#yeah this is about dennis rickman

[tragedyontoast]

love it so much when fictional men considered to be villains have freckles on their face… they punch their dad or admit to murder and all i’m thinking is how i want 2 kiss every freckle on their pretty face

[olehistorian]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-interview-imelda-staunton-is-tight-lipped-on-playing-the-crowns-future-queen-pkzpb76b2

Have you watched Vera Drake lately? Obviously, you have to be in a certain Saturday-night mood to turn off The Masked Singer and choose to put on Mike Leigh’s tale of a big-hearted backstreet abortionist in the East End in 1950. But it’s worth another visit. It’s one of the great British films and turbo-boosted the careers of many a character actor. Leading the ensemble cast in the title role — in an Oscar-nominated, Bafta-winning performance — was Imelda Staunton, who would become queen of them all. And possibly even the Queen. We’ll come to that.

“Just the best, best, best job of my life,” is how Staunton reflects on Vera Drake now. “Yeah, it was very hard to continue after that.”

After Vera Drake, Staunton had the little-old-lady role pretty much sewn up. The “little” is unavoidable. She’s 5ft nothing. In the hotel sideroom in which we meet, she fidgets on the edge of an armchair, sipping a juice a similar shade of green to her blouse and trench coat, which she keeps on throughout the interview. The “old” is perhaps more unfair: she was in her forties when she played Drake. We meet the day before her 64th birthday. “I think a lot of women now don’t think about their age because it’s changed for women, hasn’t it?”

She did “harrowing” again last year in ITV’s true-crime A Confession, playing the mother of Sian O’Callaghan, the 22-year-old from Swindon who was murdered in 2011. But otherwise, of late, she’s been — in the nicest way possible — British cinema’s arch biddy: in the gay-rights drama Pride; in Nanny McPhee; in the Downton Abbey movie alongside her husband, Jim Carter, who plays the long-suffering butler Carson; and as Professor Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter films. It all comes back to Mike Leigh. “I wouldn’t have got Harry Potter if my profile hadn’t been upped with Vera Drake,” she says. “They might have wanted me, but I wasn’t, you know, hot enough.”

At the end of last year, it was reported that the ultimate little-old-lady part was coming Staunton’s way: succeeding Olivia Colman as the Queen in series five and six of The Crown. Netflix played it down as “speculation”. But at a charity event at the Ivy before Christmas, Grant Tucker, the Sunday Times entertainment correspondent, asked Staunton’s husband, Carter, what it was like being married to royalty. “Thankfully I don’t have to start bowing to her for another two years,” he replied, “so I have plenty of time to practise.” So it’s true? Staunton’s reply is immediate, polite and professional: “I can’t discuss anything to do with that.” Which isn’t, you’ll note, a no.

She tells me she woke up at 4am today, thinking about her next big gig — Hello, Dolly! at the Adelphi Theatre. It isn’t on until August. Rehearsals don’t start until June. But “to me, that’s 10 minutes”, she says. “I just know the process is beginning. As Jim said, ‘This is the rest of the year, is it?’ I think about it and think about it. ‘How the hell am I going to do that?’ [Past success] means nothing at all, because it’s the next challenge. The more people say, ‘Ooh, it’s going to be great,’ the more I just get so depressed.”

And what success. In the West End, she’s busted free of the twinsets to become a bona fide, big-lunged musical star — a pocket rocket with a trail of five-star reviews and awards in her wake. Her first Olivier was back in 1991, for Into the Woods. In 2013, she won one for Sweeney Todd, in which she appeared alongside Michael Ball. Stephen Sondheim saw her performance and told her she should take on a revival of Gypsy next. The 2016 Olivier followed for that.

Her dog, Molly, a terrier, appeared on stage with her in the early performances of Gypsy, at the Chichester Festival Theatre. One time, during the West End run, a mouse snuck into her costume. “I did the whole first 20 minutes with a mouse inside the sleeve of my coat, singing the song, carrying on the scene. It’s good what your head can cope with, isn’t it?” It’s not the sort of thing that should happen to a Harry Potter star, surely? “That’s what you want. That’s the reality of the glamour of the thing.”

Staunton grew up in Archway, north London, above her mum’s hairdressing shop. Her dad was a labourer. Her mum, a first-generation Irish immigrant, was a big fan of the Queen. She died just before her daughter received her Oscar nomination for Vera Drake, and before Staunton collected her OBE and later CBE from the palace. “She’d have bloody loved all that,” she says.

She went to a convent school — “a really nice one because we had a lot of lay teachers”. Her report cards read: “Imelda could try harder, but she was very good in the play.” Her elocution teacher, Mrs Stoker, pushed her towards Rada, where contemporaries included Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall and Juliet Stevenson. When she got her first job in London, in 1982, it was in a musical: Guys and Dolls at the National Theatre. Staunton, by now used to lead roles, was only in the chorus. “I was thinking, ‘I just played Electra, what am I doing? Oh God.’” But Ian Charleson, Bob Hoskins, Julie Covington and Julia McKenzie were higher up the bill. “That’s what I was doing there: learning, really, really learning. That was wonderful.”

Also in the cast, seven years her senior, was Jim Carter. They married the following year. In 1986 they appeared together in Dennis Potter’s classic TV musical The Singing Detective. But, until the Downton movie, their working lives seldom intersected. “We don’t ever try not to work together — we just haven’t,” she says. “On the Downton film, we got completely overexcited, as we went to work for three days at the same time. What was lovely was doing the publicity together: travelling, just being in a hotel. We made sure we enjoyed ourselves.”

They have had a long-standing pact not to spend more than a couple of weeks apart, a rule Staunton broke to film Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock (no, me neither). “I think it was five weeks: I was in America and thought, ‘Yep, that’ll do.’”

She enjoyed last summer filming Flesh and Blood, a new four-part ITV drama, on the coast near Eastbourne. “The sea does do something different to you, doesn’t it? I do think it would be brilliant to have somewhere by the sea, but it’s not going to happen.” She’s happy at home in Hampstead with Carter, walking the dog, spending days at the Test match and doing the gardening: “That’s probably an older person’s thing to say. Well, f*** it, you know? It’s healing, really healing. Having a stable place to come back to is quite necessary for me and for Jim, I think. It nourishes us. It allows us to go into a place that isn’t comfortable because you know you can get back to a more comfortable place.”

Flesh and Blood is an example of good parts being written for older people, especially women. “I’m encouraged by it,” says Staunton. “Very encouraged.” It’s not so much a whodunnit as a whodunnwot. In its rather gripping first episode, there’s a mystery body on a beach and a recent widow (played by 74-year-old Francesca Annis) starting a new life with a new fella who has a whiff of the gigolo about him. Staunton is back as the little old lady, Mary, a creepy next-door neighbour with a pair of binoculars and penchant for opening other people’s mail. This primetime drama does contain scenes of pensioners smooching.

“It’s not just for the sake of it,” says Staunton. “This isn’t trying to be ‘Oh, we’re beautiful things having sex later in life.’ There’s a loving relationship developing. The fact that [in one of Annis’s scenes] the dressing gown slips off is not extraordinary.” Would Staunton ever want a crack at being the older woman getting the, ahem, action? “I don’t think that would be required,” she replies. “I don’t think so, no — not unless it was funny.”

We talk about the trial of the film producer Harvey Weinstein. What experience has Staunton had of that grim — and criminal — casting- couch culture? “None. Absolutely none,” she says. “I’m not surprised [that it goes on], but I’ve always been in situations where women are treated equally. In the rehearsal room, women behave as they wish to behave and are listened to, and that’s normal. I never thought, ‘Oh, isn’t this marvellous, somebody’s listening to me?’ I’ve never witnessed it, but I hope good will come out of this. The irony of that” — she pauses to choose the word carefully — “situation is that that man [Weinstein] has made good things happen now. Hurrah.”

It won’t come as too much of surprise that she voted Labour in last month’s election — her MP, Tulip Siddiq, has a 14,000-vote majority in Hampstead and Kilburn, Glenda Jackson’s old seat. Staunton voted for remain. She also featured in a video last year for Extinction Rebellion, organised by Richard Curtis. “It was a friend who said, ‘Could you come along, they’re just doing it today, this bit of filming.’ Well, I was doing nothing else. I’m not climbing up the side of a building, so I’ll go and do that. If I can help, I’ll do that. As much as we can all do, every little bit helps.”

Does she worry about putting her head above the parapet like that? “No, not at all. That’s the only bloody point of any slight fame: you’ve got to use it, to put it to good use.” She has also provided the voice for some polar bears for Greenpeace. “Trump is just an absolute … It’s just a nightmare, and the climate’s a nightmare and Brexit’s a nightmare. And yet I wake up thinking about Hello, Dolly!”

At 64, Staunton seems to recognise that a Vera Drake or Hello, Dolly! might not roll round again. Even Harry Potter was, she says, “a very serious piece of work, weirdly”. She feels lucky that an actor’s life goes on. So no plans to retire? “I don’t think people do, do they? Name me an actress! No, you won’t get bloody Maggie Smith retiring. It’s a very nice job, if you can get it.” Plus, she’s still hoping someone will cast her alongside her 26-year-old daughter, Bessie, also an actress. “I’d love that. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

I hope they do give her the Queen job. If there’s anyone who could add some plausibility and empathy to the madcap past 12 months of royal history, from Megxit to the sweat-free antics of Prince Andrew, it is Staunton. I would pay good money to watch her, in standard-issue HRH lemon-yellow frock and tight-curled wig, look up, fix her aide with a stare and utter the words: “A Pizza Express … in Woking?”

Flesh and Blood is on ITV in February

[babygirlgalitzine]

Feel pity for Sharon only in the fact that she has Ian and Phil after her. Poor thing lol. Also your thirst for Peter is so relatable. Something about blokes that tall just .. phwoar

but how can she look at them and think :) yeah :) when she had DENNIS FUCKING RICKMAN SNR AKA SEX ON LEGS

also thank u i appreciate it he might trample on me he’s that tall but i would like to thank him in the process

[isabellaofparma]

Out of curiosity were those "leaks" accurate or just fan spec? Did they guess Denny was the death? (In sorry I'm sad about it too 🤧 also the disrespect of people saying well he's send grandson as opposed to the great Dennis Rickman son whomst I still mourn! - sorry went off topic but yeah I get it but I don't like it 😢 fab eps though)

I haven't read the full thing myself, only the supposed death (because I was desperate for it to be someone who is not Denny) but even going off of that, no, they weren't. Just speculation.

[your-eyes-can-be-so-cruell]

It always weirds me out when Phil refers to Denny as his son or ‘one of his own’ because yeah it’s great that a step-parent thinks about a child like that, however, it just makes me squirm because Dennis would absolutely HATE that his son is considered to be in any involved with Phil. He hated Phil and he hated the Mitchell's so it just makes me sad that it would kill him to see his son being bought up by him. It especially got to me when Denny hit Sharon a few weeks back because after Dennis’ shit childhood it really would have devastated him that his son did that. Ugh me and my ever sad emotions over Dennis Rickman. He deserved so much better than what happened.

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #129 - Bottle Shock

Spoilers below.

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: DVD

1) Bottle Shock I think is one of the most oft forgotten films of the late 00’s, which is too bad because - although not the BEST film ever made - it is pretty damn entertaining to say the least.

2) The very first thing we as an audience experience while watching this film is its score. A few notes grace our ears before any visuals, which is delightful because the score is one of the best aspects of the film. Mark Adler’s work is able to blend both the passion of the vineyards in California with the more “snobbish” style of the French in a score which is occasionally humorous, largely touching, and totally memorable. The main theme alone feels just like the perfect fine wine to go with this movie.

3) Chris Pine as Bo.

This is an early film of Pine’s. Well, early as in pre-Star Trek but post Princess Diaries 2 and it shows off the roguish charm he would later cultivate in future roles. Bo is a flower child, a true hippie product of the 70s. He’s not only that though. Bo starts off as sort of a stereotype but he goes through a transformation of passion and self respect throughout the film, something Pine is able to show us wonderfully.

4) Alan Rickman as Steven Spurrier.

Honestly, has anyone seen Alan Rickman give a bad performance? Has he been in bad movies? Sure. But has he been bad IN movies? I don’t think so. Rickman gives the same level of devotion to Spurrier as he would Severus Snape or Hans Gruber and that is why he’s such a great actor. Spurrier is an interesting character for us to view as the audience. He’s a bit of a snob (well, more than a bit) but watching him become aware of the world of viniculture that lay just outside his previous understanding is a wonderful experience. Rickman is able to play Spurrier’s less likable characteristics in a way which never feels TOO awful. We always sort of connect with him, root for him, understand him. In some ways he is our introduction to this world, and the character writing mixed with Rickman’s performance allows it to work pretty damn well.

Also his bromance with Dennis Farina is pretty nice.

5) This film has some nice bits of humor. Quirky, honest, subtle. This is first seen when Spurrier is attending a fancy dinner and the table he has been given is by the kitchen, so he just keeps getting banged by the door. Very clever.

6) I grew up in Wisconsin, I appreciate any references to my home state.

Maurice [after Spurrier makes a joke about his being from Chicago]: “I’m from Milwaukee.”

7) I never really LIKED the relationship between Jim (Bill Pullman) and his son Bo until the film’s end. Jim is kind of a pretentious proud asshole who is a jerk to his son consistently. I mean I get that he’s passionate and worried about losing his dream, but save for a moment here or there I just don’t really like him at all. Maybe I’m not supposed to.

8) Rachael Taylor as Sam.Most of you probably know Taylor from her excellent work on “Jessica Jones”, well she does an admirable job here. While Sam can fall victim to being objectified here and there by male characters (and male writers), Taylor adds a nice depth to her. She’s still a bit of a 70s flower child but something MORE than Bo. There’s a charisma, an honesty, a passion to the way that Taylor plays Sam which makes the audience invested in her as a character.

9)

George [talking about how wine sort of gets “jet lag”]: “It gets what is commonly referred to as bottle shock.”

Roll credits!

10) Freddy Rodriguez as Gustavo.

The film takes a little while to show off the fact that Gustavo as a character has any…well…character. In the first ten or fifteen minutes he’s pretty silent and keeps to himself. But then we understand who he is in a simple grand gesture when he breaks off the antenna of a racist trucker. This paints Gustavo accurately, as for the rest of the film we learn that he is a passionate man, in touch with his heritage and true to his values. Rodriguez plays Gustavo wonderfully, stealing the show often from Pine and veteran performer Bill Pullman. His passion, his heart, everything that makes Gustavo Gustavo is given to us wonderfully by Rodriguez in a performance you will not be quick to forget.

He’s also got some great quotes.

Gustavo: “Modesty is the virtue of slaves.”

11) Eliza Dushku as Jo!

There’s not too much to say about Jo, but honestly I’m happy to see Eliza Dushku in any movie. I mean come on! She’s Faith on “Buffy”! What’s not to love!

12) The entire scam or “parlour trick” at the bar shows off a lot about the community we see in this film. We see the relationship between Bo and Gustavo clearly, we see how Napa - while wine country - is still filled with rogues. But these are rogues who love their wine, as the game they play at the bar is not based on beer it is based on love and respect they all have for wine. We get a sense of who Jo is, we get a sense of how Sam is fitting into her new environment, all in a wildly entertaining way. One of the best scenes in the film.

13) This film shows off its love for wine in a very sincere and touching way. Its passion about it is shown through all the characters, and particularly the touching music. You understand why Gustavo’s friend cries after tasting his wine, because we FEEL how it tastes as an audience member. That is no easy feat to accomplish on film.

14) I think one of this film’s issues is that it struggles a little with POV. Are we supposed to be seeing this world through Spurrier, through Bo, through Sam? There is not enough of a distinction for it to be an ensemble or anthology piece but there’s also not enough of a focus on one character to have someone we see this world through. Like there are times when Alan Rickman just disappears from the movie, or Bo is briefly forgotten.

15) I love this.

Bo [after Spurrier leaves from tasting their wine]: “Took money for a tasting?”

Jim: “Yeah.”

Bo: “Is that a new policy we have?”

Jim: “No.”

16) I never understood the emphasis on ambition. I mean I myself am ambitious but so what if you’re not? Like Jim gives Bo a hard time for not being ambitious. Like what’s the big deal if you don’t have ambition? As long as you are happy with your life and not treating people like shit, why do you need ambition? And who are other people to judge you for it?

17) When Sam sleeps with Gustavo, it feels totally random to me. Nothing earlier in this film suggested they were attracted to each other. I think it’s meant to show more of how powerful and how good his wine is (because she sleeps with him after tasting it) than anything else.

18) I love this whole aside.

Spurrier: "Wine is sunlight, held together by water." The poetic wisdom of the Italian physicist, philosopher, and stargazer, Galileo Galilei. It all begins with the soil, the vine, the grape. The smell of the vineyard - like inhaling birth. It awakens some ancestral, some primordial... anyway, some deeply imprinted, and probably subconscious place in my soul.

19) Yay! Faith gets to burn the British snob!

Spurrier: “These Californian wines are all…so good.”

Jo: “What were you expecting? Thunderbird?”

20) I do love Spurrier’s way of handling Jim.

21) Ugh…Jim…

Jim [to Spurrier]: “If there’s one thing I know it’s people.”

That has not proven to be true even a LITTLE bit during this movie! Like seriously. You misjudge people constantly because of your pride and your anxiety, dude. You don’t get people AT ALL.

22) The entire scene at the airport, where Spurrier and Bo are able to convince these random passengers heading to Paris to carry one bottle of wine each so they can get through customs, is also a great testament to the community and love for viniculture found in Napa. That right there is one of the things the film does VERY well. It also provides a nice rare moment in the film between Pine and Rickman.

23) When I first saw this when I was thirteen, the whole concept of the Brown Chardony stuck with me incredibly. Jim makes perfectly tasting Chardony, but it comes back brown for some reason. A visit to Bradley Whitford playing a professor of viniculture let’s us know this.

Saunders: “You can make wine TOO perfectly.”

There is a natural brown enzyme in chardony that is neutralized by air, so if no air gets in the bottles it stays brown. It is perfect because you don’t wine exposed to air too long.

Saunders: “Barrels of perfection.”

Of course we learn this after Jim has given off and sent the chardony to be dumped in a landfill, but fear not…

24) I LIVE for scenes like the one where Sam, Bo, and Gustavo realize that all the dreams they thought were lost have been saved by Jo. I mean oh my god their faces as they figure out! THANK GOD FOR FAITH!

And then the scene does the impossible and becomes even BETTER by showing us how Jim reacts!!! I wish I could find a clip of it to show you but HE TAKES A FUCKING SAMURAI SWORD TO OPEN THE BOTTLE!!! OH MY GOD HE’S JUST SO HAPPY, AND HE KISSES THE SECRETARY, AND I LOVE IT!!!

25) Jim FINALLY gives Bo the credit he deserves. Yes he started the movie sort of as a bum but when he started doing things right Jim didn’t give him credit because of his pride. And then he says Bo should represent them at the tasting. I love that. Redemption for Jim.

26) In a similar way to Sam sleeping with Gustavo feels unearned, Sam kissing Bo feels a little unearned. We get that he’s had a thing for her ever since she showed up, but she’s never seemed to really reciprocate anything more than friendship. I don’t know, it just feels weird to me.

27) The tasting is a nice way to end the film. For me, the whole brown chardony thing is the climax of the film. It is the moment of greatest tension for Jim, Bo, and everyone else and you just feel such a swell of joy when it is resolved. BUT this whole thing in Paris is a nice climax for Spurrier’s arc and a nice final note to end the film on. Watching the French wine snobs trying to figure out which is Californian wine and which is French is also fun.

28) God bless Dennis Farina.

Maurice [After Spurrier says Cali wines are “radical” and “unique”]: “Where I’m from they call it a left handed compliment. But I don’t think they have a word for it in England. It’s too embedded in their culture.”

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

29) Dude, I love Spurrier’s face when he realizes that the wining wine is Chateau Montelana. I also love Bo’s face when he hears the winner. And then you can even see some pride on Spurrier’s face after the initial shock.

30) This is a nice summation of the film.

Spurrier: “We have shattered the myth of the invincible French vine.”

Bottle Shock is a nice treat. It is nice, escapist fare, with compelling performances from the whole cast, and writing which clearly communicates the passion felt by the characters in the film. From the cinematography to the score, it’s an underrated film I wish you will watch.