#so he calls frank in anyway and tries to act scared but he's Not Selling It

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

So hey what if after the first time Frank went to remove that beetle from Eddie's post office, Frank like, would sneak one or two bugs in there as an excuse to get Eddie to talk to him?

I know it's probably ooc but the thought is so cute!

wait no that's actually adorable! and honestly we can't be sure that it Isn't ooc. it might be entirely possible that Frank would get a beetle (the prettiest one he could find, maybe?), ask it to just fly in and sit there. or just toss it in when Eddie's back is turned. and i mean, it's a perfect way to indirectly prompt interaction without going through the Mortifying Ordeal of initiating

[callededie]

𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦  𝐛𝐨𝐲 .      i  still  don’t  get  it  right  sometimes ,  i  just  don’t  get  it  as  wrong .     /      a  STARSCREECH  playlist     !          now  streaming .

title sequence  :      brothers &  —  the wonder years  (  no closer to heaven )      /      edie will likely never forget that he was the one who was with pendulum when everything went wrong. to a certain extent, he knows it cannot be his fault, but there’s a voice that finds volume on dark nights or lonely mornings that are a bit too quiet. the lyrics ‘ we’re no saviors, if we can’t save our brothers ’ puts the word post deluge into context. he’s more determined than ever to make sure that those around him are safe, and that this new world he’s found doesn’t meet the same fate as the one he was born to.     /     we’re no saviours, if we can’t save our brothers. we’re no saviours, we’re no saviours.  

personal  theme  :      be more kind  —  frank turner  (  be more kind  )      /     while it doesn’t always appear as such due to a calm and patient nature, edie is highly aware of the threats any future might bring, he’s seen a world break and knows how little it takes. his home world was not always at war; he was a hopeful kid with a decent childhood, and then things changed. he wants to help keep earth from the same fate, but the truth is he doesn’t necessarily know how to. that fate was never avoided for his people, so he has no guide or blueprints, he is only trying his best. he thinks perhaps just a little bit of kindness, however, might go a long way.    /     history’s been leaning on me lately, i can feel the future breathing down my neck, and all the thing i thought were true, when i was young, and you were too, turned out to be broken and i don’t know what comes next. in a world that has decided that it’s going to lose its mind, be more kind, my friends, try to be more kind

preparation  [  before  the  battle  ]  :      go get your gun  —  the deer hunter  (  act ii: life and death  )      /     edie is a soldier, and has the mindset of one. he’s good at taking orders and will do what has to be done, and retains faith that it is all for a greater purpose. he feels guilt for those they are unable to save, but truly believes that the exemplar are doing the most good that they can. he’s never truly considered the moral implications of having justice placed in the hands a few  ( albeit a few that are so carefully guided, but not with the true consent of the public ), as all the villains they’ve fought he’s seen as true threats.     /     go get your gun, get your gun, imposing penance one by one, you’ve got a virtue in a vice, it forces fate, you’re taking lives, with all the history to guide, you’ve got passion in those eyes, so aim it straight and true, and to those who’ll die, please try to understand, that for those who die we’ve tried the best we can

realization  [  adjustment  period,  part  i  ]  :      dream boy  —  waterparks  (  fandom  )      /     when the american public loved starscreech, edie felt like he belonged on earth. maybe he struggled with the delicacies of human interaction, but people seemed to care for him anyway. when the exemplar disbanded edie came to realize that the world loved an image that had been constructed for him, and the true version of himself was not one that garnered friends in the way he hoped. people had different expectations of america’s first alien, and those expectations were usually that he was a little more human or a little more alien.     /     build your expectations, saturated and inflated, ‘cause i was born to be your favorite. make me complicated, i’m modern and i’m dated, because i was born to be your favorite. build - a - boy, pick my pieces, overjoyed, never leave your heart destroyed, i’m your boy.

rationalization  [  adjustment  period,  part  ii  ]  :      figuring it out  —  swmrs  (  drive north  )      /     edie still hasn’t completely come to terms with what exemplar is, something to inspire and, more than anything, be a source of palatable nationalism. he wants it so badly to be something, for it’s what he’s hitched his identity to. he spent his time in isolation hoping for a return because it is within the context of exemplar that he understands himself, even if it is “made for mass production.” even if it was because “everybody want[ed] to be somebody” that they cared, at least they did. edie continues to rationalize the team as something great and believes a return is what he needs.    /    we’re just scapegoats all too dumb, body paint and day glow, where do trends go when you’re numb? when everybody wants to be somebody, they all care, and everybody wants to know themselves. we’re too scared, we’re still figuring it out. made for mass production, is it hard when you want more? was i made to function, or create, or just get bored?

promise  made  :      fortress  —  mat kearney  (  crazytalk  )      /     edie was quick to adopt earth, and more specifically america, as his purpose. this song is his promise to his new nation and its people when he arrived. when he arrived in the 70s, he was as hopeful as he was still hurting for the world he had lost, and if he could stop needless war and violence from taking even just one planet, he’ll feel as if he has done something meaningful, what he was unable to do when he was younger. however, america adopted him as much as he did it, and they were what allowed him to become the hero he wanted to be.     /       let me be your fortress, i’ll let you in. hideaway your secrets, i’ll carry them. you’re the one i’ve wanted to defend, if you let me be the hero i’ve never been. let me be the war already won, you can be the nation where i come from. we can be the kingdom yet to come, if you let me be the one.

the alien  :      burning man —  dierks bentley  (  the mountain  )      /     the most human thing about edie is how badly he wants to be, perhaps more human than anyone sees. he’s, at his core, a man who’s trying to find himself and help others. he’s calm and obedient, but he has a passion behind his somewhat robotic exterior. he’s constantly trying to both understand and emulate the human condition, without realizing that his desire to fit in is the most humanizing aspect to him.     /      i still don’t get it right sometimes, but i just don’t get it as wrong. i still go a little bit crazy sometimes, yeah, but now i don’t stay near as long. i’m a little bit steady, but still little bit rolling stone. i’m a little bit heaven, but still a little bit flesh and bone. little found, little don’t know where i am. i’m a little bit holy water, but still a little bit burning man. 

controversy  /  conspiracy  :      made in america —  waterparks  (  double dare  )      /     for the most part, edie has been unaware  ( either actually or by sheer force of will )  of the  “ conspiracy  ”  that the exemplar were only puppets. however, that doesn’t mean that those ideas don’t impact the way people see him. to some the alien’s promise of defense and aid was cheapened by his donning of a skintight colored suit and red cape. even he thought that the team was a bit showy at times; however, to him it was a sacrifice that was made to do real good.      /      counting back down from showtime, and selling you a filtered frame. we, we’re made in america, we’re classic hysteria, we’re culture clashing, hazard smashing, maybe someone’s. we, we’re made in america, we’re fucked and don’t care at all. aesthetically, yeah, we’re so pleasing.

genesis  :      superheroes —  the script  (  no sound without silence  )      /     while it is often not seen, it is what edie experienced on his home planet that made him into a hero. it’s not that heroism is innate in his form, but something he grew to see as necessary after seeing such total destruction.     /      ‘cause he’s strong than you know, a heart of steel starts to grow. when you’ve been fighting for it all your life, you’ve been struggling to make things right, that’s how a superhero learns to fly. everyday, every hour, turn the pain into power.

rejection  [  adjustment  period,  part  iii  ]  :      save myself —  ed sheeran  (  divide  )      /     between being separated from the team and the strange series of attempts at connection after the exemplar was disbanded, edie found him on unsteady ground. it was a choice to keep himself save to isolate. yet, even as he kept himself separate from the world, he hoped a new one would call to him, or  (  even better  )  that he would be recalled to the team, taking up the mantle he had come to wear.      /      and all the ones that love me, they just left me on the shelf, no farewell. so before i save someone else, i’ve got to save myself. but if i don’t, then i’ll go back, to where i’m rescuing a stranger just because they needed saving just like that.

family  :      one of us —  new politics  (  lost in translation  )      /     when the team was together, they were like family to edie. he had traveled across the galaxy and was alone when he came to earth. while he had taken the entirety of the earth under his wing, at least in his mind, living with the members of the exemplar was the time he felt closest to those around him. a new family to make him feel less alone, and ease the lost of his own family, his own people. edie is loyal to the team, almost in excess. he has their backs no matter what.     /      is this your staring role or just a cameo? who are you living for? when can’t take no more, cause when it rains, it pours. i don’t got much, but i got heart and soul. everybody needs a place to call their home, everybody needs someone to call their own, every when you’re lonely, know you’re not along. you’re one of us, one of us, one of us.

isolation  :      over my head  (  cable car  )  —  the fray  (  how to save a life  )      /     there was a small feeling of betrayal that edie felt when he realized he didn’t quite pass among humans in the way he thought he did, wishing that someone would have told him sooner. maybe then he would have been able to learn the intricacies better before he was on his own again.      /      i never knew that everything was falling through, that everyone i knew was waiting on a cue, to turn and run when all i needed was the truth, but that’s how it’s got to be. it’s coming down to nothing more than apathy, i’d rather run the other way than stay and see, the smoke, and who’s still standing when it clears.

return  /  reunion  :      get better —  frank turner  (  positive songs for negative people  )      /     when edie returned to hq, it was with a feeling of hope. he was sure that this was what he needed. any problems that occurred while the team was on hiatus could be fixed. he’s ready to take on whatever the world throws at them with a brave face, and he’ll encourage his teammates to do the same.     /     i got no new tricks, yeah i’m up on bricks, but me, i’m a machine and i was built to last. i took a battering but i’ve got thicker skin and the best people i know looking out for me. i’m trying to get better because i haven’t been my best. try and get better and don’t ever accept less. take a plain black marker and write this on your chest, draw a line underneath all of this unhappiness. come on now, let’s fix this mess. we could get better, because we’re not dead yet.

nostalgia  :      lost in nostalgia —  the maine  (  lovely little lonely  )      /     even though he was never sure he would answer a call that took him from earth, it was the hope that he would hear one that kept edie from focusing too much on the past. he knew he had to keep looking forward, even if that meant looking somewhere else. yet, there were certainly moments when he slipped back into thinking about the good old days, probably more than he would like to admit.      /      don’t you get lost in nostalgia, no, turn something softer and lighter, yeah. don’t you get lost in nostalgia, no. it’s not too late, it’s not too late.

[aion-rsa]

The Sopranos Didn’t Terminate Robert Patrick, They Busted Him Out

https://ift.tt/3kQCxCc

The Many Saints of Newark will tell stories about things our friends, and friends of friends, did before the events on The Sopranos. We’ll see a young Paulie Gualtieri, Silvio Manfred Dante, and Artie Bucco, all who knew Tony Soprano as a kid. One childhood friend you might not see is a prequel version of Davey Scatino. Last we heard, in the appropriately named episode “The Telltale Moozadell,” he’s now “in a mental health facility in Nevada.”

Robert Patrick is probably best known for playing the cyborg T-1000 in Terminator 2. It is an iconic role in science fiction cinema, as memorable as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character. Patrick had to fill the shoes, suits, and unimaginative ties worn by David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder when he stepped into the last two seasons of The X-Files, as Agent John Doggett. He stumbled into playing against himself on The Walking Dead. Patrick is a skilled antagonist. Whether torturing misfits on the football field in The Faculty or making Joaquin Phoenix’s Johnny Cash Walk the Line, villainy comes quite naturally to the veteran actor. Patrick went in a seemingly different direction on The Sopranos, playing a pathetic, losing gambler who gets in too deep. But is he really a victim, or is this his most antagonizing role?

“When a guy hands you a light envelope, it’s just the beginning,” Richie Aprile (David Proval) warns Davey. Scatino is a nickel and dime player when he first sits in at Aprile’s card games, but when the numbers get large, Aprile does the honorable thing: He bars Davey from any game in town. Richie is not the bad guy here. “I know, it’s just a stutter step,” he offers, understandingly.

Davey doesn’t double down, though. That’s for suckers. He gets into the “Executive Game” with high rollers like Frank Sinatra Jr. and the New York family boss. It costs five boxes of ziti just to buy in. Davey lies to crash the high stakes game, lies to Christopher Moltisanti about how much money he can lay out, and has the balls to act surprised when Richie generously offers to stab him in his eye. Again, not the bad guy, or he would have done it, and with justification. Scatino is down $45,000 at the end of the night. This is on top of what he owes Aprile.

“What you think? I’m still the kid on the school bus,” Tony asks Davey before everything comes tumbling down. We don’t have to be told. This is not a new problem. Tony had Davey pegged from the time he landed at his school. The army brat who’d lived all over never learns his lesson. He makes bets he can’t cover and plays until he’s empty. Even Artie Bucco knows not to lend Stacino $20k for some “breathing room.” Artie says he has to pay for a new roof for his restaurant, but it’s because he already knows everything is going to fall on his friend’s head, and he’d never get his money back.

First Davey tells Tony’s collection guy he has a dentist’s appointment, forcing the boss himself to make a house call. Then Davey tries to leverage how their kids are so close, go to the same school, and how he pegged a guy in the head on some trip. As a show of goodwill, he offers up his son Eric’s SUV as a down-payment. Tony accepts and gives it to Meadow, who has driven in it enough to know where it came from. Carmela gives Tony agita over it because Davey’s brother-in-law is close to the provost at Georgetown, and she might have to make more ricotta pies for Meadow’s college.

“This kid’s father, he’s a fuckin degenerate gambler, but he’s also a respected businessman in the community and everything that goes along with that,” Tony tells his therapist, Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco). “So, it becomes my fault that he lost his kid’s car? I gotta look after him because he’s a sick bastard?”

Davey’s arc starts in Season 2, Episode 6, “The Happy Wanderer,” when we meet him and his son, Eric, while they are checking out colleges. He also appears in “Bust Out” and “Funhouse.” Patrick “met David Chase for a film a couple of years prior to him coming up with the idea, or at least selling the idea, of The Sopranos,” he told Movieweb. “Then he sent me the script for “The Happy Wanderer” and said, ‘I see you in this role. It’s against type, you’ll never be cast this way, but I think it’s a brilliant idea.’”

While the character Davey is only vaguely familiar with the concept of luck, the actor was on a roll. The unfortunate gambler role came while Patrick was preparing to work on All the Pretty Horses, and director Billy Bob Thornton “asked me to go on a starvation diet, really lose some weight and try to look deathly for this character,” he told Movieweb. “David didn’t know that I was that light and that vulnerable. But anyway, it just worked.”

This is where the acting genius of Robert Patrick is most evident. He knows playing the victim on a show about villains makes him the antagonist, and he started early. While speaking on the podcast “Talking Sopranos,” Patrick told Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa that he started needling the star of the show from the moment they met.

Read more

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“I had never met Mr. Gandolfini,” Patrick said in the interview. “I am out front on a bench smoking a cigarette with Jimmy after we’d just done this read through. And we’re trying to get to know each other a little bit because we’re supposed to be high school buddies. As the conversation was winding up, I said to him, ‘You know the scene where you come to get your money, you better bring your fucking A-game.’ And he looked at me said, ‘Oh, I’ll bring my fucking A-game,’” and flicked his cigarette at the former T-1000.

The first scene the two actors shot was when Tony shows up at Ramsey Sports and Outdoors to collect the high-stakes game money. In the “Talking Sopranos” interview, Patrick said Gandolfini told him was hungover, they did it in “one take, and he scared the living shit out of me. I was so intimidated. What a fantastic experience.” He also said he attended a Gamblers Anonymous meeting to prepare for the role, and learned that a lot of people got hooked on gambling because “it made them feel powerful, like John Wayne or Sean Connery.”

That power fades as fast as any promise a scorpion makes a frog when Tony yells “get the fuck back in your fuckin hole now” to the kid he knew on the school bus, before offering a consolatory “Davey, you’re doing a good job.” In “Bust Out,” Tony and Richie become partners in Ramsey Sports and Outdoors. When David married his wife Christine, her father owned the sporting goods store, and after he died it went to her. Because Christine’s name is on the title, Davey can’t mortgage it, so Tony’s crew takes inventory.

The Soprano/Aprile venture runs up credit for bulk orders, buying barber scissors, airline tickets, and red picnic coolers. “Everybody wants one, nobody has a fucking idea how much they cost,” Richie says. “You put a Nigerian selling these on the streets for a couple/three bucks apiece, who’s not gonna say gimme one?” In a friendly late-night chat, Tony says it’s just bankruptcy fraud, and Davey will be “free and clear” when it’s over. It could have gone the other way, Tony says, explaining how he would then be crying. It’s business. His business.

Davey doesn’t even notice his kid gets into Georgetown. He’s got the muzzle of a gun in his mouth at one point, and is almost begging for his brother-in-law, Victor Musto, to beat him senseless. It is a brilliant demise on a series filled with shallow graves and burials in deep seas.

Liquidation trucks take away whatever’s left of Ramsey Sport & Outdoor except the property for sale sign. During Meadow’s high school graduation celebration in “Funhouse,” Davey tells Tony that Eric is going to Montclair State University, paid for by his brother-in-law. He also says he’s divorcing Christine and got a job as a ranch hand out west. Not too far from Vegas.

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The Many Saints of Newark hits theaters Oct. 1 and will stream on HBO Max for the month of October.

The post The Sopranos Didn’t Terminate Robert Patrick, They Busted Him Out appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3imVNp5

[hopevalley]

bill and feet

An Inch, a Mile; A Minute, an Hour

Words: 4,270Summary: He’d been through the what-ifs tens of thousands of times. If only the rope had had more give to it. If only he’d arrived home sooner for lunch. If only he’d known Martin felt that lonely, or scared, or helpless. Maybe he could have been saved. {Or, Bill returns to the city to sell his family home.}Pairing/Character: Bill & Martin, plus some Nora and Abigail.Prompt: from this meme.Rating: T for themes.Warnings: SUICIDE.Genre: character study, angst, family, friendship.  

Bill’s a fun character and I was kind of shocked to see the lack of ‘fic about him, in particular pertaining to the loss of his son. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story. Click on the ReadMore for a few story notes.

All right, so the canon for WCtH is pretty sparse when it comes to character backgrounds, and Bill is no exception. We know very little about him, his marriage to Nora, or his relationship to his son, but here are the things that canon does state outright:

His marriage to Nora was an obligation/a way to pay back a favor to Jonas, Nora’s father.

They married to protect Nora’s honor when she ran off with a man but returned unmarried and pregnant.

It’s implied that Martin was Henry’s son. Nora has “always had a blind spot” when it comes to Henry, and Martin is, well, a name shared by Henry’s actor. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

Bill held Martin when he took his first breaths, and he held him as he took his last breaths. The implication that’s made here is that Nora was not there when Martin died.

Nora felt that Martin was always a burden to Bill, because he wasn’t his blood son.

Without Martin they had no reason to remain married and they both seem very aware of it.

There are more things that are said, but it’s hard to separate the chaff from the wheat, so to speak. Bill says his wife proposed to him, but this is before he admits he married her out of obligation. Either she did ask out of desperation (and he felt obligated to accept), or he was just over-simplifying things (by putting herself in a position where she needed him to step in, she was more or less asking him).

Okay, so here are the headcanons I constructed based loosely on what we were given in the canon:

Martin died as an adult. I know the picture of him is as a child, but the wife isn’t Nora and so I discard it personally and replace it with something that makes a little more sense. I like the idea of the picture being of a younger Martin, but that doesn’t mean he died at that age. I think Nora ran off with Henry when she was much younger, say, late teens, and returned pregnant and young with no idea what to do. Bill, who was raised by her father for the last years of his childhood, was about a decade older than Nora and not very close to her. Truly a marriage of convenience. But if Bill was in his late 20s when he married an 18-year-old Nora, then it’s been twenty+ years. I definitely headcanon that Martin died in his early 20s.

Martin killed himself. I know this is a good wholesome show but let’s not pretend tragedy doesn’t happen, okay? I chose hanging because I feel like shooting himself would put way too much guilt on Bill (for having guns in the house) and absolutely destroy Nora (the blood and mess all over her home would be beyond traumatizing). I constructed it as a deliberate act where Martin planned it to be at a time where his father may have been able to intervene, which is why Bill kind of focuses hard on tiny details. (It’s also something he’s good at, per his job.) This is a little extra tragic for Nora because she wasn’t there for it, and never got to say goodbye. If Martin had died of a long illness, I don’t think she’d be so broken up over his death years later. She is, so it must have been something extremely difficult to process and accept.

Martin had Anxiety and Depression. This is ultimately what drove him to making the call. He felt hopeless, confused, scared. He didn’t know how to ask for help, and in this time period, he’d be lucky if he didn’t end up placed in an asylum for speaking about the way he felt.

Martin was gay. This isn’t something I addressed in the story, because I don’t think Bill would have figured it out, but it’s a personal headcanon that means a lot to me. 

Nora and Bill didn’t have a sex life. I think they care about each other in their own way, but neither of them trust the other with their heart and never did. I also feel that Bill would fully respect Nora not wanting him like that.

Bill loved being a father. But I also think for him, his relationship with his son, being shrouded in tragedy, is also a very personal and private thing.

These are only my personal headcanons; by no means do you, the reader, have to agree with them. This is just my interpretation of this aspect of Bill, Nora, and Martin’s relationship. There are many others!

Anyway, I tried to write this with the idea of a small emotional distance existing between Bill and his memories. Like, I’m sure he sometimes gets lost in grief over his son’s death. I’m sure he cries sometimes when he’s by himself. I’m sure he cried when his son died. But he’s viewing it a few years down the road in this story, and he’s built some walls so that he can view it with some objectivity. 

Bill is the sort of person to compartmentalize his hurt, and I got the feeling from what he does say of his son that it’s not something he likes talking about, but…he can. He’s started to move on and to stop blaming himself so much. It doesn’t take the hurt away, as many of you know, but it does help ease it.

Originally I had a small scene in here between Frank and Bill, where Frank talks about forgiveness, but of a kind not often talked about in the series: forgiving oneself. I took it out because it didn’t fit with the rest, and I think Bill has largely done this already. It just doesn’t have the power to keep him from thinking of the if-onlys and what-ifs. In a manner of speaking, selling the home he watched Martin grow up in is the final stage of his grieving process.

So it’s not that he doesn’t hurt. He does. But he feels it less, now, than he did, and he doesn’t feel it all of the time.

I also originally had a line in the scene toward the end where Bill remembers letting Martin crawl into bed where Martin apologizes for it and Bill forgives him, but took it out. It felt like just a bit too much. 

And yes, the things Bill says to Martin are supposed to lightly reflect what AJ says to Bill in S5E8: Weather the Storm.

Stay tuned for the AU in which Bill is on time and Martin lives. Well, maybe not…but it’s a nice thought.

The song I thought of while writing was this one:

I didn’t explore the deep tragedy of suicide in this story because it’s several years in the past, but if I ever hit up a more detailed/lengthy piece on Bill, it may show up.

[koganphrancis]

Actual footage of Ian trying to wake up his dick.

Season H8 Episode 3: Where Everything’s Made Up And The Points Don’t Matter

The good(ish) news about this week’s episode is that compared to last week’s, nothing hurt all that much and no groups of innocent people were shamed.  

The bad news is-it still sucked.  It was written by the evil Krista Vernoff and had very little to do with what had gone on the week before.  Ian and Terror, in particular, seemed to have no connection with what happened in the last episode (except we saw a shot of Ian’s shitty tattoo at the end).

Since the demon show is continuing at least one more season, I wish they’d force writers to read the scripts they didn’t write, instead of (I’m assuming) just getting summaries or following general ideas on the white board.

Anyway, almost all the troubles the gang was facing last week disappeared as if by magic-or really crappy script writing.

Svetlana and Vee made up in less than 30 seconds.  While I’m glad for Svetlana, what was the point of even having her “impounded” for such a short time?  And the authorities are just going to drop the whole sex trade excuse Vee used to have her taken into custody?  And I guess maybe this will set up tension when they’re all working together at the bar again-but maybe not?  It was dumb.  

Kev had a bunch of DNA testing done-um, how are they going to pay for that?-and found out he’s Bart from Kentucky and his family tree only has one branch.  Can’t wait to see where this inbred storyline is going (please read that in a very sarcastic tone).  Last week’s bears are about to be replaced by next week’s hicks, maybe.  Smell that comedy gold!  

Youens plowed his car into a house and even that-or the threat of prison-wasn’t enough of a wake up call to try to return to sobriety.  (Why is he off the wagon after getting Lip on it?  I’m pretty sure Krista didn’t bother to write a reason, or maybe I was so bored I missed it.)  The main thing I took away from this part of the story was when Youens says if he had killed the woman in the house with his car, he would’ve gotten 20 years for vehicular homicide.  Really?  And Mickey got 15 for NOT killing a woman who was shooting at him when the cops showed up?  And with no physical evidence or witness testimony that he had tried to kill Sammi?  Wow, ain’t that a bitch?

Neil dumped Debbie (something Snore and Terror can’t seem to do with their Gallaghers) and told her she’s a horrible person.  When Debbie repeats that to her family, none of them even question it or try to tell her she’s not.  

Liam was barely in it.

Frank is all into this mellow “I’m a saint” thing now and it’s just zzzz.  

Fiona gets a tenant for the empty apartment, but the evil gf of Nessa is waiting on the staircase in her daisy dukes when he comes out from seeing the place and lies to him about bedbugs so Fi will rent the place to her friends, but for less money.  Cuz all these coincidences could totally happen-from her friends needing a place to Mel being on the spot when the one qualified renter comes to see the place.  Later Fi goes all South Side on Mel and it was so damn boring.  Rumbling over an apartment rental?  Yawn.

No Snore in this episode, but Lip does mention how he can’t even take care of Lucas anymore, so I’m betting we don’t see the kid ever again again.  It’s no big loss to the show, but it’s so stupid that Snore has no problems/struggles raising a kid on her own.   

Carl loses the hot tub (has to sell it for quick cash-or the meth dealer took it-I wasn’t paying close enough attention-he’s there when it’s taken away and he takes Carl’s towel from around his neck and that was actually kinda funny), and somehow (magic?) knows how to drive and operate a backhoe.  That someone left the keys in at the cemetery.  Krista, how many coincidences am I supposed to swallow?  Not to mention the rip off of Ian stealing the helicopter?  Get some fresh ideas!  You also have had them dig up a dead relative before.  

Now for Ian who every week is truly this show’s blank slate.  Last week he was acting like maybe he was manic-this week?  No sign of that.  Things start with a family-except for Fiona-council of war about the drug dealer that’s after them, and we get a new piece of Ian canon-he was a crack (or some other drug that Monica was using-Frank doesn’t specify) baby.  Ian tells Frank if he doesn’t help them figure out a way to get out of the shit they’re in with the drug dealer, Ian will take a tire iron to “old Frank”.  Frank says, “You’ve been a drama queen since the day you were born, Ian.  Wouldn’t stop screaming until you were fully detoxed.”  Ian does one of his stunned big blink looks, and the story moves, well not ON, but people keep talking.  

Oh, and just a side note, but Ian’s been shown drinking coffee at least twice in the Gallagher kitchen this season, and the cock mug is nowhere to be seen :(  

Next scene is Ian walking into Terror’s office area, all cocky.  “Brought you that chocolate flavored soy shit you like, then there’s coffee.”  (I’m not sure exactly what he says after “like” and Charter/Spectrum cable doesn’t communicate with my TV so the close captioning doesn’t work-don’t get me started on how I have to use different remotes to do different things.)  Terror says, “With a side of snark just how I like it,” in the most annoying, whiny voice possible.  WHAT is Ian supposed to see in him?  And, was that comment all that snarky?  And, should Ian be having what’s at least his second dose of caffeine on his meds?  

If I’m going to count how many times they needed Mickey in this episode, the meeting about how to deal with the drug dealer was one, Ian and his coffee intake is two, what fucking Terror says next is three...

“Thought you had to work today.”  NO!  Terror does not know or care about Ian’s schedule!  That was a Mickey thing and a Mickey thing only!  Ian LIES to everyone else about when he’s at work!  And so far in canon, Terror is way too into himself to know where or when Ian ever works.  Grrrr.

Ian says, “Soon, yeah.  So... that drug dealer that chased me?  Can’t seem to shake it off, don’t know what’s wrong with me.”  And he says it all small and scared-after walking into the place boasting about his cafe purchases-I don’t like how they keep having Ian’s moods change on a dime-especially since again, I just think it’s bad writing and not trying to tell the audience he’s slipping or anything’s wrong.  

Anyway, Mickey thought #4-Ian seems to be acting like if there’s something wrong, Terror will get into being his hero and fixing things for him, LIKE MICKEY USED TO DO ALL THE FUCKING TIME.  So, not only so much for “this isn’t me anymore” (which is so hard to take with all this running from killer meth dealers shit), but also WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU CAN’T FIX ME BECAUSE I’M NOT BROKEN?  (more of that in a minute)

Terror just smirks at his computer after Ian’s lines and Ian says, “You laughing at me?”  Terror answers, “Only cuz it’s still hard for me to tell when you’re joking-are you serious?”  And, WTF?  When has Ian EVER joked with Terror?  “I’m into cock. I’m a top.  I don’t want that up my ass.  I don’t want to hang out with Monica.  I told you I didn’t want to hang out with Monica.  I was with Mickey.”  Have they had any other conversations?  Has Ian ever said anything he didn’t mean to this asshat?  

Ian doesn’t answer, just sort of shrugs to answer the are you serious.  Terror says, “Wow, well nothing’s wrong with you.  I think it’s probably hard for a normal person to shake off a drug dealer chasing them.”   Ian says, “Gallaghers are not generally normal humans.”   T: Grief can change people. I: What? T: Ah, grief.  I mean, your mother died.  It changes you.  Maybe you should talk to the counselor.  (Krista!  We went over this ground LAST week and, while that should’ve been Terror’s advice then, it wasn’t, and why isn’t this story going anywhere, ever?) I: (creeplily turns the conversation into a come on) I’d rather talk to you. (Sits up, leans in towards Terror)  In fact, I’d rather do something with you that doesn’t involve talking. T: (closing down immediately and going cold) Ah, well, sorry, I’m busy trying to help out at risk youth.

So, yeah, that should’ve been his reaction LAST week-wtf?  It’s truly like last week never happened.  I wanted Terror to reply to that “I don’t feel like talking” call back in Mickey’s bedroom with, “Bitch, I just got you laid last week!  I’m never gonna sleep with you again, so there’s the door.”  But, no.  And Ian going from “I’m sad, please help it” to seductive or whatever the hell they think it is, is just...OOC and not attractive and as always, their total lack of chemistry makes everything worse.  But now that Terror has said no for the millionth time, it’s really coming off as rapey whenever Ian tries.  

Then, before he even starts his shift at work, Sue tells him his “uncle” was there looking for him and describes the meth guy, so Ian goes tearing out of the EMT station with Sue yelling after him that he has a shift.  If he STILL has his job after this 18th strike or whatever he’s up to...well, I won’t be surprised at all because Shameless has given up on reality more than ever and Gallaghers never get into any real trouble.  

There’s the scene at the hot tub with the guy dunking Carl and Ian trying to protect him with the bat, and then there’s another meeting to try to figure out what to do because they only have $9000 left from all the meth Carl sold, so finally they cave and go talk to Fiona and there’s a painful scene where she makes them admit she was right-which in this case she actually was, but in other cases she’s fucked up just as badly as they have-plus I’m NEVER forgiving her for saying Mickey would set a match to Ian’s life-what about what he’s managing all on his own since he’s been back?  What about the fact that Mickey did everything he could to always keep Ian safe and happy once he was back from the army?  Grrrrr.  

Anyway, the family digs up Monica and Krista waves her fairy wand again and has the meth dealer listen to Frank’s reasoning that half the meth belonged to Monica so them coming up with almost half the money is good enough-and that if the meth guy ever goes near his family again he’ll put him in the ground with Monica.  Yeah, meth dealers are known for compromising and listening to ownership rights theories.  And who wouldn’t be threatened by old broken-down Frank?  Eye roll.  

Anyway, Ian returns to the cemetery alone to try to put Monica’s headstone back together, but the pieces fall apart and he sits hard on his bum.  The camera’s behind him-and his shitty tattoo-so who knows if he’s crying or finally giving in to the fact that she’s dead and gone or what, but I won’t be surprised if he’s now completely over her death and ready to become a brand new man-yet again-next week.  Which is the episode where Ian supposedly crosses a boundary with a teen from the youth center.  Will his months of no sex except last week’s blowjob lead to him having sex with a teen?  Probably not, but cripes, what else could it be?  

[cripplinganxietyflix]

I saw IT.

The time has finally arrived. IT was released to theaters last Friday and so far, it’s broken a lot of records in a time when we’re all talking about a disastrous summer season for theaters (down 7% from the summer of 2016), and pretty piss-poor theater attendance in general. The $35 million dollar film made over $50 million in its first day in theaters and has generated $123 million in its opening weekend. IT can now lay claim to both the largest-ever opening for a horror film and the largest-ever opening for a film released in September. That’s a pretty big deal, but even before viewing the film, I wasn’t surprised by the success. The reputation the IT miniseries has generated over 27 years and the cultural phenomenon it sparked, in my mind, has played the largest role in selling $123 million in tickets. It isn’t the objective quality of the film driving this, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

In terms of millennials and based on my own anecdotal observation, the IT miniseries serves as a lot of people under 30’s first horror movie experience. Usually dad rented the two VHS tapes from Blockbuster because hey, it was on TV, it can’t be too bad. Or someone tuned in on a sick day in elementary school during a re-run. A lot of people in their early 30s and late 20s saw IT between the ages of six and ten, in the prime age for childhood post-traumatic horror movie stress. I would argue that the original IT has claimed the largest number of childhoods out of all horror films, maybe more than The Exorcist, Dawn of the Dead, or The Shining.

Speaking of which, I’m not in the demographic of adults that were scarred by IT as a child. I can’t precisely recall when I first watched it, but I was between 10 and 12 and by then I’d already had my shit wrecked watching The Omen on AMC home alone on a sick day when I was 8. To this day, the moments in the miniseries that spooked me were a few instances of weird practical effects, like the shower scene with the clown parting his way through a drain, but other than that, I came out of it mostly bored. The spider ending was pretty weak even for someone with arachnophobia. While Tim Curry did his best with an absurd premise and he did deliver a memorable performance, it’s hard for me to take the whole thing seriously. It’s a flamboyant, quipping clown, for fuck’s sake. On that note, I’ve never really understood the appeal of Stephen King, to be really frank. You can argue the absolute best adaptation of his work is Kubrick’s The Shining, and King himself has come out and said he dislikes it because of the liberties Kubrick took to make it a watchable, serious film. You can say what you want about that, but I look at that and compare it to King’s work on and praise for the 1997 Mick Garris miniseries adaptation for The Shining, and it’s hard for me to take him seriously. I respect his work ethic, but I don’t find the work itself appealing or compelling most of the time.

It takes some skill to make a cohesive film about an angry, child-murdering, supernatural clown that also can take the form of someone’s worst fear. The miniseries tried, and I think it was a mixed bag. The first half is pretty good and above average from what I would have expected for a TV special in the early 1990s, but the second half is quite disappointing. There are some good scares and quite a bit of effort made in terms of practical SFX, but it definitely suffered from the campy atmosphere and bad acting from the adults. The writing, particularly in part two, was kind of weak. The script wasn’t brilliant, and sometimes it was downright awful. The whole product is pretty cheesy and really didn’t age well. I won’t comment on the book because I read a bit of it in middle school and disliked it enough to put it down, and also because I don’t want to talk about the underage gangbang. FYI really refine your fucking Google search on that one if you’re curious. 

Coming out of the newest incarnation of IT, I think it was about what I expected. The closest comparison I can make is something like The Conjuring- not brilliant, certainly above the average wide-release horror film, but far too reliant on jump scares and sudden noises. And of course, plenty of CG effects to take you right out of the moment.

That’s the first thing I want to talk about with IT. The CG is my biggest complaint. Maybe a couple of years ago I would have said that CG is a foregone conclusion to have a successful, major horror movie, but after Get Out made $252.4 million dollars earlier this year on a $4.5 million budget without any major computer effects, I no longer think that’s a valid excuse. Sure, IT is much more of a spectacle film, but that makes me feel even more disappointed in the pervasive use of CG. A few times, I suppose it was justified, but it largely cheapened the film. There are many sequences with Pennywise rushing the screen that look awful, even laughable in some cases. The woman in the painting was another good example of bad CG being overused. We already know that minimal CG used to augment or distort faces can be great for horror, and a very relevant example I can think of is the very slight facial distortions used for the vampires in the film 30 Days of Night. Special effects were used to slightly narrow faces, to tilt eyes a few degrees; and the effect is a very creepy, almost uncanny valley effect that benefited that particular film greatly. I think something as subtle as skewing a woman’s face would have been more effective than what we saw in IT, which looked like a low-end video game monster. But that brings me to my next point.

This movie has zero subtlety. Yes, a movie about a pun-making killer clown can’t be expected to be a subtle film; that’s not what I’m getting at. Subtlety is a really important aspect of making something scary. IT fell victim to the same plague that most other horror films can’t seem to fight off, and that’s the total lack of subtlety in the scares. I feel like I saw Pennywise at least every five minutes, if not more, and it very much diminished his presence. Instead of being selective when showing him to maximize the dread and tension when he is visible, the movie spends a good chunk of its time and budget showing him off. Even worse, they don’t often make it count. Whereas many of Tim Curry’s Pennywise appearances in the miniseries are very memorable and stand out well, there were 3 instances where they let Bill Skarsgård do his thing: once at the very beginning, once in the middle of the film when Bill, Richie and Eddie enter the wellhouse for the first time, and at the very end of the film when they vanquish him back into the well. I think that the vast majority of Pennywise’s appearances outside of those three were meaningless and only served to desensitize viewers to the scare he would otherwise be able to generate. It was like they crammed 4 hours worth of Pennywise appearances into half the time. I feel that the film offered Skarsgård very few opportunities to carve his own path and make his performance iconic and memorable, and that’s pretty unfortunate. I think he is more than capable of delivering a good performance without being smothered with a disorienting kaleidescope of bad and unnecessary CG. He shows up so often, and yet it felt like Skarsgård had so little time to make it count.

On the note of subtlety, we need to talk about jump scares, and what makes a good jump scare and what makes a bad one. Jump scares are not inherently bad in horror films, but they are often overused and they’re almost always sloppy. A really good example of a perfect, organic jump scare can be found in the first fifteen minutes of the film Suspiria. Don’t call me a snob, there’s a reason why it has its reputation. We see a frightened young woman standing near a large, dark window. The Goblin score is hammering away and giving you a bizarre anxiety about what is about to happen. She looks out the window into the darkness, like she’s certain something has to be hiding in it. And it makes sense, because minutes earlier she’s running for her life through the woods and you’re still wondering what she was fleeing from. She lifts a lamp to the window, and we look into the darkness, and a pair of yellow bulging eyes appear with a subtle invocation from the Goblin score. The music then quiets, the shot pulls away, and suddenly a hairy arm smashes through the glass and grabs her head. The movie has already spent several minutes generating tension between the images and the score, and when the jump scare happens there is no added audio effects to augment what is already there. We have the sound of breaking glass and the woman’s screaming to do that already. Often times everything a film needs to generate a jump scare is already present, but all too often, directors don’t make the effort to cultivate the atmosphere to precipitate an organic jump scare. The audience is constantly cued into expecting one due to the framing of the scene, and they add unnecessary effects like loud, sudden noises to make you jump anyway. It’s a huge cop out! You can actually see a real example of this right in the IT teaser, and they kept in the movie. I think it’s enough to see Pennywise’s glowing eyes appear in the darkness of the sewer as Georgie tries to retrieve his boat, but in the teasers, they’ve added a loud noise like you’re too stupid to know when to be scared. It’s so unneeded, and lazy, and it was all over the film. Every time something spooky was about to happen, you fully expected it, and they threw in a loud clattering noise to scare you so that they wouldn’t have to try harder to generate tension or anxiety or to truly take you by surprise. I fully expected this from a major studio horror film but was surprised by how heavily IT relied on this low hanging fruit.

The writing was pretty uneven, but when it was good it was great, and the comedic timing worked well. However, it seems like Finn Wolfhard and Jack Dylan Grazer’s lines had all the effort put into them, but everyone else was pretty unmemorable. If the other kids are great actors, it wasn’t always easy to see. There’s a moment when Mike says something along the lines of “Guess I really am just an outsider” as his excuse for leaving the group, and it was so out-of-place and dumb. I hated the scene with Beverly cutting her hair and saying “this is what you did!” Speaking of whom, Sophia Lillis was pretty terrible and often felt extremely ingenuine when delivering her lines. Most of the other kids were alright, but not great. My bar for great child performances in horror movies has been set by films like The Innocents and more recently The Witch, so maybe I’m asking too much. But I went into this movie hearing all this buzz about how the strongest part of the film is the kids, and I’m just not seeing it. Do not even get me started on Nicholas Hamilton, who played Henry the bully. I could not stop rolling my eyes.

If anything about IT impressed me, I respected its willingness to show child dismemberment and death. It certainly was surprising when it happened and I am always talking about how the last frontiers of horror are showing kids being murdered and child molestation, and this movie covered both of those things. Kudos for being daring, and kudos for doing an R-rated film horror film, especially when big studio horror always goes for a PG-13 to get that sweet, sweet middle-schooler and teenager money. I think that Bill Skarsgård tries very hard with the opportunities he’s afforded, and I appreciate that he tried to do something different than what Tim Curry did. I’m not sure if I liked the cutesy-ness incorporated into of some of that approach, but he tried, and it shows. Two of the child actors (mentioned above) were great and charming, and I really wish that the casting was more consistent. I like that it didn’t try to cram the adult storyline into the run time and as much as I’ve disliked this film, it’s probably a good idea to have a sequel for the rest.

But I think that’s it for what I enjoyed. Maybe I’m jaded and maybe I’ve watched too many horror films, but IT felt like a totally unnecessary venture. I think that most of the positive reviews are 1) reviewers that are used to seeing mostly garbage low-effort horror blockbusters and 2) people that are huge fans of the miniseries or book and were happy to see it get a facelift. That’s the only way I can explain the buzz to myself. I don’t recall being scared at any point other than being afraid I was going to see a 15-year-old’s character get raped by her pervy dad. I think if you’re a big IT or Stephen King fan, or you’re not a prolific horror movie consumer, you’ll probably have a fine time watching this film. If you’re a horror snob, or hold your horror to reasonable standards, there’s a good chance you’re gonna have a bad time. I’ve seen a lot of great, effective horror movies in the last couple of years, and literally all of them cost $2-5 million to make and had little or no CGI. I really wanted to enjoy this movie and I did get myself excited to see it, but having slept on it for a night I’m baffled by the positive reviews. I wish I had enjoyed it more. IT isn’t brave enough to do anything outside of an extremely conventional, predictable approach, and unfortunately for this viewer, slightly above average writing with expensive production quality does not make a great horror film.

★★ ½