sorry if this is a repeating question! your posts got me interested in trigun, which one do u recommend watching first, the 1998 or the 2023 one :0? (i already finished the manga)

It's not a repeat question, and I love talking about Trigun!

Watch 98 first for sure. A lot of it is pretty close to the manga, with a lot extra. Stampede is more of a reimagining or reinterpretation of Trigun, and it's very different from both 98 and the manga. (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not sure) I think that the Trigun 98 anime was created after the first two volumes of the manga, and the popularity of the anime got Trigun picked back up again for Trigun Max. The manga, the 98 anime, and Stampede are all really different works, and they all have their own individual merit. I've only read about a volume of the manga, though, I have to finish reading it.

98 is much more of a comedy than the manga, and the actual Plot (TM) of Trigun only really kicks in halfway through it and results in the most severe tonal whiplash I've ever seen in a show. The humor's a bit more 90s anime, the episodes get weird, and Vash is more heterosexual (anime polycule game on point). I've been chewing over the really interesting impact of how Vash's idiot persona is absolutely impenetrable for the first four-to-six episodes, to the point where the audience is given very little signaling or insight into how he's actually feeling or what he's actually thinking, and how putting that unfiltered whacky comedy next to the regular fucked up Trigun really changes the experience.

Stampede is great, but it spends almost all of its time on plot and worldbuilding and really misses a lot of the joy of just watching Vash be insane. 98 gives us a lot of time with the characters just watching them be insane and fuck around and spend time forming their relationships, and you feel that absence in Stampede.

The anime is much less of a fever dream if you've read the manga, but there IS a scene where Vash eats a salmon sandwich and talks about buying salmon sandwiches. WITH WHAT OCEAN, VASH? WITH WHAT OCEAN???

Hi Betts, hoping for your guidance if you have the time. No pressure really. But my course will be focusing quite a bit on Shakespeare for the rest of this year. Do you have any advice for someone who isn’t really a writer on how to understand Shakespeare better? Have you read much of it? How did you tackle understanding the language? Is it just reading a lot more of it and looking up words? I struggle getting through one play, but is it just pushing through it? Resources you found helpful?

i feel like i’ve been waiting my whole life for this question. 

i’m feral for shakespeare. i have a hamlet tattoo. i have an unfortunate number of monologues memorized on the off-chance someone at some point goes “hey does anyone know any good monologues?” and i can be all “TO BE OR FUCKING NOT TO BE, BITCHES” or “ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH DEAR FRIENDS, ONCE FUCKING MORE.” i have an actual literal lecture on how richard ii is a greedy glamazon bitch, and an outline for an article on how lady macbeth can teach us everything we need to know about sympathy in fiction.

like many people, high school made me despise shakespeare. i can’t tell if it was the simple coercion of being forced to read things, period, or that we were made to treat everything so seriously, and expected to understand the use of language as if it were like anything else we were reading. 

then when i was 23ish, i got obsessed with doctor who, which led me to david tennant’s filmography, and david tennant happens to have done really a lot of shakespeare. when i geared up to watch his hamlet, however, i thought, i want to read this first, so i can see how different it is from my perception of it.

cue me surreptitiously scrolling through the wikisource version of hamlet while pretending to listen to conference calls at work. i think that helped, making it something i wasn’t allowed to do. it made reading feel like an indulgence. 

free of the constraints of “i’m going to have to write a five-paragraph essay about this when i’m done,” i began to read very casually, only trying to understand what was going on and not trying to find any profound meaning in it. 

in doing that, i realized i was actually doing it correctly. these are plays, meant to be performed on a stage, to entertain, immerse, and evoke feeling. you’re supposed to be sad at the end of tragedies and happy at the end of comedies. however, reading the plays is a far different experience than watching them, and in many ways more of a challenge.

you can’t read a play, especially a shakespeare play, like a book. prose and poetry both lend themselves to crafting intentional images. the entire thing exists to be and only be read. but plays and scripts are just one piece of a much larger puzzle, involving directors and actors and costume designers and set designers. bringing a play to life is a team effort. when you’re reading, you’re only seeing the skeleton of the story. it’s like reading a guidebook for a vacation destination. you can get the gist of it but only truly know a place by going there.

you can’t read shakespeare as a reader. you have to read as a director. you have to envision each actor, and after every line, decide where they are standing on stage, how they deliver their line, and what happens between each line. shakespeare gives almost no stage direction, so you have a lot of creative license in interpretation.

another thing to remember is that shakespeare is first and foremost a rhetorician. he wanted his words to be memorable and beautiful, to persuade and delight. if he wanted to be understood simply, he would have written simply. but instead, he uses 17 lines where 1 would have sufficed. it’s helpful, after every line, to consciously ask yourself, “what has just been said?” and very often the answer is simple. a yes or a no, i agree or disagree, or even sometimes banal statements.

consider hamlet’s “to be or not to be.” he goes on and on and on, but he’s really just being the “guess i’ll just die” meme. in the comedies, shakespeare often uses this effect as a joke. one character will go on and on, and another character gives a simple and curt and blunt reply, and depending on the delivery, it’s hilarious. 

you’re not supposed to love hamlet, or richard ii, or macbeth, or any other character. the tragedies are train wrecks that make you go “i get why you’re doing this but you need to Stop.” the comedies are similar, in that the characters sometimes make you go “you are being so fucking stupid.” it’s the sense of irony, the “i know what’s right in this situation but you don’t” that creates a huge amount of engagement. we’re always bracing ourselves for what comes next.

so here’s how i recommend reading shakespeare:

pick a play, and pick a version or two to watch afterward. here’s a really great list of productions. personally, i’d stick to ones where you’re familiar with the actors, which heightens the engagement. 

before you start reading, consciously cast each character, using actors you really like. or, instead of actors, you can cast your favorite characters as if they were in an AU version of your current fandom. reading shakespeare as fanfic is a speedy way of ensuring your emotional investment.

pull up the wikipedia plot summary of the play to have on hand while you read. every few pages or so, line your reading up with the summary to make sure you’ve caught onto what’s been happening.

as you read, direct the actors you’ve chosen. how do they deliver the line? sometimes this takes a few tries. you can’t let your eyes move left to right across the page and just expect to miraculously understand it as if it were prose. you have to puzzle it out.

if you’re really stuck on something, pull up the spark notes version. there’s no shame in that. if you compare with spark notes enough, you begin to get a sense of the language and begin to need it less and less.

when you’re done, order a pizza, pour a glass of wine, and watch your chosen production version. delight in already understanding what’s happening, figure out where you might have been wrong or confused, and revel in the places you were right. 

watch another production and see how your version, the last version, and this version all differ. 

if you get all the way to this point and you’re not utterly in love, i don’t know what to tell you. i think i watched wyndham theater’s much ado over a hundred times. rsc’s hamlet probably just as much. i have yet to watch or read a single play i didn’t at least appreciate. i’m one of the few people who even enjoys titus andronicus. 

shakespeare takes a lot of energy, but it’s worth it. once you get a feel for the strings he pulls and how he pulls them, it’s like opening a door to a whole other world. you see clips of phrases from this play or that, understand subtle references, and see how his influence exists in nearly everything. you can use his characters and plots and dynamics in all your own work. you can reach backward to see his own influences in greek plays, and forward to see his influences throughout all of literature. it’s amazing, not just who he was, but how his plays are still both so beautiful and so human. 

i’ve skipped over rhetoric, craft, the sonnets, and a few other things that i really enjoy about shakespeare, but those are probably topics for another time. if you’re looking for somewhere to start, i highly recommend much ado about nothing, particularly the wyndham 2009 production with david tennant and catherine tate which is genuinely one of the funniest things i’ve ever watched. it’s fun to compare it to the 1994 kenneth branaugh film and then rage against whedon’s 2013 travesty. 

best of luck in your shakespearean pursuit!

Mega’s Top 2020 Anime

The year 2020 is finally coming to an end. It’s been an unusual year to say the least. Coronavirus more or less almost cancelled the entire spring anime season, which lead to a strange anime schedule for the rest of the year since delays have trickle down effects to what was in the pipeline. To be completely honest, this was not a good year for anime. I watched only a handful of very good shows, and the rest were mediocre at best. The top 5 shows I talk about here are definitely worth watching at least.

So with the introduction out of the way, lets get into this. As usual this list is just my opinions. Don’t take it too seriously.

1) Kaguya-sama Love is War? (Season 2)

The second season of Kaguya-sama took everything from season 1 and brought it up a level. The visual gags became more impressive, the voice acting was just as good, and the show is delivering sharper writing as we get deeper into the manga. 

Season 2 added two new notable aspects to the show. First, a new member to the main cast by the name of Iino. She adds a new angle to exploit for the skits as someone who adheres strictly to the rules. This often means Iino and Kaguya frequently bump heads. In fact how they interpret a situation can be entirely different, which creates numerous misunderstandings between them. Second, Kaguya-sama began expanding the skits into long form stories. There were a series of skits that form an arc spanning an entire episode, or in some cases multiple episodes. Episode 11 was the highlight of the season where Ishigami confronted his past to overcome the bad stigma surrounding his character. Additionally, the story added depth to his connection with Shirogane while making us realize there was more to Ishigami than meets the eye. Kaguya and Shirogane also both became a little closer as the tangled web of their schemes yielded unexpected results at times.

Kaguya-Sama has an ova and season 3 planned. I eagerly look forward to seeing what new crazy situations the characters find themselves in. 

2) A Certain Scientific Railgun T (Season 3)

After waiting 6 years since the conclusion of season 2, the Railgun anime finally returned to adapt two more arcs from the manga. 

The first half was a Railgun version of the Daissheisai Festival arc. This version focuses on a completely different event in the arc with a story involving Misaki, Misaka, and Dolly. It pulls us deeper into the story threads established in the Level Upper and Sisters arc of what the scientists were doing out of the public eye. We meet the original Misaka clone and how Misaki came to meet her which adds a new layer to the current Misaka and Misaki relationship that we never knew. We see how Misaki is also a victim of the dark experiments occurring behind the scenes in Academy City. The experiment to turn Misaka into a level 6 was a very hype moment. Railgun’s Daissheisai Festival arc definiely hit all the right notes.

The second half of Railgun season 3 was the Dream Ranker arc. Like in previous seasons, I found the 2nd cour arc to be weaker than the first half. Indian Poker is a fun concept, but didn’t cleanly tie into the overall story. I also found it weird how special cards that can exchange dreams suddenly exist out of nowhere. Additionally, this arc brought it characters from the Accelerator spin-off which I wasn’t familiar with. It had a few cool and funny moments scattered throughout. The final fight at least brought the conflict to a satisfying conclusion. The only thing holding back Railgun for me like always is my lack of knowledge of the greater Raildex universe. Hopefully this won’t be the last we see of Railgun in animated form because I picked up the manga and the next arc is pretty neat.

3) The Journey of Elaina

The Journey of Elania is an anthology-centric anime where we follow Elania on her adventures. The first episode is a prologue to how she became a witch and the origins of her ambitions. Episode 2-onwards follow a fairly straightforward template of Elania arriving at a new location. She notices something isn’t quite right or learns about something from a local. As the story unfolds, Elania often takes a backseat role and opts to watch things playout. An anime of this style always brings a mixed bag to the table with the kind of stories that are told within the universe. Each episode/adventure is only loosely connected through the main character Elania traveling to a new location, but otherwise they are mostly independent besides a handful of recurring characters. 

Naturally this format means there are both great and not so good episodes. There are bitter sweet tales, comedic, and even a few darker entries mixed within this show. In particular, there were a few standout episodes that cemented this show as something worth watching. Episode 7 was a comedy episode split into two halves. One half showed how two towns divided by a wall were ironically doing the same thing to the wall on each side. The second half recalled how Elania accidentally started a grape stomping tradition in a tiny village. Then there was episode 9, the darkest entry of the show so far, when Elania went back in time to help someone save their childhood friend. However, this person came to realize she hardly knew what her childhood friend was really like. Lastly, the last episode was unexpectedly deep where Elania met various alternate versions of herself and had to confront a dark version spawn from the events in episode 8. It showed how her journey can take all sorts of directions if events had transpired even a little differently.  

A high part of the appeal to me was never knowing what kind of story we would get each week. Was it going to be light-hearted? Serious? Would it focus on Elania or not? Her adventures were certainly full of unexpected happenings. The light novels are 17 volumes in and still going. I wouldn’t mind seeing more if they ever wanted to make another season.

4) Tonikaku Kawaii

From the prolific author Kenjiro Hata comes an anime adaptation of his newest work under the “Crunchyroll Originals” label. The story is simply about a guy who is head over heels for his new wife and can’t get over how awesome it is living with her. Tonikaku Kawaii is a simple show that chooses to highlight the little moments between our main couple Nasa and Tsukasa. We go through all sorts of everyday events with them such as the act of buying a ring, a new television, bedding, and meeting each other’s family. All the characters are so earnest you can’t help but enjoy their silly banter. There is little to no drama here to drive the story forward. You just get to enjoy a newlywed couple discovering new things about each other as they go through everyday life.

However, at the end of the day Tonikaku Kawaii is far from complete and is honestly the type of show that likely wouldn’t make my list most years. It hardly scratched its overarching story during the 1 cour run. The thing that put it over the top for me was simply how likable each of its characters were. They all present their emotions like an open book and you come to enjoy the little quirks of each one. I was slightly confused at how this show became a “Crunchyroll Original” when anything by Hata would have probably gotten an anime sooner or later. There are plenty of other Weekly Shonen Sunday series that could really use an outside force to help them get animated. I can only hope it did well enough for Crunchyroll to consider investing into more from the magazine .

 5) Ahiru no Sora

As usual, my list usually contains at least 1 show that began in the previous year. Ahiru no Sora is an anime that not a lot of people watched, but became one of my favorites each week. This is a 4 cour basketball series about a main character named Sora who is too short for basketball. Despite this set-back, he has a deep passion for the game imparted from his mother and wishes to someday find the same success as she did at the sport. The story begins when he enrolls in a new school and has to build the basketball club from scratch. However, the catch is the basketball team is basically non-existent. He ends up creating a team from a group of unlikely people: the ones who were bullying him. Ahiru no Sora presents a down to earth human side to the sport. There are no fantasy or supernatural elements found in this story. It follows a group of rough around the edges guys whose lives gets back in order through playing basketball together.

All of the main characters go through a decent amount of growth as their personal stories are explored, and Sora especially is taken through a series of events that allow his character to grow more than anyone. I was pleasantly surprised at how emotional it got at times. There was some real heart put into this series. In the middle of the show it genuinely felt the team had hit rock bottom. They lost a major game, the club room was lit on fire, and Sora lost his mother all right in a row. It was the recovery from that period and how each member matured from their experiences that solidified Ahiru no Sora as one of the top shows this year. The only thing holding back the show is that it's left incomplete since the manga is on-going (and actually on hiatus at the moment). I hope there will be an opportunity down the road to have more episodes.

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Disappointments of 2020

1) Deca Dence

I enjoyed Death Parade, Mob Psycho 100, and Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer was pretty good too. So I figured another original anime from Tachikawa Yuzuru would be something I would like, and yet Deca Dence barely resonated with me. I could never wrap my mind around the setting of the show where robots would enter an alternate world called “Deca Dence” for sport or how these robots had a human persona in the game. The humans were effectively NPCs in the game to the eyes of the robots. The show no doubt had a story it wanted to tell, and it certainly went through the plot beats it wanted to hit, yet I could never get invested in the show. I’m still looking forward to whatever Tachikawa Yuzuru does next. I’ll just consider this as something was not for me.

2) The Day I Became God

This show marks Jun Meada’s 3rd anime original project with P.A. Works. I understand that Angel Beats and Charlotte are flawed shows, but that did not stop them from being enjoyable for me. This unfortunately did not apply to The Day I Became God. At a base level it has many of the usual troupes you would expect from a Jun Meada title: the humor, baseball, an emotionally driven story. The place where this shows failed hard was having no backbone to back up the story it was trying to present. I enjoyed the comedy in the early episodes quite a bit and was somewhat intrigued by a subplot in the background that was slowly creeping up on the main plot. Ending each episode on a countdown to the end of the world helped to keep a looming sense of unease during the early part of the show.

Then in typical Jun Meada fashion, the plot of the show hit all at once. Episode 9 was the big climax where the subplot and main plot collided to send the show into its “true” storyline. The hacker kid who uncovered everything about Hina in the early part was poorly utilized and underdeveloped. So when he joins our main group in episode 10 for a short period of time, his presence makes very little sense. I can only describe that part as a 10 hour VN plot condensed into 10 minutes. The male lead Narukami has almost no personal stake in the story. Hina is hilarious in the comedy episodes, but lacks any sufficient character arc built up to carry her into the final section. Jun Meada is trying to sell this as a love story between Narukami and Hina, but I just don’t see it. Narukami spent at least half the summer trying to wow his childhood friend only to suddenly change at the last minute. It felt so haphazardly put together.

The Day I Became God is an extremely bare bones Jun Meada story. It goes through the motions of similar elements to his previous works, but comes out feeling emotionally hollow. While Angel Beats and Charlotte also felt rushed in the grand scheme, I can at least say he got the emotional aspect right. This will be remembered as one of, if not Jun Meada’s weakest title.

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Top OPs/EDs of the Year

1) Jujutsu Kaisen Opening 1 - The song is great, but it’s the visuals that really sell this opening. Each shot is brilliantly connected to showcase how everything in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen is layered. There is far more than what meets in the eye in our surroundings. Curses and humans co-mingle more than you might think.

2) A Certain Scientific Railgun T Opening 1 - There still hasn’t been a bad Railgun opening yet. Flipside once again delivers a song that once again never failed gets me in the mood for the episode each week. The visuals highlight some of the best action moments in the arc too.

3) Black Clover Opening 10 - Unlike the other songs on the list this year, this a slower somber song. It always makes me think of Nero’s backstory and how the story was leading up to the fight versus the devil. The black and white aesthetic with rain conveys how everything is laid bare for this major story climax.

4) Kaguya-Sama Love is War? Opening - Just like how this season is more character focused, the opening animation is basically a 90 second skit. It never fails to get to get me in the mindset for the hijinks that are ahead in the episode. The song itself is also a great follow up to the previous opening.

5) Rent-a-Girlfriend Opening - It’s a colorful opening that highlights the best aspects of each character. It completely conveys what the show is about with some nice music. I love how fun and upbeat this opening is. It definitely helped to set the tone for the episodes each week.

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....and so, that brings 2020 to a close. The North American anime scene is shifting once again with Sony buying out Crunchyroll. Hopefully the result of the merger keeps Crunchyroll as an entity alive. I’ll be curious to see how everything shakes out. In the coming year I am most looking forward to Chainsaw Man’s anime. The manga is quite an experience and anime viewers will be spinning their heads over learning how such a series was published in Weekly Shonen Jump. I think it has a good chance of being one of the most talked about shows in the new year.

Lets hope 2021 is a good one.

New Update has been published on Rachel Brosnahan Web

New Post has been published on http://rachel-brosnahan.org/2018/06/04/press-rachel-brosnahan-on-why-marvelous-mrs-maisel-is-still-very-relevant-today/

Press: Rachel Brosnahan on Why ‘Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Is ‘Still Very Relevant Today’

Rachel recently sat down with Variety to discuss her show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Read the article below.

Like the character she plays on Amazon’s “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Rachel Brosnahan has proved herself to have hidden talents. Previously known for her dramatic work on series like “House of Cards” and “Manhattan,” Brosnahan is showing off a deft gift for comedy as the ’50s-era housewife-turned-standup. That’s what earned her a Golden Globe trophy as best actress in a comedy for the first season (as well as a series prize), and made her a frontrunner in the Emmy race.

During a break in production on season two, she talks with Variety about why a period piece is relevant today, being told she “wasn’t funny” — and the surprising injury she sustained on set.

For a show that’s set in the 50s, it feels so relevant now. What is it about that showrunners Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino are doing that makes the show feel so timely?

I think that the scenes surrounding some of the battles that women faced then are still very relevant today. And then women being considered secondary citizens or this idea of women not being funny or having to fit a certain mold and apologize for their ambitions. Those are all things that women still face today and I think that those ideas have never not been relevant and Amy and Dan have managed to bring them to life with a fresh eye. But also, the story at its core is about a woman finding the voice that she didn’t know she had. And that’s also something that’s happening all over the country and all over the world, right now.

I was just reading an interview where you were saying that you were once told that you weren’t funny. 

This is gonna be the thing that ends up on my tombstone, “Was once told, not funny.”

Thank you, Internet.

I don’t know how to say this in a way that totally makes sense, but it became something that was just understood. When you’re really young and you’re figuring out who you are and what your strengths are, the feedback that was given regarding my auditions, enough times, was kind of “She’s just not funny. Not really for sitcoms.” And so I guess I mostly stopped going into that stuff and focused on other strengths. And so when the show came across my desk, I was very nervous about the idea of even approaching comedy. Because I felt like that was something that I’d internalized, but not in a negative way. But now I’m kicking myself for limiting myself in that way earlier. Because this has been such a fulfilling, learning process and an important one.

I do think it took someone visionary to look at you and your body of work and be like, “Yes, she’s perfect for this and yes, she can do this.” Do you feel that?

I don’t know what they were thinking. But, yes, it was a leap for sure and one that I’m eternally grateful that all the powers involved took.

Are there things you didn’t get to do in the first season that you want to do in the second?

Something I’m looking forward to exploring more in the second season is the tension between Midge’s three very distinct and different worlds. She’s a mother and a daughter and a, possibly, wife/ex-wife, as it left off in the first season. She’s a working woman now. She has a job that she loves and she’s also a budding stand-up and none of those worlds really gel together. Though I’m looking forward to watching her try to balance and I think that the more invested she becomes in each of the three, particularly the work and the stand-up, the harder that juggling will become. I’m looking forward to seeing how that unfolds.

What have you learned from the experience of making the first season?

I feel like I learned to be braver in the first season than maybe I’ve ever felt. Midge is an extremely empowered and confident and pretty fearless woman and finding that on a daily basis is not always easy. And I feel like, hopefully, I’ve absorbed some of those things myself, moving into season two. There’s both less and more pressure going into season two, right? We know what it is, we’re so grateful that people responded to the show but also now we want to make sure that this season’s even better than the last one.

Do you feel that pressure?

A little bit, but it’s motivating. It’s a nice kind of pressure. The pressure that only comes from feeling that people responded to the art that we’re putting out into the world. And though we don’t want to let them down, but we also don’t wanna let ourselves down and I feel good about what we’ve done so far and we’re excited to keep pushing those boundaries.

Now that the showrunners have seen what you can do, is more coming?

I’m sure it’s going to get more challenging in ways that I couldn’t possibly imagine, in some of the weirdest ways. I’ve already sustained an injury from an unexpected stunt.

What happened?

Well, I can’t say much without giving everything away but it involved a rolling chair and some choreography. Took a little tumble, so I’m learning new skills. Again without giving anything away, we finished last season and I got this text from Amy going “Can you ride a bike?” And heard that [co-star] Marin [Hinkle] got a text from Amy going, “Can you speak French?” So they’re definitely going to keep challenging us in season two. I’m thinking they just like to watch us suffer a little bit.

You just mentioned you were just at a costume fitting. How much does that inform the show? Does that help you get into character?

Enormously. But the ability to transform so completely with costumes and hair and makeup makes my job easier. There’s less pretending involved. I can look in the mirror and see someone very different from myself and those are my favorite kind of characters, the ones that feel furthest from me. Midge’s outward appearance is very important to her and I think that it’s something the attention paid to her appearance and the way she is presenting herself to the world is part of what makes her feel empowered. So the costumes are huge and Donna Zakowska, our costume designer, is absolutely brilliant and her attention to detail continues to astound me. The creations and the places that she looks for inspiration, I’m blown away every time I step foot in the new fittings.

The awards consideration, the fact that you’re getting all this buzz, what does all that mean to you?

It’s such a lovely feeling to know that everybody’s hard work and literal blood, sweat and tears has been recognized. The awards stuff is great but actually feels less important than the fact that it feels like the show has touched such a wide variety of people. That’s what makes us feel the best. And awards stuff is great because it means that, hopefully, we get to keep going. That we get to have a job for a little bit longer and a job we love, at that. And it’s obviously an honor but the coolest part has been to hear from young women, especially, but also older men who couldn’t say that they were essentially coerced into watching the show by their wives or daughters and have fallen in love with it, as well. It’s nice to know that people love it as much as we do. That feels like the greatest reward.

Are you recognized more because of this role?

In New York, that’s not as much of a thing as it is in say, Los Angeles, so if people are recognizing me, I may not always know it. But I also look very different in my real life when I’m walking the dog up in Harlem, you know? So it’s not been something that feels like an enormous shift. The question I keep getting asked is, “How has your life changed?” And it feels like that’s a funny question because at the core, I feel like it hasn’t. But strangers can say my last name now, which has been very exciting. That’s never happened to me before.

Is there a moment you’re proudest of when you look back over the first season?

There’s a set in episode seven. It’s been fondly referred to as the epic take-down of Sophie Lennon and that set, in discussions with Amy and Dan was kind of being talked about as a place where Midge really comes into her own as a comedian. Really is able to combine her impulsiveness and her stream of consciousness style with a more polished understanding of what it means to, say, interact with an audience or to have certain pieces prepared and then she naturally goes off the rails. But i was the first time where I noticed I felt more comfortable stepping onto the stage and I was able to kind of clock how much I had learned about the more technical side of doing this form of comedy. I remember looking out at the audience and feeling, so distinctly, like we were in it together and it was the first time I really went into one feeling like it was gonna be okay. It was a place where I really felt that parallel journey between Midge and myself. And it was a very cool moment.

Is there one moment where you feel like you really owned this, that the part really became you?

No. But I think if I ever really reach that point, I’m not working hard enough.

Source: Variety

A commentary on the Best Picture Nominees for 1994.

1994 was a great year for movies. Through the coarse of this retrospective on the year 1994 in movies the most difficult part will be deciding which movies not to cover. Though the best place to start would be the movies considered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be the best for the year. A wise man that I recently spoke to put it like this “ There were three all timers and two how the hell did they get nominated.” The movies in question are Four Weddings and a Funeral, Quiz Show, Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, and Forrest Gump. While all five are excellent films in their own right, three certainly stand out as having stood the test of time. There will be spoilers ahead as these movies are twenty five years old. If you haven’t seen these movies, I recommend all of them and they are their easy enough to find. I am going to try to not dig too deep into the meat and potatoes of the plot details, instead focusing on the elements that made these movies exceptional, the culture impact they had at the time, and their lasting legacy. So with no further delay, let’s get started.

Quiz Show

Quiz Show is a historical drama about the rigging of a 1950’s game show and the scandal that followed leading to a congressional investigation. The movie stars John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes, and Rob Morrow also is directed by Robert Redford. In the early days of television, game shows became popular programming which made household names out of its contestants. NBC had a show called Twenty-One. To sweeten the ratings, the producers gave the answers to a contestant Herbert Stemple, played by John Turturro. People tuned in to see just how much he would win as the prize money grew from week to week. When his ratings plateaued, they asked Stemple to take a dive so they could replace him with a more attractive star, Charles Van Doren played by Ralph Fiennes. Stemple takes this pretty hard and happily does his part to blow the lid off the whole thing when congress decides to investigate the quiz shows. Rob Morrow plays Dick Goodwin, the person asked to investigate the case and it’s remarkable how close he became to Van Doren. Van Doren plays a long with the scam for as long as his conscious will allow it. He is a Columbia professor from a family of intellectuals so this whole matter puts his reputation and family honor on the line.

It’s going to be hard to comment on the legacy of this film or its cultural impact since I don’t think Quiz Show has much of either. The movie was loved by critics but it bombed at the box office. Reading some of the reviews, I think the critics were reading too deep into the material. The story is a curiosity at best. It is interesting how much people cared about whether or not game shows were on the level, so much so that congress would get involved. All I could think is if they cared this much about quiz shows why didn’t they investigate wrestling, which was also very popular in the early days of television. The movie plays with the quaint notion that people on television would be admired for their intellect, something that even by 1994 was no longer the case. Quiz Show received several nominations by various organizations for Best Adapted Screenplay which I call bullshit on. I found the writing to be the weakest part of the film. There are clunky lines of dialogue like “He’s famous like Elvis.” or “Sputnik will land right on your head!” They had to keep reminding you in the dialogue that this movie takes places in the 50’s and every film student knows that is a screenwriting faux pas. Structurally, the writing is sound but unlike films like Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, or Four Weddings and a Funeral, the film doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary. I hate to engage in conspiracy theories but the praise Quiz Show receives from the critics and Academy can only best be explained as a love affair they have with Robert Redford.

With everything I just said, I don’t want it to sound like Quiz Show is a bad movie. It’s a perfectly acceptable film but definitely the weakest of the bunch. What the movie does do well is capturing the 50’s. This movie is an example of some excellent acting. John Turturro was particularly exceptional as Herbert Stemple, a nebish trivia expert who has difficulty dealing with taking a dive and being in on the fix. He is awkward and excitable. Turturro’s performance really is the strongest of a strong crop. Ralph Fiennes as the WASPy intellectual Charles Van Doren was also particularly well done. Robert Redford did an excellent job getting the best out of everyone down to the extras in terms of making these people feel authentic. I was born in 1980 so I don’t know for sure what people in the 50’s were like but all of these characters felt to me like what people in the 50’s acted like. The other remarkable aspects of Quiz Show to me were the production design and cinematography. This movie also looks authentically 50’s or rather my perception of that decade. If I were instructing film makers who were interested in making a period piece on the 50’s, Quiz Show would make the list for study material.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

I am so glad I got to rewatch this movie as part of this project. At first glance, one might remember this movie as one of the many Hugh Grant romantic comedies. That was a genre that ran its coarse by the mid-2000’s. I don’t like rom-coms. But Four Weddings and a Funeral is an exceptional romantic comedy. It casts the die for this type of movie and simultaneously breaks it. The movie follows Charlie, played by Hugh Grant, and a group of his friends as they attend four weddings and a funeral over the course of a year or so. We know little about these characters and their regular lives but that doesn’t really matter. All that does matter is how they interact in these type of social settings. We have all had to attend weddings and funerals and most of us know that we become different people in these settings. The only story connecting these events is Charlie meeting Carrie, an American played by Andie MacDowell, whom he falls in love with but can’t have. They meet and the only time they see each other is at these gatherings. Somehow they manage to have a type of relationship that is very touching. What makes this movie better than most of it’s genre is the writing, the comedy, the acting, and how it is structured. Comedy doesn’t always have to be loud and over the top, although sometimes that helps. Sometimes comedy can be just a look from the actor or a look away. It can be a subtle tick or body language. The supporting cast is very strong and whether they are giving a one- liner in passing or taking part of an entire scene, everyone invests into their character something to make them unique. The way the story is laid out is quite good too. Gareth, the character that is most full of life is the one who dies. The speech his lover Matthew makes at his funeral feels incredibly real. The funeral in this movie isn’t part of the comedy. It is played completely seriously. We don’t get the Big Show Daddy’s funeral here. You would think having an entire sequence that changes the tone of the movie would derail it but instead it adds to the experience and makes everything about the movie more authentic. Like most romantic comedies, the third act has a lot of surprises and turns where everything works out for the best in the end. But unlike most rom-coms, the ending feels earned. Hugh Grant says I do but the results are completely unexpected.

Four Weddings and a Funeral is an incredible accomplishment as an independent film. Made on a budget of roughly $3 million, this movie took in $245 million in worldwide box office. Today people could spend $3 million on four actual weddings and a funeral much less make a feature film of this quality for that much. Part of this movie’s success has to do with a press tour Hugh Grant does in America that charms the nation. That coupled with the movie would make Hugh Grant a star. He would go on to be a romantic lead for years to come. The other legacy for this movie is the string of romantic comedies that would come. They are less common now than they used to be but for many years that would follow 1994, it seemed you would get at least two rom-coms a month. The writing for romantic comedies became formulaic and the plots contrived. For a while, they would be the easiest money a studio could earn. Much like the slasher trend of the 80’s, studios rarely lost money on a rom-com and they kept pumping them out. I am sure there are examples of romantic comedies before this movie, Annie Hall comes to mind. But Four Weddings and a Funeral started an explosion in this genre.

Shawshank Redemption

Based on a Steven King story, Shawshank Redemption is the story of Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, making the best use of his time. Told through the eyes of Red, a convict played by Morgan Freeman, this is about how Andy quietly escapes from prison. By the end of the movie you see how Andy bides his time, used his remarkable intellect, and carefully planned his escape from the first day he arrived at Shawshank Prison. The storytelling is so masterful that by the end of the movie you see everything Andy does through has a purpose with the focus of getting out. Also you see the friendship between Red and Andy grow over time. You see how Andy plays the Warden and the head prison guard, brilliantly played by Clancy Brown, putting together a money laundering scheme that makes everyone rich. There is so much that can be said about this movie, it really is a masterpiece. The acting performances were amazing. The setting and production design was incredible. Shawshank Redeption brings this environment to life and the prison becomes a character itself. All of the characters have the feeling of real people. Even Tommy, who we barely see for an act of the movie, makes you feel heartbroken when he is shot. Brooks is another character that we meet for only a brief moment in the movie. He has a hard time adjusting to life on the outside. The way they told his story was so good that you can identify with a man who feels more comfortable in prison than out of prison. Really, all I can say about Shawshank Redemption is that it’s about hope and living with purpose. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing. And no good thing ever dies.

Shawshank Redeption did not do well in the box office. Once awards season rolled around, it started to gain some buzz. It became one of the top rented movies for 1995. Once TNT started showing the movie almost daily, they had found their audience and people began to appreciate Shawshank Redemption for the great movie that it is. It’s hard to say that if this movie or Seven was the film that launched Morgan Freeman into being a bankable actor in a supporting role but it certainly helped. Putting this film into the context of what it meant in 1994 is kind of difficult because it didn’t have much box office success at the time. However, what the movie does have is a timeless quality. People born in 1994 are finding this movie and enjoying it today. Somewhere on cable, this movie is being played as you read this. Every streaming service I can think of has Shawshank Redemption available. That is the mark of a truly great film, that it will be around forever.

Pulp Fiction

A landmark film of the 90’s, Pulp Fiction follows three separate stories, told out of order, surrounding a group of criminals, over the course of two days. Structurally, Pulp Fiction is unlike an other movie we have seen. There are seven different sequences that tie together tangentially. We start at the diner at the beginning where two robbers that we can affectionately call Honey Bunny and Ringo are plotting to rob the restaurant they are in. Then we meet Vincent Vega, played by John Travolta, and Jules Winnfield, played by Samuel L. Jackson. They discuss cheeseburgers and go on a mission to retrieve some propriety for their employee from some small timers who only had the best of intentions. The third sequence is Vincent having to take his bosses wife on a date. After what can best described as a successful date, Vincent’s date Mia Wallace, played by Uma Thurman, has an accidental overdose and Vincent finds a way to discretely have her revived before anyone can find out. The next sequence is Air Force Captain Koons, played by Christopher Walken gives us the significance for a gold watch being given to Butch, who will grow up to be a boxer and played by Bruce Willis. The next sequence shows the after match of what happens when Butch doesn’t throw a fight he was suppose to throw for mob boss Marsellus Wallace, played by Ving Rhames. Butch has to return to his apartment where gangsters will be waiting. Butch gets the watch back and then things get weird. If you didn’t know what a gimp was before, then you will now. From there, we go back to what happened after Vincent and Jules retrieve the briefcase. Jules has a spiritual experience and while discussing theology in the car with their friend Marvin, Marvin gets shot in the head accidentally. Jules has a friend in Toluca Lake named Jimmy who can hide them for a little while until his wife comes home but they have a serious problem driving around in a car soaked in blood with a headless dead body in the back seat. Mr. Wallace calls in Winston Wolfe, played by Harvey Keitel. Mr. Wolfe may be one of the coolest characters in the history of movies. He cleans up messes and does so with such style, you really have to see it. With the situation cleaned up, Jules and Vincent go to lunch at a diner, the one that was going to be robbed at the beginning of the movie. When Ringo and Honey Bunny decide to rob the place, Jules puts the breaks on it by gaining control of the situation. Jules breaks down his interpretation of Ezekiel 25:17, which is terribly misquoted and out of context in any bible translation you might have. Regardless, Jules puts a bow on the movie with what he tells Ringo before making a quiet exit.

Quentin Tarantino has made so many great films over the years but this one still is considered by many to be the best. To make a movie that is as popular as Pulp Fiction is with such an unorthodox structure is an achievement in itself. Every single character pops and comes alive. Even Christopher Walken’s character, who makes a brief cameo and gives a roughly two minute speech, feels lived in and authentic. Holding an audiences attention with a monologue like that in a static shot with nothing visually taking place is one of the most difficult things to pull off but here it’s done masterfully. I think I have heard every line from this movie quoted or referenced at some point in my life. Royale with Cheese, Ezekiel 25:17, What does Marselles Wallace look like? Say what again! I am sure you have your favorite line. Point is, no one else can pull off this kind of wordy, clever dialogue but for Quentin Tarantino. I have seen attempts to copy this style,whether it be in movies, tv, or comic books, fail time and again. That is what makes Tarantino a master amongst directors. Also, this movie makes the characters likable, relatable people. Almost every character in the movie is not what one would call a good person. They are criminals, remorseless killers, dregs of society, lowlifes the whole lot of them. But through the writing, directing, and acting these become characters that we like, enjoy spending time with, and even want to see succeed. While Tarantino broke many of the established rules and conventions of film making with Pulp Fiction, there is an obvious love for the craft that can be seen in this and all of his movies. I could probably write a book on Pulp Fiction but to sum up this part of the article, Quentin Tarantino made a masterpiece with Pulp Fiction. It’s considered by some critics to be the greatest film ever made.

The effects of Pulp Fiction on the culture were wide and sweeping. This movies success launched the career of Quentin Tarantino and gave him the creative license to do whatever projects he wanted, which he has for the last twenty five years. The success of this film had a great effect on how people in and outside the movie business saw independent films. No longer were indie films reserved simply for the art houses with a limited appeal and a niche audience. The career of John Travolta was revived because of this movie. The Simpsons joke about a bartender looking like John Travolta was not far off from the truth. A series of critical and commercial bombs throughout the 80’s left Travolta at the lowest point of his career. This movie put him back on the map and made John Travolta cool again. Pulp Fiction elevated the careers of Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman. Both had been respectable, working actors prior to this movie but Pulp Fiction made both actors leading role material and marketable entities. Bruce Willis was also helped greatly by his performance in Pulp Fiction. Bruce was pretty well established as an action hero but this movie helped him be taken seriously as an actor that can do a lot more than most action stars. As I have stated before, Pulp Fiction has been referenced and quoted countless times throughout pop culture. When Fall Out Boy made a song about wanting to dance like Uma Thurman, they weren’t talking about her performance in Batman and Robin or The Avengers (1996). Movies from Space Jam to this years Captain Marvel have fit in references to Pulp Fiction. The sountrack was fantastic. Many of us remember the ECW interview segments with the surf guitars in the background that most fans simply call “Pulp Fiction.” There are few movies that can be called game changers but Pulp Fiction is most certainly one of them.

And the Oscar goes to…. Forrest Gump.

Forrest Gump is about a simple man with an extraordinary life. Forrest, played by Tom Hanks, is a character that is slow but wise. He finds himself in the middle of almost every major cultural event from the last half of the 20th Century. Somehow he is oblivious to the significance of these events. He teaches Elvis how to dance, plays football for Bear Bryant, fights in Vietnam, meets Presidents Johnson and Nixon, invests in Apple Computers, runs a few laps around the United States, founds a successful shrimp company, and so much more. Forrest Gump doesn’t see any of this as impressive. His main focus is the love of the first girl he saw on kindergarten, Jenny. They have moments where they pass through each others life. Forest is smitten. Jenny has other priorities in live and while she finds Forest to be sweet, she doesn’t take him seriously. That unrequited love is at the center of who Forrest is and no matter what happens, he loves Jenny. In the end, Jenny dies but not before giving Forrest a son.

Forrest Gump was an unexpected blockbuster that captured the imagination of the country. I remember being taken to this film along with the rest of my school under the pretense of a history field trip. The most remarkable thing about that field trip is how this movie held the attention of my entire 8th grade class. Even the small town junior thugs sat still and paid attention to Forrest Gump. The movie manages to not be overly schmaltzy in it’s nostalgia but also not cynical about the past. Seeing these events through the eyes of a man like Forrest Gump helps. He is the kind of guy who can meet John Lennon and not know who he just met. That keeps this movie from being the sort of thing that is laughable like in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. My Dad saw this movie in the theater and my Dad never goes to the theater. This movie took the country by storm and I don’t believe the producers could have seen the success of this film coming. On a budget of $55 Million, Forrest Gump made $677 Million at the box office, second highest grossing film of the year only behind The Lion King. This was a film that almost everyone saw and the line “Life is like a box of chocolates.” was quoted frequently.

One of the last legacies of this film is what it did for Tom Hanks career. He was launched from a fairly popular comedic actor having worked on films like The Burbs, Dragnet, The Money Pit, and Joe vs the Volcano. With Forrest Gump, Hanks went to become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, a wave that he is riding to this very day. Tom Hanks came to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor with a lot of versatility. When you look at the wide range of characters Hanks has played over his career, all of it is owed to what he did with this film. The very humorous line in Tropic Thunder about “not going full retard” is very amusing but actually really good acting advice. The way Hanks plays Forrest with so many layers, it really is an amazing performance. Also a lot of credit should be given to the writers as well as director Robert Zemeckis. Together, they crafted an amazingly rich character. The way this character behaves is consistent through the years. He is unchanged while the world around him keeps on changing at a rate that may have never been seen in human history. Forrest Gump is an example of a protagonist who effects the world around him but has no traditional character arc. With his performance, you see a person who impacts those around him and makes them better, particularly Lieutenant Dan, played by Gary Sinise. Lieutenant Dan has a character arc from when we first meet him to where he ends up at the end of the movie. Forrest is more or less unchanged. Thanks to what Tom Hanks showed in this movie, he became a bankable star that has been given a wide range of roles over the last twenty-five years and he has to be considered one of the greatest American actors there have ever been.

Speaking of Gary Sinise, the impact Forrest Gump had on his life has been long lasting and powerful. Lieutenant Dan is Forrest’s commanding officer in Vietnam. He has a long history of the men in his family dying in the battle field in all our wars. It looks like Dan will proudly follow in his fathers footsteps when Forrest Gump steps in and saves his life. Dan is not at all happy about this. Not only did he fail to live up to his family legacy but he also will live the rest of his life without legs. Dan pops in and out of Forrest’s life in the coming years, struggling hard to adjust to life outside the military and without legs. He eventually finds peace and a purpose thanks in part to the friendship of Forrest Gump. After this movie came out, the character really resonated with veterans and many gave their touching stories to Gary Sinise in person. He has talked about this at great length and even to this day he gets very emotional when discussing the conversations he has had with veterans over the years and just what the character of Lieutenant Dan has meant to their lives. This led Sinise to doing a lot of work with veterans groups over the years, helping people out with trauma. You can look more into the work for yourself he has done over the years but the point is that it has meant a great deal to many people and he has really came through for veterans. All of this because of a movie. That is the power of films and how they can touch the lives of many people.

It’s worth discussing the soundtrack to this movie. The two disc set for Forrest Gump containing hits from the 50’s to the 80’s along with the score is in many ways the soundtrack for the Baby Boom generation. It sold over 12 Million copies and reached number two on the Billboard charts. This is unheard of for a movie soundtrack. Using popular music was an important aspect of Forrest Gump and clearly it resonated with many people. The right music used at the right times can really make the movie feel authentic. It’s hard to equate it to anything today. I suppose Guardians of the Galaxy might be the closest comparison. I was shocked to find out how well this soundtrack performed on the charts and it’s a sign of the long reach this movie had.

Did they get it right?

So those are our five films that the Academy deemed to be the best of the year. So did they get it right? Well, in my opinion, they could have done better than selecting Quiz Show. I think movies like Ed Wood and The Lion King were worthy of consideration for Best Picture. Prior to rewatching Four Weddings and a Funeral I would have said that movie had no business being nominated but my opinion has changed. It was going to to break through this crowded field but it certainly was worthy of consideration being that it is the best example of a genre that had not yet been played out.

Having watched all five films this week, I will say that Pulp Fiction was probably the best movie in 1994. That being said, I can see why they went with Forrest Gump and it wasn’t a grave error. Forrest Gump was the safe pick. Everyone had seen the movie. It was a fantastic film, worthy of Best Picture in any year it could have conceivably been released. Most importantly, the subject matter was safe. A nostalgia film about the baby boom generation vs a movie about criminals filled with sex, violence, and foul language. The Academy is going to go with a film like Forrest Gump every time. There are plenty of other years where one can criticize the Academy for not picking the right film for Best Picture or nominating a bunch of movies no one has seen or cares about. 1994 was not one of those years. Picking between Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, and Forrest Gump was not an easy task. These three films will be watched and talked about forever.