FANCAM

your favorite fangirl alone with her thoughts

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Welcome to fancam!

Hello!

If you are reading this—thank you, I am thrilled to have you on this page! I hope you will take off your jacket, sit down, stay awhile and most importantly, come back again.

Welcome to fancam, my sweet little blog where I talk about all things pop culture, movies, tv, and most importantly myself and feelings. Fancam is my attempt to create something out of my endless hours of screen time, thinking about how film makes me feel, and hopelessly pining after...who knows what. It's my attempt to build a perspective, point of view, voice and hopefully hear yours as well. So welcome, thank you and please, return!

Also! My name is Camille, I use she/her pronouns, reside in the Upper East Side of Manhattan and am a Scorpio rising and sun with a Cancer moon.

IG: @_pierogi_princess

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2022 Wrap up (4 Top 5)

Hello and happy holidays! Over the last few weeks I have been pouring over lists of the top albums, songs and movies of 2022, thrilled to see what the world (or at least high budget magazines) are saying about these past twelve months. This year has felt a little more ‘normal’ (not really sure what that word means anymore, or if it even should exist) than the past two and as a result we have received a lot of exciting art.

If I love anything, its making lists. I love keeping track of what media I have consumed, things I need to buy, people I have been romantic with (zodiac signs included), and ranking my various ‘best of’s’.  Below you will find 4 lists of my Top 5 of 2022; TV shows, movies, albums and songs. Each selection is deserving of its own several page deep-dive, but I limited myself to a one-sentence review of each as I know attention spans are quite fleeting these days (my own included). Please enjoy and share your own thoughts!

TV Shows:

HOT D, Season 1

Game of Thrones with a bigger budget, advanced technology and more feminism.

2. Rings of Power, Season 1

Like HOT D, Lord of the Rings but with more than just white men, and a $1M/minute budget (yes, you read that right).

3. Our Flag Means Death, Season 1

Taika Waititi’s new project about gay pirates—do I need to say anything more?

4. Derry Girls, Season 3

Martin Scorsese likes this show, so if my endorsement isn’t enough for you his should be.

5. The Summer I Turned Pretty, Season 1

I feel like most of my life is trying to get back to being a teenage girl and this show really did that for me.

Movies:

Bones and All, Luca Guadagnino

A coming of age cannibal love story that makes you scream, jump, plug your ears, cover your eyes, laugh and cry—what more could you want?

2. Aftersun, Charlotte Wells

Beautiful imagery, incapacitatingly sad plot (my favorite juxtaposition).   

3. X, Ti West

A love letter to horror film, chock full of references that made me feel like all my years spent on horror amounted to something.

4. Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, Halina Rejin

I love blood, I love girls, I love a whodunit, I love jokes—this is my dream film, also Pete Davidson is in it.

5. Tar, Todd Field

This movie is making fun of high-brow art which is funny because this movie is loved by people who love high-brow art.

Albums:

Preacher’s Daughter, Ethel Cain

A 75-minute concept album tackling love, abuse, lots of God, sex and being cannibalized with memorizing vocals, quite the feat for a debut LP.

2. Being Funny in a Foreign Language, The 1975

From dick jokes and a pop song about incel mass shootings to devastating breakup anthems, this album makes you experience most emotions.

3. Renaissance, Beyoncé

This album proves that Beyoncé can literally do anything well; a disco-club-banger-no-skips album invocative of the 70s but that absolutely hits in 2022? No problem. (sorry, this is technically two sentences)

4. Motomami, ROSALIA

Being A Bad Bitch in a Foreign Language: I have no idea what she’s saying but the emotion she conveys through her voice and the flawlessly produced beats transcend language.

5. Caprisongs, FKA Twigs

Another club-banger of an album which deals with being both hot and sad at the same time, relatable.

Songs:

Part of the Band, The 1975

There is so much to say about this song but the ‘Vaccinista, tote bag chic baristas’ line changed my life and I haven’t been the same since.

2. Killer, FKA Twigs

She called this ‘a song for baddies with a tear in their eyes’ and I cannot say anything better.

3. Anti-Hero, Taylor Swift

Famous for being vulnerable, Taylor reaches a new level of honesty with this song, expressing the very unrelatable difficulties that come along with being Taylor Swift in an extremely relatable way.

4. Hard Times, Ethel Cain

A song about a horrific topic, sung in the most ethereal way with stunning guitar accompaniment— once again, we love juxtaposition on this blog.   

5. Weird Goodbyes, The National Ft. Bon Iver

The saddest lyrics you will ever hear, overlayed with a sick 808 beat.

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House of the Dragon, Season 1 review + analysis (contains spoilers for HOT D and GOT)

Okay so, as you may have guessed, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the first season of House of the Dragon (from here on out, referred to as HOT D). It’s been two full weeks since the finale aired and though I am deeply sad it has come to an end, I have appreciated taking some time to reflect and of course watch the last episode three times through.

Game of Thrones (GOT) is a pretty big deal to me. Though I did not start watching the show until May of 2019, well-after it had finished, I promptly watched it three times through in about a year and a half, and became deeply involved with Westeros using it to escape a lot of personal events as well as the pandemic. Once I finished I saw an uptick in my mental health as I was brought back to reality, which underscores how important it is to check in on those coping mechanisms from time to time (are they still helping you?), but I will always feel deeply dependent on and involved in that series. 

I was nervous for HOT D, like many, because it had enormous shoes to fill. Additionally, I don’t think we have recovered from the societal trauma that was The Hobbit trilogy, making us wary of fantasy spin-offs and prequels. But, also like many, by the end of episode 1 I was hooked. Being back in Westeros and experiencing the show in real time was truly such a gift. For ten weeks, Sundays at 9 pm became my happiest time, and each subsequent week I would listen to several hours of Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin unpacking each episode, beat-by-beat, on The Ringer-Verse podcast network (you must listen).

Let's truly get into it: Season 1 feels like a pre-season, working with us to recalibrate almost 200 years before GOT, and setting us up for what’s to come--The Dance of the Dragons. I think some viewers found this to be a weakness, meaning the show moved slowly and lacked the big budget battles that we saw so much in GOT (though I would remind you that episode 9 of season 2 is the first time we witness a huge battle sequence). But this is something that I loved about HOT D; I felt that we got to spend time with each character, understand where they come from, how they communicate and connect with one another, ultimately allowing us to empathize with and love them a lot more than other TV characters this early on. Preliminary seasons are hard for me in general, I prefer them on a rewatch once I actually have a sense for each character, but with HOT D I felt connected from the beginning--a testament to the slow burn, not to mention the writing, acting, shots, lighting, sets, CGI, etc, etc, etc.  

It is also very important to note that HOT D has more female-directed episodes than GOT ever did. Seems hard to believe that a ten-episode season had more than a 73-episode show? That’s because GOT had zero. Four of HOT D’s ten were directed by women and we also saw an increase in female writers. Though we had an abundance of strong women in GOT, it felt refreshing to have a story centered around the very powerful Alicent Hightower and Rhaenyra Targaryen, showcasing the intensity and depths of female friendship. This season felt way more feminist than anything GOT ever did and feels like a real strong season for the girlies. Finally, I would be remiss not to mention Emma D’Arcy, who plays Rhaenyra, is non-binary. I am beyond excited to see a non-binary actor cast as the lead in this and do an absolutely phenomenal job. Emma provided us with one of the best performances I have ever seen in the Westerosi Cinematic Universe IMHO. 

Now onto a few things I did not love. At the beginning of episode 1, Aemma Targaryen has a conversation with her daughter Rheanyra about her duty as a woman, telling her "the childbed is our battlefield", unveiling a main theme of this prequel. As I previously said, GOT is known for its big battles in which women seldom participate. In trying to create a show that portrayed woman as strong and decreased the sexual violence we saw in GOT, the creators turned to childbirth to show the pains, struggles and war that women go through in this universe. I understand the thinking behind this, however it went too far at times. My biggest qualm, which I know a lot of other viewers shared, was an over-the-top-graphic stillbirth in the finale. We know that these shows are going to push us, make us feel sick and see things we don’t want to without apology, because that is a lot of Westeros' essence, but this felt like a little much. Also its important to underscore that Greg Yaitanes and Ryan Condal (two men) were the directing/writing duo for this episode.

Another pain point for me was the addition of Aegon's dream--“A Song of Ice and Fire”. In episode 3, King Viserys Targaryen brings Rhaenyra, his daughter, into his chambers to show her his cool little knife that GOT fans recognize as the knife that arguably started the War of the Five Kings and led to Little Finger’s execution. He tells his daughter, as he prepares her as his heir, that Aegon the Conquer had a vision that an army of the undead will descend upon the seven kingdoms (AKA the story that GOT/A Song of Ice and Fire tells), and a Targaryen HAS to be in power when this happens so they can unite the realm against the evil. Why is a Targaryen the one who can unite the realm you may ask? No idea. This is a show invention and an addition that feels like a fan nod at the expense of the story. Aegon's dream brought me out of the show since it felt so out of place and, to make me dislike it even more, leads to our very controversial Daemon the Domestic Abuser choking scene further making this plot point difficult for me. You knew I was going to mention this scene and in summary I do not believe domestic violence is needed to showcase Daemon as a morally gray, complicated character.

These complaints aside, HOT D is one of the best seasons of TV I have ever seen. Dare I say that I enjoyed parts of it more than, hold for suspense, GOT. It could be the recency factor though so I guess I will have to rewatch all 73 episodes just to double check. I would absolutely recommend HOT D if you have not yet watched or are avoiding it because season 8 broke your heart. Additionally, you do not have to have seen GOT to watch HOT D: it is a prequel and though it will be easier to watch if you’ve seen GOT since you already have an understanding of how the universe operates, it is not a prerequisite. 

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