyes were put to rest with the searing heat of his gaze following after her.

“Rum. Neat. Make it two,” Emma ordered when she finally caught the bartender’s attention.

“Rum? That’s not your usual.”

Emma froze at the sound of the voice coming from behind her. Peering over her shoulder, she uttered his name as though it were a curse. Because it was. “Neal? What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you,” he said, already pressing in too closely. “Isn’t Wonderland your normal haunt? That’s why Graham doesn’t let me in any more, right?”

Two tumblers were set down on the bar in front of her, and Emma wasted no time in handing cash over to the awaiting bartender so she could gather them up and get away from her ex before making a scene. Neal seemed to have other plans, made apparent by the way he refused to move out of her way.

“So, who are you here with?” he asked, jutting his chin towards the second tumbler in her hand.

“None of your business,” she snapped, pushing past him and others congregated around the bar.

When she finally managed to extricate herself from the crowd, she headed towards the cluster of cafe tables, her eyes decidedly fixed on Killian Jones, but the uncomfortable look on his face gave her pause until she heard Neal exclaim, “Killian fucking Jones?!”

Emma glanced between the two men who were now aware of the other’s presence. Killian stood with a slight slump to his shoulders, a penitent look upon his face as Neal’s eyes shot daggers at him.

“So, I take it you two know each other,” Emma quipped as she handed a glass of rum to Killian with a curious and somewhat amused smirk.

Killian eyes softened when he shifted his gaze to hers, accepting the proffered glass with a soft, “Thank you, love.”

“Don’t call her that,” Neal spat through clenched teeth.

Killian responded with a resigned sigh as he dropped his head with an air of contrition. Clearly there was some bad blood between these two, but Emma could see the remorse that Killian felt over whatever their past issues were. Issues that, as far as she was concerned, were between Neal and Killian.

Emma had her own issues with Neal.

“Excuse me?” she countered, taking a step closer and getting in Neal’s face. “I think it’s up to me to decide how a man can or can not address me. Not you.” Crossing her arms, she used her position to block Killian from Neal’s view. This wasn’t about Killian.

“Emma you don’t understand, you can’t trust that guy. He --” Neal began patronizingly. It wasn’t a plea, or a warning, but the beginning of a command. One Neal had no right in making.

“Oh, ho. Wow!” Emma exclaimed. “Trust? Really? That is rich coming from you.” Moments ago she had wished to not make a scene. Now? Well, she was used to the attention of a crowd, and they were about to get a show.

“Tell me, Neal. How is Tamara? Has the morning sickness passed, yet? Have you found out the sex of your baby, yet?” Now it was Emma’s tone dripping with hostility as she advanced toward him, backing him up with each accusatory question.

“Go away Neal, you’re going to kill my buzz.” She turned her back on him once again to join her friends, but Neal wouldn’t go away. Just as she was about to reach her spot at the table, Neal grasped her elbow and turned her back to face him. A move that put every man gathered around their tables on high alert, ready to intervene. Emma held her hand up to stop them. She could, would, handle this.

“Emma, I’m not leaving you while he’s here,” Neal declared as he nudged his head in Killian’s direction. “Killian is--”

Emma had had enough. Wrenching her arm out of Neal’s grasp, she put up her hand once more to stay whatever Neal was going to say.

“Neal. Whatever happened between you and Killian,” she began, gesturing between the two men, “is between you and Killian. I don’t care.” That last remark was addressed more to Killian, thrown his way with an earnest glance before she faced Neal again to continue on with a fair amount of scornful sass. “Although, the fact that he apparently did something to piss you off this badly, kinda makes me want to kiss him. Again.”

Neal’s face, which was already red with fury, was starting to turn a bit purple. Emma watched as he clenched and released his fists at his sides and wondered if maybe she’d gone too far with her last remark. Even if she did get a perverse sense of pleasure knowing that Killian had once done something awful to the man who had done something so awful to her.

“Emma, I’m just trying to look out for you,” Neal said, attempting to calm his aggravation enough to at least seem sincere.

She wasn’t buying it.

“Look around, Neal,” Emma said while waving her hands towards all her friends gathered. “I have plenty of people to look out for me. I don’t need you. I don’t want you. Go home, Neal. Tamara needs you. Your child needs you.” Emma turned her back on Neal one last time, and caught David’s eye as she did.

When Neal tried to approach her again, David cut him off with Graham only a step behind. Neal begrudgingly allowed David to escort him away from the group and (hopefully) to the exit.

Emma took a long sip from her rum glass before looking around at all her friends, and muttered, “Sorry, guys.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Emma,” Mary Margaret insisted.

“Yeah,” Ruby agreed. “Neal’s an asshat. Nothing you can do about that.”

Emma glanced over at Killian who was gripping his glass of untouched rum tightly. A sense of shame and embarrassment radiated off his demeanor, prompting her to cover one of his hands with her own. The action seemed to startle him, jerking his head up to meet her gaze with a look of apprehension in his eyes.

“You wanna get out of here?” she asked him, which caused a flicker of surprise to pass through his eyes and tighten between his brow.

“Aye, love.” A soft smile lifted at the corners of his mouth, but didn’t quite reach his forget-me-not gaze. “I’d like that very much.” Letting go of his drink, he allowed her to thread their fingers together before inquiring of Robin, “Can you and Will manage the equipment without me?”

“Go,” Robin waved off. “We’ll likely store it in the back since we have that meeting here this weekend.”

Killian nodded, and they both said their good-byes to everyone before slipping out the backdoor (in case Neal was camped out in front), heading to Killian’s truck parked in the employee section of the back parking lot. Emma hoisted herself up onto the bench seat after he opened the door for her, then reached over to unlock his side of the vintage truck. A moment later, they were pulling out onto the main road with no clear destination in mind.

“I’m sorry about Neal,” Emma said after too many long, silent minutes.

“As Mary Margaret said, you don’t have to apologize for him, Swan,” Killian assured her. “If anything, I should be the one apologizing for his behavior at the bar. I’m the reason he--”

“No,” Emma interrupted. “He would have made a scene no matter what. Ruby’s right. He’s an asshat and can’t help himself.”

That managed to coax a smile from him, his eyes briefly flicking over towards her as he draped his arm across the back of the seat. Emma accepted the implied invitation and scooted closer, buckling herself into the middle of the seat so she could lean into his side. Head resting in the space between his chest and shoulder, Emma settled into the quiet of the cab, all the tension and awkwardness that had followed them from the bar dissipating the farther they drove.

When he turned down the road that led to the lookout point just outside of town, Emma quirked a brow and tilted her head back to look up at him. “Lover’s lane, huh?”

His arm shifted as he reached back to scratch behind his ear. “I, uh… thought it would be a good place where we could be alone and talk.”

Emma hummed with feigned suspicion, her eyes still peering up at him with a knowing glint “Talk, huh? I don’t think that’s what people usually do when they come up here. How did you know about this place anyway?”

“I told you, love,” he replied, backing into one of the spots that overlooked the town and putting the truck in park. “I lived here during uni.”

“Right.” Emma unbuckled and followed him out of the cab, but not before he reached behind the seat and produced a blanket which he then used to line the bed of the truck with, giving them a cozy place to recline and enjoy the view. “How many other girls have you brought up here?”

“Believe it or not, you are the first,” he told her, and the sincere look in his eyes told her the answer was an honest one. That, and the way he lifted her hand to his lips, brushing a soft kiss along the backs of her knuckles as he murmured, “And you never forget your first.” An uncharacteristic giggle left Emma, and she sank her teeth down into her bottom lip once more. “What about you?” he inquired with a small note of something that might have been jealousy behind his teasing tone. “You knew right where we were. Been up here with another beau, have you?”

“Actually, um...” He must have sensed what her answer would be with the way his face fell and his shoulders tightened. “Neal and I used to come up here… Before he cheated on me.”

His eyes snapped up to hers with an expression of utter incredulity upon his face. “He what?”

“Yup,” she confirmed, knowing he didn’t actually need her to repeat herself. “Knocked up his piece on the side, so she showed up at our apartment one day to let him know he wasn’t going to get out of taking responsibility. That’s how I found out they’d been sleeping together.”

“What a bloody bastard. I’m so sorry, Swan. You didn’t deserve that.”

“I know. I ended it right then and there. Packed my stuff and left him with the full rent on a place he couldn’t afford on his own, thankful I’d never signed the lease.” Meeting his consoling gaze, she was grateful it didn't hold any of the pity her friends’ sometimes still held to this day. Nudging him with her shoulder she asked, “What about you? How did he screw you over?”

His tell of scratching behind his ear made another appearance as he let out a deep exhale. “I’m afraid it was the other way round between Neal and myself,” he began with a heavy dose of regret in his tone. “We were mates back in college. Both of us on the same sailing team. We were close. Roommates, teammates. He was my best friend.”

Emma’s eyes widened as she shifted her position, crossing her legs beneath her and placing a supportive hand on his thigh while assuring him, “You don’t have to go into it if you don’t want to.”

“No, I… I think it best you know,” he covered her hand with his and held her gaze with a vulnerability she hadn’t been prepared to see from him, “so you have a clear idea of what you’re getting into if this thing between us goes further.”

“If?” she inquired on a soft stirring of hope.

“That’s up to you, Swan,” he said, his eyes drinking in every inch of her face, leaving Emma a tad breathless. “I’ve already decided, whatever may come, I’m in this for the long haul, but only if that’s what you want too.”

Emma couldn’t seem to pull a proper breath into her lungs. She knew he had to have been thinking of the potential tour he and his band had on the horizon. The possibility that they may not have much time to explore whatever this thing was between them had been at the forefront of Emma’s mind over the last several days as well, complicated further by the news she’d received that very evening. Still, knowing their time together was limited, Emma had wondered if he’d be willing to see it through anyway, even to the point of engaging in a long distance romance. Something she hadn’t quite determined whether she would be up for herself, until hearing the confirmation of his feelings on the matter.

Emma wet her lips and glanced up at him with a coy look from beneath her lashes. “Well then, I guess you better tell me what happened, so I know what I’m getting into. What got between you two?”

Killian gave her hand a tender squeeze of gratitude then inhaled deeply before answering, “A woman.”

Emma couldn’t help the laugh that erupted from her lungs. “What, did you steal his girlfriend or something?”

“No.” He broke off their eye contact and ran his tongue over his teeth before uttering, “His mother.”

Well, that wasn’t what Emma had expected to hear; the news effectively sobering her response. “Excuse me?”

“I assume, given you were in a relationship with him, you know Neal’s mother had an affair with another man before she died.”

“Are you saying yo-?”

“I was the other man,” he confirmed with a sorrowful nod. “I didn’t know Milah was Neal’s mother. She and I met in a bar off campus. I did know she was married, but… I didn’t really care.”

“Did you love her?”

“I cared for her,” he admitted. “And she for me, but I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say it was love. I wasn’t expecting her to leave her husband for me or anything. Being with her was a sort of adventure, but once I found out…”

“How did you find out?” She turned her palm up under his, lacing their fingers together in a show of continued support, sensing how difficult it was for him to relive the memories.

“Parent’s Day our Senior year.” After offering a small smile of thanks, he tilted his head back against the rear window of the cab and kept his gaze fixed on the dark sky above. “In the spring the school would host a day inviting the parents to come out and watch the races. When Neal introduced me to his parents, my heart stopped. I broke things off with Milah the next day.”

“How did she take it?”

“Quite well, actually. I told her how Neal had come to suspect that his mother was having an affair, and now that I knew I was the other man, I couldn’t go on knowing the pain it caused him. She said she understood, and my words must have resonated, because a week later she confessed to having an affair and left her husband.”

“Did she say it was you?” Killian shook his head, his focus still trained on the night sky. “How did Neal find out, then?”

“When I broke things off, Milah gave me a charm pendant she always wore. Said she wanted me to have it to remember her by. A few weeks later, Neal found it when he was looking for something in my room. Faced with his direct questioning, I couldn’t lie to him. He moved out of our apartment later that day, and didn’t speak to me unless it was absolutely necessary after that.”

“And she died a couple of months later, right?”

“Aye,” Killian sighed out a sorrowful breath. “Car accident on the way home from our graduation.” Lowering his head, Emma felt his hand clench her own for a fraction of a second as his eyes now stared down at some invisible spot past the bed of the truck. “I think it made him hate me even more.”

“Why?” Emma shifted her position again, attempting to put his attention back on her. When he continued to stare off, trapped in the memory, Emma cupped his face with her free hand and gently coaxed it her way. “It wasn’t your fault.”

The look on Killian’s face told her that he felt otherwise, that he had been harboring this guilt for nearly a decade.

“Before she left the ceremony,” he continued with a strained tone. “She made a point to come over and congratulate me. Our interaction caused a fight between her and Neal’s father, and she left in a bit of a rage.”

“You can’t blame yourself for that, Killian.”

The soft brush of her thumb against the apple of his cheek finally seemed to reach him. He covered her hand with his, keeping it still as he turned his face into it and applying a soft kiss to the inside of her palm.

“I know,” he murmured. “I just wish Neal… I don’t fault him for his anger, and if having someone to blame makes dealing with his mother’s death easier, then who am I to begrudge him that.” He removed his hand from hers to toy with a section of her hair while she continued to drag her thumb over his stubble laden jawline. “The whole bloody mess just… I lost a woman I cared deeply for and one of my best mates in one fell swoop, and I wish there was something I could do to change it.”

Emma had no words of wisdom for him, no advice on how to repair the damage that had been done so many years ago, and if she were being honest, she really didn’t think he needed to bother. It was clear how much he regretted what happened, and she didn’t doubt for a second that he had tried to make it up to Neal long ago. If the man wasn’t willing to let go and forgive, that wasn’t on Killian. It didn’t change the fact that, “You’re a good man, Killian Jones.”

At some point during her inner musings, she’d managed to climb onto his lap, straddling his hips with her forehead pressed against his.

“Thank you, love,” he replied with a slight lift of his brows scrunching against her own, displaying his surprise at her actions. “I take it,” he began, running his tongue over his lower lip and taking her waist in his hands, “that this means my confession has not deterred you from wishing to continue our association?”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Emma teased before leaning in with a kiss to give him her actual response.

A soft moan vibrated against her lips and his hands slid up her back, one burying itself in the back of her hair as it kneaded the muscles of her neck and shoulders. Killian sat forward, allowing her to wrap her arms around his neck, her grip tightening when he rolled them so her back lay against the plush blanket beneath them with him hovering over her. It was as his mouth began exploring the column of her throat that a shiver wracked her body, from both the eager sensation of anticipation as well as the cool night air.

“Are you cold, love?” he questioned into her skin.

She wanted to lie so they could continue on with these enjoyable activities, but she knew once her body started reacting to the cold she would just continue to shiver beneath him. A fact that was confirmed by another shudder, it and her silence effectively answering his inquiry.

“Perhaps it’s time I took you home.”

Emma wrapped her arms around him to stop him from pulling away and said, “I don’t want you to take me home.” When he opened his mouth to protest, she silenced him with another press of her lips then murmured, “I want you to take me back to your place.”

A wide grin stretched across his face and he nuzzled the tip of his nose against hers before purring, “As you wish.”

Chapter Four

#cs ff #cs fic #cs au #captain swan #band au #musician!Killian #performer!Emma #killian jones #emma swan #neal cassidy #a different kind of fun #words by hollye

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brandufo · 3 years ago

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Top 20 movies if you watch you will cry

One of the best ways to go through a tough week is to watch a 'tear-jerking' movie. Viewers may wish to invest in tissue boxes to watch these top 20 movies if you watch, you will cry. Check out the top 20 movies if you watch, you will cry. - The Notebook

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IMDb- 8.1 This movie has a heart wrenching ending. Undoubtedly, It will leave a forever mark in your heart. It will take out your hidden emotions and also it will turn you into an emotional being, a real you. It's a real story of a Hachiko dog born in Japan 1924 who passed away in 1935 waiting for his master. It is indeed one of the best dog films to come across to a viewer. - Lion

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IMDb- 7.8 The quintessential tragedy and romance film everyone should watch at least once in their lifetime. It also keeps you glued, and emotions are going to breakthrough in this one. This movie is breathtaking and also inspiring. The love story has indeed a deeper meaning. It's emotionally so powerful that it really puts you there like you’re just another passenger on the Titanic and puts the viewer into tears during the climax. - Call Me By Your Name

IMDb- 7.9 This movie destroys viewers in the best possible way, with so much emotion, so much power and its beauty in itself is just mesmerising. This is no ordinary movie, this movie will release so many emotions. The acting from Timothee and Armie is perfect, undoubtedly amazing, perfect in chemistry, in every single way. This movie will make you cry, make you angry, make you happy and grateful and also one part which you should anticipate is a speech in the ending. It will change your life in the best way possible and honestly. - Portrait of a Lady on Fire

IMDb- 8.1 Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a phenomenal film that echoes the directors passion undoubtedly with stellar cast, brilliant writing and amazing cinematography. The chemistry between the leads is on another level. Surely, the philosophical plot will hit you right at the core of your heart. No unnecessary frames have been used to disturb the connections between you and also the characters. The film also consists of many heart touching delicate moments. It encompasses countless human emotions. - The Farewell

IMDb- 7.6 A Farewell tells the story of a family who fabricates an imaginary wedding in order to spend time with, and say goodbye to, their beloved matriarch. It is a very sweet and heartwarming true story about family and also love. It is recommended for fans of dark comedy and also of culturally curious. The story is so good because it just speaks through the heart and doesn't try anything else which is good. The script is tight, funny, moving, thought-provoking. This is also the kind of movie that hits your every emotional button. It will undoubtedly resonate with anyone who has a grandparent/parent/any relationship whom they are close to and facing the possibility of losing them. - The Pursuit of Happyness

IMDb- 8 This is a family movie, the family should always have faith in one, moreover, a father and son should always have faith in each other. Surely, It’s an incredible film that depicts the importance of hardwork and success. Will Smith and his son, Jaden bring to life the true story of a father-son family, struggling to step up from the bottom rung of the ladder. - Dead Poets Society

IMDb- 8.1 This movie leaves you with all the magic poetry, the realism of life and how still we can choose to stand up for ourselves despite what life throws at us. The movie will give tears, happiness, sorrow all at once; just like life itself and that's the reason this movie hits hard. This movie is indeed a definite watch for all age groups. It also evoked feeling, from its raw approach to life down to its heartfelt depiction of friendship and longing for freedom. - The Fault in Our Stars

IMDb- 7.7 Firstly, this movie is one of the most heartfelt and heartbreaking films to watch. From ending the story's plot thickened and thickened and never was there a boring moment, it just stayed heavy with action and also kept you hooked throughout the chapters. The chemistry between Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort is brilliant. It teaches you that life is a beautiful thing and we truly need to spend every day as if it's our last. It shows how wonderful love is even when you are in your worst state. - Marriage Story

IMDb- 7.9 The story shows us both sides, neither it makes anyone guilty nor it victimizes anyone. Both Charlie's and Nicole's thinking process and their sufferings are shown. It is an insightful and solicitous look at a marriage breaking up and a family staying together. Also, this film is heart-rending, but it also has a comedic touch. The performances by Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, and also Laura Dern are all pretty much perfect and the emotions displayed by everyone in the cast is great. - Before Sunrise

IMDb- 8.1 A story of two strangers meeting on a train journey and deciding to spend a day together in Vienna. Firstly, they get to know each other as they check out the town and end up falling for each other. The Film indeed focuses on the finer nuances in the scenes, making it subtle and relatable and makes You feel for the characters as time flows. This movie is undoubtedly so clean and beautiful yet so engaging with an emotional ending. The movie is excellent and is also beautifully shot. - Five Feet Apart

IMDb- 7.2 How can we forget to put this movie under the list of top 20 movies if you watch, you will cry? Undoubtedly, the movie Five Feet Apart is really great if it made viewers' tears roll on their cheeks several times. The movie also reminds us not to lose hope but to follow the tiniest dot of light and it will surely radiate inside of our soul. Indeed, It is a beautiful and hopeful story, yet giving young adults an eye-opener about individuals suffering from cystic fibrosis. This movie also presents a very inspirational and emotional experience for the audience. Related Article - Top 20 movies if you watch you will cry Benefits of Using Angular for Web Development 2021 How to Write Business Proposal for Client with Sample Format Top 10 Best Jackie Chan Movies of all time 10 Best Japanese Foods Everyone Should Try Read the full article

#cryingmovies #emotional #tearworthy #top20 #youwillcry

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ryanmeft · 5 years ago

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My Top Performances of 2019, Part 1

That’s pretty self-explanatory, right?

A couple notes:

I cut myself off at 20. Many deserving performances didn’t quite make that arbitrary cut. Some will be in the honorable mentions section in Part 2. The order is irrelevant. In fact, it is deliberately random. There were a few cases where two performances in the same movie were both great and complimentary, and I wanted to honor them both without using up another slot. So I just combined them.

Last but not least, don’t forget that while writers and directors can’t make movies without actors, without writers and directors actors are just grown-ass adults playing pretend in front of a mirror. That’s also true of designers, cinematographers, key grips, assistants---pretty much everyone it takes to make one of these things. If you really love an actor or a performance, look into the people you don’t see who make it possible, and be sure to mentally send them some appreciation, too.

On with the show.

Elisabeth Moss in Her Smell

While Joaquin Phoenix and Adam Sandler earned a lot of (very deserving) praise for playing men destructing in slow-motion, Elisabeth Moss went almost unseen here as a woman actively shredding herself and her life while holding onto the fading dregs of fame. Playing the wonderfully named Becky Something, she’s a briefly popular rock star whose absolute lack of control and addiction to power destroy her. But that’s not new; it’s so common a theme in rock movies that it’s become a cliche. What makes Becky stand out is the unwavering intensity Moss portrays her with. There is never a moment of calm, never a place to let out a breath.

Eddie Murphy in Dolemite is My Name

After a couple of decades of his early trash-talking persona being de-fanged by appearances in family films, Murphy returns to what made him famous: swearing a lot. But his turn as Blaxploitation icon Rudy Ray Moore is bigger than that. Moore is seen here as a truly ambitious and calculating entertainer for whom cussing and talking about explicit sex is merely a character for the benefit of others. Could it be a subtle comment on Murphy himself?

Thomasin McKenzie in Jojo Rabbit

Scarlett Johansson got the Oscar nod, but McKenzie is the beating heart of this Mel Brooksian satire of the Nazi regime, fierce and vulnerable and never too much of one or the other. From the moment she appears, when you think she’s going to be the typical meek Jewish refugee hiding in a wall panel and she instead lets Jojo know exactly who is in control, she commands the film, leaving us enjoying the whole thing but also waiting for her scenes. After her debut in Leave No Trace was mostly ignored, her lack of awards success here continues to be baffling.

Scarlett Johansson & Adam Driver in Marriage Story

Not that ScarJo didn’t deserve a nomination this year. You cannot look away from her in this unflinchingly realistic story of an imploding marriage---but Driver sure makes you want to. In a gender-narrative-switch, Johansson plays the cool, calculating one, remaining above the fray though, of course, privately threatening to drown in it. Driver is the overly emotional one, relying on instinct rather than reason. When they finally break down and have a knock-down drag-out, it’s both shocking that things disintegrated so quickly, and entirely unsurprising to anyone who’s ever attempted a serious relationship.

Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems

Despite the fact he’s proven himself time and again to be a fantastic dramatic actor when he wants to be, few people were unsurprised at the unrelenting intensity of Sandler’s performance here. He’s a jewel shop owner and small-time hustler, addicted to the risk and thrill of gambling more than the reward. But that’s a pretty typical character. What makes Howard Ratner unique is that he lever lets us take a breath---the never ending explosion inside his head is manifested by the constant whirl of activity and terrible judgement on the outside.

Lupita Nyong’o in Us

As the hero of the film, Nyong’o is sympathetic and engaging. Yet the highlight of this double role is her evil twin---a twisted, broken psychopath who tells ghost stories that could scar your mind and slowly-but-relentlessly pursues her prey. It’s a testament to Nyong’o’s talent that whenever both are onscreen together, they seem equally real and equally separate. If you don’t think that sounds hard, imagine having to pretend to fight yourself pretending to fight yourself, and make it look good.

Rebecca Ferguson in Doctor Sleep

Look, I’m just gonna be honest here: I might have a little bit of a crush on Rebecca Ferguson, as much because of her until-now underutilized talent as her looks. She’s simply incredibly compelling to watch even in roles that don’t deserve her level of skill. After seeing her as a centuries-old, soul-devouring, child-murdering, vampire-like creature of the night in the latest Stephen King adaptation, though, I…well, still have a little bit of a crush on her. I probably need a better therapist. You know who doesn’t need more help? Ferguson, who with this role takes back the scene-chewing movie villain from superhero films and delivers one of the best of all time. I haven’t watched Doctor Who in a while; do they need a new Master yet?

Antonio Banderas in Pain & Glory

Banderas was a talented actor right from his early beginnings with director Pedro Almodovar. He came to Hollywood, got a few good roles out of it (I’m still a fan of that first Zorro movie), was relegated to the status of a sex symbol, dropped off most people’s radars for a while, and in Almodovar’s latest finally gets the role of his career. He’s an aging filmmaker who suffers from every chronic pain imaginable, unable or unwilling to write and reflecting on a lifetime full of loves and losses. It is a performance that is difficult to describe in words, sublime and subtle let passionate and romantic.

Juliette Binoche in High Life

I usually hedge my bets on statements of absolute fact, but I feel comfortable saying this is the only movie you will ever see in which Juliette Binoche uses a virtual reality machine and ceiling straps to imagine herself having sex with a person in an animal suit. Describing that scene is irresistible, but it is more than mere shock: it’s an indication of the depths of human drives which Claire Denis is willing to explore, and the bravery of Binoche to trust her to do it. Binoche’s character is slimy---an unethical doctor sentenced to a prison spaceship for her gut-churning experiments---but she’s not a traditional villain. Rather, she’s a creature who exists to fulfill her needs, in a ship full of such animals.

Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe in The Lighthouse

Two men, one a rule-abiding rookie and the other a rambling retired sailor, go mad together in a lighthouse. Pattinson plays the younger man, who seems to believe that good intent and staying on the straight and narrow will forgive him past sins. Dafoe is the wizened, tough-but-fair mentor---or at least so it seems at first. He’s actually as cracked and despotic as they come, leaving us with two unlikable people---one who reveals themselves as such and one who becomes so. It is impossible to separate one of these performances from the other. Witness the scene in which they use stories as verbal weapons. It is as sharp as any actual knife fight could ever be.

That’s all for part one; look for part two tomorrow. Or the next day. Sometime this week.

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renewedarchives · 5 years ago

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Ep. 5 Thrown Away

French Toast and a drive to continue my little relisten

Keiran Woodard, 93 Lancaster Rd. London, 2009

A garbage man, talking about his normal days at work. He talks about how it’s benefits getting paid more than the average “office monkey” when taking into account overtime and bonuses and also how he usually gets off early after running his route.

The conversation of the bin men seeing all of your trash makes me happy I’ve lived in some form of communal living where we all share a dumpster sinced I moved out of my parents.

First oddity is a trash bag filled entirely with behead doll heads. They start calling 93 Lancaster the Dollhouse.

The first most dangerous profession in England is farming!?

the driver, adam, gets real into the weirdness.

next bag was full of paper

Adam hops out excited to open it up.

The bag is specifically filled with one piece of paper, like an incredibly long scroll. the lord’s prayer written over it, parts of it singed with a match or a candle.

the third is the most infamous, what sticks out most clearly in my mind from the episode. teeth, just a whole bag full of teeth. He claims it made a sound like shifting sand, which is not what I’d imagine a bag of teeth to sound like, but I don’t have much experience.

All collections of teeth I’ve dealt with have been kept in glass jars.

93 Lancaster is inhabited by a little old couple that had no idea about these extra bags placed outside their garbage bin.

Oh fuck me, the driver’s name is alan not adam. he’s having a rough time, can’t sleep well, is pissy all the goddamn time. Turns out he’s been spying on lancaster to see who was leaving the strange refuse.

He got fired after falling asleep at the wheel and ramming into a parked car.

Alan texts this guy at 2 in the morning just saying “found him” and nothing else, no reply after that.

So our homeboy Keiran heads to Lancaster rd, and finds a new bag unsurprisingly, this one topped with a nice little green ribbon like a gift. It’s filled with packing peanuts. and a heart.

A heart made of copper and bronze, cold to the touch. Machined into the aorta is Alan’s name. He tossed it into an incinerator.

End Statement

Jon has confirmation of the first three bags and Alan’s odd habits. Martin performed a follow up interview with Keiran, and he’s had a pretty normal time of it since then.

Jon also apparently was dying to have an afternoon with martin out of the institute.

2780 teeth, despite varying states of decay are all the exact same tooth. no correlation to any existing dental records.

Speculation

For the most part this sounds like the work of the stranger.

Doll heads, plastic little creepy human babies, dig nice and deep into that whole uncanny valley fear they love.

A heart carved from metal, the first attempt at the unknowing was built around a large metal set of organs meant to replicate human speech. Making a body part out of metal is par for the course for their lot.

Teeth are more often associated with the flesh, but these teeth are identical copies aside from the decomposition so could also be a slight argument for the stranger. Could have all been pulled from some avatar of the flesh who kept growing them back the instant one left their gob.

But what throws the whole stranger bit off is the second bag, the prayer.

The stranger has pretty much no ties to religion like the meat, the dark, or the desolation do, and the bits of it singed by candles mark this as some thing from the cult of the lightless flame.

So rather than this episode being caused by any one entity, I think it might be the work of Breekon and Hope?

They’ve worked with most of the entities in one way or another, and they may have just been using Lancaster as a place to dispose of surplus creepy stuff or deliberately instilling fear in the garbage men.

I can definitely see them dealing with a man looking too closely into their affairs by making a nice little statue from his still beating heart.

Recommended weather- “ Please Don't Tell My Father That I Used His 1996 Honda Accord To Destroy The Town of Willow Grove” by Pet Symmetry

#tma #tma spoilers #the flesh #the stranger #Breekon and hope #the desolation #Ep. 5 #Thrown away #liveblog #relisten #the magnus archives

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afeef49160 · 4 years ago

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Movies that will inspire Acting students

Needless to say, observing other actors working at the top of their game is both an enjoyable and potentially inspirational activity, one which can provide insights that students may use to inform and improve their own acting skills. As actors, we are trained to observe carefully, to analyze every choice a fellow actor makes with meticulous attention.

But notice, too, that truly great performances inexorably draw you in. Ideally, they make you forget that you are watching a performance at all. When watching a powerhouse actor at work, we aren’t focused on their performance as an assemblage of conscious choices, but feel rather that we are witnessing a genuine person engaging in their private struggles and experiencing their own unique triumphs.

At its best, a superior performance will offer us a view of seemingly private moments, of spontaneous actions and reactions, of raw and unfiltered emotions. As an actor, of course, you know well that such performances are not in fact completely spontaneous and unfiltered. Rather, the accomplished actor makes specific choices and calls upon their past experiences, creating the illusion of true spontaneity. Here, I have assembled ten must-watch Hollywood movies out of the many thousands.

1. Dog Day Afternoon — Al Pacino

While his unforgettable role in 1971’s The Godfather arguably put Al Pacino’s star on the map, this riveting and tense film solidified his reputation as one of the greatest young actors of his generation.

Directed by the legendary Sidney Lumet, Dog Day Afternoon has been called one of the best bank robbery films in history. Pacino – who trained with Lee at the Actors Studio – tackles the challenging role of Sonny, an anti-establishment bank robber trying to save money for his partner’s gender reassignment surgery. In so doing, Pacino successfully delivers one of the most complex and compelling performances of his career.

2. Steel Magnolias — Sally Field

his classic hit from the ‘80s featured a stellar cast of new stars and acting veterans alike, including Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, Shirley MacClaine and Sally Field. Field, who trained with Lee Strasberg himself, received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress for her role as the matriarch at the center of an endearing and steely group of women.

Field has received countless awards for her work on screen – including two Academy Awards, three Primetime Emmys, and two Golden Globes – but her grief-stricken “I Wanna Know Why” speech in Steel Magnolias has been called one of the greatest film monologues of all time.

3. Marriage Story — Scarlett Johansson

This story of a marriage or rather, the dissolution of one feature powerhouse actor Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver as a couple coming undone. At the 2020 Academy Awards, Johansson was recognized for her work in both Marriage Story and JoJo Rabbit.

She made history by becoming the eleventh actor in history to receive two nominations in the same year. If one Method Actor wasn’t enough, Marriage Story also stars Strasberg aluma Laura Dern, who walked away from the 2020 awards season with both the Oscar and the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.

4. Blue Velvet — Laura Dern

If you finished Marriage Story wanting more from Laura Dern, you’re in luck. Dern has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in Hollywood with nearly sixty films under her belt and continues to delight audiences with ongoing projects.

With recent hits including Little Women and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Blue Velvet is largely considered her breakthrough performance. While the film initially received a divided response due to its objectionable and violent content, it ultimately won David Lynch a nomination for Best Director at the Academy Awards. Since, Blue Velvet has become an American cult classic.

5. The Social Network — Armie Hammer

Born the year Blue Velvet premiered, Armie Hammer is an accomplished young actor who holds dozens of works on screen and two Broadway credits to his name. Of his many notable hits, The Social Network is the film that put Hammer on the map. In the film, a biographical drama about the invention of Facebook and subsequent lawsuits, Hammer plays not one but two characters – Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, a pair of identical twins.

According to the Washington Post, “for 10 months of production, [Hammer] enlisted in twin boot camp, working with acting coach Cameron Thor to drill the subtle movements and speech patterns that the Winklevosses would have developed over two decades of genetic equality.” Now that’s dedication!

6. Pulp Fiction — Uma Thurman

Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is yet another cult classic, starring John Travolta and LSTFI alumna Uma Thurman.

Thurman’s performance as Mia Wallace, an aspiring young actress, earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1994 Academy Awards – just one of the film’s 48 nominations from 11 different award shows. Film critics, fans and professionals alike have praised Thurman for her performance. A riveting and complex femma fatale, Mia Wallace is now considered one of the most iconic female film roles of all time.

7. Carrie — Sissy Spacek

Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, Carrie follows a young woman struggling to come to grips with her untested supernatural powers. Now considered one of the greatest horror movies ever made, Carrie shocked audiences and brought Sissy Spacek wide acclaim.

Although she first received attention for her performance in Terrence Malick’s Badlands, Carrie – and its unforgettable bucket of blood – put Spacek on the proverbial map and earned her first nomination for Best Actress at the Academy Awards.

8. A Star Is Born — Lady Gaga

With three successful versions since the original A Star is Born in 1937, many accomplished actresses have tackled this film’s challenging leading role. Joining the ranks of Judy Garland and Barbra Steisand, Lady Gaga stars in the 2018 remake as Ally, a struggling singer who reaches stardom as her famous boyfriend loses his own place in the firmament.

The film made excellent use of Gaga’s powerful vocal abilities and touching vulnerability. Aside from her incredible career as a singer and performer, Lady Gaga studied at LSTFI and has made a name for herself as a successful actress in recent years as well.

9. Taxi Driver — Harvey Keitel

This gritty drama from the mid-‘70s featured a young Robert DeNiro and an even younger Jodie Foster. But it also starred Strasberg alum, Harvey Keitel. Keitel plays a ruthless pimp to Foster’s underage prostitute, and DeNiro’s character, Travis Bickle, ultimately engages in a gun battle with Keitel’s character.

Although his screen time is limited, Keitel has riveted audiences for decades since, in projects ranging from The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) to The Irishman (2019). For more than two decades, Keitel served as co-president of the Actor’s Studio.

10. Some Like It Hot — Marilyn Monroe

Considered one of the greatest comedies of all time, Some Like it Hot film features two men on the run, forced by circumstances to pose as young women in a traveling band. While the men do get their fair share of laughs, it was Marilyn Monroe, as a sweet singer named Sugar, who undoubtedly stole the show.

The men are caught in an intense competition for Sugar’s affection, all the while attempting to maintain their disguises as female band members. The 1959 comedy highlighted Monroe’s legendary charms, showcasing her not only as a “blonde bombshell” but as a skilled and technical comedic actress. The film was both a critical and commercial success – and won Monroe a Golden Globe for Best Actress!

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years ago

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Psycho Analysis: Emperor Palpatine

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

There are villains. There are memes about villains. There are villains who are memes. And then, high above all of them, sitting on a lofty throne all his own, is Emperor Sheev Palpatine, a character so insanely incredible that it’s frankly quite baffling that even George Lucas at his worst still couldn’t make him awful… No, that was good old J.J. Abrams. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Palpatine is pretty much the archetype for the evil emperor in modern fiction, a mysterious evil sorcerer in dark robes who commands the main villain from afar and contains power beyond anything thought possible. But what’s interesting to note is that Palpatine really has three distinct eras to him: the original trilogy, where he was basically an outside context last minute threat who only had a presence in the third act of Return of the Jedi; the prequel trilogy, which is his best showing and where the Sheev we’ve all come to known and love really got to spread his wings and fly; and finally, the sequel era, the worst showing of Palpatine hands down, where he is randomly slapped into a film with no foreshadowing or buildup to pander to nostalgia.

So let’s take a look at our old pal Sheevy and see what makes him one of the greatest villains of all time, and one of the worst.

Motivation/Goals: Palpatine is motivated by one thing, and one thing only:

He spends the entire prequel trilogy building this up, working behind the scenes and manipulating both sides of the Clone Wars to his advantage so he can be given more and more political power. This works out beautifully for him, allowing him to dispose of his pawns like Dooku, take over the senate, seize absolute power, amass an army of clones, and of course execute Order 66. But most importantly, he is able to manipulate the frustrated and hurting Anakin to his side, mostly because the Jedi are a bunch of bumbling, archaic morons who put so much restrictions and belittle him so much that this creepy, predatory man is able to feed into his insecurities and send him tumbling to the Dark Side.

In the original trilogy, Palpatine is pretty content with letting Vader handle the affairs of the Empire, at least until Luke shows up and the Rebels become a substantial threat. Once the time comes, he has Luke and Vader get together and puts them up against each other, thinking the outcome is either that he gets a new apprentice/keeps his old one in check, or corrupts Luke somehow into killing his father and joining him as the new Sith. He didn’t count on Vader turning, but ah well.

The thing is that throughout these six films he remains remarkably consistent in his goals. He wants power, and if he can’t keep that power he’s going to make sure as many people suffer on his way down as possible. He’s almost cartoonishly evil in the best way possible!

And then came the sequels.

His motivations in the sequels are, quite frankly, impossible to discern, because they seem to change every scene. If he’s behind Snoke and the First Order, it’s easy to guess that he probably wanted Rey dead, right? Because that’s sure the vibe Snoke gave in The Last Jedi. But no, after it seeming like he wants her dead for most of The Rise of Skywalker, as soon as she shows up his plan is suddenly for her to kill him so he can transfer into his body. And then he changes that a short time later to “I am going to suck the life out of Rey and Ben so this shitty clone body can be great.” It’s like they’re cramming three or four different Palpatine plots into the twenty-five minutes of screentime Palpatine has in this film, and there is just absolutely no thematic cohesion anywhere. It’s just a mess.

Performance: If there is one thing that is always consistent with Palpatine, it is that Ian McDiarmid is absolutely fantastic as him. This man is able to take the most cliché, generic evil overlord archetype imaginable and transform every single line of dialogue he spouts into a meme, and even when he’s the absolute worst version of this character possible and strapped to a giant Sith dialysis machine on some Sith planet where he makes Snoke clones and verbally berates Adam Driver, he still finds time to be hilariously awesome.

Final Fate: Palpatine seriously underestimated Anakin, and ended up chucked down into the Death Star, where he died. He certainly didn’t have a poorly-explained clone backup of himself anywhere that would rise up decades later to completely override any victories the heroes ever had by ensuring that the entire lineage of the Skywalkers was destroyed and then usurped by his own spawn.

Best Scene: In a scene that justifies the entire existence of the prequels, shows off McDiarmid’s acting chops as he pulls off some actual subtlety as Palpatine, delivers some great background lore, and helps make Revenge of the Sith as awesome as it is… well, have you heard of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?

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Best Quote: Look, I could put just about anything he says in Revenge of the Sith here. I could put just about anything he says here. This man is an absolute meme machine who spits out only the finest quotable soundbites you will ever here. But look, I’m tired of not singling out great lines, so let me give you the one I quote the most. It’s one of his greatest quotes, and yet it is unbelievably simple. Two words and a ridiculously hammy inflection is all this man needs to be a meme:

Final Thoughts & Score: Sheev Palpatine is a man of extremes. Every aspect of him is so large that when he does something, he does it with the full force of his entire character. Revenge of the Sith will eternally be his best showing in the entire franchise, because he just spends the entirety of his screentime being the most insanely impressive scheming, manipulative bastard imaginable while somehow managing to cram in time for a sick spin through the air or a monologue about his former master at the space opera house. He manages to singlehandedly redeem the prequels if only by existing in them, and he helps elevates Revenge of the Sith into being the only one of those films that is generally accepted as being legitimately awesome. And while he is absent for much of the original trilogy, seeing as he wasn’t exactly conceived of right off the bat, he manages to make the most of his appearance in Return of the Jedi by being just as delightfully malevolent as ever, goading Luke and Vader into a duel and shooting lightning from his fingertips.

There are few villains who are just this completely basic and cliché that could ever hope to be great, but thanks to McDiarmid’s portrayal, he has gone on to be one of the single most iconic villains of all time, and one of the most iconic characters of all time. The guy is practically a living meme, from his name to his actions in the prequels, and he has certainly inspired many an evil overlord after him. For a character so seemingly unoriginal, it can be hard to believe he probably deserves an 11/10, but he most definitely does. He’s just become a staple of the franchise, to the point where some people feel it just ain’t Star Wars without him…

...Including, unfortunately, J.J. Abrams and a few other writers. Palpatine managed to be shoehorned into the prequels by being a surprise twist villain for The Rise of Skywalker (and as we’ve all seen from their recent animated movies, out-of-nowhere twist villains are great!), and it is without a doubt the most stupid and embarrassing showing one could possibly imagine for a character of this caliber. His motivations seem to change every time he opens his mouth, a lot of his dialogue is just uninspired, and while he does get a somewhat striking design here it’s hampered by the fact that his entire existence and role are really unexplained in the film and he feels like he was slapped in for the sake of being there.

There’s also the fact that his mere existence and the fact he ends up being responsible for Ben Solo’s death means he completely overrides the entire franchise, comes out on top with his granddaughter usurping the Skywalker name, and succeeds entirely at wiping out the Skywalker lineage. This entire nine film series was just buildup to Palpatine ultimately winning, and just when things couldn’t get worse, Disney decided to take away the one thing that made this Palpatine hilarious – the idea that, with his hideous scarred face, he was able to bang a woman and conceive a child – and completely toss it out the window by saying this Palpatine was actually a clone. Not in the movie, of course, because that would make way too much sense, no; it was confirmed on Twitter.

I think it goes without saying Clone Palpatine gets a 1/10. And this is through no fault of McDiarmid; he’s still genuinely great in the role, even if the role is stupid, his character’s actions are stupid, and just everything about the character’s existence is stupid. He’s certainly not phoning it in at all, and ignoring everything else about the film Clone Palpatine is at least somewhat amusing on his own. There’s also the fact that this Palpatine most definitely has an incredibly striking design and looks really cool, despite the unbelievable lameness of what he actually is:

But how he is utilized within the franchise and what he ultimately accomplishes and represents is too much for me to actually forgive in the context of Psycho Analysis. When the most redemptive thing I can say about Clone Palpatine is that his actor is at least trying and his design is cool despite the awful writing and story relevance, that is not the sign of a great character. That is the sign of a great actor desperately trying to salvage a trainwreck.

But it’s like I said earlier; Palpatine is a man of extremes. If he’s gonna be a great villain, then by god is he going to be one of the greatest villains of all time. And if he’s going to be a crappy villain? Well then he’s gonna sit among the worst ever. I kind of respect that about good ol’ Sheev; he just can’t do anything in half measures. I guess as a Sith he really does deal in absolutes, be it absolutely amazing or absolutely awful.

UPDATE: I stand by all my criticisms of Sheev Clonepatine, but dammit, there’s just too many hilarious memes, and I can’t really hate Ian McDiarmid’s performance. Yes, I’ve come around quick, but I guess it is true: when Palpatine succeeds, he succeeds epically and hilariously, and when he fails, he fails epically and hilariously. His role in the story and the stupidity of him being here at all is a 1/10 for sure, but I think he’s just hilarious enough to edge into the “So bad it’s good” category of 3/10 alongside his bouncing baby boy Snoke.

Just remember: No matter what Disney tries to tell you, Palpatine fucks.

#Psycho Analysis #Emperor Palpatine #Sheev Palpatine #ian mcdiarmid #Star Wars #Revenge of the Sith #The Rise of Skywalker #Return of the Jedi

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arabian-bloodstream · 3 years ago

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I saw ‘Annette.’ I haz thoughts

(Reposting since this just dropped on Prime.) This movie was brilliant. I can't wait to watch again because the brilliance of it didn't really truly hit until the final scene. It was in that final scene when it all came together. Leos Carax didn't waste a single frame, a single line of dialogue, music, etc.

There are MAJOR SPOILERS!!

The performances were brilliant all around. Adam was fantastic. Simon Helberg's stand-out scene with his solo was absolutely stellar, at turns funny and heartbreaking. Marion Cotillard was beautiful and haunting. Devyn McDowell as the (finally) human Annette was wonderful, holding her own against Adam Driver while singing!

* When Ann dies it's a little ambiguous. There *is* a storm. He is drunk. He isn't in full control of his facilities.

* When Baby Annette begins singing, it's less ambiguous, he *is* using her, but it's still a miraculous thing and Simon Helberg's character, the Conductor, is in on it because sharing the miracle of Baby Annette with the world is amazing.

* When Henry finds out that the Conductor could likely be Annette's father and that the knowledge of it could take away his free ride, he murders him. Yeah, no ambiguity there.

Remember when I said that at the top that "Leos Carax didn't waste a single frame, a single line of dialogue, music, etc. " That's where this really comes into play.

The Conductor's solo scenes has information that, again, in retrospect we know that Henry must have known from Ann. Henry knew, Henry absolutely knew...

Aah, so brilliant. So beautiful.

A few random comments...

- Many reviews tended to downplay Marion’s performance and the character of Ann. I disagree. I think that Marion did an amazing job and I think that Ann was essential to the plot in every way. She drove every single thing that happened. And if Marion had not played every note, every beat as beautifully, perfectly as she did, it wouldn't have landed as beautifully, as perfectly as it did. She was the beautiful force that drove Henry to look into the abyss... which was his own dark soul. And Marion played the light and dark so beautifully. She was radiant in life, and an avenging angel in death.

- The courthouse scene was the first (but not the last) time I teared up. Henry desperately searching for, singing to the sweet Ann, but in the end, the vengeful Ann found him. So, so well done.

It was also great in that we saw some truth from Henry by admitting that he couldn't tell the truth. In the beginning, he had told the audience that he used comedy to tell the truth because he wouldn't be hated or judged (before, of course, he was). But in the courtroom, he knew that he couldn't do that. Because in telling the truth in the courtroom he had no puppets, he had no one he could use or manipulate. There was no "clap, clap, clap," no "laugh, laugh, laugh." Telling the truth in the courtroom, he WOULD be judged and he knew that.

So that was so powerful and once he admitted that truth, it was as if the guilt swamped him because he went searching for the sweet Ann to release him from his guilt, but he couldn't reach her, of course. There was a barrier between them. She was so, so far away. Ah, but then the vengeful Ann showed up, and she was closer, nearer and no barrier stood between her and Henry as she vowed to haunt him in prison for the rest of his life. The guilt had taken hold.

- The mark on Henry's face -- which one critic was like 'wtf? is up with that? random! -- was there all along, but really became noticeable after Henry killed Ann and kept growing. Was it an outward reflection of Henry's guilt over what he had done to Ann? No. Henry always had that mark on his face. We just didn't know that until the final scene because prior to that it, we'd only seen Henry's version of himself, not the REAL Henry. Think of it, Annette was barely older than we'd last seen her before he was jailed when she went to see him in prison, but Henry looked SO different. Why? Because that was the REAL Henry McHenry. Not the stylized, romantic version of himself that we'd seen through his eyes. After he killed Ann we started to see him look more and more like the real Henry. In prison, that was the real Henry.

Again, this film was just absolutely magnificent. I simply can't wait to watch it again. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

#annette #adam driver #marion cotillard #simon helberg #sparks #leos carax #film review

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lavila27 · 5 years ago

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What I Love About Marriage Story- by Lauren Avila

It’s simple. The story is straightforward and yet deeply complex in it’s high and lows. It’s not hiding behind special effects, elaborate costumes or outlandish sets. It boils down to character, emotion, character, emotion, emotion, emotion and no one would ask for more beyond that.

In a world of superhero franchises, book adaptations and remakes, it’s strikingly unique. I honestly can’t think of any other film quite like it. Certainly not one that makes a single divorce the main character and central plotline. Can you?

It tells one story yet explores the stories of any divorce you’ve probably heard about.

It doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is. We have been conditioned to think that there’s going to be a twist or cliffhanger or open end or perhaps maybe even a surprise happy ending. Despite the fact that none of these happen, you find yourself satisfied and accepting of the end. Except of course that you don’t want it to end because it’s just so good.

It is unapologetically truthful. When you think that a sensitive subject at its most vulnerable state must be handled with gentle hands, Marriage Story dives deeper into raw emotion and natural degression of a person in the meatgrinder of a marital split.

It stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in one of, if not the best performances of their careers. Both actors have specific tendencies in their respective repertoires yet I didn’t see either one of them in this film. Rather I saw Charlie and Nicole. That is all.

It is written and directed by Noah Baumbach who I now dream of collaborating with. Upon seeing this movie three times* in 72 hours, I still find myself thinking about it all day and wanting to see it again. I pick up new things each time but also still appreciate the brilliance I saw the first time. Only a film genius can create this in a script.

It has a heartbreaking score by Randy Newman. Yes, the same Randy Newman who has been breaking my heart since Toy Story, 20+ years ago.

It features an amazing child actor named Azhy Robertson.

Even the scenes and scenarios you’re supposed to hate like the lawyers, the fighting, the awkward evaluator… all fascinating. Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta anyone?!

It is theatrical in film form. The very basis of jostling between New York and Los Angeles was like a metaphor of Broadway and Hollywood fusing together.

It features songs from Company including one of my favorite show tunes of all time: Being Alive. Adam Driver sings a confident but poignant rendition. This movie uses the song perfectly by using it backwards. Bobby realizes what he wants in Company. Charlie realizes what he lost in Marriage Story. Heartbreaking.

It escalates but the pacing never changes. Unlike movies where it only gets good at the end or it falls short as it moves on, Marriage Story is engaging in every scene and you even find yourself holding your breath as Charlie and Nicole’s divorce turns from casual to tense.

The Easter egg: banner advertisements in LA for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “Love Never Dies.” Kismet.

The Star Wars reference.

It has a similar feel to La, La Land (another incredible film) but it’s completely opposite. Instead of watching the couple fall in love, you watch them fall out. The music also helps tell the story in both movies.

I could feel everything. It was so realistic I couldn’t breathe sometimes. I found myself understanding the characters so viscerally. The frustration, anger, sadness, betrayal, confusion, love and lives of these people.

The long scenes.

The details.

The intimacy of the story.

They say everything you’re not supposed to and you’re still rooting for them. They’re not bad people. An exploration into one of the worst times in someone’s life and you’re bound to see a person to crack.

The love that reverberates. It dust the scenes like a tangible reminder that these two were once each other’s whole worlds. I’m obsessed with the beginning and end.

The lists. The constant themes that you notice because its been pointed out to you. You feel like you know this couple. You know Charlie. You know Nicole. And you know them through each other’s eyes.

The hate that spills out like an over-packed suitcase of resentment.

It’s imperfect. The little mistakes and minor oversights only make me love it more because it makes it more real.

It has a thread of comedy. The relationship that Charlie has with Nicole’s family brings a bit of levity without being annoying or unnecessary.

Regardless of what type of genre, I love when a movie has a complete circle. Henry is their middle ground. They find balance and their love for him brings about that full circle. By the end, Charlie takes a residency at UCLA so he could be in LA. He never made the move for Nicole during their marriage but did it for Henry. They spent Halloween together and even shared “Nicole’s” night which is the opposite of where they once were.

The foreshadowing. Nicole confided in Nora that she felt that she wasn’t alive but only contributed to Charlie’s aliveness. An aliveness he feels he lost at the end of their marriage as he laments in Being Alive.

I LOVE that Henry reads Nicole’s list of what she loves about Charlie. He struggled with reading throughout the whole movie. It took T-ime but he got it and they read it together. Charlie and Henry reading that list is probably my favorite part of the movie. I cry each time.

Everything.

*At time of publishing, I have now seen Marriage Story four times and have found that I’m memorizing it like a soundtrack. If you haven’t seen it yet, drop everything and go watch it. It’s worth subscribing to Netflix just for this movie.

youtube

#marriage story #adam driver #scarlett johansson #noah baumbach #netflix #laura dern #alan alda #ray liotta #los angeles #new york #company #being alive

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xoruffitup · 5 years ago

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AITAF’s 11th Annual Broadway Show

It’s surreal that this was my second year attending and I’m sitting here typing up a second recap! It hardly feels like a whole year has passed since last November, as the time has been so full of Adam and SW-related joy. After last night’s show, Sarah (the same friend I adventured to TIFF with) and I reflected that following/loving Adam has brought us so many extraordinary experiences we would never have sought out otherwise. Attending military-oriented events and creating stronger ties with the veterans and service members in each of our lives, traveling to Toronto (and shortly to London!!) together, and cultivating the most unlikely and incredible friendships. It’s been an eye-opening, whirlwind year of new and wonderful experiences - chief among which was sitting in a theatre largely full of military personnel and having each of my preconceived stereotypes challenged.

The group I gathered with outside the American Airlines theatre was even bigger than last year. We had my friends Sarah and MP ( @reylonly), my dad who usually abhors the “veteran” label and yet - to his own surprise - confessed to being deeply moved by last year’s show, a retired Army nurse and her husband, a cousin I hadn’t seen in ages who’s currently enlisted, and her two friends from the army. Our sizable group was first to queue up outside the theatre, with more than plenty to talk and catch up about while we waited.

(Fun/Amusing Fact: That enlisted cousin I hadn’t seen in ages? We reconnected ahead of this show when she messaged me on Facebook: “Hi! I heard from X family member that you like Adam Driver. I’ve attended AITAF performances before and I’ll be going to their NYC event, if you’d like to come as one of my guests?” Yes, that is my rep spreading through the family and you bet I’m proud. :’’))

We thought we had an idea what to expect from last year, but this year’s show surprised and took us off guard in almost every way.

After entering the theatre and passing right by Joanne (looking hella fierce in a fitted tweed suit), we headed up to the reception. Here came a surprise I was personally AMPED about!! While MP, Sarah, and I waited to go in the photo booth they had, we saw Scott Burns and Daniel Jones come into the reception area! I explained a bit in my TIFF recap post about how The Report (aside from being just a stellar film) really engaged me personally because not only do I have a human rights-related job, but the Executive Director of my non-profit is also renowned for being one of the first high-ranking whistleblowers against the CIA torture program when he previously worked in the Department of Defense. His name is Alberto Mora and after I heard Scott Burns namecheck him in several interviews, I talked to Alberto about his involvement in the film. From that conversation with Alberto came the idea to arrange a staff screening of the film, given its relevance to our nonprofit’s mission. In addition to seeing the film at TIFF, I also had the chance through work to attend the DC premiere of the film last week, attended by human rights advocates, House Representatives, and Senators (most depicted in the film - including Diane Feinstein herself!) who were all clearly riveted by the film and the discussion with Scott Burns and Dan Jones that followed. SO (sorry for this digression but I’M STILL SO EXCITED BY THIS) when I saw Dan Jones mingling, I practically started vibrating with everything I wanted to say to him.

After psyching myself up and angsting with MP for a minute (“But it’s gotta be the right time - I don’t want to interrupt him!”) I went over and introduced myself to Dan Jones, saying I’d been at the DC premiere of the film last week and how powerful the evening had been. Long story short - omg what a chill and approachable guy to talk to! I explained quickly that I work with Alberto and I’ve been looking into arranging a screening, to which Dan said he’d “absolutely love” to help with! He told me how to contact him and holy shiiiit now this definitely has to happen!!

So after that reception highlight, we ate a little more cheese and fancy crackers before heading downstairs to the theater and our seats. And there we needed to hold onto our hats and strain to remain chill, because like some Adam-related VIP guest list, we brushed shoulders with Noah Baumbach and Laura Dern as we entered the theater! WHATTT!! It certainly made my heart glad to see so many of these high-profile collaborators of Adam’s supporting him and taking an interest in his non-profit work. And just to see that they’re all friends even off set!

This year’s choice of play, A Raisin In The Sun, immediately set a much different tone than last year’s True West. While last year included a cast of only 4, with Adam and Michael Shannon lifting the majority of the performance as the brothers-at-odds Lee and Austin; this year included a cast of 9 almost exclusively African American actors, who would share the stage in a rotating balance. But before anything else... the show began with AITAF’s Director giving a rundown of their recent and upcoming programming, before she introduced Adam to speak. Annnnd out onto the stage he strode in a black suit and tie (pushing the boundaries of fashion for real) looking so striking and handsome my brain and heart jumped into an overdrive race with each other alsdfjslfjalsdfj :’)))) (Yes, the first moment when I see him in person still makes my heart fly up into my throat.) Most of the audience tried to leap to their feet to give him a standing ovation, before Adam quickly made some slightly panicked abortive hand gestures and everyone sat back down. We were seated so close to the stage that that proximity was really the best kind of intense <3333

First of all, I want to assure everyone that our bb does look like he’s gained some weight back. I think his face looked a bit more filled out than at TIFF (and boy did he fill out that suit just right). Adam recognized all of the active service people and veterans in the audience, thanked the actors and AITAF staff for making the evening possible, and gave his background speech on AITAF’s purpose, journey, and mission. He also spoke a bit about the play that was selected this year, quickly adding “I’ll let the play speak for itself rather than butchering it with my interpretation.” Everyone laughed and my heart was only barely beating under the adoration because at the same time I was getting such a good look at just how big he is, being so close... Not only the height, but the shoulders in the suit and the giant hands that fly around when he’s talking, then he stuffed his hands into his pockets for part of his speech and that just made him look taller and more attractive and alsdkfjalskdjf sir you should really take my health into consideration a little bit!!! ;___;

Fangirl feels meltdowns aside, there were a lot of other beautiful things happening on that stage. It was stirring to listen to Adam introduce the cast (and pronounce all of their names correctly, thank you) with all the deference this play deserves and a cast to do it full justice. In a setting where the audience was largely comprised of a military demographic that is often considered to embody more conservative values, it was poignant to see Adam using his platform in AITAF to push the narratives further and confront the audience directly - not with what separates people, but to draw out the humanity that makes us all so very alike. That is, after all, AITAF’s guiding mission.

Skipping ahead for a quick moment - one of the actors in the talk-back after the performance brought up how difficult it had been to fund this play when it was first produced in 1959 because investors feared it was “too black” and wouldn’t resonate with audiences. Last night was the most blatant demonstration of how close-minded such fears were, as the almost three-hour long reading kept the audience entirely enthralled, caught up in the humor and the heartbreak and the enduring human spirit that keeps the Younger family’s pride and love for each other in tact; then followed by audience members standing up to share deeply personal and candid accounts of how they saw their own struggles with searching for identity and purpose between military-civilian spheres, and their own experiences of trauma reflected in these complex, lively characters.

As much as I so enjoyed internally flipped my shit completely getting to hear Adam speak in person at the beginning, it made me more proud than ever to love him as I do when I watched him step back and pass the stage and spotlight to an insanely talented cast of color. AITAF is a force and space that aims for all voices to be heard, and Adam appeared only just enough to underscore and enable that last night.

I hope I’ve already made the point that the cast were simply phenomenal. This year’s performance felt completely different than last year’s in terms of the energy and mood. Last year, Adam and Michael Shannon filled two hours with simmering frustration and aggression that grows increasingly outrageous until it culminates in violence. Adam and Michael moved freely around the stage a lot. I’ll never forget Adam doing handstands, collapsing to his knees right at the front of the stage and his lush long hair falling everywhere (UGH <3), Adam yelling about toast and stealing TVs, barking like a coyote, and finally choking Michael in the final scene. This year, the 9-person-strong cast barely moved from behind their script stands, and yet the emotional impact they delivered was simply stunning. The immediacy of this reading-style performance is just incomparable. I do see a lot of theatre and really enjoy the medium, but watching actors like last night’s cast put on a performance that’s completely uninhibited - completely instinctive and raw - was simply unforgettable. It cuts straight to the emotional core and deepest layer of meaning within the material and the characters. There is nothing between the audience and the existence of these characters’ lives, and the actors lost themselves in the roles completely. It was simply breathtaking to watch, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to witness it. Falling in to the Adam bandwagon truly enriched my life in ways I could never have expected

While on the topic of things I couldn’t have expected: Chief among them would be (to be painfully honest) voluntarily attending an event geared for military audiences - and even less enjoying and feeling moved by every second of it. I should probably clarify that although my Dad is a National Guard vet, he rarely speaks about the experience because he was drafted straight out of high school. The memories aren’t easy for him when he knows how close he could have been to being sent to Vietnam; alongside (he admitted to me for the first time following last year’s AITAF show) some amount of guilt towards the friends who were sent and lost their lives. My Dad has never embraced the veteran identity - he felt neither a right nor an affinity to it - and a military settings isn’t one I ever pictured myself feeling comfortable in. And yet, a single AITAF performance was enough to achieve their goal in my heart of building bridges and highlighting commonalities between military and civilian spheres. The military identify is multifaceted, and attending last year’s performance was enough for my Dad to unlock some new acceptance or understanding of that aspect of his own identity. It seemed to let him think of that period in his life in ways beyond antipathy or guilt. It was at least enough for him to open up and speak more candidly to me about his experience than ever before.

This year’s Q&A was moving, deeply personal, and at times painful. And yet there was truly no better showcase for how a shared experience of theatre can serve to knock down all barriers that might have existed between people when they entered that theatre only hours before.

Highlights:

A man who recently ended his service spoke about how much he connected to the character of Walter Lee in the play. Like Walter, he too feels restless and unfulfilled in his (civilian) job, always feeling like he should be striking out for something more meaningful, something bigger, and never feeling right in his current place. For the audience member, this resonated with his own struggle to find meaning in his civilian life as he navigates the transition of leaving the military. This moved the actor who played Walter Lee (Colman Domingo, who had been TERRIFIC - I mean full-on crying several times throughout the reading) to speak about the personal inspirations and experiences he brought to embodying the character for this setting. Namely, trying to support his veteran older brother’s struggle with drug addiction. As Colman spoke candidly about how the experience with his brother had seeped into his performance, at least two other cast members dabbed tears from their eyes.

The most emotionally difficult and yet moving moment shared throughout the whole theater. A man in the balcony asked for advice on finishing a play that he began writing as a means of trying to process and work through unresolved trauma he experienced in combat zones while deployed. He explained with something of a despairing tremble in his voice that he’s reached a point where he feels emotionally blocked - where confronting the memories of comrades dying in his arms simply freezes him and he can’t seem to move any further. The theater was silent as he had to pause speaking for a moment, audibly overcome for a moment in the effort of speaking and sharing this aloud. Since the speaker was up in the balcony too far back for me to see, I was watching the cast and AITAF team on stage. Being so close, I thought I saw something visibly pass over Adam’s face. Later that evening, the cousin I just reconnected with at this event was the one to bring it up unprompted when she asked, “Did you see his eyes when the man was talking about his struggle to write?” So yes, it’s confirmed, I wasn’t imagining that Adam visibly choked up for a moment listening to this audience member. After the commenter was able to finish speaking, a few cast members responded. Adam, after being silent for most of the Q&A, then held his hand out for a mic and spoke up, telling the audience member something like, “In a way, you’re already doing it. You’re already writing. You’re already processing. I don’t think anyone knows what they’re setting out to write or how it will take shape until they do. But you’re already doing the hardest part.” Then, in a touching moment of connection, another audience member spoke up about a veteran writing group he’s involved with whose members seek to do exactly the same thing. The safe space the questioner was so dearly seeking did, in fact, already exist, and the people were there in that theatre to help guide him towards it.

I didn’t think anything could have equaled my experience at AITAF’s 10th Anniversary show last year - and yet, last night was every bit as powerful of a performance, followed by a Q&A discussion in which audience members bared revelatory vulnerabilities and saw their own struggles through the eyes of others. My group went to a late dinner afterwards, where we continued discussing the performance, the dialogues thereafter, AITAF’s work in general, and (my favorite) gendered attitudes and embedded patriarchal norms within military settings and how AITAF challenges these norms even while being forced to work within them.

It was an evening of connections of all types - between people, experiences, and insights. I can’t laud AITAF enough for enabling such valuable and productive exchange, and I hope to experience much more of their work in the future.

(And if performed with a showcase or even a side of Adam, that would be even better! <3)

Thanks so much for reading! : ))

#Adam Driver #AITAF #Arts In The Armed Forces #Broadway #driverdaily

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