“Are you crying?”

Did a baseball diamond used to be your playground? If so, you’re probably one of the fans who made the Rockford Peaches stars of the most successful baseball movie of all time. Penny Marshall’s World War II-era dramedy is a who’s who of major league 90s names, from Geena Davis to Rosie O’Donnell to Tom Hanks to Madonna. (And Marla Hooch!)

There’s no denying that the film is a feminist feat: a rare sports drama directed by and starring women. A League of Their Own paved the way for so many stories about female athletes to follow, like… uhh… has anyone seen my new red hat?

In honor of the film’s 25th anniversary, the When We Were Young hosts drug their chaperones and trade oven mitts for baseball mitts, debating whether Betty Spaghetti & co. knock it out of the park or drop the ball. And all without letting our noses get shiny!

Listen here.

A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
July 1, 1992

Budget: $40 million
Opening Weekend: $13.7 million
Domestic Total Gross: $107.5 million
Worldwide Total Gross: $132.4 million
Metacritic Score: 67

I don’t have a particularly storied history with A League Of Their Own, nor a particularly “hot take” on it now. The movie has aged very well. The bookends feel pretty cheesy, but the period stuff is fresh and nuanced, and its female characters are terrific across the board. I’m not sure Dottie’s story is as punchy as I’d like it to be, which I talk about plenty on the podcast. I suspect there’s a more resonant drama hiding somewhere in there, but the one we get works well enough. It’s entertaining from start to finish, with wonderful comedic performances from Madonna, Tom Hanks, Megan Cavanaugh, and Rosie O’Donnell. It’s also the highest-grossing baseball movie ever made! (Yes, that includes the ones about men.)

The terrible sitcom highlights how broad and stereotypical the film could have been, and it’s a tribute to the writers and Penny Marshall that the film never makes any concessions because it’s about women. Obviously, the sexism of the league’s owners and managers and the media play a large part in the story, like that hilarious newsreel. But the story itself is as sports-focused and serious as you’d expect a comparable film about men to be. Dottie and Kit’s sibling rivalry is the same kind we’ve seen in stories about male athletes. If anything, the movie takes winning and losing less seriously, because for these women, it’s a boon just to play the game.

“I thought I knew you
I thought I knew you
I thought I knew you…
Oh well.”

Check out When We Were Young’s No Doubt episode here.

No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom has been mentioned on the podcast several times. Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion first introduced me to the band, inspiring me to buy those soundtracks (a nice intro to some 80s music, but No Doubt-less) and, eventually, the Tragic Kingdom.

Revisiting Tragic Kingdom was fun. I’d heard the singles many times in the years since, but hadn’t listened through to it as an album in a long time. “Just A Girl” and “Sunday Morning” are still by far my standout faves, but it was fun to rediscover songs I’d forgotten about, like “Happy Now” and “Sixteen,” though I instantly remembered almost everything about them. Other albums we’ve revisited on the podcast had more substance and history to dig into — Nirvana’s Nevermind, Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill — but No Doubt is mostly just fun. That isn’t to say the songwriting isn’t interesting — it’s just not what jumps out to me when I hear the music. I turn to No Doubt for a good time more than I look to them for any insights or deep emotions. (That said, I do mine plenty of meaning out of a few songs — like “Sunday Morning,” my personal favorite.)

Tragic Kingdom takes me back to the days when I first discovered actual music. It was the first CD I ever bought (because the Hercules soundtrack doesn’t really count) and made me feel pretty damn cool for a moment there. Of course, then No Doubt subsequently became a bit overexposed, particularly with the success of “Don’t Speak,” and then they didn’t quite have the edge me and most of my friends were looking for at that point anymore.I’ve appreciated many of No Doubt’s later efforts, from “New” to Rock Steady and some of Gwen Stefani’s solo stuff. It’s enjoyable to hear an album from a female perspective that isn’t primarily known for that. You can hardly find any commentary on Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill that doesn’t reference her gender, but No Doubt managed to slip under that radar, for the most part, even thought “Just A Girl” is about as blatantly feminist as you can get.

I’m not sure I’d call Tragic Kingdom a truly great album on the whole. Its tracks range from great to fine, though a spirit of light fun carries over its entirety. It’s also distinct from other 90s music. No Doubt’s success helped to usher in an almost-mainstreaming of ska, and they may also have been partially to blame for that bizarre swing revival. But when I listen to Tragic Kingdom, I don’t really hear hallmarks of the 90s. I hear a band carving out its own unique sound — a sound that unfortunately got watered down in the band’s post-2000 years, as they experimented with more generic pop sounds.

No Doubt has always been pretty good, but they didn’t remain that distinct. Thankfully, at their peak in 1995, they were, and Tragic Kingdom still sounds fresh in 2017.

*

How to review a movie like Mother?

Honestly, it’s probably best not to try… but here goes.

Darren Aronofsky’s films usually inspire debate. From the manic dread of Requiem For A Dream to the time-tripping earnestness of The Fountain to the gonzo horror-art of Black Swan, Aronofsky goes for broke in his filmography, taking huge artistic risks. A lot of cinephiles adore him for it — myself included. Some find his films too heavy-handed… a little much.

By most metrics, Black Swan is his biggest success thus far — raking in overs $300 million worldwide, admired by critics and audiences, a Best Picture nomination and an Oscar for Natalie Portman. There are plenty of people who didn’t care for Black Swan, my favorite film of 2010, and I get that. Because it’s art. Not many films are made these days, truly, as art — those that are are made on such a small scale, the general public never hears about them.

But the general public has heard about Mother, hasn’t it? And like the best art, it is provoking some very strong opinions.

If you don’t like any other Darren Aronofsky movies, there’s almost no hope you’ll love Mother. It doubles, then triples, then quadruples down on all the things his harshest critics lambast him for. It’s somewhat obscure, but not subtle. (The official title is mother!, after all.) And even if you adored Requiem For A Dream or Black Swan, that’s no guarantee you’ll have the same goodwill toward Mother. For some Aronofsky fans, this is a bridge too far into this auteur’s brand of grandiose intensity, a film that marries his two most love-it-or-hate titles, The Fountain and Black Swan. Like The Fountain, Mother explores a relationship between a man and a woman in a very unconventional fashion. Like Black Swan, it strands us in a tormented young woman’s point of view. However much you liked or did not like The Fountain and Black Swan, multiply it by ten, and there’s my prediction of how you’ll feel about Mother. Mother is probably best categorized as a horror film, though it’s a far cry from Annabelle or It. Like recent indie horror hits like It Follows, The Babadook, and Get Out, there’s more on Mother‘s mind than thrills and chills. Much more. A lot of horror films are allegories; very few are only allegories. But that’s what Mother is. There’s no way to take the story at face value — to believe its characters are real, relatable people, or that the situation they find themselves in is literally happening. In its simple set-up, Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem play a couple living in an idyllic, isolated house, with no hints of any neighbors nearby. They soon find their domestic paradise intruded upon, first by a man claiming to be a doctor (Ed Harris), and next by his mischievous wife (Michelle Pfeiffer). None of these characters have names, which is a good tip-off that there’s more to what’s happening than meets the eye.

It’s understandable why filmgoers expecting a studio horror-thriller would be put off by Mother. First of all, making sense of it requires work. Very little of what happens in the film is logical, and the characters don’t behave quite like real people would in such circumstances. (Because they’re not.) Aronofsky has been pretty straightforward regarding what Mother is “about,” while leaving room for alternate interpretations. Mother is art. The artist has his intent. And, as in all works of art, other elements from the author’s psyche find their way in, too — maybe consciously, maybe not. Mother is all allegory, but thinking it’s all one allegory is a boring interpretations. The film works on many levels at once, commenting upon the past, present, and future of human existence, both real and imagined. You might leave the theater asking, “Was it about the Bible? Or climate change? Or fame? Or the subjugation of women?” The answer is yes.I doubt that any one single interpretation of Mother justifies all its disparate parts. Rather, it’s a film of ideas, and these ideas may differ from scene to scene. I already likened one other 2017 movie to an “art project” — David Lowry’s A Ghost Story, which in many ways is a very similar film. (It is also equally likely to alienate filmgoers who prefer not to have to think about what they’re seeing.) Both Mother and A Ghost Story take place almost entirely within one house. Both have a jarring approach to the passage of time. Both focus in on an unnamed male and an unnamed female, though there are occasional intruders into each story. Both movies are made to provoke thought in willing viewers — complex and esoteric thoughts about life, love, mortality, and plenty more. Neither film is specific to its protagonists — because neither film has real characters, per se. These films work less as stories about individuals, and more as ruminations on mankind itself. Is that ambitious, or pretentious? Yes.

Mother is a film I’ll need to watch it again, multiple times, to sort through all the many thoughts I had while watching it. I’ll have to grapple with it a while before I know how I truly feel about it. That makes it a success. The rapid-fire pace of the internet has taken a lot of the art out of moviegoing; everything is love it or hate it, the best or the worst, rotten or fresh, “liked” or unliked… and word travels fast. Mother has a fascinating “F” Cinemascore and has stirred up so much ire amongst its potential fan base. I think that’s great. I see plenty of films meant to provoke such reactions, but most people don’t. They see The Fate Of The Furious and It and Beauty And The Beast. (I see some of those, too.) Most people don’t have a chance to get riled up about a m0vie that was made to infuriate them anymore. You have to seek that experience out, and most don’t. But this weekend, I’m seeing so many real reactions to this film. I find that encouraging.Yes, plenty are attempting to dismiss the movie as “awful.” But what was awful, Mother-haters? The performances? The visual effects? The cinematography? It’s fair to challenge these elements of the filmmaking, but they’re too purposeful to write-off as merely “bad.” Most Mother-haters would probably agree that on a technical level, it’s largely a well-made film. What a lot of people mean by “it sucks,” in Mother‘s case, is that the experience of watching it challenged them, and they did not enjoy being challenged. You can walk into a museum and look at a painting and call it terrible, if you wish, but what you really mean is that you didn’t like it, and the reason you didn’t like it is because of an emotional response. Some movies are terrible, abjectly failing at what they set out to do. But Mother knows exactly what it’s doing — the CinemaScore “F” proves it. Even for those who hated every minute of it, Mother will linger in the mind. It won’t be forgotten. Its themes may come back to those who saw it in unexpected moments. Fans of the film will continue challenging critics, and hopefully draw out debate. I love that people found Mother to be really, truly excruciating — because it’s a response. Mother won’t be seen far and wide by mainstream moviegoers, despite its sizeable release, but even the viewership it’s achieved thus far is impressive, for any work of art. It’s an antidote to the big screen binkys that dominate the box office — another Star Wars, another Spider-Man, another live-action Disney cartoon. Mother doesn’t play by the rules today’s moviegoers have been trained to abide. It isn’t neat, or safe, and it won’t remind you of anything from your childhood. Your Netflix queue won’t be able to predict whether or not it’s “for you.” (Well, maybe if you’ve given low scores to every other Darren Aronofsky movie.) It doesn’t care for tomatoes — fresh, rotten, or otherwise.

That isn’t to say it’s not valid to absolutely, positively fucking loathe this movie with every fiber of your being. But to do so honestly, you’ll have to grapple with Mother, and at least some of what it’s trying to say. It is a film meant to remind the frog that he’s sitting in a pot of boiling water, though most frogs prefer not to be reminded. Let’s discuss.

Aronofsky’s Mother is a cinematic expression of “giving zero fucks,” an exceptionally weird film by any standard. It may be an intentional joke, on his part, that so many who deride Mother for “bad storytelling” literally worship this exact same story. (Does that one make sense?) The ire audiences have for Mother comes as no surprise in a year like 2017 — it is a film made outside of the bubble, no matter which bubble you’re in. Most movies this strange and surreal are elusive, as in the works of David Lynch. By contrast, Mother is in your face — willfully, defiantly challenging, but not the kind of movie you need to “figure out.” There’s no puzzle to be solved, no key to understanding it better. The more you know about Mother, the more questions it will raise. The more I review it, the more I need to keep on reviewing it. So I might as well stop now.

Mother is a work of art, meant to provoke strong reactions and incite debate. So far, it’s working.

*

A handful of episodes standout in a “very special episode” kind of way, but they’re done with finesse and avoid the cheese factor that usually accompanies sitcoms when they broach a serious subject. When Saved By The Bell tackled caffeine pill addiction, it became the show’s mocking calling card. The equivalent Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air episode, “Just Say Yo,” isn’t perfect, but it isn’t pat, either. I remember the “shocking” moment when Full House tackled the taboo topic of teen smoking through the Gina character. The episode made it feel as if Gina had pulled a gun on Stephanie. Ultimately, sitcoms rarely let their protagonists do anything truly “naughty;” at best, it’s the mischievous new friend who misbehaves in order to teach us a moral lesson. The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air is unique among sitcoms for not always sweeping controversy under the rug by episode’s end. There are hugs and lessons, but there are also lingering questions that go unresolved.A few exemplary episodes of the show deal explicitly with hot button issues like racial profiling, while others that speak to less touted aspects of black American life. “Mistaken Identity” is a brilliant episode of television, hilarious and heartbreaking. It concludes with a gut-punch moment, as Carlton tries to make sense of his arrest in a way that doesn’t have to do with his race. Ultimately, Will and Uncle Phil know better, and the episode ends with the ominous sense that Carlton is going to have to learn this lesson again and again before it truly sinks in.

Another standout is Season Four’s “Papa’s Got A Brand New Excuse,” in which Will’s father returns to the picture just long enough to get his hopes up, then promptly bails on the plans they’ve made. This is a plot we’ve seen on TV and in movies often — the deadbeat biological parent stepping in to shake things up, only to leave their offspring crushed by disappointment. This episode culminates in a raw, explosive monologue from Will that showcases some of the star’s best acting (ever). The episode both follows sitcom formula and, ultimately, defies it. The same story could be — and has been — told about a white father and a white child, but The Fresh Prince knows which nuances make it specific to Will’s experience, and that specificity pays off.

Looking back, it’s surprising that The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air tackles race head-on so often. (I could be wrong, but I don’t think that’s how the show is remembered by most.) Will Smith is about a raceless as a major movie star can be — he has generally avoided roles that explicitly call for African-American actors, except when he’s playing a real-life person (as in Ali, The Pursuit Of Happyness, and Concussion). Even in these films, race is more of a background issue than it is in The Fresh Prince.

In most ways, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air adheres to sitcom formulas (including a lot of pretty terrible clips episodes). Few, if any, of its storylines couldn’t be done on a sitcom with a primarily Caucasian cast (though I shudder to think of a white sitcom attempting a story like Carlton’s visit to Compton in “72 Hours”). But so many episodes resonate more because of the insight the writers and actors bring to how these comedic setups reflect racial issues across the spectrum. Will and Carlton going to jail for a false-alarm car theft could happen on any show, but the concluding moments, as Carlton grapples with new realizations about racial injustice, have the power they do because they reveal such a dark truth about racism in America. Most sitcoms would laugh it off anyway. The Fresh Prince doesn’t.

There are also episodes like “Mud Is Thicker Than Blood” which deal with racial issues between African-American characters. The basic setup — Will and Carlton rush a fraternity, and Carlton is too nerdy to get a bid — is, again, something you’d find on any sitcom. But the way it plays out is singular to these characters and this experience. At its best, The Fresh Prince manages to satisfy the punchline quotient required of a sitcom and shed a surprising light on underdiscussed social issues. The show’s class contrast is fairly jokey — the Banks family is absurdly wealthy, and Will’s “rough” upbringing tends to gloss over some harsher points — but it is satisfying to see so many different black characters dealing with black issues in different ways. As was the creators’ mantra, The Fresh Prince says there’s no right or wrong way to be black. It backs that up constantly, showing how each character responds to challenges in their own specific way.

Though only a handful of episodes take deep dives into racial issues, this is the feature that sets The Fresh Prince apart from other cheesy 90s sitcoms. It’s amazing — and a little disheartening — that every issue the show tackles feels just as fresh today (if not moreso). Though there are plenty of mediocre moments, overall The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air boasts hilarious and heartfelt performances, strong writing, and clever fourth-wall-breaking gags, plus a few episodes per season that go above and beyond what a 90s sitcom is expected to.

 

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“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in rain. Time to die.”

Do androids dream of electric sheep? Do replicants dream of unicorns? Does Sean Young dream of being in a movie where she isn’t inappropriately manhandled by a major movie star?

In Episode 25 of When We Were Young, the lines between man and machine are blurred as we discuss Ridley Scott’s sci-fi thriller Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Daryl Hannah, in advance of the Ryan Gosling-starring sequel Blade Runner 2049.

First, the gang shares childhood visions of Things To Come, and wonders why there are so many dystopias in the fictional future (and so few utopias). Then, we dive into the year 2019 (by way of 1982, in 2017) to revisit the darkest, wettest, most neon-geisha-filled depiction of Los Angeles ever. We all agree that Blade Runner has amazing parking meters and fierce eye makeup, but is the story itself worth the film’s cult classic status? Opinions may differ!

In a special bonus segment for superfans at episode’s end, the gang celebrates a full year of podcasting. We share the pop culture revisit that surprised us most, our favorite funny moments (that are all about Becky), and the resurrection of Playtime, in which a Death Match determines once and for all what movie, album, or TV show held up the best over the years. (Hint: it’s not Roger Rabbit, Kevin Smith, or Buffy.)

Listen here and subscribe here for our episode on Blade Runner.

BLADE RUNNER
June 25, 1982

Budget: $28 million
Opening Weekend: $6.2 million
Domestic Total Gross: $27.6 million
Lifetime Gross: $32.9 million
Metacritic Score: 72

At first glance, it may strike you as odd that Blade Runner has the reputation it does. It is one of the landmark sci-fi films, with a die-hard fan base that will passionately debate the film’s central mysteries and pore over various cuts of the movie. It’s hard for any film to live up to that kind of legend, and Blade Runner in a particular is a strange case. Certain themes and narratives feel disjointed to anyone who isn’t familiar with the source material or the storied history of the film’s creation. Most audiences in 1982 didn’t “get” Blade Runner upon first viewing, and even now, that initial visit to Ridley Scott’s Los Angeles of 2019 is rife with frustration and confusion. Very little about this futuristic world is explained explicitly, and a lot of what is explained is fairly obscure. A more straightforward film would have shown us a lot of what we’re told. (Blade Runner might look more like that movie, if not for its budget troubles.) Most questions go unanswered — and not just the ones about Deckard being a replicant. I have a hard time imagining anyone sitting through Blade Runner just once and feeling they fully understood everything. As we’re seeing now with Aronofsky’s mother!, audiences tend to resent films that challenge them. Blade Runner was initially seen as a disappointment.

I never saw Blade Runner when I was young. I first viewed it a few years ago. Like audiences in 1982, I was impressed by the production design and murky about some plot points. I remembered the film’s aesthetics better than I remembered its story. I could tell you that Daryl Hannah’s character had some killer makeup, but couldn’t remember the actual function of her character, or whether she was a hero or a villain.Ultimately, the whole point of Blade Runner is that Pris is neither a hero nor a villain — nobody is. We’re not used to that kind of ambiguity in big budget sci-fi films, which might be why the film has been hard to connect to for audiences just looking for a good time. We don’t typically watch something with the budget and star power of Blade Runner expecting complex moral questions and ambiguous themes. A normal studio movie might make us question whether blade runners killing replicants was necessary or a gross injustice, but then they would answer that question. In Blade Runner, Deckard is neither heroic nor corrupt, as far as we can tell. Ford’s performance doesn’t indicate one way or another whether we’re supposed to like this guy. We think we’re supposed to be on his side because he’s the protagonist of the story… but honestly, aside from that, what stake do we have in this guy?

Similarly, the replicants are more dynamic characters — child-like Pris, the “pleasure model”; the tragically intelligent Roy Batty; sassy snake-dancing stripper Zhora; and innocent young Rachael, as she undergoes the existential crisis of realizing she’s synthetic. Supposedly, replicants are dangerous because they lack empathy. But we don’t get a lot of empathy from humans, either. Rachael cries when she realizes she’s an android. Pris seems to get some genuine joy out of her friendship with J.F. Sebastian, however self-serving it is in the end. Batty spares Deckard’s life for unknown reasons. Maybe the replicants are manufacturing their empathy — but then again, maybe we all are, on some level. Deckard gives a complicated test meant to detect empathy in humans and differentiate them from androids, but can empathy be legitimately measured? Who’s to say whether replicants do or don’t have it? There’s no proof in Blade Runner to draw a solid conclusion.This is a powerful allegory for our times (or any times, really). Through various twists of fate, some classes of human beings have decided they’re more valid than others. They’ve taken it upon themselves to decide how the “lesser” race or class should live, and often, when they should live. American slavery and Nazism are two towering examples, but there’s still plenty of arbitrary judgment about who should live, and how they should live, going around. Blade Runner barely even broaches the subject in its text — rather, the film’s moral murkiness requires viewers to grapple with it on their own (or not). That’s a key reason why the film has been reexamined so many times, has never exactly felt “finished” — because it necessitates thinking, research, and discussion outside the text to even make sense of it. That’s not everybody’s cinematic bag. (Again, see Mother.)

Of course, I’m not sure all this ambiguity was intentional. From draft to draft, and from script to screen, Blade Runner lost key visuals, dialogue, and plot points that would almost certainly have made it stronger from a narrative perspective. Add to this the disparate thematic and character ideas of the director, writers, actors, and crew — it seems this group was rarely on the exact same page with who was doing what, why, and what it meant to the story overall. The result is more like a dazzling art project than a coherent motion picture — which is interesting, now that we’re about to get the sequel Blade Runner 2049 from Denis Villeneuve. It’s hard to imagine that this sequel won’t be at least a little more straightforward than its 1982 predecessor.

Blade Runner is endlessly open to interpretation, because there’s no one answer to any challenge it poses. It was perfectly timed to be owned and dissected by cinephiles with the rise of home video in the 1980s, and lives on now because it’s also a great movie to pore over on the internet. I come away from it fascinated as much by what isn’t in the movie as what is. It’s a very unique film.

*

I hate to react too quickly to any movie, because opinions settle over time. I often see a movie and have a negative reaction, only to find that it sits better over time. Sometimes, I leave a film satisfied, but gradually find reasons to like it less.

But it’s been less than an hour since I walked out of Blade Runner 2049 and I’m already comfortable calling it one of the best science fiction films of all time, and quite possibly the greatest sequel ever made.

I dove deep into Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner for the When We Were Young podcast, reading both Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? and Future Noir, a comprehensive recounting of the making of the film. Both texts gave me a greater appreciation for the film itself, which contains many obscure references to themes from Dick’s story that easily go over most audiences’ heads during their initial viewing. It is difficult to fully piece Blade Runner‘s plot together as a casual viewer. Crucial details are mentioned but not shown. This exposition often feels off-the-cuff and half-told — there’s no indication that these are important facts the audience should hold onto, yet the movie makes little sense without them.

Blade Runner is a fascinating and unique piece of cinema, but it doesn’t always come together as a fully realized story. Learning more about scenes that were never shot or didn’t make the final cut (in any of the many versions), one discovers plenty of intentions that might have made for a more coherent and more powerful story. (Screenwriter Hampton Fancher’s original ending was beautiful.) I don’t begrudge anyone who thinks the original Blade Runner is a bona fide masterpiece, but I also have no beef with anyone saying it isn’t. I appreciate the film’s look and sound and the individual creative contributions of many players, while also wishing certain elements of the story had been developed better.

Blade Runner 2049, on the other hand, is more or less a perfect film, both entertaining and soulful. The story makes sense from beginning to end, yet its beats are frequently surprising. It is not in any sense a “reboot” of the original, but rather a very direct sequel, in that it couldn’t possibly exist without the first film. (In fact, I wonder if anyone who hasn’t seen the original could fully appreciate it.) And it might be the best sequel ever made.

A handful of films are probably popping into your head as possible counterpoints. The Empire Strikes Back? The Godfather Part II? Aliens? The Dark Knight? Batman Returns? Terminator 2: Judgment Day? Those are all great sequels, on par with the first film — and in some cases, better — but none of them really make the original better. Blade Runner 2049, on the other hand, feels made in part to fix the shortcomings of the original. It has subtle and not-so-subtle homages to Dick’s novel and Scott’s film (including my favorite nod, an origami sheep). It’s not a retread, nor does it abandon the elements that made its 35-year-old predecessor so distinct. Set 30 years after the original’s 2019 placement, director Denis Villeneuve’s vision of 2049 feels like a natural progression from the future we glimpsed in Blade Runner. It doesn’t just revisit the themes and story elements from the first film — it pushes them in intriguing, unexpected, but completely consistent directions. Has any sequel made such a strong argument for the original film’s mere existence?

Like Blade Runner, 2049 shows us a vision of the future that’s not quite like any other film we’ve seen before. (Not even Blade Runner.) The original film shaped the collective cinematic vision of dystopias over the past three decades — it’s a marvel Blade Runner 2049 found any new ideas to play with, given how popular the subgenre has been. No film I can think of so honors its predecessor while feeling so fresh simultaneously. Blade Runner 2049 not only expands on certain murky story beats from the original — what we learn in Blade Runner 2049 makes the original film stronger and more satisfying. It’s hard to fathom how a sequel to Blade Runner could be any better.(I’ll keep my synopsis vague and spoiler free, as it works best to know as little as possible going in.) In the film, Ryan Gosling plays K, a blade runner who is both similar to and very different from Harrison Ford’s Deckard. Like Deckard, he’s an isolated bachelor who puts his work first. In the opening scene, a routine assignment goes in an unexpected direction, sending K on a crucial mission that, as his boss Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright) puts it, “breaks the world” if it fails.

The marketing has made no secret of the fact that this quest eventually leads K to meet Deckard. Other key players include replicant manufacturer Liandel Wallace (Jared Leto), his dutiful employee Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), and Joi (Ana De Armas), an A.I. who is best described as the 2049 version of Amazon’s Alexa. Three other women, played by Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, and Hiam Abbass, also have important roles, not to mention the thematic importance of a female character from the original Blade Runner. Refreshingly, Blade Runner 2049 is bursting at the seams with compelling female characters. In fact, with the exception of K and Deckard, almost every pivotal character in the film is a woman. (Leto’s Wallace is a compelling figure, but he’s more the puppet master than a direct player.) I can’t remember the last time a big budget studio film was so peppered with great roles for women… quite possibly because the answer is “never.”

Blade Runner set the scene for some interesting debates. Blade Runner 2049 is a loving correction of the original’s sins. The story makes perfect sense, and also makes more sense out of the original. Both are hauntingly beautiful aesthetically, but Blade Runner never drums up much sympathy for Deckard, which may or may not be intentional. (A little of both, I think.) The most emotional readings of the original film take place outside the text of the movie. If Deckard is a replicant, his dirty work takes on an added layer of ironic sadness… but the film only hints at this, giving viewers little reason to even consider the possibility (unless they do some additional reading and view alternate cuts of the film). Either way, Deckard is a miserable son of a bitch. He shoots a fleeing (replicant) female in the back, kills Daryl Hannah’s Pris in equally brutal fashion, and forces himself upon Rachael in ways that call her consent into question. (Maybe they didn’t so much in 1982, but it wouldn’t fly in 2017.) The female characters in Scott’s original are, in many ways, the highlight of the film. Dangerous but child-like Pris is somehow the most relatable character, while Sean Young’s Rachael also earns our sympathy. But these women are also violently abused by our supposed “hero.”

Blade Runner seems rather indifferent about how we should feel about Deckard’s actions. We aren’t given much evidence that replicants really deserve to be so violently offed — yes, they’ve been known to kill humans, but did that start before or after humans started exterminating them? History has taught us that human beings aren’t always right when they declare themselves superior to a different kind of person. American slavery was justified with the notion that black people were savages, intellectually and morally inferior to white men. Some slaves did, then, behave rather savagely — but that’s just a consequence of treating people like savages.

Scott’s Blade Runner half-poses many fascinating questions, then never answers them. Ambiguity can be a powerful tool in storytelling, but only when we it’s intended. Some of the ambiguity in Scott’s film comes instead from budgetary restrictions, too many cooks, and lots of rewriting. Blade Runner 2049, on the other hand, never loses its way for a second. Every scene and shot are painstakingly thought through. We can tell. It doesn’t just revisit the troubling moral questions the original asks. It asks them again, with new story beats that make them even more impossible to answer.One love story in Blade Runner 2049 adds layers of complexity onto the original model — the Deckard-Rachael romance. At first, this is pretty par for the course in a sci-fi dystopia, but it ends up adding real heartbreak to the film. How capable are replicants of empathy? Of love? Blade Runner 2049 keeps this open ended. Many characters are on screen for just a few minutes, but each is fascinating and full of life (whether or not they are “alive”). You could make a fascinating film about any character in this movie. Clocking in at nearly 3 hours, Blade Runner 2049 is long enough, yet plenty that goes unresolved, and several characters we could stand to learn more about. The conclusion of this film makes it difficult to imagine a direct sequel — and also difficult to imagine that there won’t be one.

Science fiction films in which androids or artificial intelligence take on human characteristics certainly aren’t rare these days — take, for example, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Her, and Ex Machina, to name a few very good ones. Both Blade Runner films are less explicit than most, implying moral dilemmas but rarely voicing them. Where Blade Runner 2049 triumphs over its predecessor is in empathy, of all things. Gosling’s K is a more defined character than Ford’s Deckard ever was. He undergoes an enthralling emotional journey over the course of the film, and it’s clear what kind of journey it is. Blade Runner‘s vision of the future was so dreary, it was hard to care if any humans or replicants survived to return to their dark, damp, joyless existence. Blade Runner 2049‘s vision of the further future is about as bleak as Blade Runner‘s 2019, but there’s enough soul and verve in these characters to make it worth the investment. This is not an entirely hopeless world, as frightening as so much of it is. The sequel also adds biblical undertones that make it easier to grasp the stakes in this narrative. Blade Runner 2049 touched me in ways the original never did… in ways studio films rarely attempt.

I’m not exactly surprised at how great Blade Runner 2049, both as a sequel and a standalone cinematic experience. It is directed by Denis Villeneuve, after all, who made my Top Ten thrice in the past three years with Enemy, Sicario, and Arrival. (In case you can’t tell from this effusive review, he’s on deck for a fourth.) The film was shot by the legendary Roger Deakins, who’s been nominated thirteen times for an Academy Award, and curiously never won. (I expect this to change in the very near future.) On an artistic level, Blade Runner 2049 is anything but a failure.

The film’s box office take thus far has fallen short of expectations. Fittingly, so did the original Blade Runner. But so what? There’s a good chance Blade Runner 2049 will have staying power in one way or another, just as the original did. It has Oscar potential in numerous categories, provided the Academy is willing to consider a genre sequel through an artistic lens. Costume design, visual effects, and cinematography are all superb. It just might be a Best Picture nominee as well, unless Star Wars: The Last Jedi is several cuts above The Force Awakens and steals Blade Runner‘s thunder. (That’s plausible enough, considering it was directed by Rian Johnson, who made a near-masterpiece original sci-fi film of his own with Looper.) Blade Runner 2049 could be too adult and ponderous to cross the $100 million mark in the United States, which will unfairly categorize it as a flop; then again, I’m already frothing to see it again in theaters, and I’ll bet you I’m not the only one.

Blade Runner 2049 is already one of my favorite science fiction films of all time. It deserves to be held up as a classic of the genre, right alongside the first Blade Runner. In spirit, both Blade Runners share so much — they’re morally complex, visually dazzling, and somewhat disturbing. With a few excisions, Blade Runner 2049 could have been an original sci-fi story, but both films are made better with the existence of the other.

You might even call Blade Runner 2049 a replicant of Blade Runner. Common sense tells us that the original is inherently superior, because Blade Runner 2049 wouldn’t even exist without Blade Runner. Sequels are meant to be vapid, functional carbon copies of something better — but in the Blade Runner films, the replicants end up having more life to them, more personality. Such is the case with Blade Runner 2049.

This film is a masterpiece.*

“Now, repeat after me: ‘Yo!'”

“Yo!”

“Hot damn!”

“Hot damn!”

“What a fabulous window treatment!”

“What a fabulou—”

“That was a trick!”

Come one, come all, and come out already for When We Were Young’s most same-sex-loving episode yet! In honor of Coming Out Day on October 11, Episode 26 takes a furtive glance back at the gay 90s, which marked a sea change in pop culture’s depictions of people who are — yep! — gay.

First, our hosts coop up in The Birdcage, Mike Nichols’ 1996 comedy that pushes Robin Williams and Nathan Lane back in the closet to appease Ally McBeal’s right-wing parents. Next, we touch on Ellen DeGeneres’ game-changing “Puppy Episode,” the coming out party heard ’round the world. And finally, we celebrate the 20th out-iversary of In & Out, starring Kevin Kline as a small-town teacher outed at the Oscars, and Joan Cusack as his increasingly desperate bride-to-be.

Plenty of social progress has been made in the days since Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and DOMA, so how do these mid-90s gay characters hold up in 2017? Practice your John Wayne walk, book some therapy with Oprah, and stop dancing to “I Will Survive,” because our hosts’ opinions of these films are definitely not homogeneous.

THE BIRDCAGE
March 8, 1996

Budget: $31 million
Opening Weekend: $18.3 million
Domestic Total Gross: $124.1 million
Worldwide Total Gross: $185.3 million
Metacritic Score: 72

Prior to The Birdcage, the biggest gay-centric films of the 90s included 1993’s Philadelphia, 1994’s The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert, and 1995’s Too Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar. Angels In America debuted in the early 90s, too.

That was essentially what gay life was to most moviegoers — either a fabulous, feminine party, filled with bright colors and outrageous costumes and plenty of cross-dressing, or bleak and tragic, haunted by the spectre of certain death.

Obviously, AIDS was on a lot of people’s minds at this time, a fresh wound and a looming threat. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Defense Of Marriage Act were the government’s response to gay efforts for equal rights. Gay people were to be pitied or ridiculed — maybe not cruelly, but the joke always seemed to be at how silly it was to see men dressed as women. This was just about the only way audiences could see gay people in mainstream entertainment — dressed as women, or dying. There wasn’t much nuance.

The Birdcage was a massive hit and signaled that there was an appetite for stories that fell somewhere in between — even if it still has one foot in the drag queen’s closet. Director Mike Nichols does make room for tender scenes between Robin Williams and Nathan Lane, as well as plenty of lively banter. The dialogue is sharp and the performances are incredibly fun, and it all works pretty well if you don’t think too hard about it.This time around, though, The Birdcage rubbed me the wrong way in a few critical areas. My main concern is that the plot doesn’t make a bit of sense. Gene Hackman’s conservative senator gets caught up in a scandal involving an underage black prostitute, but it’s not his scandal. It’s his newly deceased colleague’s. It’s easy enough to imagine how that might put Senator Keeley in some hot water; it’s a bit of a stretch to imagine that the media would be sated by Keeley’s 19-year-old daughter getting married, no matter who it’s with. It’s just plain ridiculous that the media follows Keeley to Miami… for what reason, exactly? As far as they know, there isn’t even a story. (They also zoom in on a videotape to hear it better. Um, that’s not how anything works.)

The media subplot is dumb. Fine. Whatever. That would be fine as long as the principle characters’ actions made some sense… but do they? Val and Barbara lie to the Keeleys, both about Val’s Jewishness and his parents’ queerness. They even lie about his last name. Is Barbara keeping her maiden name? Are we supposed to believe that the Keeleys will never stumble upon this information? None of these questions are even asked.

Val wants Armand to pretend to be straight, and Albert to disappear while they meet the parents. That’s great… but there is going to be a wedding, right? Armand and Albert are entrenched in Miami’s decadent gay drag scene, so none of their friends will be at the wedding. Armand might pull off his straight man act, and fool the Keeleys into thinking he’s still with Katherine. And then what? They’re just never going to get together again, for the rest of their lives? What if they have kids?

Val and Barbara’s foresight is lacking, and their plan is stupid. They’re not the main characters, though. It would be nice if Armand was smart enough to bring up some of these points, and maybe find clever solutions to them. Instead, the screenplay just sweeps them under the rug. Even that might be forgivable if what actually happened followed any sense of logic. But what the hell is Albert doing in this movie? He’s hurt that Armand and Val are ashamed of him… so he dresses as a woman and poses as Val’s biological mother. What is he trying to accomplish? It’s unclear how Albert thinks this will solve any of these problems. Clearly, it’s just adding to the mess.

If you can buy that Albert would be so selfish and reckless to potentially ruin Val’s engagement with his theatrics, then the point where Armand calls the ruse off comes out of nowhere, and we see very little of the Keeleys’ reaction. Instead, the bad media plot resurfaces, forcing the Keeleys to dress in drag and sneak their way out of the club. Why? Because if the media sees them associating with gay people, it will make them look bad. Next scene? A huge wedding, with lots of flamboyant gay attendees. The secret’s out. Yes, the secret that the entire plot of the movie bent over backward to contain is apparently just… not important anymore? What the fuck, Mike Nichols?

The Birdcage lacks a resolution of any of the conflicts it has addressed. We have no reason to believe that Keeley would suddenly accept Armand and Albert’s “lifestyle,” let alone embrace it. We’ve been told that Keeley being seen with Albert and Armand will ruin his political career… so, uhh, does it? The Birdcage has asked me to follow a handful of characters who do everything in their power not to let Keeley be associated with the outrageous gays from Miami, and then in its final scene, asks me to just… not care anymore, I guess? From a story perspective, that’s pretty wretched screenwriting.

I don’t begrudge anyone who enjoys The Birdcage. I enjoy it too, to an extent. The actors have incredible comic timing, and they’re given fun, snappy dialogue. But the only characters who make any sense are the Keeleys, and even that’s a stretch. Armand should think ahead about his son’s lame plan and come up with something better. Albert should have a reason why he thinks dressing in drag for the Keeleys is the best solution to Val’s problem. Val and Barbara should probably just not get married. No one here is acting with any remotely plausible intentions.

Comedy has to be grounded in some reality to be really funny. Nonsense wackiness doesn’t cut it. To an extent, this is a matter of taste — but The Birdcage wouldn’t have had to do that much work to come up with a coherent twist on this story. It’s just too lazy.

The Birdcage is practically a shot-for-shot remake of La Cage Aux Folles, a French farce from 1979, complete with the same plot beats and punchlines and everything. The Birdcage made zero attempt to update its views of gay life for 1996, and I find that sad. Albert behaves like a child throughout the entire film, throwing tantrums and overreacting. This might be interesting, if the film had something to say about why some gay men infantilize themselves this way, why they disappear into a diva persona as an escape from reality. (To be clear, I’m not suggesting that cross-dressing or doing drag is inherently infantilizing. But that seems to be the case with Albert.) And it all ends with the concerns of these gay characters unresolved, but all’s well that ends with a heterosexual union.

I can’t connect to The Birdcage, as no one in it acts like a sensible human being whose actions are actually going to take them where they want to go. (That’s probably its French roots, in large part.) It feels a bit too much like a minstrel show — straight (or, in 1996, presumably straight) men dressed up in “silly” costumes, acting ridiculous for a mostly straight audience. The Birdcage could be a lot worse, in this way — its depiction of gay men doesn’t bother me, I just wish there were a little more to it. I knew I was in trouble when the film began on the most obvious choice for an opening musical number — “We Are Family.”

The Birdcage is the reason a movie like My Best Friend’s Wedding was retroactively important to me. Rupert Everett’s George was a joyful scene-stealer, like Nathan Lane’s Albert — but no one needed to teach him how to walk, or dress, or put butter on toast. He’s a grownup.

There’s nothing wrong with gay men (or straight men, for that matter) dressing as women, but by 1996, I was pretty sick of that… without even knowing it. Get AIDS or dress as a woman… these were essentially the two options mainstream pop culture was offering gay people. George in My Best Friend’s Wedding was a supporting character, but he was something different, someone who said that gay men can be suave, confident, hilarious, the life of the party… even when dressed as men! The movie was a hit, and George was what everyone was talking about, even though he’s not one of the three primary characters.

A few months earlier, Ellen DeGeneres did this in an event more visible way — her “Yep, I’m Gay!” Time magazine cover wasn’t exactly subtle. But most gay people don’t actually want their coming out to be headline-worthy. It was everybody else who thought it was their business… and in 2017, still does, too often.

Of being gay, Ellen said in her infamous interview: “I ignored it because I didn’t really know what it was until I was 18 years old. I dated guys. I liked guys. But I knew that I liked girls too. I just didn’t know what to do with that. I thought, “If I were a guy I’d go out with her.” And then I thought, ‘Well, I don’t want to be a guy, really.’ So I went, ‘Oh, well,’ and just went on with my life.”

I’m pretty sure I didn’t read that at the time, but if I had, it might have sounded familiar. I didn’t want to dress like a woman, and I didn’t want AIDS, and I liked girls well enough, and that was enough evidence for me to believe that I was straight. Pop culture didn’t give me anything to aspire to — at least, not anywhere I looked. That started to shift in 1997, first with Ellen’s “The Puppy Episode,” which aired on April 30. I was still several years away from realizing it had anything to do with me, but I appreciated it as a momentous media event, and it’s a great episode. The public and the media was clamoring for that “one moment” when Ellen finally tells us she’s gay, as if we have a right to that information. There is such a moment — accidentally blurted into an intercom at the airport. (That’s exactly how coming out feels, by the way. Like you have literally announced something private and uncomfortable to the whole world… which DeGeneres really did.)

But “The Puppy Episode” is also peppered with slow and steady revelations. Ellen first realizes she’s gay when she most staunchly denies it, upon her attraction to Laura Dern’s wonderful Susan. Here, she won’t even come out to herself. Then she allows herself that realization, and tells one trusted confidante — who just happens to be Oprah. (Life would be a lot easier if every gay man and woman could test it out with Oprah first.) Then Ellen tells Susan, and her friends, and her parents, and her boss… it’s a long process that takes us to the end of the season.

IN & OUT
September 19, 1997

Budget: $35 million
Opening Weekend: $15 million
Domestic Total Gross: $63.9 million
Worldwide Total Gross: $63.9. million
Metacritic Score: 70

Like both The Birdcage and Ellen‘s “Puppy Episode,” I saw Frank Oz’s In & Out just once, in the comfort of my own home, and I don’t remember finding it applicable to my own life in any way. (If anything, the scenes about the Academy Awards resonated most.) What I appreciate about the film now is that it also deals with coming out in steps, a series of revelations. It should go without saying, not all gay people have the same coming out experience. Some know that they’re gay early on, almost before they know everything else. For them, coming out is more about “when” and “how,” and less about “if.” (Albert was almost certainly one such case.) Then, there are characters like Ellen Morgan and Howard Brackett, involved in heterosexual romances that are adequate enough. It hasn’t really hit them yet. And then… bam. Everything changes.

That’s a lot more similar to my personal experience, and maybe why I find “The Puppy Episode” and In & Out so satisfying now. The very notion of “coming out” was new to most audiences in 1997, and it was new to these characters. We got to go on that journey with them. Now, these long, deliberate coming out stories are mostly besides the point — we’ve seen so many, let’s see something else. Still, it was refreshing to rewatch two stories that dwelled on a difficult, confusing, and often very painful process, without skipping through it. Coming out in 2017 is easier than it was in 1997, for some, but not for everyone. It still takes the kind of courage Ellen DeGeneres displayed in 1997, to risk flipping your whole world upside down. It’s a bigger shakeup for some than others.

Aside from its witty dialogue and great comedic performances, I was happy to leave characters like Nathan Lane’s Albert in the dust for a while, and examine characters who didn’t have to become brassy women just to be palatable to the mainstream. But my cohosts found plenty to love in Albert, and that’s the point. We now have enough gay characters that most people can find the one that speaks to them. It might be a drag queen, but it might not be. We have that choice.

Oh, and another thing about In & Out — it’s fucking funny. Paul Rudnick’s script is full of great gay one-liners, but the story examines the perspectives of many characters. Howard’s parents are thrown for a loop, but soon his mother (the divine Debbie Reynolds) uses his big revelation as a springboard for her own confessions, and her old lady gal pals follow suit. Howard’s students have to take a decisive stand on how they feel about an issue most of them had never confronted before. Howard’s straight buddies at his bachelor party show that they accept him by breaking out some Barba Streisand movies — womp womp! That’s an easy joke, except In & Out twists it by having these dudes legitimately argue about which films holds up best. (Sound familiar?) Turns out, they love Babs as much as the gay guy. And of course, there’s Joan Cusack’s Oscar-nominated turn as his would-be wife, who also has to confront some sad truths about herself. She “comes out” as desperate, forced to admit that she’s settling for Howard because she never believed anyone could really love her. What’s nifty about In & Out is that Howard’s coming out is just the catalyst for everyone in this town to come out of their shell, one way or another.

In & Out has more going for it than its satiric look at coming out in a small town. It also lampoons Hollywood, and it’s dead on in that respect. (I will happily watch the entire four hour fictional telecast, if it it’s available.) As with The Birdcage, In & Out plays it pretty safe in terms of what is shown, and how much gay sexuality is expressed (almost zero). But we’ve had two decades to make for that. Almost exactly twenty years after Ellen came out, an intimate and briefly erotic film about a closeted gay man won Best Picture. (And thank God it was better than the fake gay movie that wins an Oscar in In & Out.)

It’s hard to know what kind of influence these coming out stories (or, in The Birdcage’s case, “going back in” story) had on what came after. It’s hard to deny that Ellen’s outing was probably the most significant pop culture event in terms of making gays mainstream. In 1998, Will & Grace premiered and dealt much more explicitly (though still quite cartoonishly) with gay life. And then we were just kind of on a roll.

That isn’t to say we don’t have a ways to go. We’re just now getting around to female and black superheroes, after all — it’ll be a spell before Disney grows enough balls for, say, The Beast And The Other Beast. If ever. But change has come pretty quickly, overall, and it’s been fascinating to witness it. We have it pretty good these days, even if we still have to promise that “it gets better.” Thank you to all those who fought to get their stories told when it wasn’t so easy.

*

“Suck my fat one, you cheap dime-store hood.”

Stranger things have happened than what happened on Stranger Things — thanks in large part to one of horror’s most prolific names. In honor of the Netflix nostalgia-fest’s second season, When We Were Young takes a look at the 1980s oeuvre of the show’s biggest influence, Stephen King.

Following two true blue horror masterpieces, Carrie and The Shining, King unleashed a wave of spine-tingling adaptations with varying degrees of schlock, from pyro pixie Drew Barrymore in Firestarter to the killer car in Christine. We discuss these titles and their influence on Stranger Things, then dwell on the 1986 coming-of-age classic Stand By Me, which blends some macabre moments with a more melancholy tale of boyhood, mortality, and purple vomit. Finally, we all float over to 1990, where Tim Curry’s fearsome fanged clown Pennywise awaits us in the sewer-dwelling TV movie It, recently remade as the most successful horror film of all time.

How does Stranger Things — which tries so very hard to emulate the 1980s — stack up against the stuff that actually scared us back then? Can looking and feeling like when we were young really capture the essence of when the When We Were Young hosts were young? If your brain is exploding from all the nostalgia-within-nostalgia nesting doll action happening here, great. Happy Halloween!

Subscribe here.

STAND BY ME
August 8, 1986

Budget: $8 million
Opening Weekend: $3.8 million
Domestic Total Gross: $52.3 million
Metacritic Score: 75

Despite being a modest fan of Stephen King, I escaped my childhood without ever seeing two of his best-known works, 1986’s Stand By Me and the 1990 TV movie adaptation of It. King’s prolific body of work spans many subjects and explores many themes, though it’s hard to imagine any double-feature that digs into King’s core quite like this one. Stand By Me is best classified as a coming of age drama, while It is a schlocky supernatural horror movie. Yet in many ways, they tell the same story.

Both feature adults protagonists flashing back to their childhood in the 1950s. Both of these men are now horror writers whose work has been shaped, in large part, by dark childhood experiences. Both of their brothers were tragically killed when they were young. Both are bullied. Both find solace in banding together with a rag-tag group of friends. All of these children have abusive or negligent parents. Both stories take place in fictional towns in Maine.

Directed by Rob Reiner, Stand By Me is one of King’s more straightforward adaptations, dealing with the real-life horror King witnessed as a child when a friend was struck by a train. It’s alternately funny and touching, with memorable dialogue and imagery, anchored by fantastic performances from River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Jerry O’Connell, and Corey Feldman. It all holds up pretty perfectly.

IT
November 18 & 20, 1990

Network: ABC
Ratings: Aprox. 30 million households
Domestic Total Gross: $52.3 million
Metacritic Score: 72

It doesn’t emerge from its era quite so unscathed, though I had a good time with it. Its strengths lie in the bones of Stephen King’s sprawling novel, one that takes the novella The Body (which Stand By Me is based on) and heaps on a bunch of twisted supernatural horror, most of it involving the evil clown Pennywise. Tim Curry’s performance is a thing to behold — campy, of course, but still unsettling. The young cast includes Jonathan Brandis and Seth Green, while John Ritter and Annette O’Toole stand out amongst the actors playing the “Losers’ Club” kids as adults.

It‘s effectiveness as a horror movie will vary from viewer to viewer, based on their tolerance for melodrama and TV movie production value circa 1990. The film’s best special effect is Tim Curry — non-Pennywise visuals haven’t aged so well.

It is over three hours long, and in a way, still left me wanting more — the story is such a rich tapestry of characters, themes, and ideas, I wanted it all to be explored further. I wanted to see more of the Derry adults’ complicity in what befalls these children — their extreme denial, the ease with which they turn a blind eye on some truly gruesome happenings. I also would have liked to see each child character’s horror be more specifically tailored to the real-world problems they’re burdened with, as the movie takes ample time to develop at least some of these stories. It’d work a lot better if one or two of the characters were excised, leaving that time to focus on the rest. (I haven’t read King’s book, but I imagine that, too, might have benefited from a leaner cast.)

Still, I found the story compelling enough to carry me through the movie. Despite its flaws, it may be the best cinematic distillation of Stephen King, warts and all. In It and Stand By Me, this prepubescent moment is looked back upon with reverence. Teens and adults are pretty horrible all around — these would be formidable antagonists even without It‘s  murderous clown on the loose. In King’s stories, life is filled with horror, and only some of that horror is of the shape-shifting clown demon variety. Children can be senselessly killed, with or without supernatural intervention. (If the clown doesn’t get you, the bullies might!)

It‘s Losers’ Club grows up to be overachievers. Significantly, none of them are parents. The story suggests that people must wrestle with their childhood demons — literal or figurative — before they have children of their own, or else be doomed to pass the horror down a generation. Adults are, at best, ambivalent toward the youth they’re supposed to care for; many of them are actively hostile. A young boy wanders off and is struck by a train, but we don’t hear much about it from the adults. It’s the four boys at the heart of the story who turn this boy’s wasted life into their own epic quest, one that will haunt them throughout the rest of their lives. Everybody’s got issues — Pennywise is just one more problem to add to the list.

In Stand By Me, Gordie mourns the friendships he had when he was twelve, acknowledging that these bonds can’t be carried forth into adulthood. As much as they try to hold onto each other, Gordie and Chris drift apart, and Chris is eventually killed in yet another meaningless accident. The more fantastic It indulges in the fantasy of childhood friends being reunited as adults, reforming the bonds they need to survive, both then and now. Even its B-movie scares can’t completely drown out the heart of King’s very personal story.

Stand By Me features River Phoenix, while It stars Jonathan Brandis. Tragically but fittingly, both also died far too young — at least in some part because they were still wrestling with the demons of their formative years. Like so many of his characters, King survived to tell his tale (and many, many others). For him, it seems to be a bittersweet triumph.

*

Apakah anda ingat momen belajar menyimak semasa masih kecil? Kamu barangkali tidak tidak sedikit ingat, tetapi setiap orangtua yang mengajari anak menyimak akan paham bahwa mengajari anak menyimak bukan kegiatan mudah. Membaca berperan urgen dalam prestasi anak di sekolah nantinya.

Orangtua mesti paham bahwa tidak pernah terlampau dini guna mulai mengenalkan anak-anak ke dunia kitab dan kegiatan membaca. Ada juga sejumlah metode yang lebih baik untuk menolong anak belajar membaca. Jika anda sedang mempersiapkan anak guna masa prasekolah, sebagai berikut tips untuk menciptakan anak lebih cepat belajar membaca.

Jadikan Membaca sebagai Kegiatan Rutin di Rumah

Pertama-tama, pastikan bahwa kegiatan membaca ialah bagian dari kehidupan sehari-hari, dan anak-anak bakal belajar guna menyukainya. Jika nyaris ada seluruh anggota family di rumah, usahakanlah meminta mereka menyimak di depan anak yang sedang belajar membaca. Berikan anak buku-buku yang unik untuk dibaca, sampai-sampai ini dapat membuat mereka menyukai pekerjaan ini. Intinya ialah menjadikan menyimak sebagai bagian teratur keluarga yang menyenangkan.

Perkenalkan Huruf Kecil, Kemudian Huruf Kapital

Cara berikutnya untuk menciptakan anak cepat dapat membaca ialah memperkenalkan huruf kecil terlebih dahulu sebelum huruf besar. Huruf-huruf yang berdiri sendiri tanpa makna ialah sesuatu yang abstrak dan tidak dapat dimengerti oleh anak. Namun, ini tidak menjadi sebuah kesalahan bila sebelumnya ia sering diucapkan buku.

Banyak orang yang mengenalkan huruf kapital terlebih dahulu sebab mudah dikenali, tetapi hal ini salah sebab membuat anak mengalami kendala ketika ia mulai membaca kitab yang mempunyai tata bahasa.

Bacaan di media manapun, jumlah huruf kecil bakal jauh lebih tidak sedikit dari huruf besar. Hal ini disebabkan tata bahasa Indonesia dan tata bahasa apa pun menata bahwa melulu huruf depan atau huruf tertentu yang memakai huruf kapital, dan selebihnya menggunakan huruf kecil. Jika anak telah kenal dan hafal huruf kecil, maka ajarkan pun huruf kapital. Hal ini akan mempermudah anak saat akan membaca kitab cerita.

Gunakan Media Kreatif guna Mengajari Membaca anak

Belajar lewat kitab mungkin menciptakan anak gampang bosan. Ibu dapat menambahkan media yang kreatif guna belajar membaca, contohnya kartu warna wani, permainan atau material beda yang unik dengan gambar. Namun, selingi pun dengan kitab bacaan simpel supaya ia terbiasa membaca.

Perlahan Ajarkan Anak Membaca per Suku Kata

Ajari anak menyimak dengan masuk pada suku kata. Buatkan seluruh suku kata yang tercipta dari lima huruf vokal dan seluruh huruf konsonan. Setelah itu, ajarkan ia menyimak dua suku kata, lantas tiga suku kata. Dengarkan baik-baik apa yang anak baca, pastikan pelafalannya tepat.

Di samping itu, dalam bahasa Indonesia, anak lebih susah saat menyimak “ng” dan “ny”. Jadi, pastikan dua urusan ini pun diajari dengan baik. Anak pun perlu belajar konsonan mati pada suatu kata, laksana i-kan, ma-kan, ban-tal, dan seterusnya.

Latih Anak Membaca Kalimat

Apabila seluruh hal telah diajarkan, maka waktunya supaya anak merealisasikan semuanya yang ia sudah pahami. Ibu dapat melatihnya dengan menyimak sebuah kalimat simpel setiap hari. Jika ia sudah fasih maka segera alihkan dan mohon ia menyimak sebuah paragraf pendek.

slot online – Semua orang terkekeh sebulan yang lalu ketika masih ada 8 penyanyi yang bersaing untuk mahkota American Idol yang didambakan dan pada 18-1, saya harus menjadi satu-satunya orang di dunia yang menyarankan agar Anda menceburkan begitu banyak uang untuk Elliot Yamin. Kemarin, publikasi yang dipuji-puji memprediksikan matinya orang utama saya.

Maksud saya, bahkan salah satu atasan saya sendiri menindaklanjuti apa yang saya sebut sebagai pernyataan konyol, dengan bantahan dari penulis lain. Hai, masing-masing miliknya dan sepertinya saya cocok dengan semua prediksi saya.

Mari putar kembali jam ke 14 April 2006:

PADA 18-1 ELLIOT YANIN AKAN MENGGUNAKAN DUNIA!

Oke saya akui saya telah mencapai titik terendah karena saya akan menulis artikel tentang American Idol, tetapi di sisi lain, Anda harus mengakui, pertunjukan ini memiliki kekuatan! Saya memiliki dalam kompetisi ini duduk di sofa saya dengan istri saya yang menyukai pertunjukan dan dalam kompetisi khusus ini telah melihat kontestan dua kali. Pertama kali saya melihat Elliot Yamin bernyanyi dia sedang membuat lagu Stevie Wonder bernama ‘If You Really Love Me” dan saya katakan di sana-sini bahwa kompetisi sudah berakhir.

Lelaki ini meledakkan kompetisi dan bahkan Simon harus mengakui lelaki itu punya daging. Minggu terakhir ini saya menonton kompetisi dan itu adalah pertunjukan dengan tema “Ratu” dan ini bukan kelompok yang mudah ditiru. Saya terkejut mereka melakukan pemungutan suara dan dia ditempatkan di tiga terbawah yang berarti ada kemungkinan dia akan tersingkir. BS Saya berteriak kepada istri saya, tetapi kemudian panggilan itu memukul saya seperti satu ton batu bata, pria itu pendek dan jelek dan penelepon dangkal, tidak bisa mengatasi masalah ini.

Saya tidak bisa menjadi satu-satunya yang menyadari bahwa Elliott Yamin memiliki gigi terburuk di American Idol. Tapi mungkinkah dilema giginya disebabkan oleh diabetes dan tidak higienis yang buruk?

Tapi gigi Elliott bukan satu-satunya fitur yang tidak biasa pada kontestan berusia 27 tahun dari Richmond, Virginia. Cambang gaya Abe Lincoln membuatnya tampak seperti persilangan antara petani Amish dan gangster jalanan. Dan kadang-kadang dia bahkan terlihat seperti seorang leprechaun dengan hati-hati menginginkan pot emasnya.

Tapi serius, Elliott dapat menggunakan penampilannya yang aneh / orang luar / menyeramkan untuk keuntungannya. Pikirkan tentang hal ini – jika kepercayaannya terus tumbuh (dan itu seharusnya jika Simon terus membelai ego Elliott), dia bisa menjadi tembakan panjang yang tidak mungkin adalah American Idol berikutnya.

American Idol menjual ide bahwa siapa pun dapat memenangkan kompetisi ini dan cara apa yang lebih baik untuk memilih seorang penderita Diabetes dari keluarga miskin untuk menjadi pemenang berikutnya. Percayalah kepada saya orang-orang American Idol akan dengan pertunjukan Extreme Makeover dan mengirim Yamin ke sana dan dia akan keluar mencari oleh Brad Pitt.

Saya memberi Anda White Sox, saya memberi Anda Mickleson dan sekarang Anda memiliki skor 18-1!

Sekarang saya tidak ingin tampil karena beberapa orang sombong, Anda tahu, tapi seluruh American Idol ini tidak berbeda dengan mereka yang bertaruh pada olahraga pro. Phoenix Suns dimakamkan oleh publik setelah pertandingan 5 seri mereka melawan Lakers dan semua orang berbicara tentang Kobe dan Phil Jackson yang hebat untuk pelatih terbaik tahun ini.

Setelah pertandingan 7, itu semua Steve Nash dan pagar betisnya. The Suns kemudian membongkar Clippers di game satu dan semua orang berbicara tentang semua pahlawan tanpa tanda jasa di tim Phoenix. Saya memperingatkan Anda bahwa penyebaran Suns -4 ½ terlalu rendah, tetapi orang-orang dengan semua uang di Vegas, tahu bahwa taruhan adalah 90% persepsi publik. Clippers menganiaya Suns tadi malam!

American Idol menarik jutaan pemirsa dan ingin melanjutkan tren itu. Mereka menjual Impian Amerika bahwa segala sesuatu mungkin terjadi, plus mereka ingin kontroversi di pendingin air hari berikutnya!

Elliott Yamin adalah Steve Nash dari American Idol yang menunjukkan bahwa tidak apa-apa untuk “Berani Mimpi”!