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lumosinlove · 4 years

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Sweater Weather Roster Description:

(So I probably definitely forgot some things. There’s a lot of complicated matching up that went into this. But, regardless, I wanted to post it, so we’ll fix and add as we go! <3)

James Potter: (Pots, Pothead, Potty)

Position: Left Wing, First Line

Number: 7

Years In The League: 7—drafted, no college.

Previous Teams: None

Description: 25. 6’1”. Dark brown hair, hazel eyes, white. Can usually be seen wearing whatever Lily buys him. Known on the team for being a joker, but also someone you can go to for any reason. Hyper.

Nationality: American. Hometown: Boston, MA.

S/O: Girlfriend, Lily Evans.

Closest to on the team: Sirius Black and Sergei Ivanov, but basically everyone.

Rooms With: No one

Sits with on the bus/plane: Sirius Black

Lives With: Girlfriend Lily Evans

Injury: Multiple concussions

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Putting his contacts in, because he usually wears glasses, gets him really into the game mode. His favorite food is treacle tart, which he had when he took his girlfriend Lily to England—now she makes it for him on his birthday.

Favorite Moment On Team: When he told them that he and Lily were pregnant and they all celebrated.

Superstition: He has to call his girlfriend, Lily, before every game.

Warm Up Song: Eye of the Tiger

What the announcers say when he scores: “Aaaaannndd Potter is wheeling tonight!!”

Sirius Black: (Padfoot, Cap, Captain)

Position: Center, First Line

Number: 12

Years In The League: 6—First pick overall, no college.

Previous Teams: None

Description: 24. 6’3”. Black hair, gray eyes, white. Hair gets really fluffy in humidity and it drives him insane. Short hair, curls above his ears. Loves a good backwards hat. One of the strongest on the team.

Nationality: French-Canadian. Hometown: Montreal, Canada.

S/O: Remus Lupin—secret.

Closest to on the team: James Potter and Adam Fox and William LeBlanc

Rooms With: No One

Sits with on the bus/plane: James Potter

Lives With: No one

Injury: Badly broken ankle, one mild concussion

Puck Personality Fun Fact: He had a very hard time coming up with one, so James chose one for him. He pretends to hate the rookies, but will drop literally everything for anything they need. He’s also really bad at taking his pre-game nap.

(Pascal Dumais from the background: “He does not understand household chores!” “Shut up, Dumo!”)

Favorite Moment On Team: His first game after deciding to stand up to his mother about getting a trade. He could finally relax, and enjoy himself. When he scored the first goal, he let his teammates celebrate with him.

Superstition: There are so many. There are too many. Has to go out onto the ice last, has to have a butter and honey toasted sandwich before the game at 5:00 pm, has to do his stretches in a certain order, has to put on and sharpen his left skate first. Cannot even talk about the Cup without freaking out. Will wear the same gross hat until it literally reeks if they’re on a hot streak.

Warm Up Song: Doesn’t really have one.

What the announcers say when he scores: “Seriously!!! That is one serious goal!!” “That Black back-hander will kill a fella!”

Finn O’Hara: (Harzy, Fish)

Position: Right Wing

Number: 17

Years In The League: 3. Went to Harvard College.

Previous Teams: None

Description: 23. 6’0’’. Dark red hair, luscious and fluffy. White. Wavy. Light freckles. Brown eyes. Is a single eyebrow raiser. Habit of saluting. More on the slender side of muscle. Is a bit of a worry-wart. Super sarcastic.

Nationality: American. Hometown: New York, New York.

S/O: June Calder—sort of.

Closest to on the team: Logan Tremblay and Leo Knut and Olli Halla

Rooms With: Timmy Jones

Sits with on the bus/plane: Kasey Winter

Lives With: Leo Knut

Injury: Two bad concussions in college.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: He wanted it to be that he’s real fucking good in bed, but it’s that he likes eating grilled cheese with strawberry jam because his older brother, Alexander, used to make it for him all the time when they were kids.

Favorite Moment On Team: Probably that one team dinner where Blizzard got drunk and tried to swim in a fountain. Or when he found out that Logan also got drafted to the Lions the year after him.

Superstition: Has to have a grilled cheese and strawberry jam before every game. Has to tape his own sticks on the bench. Has a handshake with Logan they do before walking down the tunnel.

Warm Up Song: Hollaback Girl, Gwen Stefani

What the announcers say when he scores: “OOOOOOOO’HARA HOW DARA!! WHAT A GOAL!”

Timmy Jones: (Timmers)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 62

Years In The League: 10. Went to Boston University

Previous Teams: New York Islanders

Description: 31. 6’1”. Black hair, braided, reaches his shoulders and he likes to tie it up sometimes, hazel eyes. Black. One of the most popular jerseys because he’s such a crowd pleaser always riling them up and talking to fans through the glass. He’s also one of the biggest Instagram users and is always posting really funny locker room videos.

Nationality: Canadian. Vancouver, Canada.

S/O: Single

Closest to on the team: Olli Halla and William LeBlanc and Thomas Walker

Rooms With: Finn O’Hara

Lives With: Olli Halla

Sits with on the bus/plane: Olli Halla

Injury: Fractured foot a few years ago.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Kasey’s rival for best hair in the league. Famous for his crazy cellys

Favorite Moment On Team: Conference Finals! And when all the boys touch Moody’s leg for good luck.

Superstition: Has a lucky towel that no one is allowed to wash.

Warm Up Song: Where are Ü Now, Jack Ü, Skrillex, Justin Bieber

What the announcers say when he scores: Timmers strikes again!!

Olli Halla: (Olli)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 5

Years In The League: 10, Undrafted.

Previous Teams: Winnipeg Jets.

Description: 6’2”. 32. Very, very blonde hair, nearly white. Pale blue eyes. Cute little nose. Cannot grow a beard to save his life. Total baby-face. Is sort of shy and awkward. What a sweetheart.

Nationality: Finish. Hometown: Helsinki, Finland.

S/O: Single.

Closest to on the team: Timmy Jones and Finn O’Hara

Rooms With: Elias Cook

Lives With: Timmy Jones

Sits with on the bus/plane: Timmy Jones

Injury: Concussion, twice. A few bruised ribs.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Wins the pre-game team kick-around almost every time. Brings awareness to charities that contribute to doing research on the brain and brain injuries.

Favorite Moment On Team: When the team welcomed him back from his pretty serious concussion (he missed nearly a year) by all wearing the number 5 out on the ice during warm ups.

Superstition: Wears his cross and says a small prayer after the national anthem. Also has to play in the kick-around.

Warm Up Song: Replay, Iyaz

What the announcers say when he scores: (G)oooooolllliiiii!

Brady Smith: (Smitty)

Position: Right Wing

Number: 92

Years In The League: 10. Drafted.

Previous Teams: Washington Capitals

Description: 28, 6’3”. Black hair, blue eyes. Black. The sweetest person you will ever meet in your life. Is adored by all of the hockey wives and girlfriends. Can speak Spanish and (ofc) German. Has a tattoo he has on his back shoulder blade of the Stanley Cup which he won with the Washington Capitals. The cup says his wife and two kid’s names on it with room for more—this man loves his babies.

Nationality: German. Hometown: Berlin, Germany, where his mother is from, but moved to the Boston, MA when he was 15 years old—where his father is from.

S/O: Married to his wife Allison, and they’re expecting their third child. Their first is a boy named Max, their second a boy named Noah.

Closest to on the team: Evgeni Kuznetsov and Jackson Nadeau.

Lives With: His family

Sits with on the bus/plane: Evan Kane

Rooms With: Evan Kane

Injury: Frequently separates his shoulder :(

Puck Personality Fun Fact: He’s part of the Lions’ power play. Is actually a really good tattoo artist and has inked Kris Lavolie and Evgeni Kuznetsov. He gave Kris the date of his daughter’s birth, and he gave Evgeni a tiger on his left bicep.

Favorite Moment On Team: He really loved when Sirius became Captain. He felt a shift in their team’s drive.

Superstition: Has to read the note his son wrote him a few years ago.

Warm Up Song: Anything Drake

What the announcers say when he scores: Braaaddyyy Smith! What a goal!

Pascal Dumais: (Dumo)

Position: Center

Number: 9

Years In The League: 24, drafted first overall.

Previous Teams: New York Rangers, Colorado Avalanche.

Description: 41. 6’1’’. Brown hair, cut pretty short but brushes up at the front or superman curl. White. Hazel/green eyes, dark eyelashes and brows. Scruffy beard always. Is the dad of the team. Well tell anyone who asks the hilarious stories of when Sirius lived with him.

Nationality: French Canadian. Hometown: Montreal.

S/O: Celeste Dumais, wife. And four children. Adele (13), Louis (10), Marc (9), and Katie (7).

Closest to on the team: Logan Tremblay and Sergei Ivanov.

Lives With: His wife and four kids—and Logan of course.

Rooms With: No one

Sits with on the bus/plane: No one, he enjoys the peace and quiet (not that anyone gives him any)

Injury: Broken wrist. Bruised ribs. Mild concussion. Lost too many teeth to count.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: The BIGGEST prankster on the team. Loves fine wine.

Favorite Moment On Team: Whenever the crowd chants “Duuummmooooo,” or the first time Sirius smiled.

Superstition: Slaps Sergei’s ass before they walk down the tunnel. No one knows why.

Warm Up Song: Eight Days A Week by The Beatles

What the announcers say when he scores: "Pascal Dumais everybody! One of the oldest in the league—he’s still got it!”

Logan Tremblay: (Tremzy, [Finn: Lo])

Position: Right Wing

Number: 10

Years In The League: 2. Went to Harvard College.

Previous Teams: None.

Description: 22. 5’9’’. Dark brown hair, long enough to be wavy and always wearing a snapback. Green eyes. Light freckles. White. Always sinfully tan. Really broad and strong. Those arms and chest muscles damn. Really dark, long eyelashes. Clean shaven. Really loud, always mildly grumpy. Flirts with EVERYTHING.

Nationality: French Canadian. Hometown: Rimouski, Quebec, Canada.

S/O: Single…..

Closest to on the team: Leo Knut, Finn O’Hara, and Pascal Dumais, Thomas Walker.

Lives With: Pascal Dumais

Rooms With: Leo Knut

Sits with on the bus/plane: Leo Knut

Injury: He broke a finger and a foot and frequently has black eyes from fights.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Has a fleur-de-lis necklace that he never takes off. Spends his summers in Nice, France where his mother is from. Bites his nails.

Favorite Moment On Team: Playing with Finn again.

Superstition: Says he isn’t superstitious but he is. Won’t touch the kick-around soccer ball before he decides to play. Has a handshake with Finn they do before walking down the tunnel.

Warm Up Song: Whatever It Takes, Imagine Dragons.

What the announcers say when he scores: “Scooorree!!! Oh, the tremble before Tremblay!”

Thomas Walker: (Talker, Walkie-Talkie)

Position: Defenseman —also an enforcer.

Number: 43

Years In The League: 8. University of Wisconsin.

Previous Teams: None.

Description: 30, 6’2”. Short hair, brown eyes, one of the most ripped guys on the team. Black. Pierced ears, usually small gold hoops. Takes them out for play. The Lions organization does a segment with him called Walkie-Talkie where he goes around the locker room and interviews his team mates with funny questions.

Nationality: American. Hometown: Chicago, IL.

S/O: Single

Closest to on the team: Timmy Jones and Adam Fox and Logan Tremblay.

Lives With: No one

Rooms With: Adam Fox.

Sits with on the bus/plane: Anyone who wants to CHAT.

Injury: Broken foot, some broken fingers.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: He got his nickname Talker because he never shuts up on the ice. Starts a lot of fights.

Favorite Moment On Team: When Kasey jumped in the fountain.

Superstition: Needs to take a three minute nap between periods. He puts a towel over his head right in his stall and literally falls asleep for three minutes. (James: it’s fucking weird”)

Warm Up Song: Top hits, just needs the background noise.

What the announcers say when he scores: “Goal!!! He just walks right up there, don’t he?”

Sergei Ivanov: (Vans)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 55

Years In The League: 23, Drafted, no college.

Previous Teams: Pittsburgh Penguins, Colorado Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights.

Description: 40. 5’11”. Light brown-gray hair—was blonde, losing it at the front a little. White. Really stern blue eyes that transform and crinkle when he smiles (but it’s hard to get a real smile out of him, and the boys feel really accomplished when they do).

Nationality: Russian. Hometown: Omsk.

S/O: Anya. They have three daughters: Aleandra (10), Evenlina (8), and Katya (7).

Closest to on the team: Kris Lavolie and Pascal Dumais and James Potter

Lives With: His wife and children.

Rooms With: No one.

Sits with on the bus/plane: Kris Lavolie.

Injury: Shoulder injury

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Loves classical music

Favorite Moment On Team: One of his daughters was born the same night he got his first hat-trick. Some of the team came to the hospital with him.

Superstition: Stops at a Church on his way to the rink everyday for a few quiet moments.

Warm Up Song: He doesn’t have one, he prefers to talk to everyone instead.

What the announcers say when he scores: SERGEI SCORES!

Jackson Nadeau: (Nado)

Position: Left Wing

Number: 58

Years In The League: 8. Went to College but didn’t finish.

Previous Teams: Chicago Blackhawks

Description: 26, 6’0”. Dark brown hair, chin length and straight, blue eyes. White. Is very laid back and a big flirt. Has cheek bones that could kill and a very stark scar running down one of them from a skate in the face.

Nationality: French Canadian. Victoria, Canada.

S/O: Single

Closest to on the team: Evgeni Kuznetsov and Brady Smith

Lives With: Evgeni Kuznetsov

Rooms With: Evgeni Kuznetsov

Sits with on the bus/plane: Evgeni Kuznetsov

Injury: Skate to the face, other minor things.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Rival with Evgeni for most pick ups on the team. Has many tattoos—one full sleeve, working on the other.

Favorite Moment On Team: Probably when Evgeni got traded, he found his best friend.

Superstition: Has a handshake with Evgeni.

Warm Up Song: He won’t tell you up front but Hamilton.

What the announcers say when he scores: Rapidly repeating “Nadeau, Nadeau, Nadeau!!!”

Evgeni Kuznetsov: (Kuny)

Position: Center. Enforcer.

Number: 86

Years In The League: 10. Drafted.

Previous Teams: Anaheim Ducks, Calgary Flames, Buffalo Sabres.

Description: 27. 6’4”. Short cropped light brown hair and puppy-dog brown eyes. Has a slightly chipped front left tooth. White. Very heavy Russian accent, doesn’t speak perfect English and uses this fact to get out of interviews. Is very charming. Literally a giant.

Nationality: Russian. Magnitogorsk, Russia.

S/O: Single and ready to mingle—or already does mingle. Excessively.

Closest to on the team: Brady Smith and Jackson Nadeau

Lives With: Jackson Nadeau

Rooms With: Jackson Nadeau

Sits with on the bus/plane: Jackson Nadeau

Injury: Had to have knee surgery.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Will tell you he has the most pick-ups on the team, but it might be Nado. He’s always making jokes in Russian that basically only Sergei and Henrik can understand and Sergei just rolls his eyes while Henrik laughs.

Favorite Moment On Team: He loves team dinners, just hanging out with the guys.

Superstition: Has a handshake with Jackson.

Warm Up Song: BLASTS Russian rap.

What the announcers say when he scores: THE RUSSIAN BEAR STRIKES AGAIN!

Evan Kane: (Kaner)

Position: Right Wing

Number: 51

Years In The League: Two. Went to College at Boston University.

Previous Teams: Calgary Flames.

Description: 23. 5’11”. Tan skin with freckles and brown eyes, black, short hair. Hispanic. Super strong and holds lots of team workout records. The brightest smile. Eyebrows on point. Loves to read, was an English major at school.

Nationality: American. Hometown: Boston, MA.

S/O: His girlfriend, Caroline Hall.

Closest to on the team: Brady Smith and Elias Cook, and Leo Knut

Lives With: His girlfriend.

Rooms With: Brady Smith

Sits with on the bus/plane: Brady Smith

Injury: Nothing major up to date.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Wicked fast. One of the fastest in the League.

Favorite Moment On Team: Probably meeting Pascal Dumais. He’s looked up to his playing style for a long time.

Superstition: Tapes his own sticks, sharpens his own skates.

Warm Up Song: Eminem

What the announcers say when he scores: “Yes he Kane!!!”

Adam Fox: (Foxy, Sexy)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 32.

Years In The League: 19. Drafted.

Previous Teams: New York Islanders.

Description: 36. 6’2”. White. Light brown hair that pushes up at the front and is shaved close at the sides. Blue eyes that will kill you.

Nationality: American. Hometown: Boston, MA.

S/O: Girlfriend, Lucìa Perez.

Closest to on the team: Thomas Walker and Sirius Black

Lives With: His girlfriend.

Rooms With: Thomas Walker

Sits with on the bus/plane: Elias Cook

Injury: Nothing too serious.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Is constantly made fun of for being the prettiest. Ever.

Favorite Moment On Team: Bringing his girlfriend to her first game.

Superstition: Stretches in a certain order.

Warm Up Song: They boys will tell you it’s SexyBack but it’s actually just heavy metal.

What the announcers say when he scores: “A foxy goal!!”

Henrik Sunqvist: (Sunny, Sunshine)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 33

Years In The League: 10. Played in the Swedish league for a while.

Previous Teams: None in the NHL.

Description: 39. 5’11”. Blond hair, cut short, pale blue eyes, white. Warmest smile you’ve ever seen.

Nationality: Swedish. Hometown: Uppsala.

S/O: Linnea Sunqvist, his wife and their daughter and son, Maja (10) and Hugo (11).

Closest to on the team: Evander Bell

Lives With: His wife and family.

Rooms With: No one

Sits with on the bus/plane: Likes to sit alone with a nice audiobook sometimes.

Injury: Nothing major, a few minor concussions

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Almost never fights, but when he does…ouch. Can speak French and Russian.

Favorite Moment On Team: When he gets to morning practice and has coffee with the boys.

Superstition: Has to do a few somersaults in the locker room—we don’t know why.

Warm Up Song: Russian rap—no one knows why/how he knows Russian so well.

What the announcers say when he scores: “The sun is shining on Sunqvist!"

Elias Cook: (Cookie, Crock-pot)

Position: Left Wing

Number: 29

Years In The League: 7. Drafted.

Previous Teams: Toronto Maple Leafs

Description: 25. 5’11”. Hazel eyes, Black hair, baby curls so cute we love the curls.

Nationality: Canadian. Toronto.

S/O: Fiancee, Jamie Barrow.

Closest to on the team: Kasey Winter

Lives With: Jamie.

Rooms With: Olli Halla

Sits with on the bus/plane: Adam Fox

Injury:

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Loves spicy food. Once made Sirius cry by daring him to eat some really spicy dish.

Favorite Moment On Team: Listening to ABBA in the locker room.

Superstition: Does a few laps around the hallways. The press love to try to catch him for interviews while he’s doing this.

Warm Up Song: iSpy, KYLE and Lil Yachty

What the announcers say when he scores: “The stove is HOT for Cook tonight!”

William LeBlanc: (Bluey)

Position: Center

Number: 44

Years In The League: 3. Drafted.

Previous Teams: SKA Saint Petersburg.

Description: 24 6′1″. Brown hair, wavy, green eyes. White. Goes to Russia during his summers.

Nationality: French Canadian. Sherbrooke.

S/O: Single

Closest to on the team: Tyler Wright, Sirius Black.

Lives With: No one

Rooms With: Kris Lavolie

Sits with on the bus/plane: Tyler Wright

Injury: Concussion.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Never learned Russian well, despite playing in the KHL.

Favorite Moment On Team: When Kasey jumped in the fountain.

Superstition: Has to touch all the boys’ names above their stalls

Warm Up Song: Russian rap.

What the announcers say when he scores: LeGOALLLLL

Evander Bell: (Ringer)

Position: Right Wing

Number: 21

Years In The League: 15. Drafted.

Previous Teams: Bruins, Red Wings.

Description: 33. 6’3”. Sandy blond hair and brown eyes. White. Pretty shy, but really kind. Laughs really loudly which then makes himself blush.

Nationality: American. Hometown: L.A.

S/O: His fiancee, Emily.

Closest to on the team: Henrik Sunqvist

Lives With: Emily and his son, Xavier.

Rooms With: None

Sits with on the bus/plane: Likes to sit alone, besides joining the card game.

Injury: Broken wrist.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Can play the guitar and the piano. Is one of the team’s biggest You Can Play ambassadors (Pascal and Sergei are the other two most active). Always goes to the Gryffindor pride parade.

Favorite Moment On Team: The entire locker room singing We Are Never Getting Back Together. Beginning to see hearts on the glass at the team’s You Can Play Night.

Superstition: Wears the same hat and socks.

Warm Up Song: Taylor Swift.

What the announcers say when he scores: “A dead Ringer from Evander Bell!”

Kris Lavolie: (Volley)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 11

Years In The League: 3. Went to University of Michigan.

Previous Teams: None.

Description: 24, 6’1”. Dark hair that’s straight and falls to about his chin, brown eyes. White. Broadly built. Kind and a really good listener.

Nationality: French Canadian. Hometown: Quebec City.

S/O: Single

Closest to on the team: Sergei Ivanov

Lives With: His daughter, Aveline.

Rooms With: William LeBlanc

Sits with on the bus/plane: Sergei Ivanov

Injury: Broken rib.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Kris is a single dad. One of his best friends, Lee, she takes care of his baby girl who is four now while he’s on the road. Sometimes she gets to go stay with Sergei’s family, too. Sergei helps him so much, and he’s thankful for him <3. His daughter’s name is Aveline and he will do ANYTHING for her.

Favorite Moment On Team: Taking his daughter to the Lions’ family skate for the first time.

Superstition: Talk to/call his daughter before every game.

Warm Up Song: XO, Beyoncé

What the announcers say when he scores: “La gooaaaaallll by Lavolie!!”

Tyler Wright: (Wrangler)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 8

Years In The League:

Previous Teams:

Description: 27. 6’2”. Hair that is shoulder length, really dark brown. Blue eyes. Square jaw. Has a bit of a temper on the ice, but is a sweetheart otherwise. Ironically doesn’t like fighting.

Nationality: American. Hometown: Minnesota, Minneapolis.

S/O: His girlfriend, Elsa, who lives in Sweden and is a professional football/soccer player.

Closest to on the team: William LeBlanc

Lives With: No one

Rooms With: No one

Sits with on the bus/plane: William LeBlanc

Injury: Nothing serious.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Has four dachshunds named Puck, Deke, Gordie, and Stanley.

Favorite Moment On Team: Like many, when Kasey jumped into that fountain. “It was just so fuckin’ out of character, you know?”

Superstition: Has to participate in the kick around, and has to kick the ball last with his right foot.

Warm Up Song: Royals, Lorde.

What the announcers say when he scores: “Wright in the net!”

Kasey Winter: (Kase, Blizzard)

Position: Goalie

Number: 30

Years In The League: 8 years. Drafted, no college.

Previous Teams: New York Rangers.

Description: 26. 6’2’’. Light brown hair down to his shoulders. Known for being the most beautiful hair in the league. Softest brown eyes that psych shooters out. Grows a really gorgeous beard whenever the fuck he wants.

Nationality: Canadian. Home town: Ontario, Canada.

S/O: Girlfriend, Natalie Darcy

Closest to on the team: Elias Cook and Kris Lavolie

Lives With: His girlfriend, Natalie.

Rooms With: No one.

Sits with on the bus/plane: Finn O’Hara

Injury: Torn hamstring.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Will have his girlfriend braid his hair for practice sometimes. (“You can say what you want, but keeps it out of my face. Good old boxer braids. It’s where it’s at.”)

Favorite Moment On Team: When the team got to the Conference Finals seven years ago.

Superstition: Has to do stretches in a certain order.

Warm Up Song: Wasabi by Little Mix (Thanks, Natalie)

What the announcers say when he makes a safe: “The Blizzard is blinding!” “It’s a squall!”

Leo Knut: (Nut, Knutty, Peanut, Peanut-butter)

Position: Goalie

Number: 1

Years In The League: His rookie season, so almost one. No college.

Previous Teams: None.

Description: 18. 6’3’’. Dark blond Hair, pretty wavy and falls over his forehead. Blue eyes. Button nose. Blond eyelashes. Cannot grow a beard to save his life.

Nationality: American. Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana.

S/O: None….;)

Closest to on the team: Logan Tremblay and Finn O’Hara and Evan Kane

Lives With: Finn O’Hara

Rooms With: Logan Tremblay

Sits with on the bus/plane: Logan Tremblay

Injury: Nothing major.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Has a small gray-streaked patch of hair by the front of his head from hitting his head really hard when he was little.

Favorite Moment On Team: Well, the first moment he felt most at home was when the rest of the boys started imitating his accent. Logan is the worst at it, but he does it the most.

Superstition: Not very superstitious…yet.

Warm Up Song: Violet, Bad Suns and Love On Top by Beyoncé

What the announcers say when he saves a puck: “Another nuts save for Knut!” “We’re nuts about Knut!” “Right in the nuts!”

#sweater weather #sweater weather player roster #hockey!au #sirius black #remus lupin #wolfstar au #wolfstar #sirius x remus #remus x sirius #lumosinlove #lumosinlove ocs #lumosinlove oc #Harry Potter fic #Harry Potter au #writing

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dayurno · 3 years

Note

(beside’s Jeremy) who do you think are Kev’s celebrity crushes? Who are Andrew and Neil’s (I definitely think Andrew has a thing for David Boreanez (more on Buffy than Bone) and would like those dude’s from Hannibal, and Kevin sometimes yearns to be romanced by dead writers and academics otherwise I’ve got nothing)

andrew definitely has a thing both for david boreanaz in buffy but can i say just how much this man would want to fuck mads mikkelsen. i feel like andrew is rightfully repulsed by big age gaps and older men but when it comes to his celebrity crushes it's like a dilf parade. i'm talking steven yeun, jason momoa, jamie dorman, tom brady, will smith (argue with your mama about this one), and what's-his-name from clueless, though i do stand by the idea that andrew would be a solemn mads mikkelsen fucker. his only young-ish celebrity crush is edward pattinson because andrew's type is men that are off in the head. i also agree with him having a crush on hugh dancy in hannibal but only because he has the same haircut and puppy eyes as kevin

speaking of the devil. i think kevin wouldn't know a lot of celebrities but most of his celebrity crushes would be women because that's most of what he pays attention to while watching or listening to something. it's mostly 90s-00s women though: drew barrymore, keira knightley, hillary banks, angela what's-her-name from boy meets world, alicia silverstone, devon aoki, megan fox, so on. for men it would probably be the very opposite of andrew's type — where andrew is a dilf collector, kevin actually fucks severely with the pretty boy invasion of hollywood led by keanu reeves in the 90s. off the top of my head i'd say keanu reeves himself, jake gyllenhaal, obviously heath ledger, about every 90s hip hop artist you can mention that was under 30, 2pac and (not a 90s guy but still a babe) frank ocean. kevin has a frank ocean lockscreen because he thinks this man is just so fine. also all the members from B2K

neil i do not see having any celebrity crushes tbh. i think he just struggles in seeing how or why people are attracted to random strangers who happen to be celebrities at all, so when people ask he just says any of the foxes. most common answer is either allison or renee, but if he's being honest, it's a tie between kevin and andrew

#asks #kevin #neil #andrew #thank u for letting me rant about pop culture and celebrities for ten minutes <3

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numba99 · 4 years

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Rangers Dick Size Power Ranking

You ask, I deliver. Including the OG frat boys as per anon request, not including Kaapo bc hes baby still. I’m a professional, so don’t try this at home (kidding please tell me your takes)

Henrik Lundqvist - do I even need to explain him being at the top?

Chris Kreider - again, we’ve all seen the pic no explanation needed here

Kevin Hayes - just look at him hes big and stupid every big stupid dude has a big dick trust me im an expert

Mika Zibanejad - just shy of Kevin but still BigTM

Jacob Trouba - hes pretty big height/weigh wise and idk he just gives me BDE. like he looks like he’d never tell you he has a big dick and that's how you know hes hung

Filip Chytil - don’t boo me Fil is a dark horse y’all sleeping on him. Same comment about Troubs applies

Greg McKegg - tbh im not attracted to him but he gives me like Poderick from GoT vibes. Perhaps he got “the leg” nickname because...

Julien Gauthier - another guy who is big height/weight wise so I’m thinking he has a pretty solid dick

Jimmy Vesey - Bigger than you would think and I'm not just saying that because I love him also weird take but I feel like his is curved but in like a really appealing way does that make sense?

Igor Shesterkin - we are getting towards average territory but still leaning more big. Longer than he is thick

Ryan Lindgren - hes another one that just gives me that vibe? Not like BigTM like previous dudes but you wouldn't see it and be like ??? either. nicely thick and long

Brady Skjei - pretty similar to Ryan tbh just like a nice satisfying size

Phillip DiGuseppe - another one that similar as the previous but I think he’d be more thick than long

Alex Georgiev - Solid, on the longer side

Artemi Panarin - solidly average

Marc Staal - I really don’t want to comment on Marc’s dick

Pavel Buchnevich - Average

Brendan Smith - Average

Brett Howden - Average

Jesper Fast - Average

Adam Fox - Average, possibly leaning smaller

Ryan Strome T*ny and Br*ndan L - teeny tiny little meat gang

#i avoided homework for this #this was more important #ugh im too lazy go tag everyone #nyr #kevin hayes #jimmy vesey #mika zibanejad #chris kreider #brady skjei #henrik lundqvist #i think thats enough tags #new york rangers

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isabelisfun · 4 years

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final masked singer thoughts

gosh michelle williams is so pretty

ok i think rottweiler is some boyband-ish white boy, could be chris daughtry

yah i’m thinking chris daughtry

ok i’m skipping the road to finals this is dumb

thingamajig and nicole actually seem like they like each other tho 👀

idk if fox is jamie foxx, i mean maybe like i hope so but maybe wayne brady

i cant tell if fox doing jamie foxx means it isn’t jamie or it is and it’s like a clue/trick

i would have wanted thingamajig to win but my vote for the win is fox

i definitely think adrienne bailon is flamingo that’s like the one i think i’m the most right about

yah idk doesn’t really sound like jamie foxx to me anymore i think wayne brady

yah finally the judging panel seems right i think it’s adrienne bailon

i haven’t said yet but the dancers are so good on this show like it’s crazy

it’s not fucking darren crisis ok

yup the flamingo is adrienne bailon finally i had someone right from the start

she’s so pretty 🥺 and her makeup looks really nice

YAY the fox won- i think wayne brady

i think the judges have never heard darren criss sing because the rottweiler ain’t him

look it is chris daughtry STUPID JUDGES

when nicole said rent my senses heightened

aw it is wayne brady cool

#the masked singer

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foreveralwaysanauthor · 4 years

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Christmas Season Prompts Day 4

December 8th - Buying Christmas gifts 🎁

Pairing – Makana and Miles (CaR)

(Before I get this prompt started, just so you guys know, the gifts they got each other are gifts that either my friends and I have given each other or gifts that I’ve heard about or given to my siblings.)

“It’s official; I hate Christmas shopping with you,” Miles muttered under his breath as Mick dragged him into the next shop that lined the strip mall they were currently visiting. Makana had been excited to go shopping for presents, making Miles wonder what could be so great about it. That meant, in the woman’s eyes, that he needed to be shown the excitement firsthand.

Mick sighed and shook her head, her arms laden with bags full of gifts she would need to wrap that night. “You’re just upset that I won’t show you what I’m getting for you.”

“No, I’m just confused about why we can’t just put a couple bucks in a fancy little box and let everyone pick out their own presents. I mean, yeah, the thought behind each thing is nice, but still…”

Mick’s eyes rolled even though a small smirk graced her cheeks. After wandering the aisles for a few minutes, Mick came up with an idea. “Hey, Miles?”

“Mhm,” the biker acknowledged as he read the description on the front of a board game.

“I’ll tell you what,” Mick started, facing the older boy with a hand on her hip. “How about we pick out one gag gift for each other that, no matter what it is, we have to open it in front of everyone on Christmas morning.”

Intrigued, Miles straightened with a mischievous glint in his eye that made Mick wonder if she had just doomed herself. “What’s a gag gift?”

“It’s like a prank gift,” Mick explained as she inspected a cute coffee mug that had a fox on it that read ‘Oh, for fox sake!’. She chuckled before placing the mug back on the shelf. “You buy it with the intention of either ticking off or embarrassing the person getting it. I remember, one year, my dad put a set of earrings and a matching necklace in a box with tissue paper and put that box in a box and that one in another, so it looked huge. By the time my mom got to the last box, she had told him that she might kill him if it wasn’t the last box. I thought it was hilarious until the next year when mom got me underwear to open in front of all of my family in New Hampshire.”

Miles snorted with laughter, “I knew there was a reason I always liked Mack.”

“So,” Mick began, “are we doing gag gifts for each other, or what?”

“Game on, girlie.”

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The duo had gone their separate ways, making plans to meet up in a half hour. They had agreed that the gifts could not cause bodily harm, just embarrassment, and could also not exceed the price limit of forty dollars. Mick knew exactly what she wanted to get him and vice versa. Mick had gotten him an orange, lacy bra and panty set; her intent was to ask Lela if she would sew Kiki’s name into it somewhere and have Kiki write a note that Mick would put in with it. Everyone knew Miles had a hardcore crush on Kiki - even Kiki herself - so Mick was going to use that to her advantage.

The idea of Miles, the man who enjoyed embarrassing Mick to no end, turning redder than a bag of peanut butter M&Ms was the only true reason she followed through with her purchase of the lingerie.

Along with the set, she bought a couple of simpler things such as a grey hair touch-up (a running joke between the two saying that he would need it pretty soon) and one of those horrid man-purses that Mick knew Miles hated. These gifts would lead Miles into thinking she hadn’t been able to get him something properly embarrassing before he would find the true present.

Miles, on the other hand, had gotten Mick a pair of D sized batteries so she could say, for once in her life, that she had double D’s (another running joke between them that they had created after watching a comedy show one day), a mug that said ‘World’s Okayest Sister’ and a small photo album that he would fill with pictures Brady had shown him of Mick’s most embarrassing moments over the years.

It was safe to say that Christmas morning would definitely be something worth recording that year.

(My friend Becca gave her brother what Mick gave Miles and holy crap was it funny! Their mom was in on it so it was even funnier. His face was as red as a can of Coke and everyone was in hysterics! The D batteries I actually got from Jeff Dunham’s show Beside Himself on Netflix. You might be able to get the scene on Youtube, but I’m not sure.)

#Dani’sChristmasChallenge2019

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gourdeous-vladdy3790 · 6 years

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Characters for the Interactive Story:

Babies/Rookies/Rookie-Not-Rookies:

Yanni Gourde - Leader of the Baby Bolts, Captain Crunch, Now a Sophomore Bolt and a tiger with ADD

Matthew Peca “Matty” - Flirtatious, Best friend of Yanni and Adam’s

Brettulet Howden “Brett”/”Bretty” - Now a Ranger, Damsel pretty boy

Jonne Tammela “Tammy” - Sassy Finn

Otto Somppi “Somps” - In love with Vladdy Namestnikov

Taylor Raddysh “Raddy” - In a long-distance relationship with Brett

Libor Hajek “Libas” - Now a Ranger, Dragon (sidekick of Vesey’s)

Anthony Cirelli “Tony”/”Cirsy” - Loves the theatre

Mikhail Sergachev “Misha” - Babysitter

Brayden Point “Bray”/”Pointer”/”Pointsy” - Baby Bolt, Yanni’s best friend

Adam Erne “Addy”/”Rottie” - Rottweiler

Alexey Lipanov “Lippy” - Giggly, outgoing, baby Vladdy

Alex Volkov “Volky” - Quiet, stern, loves snickerdoodles, a baby Kuch

Mitchell Stephens - Easily annoyed, but loves to joke and is quick to become jealous; New Captain Crunch

Olivier Archambault “Archy” - Problem drinker/partier, young TJ

Carter Verhaeghe “Vera” - Know-it-all, smartie

Dominik Masin “Domy” - Baby who gets jealous of other babies

Matthew Spencer “Spenny” - Shane’s older, more protective brother-type

Shane Conacher “Little Cons” - Loves to hug and smile, a baby

Alex Barre-Boulet “Bear” - Quiet, shy kid

Bolts/Ex-Bolts/NHLers:

Vladislav Namestnikov “Vladdy” - Temporarily trapped in NY

Tyler Johnson “TJ”/”Johnny” - Chief of worrying

Nikita Kucherov “Kuch”/”Kuchy” - Cookie-loving black wolf shapeshifter

Ondrej Palat “Pally” - Babysitter to Kuch

Victor Hedman “Heddy” - Grumpy Defenseman

Steven Stamkos “Stammer” - Vladdy’s father, Captain of the Lightning

Ryan Callahan “Cally” - Loves Arby’s and pranking, protective father of Bray, Yanni, Adam and Matty

Andrej Sustr “Shu” - “I’m A Giraffe!”

Alex Killorn “Killer” - “Your mom” jokes

Anton Stralman “Stralsy” - Papa Stralsy, wise beyond his years, oldest Bolt

Slater Koekkoek - Likes naps -- Naperoonskis

Jake Dotchin “Dotch” - Stupid, frat boy

Jonathan Drouin “Jo” - Used to tell “your mom” jokes, now rots in Montreal

Brian Boyle “Boyler” - Proud papa, now a New Jersey Devil

JT Brown - Gamer, now an Anaheim Duck

JT Miller “Millsy” - Anti-Vladdy, serious, straddles the insanity line and is often questioned about being good or evil, but he’s a sweetheart

Ryan McDonough “Donut” - Former Ranger, knowledgeable about breaking and entering

Andrei Vasilevskiy “Vasy” - Loves to hug and likes kitties

Jimmy Vesey “Vese” - Former bad guy, who is reformed and builds a group known as the VPF

Pavel Buchnevich “Buch”/”Buchy” - Russian-speaking Jaguar who loves Broccoli

Jesper Fast “Jessie” - Hyper Border Collie puppy who is dangerprone

Chris Kreider “Kreids” - Captain #1 of the NYR

Lias Andersson - Giggly Swede

Filip Chytil “Cheetos” - Giggly Czech, loved by Zuccs and Mika

Neal Pionk “Pisy” - Shy Baby Ranger, who is very limited in his outgoing-ness (shy to strangers)

Mika Zibanejad “Ziby” - Captain #2 of the NYR, Arctic Fox

Mats Zuccarello “Zuccs” - Captain #3 of the NYR (Killed in the beginning of Story 2)

Brady Skjei “Sky” - Vesey’s ex, who still cares about him (Killed in the beginning of Story 2)

Ryan Spooner “Spoons” - DJ-type, in charge of music (Killed in the beginning of Story 2)

Brendan Gallagher “Gally” - Reformed Villain, Evil was ousted from him when he attacked Vladdy and “exploded”, Red Dragon

Artturi Lehkonen “Lehky” - Gally and Chucky’s adoptive child, also Vladdy’s

Alex Galchenyuk “Chucky” - Gally’s mate, Purple Dragon

RIP:

Jason Garrison “Garry” - Dead

Braydon Coburn “Coby” - Dead

Valtteri Filppula “Val”/”Fil” - Philly/Dead

Nikita Nesterov “Nesty” - Dead

Cedric Paquette “Ceddy” - Dead

Ryan Lohin - Dead, Impaled by Andrew Shaw’s spike

Villains:

Taylor Hall “Hallsy” - New Jersey’s Villain

Jonathan Drouin “Jo” - New Montreal Villain

Andrew Shaw “Shawzy” - Dragon

Shea Weber - Jo’s sidekick/bodyguard tough guy, does the dirty work mostly

Matthew Tkachuk - Calgary’s Bad Boy

Garnet Hathaway - Tkachuk’s sidekick partner

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seaside-stories · 3 years

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New Story Just Dropped

Yeah I know I’m in the middle of English Class but I’m doing this anyway

I'm pretty sure that I'll stick with this one but that could be all lies :)

So, I have a few working titles:

-The Mysterious Happenings of Sajure Elm

-The Strange Thing That Happened in Sajure Elm

-Nothing Ever Happens in Sajure Elm

(Sajure Elm is the name of the town that I made up for these characters)

I have a general plan for the conflicts for about 5 seasons (I’m planning on writing this story as a TV show)

I also want a lot of representation in this story. If you want to see something represented that hasn’t been represented yet, or you think that there is a better way to to it, please tell me! My asks are always open!

Now, let’s meet the cast:

Lylah Russel:

-Asian-american

-Lesbian

-Psychic (electrokinesis)

-just out of high school

-Cousins to Ross Hayes

-Works as a part time local medic and part time at a diner

Brady Lewis:

-Standard White Boy

-Aromantic, Allosexual (sexual preferences are still in the works)

-Witch (son of a witch, actually)

-just out of high school

-works part time at a diner

-does odd jobs and likes to sell his carpentry projects

Niara King

-Black (not like media black like actually black)

-She/they demigirl (thinking about just they/them)

-Sexuality is hard

-Vampire/Witch (mom is a vamp, dad is a witch; necromancer)

-just out of high school

-volunteers at teen bar (similar to the Bronze from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Ross Hayes:

-Trans White Boy

-Sexuality is still hard

-Psychic (telekinesis)

-Senior in High School

-Cousin to Lylah Russel

-Does not have a job

Trinity Fox

-Indigenous

-Bisexual

-Werewolf

-just out of high school

-does gigs for a local newspaper

-Probably has anxiety

-is your average broke college kid

Maybe?

Naphtali:

-Is straight up an angel

-Presents himself as a brown dude

-Is pretty

-Probably he/they

-of course he doesn’t have a job

Together they make the Monster Gang (as I’ve been calling them)

There are other characters too (such as the characters referenced in my last post with the link to the google doc)

but anyway I can put the plot ideas if y’all want and I have a lot of backstory ideas and ideas for side characters but I wanted to keep this post relatively short so I’ll end it here.

#representation #new story #oc #ocs #Sajure Elm #I love anagrams just so you know #Trinity Fox #Ross Hayes #Niara King #Brady Lewis #Lylah Russel #Naphtali the angel

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ciegeinc · 5 years

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Movie Review...Good Boys

(3/5) Everything changes in middle school...one of the more serious themes in the film. Something I definitely can relate to and did so as the movie brought up some pretty funny memories of my middle school days. That time when girls are no longer gross, constant parties, first kisses, spin the bottle and peer pressure. Not the funniest movie of all time or anything, not a classic either but its simple and effective and gets the job done. After being invited to his first kissing party, 12-year-old Max (Room's Jacob Tremblay) is panicking because he doesn't know how to kiss. Eager for some pointers, Max and his best friends Thor (Brady Noon, HBO's Boardwalk Empire) and Lucas (Keith L. Williams, Fox's The Last Man On Earth) decide to use Max's dad's drone -- which Max is forbidden to touch -- to spy (they think) on a teenage couple making out next door. But when things go ridiculously wrong, the drone is destroyed. Desperate to replace it before Max's dad (Will Forte, The Last Man on Earth) gets home, the boys skip school and set off on an odyssey of epically bad decisions involving some accidentally stolen drugs, frat-house paintball, and running from both the cops and terrifying teenage girls (Life of the Party's Molly Gordon and Ocean's Eight's Midori Francis) (rottentomatoes).

#Movie Review #Film Review #Film #Movie #Comedy #Review #Good Boys

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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND August 16, 2019 – GOOD BOYS, BLINDED BY THE LIGHT, WHERE’D YOU GO BERNADETTE and more!

Five more new wide releases this week, three of which I’ve seen, although one is embargoed until Wednesday night i.e. after this column “goes to press.”

My favorite movie of the weekend is Universal’s R-rated comedy GOOD BOYS from Bad Teacher writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, the latter making his directorial debut. It’s been one of my most anticipated movies of the year, since I’ve loved all the trailers I’ve seen. Maybe it’s just because I still have the mentality of a 10-year-old, and I generally enjoy R-rated comedy, the raunchier the better, but I’ve also been a pretty diehard fan of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s work and been itching to see this movie since it debuted at SXSW all the way back in March. It’s a nice comedic turn for Room and Wonder star Jacob Tremblay and he seems to have great chemistry with Keith L. Williams and Brady Noon, but I guess we’ll see if this is the next Superbad (after the attempt by Booksmart to be, that is)…

Mini-Review:The best comedies deliver the simplest of premises but try to fill every second with jokes that find a way to connect. In that sense, Good Boydelivers big time.

Tremblay, Williams and Noon are best friends who dub themselves the “Bean Bag Boys” who are about to enter the 6thgrade and are desperate to be seen as cool by the other kids. When Tremblay’s Max is invited to a “kissing party” by one of the cooler kids, he brings his best friends Lucas and Thor along, but first, they have to find out how to kiss.

If you’ve seen the trailers, you probably already have some idea of the hijinks they get into. Sure, there’s a danger of some of the best jokes being used in the trailer, and there’s a lot of that at least in the first half, but other jokes play out much better in the movie than they do in short bursts of marketing.

Mind you, I wasn’t a fan of the filmmaker’s Bad Teacher but having the control of directing allows them to take the humor inherent in watching young actors swearing and getting up to some crazy shit makes Good Boyswork well beyond my already high expectations. Tremblay transitions so smoothly into comedy, using all his adorable sweetness in new ways, and the other two actors are just as funny.

Like Booksmart, and yes, Superbad, and other comedies as well, this is a simple story about a group of kids on a mission to get to a party and the adventures and mishaps they get into along the way. This includes having a run-in with two older girls whose molly ends up in the boy’s hands, one of the longer over-arching subplots which leads the boys into deeper and deeper shit.

You have to give Stupnitsky a lot of credit to be able to get so much funny stuff out of the movie’s young cast and just being able to work with kids in general, but especially getting them to do and say such funny stuff without (hopefully) scarring them for life. (And if there’s an opportunity for a third movie in a Will Forte awkward Dad trilogy, I cannot wait!)

At times Good Boys goes into some obvious territory as it heads into the final act – just like in Booksmart and many of Rogen/Goldberg’s comedies, the friends have a falling out -- but it recovers nicely, keeping the laughs coming as it resolves many of the jokes set-up much earlier in the movie with a solid pay-offs.

Basically, I haven’t laughed this hard in a very long time.

Rating: 8.5/10

I did finally get to see Gurinder Chadha’s BLINDED BY THE LIGHT (New Line/WB), which was all the rave out of Sundance (and I kind of missed at CinemaCon cause the screening was too late at night). It stars Viveik Chalra as Javed, a young man living in Luton, England in the mid-80s, who wants to be writer, much to the chagrin of his traditionalist Pakistani father (Kulvinder Ghir). When he meets a classmate named Roops (Aaron Phagura), Javed is turned onto Bruce Springsteen, and hearing his music inspires him to go for his dreams, including his classmate Eliza (Nell Williams). This musical comedy is based on the memoir “Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion and Rock N’ Roll” by Sarfraz Manzoor, and it uses a LOT of Bruce Springsteen in the movie, for better or worse.

Let me explain…

I have never been a fan of Bruce Springsteen. Sure, I’ve always been familiar with his music, but maybe it was because I lived in New England and was more into prog rock and new wave/punk that I just never really cared to buy any of his records. (Also, I was never into the whole “rah rah USA” themes that were emerging in the ‘80s around the time of “Born in the USA.”) Oddly, the one Springsteen album I DO own and enjoy is “Magic,” which is about as big an anomaly to the rest of his discography as you can get. It’s with that in mind that I went into see Chadha’s latest movie unsure if I could bear so much Springsteen in such a short period of time…

Mini-Review: Making a movie based on a memoir generally has its limitations that may sometimes limit or constrict a filmmaker, and that might be the case with Blinded by the Light, based on Sarfraz Manzoor’s book, since he also co-wrote the screenplay.

We meet Javed (Viveik Chalra) as a boy as he hangs with his best friend Matt and navigates living in a strict Pakistani household in Luton, England with a father who wants everything a certain way. The idea of his son becoming a writer is foreign to Javed’s father Malik (beautifully portrayed by Kulvinder Ghir) but Javed perseveres and takes a creative writing class in school that inspires him to continue. (He’s driven by his teacher, played by Hayley (Agent Carter) Atwell, but gives up frequently out of frustration.)

Surprisingly, I could relate to a lot of what Javed is going through Blinded by the Light, even though I myself didn’t start writing until a much later age. The biggest immediate problem with the film is that it takes quite some time for Viveik Chalra to show any sort of personality, and this is the movie’s lead, someone that you’re supposed to care about.

Surely, there will be comparisons to other music movies of the year including the recent hit Yesterday, which under the aegis of Danny Boyle, was just a tighter piece of storytelling, maybe because he was not beholden to a real-life person like this and Rocketman.

Still, the movie does go off on too many tangents that don’t seem necessary to the overall story, like spending time with Javed’s sister at a daytime disco, something that was obviously supposed to explain her situation, but just feels extraneous. Also, the whole subplot with Javed’s childhood friend Matt feeling like Javed is growing apart from him feels unnecessary and both things take away from the main story.

The thing is that I love all the ‘80s new wave and pop that permeates the movie’s first half hour and when it’s replaced by “Born in the U.S.A.” and “Born to Run” and other Springsteen hits, it just wasn’t as enjoyable to me.

I totally can understand Chadha relating to what Sarfraz went through in terms of racism and dealing with the National Front in the ‘80s, and that aspect of the movie really comes through the best. Similarly, I enjoyed the budding romance between Javed and his classmate Eliza, although the way the film breaks out into song seems rather silly and off-putting compared to how this same thing was done in Rocketman.

Essentially, Blinded by the Light is a thoroughly enjoyable film with a lot to like about it, even if you’re not a fan of “The Boss.” It’s a film that has tonal issues and could have used some tighter editing but generally gets Sarfraz’s story across in a relatable way.

Rating: 8/10

I have seen Richard Linklater’s new film WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE (U.A. Releasing), starring Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Kristen Wiig, Judy Greer and newcomer, but I’m under embargo so I’ll have to add the review later on Wednesday night. I can say that Blanchett plays Bernadette Fox and she’s a rather difficult woman, although you do generally root for her when she gets into a feud with her neighbor, played by Wiig. The movie won’t really be for everyone, although I guess I can find 30-something-plus women finding it empowering but I’ll save my thoughts for the review.

Mini-Review:

There are times when I feel bad for the pressures Richard Linklater must face just by being Richard Linklater. He makes a movie like Before Midnight or Boyhood which just puts a bigger onus on him to live up to those movies, even when he wants to do something lighter or less weighty. After 2017’s Last Flag Flying, which dealt with heady topics like war in a fairly light way, Bernadette must have seemed like the perfect antiseptic.

Cate Blanchet’s Bernadette Fox was once one of the hottest up and coming architects in L.A. but after a series of disappointments, she moves to Seattle with her tech-savvy husband Elgie (Billy Crudup) where they have a now-teenage daughter named Bee (newcomer Emma Nelson). The thing is that Bernadette is rather abrasive, and she’s made enemies in the community, particularly her neighbor (Kristen Wiig) who has been complaining about blackberry bushes that are infiltrating her own yard. One thing leads to another and then another and before you know it, Bernadette has decided to pull a runner.

I should really like this movie more. I loved Ben Stiller’s remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and Bernadette is very much in a similar vein but about a middle-aged woman trying to find herself.

The movie just putters around for a good hour or more trying to be funny or witty and generally failing at being even remotely entertaining. It finally gets into gear when the story moves to Antarctica as Elgie and Bee try to find Bernadette, who has gone off on a voyage to the South Pole. (Trust me, to explain her logic would involve so much time and effort that I’m not going to bother.)

The movie offers such a sweet payoff ending, but it’s hard to discount the rest of the movie leading up to that, and it never really earns that payoff since it’s wasted much of the early part of the movie trying to be a budget-rate version of HBO’s Big Little Lies.

Even the title is rather deceptive, because it’s not about everyone looking for Bernadette as much as the more metaphysical “Where’d you go?” as in “what happened to that promising architecture career you gave up?” That is what you're dealing with here.

It’s hard to completely fault Linklater for trying something different, but Bernadette is not the witty mainstream comedy it’s being advertised as and probably veers more into Cameron Crowe’s recent, experimental work in terms of tone and pacing. I’m trying hard not to outright name the movie, but you probably know the one I’m referring to. Think Hawaii.

In other words,Bernadette won’t be for everyone. I wish it luck finding its fans, but this is likely to be a cult movie that only finds a rather small following. I’m honestly surprised this isn’t a Netflix movie.

Rating: 5.5/10

Also, Entertainment Studios is releasing the underwater thriller sequel47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED on Friday night (with Thursday previews). The first movie was a surprise hit, and it was an enjoyable entry into the shark movie oeuvre, so we’ll have to see how director Johannes Roberts takes the concept to a new level with a cast that includes a couple second-gen actors like Sistine Stallone and Corrine Foxx, the daughters of Sly Stallone and Jamie Foxx.

I was invited to see Sony’s THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE 2, but I saw the first movie, so I didn’t feel like waking up early on a Saturday to catch the press screening. Basically, this is what it is with most of the same voice cast joined by Leslie Jones, Tiffany Haddish (of course) and a few others. It looks cute and I’m sure the characters have some fans from the multitude of games, but I’m not sure a late summer release is the way to go with this rather than just holding it for Sept. where Sony had success with the Hotel Transylvania and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movies.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

Before we get to the limited releases, I want to shine a special spotlight on Film at Lincoln Center’s 12th installment of its annual “Scary Movies” series, which will kick off on Friday with Dan Berk and Robert Olsen’s Villains, starring Maika Monroe (It Follows) and Bill Skarsgard (from It) as a renegade couple who break into a house in the woods. This year’s closing night film (and party!) on August 21 is Radio Silence’s gory Ready or Not, essentially on the same night of its nationwide release. Also, Andrés Kaiser’s Feral will get its New York Premiere (also Friday), as will Søren Juul Petersen’s Finale. Ari Aster will debut his longer director’s cut of his recent horror film Midsommar, but what I’m really excited about is the “Terrible Bears” double feature of the 1976 movie Grizzly and a 40thanniversary screening of John Frankenheimer’s Prophecy, two movies that scared the shit out of me as a kid and guaranteed I’d never go camping – I’ll be there for that double feature on Saturday. Basically, it’s six days of scary fun and movies that shouldn’t be missed seeing them with an audience.

LIMITED RELEASES

It’s a wild and eclectic mix of limited releases this week, beginning with Victor Kossakovsky’s doc AQUARELA (Sony Pictures Classics), opening in New York and L.A. and playing at 48FPS in the theaters capable of that tech. Kossokovsky’s film centers around the theme of water, and it travels across the globe filming all sorts of scenes most humans will never have had a chance to see from rescuing cars that have fallen through the ice at Russia’s Lake Bailal to Venezuela’s Angel Falls to Miami being hit by a hurricane. The film does have a meditative quality that I quite enjoyed, but as with many cinema verité films, there just wasn’t enough of a narrative, so you never really know what you’re watching. It’s beautifully-shot with some of the most impressive cinematography you’re likely to see (and shot in 96 FPS to really create such vivid clarity). I also kind of liked some of the music, but even at a short 90 minutes I found myself getting bored, so this probably won’t be for everyone.

Although I mentioned I’m not a fan of cinema verité docs, I thoroughly enjoyed Iván Osnovikoff and Betinna Perut’s LOS REYES (Grasshopper Film), which looks at two homeless dogs, Chola and Football, that live at a skatepark in Santiago, Chile. The movie basically films the two dogs and follows their exploits 24/7 and pieces together a compelling story that shows these animals to have true emotions equal to that of any human. The footage of the dogs is superimposed with dialogue between some of the skaters (and drugdealers) that convene at the park, which is an interesting dichotomy to watch. It’s a beautiful film that opens Wednesday at Film Forum on Wednesday, and while I will recommend it to dog lovers, I will mention one caveat that there is a sadder portion to the movie that might upset those who love watching the dogs. (In other words, I’m not sure it would be a good movie for younger kids.)

Yet ANOTHER cinema verité doc out this weekend is Roberto Minervini’s What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire (KimStim), the filmmaker’s follow-up to his Texas Trilogy. This one is a portrait of disparate African-Americans in New Orleans dealing with the cultural racism that has kept them down their entire lives. I can’t say that I was a huge fan of the movie, because I tend to prefer docs that have a stronger narrative rather than being random scenes – beautifully-shot in black and white, mind you. After a preview screening at the Maysles Documentary Center up in Harlem on Wednesday night, the movie will open at Film at Lincoln Center on Friday… and then it’s back at the Maysles for five days starting August 23, before it goes to L.A. Laemmle Glendale on Sept. 6 and other cities after that.

Not cinema verité but still a documentary, kind of, is Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger’s COLD CASE HAMMARSKJÖLD (Magnolia), which begins as his examination to try to prove that UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld’s 1961 plane crash in Congo was a deliberate assassination attempt. In trying to solve the case about what happened, the filmmaker -- who inserts himself into the movie similarly as Werner Herzog might, almost to a fault -- discovers something even more nefarious involving Apartheid in South Africa. I will give Brügger points for being innovative with this quirky pseudo-doc, but after two hours, the movie leaves you with more questions than answers, which is frustrating. It opens in New York, L.A., San Fran, Philly and a couple other theaters this weekend.

From GKIDs comes Salvador Simó’s animated BUÑUEL IN THE LABYRINTH OF THE TURTLES which follows the Spanish surrealist who has been shunned from making films in France and has had a falling out with his collaborator Salvador Dali. Broke, he returns to Spain where his poet friend Ramón Acin offers to fund his next movie if he wins the lottery, which he does, as the two of them go into the mountains to film the documentary Las Hurdes in the impoverished village.

This is a really interesting film, not only because the story itself is quite fascinating, but also Simó’s decision to use animation to tell the story. The animation is fairly simplistic, but it works, and it gets even more interesting as Simó actually intersperses footage from the documentary Las Hurdes into the animation showing them make the movie. I honestly know very little about Buñuel other than his classic works, so it’s interesting to see his transition after the disappointing showing for his feature L’Age D’Or, as well as how both his provocative and more humanistic sides come out while making the movie. Simó’s film will open at the Quad Cinema in New York and L.A.’s Landmark Nuart on Friday, plus other cities later.

Shinsuko (Bleach) Sato’s action epic KINGDOM (FUNimation Films), based on the Japanese manga, will open in select theaters nationwide Friday. Oddly, it’s set in China during the 3rd Century where the kingdom of Qin is separated into seven divisions constantly battling against each other. The story mainly focuses on two boys who were raised as slaves and then separated, one to go work under the king.This film was also frustrating, because I generally love this genre, but the storytelling was all over the place in terms of tone and the pacing was off, especially with the sporadic spacing of the action scenes. Also, it covers some of the same territory as Zhang Yimou’s Hero, which is one of my favorite Asian martial arts films of all time, and this pales by comparison. I’ll be curious to see how wide FUNimation Films releases this on Friday and if there’s enough of a fanbase for the Manga stateside for it to have any sort of impact, but I was generally disappointed.

Opening at the IFC Center Wednesday is Rhys Ernst’s coming-of-age comedy (of sorts) ADAM, which premiered at Sundance this year. It stars Nicholas Alexander as high school senior Adam Freeman who goes to visit his older sister Casey (Margaret Qualley) in New York City over the summer and falls for Bobbi Salvör Menuez’s lesbian Gillian who presumes that Adam is trans, and he doesn’t bother to correct her. This is a really fascinating film written by Ariel Schrag, writer on “The L Word,” that takes an honest look at gender and sexuality in a way I haven’t really seen in many movies. It’s a light film with humor but it handles the topic in a serious and almost educational way for those of us CIS-hetero-males who may still be somewhat lost when it comes to some aspects of the LGBTQ+ community. The cast is fantastic, particularly Alexander and Menuez, but also Leo Sheng as Casey’s roommate who befriends Adam. It’s kind of interesting seeing Qualley playing a modern-day woman – the movie actually takes place in 2006 – since I’ve only seen her in period films like Novitiate and Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, but her role is fairly minor even if it helps explore the different types of lesbians. The movie has sweet moments but most of it works due to Schrag’s fine script and Ernst’s ability to get such great performances out of the cast. A worthy addition to the conversation.

Also opening at the IFC Center Friday isArgentine filmmaker Lucio Castro’s debut End of the Century (Cinema Guild), which follows a 30-something Argentine poet named Ocho (Juan Barberini) who travels to Barcelona where he falls for as Spaniard from Berlin named Javi (Ramón Pujol) and after a few failed attempts to meet, they finally hook-up.

Also opening at the Maysles Thursday night is Danniel Krikke’s Scared of Revolution (Film Movement), a documentary about Last Poets performer Umar Bin Hassan, who is struggling as he reaches his 70s decades after influencing many later hip-hop artists.

Opening on Thursday in about 200 theaters is the Bollywood release Mission Mangal (FIP) from director Jagan Shakti, based on the true story of the women scientists who take part in India’s space program. Akshay Kumar plays Rakesh Dhawan and Vidya Balan is Tara Shinde, who lead a team of scientists to launch India’s first satellite to Mars.

After that is a bunch of odds and ends…

William McGregor’s thriller Gwen (RLJEFilms/Shudder) stars Eleanor Worthington-Cox as the title character whose world is collapsing around as she deals with a malevolent presence, while the Korean thriller The Divine Fury (Well GO USA) is about an MMA fighter who helps an exorcist fight evil.

Nick Hamm’s comedic crime-thriller Driven (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment), starring Jason Sudeikis, Lee Pace, Judy Greer and Justin Bartha with Pace playing John DeLorean and Sudeikis playing his ex-con FBI informant friend Jim Hoffman who lured him into a cocaine trafficking ring. It gets a theatrical and On Demand release almost a year after it premiered at Toronto.

Opening in L.A. on Friday and then in New York on August 23 is Nick Richey’s teen drama Low Low (Halfway Crooks Entertainment, Gravitas Ventures); the Jonathan Rhys-Myers-led suspense thriller Awake (Cinedigm) directed by Alex Cher and Fedor Lyass; and Brazilian-American director Alexandre Moratto’s gay drama Socrates (Breaking Glass Pictures), which opens at the Laemmle Music Hall in L.A. on Friday and at New York’s Cinema Village on August 23.

STREAMING AND CABLE

By now, you’ve probably already heard the consternation of Marlon Wayans going full Eddie Murphy for his comedy SEXTUPLETS premiering on Netflix Friday. The concept involves Wayans as an expectant father who learns that he’s actually 1/6thof a series of sextuplets, so he goes out to meet them… and they’re all played by Wayans in various make-up prosthetic and fat suits.

Netflix is also debuting the new docu-series Happy Jail about a Philippines jail that becomes known for a viral Michael Jackson video that’s then taken charge by a convict.

I’m embarrassed to say that I still haven’t seen the first season of Mindhunter, but the 2ndseason premieres on Friday as well.

Also Friday, there’s an animated movie called Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus which continues from the popular Adult Swim cartoon show from the early ‘00s.

REPERTORY

Opening on Thursday night nationwide is Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now Final Cut, the 3-hour plus version of his 1979 movie being released in IMAX theaters on its 40th Anniversary following its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Check theater listings as it’s only playing once a day at some theatres and might only be for a few days.

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Starting this Friday is the new series Minelli Widescreen, as in Vincente Minelli, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind films like Gigi (1958), An American in Paris (1958), Some Came Running (1958), Bells are Ringing (1960) and many more, all shown using the filmmaker’s 2:35:1 widescreen frame, so this should be something special. This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is Leos Carax’s 2012 film Holy Motors and the Playtime: Family Matinees is the 1973 film (one of my favorites) The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. This week’s installment of “Godard/Karina Late Nights” is Alphaville (1965) on Thursday through Saturday nights. Unless it’s extended, Thursday will be your last chance to see the 4k restoration of Juraj Herz’s 1969 film The Cremator. It’s a very strange movie, kind of like if David Lynch directed an Addams Family movie, but then it gets far darker and more nefarious. Not to be shown up by BAM’s recent Millennial series, Metrograph is bringing back two of what I consider the most overrated movies of the year i.e. two movies that Millennials love – Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir and Claire Dennis’ English debut High Life, starring Robert Pattinson. I didn’t care for either movie.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Just because it’s his theater and he can do whatever he wants Quentin Tarantino continues to use the theater to mostly show Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood through the end of August. As far as rep stuff, this Wed’s matinee is the Rock Hudson-Doris Day film Lover Come Back (1961), the weekend’s KIDDEE MATINEE is Norman Tokar’s 1969 film Rascaland then Monday’s matinee is James Mangold’s Girl, Interruptedfrom 1999, for which Angelina Jolie won an Oscar.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

The Burt Lancaster series ends Thursday so you have one last chance to see Criss Cross, Elmer Gantry, The Rose Tattoo and Conversation Piece, as another fantastic rep series comes to a close. Starting Friday is the next three-week series called “Marty and Jay’s Double Features.” The “Marty” is one Martin Scorsese and the Jay is film critic Jay Cocks, and they’ve put together a pretty amazing line-up, beginning with Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959) paired with Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man (1956) on Friday, Saturday is Renoir’sThe Golden Coach (1952) with Minnelli’s The Band Wagon (1953), and a double feature of Olivier’s Richard III (1955) with Roger Corman’s The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). By the way, those are the only days you’ll be able to see these movies, since they won’t be screening multiple times. The one exception is Sunday and Monday’s double feature of Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975) with a very rare Peter Sellers short called The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn from 1956. I’m not going to go through the whole series but click on the link above and start planning accordingly. Remember, it’s two classic films for the price of one!

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Not to be outshone by Tarantino and the New Bev, the theaters is doing “Once Upon a Time” double features… no, not Tarantino’s movie but a double feature of Once Upon a Time in China (1991) and its 1992 sequel Once Upon a Time in China 2on Thursday, then on Friday, Robert Rodriguez’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) with the 2012 Turkish film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Of course, they’ll show Charles Bronson’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) on Saturday and then the Sergio Leone crime-thriller Once Upon a Time in America (1984), starring De Niro and James Woods, on Sunday

AERO (LA):

Weds night, the AERO is screening the musical comedy How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1967) with star Robert Morse in person! Thursday begins a series called “The Neo-Noir of John Dahl” with filmmaker John Dahl in person for double features of The Last Seduction (1994) and Rounders (1998) on Thursday, then Val Kilmer’s Kill Me Again (1989) and Nicolas Cage’s Red Rock West (1993) on Friday. The “Highballs and Screwballs” series continues Saturday with The Lady Eve (1941), starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, and Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street(1945). The AERO has also started a “Dysfunctional Family Matinees” series with Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953)screening Tuesday afternoon.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

You have a couple more days to catch a few of the “Beach Reads: From Sun to Screen” movies, basically Airport, The Deep and The Island on Wednesday, and then Hotel, Valley of the Dolls and The Love Machine on Thursday. Beginning Friday is a restoration DCP of Jacqueline Audry’s Olivia (1951) set in a French finishing school where an English girl finds herself falling for her teacher Clara.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This week’s Weekend Classics: Staff Picks Summer 2019 is Satyajit Ray’s 1955 film Pather Panchali, Waverly Midnights: Staff Picks Summer 2019 is chosen by some guy named “Ezra” who picked Lexi Alexander’s 2008 movie Punisher: War Zone, while Late Night Favorites: Summer 2019 is… once again… James Cameron’s Aliens. (Seriously, these movies really seem to be on a loop.) On Tuesday, as part of its “Movies with MZS” aka film critic Matt Zoller Seitz, the IFC will screen James Cameron’s 198 movie The Abyss in 35mm print)

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

Punks, Poets & Valley Girls: Women Filmmakers in 1980s America continues through the weekend, screening Julia Bashore’s 1986 film Kamikaze Hearts, Kathryn Bigelow’s 1987 vampire flick Near Dark, Allison Anders’ Border Radio (also from ’87), and then from 1988, there’s Genevieve Roberts’ Casual Sex? And Penny Marshall’s Big, Martha Coolidge’s 1983 film Valley Girl, and Amy Heckerling’s classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High from 1982. On Sunday, the series will screen Mary Lambert’s Pet Sematary with some of her music videos. Also, on Thursday night, BAM is screening Spike Lee’s School Daze (1988).

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

With Netflix’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance premiering later this month, MOMI is going to show the original The Dark Crystal… and while you’re there, you might as well check out the Jim Henson Exhibit, which has been running there since January.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

The downtown New York theater will screen Truffaut’s 400 Blows (1959) on Weds and Saturday and Jacques Demy’s musical The Young Girls of Rochefort(1968) on Thursday and Sunday.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Friday night’s midnight offering is Harmony Korine’s The Beach Bum.

Next week, fewer movies as we get further into the “Dog Days of Summer” although I’m kind of looking forward to seeing Angel Has Fallen, the third movie in the Gerard Butler action franchise.

#WhatToWatchThisWeekend GoodBoys AngryGirds BlindedByTheLight WheredYouGoBernadette Movies Reviews

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vinylfromthevault · 7 years

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16 Bands in 29 Hours

*Disclaimer - I’m currently in way way northern Wisconsin staying in a cabin in the woods (it is spectacularly lovely but lacking in amenities like reliable wifi and a computer) so this post will be brief in details, visual content and links. I plan to revisit several of these bands, mostly the ones we caught in Appleton at Mile of Music, in the near future.*

Our marathon began at 7:00 pm on Thursday with the Retro Futura tour at the Wisconsin State Fair: six 80s new wave bands I never got a chance to see back then (and honestly a couple I would not have bothered to).

1. Katrina (of Katrina and the Waves): she’s probably my Mom’s age and can still belt out the notes and command the stage. She sang two songs I didn’t know and then her one hit wonder “Walking on Sunshine.” Bubblegummy fun.

2. Paul Young: former teenage heartthrob blue eyed soul singer, definitely has had work done. Voice still smooth and strong. Sang the song I loathe (“Every Time You Go Away”) and the one I like (“Come Back And Stay”) plus something else I didn’t pay attention to.

3. Modern English: trim and fit in matching white, did a new song from their latest album (unusual for a nostalgia tour but these guys are good) and of course “Melt With You” which was when everyone went nuts.

4. The English Beat: We got the Dave Wakeling version (pictured above, bottom left), his distinct deep nasal vocals in tact and the performance was beefed up with the help of hype-man King Schascha. To my delight they played “Mirror in the Bathroom” and my favorite “Save It For Later” plus the General Public hit “Tenderness.”

5. Men Without Hats: We brought our 12 year old son to this concert, he was hands-down the youngest in the audience (WE skewed young in our mid-40’s!) and his opinion of the evening can mostly be summed up by the photo bottom-right above. However he perked up for MWH, not for “Pop Goes the World” but for the smash “Safety Dance” (the only song he recognized that night). The lead singer was sporting a fab sparkling shirt that dazzled when he spun and danced.

6. Howard Jones: the longest set of the evening, I think 5 or 6 songs. His voice is still strong and hair the same (even if its line has receded some). He worked the crowd masterfully, alternately between the piano and key-tar, ending the show with an epic all-audience singalong of “Things Can Only Get Better.”

At this point we went home where I squeezed in about 4 hours of sleep; I was amped up and excited for the next day, when we zoomed up to Appleton, dumped the kid off at the grandparents and hoofed downtown for Mile of Music which started at Noon.

7. Brother O'Brother, Chadwick’s Bar: (pictured above, entire top row plus middle row right) I’ve written about BoB a gazillion times, those boys are my favorite so a great way to kick off our Mile of Music marathon. One of the band’s performance highlights is during “Your Touch” (off of their 2015 release “Show Pony”) when Warner Swopes brings a drum into the crowd and hands a few of us sticks to form the most rocking drum circle you’ll ever see. This Noon show was the first of two times that day I got to participate (you can see one of the circles on my Instagram sfilzen ).

8. Ron Gallo, Paper Valley Ballroom: (pictured above, middle row left) thrilled we got a chance to see him and his band; he only played two shows at MoM. Nashville via Philly fuzzed out guitar rock with clever, irreverent lyrics and rhythm so heavy my sweatshirt vibrated against my skin.

9. High Dives, patio behind the Fox River House bar: southern fried meets Laurel Canyon desert rock, heavy 70s influenced guitar. Pretty decent though not my usual vibe.

Next we headed over to Gibson Music Hall to ensconce ourselves for the next three bands, all two-pieces.

10. Solid State: (pictured above bottom row center) two piece out of St. Paul, MN, kind of a less energetic version of Brother O'Brother. It felt like we were attending a practice session in their basement - they faced each other, not the audience, and clearly had a few moments of inside jokes.

11. Suck the Honey: (pictured above, middle row center) two piece from Cincinnati with the best band name ever. Hard. Heavy. Full range from slow burners to ass shakers. Cannot wait for their album to come out on vinyl (on Romanus Records) next month. We got a tshirt. So did several of our friends because who doesn’t want Suck the Honey emblazoned across their chest?

12. Brother O'Brother: Yes. Again. Every Time. All the times. Some of the same songs from six hours earlier but several different ones too. They can play whatever they want and I’m happy.

We then left Gibson to head outdoors.

13. Welles, Houdini Plaza: I’ll be honest, I didn’t pay any attention to them (the next artist was supposed to be playing this time slot but because of rain, schedules were juggled). I took this opportunity to meet up with more friends and get a beer.

14. Diane Coffee, Houdini Plaza: Wow! Gender-bending glamour, showy and dynamic. Reminiscent of early, Aladdin Sane era Bowie. Wish we could have been closer to the stage but the Plaza was absolutely jammed.

15. Wild Adriatic, Washington Square stage: we saw them last weekend in Milwaukee at Brady Street Festival and I put some boomeranged video of the bassist on my Instagram; I could watch him forever. 70s rock goes modern + funk + Appleton LOVES Wild Adriatic = awesome. I’ll be posting more about these guys when I get home since we picked up their album on vinyl.

16. Tenement, Emmett’s outdoor stage: Appleton based, indie band that packed the stage (I thought there were like a dozen musicians up there but I guess it was only six or so playing drums, guitar, organ, bass, violin and sax and/or tambourine). We only caught the last two songs, the final was a Velvet Undergroundy freak out sonic assault that lasted about 15 minutes. I downloaded their 2015 album “Predatory Highlights” to get a better picture of their sound and it kinda reminded me of the Replacements.

We planned to head over Deja Vu Martini Lounge to see The Ghost Wolves (Austin, TX two piece that we saw last year at MoM) but at this point we had been going to shows for close to 12 hours straight, I’d slept 4 hours in the past 48 and had walked/danced close to 50,000 steps so we chose to stumble the 20 minutes back to my parents’ house where we were staying and collapse. Next year we will do all four days of Mile of Music to spread out the insanity.

#Mile of music #retro futura

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thesnhuup · 5 years

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Pop Picks – December 4, 2018

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also reread books I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star. The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

Archive

October 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching. And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia. It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan. Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news.

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND December 7, 2018 - Um....

Are you all ready for one of the worst weekends at the box office in many months? There are no new wide releases this weekend... not a single one. Because of that, we can cut right to the top 10, which should look something like…. Basically, the same as last weekend but everything making even less. Sigh… the only thing of note I should mention is that Universal should take advantage of the slower weekend to expand Green Book further since it’s still in only been in about 1,000 theaters so far.

1. Ralph Breaks the Internet (Disney) - $16 million -38% 2. The Grinch (Universal) - $11.5 million -35% 3. Creed II (MGM) - $9.6 million -43% 4. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Warner Bros.) - $5.6 million -50% 5. Bohemian Rhapsody (20thCentury Fox) - $4.5 million -45% 6. Instant Family (Paramount) - $4.5 million -37% 7. Green Book (Universal) - $3 million -23% 8. The Possession of Hannah Grace (Sony/Screen Gems) - $2.9 million -55% 9.Robin Hood (Lionsgate) - $2.5 million -47% 10. Widows (20thCentury Fox) – $2.4 million -45%

LIMITED RELEASES

While there are no new wide releases in theaters and maybe you’ve already seen most of the movies above, there are a few new limited releases including at least one or two expected to expand wider in December, including two excellent dramas.

Period costume drama enthusiasts should be interested in Working Title’s latest, MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS (Focus Features), which is an absolutely fantastic directorial debut by Josie Rourke, starring Saoirse Ronan as the title character and Margot Robbie as Queen Elizabeth. The film covers Mary’s return to Scotland to take over the throne as queen, while also trying to get Elizabeth to accept her as a successor since Elizabeth is unable to have children. Along the way, Mary is paired with a number of men including the flamboyant Lord Darnley, played by Jack Lowden from Dunkirk, who gives her an heir even as she great to hate him. These were tough times in Scotland with civil wars and as many conspiracies to take the crown as in Game of Thrones. Also starring Joe Alwyn, David Tennant, Gemma Chan and Martin Compston, this is an amazing film led by another stirring performance by Ronan. Mary’s story is fascinating but also tragic, and it’s about time that someone did more with the character than just as a footnote in Elizabeth’s story. I was hugely impressed with the scope and scale of Rouke’s first feature film and the amount of emotions I felt as I watched it. In any other year, Mary, Queen of Scots would be an Oscar frontrunner, but I feel like the fact this is being seen months after Yorgos Lanthomos’ unique spin on the costume drama genre with The Favourite (which premiered during festival season back in Sept.) might give it a distinct disadvantage among awards voters. Either way, this excellent historical drama opens in select cities, and if you’re interested in British history or royalty, I highly recommend it.

Another great movie coming out Friday is Peter Hedges’ BEN IS BACK (LD Distribution/Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate), starring Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges. You may remember Hedges from his debut Pieces of April or the excellent Dan in Real Life, starring Steve Carell. Oddly, this film deals with a similar subject as Carell’s latest Beautiful Boy i.e. drug addiction, but I much preferred this film. Lucas Hedges plays Ben, a young adult who had been sent to rehab to deal with his debilitating drug addiction, but he shows up back at home on Christmas Eve, much to the concern of his mother (Roberts). She’s very worried that he’ll relapse to his bad habit being away from rehab, but also Ben has left enemies in the drug-dealing world, one of whom kidnaps the family’s beloved dog, sending mother and son on a tense night out into the drug world to find the pooch. I was pretty blown away by this movie which goes from family drama to something akin to a thriller, and the performances by Roberts and Hedges are fantastic, although the film also stars the always-great Courtney B. Vance. This opens in select theaters Friday, and I’ll have an interview with the elder Hedges over at NextBestPicture sometime later this week.

INTERVIEW WITH FILMMAKER PETER HEDGES

One of my favorite movies from this year’s Tribeca Film Festival is actor Alex Pettyfer’s directorial debut BACK ROADS (Samuel Goldwyn), a drama co-written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction). Based on Tawni O’Dell’s best-selling novel, it’s a fantastic study of family trauma as Pettyfer plays Harley Altmyer, a young man trying to care for his three younger sisters in rural Pennsylvania after his mother (Juliette Lewis) is jailed for killing their abusive father. While trying to keep his teen sister Amber (Nicola Peltz) out of trouble, Harley begins a tryst with an older married woman, played by Jennifer Morrison. It’s playing one night only at the Roxy Cinema in New York on Thursday 11pm then opens in select cities and on VOD starting Friday.

Actor Brady Corbet directs his second feature, VOX LUX (Neon), which follows the rise of pop star Celeste, who as aa teenager survives a school shooting incident and sings at the memorial service. With the help of her songwriting sister (Stacy Martin), Celeste (played as a teenager by Raffey Cassidy) becomes hugely successful before become embroiled in scandal. Years later, she returns for her comeback (now played by Natalie Portman) while trying to maintain a relationship with her own teen daughter (also played by Cassidy). Jude Law plays Celeste’s beleaguered manager, and original songs were written for the film by Sia. It opens in select cities, more than likely at many Alamo Drafthouse theaters, and we’ll see where it expands from there. I saw this a few months back and was generally mixed, since I thought Elisabeth Moss’ somewhat similar role in Her Smell (which will play SXSW next year) was much stronger.

TYREL (Magnolia) is the new film from Chilean-born filmmaker Sebastian Silva (The Maid, Crystal Fairy, Nasty Baby), starring Jason Mitchell from Straight Outta Compton as Tyler, who goes for a weekend trip to the Catskills with a group of people he doesn’t know, only to realize he’s the only black person. As the alcohol flows, he becomes the victim of racial stereotyping. This opens in New York at the IFC Center on Wednesday, then will very slowly roll out into other cities, including Columbus and Baltimore on Friday.

Opening in select cities and also at IFC Center is Oliver Parker’s Swimming with Men (IFC Films) starring Rob Brydon (The Trip) as an accountant going through a mid-life crisis who joins a group of all-male synchronized swimmers, and boy, did I want to enjoy this Britcom more than I actually did, which is a shame.

Kate Bosworth co-produces husband Michael Polish’s new drama Nona (North of Two), about a young Honduran woman named Nona (played by Sulem Calderon) who meets handsome traveler Hecho (Jesy McKinney) and takes him up on the offer to go towards the United States, where she can reunite with her mother. They travel across the country via car, bus, boat and eventually by foot through Guatemala and Mexico only for her to discover Hecho’s true intentions.

Opening at the Film Forum is the Danish film The Charmer (Film Movement) from Milad Alami, which follows Esmail, a good-looking Iran immigrant who is constantly picking up Danish women in bars and bedding them before dumping them. When he meets a fellow Iranian woman (played by stunning pop star Soho Rezanejad), she immediately has figured out his game, but it’s one he’s ready to set aside after he falls madly in love with her. This is a fairly slow-build character piece that goes off on a few odd tangents and never really delivers on the thriller aspects promised, but still is fairly worthwhile.

The Italian drama On My Skin from filmmaker Alessio Cremonini looks at the case of Stefano Cucchi (Alessandro Borghi) who was arrested for a minor crime and then found dead while held in detention. It also will open at the IFC Center Friday, but only receives a single showing each day.

Onto this week’s docs. If you’re in New York, you won’t want to miss Amazing Grace, also at Film Forum. If you hadn’t heard about it, this is a 1972 concert film showing Aretha Franklin performing gospel tunes with full band and choir, and it’s an amazing document of the Queen of Soul while at her peak, singing the hymns that she would sing in her father’s church. It plays for one week only at the Film Forum to qualify it for Oscars, but doesn’t have distribution yet.

Alexis Bloom’s doc Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes (Magnolia,A&E IndieFilms), exec. produced by Alex Gibney, will open in select cities and On Demand Friday. It’s a comprehensive look at the life and career of the late Fox News CEO, who died less than a year after being fired for sexual harassment. I though this was an excellent doc with a lot of people talking about Ailes you might not expect (like Glenn Beck) but watching this movie made me feel very slimy since Ailes was such a low-life in high places. You can watch it On Demand or in select cities starting Friday, though I’m not sure who might be interested in this, especially since so many liberals I know didn’t want to watch Errol Morris’ Steve Bannon doc when it played the festival circuit.

Onto the VOD specials i.e. movies getting limited theatrical releases that you’re more likely to see on demand and on digital outlets:

Frequent Guillermo del Toro collaborator Ron Perlman stars in Michael Caton-Jones’ new film Asher (Momentum Pictures) as a former Mossad agent, now a gun-for-hire living in Brooklyn, who breaks his oath when he falls in love with Famke Janssen’s Sophie.

Matthew Hope’s action-thriller All the Devil’s Men (Lionsgate Premiere) stars Milo Gibson, Wililam Fichtner and Sylvia Hoeks. It involves a manhunt through the streets of London for a CIA operative who might be involved in terrorism.

Karen Gillen’s directorial debut The Party’s Just Beginning (The Orchard) is released in theaters Friday and on VOD on Tuesday, Dec. 11, following its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Also on Thursday begins Russian Film Week, taking place at the SVA Theater between Dec. 8 and 14, showcasing the best of Russian cinema, both old and new, including Russia’s submission for the Oscars, Sobibor, and Timur Bekmambetov’s Yolki Posledniye, which never received a U.S. release.

STREAMING (VOD)

I haven’t had a chance to see the Dolly Parton-produced Netflix comedy DUMPLIN’, but it stars Patti Cake$ breakout Danielle Macdonald as the plus-size daughter of a Texas beauty queen (played by Jennifer Aniton) who decides to shake things up by entering a local pageant. It features a new song by Parton, and it will play in a few theaters for awards eligibility. From Italy comes Marco Risi’s 5 Star Christmas(akaNatale A 5 Stelle), a wacky comedy about the Italian Prime Minister visiting Hungary and while spending time with his secret lover, they discover a corpse in their hotel suite. (I’m loving that these international hits that would never get distribution in the U.S. are finding a home.) Also, from director Bert Marcus comes The American Meme, which follows the journey of four “social media disruptors” including Paris Hilton, Josh Ostrovsky (aka Fat Jew) and two others as they build their online empires. I missed this at Tribeca, so glad it found a home. Last week’s Andy Serkis-directed Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle will also be streaming on the network this weekend, and I recommend it but not for kids under 8.

Also premiering on VOD Thursday (before its DVD/Blu-ray release next Tuesday) is Christina Kallas’ mystery drama The Rainbow Experiment (Gravitas Ventures), which premiered at Slamdance earlier this year. It’s a whodunnit set in a NYC high school where a student is permanently injured during a science experiment.

Also, my good friend Ned Ehrbar (who I haven’t seen since he moved to New York!) has his directorial debut California No available on digital platforms starting today. It’s about a “rudderless junketeer” (something I know about from experience) played by Noah Segan (Looper, Brick) whose wife (something I don’t know about from lack of experience) confesses that they’re in an open marriage, something he did not realize. This sends him into a tailspin as he falls for another woman and moves in with a former A-lister.

REPERTORY

On top of the usual repertory offerings in New York and L.A., old movie lovers across the country can catch the 25thAnniversary screening of Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning Schindler’s List, which will play at select theaters across the nation starting on Thursday night.

METROGRAPH (NYC):

I know absolutely nothing about photographer/writer Mario Ruspoli, but restorations of his short films and Florence Dauman’s 2011 documentary Mario Ruspoli, Prince of the Whales (finally translated into English) will screen starting Thursday and through the weekend with Dauman doing intros and QnAs throughout the weekend. Those who want to learn more about the French New Wave will have two more opportunities this weekend as the Metrograph screens two 35mm prints of Jacques Demy’s The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and Jean Renoir’s French Cancan (1955), the latter both Saturday and Sunday. Also, on Friday, the Metrograph will start screening a new restoration of Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (MGM/Park Circus), the Oscar-winning 1960 comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine that I only discovered for the first time last year when the Metrograph screened a 35mm print. The 1938 Japanese horror film Ghost Cat and the Mysterious Shamisen from Kiyohiko Ushihara will screen on Thursday and Friday nights.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

In its second weekend since returning post-renovation, the New Bev is offering double features of The Untouchablesand Capone on Weds and Thursday, Scorsese’s Goodfellas and Machine Gun McCain on Friday, as well as Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs at midnight Friday, afternoon screenings of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas on Friday and Saturday, as well as Death Race2000 at midnight on Saturday to commemorate David Carradine’s birthday. Sunday and Monday sees a Western double feature of The Magnificent Seven and Guns of the Magnificent Seven. This weekend’s Playtime: Family Matineeis Charles Lane’s Sidewalk Stories (1989), a silent movie about homelessness in New York that takes cues from Chaplin’s The Kid.

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Christian Pentzold: The State We Are In continues this weekend with more screenings of the German filmmaker’s work including The State I Am In*, The Young Lieutenant and one of my personal favorites, Phoenix, on Sunday night. (*I saw Pentzold’s first theatrically-distributed feature this past weekend, and it was fantastic, following a young woman (Julia Hummer) living in hiding with her parents. Definitely can recommend that and Phoenix.)

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Ingmar Bergman’s classic masterpiece The Seventh Seal (1957), starring Max von Sydow, will screen from a new 4k restoration from Janus Films, playing for two weeks beginning Friday. This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is the classic Oscar-winning movie musical West Side Story (1961), currently being remade by Steven Spielberg.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Continuing the repertory love for Orson Welles with his latest film, the long-lost The Other Side of the Wind, the Quad is launching Actor For Hire: The Other Side of Orson Welles, which as explained, is a series featuring Orson Welles as actor including The Black Rose, Butterfly,Compulsion, The Third Man, A Man for All Seasons and many, many more.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Beginning a month-long screening of the Frank Capra classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) with scattered appearances by Donna Reed’s daughter Mary Owen between Dec. 11 and 24. Sure, it will be on TV a lot but when was the last time you saw it on the big screen? Late Night Favorites features midnight screenings of David Fincher’s Fight Club on Friday and Saturday, Weekend Classics continues its Coen Brothers retrospective with the Oscar-winning Best Picture No Country for Old Men, while Shaw Brothers Spectaculars continues with the classic Five Deadly Venoms.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

To celebrate its 20thanniversary, the renovated Grauman’s Theater will screen a digital restoration of Ernst Lubitsch’s Rosita (1923), starring Mary Pickford on Friday night. Spike Lee will continue his repertory run (after appearing at Metrograph this past weekend) by showing his new film BlacKkKlansman and introducing his 1992 biopic Malcolm X, starring John David Washington’s father Saturday night. Then on Sunday, there will be a double feature of Do the Right Thing (1989) and Crooklyn (1994) with a discussion with Lee in between.

AERO (LA):

Following a special screening of Tamara Jenkins’ latest Private Life on Thursday night, the Aero will do a FREE two-film tribute to Jenkins on Friday, showing The Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) and The Savages (2007). Kids of all ages will want to check out the Aero’s Looney Tunes Winter Wonderland on Saturday night and The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) on Sunday afternoon. Plus they’re showing the Coens’ The Big Lebowski just because they can… oh, and it’s the movie’s 20th anniversary.

BAM CINEMATEK(NYC):

Apparently, BAM is trying to compete with Film Forum by presenting An Evening with Liv Ullman with the actress/director celebrating her 80thbirthday with the theater on Thursday night with a screening of Jan Troell’s 1971 film The Emigrants, starring Ullman and Max von Sydow (from The Seventh Seal).

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Douglas Fairbanks Jr. presents A Woman of Affairs (1928) on Wednesday, 1938’s The Young in Heart on Thursday, and That Lady in Ermine (1948) on Friday, so you can see how Fairbanks changed across three decades.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

A new era begins with new chief curator Eric Hynes taking over for from founder David Schwartz, although this weekend only sees Family Matinee showings for Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas on Saturday and Sunday. This series continues through the end of the year.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Still showing the Italian drama Senso through Thursday and then a midnight screening of Nicolas Cage’s Mandy on Friday with producer Daniel Noah doing a QnA with director Joe Lynch moderating.

That’s it for this week. Next week… NEW MOVIES!!!! Spider-Man: Into the Spider-versewill take on the Peter Jackson production of Mortal Engines, while Clint Eastwood returns with The Mule.

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