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overleftdown · 4 months

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farleigh analysis part 2, because the first post wasn't enough. this is going to cover all scenes set at oxford university that i find significant to my understanding of the character (this ended up including pretty much every scene with farleigh in it). once again... buckle up.

[0:03:48] farleigh: oh, he's got the scarf. hey, cool jacket! and the tie?

starting off with a banger! this is farleigh's first line, his introduction as a character. this is how the viewers are intended to see farleigh, at least for this portion of the movie. this is what i'd consider an outer-circle perspective of farleigh, how the majority of his classmates understand him as a person. catty and casually rude. it's significant how surface-level and mild this introductory piece of dialogue is. farleigh is pointing out how hard oliver is trying to appear mature and scholarly, because farleigh is too nonchalant to try hard to fit in (haha).

[0:07:10] farleigh: i'm so sorry. got completely lost- hi, nice to meet you. so sorry. tutor: you're farleigh start, i take it. nice of you to join us, finally. you're not a, uh relation of frederica start, by any chance? farleigh: uh, shes my mother. tutor: no! i knew her when i was your age, when we were both here! when she was frederica catton, before she went to america. farleigh: no way! oh my god, i'll tell her! she's gunna be thrilled that i'm being tutored by one of her friends.

and again, an outer-circle perspective. here you can see the supposed influence of farleigh's family title. "when she was frederica catton," signifying the beginning of the end of frederica's social rappour. farleigh is a product of his mother's abandonment of everything the catton's stand for; wealth, coldness, heartlessness. however, from this perspective, the one we've been introduced with, farleigh is still hiding in the ghost of his mother, before she moved, before she had him.

[0:07:48] tutor: not sure we ever spoke. farleigh: ...oh.

HEHEHEHEHE. i giggled.

[0:08:48] oliver: so you're picking apart the style of my essay instead of the substance? that's kind of... farleigh: kind of what? oliver: lazy? farleigh: it's completely valid to debate the rhetoric of an essay. it's not what you argue, but how. tutor: great point. oliver: yeah, especially if you haven't read any of the poems.

i think this dialogue is incredibly fitting for farleigh's character. as in, it represents how farleigh interacts with people at oxford, with the cattons. picking apart the style rather than the substance, because it's not what you argue, but how. using that comparison, oliver pointing out that farleigh clearly didn't read the material is synonymous with farleigh being clueless to how and why the cattons truly tick. this makes farleigh's socializing hollow by nature. whereas oliver... he does his research. he learns how the cattons function, what motivates them, what their dynamics are. he doesn't play into style or rhetoric; he doesn't need to.

[0:13:11] felix: oh, there he is! oliver! ollie! oliver, come here, mate! yeah, come here. come here. what? come here!

farleigh's face visibly drops, and he sits up straight where he's sitting beside felix. he's not disgusted, nor offended. he looks anxious. a few seconds later, as felix says "this is my fucking hero, right here," farleigh is giving oliver the gnarliest look. he's fidgeting with his hands, and you can see him swallow. i think he looks a healthy blend of angry and exasperated. as it's made known later in the movie, felix has a notorious savior complex. farleigh knows exactly what's happening.

[0:14:00] (shots) you can see that, between the last timestamp and this one, farleigh has been displaced to the other side of the table. previously, every single sighting of felix has farleigh glued to his side. standing right next to him. farleigh on the opposite side of the table as felix is very indicative of the very real threat that oliver poses to farleigh's stability.

[0:14:10] farleigh: it's your round, man! oliver: i should go to bed. farleigh: wait, no no no. you can't snake your way out of a round. oliver: i'm not. farleigh: it... looks like you are.

the most important thing about this scene that i'd like to point out is that oliver would not have, and should not have, stayed for his round if it wasn't an intentional plan. the nature of "buying rounds" was made clear and is clear. he reasonably shouldn't have stayed and specifically left when it was his turn to pay. that's gnarly. that's generally just rude.

[0:14:30] felix: farleigh. farleigh: what? felix: just cut him a break, mate. farleigh: what? felix: that round's gunna cost a fucking fortune. farleigh: pub rules, felix.

yes, i understand that farleigh is being intentionally confrontational. but felix consistently falls flat when "combating" the judgmental attitude of his family and classmates. although he did exactly what oliver wanted him to do by paying for the round, he lacks a genuine purpose behind his verbal condemnations. felix wants to believe he is morally better than his family, the people he surrounds himself with. because of this, he lacks passion. farleigh surrounds himself with whoever felix surrounds himself with; he has become part of felix's background noise. he has become another steppingstone to felix's upward climb to righteousness. another blurring, booing voice, antagonizing the people felix protects and defends.

[0:16:09] felix: yeah, well you know farleigh basically grew up with us. oliver: i didn't know you and farleigh were cousins. felix: mmm, my aunt, farleigh's mum, ran away to america when she was 19 to escape the cold-hearted english. ciggie? oliver: eh, i don't smoke. farleigh: dear aunty fred married a lunatic who pissed everything she had up the wall and a fair chunk of dad's money, too, until he had to finally cut her off.

(oliver did know that farleigh and felix were cousins tbh what a liar, can't believe he would lie like that. unbelievable. truly criminal).

at 0:16:10, farleigh watches felix and oliver sitting with each other at a party. this is played behind felix's voice-over, as he tells oliver about farleigh's family history. i find that so emotionally impactful. jealousy is a hard emotion to read on someone's face, but almost always, farleigh just looks sad. i often see him glancing down; this can often mean disappointment, insecurity, deep thought. at 0:16:27, you can see him briefly scrunch his eyebrows together as he watches felix light oliver's cigarette. he looks confused, judgmental, or surprised. the only thing i can compare this to is taking a bite of food that you didn't expect to taste horrible.

i wish we got to see more of farleigh and his mother, or at least what their dynamic entails. we know he asks (begs) james and elsbeth to give frederica money. we know that frederica was either too kind or too weak to cope with her family. we know that she was well-loved at oxford, or at least had some admirers. i find it poetic, that frederica ran from the english, and now her son is running back in place of her. i also wonder about farleigh's dad. there's no mention of him, past this scene; but if he's no longer with frederica, why would she still be cut off by the cattons? are the cattons really that cold to her, or is frederica still married? curiosity, man. i'm about to start making stuff up on the spot.

[0:16:42] felix: well dad, you know, he felt so guilty about the whole thing that he decided that he would pay for all of farleigh's education. oliver: lucky farleigh. felix: oh, fat load of good that's done him. he's been expelled from almost every school in england for sucking off the teachers.

at 0:16:50, farleigh is shown with a woman on his lap. she's more adult than farleigh. i think it's relevant, considering the voiceover.

i think an important word in this dialogue is guilt; it's a strong motivator among the cattons. yet, it's an inconsistent one. because the cattons guilt is so external as opposed to internal, there is a threshold at which their guilt feels resolved. they just have to convince themselves that they are charitable and therefore good. there is no real understanding of love, and what comes with it. there is no intrinsic need to support their family, simply because they are family.

i don't know what to say about farleigh and his relationship with authority. clearly, he has an unhealthy attachment to transactional and exploitative relationships. how does that complex interact with his social life? his family life? to live surrounded by money and to surround your life around money creates a need to quantify everything. it means you're trying to understand what you're worth, and what your actions are worth. this can also be a testament of farleigh's character; is he just unwilling to put more effort into school? is he unable to compete with the schools that he's attending through money instead of merits? yes, james is paying for his education, but since when? how long has farleigh attended school in england, and what schools did farleigh attend in america? there's a large difference in education. i digress. i find this detail about farleigh significant and upsetting in a lot of ways, and it would be just as upsetting if he really did just prefer transactional sex over doing his homework.

[0:22:27] (oliver sees felix at the bar without him) and this is where farleigh regains his place next to felix. the framing of the shot specifically includes farleigh and felix, centered together on screen. oxford is the only period in this movie where you can truly consider oliver and farleigh mutual threats. this is the limbo, where both of their minuscule actions could change the course of their relationship with felix. oliver and farleigh are both intimately aware that only one of them can exist at felix's side, only one of them can be felix's accessory. oliver's motivation to be in this position is infatuation. he hates what felix represents and loves felix as an individual. is this the same for farleigh? how much is farleigh motivated by his love for his cousin? how far devolved is their relationship, since farleigh realized he needed to play a game just to be treated with compassion by his family?

[0:26:30] farleigh: oh, nice tux. oliver: thank you. farleigh: wow! it's a rental, right? oliver: yeah- farleigh: yeah. yeah, the sleeves are too long. always check the sleeves! but still, not bad. i mean, you're almost passing. oliver: for what? farleigh: i don't know! a real human boy.

he's so petty, it's hilarious. there's not much to say about the majority of this interaction, other than the fact that farleigh is overcompensating for his own social insecurities. to be expected. i like that last line, though. "you're almost passing for a real human boy." does that have anything to do with oliver's poverty? maybe it's just a jab at his fashion choices. i think it's also safe to say that farleigh finds something legitimately unsettling about oliver. or maybe he really is just prepared to give felix's new project a tough time. there are a few reasons for farleigh to go out of his way to make felix's friends uncomfortable or inconvenienced; almost all of them are petty. venetia does the same. elsbeth, who shares felix's habit of hosting people, seems thoroughly entertained by oliver.

farleigh's oxford era is hard to get a read on. he's truly just... rude. he's also scared. his dynamic during the school year with oliver is so compelling to me, because oliver is still in a place of deep instability. he almost lost felix halfway through the year; he needed a high card to win him back. farleigh doesn't play cards, though. that's one of the biggest differences between the two characters. for all their similarities, the only action against oliver that farleigh seems to have is being mean. oliver is driven by an obsessive ambition to control, interfere, dominate. during the school year farleigh is shown, repeatedly, that he just wants to get through it. he's coasting, truly. he slides right back into place next to felix when the spot opens up, and he stays in the background. again; all style, no substance. no research. the cattons were never a game, to farleigh. they were just an uphill battle. they were his family.

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cryptwrites · 2 years

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Statement #0162806

(UNOFFICAL) formatted more as a script as i write these in google docs

CW: Cannibalism and Murder

[BLAKE]

I’m surprised they even let you near me. I haven’t had real human interaction except for the fucking pigs outside in years.

[ARCHIVIST]

I was told you’d only give your confession to me? Why?

[BLAKE]

Because my confession isn’t something anyone but you, or your institute would believe.

[ARCHIVIST]

I see. Uh, Statement of Elizabeth Blake regarding the murders of 15 people in 2012. Statement recorded direct from subject 28th June, 2016. Statement begins.

[BLAKE]

I had a normal childhood. I played games with the neighborhood kids, I participated in clubs in school, I made honor roll every year and served as secretary at my high school. It was my college year, I was studying Anthropology at Oxford. I usually went thrifting on the weekends because I really couldn’t afford to shop anywhere else. On one of these weekends I was looking through the books they were selling, and one caught my eye, it was a thick red book, the cover felt like cloth. The title was in gold on the front, reading “Human Diets”. I wouldn't have even thought twice about it, but it looked so… clean? It was clean. It wasn’t worn at all. I mean I knew it was old but it looked brand new. Untouched. I opened it and there was a plaque on the inside cover.. I think it was from some german library, I cannot remember which one it said.

[ARCHIVIST]

(Sighs)

Was it the Library of Jurgen Litner?

[BLAKE]

Yes. That was it. Anyways, I don’t know why but i bought it, it was only a few cents and the cashier didn’t even remember putting it on the shelf. So I went home and put it on my shelf and promptly forgot about it. I only remembered it was even there when I had a friend over and they asked about it. I told them I didn't know what it was and waited for them to leave, flipping through those pages, it was a cookbook. It wasn’t a normal cook book though. It used Human Meat. There were recipes for anything you could think of, popcorn chicken, grilled steak, pepper stuffed pork. Anything, all made out of human meat. The weirdest part is that this didn’t freak me out. I set the book down onto my kitchen counter and picked up my phone.

There was this boy in my literature class who liked me, William, I called him and invited him over for dinner. I do not know why I did it, I just, did. When he got to my apartment, we watched movies and did normal date night things, the poor boy was clearly shaking from anxiety. I told him it was time to prepare dinner and he smiled. I still think about that smile. I stood up and walked to my kitchen, I asked him how steak sounded for dinner and he let out the smallest noise of agreement i’ve ever heard. I gently played around with the knives in the block, before turning back to him, and asked him for a dance. He stared at me for a second, an expression of confusion and embarrassment crossed his face just for a moment before walking over to me. You know… I think that’s the first time I had ever felt loved. Truly loved.

I cannot even remember what song was playing but I remember that he went to kiss me and that’s when I did it. I saw the cook book lying on the kitchen counter and I grabbed the small paring knife out of the knife block and sliced the back of his neck. Slicing someone’s skin open requires a lot more force than you think it would, but it was so smooth, I felt him freeze up as the blood dripped onto my hand and down his back. He started to stumble back before I lunged the small knife fully into his neck and pulled it back out.

William stumbled onto the floor desperately grabbing at his neck, trying to stop the bleeding. I could see him try and scream but I must have hit his vocal cords with the second stab as no sound came from him. He bled out pretty fast, and as he did I opened the cookbook and turned to a Garlic-Rosemary Steak recipe. I pulled the herbs it called for out from my cupboard and turned on the stove. I’ll spare you the details, they’re all in the official police report anyways, but I turned to William, and I cooked him. Bones and all. Now, I need you to believe me, I did not want to kill him. I think I even liked him. I cried out as soon as I realized what I had done.

I didn’t leave my apartment for weeks. I threw my phone away, I kept my door locked but every time I tried to get rid of that damn book I couldn’t. It wouldn’t let me. So I just sat. In my apartment. I grew deeply ill. Like I was starving. Which couldn’t have been possible as i was eating just fine, but when i checked in the mirror I looked… so thin. Like a living skeleton. You could count my ribs. I didn’t look well. I looked at the cookbook and I knew. I knew it was doing this. I needed to kill again. I needed it so bad. But I didn’t want to. But if i didn’t it was gonna kill me. I swear. That book would have killed me... eaten me… So I did. I went out to a bar, I picked up this girl named Nancy, she was sweet, I invited her back for dinner and I killed her. I then cooked her.

I didn’t even touch the food afterwards. I felt, so sick at what I had done. I was so tired. I washed the blood off my clothes and I fell asleep. I woke up the next morning and it was gone. The food was gone. And I knew. I knew the book ate it. I sat, and I stared at my kitchen. It was spotless. You couldn’t see, any trace of a murder. The dishes were cleaned, the knife was spotless. I realized I didn’t feel as sick as I had and I knew I couldn't stop feeding it. Otherwise it would feed on me. I tried to go as long as I could without killing. I killed only when I could count my ribs as feeding it seemed to… feed me.. in a way. I stopped eating entirely after a while. Still don’t.

I went on to kill 13 more people. I remember all of their names, in some weird twisted way, they are my family. I feel horrible for what I did and i regret it everyday, but if I didn't, it was going to kill me. It was going to eat me from the inside out. I need you to tell the family that I'm sorry. I never got the chance either. I just need them to know I'm sorry.

[ARCHIVIST]

What happened to the book?

[BLAKE]

Oh I don’t know. When I was arrested I never saw it again. It didn’t even come up in court. Which, for a cannibalistic cookbook, you think it would. They only convicted me because the man who was supposed to be my 16th was a cop. Hunter his name was, real handsome fellow. He saw me pull the knife and before I knew it I was pinned against a wall with my hands cuffed behind my back. I thought he was just a little… erotic until I heard his identification.

[ARCHIVIST]

The book, Elizabeth.

[BLAKE]

Yes, sorry, It stopped feeding on me. But I still have the scars it left on me. And I don't eat. Don’t think I can. Last time I tried, I had to go to the infirmary. Apparently, I don't actually have a stomach, and most of my organs are not intact. The few doctors that they allow to see me do not know how I am alive. And only a few of the staff know about it. I don’t even know if I can die. And they won’t kill me so I very well could be spending the rest of eternity in here. Until someone kills me. Or the book does. If it still can.

[ARCHIVIST]

Did you ever eat your victims?

[BLAKE]

Once. The 12th. Her name was Abigail Decker. I killed her on the 27th of October. It was while I was cooking, I didn’t even realize it at first, but you know when chefs to that thing where they taste their food while it’s cooking to make sure it tastes good? Yeah. I finished cooking and I went to go to bed to let the book do its thing. Kept it happy. I didn’t even register it until the next day when I felt so.. so sick. I ran to my mirror and tore my shirt off, and everything looked fine, I looked healthy. I was so confused. Did I do something wrong? Did I make it angry? No. No I couldn’t eat. I shouldn’t have eaten. I’ll spare you the details but I was a mess by the time I clawed it out of my body. It was strange. I didn’t even bleed.

[ARCHIVIST]

Is that all? That’s your confession?

[BLAKE]

What? You want a shorter version?

[ARCHIVIST]

No I-

[BLAKE]

I, Elizabeth Blake, killed 15 people, attempted 16 in 2012 due to a cannibalistic cookbook from a german Library. That’s my confession, Archivist.

[ARCHIVIST]

Thank you, Elizabeth. Take care.

[BLAKE]

You as well Archivist.

[ARCHIVIST]

Statement Ends.

SUPPLEMENT

[ARCHIVIST]

Elizabeth Blake is clearly a very distressed, disturbed individual. What worries me the most is the Litner she talked about. It drove her to kill 15, almost 16 people and she got away with it for a year. I decided to respect her wishes and had Tim and Martin reach out to the family’s to let them know her message, of course they weren’t pleased to hear from her, but Tim is good with people. She seemed genuinely regretful. Scared even. Everything from her police report reflects exactly what she told me, minus the book. She killed and cooked people. If I would have taken this statement a year ago i would have brushed it off and decided the Elizabeth just wanted fame, but it’s the mention of the Litner and how… scared she sounded talking about the idea of it killing her that makes me want to believe her. I asked Elias if he knew anything about the book and he said he had indeed heard of it but never came into contact with it. Unsurprisingly, last he heard Michael Crew was in possession of it.

End Supplemental.

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omgbigfluffwriting · 3 years

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Let me by myself chapter 2

A/N: This was written for @reidgraygubler as part of Pom's server fic swap. I combined one of her song prompts with one of mine for this oneshot! This takes place in the fourteenth season.

Summary: Reader can't help recalling Reid's childhood proposal.

Family

"Remember that one Christmas?" Spencer asked out of the blue as we were snuggled up to keep warm while watching Disney movies after midnight. I frowned. "Which one?" I asked, not remembering.

"That one Christmas I explained the meaning of a spinster while we tried waiting up for Santa." Spencer replied. Now I remembered. That was the only Christmas he had been permitted to spend with my family and I before his father left when he was ten.

[Start memory]

Christmas Eve:

"I won!" 5 year old me cried out when I finally checkmate Spencer in chess. My nose twitches like a bunny's.

“Don’t get used to it, Sparkles, it’s only cause you’re cute when you twitch your nose.” I stick my tongue out at him. "And that's not lady-like at all."

"Don't have to worry, I'll be a spinster when I grow up!" I chirp happily.

"Um, Y/N, do you even know what a 'spinster' means?" He asks, looking worried for me.

"Yeah, I'll spin yarn for a living." I said as I pick up one of my books.

"That's not the meaning of the word." He said as he put away my dad's chess set.

"Is so." I challenged him.

"It means, according to the Oxford dictionary, an unmarried woman, typically an older woman beyond the usual age for marriage." he murmured. I didn't notice it at the time but as he says the definition, regret shines in his eyes.

"...I don't want to be unmarried!" Now I'm crying and Spencer tries everything to get me to calm down so that my father can sleep, since he works the midnight shift and has to work Christmas night.

Finally, he says, "If we're both unmarried by 30, I'll marry you." very quietly. This does the trick to calm me down.

"You're just joking." I mumble.

"I'm not joking, Sparkles. I promise if we are both over 30 and single, I'll marry you. I'll even pinkie-swear to it." He offered. I look up at him with doubt in my tear stained eyes. He's the biggest germaphobic dork I know! Why would he choose me anyway at that time?

[End memory]

"Yeah, so?" I asked.

"I wanna make you smile

Whenever you're sad

Carry you around

when your arthritis is bad

All I wanna do is

grow old with you

I'll get your medicine

when your tummy aches

Build you a fire if

the furnace breaks

Oh it could be so nice Growing Old With You

I'll miss you kiss you

Give you my coat when you are cold

Need you, feed you

Even let you hold the remote control

So let me do the dishes

in our kitchen sink

Put you to bed when

you had too much to drink

Oh I could be the man

who grows old with you

I want to grow old with you"

Spencer finished singing off key and I gave him a confused look. Spencer didn't sing well. "I thought we'd already planned that." I replied. Spencer sighed.

"Well, I know we're not 30 yet but I want to make it official." He said handing me an open ring box, much to my shock. "Now, how long are you going to keep me on my knee like this?"

"Yes!" I exploded happily.

"How's studying for Criminal Psychology going?" He asked as he slipped the ring on my finger.

"You can give me a pop quiz anytime, Doc." I teased. The last few times he'd given me a pop quiz, I had played dumb just to listen to him ramble. He's quite cute when he rambles.

"Difference between M.O. and signature." He murmured.

"M.O. is short for Modus Operandi, which means the way in which the crime was committed and signature is that beyond that it takes to commit the specific crime." He inclined his head to mean that my answer was correct.

"What is the BAU's stance on nicknaming a serial perpetrator?"

"It's an unwritten preference that the BAU has due to it potentially making the situation worse with usage." Spencer nodded.

"Please tell me you weren't playing dumb. Name 3 possible indicators of lying." Spencer murmured, looking down at the file on his desk. I ignored the first part of his comment.

"Change of head position, repeating certain words or phrases and shuffling of feet." I responded, looking through a catalogue. Spencer looked at me but inclined his head again.

"What does left-leaning writing indicate?" He finally asked.

"The person generally likes to work alone or behind the scenes." I responded without thinking. I looked up at my boyfriend, who had an exasperated look on his face.

"You knew the answers this whole time didn't you?!" He asked.

"You're the profiler, what do you think?" I shot back. He sighed.

"Why?" He asked, looking down at a file.

"Because I love listening to you when you ramble." I said quietly. "I find it cute." His head shot up.

"You're never getting me to shut up, then." He replied dryly, grinning like an idiot. "But don't *ever* play dumb with me again." I nodded in reply, thinking about the precious little secret I carried inside of me. "Y/N, you're grinning like a cat whose gotten into the cream."

"Am I?" I joked.

"Y/N..." he said softly.

Suddenly, I get an image of Spencer trying to keep a tiara on his head as our daughter and he had a princess tea party. The image was too hilarious to take and I burst out laughing. "You might want to practice wearing a tiara." I told him through my laughter.

"Why would I...Oh. Are you really?!" He asked excitedly. I nodded, still grinning like an idiot.

"I'm ten weeks along." Ten weeks ago was Christmas, I remember as he placed his palm on my flat belly.

"I can't believe we're pregnant!" He exclaimed happily.

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watching-pictures-move · 3 years

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Put On Your Raincoats #20 | Squalid Motels and Desperate Gals, courtesy of Kim Christy

This review contains mild spoilers.

When I first heard of Kim Christy, I knew I had to delve into her work. Here is someone who was involved in the drag scene in the '60s and went on to direct and produce pornography from the '80s onward. She's also a trans woman director (and occasional actress), which is not just unusual in golden age pornography but even mainstream cinema today. Unfortunately, figuring out where to start was a challenge. There's a very good interview with her on the Advocate but which doesn't really delve into her directing work. So I did the highly risky and ill-advised move of scanning through the titles in her filmography and trying to pick out ones with interesting sounding premises. Even this was a challenge, as a lot of her movies sounded like they didn't have a terrible amount of story. (A good many of them also had certain slurs in the title, which are unfortunately common in trans pornography.) So out of the crapshoot of movies I picked, I can't say I really got to the bottom of what makes her work interesting or even gelled to most of them, but hopefully I can convey what makes the ones I did take to interesting.

To start with the most slight, the two Divine Atrocities movies are basically a collection of sex scenes. There's a theme of dominant women running through them, but otherwise there isn't much tying together in terms of staging, aesthetics and the like. The segments have titles like "The Leather Lass Tamer", "Rubber Rampage" and "Ms. Degradation", but truth be told, nothing here is terribly shocking. So there isn't a lot to either of these movies, but if you're watching it for those reasons, they're enjoyable enough. A few of the segments feature trans performers, and I did find that Sulka had a nicely imposing screen presence in her scene, and while Sugar Nicole briefly threatens her partner with her "big black cock", I did like that for the most part the movies don't discern between these scenes and the ones with cisgender performers. In the eyes of Kim Christy, there's room for everyone in this great sexual melange. Also notable is the threesome scene with Janey Robbins, who (after likely reading Dan Savage's column) tells one of her partners, "If you don't find a different way to fuck me, you can forget it, I'll have to find somebody else", and in the first time in the history of civilization, gets mad at her male partner for not climaxing quickly enough. "You always say it'll only take a few minutes. Time is the only thing I can't replace, and it always takes too long."

A bit more substantive narratively but less interesting is Momma's Boy, with a premise that you can guess based on the title. Tantala Ray presides over a brothel set during an indeterminate period, where she presides over her girls and also her son, who mysteriously became a deaf-mute at a certain point of time. Why did her son become a deaf-mute? Will we ever find out? Spoiler: it's incest. Tantala Ray does have a weird enough screen presence to make her parts watchable, but this has none of the charge that, say, Taboo brings to the same material. (It's worth noting that Ray in this movie, looking like a debauched queen of Mardi Gras in one scene, is a camp villain while Kay Parker plays her role straight in the other movie.) As it's shot on video, the movie is not very nice to look at, and the dirt cheap production values make it unclear whether this is supposed to be a period piece. Some of the dialogue is amusing ("Oxford?" "Guess again." "Princeton?" "Try Biloxi Tech, my sweetie."), and there is some old timey music and one of the clients wears an ascot at one point, so it's not a totally squalid affair. (It's classy, see? He's wearing an ascot.) As the son, Jerry Butler does a cringe-inducing lisp, but I did chuckle at his last line.

A bit easier to recommend is True Crimes of Passion, where Janey Robbins plays a private detective (cheekily named B.J. Fondel) who invariably bungles her investigations and winds up in sex scenes with the people she's supposed to be investigating. "Out of the fog and into the smog" begins the overwrought voiceover, which truth be told doesn't compare to the likes of Chandler but I guess the effort is nice. The first case involves her investigating the wife of a minister whom her client suspects of infidelity. Surprise, surprise, it turns out the wife has a girlfriend with whom she has dominant sex. Thanks to Robbins' investigative prowess, she gets found out and forced to join the proceedings and ends up getting her client, a Dan Quayle looking motherfucker in a cowboy hat, captured as well, which leads to an incredible burn.

"The lord will punish you for this."

"The lord already has, he gave me you for a husband."

Also, when Robbins is forced into cunnilingus, she says over narration, "Oh Christ, I'm not even sure I've seen one of these things up close", and yeah, okay, Janey.

The second scene is probably the most notable as it features Christy as a performer. Robbins visits her friend to investigate a death threat against her friend's brother (also Robbins' ex), and the twist can be deduced when you start wondering why a seemingly minor character gets an unusually large amount of screentime. The scene features a trope that likely isn't terribly sensitive by modern standards, but I get the sense from that Advocate interview that Christy isn't too hung up about such things and one must concede that the film is a product of its time and genre (and within that context, there's a lot worse out there). The last scene has Robbins spying on her neighbour in hotel to get some industry secrets, which leads to some really awkward dialogue about champagne and then a threesome involving her client and mark. Like the work of Yasojiru Ozu, this scene breaks the 180-rule, but I guess if this is your thing, you might enjoy it. At the very end, the mark just gives up his secrets to the client. The secrets of male bonding sometimes elude me.

Easily the most accomplished and enjoyable film from Christy that I watched was Squalor Motel. It combines the sexual variety of the other films with a sense of camp and grounds it in a distinct, memorable location. There isn't much more "plot" than the other movies, as it's basically about a motel concierge doing her job over the course of a day, but as it follows her bumping into a variety of (usually horny) guests and finding herself in amusing (and unfailingly sexual) situations, there's enough of a narrative through line that it feels like a "real" movie where the other movies strained for similar effect, and the movie uses a soundtrack of icy synths and jazz that sounds like imitation Angelo Badalamenti to give it all an alluring vibe. I'm gonna make a wager that David Lynch would have liked this movie. Look, I have no idea what his viewing habits are or what sends his motor running, and the thought of him jacking it furiously to this or any movie is not something that brings me pleasure. But this shares some of the campy tone and surface qualities of his works, and I also wanted to leave you all with that image.

Why does the motel have its own house band (to whom people try to listen to while they engage in all kinds of sexual congress)? Why is Jamie Gillis made up like a vampire and trying to sell marital aids? Why does the one guest's blow-up doll turn into a real person (and prove, uh, extremely vocal during their scene)? Why is the owner wearing a pig mask and a tutu while he spies on his guests? Why is everyone laughing at the newlywed? Why is the one scientist with a Hitler mustache and his shrill-voiced assistant conducting experiments (read: having a threesome) with Tantala Ray? And how are most of these things taking place in the mysterious Reptile Room in the middle of the motel? With an extremely winning Colleen Brennan in the lead role (sporting a pair of thick glasses, a Lucille Ball updo, and a big, toothy smile), we'll have a pretty good time finding out. Like a lot of hardcore movies, this is pretty episodic in structure, but its distinct atmosphere gives it a nice sense of momentum as it drifts from scene to scene.

With its nice production design (and the fact that it seems to have actual sets, rather than being shot in what I assume are people's homes like in the other movies), Squalor Motel feels a bit more upscale and lavish than the average porno. While I don't have any budgetary information handy, I do know that the production had an assistant director, Ned Morehead. To what extent he contributed to the movie's DNA I can't say for certain, but the directorial effort of his I watched, also produced by Christy, had many of the same qualities. Desperate Women starts off feeling pretty stylish with its spraypaint style opening credits (although it loses a bit of style when it misspells star Taija Rae's name as "Taja Rea"). Taija Rae plays a reporter who ends up wrongfully convicted for a murder and thrown in brutal women's prison presided over by the sadistic Tantala Ray, who seems to get her jollies from spying on her prisoners as they get it on or abusing them with the help of her dimwitted guard. During such incidents, the guard frequently ends up ejaculating on her uniform as a source of comic relief. (One such scene ends with a shot of a photo of Ronald Reagan.) I must however disclose, without revealing too much about the shameful inner workings of my hopelessly degenerate mind, that the denouement of scene involving Ray, her guard and Sharon Mitchell did not leave me unmoved. Mitchell plays a prisoner who befriends Taija Rae, and it's worth noting that despite being one of the best actresses in classic porn, she's saddled here with an atrocious Hispanic accent and at one point sings a bit of "America" from West Side Story.

By porn standards, this is actually quite well produced and has a relatively sturdy narrative. (I must however note that one scene has a blatant ejaculation-related continuity error.) Women in prison movies tend to be pretty squalid affairs in general, at least in terms of production values, so this doesn't feel too far off from the real thing and offers more explicit versions of the same pleasures, while its sense of humour gives it a nice campy quality. Tantala Ray especially delivers in a pleasingly over the top performance as the teeth-gnashing villain (the camera often frames her severe face in wide angle close ups), and say what you will about Sharon Mitchell's accent, I did like seeing her pop up in here. With all the flamboyance and excitement around her, Taija Rae almost becomes a supporting character in her own movie, although I must confess that I found her character's hopeless naivety pretty cute. ("I didn't wear rubbers, it's sunny out".) With a fun cast, a firm handle on the genre's pleasures and a groovy soundtrack, this is a pretty good time.

#film #movie review #put on your raincoats #divine atrocities #divine atrocities 2 #momma's boy #true crimes of passion #squalor motel #desperate women #kim christy #ned morehead

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