#pseudo film

[scrapbuuk]

Muzium Sultan Johor, Johor - Feb 2009.

[bloomeng]

I think that if you’re going to leave a fic open ended (esp if it’s long) you can mark it complete but it is your civic duty to label it open ended in the tags… or literally anywhere, in the summary, in the notes, idc about spoiling your story this is fanfic spoiling is the name of the game but fr fanfic etiquette dictates you should warn for that

— an opinion from a scorned open ended fic reader

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

"Let he, who is without cringe, throw the first stone."

-Olson, D. [Folding Ideas]. (2024, June 19). I Don't Know James Rolfe.

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Chronicle (2012, Josh Trank)

31/07/2024

[thegirlwholied]

fellow period-piece swooners, I have a movie rec for you and I am downright flexing my hand about it. and I am sorry, so sorry, that you cannot watch it right now- because I attended the world premiere at TIFF last night and apparently it's still seeking distribution which means unfortunately there are no gifs yet for me to reblog - but this is your notice to keep a weather eye:

the movie is the Widow Clicquot. the plot is champagne!

...not the celebratory spritz and spray of it all, but the dedication and innovation and passion and knowing-your-taste-and-insisting-on-it of getting bubbles to be just the right size and fuck Napoleon's embargos actually...

also, the people expressing opinions about Napoleon are a British cast pretending to be French - which I guess appeals to the piece of my soul that is Les Mis.

it's beautifully filmed in a way I specifically associate with Pride & Prejudice 2005... which makes sense given the director, Thomas Napper, directed the second camera unit on P&P 2005 & Atonement & Anna Karenina & etc. Joe Wright, who directed those, is a producer here (and was on stage last night & I had no idea who he was whoops).

there's a scene of exploding champagne bottles that may haunt me forever the way the floating cotton in North & South 2004 does. that & the vines.

to quote Taylor Swift, "it's giving cinematography."

the Widow Clicquot herself is played by Haley Bennett (who has been in many things I haven't seen...yes I had to imdb Haley while sitting in the row right behind her but) who I have seen before in Music & Lyrics! As Cora Corman! "Way Back Into Love"! & "Buddha's Delight"- I believe in karma (la, la, la)

anyway she's great in this - the Q&A host after called her performance "transcendant", not wrong - she had a SAG-AFTRA waiver to be there, and thankfully because this was very apparently a passion project throw-everything-you-are-into-it role for her. And her post-movie quotes speaking both about the character's passion and her own- "do something that makes you feel like a goddess!"; "do what you love and let it kill you"- made me a fan.

the Widow Clicquot's dead husband? Tom Sturridge, The Sandman himself and playing just as much a dream as Dream (note: I do not promise "dreamy" I promise "dream" which can also have adjectives like "wild" and "fever" applied). You need a good voice when leaning on some voiceover from letters/memory for a character; he sure has it.

but. Sam Riley. aka Mr Darcy from Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, and Maleficent's hot raven (and looks even better in this imho)- his character is Louis Bohne, Veuve Clicquot's wine merchant, and as much as the Widow herself, his character made me go, "I need to read the book" to learn how much was history v fiction there.

the character dynamic was: damn, of course you're cool with your husband's libertine BFF/possibly-lover, you're secure and he's such fun company.... your husband's tragically gone but his friend helps you out & appreciates your true love of the vineyard without overstepping... well. get yourself a friend you can both giggle with over how hot the new foreman is (Leo Suter filling a historical-eye-candy role) ... AND hook up with yourself. you go girl, & bless your hot bisexual heart fictionalized Louis Bohne.

(hottest kiss in cinema off the top of my head is always the Timothy Olyphant & Jennifer Garner first kiss in Catch & Release. But some scenes here flirt with that level, & it was the Widow/Louis scenes for me).

the sound alone made this one worth seeing in theaters; sounds were so well used (maybe when a movie is so much about taste, & you can't convey taste through a screen, you double down on the senses you can) and it was scored by Bryce Dessner from The National (whose brother has been collaborating on Taylor Swift's recent best tunes)-

the Widow's name is Barbe-Nicole and not to make a Champagne Barbie reference but this hit in the spot Barbie also reached for, in a subtle way, with the effortlessly close relationship she has with her maid (Lizzie from Peaky Blinders! thanks imdb, knew I knew that face) and the woman in a man's world of it all - obviously one who created a successful dynasty of champagne and how did I never know how instrumental women have been in creating champagne as we know it, about to jump down a historical rabbit hole here-

+ also. grief. "you don't understand. he wasn't just someone's first love". an early line + the one that stuck with me.

anyway. not to say I think it's a perfect movie (there were a few "wait I need more information" beats that left me feeling like I *need* and not just want to read the book)... and it didn't make me think "this better be up for an Oscar" (One Life, with Johnny Flynn & Anthony Hopkins which I saw Saturday: made me cry & should be)- though I think it could be for sound!... and I don't know if I'd say it's the movie I enjoyed the most (Flora & Son, out Sept 29) or learned the most from (Paul Simon documentary, all 209 minutes of it, probably takes that of the 4 films I saw)-

But it's the one I'm writing this post about. & I'm going to get the book. It made me want a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne. & to go to the champagne region. & to see gifs of it on my dash, immediately. & I would read fan fic if there was some- it built the characters and its own movie world enough for that, with enough space left to wonder- and when a movie can do that, it thrills me.

anyway Tumblr, or at least the side I always land on. I think you'd like it. I think it's your kind of movie too. and it's filled with a lot of love from people who clearly loved making it. here's to independent productions and the unions fighting for fair deals to make a living doing what they love, here's to feeling like a goddess, here's to gorgeous period pieces and gif makers of scenes to come, here's to the author in the audience who got to see her book on screen- and the movie star who got it made and all of us still working on making our own art into something that can be seen someday. Here's to the passion of creativity in whatever shape it takes, pour the champagne 🍾🥂

[hold-him-down]

🍉

For... anyone who you think has the funniest/best pet peeve lol

answered here and I think it's Link's! :) Excerpt below.

"I don't think either of them get under my skin all that often," he says. "For River, I guess it would be when he refuses help, even from Felix. Watching it from a distance can sometimes get really upsetting, even if it's understandable." He pauses, considering. "For Felix, hmm. Maybe when I come home and he's reprogrammed the remote to all these random documentaries and weird apps that he's found."

River, arms wrapped around his legs on the sofa opposite him, says, "That can't be a pet peeve. It's funny when he does that."

"I'm not saying it's not funny," Lincoln says, only a little defensive, "but when I get home at midnight and try to watch a game and he's got it programmed to bring me to some panda live-stream in Beijing, it takes a few years off my life."

The corner of River's lips twitch, just the smallest amount.

[bbbigforehead]

minerva and roman council portrait doodles ☀️

[nine-frames]

Life Is Cheap... But Toilet Paper Is Expensive, 1989.

Dir. Wayne Wang | Writ. Spencer Nakasako, Amir Mokri & Wayne Wang | DOP Amir Mokri

[mariocki]

Twisted Nerve (1968)

"Martin's dead. He's been bad. N- not Georgie. Bad, bad Martin. And now... I lay me down to sleep, pray the Lord my soul to keep... if I die before I wake... if I die before I... wake..."

[street-corner-felines]

Zero Day Director commentary - With actor Andre Keuck

[schlock-luster-video]

On June 18, 1971, Punishment Park premiered at the Melbourne Film Festival.

Here's some new art inspired by the indie classic!

[scrapbuuk]

Muzium Sultan Johor, Johor - Feb 2009.

Shot with Nikon D70s but editing wise... I was trying to imitate film crossprocess effect.

[micahdotgov]

guys something really scary is happening to me and my google docs

[edwardtulanepdf]

she’s a 10 but she has parasocial relationships with disney characters

[prognostik-a2]

just finished and watched all of andersen’s resident evil films so that you don’t have to

[musclesandhammering]

Allll of this. But also…

A deeper storyline that Greta also clearly laid out was that, in Barbieworld, the gender roles are reversed. The Barbies are the oppressors. The Kens are treated solely as accessories to the Barbies, they’re not really supposed to have any personality of their own outside of trying to please Barbie, and they’re made to compete with each other in order to achieve Barbie’s affection. The Kens represent irl women and the Barbies represent irl men, and that’s a metaphor that seems to have gone over a lot of people’s heads, going by social media comments.

So when the Kens rise up against the Barbies, and yet still end up mostly fighting against each other and at most creating a shallow rebellion that attacks Barbies but doesn’t really help anyone or achieve anything… that’s a very accurate metaphor for irl pseudo-feminism. Yes, it begins out of genuine desperation to escape the oppressive patriarchy, but it soon devolves into women competing with each other and tearing each other down to prove who’s the Most Woke, to women using “I hate men haha” as a religion and verging into misandrist territory, to women buying into the cheap commercialisation of our activism where products and slogans (the horses lol) become our mission instead of real change.

So when Barbie apologises to Ken at the end and Ken says he’s embarrassed, I’ve seen a lot of women saying it’s anti-feminist because Ken should’ve been the one apologising to Barbie, but like…. Do you think women should apologise to men irl for trying to stand up for our personhood- even if it doesn’t always go the right way? Of course Ken didn’t apologise- you shouldn’t generally be expected to apologise to your oppressor. He admitted he’d gone off the rails and he felt bad, and then Barbie acknowledged his pain and said she’d do better going forward (as a good male ally should).

It was a great depiction of feminism for both men and women, and it’s annoying seeing people shitting on it just because they didn’t understand what Greta was doing.

I've seen a lot of people talking about how Barbie talks about how the patriarchy affects women and how well it does that, so I wanna talk about how Barbie talks about how the patriarchy affects men and how well it does that. Because it does that really well tbh.

At the beginning of the movie, it's made very clear that the Kens are constantly competing with each other, and trying to prove their worth, their Ken-ness, to both the Barbies, and more importantly, to the other Kens. In fact, multiple times through the movie it's shown that Ken seems to find the opinions of other Kens as a motivator for him to do things. He tries to show off to Barbie only after he sees the other Kens saying hi to her. He only starts dancing with Barbie when he sees the other Kens dancing with her. He only goes with her to the Real World after another Ken accuses him of cowardice and he decides to prove him wrong. Barbie says "Ken's not cool!" and Ken responds "He is to me."

This shows so damn well what the patriarchy is like for men. Because for the Kens it's not necessarily about Barbie, it's about what other Kens think of you. Being a man you are constantly, incessantly trying so damn hard to prove to the other men around you that you are a man, the manliest man to ever man, the best Ken to ever Ken. Literally doing backflips trying to prove yourself. And this is before patriarchy is even officially introduced to the story, there's no undertone of power yet, this is just what it's like to be a man around other men. It's toxic masculinity.

And when the patriarchy is introduced, that's increased tenfold. At first it looks like they've banded together to take power, but really they're still competing with each other, they're just doing it differently. Rather than competing to see who can get Barbie to fall in love with them, they're competing to see who can be the manliest, have the manliest stuff, wear the manliest clothes, have the manliest house and decorations.

And then they literally go to war. War is considered one of the few places where it's socially accepted for men to be more emotional, form deep and personal bonds with other men, and that's exactly what happens in the movie. They go to war, and there's an entire song where they bond and learn not to fight with each other anymore.

And that I think is the message from the Kens. For men, the way the patriarchy affects them is it forces constant competition and animosity, even around people that are supposed to be your friends. It makes it impossible to express your feelings unless they're with a romantic partner, and all of this turns you into a pent up ball of emotions with nowhere to go.

Which means that the message is: In order to fix the way the patriarchy oppresses men, men need to learn how to form close bonds with people, especially other men. Because like Barbie said to Ken, he needs to discover who he is without her. Men have learned to lean on women as a crutch, using them to figure out how to Be A Person and express emotions in a healthy way, but this can very quickly turn into a woman feeling like she needs too be his mother and teach him how to do these things. And Ken was 100% doing this, or at least he was trying to throughout the movie. Ken was so desperate for Barbie to be in love with him, not necessarily because he loved her, but because he needed a person he could just exist as himself around. Because he couldn't do that with the other Kens, the only person he could be himself around was Barbie.

And what's so great about the end of the movie is that the Kens did eventually figure out how to form close bonds with each other! They went to war, argued and fought, but by the end of the song they were holding hands, kissing each other on the cheek, telling each other they were enough. Even when Ken is up in the dreamhouse, crying and saying that he looks stupid, all the other Kens start shouting back up to him, saying that he looks cool. And Ken responds by giving one of his new friends his coat, which was clearly very important to him.

What the Kens did, that's what men in the real world need to do. They need to form close bonds with other men and stop competing with each other. Hopefully not by going to war the way the Kens did, Barbie isn't a blueprint for solving the patriarchy lol.

I'd be happy to do it through a song though.