#i do love the leopold and loeb asks though

[djservo]

movie recs w bro auras??

ohhhh you shoulda never asked me this question I think about those things way 2 much.. get your reading glasses on pal it gets real ugly down there

ok firstly want to clarify wit "bro aura" there's "whoa this character is so [bro]" in a singular characterization way n then there's "ohhh this is somethin the bros would do" in a situational way n then there's a more general/subtle yet distinctive vibe like the Pathos n Dynamics of it all... that's how i think of it at least all very convoluted yes but just 4 distinction 🦠 that being said I think these recs are more situational/dynamics rather than than str8 up characterizations bc if i tried listing all the individually sergio or joaquin aura coded movies we'd be here forever and i have a pie in the oven rn i don't have the time!!! ok onward .

Some Like It Hot (1959) — sorry to be corny but it's a classique for a reason!! Tony Curtis is so demure and Jack Lemmon is god's favorite court jester U can't take ur eyes off that man's mannerisms + they both play off each other so well!!! I love dummies stumbling thru silly hijinks!! I'd also recommend Matt Baume's video essay on the making of the film for a TMC #herstory moment

The Odd Couple (1968) — kinda theeee opposites-as-roommates movie, not my fav tbh it's a bit of a slog when Jack's not on screen but worth it if you want like a Cinema Classic Bro (brorigin..) moment that's kinda the foundation for the opposites-as-roomies dynamic

Paul Newman + Robert Redford are the original bros in my heart so Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (1969) is a must and U might as well (in fact I implore you to) toss in The Sting (1973) to cement the fact that their chemistry is magical even just from the way they look at each other with those freaky beautiful blue eyes man it's like they're telekineticing... telekineticizing... shakspear luv.... I got into cards bc of this card trick Paul's character does ugh truly titillating work...

Rope (1948) inspired by Leopold and Loeb (the original Billy + Stu from Scream if u really think about it) sociopathic buddies with a buttoned-up formality that gives it this smexy polite n repressed edge (don't you love when the killers are true gentlemen!) this film also has a fun gay history so pair with Matt Baume's vid if u end up watching! if you like murder mysteries I think you'll enjoy

all 3 of the movies I did simstober edits based on obviiiii though I feel like generally every other 80s/90s horror movie has bro moments + I'm sure I've even posted a few rando screenshots here if u wanna dig around. I rewatched Re-Animator (1985) last month + almost did that for this year's simstober edit instead 🤭 and An American Werewolf in London (1981)!!!! good ol chummy back n forth right from the start + it also has the best transformation scene Ever (to me).. the Fright Night remake (2011) if u wanna stay in that 'friend comes back wrong' lane (the original is so good too but doesn't have as much buddy interaction if rmbr correctly)... also Lair of the White Worm (1988) which is soooooo fkn fun and worth it for the campiness alone but THAT ENDING !!!! I think about it all the time, it's one of my favs!!

Thelma & Louise (1991) is monumentalllll (lightly referenced in this bro post a couple years ago hehe) if U watch Butch Cassidy u gotta pair these two together, outlaw buddy movie marathon baybee!! & while we're in '91 might as well toss in Point Break ("I know you want me so bad it's like acid in your mouth" bonk) there's just somethin about late 80s/early 90s homoerotic undercover cop/action cheese .. the devastating n overbearing power of friendship(+love) or somethin... something gay was in the water in '91

if u don't mind more of an ensemble film Jason Lee + Jeremy London's characters in Mallrats (1995) are so spot on right down to their stupid conversations + even their outfits and PATHOSSSSS🤌 wise, that general meandering 90s feel ticks the bro aura in my head well BRAIN TURNING TO MUSH god this is getting long but I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface OK buck up (<-me to myself)

situationally Y Tu Mamá También (2001) is prob obvious when it comes to 2 friends getting into a Thing that drastically changes their dynamic (not that that's necessarily the bros .) + Splendor (1991) also fits the 2 guys 1 woman dynamic too but in a sillier way + Araki's style is a treat for the eyes just in general. Hush! (2001) also fits that dynamic but they're actually boyfriends rather than just friends (girl wants one of the guys to get her preggo bc she wants a baby & kinda forces herself into their relationship. me as hell. jk) but it's surprisingly really heartwarming!!! perf for the holidays!! Plan B (2010) is sooo underrated, that's another silly plot where a guy wants to get back with his ex-girlfriend & he hears that her new bf is bi so he tries to seduce the current bf to get him away from her...???? soo fkn silly and fun but Also surprisingly sweet and charming!! I posted about Matthias & Maxime (2019) when I first watched it bc it felt that uncanny... tbqh I'd recommend any early Xavier Dolan to immerse urself in joaquin's early québécois herstory (I totally ripped his backstory from I Killed My Mother not that we would even KNOW that @ djservo's slow ass smh) but this one in particular is soooooo....??!!! just watch it and report back to me . and i'm sorry to say in the year of lord 2023 that The Social Network (2010) is still that bitch to me hand covers bruise I WAS YOUR ONLY FRIEND YOU HAD ONE FRIEND oh my god JAIL TIME mr fincher for making me emotional over BILLIONAIRES !!!

not a movie but I've been sick n wanting something easy on the brain so I've been rewatching Boy Meets World from the start and if you don't already know, I based the bro apartment on Eric + Jack's in s5 and I've finally reached s5 and MAN O MAN!!! goldmine of bro auras through n through honestly cory + shawn have their moments too but literally just watch any eric + jack compilation on youtube (or jump to s5 tbh) to see the vibes it's actually so serious that I've been building an apartment from scratch in my feverish haze to closer resemble their with a working balcony it's soooooo soo gravely serious to me wait what were talking about again

#sry for taking so long to answer j'adore this Q TY!!! #asks

[alcappacino]

If you could design a Leopold-Loeb fictional story, what would you want in it? What would it focus on? What what you do differently than other stories based on them? Thanks!

oh the timing of this ask is kind of incredible bc i'm actually writing a novel right now! so unfortunately i'm not going to be able to answer this ask too thoroughly. :( i'll try to provide some general details tho!

it's just covering a period of three to four years, from when the duo meet through the crime (i'm not 100% sure on when it'll end currently — i have a few ideas in mind — but i will not be including any court proceedings lol). i don't intend for it to follow the case beat for beat (à la swoon, more or less) as it's a rural setting in the late 1970s rather than 1920s chicago. however i plan to include some other details that are usually left out because they're not directly relevant to the case (e.g. loeb's concussion).

overall though i'm really prioritizing getting their dynamic right, since that tends to be the main issue with like 95% of adaptations. i'm also writing exclusively from the pov of the loeb character since so many adaptations are either narrated by the leopold character or they alternate between the two (not that there aren't any completely from the loeb pov; little brother fate comes to mind). but i assume that people often write from the leopold perspective since he wasn't a compulsive liar + had the chance to ~tell his story~ after prison. & it's of course interesting to get an inside look on obsessive love, but i just want to explore the other side of it all.

i also do not plan on deep diving into The Commission Of The Crime Itself bc i am not entirely interested in writing, in detail, the murder of a child. doubly so since it's an adaptation of an actual crime.

#thank you for the ask & sorry for the delay in answering! it's been an interesting few like. months #asks #anônimo #lnl

[gene-forrester]

Ignore me if this is a stupid question, but which were you into first: “Rope” or Leopold and Loeb?

rope! i was collecting old movies at my used bookstore, saw rope and watched it. i knew nothing about it prior to watching and ended up enjoying it a lot. for several reasons. then i looked up stuff about the movie and found out it was based on the leopold and loeb trial. which i knew nothing about at the time but ended up looking into, and here i am now lol.

#maybe one day i’ll get a rope ask.... #lol #i just wanna talk about brandon shaw #asks #anon asks #i do love the leopold and loeb asks though #like when i started posting about them i expected no one to care or ever send me an ask about it #i have lots of thoughts about this case and it’s nice to know others do as well

[forthegothicheroine]

How Other Great Detectives Would Solve the Murder of David Kentley

Inspired by @ bpdtomwambsgans . A series I do sometimes. Assuming we’re still using the setup of the film Rope, all the detectives here will be at a disadvantage because they don’t go in even knowing a crime has been committed. I considered over whether any of the detectives could reference the real life Leopold and Loeb and decided against it, although it would have been hilariously stupid if that crime had existed in the Rope universe (”RIP to Leopold and Loeb but I’m different.”- Brandon, probably.)

Columbo: @ bpdtomwambsgans said that he was Rupert’s ex-boyfriend, so sure, let’s go with that. He tries his best to be polite during Rupert’s incoherent philosophical ramblings, although he offers interjections such as “Aww, geeze” and “I don’t know about that.” He keeps his eyes on Brandon and Phillip the whole time, though. They seem nervous, could he offer them any cigars? It really is a shame David couldn’t be here. Columbo comforts David’s loved ones, but keeps slipping surreptitious glances at the boys- particularly the arrogant Brandon, even though Phillip would seem to be the more obvious. Finally he says that he’s very sorry, but he’ll have to ask them to come in for questioning. Brandon gives the grubby little untermensch a haughty attitude, and then Columbo shows him David’s left behind, monogrammed hat.

L: I’ve given L a hard time in this series, but I think he’d be in his element here. He sits perched on his chair nibbling on only the dessert, staring unblinking at his fellow guests. When Rupert goes on his ramblings about how the Nietzschean superman could commit murder and be morally justified, L just says “No,” and stares at him until he becomes too uncomfortable to go on. He starts idly kicking at the chest holding up the food table, and comments on the oddly non-empty sound it makes, while staring at Phillip and Brandon in a knowing fashion. After enough of this, Phillip has a screaming nervous breakdown.

Sam and Peter: These guys are actually beautiful, perfect foils for Brandon and Phillip! The series they are planning to film would have been all about implying their teacher Rupert Cadell was a serial killer (he has been happy to give plenty of sinister interviews!), and Peter has his cell phone camera surreptitiously on during Rupert’s Nietzschean superman speech (he will edit the clip at the end to say “I swear to god, we did not dub any of this!”) Already knowing and disliking his sycophants Brandon and Phillip, they keep asking annoying questions about murder (Sam: “Hypothetically, would your theories justify me killing Peter to get to his hot mom?”) Phillip thinks they’re onto him when they are not, which leads to them actually becoming onto him. Sam ‘accidentally’ knocks over the buffet table in the hopes of creating a distraction to search the house, but oh shit, there’s a body in that chest! The finale to this web series will involve them wondering about the responsibility a teacher carries with them in shaping the minds of their students.

Sherlock Holmes: Holmes is happy to engage in philosophical debate with Rupert, and responds to his Nietzschean superman speech with one intellectual point after another- how would a man realize he was superior? Wouldn’t a profound belief in one’s own inherent superiority indicate a lack of self-questioning, a flaw in itself? At the end of hours of discussion he reveals that Brandon and Phillip murdered someone because of the exact pattern of worry wrinkles in Phillip’s forehead and the direction Brandon’s eye twitched that one time.

Dale Cooper: I love Cooper, but he isn’t going to solve a case in a single night. He can’t solve a case in a single season.

Kinsey Millhone: Kinsey dislikes Brandon but takes an unexpected liking towards the nervous Phillip and wonders if he’s being abused by his partner. Not exactly, as it turns out. She cuts Rupert off during his Nietzschean superman speech by asking if he’s ever seen the body of a murder victim. Does he think it would look like a work of art? She nevertheless correctly reads that he’s all talk, while Brandon seems to be responding to the speech with genuine callousness. She tries to talk to Phillip privately when David doesn’t show up, and incites Brandon’s jealousy. Phillip and Brandon fight, and in the course of this they reveal some very incriminating details. Rupert puts it together and yells “Did you think you were god, Brandon?” “Why shouldn’t he?” Kinsey says. “You told him he was.”

Miss Marple: Of all the detectives here, I think Miss Marple is the best suited to solving a murder over the course of a single dinner party without doing any legwork. She knows David, he’s a dear, and he wouldn’t just abandon his loved ones to worry about him. She spots the monogrammed hat and hears the lies Phillip and Brandon tell about themselves and notes their attentiveness to Rupert and his speeches about Nietzschean supermen. She correctly deduces that Rupert is all talk, though, and at one quiet point she takes his hand and says “I hope your little jokes haven’t set something terrible in motion.” Rupert is unexpectedly drafted to do her legwork and uncover the corpse beneath the table.

Hercule Poirot: Poirot does not enjoy nasty topics over dinner like inherent superiority and how smart people should be allowed to commit murder, so he’ll already be on edge. (So is Hastings, but he just reacts by going “I say, isn’t this a bit much?”) He is dotingly attentive to David’s loved ones when he doesn’t show up and purse-lipped towards Brandon and Phillip for their callousness. Normally he might need longer to ruminate on a crime, but these boys were not exactly criminal masterminds so he’d probably poke a million holes in everything they said about themselves and with each pointed question he grows more certain that something terrible has happened. Rupert puts it together based on Poirot’s questioning and yells “Did you think you were god, Brandon?” “Worse,” says Poirot- “they thought you were.”

Philip Marlowe: I’m going to avoid emphasizing Marlowe’s weird homophobic scene in the novel version of The Big Sleep (you’ll notice I left Sam Spade off this list for similar reasons) and instead say he dislikes Brandon and Phillip because they are slimy little weasels (perfectly valid!) But he’s not even here to see them, he’s here because the investigation of an art theft lead to a murder for hire which lead to a diamond smuggling operation controlled by the mafia who turned out to be using a snooty prep school to deliver heroin. Or something like that. At some point during the evening when things are getting suspicious, he pays a bellboy to burst through the door waving a fake gun. “I did it, I did it, I killed David, don’t arrest me!” yells Phillip.

Phryne Fisher: Phryne immediately throws a wrench in things by being her usual flirtatious self and inadvertently coming between Brandon and Phillip. Both start to be worried that she will seduce the other into giving away answers, and just to show off how little he cares, Brandon starts responding to her flirtation in a very showy fashion. When David’s loved ones start to worry about his whereabouts and the boys don’t seem terribly sympathetic, she gets a nasty hunch and sneaks around the house to try to put it to rest. She finds David’s hat and has an even nastier feeling about it. It’s probably not enough to get the boys arrested, but she could at least get Jack to question them. When the boys hear her calling the police, Brandon orders Phillip to silence her. Instead, she overpowers him with a series of artful elbow jabs. Not so superior now, is he?

Sam Vimes: Vimes spends the whole dinner pressing his hands down on his legs in a desperate effort to keep from punching Rupert. If Brandon and Phillip are lucky, this will distract him from realizing there is actually a dead body in the room. If they aren’t, and he realizes they killed someone to prove hos posh they were and then invited the victim’s family over? Hoo boy. I believe the appropriate term here is “Vimes is going to go spare!”

Benoit Blanc: I can so easily see Blanc being invited to this party. Hell, if Knives Out had been made in the 50s, James Stewart would have played him! He spends all of Rupert’s Nietzschean superman speech making distracting finger taps on the table, periodically interrupting him. Once David’s loved ones start worrying about his whereabouts he spends most of his time consoling them, but notices how oddly unsympathetic Brandon and Phillip are. When Phillip lies about having strangled a chicken, he asks “Now why would a man lie about strangling a chicken? It doesn’t seem the kind of thing that slips one’s memory.” When he finally finds the body in the chest, he gives a very similar speech to the boys to the one in the film (”Did you think you were god, Brandon?”) but he also castigates Rupert for having given them an elevated excuse for petty sadism.

Sammy Keyes: Sammy thinks she saw some guy in this apartment strangle another guy in the window across from her. That can’t be right, can it? People don’t just murder each other in front of windows? She doesn’t have proof to go to the police with, plus it might reveal she’s living in a place she isn’t supposed to be in, so she makes an emergency run to the thrift store to get a grey dress and an apron and pretend to be general apartment staff. Don’t mind her, the hotel kitchen just sent her to make sure the right food was delivered! Sorry she knocked over that hatstand, she’s just so clumsy! Let her just clean the dishes off that buffet table, oh no, in the process she’s opened the chest underneath!

Will Graham: Will falls under Rupert’s influence and is inadvertently manipulated into becoming yet another would-be Nietzschean killer.

#great detectives series #rope

[alcalavicci]

1988 interview with Dean. This is a really good one and helps bring more of his life into perspective. Note: the newspaper originally censored his swearing, but I’ve put it back.

Guthman, Edward. "Dean Stockwell: Third Time's a Charm." The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California), August 14, 1988.

“Six years ago, Dean Stockwell's acting career had turned to dust. Reduced to playing parts in unreleasable, made-in-Mexico movies that now make him cringe, Stockwell decided to chuck it all and get out of Hollywood.

“Along with his second wife, Joy, Stockwell moved to Santa Fe, settled down under the wide New Mexico sky and applied for a real estate license. He even placed an ad in Daily Variety to announce his exile: 'Dean Stockwell will help you with all your real estate needs in the new center of creative energy.'

“Stockwell never sold a house; he didn't need to. Instead, almost as soon as he'd relocated, things started happening to the former 1940s child star. It began with a small part in David Lynch's 'Dune,' and escalated with an important supporting role in Wim Wenders' highly regarded 'Paris, Texas.'

“Moving back to California to cash in on his fortune, Stockwell acted in 'Beverly Hills Cop II,' 'Gardens of Stone,' and 'To Live and Die in L.A.' He also played a cameo role, as Howard Hughes, in the newly released 'Tucker: The Man and His Dream.' And in 'Blue Velvet,' David Lynch's American nightmare, he delivered a chilling cameo as Ben, a waxlike, sexually ambiguous drug dealer.

“And now, at 52, Stockwell says he's found 'the favorite role I've had, by far.'

“The picture is 'Married to the Mob,' a dark, romantic comedy by Jonathan Demme ('Melvin and Howard,' 'Stop Making Sense') and Stockwell plays Mafia don Tony 'the Tiger' Russo. Wearing an Al Capone fedora and full-length vicuna coat, Tony is a rich, sardonic, larger-than-life character -- the kind Stockwell has never had a chance to play until now.

“Opening Friday at the Galaxy and UA the Movies, 'Married to the Mob' has been touted as Demme's first shot at a genuine box-office winner. Set in Long Island, New Jersey and Florida, it stars Michelle Pfeiffer as Angela DeMarco, a young Mafia wife who tries to start a new life when her husband, Frankie 'the Cucumber' DeMarco, is pumped full of lead during a hot-tub tryst at the Fantasia Motel.

“When Stockwell's character isn't ordering hits, drug deals and the dumping of toxic waste, he's lusting assiduously after the gorgeous widow. Meanwhile, bumbling FBI agent Mike Downey (played by Matthew Modine) is jumping through hoops trying to shadow Angela and 'catch Tony with his pants down.' Instead, he falls in love with Angela.

“During a recent luncheon interview, not far from his central California home, Stockwell spoke about the film, about his new happiness as the father of two children and about the bizarre trajectory of his long career. Dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and slacks, wearing a Panama hat and drawing first on a cigaret, later on a cigar, Stockwell emanates prosperity and calm.

“'I don't know why I was unemployed so long,' he says, reflecting on a fallow period that started in the '60s and lasted the better part of two decades. 'The only thing I can figure out in my own mind is that, for some reason or another, I was being made to wait until a certain time in my life when my talent would reach its full maturity and fruition.'

“Ironically, he says, he felt just as equipped 10 years ago to do the work he's doing now -- 'only I couldn't get fucking arrested.'

“Today, Stockwell sees harmony in the fact that his new success coincides with the arrival of two children. His son, Austin, will be 5 in November, and his daughter, Sophia, turns 3 this month. Inordinately proud and protective, he refuses to allow his children to be photographed, and also requests that the town in which he and his family reside not be named. (There were no children from his first marriage, to Millie Perkins, which lasted from 1960 to 1962.)

“'I want to make a lot of money and I want to put it away for my children,' he says. To that end, Stockwell has been snapping up job offers. 'A lot of people ask me, "How have you been able to choose these wonderful things you're doing? Have you been very selective?" And I have to tell them, "I haven't been choosing what I'm doing." Things have been coming and I've been accepting virtually anything that's come.'

“Stockwell's ambition is so great that, for the first time in his life, he actively pursues aspects of his career that he once shunned- interviews, for example.

“'My entire motivation in life is my family,' he says. 'I don't need to get an award. I don't need recognition. I've had that already. What I need is to provide. The best way I can provide is to be successful, and the best way I can be successful is to take advantage of all the things at my disposal to achieve that, one of which certainly is press.'

“Take a look at the young Stockwell, specifically the version that emerges from old magazine and newspaper interviews, and you meet another person altogether.

“Robbed of a normal childhood, Stockwell had made 22 films by the time he was 15 -- including 'The Boy with Green Hair,' 'Kim,' 'Anchors Aweigh,' and the Oscar-winning 'Gentleman's Agreement.' Working nonstop, he had a privileged life that millions of children probably envied, but he loathed it nonetheless.

“The son of show-business parents -- his father, Harry Stockwell, was the voice of the Prince in 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' and his mother, Betty Veronica, was a former stage dancer -- Stockwell made his professional debut at 7. It all happened by a fluke: when Stockwell accompanied his older brother, Guy, on a Broadway audition, the casting director took a liking to both boys, and cast each one. The play, aptly enough, was called 'Innocent Voyage,' and it led to an MGM contract for curly-haired Dean.

“From the beginning, the pressure on young Stockwell was intense. His parents had divorced when he was 6, and when his father defaulted on child-support payments, Dean reluctantly became the family provider. Over a six-year period, he averaged three to four films per year.

“At home, he says, 'There was a lot of friction... I was getting all the attention, but I hated it. [Guy] couldn't appreciate that, because he wasn't getting the attention. He had all these friends, his peer group, that he took for granted. I had none and I resented him for being able to live that way. I was fucking lonely.'

“When he was 13, chained to a seven-year contract, Stockwell was described by one magazine as 'a young rebel who despises acting and resents every moment it takes from his fleeting boyhood.' Many years later, Stockwell told columnist Hedda Hopper, 'Child actors exist in a sort of limbo between childhood and maturity and belong to neither. Adults take them too seriously and other children are either awed or hostile. A child actor can find friends in neither group.'

“Finally, Stockwell fled Hollywood when he was 16. He cut off his curly locks, started using his real name, Robert Stockwell, and for the next five years roamed the country, working menial jobs and disavowing his true identity. 'People that might have known me from seeing my films knew me as a young child,' he remembers. 'Now I was 17 and I wasn't that recognizable.'

“Around the time of his 21st birthday, Stockwell was pushing papers as mail boy to a Manhattan plumbing firm. 'Of all the jobs that I'd had in those intervening years,' he remembers. 'I think I hated that worse than anything. I came to the realization I had no training at anything. My primary education was very skimpy, very poor, and happened under the worst type of conditions. I was literally at the mercy of the world.'

“Most of Stockwell's childhood earnings were squandered by crooked accountants, he says, and he knew that the tiny sum being held in a trust wouldn't last forever. 'So I thought, "What am I gonna do? Well, let's go back and attack this [acting career] again, and see if I can do it a little more on my terms."'

“What followed for Stockwell was a brief but impressive 'second career.' He starred in the 1959 film 'Compulsion,' based on the Leopold-Loeb case of the '20s, and won a joint acting award with Orson Welles and Bradford Dillman at the Cannes Film Festival. He played the lead in the 1960 film of D. H. Lawrence's 'Sons and Lovers,' and in 1962 scored the plum role of Edmund Tyrone in Sidney Lumet's film version of 'Long Day's Journey Into Night,' holding his own alongside Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson and Jason Robards.

“Stockwell was winning the best parts, but found his attention drifting elsewhere. What was happening, he says, were the first signs of the '60s youth revolution. 'It captured my imagination as much as anybody's. And it represented to me -- I can see this in retrospect -- something in childhood that I had missed: the freedom and loving being alive, without responsibilities and work and having to report to the studio every day, and deal with fans and interviews and shit that I hated when I was a kid.'

“So Stockwell called his agent, said, 'I'm not workin',' and dropped out once again. When he tried to come back three years later, though, 'I found it very difficult, 'cause I'd been out-of-sight, out-of-mind.' What followed was a long period of marginal employment: He found some TV work, took parts in low-budget trash ('The Dunwich Horror') and occasional oddities (Dennis Hopper's 'The Last Movie') and co-directed a film with musician Neil Young ('Human Highway') but often just didn't work at all. At one point, he went 18 months without a job.

“Today, along with his buddy Hopper, Stockwell is enjoying a major career renaissance. And with his starring role in 'Married to the Mob,' he says, he's never felt more confident.

“'I knew before I started the film that this character was going to work in spades,' he says, adding that Demme, as director, deserves credit for taking a risk with such offbeat casting. Instead of picking Peter Falk, Vincent Gardenia or another ethnically identified actor to play the Mafia don, he went with Stockwell (who is actually half-Italian on his mother's side).

“Demme's inspiration occurred on a flight from Los Angeles to New York, when he opened a copy of the Hollywood Reporter. Stockwell had just changed agents, and in order to announce the fact, had taken out a full-page ad. Demme saw the picture, and instantly recognized his Tony.

“Weirdly enough, Stockwell made another film immediately prior to 'Married to the Mob': a Canadian feature called 'Palais Royale,' due for an October release, in which he plays a character almost identical to Tony Russo.

“'It's very curious,' he says. 'For all my years I'd never had a role like this come my way, and here it was twice. The Mafia don in New York, the Mafia don in Toronto, both of them colorful and charming and also threatening. And I just thought, "What am I gonna do? It's the same character." So I decided to do the same character in both those movies.'

“To take the coincidence 'one nauseating step further,' Stockwell says he's also got a part in the recently completed 'Backtrack,' Hopper's next film. This time he plays a corrupt mob lawyer, dropping the Italian accent for a generalized East Coast sound.

“It would be difficult to find a film actor who's busier than Stockwell at this moment. And it would be difficult to find anyone whose job history better illustrates the vicissitudes, serendipities and insecurity of a Hollywood career.

“Looking back on his misfortunes -- at the career that he was forced to accept as a child, and the humiliation he felt when he couldn't maintain it as an adult -- Stockwell says he's not bitter. 'When you reach your maturity, I think it behooves you to accept the fact that it's absolutely futile and fruitless even to speculate on changing anything in your life. All you can do is get embittered. So I accept everything that's happened as part of my life, and try to push it in a positive direction from the moment right now.'”

#dean stockwell #article #i hear the kid who had plans to get a ranch again in this article :) #i've also been trying to reconcile his working in NYC when he was 21 with what parts he had around then #i think he tried acting again at 19/20 #hated it #got out went to NYC worked that job also hated it #so he went back to acting #then Compulsion helped him accept acting more

[pfenniged]

I want to get started in on classic films: are there any you personally recommend?

Hey, thanks for asking! <3

So from your ask I took you wanted a recommendation of classic films that may be my personal favourites. So I’m going to go with the ones that I personally are current loving and finding the most ‘rewatchable’/ have saved on my computer, as well as ones that I do think everyone should watch/ are fantastic, but tend to be the ones I don’t reach for as often. 

This obviously does not include all the classic films that you can find online in ‘Best of’ Lists (although there obviously is some overlap), but I also tended to do straight up ‘films.’ Classic musicals are another thing entirely, so if you want my suggestions on them, just drop me another line.

My current favourite Classic Hollywood films tend to be along the film noir genre or thrillers/ murder mysteries. In case you didn’t know, film noir is defined as the following:

Film noir (/nwɑːr/; French: [film nwaʁ]) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American film noir. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key, black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression.

This means in terms of ‘horror’ genre movies, I tend to avoid gore/slashers (which were not a thing back in the day, but I felt I needed to emphasise that) I only watch horror movies that don’t rely on cheap jump scares, tricks, and tend to have good psychological motivations, because as Alfred Hitchcock said, the original master of horror, the mind is scarier than anything you can create otherwise.

My Current Favourites:

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir: A widower in the early twentieth century falls in love with the former inhabitant of the house she bought, who happens to be a crotchety old sea captain played by Rex Harrison, king of crotchety old crotchety characters. The film plays out as he tries to emancipate her from her ex-husband’s overbearing family, and get her to ironically accept more of life from beyond the grave. (Literally, I’m not a big romance movie person, but this is the only romance movie I will accept in my life because it involves a ghost and has other elements/ not just is total schmalz).

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope: Two gays commit a murder and host a dinner party over it. Based on the Leopold and Loeb murders of the 1920s (Look them up if you don’t know about them; absolutely mental), the film is coded as hell (because 1940s), but is also homoerotic as fuck, acknowledged as homoerotic by everyone who worked on it, one of the main actors was gay, and it involves Jimmy Stewart being dropped in as a dinner party guest and eventually trying to solve the crime. It’s probably honestly my favourite Alfred Hitchcock, because it’s a quick watch, it takes place inside the entirely same space the entire movie (but never feels like it), and is the perfect example of a murder mystery).

The Postman Always Rings Twice: The quintessential film noir, featuring Lana Turner’s amazing outfits and honestly, a really well-rounded performance by her. I only saw this recently for the first time, and if you don’t know, Lana Turner was considered the ‘blonde bombshell’ of her time, and not much in the acting department (By word of mouth). So going into the film, I assumed she’d be a terrible actress: but she was honestly really fantastic, created a nuanced performance out of the often one-note femme fetale characters given to women in film noir, and you honestly understand her motivations and character, however flawed. I’m now a fan and am searching out more of her work.

Double Indemnity: Another film noir I saw recently, and fell in love with Barbara Stanwyck’s acting and her in general. In real life, she was an adorable bisexual; in film, and this film in particular, she’s a fantastic actress, and I’m searching out more of her work now, even into her sixties and seventies, where she did some fantastic performances in series on TV into the seventies and eighties (This monologue of her being an old woman and having a crush on a young man is both heartbreaking, pitiful, and understandable, and it’s so well acted. It gives you just a taste of her acting talent, and how hard she worked to create a well-rounded character). This is probably my favourite film noir overall, definitely because of Barbara Stanwyck and her crazy wig. xD

The Twilight Zone [Original TV Show Run]: I know this is a TV show, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it. I love The Twilight Zone, and none of the later revamps have come close to touching it, and the effect it’s had on pop culture cinema. Some of the more ‘creative’ episodes (I.E: The awful ones with cowboys or aliens), I tend to skip, but The Twilight Zone is at its greatest when its creator Rod Serling is able to narrate about problems we all struggle with, and create a twist to really punch home if scenarios were different. Some of my favourites off the top of my head would be ‘Last Stop at Willoughby’ and ‘Nothing in the Dark,’ which are criminally underrated episodes. There’s also a great resource in this AV Club website, which literally reviews each and every plot of the original run and gives it a letter grade. I’m still not fully through the original run (because there’s 150 episodes, yikes), but I’ve watched at least half of the episodes, if not more. Plus it’s where, once you’ve watched more Classic Hollywood material/TV, you’ll begin to recognise a ton of character actors/early up and comers in the episodes, like random!William Shatner (twice), and Baby!Robert Redford (Who’s fucking adorable and I love him so much in his episode).

Twelve Angry Men: Twelve very different men are brought together on a jury to decide the fate of a young vaguely ethnic man. It’s a classic and I swear it should be shown in every school. It’s one of my favourite movies of all time, point stop, and honestly, as a J.D. graduate and someone who just needs to complete their admissions program now to become a lawyer, this is ‘my’ law-based movie (Most people are To Kill a Mockingbird, which by this point, trust me, is cliched to hear other lawyers talk about, even though it’s another fantastic movie you should watch). Even if I can’t turn off my lawyer brain at one point where something happens and I’m like THAT’S A MISTRIAL XD, it’s still one of the best films I’ve ever seen, and I rewatch it at least every two months.

Some of my Other Recommendations (That I don’t rewatch often but still are fantastic):

All About Eve (BETTE DAVIS)

Rebel Without a Cause (JAMES DEAN)

A Streetcar Named Desire (MARLON BRANDO BEFORE HE WAS CRAZY)

On the Waterfront (SEE ABOVE)

Cool Hand Luke (PAUL NEWMAN)

Sunset Boulevard

Psycho (Hitchcock)

Vertigo (Hitchcock)

Leave Her to Heaven (Gene Tierney and her fabulous wardrobe)

Hope that gives you some ideas to start with! If you need any other help, let me know! <3

#classic hollywood #classic film

[general-fanfiction]

Moonlight, Starshine. (Sweet Pea x Reader)

Summary: Y/N’s longtime crush finally notices her but is it too good to be true?

Word Count: 1,154

Gif not mine. Requests are open!

Warnings: None

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I suppose my silly little crush began last year, when I was fifteen. He's a year older than me, but I've never really cared. I first saw him at Cheryl Blossom's end of summer pool party. Days before my brother Archie was to be sent off to Leopold And Loeb Juvenile Detention Center. I remember it so clearly, he was sat by the pool with a gorgeous Vixen. Though I never payed any attention to her. He was wearing a dark blue shirt with the sleeves cut off revealing his extraordinary arms. My eyes scaned his neck, spotting the serpent tattoo. I could feel my cheeks heat up as I stared at the work of art opposite me. Yet the day my crush began, my heart also shattered. The moment his lips connected with the cheerleader's I felt myself flush with embarrassment. Embarrassed that I thought there was even a possibility me and him could be something.

Of course, a year has passed and I still haven't gotten over him. His fling with Josie ended, from what I heard she kept messing with his head. Now suddenly, she's all over my brother. Not that I mind, she's sweet and funny and everything I'm not. Which is why she always gets the guy. I guess it's my fault, for not trying to be like every other girl in this school. If I was more like Betty Cooper, perhaps he would pay attention to me.

So as I sit on the end of my bed, staring at my reflection, I immediately dread going to school. As much as I would kill to change my look, I can't bring myself to do it. Instead, I pull on my usual attire. Band tee, black shorts, fishnet tights and combat boots. Topped off with a red and black fannel.

When I arrive in the kitchen, Archie and Josie are waiting for me. Both of them look like the picture of happiness which in turn makes me scowl. Although I try not to show it, turning my back on them in order to retrieve a smoothie from the fridge. As I smile at them, we all exit the house and climb into Archie's car. It comes as no surprise that I'm forced to sit in the back as they grip hands in the front. As though they may disappear if they're not holding on to one another.

When we finally pull into the school parking lot, I pratically nose dive out of the car. Desperate to stay away from the love sick couple. Despite never getting over my feelings for Sweet Pea, after his fling with Josie, I gave up on love.

Fortunately I was fast enough, managing to avoid my brother and his girlfriend as I make my way to my locker. Though when I get there I find somebody leaning against the hard, metal door. Chuck Clayton.

"What can I do for you Chuck?" I ask, leaning next to him so our shoulders brush against each other.

He's silent for a moment, eyes focused on the groups of people strolling aimlessly down the hallway. His body tenses when he spots the football team by the stairwell, clearly nervous at their prescence.

"I need you to go on a date with me." He states, looking anywhere but at me.

Pushing off from the locker, I stand in front of him. Eyebrows furrowed in confusion at his revelation. Chuck and I have been friends for years but after the sticky maple scandal, we drifted apart.

"Absolutely not. I'm not going to be a conquest for you." I tell him, folding my arms across my chest in order to prove my point.

"I know and it isn't like that. The boys in the team made a bet that I couldn't get one girl to agree to a date. You're the only person that could help me."

"So I'm just a bet?" I ask, almost in disbelief that all I'm worth is a stupid bet.

"Yes, I mean no of course not but kind of."

Chuck stumbles over his words but I barely him. My mind races with thoughts, I'm only worth a bet. Chuck's mouth is still moving, reminding me he is talking. As my bretahing picks up and my hands curl into fists, I stomp away from Chuck. Urging myself to keep walking so as not to make a scene.

Sat in the old stairwell of the blocked off science lab, I find myself unable to contain my tear as I hold my head in my hands. Reaching into my bag, I pull out the box of cigarettes and light one gently. Placing it to my lips and taking a long, much needed drag. Glancing in my phone screen, I realise just how much of a mess I look. Eyes rimmed red from crying, cheeks also flushed scarlet. Holding the cigarette between my fingers, I huff in annoyance as I hear the sound of laughter approaching.

The footsteps and laughter gradually get closer until they stop right in front of me. Flicking my eyes up I spot three serpents. Toni Topaz, Cheryl's girlfriend and a proud Vixen. Fangs Fogarty, accused murderer and gunshot survivor. Then there's Sweet Pea, the boy I've been crushing on for over a year and no doubt the toughest serpent alive.

"You alright sweetie?"

Toni places herself next to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. I feel myself tense up at her action and she must notice too as she quickly removes her arm. Fangs also sits next to me, stealing the cigarette out of my hand for himself.

"That was mine." I state, not that I mind after all smoking is a disgusting habit.

Sweet Pea stays stood in front of me, watching me with a glint in his eye. Almost as though he's trying to figure me out. Trying to decide if I'm worth his time no doubt.

"Why were you crying?" Fangs asks, getting straight to the point rather than beating around the bush.

Shrugging my shoulders, I look down at my feet. Not entirely sure what I'm meant to say, after all my reason for crying was stupid. I'm just being silly. That's all it is. There was no reason for me to cry in the first place, I'm just too sensitive.

"Listen we've got to get to a job but if you want to talk you can find me at the Whyte Wyrm tonight at seven." Toni tells me, offering me a warm smile.

As the three serpents begin to leave me sat on the empty stairwell, I find my eyes trailing after them. Well, trailing after Sweet Pea. Before turning the corner he stops, glancing over his shoulder to look at me one last time. With the same look as before. As though he's trying to work me out. It's the kind of look that leaves you wanting more.

#sweet pea #sweet pea imagine #sweet pea x reader #part one #riverdale #riverdale imagine #bulldogs #serpents #southside #southside serpents #northside #archie andrews sister #love #fangs fogarty #toni topaz #chuck clayton #josie mccoy

[fanfics4all]

The Last Five Minutes

Request: Yes / No In honour of the riverdale premiere (which was awesome) can you write an Archie x reader where she breaks down in the courtroom but there’s nothing he can do because he’s handcuffed and the officers feel shitty and allow them 5 last minutes together so she can calm down? And maybe a kj x reader where she celebrates with kJ and the cast for some drinks when the show premieres but he has too much to drink Anon

Request are closed <3 Have a nice day/night

Archie Andrews x Fem!Reader

Word count:  834

Warnings: Sadness

Y/N: Your Name

Y/N/N: Your Nickname

PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY WORK, I WORK HARD ON MY FICS AND IT’S NOT COOL TO STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK!

If you want to be on the tag list for anything (My series fics, specific character fics, or just all of them) All you have to do is send me an ask and I will add you!

Masterlist

(Not my photo, credit to whoever made it!)

Archie was on trial for a crime he didn’t commit. I was sitting in a courtroom watching my boyfriend’s mother fight for her son, watching Mrs. McCoy fight for him, watching a battle that was going to be hard to win. The past few days with him have been amazing, but I wanted more of those days. He tried to break up with me, but I refused to let this break us apart. There was no way he could go to jail, it just couldn’t happen. Betty and Veronica held my hands trying to keep me calm I was holding my tears in, but it was so hard…

“Has the Jury reached a verdict?” The judge asked and everyone looked at them.

“Your Honor, we haven’t. We’re deadlocked six to six. And it’s not gonna change.” The man said and I looked at my friends.

“That’s a good thing right?” I whispered.

“It’s better than a guilty verdict, so yeah.” Veronica said and I felt a small weight lifted from my shoulders.

“So be it. The Jury is dismissed. Thank you for your servious.” The judge said and they all left.

“Your Honor.” The blonde woman that I hated more than anything in the world right now stood up clearing her throat.

“In lieu of another trial, the state is prepared to offer a deal for a lesser sentence. Instead of prison time served plus two years in juvenile detention, if Mr. Andrews will plead guilty to the crime of manslaughter.” She said and my eyes went wide.

“Your Honor.” Mrs. Andrew’s stood up.

“I’ll take the deal.” Archie said standing up and I gasped.

“No! Archie you can’t! You didn’t do anything!” I said trying to stand up but my friends kept me in my chair. Archie and his mother whispered to each other and then he looked at the judge.

“Your Honor, I accept the deal.” He said and I could feel the tears falling down my face.

“Son, just so I have it straight, though it’s legally within your rights, you’re ignoring the advice of your council, your own mother?” He asked.

“Yes, your Honor, I’m guilty.” He said and I felt my heart break.

“No…” I said and Betty pulled me to her.

“Mr. Andrews, the court accepts your plea of guilt. You will be taken directly from the courthouse to the Leopold and Loeb Juvenile Detention Center, where you will serve out your sentence beginning immediately. This court is adjourned.” The judge said and I watch as they handcuffed my boyfriend.

“No! Archie!” I cried getting up.

“Sorry Ma'am, you need to step back.” one of the guards said.

“He’s innocent! He didn’t do it! You have to let him go! He didn’t do anything!” I cried, tears were falling down my face like waterfalls and I could hardly breath.

“Y/N, you need to calm down.” I heard Archie say and I shook my head.

“I need you!” I said, I could feel my knees start to wobble under me.

“Your Honor, can I please have a last five minutes with my girlfriend? Just to help her calm down.” Archie said and the judge nodded.

“Five minutes.” He said and they took us to an empty room. They unlocked his cuffs and then left the room. I ran into his arms and he wrapped them around me.

“Why did you do that? You could have been free!” I cried into his chest.

“It would have just started all over again, I can’t put everyone through that again…” He said pulling my head up to face him.

“But I need you…” I cried and he kissed my lips. I wrapped my arms around his neck and deepened it.

“Y/N, I love you, but I couldn’t let this go on any longer…” He said and I felt my knees buckle under me. Archie caught me and held me to him.

“I love you too, please don’t leave me…” I cried.

“I’m sorry Y/N/N…” He said and I cried into his chest.

“Shhhh, everything’s gonna be okay.” He whispered.

“Nothing about this is okay!” I said and he kissed me.

“I know Y/N/N, but you’ll be okay. You know how I know?” He asked with a smile.

“How?” I asked sniffling.

“Because you’re so strong. You don’t need me with you everyday, but when I get out I promise I’ll make up all that lost time.” He said wiping my tears away.

“Promise?” I asked and he kissed me deeply. Before we could pull away the guards came in and pulled him away from me.

“No! Please don’t take him away from me! Please! Archie!” I cried. Jughead came up behind me and held me back.

“I promise Y/N/N! Jughead take care of her!” Archie called and I cried.

“It’ll be okay Y/N… Everything’s gonna be okay…” Jughead said holding me to him.

“No… it won’t…” I said and Jughead held me tighter.

Tag list: @les-bio-lie @tashy-bear @xrosesareredx @herokyolachan @ashwarren32 @hollie-blogs @schisbro87 @lover-of-books-and-teas @nerdygaloresposts @alex--awesome--22 @teenwolfbitches2 @genius2050 @drw0301bieber @tigermillionaire-philanthropist @marveloverdcsstuff @lady-of-lies @emo-godess-loves-you @hiya-imthatgirl @answer-the-sirens @mindsetjupiter @averysinclaire @mittelerde1999 @sweetest-peas @rousewriter @jjkingston @k-is-cray @camiconfessions @thecaptainsgingersnap @pettyjayy @nixdunbarhale2 @mysticrebelwerewolf

#riverdale #riverdale imagine #riverdale season 3 #archie andrews #archie x reader #archie andrews imagine #archie andrews x reader #archie andrews x fem!reader #betty cooper #veronica lodge #jughead #request #fanfic

[madelainesvixens]

30 and 49 with joavin please? i love your writing!! 💙💙

For this one, I took inspiration from @rik-raq-jo-gonzo1186 ‘s concept post. 

Please continue to sent requests from this list of prompt!

30. “This was just a game.’’

49. “Why didn’t you just call me?”

.

Sweet Pea and Fangs found him unconscious in the woods. He must’ve fell and passed out from exhaustion. Minus the few scratches on his face and bruises on his body, he seemed okay but the boys didn’t want to take any risks. And, they were right because the Serpent was suffering from severe dehydration. A couple hours more in this state and he could’ve died.

The second Kevin walked in to the room, his heart had sunk. Joaquin’s face was very pale and he had very dark, proeminent bags under his eyes. God knows how long he had been hiding in those woods. Guilt settled in the bottom of Kevin’s stomach. If he he hadn’t returned to Betty during the escape and had kept looking for Joaquin in the woods, he wouldn’t be laying in a hospital bed.

Two days after he was admitted to Riverdale General Hospital, Joaquin finally opened his eyes. The harsh light of the room made him groan but he fought it, blue eyes finally seeing the daylight.

“Joaquin,” a familiar voice quietly said, catching Joaquin’s attention.

He slowly turned his head in direction of the voice and noticed Kevin sitting beside him. He was looking a bit rough and tired, making the Serpent wonder how long he had been sitting there.

He opened his mouth to speak but his throat felt like the Sahara desert. Kevin got up and grabbed the cup of water beside the bed, holding it top Joaquin’s lips, helping him drink.

“Kevin…where am I?” he asked, voice scratchy.

Kevin set the cup back on the table, moving his chair even closer to Joaquin,  and caressed his face. “You’re in the hospital, Joaquin. You’re safe now.”

The hospital?!

Joaquin jolted up, panic flashing on his face. “The Gargoyle King! I have to go, he’s gonna find me. I gotta keep movi-”

“Shh,” the brunet said, carefully pushing Joaquin back against the pillows. “You gotta rest. No more Gargoyle King. This was just a game,” he tried to rationalise but Joaquin was quick to contradict him.

“Just a game?” the raven haired boy repeated. “No, no, Preppy. You don’t understand. G&G isn’t just a game. It’s the fucking devil. It plays with your head and you do anyhting to survive.”

He was talking like a madmen and Kevin didn’t know if he should believe him or not. When Kevin questioned his dad about G&G, Tom said he didn’t know anything about that stupid game. Since back to school, two teenagers died because of that game - and another one was sent to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy. Maybe Joaquin was right, maybe that game is diabolic.

“It that why you shivved Archie?”

He looked down, avoiding Kevin’s eyes. “I didn’t want to. Warden Norton said I had no other choice. He said he would let me go if I-” Joaquin stopped himself, voice stopping from dryness. “I was going crazy in there, Kev.”

If he recalled Archie’s stories, Leopold and Loeb’s Juvenile Detention Center was a corrupted to the bones. Not only Veronica’s mobster father had ties to the owners, they were also involved in barbaric practices counting an underground fight club where prisoners fought - bare knuckles - until one was knocked out…or died.

“You’re safe now, though. No one’s gonna try to hurt you here. I promise.”

Joaquin wanted to tell Kevin that he was wrong and that there was nowhere safe. Not even the hospital. The Gargoyle King would still find him even if he was in the safest place on earth but, he kept his mouth shut.

“Archie told me how you got in Juvie,” Kevin continued. “He said you got arrested during the riots. Why didn’t you just call me? I could’ve helped. I could’ve bailed you out, I-”

“Sheriff Minetta isn’t like your dad. Serpents, Ghoulies, non-gang members; he wouldn’t let anyone go. And…I didn’t think you’d want to hear about me after… I thought you hated me.”

Hatred was a strong feeling and Kevin wasn’t sure he could ever feel that way about Joaquin. Even after finding out the fucked up shit he did. The only strong feeling he could ever feel was…love.

Hesitantly, Kevin reached out and laced his fingers with Joaquin’s. His nails were bitten cut and dirty around the cuticles. The nurses aren’t very minutious during sponge baths. “I don’t hate you, Joaquin.”

Joaquin looked up and Kevin made eye contact. It had been so long since Kevin had looked into Joaquin’s beautiful eyes, they were just as bright as he remembered. Slowly, Kevin leaned in and, realizing what was happening, the Serpent’s heart rate went up a little. Their lips connected, briefly and Joaquin tenderly touched Kevin’s face. “I’ve missed you, Preppy,” he said softly.

“I’ve missed you too,” Kevin replied, voice soft too. He flashed Joaquin a smile, pushing a stray piece of black hair out of his bright eyes. “I have to get the nurse. Tell them you’re awake.”

Standing from his seat, Kevin let go of Joaquin’s hand but the latter grasped his arm, fingers curving around it. “Don’t go.”

“It’s procedure. I’ll be right back.”

Like promised, Kevin came back with a nurse on his heels. She checked Joaquin’s vitals, wrote some notes and left the two boys alone.

Although he knew he should call Sweet Pea and Fangs to tell them their friend was awake, Kevin selfishly wanted to have Joaquin for himself for a few more minutes - or hours. They had spent so much time apart, he wanted to make up for it.

And, it was almost seven o'clock, visiting hours would end in two hours anyway.

When the nurse left, Kevin climbed onto Joaquin’s bed and the two of them cuddled until visiting hours ended.

#joavin #joavin prompt #joavin prompts #Joaquin DeSantos #joaquin x kevin #kevin x joaquin #riverdale prompts #kevin keller

[bonearenaofmyskull]

What does the “interesting next chapter” for Hannibal involve? Fuller provided no concrete details at Split Screens Festival, but he did tease a very enticing elevator pitch: “It was going to be ‘Inception’ meets ‘Angel Heart.'” Combining Christopher Nolan’s mind-bender with Alan Parker’s supernatural horror movie sounds unsung, but it’s a very Bryan Fuller thing to do and he’s definitely not joking. As a huge fan of your S4 speculations, i got to ask your thoughts on Bryan's latest teases!??!

The short answer is that I have no idea. XD  And the truth is that it’s been so long since the end of the last season, and I’ve had so many discussions over time and read so much fic and planned so much fic and written enough fic that while I know what I think is most likely, any sense of objectivity I have about the subject has pretty much eroded away (as if I ever had any in the first place). And my bluff is still eroding. ;)

WRT the specific article you referenced, I do want to talk about Bryan’s elevator pitches and what we should (and should not) take out of them.

The thing about Bryan is that he’s a positive encyclopedia of film knowledge, and he uses example films to reference any of the scores of ideas he may be having at any given moment, and his mind runs about a million miles per hour nonlinearly (which is why he ends up with verbal diarrhea in interviews sometimes). He’s used a lot of film comparisons for various different Hannibal seasons and episodes, and if you looked at them without watching the show, they might often lead you astray. For example, he’s described the first season as The Shining before, and if you were to take this thought at face value, you’d think Will really would have been the copycat killer and would have ended up killing Abigail (Jack would have been right, zomg!): The Shining is about how a man descends into madness because of a sinister influence and then kills his family. But all Bryan meant was that both stories had the madness component, and in Will’s case it wasn’t even technically madness but a physical condition. Also lots of heartbeats, gaudy bathrooms and clanging noises.

Another time, Bryan caused all kinds of fandom drama when he described “Antipasto” as a “new pilot for the series starring Mads Mikkelsen and Gillian Anderson.” People were taking that to mean that Will was no longer going to be either the love of Hannibal’s life or the star of the show. And Bryan repeated that a bazillion times, either oblivious to or regardless of the panic he was causing, probably because it has a tantalizing vagueness to it so it’s a good advertisement. But it was hardly a straightforward statement about what to expect from the show, although it described that single episode well enough.

So let’s have a look at other comparisons he’s made to various films/shows/stuff:

The Talented Mr. Ripley = “Antipasto”

What you’d expect: Guy in Italy kills the guy he’s in love with and takes his identity, then has to balance it against his own identity as he tries to get away with it, costing him his next lover.

What we got: Italy, murdering the man you’re in love with, and identity shenanigans, so this one was fairly close. Hannibal gets away with it and doesn’t fall in love with anyone else, so that’s different. Also, Bedelia. And Abel Gideon flashbacks in nonlinear narration. It’s…circumstantially similar.

The Hunger = Hannibal & Bedelia in Italy

What you’d expect: A beautiful yet dangerous vampire seeks to replace her old lover, whose life has run out after he kills her protege, by seducing a woman who then destroys her and takes her powers. Supposed to be a metaphor for drug addiction.

What we got: Couple of sexy, ice-cold blondes, I guess. Upper crust musicianing and fancy clothes? A waterphone being hurled down the stairs in the background? IDK, man. IDK.

Don’t Look Now = “Primavera”

What you’d expect: A guy with ESP loses his daughter, but then has glimpses of her as he and his wife go to Italy to deal with their grief. Wife falls in with some old psychic ladies, and it turns out his visions are actually prophetic visions leading to his own death by serial killer.

What we got: Well, we were in Italy to deal with the grief our gifted protagonist suffered at losing his “daughter,” and he continues to have visions of her, and there is a serial killer on the loose and a somewhat grumpy Italian detective hanging around. But like Ripley, it’s circumstantially the same, but the story is totally different.

Frankenstein‘s monster��= Will’s Italy arc

What you’d expect: (There are so many film versions of Frankenstein out there, as well as the original novel, that it’s hard to anticipate what Bryan thinks about when he thinks of Frankenstein’s monster. So I’m just kind of throwing together the most commonly remembered stuff.)  An overly ambitious doctor creates a living “monster” out of dead human body parts, then promptly regrets it. The monster escapes, kills a bunch of people including the doc’s fiancee, tries to coerce the doctor into making a mate for him because it’s sad to be alone, and then either the doctor pursues the monster or the monster pursues the doctor and they both end up dead. 

What we got: A doctor made a guy into a monster, and the guy is kind of back from the dead. The doctor was the one who escaped, and the monster is the one who is pursuing. The doctor kills people instead of the monster. They’re each other’s mate, and they don’t kill anyone’s fiancees. XD  They don’t die either. It is, however, sad to be alone. This is a deejay mashup of Frankenstein if ever there was one. 

Death and the Maiden = “Secondo”

What you’d expect: Traumatized woman who had survived torture recognizes the voice of her torturer and kidnaps him on a stormy night, trying to make him confess his crimes to her before she kills him while her husband looks on, not knowing if he believes her or not and if he should help her or her captive.

What we got: There’s a woman in an isolated house with a man captive. Aaaaand…that’s about it. Plot-wise, this movie goes mostly the opposite direction from where the film does, and Will is at best an amalgamation of both the husband and the torturer, and way more active than either in the outcome. Again, circumstantially similar but a different story.

Kill Bill = “Aperitivo”

What you’d expect: After her wedding was crashed in the most violent way possible, a woman awakens in a hospital and goes out seeking vengeance against her former lover by killing all his cronies one by one until she gets to him.

What we got: Not Frederick Chilton in a bright yellow tracksuit, unfortunately. After some violence, people wake up in hospitals and then…talk to each other? 

Hannibal, the film = “Contorno”

What you’d expect: the obvious.

What we got: Pazzi’s story and death, and a fun little turnabout with Alana taking Clarice Starling’s place on the phone. But most of other plot stuff from Hannibal exists elsewhere, and instead we got some snail-y conversations and a barefoot beatdown on Hannibal by Jack Crawford.

Bound = Margot and Alana’s storyline

What you’d expect: A woman and her lesbian lover plot to steal the money her mafiaso boyfriend owes to his boss in order to escape the boyfriend’s tyrannical hold, but the plot goes wrong and they get caught, making it so they have to improvise their way out.

What we got: Again, circumstantially something very similar, but only in the loosest of terms–that two women lovers are seeking to escape the tyrannical hold of one of the men in their life, getting his money and ending up killing him. For some reason, there’s no pig-baby in Bound. Unless you count Christopher Meloni.

Leopold and Loeb = “Tome-wan”

What you’d expect: Two men, convinced they’re above everybody else, try to create the perfect murder by hatching a plot and killing a kid. They get caught.

What we got: Two men–at least one of whom is convinced he’s above everyone else–hatch a rather haphazard plot without really telling each other what they’re doing, then hunt down a guy and don’t actually kill him, and then they don’t get caught.

…

So is there a pattern in any of this? What can we take from it to apply to the Inception meets Angel Heart (with maybe a dash of Ripley, since that’s what Bryan told Matt Zoller Seitz in the past) pitch for the fourth season? What would we expect from these films?

I think the answer seems to be nothing more than circumstantial similarities, turnabouts on the expectations that these films might have set up, and some tonal similarities. That’s the pattern, and that’s the only pattern as far as I’m concerned. 

That said though, we might as well have some fun speculating with them.

Angel Heart

What you’d expect: A private detective is hired by a mysterious stranger in a manbun to track down a missing person who was last known to be in a coma. When every person the detective interviews about the case ends up meeting a grisly end, he comes to discover that he is the very man he is looking for, and the devil made him kill all those people in a fugue state because he had attempted to cheat the devil from coming to collect his soul.

…Wait, wait wait…. Isn’t this already Hannibal season one? An investigator falls in with the devil, who helps in with his investigations, all the while encouraging a fugue state to get him to kill people, so that at one point he thinks he’s the very killer that he’s looking for??? 

Didn’t Bryan already tell us that the fourth season would be an inversion or subversion of S1?

Cleverrrrrrrrr, Bryan Fuller! You made us think you were telling us something new by just saying the same thing you said before in another way. But there really isn’t anything new here at all, is there???

I guess, circumstantially, there could be a detective searching for them, or they could be searching for killers, or Will could be metaphorically searching for himself. The deal with the devil has obviously already been made, and maybe Will is trying to find a way out of that, as the guy in Angel Heart was. 

People have made a big deal about the coma and fugue state business, and I’m not ruling that stuff out, but I don’t think they’ll retread ground that they tread in S1 with Will, and I don’t think that they’ll put Hannibal in any sustained position of weakness. They never do either of these thing, and that limits where they can go with the coma and fugue state things.

Inception

What you’d expect: A wanted corporate espionage dream-hacker tries to get his name cleared in order to return to his children after being blamed for the death of his wife, so he agrees to attempt to create an idea in the mind of an unknowing victim by generating a dream within a dream within a dream, where there is a danger of not knowing what is real and what is not.

Well…not quite knowing what is real and what is not is Hannibal all the way, and Will is a dream-hacker if ever there was one. And he will probably be wanted by the law. Kinda doubt he’ll be looking to return to his wife and child, though maybe he is interested in clearing his name. And Hannibal and Will do share mental space, just as Cobb and Mal do…and there could be some comparison to be made between Mal and Hannibal here, in how they haunt their husbands…and how Mal frames Cobb for murder. XD 

People get very hyper-focused on the dream-within-a-dream business from Inception, but I found that to be kind of beside the point, tbh. “Inception” refers to the process of planting an idea in another person’s head in such a subconscious way that they believe that idea is their own and they make it a part of themselves and their reality. I guess because I find this to be the more interesting part of Inception, I’d personally like this to be what Bryan Fuller is talking about here, rather than the dreaming stuff. It’s very psychological, and if Will is looking to understand who he is on the other side of the veil, I feel like there’s a lot of opportunity here for both or either man, within that alchemy of truths and lies. 

If we were looking for a more plot-driven similar circumstance, a situation in which some rich person paves the way for Will to clear his name in America. We do have some powerful rich people on this show. 

To be quite honest, the first thing that came to mind when Bryan said Inception was him talking about how Richard Armitage and Gillian Anderson never had a chance to be in a scene together, so maybe they could be in a scene together in the future in Will’s mind--like he’s hosting all the people he’s killed, or whose deaths he blames himself for (sorry, this thought isn’t very optimistic about Bedelia’s chances). And that reminded me a lot of Cobb with Mal. 

I’m less clear on any of this with regard to Hannibal: it’s as he says himself in “Digestivo,” it’s dangerous to get everything you ever wanted, and that’s where Hannibal finds himself at the end of TWOTL. I’m not sure where that will take him after, though Hugh being convinced that Hannibal would always have to fight for Will is somewhat heartening. I’ve spoken elsewhere on my preferences for where Hannibal goes in S4, but I don’t have a particular sense of anything for him that comes from either Inception or Angel Heart. He’s more likely to be the devil than Will is, and he’s more likely to be compared to Mal. I could see scenarios that would cast him as Cobb, I suppose, but nothing concrete. 

I wrote a lot here to say that I don’t have much to say, but the truth is that I think we should be skeptical about taking anything Bryan says that sounds like an elevator pitch too literally.   

#hannibal meta #hannibal lecter #will graham #bryan fuller #s4 speculations #inception #angel heart #anonymous #bear answers #season 1 #season 2 #season 3 #not gonna tag the individual eps on this one i don't think

[brigdh]

Reading Very Much Not-Wednesday

Ugly Prey: An Innocent Woman and the Death Sentence that Scandalized Jazz Age Chicago by Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi. A nonfiction book about Sabella Nitti, a woman who was found guilty of murdering her husband in 1923 Chicago – making her the first woman to be given a death sentence by an American court. (Note: not really. Plenty of women had hung or burned or otherwise received capital punishment before Nitti, but a lack of historical awareness meant that the lawyers, judges, and general public at the time reacted as though this was a new development, and chose to be proud of it or appalled by it as their personal politics dictated.) She is probably best-remembered these days as the inspiration for the Hungarian-speaking woman in the musical Chicago; here she is protesting her innocence during the Cell Block Tango. Nitti was an Italian immigrant, illiterate, a farm wife, ugly (at least according to the reporters covering the case), and spoke no English or mainstream Italian, but only a fairly rare dialect called Barese. In addition, she was saddled with a defense lawyer who seemed to be actively losing the ability to maintain a train of thought – his behavior during the trial was remarkably unhelpful to her cause, and he would later spend years in a mental asylum. These factors almost guaranteed she would receive a guilty verdict despite the fact that it was never even clear if her husband was actually dead (it seems likelier he just decided to abandon the family), much less that she was the one who killed him. The local sheriff and one of Nitti's own sons seem to have been the prime movers in pinning the crime on her, despite the lack of evidence. The depiction of the prejudices and passions of 1920s Chicago was where the book really shone. Women had newly gained the vote, and many saw the potential death sentence of a woman as connected to that – with power comes responsibility. Others argued that women were inherently deserving of mercy: "She is a mother and a mother has never been hanged in the history of this country. I do not believe the honorable court here will permit a mother to hang.” And then, of course, there was the issue of looks, of proper decorum – the pretty, fashionable yet obviously guilty women judged innocent by their all-male juries, and Nitti condemned to hang. The first 2/3rds or so of the book, when Lucchesi is guiding the reader through Nitti's life before her husband's disappearance and the subsequent trial, are pretty great. Unfortunately the last third loses the thread. Lucchesi detours into describing the backstories of various prisoners Nitti would have met or other contemporary court cases in Chicago; none of it seems to have much to do with Nitti, who disappears from the page for chapters at a time. Some of these would become the inspiration for other characters in Chicago, but since Lucchesi won't mention the musical until the epilogue, the reader is left to make the connection on their own or be confused. (Overall I found the book's lack of direct acknowledgement of Chicago odd – it's so obviously hanging there, waiting for the reader to notice it, and yet Lucchesi treats it like a devil who will bring bad luck if its name is invoked. Not to mention the missed marketing opportunity.) Others, like the two chapters spent on the Leopold and Loeb case, just seem to have interested Lucchesi and were vaguely connected, so she threw them in as a afterthought. It's a good example of historical crime writing, even if it needed a better structural editor. I read this as an ARC via NetGalley. Golden Hill by Francis Spufford. THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD EVERYONE READ IT IMMEDIATELY. A novel set in 1746 New York City, the book opens with the arrival in town of Richard Smith, fresh from London and bearing a bill for a thousand pounds. All of the novel's action is compacted within the next 60 days, as various New Yorkers wait to receive word from England proving Smith is who he says he is and if he really is owed such a fabulous sum; in the meantime they (and the reader) are left to figure out the mysterious Smith: a conman who should be thrown in the city's freezing jail? a wealthy aristocrat who your daughters should be encouraged to woo? a French spy, come to exploit the division between the city's new-born political parties? an actor, a Catholic, a gay man, a libertine, or possibly even a Turkish magician? Through it all Smith delights in giving no answers, reveling in the New World as a place to remake himself. I generally am suspicious of books that deliberately hide information from the reader, but it's done so well here and leads to such a delightful revelation that I think it was the perfect choice. Spufford's style is a moderate pastiche of 18th century novels; here are the opening lines as an example: The brig Henrietta having made Sandy Hook a little before the dinner hour—and having passed the Narrows about three o’clock—and then crawling to and fro, in a series of tacks infinitesimal enough to rival the calculus, across the grey sheet of the harbour of New York—until it seemed to Mr. Smith, dancing from foot to foot upon deck, that the small mound of the city waiting there would hover ahead in the November gloom in perpetuity, never growing closer, to the smirk of Greek Zeno—and the day being advanced to dusk by the time Henrietta at last lay anchored off Tietjes Slip, with the veritable gables of the city’s veritable houses divided from him only by one hundred foot of water—and the dusk moreover being as cold and damp and dim as November can afford, as if all the world were a quarto of grey paper dampened by drizzle until in danger of crumbling imminently to pap:—all this being true, the master of the brig pressed upon him the virtue of sleeping this one further night aboard, and pursuing his shore business in the morning. (He meaning by the offer to signal his esteem, having found Mr. Smith a pleasant companion during the slow weeks of the crossing.) But Smith would not have it. Smith, bowing and smiling, desired nothing but to be rowed to the dock. Smith, indeed, when once he had his shoes flat on the cobbles, took off at such speed despite the gambolling of his land-legs that he far out-paced the sailor dispatched to carry his trunk—and must double back for it, and seizing it hoist it instanter on his own shoulder—and gallop on, skidding over fish-guts and turnip leaves and cats’ entrails, and the other effluvium of the port—asking for direction here, asking again there—so that he appeared most nearly as a type of smiling whirlwind when he shouldered open the door—just as it was about to be bolted for the evening—of the counting-house of the firm of Lovell & Company, on Golden Hill Street, and laid down his burden while the prentices were lighting the lamps, and the clock on the wall showed one minute to five, and demanded, very civilly, speech that moment with Mr. Lovell himself. However, it's 18th century language hiding a 21st century attitude; this is a novel deeply aware of gender and racial divisions, for all that they're mostly hidden behind humor and a page-turning sense of suspense. It's a New York City shaped and haunted by the ghosts of the slave revolt of 1741, and its shadow lies over every page, thought it's only ever directly addressed in one on-page conversation (though goddamn, it's a conversation with resonance). Smith meets and begins to court Tabitha Lovell, who is described as a "shrew" by her family and the rest of this small-town New York. Her portrayal though, is much more complex than that stereotype, and it's never quite clear how much she is an intelligent woman brutally confined by social strictures or how much she suffers from an unnamed mental illness. And yet it's fun book, an exciting book! There are glorious set-pieces here: Smith racing over the rooftops of winter New York, outpacing a mob howling for his blood; a duel fought outside the walls of the city that turns in a split second from humor to horror; a play acted on the closest thing New York has to a stage; a card game with too much money invested. The writing is alternatively beautiful and hilarious, and I'm just completely in love with all of it. I really can't recommend this book enough. I came into it not expecting much, but it turned out to be exactly what I wanted. I read this as an ARC via NetGalley. (DW link for easier commenting)

#books #book reviews #francis spufford #Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi #chicago

[gene-forrester]

What Leopold and Loeb books (non-fiction & fiction)/movies do you own? And which do you recommend?

ahh thank you so much for asking! the easiest way to do this would be to take a photo of my books, but since they're all over my bookshelf and i don't feel like reorganizing them i'm typing it all out. everything i say about any of these books is just my personal opinion. i always recommend trying things out for yourself and forming your own opinion. 

for non fiction i own: for the thrill of it by simon baatz (and my hardback version has his signature in it against my will), crime of the century by hal higdon, the amazing crime and trial of leopold and loeb by maureen mckernan, leopold and Loeb: a psychiatric study by maurice urstein, evil summer by john theodore, crimes of the century by gilbert geis and leigh bienen (jamie if you're reading this, apparently i had this book all along and didn't know lol), the loeb-leopold case by alvin sellers, life plus 99 years by nathan leopold, the leopold and loeb files by nina Barrett, the story of my life by clarence darrow, retrying leopold and loeb: a neuropsychology perspective, the great trials of clarence darrow by donald mcrae, and i had a copy of leopold and loeb killed bobby franks but threw it away because it was that shit. 

for fiction i own: these violent delights by micah nemerever, the moralist by joshua marcus, the hunting accident, nothing but the night by k.c. krantz, nothing but the night by james yaffe, never the sinner by john logan, little brother fate by mary-carter roberts, dickie and babe: the truth about leopold and loeb by daniel henning, rope by patrick hamilton, homo superiors by l.a. fields, semblance of balance (i had it but i got rid of my copy, i don't remember the author and they don't deserve the effort to look it up), compulsion by meyer levin, and thrill me by stephen dolgnoff. 

for movies i own: compulsion (1959), rope (1948), swoon (1992), american experience: the perfect crime, “hearts of darkness” (an episode about l&l from a crime to remember), “the perfect crime” (an episode from behind mansion walls).

as far as non fiction goes i recommend higdon’s, mckernan’s, urstein’s, and seller’s book. if you want you a lot of information about the case/nathan and richard. retrying leopold and loeb is good as well. so is the leopold and loeb files. i don't recommend evil summer (poor writing and false information), leopold and loeb killed bobby franks (horrible writing and very false information. also the cover looks like something i’d make on picarts), or darrow’s book (only because leopold and loeb are barely mentioned). donald mcrae’s book is fine but again leopold and loeb aren't in it a lot, i didn't learn anything new. for the thrill of it isn't great, lots of inaccuracies and i despise how baatz talks about loeb’s death. nathan’s book is fine but you're not going to get anything about pre-murder/the murder itself. it’s mainly about prison life and is censored a lot. 

as far as fiction goes i recommend: these violent delights (good characters, good plot, nice change), james yaffe’s book (good richard fill in character, i like the dynamic between the two characters), never the sinner (it’s good), dickie and babe...(it’s good as well), rope by patrick hamilton (short but good), and homo superiors (my love. my heart. i adore this book. if you don't read any of the above then just read this one. it’s worth it imo.). i don't at all recommend compulsion (artie and judd are the worst characters ever written), little brother fate (i hate the pedophilia in it), krantz’s book (horrible take on leopold and loeb), thrill me (an even worse take on leopold and loeb), the moralist (i deserve free therapy after reading this book from how bad it is), or semblance of balance (absolutely horrible. hated everything about it. shame on the author for even writing it). 

for the movies i actually enjoyed the compulsion film more than the book. the later part drags so much though. rope is great, i love it. swoon is good too. american experience is probably the best documentary about the case. those two episodes from different shows are something you can skip lol. they're not great. a little entertaining though. the hearts of darkness episode is oddly romantic. krantz would love it. 

#asks #answered #anon asks #l&l