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mittensmorgul · 5 years ago

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Faith on the tnt loop (which, full disclosure, I slept through oopsie, so I pulled out the blu ray because this is NOT one I can skip).

Post 14.20, this episode is... extra-amazing, honestly. I’ve always felt that this episode was unwittingly (possibly, at the time it was written) a window into what this story could potentially do. When I first binged this series, this was the first episode I finished where I had to stop and completely reevaluate what I was actually witnessing. This was the episode that took me from casually consuming a fun lil monster show to 100% invested in this grand narrative. Even without any knowledge of what the ensuing 6 1/2 season (that existed at the time), I felt like I had my first glimpse of a much bigger picture in store for me. This was the first episode that, after a break to absorb what I’d just witnessed, I went back and immediately watched it again. Turns out I wasn’t reading too much into it... in fact, I wasn’t reading nearly enough into it...

The episode begins with Sam and Dean hunting a monster that we’ve only ever seen once more in the entirety of canon-- a rawhead, which earned a mention in 14.01 after an off-screen hunt for one went wrong enough to have left a tooth behind in one of the AU hunters. As if the monster in this case has been rendered doubly irrelevant, by virtue of the fact it practically dies offscreen in 1.12 while Dean's defeat of it and his own actions and choices in defeating it are the actual inciting incident of all the relevant action to follow. And in 14.01, all that remains of the rawahead was a tooth that's extracted from a wound and likely a wild hunter's tale.

Dean explains the use of the tasers they're using to take down the rawhead (specifically that the electricity is deadly to it and each weapon is one use only, "so make it count"). Dean takes his shot, and misses, but they find the children the rawhead had been holding captive. Dean tells Sam to take them outside to safety, and Sam hands over his taser to Dean, leaving Dean alone to face the monster (who we learn in 14.01 moves a lot faster than expected, and fast enough that we never even really see it in 1.12). Dean is literally backed into a corner, on the ground in a puddle of water, with the monster looming over him when he chooses to take his shot. It's not like he had much choice, right? So he shoots, and thanks to the water he's lying in, he electrocutes himself as well, damaging his own heart to the point where the doctor gives him a month to live.

He could've made a different choice, could've rolled out of the water, could've tried to fight off the rawhead (probably ineffectively) but perhaps enough that it would've given up and escaped to hunt children another day, but Dean took his shot, in a circumstance where he felt it was the right thing to end this monster and prevent it from hurting anyone ever again, even when it hurt him in the process. Not that he knew it would necessarily kill him to do it, but he was fully aware of the power of the weapon in his hand and what it was capable of, and accepted that it would hurt him right along with the monster he'd aimed it at since they were “connected” through the puddle of water.

Can anyone else say Hammurabi? Equalizer?

All of this has happened before.

But that's just the beginning. Because Dean survived, even if mortally wounded. This was the first time, though, that they were motivated to defy death, and that brings us to the true Monster of the Week-- Sue Ann LeGrange. Yes, I know it's technically "a reaper," but operating under Sue Ann's control and on her orders. She was the one who chose who lived and who died, based on who SHE thought was worthy, or unworthy in the case of her chosen victims. She was "playing god," deceiving her husband after saving HIS life with this dark magic (which required at least TWO sacrifices on her part-- one to make the altar and talisman to bind the reaper in the first place, and one person to die to save Roy, unbeknownst to him), and letting him think that he was miraculously granted the gift of healing by God.

And Sam decides to look for a similar sort of miraculous cure for Dean, even when Dean had accepted his own apparent fate:

DEAN: Look, Sammy, what can I say, man, it's a dangerous gig. I drew the short straw. That's it, end of story. SAM: Don't talk like that, alright? We still have options. DEAN: What options? Yeah, burial or cremation. And I know it's not easy. But I'm gonna die. And you can't stop it. SAM: Watch me.

Sam isn't about to go committing human sacrifice like Sue Ann, but after a tearful phone call plea to John for help, which goes unreplied to, Sam takes matters into his own hands, just as Dean checks himself out of the hospital having accepted his fate:

SAM: You know, this whole I-laugh-in-the-face-of-death thing? It's crap. I can see right through it. DEAN: Yeah, whatever, dude. Have you even slept? You look worse than me. SAM: (Helping DEAN to a chair) I've been scouring the Internet for the last three days. Calling every contact in Dad's journal. DEAN: For what? SAM: For a way to help you. One of Dad's friends, Joshua, he called me back. Told me about a guy in Nebraska. A specialist. DEAN: You're not gonna let me die in peace, are you? SAM: I'm not gonna let you die, period. We're going.

(aside to lol at John’s friend being named “Joshua,” namesake of the one angel God continued to talk to after supposedly abandoning Heaven and Earth, the angel who told Sam and dean in 5.16 that God refused to step in to help stop the apocalypse, and the angel killed in 12.19 by Dagon before fetus!Jack hijacked Cas to kill Dagon in turn... and even after his death it was Joshua’s amulet in 14.17 that enabled him to summon Chuck back into the story... funny that this hunter we never hear about again was the one to point Sam in the direction of this healer...)

And I'm sorry to just keep pasting in chunks of transcript, but this all goes to Sam and Dean's respective outlooks on pretty much everything, and the Grand Manipulation of Chuck in the entire narrative as we now understand it post 14.20:

DEAN: I mean, come on, Sam, a faith healer? SAM: Maybe it's time to have a little faith, Dean. DEAN: You know what I've got faith in? Reality. Knowing what's really going on. SAM: How can you be a skeptic? With the things we see everyday? DEAN: Exactly. We see them, we know there real. SAM: But if you know evil's out there, how can you not believe good's out there, too? DEAN: Because I've seen what evil does to good people.

Sam has faith, Dean's a skeptic. Throughout s14 we saw what it would take to break Dean to the point where he would accept the word of God without question. It literally took the entire season, more than half of it revolving around his possession and complete loss of free will and self, building him up when Michael left him again and giving him a false sense of security to begin to feel comfortable building emotional bridges to his entire family (including Jack), only to tear it all down and lose himself to Michael again on a whim, losing Mary again, losing Jack to soullessness because of his own failed choices (in his estimation, at least). This process of showing Dean how little power and control he has over his own existence was furthered by Billie presenting him with the supposed singular solution to save the world, which Dean interpreted to mean the most horrifying iteration of self-sacrifice the show has ever presented to us-- an eternity spent at the bottom of the ocean, locked with Michael in the Ma'lak box. Ironically, just as he was beginning to think of himself as something more than just a weapon, the parallel can't help but be drawn to the First Blade, which Cain had thrown to the bottom of the ocean in a similar fashion. Which should only serve to remind us that even that's not a permanent solution to any problem. And I think THAT was the lesson Billie truly wished Dean to understand. Jack is the one who ends up making the true sacrifice (his own human soul) to kill Michael once and for all, and Dean is left with the guilt of that.

But several other important incidents in s14 tie directly back to this, too. 14.08, playing with life and death, learning about what truly matters in someone's destiny after death, and what the Winchesters are willing to do to save a loved one. Ironically, in the process, Cas is backed into a corner, making a deal with the Empty Entity for his own happiness in exchange for Jack's soul.

Nothing ever comes for free. The Winchesters have been juggling these horrific choices and sacrifices their entire lives, and nothing is ever just as simple as an uncomplicated win.

Which is a key element of 1.12. Dean's skepticism, his feeling of "wrongness" after being healed by Roy, uncovers the larger truth. Sam desperately wants Dean to just let it go, accept it as a miracle, and move on:

SAM: Look, Dean, do we really have to look this one in the mouth? Why can't we just be thankful that the guy saved your life and move on? DEAN: Because I can't shake this feeling, that's why.

A miracle isn't enough for Dean, and the truth is darker and more horrifying than Sam can accept. As he uncovers more and more of the facts of just how Roy is supposedly healing people, he tearfully apologizes to Dean, and they work together to find a way to stop it from happening again. Someone is controlling a reaper, literally trading one life for another. Chuck must've LOVED this episode of his favorite show. It nails all his favorite themes:

DEAN: You never should've brought me here. SAM: Dean, I was just trying to save your life. DEAN: But, Sam, some guy is dead now because of me. SAM: I didn't know.

Ignorance of the truth didn't stop them from becoming entangled in this mess, though. Just like it hasn't stopped them from becoming entangled in every other cosmic mess they've stumbled across over the succeeding 14 seasons. Sam believed it was a miracle, and his faith had blinded him to the truth-- or at least made him want to believe, motivated by the results at Dean's miraculous healing. It's the same faith that led him in early s11 to want to believe his visions were coming from God, that maybe his visions that had plagued him in early seasons were being used for good now-- and with the intervention of Billie in 11.02 when those visions began, it's interesting how the solution that actually saved his life in that circumstance technically came from what she said to him about being "unclean in the biblical sense."

Reapers and their powers and limitations (clean hands!), and their knowledge of the Bigger Picture that Billie herself won't be able to see until she dies and is resurrected with the mantle of Death, have their beginnings in the mythology right here, enslaved to the will of a mortal woman who believed she could make choices about who deserved to live and who deserved to die based on her own corrupted sense of morality.

Even when the concept of Death is introduced in 5.10, he's presented as "lesser" than what he truly is by virtue of Lucifer having bound him to his will for the purposes of the apocalypse, and as merely one of the Four Horsemen equal to War, Famine, and Pestilence. In 5.21, we learn what he's "supposed to be." Practically an equal to God, with the power over all life and death. It's not really until 13.05 that we learn the truth about just how powerful Billie has become, and yet what her limitations still are. We begin to see one side of this massive cosmic chess match, all leading up to the biggest revelation of them all in 14.20.

Back to 1.12 again... (sorry it's impossible not to be continually distracted by the theme spiral here). Dean also is uncomfortable for the first time over the potential for The Lord to be eyeballing him specifically, which is a feeling he's gonna truly grow into throughout s4 "I don't like being singled out at birthday parties, let alone by God," right up through the showdown at the end of 14.20.

DEAN: Why? Why me? Out of all the sick people, why save me? ROY: Well, like I said before, the Lord guides me. I looked into your heart, and you just stood out from all the rest. DEAN: What did you see in my heart? ROY: A young man with an important purpose. A job to do. And it isn't finished.

Throughout the episode, they believe it's Roy controlling the reaper and making the choices about who lives and dies, but he was literally blind to the fact it was Sue Ann. He was as much a victim in all of this as the people he believed he was healing, that he believed he had been touched by God to impart new life to. But knowing the full truth, Dean has to stop someone from being healed that even HE believes deserves to be saved, to be spared the suffering of a life cut short by an inoperable brain tumor, after learning an innocent man would die in her place. No matter how much he might feel that Layla didn't deserve that fate, he also doesn't believe the man who'd been protesting Roy's healing ministry deserves to die just for that fact, either.

SUE ANN: I just don't understand. After everything we've done for you. After Roy healed you. I'm just very very disappointed Dean DEAN stares at her, saying nothing. SUE ANN: You can let him go. I'm not gonna press charges. The Lord will deal with him as he sees fit. SUE ANN leaves. The cops turn to DEAN. COP 1: We catch you round here again son, we'll put the fear of God in you, understand?

Once again, in text, Sue Ann is unwittingly labeled "God." It's not God's wrath Dean fears, but Sue Ann's, knowing his defiance has likely turned him from worthy of healing to unworthy of living. Now this has moved beyond idealistically wanting to stop someone from playing god with people's lives right back to the immediate need to stop them before someone else becomes the next victim. And all of their choices-- Dean not being able to walk away, not being able to look the other way, discovering the full horrific truth of how he himself had been brought back from the brink of death, led them to this juncture where it truly felt like they had no other choice but to stop the monster. It literally became a life and death matter for Dean.

I still find it fascinating that as a result of their actions and choices in this episode, the reaper who'd been enslaved to Sue Ann's will was freed when Sam crushed the talisman that kept him bound. I find that highly amusing in retrospect, that while Dean was literally touched by an incarnation of Death several times in this episode, Sam effectively committed services rendered to the Cosmic Order.

We've learned so much about all of this over the years, as well-- the need for balance, order in the universe, and so many of those lessons have come from Death directly. Dean learns some of this firsthand in 6.11, for example, when he takes on Death's job for a day (or at least the life-and-death side of his job, now that we know so much more about his knowledge and understanding of creation as a whole). We learn even more through Billie, and her constant reminders that what's dead should stay dead, and through Billie's reapers once she becomes Death. 13.19 reminds us, through a story about the consequences of killing reapers, just how tenuous the course of cosmic events can be, and what the universe does to self-correct when the balance tilts too far in one direction. It's a lesson Tessa began to teach way back in 4.15, in an episode where Dean once again saves the life of a reaper (not only unwittingly protecting the cosmic balance, but literally stopping the breaking of a seal and staving off the apocalypse for at least another day, and that entire episode, that entire case, only happened through the unwitting guidance of them to the case by Cas-- still operating under Heaven’s orders and pretending to be Bobby sending them to that town to investigate...).

It has always felt to me that the show has subtly revealed more about the truth of the cosmos through death and Death than anything else. And that's on full display now in 1.12. Sue Ann's lies of omission about Roy's "powers," her manipulation of circumstance and her ensnarement of a reaper to do her will, choosing who lives and dies and literally "playing God," is it really any wonder to find out that Chuck has attempted to do the same on the highest cosmic scale from the start? He is a writer, after all, writing the entire story of the universe even as the universe fights to tell its own story. It's only by looking to the center and seeing the truth of the entire picture that they can free themselves from that fate, break the spell that's held them captive to Chuck's narrative and this endless cycle of sacrifice.

Heck I still love this episode. So much that I’ve let the next three episodes play out in the background... This is the entire spiral of the story played out in miniature, wrapped into a single episode.

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twodudesandamovie · 5 years ago

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Brokeback Mountain Review

In lights of the recent Academy Awards, Eric nominated one of the more famous Oscar snubs in Brokeback mountain. Both Alex and Eric also were interested in how we look at LGBTQIA+ movies today as opposed to 15 years ago. Among the things discussed post-review were how Brokeback Mountain wouldn’t be controversial today, and how it was really a common love story with a twist. Alex's Review: With ample amounts of dread, I dove into this over two hour long Lil Nas X origin story. Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger's characters seem to have no real jobs and instead aimlessly move sheep from Point A to Point B for no fucking reason and get paid for it. I guess maybe this is what being a cowboy entailed, but I assumed you became noted as a cowboy by your big hat combined with a denim jacket/jeans. Who could say really. Their relationship starts out on a confusing note, where you feel uncomfortable as to the willingness of both parties, but eventually you get to see a very complicated narrative form about what it was like to be secretly gay in 1963. The parts of the film that involve herding sheep are actually very entertaining, to have a peek into a lifestyle of a man who has to be able to pick up an entire sheep. I do not want or think I will ever need that ability, but I digress. The movie itself, although dreadfully long, hit on a lot of complicated emotions. Trying to follow three or more unsuccessful relationships throughout the course of the movie felt emotionally taxing at times, but not necessarily in a way that I could not relate to. At the end of the day, it sort of is just a complicated love story, but with a twist on it. Not unheard of in film, but I've never had to experience it told in this form. Usually, there's a "taking two girls to the same dance" kind of humor to it all. Eric and I talked about how we were interested to see the movie post 2005, where the stigma of homosexuality is no longer prevalent in society. That being said, the movie felt like its overall message was sort of missed, if it actually had a message. However, the movie's goal to hit me on an emotional level was extremely successful. I went from not caring about the characters and very confused about the purpose of their work or why they could not foster a single healthy relationship, I ended being surprised I had somehow burnt through 135 minutes and very sad Jake and Heath did not get to live their best lives. Although I think it was a actually a REALLY good movie on a lot of levels, I wouldn't say I necessarily enjoyed the film. It is surely the highest rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes I have seen in the past decade that is not a comedy or animated, the entire sentiment was sort of lost on me, because in 2020, the year of our lord, I now have shame that I am straight. Funny how time works. Alex's rating: 7/10

Eric’s Review: Growing up, Brokeback Mountain was of course known as “the gay cowboy movie.” Looking back, that summary was so minimizing for a movie of this excellence, but that’s what 14-year-old me knew it as. That shortsighted synopsis carried with me to this day, I’m not proud of it, but that’s what it stuck in my head as. It generated tons of controversy when it came out in 2005. Primordial fuck-noodles like Rush Limbaugh and Don Imus weren’t short on homophobic remarks of Brokeback, and the owner of the Utah Jazz even pulled it from his movie theatre’s. Every conservative with a mouth cavity couldn’t contain their uproar. Then it was snubbed at the Oscars. Crash won Best Picture instead of Brokeback Mountain, it shouldn’t have hurt this movie’s legacy, but it did. Crash seems more deeply-ingrained in my memory than Brokeback Mountain, and maybe because society at that time wasn’t ready for a movie quite like this. We put it in a box and never let it out. After watching, I deeply felt that it didn’t matter what Jack or Ennis’ sexual orientation’s were (as it shouldn’t), it was a love story about two exceedingly lonely human’s trapped in a society that wouldn’t accept them. Fast-forward 30-40 years from when the movie was set, and it didn’t seem like much had changed. I don’t think Crash deserved Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain, but am I angry that it happened? Not really. Awards are decided by those that vote on them (no shit), and that particular group of people felt Crash was the better movie. C’est la vie. I usually don’t enjoy dwelling on plot in my reviews but I owe it to the reader to say what this movie is about since so many people refer to it as “the gay cowboy movie.” Two men, Jack Twist (played by Jake Gylenhaal) and Ennis Del Ray (played by Heath Ledger), show up at a trailer in Wyoming asking for work for the summer. A jack-of-all-trades (including being a jackass) named Joe needs someone to keep an eye on his sheep for him up in Brokeback Mountain, so he sends them up there to do so with a horse, some guns, and some cans of beans. As they spend time on the scenic heart-swelling Brokeback Mountain, they fall in love. But it’s the early 60s, and as they prepare to go back down the mountain, they know they can’t carry out their romance in the narrow-minded rural landscape of their country towns. As Ennis points out, people get killed for that. This act ends in Jack and Ennis having a fist fight, as emotionally repressed men tend to do. Focus-in on blood Jack gets on his shirt and save this for later. Post-tryst, Ennis gets married and Jack is a rodeo boy making passes at bull-tamers. But then Ennis gets a postcard one day. The screenplay does a wonderful job seamlessly transitioning time as they carry out their romance over the years. They’d tell their wives they were going on “fishing trips,” when they were really going to the mountains for some whiskey and love-making. We can tell Ennis truly does love his wife Alma (played by Michelle Williams) at the start of their relationship. They have two kids, but the kids cause quite a strain on their marriage. And as the years go by, Ennis’ commitment issues due to his parents abandoning him as a child rear their ugly head. Jack marries a fellow rodeo girl in Texas named Laureen (played by Anne Hathaway), but their relationship is more of a business transaction. She approaches him to engage in some tumbleweed-rodeo-secks. She just wants a kid and a husband to help in the machinery business. This is okay with Jack and their marriage lasts, even with Jack’s infidelities. Ennis’ doesn’t. Alma knows about Ennis and Jack’s relationship and they grow apart over the years. Ennis’ commitment issues aren’t exclusive to Alma, though. As the film progresses, we see he applied this to every relationship in his life: his future girlfriend, his daughter’s, and even Jack. It’s why their relationship ultimately fails. Jack had dreams of living in the Wyoming country and being a cattle rancher with Ennis, but Ennis often laughed at the notion. Ennis remembers a time when his dad showed him a dead body of a gay man beaten to death. It’s hard to say if he’s ashamed of their relationship, or just scared. Even when he breaks down to Jack and exclaims: “YOU MADE ME LIKE THIS!” The audience knows he doesn’t really mean it, he’s just a scared Wyoming cowboy with commitment issues. The last act starts with Ennis attempting to mail Jack a postcard, as that’s how they used to communicate (I really do love how much more romantic a postcard or a letter can be than a text), he gets a return to sender that says “deceased.” Ennis calls Laureen and talks to her for the first time in his life. She knows he was one of Jack’s lover’s and seems slightly annoyed but at peace with it. She gives him a bogus story about how a tire popped and Jack drowned in his own blood, but Ennis knows he was beaten to death for being gay. His whole bitter-tough-cowboy facade crumbles, as it only could with Jack, and Ennis and Laureen have an honest moment reminiscing over the man they both loved. We could tell Laureen’s relationship with Jack was no longer transactional, as they aged together and learned to love each other. She tells Ennis he was cremated and that Jack always wanted his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain, and that he should go visit his parents. When Ennis arrives, we immediately know the family dynamic: Jack had a typical tough-exterior-tobacco-spitting farmer dad, but a sweet gentle mom where Jack may have gotten the familial love and understanding that Ennis never got. He used to tell his dad that he wanted to buy a home near him with Ennis and help with the ranch. Even through the dad’s tough exterior and his insistence on Jack’s ashes being scattered at the family plot and not at Brokeback Mountain, we can tell he’s truly a father who misses his son. There is something fragile to him, something so melancholy that it expels a grieving scent throughout the home. Jack’s mom tells Ennis that she left his room as it was when he was a child. Ennis goes up there in the most heartbreaking scene of the movie, and sees Jack’s roots. Then he wanders over to the closet and finds the shirt Jack was wearing the last day they were on Brokeback Mountain. The blood from their fight is still on the sleeve. It’s a symbol of how Ennis pushed away everyone he’s ever loved, but especially Jack, the love of his life and only one who ever truly understood him. He takes the shirt, not only as a memorial to Jack, but as a reminder of how he’s treated his loved ones in his life. In the last scene, Ennis’ daughter visits him. Previously, we learned Ennis was largely absent from her life. Ennis doesn’t even know who she’s currently dating when she visits him, and then she tells him she’s getting married. At first, Ennis wants to cling to his cold exterior, the shell it seems he’s reverted into even more since Jack’s death. But we see him finally shed this shell, as he tells his daughter he’ll be at the wedding. Maybe he heard Jack’s voice in his head reminding him to be a bit more brave, as after Ennis’ daughter leaves, he walks over to his dresser where Jack’s bloody shirt hangs. Cut to credits and let me cry. The first point that caught my eye about directorial choices in this movie was the stark juxtaposition of the dream-like Wyoming mountains and the depressing domestication of Wyoming and Texas rural home-life. The resplendent colors we see in the mountains and the off-whites and browns we see in Wyoming and Texas are purposeful and are painted with sincere artistry. Ang Lee had a balloon and he grabbed it with his gentle directorial touch then smeared it with peanut butter and sent it off into the clouds. The acting was downright phenomenal. I believe this was the first movie where Heath Ledger was taken seriously as an actor and not a Hollywood heartthrob. It was pre-Dark Knight and he may have never gotten that role if it weren’t for this movie. I know I pointed it out in my Little Women review, but the talent it takes to change your accent like that is befuddling. Ledger is Australian and is talking in a down-home Wyoming drawl. His portrayal of Ennis is the beating heart of this movie. I’d like to say he was a strong and silent type, but really he was weak and silent, sort of a metaphor for the way our society treated sexuality back then. I could review each actor’s performance, but the truth is: it was utterly superb all around. Only with this kind of acting and screenwriting can a movie achieve such character depth and nuance. Rating: 9.5/10. One of the best film’s of the twenty-first century. Did this deserve the Oscar over Crash? Fuck yes it did. I liked Crash but it wasn’t the all-around masterpiece Brokeback Mountain was. It’s also insane to think how far LGBTQ+ has come in 15 years, as I think Brokeback Mountain wouldn’t even be close to as controversial today as it was back then. Do I think it might’ve won the Oscar? Probably not. The academy hasn’t evolved much since then. R.I.P. Heath Ledger too, it was so sad watching a deceased actor at the top of his talent in one of his best roles.

#brokeback mountain #heath ledger #jake gylenhall #anne hathaway #michelle williams #wyoming #texas #cowboy #lgbtq #lgbtqiia+#rodeo #oscars #academy awards #crash

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gaygwenpool · 6 years ago

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give me literally All Headcanon for that post for Mysterio p l e a s e (also, for the one of my choosing, whether or not you hc he commentates movies while watching them or insists on ABSOLUTE SILENCE)

:D!!! my sweet boy, BLESS you nonnie!

◉ whether or not you hc he commentates movies while watching them or insists on ABSOLUTE SILENCE IS A FANTASTIC QUESTION IVE BEEN LITERALLY LAUGHIN ABOUT IT ALL DAY THANK YOU

Both actually! if you try to comment on the plot or react to an actor, immediately you get rudely shushed with the most scorching glare because how DARE you, focus on the ~ART~ you heathen!!! but also the Moment a slightly more advanced special effect takes place, he is all hoppin on his seat excitedly explaining how it’s done and how genius that is, how would he improve on it and how another movie dealt with it, the dialogue for the big plot reveal goin on the screen be damned :’D Also as the movie advances, he starts gettin more and more into long passionate rants either complaining about the lack/surfeit of respect the creators got, how arrogant this one actor is and how he doesnt respect his cues and so on….. lots of the stuff he says is actually pretty interesting but yeah, if you counted on just enjoying the movie, tough luck

He really likes watchin movies with people but prefers to see the movie first on his own at least once, to really focus on it. Often, he will watch a movie in the livin room while others do their own thing and he will comment on the good scenes, however if you agreed to actually watch somethin with him and got distracted during screening or worse, was on your phone?? you are dead to him. (and you can expect some …unpleasant surprises in the upcoming days)

im gonna put the rest under the readmore cuz this is gettin long ^^;;

[ask meme]

☾ - sleep headcanon

Beck is the UGLIEST sleeper, he is the worst. He snores loudly, drools, moves, KICKS, mumbles and has the most vivid wildest dreams. (it happens rarely but sometimes he’ll dream about somethin, wake up and for a while be convinced it actually happened, you know like when you dream about arguing with your friend and being mad at them the next day etc) On the other hand, sometimes, all his features relax, he loses the scowl and looks surprisingly peaceful and happy… oh and he hogs the blanket.

His sleep schedule is a fuckin mess, he is able to go like the whole week on few hours of sleep total when he is workin on a project but other days he gets grumpy if he doesnt get his 10h of beauty sleep every night..

★ - sad headcanon

uhhh i dont actually have much sad stuff for this boy yet, he brings me so much joy that i dont have the heart for that :’’’D (also i like him and chameleon team ups and Dmitri brings enough angst to the table for the both of them)

He really actually died that one time and went to hell (though in Patchwork, im not gonna keep everythin about that Daredevil plot, i really like Mysti being dangerous and actually a worthy opponent but most of it was too fucked up for my tastes…) and well… it wasnt great :’D it mostly targeted his insecurities about his own talent he buried so deep he almost stopped believing them, the lack of respect and recognition and him willingly throwing away any chance he had at those by becoming Mysterio and of course everything that happened with his ex Brick Johnson…

☆ - happy headcanon

blease consider: autistic Quentin !!!!!!

☠ - angry/violent headcanon

he doesnt have a hair trigger temper like Ock or Electro but Damn does this boy holds grudges over literally everything :’D lots of overcomplicated, carefully crafted revenge plots just for eating the last yogurt in the fridge… He gets frustrated easily, getting snappy and rude, especially if people are not listening to him, but it’s often about the pettiest things, the bigger stuff doesnt affect him as much.

He doesnt enjoy violence for the sake of violence but he is not above it either, everythin is allowed for his big performance…… he can be quite a good n friendly boss if you listen to his orders and work well but can just as much set you up to die in an explosion, all while smiling and patting you on the back…

✿ - Sex headcanon

my Mysterio is gay as hell but also somewhere on the ace spectrum… not sex-repulsed but definitely not a high drive either (he feels oddly smug about that, like look at those fools trying to get into each others’ pants, how pathetic, *I* in the meantime have time for things that Truly matter, like recreating every Xmen battle ever with only straws and gum.)

■ - Bedroom/house/living quarters headcanon

listen, i basically grew up on those “the entire villain team lives in a single place - shenanigans ensue” fics so im not givin up on the Sinister Six HQ, okay. (Chameleon usually finds them a suitable house with enough rooms, as luxurious as their current fonds allow, and he prides himself in putting in lil personal touches that he knows the sin six members would enjoy, for Quentin it’s often very obscure movies, rare memorabilia from his favorite ones, stuff for his illusions, a stolen Oscar…)

When these are unavailable (aka superheroes got them busted) or when he aint in the middle of a crime job, he usually stays at one of the Cham’s safehouses (with or without him) and in a few of them, he already has his own dedicated room with some of his fav old tricks on display. Speakin of which, he has a BIG warehouse with most of his setups and stages or at least models. He doesnt really plan on reusing them but he likes having them all together

♡ - romantic headcanon

((jakjgkfajga im a loser and ended up shippin him with Chameleon and everythin i’ve thought off so far is EMBARRASSING AND CHEESY AS FUCK :’’’’D so im gonna leave those for another time))

Beck being an Extra Bitch he is, lives for the Big Romantic Gestures like in the movies and he often gets so caught up in the prep he.. kinda disregards the person he was makin it for, the making of the effect means more for him than the actual sentiment behind it…

(ok maybe One mysteleon hc, while it pains him, Quentin knows Chammy Would Not Enjoy being a target of such grand display… he gotta be more subtle, creating a scene where he could play in disguise and dupe some superheroes mayhaps…)

♥ - family headcanon

like 99% of the villains and their grandma, his family wasnt great, mum left when he was very young with another guy, his dad considered his passion for movies a great waste of time and let lil Quentin know how disappointed he was at every occasion both vocally and physically.. After the first few broken models and ripped tapes with stop animations that took weeks to complete, Quentin stopped tryin to impress and convince his father about the greatness of special effects.. He joined a boxing club and learnt some other martial arts but as soon as he could, he left to join a proper film school which led to his father dropping both financing and all contact with him.

☮ - friendship headcanon

Im not even gonna start about Chameleon’s and Mysterio’s friendship because that shit is canon and i cry about it on a daily basis.

Despite his penchant for Dramatics, the constant Need for Validation and Backstabbing and other Throwing Shit in the Fan just cuz it was narratively better, Quentin actually has quite a few friends? He gets along quite well with everyone from the Sin Six and many other villains and even has some ‘normie’ pals from the film industry or just neighborhood…

One of his most surprising is actually Doc Ock with whom he gets along even outside of business partners/partners in crime basis. Though maybe not so surprising, Mysterio is quite vocal with his praises when he feels like they are deserved and Doc as well actually admires and recognizes Beck’s talent while it is still enough specific for him not to feel threatened in his superiority (once he tried to improve them and show them to Quentin with his usual arrogance and flair and that was the biggest fight they ever had and they werent on speaking terms for a loooong while after that… Oct cant stand not having the last word so he still modified some of Mysterio’s tricks even after that but he actually cares about their friendship enough to not tell Mysti about it.. Not like he would ever admit that to Quentin’s fishbowl face)

♦ - quirks/hobbies headcanon

like 99% of everythin Mysti does is Somehow related to special effects/film or the Drama in general but my boy is a nerd in general, theater, books, comics, manga, roleplaying games, you name it. He especially likes flashy stuff obviously.

He really enjoys learning new techniques and figuring out how to make something happen. When he was younger, he was viciously against CGI but later he started to sorta respect it as its own category that needs talent and effort… he still prefers to use the traditional techniques of course :’D (…as traditional as HYPNOTIZING PEOPLE WITH NEURAL GAZ IS)

☯ - likes/dislikes headcanon

He has a very Complicated relationship with the film industry……. on the one hand, he loves the behind the scenes, the rush, the Action…. but on the other hand, he hates it with a fiery passion, everythin from how you get treated like dirt and the pretentious prizes being awarded just for the Big names and hollywood and everythin turning around the money an-…., he has a very long list and it is alphabetized. (While he has a point for many of those complaints, the fact HE himself never got any pretentious award remains probably the main issue…)

he absolutely despises people making fun of D-grade shitty movies in the “this shitty horror is so cheesy and dumb it’s funny and i love it” way, either because the people workin on it were good and trying their best but the money or the producers etc ruined it (his experience) and then it’s an unfair critique or because the creators just didnt try hard enough and that’s even worse in his books and this movie should not get Any Attention much less a positive one..

he likes complaining and being snarky :’D he enjoys the challenge Spidey sets for them and loves playing tag with him (even when he loses..) He loves the prep before his big shows both alone or with help, the adrenalin when actually pulling it off and when he discusses it with Cham in details. He lives for the applause and recognition and ~Fame~

▼ - childhood headcanon

not as much as hc as adopting the Webspinners’ aproach: he spent most of his childhood daydreaming, hiding himself behind the stories and special effects….. not many friends aside from Betsy but he didnt really need them, he wanted audience not pals.. In the film school he started to be more social and communicative, he met Brick there and they started goin out…

∇ -. old age/aging headcanon

hhhhh im conflicted, there are like 3 comics where Q is retired because he has enough of superheroes beating him up and he Really doesnt want to go back to it.. I cant see him actually givin up on it totally tho… idk idk

♒ - cooking/food headcanon

Like with sleep, it oscillates wildly. He can forget to eat when he is hypefocusin on a particular project (one single chip suffices as nourishment) or he just subsides on ramen for a month but on the other hand he is quite a capable cook. Nothing Extraordinary but he can make enough diverse simple meals. When livin with Chammy, they both enjoy eating out so they do that as much as the budget allows (so not that much, illusions arent cheap…)

☼ - appearance headcanon

im still thinkin about that one post that described Quentin as a “toenail of a man” and i couldnt agree more :’D very short, pig nose, hairstyle à la Spock, stocky built and weirdly beefy, like this guy’s thigh is bigger than some heads… (for a nerd he is surprisingly strong what the fuck)

All Mysterios are Good Mysterios but my preferred ones have a bigass ROUND fishbowl, the longest cape and somethin as a belt, preferably sash..

ൠ - random headcanon

he actually isnt….. that great of an actor nor director nor creator………………….. (im sorry baby i love you but it’s tru….) he unconsciously copies a lot of stuff he has seen elsewhere, he follows overused tropes, his work is packed with cliches and cheesy over the top pathos… his special effects mastery n creativity with workin out his illusions is absolutely INCREDIBLE dont get me wrong, it’s just… the plot/ideas…….. at first he lived in denial about this still believing 100% his work is Wonderful and Perfect and he is just a misunderstood author… later he decided to embrace it and he is livin the life now :D

#mysterio #sinister six #quentin beck #chameleon #marvel #spidey #anon #ask meme #patchwork #thank you again!!!!!!! have an infodump!! :D #k

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chiseler · 8 years ago

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YOU MUST BECOME CALIGARI!

So at its heart, is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari an anti-authoritarian call for rebellion, an object lesson in conformity, or an allegory about how we are all mere pawns lost in a culture gone completely mad? That’s up to you to decide. What’s interesting is that nearly a century after it was first released, the film’s back story remains such a swirl of misinformation, conflicting memories, urban legends, shaky record keeping and contradictory ego trips it’s impossible to pin down any solid truth. How the script originated, how the production went, who decided to tack on the framing story at the last minute, what the framing story means, who decided to go with the Expressionist design, and what sort of critical and box office reception the film received in 1920 are still the subject of fierce debate today. In a way, and aptly so, Caligari’s history is as much an insane jangle of crooked angles and unbalanced teetering images as the film itself, a history as unreliable as the film’s narrative. What we can say for sure is that it was the first German Expressionist film ever made (if accidentally), the first straight horror film ever made (ditto), and remains one of the most influential pictures ever released, leaving an indelible mark across a surprising spectrum of genres. Given the events of the past few months, Caligari is also more relevant now than ever.

Co-writer Carl Mayer claimed the idea of a mad despot and a hypnotized subject slavishly and unconsciously trained to carry out his delusional and murderous orders arose from Mayer’s military experiences during WWI. Co-writer Hans Janowitz claims the idea of a string of murders centered around a carnival came from something he witnessed at a Berlin fair in 1913. Both men, neither of whom had written a screenplay before, agree that the initial inspiration came after seeing a sideshow hypnotist at a carnival they visited together in 1918. Others have pointed out the story bore more than a passing resemblance to Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Feather,” while others have noted the clear influence of the then-popular Grand Guignol scene in Paris.

Until you get to the twist(s) that close the film (giving credence to the Grand Guignol theory), the story is a fairly straightforward murder mystery.

Two young friends, Francis and Alan (Friedrich Feher and Hans Heinrich von Twardowski), while jockeying for the affections of Jane (Lil Dagover), visit a local traveling carnival. There they take in the act of the mysterious, top-hatted and wild-haired Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss). As they watch, Caligari awakens his somnambulist subject, Cesare (the great Conrad Veidt) who, under hypnosis, answers questions from the audience. When Alan jokingly asks when he will die, Cesare responds “Before dawn.” And wouldn’t you know it? He was right!

After Alan and a couple other people are foundd stabbed to death, Francis decides to do a little detective work of his own, which brings him back to Caligari. In case you’re some kind of plebe who hasn’t seen it yet (what’s wrong with you?), I’ll stop there.

All this is wrapped in a framing device (later borrowed for Forrest Gump) in which Francis tells his story after the fact to a stranger on a park bench. The less said about that the better, too. None of it really matters all that much, anyway, given the film isn’t remembered for its storyline. What matters are the visuals.

When producers Rudolf Meinert and Erich Pommer bought the script from the fledgling screenwriters, they weren’t thinking of making an Expressionist art house film. Despite later claims by Janowitz, there was nothing about the set design or look of the film in the original script. Meinert and Pommer simply saw it as an entertaining melodrama with a twist ending that could me made on the cheap. Germany was still rebuilding after the war, and so money and resources were tight. Given there was no budget for sets, electricity was being rationed, and the film would be shot entirely on a cramped soundstage, the only real option was to have the actors play out their roles in front of painted backdrops.

Although Fritz Lang was originally slated to direct, he was too tied up with other projects. Instead the producers went with the fairly unremarkable Robert Wiene (a man who is generally given very little credit for anything in all the Caligari debates). Although nearly everyone involved took credit after the fact, it’s unknown who finally decided to go with the three set painters they hired, or who gave them the go-ahead to get a little nuts.

Ironically, the German Expressionist movement had played a major role in painting and theater long before Caligari came along. So long, in fact, that a number of art critics had already declared it a dead and cliched style before the film went into production. Although a very popular theater style in Weimar era Germany, the fact it had never been adapted for the cinema can likely be attributed to the perception film, still in its infancy, was a gutter art form aimed at the unwashed masses, who found simple banal realism far easier to understand.

Caligari was unlike anything movie audiences had seen in a commercial film before. Apart from the framing scenes and a couple isolated shots of Francis and Jane in a normal house, the body of the film deliberately plays like a madman’s fever dream. The painted townscape is filled with curved and pointed biuildings teetering at dangerous angles, almost as if they were alive and shrieking. Roads twist and spiral to nowhere. The perspectives are deliberately mismatched and inconsistent, with the props and sets sometimes being too large for the characters, at others too small. The trees and grass look like knife blades. Doors and windows are not square. Out of simple economic necessity given the lighting limitations, clearly artificial rays of light and distorted shadows were painted onto the backdrops. A carousel in the carnival sequence spins at an unlikely angle. Thanks to the tiny soundstage, in order to get a few shots the cameraman was forced to tilt the camera, only multiplying the effect of the already unbalanced sets. Even Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt, both of whom had appeared in Expressionist plays, adopted exaggerated gestures and designed their own extreme makeup (heavy whiteface and blackened, deeply sunken eyes) to more fully fit into the operating aesthetic. Atop it all and only deepening the sense of disjointedness and paranoia, the film’s original sscore consisted of discordant passages from early 20th century avant garde composers like Arnold Schoenberg.

The overall goal of the film was to draw audiences into the mind of a lunatic, though who the real lunatic is remains the subject of even more debate. As roundly denounced as the frame story was, both by critics and those involved in the production, the producers argued it was necessary so as to not scare audiences away completely. In the end I do think it works as a way of pointing up the schizoid reality of most of the film, though whether it ultimately undercuts the effect is again up to you.

Funny thing is, as influential as Caligari would become, the radical and transgressive style really was the simple result of economics, or lack thereof, much like having no budget would become such a defining stylistic element in the films of Roger Corman, Ed Wood, Ray Dennis Steckler, W. Lee Wilder and countless other indie filmmakers.

While just how well Caligari did both at home and abroad is still being argued, its impact on German cinema was almost immediate. Although there were only a tiny handful of strictly Expressionist films that tried to push things as far as Caligari had, elements of the Expressionist style—the deep, elongated shadows, the distorted sets, off-kilter camera angles and the later addition of dolly shots—were adopted for a number of significant films, most with much larger budgets. Caligari’s influence was inescapable two years later in Murnau’s Nosferatu. Would-be Caligari director Fritz Lang would cop a move or two for not only 1927’s Metropolis, but 1931’s M and his Mabuse films as well. Carl Dreyer’s 1933 wierdie Vampyr owed as much if not more to Caligari than Murnau. And Germans aside, even from the few stills that remain, Tod Browning was clearly channeling Caligari in 1927’s lost masterpiece London After Midnight, from the storyline down to Lon Chaney’s makeup, which was unashamedly borrowed from Krauss’. Browning would again offer a few nods to Caligari (via Murnau) in 1931’s Dracula, a movie whose style would then go on to inform much of what followed in the horror films coming out of not only Universal, but RKO, Columbia and Warner Brothers as well.

Then something else happened that would only further solidify Caligari’s mark on American genre movies.

It’s long been argued, and convincingly so, that Caligari was a reflection of the German people’s need to blindly follow a dictator, no matter how utterly insane he might be. In that, it’s said the film presaged the rise of Hitler.

Well, needless to say, Hitler, himself a cinephile with a deep love for lavish American musicals, was not a fan of Caligari, or German Expressionism as a whole. The darkness, the exaggerated angles, the anti-rationality of it all had no place in the Reich, and Expressionist works were declared “Degenerate Art” along with jazz and the avant garde. Seeing what was happening, a number of filmmakers who’d been connected with the Expressionist movement, most notably Lang and Edgar G; Ulmer, decided life might be a bit easier in Hollywood, so packed their bags and fled, bringing their distorted deep shadows, oblique camera angles, and monsters of the psyche along with them.

Even before Lang arrived, his M was already beginning to influence American proto-noir films like Stranger on the Third Floor, which had all of the requisite paranoia, shadows and weird camera angles, as well as Caligari’s unreliable narrator and twist ending (though thanks to the censors the twist had to remain unstated. Ulmer, meanwhile, would go on to make the most visually striking and psychologically harrowing of the Universal horror films, 1934’s The Black Cat. Other Expressionist refugees began working with Val Lewton at RKO, and still others landed at Paramount.

After WWII, as ennui and paranoia settled over the country, it only makes sense that Caligari, an overstylized crime film with an emphasis on a twisted mental state would become such a heavy touchstone for the emerging noir format. It’s no shocker then that both Ulmer and Lang would end up making classic noir films like Detour and Clash by Night. Other directors would attempt to drag audiences deep into the distorted perceptions of an unbalanced mind, and Hitchcock himself would venture into Caligari territory with Spellbound and Stage Fright.

After getting his talons into horror and noir, Dr. Caligari’s sinister influence quickly spread to other genres. You could see it in Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (down to the last minute framing device that comforted audiences but undercut the impact of the central story). It was there in The Residents’ fabled but unfinished epic, Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats? It’s there in the exaggerated set designs of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, in a number of Werner Herzog films and in Chuck Jones and Tex Avery’s zanier Looney Tunes outings.

While there had been talk of a remake or sequel back in the ’30s, the closest anyone came were the cartoonish softcore antics of Stephen Sayadian’s 1989 Dr. Caligari (written by Jerry Stahl and starring the great Fox Harris), and a 2005 remake in which contemporary actors recreated the original film, playing out their scenes in front of green screens of the 1920 painted bacdrops. Was it really necessary? I don’t think so. Not anymore, anyway. Because you take a look around today, in Times Square, on TV, on the Internet or just walking to the post office, and it’s clear that almost a hundred years later, we’re all just living in Caligari’s Cabinet.

by Jim Knipfel

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