Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 83
November 10, 2020
Dead End
A 1937 social realist movie directed by my fantasy boyfriend William Wyler (I fell for him in Five Came Back) and adapted to the screen by Lillian Hellman from the Broadway play by Sidney Kingsley. This was the second Hellman screenplay
![[personal profile]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1491408111i/22407843.png)
scioscribe
and I watched together, though we didn't realize it till the credits started. We picked it because of Wyler, and because it was a Humphrey Bogart movie neither of us had seen.
Its stage roots are very, very evident as almost all of it takes place in the same set, the street between a luxurious building for the wealthy and the ratty apartments for the poor. A gang of poor kids play in the street, jump in the river, and harass a rich kid; Humphrey Bogart, a gangster, returns to his old neighborhood with his face disguised via plastic surgery (good work, surgeon!); Drina (Sylvia Sidney), the sister of a kid trying to join the gang, works all day and spends her spare time doing activism for workers' rights. And that's only a few of the multiple intertwining plots, all thematically related to class divisions and the injustice of poverty.
Drina is a great heroine and made me realize how rare it is to see politically active characters in American movies nowadays, unless the movie is specifically about being an activist (and those are rare too.) You just don't see movies where the main story is about something else but the heroine mentions having to go join the protest line.
Bogart slouches over a rail, smoking and being ridiculously sexy in a suit; Drina smokes and dreams of justice and escape and looks ridiculously sexy in a hat. The beautifully shot smoke and the way he and Drina gesture with cigarettes made me wish we had something equivalent that looked great on film and enabled so many fraught gestures and allowed you to easily strike up conversations with strangers, but didn't stink and cause cancer.
In some ways the movie is stagey and dated, and in others it's startlingly relevant. The income gap and separate worlds of poverty and wealth have only increased since then, as has the use of the police and criminal "justice" system to ensure that the poor stay in their place - and stay poor. As is this multilayered bit of dialogue:
A gangster, disgusted to learn that his girlfriend became a prostitute to survive while he was in jail, snaps "Why didn't you starve first?"
She retorts,"Why didn't you?"
It's a minor movie for Wylie, Hellman, and Bogart, but it's well done and worthwhile. The gang of kids got so popular that they starred in a bunch of subsequent movies in which their rough edges got sanded off. They mostly ended up as alcoholics who died young, sadly, except for the one who read medical books on the set and bailed on acting to become a doctor.
Dead End[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
scioscribe
and I watched together, though we didn't realize it till the credits started. We picked it because of Wyler, and because it was a Humphrey Bogart movie neither of us had seen.Its stage roots are very, very evident as almost all of it takes place in the same set, the street between a luxurious building for the wealthy and the ratty apartments for the poor. A gang of poor kids play in the street, jump in the river, and harass a rich kid; Humphrey Bogart, a gangster, returns to his old neighborhood with his face disguised via plastic surgery (good work, surgeon!); Drina (Sylvia Sidney), the sister of a kid trying to join the gang, works all day and spends her spare time doing activism for workers' rights. And that's only a few of the multiple intertwining plots, all thematically related to class divisions and the injustice of poverty.
Drina is a great heroine and made me realize how rare it is to see politically active characters in American movies nowadays, unless the movie is specifically about being an activist (and those are rare too.) You just don't see movies where the main story is about something else but the heroine mentions having to go join the protest line.
Bogart slouches over a rail, smoking and being ridiculously sexy in a suit; Drina smokes and dreams of justice and escape and looks ridiculously sexy in a hat. The beautifully shot smoke and the way he and Drina gesture with cigarettes made me wish we had something equivalent that looked great on film and enabled so many fraught gestures and allowed you to easily strike up conversations with strangers, but didn't stink and cause cancer.
In some ways the movie is stagey and dated, and in others it's startlingly relevant. The income gap and separate worlds of poverty and wealth have only increased since then, as has the use of the police and criminal "justice" system to ensure that the poor stay in their place - and stay poor. As is this multilayered bit of dialogue:
A gangster, disgusted to learn that his girlfriend became a prostitute to survive while he was in jail, snaps "Why didn't you starve first?"
She retorts,"Why didn't you?"
It's a minor movie for Wylie, Hellman, and Bogart, but it's well done and worthwhile. The gang of kids got so popular that they starred in a bunch of subsequent movies in which their rough edges got sanded off. They mostly ended up as alcoholics who died young, sadly, except for the one who read medical books on the set and bailed on acting to become a doctor.
Dead End[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
November 9, 2020
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, by Grady Hendrix
From the preface:
With this book, I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom.
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires both is and isn't what the title and cover suggest. It's often very funny, but it's also much, much darker and more serious than I expected. If you can think of a trigger warning, this book probably contains it, and it holds up a mirror to some real-life issues in ways that I found viscerally enraging. (Not at the book, at RL racism, sexism, etc.) It's a fun, funny, compelling, scary, and redemptive book, and the one which conclusively broke my reading block by making me devour it in a pair of gulps. But it's not fluff.
Five White Southern women form a book club devoted to trashy true crime, which does and doesn't prepare them for James Harris, the supernatural serial killer who insinuates himself into their lives. Patricia, the narrator and main character, is the first to be chosen and damaged by him; her fight to save herself and her children widens and pulls in some unexpected allies, as well as James Harris's own and far more powerful allies. And I'm not talking about other vampires...
The women of the club, and some other women who are not in the club but are also part of the fight, are incredibly real characters. They're flawed in ways that aren't cute quirks, but are both personal shortcomings and ways in which they actively participate in the systems of injustice that are baked into American society. White women participate in racism, Black women participate in classism, and everyone moves to protect their own families at the price of others' lives (and sometimes their own). But they're also funny and kind and heroic. Sometimes I wanted to scream at them, and by the end of the book I was cheering for them.
Taken just as a horror novel, it's a very effective and satisfying one. There are scenes which are incredibly scary, scenes which are viscerally horrifying, and plenty of dark comedy. It's hard to find a different take on vampires, but this one partakes of both satisfying old tropes and some extremely creepy new ones.
Vampires are always metaphors. They may represent the kind of raw sexual desire that drives people to throw away everything they value for a single touch, or a breaking with tradition and embrace of a different way of life, or the fear of one's own desires.
James Harris isn't that kind of vampire.
( Spoilers )
I definitely want to read more by Hendrix.
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
With this book, I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom.
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires both is and isn't what the title and cover suggest. It's often very funny, but it's also much, much darker and more serious than I expected. If you can think of a trigger warning, this book probably contains it, and it holds up a mirror to some real-life issues in ways that I found viscerally enraging. (Not at the book, at RL racism, sexism, etc.) It's a fun, funny, compelling, scary, and redemptive book, and the one which conclusively broke my reading block by making me devour it in a pair of gulps. But it's not fluff.
Five White Southern women form a book club devoted to trashy true crime, which does and doesn't prepare them for James Harris, the supernatural serial killer who insinuates himself into their lives. Patricia, the narrator and main character, is the first to be chosen and damaged by him; her fight to save herself and her children widens and pulls in some unexpected allies, as well as James Harris's own and far more powerful allies. And I'm not talking about other vampires...
The women of the club, and some other women who are not in the club but are also part of the fight, are incredibly real characters. They're flawed in ways that aren't cute quirks, but are both personal shortcomings and ways in which they actively participate in the systems of injustice that are baked into American society. White women participate in racism, Black women participate in classism, and everyone moves to protect their own families at the price of others' lives (and sometimes their own). But they're also funny and kind and heroic. Sometimes I wanted to scream at them, and by the end of the book I was cheering for them.
Taken just as a horror novel, it's a very effective and satisfying one. There are scenes which are incredibly scary, scenes which are viscerally horrifying, and plenty of dark comedy. It's hard to find a different take on vampires, but this one partakes of both satisfying old tropes and some extremely creepy new ones.
Vampires are always metaphors. They may represent the kind of raw sexual desire that drives people to throw away everything they value for a single touch, or a breaking with tradition and embrace of a different way of life, or the fear of one's own desires.
James Harris isn't that kind of vampire.
( Spoilers )
I definitely want to read more by Hendrix.
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
November 8, 2020
Trick or Treat reveals!
As I suspected,
sheliak
and I were assigned to each other for the same fandom, New Mutants/X-Men comics. Very fortuitous - I got a wonderful Madelyne Pryor fixit, Talk Sideways To Your Ghosts, and I wrote Trick or Treat, in which the X-Mansion throws a Halloween party and the octopus shirt makes a guest appearance.
I also wrote Blood Red and Goin' Down for
skazka
for another favorite fandom, Stephen King's The Stand. Like
sheliak
, they had so many great prompts that I wish I'd had the time and focus to write them all. I ended up picking Flagg in a female incarnation meeting Nadine Cross in a honky-tonk bar; as with everything involving Flagg, it doesn't go well.
comments
sheliak
and I were assigned to each other for the same fandom, New Mutants/X-Men comics. Very fortuitous - I got a wonderful Madelyne Pryor fixit, Talk Sideways To Your Ghosts, and I wrote Trick or Treat, in which the X-Mansion throws a Halloween party and the octopus shirt makes a guest appearance.I also wrote Blood Red and Goin' Down for
skazka
for another favorite fandom, Stephen King's The Stand. Like
sheliak
, they had so many great prompts that I wish I'd had the time and focus to write them all. I ended up picking Flagg in a female incarnation meeting Nadine Cross in a honky-tonk bar; as with everything involving Flagg, it doesn't go well. comments
Snow!
I woke up this morning inside a snow globe. Huge snowflakes whirling silently, settling down and blanketing the ground in white. I love snow and there hadn't been any predicted.
Today, the sky itself is celebrating.
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Today, the sky itself is celebrating.
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November 7, 2020
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November 6, 2020
Two Fic Recs
My fantastic Trick or Treat gift! Talk Sideways To Your Ghosts. X-Men comics, Claremont era. A lovely fixit for Madelyne Pryor by way of Illyana Rasputin. 1791 words.
Their hungry thirsty roots. I thought it was impossible to come up with a new take on "The Goblin Market;" I was wrong. This story delves into the ways of the goblins, and works as gorgeously written, unexpected original fantasy. 750 words.
comments
Their hungry thirsty roots. I thought it was impossible to come up with a new take on "The Goblin Market;" I was wrong. This story delves into the ways of the goblins, and works as gorgeously written, unexpected original fantasy. 750 words.
comments
Still yet More Movie polls & discussion
ETA: Due to a cut-and-paste error, I left out noir, my own favorite genre. Also, ditto cut-and-paste, The Wandering Earth is Chinese, not Korean. Thanks 2020!
View Poll: #24828
NOTE: Today (and maybe tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow), I will periodically put up posts that have nothing to do with the election. Come on in and vote in polls, discuss ridiculous movies, etc, if and when you need a break. You will be able to find them all by clicking the "election respite" tag.
comments
View Poll: #24828
NOTE: Today (and maybe tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow), I will periodically put up posts that have nothing to do with the election. Come on in and vote in polls, discuss ridiculous movies, etc, if and when you need a break. You will be able to find them all by clicking the "election respite" tag.
comments
November 5, 2020
Art Recs Ahoy!
Need more distraction? I've got you covered! Enjoy some art from the Trick or Treat and Shipoween collections.
I Remember You. I had no idea giant apes could be this gorgeous.
Divination. A witch's cat consults the cards.
Guide. A ghost cat on a mission.
sketches page. A ghost cat, a winter witch, a magician.
Jedao the Kitten's Trick or Treat. Prepare to find out what mayhem a very small cat can unleash on a galaxy-spanning civilization.
Stay. A phantom borzoi.
Three Snakes in Creepy Clown Costume. Inexplicably Passing As Human Trick-or-Treater.
An Impeccable Disguise. There is nothing unusual about this businessman.
Uncle Peter. The Flopsy bunnies and their Uncle Peter on Halloween.
Smaug the Bedazzled. The dragon and his diamond waistcoat.
find me in the shallows. A kelpie moves through the fog.
Hilda the Fairy Queen. A plus-size pinup and a curious squirrel.
Dressed to Kill. Femme!Roy Mustang pinup.
fight you for it. Valkyrie/Minn-Erva (NSFW and SMOKIN'.)
Morning Reverie. Portrait of a sorceress at rest.
Calling the Storm. A rain of stars upon the frozen ground.
Tuition Bill Due. So why does one become a space mercenary?
It's all about the Hats. As a matter of fact it's two swashbuckling lesbians.
NOTE: Today (and maybe tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow), I will periodically put up posts that have nothing to do with the election. Come on in and vote in polls, discuss ridiculous books, etc, if and when you need a break. You will be able to find them all by clicking the "election respite" tag.
comments
I Remember You. I had no idea giant apes could be this gorgeous.
Divination. A witch's cat consults the cards.
Guide. A ghost cat on a mission.
sketches page. A ghost cat, a winter witch, a magician.
Jedao the Kitten's Trick or Treat. Prepare to find out what mayhem a very small cat can unleash on a galaxy-spanning civilization.
Stay. A phantom borzoi.
Three Snakes in Creepy Clown Costume. Inexplicably Passing As Human Trick-or-Treater.
An Impeccable Disguise. There is nothing unusual about this businessman.
Uncle Peter. The Flopsy bunnies and their Uncle Peter on Halloween.
Smaug the Bedazzled. The dragon and his diamond waistcoat.
find me in the shallows. A kelpie moves through the fog.
Hilda the Fairy Queen. A plus-size pinup and a curious squirrel.
Dressed to Kill. Femme!Roy Mustang pinup.
fight you for it. Valkyrie/Minn-Erva (NSFW and SMOKIN'.)
Morning Reverie. Portrait of a sorceress at rest.
Calling the Storm. A rain of stars upon the frozen ground.
Tuition Bill Due. So why does one become a space mercenary?
It's all about the Hats. As a matter of fact it's two swashbuckling lesbians.
NOTE: Today (and maybe tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow), I will periodically put up posts that have nothing to do with the election. Come on in and vote in polls, discuss ridiculous books, etc, if and when you need a break. You will be able to find them all by clicking the "election respite" tag.
comments
Maqbool
A gorgeous, sexy take on Macbeth set in the Mumbai criminal underworld.
I had an extremely hard time figuring out what was going on for about the first 15 minutes of this movie (familiarity with Macbeth helped less than one might expect) but I'm glad I stuck it out because this was a really atmospheric, intense, beautiful film.
Abbaji/Duncan (Pankaj Kapur) is a crime lord with cloudy eyes, a gravelly voice, and immense gravitas and menace reminiscent of Don Corleone. The exquisitely beautiful Nimmi/Lady Macbeth (Tabu) is Abbaji's mistress, which puts an interesting spin on the relationship she has with his right hand man Miyan Maqbool/Macbeth (Irrfan Khan).
I always think Macbeth and Lady Macbeth need to have outstanding sexual chemistry and WOW do they have it here. Their relationship is often very sweet and tender before everything goes completely to hell. The witches are a pair of corrupt cops who keep playing a fortune-telling game that involves making a design with different things; this has a series of gasp-worthy payoffs.
I wish I could have seen this on the big screen because it was very lovely to look at, but even on my laptop, it was a great experience. It does very clever things with the original play and has fantastic atmosphere.
Maqbool[image error]
[image error] [image error]
NOTE: Today (and maybe tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow), I will periodically put up posts that have nothing to do with the election. Come on in and vote in polls, discuss ridiculous books, etc, if and when you need a break. You will be able to find them all by clicking the "election respite" tag.
comments
I had an extremely hard time figuring out what was going on for about the first 15 minutes of this movie (familiarity with Macbeth helped less than one might expect) but I'm glad I stuck it out because this was a really atmospheric, intense, beautiful film.
Abbaji/Duncan (Pankaj Kapur) is a crime lord with cloudy eyes, a gravelly voice, and immense gravitas and menace reminiscent of Don Corleone. The exquisitely beautiful Nimmi/Lady Macbeth (Tabu) is Abbaji's mistress, which puts an interesting spin on the relationship she has with his right hand man Miyan Maqbool/Macbeth (Irrfan Khan).
I always think Macbeth and Lady Macbeth need to have outstanding sexual chemistry and WOW do they have it here. Their relationship is often very sweet and tender before everything goes completely to hell. The witches are a pair of corrupt cops who keep playing a fortune-telling game that involves making a design with different things; this has a series of gasp-worthy payoffs.
I wish I could have seen this on the big screen because it was very lovely to look at, but even on my laptop, it was a great experience. It does very clever things with the original play and has fantastic atmosphere.
Maqbool[image error]
[image error] [image error]
NOTE: Today (and maybe tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow), I will periodically put up posts that have nothing to do with the election. Come on in and vote in polls, discuss ridiculous books, etc, if and when you need a break. You will be able to find them all by clicking the "election respite" tag.
comments
Movie Poll!
I have watched more movies in the last four months than I have in the last four years.
scioscribe
and I have been doing a lot of co-watching, with two per day to keep us sane this week. I highly recommend it. We start at the same time, then comment over email.
She just reviewed a particularly bizarre one, Audrey Rose. It was not good but it was definitely distracting - I was so busy WTF-ing that I did not think of the election for quite some time.
We've mostly been watching older movies, noir, horror, sf, fantasy, and thrillers.
What movies have you been watching recently that you enjoyed, hated, or boggled at?
View Poll: The Weird Free Movies Poll
NOTE: Today (and maybe tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow), I will periodically put up posts that have nothing to do with the election. Come on in and vote in polls, discuss ridiculous books, etc, if and when you need a break. You will be able to find them all by clicking the "election respite" tag.
comments
scioscribe
and I have been doing a lot of co-watching, with two per day to keep us sane this week. I highly recommend it. We start at the same time, then comment over email. She just reviewed a particularly bizarre one, Audrey Rose. It was not good but it was definitely distracting - I was so busy WTF-ing that I did not think of the election for quite some time.
We've mostly been watching older movies, noir, horror, sf, fantasy, and thrillers.
What movies have you been watching recently that you enjoyed, hated, or boggled at?
View Poll: The Weird Free Movies Poll
NOTE: Today (and maybe tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow), I will periodically put up posts that have nothing to do with the election. Come on in and vote in polls, discuss ridiculous books, etc, if and when you need a break. You will be able to find them all by clicking the "election respite" tag.
comments
