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ventiswampwater · 1 year

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@pretty-possum cynth, ur mind. ur fuckin MIND. thank u for sending me this electric idea bc it rlly had me spooning out my brain!! here’s some filthnasty for u in which he has way too much fun and it’s ickyweird

catching flies with honey (if the killing’s what you like, make it sweet)

bo sinclair x afab!reader

rating: explicit

wordcount: 4.8k

Reader POV. You keep telling him how much you hate him. You little spitfire! It's real cute. Anyway, he’s got something special to show you. He’s sure you’ll love it.

Also posted on AO3 here.

⚠️ Canon typical violence and fuckery. We’re in Bo’s hell basement for the first bit of this, so that means many references to past noncon. When we get to the wax museum nasty, it's dubcon under EXTREME duress. Reader dislikes Bo immensely and makes this clear to him multiple times. Bo finds this endlessly entertaining and adapts his approach to make her even more miserable. He's on his brat-taming shit. Sugary sweet, full of bullshit compliments, contrived as hell. He’s very smug and manipulative and slimy in this fic. HEAVY praise kink. Deviating from my other Bo fics, he doesn’t call you any awful names! Whoa! But he might as well! Because this really isn’t any better! Praise kink as degradation. A wax sculpture is destroyed, and the resulting viscera and nastiness is described in vivid detail. Some suspension of disbelief is necessary for the decomposition described, but that’s basically a warning for the original movie lmao. Mind break elements. He talks you through it (unfortunately). Multiple orgasms with a heavy focus on overstimulation. ⚠️

He’s red on the inside, same as you. It’s about time that somebody reminded him.

“I’m gettin’ sloppy.” Bo clicks his tongue. “Ain’t your fault, darlin’.”

“Don’t call me that.” You spit out, tugging at the restraints on the chair.

“What? You don’t like me bein’ sweet to you?”

He hums a tune as he clips your fingernails. You expect a sting of pain—want one, even—each time he lifts another finger. It never comes. He’s uncharacteristically gentle, pinching his tongue between his teeth and tilting his head as he studies your hands.

“Ain’t been takin’ care of you like I should, baby.” He murmurs.

Your lip trembles with indignation. You wear enough marks on your skin to know that his version of care isn’t something you want. Your eyes dart back to the scratch on his neck. You wish you could’ve done more, cut deeper—but you’ll take this small victory. It’s a reminder that he’s nothing more than human, shackled by the same mortality you are. You can see that in the pinpricks of blood blooming on his neck.

He bleeds like you and he can die just the same.

“I hope it scars.” You mutter.

Leveling his gaze to meet yours, Bo tips his head towards your bound wrists.

“Hope yours do to.” He chuckles. “You keep yankin’ on those things and we’re ‘bout to have a matchin’ set.”

The smile he gives you is warm and soft, crinkling at the corners of his eyes. It’s as counterfeit as the rest of his persona and just as paper-thin. You wonder who he stole that expression from. He only seems to have things that he’s taken from others.

You count the days with scratches on his Polaroids.

He keeps your nails short now, so you can’t dig into them like you used to. Despite that, you try your best, pressing a crescent moon of a cut into the glossy surface. He’s got enough of them hanging up that you doubt he’ll notice. If you know one thing for certain, it’s that he seems to have a remarkably one-track mind.

He comes down here for you. Everything else is as consequential as the dirt and rust that line the shelves. A product of years of neglect, just another piece of the background. When you think about it, even you are one of those incidental things. The previous occupants of this room watch you from the wall, a constant reminder that this has all happened before. Down here, you are not an anomaly. The technicalities of your self are really just that, technicalities.

It’s necessary to give him things (your body, your time, all that rust) because that’s how you stay alive. You can’t feel bad for that. It’s a hunger like anything else and you swallow it down like any of the other tasteless meals he brings you. It slides down your gullet and with every mouthful, the pang lessens. When the hunger is gone, all you’re left with is the way he sits in your stomach.

You have to be careful. If you’re not, there’ll come a point where there won’t be anything more to pry away. You have to stay awake.

You’re screaming. Bo’s yawning.

“Figured ya’ woulda gotten that outta your system by now.”

You ignore him.

“Want me to try and holler with ya’? Might help that sound carry.”

“Where’s everybody else?” You wheel around to face him, hands balled into tight fists. He’s sitting on the edge of the mattress, leaning back on his elbows.

“Dunno.” Scrunching his face up in thought, he purses his lips. “Haven’t seen nobody ‘round here in a minute. Just you.”

“Just me?” You chew on your bottom lip, searching his face. “You’re not a good liar.”

“I’m not lyin’.” He smirks at you.

“They’re all dead, aren’t they?” Your voice warbles a bit around the question, but you manage to steady your voice. You hope he doesn’t notice.

He does.

“Look darlin’, I know you’re real worried ‘bout those friends of yours.” He frowns at you, brow creased in a poor attempt at sympathy. “And I don’t wanna scare ya’ baby. I really don’t. But you gotta know. My brother…he ain’t right. If he got to ‘em first…can’t tell ya’ what could’ve happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s got this, uh—this compulsion.” He shakes his head slowly, letting out a low whistle. “Bad stuff. Gotta keep ya’ away from him.”

“Why?”

“Oh, ‘cuz you’re somethin’ special.” He drags the last word out, letting it pop in his mouth. “But you know that, don’tcha, baby?”

His praise might as well have been spat into your face with a wad of saliva.

Getting to his feet with a groan, he glances over his shoulder. He stands there for a beat too long, eying the Polaroids. Leaning over, he tugs one off the wall. You haven’t exactly been subtle with your date-keeping. He scans over the damage, his lips curling into a sneer.

“I’m gonna say this once.” His face twists into a scowl. “All this? It’s real cute—until it ain’t.”

There’s an eagerness to your breath as you watch him, your eyes darting from the ruined picture back to his face. It’s an odd, confusing thing, but part of you prefers him like this. The cruelty makes him predictable. You’re so sick of the platitudes, the sugary pet names. You know what he wants to call you, what he really thinks of you as. He may as well have branded those words deep into your skin.

You used to make him so angry. It almost felt like your encounters were equal parts punishment doled out to both of you, wrapped up around the callous bite of his voice. This recent change in demeanor frustrates you, it feels like it was born out of something you did. Nothing bothers you more than that. When you were a slut, or a whore, or a nasty little bitch, that was all him.

You ready yourself for what’s coming, knowing that it’ll hurt, but pleased to know that you managed to break his composure. Unable to hide behind thinly veiled niceties, he can’t pretend to be kind.

To your dismay, his face relaxes.

“Reckon it ain’t nice to tease ya’ with pictures when ya’ want the real thing.” He sighs, crumpling the picture in his hand. Your shoulders sag. “I’ll make it up to you, baby.”

You start your count back up on a new Polaroid. It feels less satisfying, but that’s routine for you.

You’re six notches deep into your new calender when Bo comes downstairs jangling his keys.

“Got somethin’ to show ya’ today.”

“…What is it?”

“Don’t wanna spoil the surprise.” He shrugs, shooting you a smile. “Can’t bring it here, so…how ya’ feel ‘bout takin’ a walk, darlin’?”

Outside the gas station, you shield your eyes from the sun.

Rustling in his pocket, Bo pulls out a crumpled box of cigarettes. You peer around as he flicks his lighter open, your heart stuttering in your chest. You’re not bound. There’s nothing preventing you from taking off down the street. But this is his test, and you know that.

The limits of the town are further than you’d thought. Even if you could make it to the mouth of the town without him at your heels, that’s only part of it. The momentum you’d need to sustain to get down the road means nothing if you lose it there, face-down in the gravel.

Bo’s taking a drag of his cigarette when you glance back at him, a smirk playing at the ends of his lips. He looks at you like he can tell what you’re thinking, as if he’s run through the same scenario a thousand times in his mind. He’s come out the winner every time. You’re sure he’d love for you to prove him right.

“You want one?” He gestures toward the cigarette.

In place of an answer, you glare at him.

“Suit yourself, sweetness.” He grins.

“Waste of money.” You murmur.

“You might be right. But I never buy any of ‘em.” There’s an edge of manic glee in his voice. “Not once.”

Keeping your eyes on him, you press your lips together. You can tell he wants you to ask what he means by that. He’s all but bouncing on his heels, eyes twinkling. He hasn’t fucked you in days, has barely seemed to have time to touch you. It felt like a reprieve at the time, but this barely-contained excitement worries you.

You don’t respond.

He finishes his cigarette, flicking it away.

“C’mon.”

Bo leads you up the hill to the wax museum. Reaching out, he closes his hand around the door handle. It opens with a creak.

“Go on. Ladies first.”

Inside, it’s quiet, but there’s no peace.

Sun reflects out through green panes, bathing everything in unnatural light. It feels wrong to stand here in the gloom, surrounded by an assortment of shadowy wax figures, their faces frozen in placid contentment. Nervousness gnaws at your chest, leaving your palms clammy.

“What are we doing here?” Your throat feels tight.

He doesn’t answer, just leads you deeper into the room. Your eyes land on a mirror against the far wall. In its dusty cloudiness, you both are shadowy blobs of shapes, completely insubstantial.

“Keep goin’. ‘S in the other room.”

He beckons you through an open doorway and dust tickles your nose. Following his gaze, your eyes land on another group of wax sculptures. Their clothes are just as dated as the others, all crushed velvet and strings of pearls. Despite this, they look newer, no tendrils of dust hanging off of their outstretched arms.

There’s something familiar about them, but it’s hard to tell in this light. You take a step closer, narrowing your eyes.

“Ya’ know, my brother likes projects.” You hear Bo say. “Guess that’s somethin’ we got in common.”

You blink in confusion, your mouth falling open. Of course they look familiar—you’d recognize those faces anywhere. Standing in front of you are wax replicas of your friends, leering at you with painted-on smiles.

“What is this?” Your hands are shaking. “Where are they?”

“Right in front of you, darlin’.” Bo exclaims. “Now, don’t they look good? I think they clean up real nice, don’t you?”

It’s nothing more than a cruel joke.

The anger that grips you is sudden, thoughtless. You reel around, your hand clenching into a fist. The punch you throw at him is a pitiful thing. He avoids it easily, catching your wrist in his hand and shoving you away. You back up frantically as he closes in on you, your heart skipping in your chest. Losing your footing, you smack into one of the figures.

“What, you ain’t thankful for the reunion? Thought you’d appreciate it.”

The sculpture totters behind you. You flail wildly as you try to steady yourself, but it’s no use—your feet slip out from under you. As you fall, it falls with you, hitting the floor with a shatter that sprays chips of paint and wax over the ground.

“Hate to say it, but I’m a bit disappointed in ya’, sweet thing.”

Wrenching your head back to look at the damage, your mouth falls open. The impact of the fall bisected the sculpture’s face, cracking it wide open. A scream bubbles up in your throat as you realize that it isn’t hollow. There’s something bloated and dead inside it, staring back at you with milky eyes.

You’d know that face anywhere.

“Dunno how I’m gonna explain this to Vincent, baby. He spent a lot of time on that one.”

You scramble to your feet with a shriek, backpedaling wildly until you run into him. His hands are quick to close around you, pinning your arms behind your back. You try your best to twist out of his grip, but he holds you still, pulling you against his chest.

“Figure he’ll need a replacement.” Bo leans down to murmur in your ear, his tone sickly and apologetic. “I’m gonna have a hell of a time tryin’ to convince him that it ain’t gonna be you.”

Your eyes dart between the figures, hardly registering his words. It’s impossible to make sense of what’s in front of you. Everything seems doused in unreality, tilted on its side. Your friends stand frozen, lips peeled away from their teeth in twisted imitations of smiles. It’s been so long that you can hardly remember what their voices sound like. You won’t hear them again. The people they used to be live on only in your head, spiraling into a mass of memory. The realization has your throat tightening, your eyes blurring with tears.

You feel his lips against your hair and a broken wail tips out of your mouth. You’ve walked straight into the gaping maw of an open grave. They’re here and they’re rotting and there’s nothing to be done because you’re too late. This is no museum—it’s a mausoleum, and you paid your respects through a splattering of viscera on the floor.

“It ain’t that bad. We’ll set somethin’ up real nice for ya’, sweetness. Right by the door.”

You shudder, yanking against his hands.

“Whatcha wanna wear, darlin’? I’ll getcha whatever ya’ want.”

“Don’t tell him!” Your voice comes out shrill, rushing out of you in a high-pitched whine. “Don’t, please, don’t—”

“Well, I gotta tell him, baby.” He sighs.

“No, no, no. Please—”

“You want me to lie to him?” He tugs at your ear with his teeth. “Dunno. Thought I wasn’t a good liar.”

“You can’t, you—” Your breath escapes you in shallow gulps.

Abruptly, he lets go of your arms, shoving you off him. You pitch forward onto the ground, blinking away tears. He pounces on you with a laugh, flipping you onto your back. His hands paw at your breasts, sliding down your stomach. He moves closer, positioning himself between your thighs to force your knees up, yanking your legs open. Your dress rides up, bunching around your hips.

“This ain’t somethin’ I take lightly.” He shakes his head, sighing. “I’d miss ya’.”

“Fuck you.” You squirm underneath him.

“There’s that mouth.” He grins down at you, wrapping a hand around your throat. “That’s my girl.”

You scrabble at his grip, twisting underneath him. Bo’s hand doesn’t budge, his fingers closing tighter around your neck.

“Fuck. You.” You wheeze, unable to muster the venom you intend.

If you’re going to die, you want him to bruise you, to mark you up in such a way that the person responsible for the macabre mannequins in the other room would notice. You want the signs of a fight clear upon your skin. Anything to make them rethink dressing you up in satin and costume jewelry; kept on display to be gawked at, locked in someone’s imagined view of you.

Leave that one to rot on the side of the road, she’s sick of being looked at.

“Well, since you’re askin’ so nicely…” He grins down at you, his eyes glinting. “How you want it?”

His fingers brush between your legs, cupping your pussy through the cotton. You let out a sputtered yelp as he pulls your panties to the side. His thumb begins to rub at your clit and you buck your hips up, making a desperate move to wrench yourself away from him.

“Right there, baby?”

His grip on your throat is rhythmic, tightening and loosening and tightening again. Helpless darkness grips you as your throat constricts, only to be met with the shuddering relief of air filling your lungs. Head spinning, you oscillate wildly between the two unyielding extremes. You gasp when he pushes his finger into you, horrified to find yourself wet enough that it slides in easily. Your pussy clenches around the intrusion involuntarily, making you squeal.

"Guess all that death don't bother you. You're a trooper, baby." He pumps a second finger in, stretching you open. Your thighs shake and you can’t help the desperate little mewl that escapes your mouth.

“Got yourself an audience and now you’re purrin’ like a kitten.” He smirks, amusement plain in his voice. “That’s all ya’ needed, huh?”

“No.” You hiss out.

“Mmm-hmm. I hear ya’, darlin’.” His voice drips with honey, warm and throaty above you. “Don’tchu worry.”

You twist your head to the side, forcing your eyes to focus on the unnatural poses held by the corpses of your friends. Maybe it would be better to be like they were, immobile in their grotesque funeral clothes. They wouldn’t know what it felt like to lose all this, to die while you still breathed. Your eyes fall on the shattered carnage that covers the floor a few feet away. The hopelessness numbs you, making it easier to ignore the distracting warmth between your thighs. You’ll look at all that death and he won’t be able to make you feel anything.

“Eyes up here, beautiful.” He forces your head back. “Don’t like you lookin’ at ‘em when I’m touchin’ you. Makes me jealous.”

The room is warm and you’re warmer still, uglier than you’ve ever felt, sweat beading on your brow and dripping down the side of your face. He works another finger into you, humming under his breath. You gasp around the added pressure, squeezing your eyes tightly shut.

“Just like that, baby.” He readjusts his grip on your throat, stroking a finger up the thundering beat of your pulse. “Make yourself feel good. You need it.”

You realize with a whimper that you’re doing just that, rocking down on his fingers. Your body is traitorous and so is that hunger, demanding to be full, to take in as much as it could. Like a whore, your mind offers up bitterly. Just like a whore. You bite back a moan, twisting under him. You wish that he’d call you that, that his hand was digging harder into your skin. You need this to hurt so you can focus on the poison that drips off his words. If you could manage that, you’d make it out of here.

This is about survival. That’s what you’re trying to do.

He shifts the angle of his hand slightly and you tense up, unable to muffle the moan that spills out of your mouth. Your orgasm is a shivery, unexpected thing, clambering up your spine and washing over you in a traitorous burst. It tastes like betrayal, shuddering its way through you with a shock, stealing the words from your tongue and leaving you gasping for air. Your eyes are watering when he finally lets go of your throat, tugging your underwear off.

"You got over that fast. Nothin’ brings you down, huh?” You hear the jingle of his belt as he undoes it. With a grunt, he nudges your legs wider apart with his knee, pulling you towards him. “You're a wonder, baby."

You jolt away with a gasp when you feel the head of his cock rub against your clit, your mouth falling open. He flashes a smile down at you, dragging his length through your folds.

“How’s that, baby?”

“It’s too much, it’s—” You take a ragged gasp as he presses against your entrance, screwing your eyes tightly shut.

“’S okay.” He murmurs, rocking the head of his cock slowly into your pussy with shallow thrusts. You grit your teeth together, hissing a shaky breath through your nose.

When he eases into you, you let out a watery sob. Pressing into you slow, you’re acutely aware of every inch of him. He’s usually too impatient to let you feel this gradual stretch, the way your walls clench helplessly around his cock.

“Feels good, huh?” He sinks deeper into you, and you tremble. “You like it?”

You shake your head sharply. You wiggle your hips down, anxious for him to fill you completely. You need it done so you can forget the way that this feels. There are things you shouldn’t see and things you shouldn’t feel, and today has been full of both.

“C’mon now, baby.” His tone is sugary sweet and patronizing. Each word plods out slow, as if he’s talking to a child. “If it feels good, you gotta like it.”

You feel a flicker of embarrassment, but it’s not enough to push past the fog of euphoria that’s coiling low in your belly. Your breath stutters out of you in uneven bursts, almost as if his hand is still around your throat. That’s how this pleasure feels—it’s a choking, inescapable thing, pinning you against the ground.

“You’re takin’ me so well, baby. You wanna know how good that feels ‘round my dick?”

He rocks into you, slow and deep, dragging a pitiful moan from your lips.

“Be careful, angel.” Bo lets out a breathless laugh. “You’re gonna wake up ya’ friends.”

A sharp bolt of revulsion thrums through you, tugging you out from under the throb of sensation. The shame twists in your stomach, rotten and sickly. Before it can stick, he reaches down and slips his hands under your waist. With hardly any effort, he lifts you off the floor, tilting your pelvis up to meet him. Your mouth is pooling with saliva, tears pricking at your eyes. At this angle, he’s so deep that it’s as if you can feel him everywhere, pushing at the back of your throat. You let out a desperate whine, locking your legs around his waist. Without his hands to hold you up, you feel like you’d melt away into the floor.

He rolls his hips and you stutter out a sob, tremors of desperate pleasure wracking your body. You’re shaking, hands reaching up to tremble uselessly at your chest.

“What am I doin’, baby?”

“You’re—” You slur out, panting. “You’re fucking me.”

“Uh-huh. Ya’ like it?”

You keen out an unintelligible reply, nodding up at him desperately. He rewards your answer with a brush to your clit and your mouth falls open.

“Good, baby. Gettin’ a little hard to talk, yeah?” His words are coated in self-congratulatory smugness that can’t manage to hide behind sweetness. It taunts you, clawing under your skin and tearing through you in a way that only serves to make you wetter. “You ain’t gotta care ‘bout nothin’ other than how that feels.”

He fucks down into you, his cock kissing something deep in you that has you gaping up at him, stuttering out a moan. He’s pushing deep, impossibly so, then pulling out to press back in. Here, in this desperate haze of feeling that has you arching your back on the ground, it all feels so unavoidable.

Distantly, you can hear him murmuring above you. You’re so good, aren’t you? Say yes, sweetheart, but only if you want to. Only if it feels right. A distant part of your brain reminds you that the last thing you want to be is good. Trying desperately to catch onto that thought only has it fading away into that all-consuming pressure building up between your legs.

“Whose girl are you?”

“Yours.” You hiccup out. You’re disloyal and fickle and weak—and you aren’t lying, you can’t lie.

“That’s right.”

It feels like you’re losing something, your thoughts unspooling and picking up momentum as they roll away, getting further and further from you with every thrust of his hips.

Everything you give him is nothing he deserves.

“You wanna show me what a good girl you are and cum?”

No.

“Nn—”

The pleasure is a knife in your gut, splitting you open from the base of your belly all the way up to the shuddering flesh of your throat. It feels like honey, like his voice above you—eviscerating, cruel because it isn’t cruel. Hurting because it doesn’t, because all you wanted was him and he gave it to you. You arch up desperately, chasing after more of that sensation.

“Oh, angel. That’s perfect.”

He holds you suspended in the rolling thrum of your orgasm, thrusting deeper into you. Your orgasm burns at the back of your eyes, a blinding thing, gouging you open with white-hot light. Unlike the first, this one seems to wash over you with no end. You cry out, thrashing under the unrelenting waves, his cock pulsing inside you. His breathing is labored as he works his hips, sweat plastering his hair to his brow.

You look up at him and you don’t hate him—and that’s the worst thing, dragging another woozy ripple of pleasure out of your core. Your heart hammers away in your chest, pounding hot and loud in your ears. He spills inside you with a groan, his hands digging tightly into your thighs. Your body seems to throb with warmth, rolling waves of it leaving your limbs numb and useless.

With an embarrassingly wet squelch, he pulls out of you. You close your eyes and the world spins inside your head, making your eyelids heavy. Dimly, you can hear him zipping up the fly of his pants, refastening his belt. He clears his throat, huffing out a tired laugh.

“Like I told ya’, baby. You’re somethin’ special.”

He says something else and you nod. You’re not sure what he might have asked you—but he likes agreement. You’ve never cared much for what he liked, never had a desire to give whatever that was to him. But it’s easier to say yes. You can’t pin down what part of you has decided that’s true, but it’s pulsing between your legs and sitting on your tongue like it belongs there.

“Think I’d let him get his hands on you? That’s crazy talk, girl.”

Your thighs spasm a bit and you gulp. He lowers himself over you, sinking onto his elbows to press a kiss onto your trembling mouth. You can feel his spend leaking out of you, running down between your legs and puddling underneath you. The ache is coming, you can feel it, throbbing deep in your cunt.

When you were little, you couldn’t swallow pills. You needed them ground up and mixed in with sugar, served up on a spoon for you to swallow. Even then, you knew it was there, felt like you could taste it. But it made it easier, didn’t it? You couldn’t tell then and you can’t tell now. You whimper and he smiles against your lips, teasing your mouth open with his tongue.

Seems like you can take anything if it’s hidden under sugar.

As the haze of pleasure begins to lift, the room starts to come back into focus. You’re remembering that you can’t be here, that death is familiar and close. You have to leave, you have to run. With a shaky sob, you feel the fear begin to hitch up in your throat again, crawling out of the pocket of your insides that it’s been hiding in.

You yelp as you feel him circle around your clit again. Thrashing underneath him, you shake your head wildly.

“Nice and sensitive now, yeah? Look at that.”

You whimper helplessly, the words forming on your tongue only to disappear a moment later. Your clit feels swollen between your legs, delivering a snap of electricity to your core with every unrelenting stroke of his fingers. You teeter on the razor-edge of pain and pleasure—ratcheted too high, past the point of enjoyment. There’s nowhere left for the feeling to go. You’ll need to claw your way out of your skin to alleviate it, you’ll need him to take you apart.

“Sto—” The word’s swallowed up by a series of high-pitched vocalizations, spilling from your lips, one tripping over the other. Your grasp on language feels as sloppy as your cunt. Slippery, needy things. What good were they now?

“Ya’ know what I think?” He murmurs. “I think this pussy’s got one more.”

Dizzily, you think about the cigarette he’d offered you earlier. You could use it now.

“I can’t, I can’t—”

“Pretty girl.” He reaches up with his free hand to wipe away the tears spilling down the side of your face. “It’s hard, I know.”

If you had any energy, you’d bite him, you’d take out as many chunks as you could. Are you sure? That version of you feels far away now. He sinks his fingers back into your pussy and you whine. There’s no resistance to be found inside you, just a quivering hole fucked wide, greedily squeezing around his fingers.

“You wanna know somethin’, baby? I’ve always been selfish. Got told that a lot, and I reckon they were right.” His voice is as soft as his hands, rumbling into your head. “Can’t help it.”

“Bo, please—” You’re wound too tight to cum again, each touch a shivery spike of feeling that leaves you wanting to vacate your body. You need to tell him that, you need to—

“Name sounds real good in that mouth.” You can hear the smile in his voice. “Say it again, would ya’?”

“Bo. Bo.” You let out a broken sob, a fresh wave of tears glazing over your eyes. “Bo…”

“Hush now, angel. Third times the charm.”

#using that gif to represent this fic bc he is v smug and ehehehehehe throughout this whole thing #he regrettably. has a great time #I do not know who (me) keeps letting him get away with this? who are they???? (it's me again)#house of wax #bo sinclair #bo sinclair x reader #slashers x reader #slasher fandom #x reader #my fics

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poeedamerons · 6 months

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It's not just that the book was better; there are movies and series that have successfully brought the book to life. Personally, I'm not a fan of the 'the book is better than the movie/series' argument because it's fundamentally flawed. The book will ALWAYS be better. It has the advantage of being the source material and allows for an in-depth exploration of characters, places, and situations, unlike a movie/series, which is restricted by screen time and budget. While this limitation poses challenges, it doesn't render the task impossible.

Adapting a complex book is no easy feat. While it may not be possible to capture all the intricate prose and rich details on screen, there are ways to work around it. Creating a coherent timeline, incorporating relevant flashbacks, building tension, mystery, and emotional impact are all possible. However, when you end up changing nearly everything from the original, the result is a feeble attempt at adaptation.

In my opinion and that of many others, "The Book Thief" was a satisfactory adaptation. Did they have to make significant cuts? Yes. However, they managed to preserve the essence of the story, its impactful characters, and crucial events. Some may disagree and consider the adaptation unsatisfactory, and that's understandable. Yet, I have yet to come across a single good review of the adaptation of "All the Light We Cannot See.

The book is undeniably brilliant, and there's no argument there, but this adaptation was more of a complete overhaul, incorporating some elements from the book. They completely mishandled the timeline, flashbacks and character backgrounds.

For instance, in the series, they introduce Uncle Etienne as a functional, Hugh Laurie-like character. However, just two (?) episodes later, they quickly unveil his traumatic experiences during World War 1 in a fleeting moment (I dont even remember if they mention the devastating loss of his brother). The fast-paced narrative hardly allows for the emotional impact that the book meticulously builds over time.

Contrastingly, in the book, we encounter Uncle Etienne as a deeply troubled and eccentric man who chooses to seclude himself from society for decades due to the severe post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his experiences in World War I. At first, readers might dislike his grumpy demeanor and distant relationship with Marie Laure, who relies on him as her sole family, especially given the uncertainty surrounding her father's fate. However, as the book unfolds, the profound reasons behind Uncle Etienne's behavior are unveiled, prompting a heart-rending realization that induces regret for any initial negative sentiment.

His reluctance to engage with the events of World War II is completely understandable, given that he is still grappling with the haunting memories of the previous war. His eventual decision to confront the Nazis (whom he despises) and assist the resistance by broadcasting crucial information represents a significant turning point in his character development in the book, and ONLY happens because Marie Laure gives him the courage to do so.

While it's understandable that the show couldn't depict this in detail, they could have easily tried. This aspect of the story could have been effectively conveyed and would have undoubtedly evoked strong emotional reactions. It had the potential to move viewers to tears. However, the series lacked the necessary emotional depth and character growth, ultimately robbing Uncle Etienne of the depth and richness of his life story.

Furthermore, the way the book leaves subtle clues for us to piece together the revelation that Uncle Etienne and his brother were the ones narrating the science broadcasts that Werner and Jutta grew up listening to is truly exquisite. This element could have been gradually unveiled to the audience, allowing us to savor the process of connecting the dots. However, I don’t even remember how this goes on the series as this was more a tale of Werner and his adventures in Saint Malo than anything else.

If you're watching the show and finding it difficult to understand why there are so many criticisms, it might be because they boldly labeled it as an adaptation, even though it hardly resembles one. It doesn't feel like an adaptation at all.

To you, Uncle Etienne might come across as a super cool character, whereas to us, he was portrayed as an utterly melancholic, and reclusive individual. He lived as if he were already dead.

If you're enjoying the show without having read the book, that's perfectly fine. How would you even notice the differences if you had no prior exposure to the story and characters? It's virtually impossible. However, once you do, you'll comprehend why it took Doerr ten years to write and why it was awarded the Pulitzer.

#all the light we cannot see #spoilers

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anghraine · 1 year

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This is a belated reply, but:

irresistible-revolution replied to this post:

yep yep, the facetiousness and rhetorical games are truly maddening. i enjoy the pj movies a lot more than you do and they are deeply, deeply racist! pj specifically refused to let black actors try out for any of the elven parts. so it’s really fascinating how these movies are being upheld as paradigmatic against the diverse casting for ROP. there’s some deeply entrenched white supremacy that’s being troubled by the sight of black and brown elves specifically.

Yup. It's really noticeable that the nuclear rage is particularly disproportionate when it comes to characters or groups described as especially beautiful in the source material being played by Black and brown actors. As you say, it's marked for Elves especially (and detractors have been especially fixated on Arondir's hair—not just the open bigots).

You also see it with characters like Tar-Míriel; I've seen so many people heatedly arguing that the description of her beauty as superior to ivory, silver, and pearls = she is canonically pale-skinned = HOW DARE.

have also seen people complaining about the “scale” of the show as lacking grandeur, and about sauron looking “too ordinary” (again, the pj movies being used as implicit standard) instead of just…enjoying a different flavor of adaptation?

Yeah. There are legit criticisms to make, but a lot of the ones that are made seem based on the assumption that difference from the Jackson films is intrinsically inferior. If the aesthetic of a place or a people is at all different than the films, it must be for the worse, and/or less "faithful." And there's this willingness to approach the films with the maximum generosity possible (including where they're drastically at variance with Tolkien or with ... uh, decency) while approaching the show with an incredible degree of poor faith (that also leads to bad and frequently racist and/or xenophobic and/or misogynistic takes on the original material, too!).

insane insane. incidentally, someone told me ROP couldn’t get the rights to The Silmarillion and have hence had to create a lot of story to fill in the gaps, is that true?

Yes, basically. My understanding is that they couldn't actually get the rights to Silmarillion material directly, but could work with anything mentioned in LOTR (the main narrative or Appendices). There's actually a good bit of Silm stuff mentioned in LOTR in some form, like Gandalf talking about Fëanor's craftmanship, material embedded in various songs or explanations, etc, along with the quantity of background material in the Appendices.

But there's also plenty of stuff that's not there, and AFAIK they had to get special specific permission from the Tolkien Estate for basically anything not contained in LOTR. The ROP narrative is pretty clearly assembling its narrative from a mixture of LOTR details, extrapolations, and actual inventions, alongside a few isolated details from places like Unfinished Tales (there's a reference to a detail from "The Mariner's Wife" in the depiction of Númenor, for instance).

I think the end result is interesting, but unfortunately, it's also ... like, I've seen people complaining that it's problematic that ROP Elrond is more focused on his biological father, Eärendil, than his adoptive one, Maglor. That is, Maglor is his adoptive father according to popular fanon (even people who dislike Maglor will usually accept this characterization of their relationship). But Tolkien does not talk about Maglor in LOTR, so ROP couldn't have used him anyway without requesting a special exception that might or might not be granted.

...FWIW, Elrond does refer to his parents in LOTR, but he only mentions Eärendil and Elwing. Even outside LOTR, Tolkien doesn't specify that Maglor is the adoptive father of Elrond and Elros, only that he affectionately looks after them for awhile and the relationship becomes unexpectedly loving on all sides—there are a lot of ways to interpret that other than "adoptive dad" but fandom is very intent on shoving all relationships into clear-cut nuclear family frameworks.

And it just seems absurd to me that there's this whole idea that ROP had some obligation to bring in this very particular fanon reading of a line that isn't in LOTR, about a character who isn't mentioned in LOTR, who is not actually described as Elrond's father anyway, when Eärendil has a very long song about him in LOTR and is explicitly acknowledged by Elrond in the book. And that's pretty typical of a lot of ROP discourse, IMO.

#irresistible revolution #respuestas #legendarium blogging #legendarium fanwank #tv: lotr #cw racism #long post #anghraine rants

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lesbiansforboromir · 2 years

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hi! you don't have to answer and I'm sorry if I misunderstood what you said, but I think it's a little unfair to say you cannot distinguish people who criticise trop because they're racist vs because they don't want to support amazon vs because it doesn't follow the "original storyline". also the Jackson trilogy had its fair share of problems, but they mostly followed the story and I think the heart was there. amazon has to change a lot of plot points because they don't own the rights to the silmarillion, so it's not really the same thing. I understand the need for caution because unfortunately the tolkien fandom is full of misogynists and white supremacists, but I don't think it's as undistinguishable as you made it to be. again, sorry if you're done talking about this, I love your blog, nor trying to start any shit. ok bye <3

Never done talking about this! Might be talking about this for weeks to come.

To be clear, what I mean is that the talking points are indistinguishable. If I see someone talking about how RoP is betraying Tolkien's vision or how this is a sin against Tolkien or how he's rolling in his grave and other such rhetoric, I cannot tell if that person is saying it because they don't like the canon changes, or because they are racist. Because I have seen all sides of the fence, often verbatim! make those same points. The only way to tell where they fall is often either digging quite deep into their social media, or by actually engaging with them in a discussion that can get incredible nasty very quickly. And even then, it is not a surefire thing. And with the massive weight of the backlash, often you don't really have time to do any of that in the first place. What I'm saying is that, no matter the original intention, the vitriol and aggression of the pushback against RoP is only serving the white supremacists, no one else.

Next, and I'll keep saying this until the cows come home, they have absolutely enough of the rights to the canon material to adapt the Akallabeth. They do not have to change a lot of plot points. They are making plot points, in order to fill in for the scarcity of character and plot within the actual text itself, but they are fully able to tell this story. They even have special dispensation from the tolkien estate to use material they dont have the rights too on a case by case approval basis. This is misinformation which is, I'm pretty sure, from the racist backlash on places like youtube.

Peter Jackson, I might add, had the rights to a fully written and characterised story with everything he needed and he STILL changed: - Every character's personality, and most of their motives and dialogue - Removed characters with large speaking roles and entire sections of the story including the ending to the whole thing! - Removed all of the complexity to the plot, the philosophy, the mentions of the west, boiled down every theme to something something 'friendship' and Frodo's whole agency in the ring's destruction entirely.

So I really don't see where RoP is going wrong if we're all fine with the jackson trilogy. Is it the heart? If you watched the interviews from cast and crew, I think you'd find a lot of what you're looking for. Peter Jackson was under the thumb of a massive profiteering mega corporation too, Harvey Weinstein literally produced those films.

I'm not saying you can't dislike it, I'm not even saying don't criticise it or hate on it! What I'm saying is #1 think about where you got the information that caused you to hate it, #2 make sure that's not misinformation #3 allow RoP's right to exist, even if you hate it. Don't treat tolkien's work like a religious text that cannot be tainted, it is still just a story and anyone could improve upon it if they wished.

#rings of power #the rings of power #tolkien #chats #erran ama #rop ama

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medea10 · 2 years

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My Review of Princess Sara

And now I return for more World Masterpiece Theater.

Today’s classic is something I’m somewhat familiar with. The series is loosely based on the novel titled, “A Little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. There were several adaptations for film and television throughout the past several decades including a Shirley Temple film in the late 1930’s, an Americanized version in the 90s, and about a bajillion Filipino adaptations. The one I’m most familiar with was the one that came out in 1995. I remember this film very well as it was played a lot in my youth and as an adult, I would come across it from time to time on HBO or some other station playing it. It was fine and all, but I knew that this film took artistic liberties and changed around a lot from the novel.

After watching several of these World Masterpiece Theater animes, I’ve come to realize that these series are pretty damn accurate when it comes to capturing the original source material. I mean yes, Les Mis took a lot of liberties to remove several characters from being killed off, but it was still top tier best version. All of these animes have to take a few liberties as they are all G-Rated. But they’re still very good nevertheless. I was curious about this particular story for the longest time and thought it was high-time I sit down and watch the anime version.

Sara Crewe and her father arrive in London from India. Back home, Sara was treated a lot like a princess and she acted like one. Not the bad kind, the Princess Diana kind, she’s a sweetheart. Sara is about to be admitted to a boarding school, Miss Minchin’s all-girl’s boarding school that is! Once at school, Sara was beloved by most of the students and praised by teachers due to her academic skills. On top of which, her father is loaded! Yeah, her father is in the diamond business back in India and so he has enough money to keep her daughter happy.

Unfortunately, when Sara’s father dies news also comes that the family is bankrupt leaving Sara without a penny to her name. Surely Miss Minchin will care for the poor orphan girl, right? Ha, I already know this story. Miss Minchin strips Sara of her education, clothes, and housing. Even though she tossed around the idea of casting the orphaned girl to the streets, Miss Minchin takes pity on the girl. Sara will live in a cold attic and work as a scullery maid. Sara is to do as she’s told by her higher-ups, never talk with the other students, and must work until she pays off her debts to Miss Minchin.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: As I’ve mentioned in the past, only a few of the World Masterpiece Theater animes were dubbed into English. And this was one of them…sorta! Our good friends at Animax did one. And if you’re unfamiliar, this is the company from Southeast Asia that dubs anime into English. And if that still doesn’t ring a bell, look up the Cardcaptor Sakura dub and you’ve got your answer. As usual, this anime has made its way across the globe to many different countries and territories. Apparently, it was a big hit in the Philippines. So much so that there’s a plethora of memes surrounding this one series! As for the cast, it’s a mixture of veteran voice actors that are still voicing today, lesser-known voices, and one-timers. And as this is a part of the World Masterpiece Theater collection, some voice actors here were heard in other works throughout the years like Naoko Watanabe and Eiko Yamada. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Sara is played by Sumi Shimamoto (known for Okita’s sister on Gintama, Kanata on Lucky Star, Ishizu on YGO, and Flora on Berserk 2016)

*Becky is played by Teiyuu Ichiryuusai (known for Masao on Crayon Shin-chan)

*Miss Minchin is played by Taeko Nakanishi

DISLIKED CHARACTERS: Oh-ho-ho, I knew going in that I was going to hate two specific characters! Those two are Lavinia and Miss Minchin. Though when I watched the movie, it was more of a hatred for Miss Minchin overall and Lavinia was a passing thought. Has this anime changed my thoughts on these two?

Right from the starting gate, they are both detestable and will continue to be that.

Lavinia is a snot-nosed brat who gets jealous every time Sara gets attention from the teachers. But the greatest injustice done to Lavinia was that Miss Minchin took Lavinia’s role of class rep and gave it to Sara. So the bitch was butt-hurt. But when Sara’s father died and she loses her wealth, Lavinia showed absolutely no sadness. In fact, she was the only person in the room smiling. What a bitch! And when Sara became a scullery maid for the seminary, Lavinia made sure to screw around with Sara by any means necessary. She gets a kick from making the poor girl suffer or get yelled at. Seriously, every time you see this snot-nosed brat glare at Sara I’m screaming, “JUST LEAVE THE POOR GIRL ALONE!”

Thank God there was a second of peace. Lavinia’s father learned that Sara was once a student but is now a scullery maid and Lavinia being so insistent that Sara become her personal maid. He slapped the freckles off that bitch’s face. Give that father a cash prize and a trophy! Mind you I said one second of peace. The next episode she was right back giving Sara (and Becky) a hard time. Lavinia does so much to Sara that I can’t believe Sara managed to remain civil throughout the entire ordeal.

And as for Miss Minchin, she’s had it out for Sara from minute one. But because her father was wealthy, she decided to use Sara to show off to high society people. And the brewing point for Miss Minchin to vow vengeance against Sara was because Sara hid the fact that she was fluent in French. The audacity of this bitch! But again, because of Sara’s father, she sucked up. Miss Minchin’s true colors came out in front of Sara when it’s learned of her father’s death and failed diamond business. No pity on the girl who just lost everything. She was ready to throw her out on the street, but was begged by others to keep her as a maid.

Miss Minchin would be terrible to Sara. She physically abused her, starved her, forced her to live in unlivable conditions, and had the other workers (Molly and James) work her like a slave. One of the worst moments was when Sara got severely ill. Never mind pushing Sara to the point of illness, this woman had to think for a moment to get a credible doctor to look at her. She got the cheapest, drunkest doctor they could find who misdiagnosed her. Miss Minchin even thought about sending Sara to a sanitorium if this persists. Bitch, I can’t even with you! At least in this version, Miss Minchin never sent the police on Sara. Of the three versions to this story I’ve watched, I think this Miss Minchin was the cruelest. Only because we do witness her slapping Sara several times!

SHIPPING: I know I shouldn’t be shipping anyone with anybody. Most of the people in this story are young. VERY YOUNG! As for the adults, there were no romantic interests for anyone here. It’s plainly clear that Miss Minchin is going to die a spinster. None of the teachers had secret relationships with some guy like in the Shirley Temple version. And Miss Amelia didn’t run off with the milk man like in the 1995 version! None of that went down in this adaptation.

With that said…

Peter x Sara is cute! I would support the hell out of this even though it probably isn’t canon.

ACCURATE OR NOT: So let’s see if Princess Sara really stacks up to the novel “A Little Princess”.

*Oh-ho-ho, time to nail my childhood to a wall. As you know, I’m well familiar with the 1995 rendition of A Little Princess. If you’re like me and know this film from start to finish, get ready to have the balloon pop. Becky’s not black. The story takes place in London, not New York City. The story really takes place in the late 1800s, not World War I times. Ralph Crewe didn’t leave his daughter to fight in a war. And finally the most important fact, Ralph Crewe remains dead. Most of the things I mentioned here were used correctly in this adaptation.

*There are some new characters added to the series. And quite frankly, I’m not entirely sure who these people are. Except for the animals! With the exception of Ram Dass’s monkey, I don’t think Miss Minchin’s cat Cesar nor the family of rats exist.

*Most things in this anime are pretty accurate to the original source. But there’s a good chance that most of the episodes were either fabricated or stretched out to fit the running time. You know, fillers! Call me crazy, but I don’t think the book had chapters involving a Halloween party. Same goes for that episode where Amelia opens up to Sara about her past with her sister.

*It is unknown how long this experience for Sara lasts anime-wise. In the book, Sara’s time at Miss Minchin’s seminary was approximately 2 years. The way I see it, I don’t think Sara was a scullery maid for more than a year in the anime. If she were, we would have probably gotten an episode of Sara celebrating her first birthday without her father.

ENDING: Around episode 30, the home next to Miss Minchin’s seminary was sold to a gentleman from India named Mr. Carrisford. He was able to survive a gnarly bout with Jungle Fever, although now he’s confined to a wheel chair. But Mr. Carrisford has an overwhelming sense of guilt due to how things went down in India. See, he convinced his long-time friend to go into business with him involving a diamond mine. But the friend died from his Jungle Fever, leaving behind a daughter and a whole legal battle involving bankruptcy.

In case you’re not keeping up, Mr. Carrisford’s friend is Ralph Crewe, Sara’s father. Sara is just several feet from the gentleman who can save her from the living hell of Miss Minchin’s seminary.

But Medea, we’ve got over 15 episodes left!

Correct, dipshit! Mr. Carrisford doesn’t remember a lot, probably due to the Jungle Fever. He doesn’t remember Ralph’s daughter’s name. And he forgot where Sara was sent for her education. In fact, he was way off. Mr. Carrisford had his friend travel by boat to France in search for this girl. So I’m sitting here episode-after-episode screaming at the screen, “SHE’S RIGHT THERE, YOU IDIOT”. But because of Sara’s friendship with Ram Dass (Carrisford’s caretaker), he saw to it to repay Sara for her kindness. Ram Dass would spend days and nights going to the attic to give Sara warm blankets, clothes, and food. Sara thought it was a magic spell or a guardian angel looking out for her. It wasn’t long before Miss Minchin saw these special items in the attic and threw Sara out to sleep in a horse stable.

Things only get worse from here when one night the stable catches on fire and Sara almost burned to death. And then she gets blamed by Miss Minchin for starting the fire! This is the one and only time I’ve ever seen Sara stand up to Miss Minchin as she was not at fault. I know it’d be asking too much to have Sara tell Miss Minchin to fuck off, but this was big for Sara to stand up for herself. In actuality, Lottie accidentally dropped a candle when she was scared by (you guessed it) Lavinia and her friends. But no, Miss Minchin jumped to every wrong conclusion and threw Sara out of the seminary. Fortunately, Sara was taken in by Peter and his family and she was even able to get a job like many of the other children in the area.

Sara’s going to be a little match girl!

This anime hurts to watch. This anime hurts a lot.

Thankfully Sara’s stint as a little match girl was short-lived as Miss Amelia came looking for her and brought her back to the seminary. The only reason behind that is because there was a big care package addressed to Sara. Miss Minchin made it very clear that she still despises Sara. But Minchin flips her light-switch when she sees the care package contained beautiful clothing and such. Because she thought Sara was being watched by a wealthy and anonymous family member, she allows Sara to live in the attic and attend classes instead of doing chores with Becky. She goes back to kissing her ass. Again, the audacity of this bitch!

Moving back to Mr. Carrisford’s dilemma! He sent his solicitor to France in search of Ralph Crewe’s daughter. He returned with no such luck of a daughter. Then, they decide to hone their search to right here in England because this is where Ralph was from. Thankfully, fate intervened before they start another grand search as Sara came by the home to return Ram Dass’s monkey. Here it is, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Sara meeting Mr. Carrisford! He learns Sara knows some Hindu and grew up in India. He put 2+2 together and realized the girl from next door he’s been secretly helping was really Ralph Crewe’s daughter all along!

When Miss Minchin went next door to retrieve Sara, she was in for the shock of her life. Carrisford is going to adopt Sara. The diamond mine that was rumored to be a bust, was really fortuitous. Sara’s debts are wiped away. Not only is she inheritor to her father’s share, but she will also obtain Carrisford’s share when he passes (he has no heir of his own). And to top it off, he knows about the abuse of Sara so Sara is going to live next door instead of a creaky attic. You know, it’s not nice to kick people while their down. But fuck that, this bitch has needed a royal-ass beat down since episode one. Time for Miss Minchin’s sister to have her say!

MISS AMELIA: Throughout these 40-odd episodes, she is seen as the submissive sister, doing whatever Miss Minchin says. Amelia just stands there looking concerned every, single, fucking episode and does fucking nothing! She sees Sara suffering in silence with a smile on her face and says nothing to her sister. She even goes a step beyond that by begging Sara to forgive her sister several episodes prior to this very moment. We do get some light shed on Miss Minchin and Amelia’s past about how Miss Minchin worked odd jobs to take care of Amelia due to lack of parents. Not sure if this is really true or not, so I’m leaving it off my accuracy list. When Miss Minchin returns to the seminary and tells her sister what went down with Mr. Carrisford, Miss Amelia let her sister have it.

It was a long-time coming and I can understand a person like Amelia letting loose. Some people hold it in for so long until they’re filled to the top and explode. I’m one of those people, so again, I can relate in a way. Amelia spent this whole time contemplating whether to speak up about Sara’s abuse by her own sister or to shut up and do what her sister says. Hearing about Mr. Carrisford taking Sara snapped Amelia and she had a total breakdown. And all I can say is, “Bravo”! Amelia was absolutely right and I’m glad Miss Minchin heard it. It was all her fault. And if the seminary closes because people hear about Sara’s abuse, it’ll be all her fault.

BACK TO THE CONCLUSION: Fortunately for Miss Minchin, Sara is kind and forgiving. She had Mr. Carrisford give a sizable donation to Miss Minchin’s seminary. Miss Minchin was a notorious penny-pincher, so this should settle her. Sara gets quite the happy ending as she gets to live with Mr. Carrisford and still go to school. She has Becky become her personal maid. All of Sara’s belongings that were taken away when Ralph died are returned to her on Christmas. A little starving girl she helped early in the series has a happy ending as well. And we end with Sara and her new family go back to India. It’s for 4 months to settle things on the Crewe estate, but she’ll be back.

At least when she comes back, Lavinia won’t be there. Good riddance! At least they come to some sort of truce.

No matter what version of A Little Princess you watch, it’s always going to be a tough watch. Because of the size of this series, it can sometimes be too hard to watch. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good story where a character takes on adversity and struggles. But there comes a time when struggle just becomes borderline torture-porn. You know those stories where the hero has to go through so much pain and agony and eventually get some sort of satisfied conclusion. The anime The Rising of the Shield Hero and the movie Precious comes to mind. Thank God Sara never had to endure what Precious did. Still bad though! At least with the movie adaptations to Princess Sara, we only watch Sara’s struggles for like, what, an hour or maybe less. This is over 30 episodes of watching this girl get abused. That’s 23 minutes per episode, mind you! Not just from Miss Minchin, but the cooks and one smarmy brat who has a vendetta. All the while, you’re telling yourself, “Dude, you know this story and it’s going to get better”. But it’s not an easy watch! There are scenes where you just wish they’d leave Sara alone or just wish for things to get better.

Is this my favorite adaptations of A Little Princess? Hmm…I don’t know! I really liked this version of the story, but I still have an attachment to the 1995 film. Granted, the animation is always a bit of a drawback when it comes to these animes. But I have to cut some slack as this was mid-1980s here. If you were a fan of this story, whether you saw the 1995 film, the Shirley Temple film, or any of the other adaptations out there, I give a recommendation. Track this down and give it a watch.

Okay Randomizer-kun, I’m giving you another shot. Please don’t give me an obscure hentai to watch in place of this.

Oh thank God, another Nippon animation!

#anime review #a little princess #princess sara #sara crewe #ralph crewe #miss minchin #becky #amelia minchin #lavinia herbert #peter #a little princess sara

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thelreads · 1 year

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They're planning to deal with Queen because they want to save Pop before she gets arrested or dies, and Pop is in this situation exactly because of all the underground stuff that flew under the heroes' radar. The Villain Factory and Six *are* things that flew under the radar in this universe, that's literally the reason why AFO and Ujiko with his Nomu weren't discovered until after Shigaraki's debut at USJ. I dislike a lot of Furuhashi's writing choices, but starting with smaller scale issues and ending up dealing with bigger scale issues as the result is a pretty common story direction. I'm not sure I understand the critique about what vigilantes are in Vigs either, since it was made clear fairly early even in the original manga that in this universe anyone who's doing "hero" jobs or even just simply using their quirks without having a license (for different reasons) are criminals in the eyes of the law, and that's why they're either "vigilantes" if they're not doing anything harmful to society or "villains" if they do.

No no, I am not complaining about the stakes going up, I'm more miffed over the way they went up. How did the story starts? Fighting Low level criminals taking a booster drug to try to get it out of the streets, then a vigilante that kills criminals and is a risk to society, we escalate to some low level villain that is spreading the drug, then said villain try to kill a whole bus full of civilians, later we discover said villain is the daughter of one of them being brainwashed into being a villain- see, this was a nice and smooth curve. The stakes are going up, the danger is rising and the heroes have to adapt to bigger dangers, but even so they are still at a level where it makes sense for amateurs that want to do good (not counting Knuckles of course)

Then suddenly everything gets thrown out of wack. The villains are super bioengineered indestructible weapons, things are blowing up left and right and even pro heroes are struggling to fight back. It's like we were going up 2 by 2, then out if nowhere we jumped in 80 points. The enemies are no longer things that make sense for the development of the story and the characters, because they are too far ahead.

I think it would be fine if eventually the monsters were proto nomus, but those should've been late-stage foes, not things we're seeing right at the start of the story. Actually the fact that thise things are flying under the radar don't make any sense, considering that people are investigating it, and even Phelps is involved; he eventually became All Might's closest confident, how did All Might never knew that AfO was still out there? Or at least a connection to those events once the USJ was attacked? Sure, you can say that since the story was written after that Horikoshi hadn't thought about it, but that's a thing, when you write a sequel you can't go around punching holes in the main story, you have to respect what happens later on, or at the very least come up with some pretty strong reasons for them to never come up, least you want assholes like me complaining on the internet lmao

And my complaining about the definition of vigilantes ties it up to the talks about escalation of stakes. Vigilantes were supposed to be solving crimes that the heroes are either unaware of, that are so below their radar they have no idea what's going on, things that happen on the streets and that only people that are close to this underworld would be aware of, and would be able to deal with due to the lack of restraining laws and rules, but after a while we only saw Vigilantes doing actual pro hero stuff. And what's worse, all the heroes are absolutely chill with them around, even though they were supposed to be criminals.

Now sure, that could be actually a fascinating world building piece, that publicly the heroes belittle the vigilantes as criminals but resort to them for help when things might stain their hands, but that's absolutely not what we've seen. Koichi is completely public figure like any other pro hero, everyone in the neighborhood knows him and even the cops and heroes know who he is, what he's doing and even where he lives, and nobody cares. Phelps you could understand, since he had a personal debt to him, but others? Nah.

Actually, the more I think, the more I realize that for a story that was about people that weren't pro heroes, pretty much all the conflicts were solved because of heroes. Tensei, Aizawa, Fatgum, Midnight, Captain Celebrity, All Might- even if koichi helped a lot in most of those cases, the ones that actually solved things were always the heroes. Hell we eve had an entire arc about the backstory of a hero from the main series! Sure, it was awesome as fuck and I loved it, but, why here? Why not make a spin-off solely a out Aizawa's past? That arc had zero impact on this manga besides getting Aizawa out of the story, and if the idea was to answer questions about Kurogiri in the main series then why A) didn't they made an special spin-off solely about them, or B) PUT IT INTO THE MAIN STORY?!

It is a bunch of small nitpicks, the problem is that they keep piling on and on, and I can't ignore them. I am really passionate about story structure and writing in general, even if I'm not the greatest at actually doing them, and although I can ignore minor problems if the story is entertaining, if those minor problems keep multiplying I start to climb up the walls and spit venom at everyone passing by lol

#inbetween #VBNAHC75

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thenotificationmachine · 1 year

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A Rant About the State of My Favourite Stories

I bet you're all wondering by now why I keep ranting about my annoyances over Helluva Boss instead of just talking about something else. First of all, I should definitely start doing that; there's no point dwelling on this painful abortion of a series/setting when I have other things to enjoy.

But secondly, I was so invested in Helluva - and hence so, so disappointed when it began to fail (both in terms of my expectations and its own continuity) - was because it was something NEW when so many of my interests have essentially stopped growing.

That's not to say they're dead - on the contrary, in many cases they're still alive and kicking - but there's no way I'm invested in what new stuff is being produced. I was really into Star Wars until I realised how badly Disney was destroying it with the "sequel" trilogy and all the horrible retcons, but at the very least I still have the movies, the Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons (yes, I actually liked Rebels) and - if absolutely necessary - the old, confusing but still somewhat interesting Legends continuity (aka the old Expanded Universe), even if it's way too messy for my liking.

Warhammer 40k has certainly become weird since the Gathering Storm, but since the staff at GW put out what essentially amounts to a license to ignore the Primaris marines, Votann and any other botched modern lore I dislike by saying that "everything is canon, but not everything is true", even if that wasn't their original intent, I'll happily take it. And then there's the Horus Heresy if things get REALLY bad.

Doctor Who has certainly declined HORRIBLY since Chinballs took over and politicised everything while destroying the Doctor's backstory, but at the very least I can just ignore everything that came out from 2018 onwards.

And as for the Lord of the Rings (and the rest of Tolkien's legendarium), it was always a static work once Tolkien and his son passed away and so any bad adaptations mean even less than they do in any other context since I can just go back to the books (and Peter Jackson's movies, since they're great).

But all the same, I can't look forward to any new things coming out of the above fandoms besides fan works (except Warhammer) and have to rely on the old stuff otherwise. Not exactly the most ideal situation for a fan of something. So Helluva, which was something entirely new, was genuinely exciting with its worldbuilding and captivating characters (especially a certain pink succubus). This made it all the more painful when it began falling apart since there was no extensive mine of past material for me to fall back on and since the story direction and characterisation has (in my opinion) begun falling apart so (relatively) early in, it will always feel... incomplete to me and I can only rely on my own headcanons and fan materials, which don't feel the same as the canon, botched as it is. Combine that with me being tired of losing most of my interest interest in almost all of my former fandoms and the fact that my favourite character, the only one I've truly managed to make a connection with, is a side character that has way more potential than screen time than Viv is willing to give her, feels genuinely heartbreaking to me. Melodramatic, I know, but that's how it feels to me.

Alright, now that I've said my piece, I'll get back to enjoying the remaining fandoms I have and try to stick to Helluva through the fandom side of things. Who knows, I might even try to tell my own versions of the story someday - I doubt I could do as badly as Viv, anyway. And at least I have video games to enjoy; Metroid and Zelda still have expanding storylines that I don't have to ignore!

#sorry for the rant #I had to get this off my chest #I'll try not to rant about Verosika anymore #I admit that I have a problem regarding her getting sidelined and now it's up to me to fix it #I have more than enough to enjoy in the meantime #I just have to muster the enthusiasm to care again

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suzdotranslation · 2 years

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[Interview TL] Utsugi Uyu DengekiOnline Interview

Original article here

The phantom thief that values beauty, Interview with Utsugi Uyu.

What’s a “god-like” scene during a horror game stream looked like?

――There might be people reading this article who weren’t familiar with UPROAR!! so please introduce yourself!

I’m a phantom thief who also works as a café manager, the name is Utsugi Uyu! I mostly streamed gaming content, with horror games as my main. I'm not easily scared so if you'd like to watch a horror game stream with a fun vibe, feel free to drop by!

――In your own opinion, what kind of unit UPROAR!! is like?

For me, they're like a comrade in arms who does their best and aren’t afraid of being honest. Usually, I'd only show my good parts toward others but now I don't have any problem showing even my worst. That's the kind of place UPROAR!! is in my opinion.

――Please tell us about your views on beauty and things you keep in mind as a phantom thief

I steal things not because I want them, but because I think they will fit me if I own them. I don’t target only aesthetically pleasing things, but it is part of the factor I keep in mind.

――What do you think your charm point is?

My face obviously (lol)

――If you were to compare yourself to an animal?

I always got assigned a dog in those animal personality tests, so I guess a dog then?

――What is your favorite food?

Chocolate!

――Do you have something you disliked?

I guess that would be... That one black thing with rustling noises...

――Do you have someone that you respect a lot?

All of my Hololive Production seniors

――Do you have a special skill you’re proud of?

Using a voice changer to play around with my voice.

――A song you’d do good at during karaoke?

Wada Koji's Butterfly.

――In June, you finally dropped your first "cover song" video, is there any plan to do more song covers from now on as well?

Of course! I actually have prepared a one-chorus cover that’s already mixed for a practice and covers that weren't originally planned to be uploaded, I’m thinking to have these revealed as membership-only contents eventually.

――Do you have any recent games you're interested in?

Splatoon3 which is coming out this September! I'm not that good at it but it's one of my favorite games, I'm excited to see how much different it is compared to the 2nd game and what kind of new weapons it'll have!

――Is there any entertainment content you'd be interested in currently?

An anime called "Mushoku Tensei(Jobless Reincarnation)” who's also getting a 2nd season around next year. Although I've been liking the series before it got adapted, the first season was nicely animated despite it coming from a newly established animation studio. It's a series with a great story, animation, and music. I'm really looking forward to the sequel.

――What's your current obsession?

Going to the sauna!

――What's something that made you laugh recently?

We recently had a full Uproar!! collab of us playing horror game, I remembered during that collab everyone actually screamed so genuinely that it made me laugh (lol).

――What is the number one thing that made you cry recently?

I cried at the last part while watching a movie called Guardians of Galaxy: Remix... I recommend everyone to check out Marvel's movies as well!

――What was something you're most embarrassed about lately?

There's that time when I found a dog being tied in front of a convenience store, before I realized it the owner came back and actually has been watching for a while already...

――Please tell us a "god-like scene" from one of your recent streams!

The screaming part during Uproar!!'s DEVOUR collab! I never really "screamed" much whenever I played horror games so far, but only in this one where I let out a genuine scream. In a way, listening to someone who rarely screamed might've been quite a "godly" experience itself.

――Please tell us your impression of your first special program "Jump Uproar!!"

Simply put, "I'm just so taken aback that I couldn't find the right word to convey my feelings now." The happiness I felt from having my first special program and how things will go from now on, it's just a lot of feelings in one and at some point it made me cry a bit, it's a secret though (lol).

――Please let us know any interesting points from the program!

It's like you're seeing a group of lively close-knitted college friends. As they progress, they learned to grow as an idol through the program as well... I think that's part of the show's charm.

――Please tell us your honest feeling from being dragged into bungee jumping recently!

I casually yelled "Oh this is like the one I saw on a variety show!!" to myself. Going to high places or seeking thrill has been part of my hobby at first, I even like watching variety shows about it so I actually felt quite jumpy at that time!

――With that sudden bungee jumping, it looked like Utsugi-san enjoyed the experience a lot. Did you feel anything different from before and after doing it?

There's no change in how I feel about it personally. But when I thought about going for a 2nd run, I felt a bit of pain around my crotch area when I was getting pulled back so I gave up on it. That might be the only difference I felt about bungee jumping afterward!

――You've become the top batter based on the rock-paper-scissors result but how did you feel personally?

Obviously, I felt quite "lucky!" at that time! Not only at bungee jumping, I generally like being in high places since a long time ago so I was thinking of going all in while trying to let the others know so I can "Give them the pressure!". If you're curious how everyone else's bungee experience went after I did, don't forget to check the full video itself!

――Uproar's manifesto was to "Take the top with four of us" and for that reason, are there certain challenges that you wish to do with your group?

The bungee jumping aside, I'd like to do more on-site shooting like in "Jump Uproar!!" and attempt things that no other VTuber had done so far. I believe by doing that, everyone will be able to see our growth as idols and have fun during it as well!

――Lastly please tell us your message to the fans.

"I love you guys"

#type: interviews #topic: holostars #topic: utsugi uyu

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titoist · 1 year

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just finished watching the (very loose) film adaptation of "Four Nights Of A Dreamer" from 1971, & enjoyed it very, very much. well, it's a french adaptation of a dostoevsky novel, which probably tells you everything you might need to expect beforehand. i suppose i'll preface my thoughts by conceding that, by all accounts, i probably should have very much disliked it. the framing is bizarre. the storytelling relies on the audience already having a vague idea of what happens in the novel, & is completely obtuse in the case of such an understanding being absent. the actors walk & talk & behave so stiltedly that they seem more like strange aliens attempting to act human - monotone deliveries, stiff movements, bizarre & absurd shifts in the mood and tone from scene to scene, the audience's emotional expectations are consistently trampled upon again & again. & this is all, i heavily suspect, on purpose. bresson's style of french cinema is, i can only imagine, an acquired taste. but there's just something about it. even though the film is, by comparison, a sort of vague & indifferent gesturing towards dostoevsky's original parable, it's so beautiful that i can't not find it endearing. even if it's actively mocking & deriding the source material! which i got the sense it might have been doing. hidden just out of view - in the way that bresson films his delicately exaggerated, romantic vision of paris at night; the wonderfully lit-up tourist boats; the fuzzy lights; the way that the sun hits the back of jacques' coat & you can tell it's made of tweed - is a love of humanity so beautiful & unconditional it could bring me to tears. i probably have never viscerally related to a film character as much as jacques, silently watching him traipse around his unkempt apartment, recording his fantasies to himself & playing them back in an attempt to wring out any sort of inspiration at all.

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yourstreetserenade · 2 years

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Next in line for my spooky season rewatch is a movie I've never watched and is not spooky at all. In fact it was a total accident that I even consumed this piece of media. I only watched it because my niece saw the bright colors and just pressed play. The Munsters (2022).

Now in my previous post I talked about how certain bad movies are so ridiculously, absurdly bad that they can be entertaining and thus have a sort of cinematic value. The Munsters (2022) is not that kind of bad, and it's not good either. It's just pointless and charmless.

So first off, I'm not one of those people who cry about remakes. I love a good remake and even if said remake doesn't resonate with me personally I can appreciate that it might speak to a different, younger generation. For instance, I loved the original The Little Mermaid, I'm not really interested in any live action adaptation however I love that young black and brown girls are going to see themselves on screen in this new Ariel. I'm sure I would have loved it if I was watching it as a little girl and I'll still probably end up watching it now and even enjoying it, but I'm fine if it doesn't move me because maybe it just isn't meant for me. Maybe it's meant for this generation.

That said, yes I watched old reruns of The Munsters when I was a kid. It wasn't a property that I felt terribly connected or invested in but I enjoyed it, I saw the charm of it and it as a sitcom had an understanding of basic comedy.

When I heard about Rob Zombie taking the helm of a remake I was interested in what he would do and what tone he would take.

But, and this is where I take a detour to talk about my issues with Rob Zombie films. I'm not a fan of them and for someone who generally enjoys horror that's surprising yes? I could never place or put my finger on why until I heard Peaches Christ talk about Zombie's work on the Development Hell podcast. Peaches summed up Zombie's work and why they had a dislike for it: Rob Zombie is obsessed with creating films about poor and/or uneducated and/or mentally ill people and portraying them as violent, as if violence goes hand in hand with those things.

When I heard Peaches explain it that way it clicked as to why I never cared for Rob Zombie's films. Horror movies can be sick and twisted, but a really good horror movie can manage to be sick and twisted and clever. Nothing about Zombie's films feels like it was made with passion for storytelling. I'm sure the actors and crew and make up and special effects team all brought their A game to each of his projects, but as far as Rob Zombie's vision? I never got it because tbh I don't think he has one.

If you're a horror fan that just wants to turn your brain off and enjoy some blood and guts, maybe his films are for you and that's cool. I think I require just a little more... something.

Rob Zombie's The Munsters is a breathtaking failure in terms of comedy and charm however.

He's shown that he can make passable, if mediocre, horror movies and that's fine, but with The Munsters (2022) he's shown that he doesn't understand comedy. And as much as I care about horror, I care even more about comedy. There's nothing more painful that reading or watching something that's meant to be funny written by someone who just doesn't have comedy brain. It has to be wired into you as an individual.

My niece got bored of the movie after 20 minutes. She only clicked onto the title because of the vibrant colors, why, because it reminded her of Katy Perry music videos. But there was nothing there to sustain her engagement, or even mine. If Zombie wasn't making this for my generation or for my niece's generation, who the hell was he making it for?

Honestly, you're just better off watching a Katy Perry music video. You'd get more out of it.

#i watch stuff

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midnightwitch92 · 2 years

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Was Anne Boleyn Stalked by Henry VIII?

youtube

There are many versions of Anne’s story. Some say that she was a cold-blooded temptress who set her sights on Henry in hope of gaining power. Other’s claim that she was a romantic heroine who fell for the wrong man. I don't believe either of these versions. I think Henry was a powerful, entitled stalker who obsessively harassed and tried to bully Anne into becoming his mistress.

She was originally engaged to Henry Percy and all historical accounts agree that theirs was a love match. Unfortunately for Anne, Wolsey forbid the marriage to happen and sent Percy away because Henry wanted her for himself. This was the start of Anne’s hatred towards Wolsey and probably even Henry. Percy was married off to someone else severing any hope for him and Anne.

Anne even left the court for a year after Henry made his intentions known. He was the one making all the moves, not the other way around. He bombarded her with gifts and love letters that give us some insights. We don't know how Anne responded to these letters, but the letters from Henry tell us that she was polite but unresponsive when he approached her about being his mistress. It is often said that Anne was playing hard to get but those letters make me think otherwise. I think Henry’s massive ego couldn't handle the rejection so he just insisted that she was teasing him.

Later on, in 1525, she returned to court and had another romance with a poet called Thomas Wyatt, but he soon backed off when he realized Henry was persuing Anne. I think it’s entirely possible that Anne and Thomas were in love but kept each other at arm's length so Henry could not separate the two of them. Just look what happened to Henry Percy. If I were Anne I’d keep my feelings to myself for fear of losing the man I loved.

It’s important to remember that Henry had a very warped sense of chivalry and an even worse understanding of what it means to be in love. Saying no to Henry was dangerous. I sincerely believe that KOA was the only queen that truly loved and wanted to be with Henry and he treated her like dirt, despite her devotion to him. The same applies to the other queens and mistresses. He would interfere and break off engagements, pursue them against their will and cause them and their families great grief if they refused to comply. In his pursuit of Catherine Parr he had, Thomas Seymour sent away so he could marry her. The same might have happened with Jane Seymour. In all the adaptations of Henry viii, Richard Burton might be the best example of this. He relentlessly showers Anne with words of love while ignoring her dislike of him and screaming at her when she speaks of her love for Percy. There are scene’s where he reminded me of Killgrave from Jessica Jones, insisting that one day she will love him and that if she just gives herself to him he will be her slave. It’s really unsettling.

Something that got me thinking in some versions is the idea that Anne insisted on marriage because she wanted to be Henry’s queen. On the one hand, she had seen how he disposed of his mistresses and wasn't about to meet the same fate as her sister. Mary Boleyn had been his mistress for some time before being discarded. This damaged her reputation, ruined her marriage prospects and she was mocked as the great prostitute. Anne was certainly ambitious and to a certain extent, she must have enjoyed the power she held over the king. If she was going to have to get with Henry it makes sense that she would set a high bar.

On the other hand, she could have asked for marriage as a way of trying to dissuade him. She knew how powerful KOA was and that a divorce would be near impossible. Perhaps she was praying every day for him to tire of her and set his sights on the next pretty thing in court But with his obsession in full force for seven years and her father and uncle pushing her towards him for their own gain she could hardly wriggle out of it when he did as she asked. I doubt she ever loved him at all. I think she may have just grown to accept her fate in the end.

I’d love to see a version of their Story where Henry is the Joe Goldberg to Anne’s Guinevere Beck. Same for the other queens. Living with Henry would be more like a psychological thriller than a romance as they fight to stay alive

#anne boleyn #henry viii #the tudors #stalker #history #love letters #horror #thriller #longing #obsessed #powerful #king henry viii #queen anne boleyn #henry percy #thomas wyatt #poetry #Youtube

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innuendostudios · 3 years

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Thoughts on: Criterion's Neo-Noir Collection

I have written up all 26 films* in the Criterion Channel's Neo-Noir Collection.

Legend: rw - rewatch; a movie I had seen before going through the collection dnrw - did not rewatch; if a movie met two criteria (a. I had seen it within the last 18 months, b. I actively dislike it) I wrote it up from memory.

* in September, Brick leaves the Criterion Channel and is replaced in the collection with Michael Mann's Thief. May add it to the list when that happens.

Note: These are very "what was on my mind after watching." No effort has been made to avoid spoilers, nor to make the plot clear for anyone who hasn't seen the movies in question. Decide for yourself if that's interesting to you.

Cotton Comes to Harlem I feel utterly unequipped to asses this movie. This and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song the following year are regularly cited as the progenitors of the blaxploitation genre. (This is arguably unfair, since both were made by Black men and dealt much more substantively with race than the white-directed films that followed them.) Its heroes are a couple of Black cops who are treated with suspicion both by their white colleagues and by the Black community they're meant to police. I'm not 100% clear on whether they're the good guys? I mean, I think they are. But the community's suspicion of them seems, I dunno... well-founded? They are working for The Man. And there's interesting discussion to the had there - is the the problem that the law is carried out by racists, or is the law itself racist? Can Black cops make anything better? But it feels like the film stacks the deck in Gravedigger and Coffin Ed's favor; the local Black church is run by a conman, the Back-to-Africa movement is, itself, a con, and the local Black Power movement is treated as an obstacle. Black cops really are the only force for justice here. Movie portrays Harlem itself as a warm, thriving, cultured community, but the people that make up that community are disloyal and easily fooled. Felt, to me, like the message was "just because they're cops doesn't mean they don't have Black soul," which, nowadays, we would call copaganda. But, then, do I know what I'm talking about? Do I know how much this played into or off of or against stereotypes from 1970? Was this a radical departure I don't have the context to appreciate? Is there substance I'm too white and too many decades removed to pick up on? Am I wildly overthinking this? I dunno. Seems like everyone involved was having a lot of fun, at least. That bit is contagious.

Across 110th Street And here's the other side of the "race film" equation. Another movie set in Harlem with a Black cop pulled between the police, the criminals, and the public, but this time the film is made by white people. I like it both more and less. Pro: this time the difficult position of Black cop who's treated with suspicion by both white cops and Black Harlemites is interrogated. Con: the Black cop has basically no personality other than "honest cop." Pro: the racism of the police force is explicit and systemic, as opposed to comically ineffectual. Con: the movie is shaped around a racist white cop who beats the shit out of Black people but slowly forms a bond with his Black partner. Pro: the Black criminal at the heart of the movie talks openly about how the white world has stacked the deck against him, and he's soulful and relateable. Con: so of course he dies in the end, because the only way privileged people know to sympathetize with minorities is to make them tragic (see also: The Boys in the Band, Philadelphia, and Brokeback Mountain for gay men). Additional con: this time Harlem is portrayed as a hellhole. Barely any of the community is even seen. At least the shot at the end, where the criminal realizes he's going to die and throws the bag of money off a roof and into a playground so the Black kids can pick it up before the cops reclaim it was powerful. But overall... yech. Cotton Comes to Harlem felt like it wasn't for me; this feels like it was 100% for me and I respect it less for that.

The Long Goodbye (rw) The shaggiest dog. Like much Altman, more compelling than good, but very compelling. Raymond Chandler's story is now set in the 1970's, but Philip Marlowe is the same Philip Marlowe of the 1930's. I get the sense there was always something inherently sad about Marlowe. Classic noir always portrayed its detectives as strong-willed men living on the border between the straightlaced world and its seedy underbelly, crossing back and forth freely but belonging to neither. But Chandler stresses the loneliness of it - or, at least, the people who've adapted Chandler do. Marlowe is a decent man in an indecent world, sorting things out, refusing to profit from misery, but unable to set anything truly right. Being a man out of step is here literalized by putting him forty years from the era where he belongs. His hardboiled internal monologue is now the incessant mutterings of the weird guy across the street who never stops smoking. Like I said: compelling! Kael's observation was spot on: everyone in the movie knows more about the mystery than he does, but he's the only one who cares. The mystery is pretty threadbare - Marlowe doesn't detect so much as end up in places and have people explain things to him. But I've seen it two or three times now, and it does linger.

Chinatown (rw) I confess I've always been impressed by Chinatown more than I've liked it. Its story structure is impeccable, its atmosphere is gorgeous, its noirish fatalism is raw and real, its deconstruction of the noir hero is well-observed, and it's full of clever detective tricks (the pocket watches, the tail light, the ruler). I've just never connected with it. Maybe it's a little too perfectly crafted. (I feel similar about Miller's Crossing.) And I've always been ambivalent about the ending. In Towne's original ending, Evelyn shoots Noah Cross dead and get arrested, and neither she nor Jake can tell the truth of why she did it, so she goes to jail for murder and her daughter is in the wind. Polansky proposed the ending that exists now, where Evelyn just dies, Cross wins, and Jake walks away devastated. It communicates the same thing: Jake's attempt to get smart and play all the sides off each other instead of just helping Evelyn escape blows up in his face at the expense of the woman he cares about and any sense of real justice. And it does this more dramatically and efficiently than Towne's original ending. But it also treats Evelyn as narratively disposable, and hands the daughter over to the man who raped Evelyn and murdered her husband. It makes the women suffer more to punch up the ending. But can I honestly say that Towne's ending is the better one? It is thematically equal, dramatically inferior, but would distract me less. Not sure what the calculus comes out to there. Maybe there should be a third option. Anyway! A perfect little contraption. Belongs under a glass dome.

Night Moves (rw) Ah yeah, the good shit. This is my quintessential 70's noir. This is three movies in a row about detectives. Thing is, the classic era wasn't as chockablock with hardboiled detectives as we think; most of those movies starred criminals, cops, and boring dudes seduced to the darkness by a pair of legs. Gumshoes just left the strongest impressions. (The genre is said to begin with Maltese Falcon and end with Touch of Evil, after all.) So when the post-Code 70's decided to pick the genre back up while picking it apart, it makes sense that they went for the 'tecs first. The Long Goodbye dragged the 30's detective into the 70's, and Chinatown went back to the 30's with a 70's sensibility. But Night Moves was about detecting in the Watergate era, and how that changed the archetype. Harry Moseby is the detective so obsessed with finding the truth that he might just ruin his life looking for it, like the straight story will somehow fix everything that's broken, like it'll bring back a murdered teenager and repair his marriage and give him a reason to forgive the woman who fucked him just to distract him from some smuggling. When he's got time to kill, he takes out a little, magnetic chess set and recreates a famous old game, where three knight moves (get it?) would have led to a beautiful checkmate had the player just seen it. He keeps going, self-destructing, because he can't stand the idea that the perfect move is there if he can just find it. And, no matter how much we see it destroy him, we, the audience, want him to keep going; we expect a satisfying resolution to the mystery. That's what we need from a detective picture; one character flat-out compares Harry to Sam Spade. But what if the truth is just... Watergate? Just some prick ruining things for selfish reasons? Nothing grand, nothing satisfying. Nothing could be more noir, or more neo-, than that.

Farewell, My Lovely Sometimes the only thing that makes a noir neo- is that it's in color and all the blood, tits, and racism from the books they're based on get put back in. This second stab at Chandler is competant but not much more than that. Mitchum works as Philip Marlowe, but Chandler's dialogue feels off here, like lines that worked on the page don't work aloud, even though they did when Bogie said them. I'll chalk it up to workmanlike but uninspired direction. (Dang this looks bland so soon after Chinatown.) Moose Malloy is a great character, and perfectly cast. (Wasn't sure at first, but it's true.) Some other interesting cats show up and vanish - the tough brothel madam based on Brenda Allen comes to mind, though she's treated with oddly more disdain than most of the other hoods and is dispatched quicker. In general, the more overt racism and misogyny doesn't seem to do anything except make the movie "edgier" than earlier attempts at the same material, and it reads kinda try-hard. But it mostly holds together. *shrug*

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (dnrw) Didn't care for this at all. Can't tell if the script was treated as a jumping-off point or if the dialogue is 100% improvised, but it just drags on forever and is never that interesting. Keeps treating us to scenes from the strip club like they're the opera scenes in Amadeus, and, whatever, I don't expect burlesque to be Mozart, but Cosmo keeps saying they're an artful, classy joint, and I keep waiting for the show to be more than cheap, lazy camp. How do you make gratuitious nudity boring? Mind you, none of this is bad as a rule - I love digressions and can enjoy good sleaze, and it's clear the filmmakers care about what they're making. They just did not sell it in a way I wanted to buy. Can't remember what edit I watched; I hope it was the 135 minute one, because I cannot imagine there being a longer edit out there.

The American Friend (dnrw) It's weird that this is Patricia Highsmith, right? That Dennis Hopper is playing Tom Ripley? In a cowboy hat? I gather that Minghella's version wasn't true to the source, but I do love that movie, and this is a long, long way from that. This Mr. Ripley isn't even particularly talented! Anyway, this has one really great sequence, where a regular guy has been coerced by crooks into murdering someone on a train platform, and, when the moment comes to shoot, he doesn't. And what follows is a prolonged sequence of an amateur trying to surreptitiously tail a guy across a train station and onto another train, and all the while you're not sure... is he going to do it? is he going to chicken out? is he going to do it so badly he gets caught? It's hard not to put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, wondering how you would handle the situation, whether you could do it, whether you could act on impulse before your conscience could catch up with you. It drags on a long while and this time it's a good thing. Didn't much like the rest of the movie, it's shapeless and often kind of corny, and the central plot hook is contrived. (It's also very weird that this is the only Wim Wenders I've seen.) But, hey, I got one excellent sequence, not gonna complain.

The Big Sleep Unlike the 1946 film, I can follow the plot of this Big Sleep. But, also unlike the 1946 version, this one isn't any damn fun. Mitchum is back as Marlowe (this is three Marlowes in five years, btw), and this time it's set in the 70's and in England, for some reason. I don't find this offensive, but neither do I see what it accomplishes? Most of the cast is still American. (Hi Jimmy!) Still holds together, but even less well than Farewell, My Lovely. But I do find it interesting that the neo-noir era keeps returning to Chandler while it's pretty much left Hammet behind (inasmuch as someone whose genes are spread wide through the whole genre can be left behind). Spade and the Continental Op, straightshooting tough guys who come out on top in the end, seem antiquated in the (post-)modern era. But Marlowe's goodness being out of sync with the world around him only seems more poignant the further you take him from his own time. Nowadays you can really only do Hammett as pastiche, but I sense that you could still play Chandler straight.

Eyes of Laura Mars The most De Palma movie I've seen not made by De Palma, complete with POV shots, paranormal hoodoo, and fixation with sex, death, and whether images of such are art or exploitation (or both). Laura Mars takes photographs of naked women in violent tableux, and has gotten quite famous doing so, but is it damaging to women? The movie has more than a superficial engagement with this topic, but only slightly more than superficial. Kept imagining a movie that is about 30% less serial killer story and 30% more art conversations. (But, then, I have an art degree and have never murdered anyone, so.) Like, museums are full of Biblical paintings full of nude women and slaughter, sometimes both at once, and they're called masterpieces. Most all of them were painted by men on commission from other men. Now Laura Mars makes similar images in modern trappings, and has models made of flesh and blood rather than paint, and it's scandalous? Why is it only controversial once women are getting paid for it? On the other hand, is this just the master's tools? Is she subverting or challenging the male gaze, or just profiting off of it? Or is a woman profiting off of it, itself, a subversion? Is it subversive enough to account for how it commodifies female bodies? These questions are pretty clearly relevant to the movie itself, and the movies in general, especially after the fall of the Hays Code when people were really unrestrained with the blood and boobies. And, heck, the lead is played by the star of Bonnie and Clyde! All this is to say: I wish the movie were as interested in these questions as I am. What's there is a mildly diverting B-picture. There's one great bit where Laura's seeing through the killer's eyes (that's the hook, she gets visions from the murderer's POV; no, this is never explained) and he's RIGHT BEHIND HER, so there's a chase where she charges across an empty room only able to see her own fleeing self from ten feet behind. That was pretty great! And her first kiss with the detective (because you could see a mile away that the detective and the woman he's supposed to protect are gonna fall in love) is immediately followed by the two freaking out about how nonsensical it is for them to fall in love with each other, because she's literally mourning multiple deaths and he's being wildly unprofessional, and then they go back to making out. That bit was great, too. The rest... enh.

The Onion Field What starts off as a seemingly not-that-noirish cops-vs-crooks procedural turns into an agonizingly protracted look at the legal system, with the ultimate argument that the very idea of the law ever resulting in justice is a lie. Hoo! I have to say, I'm impressed. There's a scene where a lawyer - whom I'm not sure is even named, he's like the seventh of thirteen we've met - literally quits the law over how long this court case about two guys shooting a cop has taken. He says the cop who was murdered has been forgotten, his partner has never gotten to move on because the case has lasted eight years, nothing has been accomplished, and they should let the two criminals walk and jail all the judges and lawyers instead. It's awesome! The script is loaded with digressions and unnecessary details, just the way I like it. Can't say I'm impressed with the execution. Nothing is wrong, exactly, but the performances all seem a tad melodramatic or a tad uninspired. Camerawork is, again, purely functional. It's no masterpiece. But that second half worked for me. (And it's Ted Danson's first movie! He did great.)

Body Heat (rw) Let's say up front that this is a handsomely-made movie. Probably the best looking thing on the list since Night Moves. Nothing I've seen better captures the swelter of an East Coast heatwave, or the lusty feeling of being too hot to bang and going at it regardless. Kathleen Turner sells the hell out of a femme fatale. There are a lot of good lines and good performances (Ted Danson is back and having the time of his life). I want to get all that out of the way, because this is a movie heavily modeled after Double Indemnity, and I wanted to discuss its merits before I get into why inviting that comparison doesn't help the movie out. In a lot of ways, it's the same rules as the Robert Mitchum Marlowe movies - do Double Indemnity but amp up the sex and violence. And, to a degree it works. (At least, the sex does, dunno that Double Indemnity was crying out for explosions.) But the plot is amped as well, and gets downright silly. Yeah, Mrs. Dietrichson seduces Walter Neff so he'll off her husband, but Neff clocks that pretty early and goes along with it anyway. Everything beyond that is two people keeping too big a secret and slowly turning on each other. But here? For the twists to work Matty has to be, from frame one, playing four-dimensional chess on the order of Senator Palpatine, and its about as plausible. (Exactly how did she know, after she rebuffed Ned, he would figure out her local bar and go looking for her at the exact hour she was there?) It's already kind of weird to be using the spider woman trope in 1981, but to make her MORE sexually conniving and mercenary than she was in the 40's is... not great. As lurid trash, it's pretty fun for a while, but some noir stuff can't just be updated, it needs to be subverted or it doesn't justify its existence.

Blow Out Brian De Palma has two categories of movie: he's got his mainstream, director-for-hire fare, where his voice is either reigned in or indulged in isolated sequences that don't always jive with the rest fo the film, and then there's his Brian De Palma movies. My mistake, it seems, is having seen several for-hires from throughout his career - The Untouchables (fine enough), Carlito's Way (ditto, but less), Mission: Impossible (enh) - but had only seen De Palma-ass movies from his late period (Femme Fatale and The Black Dahlia, both of which I think are garbage). All this to say: Blow Out was my first classic-era De Palma, and holy fucking shit dudes. This was (with caveats) my absolute and entire jam. I said I could enjoy good sleaze, and this is good friggin' sleaze. (Though far short of De Palma at his sleaziest, mercifully.) The splitscreens, the diopter shots, the canted angles, how does he make so many shlocky things work?! John Travolta's sound tech goes out to get fresh wind fx for the movie he's working on, and we get this wonderful sequence of visuals following sounds as he turns his attention and his microphone to various noises - a couple on a walk, a frog, an owl, a buzzing street lamp. Later, as he listens back to the footage, the same sequence plays again, but this time from his POV; we're seeing his memory as guided by the same sequence of sounds, now recreated with different shots, as he moves his pencil in the air mimicking the microphone. When he mixes and edits sounds, we hear the literal soundtrack of the movie we are watching get mixed and edited by the person on screen. And as he tries to unravel a murder mystery, he uses what's at hand: magnetic tape, flatbed editors, an animation camera to turn still photos from the crime scene into a film and sync it with the audio he recorded; it's forensics using only the tools of the editing room. As someone who's spent some time in college editing rooms, this is a hoot and a half. Loses a bit of steam as it goes on and the film nerd stuff gives way to a more traditional thriller, but rallies for a sound-tech-centered final setpiece, which steadily builds to such madcap heights you can feel the air thinning, before oddly cutting its own tension and then trying to build it back up again. It doesn't work as well the second time. But then, that shot right after the climax? Damn. Conflicted on how the movie treats the female lead. I get why feminist film theorists are so divided on De Palma. His stuff is full of things feminists (rightly) criticize, full of women getting naked when they're not getting stabbed, but he also clearly finds women fascinating and has them do empowered and unexpected things, and there are many feminist reads of his movies. Call it a mixed bag. But even when he's doing tropey shit, he explores the tropes in unexpected ways. Definitely the best movie so far that I hadn't already seen.

Cutter's Way (rw) Alex Cutter is pitched to us as an obnoxious-but-sympathetic son of a bitch, and, you know, two out of three ain't bad. Watched this during my 2020 neo-noir kick and considered skipping it this time because I really didn't enjoy it. Found it a little more compelling this go around, while being reminded of why my feelings were room temp before. Thematically, I'm onboard: it's about a guy, Cutter, getting it in his head that he's found a murderer and needs to bring him to justice, and his friend, Bone, who intermittently helps him because he feels bad that Cutter lost his arm, leg, and eye in Nam and he also feels guilty for being in love with Cutter's wife. The question of whether the guy they're trying to bring down actually did it is intentionally undefined, and arguably unimportant; they've got personal reasons to see this through. Postmodern and noirish, fixated with the inability to ever fully know the truth of anything, but starring people so broken by society that they're desperate for certainty. (Pretty obvious parallels to Vietnam.) Cutter's a drunk and kind of an asshole, but understandably so. Bone's shiftlessness is the other response to a lack of meaning in the world, to the point where making a decision, any decision, feels like character growth, even if it's maybe killing a guy whose guilt is entirely theoretical. So, yeah, I'm down with all of this! A- in outline form. It's just that Cutter is so uninterestingly unpleasant and no one else on screen is compelling enough to make up for it. His drunken windups are tedious and his sanctimonious speeches about what the war was like are, well, true and accurate but also obviously manipulative. It's two hours with two miserable people, and I think Cutter's constant chatter is supposed to be the comic relief but it's a little too accurate to drunken rambling, which isn't funny if you're not also drunk. He's just tedious, irritating, and periodically racist. Pass.

Blood Simple (rw) I'm pretty cool on the Coens - there are things I've liked, even loved, in every Coen film I've seen, but I always come away dissatisfied. For a while, I kept going to their movies because I was sure eventually I'd love one without qualification. No Country for Old Men came close, the first two acts being master classes in sustained tension. But then the third act is all about denying closure: the protagonist is murdered offscreen, the villain's motives are never explained, and it ends with an existentialist speech about the unfathomable cruelty of the world. And it just doesn't land for me. The archness of the Coen's dialogue, the fussiness of their set design, the kinda-intimate, kinda-awkward, kinda-funny closeness of the camera's singles, it cannot sell me on a devastating meditation about meaninglessness. It's only ever sold me on the Coens' own cleverness. And that archness, that distancing, has typified every one of their movies I've come close to loving. Which is a long-ass preamble to saying, holy heck, I was not prepared for their very first movie to be the one I'd been looking for! I watched it last year and it remains true on rewatch: Blood Simple works like gangbusters. It's kind of Double Indemnity (again) but played as a comedy of errors, minus the comedy: two people romantically involved feeling their trust unravel after a murder. And I think the first thing that works for me is that utter lack of comedy. It's loaded with the Coens' trademark ironies - mostly dramatic in this case - but it's all played straight. Unlike the usual lead/femme fatale relationship, where distrust brews as the movie goes on, the audience knows the two main characters can trust each other. There are no secret duplicitous motives waiting to be revealed. The audience also know why they don't trust each other. (And it's all communicated wordlessly, btw: a character enters a scene and we know, based on the information that character has, how it looks to them and what suspicions it would arouse, even as we know the truth of it). The second thing that works is, weirdly, that the characters aren't very interesting?! Ray and Abby have almost no characterization. Outside of a general likability, they are blank slates. This is a weakness in most films, but, given the agonizingly long, wordless sequences where they dispose of bodies or hide from gunfire, you're left thinking not "what will Ray/Abby do in this scenario," because Ray and Abby are relatively elemental and undefined, but "what would I do in this scenario?" Which creates an exquisite tension but also, weirdly, creates more empathy than I feel for the Coens' usual cast of personalities. It's supposed to work the other way around! Truly enjoyable throughout but absolutely wonderful in the suspenseful-as-hell climax. Good shit right here.

Body Double The thing about erotic thrillers is everything that matters is in the name. Is it thrilling? Is it erotic? Good; all else is secondary. De Palma set out to make the most lurid, voyeuristic, horny, violent, shocking, steamy movie he could come up with, and its success was not strictly dependent on the lead's acting ability or the verisimilitude of the plot. But what are we, the modern audience, to make of it once 37 years have passed and, by today's standards, the eroticism is quite tame and the twists are no longer shocking? Then we're left with a nonsensical riff on Vertigo, a specularization of women that is very hard to justify, and lead actor made of pulped wood. De Palma's obsessions don't cohere into anything more this time; the bits stolen from Hitchcock aren't repurposed to new ends, it really is just Hitch with more tits and less brains. (I mean, I still haven't seen Vertigo, but I feel 100% confident in that statement.) The diopter shots and rear-projections this time look cheap (literally so, apparently; this had 1/3 the budget of Blow Out). There are some mildly interesting setpieces, but nothing compared to Travolta's auditory reconstructions or car chase where he tries to tail a subway train from street level even if it means driving through a frickin parade like an inverted French Connection, goddamn Blow Out was a good movie! Anyway. Melanie Griffith seems to be having fun, at least. I guess I had a little as well, but it was, at best, diverting, and a real letdown.

The Hit Surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. Terrance Stamp flips on the mob and spends ten years living a life of ease in Spain, waiting for the day they find and kill him. Movie kicks off when they do find him, and what follows is a ramshackle road movie as John Hurt and a young Tim Roth attempt to drive him to Paris so they can shoot him in front of his old boss. Stamp is magnetic. He's spent a decade reading philosophy and seems utterly prepared for death, so he spends the trip humming, philosophizing, and being friendly with his captors when he's not winding them up. It remains unclear to the end whether the discord he sews between Roth and Hurt is part of some larger plan of escape or just for shits and giggles. There's also a decent amount of plot for a movie that's not terribly plot-driven - just about every part of the kidnapping has tiny hitches the kidnappers aren't prepared for, and each has film-long repercussions, drawing the cops closer and somehow sticking Laura del Sol in their backseat. The ongoing questions are when Stamp will die, whether del Sol will die, and whether Roth will be able to pull the trigger. In the end, it's actually a meditation on ethics and mortality, but in a quiet and often funny way. It's not going to go down as one of my new favs, but it was a nice way to spend a couple hours.

Trouble in Mind (dnrw) I fucking hated this movie. It's been many months since I watched it, do I remember what I hated most? Was it the bit where a couple of country bumpkins who've come to the city walk into a diner and Mr. Bumpkin clocks that the one Black guy in the back as obviously a criminal despite never having seen him before? Was it the part where Kris Kristofferson won't stop hounding Mrs. Bumpkin no matter how many times she demands to be left alone, and it's played as romantic because obviously he knows what she needs better than she does? Or is it the part where Mr. Bumpkin reluctantly takes a job from the Obvious Criminal (who is, in fact, a criminal, and the only named Black character in the movie if I remember correctly, draw your own conclusions) and, within a week, has become a full-blown hood, which is exemplified by a lot, like, a lot of queer-coding? The answer to all three questions is yes. It's also fucking boring. Even out-of-drag Divine's performance as the villain can't save it.

Manhunter 'sfine? I've still never seen Silence of the Lambs, nor any of the Hopkins Lecter movies, nor, indeed, any full episode of the show. So the unheimlich others get seeing Brian Cox play Hannibal didn't come into play. Cox does a good job with him, but he's barely there. Shame, cuz he's the most interesting part of the movie. Honestly, there's a lot of interesting stuff that's barely there. Will Graham being a guy who gets into the heads of serial killers is explored well enough, and Mann knows how to direct a police procedural such that it's both contemplative and propulsive. But all the other themes it points at? Will's fear that he understands murderers a little too well? Hannibal trying to nudge him towards becoming one? Whatever dance Hannibal and Tooth Fairy are doing? What Tooth Fairy's deal is, anyway? (Why does he wear fake teeth and bite things? Why is he fixated on the red dragon? Does the bit where he says "Francis is gone forever" mean he has DID?) None of it goes anywhere or amounts to anything. I mean, it's certainly more interesting with this stuff than without, but it has that feel of a book that's been pared of its interesting bits to fit the runtime (or, alternately, pulp that's been sloppily elevated). I still haven't made my mind up on Mann's cold, precise camera work, but at least it gives me something to look at. It's fine! This is fine.

Mona Lisa (rw) Gave this one another shot. Bob Hoskins is wonderful as a hood out of his depth in classy places, quick to anger but just as quick to let anger go (the opening sequence where he's screaming on his ex-wife's doorstep, hurling trash cans at her house, and one minute later thrilled to see his old car, is pretty nice). And Cathy Tyson's working girl is a subtler kind of fascinating, exuding a mixture of coldness and kindness. It's just... this is ultimately a story about how heartbreaking it is when the girl you like is gay, right? It's Weezer's Pink Triangle: The Movie. It's not homophobic, exactly - Simone isn't demonized for being a lesbian - but it's still, like, "man, this straight white guy's pain is so much more interesting than the Black queer sex worker's." And when he's yelling "you woulda done it!" at the end, I can't tell if we're supposed to agree with him. Seems pretty clear that she wouldn'ta done it, at least not without there being some reveal about her character that doesn't happen, but I don't think the ending works if we don't agree with him, so... I'm like 70% sure the movie does Simone dirty there. For the first half, their growing relationship feels genuine and natural, and, honestly, the story being about a real bond that unfortunately means different things to each party could work if it didn't end with a gun and a sock in the jaw. Shape feels jagged as well; what feels like the end of the second act or so turns out to be the climax. And some of the symbolism is... well, ok, Simone gives George money to buy more appropriate clothes for hanging out in high end hotels, and he gets a tan leather jacket and a Hawaiian shirt, and their first proper bonding moment is when she takes him out for actual clothes. For the rest of the movie he is rocking double-breasted suits (not sure I agree with the striped tie, but it was the eighties, whaddya gonna do?). Then, in the second half, she sends him off looking for her old streetwalker friend, and now he looks completely out of place in the strip clubs and bordellos. So far so good. But then they have this run-in where her old pimp pulls a knife and cuts George's arm, so, with his nice shirt torn and it not safe going home (I guess?) he starts wearing the Hawaiian shirt again. So around the time he's starting to realize he doesn't really belong in Simone's world or the lowlife world he came from anymore, he's running around with the classy double-breasted suit jacket over the garish Hawaiian shirt, and, yeah, bit on the nose guys. Anyway, it has good bits, I just feel like a movie that asks me to feel for the guy punching a gay, Black woman in the face needs to work harder to earn it. Bit of wasted talent.

The Bedroom Window Starts well. Man starts an affair with his boss' wife, their first night together she witnesses an attempted murder from his window, she worries going to the police will reveal the affair to her husband, so the man reports her testimony to the cops claiming he's the one who saw it. Young Isabelle Huppert is the perfect woman for a guy to risk his career on a crush over, and Young Steve Guttenberg is the perfect balance of affability and amorality. And it flows great - picks just the right media to res. So then he's talking to the cops, telling them what she told him, and they ask questions he forgot to ask her - was the perp's jacket a blazer or a windbreaker? - and he has to guess. Then he gets called into the police lineup, and one guy matches her description really well, but is it just because he's wearing his red hair the way she described it? He can't be sure, doesn't finger any of them. He finds out the cops were pretty certain about one of the guys, so he follows the one he thinks it was around, looking for more evidence, and another girl is attacked right outside a bar he knows the redhead was at. Now he's certain! But he shows the boss' wife the guy and she's not certain, and she reminds him they don't even know if the guy he followed is the same guy the police suspected! And as he feeds more evidence to the cops, he has to lie more, because he can't exactly say he was tailing the guy around the city. So, I'm all in now. Maybe it's because I'd so recently rewatched Night Moves and Cutter's Way, but this seems like another story about uncertainty. He's really certain about the guy because it fits narratively, and we, the audience, feel the same. But he's not actually a witness, he doesn't have actual evidence, he's fitting bits and pieces together like a conspiracy theorist. He's fixating on what he wants to be true. Sign me up! But then it turns out he's 100% correct about who the killer is but his lies are found out and now the cops think he's the killer and I realize, oh, no, this movie isn't nearly as smart as I thought it was. Egg on my face! What transpires for the remaining half of the runtime is goofy as hell, and someone with shlockier sensibilities could have made a meal of it, but Hanson, despite being a Corman protege, takes this silliness seriously in the all wrong ways. Next!

Homicide (rw? I think I saw most of this on TV one time) Homicide centers around the conflicted loyalties of a Jewish cop. It opens with the Jewish cop and his white gentile partner taking over a case with a Black perp from some Black FBI agents. The media is making a big thing about the racial implications of the mostly white cops chasing down a Black man in a Black neighborhood. And inside of 15 minutes the FBI agent is calling the lead a k*ke and the gentile cop is calling the FBI agent a f****t and there's all kinds of invective for Black people. The film is announcing its intentions out the gate: this movie is about race. But the issue here is David Mamet doesn't care about race as anything other than a dramatic device. He's the Ubisoft of filmmakers, having no coherent perspective on social issues but expecting accolades for even bringing them up. Mamet is Jewish (though lead actor Joe Mantegna definitely is not) but what is his position on the Jewish diaspora? The whole deal is Mantegna gets stuck with a petty homicide case instead of the big one they just pinched from the Feds, where a Jewish candy shop owner gets shot in what looks like a stickup. Her family tries to appeal to his Jewishness to get him to take the case seriously, and, after giving them the brush-off for a long time, finally starts following through out of guilt, finding bits and pieces of what may or may not be a conspiracy, with Zionist gun runners and underground neo-Nazis. But, again: all of these are just dramatic devices. Mantegna's Jewishness (those words will never not sound ridiculous together) has always been a liability for him as a cop (we are told, not shown), and taking the case seriously is a reclamation of identity. The Jews he finds community with sold tommyguns to revolutionaries during the founding of Israel. These Jews end up blackmailing him to get a document from the evidence room. So: what is the film's position on placing stock in one's Jewish identity? What is its position on Israel? What is its opinion on Palestine? Because all three come up! And the answer is: Mamet doesn't care. You can read it a lot of different ways. Someone with more context and more patience than me could probably deduce what the de facto message is, the way Chris Franklin deduced the de facto message of Far Cry V despite the game's efforts not to have one, but I'm not going to. Mantegna's attempt to reconnect with his Jewishness gets his partner killed, gets the guy he was supposed to bring in alive shot dead, gets him possibly permanent injuries, gets him on camera blowing up a store that's a front for white nationalists, and all for nothing because the "clues" he found (pretty much exclusively by coincidence) were unconnected nothings. The problem is either his Jewishness, or his lifelong failure to connect with his Jewishness until late in life. Mamet doesn't give a shit. (Like, Mamet canonically doesn't give a shit: he is on record saying social context is meaningless, characters only exist to serve the plot, and there are no deeper meanings in fiction.) Mamet's ping-pong dialogue is fun, as always, and there are some neat ideas and characters, but it's all in service of a big nothing that needed to be a something to work.

Swoon So much I could talk about, let's keep it to the most interesting bits. Hommes Fatales: a thing about classic noir that it was fascinated by the marginal but had to keep it in the margins. Liberated women, queer-coded killers, Black jazz players, broke thieves; they were the main event, they were what audiences wanted to see, they were what made the movies fun. But the ending always had to reassert straightlaced straight, white, middle-class male society as unshakeable. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy demanded, both ideologically and via the Hays Code, that anyone outside these norms be punished, reformed, or dead by the movie's end. The only way to make them the heroes was to play their deaths for tragedy. It is unsurprising that neo-noir would take the queer-coded villains and make them the protagonists. Implicature: This is the story of Leopold and Loeb, murderers famous for being queer, and what's interesting is how the queerness in the first half exists entirely outside of language. Like, it's kind of amazing for a movie from 1992 to be this gay - we watch Nathan and Dickie kiss, undress, masturbate, fuck; hell, they wear wedding rings when they're alone together. But it's never verbalized. Sex is referred to as "your reward" or "what you wanted" or "best time." Dickie says he's going to have "the girls over," and it turns out "the girls" are a bunch of drag queens, but this is never acknowledged. Nathan at one point lists off a bunch of famous men - Oscar Wild, E.M. Forster, Frederick the Great - but, though the commonality between them is obvious (they were all gay), it's left the the audience to recognize it. When their queerness is finally verbalized in the second half, it's first in the language of pathology - a psychiatrist describing their "perversions" and "misuse" of their "organs" before the court, which has to be cleared of women because it's so inappropriate - and then with slurs from the man who murders Dickie in jail (a murder which is written off with no investigation because the victim is a gay prisoner instead of a L&L's victim, a child of a wealthy family). I don't know if I'd have noticed this if I hadn't read Chip Delany describing his experience as a gay man in the 50's existing almost entirely outside of language, the only language at the time being that of heteronormativity. Murder as Love Story: L&L exchange sex as payment for the other commiting crimes; it's foreplay. Their statements to the police where they disagree over who's to blame is a lover's quarrel. Their sentencing is a marriage. Nathan performs his own funeral rites over Dickie's body after he dies on the operating table. They are, in their way, together til death did they part. This is the relationship they can have. That it does all this without romanticizing the murder itself or valorizing L&L as humans is frankly incredible.

Suture (rw) The pitch: at the funeral for his father, wealthy Vincent Towers meets his long lost half brother Clay Arlington. It is implied Clay is a child from out of wedlock, possibly an affair; no one knows Vincent has a half-brother but him and Clay. Vincent invites Clay out to his fancy-ass home in Arizona. Thing is, Vincent is suspected (correctly) by the police of having murdered his father, and, due to a striking family resemblence, he's brought Clay to his home to fake his own death. He finagles Clay into wearing his clothes and driving his car, and then blows the car up and flees the state, leaving the cops to think him dead. Thing is, Clay survives, but with amnesia. The doctors tell him he's Vincent, and he has no reason to disagree. Any discrepancy in the way he looks is dismissed as the result of reconstructive surgery after the explosion. So Clay Arlington resumes Vincent Towers' life, without knowing Clay Arlington even exists. The twist: Clay and Vincent are both white, but Vincent is played by Michael Harris, a white actor, and Clay is played by Dennis Haysbert, a Black actor. "Ian, if there's just the two of them, how do you know it's not Harris playing a Black character?" Glad you asked! It is most explicitly obvious during a scene where Vincent/Clay's surgeon-cum-girlfriend essentially bringing up phrenology to explain how Vincent/Clay couldn't possibly have murdered his father, describing straight hair, thin lips, and a Greco-Roman nose Haysbert very clearly doesn't have. But, let's be honest: we knew well beforehand that the rich-as-fuck asshole living in a huge, modern house and living it up in Arizona high society was white. Though Clay is, canonically, white, he lives an poor and underprivileged life common to Black men in America. Though the film's title officially refers to the many stitches holding Vincent/Clay's face together after the accident, "suture" is a film theory term, referring to the way a film audience gets wrapped up - sutured - in the world of the movie, choosing to forget the outside world and pretend the story is real. The usage is ironic, because the audience cannot be sutured in; we cannot, and are not expected to, suspend our disbelief that Clay is white. We are deliberately distanced. Consequently this is a movie to be thought about, not to to be felt. It has the shape of a Hitchcockian thriller but it can't evoke the emotions of one. You can see the scaffolding - "ah, yes, this is the part of a thriller where one man hides while another stalks him with a gun, clever." I feel ill-suited to comment on what the filmmakers are saying about race. I could venture a guess about the ending, where the psychiatrist, the only one who knows the truth about Clay, says he can never truly be happy living the lie of being Vincent Towers, while we see photographs of Clay/Vincent seemingly living an extremely happy life: society says white men simply belong at the top more than Black men do, but, if the roles could be reversed, the latter would slot in seamlessly. Maybe??? Of all the movies in this collection, this is the one I'd most want to read an essay on (followed by Swoon).

The Last Seduction (dnrw) No, no, no, I am not rewataching this piece of shit movie.

Brick (rw) Here's my weird contention: Brick is in color and in widescreen, but, besides that? There's nothing neo- about this noir. There's no swearing except "hell." (I always thought Tug said "goddamn" at one point but, no, he's calling The Pin "gothed-up.") There's a lot of discussion of sex, but always through implication, and the only deleted scene is the one that removed ambiguity about what Brendan and Laura get up to after kissing. There's nothing postmodern or subversive - yes, the hook is it's set in high school, but the big twist is that it takes this very seriously. It mines it for jokes, yes, but the drama is authentic. In fact, making the gumshoe a high school student, his jadedness an obvious front, still too young to be as hard as he tries to be, just makes the drama hit harder. Sam Spade if Sam Spade were allowed to cry. I've always found it an interesting counterpoint to The Good German, a movie that fastidiously mimics the aesthetics of classic noir - down to even using period-appropriate sound recording - but is wholly neo- in construction. Brick could get approved by the Hays Code. Its vibe, its plot about a detective playing a bunch of criminals against each other, even its slang ("bulls," "yegg," "flopped") are all taken directly from Hammett. It's not even stealing from noir, it's stealing from what noir stole from! It's a perfect curtain call for the collection: the final film is both the most contemporary and the most classic. It's also - but for the strong case you could make for Night Moves - the best movie on the list. It's even more appropriate for me, personally: this was where it all started for me and noir. I saw this in theaters when it came out and loved it. It was probably my favorite movie for some time. It gave me a taste for pulpy crime movies which I only, years later, realized were neo-noir. This is why I looked into Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and In Bruges. I've seen it more times than any film on this list, by a factor of at least 3. It's why I will always adore Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's the best-looking half-million-dollar movie I've ever seen. (Indie filmmakers, take fucking notes.) I even did a script analysis of this, and, yes, it follows the formula, but so tightly and with so much style. Did you notice that he says several of the sequence tensions out loud? ("I just want to find her." "Show of hands.") I notice new things each time I see it - this time it was how "brushing Brendan's hair out of his face" is Em's move, making him look more like he does in the flashback, and how Laura does the same to him as she's seducing him, in the moment when he misses Em the hardest. It isn't perfect. It's recreated noir so faithfully that the Innocent Girl dies, the Femme Fatale uses intimacy as a weapon, and none of the women ever appear in a scene together. 1940's gender politics maybe don't need to be revisited. They say be critical of the media you love, and it applies here most of all: it is a real criticism of something I love immensely.

#film noir #neo-noir #criterion channel

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