May 9
Well, I was thinking that you were right here in front of me. Right now. And you... just imagine that I'm right there, too.
Hometown Romance - Episode 5 Requested by @unhealthywhining 💛 +
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Well, I was thinking that you were right here in front of me. Right now. And you... just imagine that I'm right there, too.
Hometown Romance - Episode 5 Requested by @unhealthywhining 💛 +
top 10 hottest things ever: 1. the transition from hongjoong's verse to mingi's in nasa via the camera descending down hongjoong's body
i just rewatched the tintin movie and it just struck me how much little details the creators peppered into it? the background jokes, like the crew member that follows allan around being unable to move because tires just fell on him, or the little gasp the policeman made when sakharine pointed a gun on him. the crew menber who was in the lifeboat dangling and yelling for help while tintin and captain haddock gets away from karaboudjan. or even the hotel owner whose hotel got dragged across town and ending up by the sea and just responded by putting on an extra star on the hotwl and rubbed his hands all "new business opportunity ahoy!!" like this movie has such a similar tone to the comics and i love it so much for it.
okay so idk what meta is but listen THE DIRECTION ON DEAD BOY DETECTIVES IS FUCKING SUPERB. UNRIVALLED. AND I NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT TO THE HELLSITE VOID. SO LISTEN.
transitions. between scenes. it's so easy to cross-fade, or just hard cut, or fade to black and then open the next scene. sometimes, if a piece of media is putting in a bit of effort, you'll see things like water transitioning to sky or maybe a background being continuous while the characters change or vice versa.
but dead boy detectives. the transitions are fucking flawless. and so creative, like everything about this show. creative transitions are difficult to do, and they keep getting it right. whether it's someone holding up a circle and that melds into the next scene where the railing has a circle in it, or the camera moving downwards from the floor in one location to under a table in a different location, or them falling out of mirrors, they take the tiniest of elements and turn them into transitions so fucking deliciously, and everything is so dynamic, both the camera and the scene.
and that makes it so much more impactful when there IS a hard cut. like in episode 5 (where the You Know What occurs with Jenny). the cut from the mascot at the high school scene to the butcher's shop is BRUTALLY hard, with Jenny again slicing into things with her meat cleaver, and it lends an extra air of violence to that meat cleaver--which is such great foreshadowing for what happens later (even the initial establishing shot of the butcher's shop at the start of the episode makes the cleaver in the sign flash red, drawing attention to it).
the direction helps the narrative so much, giving both atmosphere and foreshadowing without needing to fatten the dialogue with it.
and apart from all that just the general camerawork is so creative and helps with the campy feel of the show, with characters being bang in the middle of frames or with the camera holding a lovely shot for longer than a beat like Edwin and Niko cocking their heads to the side it's all such a lovely, choreographed dance between the camera, the actors, the set and the script and NGKKK.
Black Widow Fest 2026:
Ahh hello! Welcome to Black Widow Fest 2026. 5(!) years ago it came out and every year we have had a black widow fest where I write some fic. This year, we are a bit late so to a personal shit show, but I am hopeful that we can squeak it in amongst everything.
To start with we will be rewatching Black Widow (of which I am excited, as I don’t do it too often). The links for past BWF are below in case this is of interest as well. I think I will be rebooting some of the ones I have enjoyed and enjoyed watching.
As for what fic is coming up, I’m not quite committing to anything sooooo it will be a surprise. I will make a master post and try and pin it so if you’re interested it’s there.
To everyone who encouraged and interacted with the poll, thanks <3 it’s fun that this isn’t me yelling into the void.
Black Widow Fest 2021
Black Widow Fest 2022
Black Widow Fest 2023
Black Widow Fest 2024
Black Widow Fest 2025
And now, let’s do it! (Buckle in this is long)
Black Widow 2021: Rewatch
Part One: Ohio.
This movie man.
I often wonder if Natasha and Yelena attended school. Or like what were their social lives were like. Did Natasha have friends? Did they encourage friends? Or was it keep it all in the family.
Clearly Natasha knows that this can all stop in a moment, and I think she’s always prepared a go bag, so like I get the photos and taking the photo album. Something tangible.
Yelena being so little but also not, like she knows what to do at the plane, like they’ve practiced this. I do wonder how Yelena got chosen. Orphaned? Intelligence?
Ugh Alexei. Why does Alexei wear glasses if he’s a super soldier? For show perhaps, but wouldn’t you take them off when you get home?
Heh shield trucks. I wonder if it’s Coulson. What a twist that would’ve been.
The plane and Natasha flying it with Melina shot always makes me wonder if Nat then hated flying the quinjet, or if it gave her a sense of power in getting people out of sticky situations like she did in Ohio.
I wonder how long from Ohio to Cuba. Hmm - apparently 5-7 hours for those playing at home. Imagine being in that plane for that long. Panic for Melina and Alexei being a shit human. (No I don’t like him, no nothing will change my mind).
Poor Nat in her red converse being pushed away from Melina when Yelena has been able to hug her, and then the ensuing panic of Yelena being manhandled.
Alexei looks like such a predator. Dreykov looks like he’s on a Cuban holiday, and also a predator.
Oh man. The opening credits. One of my fucking favourite scenes in all the movies. I don’t think they were the only pairs to be torn away. Dreykov choosing as well.
Everyone just looking shellshocked. :(
Poor Nat. Stuck in the car. And all the flashbacks. Surgery, death, training, craft, conflict, corruption. Who runs the world? The social elites with billions of dollars.
I'm interested in your opinion on it as the expert, but I think Les Mis 2012 switching Dreamed a Dream to after Lovely Ladies was the perfect move and makes it hit way harder after Fantinr has lost so much instead of before
i think it's a really fascinating example of a choice that is perfectly made in the context of adapting the musical from stage to film, and which would absolutely not work for multiple reasons if you tried to replicate it for stage productions of les mis.
firstly, the standards for emotional verisimilitude are much higher in film than onstage, even in a movie musical where everything is naturally heightened and exaggerated and the audience is already suspending their disbelief far more than they would in a non-musical adaptation of les mis. that's taken even further by tom hooper's intentionally gritty approach (compared to the megamusical gloss of les mis on stage) and his penchant for filming solo numbers so close up that you can practically count the actor's nose hairs. i think in that context (and, more cynically, in the context of giving anne hathaway a better shot at a big shiny academy award) it makes a huge amount of sense to transplant the song to a point where the stakes are higher, more has been lost, and there's therefore much more to work with as an actor. in a stage performance of "i dreamed a dream" you can afford to paint in broader strokes because it's a park and bark classic where the actor can get across the full emotional power of the song through general stage acting through song techniques. in a consciously more intimate version where every microexpression the actress is up for scrutiny (and anne hathaway, even though she does demonstrably Have Pipes, is matching the intimacy of the camerawork with a largely vocally subdued and acting centred version of the song) i think giving her more to work with in terms of the character's emotional background is a massively smart choice
now, while i think you could make the argument that "i dreamed a dream" would also be more impactful from a storytelling perspective if we moved it to after lovely ladies in the stage show, i would argue that this fundamentally would not work for multiple reasons:
purely practical considerations: parking a solo number between two big ensemble pieces (at the end of the day & lovely ladies), before anything else, gives you the opportunity to reset your ensemble. les mis is a show that is generally very focused on maintaining a smooth flow between scenes & very much does not go in for long passages of scene change music, so you'd be looking at a direct transition between those two songs, both of which heavily feature specifically the female ensemble. if i was a dresser and you told me i had about 15 seconds to do not only a costume change but also makeup & likely wig changes for every single woman in the ensemble i would be calling not only my union but also possibly the police, which is the big reason i think this change will never make it to a staged production
pacing and flow: another major change the les mis movie makes compared to the stage production is that it's not entirely sung through. this means that the aforementioned flow of scenes is not really a consideration, and especially not when we bear in mind how the music itself impacts the pacing and flow. the stage show tends to pretty reliably alternate mid to uptempo ensemble heavy numbers with either passages of recitative that move the plot forward, or solo ballads - a lot of this is what i just mentioned about managing your resources with the ensemble (which is partially why we are able to see an exception to this in red and black -> dyhtps; it's all the same people in the same roles + some added ensemble later in dyhtps who've had the whole length of stars and red and black to change out of their beggar garb from look down/paris), but from the perspective of an audience who paid anywhere from tens to hundreds of pounds to sit in a theatre for 2.5 hours, it also adds a healthy level of variety that prevents them from getting either overwhelmed or bored.
the movie does its own version of this with the addition of dialogue (whether straightforward or in the form of added recitative scenes, such as the one we get between valjean and javert that comes between at the end of the day & lovely ladies). not only does this give you the necessary variation in the pacing but from a verisimilitude perspective it's also easier on an audience (who may be more film than theatre minded) than maintaining a purely sung through version of les mis. this means you're not going direct from ensemble number to ensemble number here either, so it gets away with that particular pacing dilemma quite handily.
on the other side of it, you've got the question of how to get fantine out of the ensemble number, sing her song, and then hop right back in to recitative mode when bamatabois rocks up. the movie does this through a combination of additional context, silence, and scene changes - we see fantine have sex with her first customer, she's left in silence, she sings the song, we have a little more padding & scene setting on the other side, and finally bamatabois comes in (and, notably, we don't get the full recit here). this gives time and space for the audience to adjust between the busy, ensemble driven setting of lovely ladies & the intimacy of i dreamed a dream, and back again. i don't think you can get away with that in a staged production without, again, compromising the flow.
i think there's also the issue that, as i mentioned, much of the emotional impact of i dreamed a dream on stage is manipulated through musical and vocal choices. you'll notice that claude-michel schönberg structures most of the show's big ballads (think of on my own and empty chairs, for example) the same way: 2 verses sung at a sensible mezzo piano, bridge that builds the emotions, 2 further verses that build up to a big belty climax, quieter ending. THE key emotional payoff comes from that moment where the actor absolutely lets loose ("so different now from what it SEEMED", "i've only been PRETENDING" and "a world that's full of happiness that i have never KNOOOOWN", "oh my friends my FRIENDS don't ask me"), in a way that we've been building up to without actually seeing at any other point in the surrounding 3 minutes. like i said, that's important on stage because you're dependent on those bigger, broader vocal choices to depict the emotional trajectory as you don't have the luxury of big close up camera shots to convey the actor's subtle changes in facial expression to the guys sitting up in row G of the grand circle (until we get the daniel fish or jamie lloyd versions of les mis i guess. a girl can absolutely dream). going into "i dreamed a dream" right after fantine has gone "DON'T THEY KNOW THEY'RE MAKING LOVE TO ONE ALREADY DEAD!!!!!" is not only kind of redundant and repetitive storytelling wise in a stage version that can't afford to whisk her away to a whole other scene to continue the story, but like. she's JUST done her big dramatic belt for that point in her story. we can't just go and do it again. it wouldn't feel the same!
so yeah. i'm not disagreeing with you that it was a perfect choice for the movie - i just began thinking about why and got thoroughly carried away!
do you have more ideas about your ideal SAA movie? ':3 would it be animated/what style or live action or a secret 3rd thing? any notes about VAs/actors/please do tell me about the soundtrack or any details you've thought about, i need to flesh out the daydream in my mind /silly!!
WAHHH… beautiful question thank you… this is what life is all about, talking about wild daydreams with friends 💭 this got a bit long but I’m NOT putting it under a readmore. you all MUST look at my words /silly
Scales and All movie would most def be live action! These characters are so real to me, they could be done the best justice in true physical form for sure. Charlotte and Dan’s dragon features would be done with practical effects as much as possible — I remember watching behind-the-scenes stuff for the show Sweet Tooth when it originnally debuted and thinking the remote puppetry they used for Gus’ ears would be sososo perfect for Daniel!! Obviously I am simply a lover of practical effects and feel like they make a movie feel a lot more grounded, though also it’s a lovely fantasy from the POV of like, being in the movie’s production and being able to be up close and personal with a giant dragon-Charlotte puppet that was painstakingly lovingly made for a single shot in the movie sdfghjhcghj
I picture the film having a fairly distinct directorial / cinematographical style that is able to set it more in the realm of magical realism before the dragon stuff shows up too. Idk how exactly to explain it but like, how Wes Anderson / Jared Hess movies feel like they take place in an alternate world where you’re simply able to suspend your disbelief more from the getgo. I imagine Grace and Hammie’s segments of the movie would have subtle differences in things like camerawork between them as well, I think Grace would have a lot more steadycam shots and Abraham would be filmed handheld more!! Also. TRANSITIONS BETWEEN THE POVS… honestly my biggest lament writing it as a comic ToT I want the narrative to flow seamlessly between their plots, with match cuts and overlapping dialogue etcetc… creative artful transitions!!! Thinking very Edgar Wright style / energy!!
For actors I really don’t have anyone specific in my mind! My favorite movies are ones where I’m not familiar with the cast before watching as it makes the characters feel more like real people to me, and I would want SAA to be the same. Though tbh I have always had an offshoot of the movie daydream where Grace is played by my IRL friend who relates to her a lot and is (currently, at least lol) in the right age range… kindof funny to imagine someone I actually know playing my Wife but this is Joshua Grace Lake we’re talking about! Not simply Grace iykwim. and anyways I wpuld trust her above anyone to give the authentic beautiful autistic tgirl performance of a lifetime <3
Soundtrack…. ough…… stares at my billion oc playlists. if i had it my way every song on there would make it in SDFGHJK I think at least one, but preferably multiple The Hunts songs would be in there. literally any song from Those Younger Days could work depending on the context!! obviously Remember Us is an Abraham and Daniel song, could be so good to have that in there and then juxtaposed w a diff song from the album for Dan/Grace… can’t stress enough though howw much I associate this story w this band’s discography in its entirety. It’s all perfect to me. A bit tonally different but I can also strongly imagine some of The Killers’ stuff scattered in there alongside, esp in certain pivotal plot moments!! When You Were Young is on Daniel’s playlist but I could also picture some others. I fear I can’t get more into listing specific songs or I’m going to think about it too hard and compose an entire list of them and when they’d play in the movie and I don’t have the timee for that LMAO /lh/silly
A big part of the movie fantasy for me in general is simply imagining SAA as an audio AND visual experience — even aside from music it’s so important to me to picture the ambient noises all around the characters, the birds in the trees and the waves crashing in the background… ALSO the cadence of everyone’s voice / how certain lines of dialogue are delivered ?? LIVES in my brain. I wish so bad we could all hear Adam’s sarcastic voice when he’s saying his annoying bs, Dan’s monotone, how fast Hammie talks… auaaahhhh… I need to see their microexpressions when they react to each other, their little movements!! The way Daniel and Grace WALK!!! augh. my movie
The original The Taking of Pelham 123 is on tubi. I love this movie but it is very 1970s cinema. It's also kind of iconic as far as the genre of "someone hijacks something full of people" genres go. 1970s American cinema was about showing dirt and using slurs and dynamic camerawork to try to seem more "real" even when the movie is Robert Shaw hijacking a subway car for money while Walter Matthau and Jerry Stiller are Transit Authority cops sort of annoyed by the whole thing.
Subway car includes stereotyped passengers and the movie is set like right as cities were forced to start employing women, and some tiny awareness of political correctness was there, but nobody actually was managing to be.