#the name Steve buscemi comes to mind

[byneddiedingo]

John Turturro and John Goodman in Barton Fink (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 1991)

Cast: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner, John Mahoney, Tony Shalhoub, Jon Polito, Steve Buscemi. Screenplay: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Cinematography: Roger Deakins. Production design: Dennis Gassner. Film editing: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Music: Carter Burwell. 

The Coen brothers are nothing if not audacious, and attempting something so outrageous and anomalous as Barton Fink at the beginning of their careers -- it was their fourth feature, after Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), and Miller's Crossing (1990) -- shows a certain amount of courage. It's a melange of satire, horror movie, comedy, thriller, fantasy, and fable that had many critics singing its praises. It was their first film to receive notice from the Motion Picture Academy, earning three Oscar nominations: supporting actor Michael Lerner, art directors Dennis Gassner and Nancy Haigh, and costume designer Richard Hornung. And it was the unanimous choice for the Palme d'Or at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival; Joel Coen also won as best director and John Turturro as best actor. Evidently it took everyone by surprise. But although it's a provocative and unsettling movie, there's not enough of any one element in the melange to suggest to me that it's more than the work of a couple of extraordinarily talented writer-directors riffing on whatever comes to their minds. Barton (Turturro) is a playwright whose hit on Broadway in 1941 gets him a bid to come work in Hollywood. There, studio head Jack Lipnick (Lerner) assigns him to write a wrestling picture for Wallace Beery. Stymied in his attempt to come up with a screenplay, Barton decides to pick the brain of a famous novelist who has also come to work in Hollywood, W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney). The playwright, the studio head, and the novelist are all caricatures of Clifford Odets, Louis B. Mayer, and William Faulkner, respectively. Each caricature is well-done: What we see of Barton's play is a deft parody of the Odets-style leftist "little people" dramas like Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing! that Odets was known for. Lipnick is a rich, sentimental vulgarian with a mean streak, who like Mayer was born in Minsk. And Mayhew not only goes by the name "Bill," as Faulkner did among his friends and family, he also has a wife back home named Estelle, just as Faulkner did. Moreover, he is an alcoholic who is looked after in Hollywood by his mistress, Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis), who is clearly based on Faulkner's Hollywood mistress, Meta Carpenter. But then we have the turns into horror-fantasy when Barton tries to hole up in a Los Angeles hotel and makes friends with his next-door neighbor, an insurance salesman named Charlie Meadows (John Goodman). Good-time Charlie is later revealed to be a serial killer named Karl Mundt -- another of the Coens' in-jokes: The real-life Karl Mundt was a right-wing dunce who represented South Dakota (neighbor state to the Coens' Minnesota) in Washington from 1939 to 1973. Clearly, Barton Fink is not without a certain baroque fascination to it. It's the kind of film you can spend hours analyzing and annotating. But this makes it, for me, little more than a fabulous mess.

#Barton Fink #Joel Coen #Ethan Coen #John Turturro #John Goodman

[spiritproductionsart]

I nabbed this format from a friend of mine - since folks enjoy the vampire man here’s some of the inspos for him, and for those who haven’t met him yet - meet Lord Vesper Fynch :D

Steve Buscemi: Steve Buscemi was like, the og inspo for Vesper. The “How do you do fellow kids” line more or less activated my one braincell and was like “hmm yes - boomer vampire. Steve is more or less Vesper’s modern day voice claim and the main inspo for his “old man” phase as it were.

Donkey: Vesper was actually pretty smart back in olden times, but time hasn’t exactly been kind to his mind. He’s more or less gone senile by the 21st century, so he tends to be a “all talk no think” kind of person. That being said, he’s a man with good intentions - he might say stupid stuff but he’ll be there for you if he can.

Fry: This is less a commentary on his intelligence and more Vesper’s general “energy” as time went on. Vesper tends to radiate a bit of 20th century/90s vibes, though also takes a bit of inspo from that one episode where the group camped out in a Volkswagen van (Vesper canonically lived in a van for a good while during the 20th century).

Alucard (Hellsing Abridged): Alucard’s abridged version is a bit of an inspiration for Vesper’s very “memey” personality. His relationship with his rival (current working name is Rourke) is very complicated but does take some inspiration from the abridged Alucard’s relationship with Anderson. Not only that but his general “don’t give a shit” energy is especially prominent come the 20th century.

Alucard (Castlevania): This Alucard is Vesper’s primary inspiration for both his look in his original era (around 11th century AD) as well as his general vibe up till about the 1600s. Vesper was actually a very serious nobleman who made a strong effort to take care of his people, even when infected with vampirism.

Granted their stories do diverge strongly from the base concept and look, but Alucard’s voice is also Vesper’s voice claim from his pre-Americas time.

Quasimodo: Quasi’s Disney interpretation does serve as an inspiration for Vesper after the loss of his family. His vampirism brought on a complex viewing himself as a monster, as well as a great deal of fear and isolation.

There was a time where Vesper traveled with some Romani people, who gave him refuge from the sun and in exchange he provided protection. There is a scene from Hunchback wherein Esmeralda gives Quasimodo a palm reading - and she comments on how “I see no monster lines.”

Vesper has a similar moment of human kindness in his past, which would eventually change his opinion on himself and lead to his eventual healing from the traumas he’d experienced both in the war and fleeing from his estate.

#oc #alucard #vampire #vesper fynch #character

[veronicaleighauthor]

Fun Facts About “Of Two Minds”

As you may have heard, my latest story, “Of Two Minds” was published in Starlite Pulp Review #2. It is the third in the Lady Sheriff Series. If you’re interested in reading my story, you can buy a copy of the review here. This post is about the fun facts / behind the scenes of this story. Enjoy!

This is not the first time I used the title “Of Two Minds” for a story. Years ago, I wrote a fantasy story by the same title, which was rejected by everyone and their brother. Just as it should have been. Since it was a failed story, I took the title and used it for this tale. The title actually suits this story better and matches up with the themes.

https://youtu.be/h2Ccbjp3hCg 

The song, “Hang Out the Stars in Indiana” sung by Al Bowlly, is featured in “Of Two Minds.” A British singer, he was known for “The Very Thought of You” and “Melancholy Baby,” he tragically died in a Luftwaffe Parachute Mine explosion in 1941.

Sheriff Claire Williams wears her badge when she’s on duty, and carries it around in her purse when she’s off-duty, in case she needs to put it on. I’ve tried to do research, to figure out what a sheriff’s badge from Indiana in the 1930s, and haven’t been able to come up with anything. I found this cute little badge on Temu and it matches what I’ve described in the series. I put my little badge next to an old 1917 postcard: the note is from one great-great grandmother to another, and mentions Edith giving birth to Margaret. Edith was my great-grandmother, whose story and a bit of her personality inspired Claire Williams. And Margaret was my grandma, whose stories of the past inspired many of my writings.

There’s a character named Isom in the story. On my mom’s side of the family, we have an ancestor named Isom.

Deputy Joseph Frank is a series regular character and I imagine him looking like a young Steve Buscemi.

Blackbirds show up in “Of Two Minds.” If you’re a Terre Haute/Wabash Valley native, you’re familiar with the plague of blackbirds that show up every October and torture us until the following spring. I used to live in the center of town and the birds were so bad there, when they flew in hordes over us, we’d have to run from the house to the car – or visa versa – carrying newspapers over our heads to avoid their… deposits. Our cars would be coated in a grotesque mix of white, brown, red, and black. Very nasty business.

“Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” is featured in this story, sung by Deputy Frank. I consider it the theme song for this series.

https://youtu.be/XYG9bXOLr_E

In my continual research of this time period and of the lady sheriffs in the early 20th century in general, I came across this fascinating clip on YouTube. It took me a few months, but I was able to learn the sheriff’s full name was Sheriff Jennie Walker. Her journey to sheriff was a little different from those who inherited their positions from their deceased husbands. After her husband’s failed campaign, upon the encouragement of the locals, Jennie Walker campaigned for the position and was elected…she was the first woman to be elected sheriff in Kentucky! She served the people faithfully and was respected by all. Special thanks to Knox Historical Museum for answering my many questions about Sheriff Jennie Walker. She’s become yet another part of the inspiration for my Lady Sheriff Series.

If you’re interested in reading the other Lady Sheriff stories, click here. Or you can check out its tag, Lady Sheriff Series, for updates.

#of two minds #Starlite Pulp Review #lady sheriff series #crime fiction #mystery fiction #historical fiction #gothic fiction #speculative fiction #indiana #sheriff claire williams

[the-clone-father]

I’ve done it…I’ve finally done it…I now own all available black series bad batch figs. Wrecker arrived this morning and he is beautiful

Now just gotta wait til June 2022 to get echo and omega when they release and I’ll have all of them :O

#I have some things to say #wrecker really is gorgeous #even his head sculpt is good I love him so much #Hunter and crosshair are ok #nice quality but their head sculpts are a lil whack #imperial crosshair is about the same as batch crosshair #weird headsculpt but nice quality #they didn’t make him bald either which is weird and cheap to just reuse the other head #crosshairs dark trooper underling is nice #no head sculpt #but nice quality #tech is… #well #the name Steve buscemi comes to mind #the paint job as a whole is garbage on him #and he’s missing so much paint on his armour #I still love them all #but you can tell who got all the attention #personal #bad batch #black series #Star Wars #figures #star wars figures #tbb #clone wars

[trulyinspiringmovies]

Hotel Transylvania

“Hotel Transylvania” has good ideas sprinkled throughout, but seems more interested in rushing through the checklist of family movie tropes.

Count Dracula has grown overprotective of his daughter, Mavis, after the loss of his wife. He built an entire hotel away from human civilization to protect monsters. Mavis is now 118 years old and she wants to explore the world. Dracula stops at nothing to convince Mavis that humans are evil. When a human named Johnny finds the hotel, Dracula is afraid that Johnny might show Mavis that not all humans are evil.

Genndy Tartakovsky is a legend in animation and has produced the bulk of my childhood. “Hotel Transylvania” was his first directorial debut and, to be completely honest, I don’t think the transition from television to film was a smooth ride. For starters, I don’t think his signature art style translated well into 3D animation. The level of expression exhibited by 2D characters looks too frantic for 3D characters. The movie also moves at a very fast pace. It never leaves room to laugh at a joke or even feel an emotional scene. I think the weakest aspect of the film was the voice acting. For a lot of scenes, it felt like the actors were phoning in a performance. There were so many moments where the level of enthusiasm in the lines didn’t match the gravity of the situation. Adam Sandler voices Dracula and, at times, his accent just comes and goes. It’s made even worse when Dracula mind-controls a pilot and speaks through him. The pilot is played by Brian Stack and he does a way better Dracula impression. I did enjoy Steve Buscemi as Wayne the Werewolf. The nonchalant nature of his voice was perfect for the character. Another thing that bothered me was how basic the story was. It felt like the movie was afraid to complicate its own plot. Johnny just appears out of nowhere and finds this deliberately hidden hotel with relative ease. Mavis just kind of falls for Johnny for no good reason. It really felt like an infatuation more than love. Control-freak Dracula warms up to Johnny with one racing scene, but it’s at the expense of precious planning time for Mavis’s party. The humans are just okay with the knowledge that Dracula and his friends were actual monsters. This movie wasn’t all bad, however. There are a lot of creative ideas and subtle details sprinkled everywhere. I had a fun time picking out these details and appreciated the level of creativity that went into something that most people won’t even notice. Some examples of this are when Dracula heals from damage, his ripped clothing would heal with him and there's a bust with moving eyes. Still, this movie was Tartakovsky’s first project he directed, so he’s used to having fast-paced stories that fit nicely in a time slot. I can understand why the movie has flaws and recognize the creativity it still has. Ultimately I still felt this was just a forgettable movie.

★★★

Watched on January 18th, 2022

#Hotel Transylvania #September #2012 #Children's #Comedy #Fantasy #Monster #Horror #Animated #PG #Genndy Tartakovsky #January 2022 #3 stars

[imaginesbymk]

“Something’s Wrong with Mr. Pink.”

Reservoir Dogs One Shot

Summary: There’s been spark between you and Mr. Pink, but he’s one to shield his emotions. He realizes he’s starting to lose you, but he’s out of ways to win your heart. Desperate, he approaches Mr. White for help.

Pairing: Mr. Pink x Fem!Reader

Tags: swearing, sexist remarks, smoking + mentions of drug use (marijuana)

Non Requested

Word Count: 2,054

Author’s Note: as you can tell, quentin tarantino movies have been on my list!!! the reader is codenamed Miss Beige!! i never thought i’d have this much appreciation for steve buscemi until now, he’s such a cool guy :(((  also thank you @myriadimagines​ for checking my title capitalization aksnskdns - leave a like/reblog + feedback!!! <333

MR. BROWN gave Mr. Pink a ride to the next meeting, and the whole trip there, Brown rambled on and on about God knows what. It came through one ear and out the other for Pink. Brown didn’t seem to notice because of his investment of his proven theory of a movie he had seen and wanted to share it with someone. 

If he wasn’t listening in silence, Pink would always have something to say. It would usually be a comment, an opinion on something about social life. This one afternoon, he bit his tongue, despite the guys knowing his mind was occupied, even Nice Guy Eddie raised a brow. It didn’t start the day they were all given your colour coded names. It didn’t start the day they reviewed the plan of the heist with each other. It all started when you two were unintentionally left alone at the large dining table, moments after the guys had walked out the restaurant for something.

“Pink’s a pretty colour.” You gave him a reassuring smile, stirring your straw in your milkshake.

“To you.” 

“And to anyone else who would want to be codenamed Pink!” you scoff. “Sexist.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re Miss Beige,” he says, his mouth full of his toast. 

“And I happen to like my name. It’s a pretty colour,” you paused. “Just like pink.”

Pink huffs, swirling his coffee mug. “I can’t wait to smoke.”

“Lucky.”

“My buddy sets up Thai sticks like it’s one of those model boats in a bottle. It’s so fragile to him, and he saved one for me. Something tells me I owe him a shit ton.”

“You smoke Thai sticks?” you ask. “Your poor lungs.”

“Nah, I gotta smoke outta one anytime after coffee just for me to either black out or jump off the Empire State building by the time we hit Easter.”

You chuckled.

From the windows of the restaurant, you could see the guys standing outside their parked cars including Nice Guy Eddie and Joe, talking to each other about whatever. You could see their mouths moving, Nice Guy Eddie using a lot of hand motions at Mr. White, and Joe calling someone on the phone.

This wasn’t the first time you spent a limited amount of minutes alone with Mr. Pink. At Uncle Bob’s Pancake House, you two did sit close to each other, except Mr. Blue sat in between the both of you, and you had to lean forward to see Mr. Pink if he was speaking or if you two were giving each other looks if someone said something stupid.

If you were that childish, you would've considered the five minutes of alone time with Mr. Pink a first date - without the formal introduction. You two didn’t give each other your names because of Joe, but you wouldn’t mind slipping it out.

Silence, and then-

“I know this really cool café near my apartment. We should check it out sometime,” you blurted out.

Pink was in the midst of swallowing his food. He chokes on his ketchup dipped toast, taking his coffee mug to chase the contents down his throat.

“Wait a minute-” Pink cleared his throat, then cleared it again. “Are you-” he cleared his throat for the final time. “Are you asking me out?”

“Y-yeah,” you sheepishly smile, holding in your breath. “I mean, we can go get coffee, hang out at my place afterwards - it’s just a five minute walk - and sit on my couch, listen to K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the ‘70s, you can smoke your Thai stick, I wouldn’t mind...” By looking at Pink’s face made you trail off your words. You knew where this was going. 

“You couldn’t ask Brown or Orange?”

“No, I wanted to ask you. We’ve been talking lately, we seem to get along, thank God, and you’re really cool. Even when you can be an absolute dick almost all the time, you haven’t scared me off. Just one date, it won’t kill us.”

“A date...” he frowns a bit. “With you?”

“What’s wrong with me?” your heart sank.

“Nothing’s wrong with you, Miss Beige. Ya just got the wrong idea. We’re here for a job, not to hook up. If you want to suck someone off, try your luck with Mr. Blonde. Besides, I go for chicks at a bar. I know from experience, they’re always coming in hot - first come, first serve typa’ shit.”

“Right. My bad.” You felt yourself shrinking now, fighting the urge to get up and make a dash outta there, somewhere to scream in embarrassment, whatever emotion it was. 

“Excuse me.” Mr. Pink gets up and walks away, just as the rest of the guys start making their return to the large table.

“Where did Mr. Pink go?” Mr. Orange asked.

“Little men’s room, I’m guessing.” You sighed, sliding the milkshake away from you. “I’m full.”

“Something’s wrong with Mr. Pink. Did you guys get in a fight? We were only gone for five minutes,” Mr. Brown laughs.

You sat in silence, staring down.

“Nah, I bet she finally put him in his place and he’s crying like a baby in there,” Mr. Blue said, lighting the cigar in his mouth with a match.

“Most definitely not.” Mr. White shook his head, patting his pockets in search of his lighter. “That man’s a smartass, and smartasses like him know how to shield themselves. He’s fine. If anything, he can walk his ass home.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Pink calmly entered the restroom, placed both hands on each side of the tiny sink, stared at his reflection in the dirty mirror, and screamed in anger. 

He jumps when he notices a man had appeared from one of the stalls just a moment ago, staring at him worriedly.

“WHAT?!” Mr. Pink snaps.

If someone treated him like a friend, he goes along with it if they weren’t weird or creepy. If someone told a joke, he’ll laugh if it isn’t corny or cringeworthy. But if someone admitted their feelings to him? Let alone ask him out?

That was the thing: Mr. Pink doesn’t like the idea of vulnerability. He’s aware that it’s unavoidable, it’s human nature - he just chooses not to give into it. Mr. Pink won’t waste a breath giving anyone the impression that he’s easy to get along with and that he’s a kind of guy to not act like a complete jerk half the time, because that’s not true. Not on his behalf, at least. 

“Mr. White,” Mr. Pink approaches him in the vacant room at the hideout one day.

He knows people can judge. So he naturally survives on witty remarks, being a sarcastic ass most of the time, and coffee, coffee, and more coffee. Coffee times six. 

Mr. White finishes combing his hair in the small mirror, nodding at him as a response. “You all right, son?”

But at the same time, his heart was telling him he wants you all to himself.  “I got a problem...”

"SO you want my help?” Mr. White said, a few moments after Mr. Pink had explained the situation he was stuck in. “You’re completely hopeless right now? Gosh, is it my birthday already?”

“You’re full of shit,” Pink mumbled.

“Thought you’re s’posed to be a fuckin’ professional, like you said?” Mr. White chuckled. “I would have thought you would know what to do by now.”

“What am I, the Dalai Lama? I don’t know the answer to everything.”

“I mean... I kinda figured something was goin’ on between you two, I tried to warn her,” White shoots him a blank stare.

“Warn her?” Mr. Pink scowls. “Like I’m some fuckin’ tiger on the loose?”

“I did tell her: Listen, honey,” Mr. White grimaced, as he saw you like a sixteen-year-old teenager not knowing better than to get her heart broken. “Are you one hundred percent sure you like Mr. Pink? He’s a pretty cynical guy. You know he doesn’t tip waitresses?”

You shrug.

“Look, I know I can be very close to myself while very outspoken but,” Mr. Pink sighs. “I mean, c’mon, you’ve seen Miss Beige. Who wouldn’t want her? One time, she called in sick for a job she worked at just to play Super Mario World.”

“You could go there and apologize to her.”

“It’s not that easy, White.”

“How so? Just tell her you freaked out but you had a change of heart.”

“No, man. I could have accepted it right there and then, I could be taking her out somewhere, a place she likes, or that café she was talking about. But no, I turn into the cold piece of shit I always am ‘cause I’m a fucking-” Mr. Pink kicks the rusty chair in anger. “-idiot!” He kicks it again, hurting his foot in the process. He cries out in pain and hops away to the table for balance.

“Mr. Pink, it’s not too late to win her heart. If you really like her, and I can tell you’d take a bullet for her, then brush the professionalism aside for one second and make your move.”

“How?” he chuckles, taking a seat in the chair he had just kicked.

“Well, you can start by introducing yourself.”

“Already done.”

“No I mean, your name.”

“Whoa, whoa whoa. What we’re not gonna do is that.” Mr. Pink ran his fingers through his hair, turning his back to White to therapeutically stare at the light pink tiles on the walls. 

“Why not?” White shrugs. “I told her mine. And it’s-”

Mr. Pink turned around. “What?”

Mr. White furrowed his brows. “Huh?”

“You told her your name?” he said. In his mind he prayed Mr. White gave her a fake name on the spot.

“I mean, not just her. Mr. Orange, too. My first name and where I was from, it was a normal conversation.”

“...WHY?!” Pink’s voice echoed in the warehouse.

“Orange asked.”

“You know what Joe said, we’re not supposed to reveal any personal info about ourselves!”

“Joe said this, Joe said that- fucking teacher’s pet,” Mr. White mocks.

“What the hell were you thinking, White?” he shouts.

“How else can you and Miss Beige take a step further if you can’t even tell each other your fuckin’ names? Just introduce yourself, Pink. That’s one way to start,” Mr. White says.

“And what if she doesn’t like my name?” He could only come up with such a question like that.

“What is your name?” 

“Fuck you, man.” Mr. Pink stood up from the chair, earning a chuckle from his colleague.

“All right, if you won’t tell me your name, then tell y/n. Y/n should be the only one who can know.”

Mr. Pink turned back to him again. “Y/N?” he says. “That’s her name?”

Mr. White nods. As heated as Mr. Pink was, he knew one day your name would have to fall out of his lips and not a colour, and he wouldn’t mind that. Y/N...

Mr. Pink wouldn’t mind that one bit.

FROM now on, the café near your apartment complex would be your go-to. It was a café not too small but not too big, and no one would bat an eye if you showed up in your pajamas. The following Saturday you went there alone, sipping your coffee and turning to the second page of the morning paper. 

What sucked was the fact that after you were turned down, you came to think that Mr. Pink wouldn’t be able to see how cool the interior was. He sure was missing out. Sure his Thai stick won’t be stinking up your living room while throwback songs from the ‘70s play on the radio, but indeed, sucks for him.

“Shit, you were right, y/n. This place is pretty neat.”

The newspaper crinkled when you lowered it down. Standing at the foot of your booth was Mr. Pink. This time he didn’t have on his silly Hawaiian shirt like last time, and no, he didn’t ironically wear pink as a kind gesture. He did look good in a white tee, though. 

You had to smile. He knew your name. And you wondered how...

“Oh, Mr. Pink. Morning,” you nodded.

He takes a seat in front of you. “C’mon, we’re not at work. Just call me—”

THE END

—

TAGLIST: @locke-writes

#i wish mr pink actually revealed his name in the movie #but no he’s a ✨professional✨ #reservoir dogs imagine #reservoir dogs one shot #reservoir dogs x reader #reservoir dogs fanfic #mr pink x reader #mr pink imagine #mr pink #reservoir dogs #reservoir dogs fanfiction #mr pink one shot #reader insert #one shot #imagine #mk's faves

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #481

Top Ten Pixar Villains

Those rascals and rapscallions at Pixar are famous for twisting our emotions, aren’t they? Perverse masters at making us cry with sadness or joy, often at the same time (I’m looking at you, Inside Out, with your yellow and blue marbles). Oh yes, they’ll stick the knife in and give it a good old yank, like John Travolta teaches his daughter to do in Face/Off when he’s not really John Travolta and it’s a bit icky but then she stabs him at the end of the film so it’s alright really.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. Pixar, renowned for turning grown men into blubbering messes, mostly because an adult character was convinced to part with old toys he no longer plays with. But I’d argue that one thing they’ve done less well than their parent studio (that’s Disney) is crafting iconic baddies. I mean, we all know the Disney Villains; they’re so iconic and successful as pop culture icons that there’s an entire trilogy of movies based on what would happen if a bunch of them had kids (apparently they’d sing a lot). Pixar baddies though? Hmmm, maybe not quite so iconic. I can’t see someone making a live action prequel movie about Chef Skinner.

But that’s not to say they’re not great; in fact, rather than going down the route of snarling, moustache-twirling villainy, Pixar actually does a great job in creating antagonists instead. Sometimes they’re misunderstood; sometimes they’re not the person you thought they were! Quite often some kind of redemption is offered, and the villains are very, very rarely dropped off something tall. A lot of them aren’t even defeated, so to speak! A good deal of nuance and shade goes into a Pixar villain, and if they haven’t made as many all-time-great iconic ne’er-do-wells, it does seem as if their approach is starting to rub off on Disney mothership (the likes of Frozen II and Moana either don’t have, or at least subvert, the notion of all-powerful bad guys).

So what do we have? Well, hopefully, we’ve got a list of really cool villains from Pixar movies. most of them are presented as the film’s “big bad”, although there are a couple of lesser baddies. And I think we do see the pattern emerging, of more mundane levels of villainy; the selfish and greedy and damaged. It makes for great characterisation and some beautiful storytelling; some complex and pitiable characters. And, yes, a few absolute bastards too. Let’s tut disapprovingly.

Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear (Ned Beatty, Toy Story 3, 2010): a superb performance from Beatty as a seemingly nice, jovial old bear who’s really a manipulative, power-hungry, gaslighting bully. Realistically portrayed as damaged and bitter, he has a tragic backstory that feels real, and a sense of pain and loss that feels earned in this universe. Questions the nature of everything the movies are about, and is a genuine threat in more ways than one. Plus he literally leaves them all to die in the furnace!

Syndrome (Jason Lee, The Incredibles, 2004): Buddy Pine’s backstory is one of belittlement and rejection, so his switch to villainy is as well explored as many a comic book bad guy. But he’s interesting partly in what his character says about Mr. Incredible – in a way justifying the criticisms of superheroes, as Mr. I does ignore the admittedly-annoying Buddy rather than mentoring or respecting him – but also because he prefigures notions of toxic masculinity about a decade or so before they became, well, a threat to global democracy.

Al (Wayne Knight, Toy Story 2, 1999): Like how Lots-o can be seen as a dark examination of toy life (all toys are replaceable, kids don’t really love you, etc), Al also shows us another dark facet of toy-dom: namely the life of a “collectable”. Toys, in this world, want to be played with, preferably by children, so a big ol’ man-child who stores them in boxes or puts them on display is not ideal. It’s an inversion of what a toy is for; an object of joy reduced to a commodity. Is it entertainment versus art? Who can say? Also, he’s really just a massive jerk and a huge slob, so we feel no pity for him once he gets his comeuppance at the end of the film.

Sid Phillips (Erik von Detten, Toy Story, 1995): man, they nailed the Toy Story villains, didn’t they? Maybe there’s even more to come! But right out of the gate, Sid was a classic. An utter sadist in a skull t-shirt, torturing toys for kicks; adults can see the traits of a genuine sociopath (some serial killers start by torturing animals, remember!), and he’s portrayed like a character in a horror movie. Seriously, in 1995, Sid’s room was legitimately disturbing. I’m not sure what moral lessons his actions teach us, but just as a pure article of terror, he’s supreme.

Hopper (Kevin Spacey, A Bug’s Life, 1998): it feels a bit weird, if I’m honest, to celebrate a Spacey performance. But as a character, Hopper is excellent, one of the best things about the generally-overlooked-but-still-a-bit-lesser-Pixar Bug’s Life. Riffing on biker gangs, Hopper’s locust swarm in, revving their wings. Hopper’s a classic tough guy thug, dominating through violence and threat; a creature with a small amount of power determined to hold onto it, and ultimately eaten by a terrifying bird. Just don’t look at the cast list.

Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt, Coco, 2017): after the horror of Sid and the thuggery of Hopper, de la Cruz is a different, more insidious villain. He’s a thief and a betrayer who exploited and murdered his best friend, condemning him not just to death but to a forgotten obsolescence in the afterlife. He’s a perfect example of the gaslighting, friendly-seeming bad guy, more in the mould of Lots-o, but with the world on his side and a sweet guitar. Genuinely hissable.

Stinky Pete (Kelsey Grammar, Toy Story 2, 1999): what, more Toy Story? Well, yeah. Don’t blame me, blame Pixar. And so Stinky Pete; a far more relatable and understandable villain, one driven to desperation through a lifetime of rejection and broken promises. Unlike the Machiavellian, power-hungry Lots-o, Pete just wants everyone to retire quietly together; he can’t accept the risks of freedom and only becomes sneaky and, indeed, violent after all else fails. But he does kinda get a happy ending, even if he doesn’t realise it; this is a villain who I feel could eventually be redeemed.

Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi, Monsters, Inc., 2001): Waternoose is the real baddy in Monsters, Inc., of course; a conniving capitalist who’s prepared to sacrifice the world’s children to keep his monopoly. But it’s Randy who sticks in the mind; his selfish, vain lackey, a monster with a huge chip on his shoulder. His design – lizard-like, snake-ish, with a huge mouth and invisibility – is seriously disturbing. Hearing Buscemi’s voice come from that form – an aggravated teacher, a furious accountant – adds something special, something darkly hilarious.

Evelyn Deavor (Catherine Keener, Incredibles 2, 2018): visually and conceptually, The Screenslaver (great name) is pretty cool, but when it’s revealed that the Big Bad is really under-appreciated tech genius Evelyn, that’s a great twist. A smart woman propping up her schmoozing brother, her criticisms of the heroes – like Buddy Pine’s – have resonance, although she’s learning the wrong lessons from tragedy. Her relationship with Elastigirl, from friendship to enmity, is very well-written and performed, and her belligerence at the end is a nice touch, denying the heroes of any catharsis from her capture.

Shelby Forthright (Fred Willard, WALL-E, 2008): I was originally going to feature the autopilot, but then I figured, if you can get Fred Willard in your list… and really, who’s the big villain here? It’s us, right? We killed the Earth. But Willard’s smiling, happy CEO is there, encouraging his customers to buy, promising them safety and security, promising them a repaired world… but really he’s shovelling them off the planet, secretly commanding the computer to take humanity far away and never look back. It’s a devious, horrible plan, giving the people unending luxury, making them want for nothing, turning them into fab, soporific blobs, basically because that’s easier than the alternative. It’s a horrible indictment of humanity (also: he’s the CEO of a company, but also – it looks like – that makes him rule the world? Creepy). So, yeah, the autopilot might be a baddun, but it’s the man in charge who’s the real villain of the piece, even hundreds of years later.

Sadly no room for John Lasseter, who may not have tried to enslave humanity or torture children, but still managed to be a huge jerk and a phenomenal disappointment.

#top ten #pixar #disney #villains #pixar villain #bad guy #movies #animation #toy story #incredibles #wall-e #monsters inc

[finestoftheflavors]

I’ve never understood what people are talking about when they name certain men as attractive.

I’m not attracted to men, nothing makes one man more attractive, more sexy, or more fuckable, than any other, from my perspective. But at the same time, there’s still aesthetic variation because, well, some people are ugly and others aren’t, so I could still sort men into bins labelled “ugly” or “not-ugly”. I’m not judging or looking down on anyone, I’m definitely in the ugly bin myself.

And I observe that my sorting would have little if any correlation to whether they are considered attractive or not. Like, to name a few celebrity examples that come to mind, if you said the guy who plays Thor is widely considered attractive then I’d nod along and say, well he’s not ugly at all so I guess I can see what you mean. But then you say that the guy who plays Loki is also widely considered attractive then I’d furrow my brow and say, this weird-looking person, why? Why is he considered attractive but not Steve Buscemi?

Two examples that crossed my dashboard within the past week: a) somebody brought up that “Mr sexy mugshot“ guy who was briefly a meme and apparently is now a male model. I’d say that guy’s face is aggressively unpleasant to look at. And then there’s some guy who apparently got plastic surgery to “make himself look like an elf“ who looks like he packed his bags and decided to use the uncanny valley as his permanent address. If I didn’t know any better I’d say that the people fawning over his appearance were just pretending to like his look, out of some kind of pity, I guess.

So my best guess at this pattern is that these attractive ugly men are ones who are weird-looking, but in sort of an intentional way, like they were designed by a cartoonist to be visually striking. Is that the pattern? They’re... ungreebled, you could say? I don’t know.

Well, none of this does me any good, I have no hope of looking weird-in-an-attractive-way and I have no hope of looking not-ugly. Some days I feel like the one thing all attractive people have in common is that they don’t look anything like me.

#gender

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992)

This review contains spoilers.

For the past few years, I didn’t spend a lot of time rewatching movies. Quite frankly, the thrill of discovering something new (and the risk that it might not be all that good) outweighed the pleasures of the familiar ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Yet this year, perhaps because it’s been so miserable on the whole, I’ve spent a bit more time revisiting films I’d already seen. In some cases, it was to relive the joy of seeing something I already liked or loved. But in other cases, perhaps because I’d been easier to please on average, I would go back to things I’d felt somewhat at a distance to in the hopes that I would finally be won over. Full Metal Jacket finally clicked with me (seeing it in a different aspect ratio did the trick) and I’ve warmed up to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 as much as I probably ever will. With that in mind, and prompted by a bizarre dream in which I watched it on Netflix in the wee hours of the morning, I ended up waking up stupid early and giving Reservoir Dogs another viewing. (The dream wasn’t terribly interesting, although it did involve me watching the new Scream, which had magically already been completed and was available on Netflix. There was a lot of yellowish, Fincher-esque lighting and Alison Brie got thrown over a railing at one point. As someone who enjoyed the fourth, I was upset by that turn of events, but dreams can be upsetting. In the words of the Shogun Assassin in Shogun Assassin, “bad dreams are only dreams.”)

I don’t think my opinion changed all that much with this viewing. I still feel that it’s one of Tarantino’s weaker films, lacking the confidence and depth of his next few films. I think Tarantino’s career is generally discussed as being split into his earlier, more story-oriented or reality-grounded films and his later, more indulgent genre pastiches, but I think this one lacks the focus that kind of discourse implies. The characters are barely fleshed out and the directorial touches aren’t as purposeful or effective as they would become in his later work. But at the same time, it’s still a stylish and highly entertaining affair, with a great cast giving some very good performances and delivering some punchy, very funny dialogue. It’s pleasures and limitations are obvious and have been better discussed by those more eloquent than me, so I don’t know how deeply I’ll delve into them. (On a side note, I felt a strange pang of nostalgia revisiting this despite it never having been a favourite of mine. It was very big among the internet crowd I first started discussing film with as I first got into the subject, so it’s hard for me to separate those feelings from the actual movie. I got the same feeling watching Boogie Nights a few weeks ago, despite never having seen that film until now.)

But what I did chew over a bit more this time around is how the movie positions the characters’ morality. We know that Tim Roth’s Mr. Orange is the “good guy”, the undercover cop who kills the psychopathic Mr. Blonde played by Michael Madsen. But at the same time he betrays the trust of Harvey Keitel’s Mr. White. Mr. White is sort of a “good guy” too, but foolishly risks his own fate and those of his associates as he bonds with someone who sets him up. Mr. Blonde is a sadistic psychopath but also extremely loyal, having refused to rat out his friends while serving a tough prison term. Steve Buscemi’s Mr. Pink is entirely business-minded and self-interested, but is that really any less honourable than the intentions of those around him? Chris Penn’s Nice Guy Eddie loves his father, Lawrence Tierney’s Joe Cabot, who is the closest thing to a paternal, authoritative presence in the movie, but both are also extremely ruthless, not to mention racist. Tarantino’s relationship with race is complicated (he’s been criticized for his use of the n-word, particularly in a certain scene in Pulp Fiction, and while I do enjoy his performance in that movie, I’m not sure I can defend a certain line of dialogue), but here the characters’ rampant use of racial slurs seems like a clear indicator of their (lack of) character. (These characters also freely use homophobic slurs, but such language was unfortunately a mainstay of macho dialogue at the time and doesn’t seem as pointed a comment on their natures.) Even when Mr. Orange praises the connection he used to get in with the criminals, another character is quick to point out that the connection is ratting out his friends. There’s some moral relativism in my argument here, but the movie invites that line of thought. Reservoir Dogs is about a bunch of lowlife crooks and despite the extent to which we may identify with them, it never lets us forget that.

In that sense, it’s in clear contrast to some of its influences. Ringo Lam’s City on Fire features the same plot but emphasizes the value of brotherhood between the criminals, so that the betrayal there stings extra hard. Tarantino highlights the meaninglessness of such appeals to solidarity. (Bizarrely, Tarantino has denied having seen that other film despite the hard to ignore story similarities. He even dedicated the screenplay to Chow Yun Fat and pulls the image of a dual wielding gunman in sunglasses from that actor’s oeuvre and has made a brand of pulling from his influences, so I’m baffled why he’d deny this one instance.) Jean-Pierre Melville’s work features gangsters in tailoring adhering to strict codes and conducting themselves with honour in dire situations. Tarantino points out the futility of such codes. His next film handles these dynamics even more elegantly. In Pulp Fiction, John Travolta’s character is a villain in one segment and a hero in another, while Samuel L. Jackson’s character reflects on the dishonourable nature of their work and decides to walk away at the end.

Where I think Pulp Fiction succeeds in handling that theme is that it gives us a sense of Jackson and Travolta contemplating (or failing to do so, respectively) their choices and having something resembling actual worldviews (however limited, as in the case of the latter). The characters in Reservoir Dogs in contrast are drawn in shorthand from gangster cliches so that our identification with them is limited. Mr. Orange should be our audience vantage point, but Tarantino fumbles a key scene in which he relates a made-up story to ingratiate himself with the other criminals. It should be about how Mr. Orange wins their trust, which would help make later speculation on his loyalty more dramatically potent, but in choosing to actually depict the proceedings in the story onscreen, Tarantino makes it about the cuts and shot choices he energetically deploys. It’s not a badly directed scene on its own, but the wrong one for the movie. Yet in other scenes, like the opening in the diner, he’s able to elegantly paint character detail while letting us enjoy the surface pleasure of the dialogue. Mr. Pink refuses to tip as an extension of his business-minded nature. Mr. Blonde volunteers to shoot Mr. White, jokingly revealing his bloodthirst. Mr. White takes things too personally (”You shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize”). Joe Cabot struggles to remember a name, implying that his criminal instincts are slipping. The movie shuffles its timeline in the vein of The Killing to draw out these contrasts between the characters and to build to a tense and memorable climax, yet had more of the individual character moments been as deftly handled as this first scene, the film might have landed with me more strongly. That being said, there’s a nonzero chance I’ll come back to this in a few years, hoping it will finally click.

#film #movie review #reservoir dogs #Quentin Tarantino

[avenger09]

Jedi Fallen Order 2 Scenes I'd Like to See

Cal and Cere have landed in a scummy locale. Just as their about to enter a Bar, a Steve Buscemi type barges out of it right between them, only for a grapple line to nab him. After falling over we pan up the line to see the Green Armoured figure of Boba Fett. Walking past the two with a curt.

"Excuse me."

He picks up the Bounty onto his shoulders and walks to his ship while the Bounty pathetically begs.

"Come on Fett! I've already busted out three time now. They give you an extra life sentence for that."

"Hmm-hmm." replies Boba, not stopping his stride towards the starpads.

Looking to Cere, Cal dryly notes.

"Nice place you've brought us." 

"It's got it's share of characters. Perfect cover if you want to stay lost... Provided you don't draw attention." She answers.

Cal and Crew discover the head of a up-in-coming Crime organization is a Force user. When they finally meet him after a scuffle with his employees, secrets are revealed.

"Oh, there are so many things you are unaware of young Jedi. Secrets closely guarded for years. For instance. Do you  think the fall of the Jedi and the rise of this Empire where coincidence?"

"No. No it couldn't have been."

"Hmm hm hm. Good. Your are right to suspect. The Clone Army, the Separatists. It was all a masterstroke, the culmination of centuries of planning by your Order’s greatest enemy, and executed by their greatest heir. The one now called, Emperor! But his true title is, Darth Sideous, a name he lives up to well."

"The Sith! Your talking about the Sith. I thought they where all wiped out?"

"All where. Except for two, and there have been two, ever since. A Master and an Apprentice! Once... I was that Apprentice. Taken from Dathomier, trained to be the greatest weapon in our plan... But when my moment came to prove my worth. I was cast down! Defeated! Forgotten on Naboo! Kept alive only by my hate, for the Jedi whose master I slew! Whom I've now likely been denied my revenge against."

Cere: "Maul? Your Maul. The assassin who killed Master Qui-Gon. Who Obi-Wan Kenobi-"

"Cut down! Yes I was... Cut down by Kenobi... my Master replaced me soon after I imagine. By that fool Dooku, who was of course replaced as well."

"By Vader... Do you know anything about him? What is he?"

"Everything i should have been... Instead I was left to wallow in madness for ten years! If not for my brother, I may have died in that pathetic state!" 

Merrin: "He brought to Mother Talzin. She saved you, restored your mind."

"Yes Nightsister... She did... There all gone now. Taken from me. But I remain! With my power I will build my own Empire. And take revenge against Sideous at last!"

"Bold words. But you can't do it alone, and don't think you can convince me to join you."

"Oh I have no need Kestis. I already have an Apprentice... Talon!"

From above a red skinned Twi'Lek covered in Tattoo's designed like Mauls lands beside him. Her lightsaber still on her belt, but standing ready for a fight should it occur.

"My work toward revenge is already in motion. We do not have to be enemy's Jedi. I no longer care for the ancient rivalry, rebuild or Order, or don't it matters not to us. Stand in our way however..."

"I get it."

#Jedi Fallen Order #Star Wars #Maul #Boba Fett #Game #Darth Maul #Darth Talon

[houseofvans]

SKETCHY BEHAVIORS | INTERVIEW WITH LAUREN YS

From large scale murals to multi-layered works on canvas, LA based artist Lauren YS’s art captures everything from the female experience, addressing topics like sexuality, death, aliens, monsters, and the occult. Her works are complex much like her own experiences, so we’re super stoked to find out more about what drives her, who and what inspires her, and what challenges and advice she has for our readers in this awesome Sketchy Behaviors interview..

Take the leap!

Photographs courtesy of the artist. 

Introduce yourself. Hey! I’m Lauren YS - Hmm, something you might not know … I used to play ice hockey and my favorite candy are Peach O’s. I am a really good listener, but that also means I hate being interrupted. I dream, often, about being underwater.

Tell folks a little about your artwork and what do you love to make works about? I make work about the female experience, sexuality, identity, space, aliens, heritage, death, monsters, nature, emotions, natural phenomena, the occult and whatever else I might be obsessing about. I like slimy creatures, kitsch, psychedelia, sex and Halloween, and mixing repulsion with attraction. I want the viewer to feel unsettled as much as engaged. I make things in an effort to try to process the beautiful shit rocket that is the world around me.

When did art become something you were aware you could do for a living or as a career you wanted to pursue? I have always been making art, but I never thought it was possible to support oneself as an artist: It seemed really out of reach or surreal. It wasn’t until I had already been fully freelance for a year before I realized I was actually doing it. I think it’s just something that comes out of necessity, it’s like – if I want to keep making art as much as possible at the rate I am living, then damn, I’m going to learn how to make money off of it.

What’s a typical studio day for you like? I tend to work nocturnally. I’ll paint through the night and sleep through the day and watch horror movies, listen to podcasts about art, serial killers and cults, and eat anywhere from 1-2 sacks of tangerines every day. I like to really plow through paintings as well, it’s hard for me to stop working on something once I start. After about three weeks in the studio like this, your mind starts to wander off into deep strange places, and that’s when the really good stuff comes out.

What’s your studio or creative space like? What do you keep around to constantly motivate or inspire you? I have always worked best in a bit of “artistic chaos”–I like to fill my space with odds and ends, knick-knacks, items from my travels, talismans. I believe in the power of objects. I love my lava lamp and need to buy seven more. I also have this drawing I made of an Asian grandma screaming “DRAW, MOTHERFUCKER” which I plan to make into a screen print and give to all my artist friends.

When working on a body of paintings and works for a show, what is your process like? How long does it typically take you to complete a painting from start to finish? Depending on the size of the gallery, it can take anywhere from 2-6-10 months to create a show, given that it is often punctuated by mural tours and big projects to pay the bills. I like to work on lots of pieces at the same time, so generally it’ll take a few days to a week or two to finish a piece. I am trying to get better at reworking pieces rather than just pushing through them one by one. Workflow is still sorting itself out. I also make a ton of pieces that end up being nixed from the final show. I am very prolific but also very psychotic.

Not only do you work on canvas, but you are also known for some of your amazing murals! When did you start going from painting on a regular scale to large scale works? What’s your process like for mapping out these large works? Well shucks, thank you! I started painting murals around 2013, which was a sort of natural transition because I wanted to work bigger and bigger, I wanted to travel and be in the sun and use giant machines to make my art. I actually started learning color from using spray paint. I freehand everything because I like to feel independent of projectors or machines, especially if I’m in a foreign country or don’t have time or resources.

It makes me feel empowered to be able to make big things on my own. Maybe that comes from growing up under the common experience girls have, especially asian girls, where you’re expected to be small and quiet and obedient. I have always worked in active aggression against that stereotype.

Is there a medium you’d love to get your hands on, but yet to have the chance too? And what are your go-to materials? I’d really love to learn how to use an airbrush, a la Sorayama. Outside of 2D I am dying to get back into stop motion animation. My favorite brand of spray paint is Montana Black (high pressure forever!), and I use a wide variety of acrylics and gouache in my paintings, specifically the Holbein gouaches from Japan.

What do you love about where you live, and what is the art community like in your area? I never thought I’d move to LA, but I’ve been really enjoying it here. I’m a communal living person (been in and out of communities for about 9 years) and I am lucky to have found somewhere that fits with my work ethic (intense) and social vibe (weird). I like to be able to work alone while still having people bustling around and making things all the time. It helps me to feel like I’m not dead or a total solipsist.

I’ve also found that the artists in LA–especially the female artists–have proven to be really kind, generous and welcoming. There’s a lot of room for weirdos here; it might take a while to find them, but they’re here. We also have a one-eyed cat, did I mention that?

Who are some artists you’re inspired by and have influenced you throughout the years? I’m a big fan of dark/psychedelic/erotic artists like Keiichi Tanaami, Suehiro Maruo, Sorayama and the whole Ero Guro movement. I also love Goya’s dark paintings and the sculpture work of Bernini. Some contemporary artists I’ve been into lately are Christian Rex Van Minnen, David Altmejd, Robin Francesca Williams and the fabric sculptures of Do Ho-Suh. Jamie Hewlett, Swoon, Andrew Hem, Aryz. I find that my taste changes constantly and I am always thirsty for different influences.

What’s been the most challenging part of your art career? What’s been the most rewarding? What do you do to keep the balance? Something really challenging has been learning how to trust myself while growing in the industry and balancing business, work and travel. It’s a really solid test: moving to a new city, providing for yourself, going on tour, shifting from place to place, managing gallery work and mural work, all while protecting and nurturing your own ambition and positivity, and not feed into the shitstorm of capitalism and social media past what is required of you.

The muralist life is not for the faint of heart. I would hardly say that I keep any type of “balance”–art is my life and there isn’t much room for anything else, and that’s how I like it. It is the most rewarding thing to look around and feel like you’ve created something new and good and powerful, all on your own terms. It is similarly rewarding to feel the need to level up - I enjoy feeling stressed arguably more than I enjoy feeling accomplished.

What would your dream collaboration be? What do you enjoy most about collaborations with other artists or clients? I would love to do something with Takashi Murakami and/or his gallery (Kaikai Kiki Gallery). There’s also this amazing Australian animator named Felix Colgrave whose work I’ve been obsessed with lately, I’d love to find a way to make an animated short with him! I love collaborating - especially on mural work - because it’s such a cool experience to be able to intermingle your visual world with someone else’s. Working with ONEQ in Hawaii this year was really great, she had so many suggestions and ideas from out of left field that made me rethink my own work as well. It also forces you to relinquish some control on the way you work, and reflect on the basic joys of making shit in the first place.

If you could paint a portrait of anyone living or dead, who would you choose and why? I really want to do a tripped out portrait of Yayoi Kusama or Bjork or maybe Steve Buscemi—all heroes of mine.

What’s your advice to folks who see what you do and want to pursue art as a career? I would say, go at it as hard as you possibly can! Make sure you really enjoy doing it! Not all parts of painting murals are glamorous (actually, few are) and it’s important to truly love every part of it if you’re going to commit your life to it.

This means: hustling walls, handling machinery, travel, people, logistics, finding somewhere to pee, dealing with unexpected bullshit, not complaining, being comfortable handling yourself in dangerous situations, being independent and resourceful, etc. I have reservations about artists who genuinely don’t seem to enjoy all the elements of mural painting going too deep into it. But if it’s something you love, there’s nothing better.

What are your FAVORITE Vans? I’ve been rocking the classic authentic Vans in black/burgundy as paint shoes for years now. But I also love the Sk8-Hi boys in burgundy… I never wear them because I’m too scared to get paint on them, haha!

What other artists would you love to see interviewed for Sketchy Behaviors? I’m currently really into Andrea Wan, Louise Zhang and Caratoes. It would also be really cool if you covered a GNC or trans artist, like Nomi Chi or Laughing Loone!

What’s next for you that you can share? My first book is coming out this year with Von Zos, and I’m also going to be designing a tarot deck with them. April is my first mural tour in several months; I’ll be hopping from Australia - Guam - Peru, and then moving around South America for a while, trying to practice my spanish. After that, I’ll be starting work on my next big show, scheduled for a city in Asia, which I’m really, really excited about - keep an eye out!

FOLLOW LAUREN YS | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | SHOP

#Art #Vans #Vans Girls #Vans Art #Sketchy Behaviors #Interview #Lauren YS

[monicalorandavis]

The definitive list of sexy, ugly dudes

I ain’t got no type, ugly motherfuckers is the only thing that I like. Some of y’all are patting yourselves on the back for supporting the dad bod. I double down. I am here for the weirdos, the creeps, the fat ones and the like. If you don’t quit playing with these pretty boys who don’t know where a clitoris is already, you’re just hurting yourself, sweetie. Here is the official list of the sexiest ugly dudes, living and dead.

1. James Gandolfini. The fucking GOAT. I want a Gandolfini in the streets and a Tony in the sheets.

2. Steve Buscemi. Yes, he’s got huge, watery bug eyes that are always seemingly reddened from stress, or maybe allergies? Doesn’t matter. Steve Buscemi has a certain je ne sais quoi that leaves me shivering in me timber(land)s.

3. Paul Giamatti. Ever since Sideways I knew that Giamatti had that special self-loathing gift of gab that is simply irresistible.

4. Philip Seymour Hoffman. RIP, big dude. You were a fucking maestro in the art of acting. Scary, unhinged, impulsive, emotional - a tour de force in sexual energy.

5. Anthony Bourdain. Also dead. I’m suspecting a theme here. Do I want to be dead?? I don’t think so...

6. Rhys Ifans. Not a household name. But you know his face. He’s Hugh Grant’s insane, unemployed, lurching roommate in Notting Hill. Sweet, honest, funny and principled. What he lacks in good hygiene he makes up for in heart.

7. Adam Driver. This one is so obvious it’s dumb to include it. Have you seen him shirtless? Good grief.

8. Pete Davidson. I even wrote a whole goddamn sketch about it because the man’s sexual magnetism is off the charts. He’s bagging the baddest ladies in the world so casually that it feels like there’s no one he can’t holler at.

9. Tim Roth. There is nothing quite like an Englishman who is so disinterested that it comes across hostile. It’s rude, it’s self-important, it’s hot.

10. Robert De Niro. He’s maybe 85 (??? I’m not fact-checking so...) and can get it any day of the week. Best part of all, he probably doesn’t even want it!

11. Peter Dinklage. Tyrion Lannister was such an OG that he didn’t need the famous name to woo the finest of maidens. I’m not one but he can woo me any time he feels so inclined.

12. Billy Bob Thornton. Damn, just writing his name gives me goosebumps. The thought of his beady, judgemental eyes stirs my mind up with lurid thoughts.

13. Daniel Day Lewis. Is he ugly? Is he handsome? I don’t know anymore. His nose is crooked and he seems weird as fuck so you know I’m on board. He can get lost in the character study that is my bosom. Knowing him, he’ll probably refuse because it’s “too easy”. He isn’t wrong!

14. Tommy Lee Jones. Can’t forget this raspy devil. He’s old and gritty and we haven’t seen him in a while but something tells me he’s doing chin-ups in a garage as we speak.

15. John Malkovich. The creepiest man I’ve ever seen is also...the sexiest? I don’t write the rules, guys. I’m just a hot-blooded, American woman with a thing for men with emotional problems. Sue me!

Good looks are so overrated. Don’t @ me.

#sexy ugly #hot ugly #adam driver #steve buscemi #john malkovich

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Pixar Films

I dislike Disney as an entity; it is an evil corporate conglomerate that makes focus-grouped schlock to appeal to as wide an audience as possible at the detriment of story.  That said, Pixar was once the greatest animation studio on the planet.

Keep in mind, these are movies for kids, so anything negative I say will almost certainly be rebutted with “you’re just old and you don’t like Disney because it’s popular and you’re a hipster and you’re not even the target audience anyway so shut up.”  I’m just giving my two cents, whatever that’s worth.

I’m not gonna rate them on a number scale, I’ll just tell you how much I would or would not recommend watching them.  Some are must-see-cinema, others are bland and skippable affairs that you should not feel obligated to watch just because it has the Pixar brand on it.

Let’s start from the very beginning (a very good place to start)

Toy Story (1995) Groundbreaking, the first feature length 3D animated movie, spectacular cast, great story, though a little wonky by today’s standards both in the visuals (though that’s just a product of the times) and in the characterization (Woody is kinda of a jerk in this one; he was worse during pre-production, so this is the tame version).  Pixar started off on the right foot.  Would Recommend

A Bug’s Life (1998) This has some flaws, but is still a really fun movie.  Not as good as Toy Story, but infinitely better than Dreamworks’ knockoff Antz.  Great ensemble, memorable characters and set pieces, really funny.  Would Probably Recommend

Toy Story 2 (1999) An excellent sequel, they knocked it out of the park with this one.  It’s surprisingly deep, exploring concepts like the inevitability of change; nothing lasts forever, you can’t keep kicking the can down the road forever.  The journey is finite, but that doesn’t make it worthless.  Would Definitely Recommend.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) To date, their best original movie, maybe even better than Toy Story 2.  Everything about it is perfect; John Goodman and Billy Crystal have great chemistry, Steve Buscemi plays the perfect sleaze, Boo is just adorable, it’s an excellent movie.  Would Definitely Recommend.

Finding Nemo (2003) This is a beautiful movie; they had to invent new animation techniques to make it look this good, new ways for light to bounce and diffuse through the fishy medium.  Amazing story, absolutely heart wrenching at points, hilarious at others, without feeling tonally dissonant.  Would Definitely Recommend.

The Incredibles (2004) Another home run, they’re just showing off at this point.  This is a much deeper and arguably darker story than any of their previous films.  It doesn’t pull any punches and explores adult concepts like mid-life crises, extramarital affairs, death (oh, so much death; red shirt mooks and civilians alike).  This may be my favorite (definitely top 3; I’ll expand the list below).  Would Definitely Recommend.

Cars (2006) A competent movie, though by Pixar standards it’s not quite up to snuff.  Not bad, by any means, but this one is the most blatant cash grab of them all, just a commercial for hot wheels and die-cast toys.  I have a soft spot for it because this is the one I’ve seen the most; my mom would turn on this DVD to keep my baby sisters occupied, so it was literally always playing in our house.  That said, I’m not nostalgia blind; it has good parts, but it’s not great.  Would Probably Not Recommend.

Ratatouille (2007) C’est Magnifique!  Patton Oswalt does a fantastic job, I identify with Linguini on a spiritual level, the human characters are all perfectly demented and the rats are equally so.  I love this moral; anyone can be successful, it’s about who you are not where you come from.  Funny and relatable, an all around feel-good movie.  Would Definitely Recommend.

WALL-E (2008) Top 3, hands down, this is a true work of art, a modern masterpiece.  A film mostly devoid of dialogue, it expresses so much emotion from how the characters carry themselves and react physically to their surroundings.  The body language, the color choices, the camera work (especially in the space dance sequence), just how RAW everything is, how grounded it feels, how fleshed out these little robots are..  I Cannot Recommend This Enough, Watch it Right Now. Now. Why Are You Still Reading This?  Now! Go Watch it Then Come Back.  Even if You’ve Already Seen it, Go Watch it Again.

Up (2009) Another near perfect installment under Pixar’s belt.  They’ve really nailed the art of opening scenes; Carl and Ellie’s love story moves me to tears, it is so beautifully portrayed.  Some of the characters can be a tad annoying and overly cutesy to sell merchandise, but the story never suffers from it.  The villain actually feels like a threat, there are stakes, and the image of a house sitting by a waterfall and the story connotations thereof are indescribably bittersweet.  Would Definitely Recommend

Toy Story 3 (2010) This is is sort of hit or miss.  It’s a very well made movie, and an excellent CONCLUSION to the Toy Story franchise (Conclusion: noun, the end or finish of an event or process).  I liked it, felt it really wrapped things up in a satisfactory way, but it’s not better than Toy Story 2 in my mind.  I feel like this was a turning point for Pixar; after this, they were never quite the same, never really bounced back.  May or May Not Recommend, I’m on the Fence

Cars 2 (2011) You don’t give the comedy relief their own movie.  That’s storytelling 101; the comic relief bit-character can rarely stand on their own and meaningfully carry a story, though corporations are laughing all the way to the bank as I say this because these types of movies keep making boatloads of money even if they suck.  Minions made bookoo bucks, the Pirates of the Caribbean series is still ongoing despite the loss of Bloom and Knightly (and bringing them back for the last one doesn’t really count because Depp is still the main character), Cars 2 is a corporate cash grab, and devoid of artistic merit; this is my first hard no.  Would NOT Recommend.

Brave (2012) This is not a Pixar film, it is a Disney film that they decided to make under Pixar’s name instead because they knew Pixar had enough good will and positive connotations to get people into seats regardless of story.  It’s not terrible, but it’s not great.  That’s the story of modern Disney; not terrible, not great, just okay because that’s all it needs to be.  People will watch it no matter what, so they put in the bare minimum amount of effort so nobody can say they suck at making movies again (because for the longest time in the early 2000s, they did suck; Dinosaurs, Home on the Range, Chicken Little).  Would Not Recommend.

Monsters University (2013)  Why did you do this, Pixar?  Why did you take one of your best movies and do this specifically to it? Nobody asked for this, nobody wanted this.  I can only applaud them for having integrity enough to NOT give people what they wanted; people wanted a sequel, and that would have bee terrible.  You can’t follow up on Monsters, Inc, it had a perfect ending, it was hopeful and heart warming and definitive.  A prequel is the only thing they could have made without messing up the ending of the original, so I’ll give them some credit for that.  It’s not good.  Would Not Recommend.

Inside Out (2015) Their best one since Toy Story 3.  Not terrible, I actually liked a lot of things about this one.  I like it when Pixar takes on more serious subject matter, and I thought they did a good job exploring how a kid would react to such a drastic lifestyle change.  The cast was good, the animation was fun (inside Riley’s head; outside was generic and samey).  Not bad Pixar, not bad at all.  Would Probably Recommend.

The Good Dinosaur (2015) It doesn’t matter what i think because this movie still made hundreds of millions of dollars.  Disney is losing no sleep over this.  Would NOT Recommend.

Finding Dory (2016) Again with the continuations!  This was better than Monsters University, but the original was still such a hard act to follow.  It had potential, and I liked how it respectably handled mental illness in a way that was easy for kids to understand without dumbing it down and underplaying its significance in the lives of those who it effects.  I think Marlin kinda regressed, having to relearn what he already learned in the first one. The hardest I laughed was during the climax, the truck chase scene, “It’s a Wonderful World,” just amazing.  Would Probably Not Recommend

Cars 3 (2017) I hope Disney was happy with this end product.  I hope the producers really enjoyed cashing their toy checks for this one.  I thought it was worse than Cars 2, but I can see why some people might like it more.  Either way, it’s worse than Cars 1, which wasn’t particularly great anyway.  Would NOT Recommend.

Coco (2017) I’m on the fence with this one.  It was beautifully made, and the songs made me cry, but it’s hard for me to look at this movie without judging it as a product made by a focus group of mostly white people.  By itself it’s a good movie, but when you know how the Disney sausage is made it feels disingenuous and calculated.  Might Recommend, But it Had Some Baggage

The Incredibles 2 (2018)  I am Boo Boo the Fool, Pixar suckered me and I fell for it.  I was legitimately enthusiastic for this one because the original is one of their best, and unlike Monsters, Inc it actually left room for a sequel.  It had so much potential, and big shoes to fill, and it did so in the most generic Disney way it could.  Like Brave it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either.  Middle of the road, some things were fun, others made little sense, it was “appealing” in that it literally appealed to as wide an audience as it could without alienating anyone by doing anything particularly risky.  I liked Voyd, I liked how Helen became the main character, I liked the villain twist; I did not like how easy it was to make superheroes legal again.  It felt like it was tacked on at the end, like he just says “and there we have it, they’re legal again, congratulations,” like he was announcing the winner of the Price is Right.  Would Probably Not Recommend

Toy Story 4 (2019) I want to be clear that I made a point not to pay money to see many of the previous films on this list.  If I thought they were going to suck, I waited until a friend bought it and saw it with them for free.  This one, though, I was forced to pay for because my mom insisted on seeing it in theaters as a family.  It wasn’t terrible.  Wasn’t great.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  It was the same villain again; Stinky Pete, Lotso, Gabby-Gabby... I can’t wait for the fifth one where the villain is an old toy who is mad because they weren’t played with.  Buzz was made much dumber for this one, and I felt they didn’t do enough with Forky.  I was excited to see how they handled the existential aspects of the series; what makes a toy? How are toys sentient? Why are toys sentient? In the first movie Woody implied that there were rules that toys were honor bound to follow, so what is stopping Forky from blowing their cover on accident?  None of these questions were answered.  I liked Keanu Reeves, I didn’t like Key and Peele.  Would Probably Not Recommend.

The mighty have fallen.  It’s just sad. 

”Onward” looks kinda dumb, like a kiddy version of the flop Will Smith movie “Bright.”  I have no faith in this production company anymore, but I’m sure it will make hundreds of millions of dollars; the cast are fan favorites, including Disney’s favorite topical pet celebrities (because let’s be honest, Disney basically owns Tom Holland at this point.  Whether they own Spider-Man or not, they own Tom Holland, he is theirs, his soul contractually belongs to them).

Speaking of souls, ”Soul” will probably go over well with critics, though I can’t help but notice that their main character of color is transformed into a non-human for most of the movie.  Again.  I’m also not a fan of this one-word naming convention Disney has fallen into in the last decade.  “Brave” was originally titled “the Bear and the Bow,” but one-word titles seem to test well with kids.  Hopefully this will pass, but I’m not holding my breath.

I’m swearing off Disney movies, firsthand.  I might catch them second hand, through friends or other means, but I refuse to give this corporate conglomerate one more penny.  They basically own Hollywood, so my money will eventually make my way into their pockets, I just want to put as much distance between them and myself as possible.  No more Pixar, no more Star Wars, no more Marvel, no more Disney.  I am one drop in the bucket, I will not be missed, and they will not be affected in the slightest by my absence, but I need to prove to myself that I have integrity enough not to keep funneling my hard earned cash into a trillion dollar snack company.

Disney movies are snacks, not meals.  And I’m going on a diet.

Anyway, here’s my top three:

Monsters, Inc

The Incredibles

WALL-E

#my stuff #Disney #Pixar #pixar movies #walt disney studios #walt disney pictures #toy story #a bugs life #toy story 2 #monsters inc #finding nemo #the incredibles #cars #ratatouille #wall-e #up #toy story 3 #cars 2 #brave #monsters university #inside out #the good dinosaur #finding dory #cars 3 #coco #the incredibles 2 #toy story 4 #onward #soul #animated movies

[birdlord]

Everything I Watched in 2019

Movies

The number in parentheses is year of release, asterisks denote a re-watch, and titles in bold are my favourite watches of the year. 

01 The Death of Stalin (17) does a neat trick of building goodwill for Steve Buscemi’s Krushchev, then brutally pays that off in the last few minutes. 

02 Sorry to Bother You (18)

03 Support the Girls (18)

04 Paddington (14)*

05 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (16)

06 Eighth Grade (18) probably the most terrifying movie I watched all year, if you didn’t watch it through your fingers, who even are you?

07 Morvern Callar (02) much less bleak than the book, but then, nearly anything would be

08 The Favourite (18) revolting and beautiful. 

09 Columbus (17) a really lovely movie about architecture and parent-child relationships.

10 Bring it On (00)*

11 The Land of Steady Habits (18) feels wackier than your average Holofcener, but still a good watch. 

12 Spotlight (15) i was really bowled over by this, and wasn’t expecting to be. Workmanlike filmmaking, but an extraordinary story, well-told.

13 The Killing of a Sacred Deer (17) Barry Keoghan is a blank, but somehow compelling screen presence. This one has an ending that made me bark with laughter.

14 Legends of the Fall (94)

15 Moneyball (11)* if you don’t feel like watching anything in particular, you can always watch Moneyball

16 If Beale St Could Talk (18) very beautiful, but I failed to connect with it on any other level. 

17 For Keeps (88)

18 Abducted in Plain Sight (17)

19 Oscar Shorts (Animated) (18) the offerings were very sappy this year, but the winner was decent! Lots of Toronto content (weird). 

20 Oscar Shorts (Live Action) (18) *unquestionably* the worst one of these won ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

21 Velvet Buzzsaw (19)

22 Vice (18) ugh

23 Friends with Money (06)

24 Can You Ever Forgive Me (18)

25 Bohemian Rhapsody (18) haha what. was. that.

26 Mars Attacks (96)*

27 Paddington 2 (18)

28 Buffy the Vampire Slayer (92)*

29 Shoplifters (18)

30 Blindspotting (18) jacked Ethan Embry in a supporting role?! Whither? Howso? Wherefore?

31 Witness (85)

32 Harry & the Hendersons (87)*

33 The Matrix (99)*

34 T2 Trainspotting (17)

35 Blockers (18)

36 The Slums of Beverly Hills (98)

37 Can’t Hardly Wait (98)*

38 Avengers: Infinity War (18)

39 Iron Man II (10)

40 Isle of Dogs (18)

41 Chinatown (74)*

42 To Live & Die in LA (85)

43 Age of Innocence (93) Daniel Day-Lewis manages to make Newland Archer compelling, where in the novel he’s...the worst?!

44 Shopgirl (05)*

45 The House (17) didn’t sustain all the way through, but then, that’s how mainstream comedies often go. 

46 The Beguiled (17)

47 Badlands (73)*

48 Poetic Justice (93)

49 The Empire Strikes Back (80)*

50 Calibre (18)

51 The Kindergarten Teacher (18)

52 Hounds of Love (17) a nice little Aussie thriller, set in the 80s

53 Kicking & Screaming (95)*

54 Octopussy (83)*

55 Jaws (79)*

56 Lover Come Back (61)

57 Frenzy (72)

58 Always Be My Maybe (19)

59 Certain Women (16) took a while to get to this one, but it’s as great as they say it is. 

60 Baby Driver (17) all flash, little substance.

61 Sneakers (92)

62 Roadhouse (87)*

63 Bull Durham (88)*

64 Ghostbusters (84)*

65 Booksmart (19) I think this will improve on multiple viewings, though I loved the soundtrack and the mix of characters. 

66 Hereditary (18)

67 Rebecca (40) George Sanders as Rebecca’s cousin is BRILLIANT

68 Vertigo (58)*

69 The Dead Don’t Die (19)

70 Crawl (19)

71 Dazed & Confused (93)* If you don’t watch this once a summer, what is wrong with you?

72 Jackie Brown (97)

73 Talk Radio (88)

74 The Guilty (18)

75 Killing Heydrich (17)

76 Lady Bird (17)*

77 Billy Elliot (00)*

78 White House Down (13)* Channing Potatum saves the White House!

79 The Film Worker (17)

80 Whitney (18)

81 Mascot (16)

82 Apocalypse Now (79)* technically I’d only seen the Redux version from the early 2000s, so the regular cut is new to me. 

83 Apollo 13 (95)*

84 Psycho 2 (83) the twist is very guessable, but there are a couple of nice-looking scenes.

85 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (04)*

86 The Bodyguard (92)*

87 Murder Mystery (19)

88 Wildlife (18)

89 The Stepford Wives (75)*

90 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (71)*

91 The Natural (84)

92 The Other Boleyn Girl (08)

93 Speed (94)*

94 Opera (87)

95 That’s my Boy (12) haha what?!

96 The Big Short (15)

97 Elizabeth the Golden Age (07)

98 The Glass Castle (17) when I read the book, I genuinely thought it was fiction, it’s so insane. 

99 Dawn of the Dead (78)*

100 All About Eve (50) lady on lady violence is a special thing

101 La La Land (16)

102 Morning Glory (10) remember Rachel McAdams?

103 Casino (95)*

104 Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (06)

105 Pet Sematary (19)

106 Clue (85)*

107 Her Smell (18) amazing soundtrack and the songs were well-chosen. Heartbreaking musical moment in the final act. 

108 Bobby Sands: 66 Days (16)

109 She’s Gotta Have it (86)

110 Good Morning (59)

111 Hustlers (19) I didn’t connect with this as much as the reviews led me to believe I might. 

112 Nocturnal Animals (16)

113 Kill Bill Vol 1 (03) I’d only ever seen the second one before, being a non-Tarantino completionist.

114 Fried Green Tomatoes (91)* I watch this more than anticipated...

115 Steel Magnolias (89)

116 Notting Hill (99)*

117 A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (19) the tiny city models were inspired!

118 National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (89)*

119 Let It Snow (19)

120 Frozen (13)

121 The Irishman (19) most interesting as a sort of pastiche/reckoning on the part of Scorsese about his other gangster films. Really outmoded view of unions. Definitely could have been edited down if anyone were able to come to it without undue reverence, but I did love the bit about the fish.

122 Girls Trip (17) actual plot is beside the point. 

123 About a Boy (02)* I always think of this as the “vomit and sweaters” movie, anyone else?

124 Animal House (78)*

DOCUMENTARY : FICTION - 4:120

THEATRE : HOME - 9:115

TV Series

01 Russian Doll - I think I would have enjoyed this more if it hadn’t been bingeable - would have made a nice week-by-week discussion sort of show. I loved to watch the changes between re-ups of our major characters, and I think the actual plotting would reward re-watches. 

02 Catastrophe S4 - A satisfying ending to an excellent show, with very charismatic leads (and deeply weird supporting characters). Had to write around Carrie Fisher’s death, and I’m sure did a better job of it than Star Wars did. 

03 Friends from College S2 - More of the same, which is what I was after. A show like cotton candy (but with more infidelity). 

04 High Maintenance S3 - A lot more of this season took place outside of New York City, which was a great change of pace. And a great deal more information about The Guy and his own life; both difficulties and successes included. 

05 Losers - This was a great little docuseries on Netflix that I didn’t hear a lot of people talking about - it’s about sports losses, but unusual sports ie curling, figure skating and the like. You’d think it would get repetitive, being as it’s always about recovering after loss, but it doesn’t! I wish they would make another season….

06 Shrill - a tight six episode dramedy about an alt-weekly journalist in the Pacific Northwest, based on Lindy West’s memoir of the same name. John Cameron Mitchell as her boss (based on Dan Savage) stands out of the ensemble cast, as does Annie’s roommate played by a British standup Lolly Adefope.

07 Broad City S5 - I haven’t always kept up with Broad City, but I came back to it for its final season, and thought it did a good job of setting its characters up for big changes in their lives. 

08 I Think You Should Leave - It’s easy to assume that all sketch comedy is terrible and always will be, but then you see this, and throw your TV out the window (due to all the laffs)

09 Fleabag S2 - Everything you’ve heard is true, this season is goddamn hilarious and ridiculously sexy. A huge step up from the first season, which was already pretty fantastic and incisive. 

10 Fosse/Verdon - Musicals are not particularly my bag, so I’m sure there was a lot that I missed in terms of references, but the lead performances ably carried me through all of the time jumps and various performances. 

11 Stranger Things S3 - Say it after me: d-i-m-i-n-i-s-h-i-n-g r-e-t-u-r-n-s! Maya Hawke kills it, though. 

12 Big Little Lies S2 - Unnecessary, and (if possible) even sillier than the first season.

13 Lorena - Part of the ongoing quest to rehabilitate the maligned women of the 1990s, this gave me tons of context that I had no idea about at the time, due to being a dumb kid. 

14 Glow S3 - I felt like I was losing steam on this series this year, but episodes like the camping ep kept me coming back. A great ensemble, though some unusual character choices (like a certain kiss *cough*) took me out of it by times. 

15 Lodge 49 S1-3 - I’d kept hearing about this show, so I finally sought it out. I can’t say it was amazingly compelling (I almost dropped it after the first season) but it’s definitely an oddball of a show, slipping from setpiece to setpiece with little regard for logic. For me, a background show. 

16 Chernobyl - This show really gave me the Bad Feeling, humans were definitely A Mistake.

17 On Becoming a God in Central Florida - Kiki in a trashy mode, not as infinitely appealing as the version she pulled off in the second season of Fargo, but scrappy and industrious nonetheless.

18 Show Me a Hero - I’d put off watching this for years, it felt like it was going to be too dull (housing policy in Yonkers?) but it’s great, and larded up with Bruce Springsteen songs, obvs.

19 Great British Bake Off S9-S10 - I’d also held off on watching this for a long time, out of loyalty to Mel, Sue, and Mary Berry. But I needed some comfort viewing towards the end of the summer, and the new hosts and judge do an able job, although the show’s tropes are feeling a bit well-worn at this point. 

20 Righteous Gemstones S1 - A rollicking ride for sure, with a great cast. Your mileage/patience with Danny McBride may vary, so keep that in mind, naturally. 

21 This Way Up S1 - A small show starring the fabulous Aisling Bea, about mental health and families and some nice comic physical acting. Oh, and in case you were watching The Crown and crushing on Tobias Menzies’ version of Prince Phillip, he plays a hot dad love interest in this, which gives you all the Tobias you’re looking for, without the PP racisms. 

22 The Crown S3 - This is the first season of the big cast switchover, and I thought it stuck reasonably well, once we were in it an episode or two. This season concentrated even less on Elizabeth herself, preferring her sister, husband, and (newly!) her children.

[letterboxd]

Villains in Love.

“That’s how we like to do drugs. Non-judgmentally.” Letterboxd talks ‘couples on the run’, moral relativism and Bill “handsome as the day is long” Skarsgård with Villains writer/directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen.

In Villains, the new thriller from Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, who wrote and directed together, we join a couple of young lovers on the run: Jules (Maika Monroe) and Mickey (Bill Skarsgård).

Their car breaks down following a gas station robbery, so they take refuge in a nearby suburban home. After making a disturbing discovery in the basement, they quickly realize they picked the wrong house. Their situation becomes drastically more perilous when the owners, the outwardly folksy George (Jeffrey Donovan) and Gloria (Kyra Sedgwick), return home and turn the tables on Mickey and Jules.

From the title on down, the darkly comedic Villains clearly wants to play with cinematic notions of what constitutes “good” and “bad” characters. Berk and Olsen are assisted in this by four actors doing great work, but Donovan (Fargo) must be singled out for such effective use of his delightfully insincere smile.

We sat down with Berk and Olsen following the film’s world premiere earlier this year at the SXSW Film Festival.

‘Villains’ co-directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen.

Did the concept for this film come to you first or did you start with the characters and go from there? Dan Berk (co-writer/director): I think probably the first thing, if we’re being completely honest, was a little bit more practical. We knew we wanted to make a film in a single or a limited location because our first film Body, which we had at Slamdance in 2015, we shot that entirely in one location and it was a shoestring budget, $50,000. We shot it in eleven overnights. It was really kind of insane, but we came away from that realizing that if you own a location, you can leave your gear up, get in, shoot your day, get out, come back the next morning, turn your lights on and keep shooting.

Robert Olsen (co-writer/director): And that’s a big realm that you can fit a lot of different ideas under. We were wanting to do a kind of “lovers on the run”; a couple of amateur criminals, like in the style of Bonnie and Clyde or Badlands. We had been circling that for a while and then it kind of became like, okay, well, if it is this young couple, this inept Bonnie and Clyde, what do they run into in this single location of ours? And that’s where George and Gloria came from. What if it was this bizarro, older version of themselves? Because you look at those different movies and the couples are treated differently, morally, in different ones. Like in True Romance, you’re very much sympathizing with them throughout, whereas Natural Born Killers, they get to a certain point where you’re like: oh my god, these people have problems, it’s not good. And so we were like, well, what if Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek didn’t stop at the end of Badlands and grew up—what would they be like? And wouldn’t that be funny to see these people run into the evil version of themselves?

DB: Once we had the practical location component and the characters, the thematic framework came next. This idea that was sort of obvious once we laid all the pieces out on the board, of this moral relativism. The idea that if you saw Mickey and Jules on the street, you’d go, like, oh those are the villains right? They just robbed a convenience store. Those people are not good people. And if you saw George and Gloria at the grocery store, you’d go, those are good upstanding citizens, look how nice their hair is. It’s tough really that that’s how we operate. And it’s sort of a “don’t judge a book by its cover” thing. RO: And just like how love plays into it where both couples have a genuine loving relationship. They are truly in love with one another, but it’s like, how much can your love for one another forgive the sins that you commit? And also love as this razor’s edge tightrope that you fall on to one side or the other. Are you going to be on the good side of love which drives you to be empathetic and imagine yourself in somebody else’s shoes? Or are you gonna fall on the bad side of love, which is like, obsession and letting love become a corrupting influence on you. So that was where we wound up and then we just got in there and started writing.

Kyra Sedgwick and Jeffrey Donovan in ‘Villains’.

The film invites comparisons with previous “lovers on the run” movies, especially with Bill’s character being named Mickey (evoking Mickey and Mallory from NBK). Were you hoping that audiences would link these characters to that tradition? DB: We certainly didn’t wanna hide from it. We’re not running from the Bonnie and Clyde ancestor of this, and True Romance and Natural Born Killers and Badlands and all that stuff. We’d be delusional if we thought we invented the idea of young lovers. We wouldn’t go so far as to say the entire thing is an homage.

RO: We wanted there to be enough references that we were showing that we didn’t think we were the first people to ever have this idea, and at the same time you don’t want so many references that your movie’s just this clip show.

We hear a lot about the “contained thriller” as a genre these days. How did you feel your film would set itself apart from all the others? DB: I think it’s about the space that you’re in. Something we wanted to do differently here was get a sense of mood. We wanted the basement to feel different from the living room and feel different from the kitchen and feel different from Gloria’s room, so that the movie does not become visually repetitive.

RO: Had our resources been more limited, we might’ve been forced to do a situation where we were looking at white walls the entire time and I really don’t think the film would’ve worked had that been the case because the production design, the set decoration, buttresses this tone so effectively. I would say that if you removed that buttress, the entire tower would fall down. You can’t make this movie that exists in this slightly elevated lane above reality without the backdrops of your scenes; they need to get the memo too that we’re existing in a weird world. The dining room needs to have that fiery orange palm tree wallpaper. The other room needs to be cool blue. You would never design two rooms together like that but George and Gloria do. And it’s a signal, it’s a code to the audience that yes, this is a bit surreal.

DB: You can have a unique tone, but if you don’t establish it until 45 minutes into the movie, then you’ve failed. You need those visual markers to let you know that wallpaper’s just too perfect for this to take place in the exact same reality I live in.

Drug use in films is usually pretty didactic, but you have your protagonists take them in what feels like a non-judgmental manner here. RO: That’s how we like to do drugs. Non-judgmentally. [Laughs.]

DB: That was one of the first things we conceived at the script level because it’s so in line with that theme of moral relativism. We’re not sitting here saying eleven year olds should be doing coke, but we wanted to paint a portrait of characters that were levelled and had good intentions and you’d feel comfortable sitting and having lunch with them and talking about their lives, but you also see them doing things that are perceived by most of society as evil.

RO: It’s playing with the idea that you mentioned where normally, that is a signal to an audience member that this person is bad. That’s just not how real life works. There are people who do drugs that are perfectly good people. And yes, if your son is thirteen years old and his friend is trying to get him to do coke, that’s evil in your mind in that relative situation. But it’s not the same thing as murdering somebody. It’s not the same thing as keeping a person chained up in your basement.

DB: It was also a way to compartmentalize these characters, to show that their identities were very multi-faceted, that George could both have done incredibly evil things, but he’s doing all these things because he loves his wife and he actually is a good husband.

You’re keying into something that was really important to us: it’s so easy, and it’s part of the common language of film, to put a character in a box. You’re either a protagonist or an antagonist. You’re either an evil person or a good person. And it’s a challenge both for us as filmmakers and for an audience when they’re digesting this story, to try to carry both of those things in your head at once. “This is a character that is doing something I morally disagree with but I love them though. What’s going on here? This is making me feel weird.”

It’s interesting to see Bill Skarsgård give such an “all-American” performance here. RO: We had this idea in our head of this young Johnny Depp, this River Phoenix, late 80s/early 90s heartthrob that they just don’t make anymore, and we just couldn’t find it. And then here comes Bill. We had seen him in these sort of more genre-based roles and things like that. We’d never seen him be charming like he is in this.

DB: He’s usually the opposite of charming. Like in Castle Rock and It.

RO: As soon as we Skyped with him, we were like. that’s it! He’s got it! He’s like, long and lanky but handsome as the day is long and everything too, he’s the perfect guy.

DB: Bill takes the craft very seriously but he’ll do a [comedy] bit with us for five minutes. He’s very jokey as well. We’re in love with him. RO: And he is so built for it. He has these big eyes. He has this, like, “hot Steve Buscemi” thing going on. I’m sure he and his team discussed this and [thought] ‘you’ve got nothing else like this’. So if it’s bad or whatever, we’ll slip it under the rug, but if it’s good, who knows what this could get you? He shouldn’t just play the boogey-man. There’s a lot more to him.

DB: There’s so much more to him than the scary clown.

‘Villains’ is in US cinemas now. Comments have been edited for clarity and length.

#villains #bill skarsgård #dan berk #robert olsen #maika monroe #scary clown #letterboxd

[connoisseuroneup]

Wall Street Journal interview.

1. Where did the idea for the Sopranos shirt come from? How/why did you pick that particular shirt? Firstly, we are massive fans of the show, it still feels relatively fresh in the mind and we have watched it back from start to finish several times now, it just gets better and better. It set a new standard in television, There's a lot of great TV shows out there now, a good chunk are like Hollywood movie productions, a lot of that comes down to just how good and successful the Sopranos was. It seems pretty bizarre to think how old the show is from when it first aired, I had the first half of the series on video, so the spine of the cases sitting on the shelf together made up a portrait of Tony. There's not a week goes by where you don't watch a snippet of the show.

Obviously Tony Soprano is a great character but James Gandolfini was a superb actor and a hero of ours, his untimely passing was really hard to take, but in some strange way added to the whole cult of the show and the man. I didn't know him personally unfortunately but was really devastated when he died, friends of ours even asked us if we were OK. Our friend and regular collaborator Peter O’Toole did a nice illustration of Tony sat in the back of Satriales which is hanging on the wall beside me. 

The original idea just came as a tribute really, we make these bobble hats which have attracted a cult following over the years, we've done many things, the most famous being the one we did based on the Overlook hotel carpet from the Shining, this went crazy for us and many have been inspired by it since, you see that pattern everywhere now. We put the shirt pattern into a hat and then later linked up with Far Afield www.farafield.uk/ , a label who we collaborate with and we agreed to try and replicate the shirt, it worked out really well, a good example of what a collaboration really ought to be, combining forces. They got the pattern spot on, we changed the camp style collar to give it a more contemporary look, but it was a great thing to do. It's an ugly shirt, but it's different to a lot of things on offer out there today, that's always an appeal for us. I think this was probably one of the maddest shirts he wore in the series, or certainly the coolest one. It features quite prominently at the end of Episode 11, series 2 'House Arrest'. The camera pans out outside ‘Satriales’ to the Johnny Thunders song 'You can't put your arms around a memory' it's a perfect moment.

2. Were you all personally inspired by Tony Sopranos' style? If so why? It's a tough question that, a part of me cannot really say yes to that. He wore some really awful clothes in the series, nobody would tell him that though. Polo neck jumpers with the sleeves rolled up, two tone tops, Hawaiian shirts, weird knitted polos and pullovers Alan Partridge would be happy to wear. I think these would be more obscure brands that cost a lot of money, not your familiar names. Real old school menswear shop tackle. In one episode Tony wears a Tabasco polo shirt, it's crazy, I guess it was maybe from when he was playing golf, I'm not a huge fan of the stuff but it was cool, I'd wear one if I could find one, purely to look like Tony. A lot of the time he would be seen in his dressing gown and slippers with baggy boxers and a vest, or the 'wifebeater', then he'd be wearing a summer shirt over his vest which is a cool look, especially with a chain around the neck. Of course there were other times where it was all sharp suits, business, meetings, dinners, going to the races, the casino etc, they all looked dapper there. Then in complete contrast the whole day to day tracksuit/shellsuit thing, which I believe is known as a 'Bensonhurst Tuxedo' this is strangely cool, but hard to pull off, it's purely lounge wear for us in the UK or maybe something you could get away with on a flight or on holiday. It actually works on the larger figures for some reason too, or at least they pull it off. Some characters were cooler than others, I thought Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano) was amongst the better dressed, though others may totally disagree, a cold hearted killer can pull off a cravat better than most. Johnny Sack with his Burberry camel coat and then you had Furio in his Napoli training gear. A lot of these were big sweaty blokes so it would have all come down to comfort. A don doesn't wear shorts, remember that? 3. Do you think Tony's style (and the style of the other characters as well) mirrors or influences where men's fashion is at right now? I'm not too sure, men's fashion is still largely dictated by the big brands and labels and what comes next the stuff people want to be seen in, people who need magazines and expensive ad campaigns to tell them what to wear. To me the show's characters are very anti-fashion, obviously bits filter through into the menswear thing, you had Michael Imperioli posing in clothing for Kith when they worked with long standing New York store Bergdorf Goodman, a lot of modern streetwear looks similar, the tracksuits and that stuff, but that could be pointed back to 1980's sportswear too. Wearing a full tracksuit or even just tracksuit pants out of the house was always a bit of a no-no amongst our ilk, it's a lot more acceptable now.

4. How was the shirt received? Were you surprised by that response? It went really well, like pretty much sold out upon the release, it was only sold online by both ourselves and Far Afield but it wasn't tiny numbers. People know they're are buying into something bit mad, a bit different, some would say they loved it but wouldn't be able to pull it off. I think it works well as something for summer, a perfect holiday shirt. Or you can sneak it under a jumper or sweatshirt in the colder months and just have that hint of it. It's one of those that those who will know will get it and many others will just think we've gone mad. That works, you don't want to please everyone. We've never been one for mass appeal.  5. Why do you think all these years later, the show still has resonance? Just so groundbreaking, it was ahead of it's time. It's a very clever and in depth show, you go thought the whole thing again and you pick up things you missed first time around. Certain seasons were stronger than others, but so much of it set a standard, the standard you see today. The music, the language, the violence, it's clever, you look up to these guys in many ways, then it quickly reminds you they are not nice people. I know folk who have never seen it, I always tell them they are really missing out, you can't not get hooked in by it. They are in for a treat, I wish I could watch it all again like that. 6. How would you describe Tony's style? Is there anything about how he dressed that influences how you'd like to dress? The one thing I like about his influence personally, is I too have a pretty crap hairline and a protruding belly, he made that acceptable. He was the main man, he didn't care, nobody could mess with him his style was for him, he also showed signs of insecurity too though, only ever privately. If that leather jacket Richie Aprile gave him still fit he could wear that and nobody would say anything. 7. You mentioned there were plans for more shirts inspired by Tony's shirts, could you elaborate? Yes, we are going to release the second one this summer, fabric tests and swatches were approved a while back. It's the shirt he wears in Season 5 Episode 2 'Rat Pack', he confronts Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi) after he mocked his weight in front of everyone. Hard to describe this one, a bit like a Picasso painting, abstract squares, like some 1980's sofa or curtains, but he pulls it off, he always does.