#but i ran out of time and energy and nolan movies to have on in the background
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Heyo, don't be too shy to post your writing if you want to post it! I'll bet you it's good u.u Which (Cillian) characters and what genres are you (not) ready to write? More specifically, is Jonathan Crane from Nolan's Batman movies also a valid option? xD
Anyhow, maybe a Neil Lewis x sleep-deprived-and-stressed-from-university-despite-procrastinating reader comfort thingy (definitely no copium on my part there)? :D
Looking forward to your stories!
A/N: thank u sm:( I'll create a list and post it soon (should be probablyyyy before I post this??) which'll outline all that:) but omg of COUURRRSEE Johnathan crane is allowed he's so fine like who else is salivating rn........... anyways neil is literally my baby girl so I hope I did him justice for u🙏🙏 also I'm literally procrastinating doing hw rn so we are in the same boat stay strong king
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99.5 - Neil Lewis x GN! Reader.
Summary: Neil helps his sleepless, stressed partner finally get some rest.
Warnings: Swearing?????? Neil is so out of character what . Established relationship. I try to talk about a movie I've never seen so.
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"but ninety's close and, ninety nine is almost sure. ninety nine and half, it just won't do."
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The erupting sound of laptop keys being clacked with fervor cascaded throughout their room, with a deep, heaving sigh and their bottom lip hooked on their teeth, they leaned back.
This- university, that is- had become too much.
It seemed, to them, they had ten million classes, which then meant ten million responsibilities and ten million more things on their plate that just added up- so many assignments, so many papers and emails to write and notes to check and things to read and-
And then, of course, there was Neil.
Neil, who ran his dearly beloved video store. Neil, who could sleep at night. Neil who wasn't in University.
Oh, Y/N thought, tucking their knees under their chin, palm rubbing at bagged eyes, how they envied him.
Yes, he did have his stresses, but he didn't have to deal with this fucking professor who-
"Y/N. You here?"
Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
They let out a weak noise of approval, absentmindedly pressing keys on their laptop as they gazed at the screen.
This all seemed wrong.
They couldn't find the right words for their thoughts, their brain muddled and their paper riddled with too many repetitive sentences and words and it was just dogshit and-
Ever so gently, Neil stalked up behind them, pressing a sweet kiss to their temple.
"What'cha workin' on?"
He rested his chin on their shoulder, crystalline eyes locked on the screen as Y/N huffed out in defeat, eyes trained on the cups littering their desk with tired eyes.
Two empty mugs, at least four of those paper insulted coffee cups, another few, large drive-thru cups of either-empty-or-quarter-filled, heavily caffeinated pops of some kind, three empty cans of energy drinks (the ones they swore to themself never to drink again after downing five back-to-back one time in high school on a dare,) and littered between it all was a dozen notebooks and folders and textbooks decorated with various pens and highlighters.
"Y'know."
They spoke, huffing in a sweet breath, scratching at the back of their hair (which felt tight in its root the way it did when they just woke up and were still filled with a deep sleepiness or when they hadn't slept at all,) before gesturing somewhat to the screen.
Neil chuckled a bit, voice soft, yet still awkward in that sweet way Neil was.
"Not really, scholar"
Y/N laughed a bit too hard.
"Scholar? You wouldn't call me that if you read this excuse of a paper, seriously- this thing is bullshit-"
They cut themself off with a deep yawn, now acutely aware of their tiredness.
Neil readjusted, caging them in his arms by rounding them across their shoulders, chin still resting on them.
"Bet it's better than I could do"
Y/N groaned.
"Bet s' not."
Neil simply shrugged, eliciting an 'ehhh' in disagreement before pressing another kiss on their shoulder, letting his partner ramble on.
"I don't get why they assign so much shit- I bet it's more than my fucking high school did- and I'm so fucking stressed Neil. I can't even sleep because I have so much shit to do. Then I sit here and I do none of it all fucking day because I can't fucking focus on it"
They ranted out, pushing their head back on Neils shoulder, staring up at the ceiling.
"You haven't slept?"
They huffed out for at least the fourteenth time within the hour.
"No."
Neil squeezed Y/N in his arms for a second before unraveling them, getting up from his position, hands flat on the low arms of Y/N's chair as he lazily laid his head back in faux-thought, staring at the ceiling alongside his partner.
"I think I may know why you can't focus or do anything"
Y/N laughed a little, dryly.
"Oh?"
"S' just a theory though"
Y/N dropped their shoulders and rolled their head to finally look at Neil.
"Well?"
Their voiced was laced with a fake agitation as he looked down at them.
"I think you're overdue for a break"
Y/N was quick to butt into this, eyes trained on Neil as he slid away from the chair, instead leaning against the wall next to it, long legs crossed.
"Technically I haven't done shit- so I've just been taking one huge stressful break for the past, like, two days so-"
He had an arm wrapped around his own ribcage, the other propped against it, holding his chin in his hand with it as he looked off in thought.
"Sorority House Massacre-"
Y/N was quick to speak, the two's voiced overlapping.
"Oh God-" They groaned "Neil, you know I adore watching movies with you but I have so much work to do I-"
"Popcorn, or The Crime Doctor?"
They sighed, eyes locked on their boyfriend, who looked at them expectantly.
Their brows furrowed together.
"Do I have a choice?'
Neil shook his head, eyes still just as expectant.
"The Crime Doctor. Can I work while we watch?"
Neil stuck his hand out to his lover.
"No-o" He dragged his voice out, a sweet smile on his mouth as he shook his hand just a touch "you have to watch-watch, it's a break"
Y/N took Neil's hand into their own, unwinding their legs from beneath them and getting up.
They stretched out a bit, tugging at the hem of their sleep-shorts with their free hand.
Neil squeezed their hand, tugging them along to their living room.
He settled them on the couch, which they sunk into tiredly, before he wandered off to the kitchen.
He was quick to return, a few snacks and bottled drinks in hand he scattered across the coffee table, before he stood and gazed at the shelves full of VHS tapes and DVDs of all kinds, tracing his eyes quickly over each of the names.
He found The Crime Doctor, electing a little, excited, 'aha!' as he did, plucking it from the shelf.
"Have you seen this before?"
Y/N shook their head, peeling the plush throw blanket off from its position draped over the back of the couch.
"S' really good. It started as a radio series back in 1940-ish-" He spoke as he put the thing into it's respective player, the thing whirring to life as he turned on the TV. "-Then was made into a series of movies in 1943."
He paused, caught his breath, and sat down onto the couch alongside his lover, wrapping an arm around their shoulder, using his other hand to tuck the blanket in-between the two of them so it wrapped a bit more firmly around their frame.
"For something so old, it dealt with a lot of good topics. Mental health and morality in the criminal justice system, that kind of thing. Not something you really saw during that time"
The movie began, erupting onto the screen as Neil held Y/N closer to himself, littering little kisses wherever he could reach.
Y/N hummed in reply, drooping eyes locked onto the screen as Neil began gently carding his fingers through their hair.
He passed his hand over their hair, closing his eyes and kissing their hairline ever so softly.
"I love you a lot, y'know?"
Y/N pushed themself further into Neil's embrace, curled into his side.
"I love you too.." They spoke, voice muffled by Neils shoulder "Thank you."
He replied with another kiss to decorate their face, fingertips still at work scratching gently at their scalp.
Y/N breathed Neil in, relishing in the comfort he always brought them as the movie marched on, black and white and strangely nostalgic.
And as it did, their eyes fluttered shut (with the idea that, no, they weren't going to sleep, only closing their eyes for just a second,) before their exhaustion took over each of their senses, lulling them to sleep.
And, Neil decided then, with Y/N in his arms, there wasn't a single thing he'd change in this moment, before shutting his own eyes and drifting off himself, The Crime Doctor still playing in all it's glory.
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"oh, I thought I told you before, you never take it so far that you can't take it back down."
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#neil lewis x reader#watching the detectives#watching the detectives x reader#watching the detectives fanfiction#Cillian murphy x reader#Cillian murphy fanfiction#neil lewis#neil lewis fanfiction
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'Christopher Nolan has been ready to tell the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb," for years. And he's doing just that in his latest epic, Oppenheimer.
"A lot of people are familiar to some degree with Oppenheimer -- that he was involved in the Manhattan Project, he ran the laboratory in Los Alamos during World War II, that they were in a desperate race against the Nazis to be the first to harness this power," the director explained to ET's Rachel Smith. "But what happened to him afterwards is equally dramatic and important and it's not so well known. The film has a lot to do with the consequences of actions -- sort of going ahead and doing these things and then having to deal with the consequences for years afterwards."
"We live in the world that Oppenheimer created," he added. "It's a pretty fascinating set of events. I just don't know of a story as paradoxical, just as full of impossible situations."
The director was so fascinated by the people and events of the Manhattan Project, in fact, that he actually dropped an Easter egg about Oppenheimer in his previous film, Tenet.
"There's a reference to this idea that when Oppenheimer was running the Manhattan Project and they were doing their calculations, early on they saw the possibility that when they triggered the first atomic device, to test it, they might start a chain reaction that set fire to the atmosphere and destroyed the whole world."
"A small possibility, [but they] couldn't eliminate it completely through theory, and yet they went ahead and they pushed that button," he continued. "And I just thought, if you could go there with the audience, if you could take the audience into that room, where they're having those conversations, where they're making those decisions and ultimately pushing that button, that's as dramatic a scene I could imagine in motion pictures. So, as a filmmaker, that's the kind of story you're looking to tell."
Nolan found his Oppenheimer in Irish actor Cillian Murphy, who called the opportunity to play the theoretical physicist "a gift, a total gift."
Notoriously secretive about his scripts, the director actually flew to meet with each of his prospective stars in person, to allow them to read his physical copy of the Oppenheimer script.
"The extraordinary thing about the script was it's written in the first person, which is the first time I'd ever encountered that," Murphy shared of his first impression. "You realize then this is something different. They made this very clever thing in the movie -- the Oppenheimer sequences are in color, and then the Strauss sequences are in black and white. So it's kind of subjective-objective, and that's just amazing."
Lewis Strauss, the American businessman and naval officer who later became chairman of the the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) -- and ultimately headed up the hearings that revoked Oppenheimer of his security clearance -- is played in the film by Robert Downey Jr., who told ET he was thrilled to count himself among the A-list cast, which also includes Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Kenneth Branagh and more.
"You have pretty much a who's who of several generations of actors," he noted. "And we all know we're doing something with a master filmmaker. We're all there for the love of it, because this was a money gig for none of us. It was an exceptionally taxing venture. And we'd all do it again."
Downey referred to Murphy's performance in the film as a "heroic effort," but his co-star humbly attributed his portrayal to the "safe environment" Nolan created for his actors on set.
"He creates this really kind of like a laboratory, where you can just try stuff out and he just lets you off," he explained. "And the other thing is, I was thinking about it, no scene ever gets left behind, do you know what I mean? No scene is less than another."
Certainly no stranger to star-studded ensembles, particularly throughout his time in the MCU, Downey received praise of his own from Nolan -- who marveled at the actor's talent, some of which has been hidden away behind an iron suit for the last decade or so.
"Robert Downey Jr. is somebody who I've wanted to work with forever," the director shared. "He's an extraordinary movie star with this amazing charisma, you know, Iron Man, Sherlock Holmes, these great films. But the thing that people sometimes lose in that is he's also one of the greatest actors."
"To meet with him and show him the script and say, what about just inhabiting this real-life figure? Losing any associations we have with Robert Downey Jr., seeing [you] do something that you've never done before," he recalled. "I think he was thrilled to be offered the challenge like that and I think his work in the film is really going to surprise people. I think it's quite remarkable."
Blunt and Damon likened the vibe on the film's New Mexico set to "summer camp," and while Murphy admitted that he was often off on his own "learning lines," he had nothing but praise for his castmates and their work on the world-changing epic.
"I liked working with Florence Pugh, [she] was amazing," Murphy raved. "She's something else. And I've admired her work for a long time, so that was a real treat to get to work with her."
"Everyone smashed it. Like, everyone's unbelievable," he added. "'Cause Chris expects excellence, that's just a given, and everyone turned up and delivered. Every single actor."'
#Christopher Nolan#Oppenheimer#Cillian Murphy#Tenet#Matt Damon#Emily Blunt#Robert Downey Jr.#Sherlock Holmes#Lewis Strauss#Kenneth Branagh#Florence Pugh#Iron Man
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Like Father, Like Daughter
McCall Pack x Finstock! Reader
Word count: 1,580
Masterlist
When your senior year started and Ms. Monroe made some odd comments during your meeting about your schedule, you were hesitant to tell your dad. After the things you’d both seen and dealt with in the last three years, you didn’t want to worry him. Instead, you did your best to keep a level head and ignored the twisting feeling in your gut that she knew more than you were comfortable with.
Coach Finstock had discovered pretty quickly after adopting you that you weren’t an average kid. You never got sick like the others, never stayed down for long when you got hurt. He got you into sports to work through some of your energy and aggression, which you took to very easily. When you shifted for the first time and tried to lock yourself in your room to hide, he sat on the other side of the door and offered quiet encouragement until you came out.
For more than six years, you’d counted on him to protect you and did your best to cover for him when he needed you. It had been a real test of control when he got shot in the stomach with an arrow on a cross country run, but he’d assured you he would be okay. His muttered curses and forced smile kept you anchored, kept you human.
You were in the library when Nolan stabbed Corey with a pen. The interaction startled you and prompted you to avoid the nervous boy whenever possible. If he was going to keep doing reckless things that could expose the supernatural, you wanted nothing to do with it. Then the testing started.
Every day, more kids walked around with bandages on their hands, keeping their heads down in the halls. Nolan and his friend Gabe picked a fight with Liam one day, so you ran to your dad’s office and together you pulled them apart. Your dad saw the instigators to the front office while you lingered to see Mason and Corey pick up their friend and rush him away.
While Liam was gone from school the next day, Nolan and Aaron cornered you in the library. You’d been looking for a new book by a favorite author of yours, then turned your head and came face to face with the boys. Aaron held a dirty scalpel in his hand and wore an unsettling smile on his face.
“Hey, Y/N. We haven’t had the chance to talk yet.”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
Nolan planted his feet on the floor as if to intimidate you. He didn’t have a clue how low he was on your list of threats.
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure it is.” You whirled around to see your dad standing at the end of the shelf, looking more than irritated with both boys. “Step away now, unless you both want detention for the next two weeks.”
Aaron had hidden the blade as soon as your dad spoke up and was quick to slink away, probably on his way to terrorize other students. Nolan followed him and you hurried to your dad’s side.
“Thank you.”
“Did that kid have a knife with him?”
You nodded briefly and followed him to his office, where you settled in a chair to read.
“I’m sure you’ve seen the other kids. A lot of them have bandages on their hands. They’re… testing us. All of us.”
“Then you’re steering clear of them until this is all over.”
“I can’t avoid them forever and still go to school, dad. I can’t afford to miss any classes.”
“We’ll work something out. I’m not leaving you to the mercy of these delinquents.”
You gave him a grateful look and opened your book. Finstock kept you in his office for the rest of the day and you walked out to the parking lot side by side after school. You both agreed to stay home together all weekend and watch whatever games came on between movies you wanted to marathon. It was a decent plan. If only you’d been able to stick to it.
It was your mistake, thinking you were safer outside of school than inside it. You’d realized there was nothing to make for dinner and you’d ordered out the last two nights, so you were determined to make a healthy dinner no matter how much your dad complained that he was plenty healthy already.
You’d noticed someone watching when you loaded the groceries into the car and started on the way home. As you drove down an abandoned road, you caught a whiff of aggression in the air. There was a car stopped in the middle of the road with their hazard lights on, forcing you to slow down and drift to the side to avoid them. When you moved to the left for just a moment, something struck your tires and you had to move all the way to the right and pull off the road entirely.
The second you knelt down to check the back tires, a hand grabbed you by the collar and threw you back. You scrambled to get to your feet, but a boot planted itself on your chest and kept you down. A sneering face stared down at you and you recognized the stench of aggression and anger.
“What do you think you’re doing, man? Get off me.”
You nearly snarled, but tried to keep your tone in check.
“You really thought you could hide forever, Y/N? Monsters like you always show their true nature eventually.”
Ms. Monroe rounded your car and stood beside the man, both illuminated by the headlights of the truck blocking the road.
“Ms. Monroe? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
You tried to sound near tears and afraid. It was as easily done as said. She pulled out a gun and held up a bullet.
“You know what wolfsbane does to your kind, don’t you?” She loaded the bullet into the gun and pointed it at you. “We aren’t taking chances anymore. It’s time we took a stand, and that starts with putting down animals that can’t be trusted around innocent people.”
You felt your claws extend and braced yourself for a fight.
“You think you’re the innocent one here? Really?”
“I lost my innocence when the Beast tried to rip me apart in a school bus. You never had any to begin with. You were born a monster, and now you’ll die the same way.”
Just before she could pull the trigger, you took your chance. You rammed your claws into the calf of the man above you and rolled away as he screamed in pain. You jumped to your feet and ran for Monroe, catching her in the stomach and tackling her to the ground before making a mad dash for your car. Another man appeared around the door and slammed it closed, cutting you off from escape.
Before you could lose hope, another car came barreling down the road. A rusty old blue Jeep you recognized as Stiles Stilinski’s screeched to a halt and someone threw open a door. Without a moment’s hesitation, you leapt in and the door slammed closed as the car took off again.
A hand landed on your shoulder and you realized you’d effectively jumped into Mason’s lap. You quickly scrambled over the seat into the back, where Liam was sitting with a stunned expression on his face.
“Thanks for the save. I’m not sure I could have taken that guy without killing anyone.”
“You’re a werewolf?”
You looked at Liam and nodded.
“Yeah. Born and raised. Why?”
“You never said anything.”
“Why would I?” You looked from Liam to Mason and Scott, who was driving. “You guys all clearly had your own problems. My dad and I agreed I should just keep my head down and try to graduate without getting dragged into something that would more than likely kill me.”
Scott furrowed his brow and looked at you in the rearview mirror.
“You knew about us? Since when?”
“Uh… about a day after you got bitten. You’re not as discreet as you think, at least not to another werewolf who’s very good at hiding.”
Mason turned around and tilted his head at you.
“Who’s your dad?”
“Coach Finstock.”
Scott nearly ran the Jeep off the road and slowed down to go the speed limit.
“Coach Finstock knows?”
“It’d be pretty hard not to when you adopt a werewolf.”
“Does he know about us too?”
“Kind of. Like I said, if you know what to look for, most werewolves can be easy to find. But I’ve never outright told him about you. I figured it wasn’t either of our business, so I didn’t say anything.” You looked over at Liam for a second and your voice softened just a bit. “I’m sorry about the other day. I feel like I should have done more to help.”
“It’s okay. You threw Nolan back so hard I thought you might have actually hurt him. I’m fine now, so it doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter, to me at least. People are drawing lines and picking sides… I want you to know that my dad and I are on yours. If any of you guys need our help, we want to do what we can.”
You could hear Scott’s muttered response and racing heart as he drove further away from the ambush.
“Careful what you wish for.”
#teen wolf x reader#mccal pack x reader#reader insert#female reader#teen wolf x finstock! reader#my writing#haven writes
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Don’t Hold Me -19- Carter Hart
A/N: as always, all previous parts are linked in my master list. Also, umm don’t hate me for what happens at the very end. MENTIONS OF VIOLENCE at the end as well, so if that could potently be triggering for you please be warned.
There was a moment, right when you first opened your eyes that you could’ve sworn you were a teenager again. You could hear Travis arguing with Ethan just feet from you, with the sound of someone playing NHL in the background. You felt so warm due to a blanket that someone had to have tossed over you at some point during the night. You wondered if you would see your house when you opened your eyes.
But there was an arm wrapped around you. So you couldn’t be at home. You were in Travis’s apartment. Ethan came in to help you and Kora move all of your things into a storage unit for the summer. He was going to stay for part of the playoffs. Carter was sleeping next to you. You’d both fallen asleep during a movie.
You wiggled out from under Carter’s arm, following the sound of the voices to the kitchen. Kora, who still looked half asleep, was tucked under Ethan’s arm. Nolan was playing NHL in the living room, yelling at one of the other Flyers through a headset. In your gut, you knew this was what a normal morning with them. This is what life should be like.
“Y/N! Tell him that he’s wrong!” Travis begged, pointing to Ethan.
You shook your head, still too tired to even start to get into their mess, “Please tell me someone made coffee?”
Kora stepped away from E, “I’ll pour you a cup.”
“Carter still knocked out?” Ethan asked as you sat down on one of the bar stools.
“Yeah, you two arguing woke me up,” You responded slowly, “What were you two arguing over anyway?”
“Don’t ask,” Kora handed you a cup of coffee, “They’re being guys.”
“They’re arguing over who had more points when they played together,” Nolan announced from the couch.
“Oh, that’s easy, it was Ethan,” You shrugged, “Travis had the most penalty minutes.”
Kora had to hold back a laugh at the face that Travis made. Truth was, although Travis was an incredible player, even then, he was still very scrappy. He made a lot of bad plays and often let his head get the better of him. Ethan was always more level headed, and was responsible for more than his fair share of assists. But when the two of them were on the ice together, nothing was going to stop them. You missed watching them together like that.
“Someone had to do all the dirty work,” Travis explained, “But I don’t get that many penalties now.”
Kora reached over and messed up his hair, “No, you behave now. Like a good little feisty Canadian.”
“Careful, he bites when provoked,” Carter joked, finally seeming to have woken up.
“Better watch it, we have practice in a couple of hours, I won’t take it easy on you,” Travis warned.
“Okay Teeks, sure,” Carter kissed the top of your head, “Morning babe.”
You felt your cheeks heat up a little as you tilted your head to look up at him. This was something you could really get used to, all of you being together like this. You and Kora had to move out of the dorm, since the year was finally over. So Travis was letting her and Ethan crash at his place, while you stayed with Carter. Although, last night all of you ended up over here to watch movies and eat pizza. Nolan casually reminded everyone that pizza was not a part of the approved playoff diet.
“Sleep okay?” Carter asked you, taking a sip of your coffee.
You nodded and leaned back into him, “Out like a light.”
Carter wrapped his arms around you, dropping his head so his chin rested on your shoulder. His hair tickled your cheek, causing you to smile. Across from you, both Ethan and Travis were watching you with the same sort of fond smile.
Kora looked between the two other men, “Just say it, they’re cute,” She huffed, “Nolan, you wanna play me?”
“I’d like to see what you’re made of,” Nolan replied, holding up an extra controller.
The following night, you, Kora, and Ethan file into the arena, ready for the next game in the series. Carter was starting in net tonight, and Travis literally wouldn’t stop bouncing all day long. You made a joke that someone needed to take out his batteries. Kora held onto Ethan, smiling as random Flyers fans high fived each other for wearing jerseys.
“Now this is a good way to celebrate another year of hell being over,” Kora joked, “We’re all drinking tonight, right?”
“You two can have all you’d like,” E told us, “I’ll be semi sober so I can take care of both of you.”
Kora looked up at him in a way that you could only describe as love. It was weird, seeing your best friend and your brother like that. Yet, it made you happy at the same time. You liked the idea of them being happy together, come what may.
“We should get to our seats,” You told them, “Drinks later.”
“I’m going to be the only one getting drunk tonight, aren’t I?” Kora questioned.
Both you and Ethan laughed, knowing you weren’t going to have more than a drink, maybe two. The only time you ever really got drunk was with Kora, but you wanted to be sober for this. You wanted to watch every second as the game unfolded. You wanted to be able to run to Carter and hold him after the game was over, because who knew how many more times you could do that.
Kora leaned over to you once you were all in your seats, “You have that look again, are you okay?”
You forced a smile and tried to push away the sudden sickening feeling you had in your stomach, “yeah, I’m fine.”
But you couldn’t shake the sudden feeling that you shouldn’t have come tonight. That you should’ve watched from Carter’s apartment. But you hadn’t missed a home game almost all season, and you certainly weren’t going to miss a playoff game.
Yet, every ounce of you was screaming to run, to get away while you still could. But you knew you were safe, Zachary wouldn’t dare come near you while Ethan was here. He wouldn’t really do anything in the arena, where all of the security knew you by now. You were safe here.
You tugged on the sleeves of your jersey, pulling them down so they covered your hands. You couldn’t help the little shiver that went through you. So instead, you pulled out your phone and looked at the last text Carter sent you, vowing to win since everyone was here. Your eyes seemed to stay glued to the part where he said he loved you and he loved knowing that you were wearing his jersey.
Although he laughed about it at first, somehow knowing that the jersey on your back was actually his old one, and not just one you got from the team store, made him feel different. Like you were really shouting to everyone that you were his, and he was yours. He often chirped some of the other guys about their relationships, but that all stopped when he realized how much he loved you.
Because the truth of it was, Carter could see a whole life with you. An entire future that was so bright and full of love and happiness. He hadn’t told you that yet, mainly because he didn’t want to scare you. But he wanted everything with you. He wanted a ring on your finger, you walking down an aisle all in white, maybe a couple of kids in a house outside the city one day. But for now...for now he was just happy knowing you had on his jersey while you watched him play.
You hold tightly onto Kora’s hand as the clock ticks down. Carter was so close to a shutout. How often could you say that your boyfriend got a shutout during the Stanley Cup playoffs? You were so sure that your heart would beat right out of your chest. Even E seemed to literally be on the edge of his seat.
Sure they were still a few games off from winning the series, but this would really tip the scales in their favor. For the first time you actually let yourself think about it. About what it would mean for Travis, Nolan, and for Carter. You could almost picture them hoisting the cup. Could almost see yourself on the ice with everyone, laughing as Travis attacked you. You could almost see all of it. You could almost see all of the things you hadn’t allowed yourself to want.
The arena erupted, fans were yelling so loudly you swore your ears were going to be rining for days. You’d even lost your own voice sometime during the second period. You spent the whole game engaging with everyone in the arena. You hadn’t experienced energy like that in years. You were almost willing to bet that you felt the same level of adrenaline as the team did. Honestly, you’d probably be just as amped up as Carter when you got home.
“He did it,” Ethan marveled over the roar of the arena, “He fucking did it.”
Kora nearly jumped on your shoulders, “My best friend is dating a goal god!”
You were in a state of shock right up until the time you saw Carter after the game. Then it was like everything kicked into high gear and you ran to him, you even jumped so he had to catch you. A couple other members of the team whistled jokingly as you kissed him.
“You did so good.”
Maybe it was the bit of alcohol in your system, or the adrenaline from the game. But you seemed to forget every little problem you had. You forgot about Zachary, and the impossible decision that lurked there. Or the fact that you still had to pick who you were going to spend the summer with, if anyone. You forgot about all of it. All you wanted to do was be with all of them.
“Damn you look good tonight,” Carter joked, tugging on his jersey.
“We should go out. All of us,” You told Carter excitedly, “Like go get drinks or something.”
“You want to go out?” Carter asked, surprised that you were the one to even bring it up.
“I feel like dancing and having fun. Finals are over, you just fucking owned the net. C’mon, please?”
“Hartsy take the girl out,” Kevin Hayes chirped.
Carter smiled and kissed you again, “Well, let’s go out then.”
So that's what you did. All of you filed into some club that Travis knew about. You weren’t really dressed for it, although you did have a nice top on under the jersey, but you didn’t care. Not as the music seemed to fill your soul as you held onto Carter. He laughed and danced with you, both of you seeming to forget everything.
Ethan watched as you let go. He and Travis just looked at each other and smiled. Neither of them had seen this side of you since you were in high school, before Zachary broke so much of you. Ethan felt himself relax the more you seemed to smile and come alive. Kora soon pulled Ethan and Travis both onto the dance floor, insisting that all of you be together.
Hours later, so late in fact that you were pretty sure it was morning, you and Carter were slowly making your way towards his building. Ethan, Kora, and Travis all split off a while ago so they could go back to Travis’ place. You were still so giddy, happily talking off Carter’s ear.
He felt a sort of warmth in his chest. This was the person Trvais and Nolan talked about. He was finally able to see the you that Travis told him about for years, the you that was free. He wished he could’ve met her sooner.
“I want to go back with you,” You told him suddenly.
“Huh?” he wasn’t entirely sure how you’d gone from talking about wanting a breakfast beagle from the diner off campus, that certainly wasn’t open this time of the morning, to wanting to go somewhere else with him. His brain was hazy, both from the alcohol and everything else that happened.
“To Canada, if the offer still stands?”
You stopped walking and turned to face him. When you really stopped to think about it earlier in the night you realized that there wasn’t any other place you wanted to be. You’d be safe with him in Canada, you would finally be able to fully love him there. Nothing would stand in your way. It would just be you and Carter. Everything would be okay.
“God I love you,” He whispered before leaning down to kiss you, “Of course the offer still stands.”
“Good,” You pulled at his neck so he would kiss you again.
You really didn’t care that you were in the middle of a dark sidewalk in the middle of the night. You couldn’t even pay attention to the cold that was slowly working its way into your bones. Because all you could think about was his lips on yours, and the summer that now awaited you. All you wanted was that. You just wanted him.
“Now Doll, this isn’t part of the game,” You couldn’t pull away from Carter fast enough to find the source of the voice. But you already knew. You wanted to warn Carter to run, to get away. But there was a loud sound that made your ears ring again, but in a different way from the arena. And then...there was just nothing.
#Carter hart#carter hart imagine#Carter hart imagines#Carter hart fanfic#Carter hart fanfiction#nhl imagines#nhl imagine#nhl fanfiction#nhl fanfic#hockey imagine#hockey imagines#hockey fanfic#hockey fanfiction#Philly flyers imagine#Philly flyers imagines#flyers imagines#flyers imagine#nicolewritesthings
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When coronavirus closed the theaters on March 12, there were still 16 shows left to open in the Broadway season. Audiences will get to see some of them later, others probably not — but what of the more than 20 plays, musicals and miscellaneous offerings that had already faced the press? It seemed unfair not to celebrate them, so on Friday, just after it was announced that the Tony Awards will not go on as usual this year, we sat down (in cyberspace) to devise a Tonys of our own. Naturally, we made our own rules.
BEN BRANTLEY Well, Jesse, even in a season that’s 16 plays short, there’s still a fat if imbalanced roster of intriguing shows. Have we ever before had such a preponderance of jukebox musicals that might qualify for Best Musical? The good news is that some enterprising minds managed to inventively retool the genre you once described as the “cockroach” of Broadway.
JESSE GREEN The cockroach has evolved! “Jagged Little Pill,” “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” “Girl From the North Country,” “Moulin Rouge!” and — since we’re playing by our own rules here — even “American Utopia,” the David Byrne show that was deemed ineligible for the real Tonys, are all jukeboxes, all worthy and all eligible for ours. Maybe not quite all worthy.
BRANTLEY Perhaps it’s appropriate then that the last show to open on Broadway was the most unorthodox of the “jukebox” shows. I use quotation marks here because that label seems too confining for “Girl From the North Country,” the Irish playwright and director Conor McPherson’s work that uses the songs of Bob Dylan to imagine life during the Great Depression in Duluth, Minn. The more I think about “Girl,” the more innovative and haunting it seems to me.
GREEN For me it took some time, and the show’s move from the Public Theater to Broadway, to appreciate how McPherson was deploying the music in this musical. The songs do not function the way songs normally do; they never address the situation at hand, and sometimes even contradict it. Yet in that gap, poetry grew.
BRANTLEY For me, “Girl” deals with the ineffable and unsayable through song in a way that makes it the most religious, or at least spiritual, show on Broadway. I have found this aspect of the show stays with me, as an oddly comforting reminder of the hunger for communion in this time of isolation. But moving on to matters closer to profane than sacred, what about another mold-breaker in a very different sense: “Moulin Rouge!,” based on the Baz Luhrmann movie about la vie bohème in gaslight-era Paris.
GREEN Here was a case where the gap between the story, such as it is, and the musical materials — found pop from Offenbach to Rihanna — did not produce poetry. For me it produced a headache.
BRANTLEY Ah, I had a swell time at “Moulin Rouge,” and I thought the far-reaching songbook became a kind of commentary on how such songs form the wallpaper of our minds. And then there was “Tina,” which was more business-as-usual bio-musical fare, although illuminated by a radiant, cliché-transcending performance by Adrienne Warren as Turner.
GREEN The creators of musicals really offered a sampler of ways to respond to the jukebox problem. “Jagged Little Pill,” built on the Alanis Morissette catalog, made the smart choice of abjuring biography and instead attaching her songs to a new plot (by Diablo Cody) that grew out of the same concerns and vocabulary. Or perhaps I should say “new plots,” because it is not shy with them. There are at least eight story lines.
BRANTLEY To be honest, this was the show that gave me a headache, because it was so insistently earnest in its topicality and, even when it was trying to be funny, humorless. So, of the new musicals (and we haven’t touched on “The Lightning Thief,” your personal favorite) what would you give the premature Tony to?
GREEN The one that wouldn’t be eligible: “American Utopia.” Joy and sadness bound to each other through David Byrne’s music and Annie-B Parson’s movement: What else do you want from a musical, even if it’s just a concert?
BRANTLEY I loved “American Utopia.” I think, though, I’d have to go with “Girl From the North Country,” but I wouldn’t have predicted that after seeing it in London two years ago. I find more in it every time I revisit it.
GREEN Despite all the Best Musical possibilities this truncated season, only one, “The Lightning Thief,” had a new score. Yet most of the offerings sounded new anyway, the result of terrific arrangements and orchestrations. I’m thinking especially of Justin Levine’s magpie-on-Ecstasy song collages for “Moulin Rouge!,” Tom Kitt’s theatricalization of post-grunge pop for “Jagged Little Pill” and Simon Hale’s excavation of the deeply layered Americana in Dylan’s catalog for “Girl.”
BRANTLEY Here, I’d have to say it’s a tie between “Girl” and “Moulin Rouge!,” each a remarkable accomplishment in a very different way. As for best revival, the undisputed winner is Ivo van Hove’s divisive revival of “West Side Story,” but that’s because it is, remarkably, the only musical revival so far.
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GREEN I liked “West Side Story” better than you did, Ben, perhaps because I wasn’t reviewing it. I lapped up the new things it wanted to show me (while also hunting for the old things it wanted to hide from me) and didn’t worry about the elements that laid an egg. (“Gee, Officer Krupke.”) Its evocation of innocence and hopelessness felt more like real life now than I’ve experienced in previous revivals.
BRANTLEY I concede the point intellectually. But the acid test for me with theater — and musicals in particular — is how much it makes you feel. And to borrow a lyric from “A Chorus Line,” for the most part “I felt nothing.”
GREEN I admit it was odd that there were no obvious breakout performances in “West Side Story” — which brings us to our first lightning round. Who wins our Tonys for leading actor and actress in a musical?
BRANTLEY Best Actress: Adrienne Warren, for “Tina” (though Karen Olivo in “Moulin Rouge!” is pretty fab, too). Best Actor: Jay O. Sanders in, perversely, a non-singing role in “Girl From the North Country.” You?
GREEN Same. I think we are having a socially distanced mindmeld. Will that also be the case with the nine new plays and four revivals that opened before March 12? With one exception, the revivals were not as thrilling as the full slate promised to be.
BRANTLEY For me, the winner is Jamie Lloyd’s spartan, merciless revival of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,” which brought harsh clarity to the work’s emotional ambiguity.
GREEN And ambiguity to the play’s harsh formality — its semi-backward construction. It was certainly the best “Betrayal” I’ve seen, yet I hold out some love for the revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” which in retrospect turned out to be a farewell to Terrence McNally, its author, who died last week. I felt that Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald did it, and him, justice.
BRANTLEY It was certainly a reminder of his shrewdness and compassion. I was perhaps a little too conscious of the Acting, with a capital A. But it was a welcome addition to the season. For Best Play, we have a far more varied field, no? I suspect we’ll agree on the winner here, the season’s great iconoclast.
GREEN Yes, “Slave Play,” by Jeremy O. Harris, wins on sheer disruptive energy, even before considering its intelligence as playwriting, its knockout production (directed by Robert O’Hara) and its fearsome challenge to renegotiate race in America.
BRANTLEY But for all its shock value, what made it a wonderful play — as opposed to just a bracing exploration of dangerous ground — was its heart. By the end, you felt so completely the pain of its characters, all trying to navigate the perhaps insuperable hurdles of interracial relationships.
GREEN I think “The Inheritance” wanted to be that kind of play, too: a story of intimate relationships yet also a gay manifesto with the multipart heft of “Angels in America.” It got the heft, anyway; “Slave Play” ran 120 minutes; “The Inheritance,” 385.
BRANTLEY “The Inheritance” certainly gets points for ambition — and for the fluidity of Stephen Daldry’s production. And might I put in a word for the prickly comic abrasiveness of Tracy Letts’s “Linda Vista,” a lacerating anatomy of toxic masculinity disguised as brooding charm?
GREEN I liked what “Linda Vista” wanted to do but found it flabby. Perhaps straitened times demand slender plays. Certainly, the other new drama I greatly admired was whippetlike: Adam Rapp’s “The Sound Inside,” an existential mystery wrapped in a literary one, or vice versa. Among other things, it allowed Mary-Louise Parker, as a Yale writing instructor, to deliver a Tony-worthy performance. And now that “How I Learned to Drive,” the other play in which she was set to star this season, has been postponed, she doesn’t have to compete against herself. Is she our winner?
BRANTLEY I am going to declare a tie between her and Laura Linney, who gave a very subtle, and emotionally transparent, performance as the title character of “My Name Is Lucy Barton,” adapted by Rona Munro from Elizabeth Strout’s novel.
GREEN I buy that. But let’s not forget Joaquina Kalukango in “Slave Play,” Eileen Atkins in “The Height of the Storm,” Zawe Ashton in “Betrayal” and Jane Alexander in “Grand Horizons.” It was a very strong semi-season for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
BRANTLEY And for Best Actor?
GREEN The real Tonys decreed that Paul Alexander Nolan was eligible for his “supporting” role in “Slave Play,” but in my Tonys he’s a strong candidate for “leading.” Still, I’ll go with Tom Hiddleston, in “Betrayal.” Or at least he wins in my newly invented category of Best Use of the Lack of a Tissue. His facial leakage was Vesuvian.
BRANTLEY He was superb — and a reminder of the cathartic value of the tears of others in theater. Of course, there’s so much to cry about now in terms of opportunities lost this season. But I’m not writing an elegy for, or even a definitive summary of, this season yet. It will be fascinating to see how it reincarnates itself, won’t it?
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Fancasting a Reroll of the Fast & the Furious Movies:
As Paulo said in the past, when it comes to something like the star wars trilogies, he’d want to play through each series independent of each other because so much of each story is dependent on things working out exactly as they did in the past movies. In light of that, here is my ideal casting for every single F&F movie done as a reroll:
The Fast and The Furious
Carolyn as Dominic Toretto: partially because I desperately want to hear her do a Vin Diesel voice and partially because I think her brand of absurdism and 4th wall breaking would be great for Dom
Joz as Brian: if there’s ever been a role made for Joz, it’s the hot-headed FBI agent undercover with a street-racing gang
Pitr as Letty: is this casting just because I want to hear Pitr say ‘I smell...skanks’? Yes, mostly, but I also would love to see the farce that would be Pitr and Carolyn acting as a couple
Andy as Mia: based on Aladdin, Andy’s great at taking a female character not given all that much to do and doing something delightful with her. TBH, I’d also be fine with Mia being an NPC and having Andy or Paulo be the GM, she’s got a pretty thin role in this movie. The same goes for Vince and the other members of the racing crew.
2 Fast 2 Furious
Joz as Brian again
Pitr as Roman Pierce: Pitr’s always great as the snarky friend and his mischievous, blow-shit-up dynamic with Joz works great for Brian and Roman’s dynamic in this movie
Jon Miller as Tej Parker: Am I typecasting Jon as the geeky tech guy? Absolutely, but him and Pitr also would be great as Tej and Roman
Andy as Monica Fuentes: TBH I forgot this character existed before I read the wikipedia page, so, like Mia, she can either be Andy or an NPC
The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift
I hate this movie so much I won’t enough time thinking about it to cast it
Fast & Furious
Joz as Brian
Carolyn as Dom: there’s basically nothing I want as much as to see Carolyn Faye Kramer playing a grieving Vin Diesel
Andy as Mia: Mia actually has something to do in this movie and I still think Andy could be good as her
Scott as Gisele: I feel like all Scott wants to do is be sexy and have an accent, so let’s let him
Fast Five
Joz as Brian and Carolyn as Dom
Jon and Pitr reprising their roles as Tej and Roman
Scott as Gisele again
Tim Nolan as Han: I feel like he’d do good as the kinda badass, kinda awkward guy
Paulo as Mia: this is because I want
Andy as GM: based on how he ran ‘John Wick’, Andy is fucking great at handling complicated action sequences without it getting boring or confusing. I’d love to see him run a heist, so Paulo gets to be a player and take over Andy’s old role
Elena and Hobbs are gonna be NPCs in this one
Fast & Furious 6
Time for a reshuffle!
I want this run as kinda PvP, with Owen Shaw and Letty getting to scheme and do stuff independent of the movie and of the other players, so
Jon as GM: he’s got experience with PVP and keeping a story moving even when the PCs are in completely different places (looking at you, Aladdin)
Pitr as Letty: I think he’d still be good as Letty, even now that she’s a more serious character
Lisa Kopitsky as Owen Shaw: I think she could play a good villain and I want to get to know her as a performer more
Joz as Luke Hobbs: look me in the eyes and tell me Joz Vammer was not made to play Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson
Andy as Brian: man, I’m really giving Andy some thankless roles. Given that Mia now has absolutely nothing to do in this one, Andy gets to take over as the slightly retired family man
Scott and Tim stay as Gisele and Han
Carolyn as Dom: again, I just want to see Carolyn Faye Kramer as a grieving Vin Diesel
Either Tej and Roman turn into NPCs for this movie and Paulo isn’t involved OR Paulo and Jonathan West play them OR they’re NPCs but Paulo is acting like Tim in most episodes and helping Jon run this monstrosity of a cast
Furious 7
Another shuffle, but less dramatic
Joz and Carolyn keep their parts as Hobbs and Dom
Jon and Pitr are Tej and Roman again
Scott as Ramsey: again, he just wants to be sexy and have an accent. Also, I think his dynamic with Jon and Pitr would work well with the character’s
Andy as Brian: Andy has the most dad energy out of the cast, so he gets Brian again
Tim or Lisa as Letty: here’s where I’m conflicted, I can’t decide if I care more about having Letty be played by the same person throughout her whole emotional arc, and thus giving this role to Pitr and making Tim or Lisa Roman, or if I want the Pitr-Scott-Jon dynamic, which is admittedly very fun for the Roman-Ramsey-Tej, but is a more minor and less emotionally important aspect. Or maybe I throw it all out, have Jon GM, Pitr is Letty, Paulo is Ramsey, and Roman and Tej are NPCs (or Paulo plays both of them à la the children in Jurassic Park and Ramsey’s the NPC)! I don’t know!
The Fate of the Furious
I think this one should also be PvP
Andy as GM: I think he can handle the PvP and he’d be great with the complicated, crazy fight scenes and stunts
Carolyn as Dom still
Lisa as Cipher: again, I get the feeling she’d be great as a villain
Joz as Hobbs and Pitr as Letty again
Jon as Deckard Shaw: a morally grey guy whose fighting style would require tactics, complicated stats, and lots of fun goodies sounds exactly right for jon
I think I’d make Ramsey, Tej, Roman, and the Nobodies NPCs in this so we’d have fairly even teams of PCs
With all the complexity of this and the PvP aspect, Paulo and Tim are gonna have to be helping
On the other hand, we could also have Scott-as-Roman, Tim-as-Tej, and Paulo-as-Ramsey and just give Cipher as much absurd power as in the movie
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
Gonna change stuff up for this!
Pitr as Deckard Shaw: I wanna hear Pitr try and do a Jason Statham voice, tbh. Also, Pitr and Joz act enough like siblings already that I think they’d do well as playing the Shaws
Jon as Hobbs: I feel like Jon would enjoy playing a character strong enough to pull a helicopter down to earth with his bare hands. I think he’d also enjoy playing a character who frequently and thoroughly shows up Pitr’s character
Joz as Hattie Shaw: Hattie is enough of a genuine badass that I don’t feel like I’m just casting Joz as the girl, also, I feel like ‘injecting yourself with a supervirus so the bad guy doesn’t get it’ is an extremely Joz Vamer move
#film reroll#the film reroll#gloomth and circumstance#holy cow this is long#listen i love f&f and i love the film reroll i just want both of them at once#the fast and the furious
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Larry Cohen Isn’t Alive
Writer, producer and director Larry Cohen, who died on March 24th at age 77, rightfully earned his spot among the Pantheon of low-budget independent American filmmakers.
Like so many great satirists before him, Cohen had a knack for using a good story, off-beat characters, misdirection, humor, and monsters to disguise some pointed commentary about the most sacred of our sacred cows: childbirth, religion, cops, race, the military, AIDS, health care, and consumerism. And he always did it in a hugely entertaining way, squeezing the very most out of tiny budgets, small, fleet-footed crews, and simple guerilla tactics.
The artist responsible for Q: The Winged Serpent, God Told Me To, and the It’s Alive! films was a maverick, an independent’s independent, who wasn’t afraid to put a wild story on the screen and populate it with oddball characters (that Michael Moriarty would become his standard lead in four films in the ‘80s says something). If Cohen owed a lot to Sam Fuller and Roger Corman, then most indie directors who’ve come along since owe a lot to him, and the evidence is right there in their films.
Even when he was making low-budget monster pictures, Cohen’s films were always character-driven, so when it came to casting even the smallest part he was looking for people with interesting voices, faces, and personalities. He populated his films, in short, with the modern equivalent of Forties character actors. It’s no surprise that he would so often choose to work with like-minded maverick young actors like Moriarty, David Carradine, Karen Black, Sandy Dennis, Candy Clark, even Andy Kaufman. At the same time, though, Cohen also went back to those old films, hiring great character actors like Sam Levine, Broderick Crawford, and Sylvia Sidney. With casts like that together on the screen (many of them there simply because they wanted to work with Cohen) it’s sometimes easy to forget you’re watching a horror movie.
It seems Cohen was born with a little too much energy. Years before getting his degree in film from the City College of New York, he was already selling scripts to television. In the short years following his graduation in ‘63, he was creating shows that would go on to become classics, like Branded and The invaders. Hearing it now, he almost sounds like the kind of guy you’d like to punch.
After ten prolific years as a television writer, Cohen finally made the expected jump into film directing. But Cohen didn’t go to Hollywood to do this, and lord knows he didn’t aim for the mainstream. Although considered a blaxploitation picture today for some reason, Cohen’s directorial debut, 1972’s Bone, begins like a standard home invasion film a la The Desperate Hours or Five Minutes to Live, as would-be burglar Yaphet Kotto takes a wealthy white man and his wife hostage in their palatial home. When he sends the husband out to get money, though, the crime film becomes a social satire about both race relations and the generation gap. The wife begins to fall for her kidnapper, and the husband starts falling for a young hippie chick he meets on the way to the bank. In later films, Cohen would mix and match genres in a way that hadn’t been seen since the W. Lee Wilder wierdies of the Fifties.
His next two films were both fairly straightforward blaxploitation numbers, and both Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem would become genre standbys.
It was in 1974 that what is considered Cohen’s golden era would begin. Between ‘74 and the early ‘90s, Cohen was writing and directing the films he wanted to make. They were films that were completely his own, more than a little odd at times, and utterly memorable. For a career that lasted over half a century, having a Golden Era that ran nearly twenty years ain’t too shabby.
Switching from blaxploitation to horror, Cohen made It’s Alive! starring the great John P. Ryan. On the surface it’s a horror film about a killer baby. It’s also a conspiracy film about some nefarious shenanigans at a large pharmaceutical company, and a social commentary about the power of the press to destroy innocent lives. At it’s heart, though, it takes The Bad Seed a step further in exploring our deep fear of children and the screaming bloody horror of that most beautiful of miracles, childbirth.
Using the power of suggestion and some fantastic performances (many of the actors here would become members of Cohen’s stock troupe), coupled with some solid direction, clever cinematography, Rick Baker’s special effects, a Bernard Herrmann score and one of the most effective trailers of the Seventies, this low budget killer baby film caught a lot of people off guard. It was smarter and slicker than anyone would’ve expected given the budget, and was a big hit for Cohen.
After that success he came back two years later with a film that was even stranger, more complex, and much harder to categorize. Trying not to give too much away here for those who haven’t seen it yet, God Told Me To stars Tony Lo Bianco as a New York cop who’s never been sick, feels he has some strange powers, and whose early biography remains a little up in the air. As the film opens, he’s investigating a series of seemingly inexplicable and unrelated rampage killings. A soft spoken gay man climbs atop a building with a high powered rifle and begins shooting. A cop (Andy Kaufman in his big screen debut) shoots up the st. Patrick’s Day parade. A man slaughters his family for no apparent reason. The only explanation any of them can give is that, yes, god told them to. Well, his investigation leads down some strange channels, including stories of an alien abduction, a secret cabal of wealthy executives, and reports of a glowing figure who had contact with all the killers and who may or may not be god incarnate. In short it’s a film that asks the eternal question, “What if Jesus was a Venusian?” It may also be the best film Cohen ever made.
Although the film looks great (and brings together a remarkable cast), it represents a perfect example of the guerilla filmmaking Cohen would come to be known for. All the location shots, from the parade to the subway to the shooting of half a dozen people outside Bloomingdale’s were stolen. Cohen saw where he wanted to shoot, set up his crew, and shot. If he were to try doing that today there would likely be casualties, but because he did it then he captured a portrait of a city long gone.
On the downside, in his excitement to grab shots of actual events as they were happening, one sequence finds Lo Bianco racing from the st. Patrick’s day parade in March and ending up some 70 blocks to the south at the San Gennaro festival on the Lower East Side in September. It was a hell of a run.
The film was picked up by Corman’s distribution company, New World. Before releasing it, they decided that title of his was too long and too complicated, so needed to be changed. They decided to call it The Demon, and changed the font on the poster to match the font used recently on the posters for the incredibly popular The Omen. It didn’t seem to help. Whether it was the title or audiences were merely baffled by the film itself it’s hard to say, but it was a definite step down from the success of It’s Alive. Still, in subsequent years it has become one of the most popular of Cohen’s films, and in terms of influence, well, all you need to do is watch the last few seasons of the X Files to see for yourself if anyone was paying attention.
Following God Told Me To, Cohen took a radical turn in more ways than one. After making three blaxploitation films and two sci-fi horror movies, he took the next logical step down the genre trail by making, yes, a J. Edgar Hoover biopic.
A clear though uncredited influence on the 2011 Leonardo DiCaprio Hoover picture, 1977’s The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover makes for an intriguing double bill with another AIP film from around roughly the same time, John Milius’ Dillinger. It stars screen legend Broderick Crawford in a brilliant turn as the enigmatic and all-powerful head of the FBI, and co-stars a slew of famed character actors, from Lloyd Nolan and June Havoc to Howard DaSilva and Rip Torn.
Couching the story of Hoover’s life within the frantic scramble across Washington to gain access to his titular secret files after his death, Cohen does something I don’t think anyone was expecting. In spite of Hoover’s reputation as a neurotic, paranoid, cross-dressing monster, Cohen treats him fairly, even sympathetically at times. There’s no real secret about his sexuality here, but it’s never made cartoonish. It’s a portrait of a deeply flawed man and a publicity whore, yes, but one who was trying to do right. Oddly enough the historical figures who get slapped around more than anyone here are the Kennedy brothers, who come off like a couple of smug rich, asshole college boys. Martin Luther King doesn’t get off too easy, either.
It’s an odd man out in Cohen’s filmography, but what the Hoover film proved without a doubt is that he was a director who knew pacing, who knew editing, and who could, even without monsters, turn material like this into a gripping story.
Good as it was, The Private Files wasn’t a big hit either, so Cohen returned to killer babies in ‘78 with It Lives Again. Not interested in simply rehashing the same material, Cohen expanded the original story, broadening the idea of a conspiracy (conspiracies would play a larger and larger role in Cohen’s films), and multiplying the number of killer babies afoot.
As more and more mutant babies are born throughout America, a renegade group of scientists and parents (including John P. Ryan and expecting father Frederic Forrest) criss-crosses the country trying to save the mutants before the government can terminate them with extreme prejudice. The hope is to be able to raise the mutants in a reasonably loving environment, rehabilitating them and making them contributing members of society. Let’s just say their success is limited.
The later ‘70s and early ‘80s were kind of rough for Cohen. His teen horror comedy Full Moon High bombed, and a made-for-TV mystery was ignored. He planned to resurrect Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer character in a film version of I, The Jury starring Armand Assante, but after a major studio picked up the project, they promptly fired Cohen.
Knowing he had to get right back on his feet, Cohen had a new independent film in production within a week. He started grabbing some location shots around New York before he had a cast, and started filming before he had any backing. Still, he was able to wrangle together another great (in B film terms) cast, and he had a fantastic story to tell, even if it owed a bit to 1948’s The Flying Serpent. He had some more wonderful characters, he had a monster, and once again all of New York was his playground. Samuel Z. Arkoff, who’d just sold AIP, fronted him a little cash and they were off.
Cohen’s mixing and matching of genres was never more evident than it was in ‘82’s Q The Winged Serpent. It’s a bungled jewel heist/cult murder/police procedural/giant monster picture with Michael Moriarty as an ex-con and failed jazz pianist who’s forced to participate in a heist that goes very, very wrong. He’s a neurotic to begin with, and this doesn’t help. David Carradine, meanwhile (who filmed his first scene before he’d had a chance to read the script or find out who his character was), is a detective investigating a series of murders in which the victims have all been skinned alive. And then there’s that pesky Aztec god who keeps flying around New York plucking people off rooftops and construction sites.
They all eventually do come together inside the cone atop the Chrysler Building (it was actually filmed up there too, even though Cohen and his crew didn’t exactly have permission). Before all these storylines and genres come together, Cohen has us so wrapped up in these individual character’s )and the countless little stories and side characters we encounter along the way) that the monster barely matters, save for providing some of the best aerial shots ever taken of NYC.
It’s a film packed with great small bits, set pieces, and locations. And Moriarty, crazy and pathetic and fucked up as he is, is a gem. In one of the best (and mostly ad libbed) scenes in the film, he attempts to negotiate a deal with city officials and the cops. He knows where the creature’s nest can be found, and wants money and amnesty in exchange for the information. It’s a real tour-de-force of sniveling bravado and desperation.
Cohen had more stories to tell about the making of Q than any of his other films (and he was a man with a lot of stories). The final joke of it all being that Q opened the same day as I, the Jury and made four times as much money.
It occurs to me that any young would-be indie filmmaker would be better served by watching the film and listening to his commentary than anything they’d learn after 3 years of NYU film school. He knew how to work fast and work cheap, yet still come away with a film whose production values matched anything being produced in Hollywood.
Cohen was back on a roll after Q, and even when he wasn’t working on a film himself he was selling scripts that had that unmistakable Larry Cohen feel to them. The William Lustig-directed Maniac Cop and Uncle Sam come to mind as prime examples, though Abel Ferrara dropped the ball, and dropped it hard, on Cohen’s reboot of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It’s a film I keep trying to like, but just can’t. Cohen’s understanding of character is something Ferrara’s never been able to grasp. It had so much going for it, it should’ve been so good, but Christ it’s just a tedious fucking mess. Okay, I’m starting to ramble.
After making a few straightforward thrillers, Cohen returned to horror and social satire in 1985’s The Stuff. There had been elements of social satire and commentary in his previous films, but usually so well disguised it was easy to miss. Michael Moriarty’s gift for the ad lib and his ability to play crazy and manic so brilliantly allowed Cohen, in their second film together, to slap the satire right there on the surface, plain as day.
When a thick white goo coms bubbling out of the ground at a mining operation in Georgia, one of the miners unwittingly discovers it’s not only delicious—it’s downright irresistible. Before you know it, “The Stuff,” as it’s marketed, has become the most popular dessert item in the country, helped along by a celebrity-laden ad campaign (though many of the celebrities may no longer be recognizable to most audiences) and the small fact that it’s five times as addictive as crack. Yes, it’s mighty good right up to the point when it makes you explode. But no one talks about that.
Moriarty plays an ex-FBI man turned industrial spy who’s been hired by a now-struggling ice cream company to find out what’s in The Stuff. What Begins as a simple bit of industrial espionage quickly becomes much more than that when people start dying, small towns start vanishing, an ex-FDA employee (Danny Aiello in a smart and funny cameo) is killed by his stuff-addicted Doberman, and Moriarty uncovers a sinister, far-reaching conspiracy.
Along the way he’s assisted by Garrett Morris as a Famous Amos clone who’s cookie company was stolen from him, a young boy who realizes there’s something evil going on with The stuff, and Paul Sorvino as an insane and paranoid militia leader/radio show host who’s more than willing to spread the word and lead a commando raid on the stuff factory.
There are nods throughout the film to everything from Dr. Strangelove to White Heat, but the one film that kept coming to mind was Halloween III: Season of the Witch from three years earlier. Both, after all, are horror conspiracy films concerning the potentially diabolical threat posed by marketing and consumerism. The ironic thing there is that when Halloween III came out in ‘82, I assumed given the way the story was structured that it had to be a Cohen film, or at least based on a Cohen script. I was wrong, of course; the film had been written by the equally great Nigel Kneale. So it only made sense that here we got Cohen’s version of a similar storyline. While Halloween III was very sharp and dark, The Stuff reaches for some broad, heavy handed laughs and often falls short. Maybe Cohen figured if you wanted to reach an audience in the Reagan era with a dire warning about rampant consumerism, subtlety would get you nowhere. The film does have a number of moments, though, and I love the fact that the “monster” here is a smooth, white, featureless dessert. I also love the fact that a paranoid Right Wing nutjob saves the day in the end.
Two years after The Stuff, Warner Brothers offered Coen a deal to direct two straight-to-video pictures: a second sequel to It’s Alive, and a sequel to Tobe Hooper’s TV version of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. Cohen, anxious to work with Moriarty again and push the story of the mutant babies a little further, signed the contract.
Working fast and cheap as ever (he said all of his films were shot in 18 days), Cohen returned to form with It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive, with one difference. While the previous two films had been stark and ultimately quite grim, with Moriarty aboard Cohen was able to bring out a lot more humor. Mixed more evenly with the violence, the blood, a half-hidden AIDS parable, and Cohen’s trademark strangeness, here it works more effectively than it had in The Stuff or his straight comedies.
This time around, Moriarty is a struggling actor who finally gains fame after he and his wife (Karen Black) become the proud parents of another monster baby. That’s pretty much it for the marriage, but instead of destroying the baby, a judge orders that all the mutant babies be sent to, yes, an island where they can roam free and pose no threat to anyone.
Moriarty’s life, meanwhile, collapses under the constant questions and accusations until he finds himself working in a children’s shoe store. In a delightful set piece, he finally cracks and gives the what-for to all the rotten little brats and their obnoxious parents. There’s just something both terrifying and hilarious about Moriarty when he loses it.
Anyway, he joins a government-sponsored expedition to the island to study the mutants and run a few tests. Along the way, we learn the government has stopped trying to destroy the mutants after deciding instead they represent a new stage of human evolution, quite possibly a form of human who could survive a nuclear war. Moriarty, who loves his child and wants to protect it, tries to warn the babies to stay away from the researchers, which does not endear him to the researchers. No matter, it isn’t long before all the members of the expedition are dead save for Moriarty, who finds himself alone on a boat with four mutant babies. And that’s when things start taking any number of strange turns.
Island of the Alive is also marked by a fantastic opening sequence, in which a woman gives birth in the back of an NYC cab as the cab driver panics about the mess. Or maybe that scene’s just memorable to me because it was shot in an alley behind the building where I used to work.
After the film was wrapped, Cohen packed up his crew and several members of the cast and flew to a small town in Vermont to start shooting the Salem’s Lot sequel, a sequel in name and font alone. Compared with Island of the Alive, A Return to Salems Lot seemed almost an afterthought. Maybe people were just tired after the previous shoot, but the cinematography has all the flat earmarks of a TV film, and the music, usually so rich in a Cohen picture, has been reduced to a cheap, cliched electronic score. Even the actors, apart from Cohen’s usual suspects (like Andrew Duggan), are abrasive at best.
Story’s still good, though. In their fourth and final collaboration, Moriarty is a famed anthropologist whose ex-wife saddles him with his troubled and foul-mouthed teenage son. Not knowing what else to do with the kid, he takes him to Salem’s Lot. Moriarty had visited an aunt there once when he was young, and when she died she left him her (now decrepit) house. It doesn’t take long to figure out the town is home to a colony of vampires.
Cohen’s script plays around quite a bit with the mythology, with the anthropologist being conscripted to write the vampires’ history to set the record straight, but the film is memorable for one reason. Sam Fuller appears for the second half of the film playing, well, Sam Fuller. He’s given a different name of course, and he’s playing a Van Helsing-type vampire hunter, but it’s Sam Fuller all right, as short, gruff, and straightforward as ever, and always chomping on that ever-present cigar. Cohen’s homage to the king of independent filmmakers is the only thing here that lifts the picture above second-tier Cohen fare (which is nevertheless still more interesting than most vampire films made in the last 20 years).
Cohen went on to make another straight thriller and a comedy about witches that turned out to be Bette Davis’ last film before returning to the horror, conspiracies, and New York that always brought out the best in him. It would be the last of the classic Larry Cohen films.
In 1990’s The Ambulance, Eric Roberts plays an enthusiastic young comic book artist working for Marvel (Stan Lee has a few cameos as himself) who sees a young woman on the street and falls immediately and stupidly in love with her. When she collapses to the pavement while they’re talking and an antique ambulance appears out of nowhere to whisk her away, he sets out to find her without even knowing her name.
It sounds like fairly standard romantic comedy material and there’s no denying that’s at play here, but as usual there are a few other genres at work, too, as we learn the drivers of that creepy antique ambulance are making their own victims all over the city. It’s best to leave the story there and not mention the organ harvesting ring, but the film does include James Earl Jones, Eric Braedon, and a grainy, dirty, street level Manhattan that, even circa 1990, still seems so ancient and alive.
Moving into the later ‘90s and 2000s, as films like his were no longer really viable in a marketplace so fixated on formula and empty pointless characters, Cohen concentrated more on his screenplays, but even if the stories had that old Cohen spark and warp, the films that were made from them tended to be sadly conventional. He was behind Phone Booth, Cellular, Messages Deleted, Captivity, and rewrote his own script for the reboot of It’s Alive.
He once made the excellent point that B films tended to have a longer lifespan than A films, because it’s the genre pictures that find a new audience every generation. Kids have no idea who Robert Taylor or Greer Garson are anymore, but they will always know Karloff and Lugosi, because people will always be going back to horror films while the big dramas, so important at the time, will fade away.
Cohen made films that weren’t like anything else (except maybe Halloween III). They weren’t aimed at teenagers and they weren’t slasher pictures. They were intelligent, textured, character-based, and they dealt with adult themes. Plus they had monsters in them.
Cohen’s career, as noted above, spanned some fifty years, and fifty years from now, I can almost guarantee no one will remember Titanic or whatever the hell nonsense won a Best Picture Oscar over the past two decades, but they’ll still be watching God Told Me To.
At the time of his death, Cohen left behind dozens of unproduced screenplays. If anyone had seen fit to toss him the funding to make the films he wanted to make, who knows what else he might have left us?
by Jim Knipfel
#Jim Knipfel#Larry Cohen#The Chiseler#It's Alive#The Ambulance#Bone#god told me to#Karen Black#The Stuff#Michael Moriarty
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"Our kids were conceived to that one.”
Chewing the fat with Marshall Crenshaw about his 1983 classic, just reissued on Intervention Records
It’s not often you get one of your all time favorite albums from your dentist.
So I’m in 9th grade, and making back and forths in the parents’ station wagon to the dental school at Case Western Reserve University because my four top front teeth were all agog. (My mom figured it was because I’d fallen down the basement stairs when I was one and landed on my face.) Numerous visits that included poking, prodding, and endless numbing shots into the inside of the top jaw was no way to enter the high school years. But having a hep craw doc helped.
Dr. Sasthma (”It’s like asthma, but with an S” -- funny guy) was his name, and between spit suction and implorations to floss more, we fit in fun music discussions. On the last visit right before the big pulling and twisting procedure, Sasthma sits me down and says, “This one today ain’t gonna be easy, but I’ve got a little prize for you afterwards.” And for the next hour and a half, I sat there with my mouth open (some would say that would not be out of the ordinary), while the doc poked around and made chin-scratching/brow-furrowing decisions, all while my jaw muscles started to atrophy.
Finally, when it was done, he reaches behind the giant dentist chair claw machine thing and pulls out Marshall Crenshaw’s debut album (Warner Bros., 1982). After I had regaled him with how much I liked “Someday, Someway” at the previous visit, he said he tracked down the album for me, though the shrink wrap had been peeled. “Well, I had to give it a listen, and yeah, it’s great!”
L-R: Robert Crenshaw, Marshall Crenshaw, Chris Donato - Photographer unknown
Not only did that little act make me much more tolerant of dentist visits going forward, it gave me one of my favorite albums. Crenshaw’s revived Buddy Holly-meets-nervous with opening pickup lines pop classicism was like a fresh, new toothbrush over all the dreary, dusty, classic rock of my Cleveland radio dial depression, until I took a sharp left into college radio that summer where I first heard Crenshaw, and a lot more. (Thanks WCSB, WRUW, and WUJC!)
It’s hard to imagine today, hearing Crenshaw’s should-couldabeen power pop nuggets, but his clean looks and simple two-minute tunes made him a little too throwback odd for mainstream radio back then. Who knows or cares, as he still piled up an impressive major label canon before furthering into a long-running career of solid albums and consistent touring. The days of figuring out the whys and hows of mainstream radio play now seems about as useful as wondering how to get better reception on your TV.
Crenshaw’s sophomore album, Field Day (Warner Bros., 1983)? Maybe even better, filled with a slightly wider songwriting palette and production to match it. The term “sophomore album” never fit better for me, as it landed right around my sophomore year, and was a perfect companion on my journey into hook-heavy rock’n’roll obsession and mythical, sun-setting summer romance mythology/reality.
So imagine my excitement when I got a press release about an impending reissue of Field Day. Despite it’s initial hefty, if brief, publicity push, Top 40-sniffing hit single (”Whenever You’re on My Mind”), and big time producer (Steve Lillywhite), the record didn’t (say it with me) “sell as much as hoped for.” And though Crenshaw did not fall into the usual “got dropped” holes (three more major label albums followed), Field Day did lag just a bit behind the CD explosion, having fallen out of print, and was never given a proper CD version for a few years.
I only point this out because, goddamn it, it’s a perfect guitar pop record and is one of the best of that fleeting, early-80s moment where bright-eyed corners of the record industry hoped the world might once again embrace melancholy-flecked, otherwise blue-sky singalong songs. ‘Twas that “skinny tie” moment where loads of slacks-sporting Midwesterners parlayed punk’s energy into their pre-teen guitar lessons filled with Beatles covers. And in even that, Crenshaw did not exactly fit -- kind of the front tooth along my otherwise straight top row.
Upstart vinyl reissue label, Intervention Records -- who seem to have a knack for snaring ol’ major label titles from oblivion -- recently released a fine, vinyl-only edition of Field Day, including an extra 12″ EP of remix and live stuff, and different artwork.
I caught up with Crenshaw internet-wise to get his take on the new update of his old classic.
If memory serves, I saw you play "High School" by the MC5 at an outdoor BBQ fest thing in downtown Cleveland in, like, 1985/6. Any memories of that, and did you cover that tune often?
I remember that event in Cleveland, like a fried-chicken festival, right? I remember that we used "The Greasy Chicken,” by Andre Williams as walk-on music that day (and on other days). The MC5 song would've been "Tonight.” I never played "High School,” except with DKT-MC5 in 2004. I played "Tonight" a lot over the years. I grew up in the Detroit area, was a big MC5 fan. "Tonight" was sort of a local hit single, got played on CKLW. A band that I was in played it at an audition for a dance at our high school, and I can still picture a girl sitting in front of me watching me play and sing that song, really enthralled by what we were doing. That girl was Ione. She and I are still together.
You grew up in Detroit, right? When did you move, and what were some early influences from living in Detroit, music and otherwise?
I lived in the Detroit area from birth (1953) until 1977, grew up with Rock and Roll music all around me, fell in love with the music during childhood. Detroit was a big test market for records. There were lots of regional hits, on national and local labels. Two that immediately come to mind are, "When You Walk In the Room" by Jackie DeShannon, and "Mind Over Matter" by Nolan Strong and The Diablos -- both massive Detroit hits, both part of my musical DNA. As far as influences besides music go, I don't know where to start. That could turn into a book.
Though the only book Crenshaw has done so far was this excellent compendium of rock’n’roll movies; also, his musical knowledge goes deep. If you can do so, track down this amazing hillbilly compilation he put together in 1989.
Field Day, in title and cover art, was a reference to high school, I assume. But I remember some reviews saying that that record was a kind of more mature version of you -- bigger production, some more serious themes, etc. So what was your inspiration for the high school nod?
I had nothing whatsoever to do with creating the packaging for that record. When we finished recording, I went on vacation with Ione and Robert to visit Robert's girlfriend at the time. She was working on location outside Prague on the movie Amadeus (which I've still never seen. I should see it, I saw it being made). And when I got back, the album cover had been put together by my then-manager. His father co-owned a big company that published magazines. My manager had worked for that company for a minute, and thought that the presentation of images was something that he knew something about. I hated the album’s front cover, got talked into approving it. OOPS! I don't think Warners was pleased that instead of using their art department, he'd hired an expensive design firm to create such a dodgy end-product. He came up with the title; I do like the title, didn't think of high school when he suggested it. "Having a field day" is just a figure of speech, doesn't refer to high school, necessarily. It just means "having a great time,” and indeed we really had a great time making the album.
It said the art for this reissue is how you originally intended.
I wanted to change the front cover for the reissue, was extremely happy that Intervention Records was into the idea. The only thing that made sense was to use some pre-existing artwork from the time period, namely the front of the picture sleeve for the "Whenever You're On My Mind” 7″.
I just loved Field Day when it came out. I am sure you are more than aware of the "debates" over the production -- which to me made total sense for those songs and that point of your career. What is your take on what you asked of Steve Lillywhite, and how you felt it turned out, back then?
I'm really glad that you like it. I know that the album was "controversial" in the day. I think that all the criticism it got back then was completely lame. When I listened to the first playback of the finished mixes, I had my feet up on the edge of the console; I thought, “This is an album that can kick the world's ass.” We all loved working with Steve. He was the only producer that I talked to going in, my first choice. He said yes right away, and that was that.
I'll assume you were involved in this reissue. What were your thoughts on revisiting it?
I heard about the reissue project after it was already underway, and was just delighted about it. I'd even say that I felt a sense of gratitude that somebody wanted to honor the album, which is what Intervention has done. As a career experience, "Field Day" was an instance where the party-train just ran right into the ditch. I loved the album, didn't get why some people were perplexed by it. I got the test pressing from Intervention and was knocked out. It's just a unique and beautiful Rock and Roll record, if you ask me. And the people at Intervention love it as much as I do.
Your’s truly probably bugging Crenshaw about the MC5 again, post-back alley gig, August, 2012, NYC
Any good stories during the recording of Field Day? In-studio disputes, after-session shenanigans, anything like that?
I don't remember any disputes until after the record was done -- then the shit-storm began. We had nothing but fun while doing it, and there was a festive atmosphere at the sessions. They were all at night, and afterwards we'd go out. I remember going one night to the Roxy Roller Rink disco on the West Side with Steve and a couple of the other guys. This was when hip-hop was first starting to come downtown. When we finally got out of there it was broad daylight. "Monday Morning Rock" was partly inspired by that night...
"Whenever You're on My Mind" was a demo for awhile before it appeared on Field Day, right? How come it didn't make it onto the debut?
I wrote that one before I wrote most of the songs on my first album. When I did the first album I wanted to do all the newer ones first. I'm always most excited about whatever the new thing is. But then, going into "Field Day," I was really glad to have "Whenever" in reserve. And I'm glad that it got recorded when it did, under those circumstances.
The instrumental of "Blues is King" from that era is one of my favorite instrumentals, and just has one of those, maybe accidental, gorgeous, simple demo production vibes. Was that originally an instrumental and you decided to add lyrics later, or what?
I did that instrumental version after I'd written the music; the lyrics didn't happen until a few months later. I do like it as just a piece of instrumental music. And those are Mosrite guitars, which I love the sound of.
Field Day standout, "Our Town" -- when you made Field Day, I believe you'd been living in NYC for awhile. Did you pine to get on a train back to Detroit sometimes? What were the bad and good things about trying to get your music career going in NYC in the very early 1980s?
I never pined to get back to Detroit (although I like visiting there now). That song was written about New York. I'd been on the road for most of a year when I wrote it. I did take a train to Detroit once, from NYC. It was during the last days when Michigan Central Station was still being used by Amtrak. I'd never seen the station during it's heyday, but when I got there it looked not that different than what it looks like now, like an absolute wreck. I still remember the look on my mother's face standing there waiting for me. She looked like she felt ashamed, and like, "You had to take the train and make me go through this, right?" Getting my music career going in NYC in the early '80s was a blast. The scene embraced us right away. It was like dying and going to heaven.
Did you find yourself attracted to the CBGB scene at the time?
Yes, we played CBGB many times. I think we even held an attendance record there for a minute, or maybe I dreamt that. But our last couple shows there were mob scenes. I really had my ears and mind open in all different directions during those years in New York, and I can't overstate how much I loved the NY scene then, with all it's diversity, innovation, etc. I'm still proud to have been part of it. And I'm including NY radio in this declaration. I had lots of great go-to stations like WBLS and WKTU ("urban"), WLIB (Caribbean music), WFMU (free-form), WKCR (Jazz), WNYU, with "The Afternoon Show,” and the "Wavebreaker" countdown on Fridays, WNEW ('cause they played us). On and on...
There were a ton of "skinny tie" power pop bands around in the very early '80s too, many from the Midwest. Did you play with the Shoes, Knack, Romantics, Plimsouls, etc.? Were there ones that stuck out for you? I feel like you weren't roped into that signing frenzy trend though.
I played with The Plimsouls in NY once. I loved them, became friends with Peter [Case] back then. But one of my fears in those days was that anybody might lump us in with that Anglophile “skinny tie” thing. I hated most of it, not all of it. I didn't like The Knack, didn't identify with what they were doing, didn't want anybody to identify us with what they were doing. I feel bad saying so, but I'm answering your question. Again, we came out of the NY club scene which was really diverse and eclectic. I wanted our stuff to reflect that as best I could. Another one of my fears, since we took off so fast in NY, was that somebody might tag us as the "Next Big Thing,” and unfortunately that did happen. I had a real sense of doom when I read all that stuff about my first album in Rolling Stone.
Oh, also, we were never part of any signing frenzy. We got our record deal by packing out every NY club we played at, getting our stuff on "mainstream" FM rock radio when they never played local bands on indie labels. We earned it the way you did back then.
"What Time Is It?" -- how did you decide on that cover? I assume you were a big doo wop fan. Once you got to NYC, did you get to play with or meet any old doo wop favorites?
I don't think that happened, but now I wish that it had. It would've been great to meet Randy and The Rainbows, for instance. "Denise" is one of those records that gets me every time. Or Eugene Pitt of The Jive Five. It's too bad I never met him, even after I covered their tune (actually a Feldman-Goldstein-Gottehrer tune, but anyway).
Can you tell me about the making of the "Whenever You're on My Mind" video? Were you one of those who was suspicious of videos back then?
Hahahahaha! By the time we did that one I was really enthusiastic about videos, wanted us to get on that bandwagon. It seemed like most of my favorite ones were British, so we went over there and found a British director. I'm laughing thinking about it now. We tried.
Finally, where would you rank Field Day in your catalog?
I was really on my game just then. It was some kind of a pinnacle, as far as that moment in my life goes. And it seems to be my most beloved album. People tell me all kinds of things about it, like, "Our kids were conceived to that one.”
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Artist & Actor: Love isn’t for everyone
This is Chapter two of the artist actor series, i am working on all of your requests. This was requested by a couple of people so i went ahead and posted it. Enjoy!
He was truly brilliant, the way he would deliver his lines, how he would look so scared that you actually wanted to go out there and save him from this pretend fear that’s been created. He was going to be something big, you could tell, and so could the rest of the cast and crew.
“Y/N…Y/N”.
You turned around to come face to face with Candice, great what did she want?
“I’m gonna need you to cover your three and a good bit of the extras today, Emily’s out with a cold”.
“Who said, and why can’t you do it?”
Candice had hated you from day one, mostly because this was her fifth movie and your first, but Nathan and Chris saw something special in your work, making you the key makeup artist.
“Listen here little girl, I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, which means I don’t have to answer to you. You may have Nolan and Nathan wrapped around your little finger, but if they so much as hear that a sneeze or cough came from you, you’re done. Wouldn’t want the main cast getting sick now would we”.
“Is that a threat?” You said voice full of venom.
“Let’s just call it a not so friendly warning”.
And with that she was gone.
“C’mon mate just talk to her”.
This was the third time Harry had asked Fionn to talk to you, and the third time Fionn was having to say no.
“Look Harry, I already tried that, and if you don’t remember it didn’t go so well for me, she probably thinks I’m a freak”.
“You’re seeing the situation as way worse than it actually was, I mean im not gonna lie to you, you weren’t the smoothest. Look just talk to her a few more times, get comfortable”.
Fionn wasn’t having it, he just didn’t want to embarrass himself, he liked you too much to have you think of him negatively.
“I don’t know…”Fionn could see the hope in Harry’s eyes, why did he care so much anyway?
“She’s right over there touching up Toms makeup, I’m going to go over and see if she wants to join us for dinner tonight, you don’t have to say anything, but just don’t look like your in pain ok”.
Fionn rolled his eyes at Harry’s last comment as they headed towards you. You were touching up a whiny, impatient Toms makeup, full concentration on your face, creating the cutest little line in between your furrowed brows.
“Hello love, can we talk?”
You examined Toms face one last time before looking at Harry.
“Yea sure, Tom you’re done you can go”.
Tom fled from you and your makeup that he hated ever so much, getting a smile out of Fionn.
“So love, I was wondering if you would like to grab dinner with me and the lads tonight, it would be just the cast and crew hanging out, and of course Fionn will be there”.
He said the last part in a sing song voice as he pointed to Fionn who was standing behind him.
“Harry…”
You said with a warning tone, hoping that he wouldn’t let on to Fionn about your infatuation with him, hopefully he hasn’t already told him. You had already told the boy that he had a soothing voice and that his skin was pretty, so if he didn’t know by now surely he wouldn’t catch on to Harry’s hints.
“Fionn we need you on set”.
Fionn locked eyes with you, quickly looking away.
“Well I’ll umm…see you at dinner then. You are uhh…coming aren’t you?”
He said as he scratched the back of his head trying his best to look you in the eyes.
“If I bet on it, she’ll be coming twice tonight”.
Harry said as he winked at the two of you, hands buried deep in his pockets with a cheeky smirk on his face. You could feel the red quickly take over your cheeks, and you could see it on Fionns.
“Okay…well I better go”.
Fionn quickly walked away, almost as fast as Tom, heading to set trying to escape the awkward situation that Harry created.
You slapped Harry’s arm with good force.
“What the hell Harry, why would you say that?”
Harry faked as if he was hurt while he rubbed his arm where you hit it, a pout on his lips.
“What’d yeh do that for?”
“What did you make a crude remark for?”
Harry looked as if he had no idea what you were talking about.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean love”.
All it took was one raised eyebrow from you to get him to suddenly remember.
“Ok I’m sorry, but look come to dinner tonight and wear something Fionn would like. Maybe something a little short, I think he’s a leg guy. But you know not something shorter than you’re comfortable with, should be yourself love”.
That was such a Harry thing to say, always making sure you know you only have to do what you’re comfortable with. That’s why you’re such good friends, he never pressures you into anything you didn’t want to do.
“Fine, I’ll come to dinner, and I’ll wear something short”.
“Y/N we need you for a touch up”. One of the crew members yelled.
“That’s my girl, but not shorter than you’re comfortable with”.
Harry yelled at you as you ran on set to touch up Kenneth’s face.
“What was all of that about?”
Harry turned around to face Candice. He wished he hadn’t spent the energy turning around just for her, especially when he needed it for swimming.
“I’m not sure what your talking about, and you do know it’s rude to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations?”
“Oh please, like anything she says is worth eavesdropping on, but the one and only Harry Styles on the other hand-” Harry always tried to be nice to everyone, but Candice made it difficult, that’s why he usually avoids her. “ and the new kid…Fee-on is it?”
“It’s pronounced Finn” Harry said dryly getting bored by the lack of interesting conversation.
“Fionn, he seems like he’s going to be something big, like you. I bet you’re big in other ways too”.
Harry turned to face her fully, a disgusted look on his face as he tried to push the nausea down from her shameless flirting.
“So what, does she like this Fionn guy? Cause I think he’s kinda cute, and I always get what I want, that is unless you’re available”.
“Yea…no I gotta go”.
You were starting to pack up all the makeup from the day, leaving out only the makeup remover so you could quickly clean the boys faces as they trailed in.
“Hey Y/N, can you get this stuff off of my face now?”
You chuckled, Tom was a very patient person, sweet too, just didn’t like makeup. Toms face was about as close to perfect as you could get, insanely chiseled with no blemishes, if it wasn’t for him being seasick you probably wouldn’t have done anything to him at all.
“Yea, sure have a seat”.
Tom sat in your chair as you dabbed some pre-cleanse on a cotton ball, wiping all the makeup from his face. Several cotton balls later and you were done, Tom smiling and feeling his makeup free face.
“Thanks love”. Tom said as he kissed the top of your head quickly before rushing out of the trailer.
“Now don’t let Fionn see that, he may get jealous…on second thought maybe he should, then maybe he’d ask you out”.
Harry strolled into the trailer, shirt already removed and now seated in your chair. Before you knew it he had already grabbed a cotton ball and was spraying water on it in an attempt to unveil his hidden tattoos.
“Ok stop. What are you doing?”Harry continued without success wiping at his chest where his sparrow was hiding underneath.
“I already told you pet, I’m gonna get the two-”
“No no no Harry, I mean with that cotton ball that you put water on, that’s not going to do anything, look put that down”.
You grabbed fresh cotton balls and put the pre-cleanse on them, gently rubbing at Harry’s dirty, sweaty skin.
“I also mean no as in I told you I’m not getting involved with anyone from set, I want to stay professional”.
Harry grabbed your wrist gently, making you stop your efforts at getting the thick cover up off of him. He looked you in the eyes, seriousness taking over his face.
“Y/N, I love you, you know that, even though we haven’t known each other for very long I do. I care about you too much to see you work your life away, you’re too young, you need to live and find love. Don’t ask me how I know cause I can’t explain it, but I know you and Fionn and meant to be together”.
You sighed, you hated it when Harry was this sweet. You and Harry’s relationship was full of sarcasm and banter, so when he was this caring you got shy.
“I love you too H. Ok whatever you want, you can help, I’ll let you”.
Harry’s face lit up, two big dimples popping out from his cheeks.
“Thank you love, now get back to work, I want to see my tattoos”.
Harry left a while ago, you had stayed behind to remove Fionns makeup for him, you had even removed a few extras, but Fionn still hadn’t shown up. Did Harry really make him that uncomfortable earlier?
Just as you were about to grab your bag and leave you heard someone stumble into the trailer.
“Sorry I’m late, Chris wanted to talk to me…hope I didn’t keep you”.
He looked tired, worn out, like all he wanted was a nice hot shower, a warm meal, and a soft bed to snuggle up in.
“No, no not at all. I’ve been doing stuff so I was here anyway. Have a seat”.
Fionn pulled off his jacket, then removed the shirt that hung perfectly from his shoulders. You hadn’t meant to stare, but you couldn’t help it. He had the softest looking porcelain skin, and he was fit. When you first saw the boy he just seemed very lanky, which now you know isn’t true at all. Now all you could do was imagine the hot water of the shower hitting the tight muscles of his perfectly toned back, rolling down the pale skin releasing the tension from the rest of his muscled body.
“Umm, are you ok?”
Great, you were day dreaming and now you looked like a freak. He probably knew you you were thinking about him, but it’s his fault for taking his stupid shirt off.
“Yea I’m fine, just tired I suppose”.
You grabbed the cotton ball and started to clean the boys face. You noticed that now he seemed more comfortable around you, he was actually looking you right in the eyes as you removed the makeup and sweat from his face.
“So how was your first day on set?”
He smiled at you, happy to be having a conversation with someone other than Harry.
“It was good, I loved it, every bit of it. You know, I think I could just do this for the rest of my life and never get tired of it”.
You smiled at how he lit up when he talked about his job.
“It’s nice to know that it makes you happy, that you’re not just in it for the money or the fame”.
“No, I’m most definitely not in it for those things. I mean don’t get me wrong fans are amazing people, and it’s nice to be able to buy things that you need without worry, but for me it’s more than that”.
You were now just sitting and staring into his beautiful eyes as you listened to him talk about what he loves. You think to yourself that this is what you love, you’re not sure why, but you love to hear him talk about his day, his job, what he likes to do.
“Oh yea, like what?”
Fionn bit his bottom lip, trying to keep from smiling as he pondered on it.
“Like how I can be so many different people, my job is never the same. I can go and play things that don’t even exist if I want too. I can go and play someone from the past that I deeply admire, or be in a movie that has a meaning behind it. I could maybe even make a difference”.
You kneeled down so you were now eye level with him, a small smile on your lips.
“You know what Fionn Whitehead, I’m about 1000% sure you were meant for this, and you are going to go very far in this industry, just don’t let it change you”.
Fionns lips were slightly parted, he was listening to every word you said, but he couldn’t help but to stare at your lips.
“I won't”.
He said softly as his eyes traveled back up to yours.
“Good. Well you’re all done”.
Fionn got up from your chair taking as much time as possible so he could come up with something to bring up dinner, something so you knew he wanted you there.
“Y/N?”
“Yea?”
He was now playing with his fingers as he looked down at the ground, nervous. He didn’t want to seem too eager and scare you off.
“Umm, you’re still coming to dinner right”.
You had a looked unsure, like you may say no. It’s not that you didn’t want to go, you were just more tired than you thought you’d be.
“Cause I … I really want you to join us. I think it’d be fun, I could introduce you to all the guys…maybe buy you a drink”.
It was cute how shy he was being. You had a huge smile that was impossible for you to try and hide, and you suddenly didn’t feel as tired anymore.
“Yea, ok yea I’ll go, that sounds great!”
Fionn looked up with surprise on his face, now beaming with happiness.
“You will?”
“Yea, as long as you hang out with me so I’m not alone, or forced to listen to Harry the whole time”.
“Deal. I’ll see you there”.
“Great”.
You walked through the hotel quickly jumping into the elevator and pushing the number to take you to your floor. As soon as the elevator comes to a stop, you hop out and head to your room, unlocking your door and entering in a panic. What were you going to wear? What were you going to do to your hair and makeup?
You started shuffling through all of the clothes that you brought, trying to take in consideration of what Harry said. You pull out a green sweater dress, fishnet stockings, and maroon velvet thigh high boots.
“There, that should give me more coverage”.
You jumped in the shower, trying to wash away the sand that had blown in your hair while on the beach today. You lathered your best smelling body wash into your skin and rinsed.
“Now for makeup”.
Sitting at the vanity in your room, you begin to do your eye makeup to perfection so your eye color pops, then applying the rest of your face before picking a lip color.
You held up the many shades of maroon that you had to your boots, trying to match them as best as possible.
You didn’t want to look like you were trying too hard, so you braided your hair back. It was still a cute look, just two messy braids with some of your fringe down to frame your face.
“Ok I think I’m good, I’ve got this”.
You quickly spray yourself with perfume before grabbing your bag and heading downstairs to the uber that was waiting for you. The others were already at the place, Harry had texted you to let you know, but he said that it was good that you were going to be one of the last to arrive so it doesn’t seem like you’re too desperate.
The car pulled up the the pub that everyone was eating at, you got out of the car and closed the door behind you, praying that everyone else wasn’t just in t shirts and jeans. You opened the door walking into the entry way, stopping to take a deep breath before you enter where everyone else is. What if this is a bad idea? What if Fionn just wants to be friends and all of this is for nothing? You can’t listen to the voice in your head, you have to go in there to find out, besides worst case scenario Harry is the only one that speaks to you.
As you walk into the pub Harry quickly spots you, his mouth falling open as he gets up to meet you at the door. He pulls the both of you into the entry way, looking back to make sure no one followed him.
“You look… I mean… are you trying to give the man a bloody heart attack?”
You look down examining the outfit you had put together last minute.
“Is it that bad?”
Harry’s shaking his head while biting his lip, making sure to examine you one more time.
“No, s’fucking good, you look incredible. But are you trying to attract Fionn or me? I mean you know what a good boot does to me, a Gucci bag-” he said pointing to the handbag that you had worked your butt off for for years. “and -” he said smelling your neck, “ is that YSL perfume?”
“Yes Harry it is, and I can’t help that we’re so much alike”.
Harry gave you an apologetic smile.
“Ok, I’m sorry love, I’ve had a drink or two…so has Fionn by the way. He said he was nervous, that things had gone well tonight when he saw you”.
You couldn’t help but to smile when reminiscing on the moment.
“It did. I think I can do this Harry, with your help that is”.
“Of course love, let’s head to the table”. You were nervous, you hid behind Harry the whole way to the table, just the thought of meeting so many people at once and finally sitting down and talking to Fionn without it being work was terrifying.
“Lads, this is Y/N, Y/N this is Tom who you already know, Barry, Jack and Aneurin”.
“Hey”. You said and you smiled shyly and waved.
“Here, I saved you a seat next to Fionn, he ran to the toilet real quick”.
You took the seat that Harry had saved you, next to Fionn and Tom, right across from Harry and Barry.
“Y/N, you came”.
Fionn was now back at the table, looking relieved that he hadn’t been stood up, but it wasn’t a date and he didn’t invite you, Harry did, so could he have really even truly been stood up?
“Yea, told you I would didn’t I?”
Fionn took his seat next to you, he looked even cuter than he did on set, and he smelled amazing. He must have showered, now the images of his tense muscles coming back to your mind. Snap out of it Y/N. His hair was fluffy, he was wearing glasses, and he had a silver hoop earring. God, could he get any hotter?
You heard someone saying your name, interrupting your thoughts, thank goodness.
“Ohhh, Y/N, as in Fionns Y/N. Well I can see why he’s so smitten”.
Fionns face grew red for the third time today, as he picked up a fry and threw it at the one you believed to be Barry.
“Shut up Barry”. Fionn leaned into you, whispering in your ear not knowing the affect he has on you.
“Ignore them, they’ve been drinking, they don’t know what they’re saying”.
You smiled at him, sure that your face wasn’t just red from the blush that you had applied earlier.
“You clean up nice Mr. Whitehead”.
“Oh yea, well thank you, so do you. Not that you didn’t look nice on set…I just mean… I like your outfit”.
“I knew what you meant, it’s ok”.
Fionn took a big sip of his beer, a drop slipping out of his lips and down his chin.
“What do you want to drink? I did promise you a drink.”
“Surprise me”.
Fionn stood up taking his bottle with him.
“I like a girl of mystery”.
Harry winked at you from across the table, a sign that he thought things were going very well. Fionn came back to the table with another beer and a glass of wine for you.
“Thank you”.
Fionn took another big sip of his drink.
“So I totally didn’t even ask you how your day was earlier, sort of an asshole thing to do since you asked me huh?”
The rest of the boys were in their own little world just chatting away, it was like you and Fionn were alone.
“No, no not at all. It was good, I’m very thankful for my first project being such a big one, and getting the best cast members to work on”.
“Well I do have to say that we got the best artist to work on us”.
It had been at least a hour by now, you and Fionn hadn’t stopped talking. The talking slowly turned to flirting and the drinks were a huge help.
“If it’s not too bold of me Y/N, you look incredible tonight”.
Fionn had rested his hand in your thigh a while ago, rubbing soft circles with his thumb on the inner flesh.
“Well of it’s not too bold if me Fionn, I didn’t think that you could get any hotter, but when I saw you tonight, you proved me wrong”.
The rest of the boys were off playing pool with some of the older cast and crew, probably trying to give the two of you some privacy.
Fionn had the goofiest grin on his face, an affect of the alcohol most likely, there’s no way you had this affect on him.
“You think I’m hot?”
“Most definitely”.
Fionns hand left your thigh and travelled up to your lips, his eyes locked on them as he traces them with his thumb.
“You’re absolutely edible, you have the most perfect lips”. He said as he tugged at the bottom one, watching it pop back up into place.
Feeling a little more daring from your liquid courage you say,
“Why don’t you taste then”.
Fionn slowly inched his face closer to yours, his thumb holding your chin in place. His soft, warm lips capturing yours, you can taste the bitter flavor of the beer on his tongue as he slides it in your mouth. Your hand is now tugging at the hair at the bottom of his neck as he grips your thigh.
Fionn rests his forehead on yours, breaking the kiss.
“I don’t think you’re easy, I mean I don’t want you to think that’s what I think. It’s just…I don’t know, I have a feeling deep down in me that we’re meant to be together. I just felt this instant connection to you”.
You kiss him one more time to reassure him that you feel the same way.
“I do too”.
“Hey, Y/N, Fionn, why don’t you two come join us?”
Harry yelled from the pool table that him and the rest of the guys were just gathered around.
“Do you want to go join them?”
“Yea, I’m just going to run to the restroom and I’ll be right there”.
You walked into the bathroom, Candice was stood in front on the mirror applying her lipstick.
“You know, he doesn’t really like you, and Harry’s not really your friend”.
“As if I would listen to anything you tell me, I don’t know what you’re on about anyway”.
She closed the lipstick tube and turned to face you.
“Fionn. It’s all a bet I over heard them talking about it…Oh come on, you know how much I like to eavesdrop. Harry and Fionn are in a bet to see which one of them can bed you first. Harry’s the nice best friend who will end up telling you that he wants to be more than friends, and Fionns the sweet boy next door. The rest of the lads are betting wages”.
“Oh my God you are so high school. Are you that bitter about my being the key artist that you’re willing to make up lies?”
“Believe what you want darling, but Harry’s taking me back to his tonight, and Fionn actually likes Sydney. Why would you think he would like you anyway, I mean you’re no body, at least when Sydney’s not doing makeup she’s modeling”.
Candice walked out of the restroom, leaving you to yourself. You were washing your hands, going over the conversation in your head. She’s psychotic Fionn and Harry wouldn’t do that to you. Suddenly you remember what Harry said earlier that day ‘im betting she’ll be coming twice tonight’
Walking out of the bathroom you see Fionn stood next to the pool table, Sydney draped all over him with her tongue down his throat. You felt uneasy, as if the room was spinning and this was all a bad dream. How could he? How could Harry?
Quickly running out of the pub you call for an uber to meet you a block away. As soon as you get to your hotel you change into more comfortable clothes and light a candle, taking it to the balcony with a bottle of wine. You knew you shouldn’t have gotten involved at work, and you sure as hell wouldn’t let that happen again, tomorrow you were asking for new cast members. You sipped the wine and looked over the city as your heart ached and tears stained your face. Maybe love wasn’t meant for you.
#fionn whitehead imagines#fionn blurb#fionn imagines#fionn whitehead blurb#fionn fluff#fionn whitehead fluff#fionn x reader#fionn fic#fionn fanfic#fionn whitehead fanfic
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This Monday, Fox’s pre-Batman drama series “Gotham” wraps its winter run with the full, ferocious return of Jerome. Now, fans of the show are undoubtedly excited about the development, but casual comic book types are likely asking a simple question. “Who the Hell is Jerome?”
This is what you’d call a problem.
For three years, “Gotham” has worked hard to prevent itself from committing to any one portrayal of the Joker – the Dark Knight’s indisputable arch nemesis and perhaps the fan favorite supervillain of all time. But over the past two seasons, the show has also elevated recurring guest star Cameron Monaghan’s unhinged, circus-born serial killer Jerome Valeska to a major foe. With pasty-white skin, an ear-to-ear grin and a cackle that could curdle blood, Jerome has been one of the most memorable additions to a show that’s often in desperate need of crowd-pleasing moments.
So why not just call him the Joker? Despite “Gotham’s” insistence that it’s entire run will be an origin story for the Batman’s world, there are plenty of reasons that this one particular piece be put in place now. Below, CBR runs down six reasons why turning Jerome into the purple-suited Clown Prince of Crime will make the character and the TV show stronger.
Joker’s Nonexistent Past Is Hardly Canon
It can be argued that there’s never been a definitive origin story for who the Joker was before he gained his repulsive rictus. But don’t believe people who tell you that the villain has never had or should never have an origin tale. It’s not just that “Detective Comics” #168’s legendary story “The Man Behind The Red Hood!” gave us the most accepted version of Joker’s “thrown in a vat of acid by Batman” origin (written by co-creator Bill Finger, no less). Over the years, dozens of comic creators have filled in bits of Joker’s backstory, from Alan Moore to J. Michael Straczynski, though they’ve often left specific details vague.
Only since Christopher Nolan’s film “The Dark Knight” have people embraced the idea of a Joker who aggressively denies any true past as canonical. This may have been inspired by his initial, origin-less appearances, but back then, such things simply weren’t stated — like most comic villains of the era. So anyone who claims that Jerome’s origin of murdering his mother before going kill-crazy breaks some kind of rule established by the villain’s creators is missing a whole lot.
More importantly, film and TV versions of the character have been happy to create the character’s full backstory when it suits them – most famously the “mobster who murdered Bruce Wayne’s parents” angle in Tim Burton’s classic 1989 “Batman” movie. And stories like that – while usually much more widely seen than any comic book – have done little to blunt the impact of the Joker as a character all his own. Nobody today expects that making Jerome the Joker full-on would somehow taint the character or irrevocably alter how he’s portrayed in the comics.
Every Other Faux-Joker On “Gotham” Has Failed
Aside from the “making Jerome the Joker wouldn’t really hurt the character” case, there are plenty of great reasons why making this happen is a positive thing. First and foremost is the fact that ever other attempt “Gotham” has made at channeling the Ace of Knaves has fallen way flat.
Longtime viewers of the show will recall that in its early episodes, “Gotham” peppered in “potential Jokers” all over the place from failing comedians to frustrated family men. It was such an awkward, story-killing bit of business that the producers soon dropped it all together from their creative arsenal. Later, when the series attempted to revive a piece of Joker canon with the Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo-inspired Red Hood gang, the resulting mask mobsters were completely devoid of personality. Recent attempts to revive the Red Hood angle have fared no better.
Worst of all, since Jerome landed on the show and totally stole the scene from nearly every other plotline, the writers’ initial premise that his (since overturned) death would inspire mass insanity across the city has been a dropped ball. Even when they picked that idea back up as a way to reintroduce Jerome, the story pretty much went out of its way to show how no one would ever be as good as him.
So if the acid-squirting flower fits this guy so well, why not let him wear it?
Harley Quinn’s Impending Intro Is Flawless Timing
The producers of “Gotham” have made it no secret that they’ll be introducing their version of DC’s most popular female character later this season (sorry, Diana, but you know that Truth is Truth). But with some version of Harley Quinn in the offing, the big question becomes, what is there even worth doing with this character before there’s a Joker on the scene? In almost every major Harley story of all-time, the character is played as mild-mannered public servant until Joker unleashes the crazy within her. If “Gotham’s” past is any indication, their solution could be something as bland as a forgettable psychiatrist who occasionally says things like, “I can’t wear red lipstick…that’d be crazy!”
But putting Harley center stage right when Jerome steps into the real Joker role not only solves these problems, it opens up some scary good story directions. Imagine a season of the show where fans get to see the famous Harley origin story “Mad Love” writ large – a mash-up of “Natural Born Killers” and Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie where Jim Gordon and company are hopelessly outmatched? It leans into “Gotham’s” very best tendency for absurd action (and over-acting) rather than more lame attempts at making this madcap world feel “real” (whatever that means).
The Show Is At Its Best When It Goes Full Comic Book
Cementing the argument for Jerome as Joker is the fact that “Gotham” only really connects with the wider fandom when it fully embraces comic book identities. Remember when Ed Nygma was a nerdy annoyance who just said the word “Riddle” three times in a scene before being totally forgotten? That all ended when he finally was given motivation to strike back at Jim Gordon and went all-in planting Riddler-inspired clues and bombs across the city. Since then, the villain has been one of the most enjoyable members of the show’s ensemble.
And it’s not an accident that Oswald Cobblepot has remained both the most beloved member of the show’s cast at the same time as he’s been the only character graced with his comic book alter ego of the Penguin. From his crafty takeover of Gotham’s mayoralty to the way he’s weaseled through a crime world that considers him an outsider, this Oswald is virtually indistinguishable form his four-color counterpart. (Okay, maybe add 60 pounds, but otherwise…)
When you compare these fully fledged supervillain turns to the numerous also-rans in “Gotham’s” history (Balloonman, that awful Wall Street reinvention of Black Mask, the dead end Scarecrow story), it’s clear that the show’s creators find more fun to be had when tweaking comic book character’s identities – not just teasing them. At this point, Jerome doesn’t have to be quite the dapper danger we think of when we see the classic Joker. But giving him a name and a “first draft” version of the purple costume would feel earned after so much pussyfooting.
The Supervillain’s Influence Would Cement The Need For Batman
From the first episode of “Gotham,” the show has been caught in a massive Catch-22 scenario. If the series main plot is ostensibly about Jim Gordon and company’s attempts to be white knights in a city full of black-hearted crooks, how could it possibly end in a satisfying manner? On the one hand, Jim fails, and the entire show is a tragic waste of the audience’s time. On the other hand, if Gordon succeeds there’s actually no reason for Bruce to become Batman.
Watching the Joker fully rise up as a new kind of criminal threat alters this landscape in a way that truly prepares viewers for the birth of the Dark Knight. If Jerome takes charge in turning the show’s drab mobsters into insane supervillains, then Jim Gordon totally realigning the GCPD into a fighting force for good still comes up short without totally undercutting its ultimate redemption arc. Plus, the young Bruce Wayne will be given sufficient motivation for taking his quest for justice outside the law (right now, he’s got a pretty good example of police work being a righteous path in Jim). It’s a win-win for the show’s ultimate endgame.
This Show Needs the Lift That Joker Could Provide
Finally, “Gotham” needs to make Jerome the Joker because it needs to finally give people a reason to care about it. The Fox network is traditionally pretty shifty on supporting genre entertainment over the long haul, and while this DC series has fared better than the average “Dollhouse” due to its comic book roots, the show has slipped in the ratings compared to the rock-solid (and admittedly more forgiving) numbers its CW counterparts pull. With an impending “X-Men” TV series that Fox will own a bigger part of in the works, there’s no reason for the network to support the Batman’s world over many more seasons unless it delivers something big for ratings and buzz.
Plastering a fully-fledged Joker on the side of a bus at San Diego Comic-Con might seem like a shameless cash grab (because it would be!), but in the cold hard facts of the crowded superhero TV marketplace, it’s also a no-brainer.
Plus, for all the reasons explored above, adding the Joker to the show full time will be a major creative boon as well, and “Gotham” needs that more than any other show in years. While the series has undoubtedly improved from its absolutely wretched first season, it’s never gotten more than mediocre in quality. Jerome as the Joker provides the wild energy that the series has always flirted with and a marketing shot in the arm that could let this series go down as a worthy piece of Batman storytelling.
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Burnout
League of Legends is my most recent addiction. While recovering from burnout this past year the plan has been to do all the things I felt I never fully had time for or energy to commit to while working. Playing this game was one of them.
It has now been eight months since I quit my job. Day after day, week after week, month after month my health issues has been spiralling out of control due to my honestly pretty insane recovery strategy. This is something I’ve been vaguely aware of the entire time while still hoping for something good to come of it. If this was fiction, this would be a lovely moment to add some positive rationalization end note about my insane year, but even though it had some good moments, no, this was a terrible year for me.
In reality, from day one after I quit my job, I knew what I needed. I needed therapy, both for my burnout and other traumas. I needed to maintain healthy routines and to check up on my ever growing list of medical issues. I needed to stop isolating myself ever since I figured out I actually wanted to have a social life again. I needed to start planning moving since ultimately the only reason I’ve lived in my city for so long was the job I no longer have.
A few days ago I was finally able to admit to myself that I should have quit this isolation insanity a long time ago. It started with me removing this game and everything related to it from my life. I wish it was as a rational decision as this text makes it sound like, but I assure you it was not. My obsession simply ran its course, and I was lucky enough to be in a reasonable mindset at the end of it. As with many of my obsessions, they are the master of me, not the other way around, and I end them when they decide to.
Something I can take credit for however is taking this moment of clarity and using it for something productive, which brings me to the actual update in my life: I wrote to an old friend telling her I need someone to talk to. I’m exhausted and terrified about facing reality. Just texting her the other night took me hours of plain staring at my phone before I even wrote a single letter.
We’re going for a walk tomorrow.
I could probably end the post at this note, but I feel the need of expressing myself, so while I’m at it picking my own brain, let me tell you about my year. It’s been such a mess that I feel the need to wrap my hear around it. Imagine the "Hakuna matata" scene from Lion King, but rewritten by Christopher Nolan with a dark depression theme.
Slob
Each and every single day I’ve been distracting myself from reality. By playing video games, watching movies and eating junk food. Starting out I felt pretty good about it. I thought of it as giving myself space and time to heal, time to do whatever it was that I wanted. I was waiting for the day when I would miss the real life again. That day never came.
Life without a job was not so different for me compared to when I was working. Even when I was healthy I was not much of a social person, so most of my activities have always been something I can do from the safety of my own apartment. Except for one of them, which was the gym.
Having the gym was a lifesaver for me. It kept things on a beat for me in a new life where I had no schedule anymore. I would get breakfast nicely together with my finished workout, boosting my energy for the day. And the ride home from the gym would give me a very nice opportunity to visit the store if I needed anything before diving into the vast distraction of hobbies waiting for me at home.
Watching my passion for working out slowly dying out has been both heartbreaking and a catalyst to turning my daily routine into grayscales.
While escaping reality I would go on such long gaming or tv watching binges that I would stay awake for so long I’d collapse out of exhaustion. I’d then wake up in the middle of the night, ready to go about my gym routine, but then feeling awkward about going to the gym at such a late hour, so I’d ultimately skip it.
A break here and there eventually turned into only going to the gym once a week, and then once every several weeks. All while becoming more of a slob at home. Eventually I lost my sanity, there's no better way of putting it. Scary wild-haired dirty hobo level insanity. I hit my low when I one day visited the gym in the same dirty clothes I wore at home after not showering for several days. Isolation had brought me to the point that I regarded other people as irrelevant spectators in my life. The manager at the gym called me out for coming to the gym as such a slob, and I'm glad she did. Embarrassed I snapped out of it, apologized and fled the scene. It was like waking up from a dream, only that the dream had been real life all along. That was the last time I visited the gym. Months ago.
This was when things got real bad for me. This left me with no regular visits to the outside world. No job, no gym, no outside hobbies, no nothing. It didn't take long until ordering takeout was my primary means of survival, and wow did it get bad. I can’t even remember the number of times I’ve found myself living in a near-literal junk yard of empty soda bottles and takeout containers. Thankfully moments of panicked self-preservation have forced me to go on cleaning sprees, carrying comically huge black trash bags to the common recycling house. I wouldn’t be surprised if my neighbours have started to believe I’m the local trash man rather than their actual neighbour.
Dating
And then there was the dating period. This part of the year however wasn't that bad in the end, although just as much of a distraction. In between all of my hobbies I would constantly be on my phone talking to some stranger on a dating site. I enjoyed the attention, I enjoyed dreaming, but most of all I was happy to not have to face my loneliness. I haven't been in a place in my life where a romantic relationship has even been a vaguely good idea in a very long time. Since way before my burnout, so it's no news to me. However it's taken me some time to accept and to actually take a step back from dating, embracing loneliness. So in the end I'm actually quite proud of this one, even though it's yet another example of me avoiding my issues, I'm happy I've managed to stop chasing love.
Anxiety
While the theme of the story is constant distraction from reality, every now and then a rare moment would occur and my mind would give me a proverbial brief sigh of relief whenever I managed the exhausting task of scratching every itch my mind would throw at me. Lo and behold, I found myself bored. I would walk around the apartment with a blank stare, sighing, flailing my arms around haphazardly. I’d go out on the balcony and lean over the railing observing mundane things such as the weather or the construction work going on. Then reality knocks on the door and anxiety comes right in. However, my defense mechanisms are on point so of course I'm immediately back right on track distracting myself with another game or movie.
When I go to bed there’s nothing to distract me, so naturally this gives me all of the time in the world to think about all the intricate details of all the things in life I need to deal with, and how hopeless my future seems to me sometimes.
A couple of times a month these nights turn into full on anxiety attacks that makes an already screwed up sleeping schedule even worse. I say already screwed up because every now and then the idea of sleep simply scares me due to what I just described, so instead I choose to stay awake and distracted. Obviously I can’t stay awake forever, so eventually I just collapse into sleep, whether it’s day or night at the time.
Some nights are fine however. Some times I go to bed motivated, without fear. I think about my issues and feel empowered to solve them, staying awake thinking of solutions. Only to wake up and doing nothing at all about it. Which makes me feel even more anxious.
Fear
I’m so afraid of life today. I’ve gotten burnt from so many things I’m beginning to lose faith, whether it’s about romance, friendship, hobbies or work. I rarely dream anymore, and I even less risk getting my hopes up. My natural reaction to promising events in life today is anxiety and fear about what may go wrong.
Whenever I think of or talk about hopelessness, in my mind it always segues to suicide. To me that’s ridiculous and not applicable to me, so I don’t want you worrying about that. I don’t believe myself to have a suicidal personality. Which is important to note because it’s part of what puts me where I am today. I believe every person has two choices in life: live or die. And I’m currently doing neither. My life is in grayscale and I’m doing nothing about it.
Time and freedom can be such a curse to a person in my situation. I saved money to give myself space after quitting my job. It sure did give me space. It enabled me to procrastinate, to isolate. To do nothing. But now that time is running out, so my survival instincts are kicking in, forcing me to see reason.
This year has helped me realize that doing nothing is not the way forward. Aside from giving me more anxiety and bills.
I said I was waiting for the day when I would miss the real life again. That day never came. I don’t miss real life. I feel hopeless, my passion is but a glimmer in the dark, and I’m afraid of the world. But I’m tired of doing nothing. I want to do Something.
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Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly: ‘Sometimes films need is high time to marinate’
The director of the cult favorite Donnie Darko was once hailed as the next David Lynch. Now, as fans rediscover his 2007 flop Southland Tales, he explains why patience is still a virtue and Trumps victory was a grotesque inevitability
Talking with the writer and director Richard Kelly, its easy to steer the conversation toward the end of the world. After all, Kelly developed a fervent cult following( and alienated it) through tales of prophesied apocalypse 2001 s cult curio Donnie Darko and 2007 s cult-classic-in-the-making Southland Tales. But its not the collapsing buildings or rivers of blood that fascinate Kelly; its what comes right before. The sneaking anxiety. The normalizing of madnes. The casual disregard for your neighbor. The glob in your throat that signifies your newfound understanding that this was inevitable.
If those impressions sounds familiar in our current Trump-addled dystopia, that was not Kellys intention. Southland Tales, a post-9/ 11 satire melded with a retelling of the Book of Revelation that also includes a complex theory of hour traveling, was never meant to feel like a pre-game show for the next decade of global misery.
The sprawling narrative set in an alternative 2008 in which a nuclear attack on Abilene, Texas, triggers a third world war revolves around an amnesiac action starring named Boxer Santaros( played by Dwayne The Rock Johnson) who falls in love with a porn starring/ talkshow host/ entrepreneur/ pop superstar/ psychic who goes by the professional name Krysta Now( Sarah Michelle Gellar ), who has written a screenplay about the end times.
Oh, and theres also a government agency dedicated to spying on Americans, an underground neo-Marxist cult, alternative solutions energy source that might be ripping a hole in the space-time continuum, a United States military been supported by Hustler and Bud Light, and a mind-altering medication that keeps American soldiers docile and dependent. Jon Lovitz plays a racist cop, Seann William Scott plays identical twin police officers, Amy Poehler shows up as an anarchist improv comic, Justin Timberlake plays a drug-addled war veteran and Wallace Shawn of The Princess Bride fame is the antichrist( or a reasonable fax ).
Its overwhelming to process, and reflects so much of the nervousnes of our age, even if it isnt always pleasant to watch. I actually wanted it to be something that you would get lost in and that would sustain multiple viewings, Kelly tells me over dinner in Los Angeles. When discussing the movie, his eyes widen and he projects an impish yet tentative enthusiasm as though hes feeling out whether youre going to receive his ideas without judgment. Now, that ambition can be a self-defeating prophecy, as we watched clearly.
Kelly seems wistful about the experience of making and releasing the film, which, after a disastrous Cannes screening at which the movie was booed heavily, virtually lost theatrical distribution. We were in Boston, in pre-production on[ his Southland Tales follow-up] The Box, the weekend Southland Tales opened in 50 -some theaters. The upcoming Monday was our first day of principal photography. We were scrambling for our first day. We had done the AFI Fest premiere and they rushed me back to Boston. And then, I remember that morning, were shooting Cameron[ Diaz] and Frank Langella, this really emotional scene in the Boston Public Library. Someone comes up to me and tells me per-screen medians on Southland Tales. It was such a bummer. A screening Kelly attended with the actor James Marsden was attended by only four other people. Roger Ebert likened the cinema to the third day of a pitch session on velocity. One of the rare positive reviews of the movie came from the New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, who called it funny, audacious, messy and feverishly inspired.
I definitely remain proud of the ambition of it. I feel like sometimes things just require is high time to marinate, he says. The cinema has started to find a new audience. At the time of our meeting, hes in between hosting screenings of Southland Tales thanks to a roadshow tour of the film sponsored by the Alamo Drafthouse chain of arthouse theaters. The newfound appreciation for Southland Tales by both audiences and emerging pockets of critics hasnt yet translated to tangible opportunities for Kelly. I dont ever want to feel defeated or that Ive let the system defeat me, he says.
Sarah Michelle Gellar in Southland Tales. Photograph: Publicity image from cinema company
Southland Tales discovering an audience nearly 10 years later would not mark the first time one of Kellys cinemas gained esteem upon second( or third) glance. Donnie Darko grossed a scant $517,375 when it was released a month after 9/11. When it observed a huge audience on video and DVD, Kelly became a hot commodity, an heir apparent to the surrealist tradition of directors like David Lynch. Sometimes, the wind is at your back. Sometimes, its at your front, Kelly says about the ups and downs of his career. Darko remains his greatest up, a cinema thats become a touchstone work for the generation that grew up with it. Darko was a disaster at Sundance too, he tells me. No one remembers that, but it was. Im grateful for any rosy light of hindsight. I remember it took us virtually six months to sell the movie. It nearly ran immediately to the Starz network. We had to beg them to put it in theaters. Christopher Nolan stepped in and persuaded Newmarket to put it in theaters.
After those issues, Kelly could have gone the expected route and taken on a big-budget studio tentpole. He could have directed the sequel, which he declined to do( it aimed up being terrible and running straight-out to DVD ). Instead, he choice this peculiar, dense story about the decline of American power.
President-elect Donald Trump was merely a reality show curiosity when Southland Tales was released, but his mixture of profane and pious could easily have constructed him a character in the film. I think that Donald Trump is this grotesque inevitability that has gotten this far because there was something really, really dangerous concealing beneath the surface, that has been concealing beneath the surface for many, many years. The Republican Kelly imagined in Southland Tales were the neocon religious zealots that seem almost quaint to modern eyes. They seemed like the ultimate boogeymen in 2007, but as Kelly points out , no one in the Bush family would even show up at the RNC[ Republican national convention ].
What Southland Tales conveyed better than most politically charged films of the Bush era was the sentiment that it would get worse, that something had been unleashed that could not be put back. At the time that we were building Southland Tales, it was Iraq war and Britney Spears. That dichotomy on your Tv screen. The branding and everything was happening. It seemed inevitable that everyone would start to co-opt branding. Social media hadnt actually exploded yet. To watch legislators running after each other on Twitter, its bizarre. To insure Elizabeth Warren quoting the monorail on the Simpsons. To see legislators co-opting this millennial social media branding, its a blur of the lines.
Each of his three cinemas reflects that sheepish rebellion that is part of his personality. Donnie Darko was a mostly passive protagonist struggling against both the oppressive system of high school and the levers of fate that he could only pull at the cinemas climax. Boxer Santaros is a pawn in a conflict between fascism and socialism, religion and science, and love and demise. Eventually, those characters succumb to a power greater than any on Earth, something unknowable. So does Kelly think all this is down to higher power pulling the strings?
I dont believe any of this happened by accident. Thats just depressing and absurd, in my opinion, he answers. I do think theres a design to things, and we can never hope to know it in any of our lifetimes. Proportion of the challenge is trying to make sense of it. Thats whats cathartic for me as an artist, to try to make sense of it.
Read more: www.theguardian.com
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Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly: ‘Sometimes films require time to marinate’
The director of the cult favorite Donnie Darko was once hailed as the next David Lynch. Now, as fans rediscover his 2007 flop Southland Tales, he explains why patience is still a virtue and Trumps victory was a grotesque inevitability
Talking with the writer and director Richard Kelly, its easy to steer the conversation toward the end of the world. After all, Kelly developed a fervent cult following( and alienated it) through narratives of prophesied apocalypse 2001 s cult curio Donnie Darko and 2007 s cult-classic-in-the-making Southland Tales. But its not the collapsing buildings or rivers of blood that fascinate Kelly; its what goes right before. The creeping anxiety. The normalizing of insanity. The casual disregard for your neighbor. The hunk in your throat that signifies your newfound understanding that this was inevitable.
If those feelings sounds familiar in our present Trump-addled dystopia, that was not Kellys intention. Southland Tales, a post-9/ 11 satire melded with a retelling of the Book of Revelation that also includes a complex theory of time travel, was never meant to feel like a pre-game show for the next decade of global misery.
The sprawling narrative set in an alternative 2008 in which a nuclear attack on Abilene, Texas, triggers a third world war revolves around an amnesiac action star named Boxer Santaros( played by Dwayne The Rock Johnson) who falls in love with a porn starring/ talkshow host/ entrepreneur/ pop star/ psychic who goes by the professional name Krysta Now( Sarah Michelle Gellar ), who has written a screenplay about the end times.
Oh, and theres also a government agency dedicated to spying on Americans, an underground neo-Marxist cult, alternative solutions energy source that might be ripping a pit in the space-time continuum, a United States military sponsored by Hustler and Bud Light, and a mind-altering medication that maintains American soldiers docile and dependent. Jon Lovitz plays a racist cop, Seann William Scott plays identical twin police officer, Amy Poehler shows up as an anarchist improv comic, Justin Timberlake plays a drug-addled war veteran and Wallace Shawn of The Princess Bride fame is the antichrist( or a reasonable facsimile ).
Its overwhelming to process, and reflects so much of the nervousnes of our age, even if it isnt always pleasant to watch. I genuinely wanted it to be something that you would get lost in and that would sustain multiple viewings, Kelly tells me over dinner in Los Angeles. When discussing the movie, his eyes widen and he projects an impish yet tentative enthusiasm as though hes feeling out whether youre going to receive his ideas without judgment. Now, that ambition can be a self-defeating prophecy, as we saw clearly.
Kelly seems wistful about the experience of making and releasing the cinema, which, after a disastrous Cannes screening at which the film was booed heavily, virtually lost theatrical distribution. We were in Boston, in pre-production on[ his Southland Tales follow-up] The Box, the weekend Southland Tales opened in 50 -some theaters. The upcoming Monday was our first day of principal photography. We were scrambling for our first day. We had done the AFI Fest premiere and they rushed me back to Boston. And then, I remember that morning, were shooting Cameron[ Diaz] and Frank Langella, that is something that emotional scene in the Boston Public Library. Someone comes up to me and tells me per-screen medians on Southland Tales. It was such a bummer. A screening Kelly attended with the actor James Marsden was attended by only four other people. Roger Ebert likened the movie to the third day of a pitching session on speed. One of the rare positive reviews of the film came from the New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, who called it funny, audacious, messy and feverishly inspired.
I definitely remain proud of the ambition of it. I feel like sometimes things just require time to marinade, he says. The cinema has started to find a new audience. At the time of our meeting, hes in between hosting screenings of Southland Tales thanks to a roadshow tour of the movie sponsored by the Alamo Drafthouse chain of arthouse theaters. The newfound appreciation for Southland Tales by both audiences and emerging pockets of critics hasnt yet translated to tangible opportunities for Kelly. I dont ever want to feel defeated or that Ive let the organizations of the system defeat me, he tells.
Sarah Michelle Gellar in Southland Tales. Photo: Publicity image from movie company
Southland Tales seeing an audience virtually 10 years later would not mark the first time one of Kellys cinemas gained esteem upon second( or third) glance. Donnie Darko grossed a scant $517,375 when it was released a month after 9/11. When it observed a huge audience on video and DVD, Kelly became a hot commodity, an heir apparent to the surrealist tradition of directors like David Lynch. Sometimes, the wind is at your back. Sometimes, its at your front, Kelly tells about the ups and downs of his career. Darko remains his greatest up, a cinema thats become a touchstone work for the generation that grew up with it. Darko was a disaster at Sundance too, he tells me. No one remembers that, but it was. Im grateful for any rosy light of hindsight. I remember it took us almost six months to sell the movie. It almost ran immediately to the Starz network. We had to beg them to set it in theaters. Christopher Nolan stepped in and convinced Newmarket to set it in theaters.
After those issues, Kelly could have gone the expected road and taken on a big-budget studio tentpole. He could have directed the sequel, which he declined to do( it aimed up being terrible and running straight-out to DVD ). Instead, he preferred this peculiar, dense narrative about the decline of American power.
President-elect Donald Trump was only a reality show curiosity when Southland Tales was released, but his mixture of profane and pious could easily have constructed him a character in the film. I think that Donald Trump is this grotesque inevitability that has get this far because there was something really, really dangerous hiding beneath the surface, that has been hiding beneath the surface for many, many years. The Republicans Kelly imagined in Southland Tales were the neocon religion zealots that seem nearly quaint to modern eyes. They seemed like the ultimate boogeymen in 2007, but as Kelly points out , no one in the Bush family would even show up at the RNC[ Republican national convention ].
What Southland Tales expressed better than most politically charged films of the Bush era was the sentiment that it would get worse, that something had been unleashed that could not be put back. At the time that we were making Southland Tales, it was Iraq war and Britney Spears. That dichotomy on your Tv screen. The branding and everything was happening. It seemed inevitable that all individuals would start to co-opt branding. Social media hadnt really explosion yet. To see politicians going after one another on Twitter, its bizarre. To consider Elizabeth Warren quoting the monorail on the Simpsons. To ensure legislators co-opting this millennial social media branding, its a blur of the lines.
Each of his three cinemas reflects that sheepish rebellion that is part of his personality. Donnie Darko was a mostly passive protagonist struggling against both the oppressive system of high school and the levers of fate that he could only pull at the films climax. Boxer Santaros is a pawn in a conflict between fascism and socialism, religion and science, and love and demise. Eventually, those characters succumb to a power greater than any on Ground, something unknowable. So does Kelly guess all this is down to higher power pulling the strings?
I dont suppose any of this happened by collision. Thats just depressing and absurd, in my opinion, he answers. I do think theres a design to things, and we can never hope to know it in any of our lifetimes. Portion of current challenges is trying to make sense of it. Thats whats cathartic for me as an artist, to try to make sense of it.
Read more: www.theguardian.com
The post Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly: ‘Sometimes films require time to marinate’ appeared first on Top Rated Solar Panels.
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Inception Is A Prequel To The Matrix … No, Seriously
The Matrix was responsible for blowing everyone’s minds back in the ’90s with a combination of kung fu, special effects, and Keanu Reeves’ middle school philosophy lessons. Despite the collective will of humanity to forget about its sequels, the Matrix trilogy still is a benchmark of the “Reality is just a dream!” subgenre.
And then Christopher Nolan made Inception and told that entire genre to suck his balls. Fans everywhere debated whether or not the main character, Cobb (or, as I call him, “Chad Inception”), was still trapped in a dream at the end, despite every clue saying that he is actually in the real world. Both movies constantly draw comparisons, but the connections are always fuzzy at best. However, a unified Inception/Matrix connection makes a lot more sense than you think. In fact, I’d go so far as saying that Inception is a prequel to The Matrix.
#7. The Events In Inception Contributed To The Machine Uprising
In the first Matrix movie, Morpheus (Laurence Goddamn Fishburne) explains to Neo (Keanu Fuckin’ Reeves) that there was a war against the Machine overlords. They don’t know who attacked first, but humanity definitely “scorched the sky” because it was an abundant source of energy for the Machines. Now, forget for an instant about the stupidity of using humans as a source of energy and think about the humans’ contingency plan: Pollute the world to starve the Machines.
For the whole Machine army to operate on only solar energy, the Machines should have huge solar panels. In our world, we reached 22 percent efficiency with Elon Musk’s SolarCity, and while that’s impressive, it’s probably not enough to sustain the Machine army.
“But Cracked, it’s sci-fi! It can bend some science in the name of story!” Of course! And that’s the point: Let’s suppose the pre-war Machines have access to 90 to 100 percent efficient solar panels. Who invented them? Fischer Morrow.
Fischer Morrow is an energy company in the Inception universe that’s about to gain a monopoly over the world’s energy supply. The CEO of a rival company named Saito knows that if this happens Fischer Morrow will become a new superpower. Maurice Fischer is a dying old man, and his son, Robert, will gain control over the company. Cobb (Chad Inception) and his team go into Robert Fischer’s dream to implant the idea to end the monopoly and just chill the hell out for a bit.
Saito promises Cobb a get-out-of-jail free card and Park Place if successful.
What does it have to do with The Matrix? Cobb successfully makes an inception on Robert, so young Robert gives up the company’s monopoly in order to make something else: a name of his own. So Robert turns his company toward making cheap, efficient solar energy technology to improve the world, the same technology that would be the Machines’ main source of energy. That’s why humanity had to pollute the sky. If the inception wasn’t made, the solar technology wouldn’t be developed and Fischer Morrow wouldn’t be providing the Machines with what was necessary in self-sustaining them. Thanks, Leo, you unintentional dick.
#6. The PASIV Device Is A Beta Version Of The Matrix Technology
One of the main differences between Inception and The Matrix is how the characters enter the dream. In The Matrix, humans have plugs that allow them to be in the virtual world. In Inception, they have the portable automated somnacin intravenous device, which is not as invasive as the Matrix technology. They don’t have to inject a guitar amp cord into the base of their necks. At first sight, they have nothing in common. But …
The first thing we must clarify is that the Machines didn’t invent the Matrix technology. We know this because in the Animatrix short “Matriculated,” set during the Machine War, a group of rebels already have plugs to jack into the virtual world. In “The Second Renaissance,” after all of humanity’s armies are defeated, the Machines start to install machinery inside human survivors through forced surgery to begin the Matrix.
But the technology is far older. Arthur, from Inception, explains, “The military developed dream sharing — a training program where soldiers could strangle, stab, and shoot each other, then wake up.” So its original purpose was training, pretty much like this:
“Yo, is your chair sticky?”
“The kid ran the Woman In Red program before us.”
War brings technological advancement, so to make the PASIV device more efficient, it is upgraded to be installed inside people. It makes the dreams more stable and allows remote access to dreams instead of giving someone a roofie.
On the downside, if you die in the dream world, you die in real life. This is actually beneficial to the Machines, because when the agents shoot a rebel, they’ll die for good. It’s somewhat the Matrix version of a planned obsolescence.
Despite being more advanced, the Matrix technology still shares the premise of Inception‘s Mark I, because someone had to construct the Matrix world for dreamers to live in. That’s explicitly said when Inception‘s Ariadne asks how architects got involved, and Cobb answers that someone had to design the dreams. That’s because …
#5. Cobb Constructed The Matrix
When trying to get Zion’s code from Morpheus’ mind, Agent Smith explains the first Matrix was a perfect heaven, but nobody accepted it:
“Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.”
This backstory is confirmed in Reloaded. Along with copious, rambling philosophical bullshit, The Architect says, “The first Matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect. It was a work of art. Flawless. Sublime. A triumph only equaled by its monumental failure.” Cobb designed this heaven, and he is literally The Architect.
*BRAAAAAAAAAAAAM*
After the events in Inception, Cobb is living happily ever after with his kids until the war starts. Humanity eventually gets their asses handed to them by the Machines. Cobb and his kids are among the humans about to be processed in the first Matrix crop. Since he is the best extractor and an expert in dream technology, he aligns himself with the Machines in order to build it. At least he can construct a perfect dream for his children to live in. When the first Matrix falls apart, we can just assume his kids, Phillipa and James, die.
Though with a name like Phillipa, middle school would have killed her eventually.
Time passes and Cobb’s physical body is no more. Having lost everything, he is just a projection. A dream ghost (oh, holy shit, I just named my next band!). The Architect becomes the fulfilled prophecy that Saito said he would become: “An old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone.”
*BRAAAAAAAAAAAAM*
Even being responsible for the Matrix layouts, Cobb/Architect is not the one dreaming. Not even Neo, or Trinity, or any other asshole is. They are all sharing the dream of …
#4. An Unnamed Robot Idealized The Matrix
Don’t punch me, but let’s talk about another Animatrix short, because it’s pretty important to this theory. For those who haven’t seen them, here’s a spoiler of a 13-year-old animation. In the aforementioned segment “Matriculated,” a group of rebels lure in Machines with the intent of convincing them to fight on the human side. The protagonist, Alexa, puts a Machine into a dream world where they teach them about what humanity is, in the form of virtual sex and psychedelic CGI. The way it really should be taught to all middle school kids in health class.
Except for you, Phillipa.
One of the human characters remarks that they can’t just reprogram the Machines, as it would be unethical (although much, much easier). They should convince them to stand by humans. What they do to captured Machines is basically implant an idea in their mechanical minds. They perform an inception.
Things go bad when the Machines invade the rebel base, killing everyone, except for the inception-ized robot that witnessed the destruction that war has brought. Now, you may wonder what the importance of this unnamed character is. Simply put, it idealizes the Matrix.
“Robo-boobs … they let me dream-touch robo-boobs …”
The Machines are engaged in a war they can’t lose, and they have other energy options. We already told you why the Machines are actually the good guys. Humanity nukes them, starts a war, and destroys the planet. They owe us nothing, even though they keep humans in a safe world. It isn’t perfect, but humans are jerks and want to live in a miserable shithole. Why?
All this because the robot that learns about human feelings faces a dilemma: how to stop the war and protect humanity but at the same protect its robo-bros. Robros? In its robot logic, the best solution is to put humans to sleep in a world where they can’t do any significant harm to themselves and the Machines. You guys root for Neo and Morpheus? This little fellow is maybe the greatest hero of the whole Matrix trilogy.
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Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly: ‘Sometimes cinemas require time to marinate’
The director of the cult favorite Donnie Darko was once hailed as the next David Lynch. Now, as fans rediscover his 2007 flop Southland Tales, he explains why patience is still a virtue and Trumps victory was a grotesque inevitability
Talking with the writer and director Richard Kelly, its easy to steer the conversation toward the end of the world. After all, Kelly developed a fervent cult following( and alienated it) through narratives of prophesied apocalypse 2001 s cult curio Donnie Darko and 2007 s cult-classic-in-the-making Southland Tales. But its not the collapsing houses or rivers of blood that fascinate Kelly; its what comes right before. The sneaking anxiety. The normalizing of lunacy. The casual neglect for your neighbour. The hunk in your throat that signifies your newfound understanding that this was inevitable.
If those impressions voices familiar in our present Trump-addled dystopia, that was not Kellys intention. Southland Tales, a post-9/ 11 satire melded with a retelling of the Book of Revelation that also includes a complex theory of period travel, was never meant to feel like a pre-game show for the next decade of global misery.
The sprawling narrative set in alternative solutions 2008 in which a nuclear attack on Abilene, Texas, triggers a third world war revolves around an amnesiac action star named Boxer Santaros( played by Dwayne The Rock Johnson) who falls in love with a porn star/ talkshow host/ entrepreneur/ pop star/ psychic who goes by the professional name Krysta Now( Sarah Michelle Gellar ), who has written a screenplay about the end times.
Oh, and theres also a government agency dedicated to spying on Americans, an underground neo-Marxist cult, alternative solutions energy source that are likely to rending a hole in the space-time continuum, a United States military sponsored by Hustler and Bud Light, and a mind-altering narcotic that keeps American soldiers docile and dependent. Jon Lovitz plays a racist cop, Seann William Scott plays identical twin police officer, Amy Poehler shows up as an anarchist improv comic, Justin Timberlake plays a drug-addled war veteran and Wallace Shawn of The Princess Bride fame is the antichrist( or a reasonable facsimile ).
Its overwhelming to process, and reflects so much of the nervousnes of our age, even if it isnt always pleasant to watch. I truly wanted it to be something that you would get lost in and that would sustain multiple viewings, Kelly tells me over dinner in Los Angeles. When discussing the cinema, his eyes widen and he projects an impish yet tentative enthusiasm as though hes feeling out whether youre going to receive his ideas without judgment. Now, that aspiration can be a self-defeating prophecy, as we saw clearly.
Kelly seems wistful about the experience of making and releasing the cinema, which, after a disastrous Cannes screening at which the cinema was booed heavily, virtually lost theatrical distribution. We were in Boston, in pre-production on[ his Southland Tales follow-up] The Box, the weekend Southland Tales opened in 50 -some theaters. The upcoming Monday was our first day of principal photography. We were scrambling for our first day. We had done the AFI Fest premiere and they rushed me back to Boston. And then, I remember that morning, were shooting Cameron[ Diaz] and Frank Langella, this really emotional scene in the Boston Public Library. Someone comes up to me and tells me per-screen averages on Southland Tales. It was such a bummer. A screening Kelly attended with the actor James Marsden were engaged in only four other people. Roger Ebert likened the cinema to the third day of a pitching conference on speed. One of the rare positive reviews of the cinema came from the New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, who called it funny, audacious, messy and feverishly inspired.
I definitely remain proud of the aspiration of it. I feel like sometimes things just need time to marinate, he tells. The cinema has started to find a new audience. At the time of our session, hes in between hosting screenings of Southland Tales thanks to a roadshow tour of the cinema sponsored by the Alamo Drafthouse chain of arthouse theaters. The newfound expressed appreciation for Southland Tales by both audiences and emerging pockets of critics hasnt yet translated to tangible a chance for Kelly. I dont ever want to feel defeated or that Ive let the system defeat me, he tells.
Sarah Michelle Gellar in Southland Tales. Photograph: Publicity image from cinema company
Southland Tales find an audience virtually 10 years later would not mark the first time one of Kellys films gained esteem upon second( or third) glance. Donnie Darko grossed a scant $517,375 when it was released a month after 9/11. When it saw a huge audience on video and DVD, Kelly became a hot commodity, an heir apparent to the surrealist tradition of directors like David Lynch. Sometimes, the wind is at your back. Sometimes, its at your front, Kelly tells about the ups and downs of his career. Darko remains his greatest up, a cinema thats become a touchstone work for the generation that grew up with it. Darko was a disaster at Sundance too, he tells me. No one remembers that, but it was. Im grateful for any rosy light of hindsight. I remember it took us virtually six months to sell the movie. It virtually ran immediately to the Starz network. We had to beg them to put it in theaters. Christopher Nolan stepped in and convinced Newmarket to put it in theaters.
After those issues, Kelly could have gone the expected route and taken on a big-budget studio tentpole. He could have directed the sequel, which he declined to do( it ended up being terrible and going straight to DVD ). Instead, he chose this peculiar, dense tale about the decline of American power.
President-elect Donald Trump was only a reality show curiosity when Southland Tales was released, but his mix of profane and pious could easily have made him a character in the film. I think that Donald Trump is this grotesque inevitability that has gotten this far because there was something truly, really dangerous hiding beneath the surface, that has been hiding beneath the surface for many, many years. The Republicans Kelly imagined in Southland Tales were the neocon religion zealots that seem virtually quaint to modern eyes. They seemed like the ultimate boogeymen in 2007, but as Kelly points out , no one in the Bush family would even show up at the RNC[ Republican national convention ].
What Southland Tales conveyed better than most politically charged films of the Bush era was the sentiment that it would get worse, that something had been unleashed that could not be put back. At the time that we were stimulating Southland Tales, it was Iraq war and Britney Spears. That dichotomy on your TV screen. The branding and everything was happening. It seemed inevitable that all individuals would start to co-opt branding. Social media hadnt truly explosion yet. To consider legislators going after one another on Twitter, its bizarre. To consider Elizabeth Warren quoting the monorail on the Simpsons. To consider legislators co-opting this millennial social media branding, its a blur of the lines.
Each of his three films reflects that sheepish rebellion that is part of his personality. Donnie Darko was a mostly passive protagonist fighting against both the oppressive system of high school and the levers of fate that he could only pull at the films climax. Boxer Santaros is a pawn in a conflict between fascism and socialism, religion and science, and love and demise. Eventually, those characters succumb to a power greater than any on Ground, something unknowable. So does Kelly guess all this is down to higher power pulling the strings?
I dont guess any of this happened by collision. Thats just depressing and absurd, in my opinion, he answers. I do think theres a design to things, and we can never hope to know it in any of our lifetimes. Portion of current challenges is trying to make sense of it. Thats whats cathartic for me as an artist, to try to make sense of it.
Read more: www.theguardian.com
The post Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly: ‘Sometimes cinemas require time to marinate’ appeared first on Top Rated Solar Panels.
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