#stephen strange has me in a chokehold and that’s fine

[eviesaurusrex]

I just wrote a short Stephen headcanon because I needed something simple.

my anxiety is currently skyrocketing and I seriously don’t know what to do but hey, everything’s fine lol.

But this short thing is kinda weird and I’m gonna put it out there anyway because why not. I don’t wanna delete it. Will be out in one or two hours byyyyye

[sillybub]

When you were first interested in cats? How did you come across it?

I hope like 1,433-word answers!

When I was but a child, naïve to sufferings and strife that existed outside the warm confines of the blankets that swaddled me in my bed, I had a favorite character. A dinosaur, infamously purple, with a perpetually friendly disposition. Barney, he is colloquially called.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The real story begins years before I was even a thought in my parents' heads.

The year is 1998, and director Steve Gomer had yet to find his footing as a filmmaker. The few directing credits he had to his name were all flops, and were lucky to get even 6 stars.

Enter Stephen White, longtime writer for the Barney and Friends series. With the grace of a man who has seen his fair share of hardships in the tumultuous world of writing for film and television, White extended his hand and pulled Gomer into his latest project: Barney the dinosaur's very first feature film.

Spirits were surely high for the film's production. After all, Barney was a household name, and he was adored by children all across the world--surely it would be an automatic hit!

Alas, the film failed to make back it's budget, crossing only a little over $12 million out of the $15 million budget. It had even been torn to shreds by critics, having but 3.2 stars on IMDb.

But those are critics. Not the audience of young, starry-eyed children for whom it was intended. I can tell you that Barney's Great Adventure was actually a smash hit and wild success, because Gomer and White's whimsical creation had 6-year-old-me in a chokehold, 8 years after the film's release. I watched that movie damn near every night when I was a kid. My siblings hated me for it. But I was thriving.

However, there is a dark side to every tale. A shadow realm.

For every night, as I stuck the VHS tape into my tiny little TV, I would dive under my blanket until the reassuring sounds Barney's delightful giggles, coaxing me back out.

I'm sure I don't need to tell Cats fans what other movie came out in 1998.

But I will tell you that in the trailer, the first song they decided to showcase was "Macavity the Mystery Cat". Now, although this is now one of my favorite songs in the show, I want to take you back to my 6 year old self.

I see darkness. Then sudden flashing. A burst of music, and strange cat-human hybrids fill my screen. They are darkly lit, and I can't make out their faces, and they move inhumanly. They sing of some scary monster or fiend who's out to get them. It's more terror than I can take. Like a proverbial ostrich hoping to escape danger, I stick my head under the blanket. I don't watch long enough to see the friendlier songs. All I hear are strange voices saying nonsense words, because I grew up in rural Alabama and British accents may as well have been another language to me.

But I loved Barney. So I endured.

Cut to 2019, fall semester. I'm in the middle of writing a literary analysis on Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. I need a break badly, because I'm digging my own rabbit hole and I'm going to die in it unless I decompress.

I scroll through Netflix, and some force of the universe tugs on the string of fate, and I am guided towards Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

But Beverly Hills Chihuahua. "Huh," I think. "That's a funny movie to blow off my Faulkner analysis to watch." So I watch it. And it was fine. Nothing special.

And then the next day, I mention to my friend that I watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua. She says, "Oh, what's it about?"

And because I have no self-control, I launch into a beat-by-beat retelling of the entire film. And as I describe it to her, I find myself deeply analyzing the symbolism of the film. I'm losing track of my own thoughts, so I write them up on the whiteboard. I'm connecting the dots. I've been stuck in an analytical mindset for so long because of my Faulkner essay that I can't turn it off, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua becomes an unfortunate casualty.

"Robin", my friend says. "You've been at this for three hours. Are you okay?"

I look at my phone. She's right. I'd been deeply analyzing Beverly Hills goddamn Chihuahua for three hours.

But I felt like I'd been struck by divine lightning. I have a purpose.

Cut to winter break. I sequester myself into the basement and watch three Beethoven (the dog) movies in a row, taking notes like a madman. This is my new personality trait.

It's so much fun. Everybody has a hot take on Citizen Kane, or Life of Pi. But nobody has deeper thoughts about animal movies for children, and I thought it would be funny to have these kinds of analyses in my back pocket. I consume dog movie after dog movie, because dogs are the easiest animal to train as an actor, so they have way more movies about them. Air Bud. 101 Dalmatians. Balto. Hotel for Dogs. I was hyperfixated.

But as I consume these dog movies like a ravenous shark, I begin to see headlines for a property I never thought I'd see again.

Tom Hooper directing. Starring Rebel Wilson and James Corden.

I hadn't given Cats a single thought since I outgrew Barney.

The reviews come in. It's a nightmare. People are saying that it has the plot and structure of some kind of art house film, that resists any kind of interpretation.

I felt like my entire life had been leading up to this moment. Cats became my white whale. My final boss.

"Let's go see it," I begged my siblings. "Come on, it'll be funny." They relented, for they had nothing better to do on December 26th.

We had the the entire theater to ourselves. My siblings roasted the hell out of it. They looked on in horror as Jason Derulo was fully about to suck toes.

But I? I was fascinated. I took notes. My mind was ablaze with trying to decipher and piece together these events. My task at hand was to prove that there was some kind of profound and deeper meaning.

The credits roll, and my brothers and sister are cackling about how awful that was. What a joke. Who approved this? Why would they let Tom Hooper direct this?

"Robin," my sister says. "What did you think? This was your idea."

Rebel Wilson peeling her skin off replayed in my mind. And memories of the 1998 trailer kept replaying in my head. Was Cats always this terrifying?

"I need to do more research," I told her.

The second I got home, I looked up Cats, and was delighted to find the entire 1998 movie up on YouTube. Steeling myself, I played the first part of "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats".

This is... actually quite fun. Now that I have a more high def visual, these costumes are actually really creative. And these performers are incredibly talented.

...It’s over already? Well, let me just watch it again, since I know what to expect now.

I watched it five times in a row. I didn't take a single note because I had been completely distracted by how much fun I was having. I kept seeing new little details. I was learning their names. I was getting to know them.

Days later, my sister approaches me. "Do you have any profound and mind-blowing thoughts yet?" she asks.

"No. Did you know that Cats is actually really good? Come watch it with me."

She had a good time, too. And when I got back to college, I made my friends watch it with me.

As I do with every new piece of media I consume, I looked it up on Tumblr, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it had an active fandom.

I have long ago abandoned the need to deeply analyze Cats. I love it for what it is; I don't need to go digging for a reason to enjoy it like I did with dog movies. The wonder and magic of it is enough. I don't need or want it to have a deep and profound meaning.

"Robin," I hear you say. "Why did you write a fucking novel to answer this question?"

Because, my sweet followers. I needed you to understand that a cat movie is not a dog movie.

[filmstruck]

PRÊT-À-PORTER (’94): Is It Pretty the Way It Is? By Nathaniel Thompson

Going to the movies in the 1990s was… strange. With big studios starting to really exercise a chokehold over what theaters were showing on screens across the country, there was still a bright light as indie films were also finding surprising ways of getting into mainstream theaters by utilizing strategies that are almost alien compared to the way things are now. Of course, the line between indie and studio was blurry, especially in cases like Fine Line, but it was exciting to have international prestige films popping up all over the place. One of the biggest shocks came in 1992 with THE PLAYER, a major comeback film for Robert Altman with seemingly every big name in Hollywood appearing somewhere in the frame over the course of this124-minute tale of murder and entitlement in Tinseltown. Altman had been considered unemployable by Hollywood at that point; his last bona fide theatrical feature was the poorly received BEYOND THERAPY (’87), followed by the brilliant TV miniseries TANNER ’88 (’88, of course) and the BBC miniseries VINCENT & THEO (’90), which was contorted into a theatrical feature after its run on television. (Those latter two and a fine selection of other Altman films are all available for viewing on FilmStruck and The Criterion Channel.) The funny thing is everyone still respected Altman; he just wasn’t considered bankable after a string of big-budget flops.

So, Fine Line (a division of New Line, now a division of Warner Bros.) had a big hit with THE PLAYER, and they followed it up right away with another all-star arthouse project, SHORT CUTS (’93). Adapted from a selection of deeply acidic, unsettling short stories by Raymond Carver, it turned out to be an epic, three-hour snapshot of Angelenos that was just as unflattering as his previous critique of Hollywood. By this point it was also obvious that Altman’s tone had changed; the man who had mounted a string of modest but technically innovative theatrical adaptations throughout the 1980s was now painting on a much larger, broader canvas, closer to the approach of his classic NASHVILLE (’75) but with an attitude that people often read as misanthropic or even downright hateful about humanity. Whether that’s the case is up for debate as a look at these films in context feels to me more like sad-eyed humanism with a heavy streak of dark comedy, but that’s up to each viewer’s personal taste.

It was inevitable that the big gorilla on the indie film scene, Miramax, would want in on the Altman action after his return to grace, so they jumped at the chance for another ambitious portrait of a glamorous lifestyle packed to the gills with famous faces: PRÊT-À-PORTER (’94), an unprecedented peek at the fashion industry, shot on location in Paris with a multitude of real-life haute couture personalities captured in their natural environment. It also had the selling points of Julia Roberts, one of the biggest movie stars in the world at the time and a bit of an Altman vet after a pivotal moment in THE PLAYER, and a reunion of Italian cinema icons Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, including a reprise of their famous striptease scene from Vittorio De Sica’s YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW (’63). What could go wrong?

Well, for one thing there was that title. American moviegoers were perceived as deeply afraid of titles they didn’t understand, most laughably when the James Bond film LICENCE REVOKED had to change its title to LICENCE TO KILL (’89) because, according to marketers, the average U.S. citizen had no idea what “revoked” meant. Likewise, for its American release, Altman’s film was retitled READY TO WEAR, for obvious reasons. When the film opened, anticipation was high… and then people hated it. With a passion. This wasn’t a fun, fizzy jaunt to Paris with lots of high fashion eye candy. Instead it turned out to be a dark, strange, cynical barrage of overlapping storylines, united by the visual motif of characters stepping in doggie doo and climaxing in a sneering middle finger on the catwalk orchestrated by Anouk Aimée’s fashion designer and prompting a reaction of pure disgust from the glamour-worshiping American reporter Kitty Potter (Kim Basinger). Critics turned on Altman in droves during the film’s Christmas opening in America, and it left theaters far more quickly than the director’s last two films.

However, it’s a film that really sticks with you. The lack of a streamlined narrative isn’t an issue here as Altman goes for a full environmental immersion, showing how art and commerce can create a deeply dysfunctional but fascinating atmosphere that can bring out the worst and the wackiest sides of human nature. There’s a constant tension between the sleek Panavision visuals (no one uses widescreen quite like Altman) and the roiling nastiness inside the characters, and for some reason the same barbed tactic of those prior two films really hit a raw nerve here. 

The film was better received overseas where its tonal oddities didn’t seem quite so jarring, and despite its jaded view of superficiality, there’s no denying that there’s a vast amount of pleasure in just observing the insane roster of names you can see all in one place: Jean-Pierre Cassel, Forest Whitaker, Lauren Bacall, Tim Robbins, Jean Rochefort, Sally Kellerman, Richard E. Grant, Danny Aiello, Lily Taylor, Stephen Rea, Lyle Lovett, Tracey Ullman, Teri Garr and even Pedro Almodóvar muse/fashion staple, Rossy De Palma. It’s like someone took every 1990s American indie film and threw them in a blender with all of France’s biggest stars, which means that the film now plays like a priceless time capsule, capturing a point in cinema history that can’t possibly be replicated. 

It’s up for debate whether this nostalgia has softened the film’s sharp bite over the years, especially since several of the beloved actors appearing on screen are no longer with us (not to mention Altman himself). It certainly isn’t a film that’s gone soft at its core, there’s something to be said for its poisonous beauty and the way it refuses to let an entire industry get a free pass just because their famous and, of course, oh so pretty.

[jessicakehoe]

How Camp Was Last Night’s Met Gala?

Last night’s Met Gala kicked off with Lady Gaga arriving in shocking Schiaparelli-pink cape by Brandon Maxwell, which she removed to reveal a black gown, then another pink one, before finally stripping down to her underwear and crumpling onto the pink carpet like a defeated Judy Garland. But besides this flamboyant display, how camp was the Met Gala, exactly?

On a scale of American Gothic (not camp) to Pink Flamingos (extremely camp) we’d wager it ranked about a Dusty Springfield, that is, it achieved a medium-high level of camp. (While it may seem a tad out of character for the fashion world to embrace a sensibility that is defined by bad taste,  embrace it they did.

We ranked some notable Met Gala attendees on how they measure up to our own (very stringent!) camp criteria.

Photo by Stephen Lovekin/BEI/REX/Shutterstock

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga is an incredibly talented performer, sure, but I kind of feel like she has me by a chokehold here, daring me to declare her anything other than camp after four outfit changes. We get it Gaga! You’re camp! Trying very hard is camp but there’s a sort of earnestness to Gaga’s desire to adhere to the theme that isn’t quite camp. Still, I’ll give it to her. Did you hear that? You can loosen your grip on my neck now, I think I’m starting to get rope burn.

Camp-o-meter: 8/10, definitely camp.

Photo by David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock

Billy Porter

This man understands camp on a deep, deep level. Porter arrived at the Met Gala dripping in custom gold Cleopatra-inspired look by The Blonds carried by six shirtless attendants. Subsequently, the attendants lowered him off the dais and Porter unfurled his cape to reveal a wingspan of Albatross-like proportions. To understand the true meaning of camp, we need look no further than this man.

Camp-o-meter: 9/10, severely camp.

Photo by David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock

Serena Williams

Williams’ floral, sprouting dress by Versace initially strikes me as a bit too ‘nature-y’ to be camp, but the Off-White Nike sneakers put the outfit over the edge. In her essay on camp in the May issue of FASHION, Tatum Dooley writes “Virgil Abloh’s penchant for quotation marks could be seen as the ultimate example of contemporary camp.” Go off, Serena.

Camp-o-meter: 7/10, totally camp.

Photo by Clint Spaulding/REX/Shutterstock

Laverne Cox

Don’t ask me why, but ruffles are camp. (Okay fine, ask me, I’ve already written a whole story about it.) Ruffles were one of the major themes of the evening, worn in heaping amounts by Doutzen Kroes, Lily Collins et al., but Laverne wore them best. Full camp marks awarded here.

Camp-o-meter: 8/10, totally camp.

Photo by David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock

Natasha Lyonne

The aeronautic shoulders of Lyonne’s jumpsuit are a clear reference to queer icon Klaus Nomi, which affords her some serious camp points. (Plus, she acted on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, one of the most camp tv shows of all time.) This look is bold, strange, and very gay. Do you hear that? It’s the camp alarm sounding off.

Camp-o-meter: 7/10, undoubtedly camp.

Photo by Michael Buckner/Variety/REX/Shutterstock

Cardi B

One of my many hopes for the Met Gala was that somebody would arrive wearing a train of Princess Diana proportions, and Cardi B did not disappoint. Though honorable mentions go out to Gwen Stefani, Rachel Brosnahan and Sophie Hunter for attempting the train, it was Cardi’s Bi’s distended Thom Browne dress that truly achieved the excessive exaggeration native to camp. Cardi looked a little bit like vampire Aaliyah in Queen of the Damned mixed with Pope Benedict XVI. Her train required three separate fluffers. If that’s not camp then I do not know what is.

Camp-o-meter: 9.5/10, unbearably camp.

Photo by Matt Baron/REX/Shutterstock

Miley Cyrus

Brutally un-camp. Cyrus’s status as a former Disney star should help her coast by on merit alone, but this Saint Laurent look is simply not camp. It would be perfect if she were, say, attending a Studio 54-themed party, but this is the Met Gala! Just because something has sequins doesn’t make it camp. Plus, major points docked off for having bangs.

Camp-o-meter: 2.5/10, unfortunately un-camp.

Photo by Stephen Lovekin/BEI/REX/Shutterstock

Celine Dion

So, so, so, so camp. It perhaps cannot be overstated how camp Celine Dion as an entity  — and by extension, her Met Gala outfit — is. Dion’s appeal as a performer is based on her painfully earnest delivery of ballads like “My Heart Will Go On”  combined with flamboyant showmanship and a penchant for pizzazz. In this silver Oscar de la Renta jumpsuit bedecked with fringe and a feathered headdress, Celine gets extra camp points. According to Dion, the outfit was partially inspired by “the glitzy costumes of the Ziegfield follies.”

Camp-o-meter: 9/10, indubitably camp.

Photo by Matt Baron/REX/Shutterstock

Hailey Bieber

A term that often gets thrown around when trying to define camp is ‘trashy.’ Bieber’s faux-thong backless gown by Alexander Wang was definitely that. The tawdry detail reminds of being an awkward middle schooler in the early 2000s when it was cool to wear low-rise jeans with a hiked-up thong. Intentionally exposing a whale-tail? Definitely camp.

Camp-o-meter: 7.5, unexpectedly camp.

Photo by Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock

Lena Dunham

Bizarre, yes, but definitely camp. Dunham’s Christopher Kane dress from his F/W 2019 collection inspired by sexual fetishes completely, unexpectedly nails the theme. Camp is all about reveling in one’s own freaky filth and what better way to articulate this than by caping for a semi-obscure sexual fetish? Good job, Dunham. This look is totally weird, very extra and undeniably camp.

Camp-o-meter: 7.5/10, distinctly camp.

Photo by David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock

Karlie Kloss

Kloss waltzed onto the red carpet looking the golden ticket from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in a Dapper Dan x Gucci dress — and not in a good way. This outfit reads as if she did the cursory reading on camp, then decided to ignore everything in favour of looking normatively hot. This outfit is distinctly not camp.

Camp-o-meter: 5/10, regrettably un-camp.

Photo by Michael Buckner/Variety/REX/Shutterstock

Ryan Murphy

Wearing a shimmery salmon suit by Christian Siriano, Ryan Murphy appeared to be emerging out of a shell like Boticelli’s Venus. Mimicking a famous painting IRL? Yep, it’s camp.

Camp-o-meter: 7/10, high camp.

Photo by David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock

Wendi Deng Murdoch

Murdoch arrived in an outfit the looked like the ocean floor, all brain coral and undulating sea anemones. Though I am not in the business of awarding camp points to anyone less than six degrees of separation away from human axis of evil Rupert Murdoch, I must reluctantly accept that Murdoch’s Met Gala was sufficiently camp.

Camp-o-meter: 6.5/10, begrudgingly camp.

Photo by Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock

The Olsen Twins

MK & A’s floor-grazing Chanel leather getups give off extreme Morticia Addams vibes. Though the concept of twins wearing matching outfits strikes me as somewhat camp, these outfits are simply too stately and/or elegant to qualify. Camp stems from bad taste and Mary-Kate and Ashley could not access bad taste if they tried. It pains me to award the Olsen Twins a low score on anything, but these outfits are simply Not Camp.

Camp-o-meter: 4/10, slouching towards camp.

Photo by David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock

Katy Perry

What the actual f*ck. This woman clearly understands camp on a deeper level than I previously believed possible. On second evaluation, I should have expected this from the person responsible for “I Kissed a Girl” (extremely camp), but this look took me by complete surprise. Perry took the Surrealist concept of a readymade (the chandelier) and then cranked it up to eleven by wearing this Moschino dress and headpiece featuring over 7,000 Swarovski crystals. This look was so good — so camp! — it gave me a mild heart attack.

Camp-o-meter: 10/10, sickeningly camp.

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