#solosky

[tapwaterghost]

My reaction watching every fucking fandom that im in:

[squidswithsocks]

some splash art for my upcoming fangan webcomic UProoted ft. a pony au

you can read more about all these characters here

i hope you enjoy my little guys :)

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Oh, there is some discourse about Oscar Isaac playing the mk system because he is not jewish. I have no say in the matter as I am not jewish, so I thought I'd ask

Oh! Okay! I'm willing to bed you are the same anon that sent this ask? Or maybe not and just someone with similar questions.

Well, Moon Knight came out over two years ago now. So most of the discourse over it is pretty old news at this point. If it is starting up again, it's just beating a dead horse. Or maybe there are new fans that are just blazing their own trail and not checking out that neat trail that's already been blazed.

Either way, I'm not upset about it. Learning is learning and I'm here for questions.

SO! Let's get into it!

Now, this may surprise a few of you… But I'm not Oscar Isaac. I know… I know… A real let down. This means that I can't speak on his behalf and everything I say is what I have picked up, and could be wrong.

As far as I am aware, he is not a practicing Jew. Meaning, he probably doesn't go to Shul or keep the Sabbath. He might! I don't know. I also don't know if he's Catholic or Christian or how he was raised or what his current belief system is… If it is on Wiki somewhere, I still can't say I know because how do you Wiki someone's personal religious beliefs?

What I DO know… He has Jewish Ancestry!

These quotes are taken from two interviews that are easily looked up on Google:

When asked how he felt about playing an Orthodox Jewish man for "Inside Llewyn Davis" (not his first or last Jewish role), here was his responce:

“We could play that game: How Jewish are you?” he said to interviewer Alexis Soloski, who is Jewish. “It is part of my family, part of my life. I feel the responsibility to not feel like a phony. That’s the responsibility, to feel like I can say these things, do these things and feel like I’m doing it honestly and truthfully."

Isaac referenced the fact that he has some Jewish heritage on his father’s side.

Of his roots, Oscar said, “My grandfather was French in Guatemala and my father is Cuban but he grew up in the States as well. I came to the States when I was five months old and I grew up my entire life mostly in Miami, between Miami and New York.” He is the third Oscar in the family. “My father and my grandfather were both named Oscar,” he revealed. “I am the third Oscar. It’s from the Academy Awards. Isaac is Jewish from my father side. I am definitely a big mix of many things.”

Now, I COULD get into semantics. His Jewish ancestry comes from his father's side and there is discourse in the Jewish system on Patrilineal vs. Matrilineal and what makes a Jew a Jew. I'm not going to get into that because it has WAY more involved than I'm willing to get into and that is probably why Oscar asked the "How Jewish are you?" question (He's known to be cheeky and that could be taken as a very cheeky question).

In MY books, If you have Jewish ancestry and you acknowledge it and consider it a part of you, then you are worthy of playing all the Jewish people you want in movies/shows/plays. ....As long as you are respectful and do your best to do it right.

And that is what I love about Oscar. He WANTS to get it right. He wants to honor the parts he plays and he understands when he has an important part that needs to be done right and with care.

Now, Oscar doesn't have DID (as far as I am aware), but he did the research and connected with people that Do have DID to make sure he offered a fare and honest and respectful tribute to it. Is it going to fit everyone with DID's shoes? No. But it is a very multi(LOL) colored disorder that presents in many different ways and because it is a Show meant to be visual to an audience that doesn't understand how it works, of course he's going to have to play it up a bit and the editors and directors are going to have to add flourishes that don't always agree with everyone so that we, a visual and auditory audience, can see a representation of this disorder that we can understand.

You know what's fun about being Jewish? You don't have to see it or hear it to demonstrate someone is Jewish. I can watch almost any movie or show and go "That guy's Jewish." How do I know? I don't. But in my head, he's now a Jewish character and I'm connecting to him that way.

You know what they DID do in Moon Knight? Oscar wore a Star of David necklace. There was a mezuzah on Steven's door. Steven had a Shabbat table set up. Steven is a Vegan to avoid having to risk not eating Kosher.

(I see Shabbat candle, decorative Menorah, and a Kiddish cup. I really hope he moves those (should be two but we only see one, Maybe it's behind the other) candles before he lights them. His fire hazard apartment gives me anxiety. Let's just hope his Havdalah candle doesn't set the place ablaze).

They could have done more to show his casual Jewish life, but you don't need to. This is Steven Grant pretty much living a Jewish life. I'm not sure what people were expecting him to do? Dance the Horah and have Peyot? This is more than what Comics Moon Knight has done to show his Jewish side for a LONG time (minus some good runs in the OG run and Recent MacKay run).

Anyways, I'm not sure who did decide to toss in those little details, but I deeply appreciate them and love them for it. And I love that Oscar is aware of and acknowledges his heritage. Not only that, but that he strives to represent it in a truthful and honest way.

Anyways, I hope that answers your question... There's a lot I could get into, but others have honestly done it better ages ago.

Is Oscar a Jewish man? I don't know. Probably not? BUT... If he suddenly said "I'm Jewish" I'd welcome him to the tribe with open arms. I think he's earned a little Challah. He's certainly a Mensch in my book.

[stratocumulusperlucidus]

Nicholas Galitzine Wants to Prove He’s More Than Just a Pretty Face

(NYT / ✍️: Alexis Soloski / 📷 : Luisa Opalesky)

[yurchenko-full]

tell me this doesnt Scream passive aggression

why does utah seem to be subtweeting some of last years seniors 💀

[offender42085]

Post 0516

Thomas Nathan Teets aka Arthur Storez, Pennsylvania inmate NE1969, born 1985, incarceration intake in 2017 at age 32, sentenced to 15 to 30 years

Murder, Aggravated assault, Abuse of a corpse, Theft, Robbery, Tampering with evidence 

A Dawson man will serve 15 to 30 years behind bars for third-degree murder in the death of a Bullskin Township woman, a deal the victim's family agreed to under the assurance they could bring her body home.

Thomas Nathan Teets, 32, pleaded guilty in Fayette County Court to killing Leah Marie Owens, 31, on Sept. 15, 2017. He stabbed her to death and hid her body in a shallow grave where investigators said no one would have ever found her.

"I just pray to God that Leah is at peace now," said her mother, Camilla "Cammy" Crosby, before Teets was sentenced. "It took 45 days. We got her home."

Family members and friends filled the largest courtroom at the Fayette County Courthouse, clutching packs of tissues with dazed expressions, receiving encouraging pats on their shoulders from those already seated. The closest members of the family filed in behind solemn-faced investigators, expressions raw with grief as they faced Teets just days after their fears were confirmed that Owens had been murdered.

Crosby reported her daughter missing Sept. 20 when she failed to check in with family, a regular occurrence for the mother of two. After thousands of hours of investigation, state police charged Teets in her death just days before he pleaded guilty. They did so without having found her body.

After Teets was arraigned on the charges, investigators questioned him throughout the day. State police Cpl. Heather Clem-Johnston, who was in frequent contact with the family throughout the investigation, called Crosby to see if she would agree to the plea bargain if Teets confessed and took them to Owens' body.

She responded, "Bring my daughter home," said District Attorney Rich Bower.

By late afternoon, police said he led them to Owens' body in Dunbar Township.

"Does he deserve more time? In my opinion, yes," Bower said during the sentencing before Judge Steve P. Leskinen. "But we did this for the family, once we knew who the murderer was."

"It's a different situation, and one that's done at great speed," Leskinen said, adding that the plea agreement was below the mitigated range for third-degree murder. "The family's wishes are something we intend to honor."

When the judge asked Teets if he was guilty of all six crimes – third-degree murder, aggravated assault, abuse of a corpse, theft, robbery and tampering with evidence – he responded, "Yes, sir."

Teets remained seated and turned toward Crosby briefly.

"I'd like to say I'm sorry for hurting your family," he said, appearing unemotional.

Earlier this week, Owens' older sister, Lauren Solosky, said the family could not bear to sit through days of a trial listening to the details of her death after already waiting five weeks to learn her fate. She called the waiting process a "nightmare" for Owens' family and friends.

Shane Gannon, who was representing Teets through the Fayette County Public Defender's Office, said he was involved with the case for several weeks, since late September when Teets was jailed for contempt in a domestic case. Teets told the judge he was satisfied with his representation.

Crosby, who is battling cancer, said she would wake up every morning wondering if her daughter's disappearance was only a nightmare. She would wake often wake up in the middle of the night.

"Pouring down rain, and the wind is blowing, and it's cold. And you pray to God your child isn't freezing. She's not getting wet," she said. "It was horrendous for all those days."

The morning of the murder, Owens went with Teets to Crosby's home. Both times, Owens asked for money, which investigators said was to pay a debt to Teets. Solosky also wired Owens money that day.

Owens left her mother's house, saying she would be back in 20 minutes after taking a shower. Crosby left for her radiation treatment.

"But I never heard from Leah again after that, and I knew within hours – mother's intuition – that something bad had happened. I knew it," she said.

She went door-to-door, asking about her daughter's whereabouts. Meanwhile, Teets dug a grave about two-feet deep and buried Owens' body, less than one mile from where investigators said he bought drugs.

"It was in a heavily thicketed area where, in our opinion, no hunter or anyone else would have stumbled upon Leah," said Bower.

Charges were filed after lab results matched Owens' DNA to blood found on a knife blade and identified Teets' blood on the handle. The knife was found in a Owens' abandoned car by Normalville fire department. Owen's blood was also found on the car.

Teets cut off part of his finger during the stabbing, which Bower described as a permanent reminder of his crimes, dubbing him "the nine-fingered man."

Teets confessed he murdered Owens to many people, according to Bower. The keys of Owens' vehicle were found hidden in a vent in his house.

Members of the family exchanged hugs with investigators as they left the courthouse.

"I wanted Leah home. I don’t know what my future holds. None of us know what our future holds," Crosby said. "We needed Leah home for her closure and for the closure of her babies, and for all this I thank everybody from the bottom of my heart."

3j

[viktoriakomova]

i cannot believe soloski chose to go on the record defending farden like....... girl fuck you

[bdapublishing]

December is usually a slow month for publishing but there are some heavy hitters coming out today that have us tapping our feet and doing a little dance. Whether you like your doctors a little evil (and sexy) or a celebrity murder mystery on an island, we’ve got something for you!

Dazzling by Chikodili Emelumadu

Ozoemena is destined (or cursed) to be the first woman in her family to shift into a leopard and protect the land, while Treasure makes a dangerous deal with a ghost in order to bring her dad back. Their fates collide and all that good stuff for you mythology lovers out there.

My Darling Bride by Ilsa Madden-Mills

Emmaline is in a dangerous situation where the only option is to steal a car to get to safety. Did we mention that car is a Lamborghini? Of course, the lambo belongs to a famous football player, Graham, and he tells her that he won’t press charges if he marries her.

Missing by Savannah Brown

Thirty years ago, a singer went missing from a small island town and everyone refuses to talk about it. Mona shows up to Sandown to get the inside scoop for her podcast listeners, but she’s finding a few too many similarities between the missing persons case and her own life. 

Five Bad Deeds by Caz Frear 

This is like Pretty Little Liars if A was tormenting a lone 40-year-old woman. Ellen recalls every bad thing she’s ever done to try to figure out why this anonymous person is out to get her. She also happens to be renovating her dream house so there’s a lovely home decor backdrop to this psychological thriller.

Here in the Dark by Alexis Soloski

This is like a modern, gothic fever dream for reformed theater kids. Vivian is a theater critic who interviews for a promotion and then her interviewer goes missing. She involves herself and as she uncovers the truth, she resents that she finds herself surrounded by professional actors tasked with keeping secrets.

The End of the World is a Cul de Sac: Stories by Louise Kennedy 

One woman has painfully clear visions of her brother committing a murder. Other women are the murderers themselves. Each of the leading ladies in these stories is “good for her” personified. 

Orbital by Samantha Harvey 

Climate fiction meets science fiction meets literary characterization as six astronauts orbit Earth for sixteen days. There’s a lot to learn about the woes of humanity from outer space; all is revealed from a bird’s eye view.

Stalked by Eva Marks 

We’ve got another one for you spicy readers and the title pretty much says it all. Oh, and the stalker is a doctor after his sweet, innocent patient. It’s available on KU! Please check trigger warnings.

Perfect Little Lives by Amber And Danielle Brown

Simone’s mother was murdered ten years ago. She’s done everything she could to live a nice, quiet life since then, but now her childhood neighbor Hunter shows up and reveals that his father had an affair with her mom all those years ago. Simone, Hunter, and a meddlesome true crime podcaster try to get to the bottom of it.

Howl for the Gargoyle by  Kathryn Moon

Monster. Smash. Agency!! Need I say more? If you’re a monster lover then you already know what’s up. Hannah turns into a werewolf in her 30s and with all that extra rage in her body, she hires a gargoyle to help her let it out. Good thing he’s made of stone ;)

[woodsteingirl]

febrile has become my new favorite word thank you Alexis Soloski in her review of sweeney todd for the guardian for introducing me to that word. literally me forever.. shaky and feverish all the time….

[partydown]

‘Party Down’ Is Back. Did You R.S.V.P.?

New York Times article by Alexis Soloski

The invitations have been sent, the appetizers plated, the bottles opened. Rows of glasses gleam like baby stars. And somewhere, on the fringes of the celebration, a cater waiter is about to do something very wrong.

This was the template of “Party Down,” a Starz comedy that ran for two 10-episode seasons, debuting in the spring of 2009. Canceled just as critics and niche audiences were beginning to catch on, the show followed the disaffected employees of a mid-tier catering company as they moved from party to party, one per episode, filching booze, seducing guests, snorting coke, flirting with Nazism and accidentally poisoning George Takei.

The original 20 episodes never included a surprise party. But get your streamers and party blowers ready. Because in a surprise to just about everyone — most likely including the folks at Nielsen, who once awarded the show’s finale a 0.0 rating among 18- to 49-year-olds — “Party Down” is back. A six-episode revival will premiere on Starz on Feb. 24, with new episodes arriving weekly.

Martin Starr, a returning cast member, seemed to genuinely marvel at the development.

“This was the only show I’ve worked on where people came to work when they weren’t working,” he said in a group video call. “It’s crazy that we get to come back and do it again.”

“Truth be told,” his co-star Ken Marino said, “the reason I came back to set when I wasn’t working is I was between homes.”

Starr: “I do remember you were finding places to go to the bathroom that maybe didn’t have your name.”

Marino: “I still do. I’m going to the bathroom right now.”

Is this the same “Party Down” that failed to dominate cable television over a dozen years ago? Mostly. The show’s original creators, John Enbom, Dan Etheridge, Rob Thomas and Paul Rudd, remain, as executive producers, and Enbom oversees a small staff of writers. The party-a-week structure also endures, as does the original cast — with the exception, based on the five episodes provided in advance, of Lizzy Caplan.

“All of us, for the entire 13 years since we stopped shooting the show, all we wanted to do is make more ‘Party Down,’” the show’s lead, Adam Scott (“Parks and Recreation,” “Severance”), said in a separate interview last month. “We all would have been there for free.”

But the world has changed in the dozen or so years since the original run was canceled. So have the actors. Unknowns or barely knowns when the show debuted, most have since become household names. (The others? Depends on the household.) And they’ve all seen the current crop of disappointing reboots and reprises. “Party Down” could just be the rare show to get it right, mixing the perfect cocktail of star power, nostalgia, growth and gags.

Then again, the characters never put a lot of muscle into bartending. So here’s a Zen koan for a deeply un-Zen show: Can you throw the same party twice?

Sign up for the Watching newsletter, for Times subscribers only.  Streaming TV and movie recommendations from critic Margaret Lyons and friends. Get it in your inbox.

Are we having fun yet?

The first run of “Party Down” was both structural marvel and joke spectacular. Each episode was simultaneously a workplace comedy, a hangout comedy and a procedural — a sitcom that never sat down. The celebrations it featured — birthdays, after parties — typically bordered the entertainment industry and nearly all of the cater waiters harbored industry dreams of their own.

Those dreams eluded them, which fueled the philosophical inquiry at the show’s center.

“What we were asking was: How long do you chase the dream?” Thomas, one of the creators, said. “When do you grow up? When do you quit banging your head against the wall?”

The “Party Down” staff are all trying to make it, as actors, screenwriters and comedians. (Marino’s Ron, the manager, has a different dream: a Soup ’R Crackers franchise.) Only Henry (Scott), who has traded beer-commercial celebrity for free-floating despair, has opted out. The actors were trying back then to make it, too. None of the original cast — Caplan, Ryan Hansen, Jane Lynch, Marino, Scott, Starr — were anything like famous when the show began. Acting in a comedy about the entertainment industry’s has-beens, also-rans and never-wills resonated with the cast, sometimes uncomfortably.

“It felt so close to home, this show, because I felt like I could be a caterer the next day easily,” Hansen said.

Scott, who at the time had yet to play a lead, then shared that sense of career tenuousness. The cast felt deeply connected to the show in those first seasons, he said, and protective of it. “We just wanted to do it forever, because it made us feel better,” he said. “It really did.”

The salaries, though small, kept a few of the actors on the sunny side of financial precarity. The camaraderie helped, too. (That camaraderie remains; I had four of the actors together on a video call, and I have never heard grown men exchange so many “Love yous.”) Several actors separately compared the original shoot to summer camp.

That genuine affection altered the show’s tone. Some first season episodes included “edgy” humor — gay jokes, post-racial jokes. (“It’s cringey, yeah,” Starr said.) But the creators quickly realized they didn’t need that edge. The show was sadder than that. Funnier, too. The characters are screw-ups, sure, but the show suggests that everyone is a screw-up, especially after an hour at an open bar. So maybe the best thing is to find common cause as you pass the hors d’oeuvres.

“It’s about people who think that they’re going to find happiness in something out there,” Lynch said. “But what they have right in front of them is really quite sweet.”

Lynch shot the first eight episodes. Then she had to leave for the Fox show “Glee.” Marino hired a stripper for her wrap party. The stripper, Lynch recalled, smelled of French fries. The show went on, with Jennifer Coolidge replacing Lynch for two episodes and Megan Mullally, the only actor who was already well-known, coming in for the final 10.

The creators believed that it would keep going, even though, according to Nielsen, the Season 2 finale attracted only 74,000 viewers. Starz had other plans. Those plans didn’t involve letting the creators take the show elsewhere. “Party Down” languished.

One decade, zero dinners

If the original run argued that it’s healthier to let some dreams die, the creators and the cast could never quite manage that. There were talks, every year or so, of getting the crew back together — for a special, for a movie, for a move to another network. Friends and fans often asked Marino about it.

“I was like, ‘They’re working on it,’” he said. “‘It’s going to happen! Right around the corner!’” It took him eight or nine years to accept that maybe that corner wasn’t coming.

Then in 2019, Starz appointed Jeffrey Hirsch as its new president and chief executive. Thomas reached out to Hirsch and began pitching the show again. Hard. This time, Starz said yes.

That was only the first hurdle. The actors had conflicts and prior commitments now. The revival was approved in the summer of 2021, with production scheduled for early 2022. Lynch was to begin rehearsing a Broadway musical. Scott was making the Apple TV+ show “Severance.” Mullally had booked a movie being shot in Idaho.

Somehow a six-week window was found, even though that window involved flying Mullally to Los Angeles every weekend and back to Sun Valley by Monday.

“We could never get together for dinner for a decade,” Etheridge, a creator, said. “But when we came to shoot the show, everybody was there.”

Everybody except for Caplan, who had signed onto the FX series “Fleishman Is in Trouble.” (Asked whether Caplan might make a surprise appearance in Episode 6, Starz declined to comment.) Enbom had originally structured this new season around the on-again-off-again relationship between Henry and Caplan’s Casey. He had to restructure it, adding a new character, a studio executive played by Jennifer Garner. The revival’s first episode takes time out to heckle Caplan: Casey, now a successful comedian, can’t make a crew reunion.

“She’s shooting in New York,” Starr’s Roman, still an aspiring “hard sci-fi” writer, says. “Too big time for the likes of us.”

There were fewer jokes in real life. Hansen tried to make light of the situation. “Listen, we get it,” he said. “She had a job, whatever. I mean, I personally turned down a Marvel movie to do ‘Party Down.’”

“Tell that to everybody,” he added.

But just about everyone described themselves as heartbroken, including Caplan. “If I think about it for too long, I start to cry,” she wrote in an email. She sent cupcakes to the shoot.

The bow tie abides

Hollywood has transformed in the years since “Party Down” first concluded, and in some ways the show has, too. Gratuitous boobs are gone now. And the catering crew, once blindingly white, has become more diverse with the inclusion of two new regulars: Sackson, a YouTube-style content creator played by Tyrel Jackson Williams, and Lucy, a chef played by Zoë Chao who styles herself as a “food artist.”

Yet, the sweet-sour, slightly funky flavor of “Party Down” — like a margarita made with off-brand liquor — is mostly unaltered. This seems to be the rare revival that understands what made the original work, yet can still move (or move just enough to include the occasional TikTok dance challenge) with the times.

“We kept doing what we’d always been doing, just with new details,” Enbom said. “Because society certainly has not changed into a more wholesome place.”

Have the returning characters changed? That depends on how much you and your therapist believe that change is possible. “They’re still the same lovable knuckleheads,” Mullally said. “Most of these people haven’t really moved on, or they haven’t really become any happier, or more fulfilled in their lives.”

Slinging hors d’oeuvres hits different and more darkly in midlife. Still, the creators and the cast didn’t want the revival to feel like a bummer.

“It’s going to be fun watching the characters try to claw their way toward something other than their current circumstances,” Scott promised.

And if not exactly “fun,” then certainly relatable. “Really who gets what they want in this life?” Lynch said.

She probably meant that rhetorically. But the “Party Down” die-hards, Lynch included, did get what they wanted, a third season. And they seem to have delighted in making it, though Marino joked that he’d had to slim down before he could fit into his signature pink bow tie.

“Had to work off that neck fat,” he said. “Got my neck nice and lean.”

Slipping on that outfit was a little more stressful for Chao, a newcomer. She had watched the show, years after its debut, while working a food-service survival job herself. “Party Down” had made her feel less alone. She didn’t want to ruin it. “I whispered to myself every day, going onto set, ‘Be the least funny, but by as little as possible,’” she said.

Williams expressed similar gratitude and anxiety. “Everyone was so sweet and welcoming from the very beginning,” he said. “It never felt like an intimidating environment.” And yet, he added, “there was still like this insane fear.”

The returning cast faced related, if less acute, worries. They have been in the business long enough to understand how revivals can go wrong. (A few of them had even appeared in revivals that flopped.) But they were reassured by the scripts, written by Enbom and a small staff, which suggested a continuity of character and tone and food-poisoning-induced body horror. There was also the pleasure of being together again — a little older, a little grayer, but still able to drop a tray on cue.

Will the ratings for this coming season be better? Comfortingly, they can’t get much worse. But the cast and creative team are counting on the show’s turning enough heads that Starz will greenlight a fourth season. (“You better believe I’m not missing that one,” Caplan wrote.)

Though Starr is inclined to cynicism, he sounded only mildly sardonic in discussing this ambition. “I really do hope we’re allowed to come back and do it again and keep up this little charade we’ve got going,” he said.

Hansen put it a bit more pragmatically. “In 12 years, people are going to love Season 3.”

[antonio-velardo]

Antonio Velardo shares: Strike delays have the Emmys doing the time warp. by Alexis Soloski

By Alexis Soloski Published: January 15, 2024 at 07:40PM from NYT Arts https://ift.tt/1nj8EgX via IFTTT

[newyorktheater]

Here in the Dark by Alexis Soloski

Alexis Soloski, a theater critic for the New York Times, has written a novel about a theater critic, but if that’s the lure, beware:  “Here in the Dark” (Flatiron Books, 256 pages) is more Dashiell Hammett than Dorothy Parker,  the central character as much Sam Spade as Addison DeWitt.  Vivian Parry is deeply flawed: self-destructive, antisocial, hardboiled. She drinks too much, pops pills, and…

[stratocumulusperlucidus]

Nicholas Galitzine Wants to Prove He’s More Than Just a Pretty Face

(NYT / ✍️: Alexis Soloski / 📷 : Luisa Opalesky)

[universomovie]

Kim Kardashian expõe limitações e mal mexe o rosto na estreia do terror 'American Horror Story'

ALEXIS SOLOSKI Kim Kardashian em cena de ‘American Horror Story: Delicate’ – Eric Liebowitz/FX THE NEW YORK TIMES – Kim Kardashian é uma estrela da realidade, uma sensação de tabloide, uma defensora da reforma prisional, uma magnata da beleza e das roupas modeladoras e uma ex-modelo de vídeos de hip hop. Desde as últimas semanas, ela também é membro do universo estendido de Ryan Murphy, com um…