XistentialAngst's Blog, page 214
August 12, 2015
bakerstreetbabes:
aconsultingdetective:
Legit Johnlock...
Legit Johnlock Scenes
The Purple Shirt does things to John… and Sherlock knows.
This is pretty much just canon.
August 11, 2015
The Sherlock Special
The Special is going to be the scenario Mark talked about years ago. It will show Holmes and Watson going about their business– being partners, best friends, flatmates. It will show us all the things Watson left out or altered in his stories— the result of his romantic mind or simply his prerogative as author to alter reality. It will let the audience relax into their heteronormative assumptions. But then, at the end of the episode, there will be a scene of undeniable intimacy. It will be something, as Mark once said, like a detective coming home to his husband and kissing him hello, the same as every other couple on TV. The scene will be something that is intimate enough and obvious enough so that the status of their relationship is undeniable— yet another alteration that Watson made to his stories— a secret only hinted at, covertly told, and invisible to most Sherlockians for over 100 years. This last and most important illumination of Watson’s authorial subterfuge will prep those who see but do not observe for the modern reveal.
THIS IS IT!! Yes. It’s so obvious. Mark gets his resolution to TPLoSH. Great prediction.
I just have to reblog this. It’s a special post about the Special. In 2013 someone, a very astute fan, solved the title clues for S3E3, she gave us ‘His Last Vow’ out of the blue one evening [sorry I can’t recall the url] Once it was solved it was so obvious, and proven to be correct. I feel like the above post by doyoujustcarryontalking is the post that may just be the reveal of our Special. It’s so ‘right’ in the context of the writers and also fits with the ethos of the Sherlocked Event:
Benedict’s sheer joy at the ‘secret scene’. Mark’s relaxed playful gay innuendo during his appearance with Andrew. Una’s clear pronouncement of Johnlock in her Women of Sherlock talk.
Lara’s ‘dah’ statement in the same talk [the Woman ‘got in-between’ the main couple]Sue’s sneaky grin when discussing if filming the ‘secret scene’ it would have been in secret.All the above added to a group ethos which almost felt like ‘relief’. As someone who watches before I listen, the body language from all the above spoke of a goal had been reached, a turning point, and one of which they were all happy to be part of. Almost like a family when two people they love finally decide to marry. And Benedict was beaming about it.
The basis of this scenario is the fulfilment of Mark’s ambition, one which he has spoken of several times. It sets up S4, it alerts the audience, outside the modern narrative, as to where this show is going, albeit in a far more dark and angst filled way. It just feels right, and obvious.
Reblogging again for the heck of it. It would be nice if it’s true!
August 9, 2015
pininglock:
ALERT!
This is an interesting moment, to think...
ALERT!
This is an interesting moment, to think what might have happened if John had made it into 221B instead of being kidnapped.
sherlockology:
‘Shakespeare retrofitted as a thrilling,...
‘Shakespeare retrofitted as a thrilling, expansive popcorn blockbuster’.
Our review of Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch is now live on our website!
August 8, 2015
anindoorkitty:
The originals from the exquisite archives of...
August 7, 2015
otp221b:
the-fellowship-of-erdemhart:
Absolutely gorgeous...
Absolutely gorgeous production images that have been released offering an incredible, and emotional sneak peak of Benedict “GrungeLet” Cumberbatch and the rest of the Hamlet cast.
…And if he looks unbelievably breathtaking in that toy soldier jacket, royal blue pants with a vertical bright red stripe, a gray tee underneath holding a sword, or with the tight fencing jacket paired with jeans….that’s none of my business.
Source is broken for me. I have Johan Persson as credited, and a link here.Gorgeous.
Wonderful! He looks so young in these.
August 6, 2015
Is it possible to be fat&fit? At 250 pounds, distance runner Mirna Valerio provides an inspiring example
“People always say to me, ‘Anyone who runs as much as you do deserves to be skinny.’ Of course, what they’re really saying: ‘If you do all this running, why are you still so fat?’”
This is what I wanted to see. Fat black women exercising and just being great as fuck
Wow. She’s an inspiration in all kind of ways.
"Hamlet review: “Not what we were expecting from Benedict Cumberbatch - but only he could pull it..."
Hamlet review: “Not what we were expecting from Benedict Cumberbatch - but only he could pull it off”
Jonathan Holmes was there at the opening of the Barbican’s much anticipated production
By Jonathan Holmes
Thursday 6 August 2015 at 09:26AM
Benedict Cumberbatch playing Hamlet is so obvious, it feels like it happened already. One of the most talented and popular actors of this generation doing THE role in theatre. Every painter paints himself and eventually every actor plays Hamlet, so the thinking goes.
But more than that, the character seems like such a natural fit: the intellectual Dane played by the actor who has made a career out of geniuses. Hamlet has always been a geek posterboy – awkward but passionate, intelligent but crippled by self-doubt – and Cumberbatch is the go-to example of the power of modern fandoms. In the media, the online hordes of Cumberfans have become lazy shorthand for nerds and obsessives, so much so that some predicted the opening night would be disrupted by shrieking.
(Of course this was utter nonsense – the audience were receptive and respectful, exactly as we predicted.)
Nevertheless, it is tempting to view Cumberbatch’s Hamlet as representing the triumph of nerd culture. We now live in the age of Comic-Con, when 10 year olds and 30 year olds play with the same action figures. Adults no longer have to put away their childish things. Thus Cumberbatch’s version of the prince isn’t an adolescent struggling to become a man to avenge his father. Instead, he moves in the opposite direction, reverting to childhood – playing toy soldiers and digging through the dressing up box to feign madness. His ‘antic disposition’ is a form of arrested development. For this version of Hamlet, the play is not the thing, but playtime.
The entire production is staged in a palatial drawing room – watching the actor clamber on the furniture (those spindly legs are an engineering marvel) recalls the infantilised Edwardians, who ran around their stately homes playing Sardines before getting cut down in the war. Cumber-let is not the student prince or arch intellectual or even Sherlock’s motormouth – instead he has the precocious intelligence of a child.
The result is that this is the funniest version of the tragedy you will ever see. You might expect the cheek-boned wonder to bring the pathos, but his real strength is finding laughs in unexpected places, gambolling about the stage with a comic energy. On opening night, the one outbreak of spontaneous applause was for Hamlet’s first surreal appearance as a madman – which is often irritating in other productions – rather than more quoted sections like ‘To be or not to be’.
On that note, actors sometimes claim to hate the big lines – they are so well known the entire scene revolves around them. The audience holds its breath like the actor is approaching a high jump. One solution is to underplay them, but director Lindsey Turner takes a different tack, rearranging the text so the soliloquys strike you from unexpected directions.
(We all giggled when some fans issued ‘spoiler warnings’ about the 400-year-old play, but they actually are quite appropriate.)
Initially this decision looks like a disaster. To be or not to be is deployed immediately after the curtain rises, from a standing start. Cumberbatch has to do the acting equivalent of a drag race, accelerating to a level of desolation that feels completely unearned.
It rings hollow and gets the play off on a worrying note. But then you realise that is the point. Cumberbatch is known for playing hyper-intelligent characters, but the real genius of this performance is how he lets the audience see the limits of Hamlet’s personality. His suicidal monologue comes across as childish histrionics, a huff. Cumberbatch is threading a difficult line here. Children – like the travelling players that so impress Hamlet with their fake crying – feel things strongly but not deeply.
Later when Hamlet has truly suffered, Cumberbatch shows the true extent of his depression, and you remember his skill. It’s a brave actor who knows when to act badly. It’s one of a number of subtle points the play makes about our nostalgic urge for childhood, and the essential selfishness at the heart of it.
When David Tennant – another geek icon – played the role back in 2008, it was as a handsome gap year layabout. Hamlet’s confrontation with his mother had an erotic charge, taking place in the bed she shared with Hamlet’s father and uncle, reeking of “the sweaty stench of your dirty sheets.” For all of his good looks, Cumberbatch’s version couldn’t be less sexy, taking place in something that looks like a Punch and Judy show.
Instinctively this makes more sense. Most children grow out of their Oedipal issues by puberty – we can believe Cumberbatch’s overgrown child ranting about his mother’s new boyfriend more than we can believe Tennant’s stubbled backpacker putting the moves on his mum.
But also, without the hint that Hamlet’s sexual attraction is reciprocated, the full extent of his misogyny is revealed. This is an arrogant, immature, sexually naïve, emotionally stunted egotist who believes he has the right to tell a woman how to act and who she can sleep with, even resorting to physical coercion to get his way. His relationship with Ophelia is chilling – by turns calling her a slut and frigid until she is driven to her death, all in the name of his own selfish, juvenile desires.
With an army of arrogant, immature, sexually naïve, emotionally stunted egotists currently waging a war against women on social media, this is an important point to make to this Internet literate audience.
It just one of a number of subtle complications in this surprisingly challenging production. By all accounts Hamlet at the Barbican is a blockbuster, its star is hashtag famous and at one point a confetti cannon detonates, but it is not mere fodder for the crowds. It’s weird and deliberately off-putting in places, and if Cumberbatch never fully disappears into the role, it’s to use his fame to wrong-foot the audience. It makes one of the most familiar stories in history surprising and unpredictable, and even if it’s not always successful, it is anything but obvious. At the centre of it all, barely pausing for breath, is a man used to making us empathise with otherwise unlikeable people.
This is not the Hamlet we were expecting from Benedict Cumberbatch, but only Cumberbatch could pull it off.
”- Radio Times
(via karin-woywod)
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