#tate moore

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/16/2022: GRIMCUTTY

N.B. This review is very spoilery.

***

I love internet scare movies. I watch them all. It makes no difference to me whether they're as sophisticated as Kiyoshi Kurasawa's PULSE, as ludicrous as FEAR DOT COM, or as repulsive and pretentious as David Schwimmer's TRUST; expressions of paranoia about the interweb are invariably interesting to me, and often funny. Part of the problem is just the basic unfilmability of the online experience—it almost always comes off as silly unless it's as worked up as THE MATRIX. But the luddite hysteria that underwrites so many of these movies always brings to mind the backwards farmers in GLEN OR GLENDA who gravely warn, "If God had wanted us to fly, he'd have given us wings!" Truthfully, I do believe there are problems with social media and being chronically online, but my level of caution is nowhere near that which is evoked by the absolutely hilarious 2013 Canadian TV show Darknet, which I found utterly fascinating in its fantastical fearmongering. As a fairly online person myself, maybe there is something comforting about the outrage expressed by many of these productions, that is so hyperbolic as to be totally unreal.

I didn't mention Tate Moore (left) in this review because I just wasn't being that thorough, but she's really excellent and I hope she makes more horror movies.

GRIMCUTTY is satisfying to me because ultimately, it isn't really about what happens online—and it specifically does not accuse young people of being brainwashed, overstimulated potential victimizers and victims. Writer-director John Ross's movie clearly references Slender Man-style phenomena in which a meme metamorphoses into a real life threat, but his film is ultimately about parenting, and specifically about the dangers posed by not trusting one's children. Sara Wolfkind plays Asha, a teenager who sparks her parents' ire when she drops out of the track team. Although Asha is just not as interested in sports as her parents think she should be, they blame her choice on internet addiction, and begin implementing increasingly strict rules about device use and screen time. Unfortunately, this conflict corresponds with the growing popularity of a dark online game in which a monstrous entity called Grimcutty coerces kids into self-harm and violence against their parents. Grimcutty is real, but the gag is that it is actually feeding on the paranoia of controlling adults, and faith in it is spread not through antisocial web forums, but by a psychotic mommy blogger who is poisoning the minds of very online parents.

Asha's parents are played by the extremely funny Usman Ally in a great horror turn, and my secret girlfriend Shannyn Sossamon. Amusingly, Sossamon is in a 2005 internet scare movie called DEVOUR, in which a gang of misfit teens get hooked on an online game where they receive threatening phone calls from their own future selves that command them to do bad things. It's hard to describe because it's hard to understand, but it is an early reflection of meme-y internet challenges like the Blue Whale game, which is said to have driven young participants to suicide. GRIMCUTTY seems to refer most directly to the Momo challenge, which grew out of a decontextualized image of a sculpture by Keisuke Aiso, resembling an extremely scary chicken lady. This game takes the format of Blue Whale in that players are given increasingly dangerous dares that culminate in suicide. Of course, it's hard to parse the hoaxes and hype from the real damage done in at least some cases by these challenges, but an even bigger matter of curiosity is, why would anyone agree to participate in one of these games? The adults in GRIMCUTTY blithely remark that kids will do literally anything that becomes trendy, and it is exactly this condescending attitude that contributes to the ensuing horror.

The point there is salient: GRIMCUTTY becomes real not because kids are assholes, but because parents are willing to believe the worst about their own children. Oddly, the movie currently has its own entry on knowyourmeme.com, which the site notes is still being researched and evaluated. One of the pieces of information collected there is a negative review from Mashable that laments the movie's inability to "discover even deeper horrors within the depths of online culture." I think this completely misses the point of the movie, and I suspect maybe a lot of viewers are missing the point in a similar way. This is not about teen lemming mentality, nor is it about the dark bowels of the internet into which we should go only by the grace of god. It's about the threat young people face of being dehumanized and disempowered by adults who can't let them participate in the authorship of their own narratives. I'm not lauding it as a new masterpiece, but having seen a lot of movies in this subgenre, I can say that GRIMCUTTY takes an approach I find very refreshing.

[chrisnaustin]

If only I were she!

[olivierdemangeon]

GRIMCUTTY (2022) ★★★☆☆

[golden-west]

[mostlyghostie]

Working next door to Tate Britain today, popped in on my way home

[alltimefail-sims]

A Cozy Lookbook Ft. The Strangerville Gang

No one asked me to show my OCs in their cozy clothes, but I did it anywaaaaaaay!!!! (Just imagine I sang that) Yes this is a dumb lookbook, but I had fun!! I was inspired by the random simblr question anon that was going around a couple days ago asking to see people's OCs in lazy Sunday clothes.

Sidenote: I ask that you ignore any weird, crunchy bits if you can. 🙈 I took out my height sliders, but once I lined them up side-by-side I realized that they looked so weird all the same height, so I adjusted that manually. I hope you all enjoy my babies in their comfy clothes! Check out my Strangerville tag to learn more about them. Alright, onward to the links!

DOWNLOAD BELOW ↓

Zoe - Hair*, headband, earrings, necklace, face mask, outfit*, slippers Erwin - Hair, walkman acc., glasses, cigarette acc., shirt, pants, socks Tashia - Bonnet, piercings [1- ego][2][3][4], romper, socks, shoes Anwar - Hat, sweatshirt, pants, socks and shoes Junia - Hair, earrings, paintbrush acc., paint overlays [1][2], sweatshirt, shorts Beckett - Hair, glasses, top, shorts, socks

Poses by @helgatisha.

Anything marked with a * means it’s either from the Sims Resource, Simsdom/Simsfinds, or goes through a “host” such as AdFly.

Thanks to all the talented cc creators! @miikocc, @caio-cc, @robinksimblr, @simstrouble, @stamsim, @christopher067, @pralinesims, @mangosimoothie, @rimings, @simtographies, @ceeproductions, @makesims, @babyetears, @ilkup, @softerhaze, @enriques4, @candysims4, @jius-sims, @gorillax3-cc, @wyattssims, @ellenneedscoffee, @eunosims

[hauntedrose555]

my best friend always says I look like Taissa and i always think ‘yeah maybe I kinda look like her’ BUT I have a photo on my wall of her and my little brother thought it was me, and I showed a picture of her to my mum and she said ‘oh my god that’s literally you’ (and my best friend also said that she’s never seen anyone who looks more like me)

IM FREAKING OUT

[antronaut]

Henry Moore - Recumbent Figure (1938)

[minisinmedia]

Kasey Rogers (Louise Tate)

Mary Tyler Moore (Laura Petrie)

Barbara Eden (Jeannie)

[paxbe]

honestly one of the best decisions i've ever made was to start dyeing my hair ginger. all the hot bitches are red heads

[lascitasdelashoras]

Poetas, citas

[cptsadist]

This took me an embarrassingly long time to finish, but here's Tate with all of his adopted children. He's a grumpy vamp dad.

Literally all of the Cafe Noir characters are here.

[ruleof3bobby]

MAGGIE MOORE (S) (2023) Grade: C

It didn't find it's footing, wasn't sure if it wanted to be a dark comedy, crime, or a rom-com. The cast is good & Jon Hamm & Tina Fey do have good chemistry from their 30 Rock scenes.

[denimbex1986]

'I almost knock into Andrew Scott before I see him. He’s just dashed out of the Tate Modern, frantic and slightly late: “There’s just so many entrances!” he exclaims. His patrician forehead crinkles, and the brown eyes charmingly plead: Forgive me! He was just inside, picking up his membership card. Surely he can get in for free? “Excuse me,” he huffs, “I’m a fully paid-up member.” Then he flashes the broad grin that seduced a legion of Fleabag viewers, and we’re off.

The plan today is to meander in a loop along the Thames. On a midafternoon Friday in London, this involves much ducking and diving through crowds, which suits Scott just fine. The weather is one of those bright, springlike days that convinces you that winter is over—except the rain-swollen river is now sloshing ominously onto the pavement. We slow down to regard an underwater section of our route. “I don’t think we’re gonna get through there,” he says. “I’ve probably got a hole in my trainers.”

We head for the road instead, words pouring out of the 47-year-old actor in that mellifluous Irish lilt, peppered with “you knows” and interrupted frequently by his laugh. It’s no surprise that his colleagues quickly become friends: “It was clear from the moment that I met and worked with Andrew that he was an exceptionally gifted actor,” says Julianne Moore, who starred alongside Scott on Broadway in 2006’s The Vertical Hour. It was both actors’ Broadway debuts, though Scott has juggled screen and theater from the start. “I’ve always done both,” he says, though he acknowledges modestly: “I used to do maybe a few plays a year and one television show. Now maybe it’s kind of the opposite.” That’s somewhat underselling his dramatic accomplishments. Scott has won two Olivier Awards, for the experimental A Girl in a Car With a Man in 2005 and Noël Coward’s Present Laughter in 2020. He has performed in productions of Eugene O’Neill, Oscar Wilde—he’s played Hamlet, too, and was nominated for an Olivier for that as well. “Scott gives carefully controlled, thrillingly virtuoso physical performances,” wrote The Guardian last year, when he performed eight roles from Uncle Vanya by himself, in a much-lauded West End solo adaptation of the Chekhov play. (A New York transfer could not be confirmed when this piece went to press, but seems highly likely.) “He wore his talent so lightly and modestly,” Moore says. “He was joyful and fun and an amazing partner to have onstage and off.”

Scott was born in Dublin, sandwiched between two sisters; his mother is a teacher and an artist, and his father works at an employment agency. As a child, he was brought to art galleries and theaters. A performance by the great Irish actor Donal McCann in Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock when he was 11 or 12 made a lasting impression: “There was just something about the power in his stillness—people think that, in theater, it’s all about the grand gesture, but stillness onstage is absolutely mesmerizing.”

An eerie stillness characterizes all of Scott’s performances as well. As Moriarty in Sherlock, the BBC One show that catapulted him to fame in Britain in the 2010s, he requested fewer lines to play up the villain’s spookiness. And then there is that agonizing stretch of silence in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag right after its titular protagonist confesses her love. Has the line “It’ll pass” ever been delivered with so much pathos? Scott’s acting is all submerged passion; when he does speak, his words have depth. “Andrew has an intensity and a precision in his work,” Moore tells me. “I love his vulnerability, the way his eyes glitter onscreen.”

As a child, Scott was sent to drama classes to get over his shyness. He still remembers his first role, as the Tin Man in a production of The Wizard of Oz. “I felt completely free,” he says, seemingly transported to the moment he launched into “If I Only Had a Heart” onstage. “I felt joy—that’s the word. Not only did I feel it, but I felt that other people felt it when they were looking at me���. Some intuition told me as an 11-year-old: ‘You have to be this expressive, that’s what theater is!’ Nobody taught me that. I just felt it.” Then he swerves to avoid a clutch of tourists on Tower Bridge, and the reverie is lost.

These days, walking around London is something of an ongoing pastime for Scott. During the press rollout for Andrew Haigh’s Golden Globe–nominated romance All of Us Strangers, he and costar Paul Mescal went to their PR engagements on foot. One day, two boys on bikes clocked the pair and started chasing after them in an alarming fashion: “We escaped them—it was quite fun, actually!” Does he ever feel slightly protective of Mescal, two decades his junior? “Not any more than I would with any of my other people in my life. Because he’s got his head screwed on, you know? I absolutely adore Paul,” Scott adds, though he wants to make one thing clear: “Bromance is not the word that we associate with it, because neither of us are very bro-ey.”

Waller-Bridge, who has known Scott for 15 years, describes him as “an absolute pixie of mischief.” When asked to elaborate, she continues: “I could write a novel. But I love how naughty he is. He has the magical ability to make you feel instantly present—no matter what’s going on in your life, you’re suddenly there in the moment and feeling joyful. I think that’s what it’s like to watch him as an actor too…like he can stop time with his honesty.”

Between 2020 and 2021, Scott also traversed the lengths of the Thames, pondering the script from Ripley, his upcoming eight-episode project for Netflix, in which he plays the titular protagonist. “Quite unusually, I got sent all eight scripts at the same time,” he remembers. Steven Zaillian, the screenwriter behind Schindler’s List and Gangs of New York and the director and writer behind All the King’s Men, had written all eight at the outset.

Tom Ripley is crime novelist Patricia Highsmith’s slipperiest literary creation; a pathological liar and murderer with whom she felt a strange kinship—she sometimes signed letters with some variation of “Pat H., alias Ripley.” It is not so much a spoiler as an ongoing feature of the books that Ripley, despite splurging on Venetian palazzi and Gucci suitcases, never gets caught. If anybody comes close, there is always a conveniently located oar or glass paperweight nearby. Ripley, in other words, is the hero of the tale. “That’s why he fascinates so many,” says Scott. “There’s been so many iterations of him. I think it’s because people root for him.” Actors like Alain Delon and Dennis Hopper have tried the role; Matt Damon played him as an obsequious, lower-class naïf; John Malkovich, as a slimy, camp killer. Scott’s Ripley is different; a watchful loner escaping rodent-infested poverty, more at home among art than he is around people. Musician and actor Johnny Flynn plays his first victim—the monied Dickie Greenleaf—and Dakota Fanning is Dickie’s suspicious ex-girlfriend. “I find Tom quite vulnerable,” Scott tells me. “I don’t think he’s necessarily lonely, but I certainly think he’s solitary…. He seems to me by his nature that he just can’t fit in. He’s trying to survive.”

In Ripley, Zaillian extracts maximum Hitchcockian dread from every creaky footstep. But most sinister of all is Scott’s face, which exhibits a sharklike steeliness throughout. It’s a performance that exudes queasy force. Is Ripley a scammer, a psychopath, or both? “There’s so many things lurking beneath him that I’ve been very reluctant to diagnose him with anything. I never thought of him as a sociopath or murderous,” Scott declares. “It’s up to everybody else to characterize him or call him whatever they want.”

As we weave through tourists near the Tower of London, barely anybody notices Scott, save for a faint glimmer of recognition among mainly young women. He seems to draw reassurance from it. “I don’t like to think about it too much, if I’m honest,” he muses of fame. “I find it a little bit, er, frightening.” He is known but not blockbuster-recognizable, although he is in the upcoming Back in Action with Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx. What stunts did he do? “I can’t give that away, I’m afraid, or somebody from Netflix will come and shoot me in the head.”

What’s been on Scott’s mind the most hasn’t been acting at all, in fact, but art. As a 17-year-old, he was offered his first movie role on the same day he was given a scholarship to study painting. He chose acting, but has recently been thinking about Oliver Burkeman’s philosophical self-help tract from 2021, Four Thousand Weeks, which makes the case for focusing on the five things you truly want to accomplish. “For me at the moment, it’s like, What do you want to do? What do you want to say?”

He scrolls through his phone to show me his work. There’s a watercolor of a couple arguing in a restaurant in rich reds and greens, line drawings of friends and people on the beach, and two self-portraits. “It’s a bit weird,” he acknowledges of his depiction of himself, all bulbous forehead and Pan-like tufts of hair. His brisk, nervy lines are reminiscent of Egon Schiele or Francis Bacon, who turns out to be one of his favorite painters. “Well, God, I’ll take that,” he mutters at the comparison. He would like someday to go to art school. “I don’t ever regret it,” he says of acting. “But I suppose you just get to a stage where you think, What else? That’s one of the big painful things in life for me, where you can’t quite live all the lives.” As he gets older, he feels the tug toward revisiting old working relationships, including with Waller-Bridge: “We’ve definitely got things cooking,” he smiles. “I’d love to work with her again. She’s just a singular, wonderful person.” For her part, Waller-Bridge says: “I’d love to see him do a fully unhinged slapstick comedy character. Someone who is outraged at everything, all of the time.”

As we round the pavement and the Tate Modern looms back into sight, he recalls a poster he received in 2017—a monstrously large graphic that detailed every week in a human life span. “It’s your entire life if you live to 80—you have to fill in all the bits that you’ve already lived,” he remembers in awe, “a visually terrifying gift.” What did he do with it? “I didn’t hold on to it for too long.” Easy come, easy go: We finally finish our loop around the Thames and, as Scott disappears back into the throng, anonymous just the way he likes it, it occurs to me that the actor has many lives to live yet.'

[mariocki]

The Saint: The Best Laid Schemes (6.1, ITC, 1968)

"You know, it's, uh, pretty obvious that somebody who knows your aunt's past medical history is trying to drive her mad. I must admit they're doing a pretty good job of it, too. But now suppose the end object of the exercise is not to have her committed but to get her to the state where she would take her own life. Be neat, wouldn't it?"

[alltimefail-sims]

A Halloween Lookbook Ft. The Strangerville Gang

A recreation of a bunch of dorks™ taking one night to set aside their never-ending Strangerville mystery solving attempts by being forced to dress up for Tashia's yearly Halloween Party and the 8-Bit.

Tashia was the one who forced them to dress up, obviously. 😉

I felt obligated to share something Halloween themed, so I give you my very best attempt at dressing up my very favorite pixels. Don't worry - Junia didn't bleach her hair (it's just a wig) and Anwar is a last minute thrown together vampire, you just can't see his fangs in the picture. I hope you guys like this lookbook! ♡

DOWNLOAD BELOW ↓

Winx Club or Some Shit - Makeup [1][2][3][4], earrings, necklace, costume and shoes, gloves Pumpkin Head Ass - Pumpkin head, top, pants*, shoes Hot Demon - Horns, eye contacts, makeup [1][2*][3], earrings, harness, outfit*, tights, shoes Hot Vampire (?) - Blood splatters, eyeliner, outfit, shoes Chrissy Wake Up (I Don't Like This) - Hair & outfit, shoes Captain America...How Original - Full costume and shield

Anything marked with a * means it’s either from the Sims Resource, Simsdom/Simsfinds, or goes through a “host” such as AdFly.

Here are closeups of Zoe, Anwar, and Tashia because they're wearing makeup and accessories and all that <3

Thanks to all the talented cc creators! @joliebean, @pralinesims, @feralpoodles, @astya96cc, @darte77, @bluerose-sims, @chewybutterfly, @plazasims, @blahberry-pancake, @regina-raven, @helgatisha, @bluecravingcc, @magbay, @jius-sims, @dogsill, @arethabee, @mmsims, @northernsiberiawinds, @thisiskiro, @sentate, @trillyke, @dreambot