#which at the time owned critical role so i saw those actors every week

[erinatactica]

love the voice work you did, it’s great to just listen to Erina and Toshiro banter, blorbos real

awww thank you!! that means a lot! I'm really touched people are enjoying it, it's my first big game so I was REALLY SCARED HAHA!!!

macleod andrews who plays toshiro fucking knocks it out of the park, i love his performance. truly exceptional, he brings the whole thing together. absolute king! in general, though, i could geek out about the p5 actors, titans the lot of them.

toshiro is just like... the I Just Think He's Neat meme.... someone make that pls <3333

[philhoffman]

This week’s Monday Philm is a big one: Capote (2005), dir. Bennett Miller, for which PSH won the Academy Award for Best Actor and swept nearly every other major acting award that year.

It’s hard to write about Capote because I don’t know where to start. It’s one of the first PSH films I saw, but I didn’t fully appreciate it until I’d seen a lot of his other stuff. It’s so vastly different than almost anything else he did before or after. People latch onto the physical and vocal transformation, which is obviously impressive, but there’s really an air about this film that is ineffable yet evident when you watch it. In one scene, Truman says of In Cold Blood, “This is the book I was always meant to write”—and as unconventional as his casting may seem at first, this is one of the films Phil was always meant to make.

In a strange way, the Oscar and all of the awards almost create the opposite of the Streisand Effect for me with Capote. It’s SO well-known and PSH’s most famous and celebrated role and I must see it mentioned somewhere a dozen times every day, so it almost becomes background noise and I forget just how good it is. Then I watch it again and holy shit, it deserved every single one of those accolades. It gets complicated when I think about how much winning the Oscar changed things for Phil and his own mixed feelings about it, but ultimately he gave one of the greatest performances of the 21st century and I’m so glad he was recognized for it.

I watched Infamous (2006) this morning, “the other Truman Capote movie” starring Toby Jones that was released a year after Bennett Miller’s film, just out of curiosity. I enjoyed it—I’m biased towards Phil’s Truman but Jones was really, really charming—but there’s definitely a reason Capote won the acclaim (and it’s not just because it was released first). Production-wise, Capote is far superior. It’s nicer to look at, Danny Futterman’s screenplay is excellent, and PSH’s Truman Capote has more depth. He is so sad and traumatized. Even before Phil, I’ve always been interested in Capote as a writer and the fact that his upbringing is very, very similar to someone close to me (down to the same Alabama county in the same era) so his pain feels very personal. That sadness leaks through every frame of the film—Truman’s, along with the things Phil summoned from within himself.

But Truman is mean, too. He’s mean to Perry. He’s manipulative. That’s where Capote really sets itself apart from Infamous. Jones’ Truman is more flamboyant and fun, which was absolutely true to life, sometimes. And some people have criticized Hoffman’s Truman for being too serious—but I think that darker side is what it’s all about. That’s why Capote would alienate his friends, why he would die of alcoholism at 59, alone. He was capable of cruelty and Perry’s death did crush him in ways no one will ever know and Capote the film gives us just a peak at that mean streak, a hint of what’s to come.

And yet you do love him. It’s the deep sadness that spreads through so many of Phil’s characters, it’s channeling the real Truman himself, it’s knowing how much literal blood and sweat and snot and tears PSH put into this performance, it’s how delicate and beautiful he looks. It’s the way he says things wordlessly, with the tip of his head or an exhale of cigarette smoke, that Infamous required a dozen talking head-style interviews to communicate. Poor Truman.

Once in an interview, talking about Truman and Perry Smith’s relationship, Phil said, “When you die, the grief I will feel will be crushing.” I think about him saying those words a lot. I rarely get into it in depth or in detail here, on this blog, but needless to say his death is often crushing to me. So I really treasure these few hours a week I get to spend time with him on screen. Especially roles like this, where he’s practically unrecognizable—until he takes off his glasses to rub his eyes or make a little pout and there is Phil, our Phil, right here, alive, wonderfully so, and forever. I love cinema. I love stories. I love you, bastard.

[tooktheladdedgbtq]

....and the Oscar goes to.. | Tom Holland X Male!actor reader. 

A/N: this was just something I wrote because I got inspired I guess. Happy Pride everyone!

——————————————

You couldn’t decide whether time was slipping through your fingers too quickly or if this had been the longest night you’d ever experienced.

seconds slowed to a crawl while you tried to gather yourself before it was your turn to take the stage. You were nervous. Not about being at the oscars or presenting for the first time. Not even about being nominated for your leading role in the second installment of a critically acclaimed trilogy. No, you’d been used to these sorts of things, you’d been an actor since you were a very young kid. Starting on television before film, and you even got to hold the Emmy the show had won when you had just turned a teenager.

No, you were nervous about who exactly you’d be presenting to. Of the five nominees and potential winners, only one could cause such an intensive feeling in your chest. Only one could awaken a sense of dread that battled with a feeling of intensive happiness mixed with anticipation, and it was Tom.

You’d known each other for years and had come to fall in love. You’d met as young co-stars on set and eventually grew into an inseparable friendship that progressed into something far more. Neither of you were sure when the feelings started but it felt like they’d always been there and you weren’t exactly complaining.

Your blissfulness with Tom was beautiful but short lived. After almost a year of being official you both agreed to take a break from the relationship. Unbeknownst to Tom you were just agreeing to save face and hadn’t pried for an answer out of fear of being hurt. You just accepted that this was how things were now, and took a step back.

You’d still kept in contact with him. It was hard not to. He was still your best friend. But whether it was the business of work or something a little more awkward, distance grew between you both as the multi-hour long facetime calls and text threads became once-a-week check-ins to just make sure you were alive and okay.

Time had passed, and you didn’t have a clue what you could possibly say to him now. You certainly didn’t want to ruin his special night. But you’d missed him so much and felt like you would implode at the first sign that he’d be interested in getting back together with you. But you also didn’t want to seem desperate or needy if he’d moved on. You didn’t want to slip and say those three words again in the moment.

Father time showed you no mercy as the sand in his hourglass suddenly shifted from a slow-motion drip to a flood. The seconds you’d spent daydreaming of your past with Tom and pondering about the your potential future had passed and left you with little time to gather yourself before presenting. still you shook your hands, arms, and lastly shoulders, putting all your worries aside and waited for introduction from the host.

Before long you’d been counted in to walking on stage, and heard the host over the microphone. “Ladies and Gentlemen, to present the award and introduce the nominees for Best Supporting Actor, please welcome one of this year’s nominees and one of our generation’s greatest talents: Y/F/N Y/L/N.”

The applause erupts from the audience like a revved up engine as you took center but it was nothing compared to the standing ovation you’d receive later on that night when receiving your own award for Best Actor.

You were stood promptly center staged with the towering Oscar statue reflecting onto the black stage floor beneath your feet. Your outfit was alluring and would surely be the next hot topic which is rare for male stars. You looked like a million bucks. Everyone knew it, most of all, Tom.

You smile and wave as you approach the microphone, your teeth shining a blinding white, and wait for a hush from the crowd.

You chuckle lightly as a few hoots and hollers sound out as the cheers subside.

You eye the monitor across the room and start to read, your nerves dying down as your jokes land and laughter echoes around the room.

As you finish the introduction, clips start to show behind you to accompany the names of the nominees as the cameras catch a glimpse of each of their reactions.

You couldn’t help but notice how tough the competition was as each actor was called. Steven Yuen playing a detective in a thrilling murder mystery. John David Washington in a fictional film playing the world’s first black astronaut aiding in the discovery of lovecraftian horrors. Andrew Garfield for his role as a psychotic narcissist and genius businessman. Oscar Issac acting in a sci fi space opera asking questions of existentialism.

Finally, you had to withhold your smile as you called out the last name. He had returned to his Billy Elliot roots being nominated for his role in a astonishing musical romance film. “Tom Holland.” You’d been ecstatic when he’d told you about it as you’d always recommend he tried it again since it made him so happy in his younger years.

You spot him a few rows from the stage, making eye contact with him and wondering if he was thinking about you the way you had done with him earlier. You couldn’t help but notice him squirming in his chair and fidgeting with his hands. Selfishly asking yourself if this wasn’t just about the award but about having you present it to him.

Seeing you here after what felt like an eternity apart and your reunion potentially being the greatest achievement of both your careers. Making it the greatest night of your lives, that is, if you were still together. But you were still best friends. That’s what mattered. So you push your self centered thoughts aside and shoot him a small wave that he returns with a smile and thumbs up. letting you know he was okay and that you could continue as the camera pans back to you capturing your not so hidden giddiness.

This awarded some small oos and aahs from the crowd as your relationship with him had been a wholly celebrated one. especially among your marvel peers.

You’re handed an envelope and statue as the music ends and the applause dies down and you take one final glare into the camera before beginning to open the envelope.

“....and the Oscar goes to,” you take a peek at the crowd and see some of the nominees holding hands with loved ones. others plainly

awaiting your next words with bated breath. The anticipation shone on everyone’s faces. Even those that weren’t nominated. Your not-so-hidden grin giving away the answer mere milliseconds before his name escaped your lips. “Tom Holland!”

Tom shot up with a shared expression of shock and happiness on his face. Pecking his mother on the cheek as she wipes the tears of pride from her eyes. His best mate Harrison gives him a quick embrace and a pat on the back before he moves on to shake hands with the director and smile at everyone cheering him on as he gradually moves toward the stage still completely baffled at the victory.

As he walks towards you in his pink pastel colored suit and brown leather dress shoes you can’t help but swell with an overwhelming feeling of joy having been here to share this career defining moment with him. You thought about how far you’d both come to get here and almost started tearing up remembering all you’d been through together.

He skipped up the miniature steps and blanketed you with both arms. You didn’t want it to end as you hadn’t felt it in a while. You threw your arms around his neck and he tightens his hold around your torso. Before you could even process them, your blunt thoughts spill out as whispers.

“I’m so incredibly proud of you. you deserve this and so much more.” you hear a small chuckle escape him as he responds. “I am trying not to cry y’know mate?” a wolf whistle comes from the crowd as you apologize for being so sappy and before he can tell you off for it you hand him his award and shove him off toward the microphone.

As he takes center stage you stand off to the side to watch him give his acceptance speech. He pauses and takes a second to gather himself before he starts talking straight from his heart with nothing prepared.

“Um, Wow. I really can’t believe this is really happening and I probably still won’t believe it happened tomorrow. Just.. wow.” his words were filled with that charmingly British accent you’d come to love so much.

“First I would like to thank my mother, without whom of course, I would not be here. I would like to thank the academy and everyone who worked on this movie from the producers and camera men, make-up and costumes, to our wonderful writers, composer, back up dancers and vocalists, and of course my friends, my co-star and the director Damien Chazelle.” whom he gestures to sitting in the second row. “I share this with all of you and I can’t thank you enough for awarding me with the opportunity to create something I love so much.”

He thanks the other nominees before turns towards you to end his speech. you felt your heart in your hands when you saw his big brown puppy eyes dart in your direction with an intensive glare of admiration.

“last but most importantly, I want to thank the inspiration for all of the love songs I sung in the film and the reason I decided to take the role. The person standing here on my right.”

Your jaw drops and your eyes widen when his words hit you like a speeding semi. you realize that he’d just called you his muse in so many words. the inspiration behind the love songs in the film no less. Meaning that with every lovestruck note his character sung he was reminded of you. All that time spent worrying if the distance between you two would cause him to forget about you, or if he’d maybe moved on and found somebody else. But no such thing had happened. He was relating his character’s longing in the film to his longing for you this entire time and that made your heart do a backflip.

You blush and cover your still ajar mouth with your fist whilst trying not to pay attention to the crowd who’s attention was fully focused on you.

He takes a deep sigh before continuing. “Y/N you’re not only the reason I took this role, but you’re the reason I was able to play it with such sincerity. You’ve been a unwavering beacon of support throughout my career in general but here you really gave me the inspiration for something special. He faces the audience again as the all follow his words with whispers of how adorable you both were. “from reading lines together in the middle of the night, to keeping me company when i’m on the brink of a meltdown.” It was all true and it only made you miss you relationship more and you found it difficult to hold back your tears.

“Y/N is the kind of best friend everybody needs, the kind of partner everybody deserves, and the person I’m so incredibly lucky to have known for so long. ..and I still can’t believe he never figured out the lyrics were all about him, It was kind of obvious-” the audience laughed you’re so close to swooning as he turns toward you again. “But, with all my heart, I love you, Y/N. Always will.” you feel as if you’re floating.

He shifts to the crowd one last time to say a final thank you before you both walk off stage one arm around one another’s shoulders. You have a short but sweet conversation backstage with him where reassures you that everything he said on stage was true and completely unscripted. He wants to talk more but knows your category is coming soon so he asks for a later opportunity and you agree before returning to your seat in the crowd.

The rest of the night flew by with you winning the award for best actor and receiving the biggest applause of the night. Tom joined in the standing ovation. You thanked everybody involved in making the film, the academy, and squeezed a little joke directed towards Tom that garnered a shared laugh from both him and the audience. You were the last award of the night and after the celebrations it was time to return to your place, where Tom was waiting for you. Wanting to talk about everything that had happened not just tonight but everything leading up to it. He also hoped you’d kept a spot open in your heart for him to return to.

[jazy3]

Free Guy Review

!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

If you haven’t seen the movie Free Guy (2021) stop reading right now! Drop what you’re doing and go get yourself a ticket! You’ll thank me later!

I loved this movie! I saw it this weekend for the second time because it’s that good! I first saw the trailer on YouTube a while back and then when theatres reopened a few weeks ago I saw the trailer again and my interest was piqued. I had high hopes for this movie based on the fun looking trailer, the premise, the cast, and the sense of fun and escapism that the movie seemed to embody and it did not disappoint. It’s always nice when you have high hopes for something and it meets or exceeds your expectations.

Free Guy is just such a fun and joyous movie. Never taking itself too seriously, packed with lots of heart, cool cameos, full of gaming and pop culture references, and it’s fueled by a unique concept that is well executed. There are just so many things I loved about this movie! It was a ton of fun to watch and the actors clearly had a blast making it. During the movie I kept trying to figure out where I knew most of the actors from but couldn’t place them. When I got home, I googled it and I instantly realized why. The roles are just so different and the actors embody their characters so completely you lose yourself in the film and get completely sucked in. I was honestly so surprised when I figured out what I knew most of the actors from because the roles that they’re known for are so different from their characters in the movie. Their appearances, established ages, and even the accents are so different that I literally did a double take, but that’s what makes the movie so good! Because the main actors obviously didn’t need the paycheque they were just there to have fun and it shows. I think if the situation had been different and the actors involved had been desperate for money or took the role for some other reason it wouldn’t have worked. The film would have come off as cheesy, forced, cringeworthy, or just plain bad. Free Guy is none of those things. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as ‘Guy’ a bank teller in a video game called Free City, Jodie Comer whose best known for playing Villanelle in Killing Eve as programmer Millie Rusk and her avatar Molotov Girl, Joe Keery whose best known for playing Steve Harrington in Stranger Things as programmer Walter ‘Keys’ McKey, and Taika Waititi whose best known for playing Viago in What We Do in the Shadows as the Head of Soonami Studios and the film’s main antagonist and villain Antwan. Rounding out the cast are Utkarsh Ambudka as programmer Mouser and Lil Rel Howery as Guy’s best friend and bank security guard Buddy. In a nutshell, Free Guy is about a bank teller named Guy who finds out he’s a non-playable background character (NPC) in an open-world Grand Theft Auto style video game called Free City. Guy becomes the hero of his own story after meeting Millie, the girl of his dreams, and winning fans all over the world by racking up points by being the good guy and helping others. After leveling up and helping Millie escape a dangerous situation in the game, Guy wins her over and she falls for him thinking that he’s another player. But when the world that Guy knows and all of the people in it are threatened, he teams up with Millie to save his friends before it’s too late. In the real world, Millie enlists the help of her former programming partner and best friend Keys in a race against time to stop their code and all of the sentient characters from Free City from being deleted by Antwan the developer who stole their code when the game’s sequel launches. I love that the movie had a unique premise and didn’t overcomplicate things. There are so many movies that I’ve gone to see over the last few years with such excitement only to be disappointed. For example, I loved Wreck It Ralph, but was so disappointed by its sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet. The trailers made it seem like it would take the premise of the first movie and move things into the online gaming world, and I was excited for that. Instead, the sequel left the premise of the first movie behind entirely and way over complicated the plot and the end result was extremely cheesy and disappointing. Free Guy’s strength is that it’s a self-aware movie made by self-aware people who are excellent at what they do. The movie doesn't take itself too seriously, nor should it, and that allows the story to flow and the characters to feel real and genuine. The movie achieves that perfect balance between being entertaining and telling a cohesive and important story because while the movie never takes itself too seriously the people behind it are serious about what they do. This was very clearly a passion project for all involved, especially Ryan Reynolds, and it shows! As he’s spoken about in interviews and on Twitter, Reynolds called on a lot of his friends to be in Free Guy and help him out and the end result was fantastic! I loved all of the cameos! The Chris Evans cameo was by far the funniest and the Alex Trebek cameo got me right in the feels. When I saw the movie in theatres me and everyone else in the theatre gave a collective “awww” when he appeared on screen. Enlisting real YouTubers to show up as fictional versions of themselves to talk about Blue Shirt Guy’s popularity was a nice touch and you’ve also got blink and you miss it voice cameos by John Krasinski, Dwyane The Rock Johnson, Hugh Jackman, and Tina Fey. Channing Tatum appears as the avatar of player Revenjamin Buttons which for the most part was hilarious. One of my few criticisms of the film is that they went a bit overboard the avatar’s antics as Guy and Buddy are attempting to leave and it got bit a cringeworthy. But I know other people found it hilarious so to each their own. I love all of the little details and references in the movie. Just listing them all would be a post in itself. If you’re someone that loves pop culture references and Easter Eggs this is the movie for you. The characters are fun and believable, and you get attached to them quickly. The actors commit completely to their roles which is makes the humour, romance, and heartfelt emotion of the film work. You buy it. 100%. Something that I absolutely loved was that the characters felt realistic and that the dialogue, attire, and settings for each character really felt authentic. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched a movie or TV show and walked away thinking, “The person who wrote that clearly never meet a kid, teenager, or twenty something in their life! That was so unrealistic.” The slang’s all wrong. The dialogue is so eloquent everyone sounds like they did Shakespeare in the Park last summer. You walk away thinking, “What the hell was that? No one talks that way!” What I loved about the characters in Free Guy is that they felt like real people you could actually run into or walk past on the street. I’ve read in interviews that in addition to the written dialogue the cast did a lot of ad-libbing and improvisation and the end result is both hilarious and relatable. The dialogue feels real because it is. The big exception to this of course is Antwan who is altogether off the wall and ridiculous. Antwan is such an outrageous, absurd, vulgar, and cartoonish character. He’s so fun to watch and the actors clearly had a lot of fun with his scenes! I’ve read that a lot of his lines with Keys and Mouser were improvised and I believe it. When he goes all Jack Nicholson on the servers? Lord. He’s such a great villain to watch. The characters that are established to be in their twenties like Millie, Keys, Mouser, and the other employees at Soonami Studios talk, act, and dress like they’re in their twenties. The actors that are in their forties are styled to look like they’re in their thirties and honestly, they’re in such great shape it works! I mean I was honestly shocked to find out Taika Waititi’s real age. I love how the costuming really fits each character and allows you to learn more about them. Keys’ clothing is your typical gamer chic which makes because as we learn from his interview with Millie coding is his life and what gets him up in the morning. From Mouser’s clothing we learn that he’s a sports fan, but also isn’t afraid to take risks like with that blazer ensemble he wears in his final scene at Millie’s apartment.

Millie’s clothing shows the contrast between her and her avatar Molotov Girl, and Antwan’s ridiculous coat enhances the overall wackiness of his character. Guy’s clothing tells us something too. He wears the same thing every day until he meets Millie in the game at which point, he starts deviated from his Free City programming and chooses a different blue shirt. I also really love that they put thought into why Keys needs to wear glasses. Something I noticed on rewatch is that Keys is far sighted which is why he has his glasses on when he’s looking at his laptop or computer and sometimes when’s talking to other people, but not when he goes to see Millie at her apartment or when he goes to get them coffee at the end of the movie. Another interesting aspect of Keys’ character that I noticed on rewatch is self-confidence is really something he struggles with in contrast to Millie and Mouser who are very confident. Millie is a genius programmer and Mouser is excellent at what he does, and they are both very confident in their coding abilities, but Keys isn’t despite being every bit the genius that Millie is. At the beginning of the movie when they first notice the issue with Guy Mouser jokes that Keys needs to be better at his job. In response Keys meekly says he thinks he’s pretty good at his job and trails off at the end. Mouser is just joking around, but because Keys lacks self-confidence comments like that hit him hard. Mouser is moving towards his own desk as he talks so he doesn’t notice how self-deprecating and uneasy Keys’ response is. In the interview from the indie games conference that Millie plays for Keys at his apartment, he brushes off the interviewers comment that he’s a genius and says Millie is the real genius because she created the AI engine and he just wrote the code to make it work. Later on, when Keys helps Millie get into the stash house, she calls him a genius and he tells her that as he’s currently sitting on a toilet stealing user code he doesn’t exactly feel like one. Millie responds offhandedly that he never does, but luckily, she knows better. When Keys realizes that Millie was right, and that Antwan did steal their code and their game worked he tells Millie they need to celebrate because once everyone sees their build she’ll be celebrated and she could win a noble prize. Both Millie and Keys are geniuses in their own right. The game wouldn’t have worked without both of their skills and Guy wouldn’t have come to life without both of them working together. Millie’s AI engine made his sentience possible, but Keys is the one who gave him hopes and dreams so that when he met Millie in the game, he came alive. When done right the settings we see tell the story just as much as the characters do and I love how realistic the settings in Free Guy look. The floor at Soonami Studios where Keys and Mouser work looks like a real office and I love that the desks have clutter and personal effects on them like real cubicles do and that they show Keys taking a box of his stuff with him as he leaves. The lobby with the moving water videos and Antwan’s massive but largely empty office fits perfectly with the obnoxious, zany, and over the top character that he is. I also love the contrast between Keys and Millie’s apartments and how those settings tell us a lot about each character and where they are in their lives when the film starts. When Keys comes home from work to find that Millie has broken in, we see that he lives in a stylish one bedroom apartment with an open concept kitchen full of stainless steel appliances, a large living room centred around an expensive wall mounted TV and entertainment system, with his computer and gaming station set up in the corner. On the walls we see artful clusters of black picture frames, through a partially open door we see a bedroom off to the side, the apartment is full of black and white furniture including a plush couch and nice lamps, and features a textured silver accent wall. All of which makes the fact that Millie managed to break in even more impressive because it is clearly an expensive apartment in a nice building. Keys’ style is minimalist and upper scale and based on what we learn about the events that took place before the start of the movie this indicates that Keys got the apartment and all of the nice stuff in it using the money he received when Antwan bought his and Millie’s game. In contrast, Millie lives in a bachelor apartment and spends her time in coffee shops ordering one single black coffee over four hours. This tells us that she kept her original apartment that she had from before the game was sold and is living off the money she got from the sale while she spends all of her time trying to find the proof she needs to win her lawsuit. When we see Millie’s place, we find that it’s cozy, full of plants, throw rugs, quilts, and comfy furniture. She’s got a bike in the corner, you can see her bed from the centre of the room where she’s got her computer and gaming station set up adjacent to the coffee table and the rest of the living room furniture. Her kitchen is smaller and full of wooden cabinets and her bathroom door has DIY multicoloured square panels on it. Keys and Millie’s apartments are very different and through these settings we see the contrast between where these characters are in their lives, their wealth, and their personal style. The song ‘Fantasy’ by Mariah Carey is featured heavily in the film and is guaranteed to get stuck in your head in the best way! Jodie Comer’s cover of it is amazing! It fits the moment where Guy makes it to the island that is Millie and Keys’ original build and shows it to the world perfectly. This movie made me appreciate Mariah Carey’s music in a whole new way and I can’t be the only way. After watching the movie, I went looking for the song on Apple Music, wound up listening to the Mariah Carey Essentials Playlist, and I’ve become obsessed. I knew some of her hits, but after listening to her music more I get why people love her so much. Her five octave vocal range is amazing, and her music is just so fun to listen to. The film has a really great soundtrack overall and I’ve had many of its song on repeat since I saw it. Something I really loved about this movie and the reveal at the end that Keys is in love with Millie and is desperate for her to notice, but she’s been oblivious the whole time is that they don’t do the supposedly nice nerdy guy whose really a jerk trope. So many movies do this where you have a nerdy male character whose unluckily love, looked over, or his love is unrequited, and we’re supposed to root for him because he’s a quote “nice guy”. But really, he’s not. He’s a jerk who feels slighted because a woman in his life doesn’t love him back or notice him and he feels as if she owes him something. The scene at Millie’s place where Millie tells Keys he looks cute when he brags, and Mouser encourages him to tell Millie how he feels is super frustrating to watch but it’s so important to Keys’ character. He asks Millie out for coffee and when she turns him down to jump back into the game, he doesn’t make a big deal about it even though Mouser wants him to. Instead he gets up and goes and gets her a coffee anyway. She goes to tell him her order, oblivious to the fact that he’s memorized it, he tells her he remembers, and goes to get the coffee anyway much to Mouser’s and the audience’s dismay. This is big because Keys clearly doesn’t want to be walking down the street by himself to get coffee. He wants to be getting coffee with Millie so that he can tell her how he feels to see if she might feel the same way, but when she turns him down he goes and gets the coffee anyway because he truly loves and cares about her and he values their friendship enough to put his own feelings aside and suffer in silence rather than lose her and what they’ve built. So, he takes the opportunity to get some air rather than continue to sit there in disappointment. Which is why he’s so confused when Millie runs after him and calls out to him from across the street. He doesn’t understand what she’s doing there. She turned down his offer to get a coffee and he already knows her order so why is she there? I love that they chose to make that scene non-verbal. I think if Millie had come out and made some big declaration of love it would have felt cheesy and overdone. But her running after him and silently communicating through her smile and body language that she understood and that she felt the same way was perfect. It was subtle and beautiful and perfectly acted. It also felt realistic to the characters because in real life when you’ve known someone a really long time and you’ve spent a lot of time with them you don’t always need words to convey what you mean. What Millie wanted to express in that scene was so big and so all-encompassing she couldn’t find the words to say everything that she wanted to say so she didn’t. She just stood there and smiled knowing that being the genius that he is he would understand. It’s like Keys says in their interview, words will fail you, but code never does. His coding worked and now she understands so rather than try and say it all and fail she just looks at him and smiles to show him that she finally gets it. She finally understands what he’s been trying to say to her all this time. And you can see the exact moment Keys realizes why she’s there. The moment where he goes from being confused as to what she wants to realizing that she saw the video and she knows how he feels and that she wouldn’t be standing there smiling at him like that if she didn’t feel the same way. When I watched the scene the first time around, I was anxiously clutching my nachos the entire time because when Keys ran towards her my immediate thought was, “Oh my god he’s gonna get hit by a car and they’re never gonna get to be together! Oh my god!” But then he didn’t get hit by a car and Millie ran out to meet him and for the first time in their relationship she met him halfway and they kissed and it was beautiful! I think because Free City had so much violence in it that’s where my mind went and I’m very glad they didn’t go that route. One of my only criticisms about the movie is that I wish they had stayed on Millie and Keys just a little bit longer. They kiss and embrace and then very quickly they cut to black. I wish they’d linger on that moment just a little bit longer because I love those characters so much and in the scene that follows where Guy and Buddy are reunited we see them hug and then walk away together to start their new lives and I wish we’d gotten just a bit more time with Millie and Keys. I also really loved the parallel between the different kinds of relationships within the movie and how platonic relationships are just as important as romantic ones. The reveal at the end about Guy being Keys’ creation and a love letter to Millie and her realizing she’s been loving Keys vicariously through Guy and them finally coming together and being on the same page is beautiful because from the very beginning the movie is full of clues, hints, and foreshadowing that all comes together at the end. Meanwhile, we see the friendship between Guy and Buddy and how important that friendship is to him because it’s something that he created on his own. His love for Millie is born out of the programming that Keys gave him, but his friendship with Buddy is something that Guy created all on his own of his own volition. Which is part of what makes Buddy’s death on the bridge so tragic. I cried when Buddy disappeared. Reynolds and Howery play their characters with such sincerity that his death pacts an emotional punch you don’t expect. I love that the security guards at Soonami are so moved by Buddy’s heroism and are so captivated by what’s happening with the live stream that Millie is able to sneak past them into the server room and stop Antwan from destroying what’s left of the game. Something else I noticed on rewatch is that during the final battle after Millie gets booted from the game and Guy has to fight Dude on his own the glasses he’s wearing are very similar to the ones Keys wears in the movie which I thought was a cool nod to Guy being Keys’ creation. This really is a movie in which you find something new every time you watch it. For instance, the second time around I noticed that the foreshadowing that Keys is in love with Millie, but she’s oblivious to it because she’s so focused on the game was really well done. In the video from the indie game conference that Millie plays for Keys at his apartment when asked by the interviewer about their chemistry Millie responds first and says that their friends, their relationship is completely platonic, and laughs off the idea that they have chemistry. In contrast Keys falters and is silent and then eventually says meekly that they’re just friends. Millie is looking ahead at the interviewer and to the side away from Keys as she’s laughing and so she doesn’t see Keys’ reaction. At the end of the apartment scene after Millie breaks in to ask Keys for his help, he tells Millie he cares about her and he almost says something else. It feels like he’s about to say, ‘I love you’ but then he catches himself and instead tells her that she needs to leave. When Keys visits Millie’s apartment to tell her that she was right and they’re sitting on the couch he reaches out and puts his hand on her knee and then snatches it back when he realizes he’s gotten too close. He wants so desperately to be closer to her and in his excitement, he gets closer than he normally would before realizing that putting his hand on her knee in that close proximity is not a platonic gesture. Millie is so caught up in the realization that Guy, the person she’s fallen in love with, is an AI and not a real person that she doesn’t notice. My heart broke for Keys in that scene as he realized that Millie had fallen for Guy and kissed him and was so upset about it and meanwhile, he was right in front of her desperate for her to see how much he cares. It must have just wrecked him to go home that night and realize that Guy was based on the lovelorn character he created and that Millie had fallen in love with his creation while at the same time being so oblivious to his real world affection for her. In the scene at Millie’s apartment after they’ve gotten the server from Antwan and Mouser encourages Keys to say something, I noticed on rewatch just how weak and meager Keys’ attempt to ask Millie out is. He stumbles his way through asking her to get a coffee and trails off at the end so it’s no wonder Millie doesn’t clue in that he’s trying to ask her out. And in Keys’ defence he sent her a whole video confessing his feelings for her and all of the little things he loves about her and then told her to watch it and he has no idea if she did or not. We the audience know that Millie only saw half of it, but Keys has no idea if she saw none of it, part of it, or all of it. He knows she got Guy to remember, but she’s also sending him mixed messages. One minute she’s saying he’s cute when he brags and the next, she’s turning him down for coffee to talk to Guy. From the outside it’s so obvious that Keys is in love with Millie, but she doesn’t see it because she’s always looking the other way, not paying attention, so caught up in the game, and too focused on their work to see what’s right in front of her. On rewatch one of the big things I noticed is that Keys is always on the edge of telling Millie how he really feels but he always stops himself because she brushes him or the idea off and because he’s scared of what will become of their work and their friendship if she doesn’t feel the same way. It’s a huge leap. If Millie doesn’t feel the same way it’s going to make their relationship incredibly awkward and could potentially destroy their partnership so Keys decides it’s better not to say anything or only hint at how he feels rather than run the risk of ruining everything. Something else I noticed on rewatch is that in the interview they give Keys says he thinks of himself as an author and that code is what gets him up in the morning and that he loves the ones and zeros of binary because words can fail you and let you down but code never does. At the end of the movie when Millie goes to talk to Guy in Free Life he tells her that he loves her and while he knows that’s his programming he’s realized that he’s a love letter to her and that somewhere out there in the real world is the author. Such a great callback. All in all, I can definitely say that Free Guy has been my favourite movie so far this year! Definitely my favourite movie of the summer. I went to see it twice in theatres and I’ve never done that for any other movie before. I’ll rewatch them at home sure, but I’ve never actually paid money to see something twice on my own. I’m very excited to see the sequel and my hope is that it will be just as good as the first.  Until next time.

[dark-muse-iris]

Saying goodbye to a General Hospital superfan, my grandma, who passed today

Today, my last grandmother departed her body after a long struggle with dementia. Although she could no longer communicate with her family, she hung on for two days with the aid of astute hospice staff until her children could say goodbye to her in person. She went as peacefully as her countenance had always been, and for that I'm thankful.

I'm sharing her passing here because she was one of the first to teach me about women's roles in fandom and the power of slow-burn dramas. She was a seasoned consumer of the nail-biting suspense that comes from having one devoted ship, that pair of characters you want to last through thick and then--FOREVER--only to witness that ship get dashed on the rocks in a chaotic, mid-season cliffhanger.

You see, my grandma was an avid fan of daytime soap operas. She was a hard General Hospital stan since the 1980s and not only memorized the story arcs of generations of characters like they were her own family, but she kept current on the actors' career movements by reading soap opera tabloids you can still buy in the grocery store line. She taught me which tabloids were good and which ones were trash for following soaps.

After decades of watching the series, she was keen at predicting the twists and turns of any story arc. I didn't know why that mattered so much as a child until I learned it was sporting for her to be in everyone's business. But it wasn't enough to know what was happening with her faves. When the writing proved her right again the following week, she'd offer new critiques to the tinfoil-wrapped television set, stamping out her cigarette in the ashtray next to her bed. Had she been given different opportunities other than being a textile worker and mother of two in a small town, she might have given those writers a run for their money.

She was not only the first critic I ever met, but she was also the first hardcore shipper I ever encountered. She had a MAJOR crush on the character of Sonny Corinthos: a cold, calculating mobster played by Maurice Bénard, an actor twenty years her junior. The age gap never slowed down her devotion, even when my grandma was put on oxygen years later. It was Sonny into the sunset, no matter what crimes he committed season after season. She watched her man bounce from lady to lady and would not only judge his conquests like a marriage counselor who sees the trainwreck coming in advance, but she held hope for YEARS that he would go back to the ex who had been his best match, Carly (played most notably by Laura Wright). She wanted that ship to sail even after Carly remarried and had another man's baby--which is exactly what happened around the time I was in college. 🤣

My best memories with my grandma were after school when soaps would come on. My sisters and I would walk to the corner store, buy a Hostess honey bun, then run back to her small, one-bedroom rental and ask, "What did we miss last week?" Because we KNEW we had missed a ton if it had been more than two days.

"Wellllllllll....." she'd say, and that was the start of a wild recap. We'd hang on to every word like it was the best gossip in town. For a middle schooler first dipping my toes into soap operas, I didn't know how expansive organized crime story arcs could be--not until my grandma taught me what I was missing. At that age, I didn't see any value in witnessing steamy infidelity on screen until it magically played out in some explosion or hostage situation twenty episodes later. But my grandma always saw it coming like a daytime soap opera oracle. She would not only know when shit was about to hit the fan, but she knew how the jury would rule on the future court case and how the town of Port Charles would take the news.

It's been a lot to think on for me today. I never told my grandma that I was writing stories as ridiculous and far-fetched as her soaps. By the time I had any confidence in telling anyone how I was spending my free time, the dementia had set in and she had been relocated to a senior living facility that had restricted visitors in order to keep her safe throughout the illness. I don't live with regrets for things outside of my control, but I've missed her a lot since that time and always hoped someone had left General Hospital on for her.

It's hard to lose another family member in two years without the chance to say goodbye like I hoped. It doesn't get easier. As I'm unable to go home, I'm going to spend some time writing and doing things she loved to remember her.

[oliviermiraarmstrongs]

mid-year book freak out tag

thank you @bloody-wonder for giving me an excuse to share my book thoughts!

1. Best Book You’ve Read So Far in 2021?

It’s gotta be The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood; I hear “feminist period novel about mentally ill woman unable to cope in upper-class society” and I am THERE! It’s like [Stefon voice] This book has EVERYTHING: repressed women, a decaying old house, a complex relationship of two sisters, a pulpy sci-fi story-within-a-story-within-a-story, criticism of capitalism and reactionary attitudes and politics, commentary on how conservative society shuns those it perceives to be “other” and a threat to the social order (poor people, socialists, “unconventional” women). It is EXTREMELY my shit.

2. Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far in 2021?

The only one I've read is Siege and Storm, so Siege and Storm! Shadow and Bone was captivating, if a little simplistic, but the sequel really fleshes out the characters, setting, and themes. It’s great to see Alina take a more active role, and I love the exploration of sainthood. 

3. New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To?

I’m really curious about Michelle Zauner’s memoir Crying in H Mart. Same with Axiom’s End, which I haven’t really been seeking out, but it’s been resting on my list since I like a lot of Lindsay Ellis’ stuff.

4. Most Anticipated Release For Second Half of 2021?

5. Biggest Disappointment?

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. I’ve been getting into Atwood, and I have a soft spot for female-centric retellings of myths, so this was on my list for a long time. It’s not bad; it’s decent as a character study and offers some good perspective on the hanged slave women from The Odyssey, but overall it came off as...bitter? And not in a good way. It’s reasonable to include commentary on how bad things were for women in ancient times, but after a while I’m just like “But there had to be a time when Penelope was happy, right?” But the biggest failing has to be the treatment of Helen. Why a story focused on bringing literary justice to silenced women also characterizes Helen of Troy as a manipulative, arrogant bitch who single-handedly ignited the Trojan War because she enjoys fucking people over, I’ll never know. Ironic that in the opening chapter, Penelope bemoans being used as a yardstick with which to judge other women, and then the book proceeds to do exactly that with her and Helen. Can’t let Penelope have a positive relationship with another woman! There could be some form of unreliable narrator at play, but there’s not much indication that that’s the case here. Even Homer had a more nuanced portrayal of Helen than this!

6. Biggest Surprise?

I suppose The Red Tent. I picked it up at a Goodwill because of my aforementioned interest in female-centric retellings. It’s not amazing, but I wasn’t really expecting it to emotionally affect me like it did. You spend so much time setting up Dinah’s family and this supportive community of woman within a patriarchal society, only to have Dinah abandon it all after getting betrayed by her father and (most of) her brothers. Hearing about how her family fell apart after she left and she never got to see her mothers again really gets to me. The book has flaws for sure - neither of Dinah’s romances are developed very well, and some of its themes can come off as gender essentialist - but I think it’s a nice exploration of female labor and traditions that too often get ignored.

7. Favorite New Author?

The only relatively new author I’ve been reading is Leigh Bardugo, soooooo... honestly I don’t know what I can say that hasn’t already been said, I got into the series pretty late. Great world-building, witty dialogue, a familiar type of story with enough interesting ideas to make it feel fresh. Check out Shadow and Bone if you get the chance. Sound of the summer.

8. Newest Fictional Crush?

You would think it would be Nikolai Lantsov since I just finished reading Siege and Storm and he seems to be the fan favorite... but nah, not yet. He’s fun, but he doesn’t hit me in that way (Though very sexy of him to just casually proposition Alina and Mal for a royal polycule, a la Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot; would love an AU where they accept his offer). However, I would let Zoya murder me. Every time Zoya is not in a scene I am asking “Where’s Zoya?” Also shout out to Alina, just because I would treat her better than all the men in her life! 

9. Newest Favorite Character?

Gonna try to do this without spoiling too much, but Laura Chase in The Blind Assassin really resonated with me. Her personality reminds me a lot of myself, especially as an an autistic person, like the way she has her own way of thinking that makes perfect sense to her, but makes other people see her as odd and naive. I love how she’s set up in-universe as this Sylvia Plath-esque tragic heroine, with Iris spending the rest of the book interrogating and deconstructing, and in a way, reconstructing this image of her. Atwood you’re insane for this. I forgive you for the Helen thing now.

10. Book That Made You Cry?

I never got as far as crying, but the part in The Goldfinch where [spoilers incoming] the art heist goes wrong and Theo is alone in the hotel room and he’s spiraling and considering suicide and finally dreams of his mom… all that was too much for me and I had to put the book down for the night. This guy just can’t catch a fucking break.

11. Book That Made You Happy?

fucidjdjdj I didn’t read any happy books this year. Shadow and Bone and Siege and Storm because I read them really fast unlike my usual months-long reading schedule.

12. Favorite Book Adaptation You Saw?

Predictably, Shadow and Bone. I basically bought and read the book less than a week before the show came out because I thought it looked interesting and wanted in on the hype (mostly because Jessie is cute 🥰). Honestly, the show improves a lot on the first book; the multiple storylines make it more dynamic and complex, the actors really help to make the characters feel more fleshed out, and Alina and Inej interacted for like three scenes, introducing an unexpected but thematically rich ship.

13. Favorite Review You’ve Written This Year?

14. Most Beautiful Book You’ve Bought So Far This Year?

I impulse-bought this book of Romantic poetry at Barnes and Noble just because it was pretty and I had a gift card

15. What Books Do You Need To Read By The End Of The Year?

Besides finishing The Grisha Trilogy/Six of Crows duology/Zoya’s duology that I forgot the name of….I don’t know. I’m not a reader that plans in advance. I acquire books, finish whatever I’m currently reading, look through my stacks deciding what to read next, spend an hour doing so because I can’t decide if I’m in the mood for any of them, and either force myself to read one or buy/borrow a new one.

I’m tagging @betweenironyandsilver, @illuminaticns, @borispavlikovskys, @chdarling, @sctine, @mightyaubs, @excuseforadrink, and @trckstergods, if you wanna! Or anyone who wants to yell about books.

[gstqaobc]

CBC THE ROYAL FASCINATOR

Friday, October 23, 2020

Hello, royal watchers and all those intrigued by what’s going on inside the House of Windsor. This is your biweekly dose of royal news and analysis. Reading this online? Sign up here to get this delivered to your inbox.

Janet DavisonRoyal Expert

The lessons of becoming Diana in The Crown

(Ollie Upton/Netflix)

For Emma Corrin, preparing to take on the role of Diana, Princess of Wales, in The Crown was something of a psychology lesson. The 24-year-old actor assumed the part knowing full well those watching her arrival next month in Season 4 of the Netflix drama will already have well-established impressions of a member of the Royal Family who grew from "Shy Di" to one of the most photographed celebrities and fashion icons of recent times. Those existing impressions made assuming the role “incredibly daunting,” Corrin said in an interview from London. It helped once she got the script and saw the story. But there was also considerable work with a coach on “understanding the psychology behind a lot of what was happening.” And a lot of what was happening to Diana was “incredibly unnatural and quite intense,” Corrin said. At the age of 19, Diana Spencer moved from an apartment she shared with friends in West London into Buckingham Palace after her engagement to Prince Charles, the heir to the throne and a man 13 years her senior. Diana thought “it was going to be the best event of her life and that they were going to live happily ever after, but then [she discovered] he was with another woman,” Corrin said. Along with that, there was the pressure that comes from being a royal in the public eye.   “All of these are very extraordinary circumstances, really, for someone to be operating in,” said Corrin. “These things that she was exposed to come with a whole lot of pressures that affect someone’s mentality, and that was really interesting.” Even so, there are still all those impressions viewers will have before they catch their first glimpse of Diana when the new season of The Crown starts streaming on Nov. 15. And what if Corrin’s portrayal doesn’t match those impressions? Does that matter in trying to create a successful portrayal of such a well-known person? Not necessarily. “If you talk to actors who have to play a real person ... especially somebody that is so world famous and familiar as Diana — [the challenge comes] because audiences are expecting that actress to look and sound just like the real thing,” said Bill Brioux, a longtime television columnist and commentator. He looks no further than the actor holding the central role on The Crown for Seasons 3 and 4 as an example of overcoming that challenge. “I think Olivia Colman [as Queen Elizabeth] has shown that you don’t have to be a carbon copy, that you might capture a nuance or an essence of someone,” Brioux said. “Certainly, Colman spent a lot of The Crown looking surprised and perplexed, you know, aghast at times.” And we certainly aren’t used to seeing the Queen looking that way in public. “So I think it will be interesting to see how Diana is received,” Brioux said. As she prepared for the role, Corrin said she became overwhelmed “by the amount of factual information out there about her and also … the thought that I would be portraying someone so well-known." Corrin said she “started work on her mannerisms and her behaviour and figuring out why she did the things she did or what she would feel about certain situations that I was going to be acting. “ Corrin also spoke to Patrick Jephson, Diana’s private secretary. “He knew her very well and was able to provide a lot of insight, which was wonderful.” With Diana, Brioux suggested, there may be more pressure on an actor than if the portrayal was of a person not so well-known. “People all have their own expectations of Diana in their minds,” he said. “You’re going to disappoint a lot of people no matter what you do, so hat’s off to this actress for taking it on. “I think that there’s potential, though, if you come close, to get a lot of rave reviews because everyone knows the subject and that’s how they’ll judge it."

For more on Corrin’s experiences preparing for the role, click here.

A rare day out for the Queen — and no mask

(Ben Stansall/Reuters)

Royal visits can typically give the royal guest the opportunity to see some cutting-edge technology or to meet individuals being recognized for their work or volunteer efforts in helping others in their community. But Queen Elizabeth’s first major public engagement since the coronavirus pandemic struck in March offered more than a chance for her to visit a new defence research centre west of London and check out the latest in explosives detection. The visit to Porton Down, where scientists are also helping in the response to the pandemic, seemed designed to offer a larger symbolism. “I think it was a really important message for her to send that even though … we’ve been in lockdown and we’re facing new restrictions, the Queen was still able to meet people involved in the COVID response,” Roya Nikkhah, a royal correspondent for the Sunday Times newspaper, told the CBC’s Renee Filippone. Still, the visit, which the 94-year-old carried out alongside her grandson, Prince William, sparked questions — and criticism — because neither of them was wearing a mask at a time when Britons must wear face coverings in stores and other indoor spaces. Those involved in the visit were physically distanced, and Buckingham Palace said safety protocols were followed. Reuters reported that staff at the research centre had been tested for COVID-19 before the visit. “Every precaution that could be taken was taken,” said Nikkhah. “That’s why the Queen didn’t have to wear a mask.” Royal author Robert Jobson told the Daily Mail that Elizabeth was sending a “message of confidence to the people.” “She’s going back to work, she'll go about her business in the usual way, but without taking chances. She is reassuring the public that things must go on as normal, wherever it is safe to do so.” The Queen has spent much of the time since the pandemic struck in isolation at Windsor Castle, considered to be her favourite residence. She has returned there recently after spending a few weeks with Prince Philip at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and a shorter period on her Sandringham estate northeast of London. Throughout the pandemic, Elizabeth has conducted official duties via video or over the phone, and made two appearances within the walls of Windsor Castle — one for a considerably scaled-down recognition of her official birthday in June, and one to bestow a knighthood on Capt. Tom Moore, a 100-year-old honoured for his charity fundraising. Still, it’s unlikely there will be many other outings like her trip to Porton Down anytime soon. “I think [it] was probably a bit of a one-off,” Nikkhah said. “I don’t think we’ll be seeing a lot more of her on public engagements.”

A new portrait for Canada

(Chris Jackson/Getty Images/Government of Canada)

There is also considerable symbolism on display in Queen Elizabeth’s new official Canadian portrait. While the portrait is new to the public, the photo itself was taken more than a year ago, in March 2019 at Windsor Castle, by royal photographer Chris Jackson. He shared it on social media late last week. In the portrait, the Queen is wearing her Canadian insignia as sovereign of the Order of Canada, Jackson said, along with the Order of Military Merit. The diamond and blue sapphire necklace and earrings she is wearing were a wedding day gift from her father, King George VI, in November 1947, and were worn during her five-day trip to Canada in 1990. Jackson said on Instagram that it was an “incredible honour” to have the opportunity to photograph the Queen for the portrait. “I’ve been lucky enough to have visited Canada many times now with members of the Royal Family and have the fondest memories of the people I’ve met.”

Royally quotable

"My family and I knew nothing about it and were at a loss to know how we could help alleviate the terrible pain she suffered."

— Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall,

reflects on her mother’s death from osteoporosis

26 years ago, and went on this week to note the “huge strides” made since then in treatment and research into the disease.

Royals in Canada

(Hans Deryk/The Canadian Press)

When Charles and Diana came to Canada in late October 1991, it was the last trip they made to the country together. And in ways it was two visits in one for the couple, whose collapsing marriage was under intense media scrutiny at the time, as they went their separate ways for much of the seven-day sojourn.

One stop for Diana in Toronto took her to Casey House, a hospice for people who have AIDS.

“Diana had just begun to venture into the issue of AIDS, then repellent to much of society, but it was still surprising that she chose to see a hospice full of very ill people rather than some less harrowing AIDS setting,” Casey House founder June Callwood

wrote in Maclean’s magazine

after Diana’s death in 1997.

Callwood had a mixed view of Diana, but that visit to Casey House, where she sat and visited with hospice residents, left a lasting impression.

Diana “wanted nothing less than to change the world for the better,” Callwood wrote. “And perhaps she did. On that lovely afternoon … she made everyone at a small AIDS hospice in Toronto feel worthwhile. That’s quite a gift.”

Our friends at CBC Archives have taken a closer look at the 1991 visit, which was also the first time both William and Harry went with their parents on a foreign trip.

Royal reads

1. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, says she

avoids speaking about controversial topics

in an attempt to ensure she doesn’t put her family at risk. She also says she’s been told that in 2019, she was the

“most trolled person in the entire world.”

[BBC, The Guardian]

2. More than 60 years after Queen Elizabeth gave a pair of swans to a city in Florida,

it has sold off three dozen of their descendants

in a bid to ease a crisis in overpopulation of the birds. [The Independent]

3. Thirty years after Diana laid a ceremonial foundation stone for a cancer hospital, her son William

did the same

. [The Daily Mail]

4. Dutch King Willem-Alexander says he

regrets going to Greece for a holiday

after he and his family were criticized for taking a trip during the pandemic. [BBC]

Cheers!

I’m always happy to hear from you. Send your ideas, comments, feedback and notes to

royalfascinator@cbc.ca

. Problems with the newsletter? Please let me know about any typos, errors or glitches.

[alexanderlee1012]

Reflections on Mulan

It took me a long time to cherish my Taiwanese-American heritage. Growing up in the United States, it wasn’t a facet of my identity that I attached any importance to. As a child, I even actively denied that part of me. Whenever my family went out to eat Chinese food, I threw a temper tantrum and would only eat if we stopped by fast food first. I didn’t bother speaking Chinese; I replied to my Mom’s Mandarin in English and I consistently repeated the entry level class for my Saturday Chinese-school until I was not compelled to go anymore. The only attempt to understand the vast history and traditions of my culture was acknowledging the bare minimum to profit off of the New Years. 

While there are many reasons for my delayed acceptance of my culture and identity, the portrayal of Asians in Western Society was definitely a significant factor. Similar to many young children, I was deeply impacted by television and movies. My weeks were organized by TV show airtimes and the few times I was able to go to the movies were momentous occasions. I idolized the heroes on screen, wishing to become just like them. However, what I saw on the screen never closely resembled me. Almost all Western media featured white protagonists, and in the few moments there was somebody of Chinese descent, they were essentially a one-dimensional caricature that was completely unrelatable (for men, choose either kung fu master or a super nerd, and for women, choose an exotic hypersexualized love interest or submissive wallflower). Many values are actively defined and imprinted at a societal level, and this one was no different. The messaging from Hollywood was loud and clear: there is nothing valuable about being Asian American; this culture only deserves to be simplified to basic tropes. 

To my delight, as my own relationship with my culture deepened and flourished over the decades, it seemed that the media’s portrayal of Asians were finally evolving as well. First starting on the fringes, with Asian-American content creators using new platforms such as YouTube to reach directly to their audience, then slowly creeping into the mainstream, with sitcoms and major blockbuster films. Finally, Asian-Americans can be cast as characters that were complex and interesting. Their only defining feature wasn’t just that they were Asian! Similar to white actors and actresses, it was just another part of their identity. Witnessing Asians star in these multifaceted roles has been amazing given how the landscape was just a few years prior. 

I also understand that at the end of the day media is a business, and for this movement to not be temporary, Asians need to throw their full support when these things happen. Personally, I watched Crazy Rich Asians four times (two times in theaters, once on a plane, and then renting again at home to show my mom), and I’ve been subscribed to Wong Fu’s Patreon ever since I’ve learned of it. So of course, given this momentous live-action remaking of Mulan, I’ve been at the edge of my seat, excited and ready to support. 

Especially given the cultural phenomenon that was Black Panther, I was ecstatic that Disney was going to take on Mulan again. While many were bemoaning the exclusion of Mushu, Shang and those classic songs, I actually grew more excited since the director stated that she made those decisions to be more faithful to the original legend. The anticipation kept growing and growing as the pandemic forcibly pushed back the release again and again. Until finally, this past Friday’s release on Disney+, where I eagerly paid the additional $30 premium access to be among the first to support the movie. 

My disappointment was immeasurable.

While there are many major flaws to dive deep into regarding this movie (especially the superpowers that weaken the narrative of a woman fighting to be seen as an equal in a patriarchal society), I wanted to spend some time to speak on some smaller details that yanked me out of the immersion by how grossly misrepresented it was. In life, it’s the small actions that build up to communicate your intent. Love is shown by showing care and consistency in the tiniest of details; however, in this case, the small details accumulated to disrespect and disregard instead. These cultural details clearly didn’t matter to the people designing this film.

Warning slight spoilers ahead, but nothing too major if you’re familiar with the story.

The villagers from Mulan’s hometown all lived together in a Tulou (土樓), a circular earthen hut that can house many families. However these buildings are a facet of the Hakka people living in Fujian originating from the 12th century. Mulan’s story takes place in the Northern Wei Dynasty; which occurs during 386 to 534 AD and is, as the name describes, in the northern part of China. Not only is it geographically inaccurate, but there is a time difference of 600+ years there! That would be akin to placing a modern skyscraper penthouse into the Renaissance.

As someone who is learning more about Chinese tea to connect to their culture, the teapot used during the matchmaking scene was equally jarring. The teapot was a Yokode kyusu, a teapot that has a side handle 90 degrees from the sprout. While Japanese tea culture was originally imported from China during the Song Dynasty, the cultures have significantly diverged. Each has their unique vessels, tools, and processing techniques worthy of celebrating (matcha vs pu’er, sencha vs oolong, yokode kyusu vs yixing). However, maybe to the creators of this movie, east Asian culture is just all the same to them. 

The phoenix was a central character in the movie, and to the chagrin of many fans of the original, Mushu’s replacement. As the Hua family’s ancestral guardian spirit, it provided a nice symbolism for Mulan, as her character’s male persona dies and she is reborn as Hua Mulan. What is egregious is that Phoenixes are not even an animal within Chinese folklore, that’s a Western (Greek) myth! While some may point out that there is a Chinese mythical bird called the Fenghuang (鳳凰), these are immortal birds that only choose to visit regions when there is peace and prosperity. What it definitely is NOT is a reincarnating bird leading warriors into the heat of battle. Sure, Fenghuang are genderfluid and that does match Mulan, but why was the only emphasized trait of the bird the aspect from Greek lore? Why bother taking out Mushu to be closer to the original if it’s replacement is a Western myth?

Finally, I have to bring up the obvious change in accents that happened when Mulan changed from a kid to an adult. Why cast a child actor with an American accent if the main character has a Chinese accent? There is no way that any other movie with a 200M+ budget would have allowed a white child actor to speak with an American accent, to then change it to a British accent when that character grew up and not even acknowledge it. Are we just supposed to be okay with it since they’re at least both Chinese looking?

No movie will ever be picture perfect in representing any culture, trade-offs are inevitable. However, I can’t see how those choices above added anything. Why would you make the villagers live in a Tulou? Was it critical to the plot? Every other Mulan adaptation is fine without a Greek Phoenix, why make it so necessary to this re-telling? Those small details exposed the attitude that I was all too familiar with growing up: who cares about representing actual Chinese culture?

After watching that movie, it felt as if the creative process was a room of white people gathered together, cherry-picking what fit their own narrative, sprinkling some Asian artifacts throughout, shrugging and saying to each other “That’s Chinese-y right? Good enough for me!” Imagine my lack of surprise when I checked to see that none of the screenwriters, producers or director had an Asian background. Chinese culture is the longest continuing culture in the world. It deserves to be shared for what it is (warts and all), not to be trivialized into a simplified palette that’s easiest to digest. Chinese representation in Western media should be about collaborating with us as peers, not to be used as a tool to extract the growing affluence of the Chinese and it’s diaspora.

I so badly wanted this to be a celebration, but now it’s a lose-lose situation. I wouldn’t want the younger version of me to watch this. It would have pushed me further away from my culture; I would either not relate to the characters alluding to “honor” every other sentence, or I would see that my culture isn’t worth even having just one person in this $200M major blockbuster film correct the gross cultural inaccuracies. On the other hand, I also don’t want critics to point at bad numbers and proclaim that Asian representation isn’t worth the investment. 

I just wish for us to be portrayed as who we truly are. 

[kim-lexie]

record of youth.

seriously when i say i was awaiting this drama, i was WAITING. park bogum’s dramas are always stellar and next level. he knows how to pick them, so as soon as i knew bogummy was on the project you best believe i was counting down the days to the release. they got an incredible cast and this drama did not disappoint. and now that it is over i will miss these characters that i have found myself attached to over these past few weeks. i would 10 out of 10 recommend this gem.

plot synopsis. 

this drama is a record of the moments between a group of people in their 20s. (get it?! basically a record of their youth in their 20s) jeong-ha an aspiring makeup artist with a day-job as a makeup assistant and a youtuber street artist at night. hye-jun an model/aspiring actor, who is deciding what to do with his little time before enlistment. and hae-hyo as hye-jun’s best friend also in the same career field. with this as our backdrop it follows jeong-ha a fan of hye-jun as they meet and grow in their relationship.

thoughts. *spoilers ahead*

i must say that i loved the premise of this one. it was just unique that i was able to see some new sides to this aspiring actor dimension as well as see the side of the makeup industry. but also familiar with the aspects of the family and wanting to do what is best for those around you. 

i thoroughly loved seeing how hye-jun’s family grow into their new role as he became more famous to see that it was not going to go to their heads. his family, and eventually his brother came to find this answer after the shine of it went away. as they stayed in their house, and even hye-jun wanting to do more where he had been planted was beautiful and made me love his character more. 

i cannot say how much i loved hye-jun’s mother. she was the sweetest most precious bean. keeping her husband honest. supporting both of her sons, and encouraging her father-in-law’s new dream. all while working for a well-off family and slaying it. what a queen. we stan. i think that if jeong-ha and her had met at that family dinner (they spent episodes try to plan) it would have been a different story. they would have been the best of friends. because they are both encouraging people with their own dreams to see their people succeed in life. 

i loved the grandfather’s role in all of this. from being quite and timid because of unfulfilled dreams. and hye-jun allowed him to dream and realized that he was not finished yet. to having him go to modeling classes, and get head shots, to winning awards for his modeling after a few years. truly inspiring. and i loved that completed character arc, because we all live for those great shiny stories.

loved his father’s redemption from being critical and cynical and slapping hye-jun at one point to eventually being his father’s manager, to apologizing to his son. yes, yes. and same with his brother, writing malicious comments back saying only i can be rude to my brother and no one else, to asking for forgiveness. 

it was interesting to have the juxtaposition of hye-jun’s family with hae-hyo’s family because the dynamics were so different. and we saw how the two mother’s approached their sons very differently. and hae-hyo’s mother saddened me throughout the drama because of her lack of trust in her son. and when hae-hyo came to find the truth behind his career it devastated him. 

i wish we had seen more of jeong-ha’s family because the relationship with her mother was so drawn and weary i understand why there was not a ton in it. but her father seemed so nice and encouraging of her, i would have loved to seen him more. as well as getting the families together in general. we never got to see jeong-ha meet his mother. and i am so sooooo sour about that. because we all know they would have been the best of friends. 

i feel like jeong-ha’s family explains a lot about her approach to things from her living alone and owning a house of her own at a young age. to the way she wanted to hold on to the friendship with hye-jun. to her ending their relationship because she wanted to not be a burden on him. it kind of all fits. and i wish we had more development from her. she constantly mentions that she loves living unpredictably now because hye-jun literally turned her life upside down and made her grow, which she did grow alongside him. but still she was so dead set on not burdening or sharing how she honestly felt that she didn’t allow herself to fully fall in love. but then again it also speaks to what is love to you? is it never depending on your person and doing it all alone because that is all you’ve known, or is is understanding that you both will have hardships and need to be honest with each other to help one another get through those moments in life...unfortunately she did not see it to be the latter. 

the siblings here took on an important role in this drama. from hae-hyo’s sister hae-na dating his best dude jin-woo, to gyeong-jun taking on new roles and the family realized hye-jun’s importance. they both came to be extremely important in the family relations and dynamics changing. and i must add that i wish we saw more of the relationship between hae-na and jin-woo because they were cute, and i liked them. also while i’m on my soap box i must say that at the end i was kind of wanting min-jae and gyeong-jun to end up together, because they are seriously opposites and they would make a quirky pairing. 

their workplaces were interesting, and i must say that i could have done without all the focus on tae-su, the horrible ex-agent of hye-jun, and his artist do-ha. like we get it you don’t want him to be successful because he dumped you. also could have done with out the focus on the journalist for the tabloid plot like okay we get it you’re out to get our man. you need to get a life. and if we removed these nonsense plots that did not add too much to the overall story of our characters we could have gotten so much more, i.e. a FAMILY DINNER. sorry really just sour about this. 

their relationship was soooo cute. i loved how it developed from her being like ‘nah boo you got it wrong i’m not a fan of you’ to finally owning up and being like ‘yeah, honey you’re the one’ to being like ‘i want to stay friends, and not ruin this beautiful thing’ to hye-jun confessing being like ‘you’re my boo’ to them finally together. it was great, i loved it. wish i didn’t get second male lead syndrome so early on, because you could see that hae-hyo liked her too because she was honest and raw compared to all the people around him, kind of like how hye-jun was with him. 

but yeah it was a great ride, and i freaking knew the writers would screw over the beautiful story i had in my head and have them break up because their timing was off. but in reality i think it would have been fine. like seriously girl, he is enlisting you will be a better person in 2 years no need to fret saying, it’s not our time i want to be a better person because you’re already a better person. so the double standard she put up was there, because our boo was a nobody when she met him. but you know with that open ended ending i totally say they got back together, had a good ole family dinner, everyone got along great and they lived happily ever after. i did love how they added the same scene again at the closing because he was saying goodbye to us for the time period because he was a part of our ‘record of youth’ just as we were in his. 

i must say i kind of liked the time jumps that this drama stacked up. like it was interesting to see the ending the episode prior, then get to see the events from another’s perspective that led to the prior event. kind of liked it in the end. at the start i was really confused, but i caught on eventually. also wish we got more of a time jump into the future with them together, but you can’t always get what you want.

it is also important to mention how much i loved all the guest appearances. like i know that isn’t that important for our characters, but seriously it was uplifting to see the familiar faces every so often in this drama. from park seo-joon, to seo hyun-jin and lee sung-kyung. i thoroughly enjoyed it. also loved seeing the random tidbit of fake dramas that hye-jun was in, like boo i would definitely watch those...

the ost.

‘go’ by my boo seungkwan. we stan because this is literally a gem and i play this all day every day. it’s encouraging and makes me want to smile and jump around. 

‘shine on you’ by whee in. this one delivers all the feels from the precious good moments to the tearful moments. 

‘what if’ by kim jae hwan. THIS ONE. I LOVE IT. this man’s vocals are stunning, and i loved this one. it was beautifully utilized in the drama to express the special moments that they were having. and made me nostalgic for the past moments they had because they did not realize all they had. and makes you want to treasure the now you’re living in. 

‘just you’ by j rabbit. they have such sweet vocals and i loved this dreamy track.

now don’t get me wrong these songs were great, however i would have LOVED a park bo-gum on a track. like seriously. like for real, the voice of an angel would have made a lovely addition.

anyways, i really loved this drama and i tried my best to be cohesive about my thoughts but i’m writing this late the day it ended so i’m still little emotional that it is over. and i shall patiently await for my park bo-gum to come back from enlistment and i shall watch all his dramas once again. 

i will also post my weekly play-by-play because i knew i would have a lot of feelings and thoughts to short through with this one. so if you want you can check it out here. 

[snowdice]

Sometimes Labels Fail (Bonus Features)

Want to know what I’m blathering on about? Click below!

AO3 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Title in my Word Document: The Correct Label is Baby. He’s Baby. (Yes, I label my WIP’s with memes when at all possible. No, I am not taking constructive criticism)

Technical Writing Facts:

This fic appears in three different places in my documents. First it started in my Ideas word document, then it transferred over to a file called TSSS superhero (which has now become where I store things in this universe until they become their own stories or one-shots. Currently I have 13,746 unpublished words in this folder… most of it is piecemeal, but I digress.). Then I decided to rewrite parts of it and put it in the word document mentioned above.

I wrote most of the story during finals week. The last chapter was written while I proctored my student’s exams. Logan’s crack about being asked questions about his class by students at coffee shops was me venting over something that had happened recently. Please, do not come up to me with your laptop open in a public place. I just wanted a cup of tea.

Patton did not originally have a large role in this fic. Then I wrote the first paragraph and thought it was funny to have Logan being absolutely serious as he listed out the way he segmented his life and just input random not as serous things, and Patton convincing him to put jam in cookies came up and then the binder part came in and suddenly it wasn’t a joke and they’d been married for decades.

In part 2, Logan comforts Patton by hugging him, rubbing his back, and laying his cheek on top of his head. In part 3, you see Patton comforting Virgil in the exact same way. This is intentional as Logan observed this behavior from Patton over the years and emulates it.

I wrote the whole story before giving Logan and Virgil superhero names. Instead I just wrote (Logan) and (Virgil) every time so I could “control f” their names with parenthesis when I decided on something.

I couldn’t stop calling Virgil Shadow Crawler and I don’t know why. I kept having to go back and find and replace in my word document for it.

I immediately regretted calling Logan Bluebird. It was fine for his chapter and then I couldn’t stop laughing every time Virgil seriously called him that in his head.

Character Facts:

All of the sides + Emile and Remy exist and are sympathetic in this AU.

Logan:

Logan has a doctorate degree in math and physics. He double majored in both and went straight for a PhD in math after his undergrad. He picked the physics one up later. He also went and got a bachelor’s degree in biology. (No this wasn’t so he could understand Patton’s research papers better. That would be an irrational reason to get a college degree.)

Logan became a superhero out of academic spite because of course he did.

When Logan first became a hero, it was shortly after a scandal that happened where a major superhero’s identity was exposed, and it turned out it was the spouse of an important political figure. It was a very public and messy divorce. Logan swore to himself he’d never get into a relationship with someone who didn’t already know he was a superhero, citing it was a bad foundation for relationships. The catch 22 was that he refused to tell anyone his secret identity. Patton ended up figuring it out on his own. Logan had not accounted for this.

In fact, Logan at the end of this story, had never told anyone his secret identity. At the end of this story only three people knew: Patton, Virgil, and Remy. No one ever told Remy and they never discussed it with him. He just kinda figured it out and didn’t say anything. Logan knows he figured it out and also hasn’t said anything. Remy is a bit salty about this and likes to send subtle jabs at Logan about it. Both Patton and Logan know he knows. He’s known almost as long as Patton. It’s almost an inside joke between them at this point.

Virgil:

Virgil doesn’t know anything about his birth-parents other than his birth mother died in childbirth.

Virgil once stole something that was not money or food and it was completely accidental. He broke into a museum just to look as a 14th birthday present for himself. He got caught by a guard and panicked. For some reason, his panicked brain told him since he was a villain, he had to make it look like there was a villainous reason for him to be there… so he stole a statue. Yeah, he doesn’t understand it either. Yes, he ended up getting it back to them. What was he supposed to do with a statue?

Virgil plays the clarinet and is actually pretty good. He wasn’t able to get into any of the bands you have to audition for (he’s just in the general non-audition band at school) and was never able to really practice. Plus, his clarinet is one of those meh loaners from the school.

Virgil ends up majoring in biology with a minor in chemistry and attends the same college Logan teaches at.

I haven’t quite decided what Virgil’s going to do for his career when he grows up, but I’m leaning toward something in the medical field, though not a surgeon like Patton. Maybe a pediatrician.

Patton:

Patton was the one originally with the name Sanders. Logan took his name when they married.

Patton’s family life wasn’t… great in his youth. He had some unhealthy perceptions of relationships and his place in relationships he had to work through.

The café Virgil and Logan went to in the last chapter is where Patton and Logan first met! Patton almost poured an entire cup of coffee on him because he was exhausted after a shift at the hospital. He didn’t even notice that Logan used his powers to prevent an accident. Logan wasn’t sure if he was acting like he didn’t noticed and was plotting something. He decided to keep an eye on him. (Spoiler alert: he did keep a very good eye on him.

Patton saved the life of the current mayor. She had been the chief of police about a decade before this story. She was majorly injured in the line of duty to the point where basically she was a lost cause. Patton, though, saw her two elementary aged sons and went absolutely not. With the permission of her wife, he took her in for multiple surgeries (many experimental) and by pure force of will stitched her back together. She woke up half a year later. Will she ever walk again? No. Did she get to adamantly insist on carrying boxes on her lap while riding a wheelchair to help her sons move into their college dorm this past fall? Yes.

Because of the above, Patton gets invited to many high-profile events. Patton does not like going to these things alone. Which isn’t a problem until Bluebird is on the guest list.

Remy:

Remy has been working with Patton for basically forever. He’d been working for less than a year before he got swept up for an emergency surgery because he was the closest one around and it was a very high-profile case that needed to be dealt with right that second. That’s when he first met Patton and due to certain events, everyone in that room ended up with a certain tie to each other. He’s basically been Patton’s nurse ever since even when they just worked together in the ER. Everyone knew Remy was Patton’s nurse even though he wasn’t officially. When Patton stopped being an ER surgeon and became more of a specialist, Remy followed him right out the door and now works with him and two other doctors.

Roman:

Roman didn’t appear in this story, but he was mentioned and he’s around. He started going out in a prince costume when he was 17. (He is 3 years older than Virgil). He gets away with it mostly because everyone “knows” Roman’s too dramatic and likes to boast. The boy couldn’t keep a secret like that to save his life. So, what if that guy has superstrength like him? Look he’s sitting right there. Wait that’s Remus? …Nah, still couldn’t be him.

Remus:

Remus is Roman’s twin and has the same powers as him. He is not active during this story, but he will end up as a “villain.” He actually ends up working with a government agency to basically go undercover as a supervillain and helps bring down villains. He’s really good at it. His mothers know, but honestly, they kind of expected something like this. They’re just glad their other son is just a normal actor who has no interest in risking his life…

Deceit:

Deceit was actually mentioned (though not by name) in the first chapter. He is a vigilante and has been since before Logan was on the scene. Logan hates him. He probably would have gotten over being shot that one time, but then he made the mistake of needing medical care and kidnapping a doctor… He didn’t harm Patton at all, and Logan found him in like two hours, but none of that mattered. Logan was super, super pissed. The funny thing is, Deceit was not and still is not aware of Patton’s personal connection to Bluebird. He isn’t quite sure why Bluebird treats him with more disdain than he does most villains, but just figures he’s an asshole.

Emile:

Emile is a pretty well-known psychiatrist. He offered his services free of charge for people affected by the school shooting. He even extended the invitation to Bluebird, letting him wear the mask the whole time. Logan took him up on it because honestly, it was a traumatic situation and he figured he should deal with it now rather than later. Emile is currently dating Remy. He was not 100% sure why the superhero Bluebird seemed to be giving him dating advice at a party, but it worked out. (No, Remy is not aware Logan set him up.)

Feel free to keep sending asks about this story going forward. I love them and I have a lot more about this universe in my head that I didn’t put here either unintentionally or intentionally.

Click here for asks already answered in chronological order.

[a-singing-carebear]

Thank You Critical Role - My D&D story

“The adventure begins, they were always beside you. Your nerdy best friends and the DM to guide you”. Critical role, what more can I say?

I started playing dungeons and dragons when I was around 4\5th grade, playing with a group as an afternoon group\class. 4E, and I don't remember much besides my halfling ranger and a lot of glances and readthrough of my still existing Player's Handbook. (Well the first half of the book, the miniatures section didn’t really speak to me) Finding out my father was a DM when he was younger, and I even went to some events. I can't at all recall why I stopped, but the happiness and creativity wonder I felt still lingered in my mind. 

I had the love for fantasy, I had things like LOTR, “hey! it’s just like D&D”, and a lot of creativity and storytelling crafting.

After that, I kinda moved on I guess, felt lonely, and like geekness and role-playing was a bad and childish thing (though it made me feel so spectacular). The closest I got was some lively Avatar OC with some new friends.

Fast forward to 2015, The episode “Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons” from gravity falls. All those feelings rose again and I remembered how much I loved playing.

(also enjoy role-playing and with LARP being mentioned there too, when I went to some Cons I had a blast with the foam swords there).

I took out the 4e Player's Handbook, made with my brother (who got in and out of d&d by that time) a carved foam platform and a cubes map - thus started a made-up game by the name of "D&F" (Dungeons & Fandoms), using his found old dices and it's a 1 on 1 encounter magic arena with no distinct roles. What started as "let's make Ability Scores to characters from shows" became a random "I cast a tree of pancakes on you! -no, I burned it with fire-bending you’re dead". A game that also slowly died as we grew up and apart (“I mean, they used to be best friends, but then they got all stupid. Can you promise me you won't get stupid?”)

(FOUND IT!!!) A mild discovery of the ingenious song “Never Split The Party”, an actual d&d song I discovered after watching Semblance of Sanity and figuring out that their ditty “don’t you know you never split the party” is an actual song their singing.

[This video is just a d&d podcast they had, but kinda sums up everything I feel about why I enjoy D&D!]

Then another tiny spark 3 years later when the Voltron episode “Monsters & Mana” came out (BTW, a great d&d parody episode). Which mostly came to an end after a glance in the book and dices and helping a friend with ideas to craft his own RPG game.

We arrive at the date when everything changed (well, almost), December 7th, 2018. The day I discovered the “Mighty Nein Animated Intro - Your Turn To Roll” and my life were never the same.

Stumbled upon it by complete accident. I was at a loss for words, I heard the name “Critical Role” thrown about many times on tumbler’s trending list and saw pictures and art of mostly Jester. I didn't even know what is it - a tv show? a game? well, it looks like D&D. The song was incredible and brought me back, I started writing a full-fleshed out character - a human ranger taught by an elf, but the idea was quickly shifted to another fantasy story by me (it’s heard sticking to it when you know it’s just backstory and character info and you will not play and you have no one). But I continue watching this video on repeat (haha not even knowing what it actually is), scouting tumbler for info and watching some random animatics, learning it's probably a podcast d&d\rpg or something. It could have been amazing as a tv show (XD)… and then another video got released, same incredible essence of d&d song but different animation, and different characters That was my first introduction to Vox Machina.

I had to check this out. Tried to get into the fandom but got lost, even though the interest was there. Stepping upon the awesome cosplay OP and even found out about a hamilton album parody - and my musical loving self was ecstatic.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIDuJAvTTRc&list=PL39vwIwCtLi3l4J6IMV6rS2HaLCujNzRT -  Vox Machina: An Exandrian Musical)

Found the full podcast list of champion 1 and started this May. But it was hard following just by voice, and I wanted to see what was happening, every episode was 3-4 hours long, with me in my military base it was impossible. (also I thought to myself “it looks cool, but what so investing and amazing about watching some people play D&D - boy I was wrong).

Then my unexpected savior arrived, miss Corona the pandemic.

I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands and the Critical Role vids got suggested again on YouTube, yes indeed, I discovered there are actually filmed episodes. Towards the end of May, I started the journey and the flame reignited. I started talking to a good friend of mine about his interest in d&d and we started crafting characters - I resurrected my charter into a half-elven ranger with a full backstory. Down the road, I asked another two friends of mine about their interest in d&d (because maybe I can join together an actual party), one of them said, and I’m quoting “no I don’t have experience playing…but I swear I wanted to talk to you about D&D”. Unfortunately, the two friends groups didn’t mix but we made an improved first session with me as the fucking DM, simply magical. Later that week I started a 1on1 campaign with the other friend, with him as the DM and a marvelous start of an adventure (and helping him learn the rules as an ADM, with the past faded expirations I had).

All while fangirly, hyperfixation way continuing with the journey of Vox Machina, it’s amazing because as opposed to other shows I can also completely see the fandom growing along with the show and cast (i just hope I can catch up to the Mighty Nein before the inevitable 3rd campaign, 198 episodes to go - happy 100th ep!). It’s also difficult to get into the Critters fandom right now because most of the community is focused and recognized by Mighty Nein. Also burning up creativity slots and making more various characters then I could ever use - I’m enjoying myself so muchhh. Diving headfirst into this beautiful crazy of the mess that is D&D.

Nothing’s never too late and it’s ok if you have hiatus. It doesn’t make you any less worthy and I don’t need to feel bad about this journey of that a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons got me back to loving, playing and caring about the world of d&d, it’s part of the intent. As a fantasy lover (spells, costumes, items, structures, creatures, you name it), aspiring creative writer and an untalented lover of acting theatrical and role-playing, along with the incredible mechanism of RPG and the vast community, the amazing time with friends, its the game for me, it always had been. So thank you Critical Role for igniting that flame once again - even if I will lose it again I will always have you guys. “Can you answer the call? Dig in deep in your soul. As the legend unfolds, now it's your turn to roll!”

(sorry for the lengthy length, it was meant to be much shorter)

[three-drink-amy]

All the Shine of a Thousand Spotlights

masterlist - AO3

Chapter Seven - It’s Bad Luck to Say Good Luck on Opening Night

Next week was previews. Jamie knew how important they were, mainly because Claire never let them forget it. Reviewers and hand-picked guests would come to see the show before it opened. If they got shitty reviews, they wouldn’t be open for long. That was how it worked. Or at least, that was how Claire and John assured them it worked. The members of the cast who’d done this multiple times started to get quieter in the days approaching previews. The set was filled with an eerie silence during breaks between scenes. 

Jamie used that time to make sure his performance was in tip-top shape. It was now up to him to perfect things as best he could. Occasionally, he’d ask Joe for advice, or sometimes Louise. And both of them were very eager to listen and tell him how to do what he wanted to. He used to go to Claire, but then she’d started avoiding him. 

But as previews approached, the other actors sequestered themselves during down time. Jamie wanted someone to talk to. Ideally, he wanted to talk to Claire, but he couldn’t. He spent the few minutes they had during their long-awaited break thinking of her. There wasn’t much more he could tweak on his performance that he hadn’t already tried before. There was no one else to talk to. And so his mind went to Claire. 

It happened pretty much constantly. She was always on his mind, one way or another. It had only grown worse as production carried on. He spent every day with her, in awe of her, wanting to be with her. But they couldn’t. The night they’d spent in her office had been really nice. It had felt so natural to be around her, to talk with her for hours. But since that night, he’d barely spoken to her, outside of her giving directions and him asking questions. 

The night he’d gone to the bar with the cast, he’d been the one to throw out the suggestion of which bar. Someone had said to yell out a bar and he called out the first one that came to mind. Of course it was where he’d met Claire. She was the only thing that was ever on his mind. He’d gone ahead with Laoghaire to grab a table, cursing everyone else for sticking them together on a mission. When he looked up and saw Claire looking back at him, he almost thought he was imagining it. But she held her stare until Laoghaire demanded his attention. He could tell what she thought, that he was there on a date or something with Laoghaire. There would have been no easy explanation of why he ran over to her, desperate to explain what the situation really was. So he’d stayed put. When Laoghaire headed over to her, he made his best effort to show Claire it wasn’t something romantic. He’d wanted her to stay so badly. Watching her walk away with a crushed look on her face had killed him. 

It had also confused him. She’d been the one keeping her distance from him. Granted, once she started, he’d followed suit. He could take a hint. But the look she gave him at the bar, the air between them as he asked her to stay, it seemed like it was something more. He wanted to chase after her, to make her tell him what she was thinking. Instead, he turned when he heard his name being called and sulked over to where the group was starting to form. 

That night, he laid awake in bed, contemplating every step of his relationship to Claire. The night they’d met, it was pure fire, pure passion. It came back to him in flashes, often at the wrong time. The way it felt to brush her knee in the bar, to see her react. The way she whispered in his ear, asking him to take her home. The sounds she’d made as he pressed her to the wall of his stairs. The taste of her. The feel of her. The way she looked with her hair spread out across the pillow as he watched her sleep. Things had obviously taken an awkward turn from auditions. But for a while, he felt like they were maybe at least friends. They’d talk occasionally, but always in a friendly manner. And that night in her office was the most comfortable he’d been since he’d auditioned for the play. 

She’d drawn back though. And now he didn’t know what they were. Perhaps nothing more than an actor and his director. When he was hesitantly accepting the role, that was the relationship he’d wanted for them. After spending weeks with her and getting to know her better, it wasn’t the relationship he wanted for them anymore. He wanted more. She was his boss, though, and he’d respect that, no matter how much it crushed him. Claire Beauchamp was off limits, and he was fairly sure it was his own doing. 

So, now, it was almost previews and his mind was running in a million different circles. He felt like he had whiplash from how fast his mind would snap between thoughts of Claire and trying to focus on his performance. His head fell back against the wall where he sat, looking through the script one more time. Perhaps if he stared at it hard enough, he could unleash the secrets it held. Or maybe he was just losing his mind. 

“Everybody!” Claire yelled from the stage. Without any hesitance, Jamie jumped up and strode quickly back to the stage. 

He knew Laoghaire and Louise had been going over a scene on the stage. He wondered if they’d done something to set Claire off this way. The cast collected on stage, looking nervously toward their director. Jamie spotted John lingering off Stage Right, watching her curiously. 

Claire sighed grandly, looking at everyone in front of her. “People, previews are next week.” Silence followed her statement. She paced in front of them. “It looks good, but it doesn’t look great and that’s what we fucking need.” 

Laoghaire was her first victim. “For the love of God, Laoghaire, you could convey some emotion in your face while you’re performing. It wouldn’t kill you.” 

Louise was next. “Louise, you need to tighten up the second act, particularly scene five. That is the most important scene for you and if you don’t nail it, the rest of the actors are going to fall flat.” 

She turned to the rest of the cast. “And for those of you who are in scenes but don’t speak in that scene, it is alright to react! You don’t have to stand there like a statue until the next time you speak. Humans move, they listen to conversations, their faces display what they’re thinking. You’re allowed to do that as an actor. I genuinely thought a lot of this would be fixed by now — that you’d realize it on your own. I suppose not.” 

A few more scared souls got called out by name. Jamie waited, anxious for when it was his turn. He glanced over at Joe and noticed the amused look on his face. Joe’s eyes caught Jamie’s and he gave him a look that said “I’ve been waiting for this.” Jamie felt his face start to match Joe’s. 

“And Jamie and Joe,” she called, glaring at the two of them. “You may not have been called out by name this time, but you can wipe those smug grins off your faces. The two of you are far from perfect. You’re just not doing anything at present to warrant my wrath.” Jamie felt his face go slack, perhaps a bit of shock replacing the amusement. He nodded slightly in return. 

“People, previews are what determines it all. It makes people buy tickets. And tickets mean money. And money means we run longer. We don’t want to be dead on Opening Night. Pretend you’re professional actors and get your fucking acts together. You’ve all been in a show before right?” No one replied. “Well it’s time to start acting like it. Get back to work. Act II, Scene VI.” 

They all scuttled around and got in places. Jamie sat in the chair across the stage from where Claire stood. He watched her as lighting was setting up the scene. He saw the tension and exhaustion on her face. More than anything, he wanted to wrap her up in his arms and remind her of how great she was, of how the show was going to be fine. He wanted to be able to comfort her. While he couldn’t comfort her with his arms or his words, he could comfort her with his performance. If he nailed it all — every line, cue, or movement — maybe that could make her feel relief.

* * *

Previews had, thankfully, gone rather well. I checked a few reviews online and we’d gotten high praise. John and I had shared a relieved smile the first day we walked into the theater after reviews came out. It was a handful of reviewers, enough to entice people to buy tickets and to encourage other critics to come see the show. John picked the people who were allowed to come to previews and he never failed to pick the right people. This was part of why I continued to work with him. 

We had a few days to tweak what needed it, but then it was Opening Night. I entered the theater, preparing myself for the chaos that always accompanied the first night of a show. I took a pitstop in my office to take a breather before standing in front of the cast and crew. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was just as nervous as they were. 

Most of the cast was in makeup or getting into their costumes when I found them. Jamie turned toward me, throwing me off with his dazzling smile. I returned a half-hearted one. When everyone was ready, we congregated backstage. I stood before them, ready to give one more pep talk. 

“It’s Opening Night, people,” I told them, needlessly. “We made it. You all know exactly what you need to do today and I have no doubt that you’ll pull it off. You’re all the people we wanted in these roles and on this stage. I trust in each and every one of you to go out there and put on one hell of a show. You can do this!” 

An echo of “Yeahs” and “Thanks” came from the group before me. I nodded to them, urging them to take one more moment to themselves before we found our places in ten minutes time. 

I walked off toward the stage, grabbing my headset, and communicating with the crew. A tap on my shoulder made me turn around. Uncle Lamb stood before me with the brightest smile on his face. I immediately wrapped him in a tight hug. Suddenly, it all felt right again. “You’re here,” I said stupidly. 

He gave me a look. “Of course I’m here. It’s your Opening Night. Where else would I be?” 

“Thank you,” I told him taking his hand. “I love you, Lamb.” We didn’t say it often, but I always meant it. 

He squeezed my hand back. “I love you, too, my dear sweet Claire. I’ve heard very promising things and I know you’re going to knock ‘em dead!” 

I felt tears brimming in my eyes. “Thank you.” I saw the house lights blinking. “You should go take your seat.” 

Lamb nodded to me once, flashing me another big smile. “Break a leg, Darling.” 

I watched him walk back out to the house, no doubt sitting in the front row like he always did. I knew I owed my career to him, but his support of me sometimes still blew me away. 

Pulling myself together, I watched as the actors found their places. I was backstage, finishing up checking with a crewman when I spotted Jamie. He was shaking out his hands, seemingly deep in his mind. I was almost hesitant to approach him, lest I shake him from whatever process he was in. 

He looked up and saw me. I took a few more steps toward him, still staying an appropriate distance away. “Break a leg,” I told him. 

Smiling at me, he nodded. “Thank ye, Sassenach.” 

I couldn’t fight my responding smile, so much as I wanted to. The name only came out occasionally, and not since the night in my office. I stared at him for a moment. A bit longer than I should have. All my feelings from the past few months welled up inside me, making me feel almost out of control. I reached forward, grabbing his hand. “You’ll be great.” 

Jamie looked at our hands before looking up at me. “Thank you.” 

The moment ended and I let go of him, walking past him to continue making sure things were running on schedule backstage. I stepped up next to John. He looked over at me with a comforting smile. No one had been around as I’d had my moment with Jamie. But John’s smile comforted my hurting heart all the same. “We did it,” he whispered to me as the house lights started to dim. “Well, really, you did it.” 

I smiled, knocking my shoulder into his. “Thanks, John. I couldn’t have done it without you.” I cupped my hand around the headset and spoke into it. “Okay, curtain up. Lights on. Enter Jamie.” 

* * *

The show had gone spectacularly. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I met with fellow Broadway directors who’d stepped out to see the show or friends who’d come to support me. It had all come together beautifully. My favorite part of a show had landed just the way I wanted it to. I spotted various members of the cast heading out as I walked around backstage. I’d heard Louise was hosting some after party. I was fairly certain I hadn’t seen Jamie leave yet though. 

I knocked once on his dressing room door before I heard the call to come in. My smile was still on my face as I walked in, surprised by new people joining Jamie. He was out of costume, standing there with four other people. 

“Claire!” he greeted, a large smile on his face. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you,” I said, quickly turning to leave. 

“No, wait!” I turned back to see him, an arm stretched out. “Ye’re no’ interrupting. This is my family.” I looked around and suddenly I saw it. The older woman with the stark red hair, same as his. The smaller brunette woman next to him with the same eyes. The older man with a similar build. “Everyone, this is Claire...my director,” he quickly added. 

Before I had a moment to move past the sting from that title (even though I bloody was his director), his mother threw her arms around me, clutching me tightly to her. “It’s so lovely to meet ye, Claire!”

“Mam, for the love of God!” 

She pulled back and looked at me, a bashful look on her face. “Sorry. I’m a hugger. I just wanted to say thank ye for all ye’ve done for my son. Giving him this part and this huge opportunity.” 

My eyes glanced over to see Jamie looking embarrassed. A smile widened on my face. “Well, I promise you, I didn’t do all that much. He earned every bit of it. We couldn’t have cast him if he hadn’t been perfect for the role. And I mean, you saw it. You can see how great he is.” My last statement was more or less said to him. His eyes held mine. 

“Well, either way, we’re verra appreciative,” his father said, reaching out to shake my hand. 

“I’m just happy you all could come in from Scotland,” I replied. “That’s so wonderful.” 

“Och, well we couldna have missed the lad making his big break,” a younger man with light hair said, holding out his hand to me. “Ian Murray, Jamie’s brother-in-law. And best friend.” 

I laughed at the addition. “It’s a pleasure to meet all of you. Will you be able to stay long?” 

“Oh aye,” his sister replied. “We’re making a trip of it. Spending a whole week here.” 

“That’s lovely!” 

“Aye, we’ll be back to see a few more showings for Jamie,” his mother told me. “Of course, we did want to check out other shows while we’re here in New York.” 

“Yeah, Mam got us tickets to see Hamilton,” his sister said excitedly. 

I laughed as I watched Jamie’s face fall. “You’re fecking kidding me.” 

“No. I dinna ken how she did it and she willna tell us.” 

Both Fraser children turned to look at their mother. She just shrugged, a smug grin on her face. I liked her already. 

“Well, I won’t keep any more of your time. Jamie, I just wanted to tell you what a great job you did. It was lovely to meet all of you,” I said, trying to back out of the dressing room. 

“Claire,” Jamie called, stopping me again. “Are ye going to the after party, then?” 

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. It’s not usually my scene.” 

“But ye should!” Jamie insisted. “Tis as much for ye as it is for us.” 

I stared at him, noting the desperation on his face. It confused me. The situation we were in was his doing. I reminded myself that I didn’t even know if he felt a fraction of what I did. “Well, we’ll see.” I looked back at his family. “I hope you have a great time here in New York. It was so nice to meet you.” And I turned and walked from the room before Jamie could stop me a third time. 

* * *

Jamie sighed, sinking back against the counter as the door closed behind Claire. His family was silent around him. He felt their eyes on him, though. If they weren’t there, he’d have had half a mind to chase after Claire. 

“Okay, I’ll be the one to ask,” Jenny said, breaking the silence. “So, what’s going on between you and yer director?” 

His head shot over to look at his sister. “Excuse me?” 

“Oh, we could all see it, Jamie. Tis quite clear something is,” Ian told him. 

He stared at Ian and Jenny’s knowing faces, confusion filling him. “There’s nothing,” he told them honestly. At that point in time, nothing was happening. 

“Son, I hate to say it, but Jenny and Ian are right. It does seem like there’s at least something there.” 

“Da!” Jamie replied. “Ye really believe them over me?” 

“I believe what I see,” Brian retorted. “And there certainly seemed like something was going on.” 

Jamie’s eyes closed as he shook his head. “That’s no’ possible. We…” he trailed off, not sure how to finish it. 

Jenny leaned her shoulder against him. “Why are ye so sure that there’s nothing?” 

“It’s no’ that I think there’s nothing. It’s that there can be nothing. And besides, I dinna think she feels that way. No’ for me,” Jamie spoke vaguely. 

“Here’s what I saw,” Jenny told him. “I saw a big Broadway director come here just to tell ye how great a job ye did. I tend to doubt she goes around to everyone in the cast and crew to do that. Would ye all agree?” Three other heads nodded in agreement. “Then, not only did she do that, but she stayed and talked with yer family, telling them how perfect ye were for the part. And flashing ye little looks the whole time. There’s something there, whether ye believe us or not. My theory is that she has feelings for ye.” She turned and looked at Jamie. “Now, are ye really going to stand here and tell us that nothing’s happened between ye two?” 

Jamie found the chair in the room and sank down into it. “No,” he said in a small voice. “But it’s more complicated than that.” 

Eight eyes stared back at him, urging him to tell the story. 

“Man, just tell us,” Ian finally prodded. 

Jamie nodded. “Alright, so the night before my audition for the show, I was… a bit nervous. So, I went out to a bar to get a drink and take the edge off. While I was there, I met Claire, but I didna ken who she was.” 

“So, what, ye flirted a bit and now that ye work together, ye want more?” Jenny asked. 

Jamie grimaced a bit. “No’ quite.” He glanced at his parents, wishing they didn’t have to hear this part. “We, uh, spent the night together,” he told them all, looking at his hands. 

“Nice!” Ian cheered. Jenny glared at him. As did Jamie. “Sorry. Please continue.” 

“So, she had used a fake name because she wanted some anonymity. And I had no clue who she was. But then the next day at my audition...there she was. I was angry and confused and feeling all sorts of things. I didna want the part. I mean, I desperately wanted the part, but no’ like that. I didna want anyone to think that I’d done anything unseemly to get it,” Jamie promised them. “So I was ready to turn it down until Claire convinced me to take it.” 

“She convinced you to take it?” his mother asked. Jamie nodded. 

“How?” Jenny pressed. 

Jamie sighed, remembering that night all those months ago that he’d gotten that call from Claire. “She offered to step down as director if I would take the role. They apparently really wanted me to have the part and she didn’t want to stand in my way or something.” 

Jenny’s head whipped around as she looked at each other member of his family. “I’m sorry, she volunteered to give up her own position so that you would take this part?” Jamie nodded. “Holy shit, Jamie, ye’re a blind idiot.” 

“What?” he asked, a bit offended. 

“She clearly has some sort of feelings for ye! She offered to give up everything so that ye could have this part. Jamie, that’s no’ something ye do for no reason!” Jamie started to shake his head and Jenny groaned. She knelt down in front of his chair, meeting his eyeline. “Okay, so after ye spent the night together, did ye make plans to see each other again before ye ran into each other at auditions?” 

“No’ solid plans. We agreed that we should, but –” 

“Did ye develop feelings for her while ye worked together on this play?” Jenny continued. Jamie’s silence spoke volumes and he knew it. He looked away from his sister and she knew. “What makes ye think that she couldn’t be feeling the exact same thing?” 

“Because she stopped talking to me. She pulled back.” 

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Probably because she cared for ye and it was getting too hard, ye daft fool!” 

Jamie sighed, looking around at his family. “Ye really think that Claire has some sort of feelings for me?” 

They all gave a resounding “Yes.” 

“Well, what do I do?” 

“Christ, Jamie, I thought ye had more sense than this,” Jenny groaned. “Go after her!” 

He stood up, ready to do so, before he looked at his family. “Well, what about all of ye?” 

“We’re adults, my boy, I think we can get back to our hotel on our own,” his mother told him with a pat to his cheek. “This seems more important.” 

“Go get her, lad!” Ian called. 

Jamie nodded to them once, thanking them quickly before he sprinted from the dressing room, looking around frantically before he left the theater at large. Pulling out his phone, he took a risk. 

“Hello?” 

“John, I need to ask ye something.” 

“What’s up?” 

“Where does Claire live?” 

John paused. “I’m sorry, what?” 

Jamie cringed as he lingered outside the theater. “Look, my mom has some silly notion of sending Claire flowers for my career or something,” he offered as means of a lame explanation, “but I dinna ken her address.” 

“Oh,” John replied. Jamie wasn’t sure how much he bought it. “Do you have a pen?” 

“Shit, no.” 

John laughed. “Okay, I’ll text it to you.” 

“Thank ye. Sooner the better, please!” 

They hung up and Jamie bounced on his feet until John’s text came through. The minute he had her address, he was plugging it into Uber, hoping a ride was close by. The closest ride was three minutes away. 

It was the longest three minutes of Jamie’s life. He talked himself in and out of this plan too many times to count. Knowing that Claire might have feelings for him didn’t really change anything. But seeing her with his family, seemingly so at ease, unlocked something in him. He hoped he wasn’t about to make a fool of himself to her, but damn it, he had to try something. The agony of being so close and not being able to do anything about it was too much. He had to tell her. 

The Uber finally arrived and Jamie mentally urged him to drive faster and faster. After far too long for his liking, they finally arrived at Claire’s building. Looking up, Jamie felt a bit of intimidation. It was a nice place. Even if she said she didn’t, she really must have thought his place was trash. Shaking his observations off, he ran forward to press for her unit. There was no response. He tried again. Still no response. After five more tries, he started to think that maybe she wasn’t home. He’d come so far only to end here. Looking at the other buttons, he had an idea. After four other buttons, someone buzzed him in. 

Pumping his fist in the air, he ran forward to get the door before it locked again. He found her floor and then her door. Taking a moment to calm his nerves, Jamie lifted his hand to knock. 

There was still no answer. 

She hadn’t been at the theater. He’d looked. There was no way he’d beaten her home. Shaking his head, he decided to wait for her. He’d made it this far; he wasn’t giving up yet. 

* * *

I could hear the music pouring from Louise’s brownstone from the street. I pitied her neighbors tonight. Also, probably her husband. 

I didn’t usually like to go to after parties. For whatever reason, I thought it made me lose some of my authority. If they saw me dancing like a fool and drinking like a sailor, they’d respect me less. It could have just been a weird theory I’d come up with, but either way, I didn’t usually go. Of course it was Jamie-fucking-Fraser who finally convinced me to attend. 

What did I think was going to happen? Would I get drunk and finally tell him all that I felt? Doubtful. It was pointless to be there. But I wanted to be around him, so there I was, wading into the sea of cast, crew, and others just to see one person. The party was already in full swing by the time I’d arrived. 

Louise was the first person to see me. “Claire!” she screeched. “You made it!” She pushed a drink in my hand like we were teenagers at a high school party. 

“What is this?” I asked, gesturing with my cup. 

“Oh, just a red wine. We didn’t want to break the stemware.” I laughed loudly before taking a drink. “What made you come? You usually don’t.” 

I shrugged, aiming for nonchalance. “I don’t know. Jamie kind of convinced me I should come. Seemed kind of like a good time, I suppose.” 

Louise looked confused. “That’s odd. He’s not even here.” 

I looked around the crowded room. “He’s not?” 

Louise shook her head. “No. He seemed psyched about it when I saw him earlier. He told me he was going to send his family back to their hotel and be here. But he never showed up.” 

“Weird,” I replied, hoping she couldn’t see the wheels turning in my mind. If Jamie wasn’t here, I didn’t really want to stay. I wondered how long I needed to pretend to party before I snuck out and headed home. 

I talked to Joe very briefly as I drank the cup of wine I’d been given. When I finished the cup, I gestured like I was going to get more. He nodded, turning to his wife. Walking from Joe, I threw my cup in the trash and walked out the door. An overwhelming sense of disappointment flowed through me. 

I didn’t know what I was expecting. Nothing was going to change between me and Jamie tonight. All the reasons I’d withdrawn remained true. But there had been a small seed of hope in me, even if I didn’t know why. 

Rolling my eyes, I planned to go home and drown my sorrows in whatever bottle was nearest to me. The further I got from the loud party, home sounded even better.

Next chapter

[jazy3]

Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 16X20

I liked this episode for the most part, but I did not like the ending. It made no sense to me as pretty much everything to do with DeLuca and the hot mess that is his character does. It was heartbreaking watching Richard be sick and get worse as the episode went on. My heart broke for Meredith and Maggie. Also where the hell was Hayes this episode? He was at the Conference last week and he helped Maggie get Richard off the stage. At the beginning of the episode we see Maggie and Richard heading back on a private plane, but don’t see Teddy or Cormac anywhere. What did they have them fly commercial?

But then Teddy shows up back at the hospital going about her business so obviously they all made it back okay. Where the heck was he? He saw Richard’s presentation and he’s a close personal friend of Meredith’s so obviously he’d want to help figure out what’s wrong with Richard. He’s the head of Pediatric Surgery for crying out loud and he’s lived in three countries. Wouldn't they want his expertise? He should have been in that War Room!

Also I hate the fact that where Hayes was wasn’t addressed. I know that he’s currently billed as a recurring guest start so I get why he can’t be in every episode, but his absence from this one made no sense. Especially because there have been times when they’ve had him in an episode, but he played a small role. Like in the episode “Give a Little Bit” where Meredith headed up a pro bono surgery day. Hayes was there, but he wasn’t super prominent.

So they’re clearly okay with doing that which makes his absence from this episode all the more baffling. I’m also just genuinely confused as to how that works because I get that there are different rules as to how many episodes an actor is in based on how they are billed I get that. But they brought Teddy back as a reoccurring character and then upped her to a main character again. But following that she’s only been in ¾ of the episodes each season. I looked at the episode count and DeLuca’s been in more episodes in the last two seasons than Teddy has.

That makes no sense. Teddy’s character pre-dates DeLuca’s existence as a character by several years. And he’s not a good character! He’s not nice, he’s not interesting, he’s not a good doctor, or a brilliant surgeon. I get that they like the actor, but what the hell? It also makes me sad that there were likely more episodes planned that had Hayes (and Teddy) in them, but we won’t get to see them this season because it was cut short and instead are forced to endure DeLuca prancing around our screens being an idiot.

I don't see why they seem to like him so much. His character is awful and that’s their own fault. They made him this complete asshole and they keep giving him all this screen time when the majority of fans just don’t care and it takes away from other characters that we actually care about that we could be seeing. Also it’s their own fault. They made him into an asshole. He didn’t have to be. They could have made DeLuca a likeable character that we actually cared about, but they chose not to which makes their choice to give more screen time extra baffling.

Also I hated that they didn’t explain where he was at all. It would have taken one line to explain that. They could have said he decided to stay an extra couple of days in LA so that his boys could spend more time with their Aunt or said he was treating a critical patient and that’s why he was unavailable. But they didn’t address it all! Or if they did it was so quick that I missed it.

I also felt like there was a great set up in this episode for Hayes in that it would have been great to see him supporting Meredith as a friend and confidant as well as supporting the other doctors as he has good working relationships with most of them and can obviously tell that Richard means a great deal to all of them. He should have been there dammnit! He should have been in that War Room. It would have been great to see him bring Meredith a coffee or a tea as he’s done in the past. I would have loved to have seen her confide in him and talk about how she was feeling.

Instead, we had to put up with DeLuca and more of his nonsense. After being suspended and riding off into the abyss on his motorcycle he’s back for some reason. He somehow got past security and into Richard’s hospital room after kidnapping a patient and having to be surrounded and then escorted out. Security is sleeping on the job in this place I tell you. Bailey finds him talking to Richard about squirrels at the park. Literally. Effing squirrels. What the actual heck? I don’t understand why Bailey didn’t call for an immediate psych consult.

DeLuca is clearly still unwell and he needs treatment not the brush off. WTF? He tells her he heard the news about what had happened to Richard and came to visit. Bailey is not happy. He’s violating the terms of his suspension by being there. Can they just fire him already? They definitely have the grounds to do it at this point. He tells Bailey that him and Richard hang out socially and he’s there visiting a friend. Seriously? Since when? The last time they hung out socially was before Richard knew he was dating Maggie. That was ages ago. They’re not friends. They don’t hang out. He’s just inserting himself into a situation because he can.

Bailey tells him to get the hell out and sends him away which should have been the end of it. As the episode ends we see Meredith enter the research library. In her voice over she talks about how there are moments she wishes she could relive and ones that she wishes she could forget or do differently and that no matter what she does they keep coming back to haunt her. I expected her to sit down on the floor and start reading like she did with Cristina in the pilot when they were trying to help Derek treat Katie Bryce. It would have been a great callback and an amazing parallel.

Instead we get more of DeLuca and his nonsense. Meredith enters the library and sits down at one of the tables. The camera pans over and we see DeLuca sitting there with a pile of books. Seriously how did he get in there? They’ve established that the library has a special code lock that only certain people have access to and DeLuca’s been suspended and was personally kicked out by the Chief of Surgery for violating the terms of his suspension. Security should have escorted him off the premises. How in the heck did he get into the library?

Meredith is there to work and try to figure out what’s wrong with Richard. She surmises correctly that DeLuca is also trying to figure it out. She asks him what he’s got so far and in response DeLuca mocks the fact that he’s mentally ill and is refusing to admit it or seek treatment. What the hell? Mental Illness is no laughing matter and I just don’t understand where they are going with this storyline. Are they trying to make Meredith and DeLuca friends now? They still have nothing in common and he still hasn't picked a specialty! Pick a lane!

Meredith and DeLuca broke up over his own insecurities. Meredith was annoyed and then she moved on and then instead of apologizing DeLuca kept trying to gaslight her and say he didn’t actually break up with her. She slept with him once and they briefly got back together, but then he started spiralling out of control and she tried to get him some help. In response DeLuca became violent and aggressive and broke up with her multiple times over the next several episodes and made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her.

Then he drove off into the abyss and Meredith clearly wasn’t that concerned about it. Now he’s back, clearly still unwell, and is making fun of the fact that he’s unwell. What the heck? They keep switching what they are doing with him and I just don’t get it. Having Meredith and him break up and go their separate ways amicably? Fine. Having them have this explosive blow up and she moves on? Also fine. Having him get sick and got out in this blaze of glory? Sure. Having Meredith and DeLuca become friends, end on good terms, and have her move on with Hayes? Fine. But pick one!

They keep flip flopping around like a fish out of water and I don’t get it. Which is one of the reasons I don’t like his character because he’s all over the map. He’s super inconsistent all the time. What DeLuca needs at this point is rest and treatment, but he’s clearly refused to do both those things and Meredith  can’t force him so she might as well use what he’s got. I wish Meredith had actually said that instead of just implying it through her words and actions.

It also bothers me that they inserted DeLuca into an episode about Richard being sick. This is a storyline about the characters we know and love rallying around one of their own to help him get better. How dare they insert DeLuca into this when he has no place being there. Him and Meredith are not together and he has no friends and his only close relationship is with his sister. I just don’t get what they are going for here. Him and Meredith are clearly not getting back together.

He’s mentally unstable and violent which means he can’t be alone or anywhere near her kids or her pregnant sister. I honestly don't understand how Meredith was comfortable being alone in the library with him late at night after he punch a wall in frustration and Hayes had to step in to help her. He also isn’t at all concerned about how Richard’s illness is affecting Meredith, Maggie, or Amelia. He heard the news and decided to sneak back into the hospital to try and diagnose him and save the day. He didn’t call or text his ex-girlfriends or his former mentor to see how they were doing at all. Meredith just happened to stumble upon him hiding out in the library.

On top of that there’s no way Meredith and DeLuca can be together long term because he doesn’t want to be a part of her family. He was only ever interested in her. And that’s not my opinion that’s what DeLuca actually said. When Jackson tried to help him out with Zola he straight up told him he doesn’t want to be anyone’s Dad. Meredith has three kids. He has made absolutely no effort with her friends or family who lets not forget openly hate him and he’s fine with that. None of their scenes have been romantic in any way since their hookup. They’ve all been instances of Meredith expressing concern and trying to help DeLuca or them working together on a case.

Last week’s episode was fantastic and I gotta admit this one had me right up until the end. There was such a great set up and I really thought that in the following episodes we were going to see Meredith and Hayes interact more and see them move forward romantically. Instead he was conspicuously absent and we had to put up with this nonsense. That’s the other thing that frustrates me. Prior to this there was a good set up for Hayes to ask Meredith out and for them to start dating. Now there isn’t.

Richard is sick and Hayes knows that which makes it a weird time for him to ask Meredith out. They also didn’t explain where the heck he was this episode and why he was missing from all the action which puts that in a weird place. On the other hand, Meredith could use some joy in her life and I’d love to see their relationship move forward after so much build up. I’m worried that there was more planned on this front and we won’t get to see it until later because of the shutdown.

I felt so bad for Meredith when she kept insisting that it wasn’t Alzheimer’s because she knows the disease so well because she had a front row seat to it with Ellis when it was obvious that it was clearly one of the possibilities. The scene where Meredith finds Richard in the OR and is forced to confront that it is a possibility and had to talk him down from hurting himself was gut wrenching. At first I panicked because I thought he was actually operating on someone and then I was horrified when they showed that he was actually hallucinating and trying to operate on himself.

When he didn’t recognize Meredith and called her Ellis my heart broke for both of them. It also reminded me of the scene years ago when Adele got sick and came to the hospital to see Richard and thought Meredith was Ellis and kept telling her to let him go. And if that’s what Richard’s seeing that also creates problems for Meredith trying to help him or be around him because he and Ellis were having an affair and if he thinks Meredith is Ellis she can’t be around him when he’s in that state of mind.

I hope they can figure out what’s wrong with him and find a way to fix him or improve his quality of life in some way. I hope he doesn’t go out like this. He’s a great character whose come a long way and has worked really hard to get there. Also Meredith cannot lose anyone else she really can’t. I thought it was a bit odd the way they did the scenes with Richard and Maggie and talking about her as his daughter. They are family, but she didn’t grow up with him around and Richard didn’t even know that Maggie existed until a few years ago.

They’re close, but Meredith and Richard are closer. She’s known him the longest. He’s been like a father to her since she was three. He got fired standing by her and lost his marriage over that. They have an incredible bond and I felt like they should have emphasized that more. I thought the storyline with Tom and his ex-wife and her sick child was interesting but also kind of frustrating. Greg Germann did an amazing job portraying Tom in this episode. He captured the feelings that were going through Tom’s mind perfectly.

As soon as Amelia’s started experiencing pain early on in the episode I knew they were going to come back to that, but I had a feeling she wouldn’t give birth just yet because that deserves it’s own episode. Amelia and Link were super cute this episode! They’re going to be great parents! I loved Link’s comment that his life as he knew it is going to be over soon and Jo’s comment that he had a good run. Link going “Yeah I did,” with that smirk! He had a good run and now it’s time for a new adventure! Jo and Levi were hilarious and adorable this episode. I’m glad to see that Jo is getting her groove back and not letting what happened with Alex hold her back.

I’m glad that Tom and Amelia were able to help Guthrie. He seemed like a great kid and I’m glad he’s going to get better. Real talk though his ex-wife Dana is a horrible person for bringing him to Grey Sloan and just springing him on Tom like that when he looks so much like their dead son David. What the heck? Also did anyone else notice how old Dana and her second husband looked? They looked ancient compared to Koracick which means either Tom is a lot older than we thought and has just aged really well or Tom is a lot younger than Dana and her second husband. Also did anyone else find it strange that her second husband didn’t really seem to know who Tom was or the history there? 

He spoke to him like a stranger. That’s definitely not the man Dana left Tom for after David died which implies that her previous relationship ended and then she remarried to someone else. Teddy pissed me off so much in this episode! When we were watching the episode I ran out of words to describe my feelings so I spent a good part of the episode flopping my hands in front of me like a discontented seabird in an effort to describe my reaction to my best friend who was watching with. She said it was hilarious. I’m sorry you all missed it.

God this woman. I’m not even that invested in Teddy as a character. I like her and I think she’s interesting to watch, but I’m not a hard core fun. But I could not with her this episode. I can’t even. She needs to pick a lane and stay there. One episode she’s happy and in love with Owen and they’re raising all these kids together and they’re getting married. Next she’s unhappy and having an affair with Tom and lying to Owen about it. Then we find out Allison wasn’t just her best friend, but her lover and she named her baby after her and it’s implied that Owen doesn’t know any of that.

This episode she’s running around supporting Tom through a difficult time like they’re a couple and then she turns around and has sex with Owen in a supply closet and tells him she wants to get married this weekend. Owen still doesn't know about the affair. What the hell Teddy? You can love many people, but you can’t be with all of them at the same time unless everyone knows that and is on board and clearly they are not. Pick a lane woman! Pick a lane!

Catherine was all around awful in this episode as she has been for the last little while. She briefly redeemed herself in my eyes when she played along with Richard about her being at the Conference because I thought that was a really good idea, but then she went off on Jackson and everyone else for not being able to do the impossible. She essentially called them stupid because they couldn’t magically figure out what was wrong with Richard after she bought his hospital out from under him and left him.

Catherine gets mad and asks how they didn’t see that something was wrong, but like Jackson says they did see that something was wrong. They thought he was depressed because of what Catherine did to him which was a perfectly logical conclusion until he started hallucinating publicly. They’re doctors, not psychics. It’s Catherine’s own fault that they didn’t see this. If she hadn’t left him or bought Pac North out from under him she would have been there when he started deteriorating and the symptoms would have been more obvious to those around him.

The patient of the week was funny I’ll admit although they left it a bit too open ended for my liking. Is she just like that now? Does she just keep singing forever? Are they going to follow up on that? We are left with more questions than answers. Due to the shutdown caused by COVID-19 it looks like the next episode will be the last of this season. I’m disappointed but there’s no way anyone could have predicted this. My hope is that they’ll tack the remaining four episodes onto next season.

Until next time!

[moviemagistrate]

ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD review

ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD is my favorite movie of the 2010’s. 

I’ll give you a minute to put your recently-blown mind back together.

So why do I love this movie so much? The overall response to Quentin Tarantino’s supposedly penultimate opus has been very positive if not rapturous, but I’ve seen some surprisingly lukewarm and even negative reviews, with people criticizing it for being slow, meandering, lacking in depth or *shudder* boring. Obviously the quality of any movie is subjective, as I’m quick to remind anyone who hates Michael Bay movies, but I honestly don’t understand people who dislike OUATIH. Maybe it’s a matter of expectations, because I didn’t know how to feel about the film for much of the first time I watched it either.

The year is 1969, a time of great political and cultural change in the country and in the entertainment industry. The star-driven films of yesteryear are giving way to grittier, artsier, more auteur-driven works as we primarily follow Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), former star of a popular cowboy show whose failed attempt to start an A-list movie career has left him relying on guest spots as TV villains-of-the-week to stay afloat. This is wonderfully laid out in the opening scene where he meets casting director Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino, easily his best role since JACK & JILL), who lays out Rick’s lowering hierarchical status (“Who’s gonna kick the shit out of you next week? How about Batman & Robin? PING. POW”), while offering him an opportunity to be a leading-man again in Italian pictures.

Tagging along is Rick’s best, and maybe only, friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), Rick’s go-with-the-flow stunt-double who in the slowdown of Rick’s career has effectively become his driver and gofer, as well as Rick’s sole source of emotional support. Rick is also neighbors with Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), the beautiful young actress and wife of then-superstar director Roman Polanski (whose inclusion in the film is minimal and handled tastefully), as she lives out her idyllic life, beloved by those around her like the ray of sunshine she was in real life. Her gated, hillside home looms over Rick’s, as he ponders aloud about how even meeting her the right way could resurrect his career.

For almost two-and-a-half hours, we follow these three characters as they just live out their lives, Rick nursing hangovers and having emotional breakdowns in front of his 8-year-old co-star on set while contemplating his future, Cliff going where the wind blows him while taking care of his adorable and highly-trained dog, and Sharon as she drives around Old Hollywood, spends time with her friends, and sneaks into a matinee showing of one of her movies, her eyes and infectious smile beaming with pride when the audience laughs at her comedic timing and cheers her martial-arts prowess.

I think it’s safe to say it’s not the film any of us were expecting from Quentin Tarantino. Having only made loud, gory, over-the-top genre pastiches for the last 15 years, you’d expect from the trailers for this to be about an actor and his sexy stunt-double getting mixed up with the Manson family before teaming up with Bruce Lee to save Sharon Tate from her horrific real-life fate, mixed with the filmmaker’s usual self-indulgent homages to films of yesteryear. While some of this is true to some extent, it’s surprisingly a much more relaxed, easygoing dramedy that follows a trio of funny, charismatic people as they just…exist, as people living in the moment instead of relics.

OUATIH is much more concerned with atmosphere, character, and capturing the feeling of a bygone era than the traditional narrative structure. It’s more effective than pretty much every nostalgia trip movie I've ever seen because you can feel Tarantino's affection for this era of his childhood bleed through every character, car, song, radio advertisement, TV show, background poster, etc. It’s through this meticulous level of detail and willingness to just hang out with these characters and take in this world that he reconstructed, Tarantino successfully resurrects the era in all its 35mm glory, but with the knowing twinge of real-world melancholy.

I guess the reason I love it so much is because the love that Tarantino has for everything and everyone in it is so tangible that it’s infectious. Watching OUATIH I honestly felt like I understood him better as both a filmmaker and as a person. He shows a level of restraint and maturity I haven’t seen since JACKIE BROWN. Even most of his trademark foot fetishizing is tasteful and subdued (I say “most” because I recall at least three close-ups of actresses’ feet that definitely made him a bit sweaty behind the camera). He’s a weird, shameless nerd with a big ego, but he’s 100% sincere about expressing his love for film and its rich history. And it’s this love, and the skill and style with which it’s expressed, that just put a big smile on my face each of the 6 (SIX) times that I’ve seen it since it came out. 

Tarantino offers a tantalizing contrast between reality and fantasy. Throughout the film, as the characters of Hollywood live in their own idyllic world, relaxing in pools or driving around in bitchin’ cars, we also see the disquieting eeriness and griminess of the Manson family. The soundtrack and accompanying old-timey commercials for tanning butter or Mug Root Beer that plays through a lot of the film is a joy to listen to, but we also hear news bulletins of the war in Vietnam or the aftermath of the Bobby Kennedy assassination. You could argue this is just to set the scene for the era, but it feels too deliberate, because even after that joyously fantastical ending, we remember that it was just a fairy tale and real life didn’t turn out as pleasantly. Tarantino’s ability to make his world and characters so meticulously detailed and lived-in works to great effect in instilling a bittersweet melancholy to this film in a way I was really taken aback by. It feels like a window into his soul, someone who yearns for the fantasy of the world he grew up in but remembering that not all good things last and not everything in your nostalgic past was good to begin with.

One beautiful, spellbinding scene is Rick and Cliff coming back from their excursion into the world of Italian filmmaking. In this montage, we see Rick, Cliff and Rick’s new Italian wife arriving at the airport and driving home before unpacking their baggage, interspersed with Sharon Tate welcoming a guest at her home and having lunch, before cutting to a series of shots of famous LA landmarks like Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Taco Bell, and Der Wienerschnitzel all meticulously resurrected in their retro glory as they light up the night. “Baby, baby, baby you’re out of time”, sings Mick Jagger as we’re watching multiple stories about people who are each embodying those words: Rick’s career, his friendship with Cliff, Sharon Tate, and Hollywood itself.

Tarantino himself feels like one of the last mainstream auteur filmmakers, as well as one of the last and biggest proponents of shooting large-budget movies on film (even Scorsese’s embraced digital now, the fantastically-talented traitor). And with the rise of streaming services, one can’t help but feel like the movie-going experience itself is also becoming obsolete, especially recently, what with theaters going to war with distributors over fucking TROLLS: WORLD TOUR, not to mention that global pandemic we’ve been having lately all but killing general audiences’ enthusiasm for the movie theater experience (Christopher Nolan’s TENET certainly didn’t help). If all these things, both real and fictional, are indeed out of time, then at least with Tarantino’s penultimate film they get one hell of a bittersweet sendoff, a great time that’s more of an Irish wake than a funeral, and it’s a film I have no issue calling a truly introspective, late-career masterpiece.

And that’s without mentioning uniformly incredible cast. Leo DiCaprio, an actor I normally don’t care too much for, gives the best and funniest performance of his career as a dependent prima donna actor clinging to his remaining fame. Brad Pitt earns the hell out of his Oscar as an embodiment of old-school masculinity and charisma with an amazing set of abs (and everything else) whose outward coolness masks his mysterious past and complete badass-ness. Margot Robbie shines in her depiction of Tate, a beacon of warmth and likability who in many ways symbolized the love and carefree attitudes of the swingin’ 60’s. I’ve heard people criticize her character for not having a lot of dialogue, but to me it feels like they’re ignoring the visual storytelling, which just gives way to them assuming the film is sexist just because the female lead isn’t constantly monologuing. Every member of the supporting cast is memorable with their own quirks and great lines, no matter their screentime.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a Tarantino joint without some truly hilarious and shocking violence, and without going into spoiler territory, the last 20 minutes delivers on this promise to such a degree that I feel comfortable calling it the best thing he’s ever done. Some may decry the climax as unnecessary or over-the-top, but the way it leads to an alternate world while subtly acknowledging what happened in the real one is cathartic beyond belief. And if you’re paying attention, every scene in the movie has been quietly building towards this finale, which to me takes away any potential of feeling meandering in the story. If you saw the movie and didn’t much care for it, I recommend giving it another watch. Having the context ahead of time makes it feel so much more rewarding, and even on the fifth watch I’m noticing clever, subtle set-ups I missed beforehand.

It’s also just super cozy and really easy to watch. The two hours and 45 minutes fly by. I could watch a 4-hour version of this.

Quentin, if you’re reading this, please don’t let your last movie be Star Trek.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 12/4/20 – HALF BROTHERS, THE PROM, I’M YOUR WOMAN, BLACK BEAR, LUXOR, ANOTHER ROUND, ALL MY LIFE, NOMADLAND, MANK and Much More!

I hope everyone had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was relatively uneventful, and I only spent most of my time watching movies.  And holy shit, there are a LOT of movies out this week, but at least a few of them I’ve already seen and reviewed, and there are others that are actually pretty good, so I might as well get to it, hm?

First up is this week’s Focus Features theatrical release, HALF BROTHERS, a buddy road comedy directed by Luke Greenfield (Blue Streak, Let’s Be Cops) that’s fairly high concept but also with quite a bit more depth than the director’s previous movies. It stars Luis Gerardo Méndez as Renato Murguia, a wealthy Mexican businessman whose father left him to come to America when Renato was just a child. Just as Renato is about to get married while having issues connecting to his future stepson Emilio, he gets a call that his own father is dying, so he begrudgingly goes to see him. Once there, Renato’s dying father sends him on a scavenger hunt to find someone named “Eloise” with his annoying slacker half-brother Asher (Connor del Rio), because that will provide all the answers Renato is looking for on why his father never returned from America, remarried and had another son. What could possibly go wrong?

If you’ve seen any of the ads for Half Brothers, you may already presume that this is a fairly high-concept buddy road comedy that is constantly going for the zaniest and craziest of laughs. That probably would only be maybe 25% of the movie. Instead, this fairly mainstream comedy finds a way to take a very common comedy trope and throw in enough heartfelt moments that you can forgive the few times when it does go for low-hanging fruit. We’ve seen so many movies like this where two guys (or sometimes ladies, but not as often) are paired with one having zero patience or tolerance for the other, who is beyond aggravating to them. (Planes, Trains and Automobiles is one of the better ones.) Obviously, Renato fits snugly into the first category, and Asher could not be more annoying, very early on stealing a goat for no particular reason.

The Mexican angle and the fact that a lot of the film is in Spanish – Focus getting into Pantelion territory here? – does add to make Half Brothers feel like more of a personal story than we might normally see in this kind of movie, touching upon the immigrant experience, from the viewpoint of a low-paid worker as well as a well-to-do industrialist. It also deals with things like fatherhood and brotherhood and what it means to be one or both, so everything ultimately connects far better in the end than some might expect. I also want to give the filmmakers credit for putting together a cast of mostly unknown or little-known actors and getting such great results out of them.

On the surface, Half Brothers seems like just another buddy comedy, but underneath, it’s a heartfelt and emotional journey that touches in so many ways and ends up being quite enjoyable.

Another movie opening nationwide this Friday is ALL MY LIFE (Universal), starring Jessica (Happy Death Day) Rothe as Jennifer Carter and Harry (Crazy Rich Asians) Shum Jr. as Solomon Chau, whose wedding plans are thrown off when he is diagnosed with liver cancer. They realize they have to get married sooner since he might not live to make their planned date, so their friends launch a fundraiser so that they can get married in two weeks. The movie is directed by Marc Meyers (My Friend Dahmer), who is a more than capable filmmaker with this being his third movie in the last two years.

Now that I’ve actually seen the movie… I’ll freely admit that this is not the kind of movie I usually have very high expectations for, and maybe that’s because I’ve already been burnt twice this year with real-life romantic dramas, first with the faith-based I Still Believe in March and then more recently with Two Hearts. In both cases, I could count the issues and why they failed to tug at the heart strings as they were meant to do.  Even though I’ve generally enjoyed Meyers’ past movies, I wasn’t even sure he could pull off this type of studio romance movie without having to cowtow to the corny clichés that always seem to slip in – or at least find a way to make them more palatable. (And let’s be realistic. This is the kind of movie that snobby film critics just LOVE to trash.)

First of all, Meyers already has two truly fantastic leads working in his movie’s favor.  I’ve been a true Jessica Rothe stan ever since seeing her kill it in Happy Death Day and its sequel. Shum is perfectly paired with her, and the two of them are so good from the moment they first meet and we meet them.  In every scene, you feel like you’re watching some of that rare on-screen romantic chemistry that’s so hard to fake. Their relationship is romantic and goofy, and you’re just rooting for them all the way through even if you do know what’s to come.

Eventually, Sol does fall ill, and it does lead to some more dramatic and tougher moments between the couple, but all of it is handled so tastefully, including their need to raise money so they can have their wedding rather than waiting. I am living proof that people really do come together to step up when they see someone in real need, so I couldn’t even tut tut at something like their fundraiser getting so many people to chip in. On top of his two leads, Meyers has assembled such a great cast around the duo, the most recognizable being Jay Pharaoh from Saturday Night Live, everyone around Jess and Sol handles the requisite emotions with nary a weak link.

There’s just so much other stuff that adds to the enjoyment of watching All My Life from the use of Oasis and Pat Benatar in the soundtrack just to the quality storytelling that makes it all feel quite believable. These sorts of movies tend to be rather corny and the diehard cynic who doesn’t have an ounce of romance or love in their body will find things to hate.

All My Life finds its way into your heart by being one of those rare studio romance movies that understands how human emotions truly work, and there’s nothing corny about that. It’s a beautiful movie that entertains but also elicits more than a few tears. Watch it with someone you love.

This week’s “Featured Flick” is Chloe Zhao’s amazing film NOMADLAND (Searchlight), which I reviewed out of its Toronto International Film Festival premiere, but it’s (sort of) being released in theaters this week. It stars Frances McDormand as Fern, a woman living in her van as she moves from place to place taking odd jobs within a community of nomads. It’s another amazing film from the filmmaker behind The Rider, who will make her foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe next year with The Eternals, which I’m just as psyched about. There’s no denying that McDormand gives a performance that’s a knock-out, even better than the one in 3 Billboards if you ask me, and there’s also a great supporting role for David Strathairn, who I’ve been hoping would have another role as good as this one. Zhao is just a fantastic filmmaker, and I’m glad to see that The Rider was no fluke.

Unfortunately, Nomadland is only getting a one-week Oscar qualifying run, and I’m not even sure where it’s getting that run since theaters in New York and L.A. aren’t even open yet. Maybe Searchlight will do some drive-in screenings like they did for the New York Film Festival and Telluride? It will get a stronger theatrical release (hopefully) on February 21, just to make doubly sure it qualifies for Oscars.

Opening in theaters this week before streaming on Netflix December 11 is Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of the Broadway musical THE PROM, the first feature film he’s directed in ten years. The multiple Tony-nominated musical is about a high school girl named Emma (newcomer Jo Ellan Pellman) who wants to take her girlfriend (Ariana DeBose) to their senior prom, but the head of the PTA (Kerry Washington) cancels the prom instead. The national outrage the situation creates gets the attention of a quintet of self-absorbed Broadway actors who decide to improve their PR by taking up Emma’s cause. Oh, yeah, and those actors are played by Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and actual Broadway stars Andrew Rannells and Kevin Chamberlin. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ve never had any sort of positive or negative gut reaction to Murphy’s work on television over the past few years, but I’ve definitely been mixed on the three movies he’s directed to date. I wasn’t a huge fan of his Eat Pray Love, though I vaguely remember enjoying his debut, Running with Scissors. Either way, he certainly has found his niche with musicals from Glee (a show I’ve never watched)  and finding a musical like The Promseems to be a perfect fit between filmmaker and material.

Having not seen The Prom on Broadway – surprise, surprise -- I was a little worried that it was going to go down the path of nudge-nudge wink-wink inside Broadway path that helped Mel Brooks’ The Producers become a Broadway hit. That I saw, and I didn’t hate the movie based on it, although I’m by no means a total movie-musical stan. There’s some obvious older ones I love, some newer ones that others love but I hated – Rob Marshall is about 50/50 for me -- and you might be surprised by which of them I liked best.

What I thoroughly enjoyed about The Prom is that Murphy manages to truly surprise everyone watching it, whether it’s in Kerry Washington’s single song – who knew she had such an amazing singing voice? – or how enjoyable Keegan-Michael Key is as the school’s Principal Hawkins, who not only loves musicals but actually admires Streep’s two-time Tony-award winning Dee Dee Allen. Considering my frequent disdain for Streep’s over-confidence, knowing full well that she’s one of the best living actors working today, she’s actually pretty amazing in the role of what many must assume Streep is like in real life, which makes her character more than a little META. In some ways, I can say the same for Corden, who is pretty fantastic as Dee Dee’s frequent stage co-star Barry Glickman, who has his own connections to Emma’s plight having been disowned by his mother (Tracey Ullman, who only shows up for one brief scene late in the movie) when he came out to her. Corden has one dramatic moment so powerful I was taken quite aback.

Even with those two actors and Kidman likely to get much of the attention, there’s no denying that the romance between Hellman and Debose, and the three or four numbers they have together, makes up the true heart and soul of The Prom. So here you have this amazing cast, and it’s a musical made-up of very fun and quite catchy songs, and that’s long before you get to Andrew Rannells as out-of-work actor Trent Oliver, who practically steals the whole movie with his showstopper of a number, “Love Thy Neighbor.” And then watching Key holding his own with Streep, both musically and dramatically, you might start wondering, “What is going on here?”

Like I said before, it’s pretty obvious that Murphy has fully poured his passion of movie-musicals into every second of The Prom, and it shows on the face of everyone joining him on this adventure. As much as the subject at the film’s core is fairly serious and a hurdle that many gay kids across the world every day, it’s also quite funny. Kudos must be given to Murphy for being able to emphasize those moments as well as the more dramatic ones. Besides that, Murphy really takes advantage of being able to go to different locations, including a sequence on Broadway that could have been done during the pandemic (it actually was built on a soundstage), another number at an actual mall and even at a monster truck rally. It also doesn’t hurt that Murphy hired Matthew Libatique, a god-like cinematographer in my book, to film the movie either.

Like most musicals, The Prom might lose a little as it goes along, since it gets to be too much that goes on for too long, but then there are more than enough great moments to pull you back. It’s by far one of the stronger movie musicals I’ve seen in a very long time, and just the right feel-good experience we all need right now.

I’ve already reviewed David Fincher’s MANK – a few times, in fact – but if you’re in one of the places where it opened theatrically in November, you can finally see it on Netflix starting this Friday. This is the general problem with the way things are these days because even though this only opened a few weeks ago, I already feel that it’s been discussed and forgotten before most people will have a chance to see it.  Anyway, if for some reason, you’ve managed to avoid things about the movie, it essentially stars Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz, the Hollywood screenwriter who ended up co-writing Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane in 1940. The film follows Mankiewicz as he mingles with the Hollywood elite in the 30s, including billionaire William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) and his young ingenue girlfriend Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried) who would be the influence for his Oscar-winning screenplay. I expect to be writing a lot about this movie as we get closer to Oscar season sometime next year.

Also on Netflix this week is Selena: The Series, starring Christian Serratos. It’s the kind of thing that I probably would never watch unless I have an excess of time, and as you’re about to learn from the rest of the column, that doesn’t happen frequently.

The third chapter of Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe Anthology,” RED WHITE AND BLUE, will debut on Prime Video this Sunday, starring John Boyega as Leroy Logan, a young black man who joins the Metropolitan Police after seeing his father assaulted by police and wanting to make a difference in the racist attitudes from within. You might remember that I reviewed this out of the New York Film Festival a couple months back, so not much more to say there.

A week from Sunday, on December 13, McQueen’s fourth film, ALEX WHEATLE, will hit Amazon, and guess what? I’ve already seen it, so I will review it now. How about that? Alex Wheatle is also a true story, this one starring Sheyi Cole as the award-winning young adult writer when he was a younger and just learning the ropes as a drugdealer/DJ in Brixton before his involvement in the 1981 Brixton riots gets him thrown in jail.

As with the other three movies in the “Small Axe Anthology” there are recurring elements and themes in Alex Wheatle, mostly about the way the immigrants to England from Jamaica and other islands are treated by “The Beast” aka what they call the Metropolitan Police. It does take a little time to get to that, as McQueen, working from a screenplay co-written by Mangrove’s Alaistar Siddons, takes a far more non-linear approach than the other three films. We first see Wheatle being taken into prison where he’s thrown into a cell with a constantly-shitting Rastafarian, but we then cut back to his schooling for a short sequence that reminded me of Alan Clarke’s Scum. Both in prison and in school, we see Alex being abused by classmates and head matron alike, and this portion of the film includes another one of arty moments of actor Cole laying on the ground eyes wide open staring for what seems to go on forever. In some ways, this sequence reminds me of McQueen’s fantastic early film Hunger, since it seems to be cut from similar cloth.

Eventually, Alex gets to Brixton and that’s where this chapter in “Small Axe” really takes off as we see how naïve and green he is while dealing with quite a tough crowd and trying to adjust to city life among the Rastafarian community.

As with the other “Small Axe” chapters, I love how McQueen and his team used reggae music to help set the tone and vibe for the episode, because like Baz Lurhman’s Netflix series The Get Down, the music is frequently a key to this biopic working so well. Of course, it’s also due to the performance by Cole and the actors around him that helps make you feel as if you’re seeing a real part of history.

As with Mangrove, this chapter culminates with an amazing recreation of the 1981 Brixton Riots, done in protest after a house party fire in New Cross that the police don’t bother investigating. The actual riots were a much bigger and scarier event going by Wikipedia which says that 279 police were injured and 56 police vehicles set fire, which makes it sound more like the ’92 L.A. Riots.

I’m not sure Alex Wheatle does as good a job explaining how the young man goes into prison as a DJ and comes out as an author, but like Red, White and Blue it’s still an important and inspirational story that adds quite a bit to the previous three “Small Axe” films.

And once again, here is my interview with McQueen from over at Below the Line.

Also, I should mention that Darius Marder’s excellent Sound of Metal movie, starring Riz Ahmed, hits Amazon Prime Video this Friday, too. Check out my review!

The magnificent Andrea Riseborough stars in Zeina Durra’s LUXOR (Samuel Goldwyn), playing British aid worker Hana who while spending time in the ancient city of Luxor, runs into her former lover Sultan (Karim Saleh), as she reflects on past decisions and her current uncertain situation.

I was quite interested in this one sight unseen, not only because it’s another great starring role for Riseborough. (Honestly, she is one of the best actors working today, and I strongly believe she is just one role away from being the next Olivia Colman, who had been amazing for years before everyone in America “discovered” her in The Favourite and then The Crown… which I still haven’t watched! ARGH!). I was a little anxious about the movie, having seen Rubba Nadda’s Cairo Time, starring Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig, which seemingly had the exact same plot.

Durra is a much more capable and confident filmmaker and there’s a lot more overall value in watching Riseborough exploring Egypt as Durra quietly allows Hana’s story to unfold through her interactions with others, as well as her time alone, often languishing in one luxurious hotel room or another.  Then there are the quiet and sometime awkward scenes between her and Saleh, the two of them having been lovers when they were both much younger. We also see Hana in far more vulnerable moments, so we know that she’s by no means actor, and it takes a great actor to really pull off such a dichotomy and bring such dimension to a character with so few words.

There’s something that’s almost comforting watching her dealing with emotions like loneliness in such a tranquil way. I’d even go so far to say that Luxor works in many ways similar to Nomadland, which obviously is getting the far more high-profile release with lots of festival love long before its actual release.  Like that movie, Durra’s film benefits from having masterful cinematography by Zelmira Gainza and an equally gorgeous score by Nascuy Linares, to boot.

Luxor is a quiet, beautifully-made film that really took me by surprise. It acts as much like a travelogue of the title city as it does a tourist’s map to what it must feel like being a woman very much on her own in a foreign land.

I also spoke with Luxor filmmaker Zeina Durra, an interview that will be up at Below the Line hopefully sometime later this week.

With all the talk about Aubrey Plaza in Happiest Season (now on Hulu!), this would be a great time to release another one of her indies that played at the Sundance Film Festival this year, right? What can possibly go wrong?

In Lawrence Michael Levine’s BLACK BEAR (Momentum Pictures), Plaza plays Allison, an actor/filmmaker who arrives at the remote lake house of Christopher Abbott’s Gabe and his pregnant partner Blair (Sarah Gadon), to relax and work on a screenplay, only for the night to turn into philosophical discussions that transform into angry and even violent squabbles. In the second part of the movie, Gabe is the director, and Allison his actor wife, who thinks he’s sleeping with Blair, who is also acting in Gabe’s film.

That plot might seem a little vague, and I can’t exactly tell you whether there is much connection between the two parts of the movie other than it features the same three characters. The first half turns from a drama into a thriller before ending abruptly, while the second part is equal parts comedy and drama as we see a larger part of the world around the trio. In fact, the second part of Black Bear reminded me somewhat of Olivier Assayas’Irma Vep, one of my favorite movies, and that might be one of the highest compliments I can pay a movie.

But first, you have to get through the more quizzical and dramatic first part, which easily could have been done as a three-handed stageplay as we see the changing dynamics between the three people as things get crazier and crazier with one “Holy shit!” moment after the next. (It reminded me a little of Mamet or the play “Gods of Carnage,” although I only saw that as the movie version Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski.)

The fact the connection between the two parts is never explained might confound some people who were otherwise enjoying what is a pretty decent three-hander, but the common theme involves jealousy between the two women. Plaza is a fine dramatic actor when she wants to be, and Gadon is absolutely fantastic, which makes Abbot almost literally the odd man out, but the three of them just have great scenes together.

Black Bear is certainly an enigma of a movie, as much a mystery about what must be going on inside Plaza’s head during some of her softer and crazier scenes, but if you want to talk about range, this gives her so much material for her demo reel that no one could possibly doubt her as an actor again.

Thomas Vinterberg’s new movie ANOTHER ROUND (Samuel Goldwyn) reteams him with his The Hunt star Mads Mikkelsen for a comedy…. Ish… about a group of four middle aged Danish teachers who decide to hold an experiment to prove a theory that people only reach their maximum effectiveness and creativity when they’re .05% drunk. It starts out innocently enough but soon, the men are drinking heavily at school, leading to horrible and unfortunate side effects. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Even knowing Vinterberg’s knack for strange and twisted “comedies,” Another Round is definitely on another level, opening with a scene of drunken kids playing a drinking game that gets them so out-of-control drunk and rowdy. We then meet Mikkelsen’s Martin, a history teacher, whose rowdy seniors are so bored by his classroom technique that Martin is put in front of an inquisition of parents who think he’s going to make their kids fail their final exams. Martin’s home life isn’t much better with his wife Anika (Maria Bonnevie) or his own teen sons. Although Martin says he won’t drink when he has to drive, his friend Nikolaj (Magnus Millang) convinces him by announcing his theory about how everyone needs to always maintain a certain percentage of alcohol in their system.  Over the course of the rest of the movie, we’re shown the alcohol level of our “heroes,” although most will see their behavior as some kind of synced-up middle life crisis. For Martin, it’s a breakthrough, as he starts feeling more confident and assertive towards his students, even trying to connect with them via their drinking activities, as seen in the opening montage.

Another Round is quite a different beast from The Hunt, because there’s a more humorous tone to the point where I could totally see an American studio trying to remake this with the likes of Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler, which would probably lose a lot of the poignancy of what Vinberberg was trying to achieve here. At one point, he throws in a montage of seemingly drunk world leaders, which is kind of amusing even if it’s not quite so apparent why it’s there. There’s a lot of really bad white guy dancing, too, for anyone who is into that sort of thing.

There is definitely a good amount of grief and sadness to the way this story resolves, although Vinterberg still finds a way to leave Martin in a place of joy with a closing scene that may surprise a lot of people. Another Round is another tremendous feather in the cap of the Vinterberg/Mikkelsen collaboration, and it will be in select theaters this Friday before going to digital on December 18.

Another Round will be in select theaters this Friday and then on digital December 18.

Fast Color director Julia Hart returns with I’M YOUR WOMAN (Amazon), once again co-written with husband Jordan Horowitz. It stars Rachel Brosnahan from The Amazing Mrs. Maisel (which I haven’t seen) as Jean, a woman unable to have a baby with her small-time crook husband Eddie. One night, Eddie brings home a baby for Jean, but then he quickly vanishes and Jean finds herself on the run with a stolen baby and one of Eddie’s accomplices, Cal (Arinzé Kene), and there are bad men wanting to question Jean about her missing husband’s whereabouts.

This is another movie where I really didn’t know what to expect, and having not watched Brosnahan on her award-winning show, I was watching this movie trying to figure out what all the fuss was about.  It’s evident from the start that Hart/Horowitz were trying to make a ‘70s-set movie with all the trappings of ‘70s fashion and music, but when you throw in the crime element, it comes across a little too much like last year’s The Kitchen, which wasn’t very good but also wasn’t based on very good source material.

One would presume that the genre elements and a few scattered set pieces, like a shootout at a club, would be the main draw, but it’s almost 30 minutes before we even get any sort of plot, and that’s a big problem. An even bigger problem is that I’m Your Woman just drags for so much of the movie, and it’s pretty obvious that Hart-Horowitz were trying to create a ‘70s movie like some of the films by Scorsese and the movies John Cassavetes made with wife Gena Rowlands. By comparison, I’m Your Woman is stylized almost to a pretentious degree.  Brosnahan does show a few glimpses of there being a good actor in there, but the material just really isn’t quite up to snuff. It also doesn’t help the movie to have the baby crying almost non-stop throughout.

Jean eventually pairs up with Cal’s woman Teri (Martha Stephanie Blake), her son Paul and Cal’s father (played by Frankie Faison), and this is when she learns more about Eddie’s life that she doesn’t know about. Eventually, things start to pick up in the last act, but the multiple problems Hart has with maintaining a steady pace or tone only mildly is made up for by her terrific DP and whoever put together the musical score.  Essentially, the last 30 minutes of I’m Your Woman does make up for the previous 85 minutes, but it’s going to be very hard for many people to even get through how dull the movie is up until that point.

This is a week with some very fine docs, the first one being Weixi Chen and Hao Wu*’s cinema verité film 76 DAYS (MTV Documentary Films), which goes behind the doors of the Wuhan ICU Red Cross hospital over the first 76 days of the COVID pandemic after it hit the rural area of China. (*One of the film’s co-directors/cinematographers shot the film anonymously.)

Here I thought that Alex Gibney’s Totally Under Control would be the best or maybe even only movie about the pandemic released this year, but here we have a fantastic documentary that captures what it was really like in one Wuhan hospital as it was nearly overrun months before COVID started to rear its ugly head in the States. The film begins in January 23, 2020 and follows a number of cases as we watch the personnel, all decked out in head-to-toe PPE, trying to save lives and keep people calm while trying to struggle with all the stresses that come their way. There’s actually a little bit of humor in a cranky elderly man (clearly with some form of dementia) who keeps wandering around the hospital, frustrating his tenders, but there’s also a very moving story of a young pregnant woman who has contracted COVID, who ends up being separated from her baby after a Cesarian section.

There are moments early in the movie where you can see panic starting to set in as we see how out of control things begin, but the anonymous health care workers soon get things underhand and manage to find a way to deal with the panic that’s setting in. There’s no question that these doctors and nurses – many whose faces we never even see -- are the definition of frontline workers, trying to deal with this unknown virus without all the answers and solutions that have been discovered over the past ten months.

76 Days will open via the Film Forum Virtual Cinema as well as other places presumably.

I’m glad I had Dana Nachman’s DEAR SANTA (IFC Films) to watch after 76 Days, because I don’t think I could have handled another dark or deep movie after that one. This doc is all about “Operation Santa,” the amazing group of volunteers and adopters who receive the letters young kids write to the North Pole and go out of their way to fulfill the kids’ wishes.

I was a big fan of Nachman’s Pick of the Litter, so I’m thrilled to say that Dear Santa is just as wonderful and joyous, starting with a bunch of kids explaining Santa Clause enthusiastically, because they really believe in Jolly Saint Nick. Over the course of the film, Nachman profiles a number of Adopter Elves, who look through the letters written to Santa by unfortunate kids and pick a few to fulfill their wishes. A lot of them are in New York and Chicago where the program has led to a number of non-profits, but Nachman also goes to Chico, California where many of the families from Paradise, the town destroyed by fires in 2018, ended up relocation. One story of an Adopter Elf named Damion is particularly wonderful, since he, like many of those who get involved in the program, are trying to give back and pay it forward.

Operation Santa is such a great program and Dear Santa is such a wonderful movie, I challenge anyone to watch it and not tear up from how big their heart will grow while watching it.

Julien Temple’s doc CROCK OF GOLD: A NIGHT WITH SHANE MACGOWAN (Magnolia Pictures) is pretty self-explanatory from its title, but as someone who was never really a Pogues fan, I was almost as entertained by Temple’s film as I was by Alex Winter’s Zappa about a musician who I actually was a fan of. Temple uses MacGowan’s own narration to tell his story from growing up in Ireland, the early days of punk that led to the Pogues and eventually, mainstream success.

My absolute adoration of well-made music docs is fairly well-known at this point, and you can’t really get much better in terms of music doc makers than Julien Temple, who had his cameras rolling in the early days of punk, captured one of David Bowie’s more interesting mainstream phases and also made a very cool movie about The Clash frontman, Joe Strummer.

Although I never really cared for The Pogues, that’s probably because I didn’t know them from their rowdier days and more from their mainstream success from “Fairytale of New York” but Temple’s movie rectifies that with some amazing footage from the band’s earlier days. Even more impressive is the footage and pictures of MacGowan during the late ‘70s dancing in the audience at Sex Pistols and other punk shows. (Temple even interviewed MacGowan during this period in the ‘70s, then put the footage in the movie.) As MacGowan tells his own story about growing up in Ireland, Temple frequently uses varied animation to recreate the stories being told, and that does a lot to embellish the cartoon nature of MacGowan’s storytelling.

I still think MacGowan is a bit of an asshole -- I’m sure he’d agree with that assessment -- but Temple has found a way into this very difficult musician, sometimes using close friends like Johnny Depp (a producer on the film) and Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream to try to get MacGowan to open up about as much as he ever might. Crock of Gold is certainly an eye-opening portrait of the Pogues frontman that surprisingly offers something to enjoy even for those who never got into his music, but it also shows another dimension to his many fans. If nothing else, it’s a fine testament to why Temple is one of the best music doc filmmakers.

Magnolia held a bunch of one-night only theatrical screenings on Tuesday and will have more on Thursday, but if you miss those, you can catch it On Demand/digital this Friday. (I also have a really enjoyable interview with Julien Temple over at Below the Line that you should check out.)

A.J. and Jenny Tesler’s doc MAGNOLIA’S HOPE follows four years in the life of their young daughter Magnolia (aka Maggie), who has Rett Syndrome. Maggie’s filmmaking parents talk about noticing her strange behavior and finding out that she had a genetic disorder that makes it harder for children to retain what they’ve learned in terms of movement but also might led to far worse disorders. It makes it almost impossible for her to communicate with her parents, which makes it heartbreaking but also quite inspirational that the parents would allow us into their very own difficult journey to try to get their daughter to use and develop all of the skills she learns by making her practice them every single day. The movie will be available to watch for the month of December on the streaming platform Show and Tell, but it’s such a personal movie and another one where I think it will be hard for many to watch without getting a little teary but more out of joy than sadness.

Also out this week is David Osit’s MAYOR (Film Movement), which follows Musa  Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah during his second term of office and determined to make his city a beautiful and dignified place to lived despite being surrounded on all sides by soldiers and Israeli settlements. It will open today at the Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema in New York after winning the Grand Jury Prize at the 2020 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.

What there’s more? How about Braden R. Duemmler’s WHAT LIES BELOW (Vertical Entertainment), a thriller starring Ema Hovarth from Quibi’s Don’t Look Deeper as Liberty (aka Libby), a teen girl returning from camp only to learn her mother (Mena Suvari) has a hot younger boyfriend named John (Trey Tucker), who Libby soon begins to question whether he’s human. What could possibly go wrong?

I knew I was in trouble when Suvari is picking her daughter up from archeology camp (that’s a thing?) and I misheard her asking her daughter “Any nice digs?” (think about it), especially since Suvari is playing a stereotypically over-sexed cougar, something that becomes far more obvious once we meet her boyfriend that she’s been sexing up at her lake house. There’s certainly a danger of What Lies Below turning into a prequel to a Pornhub video, but thankfully, Duemmler gets away from the inappropriate sexuality inherent in John’s presence and into the weird behavior that gets Libby suspicious.

Sure, maybe calling the movie “My Stepfather is an Alien” would have been more apropos, and there’s elements of the movie that reminded me of the Tom Hanks’ movie The ‘burbs, and not in a good way. Even so, Hovarth, who really looks like Suvari’s daughter, does a fine job holding this together and keeping you invested in how things might pan out, as things get weirder and weirder and the movie eventually transforms itself into a halfway decent and creepy “body horror” flick.

Weird but well-done, What Lies Below is not even close to the worst thriller I’ve seen this year. That might seem like damning praise, but it’s the best I can do for this one.

Debuting on Shudder this Thursday is Justin G. Dyck’s ANYTHING FOR JACKSON (Shudder), a “reverse exorcism” movie in which a seemingly kindly couple, played by Sheila McCarthy and Julian Richings, kidnap a pregnant woman (Konstantina Mantelos) in hopes of getting the spirit of their grandson Jackson, who died in a car crash, and put him into her baby… with the help of demons. What could possibly go wrong? (If you hadn’t guessed, this is the theme of this week’s Weekend Warrior.)

I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the horror delivered by streamer Shudder this year, and Anything for Jackson is no exception. In fact, going over Dyck’s filmography, it’s kind of surprising how decent a horror filmmaker he is, because most of his other movies seem like Hallmark-style Christmas movies? Crazy. There are aspects of Anything for Jackson, written by Keith Cooper, who wrote some of those holiday movies for Dyck. I honestly can imagine the two of them making this movie just to be able to do something different, so they come into the horror realm with tons of fim making experience and easily transition into horror.

At the heart of this movie are McCarthy, Richings and Mantelos, who are all fine actors who do a great job selling the horrors but do just as well during the quieter dramatic moments.  Not that there are that many of them, as Dyck/Cooper throw so many absolutely horrific moments at the viewer so that diehard horror fans will not be disappointed. Things shift into another gear when Josh Cruddas joins in as a Satanic cult leader they bring in to help them when they realize they’re out of their league. The results are something akin to Insidiousin terms of the types of demons and ghosts thrown at the viewer.

At times, Anything for Jackson was a little hard to follow, maybe due to its non-linear storytelling, but at least it has a substantial amount of decent replay value, since the demons and kills are so gloriously gory.

Eric Schultz’s dark and trippy sci-fi thriller MINOR PREMISE (Utopia) stars Sathya Sridharan as neuroscientist Ethan, who gets caught up in his own risky experiment involving memory loss when he becomes trapped in his home with his ex-girlfriend Allie (Paton Ashbrook), and he doesn’t remember how they both got there.

For his directorial debut, Schultz has taken the cerebral indie sci-fi film route that we’ve seen in other filmmaking debuts like Shane Carruth’s Primer, Darren Aronofsky’s Pi or Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, and if you’re a fan of those movies, you’ll already know if this would be for you or not. This is also the kind of movie that really requires the closest attention and fullest focus, which is not something I’m great at right now. Because of that, I don’t have a ton to say about a film that does a good job pulling the viewer in with its intriguing premise.

Schultz is a pretty decent filmmaker and discovering Sridharan, who has done a lot of single-episode TV appearances but nothing major, is quite a coup since this is quite a solid showcase for the young actor. I wasn’t as crazy about Ashbrook, which makes it for a rather uneven two-hander.

Minor Premise is just fine, and I think some people will definitely like it more than I did. I definitely will have to watch it again when I’m not so distracted by ALL THOSE OTHER MOVIES ABOVE THAT I JUST FUCKING REVIEWED!

It will be in theaters, in virtual cinema, and digital/On Demand this Friday, so check it out for yourself.

And finally…

Director Dennis Dugan of Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore directs LOVE, WEDDINGS AND OTHER DISASTERS (Saban Films), a “Love American Style” rom-com anthology with a cast that includes Maggie Grace, Jeremy Irons, Diane Keaton and more. Grace plays Jessie, a fairly inexperienced wedding plan hired to orchestrate the high-profile wedding of Boston mayoral candidate (Dennis Staroselsky), and then… oh, you know what? I’ll leave the rest of the description to the review portion of our review.

We meet Grace’s character as she and her soon-to-be-ex boyfriend are skydiving, which goes horribly wrong as they end up fighting all the way down and crashing through an outdoor wedding, caught on a viral video that gets her dubbed the “Wedding Thrasher.” Imagine what a PR disaster that would be for mayoral candidate Rob Barton to have her planning his wedding, but Jessie quickly bonds with his fiancé Liz (Caroline Portu) and begins preparations. Meanwhile, Barton’s problematic brother Jimmy (Andy Goldenberg) has gone on a game show called “Crash Couples” (that’s hosted by no less than Dugan himself) and he allows himself to be chained to a Russian “lawyer” named Svetlana (Melinda Hill) who is actually a stripper. They’re willing to stick it out since the winner gets a million dollars.

Surely, that’s more than enough stories, right? Nope. Turns out that Jessie’s main competition to plan the wedding is a legendary caterer named Lawrence Phillips (Irons) who is set-up on a blind date with Diane Keaton, who is blind. Oy vey.  Also, there’s Andrew Bachelor as Captain Ritchie, who gives humorous sightseeing tours of Boston via the Charles River in an odd land/water vehicle, but one day, he encounters a young woman with a glass slipper tattoo, and he becomes quite smitten. We’ll get back to him. Maybe. In fact, Duggan spends so much time setting up different stories and relationships without much connection that you wonder whether he can tie things up in the oh-so-predictable way these things normally go.

Although the movie starts out fine, and it’s actually not a bad role for Grace, as soon as Duggan introduces the game show, then we learn that Svetlana (real name Olga) is a tripper connected to the mob and they get involved, things just start going downhill very fast. Also, the idea that Keaton -- who I haven’t seen in a good movie in almost two decades --  would not think twice about playing a klutzy blind person. As soon as she shows up and immediately knocks over one of Phillips’ signature champagne glass fountains, I knew we were in for a very long haul. I didn’t even mention the other storyline involving a musician named Mack (Diego Boneta) whose band Jessie is trying to get to play the wedding – one of the multiple meet-cutes in the movie -- although Mack is squabbling with his bandmate Lenny (Jesse McCartney) who has a new Asian girlfriend who is intruding in their friendship.  (I’m sure the fact her name is “Yoni” is meant as as Yoko Ono reference.)

Then on top of that, Dugan steals the gimmick from There’s Something About Mary, by constantly cutting back to Elle King and Keaton Simmons as they’re playing folksy songs in the park. Okay, the fact that Dugan wrote many of those pretty decent songs they perform is pretty impressive.

But the movie is very predictable, especially how it all comes together for the finale, which obviously has to take place at the wedding to which everything has been building up to.

Otherwise, Dugan’s film is maybe 20% an okay movie but the other 80%? Yeesh!! It’s about as romantic as a date with the Marquis de Sade, and it somehow manages to be an equal opportunity offender... in terms of offending blind people, Asians, Jews, Arabs, gay people and even strippers and Russian mafia. It took Dugan 14 years to get this passion project made, and it’s pretty obvious why.

As usual, there were a couple movies I didn’t have time to watch, but not quite as many as the ones I did make time to watch:

King of Knives (Gravitas Ventures) End of Sentence (Gravitas Venture) Billie (Greenwich) Godmothered (Disney+) Wander (Saban Films) Music Got Me Here (First Run Features) Stand! (Fathom Events, Imagination Worldwide) HAM: A Musical Memoir (Global Digital Releasing) In the Mood for Love (4k Restoration)

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[filmista]

Rear Window (1954)

"She's too perfect, she's too talented, she's too beautiful, she's too sophisticated, she's too everything but what I want.”

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window was released in the middle of an absolute glory period for the director. He had scored enormous hits in previous years with Strangers on a Train and Dial M For Murder, and masterpieces such as Vertigo, North By Northwest and Psycho were still to follow.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents also ran on TV, and in that way the  Brit had managed to become one of the very first celebrity filmmakers. In an era where the director was all too often overlooked, Hitchcock was recognised on the street, resolutely the author of his productions. Rear Window is one of his best films, made by a film-maker at the height of his talent.

James Stewart plays L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies, a photojournalist who was left with a broken leg after an accident. For six long weeks he’s had nothing to do but sit at home,  looking out his window at the neighbours while a heat wave puts his patience further to the test. He sees a musician who is busy working on a new tune, a newlywed couple that can’t keep their hands off each other, a lonely lady and a couple of whom the woman is bedridden.

However, Jeff starts to worry when he notices a few strange things: the husband of the sick woman often goes out in the middle of the night, comes back with a saw, leaves with a few suitcases and so on. The next morning his wife is nowhere to be seen. Jeff suspects that malicious intent is involved, but is not believed by anyone - not by his fianceé (Grace Kelly), his nurse (Thelma Ritter) or by a friend police officer (Wendell Corey).

In contrast to other Hitchcock films, Rear Window is purely subjective in structure from start to finish. Anything that happens, we see from Stewart's perspective. He peeks at the neighbors, and we peek along. For example, in North By Northwest on the other hand, you have a scene where the entire plot is explained, without the main character being present.

That is more objective storytelling: the viewer knows things that the hero doesn’t yet. Here you won’t find that: the entire film is filtered through Stewart's experience, which contributes to the claustrophobic atmosphere of it. We are literally stuck in that apartment for two hours. The outside world is just something we can look at, but not participate in.

For a character like Jeff, a man of action, that is frustrating in and of itself. Add  the heat to that and the bizarre behaviour of the neighbours, and you soon get one sultry atmosphere - something is in the air, something is afoot, but you aren’t sure of what and why. Initially it would even be possible that Stewart has imagined all of it ,though in a Hitchcock film that is never really a serious possibility. The point is that we are forced into his perspective.

And Hitchcock achieves that effect through his camera use. There are very few films in which the director worked with such precision on his camera movements and editing. Take the beginning and final sequences for example: we get a montage of the inner square of which Stewart has a view: all neighbours are briefly introduced in wordless vignettes, we can place everyone. After this the camera moves over to a thermometer, so we know it’s hot. We see Stewart with his broken leg, and then the camera slowly moves over to his camera, his photos and the interior.

No word is spoken during those first three minutes but in a few shots Hitchcock has introduced Jimmy Stewart’s whole world: we know what his profession is, we deduce that his photography has led to the broken leg, we know it’s summer and we’ve seen the view he has of the neighbours. Without any dialogue, but only with mise-en-scene, Hitchcock has set up his whole movie so that he can move on to the actual plot. And what's more: cutting the view of the inner courtyard to Stewart's sweaty, sleeping face, immediately suggests that this is the person is through whose eyes we will see everything.

Then in the final sequence, we get something similar:  we again see the thermometer, the courtyard, and we once again see a sleeping Stewart, this time with two broken legs. But this time the camera goes in a different direction, and we see Lisa, Grace Kelly’s character, sitting next to him reading a book. The fact that we end up with another character indicates that after two hours, we once again arrive at Stewart's perspective. Let's say that the last ten seconds of the film are the only ones that are objective.

Watching and being watched has always played a thematic role in Hitchcock films: just think of Stewart's obsessive pursuit of Kim Novak in Vertigo, or Norman Bates’s voyeurism in Psycho. It is also typical of a thriller, of course: when someone is watching you without you being able to see them, who knows  what kind of intentions that person has?

In the case of Rear Window this carried to the extreme, so that Hitchcock can play a subtle game with the audience. What Stewart sees happening on the other side of the inner square  (or thinks he sees), is after all little more or less than his own private thriller. Jeff enjoys his involvement in the mystery - he's been bored for more than a month, and he is now part of a riddle, in a relatively passive and safe way.

He has no bad intentions, but he is and stays a voyeur, and Hitchcock punishes him for it with a second broken leg. But in the meantime there is also the public watching Stewart. We are also voyeurs who are watching Rear Window with the same fascination that the main character feels about the murder of the neighbours. We are as thrilled with sensation as Stewart, and in this way Rear Window functions as a criticism on its own audience.

Hitchcock adds all sorts of interesting techniques to his film : every character in the courtyard has their own music (a piano tune, jazz, a love song and so on), which bestows all these  people, whom we never see up close with some kind of individuality.

And then there are of course the actors: Stewart could play the normal boy next door like no other, and does it here too with verve, Grace Kelly makes appearances exclusively in expensive, elegant dresses (every time she comes into the picture, you just smell the Chanel # 5), though her performance is nonetheless a memorable one with a lot of character, playfulness and charm. And Thelma Ritter is downright delightful as a pragmatic nurse with a big mouth. I’ve heard Rear Window described as an entertainment film that has become art over the years since the standards have by now dropped so much lower. Not really a cheerful thought, but the part of the art is absolutely right in any case.