#ron hansen

[teeniebeenie]

"Do you know what it is you're most afraid of?"

Whenever Andrew Dominik says that there's a certain scene he can't talk about because "it's like talking about your dead child" it's def this whole aaa scene from the book LNAOOO

[manysthenight]

right: Casey Affleck as Robert Ford for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

left: Robert Ford photographed ca. 1883

-From The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford by Ron Hansen (1983), pg. 238

[deadpresidents]

I have to be honest, I'm a little surprised to see you don't read historical fiction. Every other presidential historian I know (I know a handful through my job) are historical fiction fans.

Also I'm right there with you with not liking science fiction (hate it myself)

Yeah, I don't even read much historical fiction, other than a few exceptions.

I love Ron Hansen's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (BOOK | AUDIO | KINDLE). It's about as good as it gets when it comes to historical fiction being relatively historically accurate. But it's also just beautifully written and feels almost lyrical at times. And the movie is, hands-down, my favorite film of all-time.

I'm also a fan of several of the books from Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series -- particularly Burr: A Novel (BOOK | AUDIO | KINDLE), Lincoln: A Novel (BOOK | AUDIO | KINDLE), and 1876: A Novel (BOOK | AUDIO | KINDLE).

[vulnerasti-cor-meum]

*me halfway through mariette in ecstasy* fuck ‘em up, Mariette!!!!!

[gameofthunder66]

Lisey's Story (2021) miniseries

-(started) watchin' Season 1 (miniseries)- 7/21/2024- on Apple tv

[apple-coring]

shepard reblogging this and tagging that is crazy like dude you ship a teenage oc with a character who is like 25 in canon. you are a pot calling the kettle black. also taking billford this serious is dumb

[manysthenight]

i think about bob's apparent atheism a lot, as an atheist myself. especially considering that ron hansen is not only catholic but became a catholic deacon in 2007, and especially especially considering that there are so many biblical references and parallels in the story. because it's also not so simple as "bob is an atheist, and therefore the bad guy, and jesse's religious, and therefore the good guy," because jesse is also a terrible person who commits terrible atrocities yet still thinks of himself as a godly man who has been "forgiven" by god for his crimes. bob may be a non-believer, but jesse's a hypocrite, and is that really much better? i don't think the book goes so far as to suggest that it is their ungodliness that leads these two men to their early demise, but it definitely verges on being a morality play, an illustration of what not to do.

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford” is a great book. I want to quote it all the time. And Bob Ford rocks. #teamBobFord

[cotscott]

Are we having fun yet?? 🎀

[teeniebeenie]

[manysthenight]

i made a meme to express my thoughts on this matter

[manysthenight]

"Bob followed Jesse wherever he went, hawked him in his city rounds, watched him from a barn stall. He curried the horse next to the horse Jesse curried. He smoked a cigar that matched the cigar Jesse smoked. They rocked in chairs on the front porch and made trips to the Topeka Exchange saloon, where Jesse could spend nearly sixty minutes sipping one glass of beer and still complain about feeling tipsy. Bob would rarely vouchsafe his opinions as they talked. If spoken to, he would fidget and grin; if Jesse palavered with another person, Bob secretaried their dialogue, getting each inflection, reading every gesture and tick, as if he wanted to compose a biography of the outlaw, or as if he were preparing an impersonation."

-The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford by Ron Hansen (1983), pg. 80

[redfurrycat]

🦎🦾🛫🦿Incorrect Quotes/Drabbles Top Gun & Pacific Rim AU - Series🦿🛫🦾🦎

Tom Iceman Kazansky as (the youngest) Marshal of the Miramar Shatterdome, after Viper’s retirement, is currently reviewing some booooooooooring paperwork. He wishes something exciting would happen to give him an excuse to avoid, to strategically postpone the booooooooooring meeting reports about whether or not the Shatterdome should need *insert stupid things*. Just a tiny excitement, that’s all Ice is asking!

Mav: Ice! Ice! Ice! Iceeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[Ice should have known better. Summon the devil, and he will appear!]

Ice: Yes, Maverick. I can hear you perfectly fine. What is it? What’s wrong?

Mav: Nothing’s wrong, Ice. Why do you always assume the worst of things when I come visit you?

Ice: …

Ice: Because there is USUALLY something wrong when you come visit me.

Mav: Aw, Ice. I’m your wingman. Your wing-man! Y.O.U.R.S.!  

Ice, sigh:  So, why have you come bothering me?

Mav: Slider and Herc are in the Kwoon Combat Room. They’re about to fight. Well, Slider is about to have his ass kicked by the Kwoon Master, if you ask me….

Mav, mumbling: Not that he’d mind that much.

Ice: …

Ice: What are the stakes?

Mav, grinning: tons of chocolate-coated peanuts, your favourite!

Ice, ever the snacky-man is already salivating: Coming!

[The current Marshal follows his wingman, booooooooooring reports already forgotten with the promise of an easy win of peanuts. As much as Ice loves his brother Sli, there’s no WAY he can beat the Kwoon Master himself. If you’d ask Ice, Slider must have a bit of a crush on Herc and he's trying to impress the man… Who could blame him?]

_2_

[Pinned post with other stuff, related and unrelated to this AU.]

[Follow this tag 🦎🦾PR/TG🛫🦿 for more!]

[tonreihe]

Ron Hansen, Mariette in Ecstasy

[tomorrowusa]

What DeSantis just doesn’t get.

Politics is about a lot more than policy positions; even many people on our side don’t understand this.

Ron DeSantis thinks that he can just scream “WOKE! WOKE! WOKE!” all the time while signing a lot of hate legislation into law and this will get him the GOP presidential nomination.

Janan Ganesh at The Financial Times (archived) thinks that DeSantis doesn’t quite grasp populism.

Why DeSantis is losing Republicans to Trump

Consider for a moment what Donald Trump gives to his average follower. Membership in a vast nationwide communion of like-minded people. A paternal figure in a confusing world. The frisson of transgression: middle-aged whites don’t often in life get to play the rebel.

Next to all this, what is the marginal benefit of seeing him win an actual election? What, after that, is the marginal benefit of watching his policies come into force? No doubt, Trump fans would rather have these bonus items than not. But he has done them a profound emotional and almost spiritual service before it ever gets to that.

It is not clear that Ron DeSantis understands this about populism. Until he does, he won’t displace Trump as the leader of the movement in the US. The governor of Florida trades on his electability and administrative competence. But if either of these things was paramount for voters in the Republican primaries, the contest would already be over.

[ ... ]

DeSantis is logical, poor man. He thinks modern politics is about doing things. The extent to which it is about belonging — about replacing the group identity that people once got from a church or a trade union — is lost on his rationalist ken. In this one sense, he thinks like a liberal. The left is forever trying to “answer” populist concerns by reshoring industrial jobs or devolving power. It is very sweet, this. And yes, perhaps at the start, populism was about tangible grievances. But once people took sides, around 2016, that group membership started to mean more to them. (As in a long-running war whose original cause is lost on the belligerents.) Trump perceives this more clearly than his rivals.

[ ... ]

So, a strident rightwinger, from a far humbler background than Trump, is framed as though he were the latest scion of the Bush clan.

Basically, this is how rightwing populists size up the contest.

[a34trgv2]

Why It Worked: Pacific Rim

Introduction: Pacific Rim is a 2013 science fiction monster action film directed by acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro. The film stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perrlman, Robert Kazinsky, and Max Martini as Raleigh Becket, Marshall Stacker Pentecost, Mako Mori, Dr. Newton "Newt" Geiszler, Hannibal Chau, Chuck Hansen, and Hercules "Herc" Hansen respectfully. Distributed by Warner Bros. And produced by Legendary Pictures and Double Dare You Productions, the film premired on July 1, 2013, in Mexico City before being released worldwide on July 12 that same year. The film received positive reviews, with 72% of 294 reviews aggregated by Rotten Tomatoes being positive with an average rating of 6.6/10. The film was a modest box office success, grossing $411 million on a budget of $180-200 million. That said, it gained a cult following in the years since it's released and it even spawned a sequel, Pacific Rim: Uprising, in 2018 and an animated series, Pacific Rim: The Black, in 2021. I only recently got around to finally watching this film, and I wholeheartedly agree that this was a brilliantly made action film. For this post, we'll be looking into what made this film such a cult hit that continues to resonate with people to this day.

The Plot: Set in a world where kaiju attacks become as common as natural disasters, the world nations came together to build giant robots (called Jaegers) maned by 2 pilots to comebat these behemoths in epic battles. During one of these battles, Raleigh lost his brother, and the grief and trauma caused him to quit. But when Marshall Pentecost recruits him for one last mission to end the kaiju apocalypse, he must overcome his trauma to help save the world, while along the way help his co-pilot, Mako, overcome her own trauma. The story does a really good job getting us invested in this world with the cold opening of a kaiju attack on the Golden Gate Bridge and the subsequent attacks and fallout. The Jaegers become so successful at beating these monsters that the pilots become celebrities. The world building is handled very well with natural dialogue, genuine responses from the humans, and newsreels of the kaiju battles that unfold. This film also does a good job handling the themes of grief and PTSD and how they never really leave you, but there's always a light of hope. There's also a good amount of comedy thrown in to not make it all doom and gloom such as Newt's frantic nature and Chuck getting his but whooped by Raleigh for insulting Mako. Of course, the true highlight and main selling point of the film are the monster battles, and they more than delivered. The cinematography excellently captures the scale and intensity of these giants duking it out, the visual effects are very well crafted, and the score by Ramin Djawadi amplifies these scenes to a whole new level. The film could've just been robots versus monsters for 2 hours, but I'm happy to say there is, indeed, substance to the style.

Cast and Characters: This was a very well put together and well directed cast of characters. Everyone gives such honesty and urgency in their performance and sell every line of dialogue. Charlie Hunnam did a great job portraying Raleigh as a socially distant pilot who's still brave, smart, and clever. His co-pilot, Mako, is a very smart, cautious, and headstrong woman who has natural chemistry with Raleigh and is played brilliantly by Rinko Kikuchi. Idris Elba's Marshall Pentecost has got to be my favorite performance in the film. He has such a commanding presence and is the one who cares the most about saving the world. The more he appears, the more we sympathize with him as a character, and Idris Elba really captures that humanity really well. Charlie Day provides a good amount of funny comedy with his frantic nature as Newt with Burn Gorman's Herman Gottlieb being such a snarky foil to him. Ron Perrlman was such a delight to see Hannibal Chau, making him so charismatic and fearless. Robert Kazinsky makes for an enjoyable jerk character with Chuck that gets his comeuppance in a very funny way. Max Martini did a really good job portraying the seasoned and resourceful Herc. The cast did such a good job bringing these characters to life and kept me engaged, even in between the giant robot on monster battles.

Where It Falters: As good as the opening was, I thought it was a bit rushed. By that, I'm mean Raleigh's brother, Yancy, was killed almost as soon as he was introduced, which felt a bit too quick, in my opinion. I think showing more scenes with Raleigh and Yancy together would've helped add to the former's character development. If not a few more minutes in the beginning, then maybe in a flashback or 2. I just would like to know what Yancy was like before he inevitably bit the dust.

Conclusion: Pacific Rim certainly lives up to the hype surrounding it. With a very well told story, a great cast of memorable characters, excellent cinematography, incredible visuals, and a superb score, this film more than delivers on what it promised. My only regret was not seeing it sooner. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend giving it a watch. This is especially true for die-hard kaiju and anime fans as this is basically the closest y'all will get to a live action Gundam movie. Thank you so much for reading, and I'll see you soon ;)