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a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives · 2 years

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‘The Forest’ Review: Oscar Winner Florian Zeller’s New Play Gets Lost in Itself

by David Benedict

The gap between what you see and what you get has long proved fertile territory for playwrights. At his considerable best, not least his Oscar-winning adapted screenplay of his play “The Father,” French dramatist Florian Zeller (and translator Christopher Hampton) has shown that by cunningly changing what audiences are seeing, he can not only define but also dramatize emotional content. Parallel games of physical and mental dislocation are back in his new play, “The Forest.” Alas, it’s a very long way from his best.

Everything starts simply and traditionally with a scene of a father, Pierre (Toby Stephens), returning to his chic home to his elegant wife (Gina McKee) as they attempt to comfort their distraught daughter (Millie Brady), who has just left a husband who has been betraying her for months. As the father promptly attempts to soothe her with palliatives like “Sometimes you have to learn to forgive,” audience suspicions are instantly aroused.

From there the (in)action cuts to a scene staged in a room above, in which an older married man (Paul McGann) is discovered in bed with his younger girlfriend (Angel Coulby). The errant husband? No, as becomes clear, we’re witnessing another incarnation of Stephens’ character. And in the ensuing succession of oblique, increasingly elliptically written exchanges in locations constantly redesigned by Anna Fleischle, those two incarnations embody multiplying possible outcomes to the affair, turning ever harder to handle.

In theory, that’s as eloquent a theatrical device as any with which to depict Pierre’s fraught, increasingly murderous and, crucially, fragmenting state of mind. In practice, however, the situation of upper-middle-class adultery and the writing itself are both so peculiarly generic that the device outstrips all drama.

Constantly reworked variants on dialogue scenes paid huge dividends in Nick Payne’s remarkably fleet-footed “Constellations.” By contrast, Jonathan Kent’s production of “The Forest,” replete with over-emphatic, ominous sound design alerting us to the fact that Something’s Afoot, is surprisingly ponderous.

Stephens works hard to invest Pierre with desperation, but since Zeller has failed to give the character anything original with which to win over the audience, we run out of engaging sympathy frighteningly early. And most of the surrounding characters — unnamed but whose script titles are Male Friend, Man in Black, etc. — are so one-dimensional that the actors merely wind up sounding wearyingly portentous.

The two main female characters, both one-note victims, come off worst of all. McKee is wasted as the wife who worries beautifully and finally gets a single (beautifully held) moment of silence. Meanwhile, Coulby’s increasingly demanding girlfriend gets to play wounded in every sense — think “Fatal Attraction” minus the bunny — but she’s only there to illustrate Pierre’s dilemma.

It’s perfectly valid to examine upper-middle-class adultery via theatrical game-playing, but it’s inescapable that Harold Pinter, Peter Nichols and Tom Stoppard all got there 40 years earlier with far more depth, daring and originality. And none of those demanded attention via cipher-like characters and emptily overplayed metaphors.

Given that a standard plot is beside the point here, it’s no spoiler to reveal that in the succession of closing images, we see the body of a dead stag. This relates to a speech in which Stephens’ character explains a nightmare he has had. Relying upon the recounting of dreams is rarely a strong dramatic move, and when the image only fully resonates when you read the explanatory interview with the writer in the program, it suggests a worrying degree of failure. In a play so busily pointing to dislocations, it’s hard not to recall Gertrude Stein’s observation: “There’s no there there.”

Source: Variety

#review #the forest #hampstead theatre #toby stephens

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terrorhqs · 4 years

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hello to each and every one of you absolute wonders !! first of all, we would like to apologize for the wait - when we saw 8 apps hitting the inbox in the last few hours, we knew we would have some Serious Work on our hands. it took us longer than we expected to go through all of them, mainly because every single one was absolutely incredible, and this entailed several very, very tough decisions. we also wanted to be as accommodating as possible for certain applicants who inspired us to make a few changes along the way - with their backstories, their line of thinking, their amazing character, which we will note below. this truly was a round of acceptances where we thought we might create a whole new batch of skeletons just to showcase each app. thank you to everyone who applied. and for everyone who got accepted, please make sure to send in your accounts in 24h !!

HENRY for THE COMMANDER (james norton)

henry, your writing was an absolute treat, but it was truly your future plot ideas we were feasting on! we absolutely loved how tightly tied to fitzwilliam’s psyche they were, how terribly heart wrenching they were - particularly the first one - we have to admit it made us weepy and excited in equal measure.

GEN for THE DEVOTED, captain’s steward (richard deiss)

gen, your writing flourishes and entrances and beguiles, just as rowan does, and the two of you do it so effortlessly. your in-character response was a brilliant show of creativity and development in showing how rowan reacts to the same question asked by different people, and we knew he would be a phenomenon onboard the promethean. your app was showstopping, and we couldn't wait to welcome you aboard.

CAIT for THE SOCIALITE (tuppence middleton)

the whole personality of stella was a whirlwind in motion !! we were so eager to read more about them from the very first seconds. and the prose ! how beautiful ! (Worship the altar of this consuming, rebellious heart and wear it in red, bathe in this baptismal font of sordid gossip, glory, erupting nights of heated duels between wit and ego) - this is the epitome of what we wanted for them, and even more than we could’ve hoped !

KAT for THE DOCTOR (dev patel)

kat, please let us dwell with jonathan in his sunshine and pure spirit forever?? we are all rosa diaz on this blessed day and he is a golden retriever puppy we would all kill for. we love his love for nature’s wonders and for people alike, but we also adore the depth and understanding you brought to his future plots. we welcome you and jonathan to the crew with such, such open arms !

ALICE for THE DOE-HEARTED (su yihan)

alice, your writing was a siren song that lulled us into the depth of sybil's story - in a heartbeat, we would drown in it all over again. you kept the essence of the doe-hearted but took it so much further in making her a girl haunted, the buildup of sybil and her story a grimm fairytale to be told again and again. "You were born by the water, sweet thing. Your story is the sea with but an island in the middle of it." you have truly woven a complexity to the doe-hearted that we never expected - we'll all be holding our breaths to see how our dear fairytale fares on open waters !!

BEAU for THE INTREPID (tobias menzies)

oh, beau. the entire process of your application was as beautiful and chaotic as a natural phenomenon - it felt like we need albert in this rp, and that weight had the certainty of force? we knew we have to give him the leeway for development he deserved. i cannot properly convey how much we loved the schematics of his past, and how it contrasted with his ideals for the future. he is a map of contrasts and we are so eager to see him on the dash !

NAYAB for THE ENIGMA (katrina kaif)

nayab, the way you illustrated jaya's rich history was absolutely delectable - we were positively screaming over the intricate detail you put into the creation of such a nuanced, interesting, and fiery character. the research and thought you put into jaya absolutely wowed us, and it was impossible not to love (and admittedly, cower a little before) her. "what if this expedition makes you encounter what even you - with your cautious gait, and sharp, dark-eyed gaze - never saw coming?" what a cannonball she is, and what an impact she had on us !

JINHEE for THE HARUSPEX (avan jogia)

jinhee, ashwin is an absolute delight and so was reading your application! as rhi screamed, ‘FUCK I BELIEVE IN HOPE AGAIN??’ we loved the icarus imagery and were not prepared to be completely undone by this line: (and weren’t you told never to touch your idols? warned that the gilding will stick to your fingers?). the way you took his father’s ancestry and tied into his present feelings for britain was absolutely chef’s kiss. we were enamored from start to finish - well done.

KYLIE for THE IDOL (garret hedlund)

oh, what a STUNNING app !! it is so difficult to balance guilt and righteousness, and we feel like you did that thoroughly for jack. your level of close-reading through our skeleton was genuinely flattering, but the way you took it to new depths (and heights) was humbling. we are so, so eager to see how the tide will turn for jack, and all the possible ways you can give him a redemption arc - or the lack of one.

N for THE LOVER (zoe kravitz)

N, let me prostrate myself at eleonore’s feet. your application was so rich and beautifully written, truly embodying the lover’s feline lethality that you want to pet anyway despite knowing she might very well be your downfall. “feed me was all she had ever asked in exchange for burning day and night for him.” hello yes, we volunteer.

TILDA for THE NOBLE (madeline madden)

it was very hard choice for the noble, but tilda, i adore helene’s family’s backstory, how it seemed to rot from the core until collapse. you truly grasped the character and her yearning for abandon, her desperation, and her voice/dialogue in your in-character response was utterly delightful! we can’t wait to see her voyage from sea-legged noble lady to tide commanding shanty.

ADRIAN for THE PURSER (matthew goode)

if only you could see how we reacted when we received this app ! and trust me, the hype only increased when we got to reading it. did we channel that excitement through God-honest tears? uh, yes. we did. ( dead can’t receive letters but Edward still writes them anyway. ) we clutched edward to our chest time and time again through that - and the SPLENDID letter added at the end, what a treat to us ! we are so thankful just at the privilege of reading this. we’re even more thankful that we’ll see him on the dash.

EMI for THE ROMANTIC, wardroom steward (yang yang)

emi, we've concluded with all of your beautiful plot points that you and june do indeed, have the range - you gave us such a variety of wonderful exploration of june's personality, psyche, hopes, and dreams all wrapped up in the beautiful poetry that fit june's character like a second skin. "the light upon the ice. a brilliant, sightless mirror. it comes not from the sun but from our prometheus, barrelling out from dark waters with an inexplicable gift: fire." you've captured him so beautifully and we cannot wait to see how he will be the promethean's sun to the open seas !

CLAUDIA for THE SCION (rome flynn)

you really manged to send a :59 app and still steal the show ! how very Scion-y of you. in all seriousness, i adored augustus background so MUCH - his maternal connection, the wishy-washy tides of his family’s structure, the conflict inherent in his very development !! so so good. you took a carefree skeleton and you gave it a million possible depths. we, as both admins and players, are so grateful for it.

AERIN for THE SHADOW (sebastian stan)

aerin, it is not an exaggeration that your app had us literally with our jaws open the entire time ? you truly took us turn after turn into elijah's story and hours later, we're still breathless and trying to recover from it. you captured the shadow's overcast history the way a shadow slowly looms over you - we were absolutely consumed by the end of it, and we're all here absolutely begging for more. we can't wait to have enoch onboard this expedition !

CASS for THE GODKILLER (kofi siriboe)

this is the sort of role dreams are made of. i think i speak for everyone when i say we never could have envisioned a skeleton as terrific, terrifying, tectonic as abel. stop me with the alliterations - lapsing into poetry is genuinely the only thing left to do when the support of prose fails you? you brought us to the end of prose. their role just jumped out for us and we knew it called for an entire skeleton. what an app !

ANNIE for THE STOWAWAY (riana hardesty)

i have to confess, we had such high expectations for the stowaway, because we knew their motivation would be one of the toughest to crack - and annie, you exceeded literally even the most optimistic of them ! (You’re no musician, but playing the melody of someone else, someone who can weasel their way in and out of a bad spot - that’s one song you know how to sing well enough.) that is such a fantastic rendition of their personality, and written so, so beautifully !

LEO for THE VETERAN (toby stephens)

i think this app was the one which sent me in a banshee-screech session that was genuinely disturbing to everyone on a 100 miles radius. the way you phrased the headcanons at the end had me in stitches - which was a welcome change for how DEEPLY i was feeling wells’ backstory. from sobbing to laughter just like that, huh. you have an unprecedented power, leo, and we love to see it !

#thqadmin

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lucy-sky · 5 years

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Hey guys! Today is World Theatre Day. I think it’s a great holiday. Theatre will always be on a special place in my heart. At school I attended theatre classes and we did a lot of performances for local events. I’m not doing it anymore but I will always remebmer this feeling when you’re on stage, when you’re someone else, but still your soul is kinda naked. Theatre is an amazing thing. It’s a place where magic happens here and now, unlike movies where you can make several takes of one scene until it turn out perfect. It’s a place where the actors share their energy, emotions, their soul with the audience. It always gives me such incredible vibes I cannot quite describe. Theatre is AMAZING! And the actors who work on stage do an amazing job.

Today I would like to present you a small series of posts introducing Sam Rockwell on theatre stage. I don’t know how you feel about these pictures, but as for me - I sense some kind of magic even in them. Hope you enjoy too.

(I apologize for a lot of text - I didn’t plan it, but it was pretty interesting to read about these plays and I honestly would love to see them on stage)

Sam Rockwell on theatre stage - Part 1:

The Hot l Baltimore (2000), directed by Joe Mantello

A play by Lanford Wilson set in the lobby of a dilapidated old hotel, from which the “e” in the hotel sign is missing - hence the name, Hot L Baltimore.

The play is comprised of a series of conversations between the residents of the hotel, who are contemplating an uncertain future after the hotel is condemned and scheduled for demolition. (c) encyclopedia.com

The Zoo Story (2001)

A one-act play by American playwright Edward Albee. The play explores themes of isolation, loneliness, miscommunication as anathematization, social disparity and dehumanization in a materialistic world.

This play concerns two characters, Peter and Jerry, who meet on a park bench in New York City's Central Park. Peter is a wealthy publishing executive with a wife, two daughters, two cats, and two parakeets. Jerry is an isolated and disheartened man, desperate to have a meaningful conversation with another human being. He intrudes on Peter’s peaceful state by interrogating him and forcing him to listen to stories about his life and the reason behind his visit to the zoo. The action is linear, unfolding in front of the audience in “real time”. The elements of ironic humor and unrelenting dramatic suspense are brought to a climax when Jerry brings his victim down to his own savage level. (c) Wikipedia

The Dumb Waiter (2001)

A one-act play by Harold Pinter written in 1957.

Two hit-men, Ben and Gus, are waiting in a basement room for their assignment. As the play begins, Ben, the senior member of the team, is reading a newspaper, and Gus, the junior member, is tying his shoes. Gus asks Ben many questions as he gets ready for their job and tries to make tea. Ben continues reading his paper for most of the time, occasionally reading excerpts of it to Gus. Ben gets increasingly animated, and Gus's questions become more pointed, at times nearly nonsensical.

In the back of the room is a dumbwaiter, which delivers occasional food orders. This is mysterious and both characters seem to be puzzled why these orders keep coming; the basement is clearly not outfitted as a restaurant kitchen. At one point they send up some snack food that Gus had brought along. Ben has to explain to the people above via the dumbwaiter's "speaking tube" that there is no food.

Gus leaves the room to get a drink of water in the bathroom, and the dumbwaiter's speaking tube whistles (a sign that there is a person on the other end who wishes to communicate). Ben listens carefully - we gather from his replies that their victim has arrived and is on his way to the room. Ben shouts for Gus, who is still out of the room. The door that the target is supposed to enter from flies open, Ben rounds on it with his gun, and Gus enters, stripped of his jacket, waistcoat, tie and gun. There is a long silence as the two stare at each other before the curtain comes down.

Although the play is realistic in many ways, particularly the dialogue between Ben and Gus, there are also elements that are unexplained and seemingly absurd, particularly the messages delivered by the dumb waiter itself. Pinter is notable for leaving the plays open to interpretation, "wanting his audience to complete his plays, to resolve in their own ways these irresolvable matters". (c) Wikipedia

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (2005), directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman

A play by American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis.

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot tells the story of a court case over the ultimate fate of Judas Iscariot. The play uses flashbacks to an imagined childhood, and lawyers who call for the testimonies of such witnesses as Mother Teresa, Caiaphas, Saint Monica, Sigmund Freud, and Satan. (c) Wikipedia

Judas was the disciple of Jesus who betrayed his friend and teacher to the authorities. He is seen as the man responsible for Jesus’s death; afterwards, Judas fell into despair and hung himself from an olive tree; since then, he has been suffering for his deeds deep in Hell, and will continue to do so for all eternity. Is that really fair? Was Judas the duplicitous master of his own fate, a much-suffering pawn used for Jesus’s ends, or just a man who made a mistake? Set in a courtroom in Purgatory, The Last Days puts Judas’ case to a hilarious, riotous, piercing trial, the results of which are sure to make the inhabitants of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory - and the audience - reconsider what each thought they knew about forgiveness, faith, and the human inside one of the history’s most infamous figures. (c) stageagent.com

A Behanding in Spokane (2010), directed by John Crowley

A black comedy by award-winning Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. This is his first play set in the United States.

Set in a rundown hotel room somewhere in small-town America, it depicts the fateful encounter among four disaffected losers: the one-handed Carmichael, who has spent the past 47 years trying to retrieve the appendage that a bunch of "hillbilly bastards" forcefully removed when he was a teenager; Toby, a low-level scam artist; Marilyn, his white-trash girlfriend; and Mervyn, a truly creepy hotel "receptionist" who takes an inordinate interest in his guests' comings and goings. Toby and Marilyn have made the mistake of attempting to con Carmichael with the claim that they're in possession of his errant hand. Upon inspection, it turns out to be not of the Caucasian variety, resulting in his holding them at gunpoint. When they claim that they really do have his hand back in their garage, he runs off to retrieve it, but not before handcuffing them to the radiator and setting a lit candle above an open can of gasoline.

When Mervyn subsequently stops by the room, he's not particularly interested in helping the couple escape, despite his obvious romantic interest in Marilyn. It turns out he's still pissed off at Toby, whom he recognizes as the drug dealer who ripped him off years earlier. (c) hollywoodreporter.com

The play was nominated for the 2010 Drama League Award, Distinguished Production of a Play.

A Streetcar Named Desire (2011)

A play written by Tennessee Williams.

The play dramatises the life of Blanche DuBois, a southern belle who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her aristocratic background seeking refuge with her sister and brother-in-law in a dilapidated New Orleans tenement.

A Streetcar Named Desire is Williams' most popular play, is considered among the finest plays of the 20th century, and is considered by many to be Williams' greatest work. It still ranks among his most performed plays, and has inspired many adaptations in other forms. (c) Wikipedia

#sam rockwell #theatre #world theatre day #long post #my posts

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d2kvirus · 5 years

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Dickheads of the Month: September 2019

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of September 2019 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

As if proven liar Boris Johnson suspending parliament to try and force through a No Deal Britait at the end of August didn’t look dictatorial enough, he then moved on to threatening and Tory MP who doesn't fall in line with deselection - and yet, rather than call this the obviously despotic move that it is, instead the media spent more time focusing on him adopting a fucking dog

Master strategist Dominic Cummings said that, rather than listen to “rich Remainers” in London, people should listen to those all over the country - which certainly helped, as Cummings’ genius idea to have proven liar Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson walk the streets of Morley and Doncaster saw said proven liar have to listen to the non-rich giving him both barrels for being responsible for the mess we are currently in

Not only did Laura Kuenssberg repeat what the press did with Carrie Symonds’ neighbours and throw around the term “Labour activist” to dismiss the very real concerns of the father whose daughter was in the understaffed hospital that proven liar Boris Johnson visited for a press op and then called out the proven liar’s claims it wasn’t a press op by pointing to the camera crew a few feet away, but she went one step further by doxxing the person by posting one of his tweets to her Twitter timeline, which unsurprisingly led to him getting a dog’s abuse from people because he dared say bad things about proven liar Boris Johnson - abuse he would not have got if Kuenssberg hadn’t doxxed him to her 1.1m Twitter followers, all because she wanted to distract attention from the fact her beloved BoBo had been caught on camera lying to someone’s face

...and it wasn’t long before the BBC proved their blatant double standards, having circled the wagons around Kuenssberg to say she did nothing wrong while doxxing a member of the public, yet disciplining Naga Munchetty for an off-the-cuff remark about the Orange Overlord saying Trump saying non-whites who criticise him should “go back where they came from” is racist

There is nothing sinister about Dominic Cummings saying that, if MPs wants to stop receiving death threats, they need to get Britait done. Absolutely nothing sinister about that at all...

When Jacob Rees Mogg wasn’t literally lying in parliament, he was dismissing the genuine concerns of neurologist Dr David Nicholl by comparing his concerns to those of anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield, who was struck off for giving erroneous advice

I’m trying to work out if Justin Trudeau forgot about the whole wearing blackface thing, or merely assumed everyone else had. Either way, at best he could generously be accused of gross naivety - especially when the second round of photos came out, after he tried to pass it off as a one-time prank

So not only did proven liar Boris Johnson sound supremely cuntish by saying that leaving the EU would honour the memory of Jo Cox - that’s the same Jo Cox who, while campaigning for Remain, was murdered by a member of Britain First - but when quizzed on this Bernard Jenkin could only respond about the stress that the proven liar was under, because as we all know the real victim is the person who said something monumentally dense and not the person murdered by a member of the far-right on the streets of their constituency

If anyone can explain what the hell compelled Stephen Kinnock to suddenly decide that Theresa May’s deal should have yet another going over in parliament in spite it being defeated three times already and her not even being PM at this point, let alone why he wanted to bring this up at the moment No Deal was being defanged, I would love to hear it

Something compelled Quentin Letts to compare the recently-deceased Robert Mugabe to Boris Johnson...as a compliment

Compelling argument against nominative determinism James Cleverly thought he was being clever by keeping up the “chicken” jibes against Jeremy Corbyn that proven liar Boris Johnson and his cronies at The Sun had been keeping up for days in a desperate attempt to pretend Corbyn hadn’t spotted an obvious tarp by Dominic Cummings and sidestepped it...right up until his stunt ended up seeing the entire Tory party get bitchslapped by Kentucky Fried Chicken

...and it wasn’t long before proven liar Boris Johnson rendered all jibes of Corbyn being “chicken” laughable when he responded to some heckling when visiting Luxembourg by publicly running away from a press conference with Luxembourg’s PM

According to Kwasi Kwarteng there are people up and down the country questioning the impartiality of the Scottish judges who ruled Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament unlawful. Just a reminder, Kwasi Kwarteng is the Business Secretary and not a Youtube right-wing conspiracy nut

Waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage has decided that those dozens of appearances on BBC political programming over the last decade were examples of the BBC being biased against him, and he;s boycotting all future appearances. He neglected to mention whether or not any other member of The Nigel Farage Ego Project would follow suit...

We saw just how little credibility Laura Kuenssberg has on the 2nd September edition of The Six O’Clock News where she stood outside 10 Downing Street talking about how proven liar Boris Johnson would be calling a snap election, only for her to be cut off mid-sentence by the proven liar walking out to waffle for five minutes where the only thing of note he said that wasn’t an easily-debunked lie was that there would be no election...and once he was finished Kuenssberg continued talking about a snap election as if she hadn’t been stood less than twenty feet away when it was said there would be no election

The fact that nobody was surprised when James Cleverly falsely claimed that the Tories created the NHS during the Tory conference isn’t a surprise - not least because it’s not even the first time Cleverly has made that patently false claim

It would appear that Alan Sugar misses the days that he and not Alexander Boris De Pfeil Johnson was being held up as the British answer to Donald Trump, judging by his posting a tweet taking aim at the dogwhistlers’ favourite target Diane Abbott

We are supposed to feel sorry for David Cameron after his memoirs stated that he thought that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove behaved “appallingly” before and during the EU Referendum campaign. If only the party leader did something about this, which they were in the position to do, and what was the name of the leader of the Tories at that moment in time again...?

Forgetting that we’re supposed to be calling Jeremy Corbyn a chicken, instead our good and honest friends at the Daily Mail instead ran an article about how awful it was that Jeremy Corbyn supported the Guildford Four’s Paul Hill. That’s the Paul Hill who, like the other members of the Guildford Four (and the Maguire Seven) were threatened, beaten and tortured by the police and served fifteen years in jail for being members of the IRA in spite of the fact that they weren’t members of the IRA nor plotted any terror attacks, and the Mail thinks it’s bad to show support for someone who was a victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history

It’s a bit rich for Rachel Riley to be the face of the Don’t Feed The Trolls campaign considering her history of harassing, doxxing and encouraging pile-ons on anyone who disagrees with her

Sentient testicle Toby Young thought he was being really, really clever when he accused Phillip Hammond of an “anti-semitic conspiracy theory” after Hammond stated that the sole reason for proven liar Boris Johnson trying to take the UK out of the EU by October 31st is to help out his speculator mates - although the cleverness rapidly evaporated when Hammond responded personally with a threat of suing for libel, and for some strange reason Young’s really, really clever tweet vanished off the face of the earth

...and because Toby Young has to be Toby Young about things, rather than keep his head down after Hammond’s threat of legal action instead he came rushing to the defence of the proven liar by saying that female Spectator employees felt upset if they weren’t groped by proven liar Boris Johnson, which is not only the defence of the rapist but his “defence” only serves to say that proven liar Boris Johnson has a history of groping

It’s as if The Sun have decided they can go back to their pre-Leveson levels of scumbaggery, judging by how they’d both told Gareth Thomas’ parents he was HIV positive and threatened to publish it, as well as reporting how two members of Ben Stokes’ family had been shot and killed several years ago without actually obtaining consent from Stokes before splashing it across their front page

...and right on their heels was the Daily Mail doxxing Jo Maughan for the sole purpose of...nope, no idea why they felt the need to do so, but they did it anyway

If Steve Baker thought he was helping the Leave side look non-deranged, his claiming that proven liar Boris Johnson is moving the Tories back to the centre ground failed to do that on a molecular level

It’s all well and good the Liberal Democrats acting as if bringing in Luciana Berger and Angela “funny tinge” Smith as MPs is some kind of major breakthrough...but they sure kept it quiet that they wouldn’t be defending the parliamentary seats they’ve been squatting in since February

So nice of Mike Gapes to join the dogwhistling brigade with his deciding to highlight Diane Abbott’s poor use of grammar...by highlighting that she was using grammar correctly while Gapes’ attempts at grammar bullying only served to highlight his grasp of the English language could be better

It says it all that the Daily Mail was encouraging their readers to stop sponsoring the RNLI for the crime of using 2% of those donations to support causes abroad

To nobody’s surprise, as soon as John Humphrys was out the door he harrumphed about the BBC’s “liberal bias” to the Daily Mail - as if over thirty years of his using the Today programme as a platform of his right-wing views and generally being a miserable twat

How generous of Tim Martin to say that, as the UK had left the Customs Union, Wetherspoons could now charge 20p less per pint...except Britain hadn’t left the Customs Union, revealing that Martin could have cut prices long ago if he wanted to, but he obviously felt he didn’t need to as the chain’s profits weren’t nosediving as a direct consequence of Tim Martin alienating half of his customer base for the past three years

According to reports, Nicalis head honcho Tyrone Rodriguez went to the same business school as Channel Awesome supremo Mike Michaud, judging by the reports coming out that he would go weeks without answering any calls - which is not what an indie dev who sent their game over to Nicalis to be ported wants to discover - as well as a laundry list of evidence of him not realising he isn't a 14-year old edgelord who can only talk in raicst, antisemitic, homophobic or ablest slurs, on top of his charming habit of bullying members of staff

In the latest attempt by PewDipShit to prove he's not beholden to the alt-right section of his fanbase he offered to donate $50,000 to the Anti-Defamation League...and when that same alt-right section of his fanbase kicked up a fuss, he cancelled the donation and waffled about “taking responsibility” while demonstrating that how averse he is to the idea

This month it was John Ocasio-Nolte who was getting insanely triggered by Greta Thunburg, taking to Twitter to suggest she either needs to be spanked or receive psychological counselling (which worked about as well as can be expected the second the tweet was posted) while Dinesh D’Souza said she looks just like images used for Nazi propaganda as if that means anything other than Dinesh D’Souza spend hours going through Google image searches to try and find something, anything that would serve as the basis of an utterly batshit proclamation that his moron followers would swallow

Not a good look for Focus Home Entertainment to decide that, once their deal to distribute Frogwares’ games expired, their solution would be to drop all of Frogwares’ games from every online store - yet rather than return the code to Frogwares, instead they’d be keeping those as well because if Focus Home can’t sell those games, no-one can

It’s not a surprise to see The Sun forgot the faux outrage they stoked last December at trying to say Jeremy Corbyn called Theresa may a “stupid woman” (even though any lipreader will tell you he said “stupid people” of the entire Tory front bench) judging by their response to proven liar Boris Johnson calling Corbyn a “big girl’s blouse” was to dispatch one of their hacks to Corbyn’s house the following dya waving an item of women’s clothing at him, seemingly under the impression this looked anything other than mad

Meanwhile The Daily Telegraph wrote a piece comparing waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage to Britait’s Icarus...somehow forgetting how the story of Icarus ended

Britain’s most triggered man Piers Moron Morgan took to Twitter to howl about how Dora the Explorer discourages men from becoming explorers. I’m guessing that he forgot how Indiana Jones and Nathan Drake exist...

What would a month be without Donald Trump doing something utterly lunkheaded? Not this month, that’s for sure, judging by his response to mistakenly claiming that Hurricane Dorian was heading to Alabama wasn’t to admit the mistake or even never mention it again, but instead draw on a weather map with a Sharpie to make it look like Dorian’s path would now head into Alabama - so not only did he prove he can’t admit to being wrong, but he’s so thin-skinned his being wrong eats at him so much he can’t let his being wrong go, which only draws attention to his being wrong in the first place

#dickheads of the month

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penniesforthestorm · 6 years

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On Jane, Part 3

This One Will Be Slightly Different From the Others

Listen, my children, for now we have come to the heart of Jane Eyre (book and young woman, both, obviously). The first chapter of Volume 2 is one of my favorite pieces of literature. On my most recent journey through this book (after almost a decade since the last time I read it), I actually paused when I reached this part, because I wanted to be in the right frame of mind to give it the attention it deserves. I was also nervous. Would it be as great as I remembered? I’ve changed a lot since I was seventeen, and I know quite a bit more about love than I did then.

Let’s set the scene. Jane, returning to Thornfield in high summer, after burying her aunt and seeing off her cousins. She’s glad to come back, but dreading the fact that her friend, the person she most admires in the world, is about to marry someone for whom he has no depth of feeling. She knows that soon, she will have to leave the first real home she’s ever had.

The thing is, I love the text of this section so much that I don’t want to try and summarize it any further. Instead, I’m including a link to the next crucial scene in my personal favorite adaptation of this book, the 2006 Masterpiece Theatre miniseries with Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRPszu5loaA

This is a tricky, complex moment. It hearkens, though, to the loose theme I’ve been developing in these articles: Jane’s quest for self-determination. As she says, she can’t bear the thought of having to fade into the background under the reign of Blanche Ingram. Far better to tear away entirely than to spend the rest of her life with the thing she can’t have dangling in front of her. And I really like the shifts in Toby Stephens’ expressions in this version-- we see him realize how hurt and how desperate she is, and how, suddenly, he will stop at nothing to ease her sorrow. And she, in counterpoint, will not give in until she is certain he means what he says. (Also, I’ve always fancied I look a little bit like Ruth Wilson. Make of that what you will.)

And now we get to the really difficult part. (Sorry!) In any discussion of Jane Eyre, there’s always a shadow hanging overhead-- the shadow of the woman in the room on the third floor. Another bit of scene-setting: at the chapel on Jane and Rochester’s wedding day, everything seems to be going fine, until the parson pronounces that fateful sentence, ‘Speak now...’ And somebody does. It’s Richard Mason, that tropical albatross who had the bad manners to almost get himself killed while staying at the house (that was a Downton Abbey joke). He and his lawyer claim that 15 years ago, Rochester married Richard’s sister Bertha, and shortly thereafter, brought her to England, and to Thornfield. Rochester, seeing no point in trying to outrun the smell of well-cooked goose, drags all of them back to the house, and we finally figure out that, while there was a woman behind all the arson, assault, and unreasonable noise after dark, it isn’t Grace Poole.

Here’s what I have to say about Bertha. It’s made pretty clear that she was already unstable when Rochester married her, and her condition rapidly worsened. Now, taking somebody back to your house and confining them is generally considered Not A Nice Thing To Do. But consider this: at that time, “insane asylums” in England and America were hideous places. Not only could women be put in them for ironing a man’s shirt the wrong way (e.g.), once inside, they would be subjected to malnourishment, poor hygiene, and a high likelihood of abuse. Not to mention the fact that members of the public frequently went there to gawk at the inmates. (For a full, first-person account of this, go read up on Nellie Bly.) At Thornfield, Bertha has a warm bed, clean clothes, proper food, and someone to look after her, 24/7. Rochester is an aspiring bigamist, which is admittedly not great either, but he’s not a monster. (I have always wondered, though, what he intended to do about the situation if Blanche had been the new bride...)

To Jane, though, this is unconscionable. Her morals will not allow her to take part in Rochester’s charade. Over the next chunk of pages, he pleads with her, becoming almost pathetic-- he wants her to run away with him, he tells her they wouldn’t even have to get married, just go and live in peace together on an island in the Mediterranean (which, I mean, who hasn’t thought of doing that?). Again, though, Jane will not bend. She says “I must respect myself”. And so, in the small hours of the morning, she runs away from Thornfield, not Jane Rochester, but Jane Eyre-- “poor, obscure, plain, and little”, but free and independent.

That brings us to the end of this installment-- tomorrow will be the final segment. For those of you just tuning in, Part 1 is here: http://penniesforthestorm.tumblr.com/post/176721452934 And Part 2 is here: http://penniesforthestorm.tumblr.com/post/176757746084

#prose #Long Reads #Jane Eyre #Part 3 of 4 #views my own

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placetobenation · 5 years

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Hey everyone, and welcome to the first edition of Jason’s DVD Deep Dive! What we are doing here is going through my incredibly massive blu-ray and dvd collection and simply reviewing the films. One by one in alphabetical order, starting with the blu-rays.

The first movie we will be talking about is the 2016 war/action/drama called 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi directed by none other than Michael Bay. It stars John Krasinski (Jim from The Office) and James Badge Dale.

The Plot: As most of you probably already know…this movie is based on the true story on the 2012 attacks on the Diplomatic Compound that held Ambassador Chris Stevens (Matt Letscher) and “The Annex”, a CIA outpost that held members of the CIA as well as the ones protecting the facility, private military specialists from the Global Response Staff (GRS). Members of the GRS include Tyrone “Rone” Woods (James Badge Dale), the leader of the group, Jack Silva (John Krasinski), Mark “Oz” Geist (Max Martini), John “Tig” Tiegen (Dominic Fumusa), Kris “Tonto” Paranto( Pablo Scrieber) and Dave “Boon” Benton (David Denman).

The GRS is there as protection for the CIA agents working undercover in Benghazi. After a few months, Ambassador Stevens shows up to try to keep up with the diplomatic process amidst the chaos and unease. Despite all of this and being told he should leave, he decides to stay at the Diplomatic Compound with only the protection of Diplomatic Security (DS) agents Scott Wickland (David Giuntoli) and David Ubben (Demetrius Grosse), as well as the local February 17th Martyrs Brigade a militia as hired guards called 17-Feb.

In the early evening on the first anniversary of September 11th in 2012, the compound was attacked by Ansar al-Sharia, a militant group. The 17-Feb guards surrender their posts and DS agents do their best against the militia, but are not able to fend them off successfully. Inside, Scott takes Ambassador Stevens and IT specialist Sean Smith (Christopher Dingli) to the safe room. The militia is unable to penetrate the room, so they start a fire to smoke them out. Wickland makes it out, but without Stevens and Smith. The GRS unit make their way over to the compound fighting through the streets. Everyone heads back to the Annex…but unfortunately the DS team go the wrong way and are followed giving up the location to militant group.

Back at the Annex, the GRS know an attack is imminent. The CIA is making desperate calls and pleas for help and the only respond is from fellow GRS agent Glen “Bub” Doherty (Toby Stephens) who is stationed at nearby Tripoli, as he assembles a small team to help out In Benghazi.

However, before they arrive, the team is able to thwart multiple attacks off taking on multiple waves of attacks from the militant group. After the Tripoli support arrives…the militant group attacks with mortars. The first mortar injures DS agent DS agent Ubben and GSR member Oz., with Oz severely damaging one of his arms. Tone goes to assist Oz and in that time a second mortar hits and kills Tone. A third mortar hits right in front of Bub and he is killed.

With the Annex in shambles after the mortar attacks, they fear another strike coming as multiple vehicles are seen on the way. Luckily for everyone, it’s the Libya Shield Force, escorting the GRS force. The Annex is evacuated everyone goes to the airport to fly home. Right before the credits begin, we find out what came of the team and they have all received medals for their work at the Annex.

The Acting:

The good: John Krasinski. This is the first film I saw from him post-Office…and boy did he deliver! Pretty sure him being in this film was the main reason I wanted to see it. Would also like to mention Dominic Fumusa, who played Tig. Largely unfamiliar with his work but he was very enjoyable. Same with Demetrius Grosse…unfamiliar with his work but ALSO very enjoyable. David Giuntoli from Grimm and a Million Little Things was great, very underrated performance from him. But, it was Pablo Schrieber that stole the show. If you don’t know who he is, go watch him as Pornstache on Orange is the New Black. He’s very funny and believable in this film.

The bad: I’m not gonna say the rest of the cast was “BAD”…but I don’t think they really stuck out. Very non-descript army-marine type guys. Not that that is particularly bad…there was just nothing that really stood out about them.

Best performance of the film: Hands down, Pablo Schrieber.

The Review: I’m usually not very interested in war films…but this was shot surprisingly well considering its Michael Bay. It had good action sequences and it get VERY real. If I have any major criticisms of the film, I felt it was kinda like watching Call of Duty, the movie…and it kinda romanticized warfare. Besides that…it’s extremely solid.

The Overall Score: 7/10

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years

Video

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THOMAS RHETT - LOOK WHAT GOD GAVE HER

[3.44]

Google News search exercise: "'what god gave her' -rhett"

Katie Gill: Country music desperately wants to sit at the cool kids' table with the pop music industry, while the pop industry desperately wants to sit at the other cool kids' table with the rap industry. As such, for the past few years country has been two steps behind the cultural zeitgeist, and nothing shows that more than this song. "Look What God Gave Her" has such a calculated and perfectly crafted sound that it loses any authenticity or sense of being interesting. The lyrics are generic, the sound is purposefully inoffensive, and Thomas Rhett doesn't even bother trying to sell it. [3]

Alex Clifton: Cut out the references to God and tone down the twangy elements and we have a charming One Direction song. I'll admit I'm a sucker for songs where male singers sound like they actually love the women they're singing about as opposed to listing off traits of a cobbled-together dream, and the girl in this song sounds like someone we'd all be lucky to know. My worst fear for the song was that the title was going to set up some sort of horrible "she gave her me!!" line, but mercifully Rhett doesn't go down that road. [6]

Alfred Soto: When I saw the title I swear I thought, "Please, God, I hope he doesn't thank you for giving her breasts and an ass." [2]

Katherine St Asaph: Look, I too have experienced the specific happiness of having a church crush, thinking it might finally be reciprocated (spoiler: it wasn't), and getting a head full to bloating with the theologically unsound thought that you and God are a team, that he's specifically rearranging the world for you, that he's made the very air and ground give you high fives as you traverse them, that only now do the sermons feel real. This feeling is also called "being a teenage girl." It's not called "being a grown man pushing 30." And I haven't been back to church since my teens, but I'm pretty sure we learned God doesn't make a distinction between the sin of adultery and the more line-toeing sin of leching over someone who "don't even want the attention," of pretending lust isn't lust if you don't cuss when talking about it, and of congratulating oneself for only noticing a girl could be slut-shamed ("the way that she moves... I know she's got haters"). Not to mention Rhett and his writers' sin of making what's basically a Sheryl Crow or One Direction song, then singing and producing it like they're embarrassed about that. If you're gonna do the blasphemy, then do the blasphemy. [4]

Stephen Eisermann: If Thomas Rhett wants to pick up from where "Sunday Morning" Maroon 5 left off, that's fine with me. Rhett sounds pretty head over heels as he objectifies the woman in question, though I guess he gets points for objectifying her as politely as possible? I'm sure it'll play well on both pop and country radio, but I just wish it was more interesting. [4]

Anthony Easton: Considering the recent scandals about country radio and women, there is something perverse about songs like this, when women are the continual voiceless subject. A set of nested cliches, without the small details or tight rhythms of Rhett's best work. I remain impressed at how he stretches sounds that are long past their sell-by date. [4]

Tobi Tella: Thomas Rhett was always more interesting than many of his other bro-y constituents, but this is a little painful. Nothing interesting happens in the production, and the lyrics borrow from every generic bro-country platitude in the book and explain zero about the "her" referred to in the title. Also, "heart racing like Daytona" instinctively reminded me of "Body Like a Back Road", and any song that does that can't be forgiven. [1]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: I despise the insistence to keep the verses' vocal melodies in step with the terribly antiseptic rhythm section. The "woo hoo!" bits are canned and awkward, the lyrics have been overdone to death, and it all feels rushed to the point of sounding disingenuous. [2]

Iris Xie: Reviewing these very Christian pop-country songs make me feel bad sometimes, because I grew up so far from white Christian Middle America that I know this song is not made for someone like me. As much as I want to snark on the excessive safeness of this, I find myself conflicted about criticizing other people's expression of happiness. But when listening to the instrumental's anonymous guitars, drums, and the occasional "ooh ooh," it occurred to me: "Look What God Gave Her" is the uncompromising, bland inverse of the Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime." So now when Thomas Rhett is talking firmly about his beautiful wife, his beautiful house, and his beautiful life, I feel a little better. Let him have his seamless devotion to his wife, with the safest possible pop arrangement, in the least offensive style, and how happy they are to be in that extremely culturally specific box -- they know exactly how they got here (or do they?). The rest of us who don't fit into that rigid mold of exacting normitude will have to make do with finding happiness in other forms and wavelengths, I guess. [5]

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#Thomas Rhett #country #pop #music #music review #writing

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years

Video

youtube

SAM SMITH & NORMANI - DANCING WITH A STRANGER [5.70] Here's two people who are no strangers to an "&" or a "ft." credit.

Tobi Tella: Sam Smith has always been infinitely more tolerable on EDM features ("Latch," "Ooh La La") than on his own music. This isn't as fun as those features -- it doesn't really go anywhere meaningful -- but it's great to hear him sing without wailing. This is also Normani's third song of pleasant R&B that's not very interesting. Guess she has a niche now? [6]

Thomas Inskeep: Seductive and cool, subtly sexy, wisely dialed down where you expect otherwise. So happy to hear Sam not singing a ballad, and equally happy to hear Normani singing in her lower register. By keeping the temperature low, they guarantee heat. [8]

Alfred Soto: Nothing original or even compelling about "Dancing with a Stranger" -- it's like connecting with an anonymous guy on the dance floor on Saturday night. But Smith's thick creamy dolor and Normani's underplaying at least made me turn my head at the pretty couple going gaga over each other. [7]

Ryo Miyauchi: The beat's dim glow and its mellow rock nicely suit the worn-out tone of the performers, both of whom hit the club more out of necessity than pure leisure. The sparseness of the production, too, yearns for the remaining space within the silhouette to be filled with something. The begrudged "ugh" is more audible from Normani, whose take on "look at what you made me do" carries the embarrassment and regret that the chorus asks for. [6]

Juana Giaimo: "Dancing wih a Stranger" sounds far from the party they describe in the lyrics: a little bit nostalgic, a little bit sad but with just a hint of upbeat rhythm. Their voices are both very delicate and soothing -- and I'm definitely glad Sam Smith could control his vocals and didn't ruin it with his strident high pitch. [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Under the lambent flicker of dance floor lights, bodies can seem like shapeless pools of sweat and desire. But it's in this reduction that every contour and movement can trace their way back to the basest of human longings. "Dancing with a Stranger" understands the ephemeral magic that takes place in such moments -- these are opportunities to feel a little less lonely, if even for a few minutes. For Sam Smith and Normani, a recent breakup has left their hearts open and desperate. Dancing becomes their remedy, but the song's expansive and hollow atmosphere indicates that this is less panacea than placebo. Sometimes, that's enough. [6]

Katherine St Asaph: Sam Smith's newly laconic voice worked on "Promises," where Calvin Harris's production provided the missing frisson. Here -- and I never thought I'd think this -- one misses the screech. How does a rebound hookup sound this boring? [2]

Iris Xie: I don't want to like Sam Smith. But I'm a sucker for evocative songs. This piece helps me imagine being a protagonist that is emotionally tortured at a fancy bar. The counter is dark with cherrywood, and the light is low, the bulbs flickering and illuminating the condensation ring around my drink. Then, looking over and finding the love of my life through a heady mixture of romantic sentiments and abject loneliness. Those types of stories never end well, but this song makes that appear desirable. The silky high notes of Sam Smith that contrast with the husky power of Normani's vocals, as it floats between the grounding drums and the warped synth, gives an impression of two dancers circling on the floor, eyeing eachother before coming together into a long embrace. Note: This is probably going to be on some blues fusion dance DJ playlists. [6]

Stephen Eisermann: Comparisons are never fun and we should never do them, but this is the generic brand "Dance to This," right? Normani deserves better than to sing on such a lifeless track that aims for mood but lands at... elevator music with a pulse. [2]

Scott Mildenhall: It's always been clear that Sam Smith can flourish with more digital productions, but what this and "Promises" have shown is that he is also engaging when they guide him towards an uncharacteristic restraint. There's still room for a little of his familiar modulations, but he simply can't overstretch. Sometimes restrictions aid creativity, and with this closed-off landscape and lyrics produced by putting his prior work through a Brita filter, Smith and his able accomplice offer proof. [7]

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#sam smith #normani #music #pop #pop music #new music #music writing #music reviews

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