#they do belong to the mind of ryan murphy though

[azaharinflames]

You’re a glee fan so I figured it’s my duty to ask you (if you haven’t already) to give us your headcanon as to what songs each 911 character could have as a solo, and (if you want to) what context is behind it. Or if it’s easier, what duet can you see the 911 couples having

Oh wow, this is an awesome ask!

(small disclaimer because I do not think I am overly good at this lmao, but I can try)

Not something I see them breaking into in the middle of the show, but a song I imagine them fitting / singing and feeling reflected in it.

I will just do it in alphabetical order, I guess. Also, just mains for characters because otherwise my head will maybe explode. And last disclaimer - some songs are very mainstream, but I will try to choose some not as popular songs, for funsies:

Evan Buckley: my sweet, sweet summer child. I think he is the walking embodiment of Matilda, by Harry Styles. Maybe an easy pick here, but my God, I hear it and it's like: this is Buck. It perfectly encapsulates what he is and his journey to come to the 118, and it is such a soft song. I am biased because it is one of my favorite songs, but I think it applies haha.

Eddie Diaz: Had a hard time with him.There is this beautiful song that I already apologise for mentioning, because it did make me cry the first time I heard it. But how to grieve, by simon robert french is gorgeous. After his SL this season with Shannon, I do feel this fits him. Even, I can see this applied to Chris as well. (apologies)

Chimney Han: Don't know why, but I cannot help but think of Everybody Wants to Rule the World, by Tears for Fears. The song just screams Chimney (to me) and also, I totally can see himself singing this and killing it.

Maddie Han: maybe it is because I've been on a Fleetwood Mac kick lately, but I would choose Landslide for Maddie. I think the lyrics do fit her very well, and honestly, I think the song would fit JHL's voice beautifully.

Bobby Nash: Wave After Wave, by Sleeping at Last, comes to mind rn. Very introspective, I do think of Bobby if I listen to it.

Athena Grant-Nash: I am unable to think of a more fitting song than Rise Up, by Andra Day. What can I say, the begins episode really nailed it. Like, that is Athena's song. And if I ever heard her singing it I'd be a puddle of tears.

Hen Wilson: I can see her singing Under Pressure around the time of 602 (I may misremember, but maybe it was actually used in the ep?). Other than that, top of my head she by dodie makes me think of her, but I don't know if she would sign it.

I haven't done recurring because this took me long enough lol, but for couples (I am only doing canon, sorry, if I start with friendships and families I won't ever end, and this is long enough already). Alphabetical order:

Bathena: Lowkey The Lighthouse Keeper, by Sam Smith. I think they were each other's saving grace, and have kept being so during their whole relationship. Also side note I have seen in some places this is a Christmas song? I hear it outside of Christmas, so if it is let's ignore it (thanks!).

BuckTommy: I am going to say Tireswing Song by Corrina. I am trying not to go too mainstream here. I do think it speaks well of the hope of a promising new relationship.

Henren: Don't know why, but Would that I by Hozier, maybe. Do I see them singing it? Perhaps not. But the reverential tone of it - very much reminds me of Henren.

Madney: I am trying to go for sort-of unknown songs with this one. I think Ophelia by Roo Panes fits them well. It is a soft song that speaks on how they see hope in each other. Don't know if I am way too off-base, but it reminds me of them.

And to add:

Buckley Siblings: Lastly, I am sorry, I cannot help myself, they are my favorite TV siblings. Also, I have multiple options haha. I always think of The Exit by Conan Gray as their song, ever since I saw an edit of them using it. It fits insanely well. Also everything I wanted by Billie Eilish. She did write it with her brother in mind, and I can't help but thinking of the Buckley siblings for that. Birds of a Feather lowkey makes me think of them as well.

I had a lot of fun with this ask haha and I did warn you I am not overly good at this, but here is my attempt at it! Also I do tend to go for softer songs, which I think might be a bit evident by now haha. Oops.

[pascaloverx]

HAUNTED (+18)

Summary: You awaken from a two-year coma to find that Detective Lois has been eagerly awaiting your recovery, believing you might have witnessed something crucial to catching a serial killer. What you didn’t expect is to learn that she suspects your doctor of being the murderer—and even more shockingly, it appears that you are married to him. Now, you must uncover your lost memories and find out who Charlie Mayhew truly is to you.

Author's Note: Yes, I'm writing another fanfic featuring Nicholas Alexander Chavez’s character from Grotesquerie. The characters belong to the universe created by Ryan Murphy in the series Grotesquerie (2024). This fanfic will include violence, strong language, and adult content. It will portray the character Charlie Mayhew as a doctor. I hope you enjoy the fanfic, but there's nothing certain about its future. If you like this fanfic, please interact, leave comments. This author will be grateful for any interaction. Minors should not interact with this chapter, be warned.

THREE

© credits for the owners of the pictures used. they don't belong to me. credit is not mine for the pictures.

FOUR (+18)

Days passed, with you avoiding Charlie as if he were a disease. The truth was that his mere presence already unsettled your mind. You needed these days to reflect, allowing yourself to leave the guest room only when he was at work, taking your meals in secret. Mary helped you avoid your husband, though she always advised you to talk to him.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, here you were—facing Dr. Charlie Mayhew while he used an exercise bike, wearing a tank top that revealed his strong arms. Sweat glistened on his body, an almost provocative scene. "What are you plotting, Dr. Mayhew?" you said aloud, watching him exercise in the middle of the house. He was doing it on purpose—obviously.

"I see you've returned to calling me Doctor—such progress. If you must know, I’m simply enjoying my day off. Exercising to keep my body in shape, the very same body that once greatly satisfied my wife. You know, the one who now seems to prefer ignoring me over taking advantage of it..." he says playfully, as if trying to seduce you while also grumbling.

"Your body? Is that how you plan to get my attention?" you say, feigning indifference, as though his attempt to distract you with his physique is failing—though, in truth, it’s working all too well. You remain standing in front of the guest room door, dressed in your nightgown, noticing that neither Mary nor Ed is anywhere to be seen. Charlie, still pedaling on the exercise bike, has his back to you, his posture emphasizing his toned rear, which you can’t help but eye almost hungrily.

"It used to work, I’ll admit I’m resorting to extremes. And just so you know, Mary and Ed are off today. It’ll be just you and me the entire day. In case you were planning to hide away like a frightened little mouse," Charlie says as he steps off the bike, approaching you while using a small towel to wipe the sweat from his body.

"You did this on purpose, didn’t you? Is our marriage now about disrespecting each other’s personal space?" you ask, slightly irritated, nearly pouncing on him in your frustration.

"What marriage, mi amor? You see me as an enemy, as the villain in your story, not as your husband." Suddenly, the air grows heavier as you stand mere inches apart, your eyes locked on each other, the tension between you almost tangible.

"Are you asking for a divorce, dear husband?" you ask softly, your voice calm. Charlie's breath brushes against your face, the scent of his sweat acting like an aphrodisiac, stirring something deep within you.

"What other option do we have? Stay married while playing cat and mouse? You avoid me, and I pretend it doesn’t affect me? Will you spend the rest of your life thinking your husband is a monster and hiding from him? All of these options are a waste of time and emotional energy," Charlie speaks so rationally, though his expression betrays his words. It’s as if he’s daring you to consider the possibility of ending it all.

"It feels like we’re just going in circles around each other," you murmur, exhaling a heavy breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. You close your eyes slowly, feeling the weight of what ending your marriage would truly mean. It’s a thought that has crossed your mind before, yet there’s an ache in your chest at the idea of stepping out of Charlie’s life for good.

"Tell me honestly, would you feel at peace if I left? If I were no longer your husband?" he asks, stepping closer, his tongue slowly wetting his lips. It’s almost as if he’s testing your reaction to his proximity, studying your every move.

"There will be no peace for me until I truly know who I am," you reply, locking eyes with him, though now with a growing desire stirring within you. Your hand grazes his muscled arm, sending a visible shiver through him. He leans in closer, tilting his head as if seeking permission in your gaze. Slowly, deliberately, he tugs down the neckline of your nightgown just enough to bare your shoulder, his eyes darkening as he watches your response.

"And until you remember who you are, will I need to quit my job and dismiss Mary and Ed just to have a proper conversation with you?" he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your shoulder, his gaze flicking to you from the corner of his eye as if gauging your reaction. A shiver courses through you, but your fingers find their way to his damp hair, gently caressing it.

Charlie's kisses trail from your shoulder to your neck, his warm breath brushing against your skin, sending a cascade of sensations through you. "So you admit you orchestrated this to force me to interact with you?" you manage to ask, though your focus falters with every brush of his lips. When his mouth lingers near your jawline, you realize rational thought is slipping away, overtaken by the pull of what you're feeling.

"I admit it—I wanted you with no distractions, no escape. I was desperate," he confesses, his voice low and laced with vulnerability. His lips travel softly over your cheek, grazing the bridge of your nose and the corners of your eyes, each kiss more tender than the last. His hands, warm and deliberate, trace the curve of your body, sliding your nightgown higher with a slow, intoxicating purpose, as if savoring every inch of contact.

His hands grip your thighs tightly as he slowly pulls them away from your face as if he's analyzing your reactions. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't dreamed about this exact moment the entire time you were unconscious. However, if you're not comfortable, we can call it a day. As long as you don't ignore me again, that will be enough for me," Charlie speaks as if he were holding himself back from exploding with desperate to have you. He rests his head on your shoulder, looking up, his expression seemed like the perfect mix of lust and insecurity. At that moment something awakened in you, the notion that he might actually be sincere, at least about his desire to have you.

"You settle for so little," you mutter, waiting for a reaction from him. Charlie then lifts his head, staring at you for a few moments. His fingers caress your face with a certain firmness, passing his fingers under your lips. At some point his thumb slipped between your lips and you bit it lightly, then sucked on Charlie's finger as you stared at him.

"You're playing with fire, mi amor," Charlie says, kissing the corner of your mouth, as if he were teasing you. You turn off any inhibitions that would keep you from attacking Charlie's lips. Honestly, whether or not he is who Detective Lois is looking for doesn't really matter at this point. Your soul seems to be thirsting for Charlie Mayhew's presence, not just near you but within you.

"Burn me with your fire, Dr. Mayhew," you whisper. Charlie's eyes grow dark, his lips attack yours in a fervent, messy kiss. He sucks on your tongue as he tightens his arms around your waist. The kiss almost takes your breath away but leaves you so hot. You use your hands to grope his chest, while you cling to him. The kiss breaks as Charlie starts to kiss your neck passionately, nibbling your skin while his hands start to caress your breasts through your nightgown. At first, the gentle way his fingers played with your nipples through your nightgown sent a shiver down your spine. He seemed to grow impatient, as if he wanted to feel your skin against his immediately. Then he lifted you up with his arms, making you put your legs around his waist and hold on tight to his shoulders so you wouldn't fall. He placed you under the kitchen counter, placing his body between your legs. Quickly, he began to take off the nightgown you were wearing.

"See my beautiful wife, naked beneath her nightgown as if she knew I would be extremely pleased to see her like that," Charlie speaks as he runs his fingers over your naked body, ending up holding your ass with both of his hands, squeezing it tightly as he brings you closer to him. You who are studying every detail to memorize Charlie Mayhew's touch and taste. You pull his hair back, holding the strands firmly, going hungrily to Charlie's lips and kissing him. He bites your lip as he tries to match your pace during the kiss. You take your hands out of his hair, and start to pull down his shorts and underwear.

"I see that my wonderful husband was really right when he said I should take advantage of his body," you teases him as she watches his cock spring out of his underwear. Charlie gives you a kiss, as he moves towards you, using his hands that are no longer on your ass, to spread your legs wider. As his tongue explores not only your mouth but also your neck, his fingers enter you without hesitation. His fingers, going in and out quite quickly while your pussy squeezed them, you ended up moaning from the pleasure of feeling the pressure of his fingers in your pussy.

"An eternity could pass, but being inside you will still be the best feeling of my life," he murmurs, gently biting your ear while talking against it, giving you goosebumps. You then grab his hand before he can put his fingers inside you again, and with a thirsty look, you try to tell him that you want his cock. He then holds your thighs firmly, separating your legs with precision and then thrusts his erect cock inside you. You let out a loud moan, the feeling of him fucking you is something you weren't prepared to feel. He kisses your lips softly as he slowly thrusts his cock in your pussy that is already wet. You hold on to him as you feel him move in and out of you faster and faster.

For a moment it was as if an animalistic instinct took over him. You close your eyes tightly, reveling in the feeling of being taken by him, while your nails scratch every possible part of his body. For a moment, you drag your ass forward to increase the proximity of your body to Charlie's. He seems to want to see your face, moving your hair away from your face and pulling your face with his hand, kissing your lips once more. However, his hand goes down to your neck and and hold it there firmly. For some reason, the feeling of being lightly suffocated by him feels extremely satisfying. The more he pressed his hand against your neck, the more horny you became for him.

You were so wet that his cock was fitting perfectly inside your pussy, the synchronization of your bodies was almost surreal. Your only regret was not ripping off the damn tank top Charlie is wearing. With each thrust you feel yourself getting close to cumming, feeling your breath leaving you as he squeezes your neck in a strong way, taking you to the limit. You grind on Charlie's cock, making him groan heavily as he cums inside you. Even so, he continues to thrust his cock inside you while your pussy is sensitive from feeling him cum hard, until you cum too.

You two are a mess, dirtying the kitchen counter. Charlie lifts your head slowly, kissing every part of your face gently. "I think we should go take a shower wife. What we just did here certainly made us sweaty," Charlie says as he catches his breath after the sex you had. "You'll have to carry me," you inform him, feeling loose in your legs. He kisses your neck and then carries you to the bathroom in your room, where you bathe and have a second round.

Afterward, everything seemed normal. Charlie and you shared your bed again, following a day spent together during his time off, complete with him preparing dinner for the two of you. The next morning, he woke early for work, leaving a kiss on your cheek and informing you that Mary and Ed would be at your service.

You woke up feeling invigorated, determined to seek answers while also embracing the peace that being with Charlie seemed to bring. A few hours later, after getting ready, you set out to visit Detective Tryon. Ed accompanied you there, and you felt no fear of Charlie discovering your visit to Lois, as you had resolved to extend a measure of trust to both of them.

"Mrs. Mayhew, to what do I owe the honor of your visit to my workplace?" Lois asks, lighting a cigarette as she settles into her chair. You find yourself in her office, surrounded by officers, inmates, and suspicious individuals.

"I came here to understand why I am considered a suspect in your investigation," you reply quickly, remaining standing. Detective Tryon looks you up and down before exhaling a puff of smoke, seemingly pondering your words.

"You’ll need to follow me to a room where I can show you the answer to your question," Lois says as she stands, gesturing for you to follow. Curiosity gets the better of you, and you trail behind her as she leads the way to a room at the back of the precinct.

Upon entering the room, you are met with paintings depicting crime scenes, eerily similar to those you had once seen in Charlie Mayhew's office. Each artwork bears the same hauntingly realistic and morbid tone, sending chills down your spine.

"What do these paintings have to do with your suspicions?" you ask, bewildered by the connection between yourself and these brutally realistic depictions of crime.

"Well, Mrs. Mayhew," Detective Tryon begins, her tone grave, "I must inform you that these paintings are of your authorship. Not only that, but you need to understand that they depict actual, unsolved homicide cases. And you painted these works before the murders depicted in them occurred. This has made you a suspect. Moreover, all the victims were, at some point, connected to the hospital where your husband works. Many were even his patients."

Her piercing gaze settles on you, and the weight of her words sends your mind spiraling. You glance at the paintings again, confusion thickening as fragmented memories resurface. Images of your past flit through your mind—your quiet painting room, where you used to work with calm precision. Suddenly, you recall painting the image of one of the murdered women, her lifeless form rendered in vivid detail.

What strikes you as bizarre is that your reference seemed to be a photograph—one that was pinned to a bulletin board in front of you. The realization stirs something deep within, but a sharp pain in your head interrupts your thoughts, slicing through the memory like a blade. Dizzy and disoriented, you close your eyes tightly, the room spinning around you. Detective Tryon calls your name, her cigarette dropping forgotten to the floor as she rushes toward you. But it is too late. Your body goes limp, and you collapse to the ground, succumbing to unconsciousness.

[jennyboom21]

But then you get to “dorothea,” four songs further in, and it all clicks together. Classic Swift, a song couldn’t just be a song, existing in a vacuum with no relation to anything else. Frankly, shame on me for even thinking it could be so. At this point, in the post-“betty” economy, I find myself listening to Swift’s songs holding my breath, waiting to hear if there are male pronouns. In “dorothea,” you’ll find none. Instead, it’s a story told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator in Dorothea’s hometown. Dorothea moved away to seek fame and fortune in Hollywood. “Hey, Dorothea, do you ever stop and think about me?” the narrator sings. “You got shiny friends since you left town. A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now.” Over on Twitter, a chorus of shouts emerged. “dorothea,” they claimed, was for the sapphics.

By verse two, I was yelling right with them. In it, the narrator talks about how Dorothea skipped prom to piss off her pageant-loving mother. Blowing off heteronormative tradition? Interesting, interesting. “And damn, Dorothea, they all wanna be ya/ But are you still the same soul? I met under the bleachers,” narrator Swift sings. During the lead-up to the release of the “willow” music video, Swift answered questions over in a chat on YouTube. She told fans “there’s not a direct continuation of the betty/james/august storyline, but in my mind Dorothea went to the same school as Betty, James, and Inez.” What is in the water in this town? At any rate, I love this clearly very gay high school where women are just secretly making out under the bleachers left and right. It’s got me rethinking Taylor Swift on the bleachers singing about the girl in the short skirts in “You Belong With Me” in a real way. (The Prom was released on Netflix at the same time as evermore, and there’s a scene in it featuring the lead queer couple under the bleachers that will make you wonder if this particular “dorothea” lyric isn’t a Ryan Murphy brand activation.) “There’s an ache in you,” the narrator sings. “Put there by the ache in me.” What’s gayer than shared trauma, I ask you? Nothing.

Which brings us back to “tis the damn season.” Listen to it again. Dorothea has come home for the holidays and she’s begrudgingly and temporarily hopped back into bed with her former paramour. (This is not required, but to enhance your listening experience, I highly, highly recommend imagining the high school friend and annual holiday hookup here is Aubrey Plaza in The Happiest Season. Does this make any sense in the context of the film? No, absolutely not. But will it bring you mental joy? Yes.)

“Time flies, messy as the mud on your truck tires. Now I’m missing your smile, hear me out,” Dorothea sings. “We could just ride around, and the road not taken looks real good now. And it always leads to you in my hometown.” Of course, this teenage love drives a truck! It’s in the bridge of the song, though, where Swift, true to form, delivers the emotional heft. Dorothea admits it’s more than just a hookup of convenience. That she might stay if asked, might not go back to L.A. and her “so-called friends.” That the lover who knew her all those years ago is “the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m fakin.” “And the heart I know I’m breaking is my own.” Ahem, you’re breaking your gay heart and mine, Dorothea.

That Swift has been able to be productive in this period might make me irate if these songs weren’t gifts that are going to sustain me through a long, bummer of a winter. Productive enough to weave beautiful narratives across songs and through albums, thinking, as always, five steps and ten hidden clues ahead of the rest of us. Remember that annoying tweet back ten thousand years ago in March that said Shakespeare wrote King Lear while in quarantine? Turns out, somebody (Swift) really took that to heart. See, Shakespeare was relevant here.

[welanabananaworld]

Joker and the symptomatic laugh

          Never before, in the history of cinema, has a laugh been such a source of uneasiness and discomfort

      Contrary to previous portrayals of the emblematic villain of the DC comics, Batman, as a malicious, crazy and evil character, Todd Philipps chose, in this version, to make him a human first; a tormented human being struggling with life in Gotham City. 

By digging through the psyche of the soon-to-be villain, to get to the roots of the Joker’s mythology, the director manages to subvert the conventions of the superhero film sub-genre. Though subverted, the well-known manichean approach assumed in such films reveals itself here in the manner in which the main character strives to combine his ingenuous nature and the chaotic outside world. Todd Philipps relies on the evocative power of the voice to build his psychological thriller. Indeed, the character’s mental distress is expressed by a nervous laugh that works as a kind of leitmotiv throughout the film.

In Joker, Joaquim Phoenix plays the role of Arthur Fleck, a pitiful professional clown and aspiring stand-up comedian who lives with her mother in a dingy apartment.  Simple-minded and excessively naive, Arthur keeps being bullied and ridiculed wherever he goes. Wantonly beaten by strangers, mocked by his colleagues, laughed at on TV,  abandoned by social welfare services, and coming from a dysfunctional family, Arthur progressively goes mad and violent, just like Gotham city; a city plagued by political corruption, vice, poverty, filth, unemployment, extreme violence and delinquency. 

The inevitable psychological distress, that emerges from so strong a contrast and so many repeated physical assaults, does find not only its physical expression into a nervous laugh but also its symbolic expression into the joker’s vocation as a clown. As such, it comes as no surprise that the film opens with these two central and closely intertwined themes. 

The opening scene shows Arthur putting clown makeup on his face while listening to the news on the radio. Instead of showing a colorful and enchanting depiction of the circus scene and its stages, Todd Philipps immerses his public into a dimly lit and rather gloomy room that looks like an old and insalubrious lock room. The environment is plagued by outer and inner noises due to traffic congestion and the radio which keeps airing unfortunate news about the state of the city. Filth, garbage, typhoid fever, bad smell, rats, increase in heating oil prices… those are the news which help to create the stuffy atmosphere in which Arthur grows in professionally. From the start, one has the feeling to suffocate and witness something pathetic at work; a feeling amplified by Arthur making faces in front of the mirror of his dressing table. 

Arthur seems unable to smile naturally and spontaneously to such an extent that he needs to stretch his mouth with his fingers to mimic a smile; a smile made pathetic by the tears running down his face. Arthur’s factitious smile and look of despair present, at first sight, a contradiction with the character he is supposed to embody but if one takes a closer look at the symbolic of the clown in pop culture, this attitude reveals the drama that exists behind such a figure. Behind the extravagant make up and exaggerated facial mimics generally lies a darkness which can go from deep sadness to monstrosity. 

In the last decades, the clown has become an ambiguous, ambivalent and subversive figure due to the visual dichotomy between the surface (the make up, the facial mimics, the caricatures and the bright colors) and what is under the surface (the identity, the life story, the feelings). What is under the surface is, by definition, hidden from view, therefore open to imagination, and synonymous with concealment, hence the disturbing strangeness that emerges from the potential dangerousness of such a concealment. In addition to this, the mirror is also used to underline Arthur’s dual nature. By duplicating one’s image, the mirror signifies conflicting personalities and can mark a need for introspection.

              Pennywise, the evil clown in It by André Muschietti (Stephen King)

Twisty, the clown inspired by John Wayne Gacy, known as the Killer Clown, in American Horror Story by Ryan Murphy

In Joker, Arthur successively fits the different representations involved by the idea of duality, from the caring, harmless and cheerful clown to the sad, neurotic and eventually violent clown. In that respect, it is worth mentioning the direct reference between Joker and The King of Comedy by Martin Scorsese (1983), in which Robert De Niro, playing a delusional and aspiring stand-up comedian, is so desperate for recognition that he goes as far as to abduct the famous talk-show host, Jerry Langford, to appear on his television show.

Arthur’s gradual transformation is foreboded by the way he exercises his mouth in a happy and sad smile in the opening scene. By doing so, Arthur reveals a myriad of emotions. He must, as any self-respecting clown, put a smile on his face but this one bears no warmth, no spontaneity. Its rigidity and exaggeration alternatively give way to alarming, threatening and desperate grins. 

The duality expressed by the greek masks of comedy and drama displayed by Arthur is to be associated to his ever-present laugh. Right after his first assault on the street, Arthur is found sitting opposite a psychologist. The scene opens with Arthur laughing uncontrollably for a very long time. His laugh is anything but infectious and hearty. On the contrary, Arthur seems in pain while doing it. His facial features are distorted and uptight, his face tense as if he was about to cry. One can easily describe his laugh as bloodcurdling and disturbing; a laugh which is on the verge to choking him, even. 

Just like the perverted clown figure which instills more pity and fright than buffoonery, Arthur’s bursts of laughter give away a real medical condition. Whenever Arthur is ill-at-ease, confused or bullied, he starts laughing madly and does seem unable to stop it. This condition is called pseudobulbar affect (PBA), which is a type of emotional disturbance condition, due to neurological disorder or brain injury, characterized by uncontrollable and often inappropriate episodes of crying, laughing, anger or other emotional displays. The scene that most exemplifies his mental disorder and extreme vulnerability is when Arthur entertains a little boy in the bus and his mother, misjudging the situation, asks him to stop. Taken aback, Arthur explodes in laughing, unable to control himself, and shows his medical card in an effort to explain what is happening. Combined with the beautiful but tragic film score, Arthur appears utterly powerless and crushed by inner and outer misery; a mental and physical misery materializing in a nervous laugh which makes everyone uncomfortable, including him.

The therapy session provides a glimpse of the aggravating factors of the neurological disorder by capturing Arthur’s current psychological state. He is depicted as a deeply depressed and troubled man who takes many medications with no result. His persona as a sad clown is reinforced by a certain dark humour which he overuses in his notebook : « I just hope my death makes more cents than my life ». As if Arthur’s traumatic life experiences were not enough, one finds out later that his PBA and awful thinness (see his protruding bones) are actually due to serious physical abuses inflicted, when he was a child, by his unstable mother.

In the end, one can conclude that the voice, as a narrative tool, is used in this film to anticipate, announce, hint at and explain Arthur’s journey to madness. 

    Contrary to traditional superhero films in which the villain’s tragic past is quickly mentioned, Joker builds its storyline precisely upon the villain’s progressive journey as a victim. And who is more likely to become a time bomb than someone who has been a victim all his life? The origin of the joker’s malevolence is to be found precisely in his traumatic experience of life.  

The contrast between a kind and optimistic nature and the ruthlessness of a city and its inhabitants, reinforced by regular humiliations and family dramas, is enough for anyone to blow a fuse and turn to the dark side. But the Joker, considering who he is, puts a smile upon his face, finally embraces chaos - « Isn’t it beautiful? » he asks the policeman in a thrilling voice while on his way to prison» - and laughs at the irony of life, hence the ending. The piece of music, hummed by Arthur in front of the psychologist, concludes the film on a bitter note, its title underlining how unfair and unpredictable life can be: That’s life. But Frank Sinatra’s song is much more than an appropriate conclusion. By using the soundtrack as a diegetic and extra-diegetic music, Todd Philipps evokes both Arthur’s understanding of what he has been through all along and his ensuing thirst for revenge, fueled by injustice, the lack of meaning and the lack of a sense of belonging. Arthur’s smile, while humming, forebodes the joker’s rise of terror in Gotham city. Psychotherapy is over. It’s time for action! It’s time for his destiny to unfold…

That’s life… And as funny as it may seem, some people get their kicks, stompin' on a dream. But I don’t let it get me down cause this fine old world, it keeps spinning around… 

[agentnico]

The Prom (2020) Review

Last musical film I watched was Cats. That is all.

Plot: A troupe of hilariously self-obsessed theatre stars swarm into a small conservative Indiana town in support of a high school girl who wants to take her girlfriend to the prom.

Ah Christmas, the perfect season to enjoy the festivities, where one can go spend time with their families and friends and loved ones, go to the local pub with your mates, have a German sausage at the city Christmas market, sing carols and go to parties, check out the big Christmas releases at the cinema.....oh wait, sorry, that’s me talking about normal Christmas. We are in Christmas 2020 where the holiday isn’t really a holiday and the biggest Grinch of them all - Coronavirus (oh yeah, I said the C word!!) - is here to steal the fun. But hey, at least Netflix has stepped up to provide us with a major merry musical, and following that totally accidental piece of alliteration, I’m gonna talk about it!

Right, anyone here doesn’t like musicals? Anyone? Lets see some hands, come on, don’t be shy? Ah, there you are! Well, to you sweet peeps I have to bid a swift adieu, as you don’t need to read further on into this review. If you don’t like musicals, you are not going to find any enjoyment in The Prom, as it is as musical as musicals can be. It’s over the top, whimsical, colourful, with many cheesy songs and big set pieces, with folks jumping into distinctly choreographed dance sequences without a care in the world. If you’re into that kind of stuff, you guaranteed to find the movie a least bit delightful. It’s in no way ground-breaking for its genre, this musical is not going to reinvent musicals going forth, but there is nothing wrong with staying old school. The movie plays it safe, and rightly so, and you’re left with a jolly show for the end of the year. 

That said, its not perfect. It is a bit too long and certain parts drag quite a bit, and also don’t get invested in too many characters, as you don’t see much of them. Most of the actors are doing a solid job, but they simply aren’t provided with enough screen-time to leave a strong impression. Also, certain things don’t make sense. For example, characters become friends too quickly in this thing. The main high-school girl and Nicole Kidman’s character become besties out of nowhere and during a breakdown the girl confides in Kidman like they are old time buds. Look, I get that getting lost in Nicole Kidman’s eyes is very very easy, but let’s think realistically here. Like, the girl only met Kidman a day ago, and hasn’t even interacted with her much, and all of a sudden she allows Kidman to stay over at her place for a few days like they are childhood besties Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn! Okay, I feel like I may be looking into this too much, but dammit, I like logic and this is not logical! Then again, this is just a silly little musical so maybe I should just be quiet. But no, I shall not be silenced!! I shall nit-pick this thing and you cannot stop me! So, moving on, the film’s main message is about acceptance and love and being true to who you are. Its a good message and I respect the movie for it, but as typical with other Ryan Murphy productions, it becomes too preachy. I totally understand that activism can be important, but when you are bashed over the head with it every single second, you end up feeling like you’re in some seminar rather than what is supposed to be an enjoyable movie. Also, the movie is predictable. If you read the plot, you can guess exactly how things will pan out. There are no surprises there! So save the WOW factor for when you open your Christmas presents instead.

The soundtrack is good. Look, it’s not the best musical I’ve heard, but there are some very catchy tunes here too. “Tonight Belongs to You” and “Love Thy Neigbour” are proper showstoppers, but my favourite one was actually one of the slower numbers. Midway through the film, Keegan Michael-Key (on top form by the way) sings a song about escapism and how the arts and theatre provide a temporary form of freedom and expressionism that cleanse one’s mind from the problems of the real world. It was especially powerful hearing it now, when due to the pandemic so many entertainment venues have been forced to close, causing a lot of them to lose money and go out of business, and as such looking at a future where entertainment and the arts will never be as they were before is scary and frightening. 

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. No, I’m not insinuating anything about his size, but I am indeed talking about James Corden. Upon release this movie was hit with controversy over the casting choice of James Corden as a gay character. Look, it is a long running debate of whether actors such play roles that are of a different sexuality. In my eyes, I think that any actor has the right to play any role, as long as he provides a quality performance. Personally for me, I think Corden did a good job. Having had experience working on Broadway before, as well as his work on his talk show, he’s got the vocal chords and the showman qualities to play this character to the fullest. And yes, you can assume that he may be offensive with his portrayal of the gay character with the stereotypes, however if you look at the original Broadway performance of The Prom, the character there is played really flamboyantly and campy too. So in my eyes if that is how the character was written, Corden was simply working with what he’s been given. Again though, I myself am not a gay man, so maybe I am missing something here. Nevertheless, I thought James Corden wasn’t bad at all.

All in all, The Prom is an old-school silly musical with a good message and all the sparkle and gloss one can take, and though uneven and rough along the edges, this one can be enjoyed for what it is. 

Overall score: 6/10

[tviseverything]

So I’m rewatching Glee during this quarantine...

AND THERE HAS BEEN ONE THING IVE ALWAYS HATED ABOUT THIS GODDAMNED SHOW AND IT’S THE LACK OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Let me explain.... the storylines in the show had the potential to set up the character development for each character and they missed it! And the people that had the ABSOLUTE MOST POTENTIAL FOR AWESOME CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT WERE QUINN, RACHEL, SANTANA, AND BRITTANY AND HERE’S WHY... Quinn edition because this is way too long for the other characters... I promise i’ll follow this up with the other ones. (BTW, this took me so long to do because life kept getting in the way but I finally finished it! Please give it a read and let me know if you agree or disagree. I am always open to discussion!! And swipe down all the way to be blessed with a couple of Quinn Fabray gifs!!)

Quinn is the first because let’s think about it for a sec. In the beginning of the series, Quinn was that typical queen bee, mean girl type who was on the cheerleading squad and ruthlessly bullied anyone who got in her way including Rachel. But then life throws her a curveball and she ends up getting pregnant. 

This storyline set Quinn up to learn some very valuable lessons and some harsh truths. For example, Quinn gets kicked off the cheerleading squad after the news comes out that she’s pregnant and she’s kicked out of her home and disowned.

The first season was doing great handling her character development, for example, in 1x15, when the time came for yearbook pictures, Quinn was desperately trying to get back on the squad for the picture but in the end she thanks Sue for making her realize that she’d rather be part of a team that is proud to have her (Glee Club) instead of a team where she only appears to belong (Cheerios). (let me add that this scene also could have set up a slowburn for Faberry because in that same episode, Rachel was describing how school pictures are everything to her and that if she ever became famous, she would want her face in the year book picture and be prepared. Keep this in mind because later on Quinn blackmails Sue into giving up one of the Cheerio’s six pages and giving it to the Glee club free of charge. Quinn didn’t have to do this. Her entire goal was to get back on the Cheerios and not fight for the glee club photo. In fact, in the episode, she didn’t even want to be in it. So why did she do it? For Rachel, perhaps? any way this is about Quinn not faberry so lets get back to it)

Another example from before is she becomes friends with Mercedes. In episode 1x16, Mercedes is forced to starve herself for the Cheerios and in doing so, her blood pressure dropped which caused her to faint. Quinn recognized what Mercedes was doing and sympathized with her. She then helped Mercedes realize that she doesn’t need to be skinny to be beautiful and she is perfect the way she is and she sings a song about it as well while Quinn stands next to her, furthering her message. This episode created a beautiful friendship between Quinn and Mercedes that in later episodes, Mercedes offers her home to Quinn after connecting with her about being bullied and dealing with it. Let’s also add in the fact that this was before the Lucy Caboosy storyline, which in my opinion ruined her character even more but I’m not gonna get into that until later. In that season, Mercedes and Quinn were set up to be a great duo for season 2 but... Where the hell did all of that go???? Did they just completely forget that Quinn lived with Mercedes for a short while and that they bonded over similar experiences??? What the hell??? I would also like to add onto here that a friendship between Quinn and Kurt was a HUGE miss! They would have been an amazing duo!! Along with Mercedes of course. I will talk about this type of stuff in separate post!

ANOTHER example was when in episode 1x13, the truth about the baby’s father comes out which was Rachel’s fault. After drama ensues, Rachel goes to apologize and readies herself for a punch from Quinn, but in a surprising turn of events...Quinn forgives her. The old Quinn probably would thrown multiple slushies in Rachel’s face, call her names and maybe ruin her life. But this Quinn quickly forgave her and told Rachel that she did something that she wasn’t brave enough to do, tell the truth! She forgave Rachel even though she clearly knew that Rachel only told Finn to break them up so she could have him all to herself. This was a very pivotal moment in the series that would show how Quinn emotionally matured after what happened to her. (this scene also would have set up faberry perfectly as well but oh well) 

Anyway, the whole point of this post is about the lack of character development in the series and while everything I just said argues against it...the character development from season one didn’t last very long especially when we start right off the bat in season 2, Quinn rejoins the Cheerios and tries to restore herself to her former glory. I understand why she would want that again but this alone completely destroyed her character development because after learning all the things she had learned while pregnant, she shouldn’t have wanted to go back to that old life again but she did. Add that onto the fact that in order to restore herself to her former glory, she also snitches on Santana about her “summer surgery” Pregnant Quinn wouldn’t have even thought to rat out her own friends but new and improved Quinn did and I HATED IT because of that knowledge. This could have been handled better by probably having Quinn join the cheerios again but have her use her power for good such as, protecting all of glee club from future slushies, made it so the jocks wouldn’t have so much power with bullying, or even set an example for cheerios for how they should act in the school. But instead they pull this shit. 

I’m not finished!! Season 2 and beyond was a DISASTER for Quinn. The writers literally erased all of that character development just so they could create more drama. An example of this is the cheating storyline. Quinn had started dating Sam in the beginning of Season 2 and everything is going well for them until *sigh* Finn came along and convinced her to cheat on Sam with him. THIS IS LITERALLY ONE OF THE WORST STORYLINES ON GLEE. Finn knows what it was like to be cheated on (I know he cheated on Quinn in the first episode with Rachel but we’re not talking about that right now) Finn knows the pain of finding out that you’ve been lied to and betrayed so the fact he even had the AUDACITY to lure Quinn into cheating AGAIN infuriates me deep inside. You would think that after what happened when she cheated the first time, she would learn her lesson...BUT SHE DIDN’T. WTF. THIS RUINED HER CHARACTER EVEN MORE!!!!!! PLUS I HATE ALL THE UNNECESSARY DRAMA THAT STORYLINE CREATED, INCLUDING THE FEUD BETWEEN RACHEL AND QUINN. 

I would also like to talk about the Lucy Caboosey storyline because it is a crucial fact to know about Quinn. The Lucy Caboosey storyline was introduced at the WORST POSSIBLE TIME. I am seriously convinced that Ryan Murphy only wrote that in to create “depth” to Quinn’s character. If they were going to do that storyline at all, then they should have introduced it in the first season or should have created a better plot to accomodate to the storyline. This storyline also didn’t add anything to the Prom Queen storyline. I honestly wish that the writer’s have taken Quinn’s character development from season 1 into account because if they had, then I believe that the Lucy Caboosey storyline and the Prom Queen storyline wouldn’t have existed and these storylines only exist as Ryan Murphys attempt to reverse all of the depth that Dianna Agron gave to the character and make her a basic, self-centered blonde cheerleader and when that didn’t work out... the Lucy Caboosey storyline was there to give Quinn “depth” 

I would also like to talk Quinn’s obsession with winning Prom Queen and taking Finn to the prom (Finn was an asshat in this episode by the way but let’s not focus on him). I really wished that the writers took Quinn’s character development into account because if they had, then Quinn wouldn’t have been reverted back into the 2 dimensional, blonde, cheerleader character like she was at the beginning of the series and she also wouldn’t have had a storyline involving Lucy Caboosey.  Her taking Finn to the prom was a complete bullshit storyline as well because we all know that relationship between Quinn and Finn was only there to drag the love triangle between them and rachel into the next season even though it was very clear that Quinn and Finn weren’t gonna get back together in the first season. 

Also at the end of that season, where nationals took place, there was a scene between Quinn and Brittany and Santana where Quinn breaks down, this should have been one of those pivotal character development moments where she makes a realization about herself and tries to live her truth, but no! She cuts her hair and all is well. 

Before we move on to season 3, I want to talk about the Celibacy Club and religion in regards to Quinn Fabray. As we all know, Quinn was the captain of the Cheerios and president of the Celibacy Club (even though that didn’t last long...whoops) so the theme of celibacy and religion go hand in hand for Quinn. I would have really like to see a storyline of Quinn losing faith in her religion, whether that may be because God decided to make Quinn pregnant and in result get disowned by her family or (in my perfect world) Quinn starts to realize that she might like girls and because of how her family is, she struggles with it. That would have been an interesting storyline to see and it would have tackled the topic of religion as well! I would have liked to see this as an ongoing theme for Quinn throughout the show but of course Ryan Murphy had to be a shitty writer. 

This post became wayyyy to long for my attention span so I am going to break this down into parts. Also I am so sorry that this post is all over the place but I had to write it all down before I lost the train of thought so some explanations might not be as in depth as others and it might not be in order so again I apologize. So I will talk about Quinn in season 3 and the rest of the seasons when she shows up from time to time. 

[ryanmeft]

Ryan’s Favorite Films of 2019

A stuttering detective,

A top hat-wearing vamp

A forced-perspective war,

A bit of Blaxploitation camp

Prisoners on a space ship

Having sex with bears

A writer goes remembering

Whenever his pain flares

  A prancing, dancing Hitler

A gambler high on strife

Here will go cavorting with

A mom who becomes a wife

A family plot with many threads

Three men against their own

A stuntman and his actor

A mobster now quite alone

Doubles under the earth

Two men in a tall house

Are here to watch a woman who

Is battling with her spouse

A family’s plans for their strong son

Go awry one night

A man rejects his country

Which is spoiling for a fight

 A house built by his grandpa

(Maybe; we’re not sure)

Looks out upon three prisoners

Whose passions are a lure

  All these are on my list this year

It’s longer than before

Because picking only ten this time

Was too great of a chore

  What are limits anyway?

They’re just things we invented

I don’t really find them useful

So, this year, I’ve dissented

  You may have noticed this time out

That numbers, I did grant

Promise they’ll stay in this order, though?

Now that, I just can’t

  I’m always changing my mind

Because, after all, you see

Good film is about the heart

And mine’s rather finicky

  There are a lot more I could name

(And I’ll change my mind at any time)

For now, though, consider these

The ones I found sublime

 20. Motherless Brooklyn

I’ve got a (hard-boiled) soft spot for 90’s neo-noirs like L.A. Confidential, Red Rock West and Seven, and Edward Norton’s ‘50’s take on Jonathan Lethem’s 90’s -set novel can stand firmly in that company.

19. Doctor Sleep

There’s something about Stephen King’s best writing that transcends mere popularity; his work may not be fine literature, but it is immune to the fads of the moment. So, too, are the best movies based on that work. This one, an engaging adventure-horror, deserved better than it got from audiences.

18. Jojo Rabbit

There was a time when the anything-goes satire of Mel Brooks could produce a major box office hit.  Disney’s prudish refusal to market the film coupled with the dominance of franchises means that’s no longer the case. If you bothered to give Jojo a shot, though, you got the strange-but-rewarding experience of guffawing one moment and being horrified the next.

17. By The Grace of God

I’d venture this is the least-seen film on my list; even among us brie-eating, wine-sniffing art house snobs, I rarely hear it mentioned. Focusing on the perspectives of three men dealing with a particularly heinous and unrepentant abusive priest and the hierarchy that protects him, it’s every bit as disquieting and infuriating as 2015’s Oscar-winning Spotlight.

16. Waves

You think Trey Edward Shultz’s Waves will be one thing---a domestic drama about an affluent African-American family (and that in and of itself is a rarity). Then it becomes something else entirely. It addresses something movies often avoid: that as life goes on, the person telling the story will always change.

15. Transit

You’re better off not questioning exactly where and when the film is set (it is based on a book about Nazi Germany but has been changed to be a more generalized Fascist state). The central theme here is identity, as three people change theirs back and forth based on need and desire.

14. American Woman

Movies about regular, working class, small-town American usually focus on men. This one is about a much-too-young mother and grandmother, played brilliantly by Sierra Miller, dealing with unexpected loss and the attendant responsibilities she isn’t ready for. 

13. Marriage Story

There is an argument between a married couple in here that is as true a human moment as ever was on screen---free of trumped-up screenplay drama and accurate to how angry people really argue. The entire movie strives to be about the kind of realistic divorce you don’t see on-screen. It is oddly refreshing.

12. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to 70’s Tinseltown is essentially a question: What if the murder that changed the industry forever had gone down differently? Along the way, it also manages to be a clever and insightful study of fame and fulfillment, or lack thereof.

11. High Life

Claire Denis is damned determined not to be boring. Your reaction to her latest film will probably depend on how receptive you are to that as the driving force of a film. Myself, I’m very receptive. I want to see the personal struggles of convicts unwittingly shipped into space, told without Action-Adventure tropes, in a movie that sometimes misfires but is never dull.

 10. Dolemite Is My Name

And fuckin’ up motherfuckers is my game! Look, if you don’t like naughty words, you probably shouldn’t be reading my columns---and you definitely shouldn’t be watching this movie. Eddie Murphy plays Rudy Ray Moore, the ambitious, irrepressible and endlessly optimistic creator of Blaxpoitation character Dolemite. Have you seen the 1975 film? It’s either terrible and wonderful, or wonderful and terrible, and the jury’s still out. Either way, Moore in the film is a self-made comic who establishes himself by talking in a unique rhyming style that speaks to black Americans at a time when black pop culture (and not just the white rendition of it) was finally beginning to pierce the American consciousness. What The Disaster Artist did for The Room, this movie does for Dolemite---with the difference being I felt like I learned something I didn’t know here.

 9. 1917

Breathless, nerve-wracking and somehow intensely personal even though it almost never takes time to slow down, it is fair to call Sam Mendes’s film a thrill ride---but it’s one that enlightens us on a fading historical time, rather than simply being empty calories. Filmed in such a way as to make it seem like one continuous, two-hour take, for which some critics dismissed it as a gimmick, the technique is used to lock us in with the soldiers whose mission it is to save an entire division from disaster. We are given no information or perspective that the two central soldiers---merely two, in a countless multitude---do not have, and so we are with them at every moment, deprived of the relief of omniscience. I freely admit I tend to give anything about World War I the benefit of the doubt, but there’s no doubt that the movie earns my trust.

8. Ash Is Purest White

Known by the much less cool-sounding name Sons and Daughters of Jianghu in China, here is a story that starts off ostensibly about crime---a young woman and her boyfriend are powerful in the small-potatoes mob scene of a dying industrial town---but after the surprising first act becomes a meditation on life, perseverance and exactly how much power is worth, anyway, when it is so fleeting and so easily lost. What do you do when everything that defined you is gone? You go on living. This is my first exposure to writer-director Jia Zhangke, an oversight I must strive hard to correct in future.

7. Knives Out

The whodunit is a lost art, a standard genre belonging to a time when mass audiences could appreciate a picture even if someone didn’t run, yell or explode while running and yelling every ten minutes. Rian Johnson and an all-star cast rescued it from the brink of cinematic extinction and gave it just enough of a modern injection to keep it relevant. Every second of the film is engaging; Johnson even manages to have a character whose central trait is throwing up when asked to lie, and he makes it seem sympathetic rather than juvenile. The fantastic cast of characters is backed up with all the qualities of “true” cinema: perfect camerawork, an effective score, mesmerizing production design. As someone who didn’t much care for Johnson’s Star Wars outing, I’m honestly put out this didn’t do better at the box office than it did.

6. A Hidden Life

After a few questionable efforts and completely losing the thread with the execrable vanity project Song to Song, Terence Malick returns to his bread and butter: meditative dramas on the nature of faith, family, and being on the outside looking in, which encompass a healthy dose of nature, philosophy and people talking without moving their lips. That last is a little dig, but it’s true: Malick does Malick, and if you don’t like his thing, this true story about a German dissenter in World War II will not change your mind. For me, what Malick has done is that rarest of things: he had made a movie about faith, and about a character who is faithful, without proselytizing. That the closeness and repressiveness of the Nazi regime is characterized against Malick’s typical soaring backdrops is a masterstroke, and the best-ever use of his visual style.

5. The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers is a different kind of horror filmmaker. After redefining what was possible with traditional horror monsters in The Witch, he returned with something that couldn’t be more different: an exploration of madness more in the vein of European film than American. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are two men stranded in a lighthouse together slowly losing their minds, or what is left of them. The haunting score and stark, black-and-white photography evoke a nightmare caught on tape, something we’re not supposed to be seeing. It’s not satisfying in a traditional way, but for those craving something more cerebral from horror, Eggers has it covered.

4. Us

I have become slightly notorious in my own little circle for not thinking Get Out was the greatest film ever made, and now I’ve become rather known for thinking Us just might be. Ok, so that’s definite hyperbole: “greatest” is a tall claim for almost any horror movie. Yet here Jordan Peele shows that he can command an audience’s attention even when not benefiting from a popular cultural zeitgeist in terms of subject matter. It’s a movie with no easy or clear message, one that specializes in simply unsettling us with the idea that the world is fundamentally Not Right. I firmly believe that if Peele becomes a force in the genre, 50 years from now when he and all of us are gone, his first film will be remembered as a competent start, while this will be remembered as the beginning of his greatness.

3. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Ostensibly about urban gentrification, this story of a young black man trying to save his ancestral home from the grasping reach of white encroachment is a flower with many petals to reveal. Don’t let my political-sounding description turn you off: the movie is not a polemic in the slightest, but rather a wry, sensitive look at people, their personalities and how those personalities are intertwined with the places they call home. Though the movie is the directorial debut of Joe Talbot, it is based loosely on the memories and feelings of his friend Jimmie Falls, who also plays one of the two central characters. If you’ve ever watched a place you love fall to the ravages of time and change, this movie may strike quite a chord with you.

2. Uncut Gems

When asked why this movie is great, I usually say that it was unbelievably stressful and caused me great anxiety. This description is not usually successful in selling it. The Safdie Brothers have essentially filmed chaos: a man self-destructing in slow-motion, if you can call it slow. Howard Ratner has probably been gradually exploding all his life; he strikes you as someone who came out of the womb throwing punches. He’s an addictive gambler who loves the risk much more than the reward, and can’t gain anything good in life without risking it on a proverbial roll of the dice. His behavior is destructive. His attitude is toxic. Why do we root for him? Perhaps because, as played by Adam Sandler, he never has any doubt as to who he is---something few of us can say. He’s an asshole, but he’s a genuine asshole, and somehow that’s appealing even when you’re in his line of fire.

1. Pain and Glory

When I realized I would, for the first time, have the chance to see a Pedro Almodovar film on the screen, I was overjoyed. His movies aren’t always great, but that was of little concern: he’s one of the handful of directors on the planet who can fairly call back to the avant-garde traditions of Bergman or Truffaut, making the movies he wants to make about the things he want to make them about, and I’d never seen one of his films when it was new and fresh, only months or years later on DVD.

It seems I picked right, as his latest has been almost universally hailed as one of the best of his long career. An aging, aching filmmaker spends his days in his apartment, ignoring the fans of his original hit film and most of his own acquaintances, alive or dead---he tries hard to put his memories away. Throughout the course of the movie, he re-engages with most of them in one way or another, coming to terms with who he is and where he’s been, though not in a Hallmark-movie-of-the-week way. Antonio Banderas plays him in the role that was always denied him by his stud status in Hollywood. It isn’t simply him, though: every person we meet is engaging and, we sense, has their own story outside of how they intersect with his. Most engaging is that of his deceased mother, who in her youth was played vivaciously by a sun-toughened Penelope Cruz. Perhaps Almodovar will tell us some of their stories some day. Perhaps not. I would read an entire book of short fiction all about them. This is the year’s best film.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Ready or Not

I’m so glad the horror-comedy is having a Moment, because it’s one of my favorite genre mashups. The heightened emotions of both flavors come together beautifully when done well, and that tasty combo is what Ready or Not is striving for. The story of Grace (Samara Weaving) and Alex (Mark O’Brien)’s wedding is an unusual one. See, Alex belongs to the Le Domas family, a wealthy clan who made their fortune in board games, and any time a new person joins the family through marriage, everyone has to play a game at midnight on the wedding night. However, if one specific game is plucked from the box of possibilities, the poor new bride or groom is the victim of a human sacrifice to keep the Le Domas family in money and dice for another generation. The things they don’t tell you before you sign a prenup, am I right? And wouldn’t you know it, Grace picks precisely the wrong game. Now it’s a race against time as she tries to hide from Alex’s family until dawn lest her “I do” turns into “I die.” Sounds pretty original and darkly funny, right? Hard to screw up a premise that solid, don’t you think? Well...

In this case a solid premise is elevated by a stellar script from Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy (I know, I was just as shocked as you are) to create of the most fun and entertaining films I’ve seen so far this year. Strong performances from a winning ensemble cast and a wicked sense of black humor makes this a hell of a time at the movies and one I can’t recommend highly enough.

Some thoughts:

Samara Weaving is Hugo Weaving’s niece and now that I know that information I can’t unsee the resemblance, particularly in the eyebrow region.

Weaving’s performance is a huge part of what makes the movie work. It’s a tightrope she has to walk and she does it so well - innocent enough that she is sympathetic but not cloying; scrappy enough that you’re rooting for her at every turn; and with a snarky streak that makes her likeable but not cold or brittle. She’s a fighter at every turn and she really goes THROUGH it, but you believe a girl like Grace would keep going and never surrender. 

I sure have missed Andie MacDowell. I know she gets a lot of flak for that line in Four Weddings and a Funeral, but there was a time in the 90s when she was THE leading lady and I was very into it. She’s great matriarchal material here - I wish she had a little more to do than try to get her son to come back to the family.

And Adam Brody! Playing himself, as per usual! I confess I am still not tired of his charm and I found him and his character’s arc just the right amount of twisty-turny is he good is he bad, and I was pleased with his overall resolution. He plays world-weary-verging-on-alcoholic-to-deal-with-his-trauma much better than I expected and that boyish amiability is still in ample supply.

One thing I appreciate here is well-done exposition. Exposition is a tricky thing because when it’s done poorly it stands out like a sore thumb, but when it’s done well it’s invisible. There’s some really elegant characterization of Grace as she’s being introduced to Alex’s family - she grew up in foster homes and never had a family to call her own. It becomes clear that marrying Alex was so vitally important to her to have this sense of family and permanence. There was no other option for them to escape this family curse in Alex’s mind and he IS between a rock and a hard place.

That being said, Alex could easily have told her the truth and let her choose whether to take the risk (or whether to think he was simply crazy). He takes away her choices because he can’t lose her - it’s about what HE needs. The thoughtful choices that go into each character’s arc, particularly Grace, Alex, and Daniel, is just really smart, sharp writing and I was delighted and entertained to see it.

Same with Charity (Elyse Levesque) and her comment that she’d rather be dead than poor again. On the surface, you want to just hate her because that’s disgusting, right? But considering the way poverty ravages lives - particularly women’s - is the notion really that unreasonable? Her savage certainty when she makes the statement certainly tells you a lot about being poor in this country.

I call bullshit that Alex’s wrists aren’t tore UP. That’s an oversight in the makeup department for sure.

Aunt Helene is a stone cold bitch and I love her. Fucking SAVAGE.

The Hide and Seek song is simultaneously the most amazing and creepy thing I’ve ever heard. This is some A+ worldbuilding.

OK, Grace, you hid for like...30 seconds. I get that you don’t understand the gravity of the situation yet, but like have you ever played hide and seek. It’s not that hard. The rules are in the name of the game. 

I’m not going to spoil the ending - all I will say is that it’s probably been since the first Kingsman film that I found a movie’s end so delightful in every way for wrapping up the bad guys’ plot.

Though billed as a horror movie, it’s really more suspense than scares, although it is very bloody. If you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, beware.

Did I Cry? No, but I certainly felt strongly about the characters and I was really rooting for Grace hard all the way.

This is probably going to end up in my top 10 of the year. Just really great fun with enough brains behind it to be worth remembering.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[meggtheegg]

hi i love your blog so much and i really hope you don't mind me asking this but how would you rank the zoe/evan duos you've seen based on chemistry and such. sadly i live much too far away from america to see deh live but i've heard that mlb and mallory have the best chemsitry ever (god i wish there was aboot of those two) :)

asdfgjkl thank you so much! I hope you get the chance to see it live, someday! 

I’ve been really, really lucky and found ways to see it several times with a lot of different pairings, so I’ll just go through in the order I saw them!

MLB/Olivia Puckett - These two were pretty good together. You could tell that they were friends outside the show. Their dynamic was a little less sweet than some others and a little more desperate. They both needed the relationship to help heal their own emotional scars. You could see them reconnecting down the line and becoming friends, but the romantic relationship was never going to last, even if Evan hadn’t come clean. It was just a high school fling, but a pretty nice one that had some genuine caring behind it.

Colton Ryan/Laura Dreyfuss - Now, this was the first time I ever saw Laura and I was a little too starstruck to focus on the dynamic, but I do remember them having pretty nice chemistry. It also felt like a high school fling, but with a lot more real understanding behind it. Zoe seemed more smitten with Evan, that time around, and played a really big part in his confidence growing, possibly more than her parents did.

MLB/Laura Dreyfuss - I saw these two together several times, and they always felt very forced. MLB can do chemistry, but he and Laura had none. I tended to zone out during their scenes together. Evan’s crush was there, but it felt shallow and never really deepened like it usually does. I kind of got the feeling that the two actors either rarely saw each other outside work and were kind of strangers or actively didn’t like each other.

Taylor Trensch/Laura Dreyfuss - These two were very cute together. That’s really the only word I’d use to describe them. You didn’t really feel upset that the relationship was over, because you didn’t get super invested in I. It was just kind of a bummer. They were two smitten kids who were cute with each other. They weren’t in love but what they had was playful and sweet.

Roman Banks/Mallory Bechtel - I love these two together. They had pretty decent chemistry and seemed to genuinely care about each other. You got the feeling that in a different situation, they could have been really good together for the long run. It just wasn’t meant to be. They felt kinda close to MLB/Olivia in that you could see a genuine friendship blooming in the far-off future. Her kids could very well end up calling him Uncle Evan.

MLB/Mallory Bechtel - You have not heard wrong. Holy shit, the chemistry. These two feel like they are genuinely in love with each other. Mallory had me sobbing during Words Fail, and for the first time, it was heartbreaking to see Evan and Zoe ripped apart. They felt like they belonged together. The orchard scene was far less awkward than it usually is. It felt like they were nervous at first, but quickly fell into their old dynamic again. They feel so safe with each other, and though the circumstances make it impossible for them to ever be together romantically, they could still be extremely close, eventually. Their dynamic, oddly enough, makes Evan feel more like he has a place with the Murphy family. Like once the pain settles and the emotional wounds start to heal, they may still have him and Heidi over for Thanksgiving dinner or meet up for a picnic at the orchard or something. I seriously hope someone gets a boot of these two because they are my favorite pairing, by far.

[acsversace-news]

Emmy is out this week so you are stuck with me as your recapper. Luckily for you all, she’ll be back next week.

Last week we delved further into the state of mind our killer Andrew Cunanan was in in the lead up to his final murder, that of Gianni Versace in July 1997. We met his third and fourth victims, Chicago real estate developer Lee Miglin and New Jersey cemetery caretaker William Reese and saw just a few of the mistakes the FBI and local law enforcement made that could have stopped Cunanan before he hit Miami and murdered Versace, and possibly even spared William Reese. This week we move back to the start of his killing spree, heading to Minnesota and the “House by the Lake”.

The First Murder: Following a tourist bureau ad for Minneapolis, we discover that it’s April 27, 1997 and a week before the murder of Lee Miglin. Andrew is visiting for the weekend with his friend David Madson (Cody Fern). Things are a bit tense between the pair as Andrew has asked David to marry him, telling him that he is the love of his life. David refused using the fact that same-sex marriage was not legal in the US to get out of truly answering him. However, it is implied that David has actually started up a relationship with Jeffrey Trail (Finn Wittrock) and that is the real reason for his refusal, well among other things.

Andrew has somehow cotton-on to the fact that there’s something between David and Jeff and has invited Jeff over. Jeff arrives and Andrew tells David to go and bring him up to the loft spitting out that it will “Give you a chance to talk about me”. Which they do, light-heartedly laughing about how strange Andrew is, but that they know he’s a liar. They enter the loft and see David’s dog whining, tied up to a table. David rushes over to the dog. Meanwhile Andrew has come up behind them, slams the door shut and then proceeds to bludgeon Jeff to death with a hammer, striking him 27 times in the head (and yes I screamed at the TV in shock and horror again, thank you very much Darren Criss).

Needless to say it’s a bit of a bloodbath in the loft, so Andrew takes David into the bathroom to clean them both up. After the shower, he gets out David’s collection of porno mags and sex toys, leaving them scattered over David’s bed. He also cleans up the murder scene a bit – rolling Jeff’s body up in a rug and hiding it behind a table.

Using his charm and a gun tucked into his waistband, Andrew manages to convince David not to call the cops, telling him “When the police open the door, they’ll see two suspects, not two victims,” that they’ll lock him up too, he’ll be hated for being gay, and that he can’t tell his Dad because then he’ll have to turn David in and you don’t want your Dad to have to do that. Cunanan does promise though that “No one else will get hurt as long as you’re by my side.”

The cops arrive: When David fails to show up at work the next day, they become concerned, as he never misses a day of work. A co-worker and David’s building manager knocks on his door but only hear his dog barking. Andrew and David, hearing the couple leave to go get keys to get into the loft, make a run for it. The couple come back and find the loft empty and the dead body. The cops arrive, find out David was gay, see the sex paraphernalia and make the assumption it was sex play gone wrong. It’s only on discovering that David was blonde and the murder victim was black-haired that they believe Andrew had been murdered and that David had fled. Realising they are now in the home of a suspect not a victim and without search warrants or permission to be there, the cops make a hasty retreat wanting to ensure the investigation is “by the book”, waiting for the proper paperwork and clearance to come back.

Men on the run: Having oh so calmly escaped, Andrew informs David of his plan for them to be together. He has a good friend in Chicago, Lee Miglin, who’s rich and owes Andrew some favours so would be willing to help out. They can then escape to Mexico and live the life he’s always dreamed of for them together. David meanwhile is in an obvious state of shock and fear for his life and merely acting on autopilot.

They’ve got the wrong man: The cops are back at David’s apartment and searching for clues. Jeff’s body has been taken away and they are beginning the autopsy on him when they discover that the body does not belong to Andrew Cunanan, but to Jeffrey Trail. They still believe that David is the killer and pay his parent’s a particularly hard visit, questioning them on how well do they truly know their son.

A chance for escape: Andrew continues on, apparently completely unaffected by the whole thing, planning this wonderful life with just him and David and no one else to bother them. David is starting to lose it though, fearing people are looking at him suspecting him of murder, when really its just their homophobia surfacing as the murder has not hit the news yet. They pull into bar (with a lovely cameo by Aimee Mann) and David excuses himself to the bathroom. Seeing an opportunity to escape, he smashes the bathroom window.

Back at the table Andrew is listening intently to the cover of “Drive” when he finally drops his façade and breaks down. It is such an intense moment of vulnerability from Andrew (and Criss) where you start to feel the beginning of sympathy for him. He really is just a little lost boy, wanting to be loved and thought of as someone special and extraordinary. In one of the many big mistakes David makes, instead of jumping out the window to freedom, he returns to Andrew and the table. The next morning marks another possibility of escape when David wakes alone in the car in the middle of wooded area. He jumps out and starts walking trying to make his escape, only to come across Andrew wielding his gun – if only he went in the opposite direction from the car.

The truth comes out: Later that day, Andrew and David are in a diner reminiscing about the night they met. David talks about how he so wanted to be just like Andrew: rich, suave, popular, charming, the whole world at his feet. However, he also reveals that he knows that that whole of his is all a lie. That Andrew is a master manipulator and that he just can’t stop lying. He accuses Andrew of killing Jeff because he was in love with Jeff but that not only did Jeff not return his feelings, but he had discovered just who Andrew was: a fraud.

The second murder: Following a tense car ride in which Andrew doesn’t want to talk about anything, David tries to veer them off the road and make an escape that way. He fails. He ends up off road, next to a lake pleading with Andrew for his life and a life for them together. He doesn’t succeed. Reminiscent of an earlier flashback scene where he remembers sitting in a house by the lake with his father drinking coffee after a failed hunting expedition, David dreams of opening the house door and finding his father offering him coffee once again. Instead, he’s outside the house bleeding out after Andrew shot him.

On the run again: Having spent some time cuddled up with David’s dead body, Andrew gets up, gets back in the car and heads off – presumably to Chicago and Lee Miglin.

Instant Reactions:

Where the hell is the Darren Criss I know and love??!!! He is unbelievable in embodying Cunanan. He’s charming, he’s creepy, he’s sinister, and yet he’s also oh so tragic and this episode more than any before it showed a real vulnerability and a sense that even he can see things are starting to spiral out of control. Week after week Criss blows me away with his performance and this week’s ep just had everything.

OMG David, why didn’t you escape?? There were so many opportunities – at least how it was portrayed here and given both David and Andrew are dead, we’ll never know exactly what took place over the period of time leading up to Jeff’s death to David’s death – and yet he kept going back to Andrew. Cody Fern was amazing and another great Ryan Murphy find. His ability to shut down and still be completely present in his scenes was so painful, yet great to watch.

I need more Finn Wittrock. We can’t just have that short opening scene! Luckily the preview for next week’s ep guarantees us more Jeff.

Wow another ep without the Versace’s and their storyline – I have to admit, I didn’t even realise they were missing until well after watching the ep, I was that caught up in the drama of Andrew’s story. They do return next week though.

[aion-rsa]

The Prom: Ranking Every Song in the Movie Musical Soundtrack From Worst to Best

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The 2018 Broadway musical The Prom has always had a somewhat shaky premise, combining a quartet of narcissistic Broadway stars (Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and Andrew Rannells) looking for a way to be relevant again with a lesbian couple’s (Jo Ellen Pellman and Ariana DeBose) simple wish to attend their prom in Edgewater, Indiana. The two threads collide when the prom gets blown up into a civil rights issue. However, the stage show reconciled these seemingly disparate elements into a heartwarming tale of self-acceptance for all involved: straight or gay, closeted or out, aging star or varsity cheerleader.

Ryan Murphy’s film adaptation for Netflix, by contrast, is less successful. The awkward space between these two stories is more pronounced, with the Broadway portions plagued by puzzling lighting and editing choices. Combine that with some truly head-scratching casting among three of the four adults, and it distracts from the intent of basically half the soundtrack.

However, when it comes to all things prom-related, the adaptation is nearly as strong as its Broadway predecessor, and in some places utilizes cinematic elements to surpass the original versions of key musical numbers. With that in mind, we’re ranking all 19 songs from worst to best, keeping in mind that the rankings would likely have turned out differently had we been considering the musical itself.

19. Barry is Going to Prom

James Corden was disastrously miscast as gay actor Barry, who removed himself from his parents’ lives as a teenager before they could cast him out, yet is still clearly in need of closure. One can never shake the feeling of watching this straight actor put on queer identity as an ill-fitting suit; there’s more than one “did I just hear that right?” moment of him lisping his way through a scene.

He brings that disingenuously effeminate energy to Barry’s big number, “Barry is Going to Prom,” and tarnishes what should be a triumphant showstopper. Not surprisingly, Corden in a silver-and-aqua tux mincing through a fantasy sequence is so much less compelling than original star Brooks Ashmanskas belting in his pajamas.

18. Simply Love

The second of the two end credits songs seems to be a rejected number for Barry’s reunion with his estranged mother while also advocating for Emma. Despite the feeling Corden tries to infuse into it, emotionally it’s empty. The only thing saving it from rock bottom on this list is that there are no accompanying visuals.

17. The Acceptance Song

The first sign that the Broadway crew have overestimated their star power is when their big “rally” in Emma’s honor gets booked… at the halftime show of the local monster truck rally. They try to sing a song about acceptance, but neither they nor the monster truck enthusiasts are equipped to give or receive the message. It’s a forgettable song, but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?

16. Wear Your Crown

The first end credits song is so overproduced that I had to look up who sang it—turns out it’s the entire cast, their voices blended into one unnatural warble. The only thing that saves it is that they do the musical credits thing where they match the names with the performances (here, it’s them posing at the prom with superlatives), so you can remember who you did or didn’t like all over again.

15. Zazz

As solo numbers go, this is not Nicole Kidman’s best; but then again, can anything really top Moulin Rouge!? Perennial chorus girl Angie’s ode to making yourself a star is meant to evoke Bob Fosse and Chicago, but winds up resembling a mere shadow of that brilliance. And, unlike how Kidman breaks our hearts with “Come What May,” this ditty could have been sung by anyone.

14. Changing Lives

As opening numbers go, this one doesn’t rank very high, in part because it has to do so much heavy lifting for the less obvious half of The Prom’s premise: Dee Dee (Meryl Streep, unconvincing at the start) and Barry watch their Eleanor Roosevelt musical close on opening night because they are too self-involved to authentically inhabit these historical figures.

Scrolling Twitter’s trending topics for a “cause” that will reverse their PR disaster, they find Emma and automatically decide that they can and will change her small-town baby gay life. With all that exposition, the song’s actual message—that actors and art can change people’s lives—gets lost. What is fun is intercutting the post-show glow with footage of Dee Dee and Barry in costume as Eleanor and FDR on-stage in what feels like a parody of Hamilton.

13. It’s Not About Me

This is a peppier, more on-the-nose version of “Changing Lives,” yet it strikes a bunch of discordant notes, like Dee Dee and co. sweeping into the PTA meeting to rally for Emma but really turn the spotlight on themselves. It’s too much cringe, too early in the story; and worst of all, Streep simply doesn’t seem to be having fun. Instead she looks like she has to force this number out to get on to the more compelling stuff.

12. Changing Lives (Reprise)

The reprise ranks higher than its predecessor because there’s just enough of an ironic twist to signal to the audience that we’re immediately poking fun at these self-obsessed Broadway stars. The line “We’re gonna help that little lesbian / Whether she likes it or not” is unexpectedly hilarious, though the CGI Times Square backdrop is tough to swallow.

11. We Look to You

Perhaps it’s not surprising that all of the songs about the saving power of art are clumped in the same section of the ranking. Perhaps that element of the show translated better to the literal stage, but in the movie these sequences are garish and don’t fit alongside the sweet, straightforward conflict that Emma and Alyssa face.

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This number does try to bridge that divide, however, with Keegan-Michael Key’s straight ally Principal Hawkins tenderly serenading Dee Dee with memories of her performing. Yet through no fault of his own, they still seem an oddly matched pair, which dampens the romantic effect of the song.

10. Unruly Heart

As Emma’s big number, delivered via humble strumming on YouTube that goes viral by tugging the heartstrings of LGBTQ teens everywhere, “Unruly Heart” felt as if it should have ranked higher. There’s a fun effect of Emma’s bed spinning, making the confines of her room seem bigger as her message spreads to millions of people; it also looks like something out of a Broadway show. But one is left with the feeling that this should be a tearjerker for where it exists in the story. This is likely the biggest casualty of the stage-to-screen adaptation.

9. The Lady’s Improving

This is Streep in her musical element, bringing to mind a mix of the whimsy of “Money, Money, Money” and the yearning of “Mamma Mia.” It’s also got that sharp cleverness that’s all too rare in the Broadway portion of this story, with Dee Dee resurrecting her starring role for a one-afternoon-only, private performance for Hawkins. Wouldn’t you know it, this unapologetic preying on his nostalgic fandom for a fictional character is what actually sells their oddball relationship.

8. Alyssa Greene

DeBose’s bitter defense of staying in the closet starts out as the seemingly low-stakes complaints of a straight-A student afraid to step out of line. But as Alyssa’s refrains keep returning to her mother (Kerry Washington)—complete with flashbacks of earnest Washington playing the helicopter-mom to a tee—it becomes achingly clear just how committed Mrs. Greene is to making her daughter’s life not be “difficult,” at least by her metrics. It’s also clear how much Alyssa feels she owes her.

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The best part is that this impassioned “I wish” song is not enough to win back Emma’s trust, and actually leads to their breakup instead. Emotional vulnerability, met with stakes-raising conflict! We love to see it.

7. It’s Time to Dance

Sure, it’s the triumphant final number, but it’s also so much spectacle (mostly with the ensemble’s too-cool-for-school dancing) that it’s difficult to focus on the emotional underpinnings. Reprisals of motifs like “Dance with You” (look ahead) and “Unruly Heart” buoy it up, and of course so does Emma and Alyssa’s big kiss. But this feels like the big shiny denouement as opposed to the less polished but more poignant songs that will stick with you longer.

6. Tonight Belongs to You (Reprise)

Just as “Changing Lives (Reprise)” recontextualizes its predecessor, the reprise of “Tonight Belongs to You” twists the knife: After being humiliated by the school-wide prank of the fake prom, Emma tortures herself with one last reminder that tonight was always about the “normal” kids. It’s the heartbreaking complement to her stalwart sense of self in “Just Breathe” (see below), with Emma confronting the truth that even if she loves herself, her peers and their parents don’t.

5. Love Thy Neighbor

Without a doubt, Rannells makes this song more charming than it has any right to be. You couldn’t have found a better choice than the Book of Mormon alum to point out the hypocrisy in cherry-picking which religious rules to follow. And unlike a lot of The Prom’s other attempts to shoehorn Broadway culture into this small town, the Godspell vibe of “Love Thy Neighbor” expertly gets through to these closed-minded classmates. If Rannells were teaching drama and the Bible to teens like this, it’d go a long way toward bridging that empathy gap.

4. Just Breathe

Pellman is earnestly wonderful even in songs that are duds, but this is the perfect introduction. “Note to self: Don’t be gay in Indiana” tells you everything you need to know about how lovely Emma is: wry and self-assured, secure in both her own identity and in who she loves, even if she has to protect that secret for Alyssa.

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Yet this inner monologue of a song is relatable to all adolescents who don’t quite fit into high school’s damning constraints, a keen reminder to just breathe and move past the moment, looking ahead to a place or hopefully someday a world in which they won’t be the odd person out.

3. You Happened

This bubbly number seemingly shouldn’t rank so high in the list, yet it’s the most authentic aspect of the story it’s depicting: Teenagers acting out the epic love stories they’ve seen in film and yes, on the stage, playacting at adult declarations of devotion.

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It’s the classic promposal that teens have swooned over from Laguna Beach to TikTok, but one-upped through boy-band choreography and a built-in chorus of high schoolers crooning “Youuuu happened!” like it’s the big love confession from When Harry Met Sally. Yet these over-the-top promposals don’t hold a candle to…

2. Dance with You

Emma and Alyssa’s sweet anthem has the sweeping strains of a classic love song—old-Hollywood romance that reflects their simple wish to not be symbols of a movement, but to get the same quintessential high school experience as their straight classmates. It’s also one that benefits from the movie expanding the scope of a song, with the young lovers walking hand-in-hand through their empty school and waltzing under ethereally lit pink trees. Every time the motif recurs in later songs (hitting different notes each time), it conjures that same swell of emotion.

1. Tonight Belongs to You

The fact that this song attained number-one despite Corden’s bad performance overshadowing the first verses is a testament to its infectious joy, and to the frankly incredible layers of emotion contained within.

Beneath the giddy veneer of getting ready for prom, there are so many darker aspects: Barry strong-arming poor Emma into a femme makeover in an attempt to live vicariously through the prom he never had. Cheerleaders Shelby and Kaylee singing “One thing’s universal / Life’s no dress rehearsal” as they step into identical limos in their cookie-cutter cul de sac, as if they could ever fathom an experience outside of their own. This entire song claims that the night is about Emma, but it’s about everyone but her, and that is so uncomfortably truthful.

And then… the moment Emma steps into the gym to find that the entire school played a cruel trick on her. Her peers singing as if they’re in the same boat as her, as they sail on to their real prom, leaving her the humiliation of entering the empty school gym, encapsulates the brutality of high school in a single song. They’ve turned the supposedly empowering Act I finale into the ultimate villain song. The Prom is uneven overall, but as enduring musical songs go, “Tonight Belongs to You” takes the crown.

But as with all things prom, every vote counts. How would you rank the songs from Netflix’s The Prom?

The Prom is now streaming on Netflix.

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[junker-town]

The Texans, like everything else in 2019, make no sense

John Glaser-USA TODAY Sports

2019 is a confusing mess. So are the Texans.

The Texans are the most 2019-ass team in the NFL, and I can’t even be mad at them. They are confusing, simultaneously impossible to root against and incomprehensible to fully support. We’re a week removed from Deshaun Watson and Co. beating the Patriots. Now they’re getting torn up by Drew Lock in his second start for the Broncos.

Nothing makes sense. Down is up. The inconceivable is happening, yet somehow we all should have expected the Texans to be this much of a roller coaster. Welcome to 2019. What a world this is.

Please don’t confuse this with some sweeping indictment of the Texans. On any given day, they’ve shown an ability to beat any team in the NFL. They’ve also shown an ability to lose to any team in the NFL. Nobody typifies consistent inconsistency better than Houston, and seriously I feel for the fans. Living life on the precipice of excitement and agony might be exhilarating, but it’s also draining af.

A six-game sample of this team’s season says more than anything else, really:

The Texans beat ... the Patriots, Chiefs, and Raiders. Combined record: 25-14 (0.641)

The Texans lost to ... the Panthers, Colts, and Broncos. Combined record: 16-23 (0.410)

If you can say with any certainty that you know which Texans team will turn up when the playoffs roll around, then you’re either delusional or a liar. There’s no middle ground here. If you’re desperate to find something to hang your hat on, well, Houston is better at home than the road. The same can be said of a lot of teams, but the Texans have made this a way of life. This season they’re a 5-2 at home and a middling 3-3 away. Still not enough to say with any reliability whether their year will end well.

This is the heart of why I can identify with the Texans. Much like them, I’d say this was a solid 5-2 year at home so far. Personal life is pretty OK, no major gripes. Then outside these four walls, everything is a festering dumpster fire as if a genius at MIT found a way to light raw sewage on fire as it spewed from a sludge hose covering everything in poop napalm. Just when I think things might get better, another piece of news drags everything back into the hole where 2019 belongs.

When you lose to Lock and the Broncos after beating the Patriots on national TV, you will be compared to a flaming glob of poop napalm. I’m sorry, but also deal with it.

I so desperately want you to be good, Houston. First off, it’s fun. Deep down, we all want to see the plucky 2002 expansion team crack the big one, because it helps break up just how stale the NFL feels sometimes. Secondly, we all fell in love with Deshaun Watson’s incredible play breakdowns at the podium that made him a football sweetheart, and it seems like every single week he’s doing something amazing that just makes football ... cool. And the NFL is so very rarely cool, we need to cherish players who make it like this. We believe in you, Houston.

Now, on to the rest of the NFL.

God, I love Gardner Minshew.

"So maybe we'll try to play good more, and play bad less"#Jaguars 25 year history summed up with one promising line from Gardner Minshew pic.twitter.com/WE3Rl0LwzO

— Ben Murphy (@BenMurphyTV) December 9, 2019

Everything might be a disaster right now in Jacksonville, but at least the Jaguars have some life at quarterback. If nothing else, it’s going to make the second half of The Good Place’s final season awesome.

The symmetry at the beginning of Colts vs. Buccaneers was a thing of beauty.

Yes, I know this is technically asymmetrical, but it doesn’t mean it’s still not beautiful. Like a Picasso, or seeing the Mona Lisa with an eye patch on. Let the record show, before I get some angry fans yelling, that the Bucs went on to win this game. Just appreciate that this is how the first 10 minutes of the game went.

The NFL should embrace ingenuity.

a Ravens' play sheet blew onto the field and Tre'Davious White ran over to read as much as he could before the refs took it away pic.twitter.com/fr7iCfSLCT

— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) December 8, 2019

Ingenuity is the true spirit of America. Without it we wouldn’t have such things as: deep-fried fairground candy bars, the personal computer, Elon Musk’s toaster-shaped super truck. Also Tre’Davious White snagging for All-22 photos that blew on the field in an effort to get an edge.

Now, I’ve pored over the NFL rulebook as I write this, because that’s what my life has devolved into. There is nothing in the book which says a referee should remove a piece of paper that has blown onto the field. Trash collection is not a part of their duties. There are rules about if a foreign object touches a ball, or hits a Skycam — but nothing for this example.

To be fair, I don’t know the specific laws of Buffalo, New York, though it’s widely accepted that trash is a surrendered object, which is fair game. These All-22 photos were littered onto the field, and it’s my fervent believe that White should have been able to view them all he wants.

Of course, they probably didn’t help much because they’re just All-22 photos, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Ryan Tannehill is the unlikely feel-good story we never knew we needed.

Unless you’re a Titans fan, you probably have no idea how well Ryan Tannehill is playing.

1,993 yards, 73.4 completion percentage, 15 TD, 5 INT, 9.8 YPA, 118.5 QB rating.

Keep in mind that he’s only started seven games this season and thrown passes in eight. Extrapolated out to a full season, we’re looking at a 4,000-yard passing season with some of the best stats in the league, bar none. Seriously.

Tannehill’s 73.4 completion percentage is second in the NFL only to Drew Brees. (Min 100 passing attempts).

Tannehill’s 9.8 YPA is first in the NFL among all quarterbacks.

Tannehill’s 118.5 quarterback rating is first in the NFL among all quarterbacks.

While we’re getting wowed by some truly phenomenal feats in the league, Tannehill is chilling down in Nashville playing LEGENDARY football and it feels like almost nobody is noticing. Of those standout stats we really need to talk about that YPA.

Only 12 quarterbacks in NFL history have finished a season with a yards per pass number above 9.7 while attempting 100 passes or more, according to Pro Football Reference. It’s such a rare occurrence that it hasn’t happened in the league since 2000, when Kurt Warner finished with a YPA of 9.88. Prior to that? 1966.

Simply put, this combination of accuracy and deep passing simply doesn’t exist in the NFL anymore. It’s an utter anomaly, and yet here’s Ryan Tannehill — not Russell Wilson, or Drew Brees, or Tom Brady, or Patrick Mahomes — Ryan TANNEHILL who is making history. All while being a fill-in when most people thought Tennessee’s season was over. Now the Titans are surging in the AFC South and legitimately threatening the Texans.

It’s one of the best stories of the year, and everyone should be paying more attention.

And finally, the drink of the week.

Marcus Peters going full Stone Cold Steve Austin. #Ravens @steveaustinBSR pic.twitter.com/EiDa5qzdaD

— Maximiliano Bretos (@MaxBretosSports) December 8, 2019

Free beer best beer.

[4utubing]

May I chime in a little bit?

I believe the time slot any show is attached to will dictate how ‘racy’ the content can be. 9-1-1 happens to air at 8pm EST—so they can get as hot as Tarlos did on Lonestar, at least.

Sex is a natural, healthy part of life, so they have to acknowledge sexual desire on this show (carefully and keeping in mind its time slot) if Buddie were written into existence. PERIOD. And since the LGBTQ+ community has always been in touch with its sexual side, the show’s producers/creators/writers/actors would HAVE TO be brave and just—go for it. Murphy/Falchuk are fearless masters; geniuses—so If any team can pull this off, it is their team. This is nothing for them.

That being said, I’d love if Buddie’s scenes were more based on love than live-making. I have no desire to see the dudes fucking like bunnies every week. No—I’m not a prude—but do we need to know who is top and who isn’t? Nah, we don’t. It could be a great opportunity to illustrate the fact that LGBTQ+ relationships are not as smutty as stereotypes make them out to be.

As for Oliver or Ryan resisting the idea of playing gay/bi...well...we’d have to see—but I don’t think so. It was Oli who had decided that Buck would ‘lose his shit,’ the way he did, when Eddie got stuck in the well. Clearly, Oliver is acutely aware of how deep Buck’s feelings run, where Eddie’s concerned—because that scene, though short, packed a powerful punch. Oliver’s portrayal of Buck’s state of devastation at the prospect of losing Eddie, forever? Made me kinda cry. I mean...I had the sniffles and everything.

So—it’s probably leaps-n-bounds easier to ‘jump somebody’s bones,’ on-screen, than it is to deliver an ‘a romantic scene, sealed with a tender, believable kiss, between same-sex actors.’ Oli & Ry can totally do this.

Do I think it would scare the shit out of them, to be seen in that light? Maybe. I mean, they’re young, they’re not yet superstars—and they probably worry about what relatives & friends might think. But if they play their cards right, their portrayal of Buddie could lead to an expanded viewership and possibly, critical acclaim, too. Depends on how tight a grip their real-life machismo, has on them. They could be a lot more evolved than we anticipate.

And the observation that Eddie has been, mostly, asexual is accurate—but that component of him can & should be exploited—to easily explain, ‘he’s bisexual, w/a preference for guys—but he’s been waiting for Mr. Buckley Mr. Right.’

Buck 1.0’s womanizing ways? GONE, thanks to his experience with Abby, who inaugurated Buck 2.0’s arrival. Of course—she returned to obliterate Buck 2.0—but in the process, helped Buck 3.0 spring out of his shell.

But...who is Buck 3.0?

They, aptly, named Season 3 Finale, “What’s Next?” causing everyone who ships Buddie to get their hopes up. But it really depends on the direction they take with “Buck Begins,” in Season 4. Will Buck 3.0 belong to Eddie?

I think we can set our expectations fairly high. I’m confident we’ll get what we’ve been praying for. Shooting for Season 4 hasn’t begun, due to continued Covid-19 quarantine. But these delays put them in a unique position to write a flawless Season 4.

Anon who originally asked- thank you for answering so quick! I definitely think that Oliver would be open to it. I also agree that Ryan would be less likely... I halfway agree with the writers writing it and they just “have to” do it... but I also believe that the writers creating animosity in their actors which could trickle into their characters would not work. I feel the show would not pressure them if they each (or one of them) said no. *continued in next ask*

I also agree that the show IS pretty non-explicit, but Buck is their most explicit character. I also believe that because of all the queerbaiting and blatant fan service from before, they would push for a more explicit scene from the two of them, which could be a turn off for one or both.

Hello friend 🥰

Well, I sort of agree, I don’t think they would necessarily be pressired into it but the thing is: Buddie won’t happen over night! Season 4 won’t begin and suddenly: boom! Buddie!

It‘ll be a slow process and take at least one more season from the point they decide on doing it onwards because 911 is a very mainstream show and most of the audience isn’t in the fandom meaning they might have seen some hints but they‘ll need to slowly be prepared for Buddie happening

So just like viewers would get time to get used to Buddie, the actors would as well so even if they initially didn’t wanna they can adjust to it slowly - or leave accordingly

Also, sure, Buck / Oliver techically has the most explicit scenes but he look at his relationship with Ali, sure there was some handsy stuff but that was it, they barely kissed?

And they look at Eddie / Shannon, they were married and we got that one after sex scene which is sort of what I envision we might get with Buddie and we saw them kiss maybe two times?

Even if it‘s Buck‘s character and even if Ryan loves running around shirtless apparently, Eddie isn’t an explicit character and that won’t change with Buddie

And like, even considering the queerbaiting/ fanservice we saw so far non of it was explicit in any way? It was romantically coded and yes, okay, the kitchen sceneTM was ... very, well, sexually charged but yeah, nothing was really sexual? Does that make sense?

Anyways, all of that is MY opinion, you’re more than welcome to disagree, but I don’t think they would be too explicit because that is just not the show and it would change the tone drastically

(Quick shoutout to my girl @chimbuckleys who talked this over with me a little because I didn’t know how to express myself, lol)

[biofunmy]

As Minor Leaguers Try to Keep Their Careers Alive, Some of Their Neighbors Are Not

OLD FORGE, Pa. — The most notorious residence in the Yankees’ minor-league system comes with a furnished bedroom, a cozy porch, ample street parking and a handy private side entrance.

One downside: the bodies housed underneath the apartment.

“I’ve seen people getting wheeled in and out a few times, which was a little — different,” said Yankees relief pitcher Chad Green, who lived in the apartment here in early 2017. “The place was nice. As soon as you got over the fact you’re staying in a funeral home, it was fine.”

Many ballplayers describe getting called up to the majors as a dream come true, but for some Yankees, their last stop before reaching the Bronx is a setting more fit for nightmares: an apartment above a funeral parlor on a sleepy corner of this city of about 8,000 people.

Less-than-desirable living situations aren’t uncommon for the many minor leaguers living on painfully tight budgets, but few are as eerie as the apartment where several Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders have ended up while playing in one of the smallest markets to host a Class AAA team.

When Clint Frazier was traded to the Yankees’ organization in July 2016, he moved in above the funeral home with two teammates at the time, Ben Gamel and Cito Culver. Frazier was mired in a slump, and since his new roommates were thriving at the plate, he figured living among the bottles of embalming fluid and caskets might prove to be a talisman.

“It didn’t save my season,” Frazier said.

He lasted about one month before moving into a hotel. The breaking point came one Saturday morning when he awoke to the sounds of a funeral service taking place downstairs.

“That’s when I was like, ‘I’ve got to get out of this place,’” Frazier said. “It’s nice on the inside, but it’s a very eerie feeling. I could hear the stuff going on in the basement. That’s not cool, man. I would never in a million years go back.”

Frazier, somewhat surprisingly, is an outlier in his feelings toward rooming with the dead. Many players are comfortable surrounded by the macabre, and even recommend the experience; the apartment has a reputation in the RailRiders clubhouse as one of the lusher accommodations available in the area.

As Gamel points out, when it comes to minor-league living, it can get much worse than staying above a funeral home. “It’s not the dead you’ve got to worry about,” said Gamel, now an outfielder with the Milwaukee Brewers.

The home in Old Forge, Pa., about five miles from the RailRiders’ ballpark in Moosic, belongs to Bob Gillette, whose family has operated Ferri & Gillette Funeral Services for 78 years.

About eight years ago, after his grandmother died, Gillette renovated the space on the top floor of the building where she had lived to make two apartments. Pat Rovello, Gillette’s neighbor who had been renting out properties to ballplayers since the early 2000s — including above a pizzeria he owns — suggested offering the apartments to RailRiders.

Currently, pitcher David Hale resides in the smaller of the two spaces. Gillette listed Scott Sizemore, John Ryan Murphy and Shane Greene as former tenants. The larger apartment goes for $1,200 a month, with the smaller space renting for $800. All utilities are included, and sometimes two or three players live in one apartment to save money.

“We’re big Yankees fans,” Gillette said. “The guys, they’ve been so great. They see my kids in the yard, and they taught my son to throw the proper way.”

Gillette did not recall ever hosting an unruly tenant. There are moments, though, that have made lodgers feel uneasy.

One night when Gamel and Tyler Austin were living at the funeral parlor, smoke from the basement furnaces triggered the building’s fire alarms. But with no smoke visible in the players’ rooms, the players immediately suspected mystic forces at play. Austin asked if he could spend the night with Gamel.

“Tyler used to sleep on the ground in my room,” Gamel said. “Nights where he’s feeling a little sketchy. I was used to it.”

Austin, now with the San Francisco Giants, called the apartment a “relatively nice place,” but said he had to be extra careful on certain days.

“The thing that was kind of weird was some mornings we’d wake up and there was a service going on downstairs,” he said. “I’d have to be really be quiet because I don’t want them hearing me walk around up top as they’re going through their service.”

Gamel added that the funeral home was quite serene compared with other minor league dwellings. Minor-league salaries vary widely depending on signing bonuses and service time, but players in Class AAA can make as little as $2,150 a month before dues and taxes, and only during the season, making it hard to find optimal living spaces.

RailRiders second baseman Gosuke Katoh lived with six other players in a two-bedroom apartment in Bensalem, Pa., when he played for the Class AA Trenton Thunder last year. He recalled two murders in the neighborhood while he lived there.

“We definitely don’t live in the best neighborhoods,” Katoh said. “The places we do live, the team apartments, I mean it’s nice that they let us stay there. It’s whatever we can get.”

To make sure his players don’t have similar experiences while with his club, Josh Olerud, the RailRiders’ team president and general manager, tacks on broker duties to his daily responsibilities. In recent years, he has built a catalog of available properties and personally inspects sites before a player moves in.

“I check out every single home,” Olerud said. “You don’t want to send someone somewhere that’s not going to be livable.”

The team pays for a three-night hotel stay for players upon their arrival, and some newcomers choose extended hotel stays if they can negotiate a reasonable rate. When players choose to search on their own, unexpected challenges can arise.

During spring training, pitchers David Sosebee and Cale Coshow could not find anything to their liking on websites like Craigslist or Zillow, but their teammate Danny Coulombe met a woman on his flight to Scranton who mentioned she lived in a duplex with a vacant apartment.

When Sosebee and Coshnow arrived the morning before their first home game to move in, they figured they must have gotten lost.

“We pulled up and I was like, ‘This has got to be the wrong place,’” Sosebee said. “It’s kind of like an auto body, slash junkyard, slash I think the guy sells cars out of there, too. There’s a bunch of cars in the back, mechanics everywhere. That’s our house.” All in all, though, he sounded satisfied with his new home.

Among those who stick to Olerud’s tips, players recognized a sense of civic pride from their landlords. Some proprietors forgo broker’s fees or security deposits and offer month-to-month or six-month leases, which helps minor leaguers facing unpredictable seasons. Gleyber Torres, who went on to finish third in the 2018 American League Rookie of the Year Award vote, spent the beginning of last season in an apartment that included access to a personal man cave, complete with a gym and golf simulators.

“Peace of mind,” said Olerud, sounding almost like a funeral director himself, “is a big thing.”

James Wagner contributed reporting from San Francisco.

Sahred From Source link Sports

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[yahoo-big-league-stew-blog]

NL East preview: Is this finally the year for the Washington Nationals?

The Washington Nationals are the favorite to win the National League East once again, but this year feels different. The team can no longer be satisfied with another NL East championship.

[Batter up: Join a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for free today]

The club now has a sense of urgency. Following the 2018 season, Bryce Harper, Daniel Murphy and Ryan Madson will all hit the free-agent market. If they don’t win it all this year, things will get harder going forward.

It doesn’t help that both the Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves are on the upswing. The Phillies made some key moves this winter to let their competitors know their time is coming. The Braves aren’t as far in their rebuild just yet, but the world should get a taste of Ronald Acuña Jr. this season.

Then there’s the New York Mets, who could be formidable if only they could stay healthy. You would think their luck would turn eventually, but this is the Mets we’re talking about.

No matter how poorly things go for each of those clubs, at least they won’t finish in last. That spot is reserved for the Miami Marlins, who tore it all down in the offseason. Winning 65 games would be a victory for Miami in 2018.

We’ll dissect the NL East with a look at its new faces, its biggest questions and what each team would have to do to win.

Jake Arrieta makes the Phillies a lot better in 2018. (AP Photo)

NEW FACES In case you need you a reminder of who plays where now

Carlos Santana and Jake Arrieta, Philadelphia Phillies The 2017-2018 offseason will be known as an offseason of labor strife, but it will also be remembered for the Phillies getting seriously serious about competing. After five years of sub-.500 finishes (sometimes way, way sub) they saw some growth and decided to go for it. They signed first baseman Carlos Santana to a three-year contract, and they solved their rotation issue by signing Jake Arrieta to a three-year deal. The team spent real money to make themselves better, and they’re hoping it’s a gamble that pays off sooner rather than later. But despite all that hope and optimism, the Phillies actually being ready to compete for a wild-card spot is far from fact. No one knows how the rookies are going to fare. And there are serious concerns about the young guys getting significant playing time. But one thing is for sure: the Phillies will be a much tougher opponent than they’ve been in years, and Arrieta and Santana are two major reasons why. The NL East is no longer a two-team race.

Jay Bruce, New York Mets Even though Jay Bruce was on the Mets for most of 2017, he still counts as a new face. The Mets traded him to Cleveland in August, so he was gone, and now he’s back with a three-year deal. That means he’s technically new. And for the Mets, Bruce is a guy they’re comfortable with because they know exactly what he can do. He hits between .250 and .260, and smacks between 25 and 35 home runs per year. He’s not an electric talent, but he’s dependable and consistent. On a Mets team that somehow always feels like it’s barely fending off complete and utter disaster, that’s valuable.

Derek Jeter, Miami Marlins He’s not on the field anymore, but there’s little doubt that anybody generated more headlines this offseason than the new Miami Marlins CEO. While the team won’t be anything special this season, that won’t stop people around baseball from watching how Jeter guides the Fish through a high-profile rebuild that began with trading away all their best players. Keeping Giancarlo Stanton around would have kept some of the attention elsewhere, but now it’s all eyes on Jeter.

Bryce Harper wants to walk away from the Nationals as a champion. (AP Photo)

FOUR BIG QUESTIONS ABOUT THE NL EAST Good news: We’ve got 162 games to figure out the answers

How do the Nationals avoid another disappointment? For one more year at least, the NL East should belong to the Nationals. That should put them in a prime spot to finally achieve the ultimate goal, and that’s winning a World Series. A lot of shoulds, but for a team that’s been in this position for six years and still never even won a playoff series, shoulds aren‘t enough. They have to achieve something. There‘s no magic formula that exists to help them. Good health would obviously be a plus, but some soul-searching needs to take place too. The Dodgers and Cubs aren’t going away. It’s up to Washington to figure out how to make them go away.

Will the Mets get the most from their starting rotation? The Mets revamped their medical staff over the offseason, in addition to hiring a pitching-minded manager in Mickey Callaway and respected pitching coach in Dave Eiland. The obvious hope is to finally put together a healthy season where the starting rotation performs at the highest possible level. The last time that happened was 2015, when they reached the World Series. Since then, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler have all faced setbacks. Just having three or four of them healthy and pitching well would be a game-changer for New York.

Is a winning record realistic for Phillies or Braves? There’s enough excitement and optimism surrounding the Phillies that it wouldn’t be a total surprise if they emerged as a wild card contender. With many of their top prospects poised to make a mark this season, and with Jake Arrieta added to the rotation, they could definitely flirt with a winning record. The Braves are a little more tricky to figure out because they still don’t have a real identity. They have youth, they have experience, perhaps most importantly, they’ll eventually have Ronald Acuña Jr., and he’s a real difference maker. How realistic is it that one or both teams could contend is a question we’re all looking forward to having answered.

Will the Marlins lose 100 games? The teardown under new CEO Derek Jeter is another case of history repeating itself for Marlins fans. The only question, at least in 2018, is how bad will it get. With the entire outfield trio of Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich traded, and with Dee Gordon traded too, they’re pretty close to square one. What’s encouraging is that the Marlins have brought back some solid prospects who could help form a decent foundation. For now though, they‘ll be featuring mostly stopgaps and unproven guys. If the NL East proves to be a hungry division, the Marlins could struggle getting to 65-70 wins.

The Mets hope a healthy Noah Syndergaard will lead them to the postseason. (AP Photo)

HOW THEY COULD WIN Every team can’t win. Most won’t. But here’s how each could *could* win the NL East:

• Washington Nationals: The Nationals don’t have to do much. Keep everyone relatively healthy, basically, and they have a good shot. It would be nice if Michael A. Taylor and Ryan Zimmerman turned in strong years yet again, but the team could still win the division if both struggle. A better fifth starter would be nice, but it’s not like you use those in the postseason. We’re picking nits here. The Nationals are the clear favorites in the NL East.

• Philadelphia Phillies: The team’s youngsters arrive early. J.P. Crawford puts it all together at the plate, hitting for average and taking a ridiculous amount of walks. Nick Williams proves last season’s success wasn’t small-sample nonsense. Rhys Hoskins is actually one of the best players in baseball and last year was just a taste of what’s to come. Jake Arrieta puts off some of his worrisome trends for another year. Aaron Nola becomes a Cy Young candidate. After thinking more about it, Gabe Kapler cancels his team speech on proper tanning methods.

• New York Mets: Everybody stays healthy. OK, stop laughing … it could happen. And if it does, the Mets become pretty tough. Yoenis Cespedes challenges for the NL home run crown, with Todd Frazier not too far behind. Amed Rosario takes to the majors immediately. Adrian Gonzalez proves there’s still something left in the tank. Noah Syndergaard is Noah Syndergaard. Mickey Callaway finds a way to return Matt Harvey to form.

• Atlanta Braves: Ronald Acuña Jr. has a Mike Trout-level impact on the team once he’s called up. Dansby Swanson rebounds after a tough 2017 to show why he was the No. 1 overall draft pick. Ozzie Albies sprays the ball all over the field while Freddie Freeman challenges for MVP. The team’s young pitchers finally come together to form a strong rotation. Sean Newcomb stops walking people. Matt Wisler and Aaron Blair figure out how to pitch in the majors. Max Fried continues to develop.

• Miami Marlins: Derek Jeter finds a way to re-acquire Giancarlo Stanton, Dee Gordon, Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna. He then finds a way to get Lance Lynn and Jake Arrieta out of their contracts and signs both of them. At the midway point, Jeter continues to invest in the team’s solid young core. The offense carries the club while the pitching is stabilized by just a few vets. Stanton breaks the single-season home run record, ensuring the dinger machine will be replaced with a Paul Bunyan-type statue of him in 30 years.

Other division previews AL East | AL Central | AL West | NL West | NL East | NL Central – – – – – – Mike Oz is a writer at Yahoo Sports . Contact him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz

More from Yahoo Sports:

• Sox welcome back employee who wrongfully spent 23 years in jail • Former MLB All-Star Albert Belle arrested on numerous counts • Phillies hand out $24 million to unproven prospect • Here’s a ranking of every MLB opening day starter

[the-connection]

When precisely was it has been determined that cartoons are for kids? Even now, when a demonstrate like BoJack Horseman makes on feeling and self-loathing, beings act like it's a gambit.( "Can you believe we're going ADULT themes from this CHILD'S medium? ") Not merely does this move no ability, but animations have been ahead of the arc on some serious issues for decades. Like how ...

5

In Rick And Morty , Nihilism Is A Thinking, Not A Character Flaw

Nihilism has got a real bad rep on the mean streets of pop culture. It's typically boiled down to "Nothing truly interests, so why bother doing good situations? " that are generally evidences in the "villainous nihilist" stereotype. Anton from No Country For Old Men is a violently efficient nihilist, returning lectures about how life and death are as meaningless as a silver flip.

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The nihilist gang in The Big Lebowski give it as a goofy affectation. In True Detective , Rust Cohle's nihilism is a character flaw he heroically overcomes in the finale.

Dour, cranky, cold-hearted ... nihilists are pretty much illustrated as sociopathic versions of Eeyore.

The Cartoon That Does It Better:

Read Next

4 Apps To Utter Your Career A Boost In 2018

One of best available occasions I've ever seen on Tv was the Rick And Morty ( i.e. theme of the virulent Szechuan Sauce Riots of 2017) chapter "Rixty Minutes." Summer, Morty's older sister, discovers that her delivery involved in an accident which, it shows, cleared her parents' lives worse. Morty then confesses in her that he's not the chap she thinks he is, and that he's actually a Morty from another aspect who changed the Morty she knew after his death. He terminates this history by saying, "Don't run. Nothing exists on purpose , nothing belongs anywhere, everybody's going to die. Come watch TV."

That's where they leave it. There's no joyful, "This was all meant to happen! " revelation afterwards. She has to come to expressions with the fact that nothing was meant to happen ... and that's OK. That is, in fact, the running theme of Rick And Morty . Yes, life had not yet been higher represent and good-for-nothing eventually problems, except the things that matter to you . Rick, has become a superhuman multidimensional supergenius, knows for a fact that nothing was meant to happen. But he formerly killed a jellybean emperor because he supposed he had tried to molest Morty. It's, uh, a bit hard to convey out of context.

Still, all of this is a astonishingly accurate( though extreme) representation of what nihilism really is. Life is without objective represent, determination, or righteousnes, and you're free to do good happenings because you wishes to , not because you think the Universe will reinforce you for it.

4

In Steven Universe , Child Heroes Have To Distribute With Trauma

It's simply the grittiest of campaign movies that actually deal with the psychological consequence in a realistic course. When the subject comes up in more lighthearted fare like Iron Man 3 , the panacea is for Tony to get right back into the action.

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The omission of post-traumatic stress is never more glaring than in kids movies. Stranger Things Season 2 and Harry Potter Movies 2 through 7.5 "shouldve been" has just taken place entirely on therapy lounges. Those children have heard. Some. Shit. But all is well as soon as the bad person is demolished. Knowing your motive was blameless does the PTSD go away! That's the style it drives, right?

The Cartoon That Does It Better:

It absolutely doesn't. Just question Steven Universe .

Steven is the titular courage in a show about himself and his fantastical gem-themed buds protecting the world from a rogue's gallery of gem-themed villains. Steven is a bubbly, quipping war hero who accomplishes bad people the route you'd expect a parody persona to. And then comes the occurrence "Mindful Education."

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In it, Steven is helping his acquaintance Connie deal with her regret over inadvertently pulsating someone up. His stellar suggestion? Shove everything deep, deep inside you and claim it doesn't exist.

As amusing as it would have been to merely resolve the occurrence there, soon Steven is currently facing hallucinations of things he's done in the conflict that he appears frightful about, concepts that no one( includes the gathering) knew he was still dealing with. He's literally left in the fetal statu crying and screaming, "I didn't want to hurt anyone! "

After four seasons of Steven generally saving the day with a punchline and a smile, we learn that he's been internalizing every single grim cache of what he's had to do to save his planet. Recall about how seriously the pop culture scenery get changed if every movie and serial had to do this. Not in surly, "We didn't ask for this war! " kind of acces, but actually making the superstars indicate utter vulnerability in the face of regret. Here's stock exchanges :P TAGEND

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Connie: "It's OK! "

Steven: "No, it's not! "

Connie: "But it's OK to think about it! "

Steven: "It feels so bad! "

Connie: "That's OK, very. There was nothing else you could have done."

Steven: "I don't want to feel this way."

Connie: "You have to! You have to be honest about how bad it seems, so you can move on."

3

Bob's Burgers Portrays Budding Female Sexuality In A Way Normally Reserved For Dudes

TV pictures will spend various episodes devoted to helping a teenage boy out with his abrupt outbreak of boners. Tim Allen's favorite thing in the world is to sit down and explain that shit to whoever happens to have been tricked into playing his son at the time. But girls affecting puberty is frequently be converted into one of two equally inefficient tropes. They either evolve beyond their age and start doing trash like sleeping with schoolteachers( like in a strange number of teenage pictures ), or are interpreted as unattractive punching ball( like Meg on Family Guy , who is detested for plainly prevailing ).

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On TV, pubescent girlfriends aren't allowed to be weird in a winsome, relatable nature. They must either have the sex drive of a porno pizza bringing mortal or be an amoeba with glasses.

The Cartoon That Does It Better:

Tina on Bob's Burgers is an anomaly. She's unabashedly curious about sex in a way that's not is expected to be sexy to the public or the men she's very interested in. That's where most TV shows stumble. Because a person is currently in the process of wade through the morass of her own virility, scribes decide that we need to find her seductive as well, or at least cute -- otherwise, she's a punchline.( "Can you suppose if unattactive people wanted to have intercourse ? ") This is Tina :P TAGEND

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She ogles guys, she writes startling lascivious myth, she honestly seeks the guys she misses. Tina's journey is not read through the "male gaze, " as they say, so her investigate of her changing torso is actually all about her as a human being. That's super rare on Tv, much less in animation.

The poignant circumstance is that a good part of that are able to because Tina was primarily supposed to be a male reputation. The columnists liked the specific characteristics, but thought it was too close to the character of Eugene, so they changed the gender but little else. So basically, the only style you can get Hollywood to depict a woman's coming of age in a odd more honest course is to get them to pretend it's a dude.

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2

Captain Planet Was Making On AIDS Hysteria In 1992

Words cannot describe the affection I have for Eddie Murphy. I was fostered on his movies, and his influential stand-up specials Hallucinating and Raw might have single-handedly gotten me through college. But I wince every time I discover the divisions in his specials where he speaks of homosexual beings, specially when he talks about AIDS, which he laughter about with all the subtlety of someone shedding a golf club at a seagull.

And regrettably, he wasn't alone -- back in the working day, when AIDS was just some mystery disease that people associated with homosexuality , no one wanted to be in a room with someone who had it, let alone talk about it in a reflective behavior. Beings with the disease were treated like villains. Ryan White, who contracted it while "hes in" secondary school, was forced to use separate bathrooms and munch his lunch with expendable utensils, which is so horrible that after typing it, I invested a moment staring into space.

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The Cartoon That Does It Better:

Somehow, in the middle of all this, the person or persons behind Captain Planet are determined to do an episode about AIDS. In 1992 's "A Formula For Hate, " a high school basketball participate( voiced by Neil Patrick Harris !) gets HIV, and the bad guys get the town to rampage against him. Captain Planet, that unceasingly genu blue-skinned beefcake, gradations in to speak up on the boy's behalf, moves the town directly on the facts about AIDS/ HIV, and persuades them to let him represent basketball again. There's too a PSA at the end on not freaking out on people who have AIDS, in cases where you envisioned the actual occurrence and thought it was mostly about basketball.

This was a year before Tom Hanks' AIDS theatre Philadelphia , and an epoch in which missionary pastors were calling AIDS a judgment from God and informing panic-struck parishioners about AIDS-infected blood being used as a weapon against Christians. Captain Planet lighted this incident directly to the exceedingly children of the grownups who'd bought into that hysteria. Grownups who, in the chapter, were made to look like rueful assholes led astray by their own blatant ignorance.

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Sailor Moon Was Way Ahead Of The Curve On LGBTQ Relationships

If you want to squirm your stomach out, start watch any '9 0s sitcom dealing with LGBTQ issues. Even when queer references were presented as people who could hold basic human relationships( like in Will& Grace ), they were countered by sees like Friends , in which males couldn't even touch each other for anxiety of being seen, and I hope you're sitting down for this, gay. If you don't believes me, here's a montage of some of the homophobic moments from Friends . Too, this video is a fucking hour long :P TAGEND

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Not that it was any better in film, where "deviant" sexuality was code for sociopathic amorality( watch: Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct , or Buffalo Bill in Silence Of The Lambs ). This was not that long ago, children!

The Cartoon That Does It Better:

Before Will& Grace and Buffy The Vampire Slayer 's Willow and Tara, there was the beautifully ass-kicking Sailor Moon -- exclusively, the ties between Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune( Haruka and Michiru ). Introduced in Season 3, the girls were suave, proficient superheroes who just happened to be in love with one another, and it was shown as perfectly OK in that macrocosm, before it was perfectly OK in our world.

There were gay male affinities very, like Kunzite and Zoisite, though they were villains, because no one is truly escapes the '9 0s unscathed. And while there weren't any actual transgender references, there were the Sailor Starlights, a boy banding that turned out to be women when they be converted into superheroes. In a kid's prove! In 1996!

And it was all managed highly casually. "Oh, you guys aren't really boys? Aight." If it was on Friends , Ross and Chandler would've identified the band and then comically made a self-loathing rain together for a whole season, and then even MORE comically have been forced to move one another. Then they'd ought to have panicked about any blatant homosexual sensations it may have stirred.

Ugh. Fucking Sidekicks .

Archie doesn't really invest all her free time watching animations; she writes about 'em more on BlackGirlNerds.com. Feel free to talk shop with her on Twitter . i>

Man, can you picture if Dallas Buyers Club had been animated ? i > b>

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