#there will be two versions that air one hour apart on two different streaming services

[this-blog-needs-a-new-name]

Get ready for Reverse with Me ❤️‍🩹

[katymacsupernatural]

Not My Reality Final

Jensen Ackles x Reader

Story Summary: Y/N wakes up in a nightmare. Is it her new reality, or can she figure out how to fix it. How can she get pack to her husband Jensen?

Catch Up Here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Rain began to fall about two hours outside of Lawrence. Heavy, torrential rain quickly covered the road and made it hard to see. The SUV’s windshield wipers could barely keep up with the downpour. 

Everyone was quiet in the vehicle while Jensen’s full focus was keeping the SUV on the road. Lightning flashed in the sky, lighting up the surrounding landscape quickly before turning pitch black once again. Thunder quickly followed, loud enough to shake the glass windows.

“I’m not sure if we should keep going,” Jensen muttered, his shoulders tense, his energy drink forgotten beside him as he fought to keep the SUV from sliding off the road. “This storm is ridiculous.”

As much as you wanted to keep going, you had to agree with him. This storm was dangerous, and it wasn’t worth putting you at risk. But you had no idea where you were exactly, or if there was anywhere safe enough to pull over. 

“Any idea where we are?” Jared asked, holding his phone up. “I’ve got no service.”

Jensen tossed his phone to Jared, who shook his head. “No service. No idea where we are. I guess we just go slow.” 

He had the SUV going at a snail’s pace, but it still fishtailed on the flooded road. Lightning flashed over the car, thunder immediately following. This was the worst storm you had ever been in, and you couldn’t help but be a little scared.

Jensen was a talented driver, but you could tell this storm was affecting him also. His jaw was clenched as he glanced over to Jared again. “How far away from Lawrence do you think we are?”

For a moment, it felt as if you were once again back in an episode of Supernatural. Jensen manning the steering wheel as Dean, Jared giving directions, sitting in the passenger seat. Your character, in her spot in the backseat. If only this was the Impala and not the SUV.

“I have no idea. Maybe half an hour or so.” Jared didn’t seem very convinced about his answer.

The air inside and out of the SUV was charged with electricity. The hair on your arms stood straight up, your heart starting to race. Your vision started to blur, and you called out to Jensen, not liking what was going on. “Jensen, please,” you pleaded, feeling as if your heart wanted to beat right out of your chest.

“Y/N, I’m a little busy keeping us on the road. Can’t it wait,” he muttered, not even glancing back. Jared turned as you leaned forward, his eyes widening. 

“Y/N are you feeling okay?” He asked as another flash of thunder filled the car. “You’re as pale as a ghost.”

Shaking your head, you tried unbuckling your car, but your arm refused to move. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I’m scared.”

“Damn it,” Jensen exclaimed, suddenly pulling over and stopping the car. “What is it?”

Turning the cab lights on, his mouth opened and shut. Speechless. “What is it?” You asked. “Why can’t I feel my arms?”

“I can’t see them,” he whispered. “Y/N, you’re turning translucent.”

Peering down, you could see the seat straight through where your arm had just been. Terrified, you turned your attention back to Jensen. “What’s going on?”

“Maybe you’re going home,” Jared suggested. “Maybe this a good thing.”

That did put a smile to your face. “I hope so. I’m ready to see my Jensen.”

Turning in his seat, Jensen started to reach out when he remembered he couldn’t grasp your hand. “I know that your Jensen is really lucky to have you. I wish you all the best.”

With tears in your eyes, you gave in to the energy flowing through your system. Closing your eyes, you felt yourself drift away. Seconds ticked by before the weight of your body had you opening your eyes.

Two pairs of eyes stared at you. Beautiful hazel eyes shadowed by a long flop of hair. Then the familiar pine green eyes that you loved so much. Full of so much confusion. “Jensen? Is that really you?”

“Jensen? What the hell,” he muttered, his voice so much deeper, gravelly than normal. As your nerves settled slightly, you could notice the maroon flannel shirt he was wearing, the black t-shirt underneath. You were no longer in the SUV, and the sounds of the storm were no longer hurting your ears. 

“Where am I?” You asked, completely dismayed. Here you had been hoping to find yourself back in your Vancouver apartment.

“Emma, are  you okay?” They both asked again, using your character’s name.  Instead of answering, you stared past them, noticing the familiar design of the Bunker. The bookcases were completely full of empty texts. The prop knives and materials placed on top. You were sitting at one of the wooden tables. 

Cautiously peering up, you were expecting to see the open ceiling, the lights, and the bars of the sound stage. Instead, you were met with smooth plaster ceilings, completely meshed with the walls. “Not again,” you whispered, tears filling your eyes as your hopes dashed. 

Who you had thought of as Jensen, but was Dean, came crouching even closer, rubbing the back of his hand against your cheek. “Emma sweetheart, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Please, tell me. What’s wrong?”

Hastily brushing away tears, you gave him a slight smile. “You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try us,” Sam answered, scooting his chair closer. 

“I’m not Emma!” You blurted out. “My name is Y/N, and I play Emma. I’m married to Jensen. My Jensen and not that other one. But I was torn from my Jensen, tossed to the other Jensen, only to be thrown here. I have no idea what’s going on, I just know that I’m so tired. Of it, and of everything. I just want to go to sleep, and wake up and have everything be okay.”

Tears streamed down your face. Tears of frustration and despair. Of heartache and fear. Fear that you would never see your Jensen again. Or your house and the life you had made.

Dean pulled you into his arms, and while it wasn’t exactly the same as Jensen’s, it was still comforting. “Slow down, tell us everything.”

So you did. About your marriage to Jensen, and how everything had been perfect before being pulled away and thrown into utter chaos. You told him about somehow waking up in Austin, and finding out the person you were there was utterly horrible. You told them about driving towards Lawrence and the storm, and how you had slowly disappeared before Jared and Jensen’s eyes.

“Why don’t you go lay down and try to relax?” Dean suggested, eyeing his brother cautiously. “We’ll figure things out, I promise.”

Nodding, you let him guide you out of the library, and down the hallway. A hallway you had walked so many times before. But not as yourself, but as Emma. It felt so much different now. Slightly chilly, the marble tile cool and real under your fingers. “You can sleep in here for right now,” Dean guided you into his bedroom. Reaching into one of the drawers, he pulled out a ratty T-shirt and shorts. What your character normally wore to bed. “I’ll be back to talk in a little bit.”

Smiling at him, you clutched the clothes as he quietly shut the door behind him. 

The bed smelled of Dean, a deep musk mixed with gunpowder and whiskey. It was a mixture that you had always loved. Breathing deeply, you snuggled in, the scent lulling you to a much-needed sleep.

“We need to tell her,” you heard hush arguing as you slowly woke up. “She deserves to know.”

“Yeah, that’s a great awakening,” Dean muttered sarcastically. “But I do agree that she needs to know. Speaking of which, have you heard from Emma? It would be pretty awkward for her to show up, and see another version of herself sitting here.”

“No, nothing. It’s not like her to stay this quiet,” Sam answered. “You don’t think…,”

You opened your eyes to see both brothers in the corner of the room standing close together as they tried to whisper. “I don’t know what to think!” Dean raised his voice, glancing at you to see that you were awake.

“What are you talking about?” You yawned. “Is everything okay?”

Sam patted Dean on the shoulder. “I’ll leave this one up to you.”

He left the room, and Dean slowly came to stand by the bed while you slid up to a sitting position. “Can I sit?” He asked, nervously tugging on the red and grey plaid he had changed into. Nodding, you scooted your legs up, giving him room to sit on the comfortable mattress. “Is it about Emma? Is she okay?”

“We’re not sure,” he answered, his green eyes searched your face. “But that’s not our biggest problem.”

You could feel nervous energy settle through your system as you waited for the bad news to fall. It had to be bad news, that was the only reason he would be this unsure. You stayed quiet, waiting for him to talk, not sure if you wanted to hear anything. 

“This is the third reality you’ve been in,” he started. “Your original one, then the one with another Jensen and Jared. And finally, this one. Each place being an alternate reality of what Sam and I believe is this one.”

“That makes sense, I think,” you were having trouble wrapping your mind around it. “But…,”

He held up his hand and you let him continue. “We’re not sure why you’ve been transported between the three. Why you, and no one else. We’re also not sure if Emma switched places with you. We haven’t been able to get a hold of her for a good 36 hours now. And that’s not a good sign.”

You could see how that news was heartbreaking to him. Instinctively you reached out, threading your fingers through his. “This is what we do know,” his stared straight into your eyes as he continued. “Chuck is super annoyed with us right now.”

“Chuck?”

“I’m not sure what episode of our lives your filming,” he muttered sarcastically. “But here Chuck is now the big bad guy. Killing people, ruining everything. And right now, he is destroying things. Entire worlds.”

“Entire realities?” You gulped. “Including mine.”

“That’s what we’re thinking,” he answered softly. “I’m so sorry Y/N. I know that’s not the news you were hoping for.”

A tear slipped down your cheek, another one quickly joining. “And my Jensen?”

The pained smile on his face was all the answer you needed. Tears streamed down your face, your entire heart shattering in an instant. Dean pulled you into his arms, giving you as much comfort as he was taking for himself. “Do you think he’s dead?” You asked, sniffling. 

“I believe so,” he answered. “Chuck wasn’t gentle. And as much as it hurts now, there has to be a reason you were saved.”

You rested your hand on your belly, Dean’s gaze following it before his eyes widened. “Maybe that’s the reason.”

Dean/Jensen Tags: @acortez82​ @acreativelydifferentlove​ @adoptdontshoppets​ @a-girl-who-loves-disney​ @akshi8278​   @bi-danvers0  @cap-just-said-language​ @colette2537​   @deansgirl215​  @flamencodiva​ @hamiltrash1411​ @its-not-a-tulpa​ @jerkbitchidjitassbutt​ @justanotherwinchester​ @just-another-winchester​ @karouwinchester​ @keikoraventeller​  @krys198478 @librarygeekery​ @magssteenkamp​ @misspygmypie​ @mlovesstories​ @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk​  @mrspeacem1nusone​ @nothinbuttrouble2​ @ria132love​ @ruprecht0420​  @screechingartisancashbailiff​   @sortaathief​ @superseejay721517​ @squirrelnotsam​ @team-free-will-you-idjiot​ @thing-you-do-with-that-thing​ @thoughts-and-funnies​ @torn-and-frayed​ @tricksterdean​ @wonderfulworldofwinchester​ @woodworthti666​ @beabutterfly987​ @pink-sparkly-witch​ @sexyvixen7​ @alwaysananglophile @supernatural3002​

Not My Reality Tags: @infinityspaceuniverse @supernatural3002 @dean-winchesters-gardian-angel @thevelvetseries @lexeeehhh @erule

Forever Tags: @aditimukul @alexwinchester23 @algudaodoce03-blog @amanda-teaches @andreaaalove   @artisticpoet @atc74 @be-amaziing @camelotandastronauts @caswinchester2000 @cpag7 @chelsea072498  @closetspngirl @deanwanddamons @caswinchester2000 @emoryhemsworth @ericaprice2008  @esoltis280   @tatted-trina6 @foxyjwls007 @gh0stgurl @goldenolaf25 @growningupgeek  @heartislubbingdubbing @heyitscam99 @hobby27 @horsegirly99blog @imsuperawkward @internationalmusicteacher @iwriteaboutdean  @jayankles @jensen-gal @justsomedreaming @just-another-busyfangirl @karlee-fay-my-wayward-son @linki-locks11 @littleblue5mcdork  @lowlyapprentice   @mersuperwholocked-lowlife @mogaruke @monkeymcpoopoo @musiclovinchic93  @nanie5   @percussiongirl2017 @plaid-lover-bay25   @roonyxx @ronja-uebrick @roxyspearing  @samanddeanmyheroes @sandlee44 @shamelesslydean @simonsbluee @sillesworldofwriting @sgarrett49 @spnbaby-67 @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @spnwoman   @superbadassnatural @thatcrazybookwormgeek   @thewinchesterchronicles​ @valsworldofcreativity @vvinch3st3r  @whimsicalrobots @winchester-writes​ @zombiewerewolfqueen

[bangtan-madi]

546 Days Without You — Nine: Day 264

Pairing — Seokjin x Reader

Tags — boyfriend!Seokjin, older brother!Yoongi, producer/songwriter!MC, military au (ish), idol au (ish)

Genre — fluff, angst

Word Count — 2.3k

Summary — Kim Seokjin is your entire world, and that world falls apart the moment he and your older brother Yoongi are conscripted into the South Korean military.

Part — 9 / 15

Warnings — minor language

A/N — Taglist is open! Comment or submit an ask if you want to be added :) Also sorry for the late post. Tumblr has been giving me issues.

Previous — Next

The day the album drops, the group is on edge the whole morning. It's been this way every comeback. The members are progressively moodier until the morning of, then they become eerily quiet.

The second the clock ticks past the release date, there's a group sigh of relief. Map of the Soul: Dream is out in the world, and people are streaming it by the millions. No more writing, no more recording, no more producing: the brainchild of Bangtan is out.

Finally.

The hour after the release, the interviews begin. The band is scheduled for events from the initial release panel in Seoul all the way to interviews across the world. The next few weeks are going to be packed with speaking engagements and travel. Normally, this is where you let the managers take over since it's not common for producers to travel for these kinds of things. On any other album, you'd wave to them as they left for the airport and scurry back to the safety and familiarity of the studio.

But you just had to have your name put on the album.

"Oh, no," Namjoon says, grasping the hood of your sweatshirt as you attempt to do just that. "Don't think you're getting out of this panel."

Turning towards the leader with a scowl, you retort, "I'm not a member, Joon. This isn't where I'm supposed to be. This is your guys' time to shine. I belong in a studio."

He shakes his head adamantly. "Your name's on the album, several times I might add. Writer, producer, and artist. They may have looked over the writing and producing rolls in the past, but now?"

"Not gonna happen," Taehyung snickers as he makes his way towards the Big Hit dressing room. 

"I think people are more intrigued by you then they are by us," Jimin agrees, coming out of the hair and makeup room looking picture-perfect. "This is year eight for us. You're something new in the mix."

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. "The media likes anything new and shiny."

"I heard you talking to Seokjin about this yesterday," Namjoon replies. "What did he say?"

Narrowing your eyes, you pull your hood out of his grasp with a pout. "He said I should do it." 

This only causes Namjoon to smirk, knowing he's got you. He cups a hand next to his ear and leans down, as if trying to hear you. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that?"

Instead of dignifying his teasing with a response, you shove the leader a bit, earning a laugh from the gentle giant. "They'll get to see me on tour. Why isn't that enough?"

"Y'know, I like her point," Jungkook grins adjusting the tie around his neck. He, too, has been primed and ready for the panel. "We can just go straight to tour and skip all this."

Hoseok enters the room, followed closely by Manager Sejin. The two men are also ready for the day's events, and you realize you're not getting out of this.

"For what it's worth, these things are really fun if you ignore the cameras and pushy paps," he says, playfully linking his arm with yours. Smiling brightly at you, he turns and escorts you towards the dressing room, much to the awe and surprise of the others. "And that's why we have security: to keep those away. This is as much part of tour as actually performing."

Once out of earshot of the others, you turn to Hoseok and mumble, "Yeah...I guess I'm just a little nervous. I remember how the press treated you boys when you first debuted. It was less than kind."

"You're tough as nails, [Y/n]. You Mins are another breed altogether. Trust me, if Jimin can do it, you can, too."

"I heard that!"

Hoseok giggles and gestures towards the dressing room, where the stylist has picked out a few options for outfits. They're all pretty, and go perfectly with the boys' album-themed attire.

"You got this," he states, letting you go and giving you two, big thumbs up.

You sarcastically mirror both his expression and gestures. "I hope so!"

Once everyone is dressed to the nines and dolled up, you're escorted to a Big Hit vehicle and sent on your way to the panel. This is far from the first time that BTS as a group has done something like this. In fact, you've attended once before, for the Map of the Soul: Persona release. It was inside one of the largest conference halls in downtown Seoul, and the seats were packed with photographers, journalists, interviewers, and even Army. Everyone was ecstatic about the release, and you can feel that same energy in the air today, despite being two members short.

As the group piles in the building, you feel Jimin and Taehyung take both of your hands. Your best friend and oldest friends are the first to notice how out of place you feel. The lights, the cameras, the crowds; it's not that you're not used to them, but they've never been focused on you before. 

"You got this," Jimin murmurs, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek before he leads the trio through the auditorium doors. 

From backstage, you can easily see the ramp that leads to the stage, and the setup in the center. The backdrop is a large, lavender canvas, covered in a larger version of the white outline of the plum blossom album art for 'Dream.' The host of the panel is a well-known personality in the k-pop industry, and as he makes his introductions of the event to those gathered in the seats, you attempt to calm yourself by taking deep breaths.

In your pocket, your phone buzzes twice. Pulling it out, you swipe across the screen, seeing two texts from Seokjin.

"I know you're nervous, but just take those deep breaths like I told you. Hold it in, and then slowly let it out. Seven seconds in, hold, and out. And trust the boys. They won't let anyone ask you questions that are inappropriate or rude. They have your back, Jagiya." The second says, "You got this. I believe in you. If I can do it, you're going to knock it out of the park."

A relieved smile slips onto your face, and you shoulders relax as you text a swift, grateful reply. As you hit send, Jimin reaches once more for your hand and tugs you towards the stage.

"Time to shine," he says with a grin. "Are you good?"

You give a single, assured nod and walk proudly behind him onto the stage. The lights and sounds drown out into a single, mute note as you find yourself being guided to a seat between Hoseok and Jungkook, near the edge of the panel. You're farthest from Namjoon, for which you're grateful in a way; as the leader of the group, he ends up doing most of the talking. Physically distancing yourself from him might be the best idea to keep you from having to speak for the group.

Once the basic introductions are made, even though everyone already knows who everyone else is, the questions from the host begin. The first few are easy questions about the album itself, the making and inspiration and work that went into it. He asks about everyone's roles and the sub units, as well as how they've handled the comeback for the last installment of Map of the Soul. The boys, mostly Namjoon, answer in their usual fashion, both elegant and truthful in their dialogue.

Then, the inevitable questions start to slip in.

"How has it been preparing for an album and tour without two of your most senior members?"

"We'd be lying if we said it's been easy," Namjoon chuckles, trying to answer the host in the most graceful way possible. "Suga and Jin did a lot of work on 'Dream' before they left to do their service, so we still feel as if they're with us, in a way. Jin has his solo track on the album, and it's one he recorded before he left. Suga did much of the songwriting and producing, per usual. But it has been hard. It's been a struggle for all of us to adjust without them, especially when preparing for the tour."

The host nods to you next, and you feel your stomach drop. "But it seems you're not completely rid of a Min family influence. Ms. Min [Y/n], how has it been working with BTS so closely on this project?"

Namjoon gives a small nod of reassurance as you lean forward to speak into the microphone in front of you. "Well...I actually have always worked as a producer on BTS' albums, so this one wasn't so different."

"But this time you're featured on the album as well, is that right?"

Swallowing dryly, you shake your head in agreement. Hoseok places a calming hand on your knee under the table, and you force yourself to take a deep breath in like Seokjin instructed. 

"Yes, I am."

"What brought that about?"

"Well, I had released my track 'Silhouette' on Soundcloud a little bit before, and it had gained a lot of traction amongst Armys. When it came time to decide the final track lineup for 'Dream,' Bang Si-hyuk-nim brought up the idea to include it." You nod down towards Namjoon with a smile. "RM thought it was a great idea, and while I didn't agree at first, eventually I came around. The story 'Silhouette' tells fits in perfectly with the narrative in 'Dream.' We added the track, and the rest is history."

The host nods, listening to your answer intently. "So does this make you the eighth member of BTS, or a stand-in for your brother?"

While trying to remain respectful, you can't help but laugh at the question. "Not even close. Everyone knows that there's only one Suga, only one Min Yoongi, and no one will ever come close to replacing my brother. I'm not trying to become the eighth member of BTS, nor am I trying to replace Suga or Jin. I'm a new artist that's being featured on the next album, just like any previous collaboration. The only difference here is that I happen to be related to one of the members. Those artists...they're one-of-a-kind. If I'm a stand-in for either of them, I'd probably fire myself for doing such a sh—sloppy job."

Your last comment earns a chuckle from the host, as well as the audience behind him. "I see you're quite a lot like your brother in many ways, so it's comforting to know that the band still has a Min on their side, even while Suga and Jin are away at service."

Jimin leans forward to speak into his mic, turning his head so he can flash a wink in your direction. "Yeah, she's been like glue for us this past year."

"We're glad to have her on board," Namjoon agrees. "And both Jin and Suga approved all of this, both before and after they left, so there's that extra bit of encouragement."

"So will we expect to see you on the Dream Tour?" Both the host and the rest of the audience go silent, waited with bated breath for your response. 

Flashing a small smile, you attempt to hide your nerves when you reply, "You'll see me in a little over a month at the opening in Seoul...and every stop after that."

After the remaining hour of the launch event is over, and the press starts to slip out of the auditorium, the members are escorted backstage to the changing rooms. The announcements being made, from now until Tour begins, the six of you are going to spend the majority of your time traveling for events. You've looked at the calendar and have seen the stops planned. Busan is next, then Tokyo, Nagoya, Hong Kong, Macau, Los Angeles, and New York City. You even recall seeing a handful of stops in Europe, Australia, and South America, as the fanbase has grown exponentially on those continents. 

"That went perfectly," Sejin says as the members come off-stage. He nods to you with a proud expression. "You were amazing. All of you."

Jimin scurries over to you and wraps you in a tight hug. "I knew you could do it," he murmurs against your shoulder. "Proud of you, [Y/n]-ah."

Your heart swells at their reassurance, and you pat Jimin's shoulder as a silent thank you. "How can you be sweaty after two hours of sitting?" you tease, shoving him off you.

The blonde scoffs, feigning a hurt expression. "Those lights are bright! And I'm wearing Gucci!"

"Does money make you perspire?"

"Go get changed," Hoseok laughs, separating you two like a mother with her children. "We need to get on to Busan, and tomorrow we fly to Nagoya!"

"Ahhh, now I really miss Jin-hyung and his amazing Japanese skills," Taehyung groans. "I should've practiced more."

The group laughs at his self-inflicted banter and begins the process of changing into travel clothes for the short trip across South Korea. 

"How are we getting to Busan?" you ask.

"Can we vote?" Jungkook asks, raising his hand dramatically. "'Cause I vote train."

Sejin shakes his head. "We have a jet already reserved."

The youngest member extends his hand towards the manager, eyes intent and fist closed. "Rock-paper-scissors for it?"

Though amused, Sejin merely points to the dressing room. "Get changed, Jungkookie."

"But—" All Sejin has to do is look directly at the brunet, cock an eyebrow, and cross his arms, and the maknae is grinning apologetically and running for the dressing room. "Plane it is!"

Taglist — @joyful-jimin​​, @gracehiii​, @live-2-fangirl​, @rjsmochii​​, @btsnatalena​

[papermoonloveslucy]

THE LUCIE ARNAZ SHOW

April 2, 1985

Produced by Sam Denhoff Productions and Taft Entertainment Television

Producers: Susan Seeger, Kathy Speer, Terry Grossman

“The Lucie Arnaz Show” was based on the British television sitcom “Agony” (1979-81) starring Maureen Lipman as Dr. Jane Lucas. The original series ran for 20 episodes on LWT (London Weekend Television). Guest cast included actors like Bill Nighy, Rosalind Ayres, Miranda Richardson, and Phyllida Law.

On “Here’s Lucy” there was an attempt to spin off Lucie’s character of Kim Carter for her own sitcom. In 1972, the last episode of season 4, “Kim Cuts You-Know-Who’s Apron Strings” (HL S4;E24), essentially served as the pilot for a story that had Kim moving to her own apartment, introducing a new cast of characters, one of whom was Lucy’s brother Herb, an uncle invented for the new series. CBS did not pick-up the pilot for production and Arnaz remained part of the regular cast of “Here’s Lucy” in seasons 5 and 6. While it seems unlikely that Lucille Ball was incapable of convincing CBS to pick up the new series, most likely Ball didn’t want to pressure CBS due to Vivian Vance’s sudden illness. Without Vance to fill-in as Lucy’s side-kick, Lucie was needed on “Here’s Lucy.” 

After viewing the pilot CBS made a six episode commitment to the show, but recast everyone but Lucie and Karen Jablons-Alexander (Loretta). Broadway’s Chip Zien was one of the casting casualties. CBS aired all six episodes (with a two-month break after episode 4) but they declined to pick up the show for their Fall 1985 schedule. 

CBS also made the executive decision to change the title from “Agony” to “The Lucie Arnaz Show,” a decision Lucie was conflicted about. While she was flattered to have her name on a show she felt good about, she felt it was not a show about Lucie Arnaz, but Jane Lucas. In England, the term ‘Agony Aunts’ applies to those who give advice, much like Dear Abby or Ann Landers in America. CBS insisted the title was too short to be quickly found and understood in the TV listings. 

Unlike her mother’s sitcoms, the show was NOT filmed with three cameras in front of a studio audience, but on location in New York City with one camera. 

Between the time the pilot was shot (late 1984) and production resumed after CBS gave the show the green light, Lucie Arnaz became pregnant with her third child, Kate. Production was sped up and Arnaz’s wardrobe successfully hid her pregnancy from viewers. Coincidentally, Lucille Ball herself was pregnant with Lucie when filming the pilot for “I Love Lucy” in 1951. 

CBS picked up the show as a replacement series for “Alice”, a sitcom starring Linda Lavin that ended its 9 season run on March 19, 1985. Although Monday nights had been lucky for Lucille Ball, Lucie Arnaz was given Tuesday evenings, taking the 8:00pm time slot of “The Jeffersons” which moved to 8:30pm for its final months on the air. “The Jeffersons” aired its final episode on June 25, two weeks after the end of “The Lucie Arnaz Show,” so CBS moved it back to 8pm and aired it alongside a rerun of “Alice” at 8:30pm. 

Series Premise 

“Advice Radio 88 - Your spot for music and mental health in the afternoon”.

Lucie Arnaz plays Dr. Jane Lucas, a radio call-in host in New York City, who also writes a newspaper column and holds down a private practice. She has to deal with her eccentric secretary Loretta, her chauvinistic boss Jim, her immature co-host Larry, and her interfering sister Jill. 

“The always ingratiating Miss Arnaz as a psychologist who not only writes an advice column, but also takes calls from listeners on her own radio program." ~ New York Times

The show features Jane contending (by phone) with her over-protective mother. Viewers cannot help but think of the real-life mother Lucille Ball, who looms large over the CBS sitcom world. In fact, promo material for the series touted 'You'll Love This Lucie!’ 

In the mid-1960s, CBS employed Abigail Van Buren to bring her “Dear Abby” advice column to the airwaves just as Dr. Jane Lucas did on Advice Radio 88′s “The Love and Lucas Show” in the mid-1980s.

CBS also recruited Lucille Ball to do a daily 15 minute talk show (as herself) titled “Let’s Talk To Lucy”.  Although not strictly an advice show, Ball was known to speak her mind if she was so inclined. 

In addition to her co-hosting duties at WPLE, Jane writes a column for the Daily Mirror, which was also the name of the newspaper that Lucy Ricardo read about Rosemary in “Lucy is Jealous of Girl Singer” (S1;E10).

Although it was a real-life newspaper, New York’s Daily Mirror ceased publication in 1963, making it fictional in Jane Lucas’s New York, but not Lucy Ricardo’s! 

Jane lives in Apartment 4A on East 70th Street. From 1951 to May 1953, the Ricardos lived in Apartment 4A on East 68th Street. 

Jane plays short-stop for the WPLE softball team. Lucy Carmichael and Viv Bagley played softball for the Danfield Volunteer Fire Department in “Lucy and Viv Play Softball” (TLS S2;E23) in 1963. 

Although she played music instead of dispensing advice, Lucy Carmichael hosted a radio show in “Lucy the Disc Jockey” (TLS S3;E26) in 1965. 

In 1981, the same year “Agony” ended in Great Britain, Desi Arnaz Jr. was in a TV movie titled “Advice to the Lovelorn” starring Chloris Leachman as an advice columnist named Maggie Dale. The telefilm served as a pilot for a series that was not picked up for production. 

In 1933, the same year Lucille Ball arrived in Hollywood, United Artists released a film adaptation of the Nathaniel West novel “Miss Lonelyhearts” titled Advice to the Lovelorn (later changed to Advice to the Forlorn), about a newspaper reported demoted to writing the lonely hearts column of his newspaper. It featured “I Love Lucy” character actor Charles Lane.  

In 1958, the story was remade again, this time with Montgomery Clift as the demoted reporter writing to the heartbroken. This version was titled Lonelyhearts and was adapted by Dore Schary, and produced by Walter Reilly, both of whom were characters on “I Love Lucy”. 

Finally, just a year before “The Lucie Arnaz Show” started filming its pilot, PBS presented a more faithful adaptation of “Miss Lonelyhearts” starring Eric Roberts as the writer. 

In 2020, “The Lucie Arnaz Show” began streaming on Tubi, a free TV streaming service. 

“I wasn’t anxious to do a television series. I have no desire to become any more famous than I already am--and I don’t mean that egotistically. It’s just that I’ve been well known for...well, really ever since I was born, because of whose daughter I was, and I’ve never had a burning ambition to be famous. I grew up with it; I know what it’s like.” ~ Lucie Arnaz, Los Angeles Times  

REGULAR CAST

Lucie Arnaz (Dr. Jane Lucas) is the real-life daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. She was born in 1951 just before the premiere of “I Love Lucy.” Lucille Ball was actually pregnant during the filming of the show’s pilot. Despite rumors to the contrary, Lucie Arnaz never appeared on “I Love Lucy.” Lucie played Cynthia (as well as other characters) on “The Lucy Show.”  She has been twice married, to actor Phil Vandervort (1971) and actor-writer Laurence Luckinbill (1980–present). She has three children  with Luckinbill: Simon, Joseph, and Katharine. She now lives in Palm Springs, California, near the home once owned by her parents. 

Jane is 31 years old and a graduate of New York University. Arnaz was actually 33 and did not attend college. 

Tony Roberts (Jim Gordon, Jane’s Boss) and Lucie Arnaz were both presenters at the 1981 Tony Awards aired on CBS.  Coincidentally, Roberts was on Broadway in They’re Playing Our Song, although he joined the cast after Lucie Arnaz’s departure, playing opposite Anita Gillette as Sonia Walsk. In March 1985, just prior to the airing of this sitcom, Roberts, Arnaz, and Lucille Ball were three of the “Night of 100 Stars 2″ at Radio City Music Hall. In 2018, Roberts and Arnaz were two of the many stage stars interviewed for the Rick McKay documentary Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age.

Karen Jablons-Alexander (Loretta, Jane’s Secretary) was born in 1951 in Trenton, New Jersey. Aside from this short-lived series, she only has two other screen credits, both in 1991: a day player on “General Hospital” and a background character on the film True Colors.  Aside from Lucie Arnaz, Jablons-Alexander was the only actor CBS retained from the pilot episode. 

Lee Bryant  (Jill, Jane’s Sister) is probably best remembered as Mrs. Hammen in both Airplane! and Airplane 2: The Sequel. From 1978 to 1979 Bryant starred in TV commercials for Yuban coffee, where she played a wife who can't understand why her husband never wants to drink a second cup of her coffee. She also played Fran, ex-wife of  “T.J. Hooker” (1982-83). 

Todd Waring (Larry Love, Jane’s Co-Host) made his series TV debut with this show. He has been continually working ever since. He is married to actor Eve Gordon and has two children. 

Tippy (Larry’s Invisible Dog) 

Each episode began with a different handwritten note from a listener, after which, the credits begin. 

EPISODES (aired in filming order)

April 2, 1985 - “The Old Boyfriend” (S1;E1) 

Synopsis: Discovering that her old beau had indulged in a few lies, Dr. Lucas decides that ''after 12 years, I can put down the torch.''  At the half-hour's end, she advises a listener that ''happiness is being aware of the fact that you're not going to be happy all of the time.''

Director: Ed Feldman

Writers: Susan Seeger

Rating 12.6 ~ In its first outing, the show attracted 20% of viewers, a sliver better than “Three’s a Crowd” on ABC, but well below “The A-Team” on NBC, which got 37%.

GUEST CAST

John Getz (Scott, Jane’s Old Boyfriend) is an Iowa-born theatre actor who appeared in the workshop and very first production of the musical The Robber Bridegroom. Goetz was standby for Robert Klein in Broadway’s They’re Playing Our Song starring Lucie Arnaz. One of Getz's earliest roles was as ‘Shampoo Man’ in a Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo commercial shot in the late 1970s. He has recently been seen on “Better Call Saul” and “Grace & Frankie.”

Gene Klavan (Mel, Engineer) was born on May 4, 1924 in Baltimore, Maryland. Klaven was a popular talk radio personality although on screen he was primarily a voice actor. He left radio in 1980 and died on April 8, 2004.

Thomas Quinn (Cab Driver) is best known as Desk Sergeant Martin on the CBS sitcom “Baker’s Dozen” (1981). 

TRIVIA

555-WPLE was the advice line phone number, adhering to the old film and TV practice of using 555 as a telephone exchange.  

The opening scene was filmed on location in front of the Ed Sullivan Theatre (above today), then home to the CBS sitcom “Kate & Allie”. Coincidentally, in 1987 “Kate & Allie” did an episode where Allie (Jane Curtain) dreams she is in “I Love Lucy.”

Across the street from the Ed Sullivan Theatre is the Broadway Theatre, where Anthony Quinn was performing in a revival of the 1968 musical Zorba. The revival ran from October 16, 1983 to September 2, 1984, which means the scene was shot sometime in late summer 1984.

On her office bulletin board, there is a Playbill for the musical My One and Only which opened on Broadway on May 1, 1983 and closed on March 3, 1985. It then launched a National Tour starring Sandy Duncan and Tommy Tune. Lucie Arnaz replaced Duncan on the second half of the tour. Lucie won the famed Chicago Sarah Siddons Award for her performance.

A view of the Empire State Building starts the final scene at the baseball diamond. Location footage of the Empire State Building was also seen in “Bon Voyage” (ILL S5;E13) as the helicopter carrying Lucy Ricardo toward the SS Constitution flies over Manhattan.

One of the most memorable episodes of “I Love Lucy” involved Lucy and Ethel (dressed as women from Mars) scaling the observation deck of the New York City landmark, although there was no establishing footage and the episode was filmed entirely in Hollywood. 

The final scene of the episode takes place at a Central Park baseball field. Could this be the same field where Lucille Ball played for the Broadway Show League in 1961, batting for Wildcat with Julie Andrews (Camelot) as catcher and Joe E. Brown as ump? 

April 9, 1985 - “Sisters” (S1;E2) 

Synopsis: Jane's sister visits her for the week while her family is out of town.

Director: Ed Feldman

Writer: Susan Seeger, Kathy Speer & Terry Grossman

Rating 10.5 ~ The show fell to third place in its time period, drawing just 16% of the audience.

GUEST CAST

Melissa Joan Hart (Sarah, Jane’s Niece) was an 8 year-old from Long Island when she made her TV debut with this episode. She is best known for playing the leading roles in “Clarissa Explains It All For You” (1991-94) and “Sabrina The Teenage Witch” (1996-2003). 

Sandy Schwartz (Billy, Jane’s Nephew, uncredited)

Gwyn Gilliss (Peggy Gordon, Jim’s Wife) is a NY stage actor who is best known as Lisette Grummond on over 800 episodes of the soap opera “Loving”.  She was also seen on the daytime dramas “All My Children,” “As The World Turns,” “Another World,” and “Ryan’s Hope.” 

Kate McKeown (Sister Bernadette) 

Richard Zavaglia (Sam, Engineer)

Douglas Seale (Mr. Beverly, Jane’s Neighbor) was born in London in 1913. He was a New York stage actor seen in the original casts of The Dresser (1981) and Noises Off (1985), which earned him a Tony nomination. He was the voice of the Sultan in Aladdin (1992) and the voice of Krebbs in The Rescuers Down Under (1990). He died in 1999 at age 85.

Jane attends an event at the Club El Morocco. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were just two of the many celebrities who spent evenings at the Club, known for its zebra-print banquettes. 

PRESS

“Will Miss Arnaz get better scripts to showcase her decidedly appealing personality? Perhaps only Sam Denhoff, the creator and executive producer, knows for sure.” ~ New York Times, April 9, 1985

April 23, 1985 - “Good Sports” (S1;E3) 

Synopsis: Jane gets a poor review from a Sports writer (Danny Aiello).

Director: Allan Baron

Writers: Kathy Speer & Terry Grossman

Rating 9.2 ~ The show was not aired the previous week due to the mini-series “Space”. This week the show was up against two repeats, and still lost its time slot. 

GUEST CAST

Danny Aiello (Dick Rosetti, Sports Columnist) was nominated for an Oscar of 1989′s Do The Right Thing. In 2016, Aiello and Lucie Arnaz were both voices in the animated film Henry & Me. He appeared with Tony Roberts in the films Key Exchange (1985) and Radio Days (1987). He died in 2019 at age 86.

Dick Boccelli (Dominick, Bar Patron)

Frank Gio (Frankie, Bartender)

Richard Zavaglia (Sam, Engineer)

April 30, 1985 - “Larry Writes the Songs” (S1;E4) 

Synopsis: Jane reviews Larry's song lyrics.

Director: Allen Baron

Writer: Bob Colleary

Rating 7.5 ~  Once again the show was up against two repeats, and still lost its time slot.

GUEST CAST

Ray DeMattis (Vitto, Mr. Gordon’s Barber) made his TV debut with this episode. He is a New York stage actor who was also seen in several TV shows featuring Bill Cosby. 

Melissa Joan Hart (Sarah, Jane’s Niece)

Sandy Schwartz (Billy, Jane’s Nephew)

Ted Schwartz (Buzzy Cone, Emcee)

Carol Siskind (Cookie, Stand-Up Comic)

Richard Zavaglia (Sam, Engineer)

Douglas Seale (Mr. Beverly, Jane’s Neighbor)

June 4, 1985 - “Jane’s Desperate Hour” (S1;E5) 

Synopsis: Jane helps a young woman with an abusive husband.

Directed by: Peter Baldwin

Written by: Len Richmond & Sam Denhoff

Rating 6.4 ~ Not only did the episode lose its time slot to reruns, it was the lowest rated show of the evening on all three networks.

GUEST CAST

Kit LeFever (Marie, Jane’s Patient)

Raymond Baker (Ralph, Marie’s Husband)

Clarence Felder (Rocky, Jane’s Patient)

Mark Kaplan (Cop)

Richard Zavaglia (Sam, Engineer)

Douglas Seale (Mr. Beverly, Jane’s Neighbor)

June 11, 1985 - “Birthday Blues” (S1;E6)

Synopsis:  Jane puts together a 'surprise' birthday party for Mr. Gordon.

Director: Peter Baldwin

Writer: Laura Levine

Rating 6.6 ~ Once again the show was the lowest rated show of the evening across the board. Although the rating share was up 2 tenths of a point from the previous week, it was too little, too late to give confidence for a fall 1985 renewal.

GUEST CAST

Douglas Seale (Mr. Beverly, Jane’s Neighbor) 

Richard Zavaglia (Sam, Engineer)

FAST FORWARD!

In 1991, Lucie Arnaz was part of another failed CBS series, “Sons & Daughters”. Lucie played Tess Hammersmith in all 7 episodes that aired. 13 episodes were filmed, but the show was canceled on March 1, 1991, with six episodes that never aired. Five years earlier Lucille Ball experienced the same disappointment when “Life With Lucy” was canceled by ABC with several episodes still un-aired. 

[sweetsmellosuccess]

The Best (and Worst) Films of 2017

Determining what you deem to be the “best” films of a given year – or the “worst,” for that matter – is something of a drain. First of all, what, exactly, is your criteria? Do you choose the films that made the most impact on you? The ones that months later you still remember in vivid detail? The ones that seemed the best made? Sometimes, a film you dismiss one year you eventually come to realize is actually very, very good. Other times (though more rare), a film you absolutely loathed comes around for you and you realize you made a huge mistake in your original harsh judgment. Ultimately, it has to come down to the most basic and inexcusable of fallacies: It just feels right to you, for whatever reason, and shut up, it’s my list. This obviously makes these year-end lists little more than a document of my utterly subjective whims in a given calendar year, so take any of these so-called lists, no matter how definitive they want to appear to be, with a giant salt-lick block. Withering disclaimers in place, let’s go ahead and do this.

The 20 Best Films of 2017

20. Wind River Taylor Sheridan’s directing debut – a whodunit conducted on reservation lands in frigid Wyoming, lead by a BFW hunter (Jeremy Renner) and a neophyte FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) -- does have some glaring weaknesses – he does seem preternaturally fond of the whole “female agent in over her head” dynamic, and there is certainly some White Guy in Native Lands stuff that might turn people off. But one thing he does get right is the landscape, in all its pitiless beauty, and a sense of just how thoroughly American society has largely turned its back to the plight of our country’s native peoples. It’s a murder mystery with more of a political kick than you might expect. Full Review

19. Logan Just when the superhero genre had about exhausted its bag of tricks, James Mangold’s more haunting vision of a Wolverine (played for the last time by Hugh Jackman) old, riddled with guilt and doubt, and loss of purpose felt like a revelation. The lion in winter, whose adamantium claws were still in effect – and to particularly bloody purpose, with the application of the hard ‘R’ rating – became a version of the character we hadn’t seen before, and one that proved to have much more emotional complexity. Full Review

18. The Meyerwitz Stories (New and Selected) I realize Noah Baumbach, with his archly literary sensibilities and dynamic wordplay between admittedly sad sack, often dislikable characters, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But I’ve always found his stuff riveting, and here, with a full-blown cast (including Dustin Hoffman, Adam Sandler, Emma Thompson, and Ben Stiller) and a bevy of characters whose intricate interactions yield emotionally rich scene work, he’s in fine fettle. Sandler, proving once again that he’s capable of far more than brainless, lazy fart comedies when pressed by a good director, is very strong, and Hoffman, playing an irascible, egocentric aging patriarch, is excellent. Full Review

17. Berlin Syndrome Another film I thought would do better than its limited-run-straight-to-video release might indicate, Cate Shortland’s cat-and-mouse thriller about an Aussie tourist in Berlin (Teresa Palmer) who has a brief affair with a German man (Max Riemelt) before he abducts her and keeps her locked in his apartment for months on end. The film is smart and riveting – featuring yeoman work from the two leads, and a pulse-tripping last act that welded me to my seat – and, in this unofficial Year of the Female, featured a strong-as-nails heroine standing up to the worst sort of male oppression, a perfect metaphor for 2017. Capsule Review

16. Free Fire Amongst an admittedly soul-searing line-up at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival, Ben Wheatley’s absurdly entertaining shoot-em-up struck me as exactly the kind of elixir I needed to pick myself up off the floor. With a sterling cast – including Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy, and Oscar-winner Brie Larson – and a can’t miss bottle-episode premise – a pair of gangs during a gun-buy gone bad are forced to square off against each other in an abandoned umbrella warehouse in ‘70s-era Boston – work to make this thing pop like a series of firecrackers. I actually expected it to be a bigger hit than its more modest returns indicate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it picks up steam after repeated viewings on cable and streaming services. Someday, it will get its due. Full Review

15. A War Quietly, Tobias Lindholm has been making tremendous films over the last decade, either working with director Tomas Vinterberg, or on his own helmed projects. This military drama stars “Game of Thrones” actor Pilou Asbek – a star in his own right in his native Denmark – as a captain of an outpost in Afghanistan forced to make a difficult, but totally understandable, decision that leads to his having to endure a court martial hearing. Asbek is absolutely masterful, and Lindholm has a way of creating difficult and complex narratives that puts his characters and his audience in a moral quandary. Full Review

14. The Salesman Every film from Iranian auteur Asghar Farhadi is a cause for celebration, and this film – an interesting meditation on repressive misogyny, Iranian social politics, and Arthur Miller – is no exception. The film utilizes Farhadi’s trademark tightly wound, concentric narrative wrapped around a central core mystery. While it’s not quite at the level of some of his best work (including A Separation, and The Past) it’s nevertheless a fascinating film further probing deeply into the human condition. Capsule Review

13. Strong Island I had the pleasure of watching Yance Ford’s deeply moving doc, about the murder of his older brother and the ways his loss devastated her once-happy family, at last spring’s True/False festival. Here’s what I wrote about it at the time: “Shot in a pastiche of styles – for most of the interviews, the camera keeps a respectful distance, but for Ford’s own confessions, he shoots almost uncomfortably close, almost daring us to look away – the somber themes are greatly enhanced by the addition of inspired poetic visuals: an angled roof against the blue of the sky, snow swirling in air against a dark night, a particularly haunting overhead shot of the grease stain on the concrete outside the garage where his brother lay down to die, which untether the film from clear narrative delineation, and send it into spiraling layers of grief and acceptance. The result is uncompromising and almost impossibly raw.” Capsule Review

12. Wonder Woman Just when we were all ready to take the DCU and chuck it into Zack Snyder’s garbage disposal, along comes Diana Prince, who revitalized the entire comic book genre, and breathed new life into what had been Warner Bros. desultory foray into comic book universes (a life almost immediately put back on life support after the disastrous Justice League debacle this past fall, but I digress). Gal Gadot’s star turn as the heroine of the summer could not have come at a more precipitous time, given the political wave of female empowerment, and Patty Jenkins’ film was thrilling and ground-breaking. DC might have only given us one winning film this year, but it certainly was a doozy. Full Review

11. Graduation Cristian Mungiu’s narratives always challenge his protagonists in deeply disturbing ways, either by dint of the oppression they are under, or the moral quandaries he elicits. His latest film, about a well-connected Romanian doctor (Adrian Tetieni) who uses his influence to illicitly aid his stricken daughter (Maria Dragus) on the eve of her college entrance exams, is another master study of moral nuance and precise scene composition. A single, wordless shot of the doctor coming home with his wife (Lia Bugnar) sitting in the kitchen tells us everything we need to know about their marriage, which is fantastic filmmaking. Mungiu greatly helped spur the Romanian cinematic revival over the last two decades, this film continues to cement his considerable legacy. Capsule Review

10. The Unknown Girl Recently, the Dardennes Bros. have been quietly making some of the more ethically absorbing films of the last few years. In 2014’s Two Days, One Night, we got to see the plight of a depressed woman attempting to get her old job back by pleading with her co-workers; here, we follow an obsessive doctor, Jenny (Adèle Haenel), after a young woman is murdered after first trying to gain entry into her small clinic after hours. Jenny devotes most of her time and energy not to try and solve the crime, but only to discover the identity of the woman so she can notify her family. You get the impression the Dardennes – whose previous oeuvre contains many unflinching dramas – want to lay out the ways we need to respond to our fellow human beings in order to be truly happy with ourselves. It says something that their protagonists stand out so much for simply just doing the right thing. Capsule Review

9. Personal Shopper Kristen Stewart has become far more than a starlet; she’s a bloody force of nature. Working again with Olivier Assayas (their previous collaboration, Clouds of Sils Maria, was also very strong), the two have made a film so filled with provocative energy, it can’t stay in one place for very long. Part ghost story; part fashion treatise; part character study; part Millennial ode, it moves in so many directions, you can’t catch your breath. Rather than feel scattershot, however, it’s anchored by Stewart and her undeniable screen presence. It will be fascinating to watch the rest of her career play out as she gets older and her muse carries her in different directions. Full Review

8. My Happy Family One of the joys of going to a festival like Sundance (and having critic friends with excellent taste) is getting to catch films you likely wouldn’t have seen under normal circumstances. Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß’s Georgian drama concerns a middle-aged matriarch (Ia Shugliashvili, in a fantastic performance) who suddenly decides to move out of her busy apartment where her vast extended family live, and move into her own flat where she can hear herself think. To her husband’s consternation, no matter how tightly the thumbscrews are applied, she remains resolute, which comes to make more and more sense as the drama unfurls. Currently on Netflix, I can’t recommend this one strongly enough. Capsule Review

7. I, Tonya One of the true surprises at last year’s TIFF, Craig Gillespie’s black comedy plays out the life and times of Tonya Harding with verve, wit, and absolutely brilliant performances, none more so that Allison Janey’s scene-stealing turn as Tonya’s witheringly acerbic mother. “Through a series of recreated interviews with the participants, screenwriter Steven Rogers has a grand time, breaking 4th walls, and giving glorious, epithet-spewing life to its decidedly lowbrow characters. Admirably, it also manages to make salient points as to the nature of celebrity culture, and the simple, one-dimensional character forms that American society so adores. It’s a colorful noisemaker, with a strand of barbed wire wrapped around the handle.” Capsule Review

6. Lady Bird Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut was a spiky, scintillating reverie on teen identity, and the difficulties of holding onto those things that most matter to you even as you strive to open yourself up to totally new experiences. “At its heart, too, through all of its sweetly comic undertones -- and laugh out loud bits of extemporaneous dialogue that flows through Gerwig's script like a guzzle of warm syrup -- it's an emotionally powerful evocation of the way loving parents and their children have to forge a way to learn to live apart from one another. "I want you to be the very best version of yourself you can be," her mother tells her at one point, and Lady Bird's struggle to figure out just who that might be is thoroughly captivating.” Full Review

5. The Florida Project A kind of reimagined Little Rascals, but set at an Orlando residence motel on the dirty outskirts of the strip outside Disney World, Sean Baker’s film is filled with the vitality and spark of life, even as the lives it depicts are difficult and often suffering. As far as the children of these hard-scrabble parents are concerned, the whole area is like an unsupervised playground. Featuring fantastic performances from the children – and a wondrous turn by Willem Dafoe, as the building manager – none more so than impossibly young Brooklynn Prince, the film is smart, sassy, and, at the end, extremely moving. Full Review

4. Get Out Much digital ink has already been spilled (um, generated?) in praise of Jordan Peele’s stunning directorial debut, a brilliant comedy/horror-based dissection of racial politics in this country, but here’s just a bit more: Peele’s film is so tightly constructed and carefully put together, it works equally well on multiple levels. That a film so loaded with racial politics can also be so damn entertaining is a marvel that needs to be seen multiple times before fully appreciated. Full Review

3. Phantom Thread Not that there was any serious doubt before but Paul Thomas Anderson is so fully in control of his craft he can make a riveting, emotionally wrenching film from a fussbudget dressmaker who likes his breakfast to be eerily silent. It helps when you have the luminescent efforts of a fantastic cast – lead by Daniel Day Lewis, in his reported last ever film role – but PTA is also the man who put that cast together and got such fantastic performances out of them. It’s a love story from a particularly obtuse angle – in this way, somewhat reminiscent of PTA’s earlier Punch Drunk Love – but takes such vibrant risks along the way, it’s all you can do to keep from applauding midway through. Delicate, fussy, nuanced, and absolutely gorgeous to look at (thank you, DP PTA!), with a wondrous score from Johnny Greenwood, it’s almost shockingly good. If this is indeed Day-Lewis’ last film, he’s gone out with a hell of a swansong. Full Review 

2. Call Me By Your Name I have written more about this film, and the year’s best winner, over this year than I can ever remember doing before. Hence, I quote but one of my various musings thusly: “The film’s first couple of hours are perfectly entertaining, but is in its closing scenes that it goes from engaging to sublime, including a monologue from [Michael] Stuhlbarg, consoling his now-bereft son, that is truly one for the ages. The closing credits, set over a long, single-take of Elio’s face in front of the fire, will sear your soul.” Full Review

1. A Ghost Story Ladies and gentlemen, David Lowery’s powerful meditation on love, time, and the fallacy of human legacy was the only film this year that very nearly dropped me to my knees in anguish as I departed the theater. You can actually view it as having something of a happy ending, but even so, it strikes nerves deep in your cerebral cortex you never even knew existed before. “It’s a film of felt, quiet spaces, whose emotional intensity builds in small increments to become at times almost overwhelming. It goes places you don’t expect, and keeps you there, frozen stiff in your chair, as it comes full circle. It’s definitely not a film for everybody – if, for example, you require three full acts and complete character arcs, you might want to take a flyer – but for the people who can hang with it, it has an enormous amount to offer.” Full Review

Other Worthy Mentions:

47 Meters Down, A Gray State, Abundant Acreage Available, Atomic Blonde, Baby Driver, Bad Day for the Cut, Beach Rats, Beatriz at Dinner, Blame, Did You Wonder Who Shot the Gun?, Dunkirk, I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore, Jane, Killing Ground, mother!, Quest, The Cage Fighter, The Endless, The Force, The Square, Thumper

The 5 Worst Films of 2017

5. Mary Shelley “Unfortunately, working from a truly terrible script from Emma Jensen, Al Mansour’s film is at best inartful, and at worst, the kind of simplistic, every-scene-has-a-point! pabulum that would embarrass a high school English class. Each element of Frankenstein is foreshadowed (here, Mary learns about galvanism; here, she sees an article about sewing body parts together, et al.), as if all she needed to do to write the novel was to pluck them directly from the sources. Even the film’s strongest moments – where Al Mansour, the worlds first female Saudi director, gets to show 18th century male oppression at its most vile and condescending – get watered down under that lead weight of a script. Everyone deserved better.” Capsule Review

4. Hostiles “Cooper confuses macho bravado and grittiness for any kind of verisimilitude – there are a staggering number of plot holes, and character inconsistencies – including the continual presence of a pretty frontierswoman (Rosamund Pike), whose family was wiped out by a group of marauding Comanche – that only serve to move the meandering plot forward. Worse yet, the action sequences themselves are both incoherent, and oddly designed (one of the oddest choices is putting us outside a closed series of tents in one scene, such that the action sequence is totally lost on us). The male actors sport very real and copious facial hair, as to suggest the worthiness of the project, but any filmmaker that can take a pair of powerhouse actors like Bale and Ben Foster and reduce them to this level of low-wattage really needs to self-examine.” Capsule Review

3. The Promise “Worse than any of its stylistic decisions, however, is to take something as horrific and criminally under-represented as the Armenian genocide and saddle it with a hokey love story that is virtually lifeless on its own. Naturally, the timeliness of the film -- taking us back to another age where virulent nationalism ran rampant, and minority groups were targeted as the subjects of its wrath -- is all too sickeningly relevant in the age of Brexit and Steve Bannon's type of exclusionist populism, but even there, the film either falters on the side of its overbaked plot, or sticks its more relevant political points in blithely didactic lurchings. ("This whole country is a graveyard," one character says.)” Full Review

2. Aardvark “A turgid, draggy drama (mostly around the premise that Slate’s character has to be an almost impossibly bad therapist to do to her patient what she pulls off here), a pasty comedy, coddled around a fantastically unbelievable premise and its flailing execution, the film tries to play with our sense of reality, using Quinto’s recurring hallucinations, but it doesn’t even want to bother to play by its own rules. It’s hard for me to imagine those talented actors reading this script and signing off on it, but here we are.” Capsule Review

1. Kidnap “As a means of conveying information, Knate Lee's "script" calls for Karla to talk incessantly to herself in the car, narrating her dilemma ("So now what's the plan?" she asks herself at one point, quickly concluding that she hasn't got one) pretty much so former Oscar-winner Berry has something to do other than grit her teeth and bleed out the nose. She also has a penchant for broad exclamatory statements ("Wherever you go, I'll be right behind you, no matter what!" and so forth). The effect is like overhearing a young boy playing with his GI Joes.” Full Review

Other Dishonorable Entries:

Axolotl Overdrive, Baywatch, The Mummy

Random Notes:

Inexplicably Overrated: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Biggest Welcome Surprise(s): I, Tonya, Lady Bird, Logan

Most Bitter Disappointment(s): Downsizing, Mary Shelley, The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Film That Critics Got Wrong: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Film(s) I Totally Whiffed On: Coco, I Love You, Daddy

Best Upcoming Releases of 2018

1. The Rider 2. Lean on Pete 3. Happy End 4. Chappaquiddick

[aion-rsa]

The Queen’s Gambit: Why ’60s Retro Feels So Fresh in 2020

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This article contains mild The Queen’s Gambit spoilers.

It’s not the image that first springs to mind when you think of chess. In a swanky Parisian parlor, with a bank of breathless photographers following her every gesture, Anya Taylor-Joy’s Beth Harmon rushes in while still in a daze. She’s clearly missing a step after a late night of bad decisions, yet even at her most disheveled she emanates ‘60s style.

Like Ann-Margret in The Cincinnati Kid, Beth’s fiery mane of red hair is turned up at the sides in a flip. The idol of her age. But with that 1965 movie, Ann-Margret was peripheral, an underdeveloped distraction to a story about grizzled men playing grisly high-stakes poker. Beth is the Cincinnati Kid here, or rather the Lexington Prodigy: a young woman breaking into the boys’ club and who is about to challenge Russia’s greatest chess player in front of the whole world. And she’s doing it with a hangover.

That’s our introduction to The Queen’s Gambit and its vision of chess as a contact sport, and for a series about a game whose origins lay in the Middle Ages, it feels startling fresh. Perhaps that is why it’s capturing the zeitgeist in unanticipated ways. For nearly two weeks now, the limited Netflix series has been the most popular content—show or film—on the streaming service in the U.S., as per their “Top 10” ranking. In the same timeframe that saw 2020’s slow-motion presidential election, folks have been embracing (and clinging to) the retro stylings of intellectual combat on a chessboard. As a result, Queen’s Gambit has become the rarest of things in the modern age: a watercooler show that has more than a 72-hour shelf life.

Why?

Obviously the series is a visually chic production that reinvents the game of 64 squares with lavish production value and design. Co-writer and director Scott Frank films the limited series in a restrained and desaturated color palette of earthy tones and contemporary pastels. Sequences like a chess tournament montage at an Ohio university moves in virtual rhythm with Mason Williams’ grandiose “Classical Gas” orchestrations. When coupled with editing that reduces her opponents to squares on the screen, suddenly Beth and viewers alike are looking out at a sea of vanquished pawns, and her real rival (a deliciously obnoxious Thomas Brodie-Sangster) waiting across the field as a nerdy counterculture monarch.

It’s clearly a visual throwback, but the appeal of the series doesn’t truly reside in its ‘60s setting. Instead The Queen’s Gambit reminds me of a different era when smart adult entertainment about sacrifice, say Chariots of Fire or Amadaeus, could be regularly anticipated and celebrated… in movie theaters. Based on Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel of the same name, Queen’s Gambit feels like a sharp underdog story from that era—a hero’s journey for grown-ups where the protagonist’s superpower is intellect and chess is sexy. Is that a fantasy? Maybe. But it’s one many are finding comforting at a moment where they worry if intelligence, and institutions that should be as ironclad as a chess rulebook, are enough to still win the day.

Before Scott Frank cracked the code of turning it into a miniseries, there were previous attempts at adapting The Queen’s Gambit. The most famous near miss was Heath Ledger’s hope to turn the story into his directorial debut with Ellen Page as Beth Harmon. That film fell apart after Ledger’s tragic death in 2008, but other attempts at adapting this yarn go back to its ‘80s publication, with filmmakers like Michael Apted and Bernardo Bertolucci being attached at one time or another.

It is easy to see why it would’ve appealed as a movie several decades ago. With its emphasis on young Beth Harmon battling drug addiction and collecting an assortment of allies from her defeated foes as she rises up to face down the Soviets in the belly of the Moscow beast, it’s an anti-hero’s Cinderella story—one with uppers, downers, and the ever reliable Vodka Gibson. Yet unlike so many other anti-hero yarns, our underdog is a woman who is popping pills and having flings: Ann-Margret finally with a seat at the table.  

In that role, Anya Taylor-Joy is phenomenal. With luminous eyes the size of bay windows, she is able to convey every introverted, pensive thought in a woman who lives almost exclusively inside her own head. Even with the stoniest of poker faces during chess matches, viewers understand the emotional truth of the character they cheer on, which is all the more impressive when one realizes Taylor-Joy is essaying Beth from her teen years to adulthood. It’s led some critics to opine the performance is a revelation, but the actor’s been turning in sterling work for years, from The Witch through this year’s Emma.

Yet the reason this may be a “star-maker” says much about The Queen’s Gambit and the time it is coming out in. As a Netflix series told over seven-plus decompressed hours, the series is in most Americans’ homes at a time when they cannot go to a cinema—and even when they could a year ago, it was rare for so many to seek out something this thoughtful. As a film, a condensed two-hour version of this series with the same exact talent likely would’ve still been an awards contender (as Queen’s Gambit is now considered to be at the Golden Globes), but it would never have penetrated pop culture so quickly or so thoroughly.

As a long-form limited series, Queen’s Gambit is finding a large audience hungry for adult stories with flawed characters and triumphant finales, especially if those flawed characters have largely been ignored by the white male-dominated Hollywood hits of the past. Beth wins the day through meticulous hard work and a driven ambition that borders on self-destruction, and as a streaming serial, its real revelation is the comforting respite it’s offering at the tail end of 2020’s horrors.

So Taylor-Joy’s ability to externalize her incredibly internalized characters is meeting a wider audience, and Frank has seven hours to tell what used to be a strictly cinematic story. Indeed, the way Frank crafts sequences like his series opener or his “Classical Gas” overture are just two examples of the multiple kinetic sequences in The Queen’s Gambit. No two chess games are filmed the same way in the series, and each has an aesthetic flourish that defies the regular expectation for scripted television.

Read more

TV

Anya Taylor-Joy Infiltrates the Boys’ Club of Chess in The Queen’s Gambit

By Natalie Zutter

Movies

Anya Taylor-Joy and Bringing ‘Questionable Intent’ to Jane Austen

By David Crow

As a consequence, we get more time wallowing in the strange quirks and minutia of the professional chess world, from late night speed chess ego-measuring contests in student unions to an almost comically stark showdown in Russia that appears as if it’s occurring in the bowels of a medieval castle. We imagine Rocky Balboa would approve.

It also gives Frank and company more space to meticulously explore their world. Arguably the most interesting relationship in the series is that between young Beth (Isla Johnston) and Mr. Shaibel (Bill Camp). This even more introverted and nearly deadened janitor becomes an unlikely Mr. Miyagi for the nine-year-old orphan, teaching her the rules of chess inside of her orphanage’s basement.

If Queen’s Gambit had been made as a crowdpleaser in the ‘80s, or an awards season darling in the 2000s, Mr. Shaibel and the epiphany that Beth is a chess prodigy would’ve likely been reduced to flashbacks. But in the series, it gets a full episode, and the show then pays it off six hours later with an emotional breakthrough when Beth, at the bottom of her addict’s pit, finally revisits her past.

As a series, Queen’s Gambit has room to breathe, which has in turn given it room to become something addictive to many right now: a breath of fresh, reassuring air.

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[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Movie Preview 12/6/2019  - PLAYMOBIL: THE MOVIE!

You may have noticed by now that I didn’t have a Box Office Preview over at The Beat today, but that’s only because there wasn’t much I had to say about the sole new wide release, PLAYMOBIL: THE MOVIE (STXfilms) which is clearly trying to capitalize on the success Warner Bros. Animation has had with its LEGO movies. Playmobil is a pretty known brand, and this one features the voice of Daniel Radcliffe as secret agent Rex Dasher, as well as the voices of Anya Taylor-Joy and Jim Gaffigan. The movie looks fun for sure, and it is the only release this weekend, although the weekend after Thanksgiving is notorious for bombs, and STX dumped this here into 2,300 theaters after moving something else.  STX’s UglyDolls movie earlier in the year also bombed with just $20 million and with a much bigger push, so I’m not sure I can see this making more than $6 million this weekend either. It won’t help that some theater chains are only charging $5 for ALL tickets… we’ll see if that helps or hurts.

Also, Focus Features will expand Todd Haynes’ Dark Waters nationwide, though I’m not sure into how many theaters, plus Amazon Music will push Alma Har’el’s Honey Boy, starring Shia Labeouf, into significantly more theaters this weekend. The former seems like a better than the latter, since Honey Boy – which is great, mind you – averaged just $2,101 theaters in 186 theaters this past weekend.  Even if it expands to 500 theaters or more, I can’t see it making more than a million this weekend. Dark Waters did better in about half as many theaters, so it’ll be interesting to see how wide Focus will take it. Either movie will only need to make about $2.2 million or more this weekend to get into the top 10, but Haynes’ film starring Mark Ruffalo will really have to be VERY wide (2,000 theaters or more) to stand a chance.

LIMITED RELEASES

There are a LOT more limited releases this week, as we get into the month where studios try to get all of their “awards-worthy” movie theaters for enough time to be eligible for that year’s Oscars.

Amazon is releasing the historical drama THE AERONAUTS (Amazon), reuniting Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne from the latter’s Oscar-winning The Theory of Everything. This time, she plays balloon pilot Amelia Wren and he plays scientist James Glaisher who go on an adventure to take a balloon higher than ever before so he can do weather-related scientific experiments. Sounds pretty exciting, huh? Actually, it isn’t bad, directed by Tom Harper, whose previous movie Wild Rosecame out earlier this year. This is a perfectly fine historic drama with lots of exciting shots up in the air since most of it takes place in the balloon as the two try to survive against the odds. This is definitely a movie I’d check out a second time but it will also be on Amazon Prime in a couple weeks in case you miss it in theaters or it’s not playing near you.

Fortunately, there are also a number of semi-cool genre films this week, some better than others.

Opening at the Metrograph in New York and L.A.s’ newest Alamo Drafthouse and the Frida Cinema is IN FABRIC (A24), the horror film from Peter Strickland (The Duke of Burgundy), who will be at the Metrograph for most of the weekend to do QnAs and introduce the movie. It stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a lonely woman who starts dating again and is coerced into buying a red gown at a London department store which might be cursed with an unstoppable evil force.  It’s another fantastically original film from Strickland that will probably be lumped into the current wave of “elevated horror” that so many filmmakers hate being lumped into, but it’s also good to know that it’s actually a movie in two halves (kind of like Trey Edward Schults’ Waves), as Ms. Jean-Baptiste only features in the first half and then the second half is another person who encounters the dress. And boy, that department store is one freaky place with Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie as what could only be described as a creepy mannequin come to life. In Fabric will be On Demand starting Tuesday, December 10. My latest interview with Strickland will be up later today over at The Beat.

There’s also Jessica Hausner’s sci-fi film LITTLE JOE (Magnolia), starring Emily Beecham as a single mother scientist who is working on developing a new species of plant at a company that will offer therapeutic qualities if fed properly and spoken to. As the plant grows, she realizes that it’s also creating different emotions in those that encounter it. The movie also stars Ben Whishaw, Kerry Fox asnd Kit Connor and will open at the Quad Cinema in New York, as well as in Philadelphia and other cities this Friday.

DANIEL ISN’T REAL (Samuel Goldwyn) is the new film from Adam Egypt Mortimer, starring Miles Robbins (Halloween) as Luke, a college Freshman who had an “imaginary friend” named Daniel as a kid who his mother (Mary Stuart Masterson!) forced him to lock up. As Luke starts dealing with a world away from his mother, Daniel returns, this time in the form of Patrick Schwarzenegger, who has deadly intentions for Luke and those around him, including a wild artist named Cassie (played by Sasha Lane). It opens in select cities.

Jennifer Reeder’s teen thriller KNIVES AND SKIN (IFC Midnight), which premiered at this year’s Berlin and played at Tribeca is an attempt to create a modern-day River’s Edge based around the disappearance of a teenager named Carolyn Harper. It stars Marika Engelhardt, Audrey Francis and Tim Hopper and will open in select cities and On Demand.

James Frey’s controversial 2003 novel A MILLION LITTLE PIECES, which was once sold as a “memoir” but then, like the work of JT Leroy, turned out to be more fiction than fact, except that this was learned about Frey’s novel after it was made a part of Oprah Winfrey’s prestigious Book Club. Anyway, Frey’s novel has been adapted to the screen by the husband-wife team of Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, as the latter plays a young man dealing with his addiction. Haven’t had a chance to watch the movie, but it should be interesting going by the Johnsons’ previous together.

Getting a one-week Oscar-qualifying run is Céline Sciamma’s critically-praised drama PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (NEON), which has been playing a number of festivals since Cannes. It’s about a painter who travels to a remote island, commissioned to paint a widow still in grieving for her dead husband, but without her knowing.

Also opening at the Metrograph is Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family (1091), a film set in Mexico City where there aren’t nearly enough ambulances for the city’s population of nine million residents. The Ochoa family runs one of the city’s privately-owned ambulance services, taking nightly calls while trying to beat rival EMT crews to the scene.

I’ve heard good things about Naomi Watts’ performance in Alistair Banks Griffin’s thriller The Wolf Hour (Brainstorm Media) set in New York City in 1977 where a citywide blackout is causing fires, looting and the Son of Sam murders are plaguing the city. Watts’ June shuts herself inside her grandmother’s South Bronx apartment but someone keeps ringing her doorbell as visitors keep showing up to make her even more paranoid and fearful. The movie also stars Jennifer Hele, Emory Cohen and Kelvin Harrison Jr. (who co-starred with Watts in the excellent film Luce earlier this year.)

Pantelion Films will release En Brazos de un Asesino (Pantelion) this Friday. Directed by Matias Moltrasio, it stars (and is co-written by) Cuban-born actor William Levy (who appeared as himself in Girls Trip!) playing Victor, the “world’s most handsome man” (not too much ego there, Señor Levy!) who is also a cold-blooded assassin, killing for money. When he goes to collect from a drug lord, he encounters the beautiful Sarai (Alicia Sanz) who has been held captive for years and uses  Victor’s arrival as a chance to escape. This actually sounds kind of fun, even though Pantelion rarely screens their movies for critics sadly.

Beniamino Barrese’s doc The Disappearance of My Mother (Kino Lorber) follows model-turned-activist Benedetta Barzini, a muse to Warhold, Dali and others in the 60s, who now in her ‘70s just wants to get as far away from the camera as possible, only allowing her son Beniamino to film this deliberate journey into obscurity.

This week’s film from Bollywood is Ashutosh Gowariker’s Panipat (Reliance Entertainment), a film set in 1761 as the Maratha Empire has reached its height and the Commander-in-Chief of the Hindostan army, Sadashiv Rao Bhau (Arjun Kpoor) has to fight  off the invading forces of Afghanistan king Ahmad Shah Abdali (Sanjay Dutt) leading up to the Third Battle of Panipat.

Other movies out this week and mainly on VOD that I don’t have time to write more about include:

Code 8 (Vertical) Grand Isle (Screen Media) Beyond the Law (Cinedigm) A New Christmas (Cinedigm)

This week also sees a couple re-releases including the excellent doc APOLLO 11returning to IMAX theaters and the Anime Promaregetting a “redux” release into theaters on Sunday, December 8 (the subtitled version), and then on Tuesday (English dub) and Weds (English dub in 4DX).

LOCAL FESTIVALS

Not really a festival but not exactly repertory either, Film at Lincoln Center will debut a new one-week series called Veredas: A Generation of Brazilian Filmmakers, running from Friday through December 11, which features a lot of work from this year and a few years back from Brazilian filmmakers, many which haven’t really been giving much U.S. distribution.

STREAMING AND CABLE

On Thursday, Netflix is debuting its new sci-fi thriller series V-Wars, based on the books by Jonathan Maberry, starring Ian Somerhalder (Lost, Vampire Diaries) as Dr. Luther Swann, a geneticist who is trying to put a stop to a virus that’s creating mutations across the planet. You can read my interview with Somerhalder over at The Beat.

Also, Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story will hit the streaming network on Friday with its fantastic performances by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern and Alan Alda. This is a must-see... in case you don’t ever planned on getting married... or divorced.

The third season of Amazon Prime’s Emmy-winning The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will also debut on Thursday, while HBO will release the season finale of Silicon Valley on Saturday, making it the next HBO series to end this year after Game of Thrones and Veep, giving people even less reason to subscribe. You can watch the Seth Rogen-Charlize Theron comedy Long Shot on HBO this Saturday so there’s that.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

This week’s Noah Baumbach in Residence offerings are his 2013 film Frances Ha, starring Greta Gerwig, and then Gerwig’s own movie Lady Bird. Both are already sold out. This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph  is a good one, Fritz Lang’s 1953 movie The Big Heat, while Playtime: Family Matinees  will show Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). The Academy’s monthly series continues on Friday night with Kryzysztof Kieslowki’s 1991 film The Double Life of Veronique with a conversation and “musical discussion” with the filmmaker and Oscar-nominated composer Nicholas Brickell, who also scored the recent Netflix film The King.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Just one week after many people will have seen Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman on Netflix, Film Forum is putting a spotlight on the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s documentary work with “Scorsese Non-Fiction,” running from Friday through December 17, including some of the filmmaker’s better-known work like The Last Waltz (1978) and the Rolling Stones movie Shine a Light through some of his lesser-known documentary work.s If you really want to spend some time with Scorsese than maybe check out 1995’s A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies, which runs longer thanThe Irishmanat just under 3 hours! Scorsese’s 1974 short doc ItalianAmericanis also playing quite a number of times with 2001’s The Neighborhood. Personally, I’m kind of interested in seeing his 2011 doc George Harrison: Living in the Material World (also about 3 hours long), because it was recently the anniversary of Harrison’s tragic death. (The Film Forum will also use this as an opportunity to play some of Scorsese’s non-doc work like Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, Baby Dol land more.) This weekend’s “Film Forum Jr.” is the 1956 musical The King and I, starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner… that’s a good one!

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

The Weds “Afternoon Classics” matinee is Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955), starring Robert Ludlum, while Friday’s “Freaky Fridays” offering is Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic The Shining (1980). The Weds and Thursday double feature is On Dangerous Ground(1951) and Jacques Tourneur’s Nightfall  (1956), and then this weekend’s “Kiddee Matinee” is Joe Dante’s Gremlins. Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs screens Friday at midnight, while Saturday’s midnight offering is 1983’s Lone Wolf McQuad, starring Chuck Norris and David Carradine. The Monday Matinee is Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential, and then Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut will screen Tuesday and Wednesday night.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Friday will be a special Brian De Palma double feature of Sisters (1973) and Blow Out (1981), while Saturday will be a screening of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999).Sunday are two MORE double features, an afternoon pre-CodeJoans Crawford/Blondell double feature of Our Blushing Brides (1930) and Footlight Parade (1033) and then in the evening is a TERRY GILLIAM NIGHTS OF KNIGHTS double feature of Monty Python and the Holy Grail(1975) and Jabberwocky (1977).  The Aero will be showing the excellent Varda by Agnès for the next week or so, which is all the repertory you’ll need!

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

The Terrence Malick retrospective continues with a preview screening of Malick’s latest A Hidden Life with actor Valerie Pachner (who I met last night and she’s wonderful!) appearing to give an introduction. Friday is the “Brad Pitt version” of Voyage of Time and The Tree of Life: Extended Cut, while Saturday is Malick’s Song to Song and Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey as well as To the Wonder. In other words, all of Malick’s most recent films with multiple screenings through the weekend including Knight of Cups on Sunday. On Monday night you can see Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas as part of “Martin Scorsese: Four Tales over Four Decades.”

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula from 1993, sadly already sold out, then “Weird Wednesday” is something called Blue Vengeance from 1989. Also next Wednesday is this month’s “Out of Tune” musical, Adam Sandler’s animated Eight Crazy Nights from 2002.

MOMA  (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Iris Barry’s History of Film continues this week with a few more screenings from the 1920s including Walt Disney’s early film Plane Crazy from 1928, plus Robert Wiene’s classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari on Friday afternoon. Vision Statement: Early Directorial Works finishes on Thursday afternoon with Bong Joon-ho’s first film Barking Dogs Never Bite from 2000. (Plus there will be a screening of Parasite with director Bong in attendance, so who knows? Maybe he’ll pop in to say a few words after this one, too.)

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Waverly Midnights: Spy Games will screen Brian de Palma’s Mission: Impossible while Late Night Favorites: Autumn 2019 is David Lynch’s Eraserhead. The IFC Center also begins its annual theatrical run of Frank Capra’s 1946 holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life, playing three times a day with Donna Reed’s daughter Mary Owen introducing a bunch of the screenings.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

Continuing the Roxy’s “Nicholas Cage-athon” with David Lynch’s 1990 film Wild at Heart, co-starring Laura Dern,

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

This Friday night’s midnight movie is Penelope Spheeris’ 1985 movie The Boys Next Door.

Next week, we’re back to normal with three or four wide releases including Jumanji: The Next Level, Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell and the horror film Black Christmas. Plus the Box Office Preview will be back at The Beat!

[theclouddiver]

Big Bang Reaction to Their Relationship Being Exposed on TV

telekinetic-m asked:

Yop! 💚 Love your blog definitely 💕 Can you do a BigBang reaction when their relationship is being exposed on tv ? For example, on a live someone ask about their s/o relationship habits and a member/celebrity make a mistake (like "it's what ... prefers with her!" Etc...) 😊💕 thx cutie 💚

Thank you for always supporting me <3 And sorry for letting you wait for such a long time, but finally here you go :) P.S. This was written at an airport after a night without sleep, but I hope it’s intelligible enough!

Choi Seunghyun (T.O.P)

It had been less than a month that Seunghyun had been released from the military and he and the other members had already been invited to participate in a TV show introducing different scenic places in South Korea. On a particular long drive, the boys decided to kill time by answering short questions the audience had sent in and to stream the talk live. When the host of the TV show asked who was most likely to get married first, Daesung nudged Seunghyun with his elbow and happily blurted out: "Seunghyun, you are the one who can best answer this  question!" It would take Daesung a few questions to realize his mistake and notice the flustered expression on Seunghyun’s face. However, since there was nothing the other members could do about the fact that Daesung had just spilled his hyung's secret, Seunghyun would decide that it was time to speak the truth. He would bravely stare straight into the camera, and with a shy smile on his face he would admit to his relationship with you. "Daesung is right... and my answer is probably long overdue. I am planning to get married by the end of this year, and I couldn't be happier about the fact that I will be a married man soon." Although the other members would be surprised at Seunghyun’s confession on TV, they would clap their hands vigorously and congratulate him excitedly. When they pressed Seunghyun to tell their fans more detail about the wedding and the lucky girl, he would simply shake his head and say that he would give an official statement later. He would call you and YG immediately after filming ended to explain the unexpected situation. Since his love for you was sincere and the wedding already scheduled, Seunghyun would follow through with his promise to post and official statement on the fancafe and also YG's website, asking his fans to continue to support him, his relationship with you and Big Bang as a whole.

Dong Yongbae (Taeyang)

After Seunghyun went to the army to serve his mandatory military service, the other members had had more time to focus on solo activities and personal matters. That's also when he met you, and since the other members were like brothers to him, he had told them about your relationship from the very first day. Right now, he was filming a live show with Daesung and Seungri, as well as a few other idols. Halfway through the filming, the camera team announced a short break for everyone. Of course, the viewers were still going to be entertained by short interviews with the idols. When it was Big Bang's turn to answer the audience's questions, one question read: "If you are dating someone, would you prefer a) to have a casual date night at home b) to eat out and go watch a movie afterwards or c) to go on a fun date in a theme park?" More like an automatic response, Seungri grinned at Yongbae and whispered, "It's definitely not going to be c) after what you told us. I still remember your pale face when you came back that night after going to the theme park with Y/N." What the maknae did not know was that the camera had captured his every word, and only after looking up and noticing the surprised looks on everyone's faces did he realize his mistake. Yongbae could not even be mad at Seungri; it was true that the older member had been talking about you almost every day and that his relationship with you had become a hot topic among the members. Since the interview was live, there was nothing Yongbae could do to save the situation, and so he just smiled shyly into the camera. "I guess Seungri is right. I am currently in a relationship with someone, and going to theme parks is definitely not something I would do regularly." When the camera team bombarded him with more questions about you, his girlfriend, Yongbae would only say that you two had been dating for more than two months now, and that he wished that he could have announced the news to his fans earlier and in a more official way. After the show, he would call you and YG to figure out the best way to handle the situation. He would be upset at himself for putting you in such a risky position, but he was sure that things would turn out fine as long as you loved each other and believed that you could overcome potential criticism by fans and the public.

Kwon Jiyong (G-Dragon)

Jiyong was happier than he had been in a long time: although work as an artist was as stressful and time-consuming as ever, Seunghyun had finally been released from the army and Jiyong’s relationship with you could not be any better. Therefore, he was in an especially good mood when he and the other members were participating in a live interview after performing their newly released song, a song he had composed as a thank you message for his fans and you, for always giving him strength. When the group was asked to describe their ideal type of girl, Seunghyun,  after making sure that the camera team could not hear or see him, leaned over to Jiyong and whispered: "Now you can give a detailed description of your girlfriend, Y/N." However, the oldest member did not realize that there was more than one camera, and it had captured his every movement and word. Interested in Seunghyun’s comment, the interviewer asked Jiyong to explain more. When Seunghyun realized his careless mistake, all color would leave his face and he would glance over to the leader, a twinge of panic visible on his face. Jiyong would be quiet for a moment, thinking about how to best solve the awkward situation he was in. But since there was nothing he could do to reverse what had been said and since his love for you was sincere, Jiyong would decide that it was time to tell the world the truth. A shy smile on his face, he would nod at the interviewer and admit: "Yes, I have been dating someone for over three months now, and I could not be happier. I don't want to say too much, but she is beautiful and has a bright personality, so she is also my ideal type right now." Although the members already knew, they would congratulate Jiyong and tell him that he can always ask them for relationship advice, making the camera team laugh. After the interview, Jiyong would call you and inform you that he would come over to your apartment as soon as possible to discuss how to deal with the new situation.

Kang Daesung

It was New Year's Eve and the four remaining Big Bang members had been invited to perform a cover version of an old but popular song. Since the show they had been invited to aired all performances live and was intended to make the country's waiting for the countdown seem shorter, it was no surprise that there would also be lots of interviews to entertain the viewers. When it was Big Bang's turn to answer the MC's questions, the topic turned out to be a rather unexpected one: "If you are dating someone, what makes the relationship with you special or different from the other member's dating styles?" Each of the boys took turns answering the question, drawing laughs from both the MC and the audience. When it was Daesung's turn, Dongbae couldn't resist to lean over to the younger member and tease him about his relationship with you. "You definitely won't have to speak in the past tense." Little did the two of them know that not only the other members but the entire audience and all viewers had heard his short remark due to the sensibility of the microphones. Only when Daesung and Dongbae looked up and noticed the surprised expressions on everyone's faces did it dawn on them that Dongbae had just spilled the younger man's secret. Daesung would get really shy and flustered, not sure what to do in such a situation. Deciding that speaking the truth was always the best way to tackle a problem, he would gather his thoughts and confess his relationship. “Right, um... I guess hyung is right. I am seeing someone right now, and I would say what makes my dating style different from the other members’ is that I always bring small souvenirs from wherever I go so that she feels as if she had been there with me. I really care about sharing experiences, even if we can’t always be together.” After the show, Daesung would get really nervous about telling you that your relationship just went public, but the other members would comfort him and promise that they would be there to support the two of you, no matter how fans would react. 

Lee Seunghyun (Seungri)

He was in the middle of filming a music show as an MC, when the organizers of the show decided to have a break in order to prepare for the second set of performances. To keep the viewers entertained, Seungri was asked if he could call one of the other Big Bang members and have a short conversation with them. Not seeing a reason why not, Seungri agreed and entered the number of the group's leader, Jiyong. The maknae did not have to wait long since Jiyong picked up the phone after only a few seconds. "Seungri, what's up. Are you calling to ask for relationship advice with Y/N again?" Seungri could clearly hear the mocking tone in Jiyong’s voice, but the maknae's face went blank for a moment when he realized that the entire country and even world would know about his secret in a matter of hours. Seungri could barely hide how flustered he was by the situation. "Um, actually, I am at a music show right now. I wanted to call you and have a chat with you, if you are not too busy right now." There was nothing that could be done against the awkward silence that followed. Only after Jiyong recollected his thoughts and Seungri tried to give the camera an uneasy smile would the conversation turn normal and more comfortable again. Although both the leader and the maknae tried their best to ignore the mistake Jiyong had made and pretended to go on as if nothing had happened, the internet would be full of comments and questions about Seungri's relationship with you. Right after the show, Jiyong would call Seungri and apologize, but your boyfriend would simply say that Jiyong could not have known and that they could not change the situation anyway. Seungri would call you first, hoping that you would not get too angry at the news. He would promise you that the two of you could work it out, that nothing about your relationship would change and that he would be there to protect you if necessary. Then, Seungri would call YG to discuss what to do next and work on an official statement which would be released the next morning or even the same night.

[tialovestelevision]

Once More, With Feeling

It’s time. I know you have been looking forward to this. I certainly have. It’s time for the musical episode. It’s time for “Once More, With Feeling.”

I’m not going to do too much introduction here. But I will bring up something important: Netflix does not have the full version of this episode. Parts of songs and incidental scenes are cut from the Netflix version, which does a ton of damage to the episode’s flow. Hulu is the right streaming service to watch this one on.

Let’s go!

1. Previously On, then opening credits. New opening song for this one, and pictures of the cast in front of the moon. No Tara.

2. This is also the only episode in the series with a title card, so it’s the only one that someone watching television in a linear, over-the-air format would see the title of.

3. Overture! Alarm going off for Buffy. Hinton Battle! People going about their days! Tara finds the flower Willow used for her spell and is happy because nice smelly flower. Buffy doesn’t want to get out of bed. She’s staring at her alarm clock. Xander and Anya have a wedding magazine! Giles takes a book away from Dawn. Willow and Tara doing research. Buffy drawing a picture. Giles pulls her into the back room to train.

4. I’m going to watch songs all the way through before writing about them. So no play-by-play for them, but lots of impressions!

5. “Going Through the Motions.” First off, Sarah’s got a lovely singing voice. I want to know more about the demon with the horns who delivers the “She’s not even half the girl she… ow…” line; he’s got a great design and I bet he’s up to some sort of truly sinister evil when he’s roped into Buffy’s chorus line and gets killed. Also, we could have skipped like half the runtime of “Life Serial” given that we were going to get this song; it expresses what the season is about far better than bludgeoning us with Buffy’s exhaustion over the course of an hour ever could.

6. Buffy comes into the Magic Box. People ask her about her day and Dawn. Buffy asks if anything is going on. “So, did anybody… um, last night… did anybody… um… burst into song?” Xander: “Merciful Zeus.” I think that’s my favorite Xander line ever. Willow: “We thought it was just us!” Tara: “It was bizarre. We were talking, and…” Buffy: “Like you were in a musical.” Everyone’s talking over each other. Xander: “It was very disturbing.” Giles: “What did you sing about?” Buffy: “I don’t remember. But it seemed perfectly normal.” Xander: “But disturbing, and not the natural order of things.” They speculate on how to speculate.

7. “I’ve Got a Theory/Bunnies/If We’re Together.” Three songs sort of run into each other here, and they’re all individually interesting. For those keeping score at home, we are at a total of two solo lines sung by Willow so far for the episode, though she sings (quietly) in chorus with Tara and/or Anya a lot in this one. Anyway… the first bit, “I’ve Got a Theory,” is a wonderful commentary on the show itself. The fact that every single one of the hypotheses (not theories!) posited by the cast, including Xander’s immediately-retracted witches idea (remember Amy’s mother?) and Anya’s idea about bunnies, is absolutely believable within the show’s context is telling. That the one that fits the way most TV at the time worked best (“Some kid is dreamin’/and we’re all stuck inside his wacky Broadway nightmare”) is the least credible might say more. “Bunnies” is, simply, rockin’, an utterly delightful bit of the wondrous weirdness that is Anya’s mind. And “If We’re Together” is heartbreaking, knowing what we know about Buffy and about what’s happening in the minds and lives of the other members of the cast. Buffy needs them right now, and Willow’s sanity is imploding in a dramatic fashion, Xander’s preoccupied with one of life’s more pleasant mundanities, and Giles is convinced that what Buffy needs is to stand on her own at a time when asking her to do so is akin to asking her to move the ocean. “What can’t we face if we’re together,” she asks, but the question is less relevant than it should be. They’re not together.

8. Xander is disturbed, but Willow thought it was neat. Buffy asks what’s causing it; Giles says he thought she said it doesn’t matter, and Buffy says, “I’m not exactly quaking in my stylish yet affordable boots yet, but something unnatural is going on here, and that usually doesn’t lead to hugs and puppies.” Anya asks if it’s just them. Buffy opens the door.

9. “The Mustard.” I think that might have been my favorite scene in the series.

10. “Not just us.”

11. Dawn comes into the Magic Box. She says they’ll never believe what happened at school today. Buffy, totally even tone: “Everybody started singing and dancing?” Dawn: “I gave birth to a pterodactyl.” Anya: “Oh my god. Did it sing?” Willow and Tara are whispering to each other. They need to leave to get a book. This is an excuse to go home. Dawn steals a necklace off the counter.

12. I have to comment on Tara’s dress, because it’s one of the prettiest pieces of clothing I’ve ever seen. I mean… wow, it’s lovely. They’re walking through a park. People are checking Tara out. Tara: “They were really looking at me?” Willow: “And you can’t imagine what they see in you.” Tara: “I know exactly what they see in me. You.”

13. “Under your Spell.” Okay, wow, a lot to say here. How about I start with the song as a piece of music? It’s really good. Amber Benson might have the best singing voice in the regular cast (it’s her or Anthony Stewart Head), and the arrangement is really good. This works as a piece of pop music, outside the context of the show.

INSIDE the context of the show is where it gets complicated, because there’s two songs here, both of which are being sung simultaneously. There’s the song in the moment, the expression of Tara’s feelings about Willow and about her life, and ye gods if this episode was in a less utterly miserably devastating season that would be the end of it and I’d be happy because it’s beautiful and it’s loving and it’s sexy on a level that can set the soul on fire. What it isn’t is subtle, and I love it for that. This show has had a bad habit of desexualizing the relationship between Willow and Tara, yet here they get what might be the most passionate scene about attraction and love the series has ever offered.

But then you put it into the context of the season so far, and when you do that it starts to hurt before the singing even stars. “I know exactly what they see in me. You,” Tara says to the woman who responded to them having a fight - a bad one, but still within the norms of the arguments people in relationships have - by erasing her memory of both the fight and its cause. “I’m under your spell” is the core line of the song. “You make me believe,” she sings to the one who made her believe their relationship is going swimmingly when in fact it is not. The song takes on a sinister feel within the context of the season as a whole, and its first lines, talking about Tara’s backstory and the places she was in before meeting Willow just make that all the more painful.

14. Xander thinks Tara and Willow are having sex, which means Xander has the reasoning ability God gave a goldfish. He tries not to tell Dawn what he thinks. Dawn knows what he thinks. Dawn thinks it’s romantic; Xander and Buffy think it’s not. Dawn: “Come on. Songs, dancing around. What could be wrong with that?”

15. People catching on fire is what’s wrong with that. Hinton Battle is what’s right with that!

16. Xander and Anya’s apartment. I love the geometry of their building. They’re in bed. Xander offers Anya waffle. Anya asks if he’ll make her waffles when they’re married; Xander makes a tired marriage law joke.

17. “I’ll Never Tell.” This has the best opening lines of any song yet. “This is the man that I plan to entangle isn’t he fine/My claim to fame was to maim and to mangle VENGEANCE WAS MINE!” Also, the newspaper headline. “Mayhem caused! Monsters certainly not to blame.” Less cool: The callback to “Pangs,” which was one of the episodes I’ve liked the least. This song brings up their nerves about their upcoming marriage, but the things they’re nervous about largely seem pretty mundane to me. Standard differences between people stuff. If they wanted to get into the reasons for the cold feet Xander displayed in “All the Way” in a way I’d buy, they really should have brought up his issues with his parents. That probably would have blown up the comedy in this song - and this song was very, very funny. I love the dance choreography, too - the way they move around the room. This song was great.

18. Xander and Anya are walking down the street talking to Giles. They do not like their song as much as I did. They don’t bring up “Pangs” being problematic, though. Anya did mention the missing fourth wall. “The Parking Ticket,” sung by series writer Marti Noxon, happens while they’re walking. Giles knows about the guy who burnt up. More than one person has burned up. Giles: “I was able to see the body while the police were taking witness arias.” I love Giles. Buffy is looking for leads, but she’s not into it. Xander says they need to be there for her. Giles puts a “but” at the end of a line that needs not to have a “but.”

19. Spike: “The sun sets and she appears. Come to serenade me?” They talk a bit about the singing. Spike saw a six hundred pound chirago demon singing. He hasn’t sung yet. Buffy turns down a drink. Spike doesn’t want to talk about singing. She doesn’t want to have sex with Spike. He doesn’t know a thing. He’s trying to get rid of her. Urgently. Does he feel a song coming on?

20. “Rest in Peace.” Yes. Yes he does. Buffy’s eyeroll when he starts singing is basically my whole world right now. The song’s good… catchy tune, James Marsters belts it out like a boss. It’s actually a badass bit of really creepy unrequited love rock ballad. The bit in the show where he leaps on a casket while singing is well-done, though I question why, apart from providing a stage for him to sing on (which is reason enough, in this episode), there’s a funeral happening in Sunnydale at night. This song pretty much encapsulates the Buffy/Spike story so far, and is thus creepy as hell. If someone were to sing something like this about me, I’d be really impressed all the way to the courthouse to request a restraining order right the fuck now.

21. “So, you’re not staying, then?” Heh.

22. Dawn is hiding things. Tara comes in and tells her that they have a lead on what’s going on… a demon that can be summoned who’s a lord of the dance. Dawn asks if they know who summoned it. Tara is all lovestruck. Dawn talks about the fight Willow erased from Tara’s memory. Tara doesn’t remember it, and is suddenly off-put. She’s looking at the flower in a bit of terror. She’s going to the Magic Box. Dawn says she’ll be okay.

23. “Dawn’s Lament.” She steals things. Nobody notices. Then she gets kidnapped. By puppet-looking dudes.

24. “Dawn’s Ballet.” Dawn comes to at the Bronze. On the pool table. Nobody’s there. The puppet dudes are there. They ballet-fight-chase.

25. “What You Feel.” So, Hinton Battle as the demon Sweet just explained the entire plot of the episode to us. He gets summoned, his presence makes people sing about things they’re hiding (“All those hearts lie open that must sting”) and sets people on fire by concentrating his power on them (“Plus some customers just die combusting.”) He believes Dawn summoned him, so when he leaves Earth, he’ll take her with him and she’ll be his queen. He also wants to kill the Slayer. I wonder if Sweet’s killed Slayers before? He’s… actually kind of ridiculously powerful. The song itself is wonderful. Did I mention that Hinton Battle has won three Tony awards? That’s important.

26. Buffy and Giles in the training room. Buffy is worried they’ll get a training montage from an 80s movie; Giles says that if they hear any inspirational power chords they’ll lie down until they go away. Buffy is pretty spry for a corpse. Giles asks if she’s spoken to Dawn about the incident on Halloween; she says she thought Giles took care of it, and says she’s ready. He goes to the knife and throwing axe and shuriken rack.

27. “Standing.” This song is beautifully painful. I’m going to start with something you’re likely expecting: Giles is wrong. Buffy, at the moment, needs support, needs duties taken off her shoulders, needs a goddamn therapist; she does not need to be allowed to sink or swim on her own.

But Giles thinks she needs that. He honestly believes, and I can see how he might given the information he has, that Buffy is best off without him at the moment - that she’s leaning on him in a way she’ll never stop, and she’s strong enough now to stand on her own. That the only way for her to continue to heal is for him to leave. He doesn’t want to, and it hurts him on a soul-deep level that he believes he has to go. Leaving will wound him. This song is painful because I do love Giles, and because I read it as being about stupid, pointless self-sacrifice.

Meanwhile, downstairs in the main floor of the shop, Tara walks past crying.

28. Tara has found the flower in a book. Lethe’s bramble, which is used for spells of forgetting and mind control.

29. “Under Your Spell/Standing (Reprise).” Giles continues to express the same sentiment he had in the last song. Tara’s part in this one is more interesting… the stream of consciousness of someone realizing a partner has crossed an unfixable line, but one still loves them. “I can’t adjust to this disgust we’re done and I just wish I could stay.” Meanwhile, Buffy and Willow are conversing at the front of the store while Giles and Tara sing their heartbreak. Buffy and Willow don’t know. They think life goes on.

30. Spike found a puppet guy. Willow is happy to see Tara but Tara doesn’t speak to her and Willow gets all wounded-face. Spike tells the puppet guy to sing. Music starts, then the puppet just explains what’s going on. Then he runs away. Spike: “Strong. Some day he’ll be a real boy.” Buffy: “So, Dawn’s in trouble. Must be Tuesday.” Tara apologizes; Buffy immediately dismisses the idea of it being Tara’s fault. Xander wants to do a full-on cavalry charge; Giles turns that plan down and says Buffy has to go alone. Giles says Buffy is going alone. Spike: “Don’t be a stupid git. There is no…” Giles: “If I want your opinion, Spike, I’ll… I’ll never want your opinion.” Willow suggests a confusion spell; Tara vetoes that. Spike: “Forget it, Slayer. I got your back.” Buffy: “I thought you wanted me to stay away from you. Isn’t that what you sang?” Xander and Anya make fun of Spike. Spike: “Fine. I hope you dance till you burn. You and the little bit.” That’s very Spike - obsessed, angry, violent, worshipping. Buffy is surprised they’re not coming. She asks Giles what he expects her to do; he says “Your best.”

31. “Walk Through the Fire.” A lot to talk about in the big group number too. First off… apparently, this was both the most expensive and most difficult to film scene in the series. I can see why - it’s a huge setpiece, involving a fair chunk of the Sunnydale sets the show has used through its run and a lot of coordination. Plus the fire engines at the end.

Second, “So one by one, they come to me/The distant redness as their guide/But what they’ll find ain’t what they had in mind/It’s what they have inside.” Sweet again lays out the core of his threat - his power to incinerate isn’t nearly the danger that his power to lay secrets bare is.

Buffy is done. She was done in “The Gift,” and everything that’s happened since then has made her more aware just how done she is. Honestly, her duty should have been done at “Prophecy Girl,” when the Slayer line passed from her to Kendra. In “The Gift,” though, she ended her story on her own terms, only to have Willow shred that ending and insist on adding a few new chapters. If Buffy can’t have the ending on her terms, going to confront a being far more powerful than she is while knowing she’s given up (remember “Fool for Love?”) will at least let her have it be over again. Giles, meanwhile, rethinks his decision on sending her alone, and Willow gets a third solo line.

32. “Showtime.” Buffy is at the Bronze, and finds Sweet and Dawn there. Buffy snarks with Sweet a bit, and Dawn swears she didn’t summon him. Buffy offers to go to Hell with Sweet instead of Dawn. Sweet: “What if I kill you?” Buffy: “Trust me. Won’t help.” Sweet: “That’s gloomy.” Buffy: “That’s life.” He asks if life’s a miraculous thing. Buffy: “I think you already know the answer.”

33. “Something to Sing About.” There’s a lot I could say about this song - how tightly-written the lyrics are, the disconcerting amelodism in the bits where Buffy lists off things to live for - but I want to focus on a few moments. The first is the very beginning, the facial acting Sarah Michelle Gellar does while singing the first few lines. Buffy, here, is dragging herself into character - snark and passion, focused on an enemy. That doesn’t last. Second, toward the end of the song, when she’s told them that she was in Heaven (and look at Willow’s face when she does), and she begs Sweet, “Please, give me something (to sing about),” and Sweet gets this almost regretful look in his eyes as he shakes his head. He’s evil, so he wouldn’t, and he’s got nothing, so he can’t, but even he seems moved here. And delighted… there’s also joy there. He’s watched one of the most powerful beings on the planet break for his amusement. Third, Spike’s insight. We see him have really important insights before, things one only understands if one isn’t a person, and this might be more important than his understanding of why opening Glory’s portal has to use blood. He knows what it is to die, to cease to live. He and Buffy are the only people in the room that’s true of, though Tara has a similar experience. Fourth, “The hardest thing in this world is living in it.” Dawn offers Buffy the same words here that Buffy offered Dawn before leaping to her death in “The Gift,” and it resonates very well. Fourth, just as the last few notes play, Tara, holding Willow’s shoulder and comforting her. “We’re done,” she sang in the Reprise, but she still loves Willow, and love moves us to empathy and grace even when a relationship can’t be salvaged. This episode needs no action climax; it has this song.

34. Sweet: “Now, that was a show stopper. Not quite the that I was looking for…” Then Willow, who is the only person here who might be on Sweet’s level, threatens him. Sweet smells power. “I guess the little missus and I should be on our way.” Giles: “That’s never going to happen.” Sweet: “I don’t make the rules. She summoned me.” Dawn again insists she didn’t. He points out that what she’s wearing is his talisman. She says she found it on the floor… that’s a lie. But she didn’t, in fact, summon him. Giles says that if it was in the shop, it was one of them… it turns out it was Xander. He thought there would be dances and songs, and wanted to make sure they’d get a happy ending. Sweet is annoyed. Xander asks if he has to be Sweet’s queen. Sweet: “It’s tempting… but I think we’ll waive that clause just this once. Big smiles, everyone. You beat the bad guy.”

35. “What You Feel (Reprise).” “All those secrets you’ve been concealing’/Say you’re happy now, once more with feeling/Now I gotta run/See you all/In HELLLLLL!” Also, his expression when he sings “And there’s not a one who can say this ended well.” This was a pyrrhic victory for everyone involved, which I didn’t think was possible.

36. “Where Do We Go From Here?” Big group sing about being lost. “The battle’s done and we kinda won so we sound our victory cheer/Where do we go from here?” Awkwardness at the start of the song. “Understand we go hand in hand but we walk alone in fear.” That moment might have my favorite choreography in the episode. I love Spike breaking out of the song. “Bugger this.” “The curtains close on a kiss God knows we can tell the end is near.” Buffy meets Spike outside. “The day you suss out what you do want, there’ll probably be a parade. Seventy-six bloody trombones.” From watching Sound! Euphonium, that would be a LOT of trombones. That would be nearly a concert band and a half worth of just trombones. They sing the opening bars of their songs - “Walk through the Fire” from Buffy and “Rest in Peace” from Spike - and then they kiss. Episode end. Different ending credit song. Plus a big The End card in the style of classic (as in, 1940s-1950s) musical films. The Mutant Enemy sings “Grr, Argh!”

Overall: This is the best episode so far this season. This is the best episode since “Hush.” It belongs with “Hush,” “Amends,” and the best parts of the Faith arc in the list of best episodes of the series. This is how you do an episode about depression and sadness and being overwhelmed and miserable and make it not merely watchable but brilliant.

There are reasons that most of the great theater of the twentieth century, and much of the best cinema of its first half, comes in the form of musicals. You put an idea to song and the idea becomes easier to think about while still being entertained. Stephen Sondheim has done truly great musicals about the mundanity and loneliness of modern life (“Company”) and the assassinations of various Presidents of the United States (“Assassins,”) and they’re actively fun to watch while still making poignant emotional points. That’s the power of a well-composed musical.

It does, however, kind of make me wish I’d skipped much of the last three or four episodes. It tells me their stories in song form, which is a far more enjoyable way of seeing them than actually sitting through them. “Show, don’t tell,” the old adage goes, but if showing takes three hours of television, most of which I’m going to be miserable for because people I like are being tormented in gruesome emotional detail while telling involves a peppy song and dance number, I’m quite frankly fine with telling.

Even in its full version, which takes up nearly a full hour (they cut back drastically on the number of commercials that aired during this episode’s first run), “Once More With Feeling” is short for a musical. The cartoon version of “The Lion King” runs for 89 minutes, and the stage performance goes for 150 minutes including a single brief intermission. But it runs as long as it needs to, and tells its story well.

Sweet is one of the show’s best villains, and, apart from possibly the First Evil from “Amends,” probably the best one-episode monster the show’s given us. Among the seasonal villains, I’d probably place the Mayor and Glory above him.

This episode is a reminder, in the midst of a truly dismal time, how great a show Buffy the Vampire Slayer can be.

[sven-kroosl]

My Top 10 Games of 2016

Man I'm glad 2016 is over but the games were good...

Some years play rough and 2016 was one of those years and I am very happy for it to be over. On the other hand in terms of video games, and only video games, this was a really great year. From a really solid resurgence in the quality of triple A shooters, to the Juggernaut that was Overwatch, and some really solid indie releases, there were actually too many good games for one person to play. Also there was a massive update to DotA 2 this year which is always welcome. So here we go, my top ten games of 2016.

 Honorable Mention - The Final Station

 Of all the games I played this year I had the most intense reaction to The Final Station. Upon completion of this game I set aside my controller, turned off my monitor, not the PC, just the monitor, then I went for a walk around the block. I was moved to this act not by any great aspect of the game’s production or by some jaw dropping set piece but instead by the oppressive weight and bleakness of The Final Station’s world. A dangerous world where even the simplest task can expose you to being torn apart by brutal attackers. A world where infrastructure is crumbling and the people normally trusted with protecting everyone have secretly betrayed the trust of the people. After the way 2016 played out, the bleak outlook of The Final Station resonates even more.

 10 - Pokemon Go

 I am not a Pokemon fan. I fully recognize the good and great qualities of the Pokemon universe, but the games and cartoons have just never done much for me. The runaway success of Pokemon Go demanded that I give the game a shot despite my usual lack of enthusiasm. What I found was a really solid AR experience filled with tons of excuses to get me up and about in the real world and a great new icebreaker to start conversations with people I would otherwise have nothing in common. Oh yeah, and some weak ass Pokemon.

 9 - Reigns

 Reigns is a truly fantastically simple game. Of the two mobile games on this list Reigns is the one that fit into my life the best. In that way Reigns was the anti Pokemon Go; Pokemon Go was the mobile game that changed my routine and Reigns was the game that fit into my routine. When you’re waiting in line for the movies or whatever you can’t go running after that stupid Zapdos. But you know what you can do? You can live the lives of half a dozen Medieval Kings, you can meet the devil in the form of you dog, you can fight skeletons in a dungeon, and even more cool stuff. Also it’s a mobile game that you just pay for up front and it never bothers you for money again, which is always nice.  

 8 - Darkest Dungeon

 Fun fact: for most of my 2015 Extra Life Marathon I was having internet service issues and about the only game I could reliably stream was the early access version of Darkest Dungeon, so I have more than a little experience with the game. The way that every part of The Darkest Dungeon works together to to create a gothic horror landscape is just fantastic. The way the cartoony artstyle contrasts with the animation and sound design is just dissonant enough to be unsettling. The way that the psychological maladies effect the gameplay and can just straight up end a dungeon run or in some cases even end a game is a risky gamble that really adds a sense of tension that works incredibly well with the tone of the game. Ultimately Darkest Dungeon is a really great, creepy, game. Be ready to grind a bit though because you'll definately need to.

 7 - The Banner Saga 2

 In a year when the second entry in the XCOM franchise was a disappointment there was a shining star in the turn based strategy genre and that star was The Banner Saga 2. Where XCOM 2 made the mistake of assuming players had maintained their skills from the first game The Banner Saga 2 eased players back into the combat system with a few easier battles before dialing up the difficulty. It also doesn’t hurt the game that it has some of the best hand drawn style art and animation of any game ever. Bottom line: The banner Saga was the best turn based strategy game released this year and I really like that type of game.

 6 - Overwatch

 I really enjoyed my time with Overwatch this year. Zarya is top tier A-plus defensive tank, and is also just the best. The way that Blizzard has built not just a great multiplayer game but also the UI framework around that game which celebrates every player’s contribution is a great accomplishment. I think that the characters in Overwatch are all really fun as is the game itself. It’s just a shame that there’s really no good single player experience in the game and that the story exists entirely outside the game, and that the community for that game is becoming toxic in spite of some masterful design efforts to combat that. Also shameful is Blizzard's decision to add the worst free to play practice, blind loot boxes with repeats, to a full price retail game. Overwatch is a really great game that is slowly getting worse over time and that’s kind of sad.

 5 - Dark Souls 3

 Dark Souls 3 is my first Souls game so I was unprepared for the absolute savagery with which this game assails players, even in the tutorial. Once I played for a while, though, patterns began to reveal themselves and a game that seemed ferocious at first became simply challenging but fair. The appeal of Souls  games was lost on me for a long time. I couldn’t understand why people were so excited to play blatantly unfair games. Now that I’ve played one I understand that these games aren’t really unfair or even onerously difficult. Souls games simply operate at a different tempo from other games and learning that tempo is the really difficult part of mastering them.

 4 - Stellaris

 Just. One. More. Turn.

Getting you to say that after 8 hours is  the ultimate goal of all games like Stellaris.  What Stellaris offers you that others like it don’t is freedom. Freedom to design your own civ, freedom to find your own way to win the game, freedom to be weird. Games like Stellaris, most notably the Civ series, tend to force players into a few basic strategies. Sure you can try a pacifist playthrough in a Civ game but good luck actually winning or even surviving very long that way. Stellaris has a way of making all playstyles viable by making them all just flawed enough that really drew me in to an extent greater than any other game I played this year. That said I tend to be fairly biased in favor of this type of game in general so it’s not a huge surprise that it affected me this way.

 3 - Doom

 Doom is a game about momentum which is important because that is the way it is different from practically every other game this year. The new hotness in games lately has been agility; letting players flit about the environment hither and thither. Doom ignores this trend, almost with disdain, forcing players to keep their feet mostly planted on the ground but letting them move at unheard of, in recent years, speed across it. What this means is that Doom isn’t a game about not getting blasted so much as it is a game about blasting things. The whole point of the game is to treat enemy encounters the way the Kool-Aid Man treats walls. This isn’t just a return to form to the series because this year’s DOOM added a new piece to the old formula; storytelling. In DOOMs of yore story was an afterthought for the most part. This DOOM, though, actually has a story with a plot and everything and actually interesting supporting cast members. This game even managed to give the “Doom guy” a little bit of a personality and for that alone it will go down as maybe one of the best shooter campaigns ever. In a year where the most popular game is often about five opposing team members finding ways to keep you from killing the sixth Doom is a breath of fresh air, letting you really cut loose against a horde of angry demons released by the worst kind of short sighted corporate greed.

 2 - Hyper Light Drifter

 I’ve said this a lot this year and I’m going to keep on saying it, because apparently it needs to be said. Everyone, play, Hyper Light Drifter. As a medium video games are often criticized, occasionally correctly, for being too over the top. With that being the case Hyper Light Drifter is possibly the exception that proves the rule. Which is to say sublimely simple and quiet but also incredibly fun and engaging. It doesn’t hurt that the game has the what is probably the best pixel art and sprite work in a game since Fez, an amazing synth heavy soundtrack and great sound design overall. The real beautiful aspect of Hyper Light Drifter, though, is the gameplay, specifically the combat. Few things this year have been more satisfying than mastering the combat in Hyper Light Drifter. The combat is just different enough from other similar games to be challenging while being familiar enough to not be off putting. But more than anything about the game it is the quiet  tone of Hyper Light Drifter that impressed me. So what are you waiting for. Go play this game!

 1 - Titanfall 2

 Titanfall 2 is a truly magnificent accomplishment in game design and execution. Every bit of the game is impeccably well done, it looks and sounds amazing, plays like a dream and most importantly is a joy to play. While a lot of games have the kinds of traversal mechanics that Titanfall 2 has, nothing feels like Titanfall 2.  That is what makes this the best game of the year, the way it feels. More than any other aspect of the medium, feel is what defines and differentiates games. In a year where great games were built to make you want to gamble on a loot box or increase accuracy of your favorite GPS app, the relative purity of Titanfall 2 makes it stand out. Instead of trapping players in a restrictive character class Titanfall 2 lets people customize almost every aspect of their multiplayer loadout. The game is even more distinctive on account of its campaign, remember those, which is a masterclass in how to pace mechanics. Titanfall 2 is constantly introducing and discarding new, interesting gameplay mechanics and consequently never gets dull or repetitive. When the mechanical brilliance of the campaign is put together with Titanfall 2’s solid “A boy and his robot” story and one of the year’s standout new characters, BT 7274, and you get, arguably, the best campaign of the year.

As parts of video game industry more and more often leave out parts of their games so they can sell them to us later or add sleazy free to play hooks to games they also expect us to pay for up front, it becomes important to celebrate games for simply being complete experiences on release. Unlike some games on this list Titanfall 2 is at that and more, the best game of the year.  

[usedappliances09houston]

Application of biometrics in the best shapewear  automobile industry is not recent news; it has been in use for the past few years. However, with the advent of technological developments, the automobile industry has been quite busy in experimenting with automotive biometrics. Biometrics system in vehicles provides accurate and maximum protection to every vehicle owner against hacking or theft. This technology employs multi-factor authentication. In most cases, the two-factor authentication system is implemented. Moreover, the focus is primarily placed on the accessibility of the vehicle, immobilizer, health monitoring, and switch ignition via fingerprints.The automobile industry is quite upbeat in embracing innovative technologies which are convenient and user-friendly to provide the feel of luxury to their customers. Strengthening a vehicle's security while ensuring customers' safety is one of the main concerns of the automakers. Automakers, especially the leading ones in the market have been incorporating automotive biometrics Maternity Shapewear technology in their auto-parts. No wonder the automotive biometrics market is growing at a fast rate and the trend seems like it will stay strong in the foreseeable future. However, India's auto recycling or auto shredding ecosystem is still in its infancy. The sector is largely dominated by the unorganized sector. Areas like Mayapuri & Jama Masjid in Delhi, Kurla in Mumbai, Pudupet in Chennai, are the current graveyards for scrap vehicles.The activities in these areas is largely unorganized and unregulated. This means that the recycling process is primarily carried out without sophisticated equipment& processes. The recovery and efficiency is also low. The processes not only pose health hazards, they also inherently have serious security loopholes.Health hazards surrounding the markets have attracted attention in the past. There was a case of radiation caused due to Cobalt 60 pencils, a few years ago. Lead batteries too are harmful in content. Oils from vehicles drained off on roads, result in extremely unhygienic conditions around. The practice of gas cutting creates enormous amount of pollution, and makes it impossible to breathe - worsening the abysmal condition of air quality which exists in Delhi either ways.In washer dryer clearance addition to the existing pipeline of old vehicles that stream into these markets, the government is drafting the much-needed End of Life policy for cars. With the average life of a car in India being 18 years, as against 9.73 years in Europe, vehicles run way beyond their expiry date. The effect is obvious: An old car produces as much as 10 times the emission of new cars, owning to obsolete technology, etc. The Delhi government, to begin with, has drafted a policy to scrap 37 lakh vehicles older than 15 years, roughly 37% of the cars registered in Delhi. "There is no rule at present to guide the police or the government as to what is to be done with the vehicles after they are impounded. The new rules will create a mechanism to ensure proper disposal of appliances houston old vehicles. This is going to be a first-of-its-kind policy in India," commissioner (transport) Varsha Joshi had told Hindustan Times.The question is now this: Does Delhi (or India) have adequate and right capacity to recycle these old cars?India will need to borrow best practices followed in Europe & US to help raise the automobile recycling practices to an organized level.In this process, the vehicle is first sent for de-pollution. De-pollution Process safely removes all hazardous waste - batteries, air bags, gas cylinders, mercury switches, tyres, air conditioning units, fluids and oils - this is done through sophisticated machinery. The vehicle is then sent for dismantling where good parts are removed for further resale/use. Remainder of the vehicle is then pressed/ sheared.The pressed vehicle is then sent to the shredder plant for car dealerships in houston further processing.

During shredding 3 components of the automobile are segregated: • Ferrous - recycled into material • Non-ferrous - recycled into material • Shredded residue - this is sent to landfills or further recycled to the extent possible The organized process is carried out through machines as against brute force used in unorganized markets. Near zero pollution & waste is produced as a result of these organized processes. The result is a circular economy, where steel scrap produced is reused, and dependence on extraction of luxury cars houston natural resources as well as on imports of steel scrap is reduced (India currently imports steel scrap to the tune of 8 million tonnes). Hence, the need of the hour for the Indian context is not only an efficient End-of-Life vehicle policy, but also organized vehicle recycling practices. We have a proud car culture in the United States but, surprisingly, not many people know too much about this country's automotive history. For this history lesson, we are focusing on the automotive "industry" rather than the history of the automobile itself.In the 1890s, the American automotive industry began and, thanks to the use of mass-production and the large size of the domestic market, quickly evolved into the largest automotive industry in the world (though this title would be taken from the U.S. by Houston SEO Expert Japan in the 1980s and then from Japan by China in 2008).The U.S. motor vehicle industry actually started with hundreds of manufacturers, but by the end of the 1920s, three companies stood apart from the rest:These three companies continued to prosper, even after the Great Depression and World War II. Henry Ford began building cars back in 1896 and started the Ford-Motor Company in 1903. Ford utilized the first conveyor belt-based assembly line in 1913, improving mass production of its Model T. The used appliances houston assembly line decreased costs significantly and the Model T sold so well that it propelled Ford into the largest automobile company in the U.S.General Motors was founded by William Durant (formerly a carriage maker)n in 1908. In the first couple of years, GM acquired Buick, Oldsmobile, Oakland (later to become Pontiac), Cadillac, and a number of other car companies. Durant also wanted to acquire Ford but Henry Ford opted to keep his company independent. Having become a little to "acquisition-happy," Durant over-extended the company SEO Company Toronto and was forced out by a group of banks who took controlling interest in the company. Durant then teamed up with Louis Chevrolet and founded Chevrolet in 1913, which became a quick success. Durant retook majority control in GM after acquiring enough stock and GM acquired Chevrolet in 1917. This did not last long, however. Durant was forced out again in 1921. In the late 1920s, GM overtook Ford as the largest automaker.The former president of Buick and a former executive of GM, Walter Chrysler took control of the Maxwell Motor Company in 1920, revamped it, and reorganized it into Chrysler Corporation in 1925. Chrysler acquired Dodge Brothers in 1927 and, in 1928, introduced the DeSoto and Plymouth brands thanks to the dealer network and manufacturing facilities that came with the Dodge acquisition. By the 1930s, Chrysler overtook Ford and became the second largest automaker.By 1950 what career is right for me, America produced almost 75 percent of all automobiles in the world. At the start of the 1970s, however, U.S. auto companies (especially the Big Three) were severely affected by increased competition from foreign auto manufacturers and high oil prices. In subsequent years, companies bounced back occasionally but the crisis reached its pinnacle in 2008, prompting Chrysler and General Motors to file for bankruptcy reorganization and be bailed out by the federal government. While Ford was also affected by the crisis, it decided to power through on its own and did not take the bail out. We actually have a lot of respect for Ford as a result of this. They did not take the easy way out. The automotive equipment industry deals with the production of every kind of tool and machinery that is needed for the manufacture, maintenance and repair of vehicles including cars and car parts. As such, the industry produces several different varieties of equipment starting from basic hand tools to more complex machinery.Automotive workshops and garages will be unable to function without automotive equipment. Shop furniture, lifts, exhaust hoses, air compressors, lubrication equipment, electric business analyst certification and light reels, jacks, vehicle servicing equipment, fluid storage tanks and trans-air piping are some of the many different types of automotive equipment that are used by automotive manufacturing and automotive repair businesses. * Hand Tools: Automotive repair shops use several different types of hand tools for their repair and maintenance projects. Some of the commonest items include ratchet sets and wrench sets, crowbars (also known as pry bars), socket sets, screwdrivers, star and clutch-head drivers, hammers, pliers and wire cutters, electric drills, hacksaws and torque wrenches. * Pneumatic Tools: Most automotive workshops now use pneumatic tools as an alternative to electricity powered plus size shapewear motors because the latter is more prone to fire hazards. Such tools are powered by compressed air and are high powered versions of the more traditional hand tools. Common examples of pneumatic automotive equipment include air compressors that can be used to power a variety of tools including hammers, drills, ratchets and spraying tools. * Availability of pneumatic equipment makes it easier for mechanics and technicians to undertake repair and maintenance work because they are powerful and easy to use. For example, a set of pneumatic shears can cut through sheet metal at a faster early childhood development rate and leave behind a smoother edge when compared to traditional tin snips. Similarly, air hammers outfitted with chisel or punch bits have multiple uses. They can they be used for straightening dents. The chisel feature can be used to break rusted parts loose and the punch bits can be used to remove old rivets and bolts that are too difficult to take out by hand. * Lifts: several different kinds of lifting equipment are used to lift and secure cars so that mechanics and repair persons can easily work under the vehicle. These lifting tools include both low-tech tools such as basic floor jacks, car ramps and jack stands as well as hydraulic lifts and floor jacks for better efficiency and performance. * Vehicle Exhaust Removal Systems: vehicle exhaust removal systems are used to capture and remove harmful exhaust fumes to insure optimal air quality in automotive maintenance and repair facilities. These are mandatory equipment as per OSHA Standards in order to limit exposure to harmful vehicular emissions. Common vehicle exhaust technical schools near me removal systems include hose drops as well as reels. * Lubrication Systems: Automotive lubrication systems include several different types of oil meters, ATF meters, gear lube meters, dispense valves and grease dispenses valves. The Automotive equipment business is a very large and competitive business. Automotive repair businesses must A+ certification training buy equipment from reputable dealers for the best deals and performance levels.

[crussssell]

Nam Tuk Tram Stop really is a breath of fresh air when it comes to dining in Glasgow. It has a relaxed, laid back atmosphere about it that really sets it apart from other eateries in the city. The newly opened Pan-Asian restaurant has bags of potential to become one of Glasgow’s places to be for East and South Asian cuisine. The decor is eclectic, bright and cool, incorporating design elements from each of the nations who’s cuisine it offers. Bamboo plinths serve as walls, allowing the space to be broken up into several dining areas; large tables, ones for couples and high stool seating. The resulting space is open yet intimate, colourful yet cohesive, and creates a wonderful atmosphere to dine in.

Big things are coming to Nam Tuk in the coming months with a Korean Barbecue section being added to the menu, a delivery service being rolled out and the restaurant even setting up their own app to offer exclusive offers and rewards for customers. Innovation is at the heart of Nam Tuk, and this is one of the reasons I think they’re here to stay.

I visited on a Wednesday evening at 5.30pm, and there was a steady stream of customers in and out of the restaurant during the two hours we spent there. I have to be honest and say I saw a lot of people come and have a look a menu and walk away, but I really feel this is because people are afraid of trying new things. I visited with my mum, who has never eaten Pan-Asian food apart from Thai green curry, and she enjoyed her meal so much. If you’re really not sure about things on the menu, all you have to do is ask. The staff are so knowledgeable about the menu and really good at providing recommendations.

The Main Menu is a quasi-tapas style one, with the suggestion being to order two or three small dishes with one accompanying side, or a larger curry with a side. Each dish arrives at your table once it is prepared, not in the form of courses or in any particular order. There are dishes from China, Thailand, Japan and Malaysia to name a few, so I tried to encompass as many dishes from different regions as I could for the purpose of this review. Items from the Main Menu range from £2.95 to £7.95, with sides costing around £2.50 and larger sushi platters in the higher teens. There are also separate Takeaway,Festive and Lunch Menus. Along with our meal we had a few drinks from the impressively diverse Drinks Menu, including a Raspberry, Passionfruit and Jasmine Highball (£4.25), a Lychee, Peach & OrangeBranca Iced Tea (£2.45) and a pint of Singha (£5.45):

Salt and Pepper Squid (£5.50) – These calamari rings were a little thicker than I normally prefer them, but the batter and vegetables they were cooked in were so delicious. This is definitely a dish for those who are looking to ease themselves into Pan-Asian cuisine, as they are cooked in the Chinese style familiar to many. A flavour packed, generous portion which is incredible value for money.

Crispy Fried King Prawns (£7.95) – Another generous portion, with large prawns cooked fried in a crisp light batter. The sauce these prawns are dressed in is both sweet and spicy, with sliced chillies spread throughout to allow it to be made even hotter. A delicious dish, one of my absolute must orders.

King Prawn Pad Thai (£7.95) – This was the first time I had eaten Pad Thai, and I was so delighted by the version presented to me at Nam Tuk. Made with rice noodles, bean sprouts and spring onions and topped with the same king prawns as the last dish. My favourite part of this dish was that chilli and cashew nuts were served separately, giving us complete control of how nutty or spicy a taste we wanted. We started with the Pad Thai on its own, added the lemon juice and after some soy sauce. Finally we sprinkled the nuts and chilli powder over the dish, which completely transformed the taste.

Gyoza (£5.95) – This dish is a prime example of why you should listen to the staff’s recommendations. I really (really) do not like pork, but in this instance I was pleasantly surprised by how it tasted. Three crisp dumplings were stuffed with pork in a pate style consistency and alongside a sweet honey and garlic soy sauce. I would never had even considered ordering this, but it ended up being one of my favourite and my mum’s favourite dish of the meal.

Panang Seabass (£7.95) – Again, this was not a dish I would have ordered without it being suggested to me. Two Panko breaded seabass fillets were served in a panang curry sauce, which I could akin to a green or yellow curry in terms of heat. This was my first time trying seabass, which was white and flaky when cooked. The fish wasn’t overpowering and the taste complimented the heat and sweet of the curry sauce.

Rainbow Roll (£7.50) – These four huge servings of sushi were topped with avocado, tuna and salmon and filled with crab sticks. The presentation of this dish was really beautiful. The four rolls were accompanied with salmon and wasabi. My highlight of this dish was the tuna and avocado, and the consistency of the rice was absolutely perfect for sushi.

All in all we tried six dishes, and by the end of our meal we were absolutely stuffed. Was I to visit again I would probably limit myself to five, purely so I didn’t have to roll home afterwards. I was really impressed that the quality of the food and ingredients didn’t waver across the types of cuisines, and that the customer was allowed to control the heat of their own dishes.

Despite its fresh and cool interiors, there were older and younger couples, families and friends all dining in the restaurant. Its close proximity to the Subway and bus stops makes it easy to access from the city centre. I can’t think of any other restaurant in Glasgow that has such an array of cuisines that isn’t a buffet, and Nam Tuk provides this range of dishes with quality ingredients and flavour forward dishes.

I’d just like to add a very special thanks to Denny and his wonderful team for making sure my mum and I had such a great experience.

Nam Tuk Tram Stop

2 Partick Bridge Street, Glasgow

G11 6PL

www.namtuk.co.uk

Nam Tuk Tram Stop (Glasgow, Scotland) Nam Tuk Tram Stop really is a breath of fresh air when it comes to dining in Glasgow.

[newstfionline]

Trapped between Israel and Hamas, Gaza’s wasted generation is going nowhere

By William Booth and Hazem Balousha, Washington Post, August 6, 2017

They are the Hamas generation, raised under the firm hand of an Islamist militant movement. They are the survivors of three wars with Israel and a siege who find themselves as young adults going absolutely nowhere.

In many circles in Gaza, it is hard to find anyone in their 20s with real employment, with a monthly salary.

They call themselves a wasted generation.

Ten years after Hamas seized control of Gaza, the economy in the seaside strip of 2 million has been strangled by incompetence, war and blockade.

Gaza today lives off its wits and the recycled scraps donated by foreign governments. Seven in 10 people rely on humanitarian aid.

Young people say they are bored out of their minds.

They worry that too many of their friends are gobbling drugs, not drugs to experience ecstasy but pills used to tranquilize animals, smuggled across Sinai. They dose on Tramadol and smoke hashish. They numb.

Hamas has recently stepped up executions of drug traffickers.

Freedoms to express oneself are circumscribed. But the young people speak, a little bit. They say their leaders have failed them--and that the Israelis and Egyptians are crushing them.

Why not revolt? They laugh. It is very hard to vote the current government out--there are no elections.

“To be honest with you, we do nothing,” said Bilal Abusalah, 24, who trained to be a nurse but sometimes sells women’s clothing.

He has cool jeans, a Facebook page, a mobile phone and no money.

He and his friends get by with odd jobs, a few hours here and there. They worked at cafes during the busy evenings of Ramadan in June. They will help an uncle in his shoe shop as the school year approaches in August. They make $10 a day at these kinds of jobs, a few coins for coffee and cigarettes.

“We are the generation that waits,” Abusalah said.

Reporters asked a 25-year-old college graduate, who got his degree in public relations, what he did for a living.

He answered, “I stare into space.”

Raw sewage washes onto the beaches. The water looks blue at the horizon, where Israeli gunboats lurk, enforcing a six-mile blockade. But the surf line is a foamy brown.

The rappers of Gaza see this as a metaphor. They are literally trapped in their own excrement.

Most young people in Gaza have not been out, either through Israel, which is almost impossible, or through the Rafah crossing into Egypt, which has been mostly closed for the past four years.

Electricity service is down to four hours a day. The young activists in the refugee camps who dared in January to protest power cuts? They were hustled off to jail.

In the dusty gray cement-colored world of Gaza, now sputtering along on Chinese solar panels and Egyptian diesel, young people spend their days, day after day, playing with their phones, their worlds reduced to palm-size screens, to YouTube videos and endless chat.

Unemployment for Gaza’s young adults hovers around 60 percent. This is not just a dull World Bank number. This is a stunning number, the highest in the Middle East and among the worst rates in the world.

Think-tank scholars warn that Egypt’s youth unemployment rate of 30 percent is “a ticking time bomb.” In Gaza, the jobless rate for young people is double that.

The Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says what happens in Gaza is all the fault of Hamas, a terrorist organization. Hamas leaders traditionally blame the Israeli blockade for their problems. Gaza is allowed no seaport, no airport and limited exports, mostly fruits and vegetables, alongside some furniture and textiles. Lately the pressure on the strip has only gotten worse, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently slashed payments for Gaza’s electricity, to squeeze people to reject Hamas.

Gaza’s young people describe their lives as a kind of sick experiment.

The literacy rate in Gaza is 96.8 percent, higher than in the West Bank. The “Palestinian engineer” was once the gold standard in the Middle East. In the past, immigration was the door to life. That door has slammed shut. Few get out of Gaza these days.

Yet the universities of Gaza are still pumping out graduates by the thousands, even though the least likely person to find work in Gaza today is a college graduate, especially a woman.

The most recent surveys reveal that half of the Gaza population would leave the enclave if given the chance.

“I don’t believe it,” said Mohammad Humaed, 24, who studied cinema at a university but works a couple of nights a week at a coffee shop in a refugee camp. “All the young people would leave.”

Economists use the term ”de-development” to describe what is happening.

Young people in Gaza have a joke to say the same thing.

They say their unemployed friends “are driving the mattress,” meaning they spend their daylight hours sprawled in bed.

Two years ago, the United Nations warned that Gaza could become “unlivable” by 2020. U.N. officials recently said they had been overly optimistic: The place could collapse next year.

This is the generation that grew up immersed in the rhetoric of the Hamas version of the Palestinian resistance, a moralistic message of piety and opposition to Israel hammered home in Hamas-controlled mosques and military-style summer camps for children and teens, who were taught first aid and how to throw a grenade.

But in many interviews, in their torn-just-so jeans and fresh white sneakers, Gaza’s young people today say they would rather fight for a job in Tel Aviv than fight Israelis.

“If the borders were open, I’d work in Israel in a minute. I got absolutely no problem with that. Everybody would work in Israel,” said Iyad Abu Heweila, 24, who graduated with a degree in English education two years ago but now spends his days hanging out.

“I have no achievements,” he said.

Heweila asked if he could make a confession.

“I know it’s bad, but sometimes I wonder, if there’s another war with Israel, maybe there would be work for translators?” Heweila asked.

“That is sick, I know. I tell you this to show how desperate we feel,” he said. “I want a job. I want money. I want to start my life.”

This summer the nights are inky dark, now that power service has been reduced to three or four hours a day.

Every evening a group of friends gather on a rooftop. They sit on cheap plastic chairs or pieces of cement block. It is cooler up there. The night sea breeze rattles the fronds of date palms, and you can hear some Hamas official on a radio program playing in a nearby apartment. Nobody on the roof pays any attention.

Asked what he did that day, Ahmed Abu Duhair, 25, said he slept until late afternoon.

He lives for the night. “Just talking, laughing, smoking on the roof to make us a little bit happy before we die,” Duhair said.

“We are closer than brothers,” he explained, as they passed the water pipe around and took deep huffs of apple-spiced tobacco. “We’re not lazy guys. We’ve been working since we were kids.”

They began to tell stories about their first jobs, selling cigarette lighters in traffic, helping vendors at the market. Asked how old they were then, they answered they were 8 or 9 or 10.

They were envious of their friend Tamer al-Bana, 23, the only one among them who was married. Bana has two young children and a third on the way. He had to borrow $7,000 from a relative to wed, a debt that would take him years to pay off.

If the young men on the roof are desperate, so too are college graduates. Mona Abu Shawareb, 24, graduated with a degree in psychology a year ago but hasn’t gotten her diploma yet because she owes the university money.

Shawareb tries hard to keep busy. She takes free English classes at a Turkish charity; she volunteers at an organization that works with street youth; she did an internship with the U.N. refugee agency and learned Microsoft Word and Excel.

But like many unemployed young people here, she lives on the Internet, feeding friends and followers a stream of updates on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Snapchat.

Like most women in Gaza, Shawareb dresses conservatively when she leaves the house. But she confessed that when she looks at the Internet and sees women in the West running in athletic clothes, “I feel envious,” she said. “I want to jog.”

Mohammad al-Rayyas, 25, said his heart aches for Cairo, where he received a degree in accounting. In the two years he’s been back home in Gaza, his life has stalled.

“It is more than boring,” he said, struggling to find the words. “It is very slow. The time. It seems different here.”

He has tried to find work in his field--at businesses, banks, international aid agencies. No luck. “No wasta. You know what wasta is?”

It is an Arabic word that, loosely translated, means connections or clout, and it often underscores a system plagued by corruption or nepotism.

Rayyas is unique among his contemporaries. He’s traveled, he’s gotten a taste, he’s lived abroad.

It is a cliche to call Gaza an open-air prison, but to many people it feels not only as if there is no way out, but also that the walls are closing in.

Gaza is just 24 miles long on the coastline--less than the length of a marathon. At its narrowest it is just four miles, an hour’s walk.

The enclave is surrounded by Israeli perimeter fence, bristling with cameras, watch towers and remote-controlled machine guns. On the Egyptian border, once honey­combed with Hamas smuggling tunnels, there is now a broad buffer zone, scraped clean by bulldozers, as forbidding as a no man’s land.

And the sea? Gaza fishermen are blocked by Israeli gunboats and forbidden to venture beyond six miles. For young people, the sea that once brought relief is now so polluted by untreated human waste that the Health Ministry has warned bathers to stay away.