#Glass Onion is a prime example of that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yourqueenb · 1 year

Note

Out of all the mystery books on Choices, were there any that you found particularly fun and/or well written? I'm not sure if it's just me bcs it might be a matter of taste which is super subjective, but something about the way PB does mystery stuff feels kinda...lackluster? I'm not sure what exactly it is about their mystery books (like TUH and MAH), but while they're not necessarily terrible they usually don't feel super satisfying

It’s def not just you. Idk how many times I’ve talked about this, but PB can’t do mystery. I believe that 100%. Maybe in the very beginning they could because I remember enjoying Most Wanted. But I haven’t played it in forever. And all of their mystery books after that have been lackluster as you said. (And I do mean all of them, including VoS and CoP, which are fan favorites).

I think one of the issues is that they always feel the need to make us investigate whatever noble pursuit the person had along with their death. And they really play up the fact that the victim was basically a saint and loved by all. And it’s just like 9 times out of 10, I do not care. It gets annoying and old. One of the other issues is that they also always do the collectibles for clues and stuff. And it’s usually either that you need almost all of them to understand whodunnit, how, and why (see: TUH) or pretty much none of them because they’re actually just extra pieces of information that aren’t all that interesting (see: MaH). Of course the former is worse because paywalling plot/other important story aspects is flat out ridiculous. But the latter annoys me too because premium content should add something to the story, not just little factoids.

I think writing a mystery book is a balancing act. And we all know PB already struggles with balance outside of that. They don’t know how to set the stage, build intrigue, and stop throwing in red herrings to let the story come to a conclusion at the right time. Or if they do manage to build intrigue, they still can’t craft a proper twist that feels shocking but makes sense/is believable at the same time. So that’s why VoS had a good setting/all that suspense throughout, but fell flat in the end. And that’s also why MaH never really found it’s footing as a mystery to begin with imo.

Didn’t intend to write an essay, so last issue I’ll speak on is the fact that PB also rarely writes good villains/a good dynamic between the MC and the villain. I think what their mystery books are missing is the feeling that whatever we’re investigating is a puzzle that needs to be solved. And one of the ways they could create that is by writing both villains/antagonists and MCs who are actually intelligent and fun to go up against/play as! It’s usually that the villain is 10 steps ahead. And not because he/she is particularly crafty but because they dumb MC down to drag the story out for 16-20 chapters. CoP is an exception because MC was actually pretty smart, but we had the dumbass murderer and her even dumber minion. So I truly believe that if we had characters who didn’t just bumble their way through the story and were legitimately formidable adversaries to each other, we would have a lot more fun maneuvering around the obstacles/red herrings/etc. thrown at us and solving the mystery OR being surprised by the twist/resolution but able to pick up the breadcrumbs and connect the dots after it’s revealed

#choices #choices stories you play #playchoices #choices app #choices ask #of course they don’t *have* to do the whole ‘the villain is a mastermind’ thing to write a good mystery #Glass Onion is a prime example of that #but (excluding MW bc I don’t really remember what happened in that book at all) PB has never done an intelligent villain/MC combo—#— in their mystery books imo #so I just think that would be a lot of fun #but even if they never decided to do that there are still a number of things they could do differently #to make their mysteries not so mediocre #but I’ve been on my soapbox for long enough 😭#I’ll just say that if it isn’t already clear I do not think any of PB’s recent mysteries are particularly well written anon #there are certain aspects that made them fun — namely the LIs and/or MCs #but as you said the mystery parts themselves aren’t terrible they just aren’t satisfying either #and I’ll also say again that MaH specifically should’ve been like a 5-7 chapter slasher that’s it

13 notes · View notes

noxhominis · 1 year

Text

I have to say this now, because Sherlock Holmes is trending and I am celebrating more than I did this Christmas. I watched Knives Out and Glass Onion and it made me realise something crucial about Holmes. He is fundamentally a good person. Does he sometimes behave a little bit like he doesn't care? Yeah. And does he solve cases because he wants the thrill and the mystery? Yep. But I would argue that he mainly solves cases because he wants to help people. His first case was when he helped his friend. Later we see multiple instances of this happening again and again (him being a genuinely good person). I have said it once and I will say it a million times— Sherlock Holmes is interesting because he is a smart guy who is NOT an asshole. He is (mostly) considerate to people, and their feelings. He takes cases to help people. The prime example that springs to mind is Copper Beeches, where he didn't think Violet Hunter had anything interesting to say about her case. But he still agreed to hear her out. And many times, he has done things for people, solved their mysteries without any money. Now you could say that he is not concerned about money at all, except we have seen him squeeze the king of Bohemia. He takes high profile cases to pay the bills, normal cases to solve puzzles, and the really simple mysteries because he wants to help people. I may have talked about this in another post and used the example of Twisted Lip, and Blue Carbuncle to say how he let criminals (of a sort) go solely based on his moral judgement.

The reason why I bring this up in the same breath as the Knives Out films is because of Benoit Blanc's character. That man is very polite unless he absolutely needs to be rude or has been driven to the ends of his patience. You know, like a normal person? And I loved how it just completely avoided the trope most modern mysteries, crime thrillers, and detective stories fall into. I like to call the trope "The Genius Asshole Syndrome". And it just sort of stigmatises really really smart people for not having social skills by twisting them into something mean and uncaring. And so many modern adaptations of Sherlock Holmes fall into that. And yes, BBC is one of them. So do the Ritchie!verse movies. They make Sherlock Holmes act flippant towards other people, because such a genius cannot possibly care for the normal people. He cannot possibly appreciate other different versions of smart, because he is obviously a genius and a genius is always an asshole, and not empathetic at all. So it was really refreshing to see a detective who cared about his clients, and vulnerable people. It was nice to see a detective get angry on behalf of a defenceless person. And it was very nice to see a detective not wanting to fuck a female client who is maybe half his age. (Plus the gay thing worked out great). I really feel like we need more genuinely good, kind, and helpful people in fiction, and now that Sherlock Holmes is completely in public domain, we can hopefully get something that is faithful to his actual character instead of the two dimensional grim dark detective dynamic. And maybe modern media can give us other detectives who are actually human, and have all basic human emotions? Just a thought.

#sherlock holmes #acd sherlock holmes #acd holmes #bbc sherlock #rdj holmes #ritchieverse #glass onion #knives out #benoit blanc #detectives #mystery #analysis #??? idk #anyway i really love mysteries #as my blog name suggests #so this was something I just wanted to say #hurray #public domain

591 notes · View notes

aggro-crap · 1 year

Text

Every thought I’ve had while watching Glass Onion again

I have a million thoughts about Glass Onion and I need to get it off my chest!

First of all, I really need the people calling Blanc’s accent “bad” to just stop. He is from Louisiana...his name is fucking Benoit Blanc for fucks sake! That’s a Louisiana/Cajun accent. For those who don’t know, “southern” isn’t a singular accent the same way “european” doesn’t describe any specific accent. It’s a generalization. Every southern state has slightly different accents and cadences that define each region.

SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT

So Miles Bron is obviously a clear depiction of Elon Musk, we see details hinting to other billionaires as well through wardrobe and props. The very first scene shows Claire getting her box from Miles delivered by an Alpha Courier van...Amazon Prime anyone? Even his clothes throughout remind me of billionaires like Musk and Steve Jobs.

Duke’s mom calling him dookie cause he’s a piece of shit. And then casually solving the “genius” puzzles from across the room, she’s a treasure.

Yo-Yo Ma giving us a little lesson in classical music. This entire movie is a name drop.

Blanc in the bathtub on a zoom with Natasha Lyonne, Stephen Sondheim, Angela Lansbury, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. How the hell do they know each other? Did he solve cases for them? Does he know them through Phillip? And the hesitant denial when Phillip asks if he’s in the bath again is pure domestic excellence, that is his home now.

As someone who worked retail throughout the pandemic, I had a visceral reaction to Birdie’s sparkly mesh “mask” (and then she has the audacity to say she can finally breathe again when she doesn’t have to wear it at the pool!?). With each mask and the way they’re wearing them (or not wearing them) we know exactly what kind of person each one of them is. Though I can’t quite figure out why Andi isn’t wearing one, either to facilitate the scene with that dramatic reveal or does Helen make the conscious decision to not wear it because Andi wouldn’t have worn it? Also high tech snap bracelets? Sure I guess.

Approaching the island Lionel asks if the dock is a Bansky, and the captain says “piece of shit” and just lets him believe that’s the name of the island in greek. That shit is so funny. But also, wouldn’t having a glass dock be totally slippery and dangerous? Like I can just imagine his contractors telling him its dangerous and not advisable to have it set at low tide and him just being like I know more than you just do it my way!

The way Duke pimped out Whiskey to try to get Miles to do what he wants just kinda breaks my heart. It shows that he knows she’s smart and capable but the uncontrollable hurt on his face when he sees them hug is gut wrenching. I cannot believe I feel bad for this dude, Rian Johnson you are masterful.

The look on Miles’ face when he sees Andi arrive on the island and then when he sees her again after he shoots her is fucking priceless. It’s very ‘why won’t this bitch die?’ Either she chose not to tell him she had a twin sister or this is just another example of his stupidity.

Derol. Just Derol. I saw someone else on here mention that he’s a personification of covid and it blew my mind. He’s always drinking Corona and saying ignore me I’m not here? Fucking genius. He almost accentuates the absurdity that is Miles Bron when he’s giving his little introduction speech and Derol walks through followed by the robot with everyone’s bags. I cackled!

Also I’ve never heard the term “flat tire” for an untied shoelace before and I will absolutely be using that from now on!

The hourly dong? Assigning rooms by chakra? His little bracelets and shit? Its screaming fake namaste bullshit.

Benoit is such a shady bitch for referring to the box as children’s puzzles having not really seen any of the puzzles because Helen smashed it. Easily one of my favorite moments in the whole movie.

Jared Leto’s hard kombucha...

I’ve never met a person with a serious allergy, let alone deadly, that does not carry an epipen for emergencies, like wtf Duke? But that fancy lil gun you got there never leaves your side cause you never know what’s gonna happen right?

When Blanc tells Birdie “It’s a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought for speaking the truth” and her only takeaway is “Are you calling me dangerous?” Like girl if he is then he’s calling you dangerously stupid! Which is absolutely the truth.

Miles handing Peg a red solo cup is sending me through the roof. That motherfucker had to go out of his way to get that for her! There’s plenty of glassware in that room and he just had to give her a fucking plastic cup like she’s not worthy of anything more. I could’ve killed him right there for that tbh.

The entire concept of Miles buying the Mona Lisa just because he can, and then installing his own override of the security built to preserve the most famous painting in the world which then becomes the reason it gets destroyed reminds me of Kim Kardashian ruining Marilyn Monroe’s dress for a fucking red carpet. She did it because she wanted to be associated with her, not out of love or respect for the actual piece of art. Don’t get me started about altering Michael Jackson’s clothes so her child can wear them. I’m not sure of the timeline but I think that was also something that happened after the movie was already done so I’m starting to wonder if Rian Johnson has some of that Simpsons prediction mojo.

I love how excited Blanc gets to reveal the mystery. Every time he is downright giddy, at least until he realizes how dumb Miles is which infuriates him because he hates dumb games.

Honestly building a literal glass onion on your own island because you miss you favorite bar where you met your friends and want to relive the glory days is one of the saddest and most pathetic billionaire antics I’ve ever seen.

Why did Claire’s husband call her and she ignored it? Is that the moment he got the news about Andi’s death? But Duke doesn’t get the notification until after she leaves the room.

I like how we’re constantly reminded of the Mona Lisa’s presence with the security door shutting in response to what’s happening in the room. It almost feels like an additional character.

I just love how the second act starts at exactly the halfway point. It really satisfies my brain having so much time to go back and dig through all those glass layers.

Who’s out here thinking that Phillip is a professional baker with all that flour on his face?! That man is just doing his best in a pandemic with a partner that lives in a bathtub.

Janelle Monet is so fucking talented it hurts

I don’t like the way Birdie shouted at Andi on the boat that she shouldn’t be there. Like wtf. But I love when Birdie shows Peg the email and she immediately knows that Birdie didn’t actually mean any harm she is just so dumb she really thought sweatshops are just a place where they make sweatpants. Peg is a real one.

That little notebook stopped a whole bullet wtf?

Omg why can I feel that drop of hot sauce running down my face

I really hope that after this at least some people start seeing through the lies and misdirection used by these billionaire con artists and politicians but I fear I may be asking too much of the general public. That’s why ben shapiro went on his little twitter tantrum about terrible writing or whatever. Like bro if you’re not smart enough to understand symbolism in cinema, especially when it’s literally spelled out for you step by step in this particular instance, then there’s this little thing called not saying anything at all. He just doesn’t want to be exposed for what he and others like him are actually doing. ~~misdirection~~

I’m sorry but if it were me I would’ve put that napkin in my pocket or something not just held it out for him.

Benoit Blanc really just gave Helen the tools to take that fucker down and just waited at the beach with Derol to watch it all burn. And finally smoke his cigar I’m so happy for him.

If there’s one thing I respect about Birdie its the respect she has for these pieces of history being destroyed, even when Miles drops Paul Mccartney’s guitar on the beach she’s like so concerned and I feel that.

My take away from this is that I am already so excited for Knives Out 3, I could watch an infinite amount of these movies.

#glass onion #if you read this whole thing im sorry lol #yes i did get stoned and watch for the 4th time to type this up #my brain feels better now

65 notes · View notes

tkblythofficial · 4 months

Note

So that’s the infamous BB in the flesh! Holy smokes! Oh, she’s kinda pretty.

Anyway, that’s where I break out in hives when fandoms people start picking sides. Fuck. Personally, I’d rather let things happen naturally than trying to force sh!t. Now if any thing, this might just entrench herinto that man’s going nowhere spiral. Look at HB for prime example. She’s obviously with him for her own reasons.

But Zygthera? I’m sorry, what? That’s what they calling them??

hahahahahaha

*pauses*

hahahaha

It’s so dumb (Daniel Craig voice from glass onion). She’s already with the bugger! You don’t need to ship them. God, it’s just dumb! People weren’t shipping them before! And its odd people are shipping them now. I’m going to say something a little complicated here so bear with me.

I think we’re also underestimating how much her boyfriend being Latino actually matters. Does R speak Spanish? I swear I read somewhere that she did get some mini backlash during her initially casting. Something about her not being Latina enough, i know despite being a far better choice than Natalie Wood lmao. Anyway, that probably lead her to the buggershe’s with now.

And, with t being an actual gringo...yeah. Not that it should matter but subconsciously it might to her. I also think that’s partially what’s fueling the fandom. In some twisted up-side down logic, they think people shipping R and T might be taking away from representation. And believe me, I don’t think even TB wants to step into that landmine.

BB is pretty to me!

But yeah. R and J have a ship name and it’s flops every time I see people use it. So unnecessary.

I think R does speak Spanish? Someone correct me if I’m wrong!

I don’t know what her other bfs look like but don’t think T’s being white affects anything imo! You like who you like. But it’s the same discourse when a woc gets with a white man. The woman is seen as “betraying” her race / ethnicity. It’s a silly argument.

Her and T aren’t getting together anytime soon. Also I don’t think T cares what the internet has to say personally! If people didn’t like him dating R, he wouldn’t care at all and date her anyways lol

#my answers #about r + j #about t

3 notes · View notes

superectojazzmage · 1 year

Text

Knives Out/Glass Onion really is the prime example of how terrible Tumblr is at advertising things or at least just getting me specifically to watch them because I’m absolutely certain that these must be very good or at least enjoyable movies, but the way Tumblr describes them just makes them sound like the most fucking insufferable and pretentious films on planet Earth, the movie equivalent of getting lectured for several hours by your douchey neoliberal college professor who thinks he’s God’s gift to discourse, to the point it genuinely kills any interest I’d have in watching them.

#knives out #glass onion #benoit blanc #rian johnson #movies #cinema #films #again I am absolutely certain that this is totally off base #and these are actually good films #but Jesus Christ man the way people describe them does not match the praise I see at all #and honestly makes it look like one of those things where nobody actually likes it #they just agree with the politics of it #which again isn’t what I think is really going on but it’s the vibe that’s unintentionally sent

10 notes · View notes

penny-nichols · 1 year

Text

I think there needs to be more modern whodunnit movies, especially more in like the cozy mystery vein. Like obviously I'm a knives out/Glass Onion fan and I think those are great and perfect examples of what I want. Sometimes you just want like.... Something a little less old than an episode of murder she wrote or one of the old miss marple movies, something with a higher production value, something that's 2 ish hours long...

I'm not even saying "movies set in the modern era" I'm just saying "movies made in recent years". I don't really want like... big action sequences or anything really I just want a weird lil dude running around solving things, and there is not enough Benoit Blanc right now to satisfy my need.

Anazon Prime has a "Mysteries and Thriller" section and its mostly just horror movies. One of the first things recommended to me was a French Agatha Christie adaptation series with no english subtitles. please. Im starving here.

5 notes · View notes

poormommamay · 3 years

Text

Buy Now Save Later

That’s the idea behind every cost-saving hack I’ve seen out there. A prime example--my husband needs specific boots for specific days of work. Two years ago, he bought a cheap pair that wore out within three months only being worn every few days. So he bought a similar pair that was also quite cheap. Same thing happened. We saved some extra money so he could buy an expensive pair, and while we saved he wore boots with holes in them. So far the expensive ones still wear like new even a year later. The problem with that, only being able to purchase quality if you save, is it doesn’t really work when you’re living paycheck to paycheck. So here are a few of the buy cheap and still save later tips that I either have used or am trying to use.

Planting from store bought veggies. Okay this one I admit I only started a little bit ago because plants, seeds, dirt--gardening is so expensive to start with. I cannot wait to have my whole yard full of veggies and berries and fruit trees but in the meantime we’re stuck with crossing our fingers that these tomatoes sprout and the plants aren’t sterile. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky. It’s really more of an experiment right now. You are far more likely to grow fruit-bearing plants with your veggies from your local farmer’s market.

Now I started with straight up planting tomato slices but you can regrow from a ton of scraps--potatoes and green onions are the first to come to mind--and saving seeds is fairly easy to try to plant later when you have the money to get good things for your dirt. And you can always compost your scraps to create your own good things for your dirt. Composting is kind of a long process but it is a good way to turn your waste into something useful that would be expensive otherwise. You can also do a kitchen planter with basic herbs--most are fairly easy to grow in a window and can continue to grow as you snip off bits of what you need.

When you’re at the store for food, try getting glass jars for jams or pasta sauce. Glass jars are excellent for storing your DIY cleaners, your leftover sauces, and just having more drinking glasses. I have a whole cupboard full of jam jars that I use for making tea or saving dried herbs. I have two great big pickle jars I keep for easier storing of dried beans. I have about a million little tiny jars from old tea containers that are now being used to store homemade baby food. The specific about it being glass--mostly because plastic tends to get a little funky odor to it after a while. Glass is just generally easier to clean.

DIY household cleaners, which I’ve spoken on a little bit before, are a remarkably easy way to skip expensive chemical cleaners. Clorox wipes are ridiculously expensive--white vinegar and lemon peels are fairly cheap. It’s also another nice use of scraps from the kitchen. You probably have baking soda anyway, so using that over going out and buying something specifically labeled “oven cleaner” saves you time and money.

Bar soaps are a big one. They’re usually about the same price and, I have found, last a lot longer. They’re also fairly easy to make yourself but that’s another expensive start--especially with the essential oils market being the way it is these days. Bar shampoo and conditioner is another fabulous swap because it lasts so much longer, though I will admit all the bar shampoos I have found are more expensive than their bottle counterparts.

With babies, regardless of the diaper route you go with, cloth wipes are way cheaper in the long run. You just need to boil some water and keep it in a spray bottle to use on baby’s butt when you go to wipe them. Baby wash cloths are fairly cheap and you’re probably going to want a lot of them anyway. With some set aside as designated butt rags, you won’t need to worry about buying wipes ever. Then they just need a rinse and to be tossed into a wetbag for laundry day.

Baby stuff gets expensive fast, and while you don’t want to cut corners on your baby’s safety, there are quite a few ways to cut costs out. One big one I’ve found is toys. Babies don’t need the latest and greatest, half the time my son is entertained by a cracker box with a couple dice tossed in to make noise. Making toys for young babies is fairly easy. A glove full of rice or cherry pits, a box with something in it that rattles, my son even gets distracted just trying to pick up my toes. Having some picture books on hand helps but your baby will listen to you read just about anything and that is vastly entertaining.

I know this wasn’t a lot of tips, but it is a nice start to cutting out some of the week to week costs. I’ve been trying to ease into low-waste living and found a lot of their tricks really help cut the cost of things--when they’re not pushing their zero-waste products on you at least. It’s a very delicate balance I think.

Anyway darlings, you have a wonderful day and a lovely weekend.

#Poor Momma May #budget living #low-waste living #low income parenting #low income living

4 notes · View notes

hellyeahomeland · 4 years

Photo

“False Friends” | Directed by Keith Gordon, Cinematography by Peter Levy

In case you hadn’t heard, Carrie smoked a few cigarettes this week. The opening of the episode is actually pretty interesting, the conversation with Yevgeny the previous night in the bar ringing in Carrie’s ears. (Carrie isn’t sleeping--again--and we all know that spells trouble for her.)

Carrie is, for the most part, a loner smoker. And a stress smoker. And a rooftop smoker, apparently! Here more than in previous instances where we’ve seen her smoke, the setting--all alone on the roof--visually represents her own headspace.

She flashes back to the scene we’ve seen several times already this season. This time, however, we finally see Carrie clearly. She speaks, she’s lucid. There is real fear in her expression, but also longing. The reveal of course is that Carrie is on her meds and in her right mind, and she doesn’t want Yevgeny to leave.

The camera turns to Yevgeny as Carrie’s dragged away. This is a shot we’ve seen already this season but, by the end of the episode, his expression takes on a different meaning. It’s not cold or detached. He doesn’t want to leave her either.

The repetition of this specific memory and the way it’s morphed over the episodes is remarkably similar to early season one Brody. We all knew the Carrie/Brody parallels this season would be heavy; the show is not only retelling that story with roles reversed but also using many of the storytelling devices they used in season one.

Then as now, the audience learns along with the characters what actually took place. First we learn that Brody actually did know Nazir; Nazir held him. Then we learn that Brody watched Tom Walker die. Then we learn that Brody is the one who beat Tom Walker to death (or at least he thought he did). The key difference obviously is that Brody was deceiving Carrie. Carrie is deceiving herself (or is she?).

IJLTP. (Any time this show does something with bokeh IJLTP.) (Bokeh is the way a camera lens renders out-of-focus points of light.)

We thought the framing of this particular shot was interesting. There are two blocks of color behind Carrie, orange and white, and her body lies squarely in the center of either, one half on either side. Maybe this was completely accidental, or maybe it’s symbolic and indicative of the way she’s being pulled in different directions. She also remains in the dark--figuratively and literally. In the first episode of the season, Carrie was often framed inside rectangular boundaries, now she’s half-in, half-out. Before, she felt trapped in the car, in her bedroom, in the fenced-in basketball court. Now, she finally gets some freedom (and maybe a dollop of “fresh” air, natch).

(There is a similar Mad Men shot that Sara thinks about at least weekly that conveyed something similar about Don.)

Linus Roache’s performance as David Wellington is fairly underrated. It’ll be interesting to see him in a context other than “Elizabeth Keane’s mouthpiece/bodyguard/sounding board/good cop/bad cop.” For example, this passive aggressive grin at new VP Ben Hayes when he makes a similarly passive aggressive comment about Princeton.

...or this side eye when Ben Hayes suggests firing Saul, a “Keane holdover.”

Carrie’s comment in the premiere that Mike was not an “alpha” looms large in this scene and throughout the episode. Carrie makes several comments about him finally doing the job the right way or her way. Their differing personalities and management styles are on full display visually here. Carrie towers over him, while Mike sits back, hands folded in his lap.

Also, as a logistics person, it bothers Gail that Mike has set up his desk so his back is facing the window. With all of that top secret intel on his computer, isn’t having the windows right there a problem? Is this an intentional nod to his incompetence or did the better lighting of his office for the crew win out? (Sara thinks it can be both.)

The Saul/Haqqani scenes this episode were uniformly visually stunning. First, the show continues its use of light to reinforce who knows what. Here Haqqani’s face is cloaked in darkness while light falls across Saul’s face.

Overall, Saul’s captivity plays out plot-wise obviously much differently this time than in season four. We’re struck as well by how different the mood is. Both men lean or hunch here. They’re tired, they’re old, they’ve done this before.

The slow pan around Jalal while he’s praying to reveal Tasneem is … *chef’s kiss* (and suggests so much her persona of being the ultimate puppet master, waiting around any corner).

More bokeh, more smoking. Smokehing.

There’s more mirroring between Carrie and Jenna this week, which is probably how Jenna intends to befriend Carrie (“Carrie smokes? I should too!”), but it actually just feeds into Sara’s theory that Jenna is going to “single white female” Carrie. We love the framing here of Carrie, back to camera (and to Jenna), and Jenna lurking behind her.

And some visual symmetry here. The camera shots of the two of them are often at a distance, speaking to the depth (or lack thereof) of their relationship. Throughout this episode we see a variety of different pairings between characters. The camera choices in these scenes illustrate closeness and proximity, or distance and mistrust.

In season four there were so many references to Saul losing his eyeglasses during the prisoner exchange. If you recall, he takes them off on the tarmac and Carrie picks them up after she convinces him to get up. Later, she returns his glasses to him just as their car is hit by an RPG. So, given that, two things:

Saul losing his glasses and then getting them back is almost certainly a harbinger of shit to come!

We absolutely loved the framing of this scene: Haqqani’s hands slowly coming into frame and gingerly placing the glasses back on Saul’s face. We mentioned above how different the mood was this time around with Saul and Haqqani and this gentle act seemed to encompass all of that.

Two old men, some (we, Jalal) would say past their prime, standing alone in the dark.

And the dark gives way to a new dawn, a new day. We’re about to break out into song!

But seriously, this was a gorgeously filmed scene. We do wonder how long they were waiting out in the mountains of Morocco for the sun to rise.

The scene between Haqqani and his son Jalal was the standout of the episode. It is such an eerie reflection of the end of “From A to B and Back Again” when Haqqani kills Aayan. That episode and its ending are at this point Homeland lore, which has the added benefit of making what was already a tense scene fucking unbearable.

We love the use of perspective and shot/reverse shot here.

The parallels with “From A to B…” continue. Then as now, Saul looks on, helpless, wearing a similar outfit but this time with his hands unbound. Then as now, Haqqani makes a spectacle of it all, when he knows others are watching (the Americans via drone in season four, his entire crew in the courtyard now).

The kiss to the forehead. At this point we were about 650% sure Haqqani was about to shoot his son in the head.

And he does pull out the gun. Jalal literally stares down the barrel.

Instead of killing him, Haqqani just throws him onto the street, which is maybe just as bad if you’re Jalal. The framing here is remarkable. Jalal stands in the center of the frame, back to the camera, ensconced in sunlight. He’s not awash in some heavenly light. On the contrary, it’s almost as if he’s just been spit out of it, cast out of the kingdom. It all seemed vaguely biblical, like a reverse Prodigal Son, though we’re not sure if that fits exactly. If you know, drop us a line!

We’re three episodes into the season, and we’ve gotten an “over Saul’s shoulder” shot in each one. This is now a theme!

Homeland is not a show that uses flashbacks that heavily (other than the aforementioned Brody/Nazir series from season one and when they de-aged Claire Danes by putting her hair in a half ponytail). They’ve been effective thus far, slowly peeling the layer on the onion that is Carrie’s Russian captivity.

As Yevgeny recounts Carrie’s suicide attempt, we see split-second flashes in her head. At first, the images are blurry.

And just a few seconds later, they come into focus for us as Carrie remembers. All this is obvious enough, but we also think the way that the focus on the images shifts so suddenly and the way the sequences are edited serve to disorient the viewer in the same way Carrie remains disoriented and confused about just what happened during the seven lost months.

This scene is notable for a few reasons. First, Carrie and Yevgeny remain so physically close. He leans into her. We also love that it’s more than just Carrie’s reaction to what he’s saying. We see Yevgeny’s reaction to her reaction, as well as his emotions in recounting it. He is remarkably free of judgment and shows legitimate, deep caring, possibly love, as he reveals one of Carrie’s darkest moments.

And while Carrie makes an offhand remark about her relationship with Brody being accessible information in her “file,” the fact is she never talks about him. Like, ever. (Sara maintains Carrie has a mental and possibly physical “Brody box” that remains sealed.) The significance of Carrie opening up to Yevgeny about what is--sorry, folks--the love of her life really can’t be overstated.

All we have to say about this is “ughhhhhhhhhh.”

We’re three episodes into the season, and we’ve gotten a “Carrie watches Yevgeny walk away” shot in each one. This is now a theme!

We really hope that the blaring red “ABSOLUTELY NO CELL PHONES” sign is a callback to when Brody infamously and inexplicably snuck his cell phone into the situation room in “Beirut Is Back,” allowing him to send a “DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!” text to Nazir just in the nick of time.

IJLTP.

Here is our Reverse Prodigal Son: lost and wondering, his face bloodied, bordering on delirious.

And here is Tasneem, her beautiful aubergine scarf blowing perfectly in the wind (sorry, Sara forgot to do Things Tasneem Wore This Week, but she thinks this aubergine scarf is beautiful), looking like a goddamn puppet master goddess, coming to save him. And by “save” we mean “control and manipulate.” Saviors really do come in all different flavors on this show.

#homeland #homelandedit #in the director's chair #keith gordon #peter levy #false friends #*#by: sara #by: gail

7 notes · View notes

newstfionline · 6 years

Text

‘We Are All Accumulating Mountains of Things’

By Alana Semuels, The Atlantic, Aug. 21, 2018

It’s easier than ever to buy things online. It’s so easy that Ryan Cassata sometimes does it in his sleep. Cassata, a 24-year-old singer/songwriter and actor from Los Angeles, recently got a notification from Amazon that a package had been shipped to his apartment, but he didn’t remember buying anything. When he logged onto his account and saw that a fanny pack and some socks were on the way, he remembered: A few nights back, he had woken up in the middle of the night to browse--and apparently shop on--Amazon.

He shops when he’s awake, too, buying little gadgets like an onion chopper, discounted staples like a 240-pack of gum, and decorations like a Himalayan salt lamp. The other day, he almost bought a pizza pool float, until he remembered that he doesn’t have a pool. “I don’t really need most of the stuff,” he tells me.

Thanks to a perfect storm of factors, Americans are amassing a lot of stuff. Before the advent of the internet, we had to set aside time to go browse the aisles of a physical store, which was only open a certain number of hours a day. Now, we can shop from anywhere, anytime--while we’re at work, or exercising, or even sleeping. We can tell Alexa we need new underwear, and in a few days, it will arrive on our doorstep. And because of the globalization of manufacturing, that underwear is cheaper than ever before--so cheap that we add it to our online shopping carts without a second thought. “There’s no reason not to shop--because clothing is so cheap, you feel like, ‘why not?’ There’s nothing lost in terms of the hit on your bank account,” Elizabeth Cline, the author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, told me.

Shopping online also feels good. Humans get a dopamine hit from buying stuff, according to research by Ann-Christine Duhaime, a professor of neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School. “As a general rule, your brain tweaks you to want more, more, more--indeed, more than those around you--both of ‘stuff’ and of stimulation and novelty,” Duhaime wrote in a Harvard Business Review essay last year. Online shopping allows us to get that dopamine hit, and then also experience delayed gratification when the order arrives a few days later, which may make it more physiologically rewarding than shopping in stores.

Sites like Amazon have made it especially easy to shop. In 1999, the Seattle retailer patented a one-click buying process, which allows customers to purchase something without entering their shipping address or credit card info. It launched its Prime program in 2005, and now more than 100 million people have signed on to pay $119 a year for “free” two-day shipping. As a result, most other major retailers offer free shipping too. Returning stuff is a little more difficult--shoppers usually have to print a label and then go to the post office or a UPS or FedEx site to return packages. Many wait too long, or decide the hassle isn’t worth it because the stuff was cheap anyway. A recent NPR/Marist poll found that nine in 10 consumers rarely or never return stuff they’ve bought online.

Justine Montoya, a caregiver in Los Angeles, buys all sorts of stuff online--baby formula, clothes, household goods. She estimates that she shops online twice a week. “It’s just so easy--you click a button, and it’s on its way,” she told me.

In the last few months alone, I bought an $18 smart watch from Wish.com that I will probably never use, a second Kindle because it was on sale and I am worried my first Kindle is going to die soon, an electric space heater I no longer need, and a pair of wireless earbuds that I had hoped would allow me to charge my iPhone and listen to music at the same time, but that instead just fall out of my ears whenever I put them on. I also bought, on Amazon, a (used) book about hiking in the Sierras for $1.99, only to find the exact same book in a box of my stuff in my parents’ basement. I didn’t return any of it.

In 2017, Americans spent $240 billion--twice as much as they’d spent in 2002--on goods like jewelry, watches, books, luggage, and telephones and related communication equipment, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which adjusted those numbers for inflation. Over that time, the population grew just 13 percent. Spending on personal care products also doubled over that time period. Americans spent, on average, $971.87 on clothes last year, buying nearly 66 garments, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. That’s 20 percent more money than they spent in 2000. The average American bought 7.4 pairs of shoes last year, up from 6.6 pairs in 2000.

All told, “we are all accumulating mountains of things,” said Mark A. Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He sometimes asks his students to count the number of things they have on them in class, and once they start counting up gadgets and cords and accessories, they end up near 50. “Americans have become a society of hoarders,” Cohen said. Montoya said she has more stuff now that she has started shopping online: “It’s easier to accumulate more, and it’s easier to spend more.”

At the same time we are amassing all this stuff, Americans are taking up more space. Last year, the average size of a single-family house in America was 2,426 square feet, a 23 percent increase in size from two decades ago, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. The number of self-storage units is rapidly increasing too: There are around 52,000 such facilities nationally; two decades ago, there were half that number.

Of course, not everyone is a part of this hoarding revolution. There are people who can’t or don’t shop online, because they don’t have credit cards or because they are barely making ends meet. Only about 29 percent of households with incomes under $25,000 are members of Amazon Prime, according to Kantar Consulting. Some people are embracing the zero waste movement, or have followed the example of the author Ann Patchett, who published a widely-circulated op-ed in The New York Times about how she resolved to stop shopping for a year. When she ceased buying things like lip gloss and lotion and hair products, she started finding half-used versions of them under the sink, and realized she hadn’t needed new things after all. “The things we buy and buy and buy are like a thick coat of Vaseline smeared on glass,” she wrote. “We can see some shapes out there, light and dark, but in our constant craving for what we may still want, we miss life’s details.”

But most Americans are not curtailing their shopping habits. And as consumers demand cheaper clothing, electronics, and other goods, manufacturers are spending less to make them, which sometimes means they fall apart more quickly. The share of large household appliances that had to be replaced within five years grew to 13 percent in 2013, up from seven percent in 2004. Cheap clothes might lose their shape after a wash or two, or get holes after a few tumbles in the dryer; electronics become obsolete quickly and need to be replaced. While some of this stuff can be recycled or resold, often, it ends up in landfills. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, Americans put 16 million tons of textiles in the municipal waste stream, a 68 percent increased from 2000. We tossed 34.5 million tons of plastics, a 35 percent increase from 2000, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency. Over that same time period, the population grew just 14 percent.

“Sometimes, people sit down and cry when they see the amount of garbage we produce in a day,” said Robert Reed, a spokesman for Recology, which handles recycling for West Coast cities like San Francisco. Centered in America’s tech capital, Recology has seen an increase in discarded electronics, including products with lithium batteries, Reed told me. In 2016, a lithium battery fire burnt down a waste management facility in San Mateo.

The 16,000 students who live in dorms at Michigan State University left behind 147,946 pounds of goods like clothing, towels, and appliances when they moved out this year, a 40 percent increase from 2016, according to Kat Cooper, a spokeswoman. The university packs up these goods and donates to them to its surplus store, so that incoming students can buy used, rather than new, stuff. In recent years, dorm cleaners have been finding so many packages of unopened food and toiletries that the university started a program to get students to donate leftover food and toiletries to local organizations like food banks when they move out. This year, it collected 900 pounds of personal care items and 4,000 pounds of nonperishable food items to donate. Pomona College has seen the volume of packages delivered grow by 325 percent in the last 12 years, according to Patricia Vest, a spokeswoman; it, too, asks students to donate unused goods to a resale program. This year, it diverted 42 tons of clothes, furniture, and office supplies.

The Internet has also made it easier to recycle some of the stuff Americans buy and no longer want. Online consignment shops like thredUP and Poshmark help people buy and sell clothes from their closets. Secondhand stores like Goodwill have moved online, too, selling the growing pile of goods they get on the Internet.

But the ability to easily get rid of stuff may be making people feel a little better about buying things they don’t need, and motivating them to buy even more. On a recent weekday, I stopped by the massive warehouse where workers from Goodwill of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin sort donations to Bay Area stores. Some of the stuff that’s been donated has never been used. Near the front of the warehouse stands a rack of clothes with their original tags on--a $245 blue Nicole Miller cocktail dress, $88 Kit and Ace pants, a pale green J. Jill blouse. “We are seeing items that have been barely used or not used, because when people shop online, it’s a lot of work to return it,” William Rogers, the president of the Goodwill, told me. Rogers himself is guilty--when we met at the warehouse, he dropped off four wall sconces he’d bought a year ago on Amazon. He had tried to put them up, decided they didn’t look good, and brought them to donate.

Secondhand shops can’t resell all of the donations they get. Cline estimates that 85 percent of the clothing that is donated to secondhand stores ends up in landfills every year. Just nine percent of plastic that ends up in the municipal waste stream gets recycled, according to the EPA, and only 15 percent of textiles get recycled. It can be difficult to take apart clothes and re-use the fabrics, Cline said, so lots of clothing in the waste stream gets sent to the developing world, used for rags, or sent to a landfill.

Fifty years ago, the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick coined a phrase for these “useless objects” that accumulate in a house: “kipple.” In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for the movie Blade Runner, he theorized that “the entire universe is moving toward a state of total, absolute kippleization.” Kipple reproduced, Dick wrote, when nobody was around. The ubiquity of mobile devices and the ease of online shopping have made Dick’s prediction come true, with one small tweak: Our kipple does not just multiply on its own, every time we turn away. We grow it ourselves, buying more and more of it, because we can.

#consumerism #shopping #shopping online #online shopping

1 note · View note

trastravels · 5 years

Photo

Venice Biennale

But the Venice Biennale isn’t only these exhibitions. For one thing there is Venice itself. And its museums. Don’t miss them as you roam the city’s narrow streets and skip from this canal to that on the vaporetti. The exhibitions that open at the Punta Della Dogana, the Peggy Guggenheim and the Palazzo Grassi at Biennale time, as well as the Prada collection at the Corner Della Regina, are not to be missed.

Indeed, Biennale visitors must have been impressed too because 150,000 of them toured the Turkish pavilion in the first two months. Perhaps because they saw themselves in it, the art world especially was enamored of Erkmen’s sculpture. But Plan B’s main concern of course is Venice. With the canals that give it richness, that brought it power and fame, and to which it literally owes its existence. Today as well they ensure that Venice remains a leading center of tourism. In them circulates the water that is the city’s protector and, slowly rising now, is also becoming its enemy.

Realized with Fiat sponsorship and the support of the Promotion Fund of the Prime Ministry of Turkey under the auspices of Turkish Airlines, and coordinated by the Istanbul Foundation of Culture and Art, the Venice Biennale’s Turkey pavilion is less crowded today than it was in its early days. If you go to the Biennale, be sure to visit this venue, crisscrossed with pipes of red, blue, green and magenta through which water is driven by a constantly humming motor. Perhaps you’ll even be offered a surreptitious drop of distilled Venetian water… Until November 27.

Health

Astrong immune system is the best way to resist the flu, one of winter’s most common ills.

And you can set up your protective shield by living an active life, avoiding stress and maintaining a varied and balanced diet. Start with diet and exercise, because they are the main factors you can modify.

You are what you eat, as they say. To make sure you are getting the energy you need from the proper sources, your plate should include half vegetables, a quarter lean meat and the other quarter homemade yoghurt.

Nature provides the nutrients that supply human needs. You should, for example, eat 5 to 9 servings a day of the nutrients that give color to fruits and vegetables since they enhance protection against bacteria and viruses. Pomegranates, kiwi and citrus among the fruits, and celery, pumpkin, carrots, red pepper, red cabbage, onions, garlic, spinach, chard, radishes, broccoli and cauliflower among the vegetables should be consumed frequently in winter. Natural antibiotics onion and garlic especially should be consumed in large quantities, if possible by swallowing a clove of garlic every morning.

The liver and intestines, which metabolize the nutrients as well as cleansing the body, are the virtual bastion of the immune system, and should be reinforced by special cures. Keep yours in shipshape as winter approaches by mixing 10 stalks of flat leaf parsley and the juice of half a lemon in a glass of water and drinking it regularly twice a week on an empty stomach for liver health. To enrich the intestinal flora and prevent constipation, make use of probiotics.

You can simply take advantage of the probiotic yoghurt and dairy products, muesli, kephir, pickles, traditional homemade yoghurt, boza (a fermented millet drink) and apple vinegar that are available on the market. To increase your fiber intake, have some fresh or dried jujubes, pears, apples, apricots or prunes and a cup of herbal tea as an in-between meal snack.

Don’t neglect your protein sources either, but be sure to choose lean ones. The amino acids that are the building blocks of proteins foster the basic health of cells and develop the immune system. Choose things like white meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dried legumes and soy-based products that are free of saturated fats.

Source: https://private.tourguideensar.com/venice-biennale/

0 notes

flightandhotel · 5 years

Photo

Venice Biennale

Health

Astrong immune system is the best way to resist the flu, one of winter’s most common ills.

Source: https://private.tourguideensar.com/venice-biennale/

0 notes

surftravel · 5 years

Photo

Venice Biennale

Health

Astrong immune system is the best way to resist the flu, one of winter’s most common ills.

Source: https://private.tourguideensar.com/venice-biennale/

0 notes

beautytravels · 5 years

Photo

Venice Biennale

Health

Astrong immune system is the best way to resist the flu, one of winter’s most common ills.

Source: https://private.tourguideensar.com/venice-biennale/

0 notes

tripadvisorbg · 5 years

Photo

Venice Biennale

Health

Astrong immune system is the best way to resist the flu, one of winter’s most common ills.

Source: https://private.tourguideensar.com/venice-biennale/

0 notes

skitravels · 5 years

Photo

Venice Biennale

Health

Astrong immune system is the best way to resist the flu, one of winter’s most common ills.

Source: https://private.tourguideensar.com/venice-biennale/

0 notes

banskotravel · 5 years

Photo

Venice Biennale

Health

Astrong immune system is the best way to resist the flu, one of winter’s most common ills.

Source: https://private.tourguideensar.com/venice-biennale/

0 notes