#epistolary romance film

[gregor-samsung]

The Lunchbox (Ritesh Batra  - 2013)

#The Lunchbox #Ritesh Batra #Irrfan Khan #Nimrat Kaur #art #epistolary romance film #cinema of India #Indian movies #love #Nawazuddin Siddiqui #Lillete Dubey #Nakul Vaid #Hindi film #Mumbai dabbawalas #romance #meals #letters #friendship #めぐり逢わせのお弁当 #Bhutan #Nasik #Maharashtra #food #Saveurs indiennes #美味情書 #Sefer Tası #Amor a la carta #Παραδόσεις αγάπης #Los sabores del amor #Ланчбокс

[doctorprofessorsong]

Destiel Fic Recs

Sorry it's been a moment. I was finishing up my Moulin Rouge vibes monsterfucking Taylor Swift inspired extravaganza fic featuring blood freak Sammy, a touch of horror and a huge cast of characters for @dcbtv . (Read it here!)

But fear not! I have a fresh list of fics recs just for you. <3

The Trouble with Blue Eyes by FriendofCarlotta @friendofcarlotta (Explicit, 14k)

A film noir pulp fiction detective story so atmospheric you will feel like you are seconds from a mysterious dame busting into your office.

Dean and Cas are detectives in the same town. When they happen to meet on competing cases, things heat up. They become friends with benefits, but over the years they both catch feelings and neither one of them knows how to handle it. Will they be able to solve the Case of We Suck at Communication? More importantly, how do I marry this version of Charlie?

Frisky Business by imogenbynight @imogenbynight (Explicit, 13k)

A fun little Cas fic slash smutty one shot, this one is just immensely readable. When Dean and Cas find themselves hunting an apparently horny wraith, things get a bit complicated. Come for the fun wraith lore, stay for the smut!! It's a fun read with flustered Dean and soft dom Cas and a really fun case. What else could you want?

Of Lords and Letters by MalMuses @malmuses (Explicit, 14k)

Epistolary romance and Regency era Destiel? Catnip for me personally.

When Dean receives notice of his father’s death and his inheritance of the family's estate, he finds himself in a dilemma. He doesn’t want to abandon his regiment in the war, but someone needs to look after Winchester Hall. Luckily, a friend of Sam's, Castiel, is looking for employment and would be more than happy to serve as steward. 

But as their correspondence becomes increasingly intimate, Dean finds himself fighting not only Napoleon, but also his feelings. What will he find when he returns home?

creation myth by howldean @howldean (Teen, 5k)

This is a shorter fic for me to rec, but it manages to pack so much into it. The fic is an absolutely stunning examination of Cas and his relationship with his vessel when he's forced to leave it behind. It has all these beautiful gender feels. I am always a sucker for trueform Cas as well. 

But most of all, it's just deeply poetic. There are so many staggeringly beautiful lines as Cas grapples with who he is and where he fits. It's just absolutely gorgeous.

Devotion by FriendofCarlotta @friendofcarlotta (Explicit, 29k)

A Terminator AU. 

That's enough to make the list already, but also a full on delight of a fic. The angels, desperate to stop Dean Winchester, send one of their own back in time to kill him before he can become a threat.

But Dean sends his own rebellious angel back. Even though his grace is faltering, Cas is determined to keep Dean safe, but can he keep his heart safe?

doors unlocked and open by sidewinder @hawkland (Teen, 12k)

This one’s absolutely packed with amazing concepts. A post-Winchesters Destiel fix-it, Jack finds himself at a loss when he realizes that despite his best efforts, Dean can't seem to find peace in Heaven. He says he's looking for his family, but it's becoming increasingly clear he's specifically looking for one family member: Cas.

But Cas hasn't seen Dean since his big confession and he's not sure what reuniting will bring. Can Cas find the key to Dean’s peace?

Paper Moon by robotsnchicks @robotsnchicks (Explicit, 43k)

Life doesn't get any better than this. Dean's married to the love of his life and they've just put an offer down on their dream home. Everything is perfect. 

A little too perfect as it turns out when Dean wakes up to discover the last 4 years of his life were actually a simulation over the course of a week. He's devastated, most of all because he lost Cas. He can’t believe his husband isn't real. Refuses to believe it. He has to be out there somewhere and Dean is going to find him.

This concept could be extremely angsty, and make no mistake it does have some, but its surprisingly soft. A chance to find each other again, to start back at the beginning for Dean, to fall in love. 

Check out my other rec lists at @riversrecs

#destiel #deancas #destiel fic rec #deancas fic rec

[spider-xan]

There is a lot of thoughtful critique to be had about whether the epistolary format works for Dracula or not, and what its strengths and weaknesses are, but one of the negative points against it is the cursed commentary about how the Mina and Dracula romance actually did happen in the novel and is therefore book canon, explained by how Mina simply removed, destroyed, or didn't transcribe her journal entries about her feelings for Dracula and their romantic dates together, which is the interpretation the Coppola film runs with bc in the movie, Mina and Dracula go on multiple romantic dates together while she is engaged, and when she finally goes to marry Jonathan, we get a scene of her tearing the pages about her relationship with Dracula out of her journal and throwing them into the sea - and later, she secretly begs Dracula to perform the blood baptism on her so that they can be together forever, despite his reluctance, yet she still does the whole, 'Unclean, unclean!' reaction when Jonathan and the other men catch them in the act, as if it had been against her will like in the novel.

Like, yeah, that's definitely a thing you can argue, and the text, while not explicitly supporting it, technically doesn't contradict it either, as you can't prove the absence of something, and there's always the unreliable narrator reading of anything told from a first-person perspective.

The thing that doesn't really get addressed about this reading though is that if a consensual romance and blood baptism between Mina and Dracula is the secret truth, then Mina is now a woman who lied about being metaphorically raped and falsely set up Dracula as a predator in the documents she deliberately shared with everyone - and there is nothing feminist or liberating about re-characterizing a woman who canonically survived a metaphorical rape as an untrustworthy traitor who was lying about being assaulted and framed an innocent man once she was caught cheating on her husband.

#dracula #dracula daily #rape tw

[findafight]

I also need to know about your lavender marriage fic and the Big Brother Steve AU

Also Ty for the ask sweet moot I’m going to answer it when I’m back at my laptop and not on my phone avoiding my family during dinner LMAO- withacapitalp

Thank YOU for the ask 🥰 Okay so the fic that is SPECIFICALLY about lavender marriage (because I must be honest...I can see them getting married in any and all aus I make) is the stobin Hollywood golden age au. Or: Lavender's Blue, Lavender's Green, Lavender's Everything We'll Be.

This fic is GRAND in scale. It is EPIC. It is the greatest Platonic romance of generations.

I have a particular fondness for multimedia/epistolary type fics, and this one would be. So good for it. Like Photoplay articles or interviews, reviews of movies they made/were in, academic articles written contemporarily and as retroactive analysis.

But anyways in this au the upside down ends in 1935 with the equivalent of starcourt happenning except Hop doesn't die and the Byers don't move. Steve and Robin elope after she graduates in '36, and by February of '37 the two have somehow acquired a diverse gaggle of children. Again. They adopt them, as the children are orphans or abandoned or fell through cracks the Great Depression exasperated.

They are absolutely bizarre in Hollywood and everyone sort of wants to find out more about these two newlyweds who are working as an editing assistant (Robin) and a...general gofer that sometimes does walk ons who miiiight be getting his big break soon.

Anyways in the fifties, after the war, Robin directs her first musical starring Steve called Baseball, Baby! In which the world sees his iconic bat twirl. (Later paid homage to by Ewan McGregor in phantom menace!) And Steve sings about not caring which way he swings. (Think spiritual precursor to I don't dance in HSM2)

There are papers written about the homoerotism of...many of Steve's parts, especially in the war film he made. It's. Not particularly subtle if you are looking for it at all. Icon.

Robin, during the war, helps sponsor refugees get to the states. She also helps fellow Hawkins native Chrissy get back on her feet after her husband goes overseas. Even after, when they find out Jason was killed, the Buckley's welcome her into their home and family. Some of the children occasionally call her mother! How sweet.

As for big brother Steve. Hm. Ah. I think it's going to be snapshots, just little pieces of trying to fit a baby into healing from the upside down. Also Eddie Suffering via Seeing Steve With Baby. It awakened something in him.

Steve cosleeps with baby tintin because 1)good for baby 2)good for over protective big brother who wasn't held enough as a child and doesn't want that to happen. This leads to the very adorable picture of Dustin, busting in as usual and completely forgetting there is a baby in the house, finding Robin and Steve both curled around Tintin. Robin is drooling and slaps Steve. Baby has Steve's fingers in her tiny hands.

And there is a mini fic coming (maybe not so mini:/) for an ask I got weeks ago about the kids of the party bonding with Baby Tintin!! It will come. Soon. Ish.

#withacapitalp #stobin #steve Harrington #robin buckley #platonic stobin #findaanswers #finda writes stuff #this au is massive but the key part is stobin are icons both romantic and queer #Lavender's blue au #big brother steve

[nighthaunting]

There’s been a lot of discussion of dracula and mina and the ‘reincarnated wife’ plot with recent dracula daily entries, and i’d like to give my two cents. Spoilers ahead for people who aren’t familiar with the novel or films.

I think the problem with discussing it is that people are coming at it from the direction that its a symptom of bad dracula adaptation. I’ve seen a lot of lamenting that ‘they’ obviously didn’t understand the source material, and some fun and creative posts about alternate ‘reincarnated mina’ concepts.

But i think everyone is missing the real mechanism that drives the adaptations with the ‘reincarnated wife’ and dracumina plots: in these adaptations Dracula is framed as the main character.

There was another good post a few months ago talking about it, but dracula is generally speaking a difficult book to adapt to film if you want to follow narrative screenwriting conventions. The only character who is consistently ‘showing up’ across the book until the various people he’s been terrorizing all meet is dracula himself. Thus it makes sense from a screenwriting point of view to make the narrative arc belong to dracula and refit the other characters as ‘supporting cast’, and likewise for mina as the most obvious female lead it makes sense from this standpoint to make her the love interest.

As the most obvious example let’s take Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The book doesn’t tie Dracula to his historical counterpart, but the prologue of the film not only does this, it establishes the ‘conflict’ of Dracula’s storyline by showing the ‘reason’ he became a vampire and setting up his emotional arc in the film. This is main character stuff. The film is framed around him and his storyline. The plot and character attachments are realigned to support Dracula as the main character. The timeline of events is changed to support Dracula’s emotional arc of finding then losing then finding Mina again. The end of the film is refocused on ‘resolving’ the conflict that lead to Dracula’s vampirism. It’s a very good adaptation, actually, of the story of Dracula if Dracula was the main character. He’s shown in a sympathetic light and the ending is the resolution of the conflict driving him, not, as in the book, the resolution of the horror that has beset the actual main characters of the book. (And i will say that i very much respect the FFC film for keeping aspects of the epistolary form in the film).

A lot of Dracula adaptations do this!

But it’s not a failure of adaptation, nor a misunderstanding of the characters. It’s a reframing of them to streamline adaptation and, if you want to be a bit of a cynic, to profit off the popularity of other vampire romance media.

#dracula daily #dracula #bram stoker’s dracula #literature #have seen many dracula film adaptations

[jenneferofjengaberg]

I just finished reading Red, White & Royal Blue and then I watched the movie afterwards. I had actually bought the book a couple of years ago but never got around to reading it. Then the movie dropped, so I decided to finally hurry up and read it before I was spoiled for every single plot point. Turns out that wasn't totally necessary, but more on that later.

First the book. I really liked it. Not the best book I've ever read or anything, but it was really good. Very cute and enjoyable. I loved the characters, and I liked that we basically had a modern day epistolary novel. Henry and Alex's emails and texts were so lovely and the romance was really sweet. Also, can't put my finger on it, but the book gave me real Jane Austen vibes? It was completely contemporary, and yet? Old fashioned at the same time, in the best sense of that word.

I also really weirdly enjoyed the political background. It was kind of bittersweet, being immersed in a fictional world where the disaster of 2016 never happened and democracy wasn't like, on the verge of toppling at any second.

Ok, now the movie. Let me say that I think the actors they chose for Alex and Henry were fantastic, and they probably have the best on screen chemistry I've seen in any romantic movie in a very long time. They were terrific, no complaints whatsoever about any of their scenes. They were adorable and sexy, just perfect. Nicholas Galitzine was, in particular, very good at portraying Henry's fragility and vulnerability, the desire to be loved authentically in a life that's stifled by artifice.

Zahra was also perfect. Literally can't imagine anybody better to play her than Sarah Shahi. It's almost like the role was written for her.

And yet, I am slightly disappointed in the movie. Mainly because they cut so many characters, and the ones that were left kind of got blunted. I mean, they got rid of June entirely. A whole sister and they got rid of her. Nora was there but she was way less developed than in the book. Not sure I could even describe her as having a personality at all in the movie other than "Alex's bff". They cut out the whole Rafael Luna plot, and replaced it with that Miguel guy, turning a minorly interesting political intrigue into a "jilted lover gets revenge" plot, but like, the most boring version of that trope ever.

I get that it's a movie and some things have to be condensed or changed. I don't mind them having Alex's mom and dad still being together and excising the stepdad or changing the queen to a king (in order to be sensitive I guess). But I do feel they could have made the movie 20 minutes longer and at least kept Alex's sister, and maybe made the Miguel plot at least somewhat resemble the plot with Rafael Luna. It's kind of like they got the main pairing and plot right, but phoned everything else in, which makes for a regretfully uneven film.

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #review

[ddagent]

"If Love Be Rough With You"

Aziraphale/Crowley | Actors AU | FR12 | 1,318 words     Everyone knows Anthony Crowley loathes stage and screen, BAFTA winning actor Aziraphale Fell. Except he doesn't. Not really. Never has. Thank you to those who picked this idea for my 30 minute writing sprint - this was a lot of fun! I love epistolary texts and throwing in as many literature references as possible was great. Happy reading!

Heavenly Casting!

Amazon Prime have reportedly found the romantic leads for their new series Fallen, based off the hit book series. The story focuses on the romance between two angels in heaven and how their love struggles to continue after one of them falls from grace. Haniel, or ‘Henry’ – the angel – will be played by BAFTA and Olivier award winner Aziraphale Fell, who has recently finished a touring production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Wiaxas, or ‘Will’ – the demon – will be played by MTV’s Best Villain of the Year (three years in a row) Anthony Crowley, who has just completed the final film in the Slither series. Filming is due to start early next year.

Related News

‘I can’t abide anything with CGI – the snake in Slither would have been better played by a puppet.’ – BAFTA award winner Aziraphale Fell speaks about the state of modern cinema.

‘You’ll catch me doing theatre when the calls stop coming in’ – lead of Netflix’s new sci-fi drama, Anthony Crowley, discusses why he loves film – and will never tread the boards.

Anthony Crowley calls Aziraphale Fell ‘Lady Bracknell’ on stage at the BAFTAs – and fourteen other shocking moments from this year’s awards.

SHOCKING – Anthony Crowley’s throwback from Instagram is a shot of him before he was kicked out of the Eden Academy of Performing Arts – and is that a young Aziraphale Fell?

Continue Reading at AO3

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #aziraphale x crowley #dd: fanfic #tv: good omens

[wordsinhaled]

I can't reply to the post, tumblr says replies are turned off but- please please please write a part 2! Your writing is so so good!

i make no promises or guarantees (nothing like Writing Commitment to kill the creativity, lmao, at least for me)

but... i hope the original anon who suggested this idea is happy, because i’ve basically now so mortally wounded myself with the concept of regency hob’s anguished epistolary romance and how fucked up he is over dream that a part 2 very well may happen

i’m just here shrieking incoherently and drowning my sorrows in period film scores

#the sandman #dreamling #listen imagine hob filling his dance card with people who are not dream for the first time #then privately swearing off dancing for ever #i am LOSING IT

[oatbrew]

tag game. list the fics in your works in progress folder. tagged by @im-an-angy-alpaca (thank you!💖)

girlies the amount of wip that have at least 1k to them in my drive is unfathomable and these two are really the only ones that i am actively working on (or thinking of the idea of working on, which counts!) currently

no rules in breakable heaven - darius/rosa one night stand turned to friends with benefits. i wrote nearly 50k for this, scrapped some of it, wrote some more, decided to make it a oneshot instead before going right back to my 50k. i think the biggest struggle is pinning down rosa. since we only really have scatterings of her background, i have to conjure up a solid throughline for her based on conjecture and headcanon on what i characterize her need, flaws, and their foundations to be while also being consistent with what's established. with darius, it's much simpler because i'm starting off with a blanker slate in comparison. my process has been a mess. lol it will be posted once i'm complete with the whole thing (not just the chapter); just not sure when.

here, and where you are - shinkane pride and prejudice au. i have no excuse for this one because everything's practically outlined. someone already wrote a whole ass novel for me. i'm just too wrapped up in no rules to have the time and attention to give this its proper due.

and here's a smattering of things i've written sizeable chunks for that aren't dead but are in a coma and i do revisit their ward from time to time to drop a line or idea or two

the greatest films of all time were never made - artem character study where artem never confesses and he has to watch rosa marry marius lmao 😭

two untitled artemrosa smut oneshots where artem and rosa have pollen-induced sex in the lost gold event and another where rosa doms artem after the events of atmospherics

mothers and daughters - shakarian fic post-me3 where a depressed shepard uncovers a trafficking conspiracy, adopts a baby krogan, and reunites with her estranged friends (including the turian whose heart she broke...and not necessarily in that order)

they say in heaven, love comes first - shinkane san junipero au

la petite mort - shinkane one night stand goes wrong canon divergence

an eternal sunset of what we are - shinkane persuasion au set in some indefinite time period

kintsugi - shinkane epistolary modern au based on this postcard. it's very slice of life switching between kou in london and akane in san francisco and their respective lives and friends and the ways they intersect

vagabonds, ne'er-do-wells, and insufferable bastards - tua au where teen viktor decides to run away from home to find his mother, which sets off a chain of unprecedented events

and i could see for miles, miles, miles - rdr2 arthur/oc fic where arthur survives, goes west, and finds quiet companionship with one of charles's old contacts who works as a part-time laundress in a sanatorium he ends up recuperating in. she and her mother are one of my fave ocs. her name's vera larue (originally just guinevere bc im shameless and too literal before i made it less Final Fantasy Naming Conventions), her mother is ada lynn, and they're creoles of color who also moved west during the turn of the century. i did a lot of research for this that never actually went into the story that much lmao the sanatorium vera works for is based on barlow respiratory hospital in echo park and her mother's boarding house is situated in what's essentially brick block, a historic black neighborhood that started to populate in dtla prior to the first great migration. much of this work i actually ended up incorporating into my grad thesis bc i got carried away from yknow actually writing the story. but from the start this was intended to be a very meditative historical romance focused on domestic life and recovery in the early 1900s with a dynamic that's reasonably informed but not dominated by the race relations of that time before i got too lost in the weeds. again.

ANYWAY im not tagging anybody bc i'm ashamed at how much i've neglected to write lmao no one look at me

#for a rainy day.

[cubistemoji]

My Personal F/F Book Rec List

being an entirely subjective collection of things I personally liked with reasons why I liked them and why you might like them as well!

Science fiction and fantasy

This is How You Lose The Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar

Science fiction, time travel, epistolary, novella -- very short in all. Tight, poetic language. If you like star-crossed lovers and households both alike in dignity, no one is more star-crossed than rival time war soldiers Red and Blue. It is very romantic.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Do you like your lesbianism as a spice that flavors a dense political drama examining the machineries of imperialism through the lens of space colonization? Did you have a Homestuck phase in your past? You'll like this one. The romance is not the focus of the story, but it's there, and it's f/f.

A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark

Honestly this book wasn't my favorite plotwise (a lot of situations where it seemed like the characters were less intelligent than the reader), but the main character is a lot of fun as a lesbian who wears suits in an alternate-history 1910s Cairo and has a cool catgirl girlfriend, and the worldbuilding and character dynamics were fun as well. Not that kind of catgirl. In a world where the discovery of djinn propelled Egypt to the top of the world stage about a hundred years ago, the guy who did that in the first place is suddenly back in town and murdering people. It's up to Fatma to get to the bottom of it!

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Beloved by Tumblr, it's Lesbian Necromancers In Space! Another book for the Homestuck phase havers. Very very lesbian, although Gideon and Harrow... well they get together in a way... anyway it's about a space empire composed of 9 Houses of necromancy, and the house's representatives have to complete a series of trials to become Lyctors. Ancient Rome inspired but also full of stealthy meme references, if you enjoy the juxtaposition of elevated, old-fashioned language and "Did you know your name contains the words 'Sex Pal'", you'll like this one. The characters are just so fun. Gideon Nav is Horny Butch Representation.

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

Supernatural horror thriller this one is not fluffy or cute it is dark and scary and also pretty long. Girls on Sawkill Rock have been disappearing for decades, and it's up to the new girl, the outcast, and the queen bee to figure out how to end the cycle for good. Also I'm pretty sure all of the viewpoint characters are girls who like girls? Themes of grief and trauma and also a big scary monster! Oooh!

Contemporary and Historical Fiction

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

In 1920s Britain, a young woman and her mother take in a lovely young married couple as their lodgers. And then there's a murder. Recommended for fans of murder mysteries and thrillers.

Fingersmith also by Sarah Waters

Inspiration for the film the Handmaiden by Park Chan-Wook (which transplants the Victorian setting to Korea under Japanese occupation), this is a story of cons and crimes and lesbianism! A lot of plot, eventual happy ending.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

"Disaster bisexual" August just moved to New York to try going to college again, and she meets a hot girl in a leather jacket on the subway. The hot girl turns out to be from the 70s and trapped on the train forever for some reason... unless August can figure out how to help her! I like McQuiston's writing style, and I thought the descriptions of queer life in the city felt believable.

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld

Yes I had an Uglies phase in middle school that made me into an eternal Westerfeld stan leave me alone. Afterworlds is a pretty fun sendup of the YA publishing industry. Indian-American Darcy Patel wrote a YA book and got a book deal at 18, so she deferred college for a year to live in NYC and work on editing her first book and writing the second book. And then she gets writer's block, Manhattan is expensive, also, the fellow writer she eventually gets into a relationship with turns out to have her own dark and troubled past. It's really long because half of the book is the novel Darcy writes, but it works.

Pulp by Robin Talley

Part historical fiction about an imagined lesbian author of lesbian pulp novels from the 1950s, and part contemporary fiction about a teen activist researching said author for a project while still not over her ex. I like learning about queer history, and I thought this was a clever way to frame that kind of narrative and show why it's relevant today.

Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan

Iranian immigrant teenager is successfully dragging herself through high school without having to deal with liking girls until a hot new girl shows up and might be into her, maybe? Reviews saying said hot new girl is an over-the-top predatory bisexual caricature are I think somewhat valid, she didn't read as bisexual to me because I don't think she was actually interested in Leila at all besides as a source of attention but I can understand why that would be offputting to readers. Still, Iranian representation!

#for people disappointed at the cancellation of first kill #wlw book rec list #sapphic book recs #book rec list #f/f books #f/f science fiction #f/f sff lol #f/f historical and contemporary #list #long post

[gregor-samsung]

The Lunchbox (Ritesh Batra  - 2013)

#The Lunchbox #Ritesh Batra #Irrfan Khan #Nimrat Kaur #epistolary romance film #cinema of India #Indian movies #love #Nawazuddin Siddiqui #Lillete Dubey #Nakul Vaid #Hindi film #Mumbai dabbawalas #romance #meals #letters #happiness #めぐり逢わせのお弁当 #Bhutan #Nasik #Maharashtra #GNH #Saveurs indiennes #美味情書 #Sefer Tası #Amor a la carta #Παραδόσεις αγάπης #Los sabores del amor #Ланчбокс #GDH

[themousefromfantasyland]

My 10 Favorite films

Tagged by @ariel-seagull-wings

These are my 10 favorite films of all time and they reveal a lot about my tastes in media.

1 - Cinderella (2015)

Disney does a lot of live-action remakes of their animated properties nowadays. A lot of them fall flat in trying to capture what made the original so beloved. This isn't one of them.

This film is not only a love letter to the original Cinderella but all the Disney classics from the 30s and 50s. This film feels like one of the classic princess movies, those made when Walt Disney was still alive but made epic. Look at the writing, the settings, and the costumes. It's classical and unabashedly Disney on steroids.

It doesn't try to go the easy route, subverting or mocking the conventions of the genre to try to feel smarter than it is, it uses them to create something new and reconstruct the classical fairy tale for a new generation.

2 - Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

I love lighthearted fairy tales and gothic romances, and this movie, is more than an adaptation of the original novel, it's a love letter to the gothic genre.

I lot of people say that Dracula and Mina's romance is a romantic plot tumor but to me, that's a highlight of the movie. The original was an epistolary novel where the horror wasn't in Dracula himself, but in how the common people reacted to those supernatural events. This is almost impossible to recreate in film form, so the film goes to the gothic romantic story that was popular in horror stories at the start of the 19th century. I lot of people say that this film feels more like Lord Byron and Percy Shelley than Bram Stoker, and I agree with it.

I love the soundtrack, the costumes, and the film's use of practical effects that give it a special feel. The acting is either stilted or hamfisted but to me, that's a minor flaw if compared to the whole.

3 - The Ten Commandments (1956)

Epic! Epic in all ways possible. A larger-than-life film that for once deserves its own pretentious dialogues and grand discourses.

I will be honest, I think that this film is better than Exodus itself. In the original story, God has no problem with slavery, it's the slavery of the Hebrew people that is the problem. God himself gives Moses laws about how to better and "more humanely" slaving people. Here slavery is an abomination to Moses' God, and the whole thing preaches that men should be free from tyrants, with the 10 Commandments being like this modern liberal constitution made to stop people from exploiting each other.

Is it accurate to the original story? No. Is it a great message to have overall? Of course.

4 - Mary Poppins (1964)

Disney reigns in animation but was always forgettable in live-action. This movie is an exception to that.

The Sherman Brothers' songs are amazing, the world of the movie feels so lovely and joyful, and Julie Andrews is amazing in the role.

And the finale with Mr. Banks is the highlight of the movie.

5 - The Wizard of Oz (1939)

A beautiful sweet film with horrific production stories, but that's another story.

The film is like an early attempt to bring a fantasy world to life, and to me, it succeeds in it. The costumes, the settings. The Land of Oz is a unique and beautiful world.

Besides Over the Rainbow, most songs are rather bland. The Wiz has better songs and it's a fact. But this movie is a classic and I love it for that.

6 - Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1977)

The fourth film in the franchise and the first to be produced.

I love the mythological aspects of the story, and I love the worldbuilding of it. The costumes, the puppets, the special effects. I love films that create their special worlds.

7 - Titus (1999)

A surreal and grotesque show, using Shakespeare's most violent play to all the extents of its absurdities.

Shakespeare's plays are uniquely atemporal and mesmerizing, and Julie Taymor's creative decisions, while very crazy, are crazily unique and serve to create a very fantastic and almost nonsensical world.

8 - Peter Pan (2003)

The best adaptation of J.M. Barrie's story, better even than Disney's version.

The CGI aged bad, but it contributes to Neverland's unreal nature. Neverland is supposed to be the world of childish fantasies, it's not supposed to be realistic or grounded.

Peter and Wendy have more chemistry together than most adult couples, and the ending is just perfect.

In the novel, Peter always comes back and gets involved with Wendy's female descendants, first with Jane, and then xxx, and the cycle continues. I like the decision that Peter and Wendy never got to see each other again. It's less creepy and helps to highlight the tragedy of the situation. Peter is stuck in childhood, he will never grow up, and will always be left behind in a world that will grow up without him, and Wendy will never experience that love for its full potential and will always ask herself if things could have gone differently. It's a tragic story.

9 - O Saci (1951)

A minor Brazilian film inspired by a series of classic Brazilian children's books.

It doesn't have the biggest budget, but the attempt of creating a children's fantasy with Brazilian folk creatures was noble. And the black-and-white gives very special magic.

10 - The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2001).

That's what happens when you try to transform a children's novel in a Tolkien-level epic.

Narnia is a breathtaking world, and this Narnia, devoid of humans, filled only with magical creatures is my favorite iteration of it.

The Christian imagery is so obvious that it can get annoying sometimes, but it's an imaginative epic, and I love it for that.

Tagging: @tamisdava2 @thelittlehansy @ticktockteapot

[spider-xan]

Honestly, I feel like there would be a lot less frustration with the Coppola film if it was completely irredeemable trash with zero good things going for it bc then we could just write it off as an awful film and laugh at it for what it is - but the fact that there are SO MANY great things about it that are worthy of praise, and we know Coppola generally isn't a bad filmmaker, is what makes it so frustrating, precisely it could have been an amazing high-budget film adaptation that was accurate to the novel and the indisputable definitive version, and then it swerved and made the framing and other choices that it did, with its specific vision superseding the actual text; and ofc there's the title issue of including Bram Stoker's name and implying a faithful adaptation, though I think Coppola tends to do that with straight book adaptations to credit the author, like how The Godfather's full title is actually Mario Puzo's The Godfather.

Like, the casting is amazing! Winona Ryder is perfect as Mina! Anthony Hopkins is inspired casting for Van Helsing! Even Keanu Reeves, with his questionable acting and accent, is at least cute as Jonathan, and his star power at the time makes sense for why he played the role. The costumes designed by Eiko Ishioka are honestly among the greatest film costumes ever, and she rightfully won the Best Costume Design Oscar that year! Love the liminal creepiness of Dracula's castle and how his shadow has a life of its own! Everything about the way the scene of Lucy entering her tomb as a vampire is filmed is sublime - the lighting, the cinematography, the camera angles, the eerily chilling on a visceral level music and sound design, the make up and costume, the way the candles supernaturally light themselves, etc. Quincey is actually included for once! Even some of the epistolary format is retained, with things like the log of the Demeter narrated over scenes on the ship, Mina typing on her typewriter, Jack recording on a phonograph, etc. There are honestly a lot of positive things that can be said about the film, and Coppola does know what he's doing on a technical level, along with the talented cast and crew.

And obviously, no adaptation is going to just copy the text exactly for various reasons, like film being an audio-visual medium with a shorter length than a novel, adaptations being filtered through the lens of their creators and reflective of the social milieu they are being created in, commercial box office considerations bc capitalism, etc., and I think being faithful to the spirit of the source material is more important than textual purity, and a lot of this is going to be subjective on the part of viewers as well. But yeah, it's like, personal preferences aside, the Coppola film just came SO CLOSE to being a film adaptation that's both accurate to the novel and incredible cinema at the same time, but then it made directing and screenwriting choices like Mina just being Dracula's love interest and having none of her heroic moments (all removed or given to the men), everyone being a total asshole, Dracula going back and forth in characterization bc the film can't decide if he's a sympathetic romantic hero who just wants true love or a scary monster villain who wants to take over England and eat people, and you kind of need the latter to drive the plot outside of the romance, etc.

We could have had it all, and that's what is so frustrating to me, along with how the film is so definitive that it gets projected back onto the original novel and just about anything Dracula.

#dracula #dracula daily #also the terrible way winona was treated by men who were not keanu and anthony

[bookclub4m]

Episode 160: Biographical Fiction & Fictional Biographies

This episode we’re talking about Biographical Fiction & Fictional Biographies! We talk about metafiction, superhero origins as cover songs, spaceship detectives, cat biographies, amendments to amendments, alien abductions, and more! 

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

Nat Tate: An American Artist: 1928-1960 by William Boyd

Wikipedia

Maigret's Memoirs by Georges Simenon, translated by Howard Curtis

Matthew was wrong about how many books in this series came out in one month, but based on the French Wikipedia article four titles (including this one) were released in 1951.

Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg

Jack Sheppard (Wikipedia)

The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan and Peter Sís

Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf (Wikipedia)

Summertime by J.M. Coetzee

Other Media We Mentioned

Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries Series by Gyles Brandreth

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life by Philip José Farmer

What Is the What by Dave Eggers

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (Wikipedia)

Blonde (2022 film) (Wikipedia)

Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates

Smile (2022 film) (Wikipedia)

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma, Testimony, Theory by Leigh Gilmore

The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (Wikipedia)

A Field Guide to the Aliens of Star Trek: The Next Generation by Joshua Chapman (zine series)

We can’t find a good link for the zines, but it’s been collected as a book

Interview with the Vampire (film) (Wikipedia)

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.

The Big Lebowski (Wikipedia)

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

Links, Articles, and Things

Episode 143 - Amish Romance

Episode 119 - Regence Romance

Episode 094 - Chick Lit Romance

Episode 070 - Erotic Romance

The 7 Best Library Podcasts 

Fictionalized biography (Encyclopædia Britannica)

Autofiction (Wikipedia)

Isekai (Wikipedia)

Oliver Cromwell (Wikipedia)

Epistolary novel (Wikipedia)

Episode 111 - Happy Birthday Dracula

Episode 128 - Plucky Kid Detective

Episode 136 - Hearts of Magic: Threads Entangled

List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources (Wikipedia)

List of Dewey Decimal classes (Wikipedia)

National Library of Medicine classification (Wikipedia)

Zaphod Beeblebrox (Wikipedia)

“Vell, Zaphod’s just zis guy, you know?”

False memory: Mandela Effect (Wikipedia)

17 Fictional Biographies books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

Carolina Built by Kianna Alexander

Clotel: or, The President's Daughter by William Wells Brown

Pocahontas by Joseph Bruchac

American Woman by Susan Choi

The Black Rose by Tananarive Due

The Reason for Crows: A Story of Kateri Tekakwitha by Diane Glancy

Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacajawea by Diane Glancy

Driving the King by Ravi Howard

Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee Koe

Leo Africanus by Amin Maalouf, translated by Peter Sluglett

Empress Orchid by Anchee Min

Dancing in the Dark by Caryl Phillips

Douglass' Women by Jewell Parker Rhodes

I the Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos, translated by Helen Lane

Empress by Shan Sa

The Book of Salt by Monique Truong

Black Cloud Rising by David Wright Faladé

Give us feedback!

Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, October 18th for our SpoooooOOOoooky Halloween episode we’ll be talking about the concept of Hate Reads!

Then on Tuesday, November 1st we’ll be discussing the genre of Investigative Journalism!

#episodes #genres #fiction

[scatteredprayerbeads]

From Maria Popova’s article “Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Exquisite Polyamorous Love Letters from the 1920s”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892–October 19, 1950) was only thirty-one when she became the third woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. ...[H]er extraordinary poetic potency sprang from her boundless capacity for love and beauty — a capacity so boundless that she fell in love frequently and intensely, with both men and women, often with multiple people at the same time. 

[ID: sepia colored photograph of Edna St. Vincent Millay embraced on either side by her lover Arthur Ficke and her husband Eugen Jan Boissevain. Ficke and Boissevain both have suit jackets on and serious faces, while Millay wears a dress and cloak and smiles at the viewer. / end ID]

In her early twenties, shortly after she wrote those beautiful love letters to the British silent film actress Edith Wynne Matthison, Millay became besotted with the poet, playwright, and Japanese art scholar Arthur Davidson Ficke and they embarked on a decade-long epistolary romance of exhilarating intensity. ...

[B]y the beginning of winter [1921], Millay had started falling in love with the writer Witter Bynner, nicknamed Hal — a friend of Ficke’s since their college days at Harvard. Here was a love that didn’t, as she insisted over and over again to both men, detract from her feelings for Arthur. ...[F]or her, as she so movingly articulates in a letter to Hal from 1922, love was never a zero-sum game:

It is true that I love Arthur. But we have all known that for some time — haven’t we? — I shall love him always. He is something to me that nobody else is. But why should that trouble you, Hal? Don’t you love him, too? Don’t you love several people? — If you loved me, I should not want you to love only me. I should think less highly of you if you did. For surely, one must be either undiscerning, or frightened, to love only one person, when the world is so full of gracious and noble spirits.

The very next day, 30-year-old Millay writes to Arthur:

It doesn’t matter with whom you fall in love, nor how often, nor how sweetly. All that has nothing to do with what we are to each other, nothing at all to do with You and Me.

With this, she informs him diagrammatically that she is considering marrying Hal:

Would you be sorry or glad if I did? … Of course, there is a very geometrical reason why I should. We should make such a beautiful design, don’t you see, — Hal and you and I. Three variable and incommensurate souls automatically resolved into two right angles, and no nonsense about it.

...Millay married neither Arthur nor Hal. The following year, she married another man altogether — Eugen Jan Boissevain, the widower of the trailblazing lawyer and war correspondent Inez Milholland. Over the course of their 26-year open marriage, both Millay and Boissevain had frequent relationships with other people but maintained a deep love for one another until death did them part. They died within a year of each other.

[ID: black and white photo of Millay from the shoulders up: she wears a jacket with a shirt with a large white collar; her hair is short and she gazes downward towards the righthand corner of the photo with only the slightest smile on her serious face. / end ID]

#polyamory #polyamory history #edna st. vincent millay #poet history #love letters #article

[byneddiedingo]

Emma Greenwell and Xavier Samuel in Love & Friendship (Whit Stillman, 2016)

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Chloë Sevigny, Xavier Samuel, Stephen Fry, Emma Greenwell, Morfydd Clark, James Fleet, Jemma Redgrave, Tom Bennett, Lochlann O'Mearáin. Screenplay: Whit Stillman, based on a novel by Jane Austen. Cinematography: Richard Van Oosterhout. Production design: Anna Rackard. Film editing: Sophie Corra. Music: Benjamin Esdraffo. 

Jane Austen's greatest novels -- Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion -- tend to run to formula. The heroines are all marriageable young women who for one reason or another are having trouble finding a mate. They are usually put in jeopardy of marrying scoundrels -- Emma to Frank Churchill, Elizabeth Bennet to Mr. Wickham, Fanny Price to Henry Crawford -- or fools -- Emma to Mr. Elton, Elizabeth to Mr. Collins -- or in Anne Elliot's case not at all, a calamitous fate in the world of the novels. Eventually, however, they find their Mr. Knightley or Darcy or Edmund or Capt. Wentworth and live happily ever after. The pattern is so familiar that it persists to this day in romance novels, but it's not why we read Jane Austen. We read her for the wit, the moral observations, the deft interplay of personalities, which is why even the best movies made from her books are slightly unsatisfying: Film can't do justice to what's on the page. And that's why Love & Friendship may be the best Jane Austen movie ever: What's on the page in its source, Lady Susan, the epistolary novella she never submitted to a publisher, departs radically from the formula. The titular heroine (played brilliantly in the film by Kate Beckinsale) is herself the scoundrel, more in the mold of Henry Crawford's sister, Mary, in Mansfield Park than any of Austen's more familiar heroines. And she winds up marrying the fool, the wealthy Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), whom she originally planned as a husband for her daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark), after having courted Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel), who winds up marrying Frederica. Whit Stillman's screenplay is a brilliant transformation of what's on the pages of the source, where the point of view is limited to that of the letter writers. The freedom to manipulate point of view in the film allows him to play with inverting the formula: In the film, Reginald takes on the role usually played by Austen's heroines, i.e., almost marrying the scoundrel. With Bennett's considerable help, Stillman makes Sir James Martin into one of the funniest fools ever, so blithely out of it that he is astonished to learn that Frederica reads "both verse and poetry" and thinks that Moses delivered 12 commandments -- after being told that there are only ten, he tries to decide which two he should discard. He also winds up after his marriage to Lady Susan in a ménage à trois that includes Lord Manwaring (Lochlann O'Mearáin), but he remains apparently unaware that Manwaring is her real lover and the father of the child she is carrying. That last could never have found its way into print in Austen's day, of course, but Stillman succeeds in integrating it into a convincingly Austenian context. If there is a flaw to the film, it may be that it's "rather too light, and bright, and sparkling," which is the criticism that Austen made of Pride and Prejudice. It sometimes feels like a parody of a Jane Austen novel, but a masterly one.

#Love & Friendship #Whit Stillman #Emma Greenwell #Xavier Samuel