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inknose · 4 years

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mdzs read diary part IV, the end

It’s inspiring how much self care wwx is gonna finally get now that his husband will go along with whatever he does, so he’s gotta look out for lwj’s well being if not his own. that is emphatically the STUFF

dragging my hands down I face as I read this, after all these chapters of getting up close and personal with ghouls bleeding from every orifice, slaying ancient beasts, rebelling against the entire cultivation world, the two of them are absolutely paralyzed by middle school crush sleepover math

chicken

he actually drew kissy doodles .... he....

IDK I THINK I JUST DOCUMENTED THIS PART CUZ I WAS STILL SCREAMING you cant expect me to have very useful things to say at this point

this is torture you are both so mushy you are so GONE

This part really stood out to me, it’s an attitude I feel like wwx implies with his inner narration a few times but most clearly says here: he’s not one for allowing himself to exaggerate how bad his circumstances are/could be even a little bit - he’s already lived through some extreme low points and found a way to keep going, so he never makes sweeping statements about what he couldn’t live without (Inner JingYi: you’re supposed to say you’d be lost without him here!!!) Instead he seems to accept as a given that being alive doesn’t guarantee him any pleasantness or joy at all, and as a result his feelings toward being in TRUE LOVE are surprisingly pragmatic, but also colored with such gratitude. There are a lot of things in the novel that struck me, like this, as being just a little to the left of familiar tropes/sentiments, and were more touching for it. Whether it be the influence of culture difference as opposed to what I’m used to reading in most western romance stories, or MXTX’s unique outlook, or a combination of both, it was really refreshing and made me pause over it. Not “I can’t imagine living without you” but “I could be living without you, but instead I get to be with you and I think that’s the best thing that could happen.”

ADJFDKFJ THE UST BEING SO STRONG THAT EVEN THE VILLAIN COMMENTS ON IT IN THE MIDDLE OF EXECUTING HIS EVIL PLANS IS ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT WILL NEVER FAIL TO MAKE ME LAUGH MY ASS OFF. hes like god damn! here I thought I had problems

it was at this moment that I realized we were doing this Now... I’m still recovering. What a scene. I am so glad I saw the most incredible fanart soon afterwards, bc the fact that someone has already drawn a perfect comic of this part means I don’t have to

I love you so much, you are so annoying, you are perfect... I like how he’s been experiencing openly requited love for all of ten minutes but he’s already figured out how to weaponize it to piss people off

doing!!! his!!! job!!!!!

ahh... it’s a really good story. JGY is a great character. One of the most interesting differences for me between drama watching vs. novel reading experience is that without an actor to bat his vulnerable doe eyes at you and smile faintly with his cute dimples, the book does not go much out of its way to try to lull the reader into a false sense of security around him or *endear* him to you the way the show does. But just by seeing events through wei wuxian’s POV, its still enough to evoke pity or understanding towards him. The overall impression is a bit more detached though, there’s less emphasis on the spectacle of how he could manipulate everyone closest to him and more of a general feeling of resigned tragedy that everyones the worst on this bitch of an earth.

I CANNOT DEAL WITH YOU FOR EVEN ONE MORE SECOND!!!!

I clearly paused to take note of less and less parts at the end & the extras due to: a) too excited to reach the end b) too spicy to photograph and c) too sleepy cuz I kept reading in the middle of the night. but I absolutely took the time for Bro We Are Teens appreciation corner:

I’d absolutely read 40 more extra chapters of their monster-of-the-week field trip antics.

god... poor Jin Ling now basically has to deal with divorced parents that talk shit about each other to him whenever he is saying with one of them. except they are both his uncles. just a disasterhood of all uncles from start to finish. AUUUGH wei wuxian and jiang cheng have fucked me up completely, I dream of them reconciling but I also REFUSE to believe it would ever be easy. let me know if theres a fanfic that absolutely tortures you for decades before they hug

HAHAHA oh no this man ain’t making it to immortality thats for damn sure. HE’S JUST GONNA TRY AS HARD AS HE CAN HIS WHOLE LIFE NOT TO LOOK AT HIM BUT THEYRE *MARRIED* SDLKFJSF ohhhh it’s too funny, like... the mundane domestic family drama IN the fantastical swords and sorcery setting is what really ratchets up these things from amusing to fucking hilarious I think

aaaa the end... final random thoughts? No not final, I would like to please keep discussing at length and exhaustively, all the time please - CQL has gotta be one of the best TV adaptations I’ve seen. ANY adaptation of anything would be lucky to be so good!! reading the novel has just made me appreciate it even more.

- I don’t think I can do justice to what I find most fascinating about comparing the two versions briefly, to do that I need to get drunk and ramble at my friends for hours but... the condensed version is something like this. Really all the significant differences between the two versions (besides the ones which can be attributed to censorship and therefore aren’t worth discussing) are a side effect of the structure of how the story is told - there’s barely anything changed arbitrarily. Aside from having a cold opening, the drama sticks to a very linear version of the story, and I think for a TV show or film, that’s probably the best way to do it. We see everything, we get shocked and tricked and betrayed and surprised along with the characters, we feel the biggest impact at the climactic scenes having experienced all the build-up. The novel on the other hand is not only much more non-linear in WHEN we learn bits and pieces of information, but that information is also obfuscated under wei wuxian’s multiple layers of Unreliable Narratoritis, which are as follows: 1) difficulty remembering things because of personality/avoiding painful memories/actual memory loss, 2) No Homo Goggles still on, and 3) a wry sense of humor that makes the reader unsure of how much they can trust his attitude toward things, especially near the beginning. The experience of reading is a puzzle the reader has to mentally piece together through all of the above listed camouflage, and the puzzle itself is a three-sided mystery: One - How Bad of a guy was Wei WuXian really, and how exactly did all the bad stuff in his life go down; Two - wangxian epic pride & prejudice gambits; Three - political murder mystery. (I love stories like this btw... though I fully admit I’m glad I watched first this time bc it might have taken me a long time to tackle otherwise.) Because of this, where the drama wants to pull you in and submerge you in all the most potent emotional parts, the novel in direct contrast deliberately side-steps around these things and asks that you hurt yourself by filling in the blanks. In fact the more intense emotions and painful memories involved, whether it be his relationship with jiang yanli, his DEATH, the darkest days of war times etc, the more the novel evasively withholds details. I actually really like both styles of storytelling but each one is obviously way better suited to its medium. ANYWAY.... THATS BASICALLY WHERE MY BRAINS AT WHILE IM READING GAY SWORD WIZARD BOOKS

- The extras are so saturated with domestic married bliss that it’s a good thing I stopped taking pictures because I’d just take a picture of every page. this is too much for me to take... I did jump the gun a few times and read a few fanfics while I was still mid-read of the book (I tried to hold out but alas I am mortal) and at one point after finishing I was like “wow what fic was it in where lwj says something cute and wwx kisses him in public but they’re in the corner of the restaurant so no one really sees... OH NO WAIT that was actually in there.” and ... and that’s the LEAST OF IT... *stares into the distance* theyre married wow

- I ofc couldn’t help but see a few vague blogs beforehand so honestly I was braced for something like, wildly ooc for the sake of porn to happen in the extras... I definitely appreciate how the incense burner porn interludes could be uhhh a lot for many people and not my personal cup of tea in terms of smut however [here follows the words of a poisonous frog who has dwelt her whole life in the rainforests of BL] the concept is also surprisingly SWEET SDFLKJF like wwx sees lan wangji’s darkest mixed-up violent teenage fantasies and he’s just like aww babe you had a crush on me!! just... good for them

- I swear I’m not gonna rehash every cute married thing they do but wei wuxian grading papers in the tub........................rEALLY GOT ME

- I want to Draw - ok thats enough if I keep going I’ll just write “wei wuxian grading papers in the tub” seven more times probably

#mdzs readthru #this obviously has many spoilers

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pfenniged · 4 years

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I want to get started in on classic films: are there any you personally recommend?

Hey, thanks for asking! <3

So from your ask I took you wanted a recommendation of classic films that may be my personal favourites. So I’m going to go with the ones that I personally are current loving and finding the most ‘rewatchable’/ have saved on my computer, as well as ones that I do think everyone should watch/ are fantastic, but tend to be the ones I don’t reach for as often.

This obviously does not include all the classic films that you can find online in ‘Best of’ Lists (although there obviously is some overlap), but I also tended to do straight up ‘films.’ Classic musicals are another thing entirely, so if you want my suggestions on them, just drop me another line.

My current favourite Classic Hollywood films tend to be along the film noir genre or thrillers/ murder mysteries. In case you didn’t know, film noir is defined as the following:

Film noir (/nwɑːr/; French: [film nwaʁ]) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American film noir. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key, black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression.

This means in terms of ‘horror’ genre movies, I tend to avoid gore/slashers (which were not a thing back in the day, but I felt I needed to emphasise that) I only watch horror movies that don’t rely on cheap jump scares, tricks, and tend to have good psychological motivations, because as Alfred Hitchcock said, the original master of horror, the mind is scarier than anything you can create otherwise.

My Current Favourites:

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir: A widower in the early twentieth century falls in love with the former inhabitant of the house she bought, who happens to be a crotchety old sea captain played by Rex Harrison, king of crotchety old crotchety characters. The film plays out as he tries to emancipate her from her ex-husband’s overbearing family, and get her to ironically accept more of life from beyond the grave. (Literally, I’m not a big romance movie person, but this is the only romance movie I will accept in my life because it involves a ghost and has other elements/ not just is total schmalz).

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope: Two gays commit a murder and host a dinner party over it. Based on the Leopold and Loeb murders of the 1920s (Look them up if you don’t know about them; absolutely mental), the film is coded as hell (because 1940s), but is also homoerotic as fuck, acknowledged as homoerotic by everyone who worked on it, one of the main actors was gay, and it involves Jimmy Stewart being dropped in as a dinner party guest and eventually trying to solve the crime. It’s probably honestly my favourite Alfred Hitchcock, because it’s a quick watch, it takes place inside the entirely same space the entire movie (but never feels like it), and is the perfect example of a murder mystery).

The Postman Always Rings Twice: The quintessential film noir, featuring Lana Turner’s amazing outfits and honestly, a really well-rounded performance by her. I only saw this recently for the first time, and if you don’t know, Lana Turner was considered the ‘blonde bombshell’ of her time, and not much in the acting department (By word of mouth). So going into the film, I assumed she’d be a terrible actress: but she was honestly really fantastic, created a nuanced performance out of the often one-note femme fetale characters given to women in film noir, and you honestly understand her motivations and character, however flawed. I’m now a fan and am searching out more of her work.

Double Indemnity: Another film noir I saw recently, and fell in love with Barbara Stanwyck’s acting and her in general. In real life, she was an adorable bisexual; in film, and this film in particular, she’s a fantastic actress, and I’m searching out more of her work now, even into her sixties and seventies, where she did some fantastic performances in series on TV into the seventies and eighties (This monologue of her being an old woman and having a crush on a young man is both heartbreaking, pitiful, and understandable, and it’s so well acted. It gives you just a taste of her acting talent, and how hard she worked to create a well-rounded character). This is probably my favourite film noir overall, definitely because of Barbara Stanwyck and her crazy wig. xD

The Twilight Zone [Original TV Show Run]: I know this is a TV show, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it. I love The Twilight Zone, and none of the later revamps have come close to touching it, and the effect it’s had on pop culture cinema. Some of the more ‘creative’ episodes (I.E: The awful ones with cowboys or aliens), I tend to skip, but The Twilight Zone is at its greatest when its creator Rod Serling is able to narrate about problems we all struggle with, and create a twist to really punch home if scenarios were different. Some of my favourites off the top of my head would be ‘Last Stop at Willoughby’ and ‘Nothing in the Dark,’ which are criminally underrated episodes. There’s also a great resource in this AV Club website, which literally reviews each and every plot of the original run and gives it a letter grade. I’m still not fully through the original run (because there’s 150 episodes, yikes), but I’ve watched at least half of the episodes, if not more. Plus it’s where, once you’ve watched more Classic Hollywood material/TV, you’ll begin to recognise a ton of character actors/early up and comers in the episodes, like random!William Shatner (twice), and Baby!Robert Redford (Who’s fucking adorable and I love him so much in his episode).

Twelve Angry Men: Twelve very different men are brought together on a jury to decide the fate of a young vaguely ethnic man. It’s a classic and I swear it should be shown in every school. It’s one of my favourite movies of all time, point stop, and honestly, as a J.D. graduate and someone who just needs to complete their admissions program now to become a lawyer, this is ‘my’ law-based movie (Most people are To Kill a Mockingbird, which by this point, trust me, is cliched to hear other lawyers talk about, even though it’s another fantastic movie you should watch). Even if I can’t turn off my lawyer brain at one point where something happens and I’m like THAT’S A MISTRIAL XD, it’s still one of the best films I’ve ever seen, and I rewatch it at least every two months.

Some of my Other Recommendations (That I don’t rewatch often but still are fantastic):

All About Eve (BETTE DAVIS)

Rebel Without a Cause (JAMES DEAN)

A Streetcar Named Desire (MARLON BRANDO BEFORE HE WAS CRAZY)

On the Waterfront (SEE ABOVE)

Cool Hand Luke (PAUL NEWMAN)

Sunset Boulevard

Psycho (Hitchcock)

Vertigo (Hitchcock)

Leave Her to Heaven (Gene Tierney and her fabulous wardrobe)

Hope that gives you some ideas to start with! If you need any other help, let me know! <3

#classic hollywood #classic film

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officialkmi · 5 years

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Theory of Love Episode 2: Love Actually

I was really looking forward to this episode because, as those who read my first review may remember, I was lest than impressed with the first episode. It left something to be desired and I felt as though the plot was moving too fast for a single episode.

Episode 2 doesn’t fix everything, but I like it a lot more than the first one.

Emotions

The episode itself starts off really heavy. If you haven’t started the series yet and are going it, the start of episode 2 flowers nicely after the emotions of episode 1. However, the entire first half felt extremely heavy and serious, so it was hard for me to really enjoy it. The first episode instantly made me laugh so that I couldn’t help but cry with the emotional ending. This episode has me feeling pity for poor Third, which helps make the second half feel funnier and also more genuine.

Altogether, an emotional first-half does help, but it made the entire episode feel too heavy and I was left thinking the humor was lacking.

ENTER: The Love Rival (I’m pretty sure)

The love rival can also be called “the curse of the drama fan,” as they’re typically the one they’d rather win than the main character’s actual love interest. When the love rival is typically introduced, the main character’s actual love interest is a huge jerk and it seems like the main character has no chance. For our KDrama fans, I typically think of the drama “To the Beautiful You,” which has Minho’s character Tae-Joon appearing as a jerk towards Sulli’s character Jae-Hee. Even though we as the viewer know Tae-Joon will win, many fans still cheered for Lee Hyun-Woo’s character Eun-Gyeol. Of course, by the end, we do support the main love interest, but we still cheer on the second one.

I, personally, have found that the love rival works well to help trigger a change in the main love interest. It’s not always the case, but they can help ignite jealousy and possessiveness, and even to help the main interest realize that they have feelings for the main character.

Now, granted, our new character Un isn’t necessarily a love rival yet. However, considering what I typically see with love rivals, he seems to fit the bill. We have the main love interest, Khai, who seems to be oblivious to Third’s feelings and actually causes Third frustration and pain. He’s carrying about his life like usual, and then this handsome af guy comes up and talks to Third like its nothing. The characters explain that he directs (like Third), he can attract girls without doing anything, and he’s kind. They also mention he’s been hanging around Third since their freshman year (three years, the length of time Third has liked Khai). Oh, yeah, and did I mention he’s handsome? He genuinely makes me think of Forth from 2Moons, as they’re both really handsome and kind (and neither will end up with the main guy, though I’ve heard Forth+Beam should be a thing in season 2 of 2Moons). Honestly, I thought Un’s actor (Earth) was attractive when I saw him as Type in Love By Chance (which didn’t finish airing that long ago).

Basically, from what we know about Un (which is basically how amazing he is + that he’ been friendly with Third since their first year), it seems like he fits the bill and will help ignite the romance a bit.

Wingman Failure

Two has a good heart. I said in the last review that, just based on the preview for episode 2, it seemed like he’d be a key ally to Third. His attempts to help actually make for great comedic relief since he’s really bad at helping Third. One thing that’s apparent early on in the episode is that Two doesn’t quite understand Third’s mentality. Third has kept this secret for three years! He was ready to give up and move on and never tell anyone the truth. It was just luck that Two walked in on him breaking down after having his heart broken yet again by Khai. What does this mean? It means that Third won’t confess just because the timing’s good. This lends itself to the central conflict of this episode: Third’s confessions. Or attempts at them.

In this episode, he has about three good chances to confess to Khai. One is set up by Two, which is when they’re collecting ambient sound. However, he chickens out. And who can blame him? Why would he just confess out of the blue to Khai? It’s not until Khai seems to drop hints about being open to a confession that Third can actually bring himself to do anything (however, Khai is an idiot and probably doesn’t realize that’s the message he’s sending. I’ll get to Khai later).

The second confession is when Third decides to take Two’s advice to copy a confession from a movie. He chooses the film “Love Actually,” which is where the episode’s name comes from. However, this ends in failure because Khai just thinks that Third is trying to help him find ways to get Milk back.

The third confession is set up thinks to Two’s brilliant plan. Using the classic “plan doesn’t go according to plan, but still works,” Two has Third pretend he can’t pay for his apartment. He then says he can’t take him in, planning to have Khai volunteer. Instead, Bone offers. Now, the sight of Bone’s room pretty much makes it clear that Bone should not invite anyone into his room ever and he should probably throw 90% of what’s in his room away. Finally, Khai takes pity and stops Third from staying there, instead inviting him over to his own place. Finally, third makes his confession, which is cute and poetic. The problem is, Khai is stupid and doesn’t realize the poetic statement is a confession. He tells Third not to say that to anyone else, not even their friends, because they’d instantly fall in love. He then walks off, giving Third yet another failed attempt at confessing.

Khai: Redeemed?

In my last review, I made it clear that I didn’t really like Khai’s character. He feels like this character that’s hard to like, as he just keeps hurting Third over and over again. We’re given no info on him other than the fact that he’s an attractive womanizer. However, there is some bit of redemption and hope for the viewer to like him more as the series progresses.

Khai’s redemption actually likes in the fact that he’s an idiot who keeps dropping clues, whether he means to or not. He’s not as big of an asshole in this episode, but he’s also talking about no longer dating girls who don’t really love him. We also see Khai as doing the job he should as a friend: helping and comforting Third. He seems like his heart is more or less in the right place, but this is only episode 2 and I really doubt Khai will be able to keep this up. I watched the preview for episode 3, and that only seems to confirm my suspicions that he’s going to chase after another skirt, leaving Third to feel heartbroken again while not being able to mope around because he’ll have to see Khai and whoever Khai’s hooking up with no place to escape.

Pan? Un?

We meet two new characters in this episode, Pan and Un. I’ve already covered Un’s introduction, but I’d like to reiterate that he really is an attractive guy and we’re not given much info on him aside from his popularity and relationship with Third. Third also seems to genuinely enjoy talking to him, so I really think that he’ll be an interesting character to see develop.

Pan’s timing for her introduction isn’t the best, in my opinion. She’s introduced in the very last scene, which removes any “I want more” feelings from the viewer. We see her talk to Bone, and we see that Bone is clearly interested. Well...there goes my wish that Bone and Two will pair up. Granted, things could change, but the preview also shows an introduction to a female character played by Neen Suwanamas who is clearly known by Two (mydramalist has her listed as Lin, but our Sotus fans may recognize her as May). While I’m fine with Two and Bone both getting girlfriends, I was kind of hoping that the series would feature a second gay romance to help break up the story of the one.

While we get almost no interest on Pan, her being introduced in the last scene would typically imply she’ll be an important character. This especially would hint at her being a key player in the next episode, but it could also be a poor choice for the ending scene in general. For that, we’ll just have to wait and see.

What I Loved

There were a few things I liked this episode. One of the main things I loved was Third editing together the sound clips to say “Khai, I love you” while crying by himself. It was a really emotional scene, especially with the song playing in the background. These are words that we, as viewers, don’t know if Third will ever be able to actually say to Khai. That makes this scene that much more emotional. While the shot did feel long, even with the cross fades between shots, the song playing did help. Besides, the cross fade and slow tears made it feel more of a real pain. It wasn’t him overwhelmed in his heartbreak and swearing to move on, it was him acknowledging to himself that he may never say those words to Khai.

I also loved the scene when they sat in the theater watching the credits role. While they did talk about the movie itself at first, they still sat watching in silence after they finished talking. They were the only people in the theater watching the credits role, which could have simply been setting up a nice shot. However, for me it felt more significant since they are film students. One day, that could be their names in the credits. Also, they understand the hard work that goes into making a movie because of their major. It’s really nice, even though I may just be imagining the whole thing.

Finally, I loved how they showed Third imagining each confession to Khai when looking for a movie confession to use. Each time Bone recommended one, Third imagined it and it was honestly hilarious. It helped lighten the mood for the episode a bit more, which I felt was vital after the serious feeling in the first two parts of the episode.

In general, the mood really picked up after the first half. I especially liked how it showed them together in the apartment, watching a movie, both crying over it. It made the relationship feel more genuine, which is important if the viewer is going to cheer for Khai at all and support the relationship.

Final Words

I left this episode liking Khai more than I had after the first. Additionally, the pacing felt a lot better, too. However, some scenes didn’t flow well and I wasn’t left with that feeling of wanting more after the episode was over. Between episodes one and two, I was eagerly awaiting the subs for Episode 2. I wanted t see what would happen after the emotional ending of Episode 1.

Since we, as the viewers, don’t understand if Pan is anyone of importance, since this is her first appearance, it’s hard to really like her introduction as the ending of the episode. While I know not every episode can end in a cliff hanger, I would’ve liked a more satisfying end to the episode.

#theory of love #thai drama #thai gay drama #gay drama #thai #thai show #thai series #theory of love the series #theory of love (2019)#theory of love(2019)#kmi #kmi reviews #official kmi #kmi official #episode 2 #theory of love ep 2 #theory of love episode two #theory of love ep2

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The New Mutants and Its Nightmare on Elm Street Influences

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This article contains mild The New Mutants spoilers.

The New Mutants is an odd duck. The writing was on the wall back in 2017 when 20th Century Fox first pushed the film off its original 2018 release window. Apparently the delay was the result of the studio wanting to make it more of a horror movie via reshoots… reshoots that then never happened.

Even so, those horror elements are still on bonkers display in Josh Boone’s final cut of the film, now available on Blu-ray and VOD. Even without knowing Boone was vocal that the Nightmare on Elm Street movies were cornerstone influences, it’s clear his mutant mayhem wants to live on the same block.

To be sure, these aspects are more muted than they should be, which is the result of the film’s biggest problem: tonal inconsistency. New Mutants veers wildly between young adult drama, youthful hijinks, and a nigh ‘80s slasher sensibility where very few characters actually get slashed. If reshoots had actually upped the horror quotient, this could fit nicely as a continuation of the Elm Street Kids’ travails. But even in its bizarre current form, there is something there to appreciate, particularly for fans of Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

Nearly 40 years after Robert Englund first growled his way through a Freddy Krueger movie, many fans still think of the first Wes Craven-directed A Nightmare on Elm Street when they look back on that series. But for horror fans of a certain age, 1987’s Dream Warriors was the only Nightmare on Elm Street movie that mattered. It’s the one where Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy Thompson returned, and a gang of street-wise ‘80s teen movie archetypes found themselves locked in a mental hospital with Freddy picking them off one pun at a time. And as these victims found ways to fight back in their nightmares, they became the “Dream Warriors,” just as their film turned into a superhero movie with a body count.

The high concept of a monster fighting the Breakfast Club inside of Nurse Ratched’s hospital is still incredibly appealing today. And it’s emulated from top to bottom in The New Mutants. Not that Boone and his stars have exactly been coy about this fact; Dream Warriors has been name dropped by the filmmakers ever since the first trailer introduced us to the movie’s versions of Rhane Sinclair (Maisie Williams), Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton), Roberto da Costa (Henry Zaga), and Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt).

Even way back in 2017, Boone told Collider that Dream Warriors was one of New Mutants’ big influences. “I do love Dream Warriors,” Boone said at the time. “I loved the first [movie] as well, but this is very much a rubber reality horror movie for the first about 75% of the movie and then it becomes something else.”

And unlike many X-Men adjacent films, the characters from early New Mutants comics are more or less recognizable in their live-action forms here. Nevertheless, how they’re introduced is pure Dream Warriors.

After a dubious opening sequence in which Hunt’s Dani Moonstar survives a “tornado,” the young girl is committed to an isolated sanitarium along with other teenage mutants. Their chaperone Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga) swears they’re being groomed by an unseen benefactor who we’re led to believe is Charles Xavier… but her evasiveness about the details suggests something more sinister.

All the while, each of the kids is plagued by nightmares, both when they’re asleep and awake. And the waking terrors are of their worst fears come to life. So, yes, this is basically a Freddy movie without Freddy. That in itself could be viewed as damning, both to horror fanatics who want more thrills and superhero fans who like their popcorn buttered the same way every time, but even with its (many) foibles, there is charm in New Mutants’ rough edges. Here is a movie decidedly not a product of the all-too-familiar blockbuster assembly line.

For instance, Boone takes his Dream Warriors aesthetic and runs with it via multiple visual references and plotting echoes, all of which feel unnatural for its superpowered fantasy. In one early scene, a character briefly entertains suicide while standing atop a menacing Gothic tower, not unlike how Freddy forced Phillip (Bradley Gregg) to throw himself from one in Dream Warriors, earning the label of “suicide” by other characters; in a more overt fashion, New Mutants’ Roberto sits in a wheelchair in another scene, just like the one Will (Ira Heiden) used in Dream Warriors; and the character is later seduced into a watery illusion by a dream girl who is not what she seems, a la Joey’s haphazard “wet dream,” as Freddy coins it, in the direct Dream Warriors sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988).

All of these knowing nudges from Boone and his co-screenwriter Knate Lee are there for Freddy’s Children to catch. Yet they can also both improve and hinder New Mutants. In the plus column, they feel unusual and original for a movie about comic book characters; on the other side of the ledger, few of these “scares” actually go far enough to be frightening. Thus the movie feels strangely unfinished, even after spending years on a shelf. In fact, there are several scene transitions where you know something is missing from pickups that were never filmed.

And yet, that low-fi messy quality may add to its rough hewn, uneven charm for a certain set. Like all of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, this isn’t high art. But the fact it goes for these horror moments with complete sincerity is kind of refreshing. Like Dream Warriors, New Mutants and its cast take their plight seriously, probably too much so. But after a decade of most superhero movies relying on a smug self-deprecation—a persistent invisible smirk at the camera which promises we know it’s nonsense—New Mutants’ emotional earnestness will appeal to a smaller cult audience.

In this vein, the strongest aspect of the film is likely any scene involving Williams’ Rahne and Hunt’s Dani. The former has the benefit of being played by the lone actor to nail her thick accent, as well as the rich horror trope of being a hard-believing Catholic. Like many a teenager from a religious home, Rahne fears Hell, which Bone and Lee’s screenplay embrace in the thematic sense with Rahne also being a glorified werewolf who fears her “evil” mutation.

In the more literal sense, Rahne also struggles with her attraction to Dani. It’s a romance that doesn’t feel tacked on by a studio note or an afterthought for social media; like Boone’s earlier work, it’s presented as a sincere puppy love story. But even that has echoes in the Nightmare on Elm Street saga, with the second film, Freddy’s Revenge (1985) attempting to tell a subtextual gay love story–one full of shame and literal self-mutilation where the main character transforms into Freddy when he’s attracted to his buddy.

New Mutants does this element better by removing the “sub” in “subtext,” and the shame. Rather it commits to a sweet romance just as earnestly as it commits to a sequence where Rahne’s dead priest returns to haunt her with a demonic voice that sounds a lot like Freddy’s warble. Yet this, too, mirrors a locker room attack in Freddy’s Revenge.

Despite the tonal dissonance between these two elements both aspects embrace the LGBTQ+ undertones in X-Men comics better than most actual X-Men comics, and in their own way are reminiscent of how goofy ‘80s slasher movies could become comforting outlets for marginalized groups.

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Is New Mutants an Ending for the Fox X-Men Universe?

By Gavin Jasper

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New Mutants: A Horror Version of The Breakfast Club

By Don Kaye

That New Mutants tackles these delicate aspects as brazenly (or some might say as tastelessly) as those ‘80s slashers is kind of wild. It also ensures that New Mutants will eventually find an audience. Perhaps not the audience who superhero movies are so methodically engineered for in the 21st century, nor in the mainstream commercial audience Fox almost quaintly thought this approach would appeal to. It certainly isn’t critics with the movie’s ungainly, batshit tendencies.

But as with Dream Warriors before it, here’s a film in which young people use superpowers to fight the man and topple authority while seeing each other in a way they, nor any superhero movie, has before. It gives this bloody mess teeth… and claws.

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ratherhavetheblues · 4 years

Text

INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘FACE TO FACE’ “I just don’t understand……”

At the mid-point of filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s career (by then widely recognized to be superlative), he paused in his formidable march of theatrical dramas to do something else. First we’ll pin-point the change. Then we’ll try to understand what it means.

In the midst of his trilogy of assault and carnage, Bergman shot off (in nine days) his rendition of playwright, Eugene Ionesco’s classic of Theatre of the Absurd, namely, Rhinoceros (1960). Bergman named his film, The Rite (1969), whereby hitherto mainstream rationalists disappear in favor of crashing into the inscrutable. There a micro-second of the uncanny becomes haunting, more remarkable, to all the repositories of civilization as it has come to pass. A second form of this breakaway, namely, The Touch (1971), sets up a dead leady (and her flashbacks, and perhaps her granddaughter) as the wisest soul around. Having the right touch, eclipsing a long and lacking romance between two so-called “rebels,” and eclipsing world history itself.

Our film today, Face to Face (1976), could very well comprise an addition to that strange duet noted above, perhaps because, in spite of their audacity, more audacity has to be shown. Here the lion’s share of the film is a protagonist’s dream. That her cogitations go nowhere decisive reverts to the “lover’s” in The Touch and the judge in The Rite. But the protagonist’s dream has become so lengthy because she has a particularly intense undertaking to challenge the rule of pedantry. And in that undertaking, she has come, face to face, not with mere dialogue and dramatic action but with philosophy, wherein the whole universe is the show.

There is a plethora of familiar features attending to the outset of Face to Face. We can note them; but the clutter of this overture implies something more. Jenny, our protagonist, has a wedding ring exactly like the dead lady in The Touch. Plunges of a sea, maintain for the credits, a cue to dynamics you should not take lightly. A stark asylum anticipates, In the Presence of a Clown (1997). Our central character has a home with a stain-glass window, which recalls the shocks of The Passion of Anna (1969). The motif is beige; her wardrobe is even more fixed in beige, as with Marianne, the bourgeois disappointment, in Scenes from a Marriage. Jenny phones to her grandmother, on the subject of a radical renovation: “It’s completely empty.”

Only when Jenny gets down to her job as a mental health expert does the heart of the matter catch fire. Alone with an argumentative young client in a solitary grey cell, who, that day, refuses to speak, our protagonist gets, surely not for the first time, a hint that scientific pedantry has lost its way. “Wouldn’t you feel better if you showered and got dressed?” The girl being incarcerated ignores the psychiatrist from another world. “Let’s open the curtains,” the real estate maven suggests. As she rushes past the patient in a blur of a wintry lab coat, in order to let some sun do some good, we have onscreen the doubting minority, skeptical that Jenny is what she needs. “We should air out the room.” Panning back from the grey fabric on the wall, we see the client having placed a finger into a corner of her mouth. Perhaps a taunt. But perhaps a form of therapy, inasmuch as the preceding film, The Touch, introduces fingers being in creative action, marginalized and being the better for it. (That the girl, Maria, is sweating profusely, forges a connection with the sweaty judge and amateur metaphysician, in The Rite. That her name links to the alert young girl, Marie, in The Touch, also convenes a rejoinder.) She holds both hands together. A slight smile crosses Maria’s face. She slowly strokes her hands. Once again the agitated lamplighter eclipses the enigma, in the course of eliciting a conversation. That motion had created a very brief ripple of action, far too slight to make an impact. Maria is fully onscreen, while Jenny is seen partially and from behind. “Last time we met, we had a good conversation,” (perhaps only from the doctor’s point of view). Maria resumes touching her mouth with her fingers. She looks at Jenny with disdain. “What’s happened now?” Eyes closed, the girl caresses her breasts. “Hey,” the erudite calls out. “You know that I know you’re putting on an act. What good will it do you?” The “actor” slowly reaches out a hand to Jenny’s face. “Poor Jenny,” the psychiatrist is mocked, for having tried to reach her on her pedantic terms. (Hostilities biting deep.) The healer flashes past the sick, her lab coat becoming an aspect of a militant, military engagement. Maria does what she can, by way of the fingers playing upon and within her mouth.

We’ve seen a retreating psychiatrist in a grey, solitary cell, during the scramble that was, In the Presence of a Clown. Here, it’s far more complicated. Though her first scene, and many to follow, have been shot through with Theatre of the Absurd, we’re in for quite a treat of braving and confounding the expectations of her upbringing. There is a tuning device, coming to bear right after the shambles with Maria, by which to maintain a singularity about this saga. Jenny is not only temporarily without a house, but also temporarily without a husband (being on a several months project in Chicago, in his capacity of being a major Swedish psychiatrist) and without her adolescent daughter, spending the summer with “horse camp.” As such, we see her beginning her tenure at her grandparents’ flat (a flat like nothing ever seen before). The structure, clearly having once been a church, had been installed with a design thrust beyond the palatial. The stonework (having predated the neoclassical entryway by many centuries), reaches for about two hundred feet, whereby frescoes, mosaics and other friezes produce nocturnal apparitions of mysterious and breathtaking allure. Stain glass windows of arresting and profound power also function within the genius of ancient hearts. And no one notices, despite Jenny’s having lived there from the age of 9, due to her parents’ death in a car crash, and despite the many decades of ownership of the tenants. It is lost as if in a hidden crypt, like the wooden Madonna in the crypt in the small church, in The Touch. Pedantry lushes—cemented in their gobbling for smarts, homage, and, for especially, safety. (As she approaches her once and now temporary home, an ambiguous church bell peals.)

Inside, it is largely about the family saga, of toeing the line and cash flow, tracing back to Plato. As to her excellent career, she reports, “Well, you know me. I’m comfortable wherever I am.” Grandma shifts to, “How are things?” Jenny chirps, “Things are great.”/ “Is something wrong between you and Erik?” the family navigator demands to know. Her granddaughter’s line gets smashed by the oldster’s far-seeing lighthouse. (Jenny’s temp stint is odd, despite the dislocation. Maybe she’s not the indispensable team player.) Grandma persists, “Something’s wrong anyway…” This elicits from the doctor, “I just feel a little out of sorts. I don’t think I’ve recovered from the flu this spring. I need to start taking vitamins.” (Karin, the catastrophic protagonist in The Touch, also swears, to no avail, to vitamins.) Thus ensues a fitful night. Her having to visit the bedroom of Grandpa, where his daily obsession of looking over family photos constitutes a homage to solid solvency, rubs her the wrong way, although she has no trouble masking it.

In her bedroom, the sound of a loud clock reminds her of her real work. Drifting to sleep, she dreams of a figure—another family intensity, but not in favor with the family. That such an eccentric, in a dark blue tone, haunts her, means a lot. The apparition delivers a sense of disappointment and anger, and she cringes. It now stands in near darkness, the face dissolving to an ivory presence. (The skills of cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, are never more thrilling than in this film.) The figure begins to tremble. Jenny screams. The spectre shows black woolen gloves. The unhappy granddaughter sits up, bringing the mundane back to prominence. She puts on a white dressing gown which recalls her lab coat and the embarrassments with Maria, another intractable engagement.

Face to Face has just given us an installment of challenging dreams. Recall that the Bergman film, Dreams (1955), subtly nudges us into surrealist, interpersonal complication. Here, however, that early, gentle suggestiveness has been visited by the radical pressure of that later surrealist, nihilist subset, Theatre of the Absurd. In order for our protagonist to do her utmost, she is about to enter a very long dream situation, more than eighty-per cent of the action here.

The rest of real time segues to the sustained reverie of Jenney’s showdown with a life-changing, most controversial, procedure. As such, her first full day, as residing with the grandparents, is her taking up an invitation to a cocktail party, at the centre of which a hostess is happily beside herself with a clutch of smug gays, having mastered one kind of life-change, but not the life-change she has in mind. The host’s husband, another psychiatrist, and a no show for the party, had, at the mental hospital where Penny was covering, for the chief, no less, had needled the newcomer, “I seriously don’t think we can cure a single person. I think a few of them will be cured regardless of our efforts.” Jenny, falling for the jaded practitioner’s small smarts, smiles, but feels a validity she doesn’t like. For what it’s worth, Jenny declares, “Maria is a very gifted person, bright, sensitive, emotionally mature. One other seemingly emotionally mature player (at the party), is a man described by the hostess, as a traveler “to developing countries,” and teacher to girls about contraceptives. Moreover, “He’s the sweetest doctor in the word.” Before this not quite ideal couple show what they can, and can’t do, we have the hostess, rich as hell, but displaying her poverty. “I haven’t changed as a person. I know that they are my feelings and experiences. Because there’s no distance between myself and what I’m experiencing…” She laughs it off with, “God, I’m not making any sense!” (Bergman’s irony here having remarkable weight.

Tomas, the “remarkable” hope, has much to do with Penny’s last stand. He is Maria’s half-sister; but soon we know he hasn’t troubled himself with lucidity at the level the patient has. (His humanitarian interests are shored up by a medical degree and a family estate.) And during her dream, she’ll conclude that his deepest objective is to stay in Jamaica, because, “I’ve heard that you can live incredibly amorally there.” Penny, too, disappoints at this juncture. She phones her paramour to break a date; and, even more wrong, at the hostesses bedroom where she made the call, she went out on a high balcony where the city, the river and its cast of care became a remarkable, a brief epiphany, which did not touch here.

Their rendezvous, at a restaurant of his choice, and afterwards, does not “develop” for prime time. Jenny nearly runs away on seeing him outside the door. She’s looking for a change, but she can’t discern what “change” could look like. Two lamps are placed over the blue-chip door, with its austere signal to the right clientele. The spare and the elaborate. And missing a missing link. They might represent mundane Tomas and mundane (but ranging) Jenny. That no meeting of minds occurs constitutes a portal to her reflective pursuit. (On the phone with the boyfriend she had maintained her seemingly advanced smartness. “Jealousy definitely doesn’t suit either of us.” After hanging up she shows her ambivalence by exclaiming, “Oh, dear Lord.”) Another sentry at the façade of the restaurant is a trio of potted plants. They being identical, indicates sterility. He mocks her cowardice, with, “Are you going in or do you plan on clinging to your flight impulse?” After the meal and at his home, she dishes out her own bruising form of pedantry in the service of advantage. (The only problem being, that, while Tomas comes to prove at heart a (clever, suave) mediocrity, Jenny is supposed to be finding a way to transcend what she confusedly intuits to be obsolete.) Tomas would continue (development-style) with, “I’m just wondering if your breasts are beautiful.” The David, in The Touch, moots in a similar way. But there the bourgeoise lady and her husband quickly squelch the poor taste. The crude move here is met with response only too expert in the involvements of pedantry. “To satisfy your curiosity, I can tell you they are very beautiful. That explanation will have to suffice.” Tomas maintains, “Can’t we be friends? Don’t take it that way.” Her retort is, “I just wanted to know how you’ve imagined us getting from here to your bedroom. And I want to know how you’ve planned on overcoming the awkwardness of undressing. I also want to know what amazing techniques you plan on using to satisfy me, and yourself. I want to know what demands you’ll place on my performance. How adventurous and impulsive you’ll allow me to be, so that when I’m overcome by enthusiasm I don’t make you nervous. I also want to know how you’re envisaging the conclusion of our sexual encounter…” (She goes home by taxi, after mooting a movie someday. He suggests a classical concert.)

On going in, she sits down at the doorway, morose about how the evening transpired. She didn’t mean to be overbearing and lacking sensuousness. She leans back, knowing she could stage a far better facsimile of her need. Hands on her lap. It’s the middle of the night, and Grandpa, a life-long pedant, thinks that the grandfather clock is not perfectly true. His wife tries to restore some sanity, but he insists, “It stops” (stopping becoming a horror). He clasps his hands and brings them to his mouth. (Maria’s gesture being strangely similar.) He covers his face with both hands. Many fears from him, and assurances from her—“our finances are excellent”—result in her taking him to her bed. “I’ve already slept enough…” On the way, he cries out, “I’m so damned embarrassed.” (He may be referring to a chronic shaking of his hands. Or, he might also have been visited by an embarrassment of challenge which he has quite successfully avoided all his pedantic, domestic life. And he cries uncontrollably.) Jenny, in the shadows, smiles indulgently.

That immediately she’s fretful, signals her long and eventful dream. She’ll dream there the rest of the film. Having just made a mess in the face of a faker, her thoughts run to surviving, if not enjoying, a world of disappointment. Set in Jenny’s stripped-down house, we have Tomas and the simplistic young gay from the party, who sang, “The more we are together, the happier we get.” They proceed to rape our protagonist, while Maria lies unconscious in an adjacent room. (A return to Bergman in the style of Theatre of the Absurd, here far more Genet than Ionesco.) Jenny, shocked, but not that shocked—recalls Thea with the judge, in The Rite—then declares, “I have to get Maria to the hospital.” Tomas, cynically asking, “What have you done to her?” (The question being also Jenny’s self-criticism about a sterile rationality.) The conclusion of this stage of the probe by a desperate researcher, is the young gay complaining, “She’s too tight.” And Tomas mocking her, “I bet you didn’t know that some have to pay to get laid.” (A furor about the ambulance for Maria traces back to The Rite. The reference regarding prostitution recalls, From the Life of the Marionettes. This reprise wants us to recognize that in this film a focus from the past has been stripped down to the exigency of solitary reflection pertaining to a history of carelessness and a sensibility of disinterestedness. Jenny will fail; but her retreat leaves a possibility for others who are stronger, just as the ignored foyer awaits a discoverer.)

Then she and Tomas attend a classical piano recital, the frequent cuts to close-ups of the connoisseurs, recalling The Magic Flute, produced only a year before our film today. That little bit of harmony being a prelude to Jenny’s massive loss of traction to come. (Grandpa telling his more spry wife, “I struggle walking.”) Then they’re back in Tomas’ house, and she’s attending to the right register. She begins with, “Let’s not talk too much this evening.” She rapidly shatters the concord he had played along with, by telling him, “You don’t understand.” (And reaping his superficiality, “No, not really.”) She adds, cryptically, “There are certain times in life you just have to make it through.” (Eliciting, of course, “What do you mean?”) “It might be hours or maybe just a minute.” On the heels of those mystical endeavors, she U-turns with, “Do you have any good sleeping pills?” And she enthuses, “I’d like most of all a double dose of those sleeping pills. Maybe I’ll sleep twice as well…” She subscribes to sleeping in his bed, without making love. There, she suddenly shows some confusion, but she still has energy to dish out the maxim, “If you force things to be as usual, they’ll be as usual…” (Here one of those plays of broken syntheses [her face reflecting on a polished surface] comes about, to add to the confusion.) After dosing off, she wakes up intent to the incident of her treatment at the empty house. “I was tight. Cramped. Dry.” From out of a guttural howl she begins to laugh. Laughing bitterly, that she, with all her clandestine dynamics, being without the wherewithal to seal the deal. She sits up, her hands, made for making the cosmos dance, cover her face. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. I don’t understand.” She resumes that laughing fit, lasting a long time. She buries her face in the covers. Her hands relax. He tells her, “Try to sit up. Come now. Try.” She repeats, “I just don’t understand.” She begins to cry. He says, “There, there. I’m here.” She goes into hysterics; a failure she knows she should never plunge so low. (She leans on a plush chair, gasping. She’s situated between a floor lamp and a tiny toy dog. She rubs her face with her hand.) “I want to go home. Call me a taxi. I’ll manage on my own. This will pass…” After another crying fit, he asks, “Should I call for a doctor?”/ “What are you saying?” she replies. “I’m just tired.” He drives her home. She tries to steady herself at a mirror. Her reflection of gloom.

She sleeps for a day and a half; Grandma is not amused. The oldsters are headed for a vacation trip to relatives, and Grandma, troubled at the strange weakness, wonders if Aunt Erika might be helpful. Both women, though, howl at the thought of that figure figuring in their life. She had, however, been the troubling apparition at this film’s outset, where the supposed demon was already exerting a powerful seduction. The hosts’ bon voyage had Jenny telling Grandma, “I can take care of myself. I love taking care of myself when I’m sick.” She phones Tomas, and with a big smile, she tells him, “I just wanted to apologize for behaving so badly. I feel great. Thank you. I thought you could take me to the movies this evening. (Something very unlike this movie.) Erika’s presence becomes close by. Her austere care, with intense eyes, first of all seem invisible like the foyer, to the movie fan. But the unfinished business catches up with her, and the receiver slips down like a dead weight.) In the library being ignored in favor of family photos, Jenny becomes touched by a sense of the uncanniness of her silence, while the figure now becomes shrouded in shadow. In a profile close-up, she mainly lingers not by directly peering toward the apparition, but by making her hands a pathway to the beckoning. She manages to brace herself with the furniture and her beige apparel. Soon the ruse flags. Her eyes show fright. She looks around for danger. She peers out the window. She turns around quickly, looking for the palpable she knows she carries. A shadow of her fingers on the wall. Long fingers becoming taught. She finds the back of a wooden chair. She plies along the edge of its leather expanse. She pulls down the blind. She putters with tidying up. (Another dead dialectic: at left, a little landscape; she, now clutching her drugs; and at right a lamp, not in order. Moreover, there had been a match to that décor, in the curtain with its ancient pattern of a medieval town gateway, home of the stellar.) She pours water into a glass. She pours out a number of pills and swallows them. She grabs even more, having difficulty to place them in her mouth. There is a similarity of a naughty, careless child. A rapid slide wherein the delicate and profound textures of many toils rip open to a plummeting capitulation. More water, more sleeping pills. In funneling the remainder, she places her head back, and in that position she looks to the heavens. Her hands and fingers had soured. She lies back on the bed. She tells herself, “I don’t feel scared. Not lonely. I don’t even feel sad. Actually, it feels nice.” Her hands, calmly on her chest. Her right hand, into the air. She plays that hand and its forefinger slowly upon the wall, tracing the pink patterns on the wallpaper. The finger and the shadow revealing another world belonging to the mundane. (How many times had Jenny been there, or at least close?)

Jenny, moving along with her deliberations in a blood-red medieval, clerical gown, has somewhat taken up the burden of The Magic Flute and its pedantic, authoritarian priests. How does it differ? She leaves ecstasy in favor of literature. “Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived in a castle. Every day she’d wander through fine halls … But nowhere could she find somebody to trust.” Grandma’s precepts do not bring assurance. “Why am I so afraid? It’s so hard to breathe, Grandma… Why does it smell so bad here? And it’s terribly hot. Old people smell so bad. I think old people are disgusting. They make it so you can’t breathe. I hate when Grandma puts her hand on my shoulder and wants to kiss me.” She changes that habitual bind and finds some courage in not having committed suicide. That positive step slips into her brain damage from the crisis. Alive but sustained by tubes in her nose. Absurdist flare-ups being a netherworld of Jenny’s showdown.

Her much appreciated gift here, though, is an Erika, welcoming and lending her scarf in the in the freezing ward. She embraces Jenny and gently touches her forehead. “You’re not afraid of me?” the family horror asks. But back she falls, with a madhouse of patients in Grandma’s flat. One woman complains, “When they put my head back together, they forgot to remove my daily frights.” Jenny tells her, “Come back next month!” Treating Grandpa, she surprisingly shines: “You always need something meaningful between yourself and death.”

Tomas has resurfaced, and he becomes like the gay in, From the Life of the Marionettes, assuring that he and his types are brilliant about emotions. With Jenny embarrassed with her practice—“I’m ashamed, I wish for once in my life, I could find the right words. Just once”—he’s quick to tell her, “That’s right, Jenny, there are patients here that long for the right word. It should be their word and their emotion and not your emotion.” She infers, “I know it’s loneliness. The loneliness of mankind.” This faux pas is given a coda by her husband having jetted from Chicago, and due to go back next day. That tepid techie begins with, “you have a knack for coming up with surprises.” (A true, though missing, knack, is on tap in Marionettes.) The abstract husband asks, “What do you want me to tell Grandma?”/ “You can tell her the truth,” serves many needs. His, “Take care of yourself,” going out the door, is probably a challenge way over her head. Her being struck by how little love there is in her marriage, becomes reflected in a triad of two opaque hospital windows and her medieval default stance.

In the maelstrom here, Jenny thinks back to her hardly known parents and their having been not only killed by traffic but, before that, the endless battleground and assault delivered their way as Bohemians in an ultra-bourgeois family. “Everything had to be so proper, correct, precise and hopelessly flawless… Papa, you enjoyed hugging. We were so affectionate! You were sad and nervous… I was just a child. I didn’t understand.” After hammering on the crypt of their bedroom a long time, the passionate strangers that were her parents came forward to add to Jenny’s toil. She meets them with a volley of smashes. “Go away! Go away and never come back. I never want to see your frightened eyes…” Two coffins being hammered shut while we hear them cry, “Help!” (A more subtle form of Theatre of the Absurd.) “We had it good together, Daddy and I!” Then Mom walked by and said, “That’s enough cuddling!” And then Grandma walked by and said, “Your Daddy is nice, but he’s a lazy bum. And Mom agreed with Grandma and together they despised Dad. And they got me on their side. That’s how easy it was. Suddenly, I felt embarrassed when Dad hugged and kissed me. I was so concerned with pleasing Grandma… It was Grandma’s face… and yet it wasn’t hers. She looked like an evil dog getting ready to bite. ‘You can’t wear that dress today. That’s your Sunday dress… Jenny, decent people live in this house… People who have tried to live a life of order and cleanliness.’”/ “Don’t hit me like that! I can’t take it!” While she was reliving that hell, the future medical angel was lunging back and forth. “I know that you love me. I believe you want what’s best for me. I know I have to do as you say.”

Thus, the investigation edges to an adult perspective, particularly a woman of science carrying a mantle derived from tenets holding an unbending stranglehold against the world of emotion. Jenny can rail here about here didactic roots. But can she devise a functionality (not to mention a joyous functionality) as abnormal. “Do you understand? How can you take a child who’s afraid of the dark and lock her in a dark closet? Do you think I’m emotionally crippled for life?” Tomas, that expert as to the untouchable, with his catchphrase, “I’m always fine,” responds with “an invocation for us non-believers: I wish that someone or something may affect me so that I can be real…”/ “What do you mean by ‘real’?”/ “To hear a human voice, and to trust that it came from a human who is made exactly like me. To touch a pair of lips.” On the heels of that questionable discernment, a nurse interrupts this conference. She’s not only surprisingly starlet-like, she’s totally, Hollywood, starlet-like. A comment upon our protagonists’ fibre. The “nurse” brings news that Anna, Jenny’s daughter, is about to show us that if loving coherence is to appear on earth it has to find a way to effectively circumventing nearly everyone on board. Jenny, for all her righteous petitioning, comes to toe the line. That leaves us with a silent invitation to show how it can be done.

Tomas fades into the tropical “real.” And Anna, when hearing her mother say, “I did something stupid a few days ago, I tried to kill myself,” the question the girl poses (with dead eyes) is, “Will you do it again?”/ “How can I be sure?” Jenny had asked of her. “You must try to forgive me… You have to trust what I say.” (That being, on both sides, far down the track in the imperative of empathy.) The adolescent—though in this sustained history of Anna, by works of Bergman, being remarkably perverse and homicidal—performs not so surprisingly. “You never liked me anyway… It’s true… Don’t worry, I can take care of myself.” Anna, the pathological pedant, the maven of “security,” seeing in Grandma a lighthouse.

Back at Grandma’s house, the family whip has the family doctor convinced that Jenny was suffering from fatigue. (The doctor’s name, Jacobi, has a history in these filmic endeavors as very bad news.) Grandma, remarkably, begins to cry, not you can be sure, on Jenny’s account, but that her long-standing consort, “doesn’t want to get up today. I sense he won’t ever get up again.” Jenny begins to go to see him, but she never completes that meeting, instead standing in the doorway (another overhearing as the one which sealed the dream). Hollywood that won’t let go. Hollywood ambiguity and seduction needing to be treated with great care. He glares at the women. Grandma holds her back. (A crypt that doesn’t quite inspire.) Grandma looks down at the invalid. She strokes his head. Jenny is touched to produce a homage. “I stood at the door for a long time looking at the old couple and their closeness. I watched their slow movements… I saw their dignity, their humility. For a short moment, I realized that love surrounds, even death.” She closes the door, arranges on the phone her return to work and goes out, ignoring the unconditional love surrounding the foyer. The tulip there proceeds to fade. Unconditional alertness was not for Jenny. But fortunately we’ve seen glimpses of progress, which her dream discounts.

Overcoming that retreat is not impossible. We have ways to squelch the obdurate absurd. While overrated skills and overrated charms clutter the land, the skies refuse to compromise. The museum of the skies ensures that someone, sometime, will step forward. Also, an embarkation might choose those loaded hands, igniting chores and igniting cheers. The forum of such resolve might just as well be solitary. Or, it might shine upon the many.

#ingmar bergman

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s3venpounds · 6 years

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1 - 40

jesus buddy, if you wanted to know more about me just friend me somewhere and talk to me facebook,discord,overwatch,psn, snapchat w.e! haha i dont bite!

also this is gonna be really feckin long

1: Talk about the first time you watched your favorite movie.

How to train your dragon (1 and 2 i can’t decide) I fucking LOVE dragons. the idea to fucking ride one in the sky?!?! fucking DOPE. the idea that theyre also SCALY DOGS?!?!? MOTHER.FUCKING.DOPE. i just associate the idea of freedom with flying through the sky and that feeling was conveyed really well in that movie so i really loved it!

2: Talk about your first kiss.

honestly? kinda dumb now that i look back on it. it was a peck, i wasn’t even like mentally prepared and it happened way faster than i thought. If i knew it was going to happen i would have really like milked that fucker. i woulda went romance movie on that shit with all the extra shit like groping and weird inhaling noises and kissing so hard your teeth almost clink together. but yknow coulda woulda shoulda

3: Talk about the person you’ve had the most intense romantic feelings for.

theyre not a part of my life anymore which admittedly fucking sucks but i think its for the better at least for them. do i wish it worked out and we were together? i mean yeah duh, the reasons i fell for them don’t fucking disintegrate/ i just have more information than i had when i first met that person. will i actually actively pursuit them in the chance to be with them again? hell no. i’m tired. and i’ve seen enough “ self confidence” posts on here to think “ hey if someone really wanted me in their life they would go out of their way to do so and seeing as they haven’t even messaged me in god knows how long then its safe to say theyre off being happy

4: Talk about the thing you regret most so far.

man i haven’t seen this person is literally almost 20 years. I need to apologize. or at the very fucking least, see how theyre been doing. its driving me mad just trying to picture how theyre living and just coming up with a giant question mark.

5: Talk about the best birthday you’ve had.

lets be real bro most of my birthdays have been shit so i gave up on tryna make them memorable or fun, ‘s just another day to me. i mean the best one would have to be this one time i got a gameboy advance but thats pretty much it

6: Talk about the worst birthday you’ve had.

yknow how everyone says “ OH MY GOD WE SHOULD KEEP IN TOUCH” once you move? yeah thats bullshit. honest to god bullshit. i kept tabs on everyone when i moved to a different city and when i came down to visit for my birthday inviting all those people who supposed “wanted to keep in touch with me” literally 1 person showed up. and i think they only showed up because our parents were friends too. so yeah. fuck people sometimes.

7: Talk about your biggest insecurity.

hygiene. breath, hair, clothes, eating habits, manners, anything that might make me come off as unclean to people im trying to impress drives me off the fucking wall. specially at formal events. if im wearing snazzy clothing at like a suite 16 or a debut or a wedding bet you $100 that im adjusting little aspects of my appearance every like 15 seconds. eating mints the second one is finished, trying not to be too close to someones face when talking, even when i fucking fart i always take note of which way the wind is blowing, or im sitting down on something that can absorb the stench, how much pressure is in my gut and how much of it can i let out in small bursts to avoid sound. that or asian dick syndrome. yknow. haha asians got a small dick? that kinda shit bugs me a bit. not a ton but more than i thought it would

8: Talk about the thing you are most proud of.(i am literally only 8 questions in and my fingers are a little sore from typing)

my singing and impressions? i once scared some friends when i imitated a party blower kazoo thingy since the ones they bought from the dollarstore didnt make any sound. same as my singing, i tend to get high scores and i impressed my cousins once with a perfect score on a backstreet boys song HEH

9: Talk about little things on your body that you like the most.

my biceps? theyre not like chris hemsworth level of meaty but like when i worked at this physically demanding job my coworkers are like “ woah dude ur arms are different from mine, if you worked out theyd look so ripped” that kinda stuck with me for a while specially knowing they were a football jock and they had their own special diet and fitness instructor or something. i also like my smile/ jaw shape? my hair can look pretty good too sometimes

10: Talk about the biggest fight you’ve ever had.

my family is very passive aggressive oh and racist

11: Talk about the best dream you’ve ever had.

i once had this dream where i had reallllly passionate sex and it felt real and i could feel like every little detail down to like hairs brushing my skin on my arms and shit. i swear to this day it was a modern day succubus or something

12: Talk about the worst dream you’ve ever had.

that dream where i was a bird and flying away from”something” just all my instincts telling me to RUN. or that dream where i got shot in the hand, chest then the head and before i blacked out i said “Ch*****” who incidentally i was going to see later that day which made things very awkward at least for me

13: Talk about the first time you had sex/how you imagine your first time.

it was pretty good. looking back i was probably shit in bed hahaha first time so of course theres shit to work out.

14: Talk about a vacation.

hit on by a cousin AND their gay friend. to which the cousin threatened me with self harm but the gay friend took the rejection very easily it was almost baffling in comparison (although the second the settled down they started to bash on me for rejecting their friend) also ate some REALLLLLY garlic covered crab the smell took 5 washes to get out… also got to ride in the back of a truck as its driving at like 120 mph and flying off all these little hills and tracking mud everywhere it was great

15: Talk about the time you were most content in life.

she was in my arms fast asleep and i took a photo. she didnt like that but let me keep the pic so that was nice.

16: Talk about the best party you’ve ever been to.

i can’t really remember any that stand out they were all equally fun. dont get me wrong some were super fun its just that it was also followed by a lot of bad choices that kinda take it down a notch. i will say this one party a friend hosted where i got to meet a BUNCH of new people. i also snorted some fundip powder as a dare. they refuse to let it go so i figure might as well own it. i also landed some sweet shots in beerpong

17: Talk about someone you want to be friends with.

ellen paige would be dope to be friends with. same with zendaya. and gal gadot just so i can like sit in her presence and be in awe for extended periods of time

18: Talk about something that happened in elementary school.

i was cheating on a test and my so called friend ratted me out never talked to him again that white privilege lookin hoe

19: Talk about something that happened in middle school.

i stopped talking to a friend that id thought i would be friends with for my whole life. i also became friends with my current best friend

20: Talk about something that happened in high school.

people are dumb. drama is dumb. people who seek out this kinda shit needa leave me the hell alone. and if youre going to challenge me to a fight, tell me about said fight so i can show up. dont march around telling people ur gonna fight me and not tell me so i dont show up and make it look like i pussied out. like for real?

21: Talk about a time you had to turn someone down.

oh yeah like the vacation one said : shit got really weird. and to have that sorta conversation on spotty wifi in an airport in south korea meaning jet lag is also disorienting af

22: Talk about your worst fear.

death. nuff said

23: Talk about a time someone turned you down.

it sucked but it happens so like.? lmao i dont really know waht to say but it sucked

24: Talk about something someone told you that meant a lot.

i have a horrible memory and on top of that my mind moves at like 32754895274 miles a second so i dont keep stuff in mind a lot in the first place. i can’t really think of anything that had so much impact that i’ve remembered it. well i mean there was this one song a friend told me about in a letter and to this day i’ve kept remembering the same verse “ maybe if we met each other under a different sky maybe things would be much better between you and i”

25: Talk about an ex-best friend.

we just….grew apart. and if we tried to be friends now im sure there would be tension and unease. hes just in a different friend circle. i dont hate him for it i just feel like hes living in a world of white and im living in a world of black like its just plain and simple

26: Talk about things you do when you’re sick.

on the computer. i can’t rest when im sick. i just keep trudging along. school, work, hangouts, i still go. i just take precautions to not spread it

27: Talk about your favorite part of someone else’s body.

neck? shoulder? hands? face? hair? idk dood i don’t really like specific places more of how WELL those parts can mesh together to make this beautiful being.

28: Talk about your fetishes.

y’all about to learn some shit because im gonna teach you a thing about me. pov’s, deepthroat/gagging, emo/goth, anal, massage, ropes and power trips, asians, tentacles if im feeling kinky, hentai /cartoon shit, glory holes, dirty talk and asmr (who woulda thought theres porn for that huh?), ahegao(being fucked silly or till your mind breaks into being nothing but a cumdump), swallowing, threesomes, double penetration, latex is pretty cool too, cosplays are nice if the characters are ones i recognize, tittyfucks, source film maker porn of like video game characters are getting pretty professional nowadays, lesbian, orgys, teenage girls and old ass guys, horse dicks and girls who try to take em, i got turned on by a girl fucking a dog once so i guess bestiality is a thing, oh i saw this scene in a movie im not sure if it was real it seems kinda hazy but it involved necrophilia but im not sure if it turned me on or it was so weird i’ve memorized it because of how weird it was. chicks with dicks fucking other chicks. and a plethora of other weird shit. i dont know what fetishes count and what doesn’t so i just listed whatever came to mind as i wrote have fun with that shit

29: Talk about what turns you on.

short hair, asian heritage, playful and lighthearted but can be lustful as all hell, shorter than me, big boobs is a plus, mid driffs, underboob, small frame or face, scent( god if you smell good thats instant brownie points with me), likes anime, high pitch voices are cute as hell, very physically intimate, loves PDA’s, yeah i can’t really think of much

30: Talk about what turns you off.

uhh smells bad?, when their personality is bland/boring, or just shit. over timidness i get being shy but like if you can’t trust that the person youre interested in then like what am i supposed to do. i literally dated a girl who was so sheepish all i could do was ask her yes or no questions. and honestly that got old really fucking fast. i get she was trying but like i can only finesse so much of a relationship man. bad hygiene holy fuck. if you got like ear wax showin our ur ears, or like a bleeding pimple in plain view and refuse to at least dab it with a wet cloth or tissue then pls its not gonna work out. dandruff oh my gOD. dandruff would drive me nuts. like if i get close enough to see individual fucking flakes im gonna tear my whole scalp off

31: Talk about what you think death is like.

i feel like our bodies stop responding but our “souls” are still present there trapped screaming and trying to move our body but can’t. and thats why burials and shit sound so terrifying

32: Talk about a place you remember from your childhood.

dont need to. im a couple blocks away i can visit it any time. (my elementary and middle school the neighbourhood surrounding it was also where i used to live so that was dope)

33: Talk about what you do when you are sad.

i force myself to get MORE sad so i can get it all out in one go and much faster. like how the human mind can only get so angry that the brain gives up and just tries to find another way to spend its time.

34: Talk about the worst physical pain you’ve endured.

when i was a kid me and bunch of other kids decided to clog a slide with just a shit ton of people and one of my friends who came after me kept pushing me to the point i was hanging on for dear life using only my knee down that was wedged between a fat kid and my friend who went after me. i fell off eventually knocking skulls with another kid near the end of the slide(this slide was shaped like a spring so that explains why there were kids under me) my arm bend backwards for a sec after hitting another kid’s legs, and then i fell chest and fast first on the asphalt winding myself. kids are rugged as all hell man they can really take a hit. i walked it off but god damn if i didnt get bruises and shit afterwards. or that time i got beaten so bad by father dearest because work was stressful and i ended up blacking out. wasn’t even allowed to go to the hospital. just kinda laid down in my room with bruises all over.

35: Talk about things you wish you could stop doing.

relying on people for happiness. distracting myself from sadness and responsibilities. procrastinating in general

36: Talk about your guilty pleasures.

i dont really feel guilt save for some specific circumstances. ask any of my friends. does that mean im a sociopath or whatever?

37: Talk about someone you thought you were in love with.

they just got out of a relationship with someone and was avoiding them profusely and i just started to get to know them. we got to the point that when she was ready we could date. little did i know that later, she would end up dating a friend of mine. to which i promptly had the appropriate reaction of crying myself to sleep, sending that friend a text message with all the things he should know to keep that girl happy and ultimately smashing a lot of things (some bottles actually because we were gonna build a sculpture or something together with em. man middle school was a fucking RIDE)

38: Talk about songs that remind you of certain people.

mmmmmm i would prefer to keep those underwraps.

39: Talk about things you wish you’d known earlier.

family will be there for you in the end. (not because they want to but because the world teaches them that they have to meaning they will help just in their own way and to their own ends.) friends come and go. they always have always will. anyone who says forever is a fuckin idiot. lovers come and go thats just a natural part of growing up. and lets be real all the people that said they would self harm ultimately never did so dont stress it so much god damn(but dont let it slide either)

40: Talk about the end of something in your life.

how about the end of my interest in anime and video games. nothing seems to really interest me anymore. everything is just kinda “meh”

#ask me shit #its fun to tell people way more shit than they wanted

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