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dankusner · 4 days

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New Linklater

Hit Man

In a film by Richard Linklater loosely based on a true story, a philosophy professor finds his calling as a fake professional killer for police stings.

Among the greatest pleasures of dedicated moviegoing are those moments when a performer, new to you (or so you think), knocks you out with their charisma, mien, physicality, or some combination of the three.

That’s especially the case when the actor proves to be the sole source of enjoyment in an otherwise wearisome film.

The only time I snapped out of my catatonia during 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, for example, was when Glen Powell, in a supporting role as cocky naval officer Jake “Hangman” Seresin, was on the screen.

Born in 1988, this handsome, gingery millennial actor impressed me with his particular style of butch confidence, a quality I associate with an earlier era, and a trait that stood out all the more whenever Powell had a scene with the now utterly unappealing, consistently overcompensating Tom Cruise.

Powell called to mind the assured yet relaxed masculinity of Paul Newman and other leading men who ascended in the early 1950s to late ’60s (an era bookended by the Method and New Hollywood).

But I’d seen that face a few times before, as a scan of Powell’s IMDb page later revealed: he was a member of the ensemble cast of Everybody Wants Some!! (2016), Richard Linklater’s delightful 1980-set hang-out comedy about college baseball players.

The collaboration between Powell and Linklater, both from Austin, Texas, had begun a decade prior, when the actor, then in his teens, had a bit part in Fast Food Nation.

In 2022, Powell voiced a NASA official in the director’s animated Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood.

Now they have teamed up for Hit Man, with Powell in the title role and with a script written by him and Linklater, their screenplay a loose adaptation of a 2001 Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth about Gary Johnson, a fake contract killer on the payroll of the district attorney’s office in Houston and a social studies instructor at a local college.

A week before the press screening of Hit Man, I caught up with Anyone but You, the noxious romantic comedy starring Powell and Sydney Sweeney released late last year, in which he has all the allure of a fin-tech bro at last call.

Where was that sly charmer who had so captivated me in Top Gun: Maverick?

I was optimistic that he would return in the latest by Linklater, a prolific filmmaker whose Bernie (2011), also based on a Hollandsworth true-crime profile for Texas Monthly, stands among his best and gave lead Jack Black one of his greatest roles to date.

Powell’s magnetism flashes only occasionally in Hit Man—a bit ironic, considering that the movie centers on someone who, as part of his law-enforcement work, must constantly put on a performance, adopting a host of outlandish personalities to convince those who would hire him that he is a genuine assassin.

Swapping Houston for New Orleans, the film opens with Powell’s Gary, a prof of psychology and philosophy who sports sexless khakis and an unflattering curtain of sideswept bangs, amiably lecturing his students about the construct of identity;

these classroom scenes appear intermittently, belaboring an already obvious point about the self’s mutability.

When not on campus, divorcé Gary leads a dull domestic life with cats named Id and Ego, eats cereal for dinner, and fills his leisure time with reading and birdwatching.

Yet, as Gary informs us via voice-over, he also supplements his academic salary by doing surveillance work for the NOLA police department—a gig that takes an unexpected turn when he is asked to step in for the just-suspended cop who had previously served as the faux killer-for-hire in sting operations.

The unassuming humanities scholar discovers he has a talent for inhabiting outsize personas.

These segments rarely rise above generic buffoonery, with Powell—an actor playing a nonactor who must put on various masquerades—going bigger and broader against scene partners portraying often hackneyed versions of Deep South yokels who want to off various intimates (one exception: undercover Gary’s funny exchange with a pubescent boy who can offer only a stack of loose change and Mortal Combat games as payment to have his mom snuffed out).

The episodes become even more enervating owing to Gary’s redundant off-screen narration, once again needlessly spelling out what is already abundantly clear:

“I was too shy to go out for the school play. But now I’d found my stage. And each arrest was a standing ovation.”

Powell and Linklater’s storytelling strategies in Hit Man are in distinct contrast with those in Bernie, which the director wrote with Hollandsworth.

In the earlier film—about a beloved mortician, Bernie Tiede, in Carthage, Texas, who kills his benefactress, Marjorie Nugent, a millionaire widow loathed by all in the hamlet—an array of characters, including several Carthage residents playing themselves, proffer opinions about this odd duo and Tiede’s trial.

The polyphonic approach adds bracing specificity and unpredictability; more crucially, this Greek chorus ensures that Tiede remains a complex, contradictory protagonist.

Gary’s chipper first-person voice-over, on the other hand, clangs as too beseeching, an anxious bid for the viewer’s approval.

Hit Man works best when the focus is on Gary and Madison (Adria Arjona), a woman in an emotionally abusive marriage who meets with the sham murderer to discuss icing her husband.

Gary, operating under the identity Ron—an alpha stud in shades and bomber jacket—immediately falls for the distressed woman and violates protocol by convincing her to leave, not kill, her spouse.

She’s keen on him, too—Ron, that is, not Gary, who now must never break character as the two fall deeper in lust.

Yet Madison, we later discover, is also maintaining a charade.

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In this noirish mode, the film’s dissembling lovers never quite suggest a twenty-first-century Walter Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson, but Powell and Arjona do generate heat together, significantly raising the temperature of this lukewarm project.

My own fervor for the actor may not be as high, but Powell-as-Gary-as-Ron gave me hope that my zeal could be reignited.

#Youtube

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bitronic · 2 years

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im in my sideswept bangs era

#im lying i was in it for most of my formative years #mumbles #some things never change.......

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thelasttime · 4 years

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okay but that can we talk about the 1989 hair though. the PERFECTLY side swept bangs? cultural reset i think. My 14 year old ass tried so hard to convince my mom to let me get the same hairstyle but she didn’t let me :/ (“she has hairstylists! you don’t!”)

i recently chopped my hair to that length and i already had the bangs (not sideswept but she did go through a phase of full-on bangs in the 1989 era) and HIGHKEY it has been one of my best decisions because my hair is so manageable now

1989 era was ICONIC, definitely made sense with the entire theme which was already very put together. i think that's why the 1989 era seemed so...perfect because her hair was never frazzled or anything

#asks #anonymous #asking you this*

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taylorswiftstylequestions · 6 years

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this is going to sound super random but why do you think Taylor prefers having bangs? I personally love Taylor with bangs, I just think it’s kind of funny how every time she goes for a new look, since ~officially~ getting the bangs for Vogue in 2012, she goes back to them. Like at the start of 1989 she had grown her bangs out and had more of a sideswept look, but then right around the time shake it off was announced and even on and off during tour she had the bangs again.

it’s also interesting that even when her hair wasn’t cut for bangs, she was experimenting with them. Like in 2010 for the Back to December promo/single photos, and then again when she performed the song live, and on the red carpet. And once again with Rep we went back to the bangs. Personally I think 2012 Red Era is the best her hair has ever looked so I’m not complaining. I’ve just always wondered why the preference. My friends who have had bangs almost all couldn’t wait to grow theirs out.

Lol this is an interesting observation that she keeps coming back to the bangs. Particularly, as you’ve noted, most people who get them can’t wait to grow them out. Perhaps the full bangs is Tay’s One True Hairstyle she’ll always come back to lol.

#tsser #opinion #Anonymous

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licensedlesbian · 7 years

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Hey there, I'm kind of new to Tegan and Sara as a group and you seem to know a lot about them! If you don't mind me asking, how can you tell the difference between the two of them, both physical attributes and personality-wise? Thanks! :)

You have come. To the right place lmaoo.

Tegan-Physical Attributes:I’ll start with Tegan. Tegan has more of a square jaw and wider facial structure making her eyes seem a little father apart (her eyes tend to also look a little bulgier) and the rest of her facial features a little more spaced out. Tegan also has a bent ear. Her arm tattoos resemble more of a continuous sleeve, and are much more colorful while Sara tends to opt for more spaced out, black and grey tattoos. She also had the labret piercing up until recent years, but sometimes you can see the scar where it used to be but it is not to be confused with the birthmark Sara has in the same place. She is also slightly taller than Sara and in pictures tends to be the more dominating force (i.e. - putting her arm over Sara’s shoulder while Sara has her hands held together)

Personality Attributes:Tegan to me has more of a confident, flirtatious aura. She tends to be more outgoing and giggly. She’s very emotional and open about it, from what she’s said she’s more of an affectionate and caring partner that likes spending time with her s/o. Her tweets tend to have more emojis and a sense of easygoing humor. Her lyrics feel more honest and raw right away while Sara’s tend to hit you harder when you can decipher what she actually means through all her poetic language.

Sara-Physical Attributes:Sara has more of an angular and sharper jaw. Her face is more narrow and her chin is pointier. Compared to Tegan her facial features are closer together and her eyebrows are more straight with only an arch at the end while Tegan’s seem to arch upwards angularly more to the middle of her eyebrow. Sara in most pictures tends to be solemn and straight faced while Tegan sports a smile. While they both have amazing cheekbones and jaw lines, Sara’s seem to be more intense and striking due to her narrow face. Also basic ly2d info differentiation: Sara has the blue make up, she now has the shoulder length hair. Tegan has the green make up, she now has the short hair.

Personality Attributes: Sara is more reserved and feels more shy and quiet. She tends to be deeper in her lyric writing and more poetic while Tegan is more direct and upfront. Sara tends to be more introverted while Tegan is extroverted, Sara enjoys reading and being at home with her two cats Holiday and Mickey. She claims to be less emotionally attracted to her partners. She’s probably more negative, even if jokingly, than Tegan with a darker sense of humor while Tegans feels more sexual and easygoing. Her tweets tend to feel like they’re in a slightly more formal tone.

Other Small Facts (bonus)- Tegan or Sara?:Dating:Past-Sara married and divorced Emy Storey, other notable girlfriends include Kaki King. Tegan dated Lyndsey Byrnes for about 5 years. Current-Sara has had the same girlfriend of 6 years, Stacy Reader whom she lives with along with their 2 cats. Tegan is suspected to be dating Sofu Snow. Haircuts/ Looks by EraUFLO:Sara has blonde / frosted tips and an eyebrow piercing. Tegan has brown hair and the labret up until heartthrob. TBOA/ IIWY: These eras aren’t easily distinguishable when they kind of jump from their UFLO haircuts to longer more natural haircuts SJ:Sara has the longer bangs that cover her eyebrows. Tegan has the choppier, straight across bangs near the top of her forehead. TC:Tricky. For the most part they have the same haircut. Sainthood Sara has a short pixie cut, transforming into the bowl cut for a short period. Tegan has shaggier, shoulder length hair. Heartthrob:Sara still has pretty much the same haircut. Tegan cuts her hair to Sara’s length but styles it in a more curly/ wavy do. LY2DPretty much the same at album release until recently. Sara: shoulder length hair with the sideswept bangs. Tegan: short hair with the undercut.

I hope this helped!!! I’ll add more stuff later if I can think of other key things! Corrections are appreciated and welcome. Edit: Tegans current girlfriend is suspected to be Sofu Snow.

#I literally spent 30 minutes on this please appreciate #mine #Tegan and Sara #reference

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mspinkpetite · 7 years

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Trends of January

Hey guys 👋🏻 Today I'm gonna tell you the latest trends of January!! So here we go...... FASHION —•—•—•—•—•—• CIRCULAR CUTOUTS It's too cold for crop tops so why not try this? BIG BAGS As much as we love a stylish mini purse, these oversize totes and bags have stolen our hearts. Also, what’s to complain about a little extra space anyway? MAKEUP —•—•—•—•—•—•• GLITTER ✨ LIPS Glitter was the eye-catching lip finish of the season, and makeup artists coated models' pouts in sparkles of varying sizes EYE GLOSS Lids were similarly shiny, slicked with an almost-wet finish. Use a sheer product to keep the eyeshadow from looking messy as it moves; this one isn't meant to be long-wearing! HAIR —•—•—•—•—•—•—•—• BANGS Fashion month had a major brush with bangs, from wispy to sideswept to blunt. BRAIDS Braids are a runaway runway hit each season, and this time around, we witnessed them in every iteration on the catwalk. Favorites included the intricate updos tied off with yards of velvet ribbon at Erdem and the flowing Botticelli braids at Valentino — but these are all super pretty plaits worth trying, stat. YOUTUBE CHALLENGES —•—•—•—•—•—•—•—• 1000 DEGREE KNIGE CHALLENGE Well this is an odd one, but you know youtubers their job is to do that! This is the 1000 degree knife challenge basically you heat a knife to 1000 degrees with A LOT OF BLOWTORCHES and then you cut into things! I mean this is soooooooo stupid but REALLY FUNNY so that's that. BEST BOOKS OF THE MONTH —•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—• BOOK NO.1 Gr 3–7—Russell, author of the best-selling "Dork Diaries" series, returns with an even dorkier character. Fans may remember Max Crumbly from Tales from a Not-So-Perfect Pet Sitter. Max, who was previously homeschooled by his grandmother, is having a hard time adjusting to life at his new public school. Max's biggest problem is a bully named Doug "Thug" Thurston, who traps him in his locker right before a three-day weekend, leaving him as the only witness to the sinister activities taking place while the school is closed. The story ends on a cliffhanger, a sure sign that this is not the last of Max Crumbly. Kyle Beltran's animated portrayal of Max helps bring the text to life so listeners (almost) won't miss Russell's amusing illustrations. VERDICT Recommended for "Dork Diaries" fans. BOOK NO.2 A young boy named Otto lost in the woods is rescued by three sisters imprisoned there by a witch's curse. In return, he promises to help break the curse by carrying their spirits out of the forest in a mouth harp and passing the instrument along when the time is right. The narrative shifts to the 20th century, when the same mouth harp (aka harmonica) becomes the tangible thread that connects the stories of three children: Friedrich, a disfigured outcast; Mike, an impoverished orphan; and Ivy, an itinerant farmer's child. Their personal struggles are set against some of the darkest eras in human history: Friedrich, the rise of Nazi Germany; Mike, the Great Depression; Ivy, World War II. The children are linked by musical talent and the hand of fate that brings Otto's harmonica into their lives. Each recognizes something unusual about the instrument, not only its sound but its power to fill them with courage and hope. Friedrich, Mike, and Ivy are brought together by music and destiny in an emotionally triumphant conclusion at New York's Carnegie Hall. Meticulous historical detail and masterful storytelling frame the larger history, while the story of Otto and the cursed sisters honor timeless and traditional folktales. Ryan has created three contemporary characters who, through faith and perseverance, write their own happy endings, inspiring readers to believe they can do the same. SPORTS —•—•—•— (Cricket) The ODI happened recently and India showed their real colours! ODI 1: This was at Maharashtra cricket association, Pune India won by 3 wickets which was really good! ODI 2: Barabati Stadium, cuttack India won by 15 runs also very good! ODI 3: Now this was not needed since India won the ODI series but yet did it anyway! This was at Eden Gardens, Kolkata England won by 5 runs! And that was the ODI series! So that's it for the month trends or I'll see you next month !! Xoxo Avi

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