The most fucked up situationship

Lainey Wilson & Michelle Wilson attend the 2023 BMI Country Awards at BMI Nashville on November 7th, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Photo by Jason Kempin

Clean (2021)

Director - Paul Solet, Cinematography - Zoran Popovic

"The trash man wasn't always a trash man."

If only I were she!

The Fabelmans (2022, dir. Steven Spielberg) - review by Rookie-Critic

The Fabelmans was better than I was anticipating it to be. It wasn't the perfect movie, and Spielberg has a tendency to lean a little too much into the big sweeping moments of triumph or emotion. This was something that really worked for the big spectacle movies of his heyday (i.e. E.T., Close Encounters, etc.), but hasn't necessarily aged well and kind of detracts from those moments now more than adds to them. The whole movie also has what I've been calling the "Spielberg Sheen." It's not something I really know how to describe, but I feel like if you've seen any of Spielberg's films post-Munich you get what I'm talking about. It is beautiful and gives a lot of the movie a dream-like quality (I'm not entirely sure if that was the desired effect or, if it was, what significance that holds, but that's the impression I got from it). It's mostly innocuous, but I felt myself becoming distracted by it a lot, and I'm not certain that's a good thing.

However, the story surprised me. You walk into a Steven Spielberg movie expecting a certain sentimentality, at least, a lot of the most popular Spielberg films carry that frame of mind. I was expecting Fabelmans to have a lot of that sentimentality towards the art of making movies, the trailers sure marketed the film that way. However, while definitely having its moments of sentimentality, this takes the approach of showing a slightly uglier side of the artist's struggle. The ways in which the artist's brain can take instead of give, how the total dedication to a craft has the ability to consume and shut out, and that a happy ending one way doesn't necessarily mean a happy ending all around. It's an interesting, darker (albeit slightly) side to Spielberg's film making, one that doesn't come out but maybe once every 5th or 6th film. We saw it in Munich, you see it in Jaws, if you go real far back into his catalogue you can see it in a TV movie he did called Duel, and, although it wears the mask of his more grand movies, you can see it in The Fabelmans as well. Spielberg is undoubtedly a great director, and I wish he'd feel a little less beholden to himself sometimes and really allow his movies to breath their own air outside of just being quite-so "Spielbergian," because the best parts of The Fabelmans are the parts where he breaks away from that mold, and it puts it right on the borderline of being great.

Score: 7/10

Currently only in theaters.

Shoutouts to Seth Rogen and Paul Dano, who really stand out. Also, to David Lynch, who really steals the show in the final scene of the movie.

Mothers and daughters // 1

Bruno is Orange- Hop Along // Take Care: Mothers, Daughters, and Inheriting Self-Hatred- Ella Wilson// I Know I Deserve More- Michelle K.// Mother and Child- Gustav Klimt// Just Take My Wallet- Jack Stauber’s Micropop// komonatin// Labour- Paris Paloma// The Massacre of the Innocents- Léon Cogniet// Mirrors- zenetta// an oresteia- Anne Carson

Wade: I can't have people thinking I spend my time hanging with teenagers doing goofy stuff.

MJ: That's, like, all you do.

Wade: Yeah, but I can't have people thinking that!

you don’t understand, peter parker just has so much love in his heart. he’s polyamorous, but it’s more than that. he loves every person with his whole heart completely.

romantically, yeah, of course. he has scrapbooks full of photographs of every single person he’s dated, keeps a memento box with something from every date. he remembers harry’s mom’s recipes, learns how to play gwen’s favorite song on the guitar, teaches mj skateboard tricks. he watches wade’s boring ass movies with him and doesn’t complain once, let’s ned win at his favorite board game, laughs at johnny’s terrible jokes in the mornings, lets felicia act like they’re nothing no matter how important they are to each other. every single one of them, he loves them wholly and completely, individually. he loves them all in ways he’s never loved before, because all of them are so different that he has to love them all in their own specific way.

even more than that, he makes sure to visit may once a week because he knows she worries about him when he’s patrolling. he brings new flowers to his parents and to ben as often as he possibly can. he gets coffee for the entire office every morning, most people venmo him for it, but he doesn’t ask them too, just brings it because he loves the environment, loves working there so much. every few weeks he brings in donuts. he makes sure everyone has a cake on their birthday, their favorite flavor, and a handwritten card signed by everyone. he makes sure scared women get home safely, he talks to the lost children to keep them company until they find their guardians, he remembers the names and faces of people he saves, recognizes them when he’s seen them more than once. he makes people feel so seen and safe in the city he loves just by loving them so much.

just, i love peter parker and they way that he loves.

Took me way too long to finish this 

ANNA KARENINA (2012)

dir. joe wright

i analyse characters to such an absurd extent that i come up with things that the writers/creators/cast probably never even considered.

and guess what. i’m right.

If only I were she!