picspam: stuff I liked in 2013

One of my favorites of the year! I would actually watch it live with bated breath. The performances and character dynamics are so amazing. Keri Russell's character is probably my favorite, because I have a thing for emotionally fucked up, single-minded women who are perplexed by emotion and also can kick serious ass.

Oh, Ryan Murphy shows. You give and then you take and you take and you take. I fucking love AHS even though it is a huge mess, and I was really into it this year. I watched Murder House for the first time and enjoyed it, then rewatched Asylum too. Coven has so many good points (ladies!!!!! ANGELA. MISTY DAY.) but the race stuff is even messier than ever before. I'm gonna stick with it though. Asylum is still my favorite (it was the first I watched) and that was a gigantic atrocity at the end, so. I am prepared for anything.

I caught up on all of AD this year (just in time, too) and I don't know what took me so long!!!! It quickly became one of my top five comedies of ever. Really lived up to and exceeded all the hype, imo. But it is exactly my type of comedy.

I have seen this show more times than is actually healthy, and also grew up watching it with my sister. Tbh I rewatch portions of it once or twice a year, for the lols. It's such tacky glorious horrible fun! Luke Perry's face holds up as being super foxy even though Dylan is kind of the worst. I was raised by my sister to be an intense Brenda/Dylan shipper and to despise Kelly Taylor with a burning passion; it's so funny, even fifteen years after the fact, her eyes go demon-black if Kelly/Dylan ever comes up in conversation. I actually have mixed feelings about Kelly (though look at her fucking crocodile tears up in that graphic) and one day I will write a huge post about rape and sexual assault on this show that no one will want to read but me. BUT I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT IT OKAY.

You guys think I was kidding about loving this show? I'm never kidding. I am more excited for the return of this show than possibly any other show. I really like trashy no-stress television, you guys. I really do. GGA was forty minutes a day where I did not have to do one other thing besides lol and look at nice-looking people in swimwear. I did not need to have a single thought in my head. I know what you're thinking: Gossip Girl tho. But it is so soapy and silly and fun that it gives you none of the stress that actual Gossip Girl gives you. It just makes you think about the stuff you liked in the first place. This show is probs the reason I had such a resurgence of love for Blair this year, it really brought back that feeling of adoration I had for her back in the day. Also every plot thing is reworked to make more sense here? Even though it's a ridiculous soap opera? It's weird but seriously. If you are ever in need of mindless television then check it out!! I don't have links to subbed episodes unfortunately, but I can link you to other stuff if you don't need subs. Food for thought: their Georgina (Franchesca), in one week, breaks up CB, has a drug-induced threesome with Dan and Serena, and tries to murder Vanessa by locking her in an industrial freezer. I mean, right?

Their Vanessa is worse though. She will make our Vanessa feel like a dream.

This shoooow. Tumblr liked it so much that I was wary but it is just so good. I basically cried straight through all of the episodes. I don't think any teen show has resonated with me in the same way – mostly I like teen shows that are unrealistic about teenagerhood because of the idealistic fun of it, but none of them have ever hit me where I lived, so to speak. Like the scene in the pilot where Rae is kind of just hanging back, watching her new friends and beaming with love at them, I don't know, it made me cry so much. It felt like a moment I had actually lived. That's what a lot of the show feels like to me. But my absolute favorite thing is that the friendships are so genuine and real and lovely. Like, whenever shit goes down, I got so afraid that friendships were going to break up but literally every time they just beamed at each other with more love!

I was always such an asshole about this show, and Zooey Deschanel in particular, but I'd never watched it so I was just being a butt. But then I was peer pressured into watching it by my mom (?!?!?!??!?!?!?!) and ended up loving it, obviously, and mainlining the first two seasons like crack. Such a cute show. Ugh Zooey Deschanel is cute, it's so annoying. I hated Schmidt from day one, though, and continue to hate him now. I know everyone seems to be coming down pretty hard on s3 and I agree that it's pretty mediocre compared to seasons one and two, but idk, I'm still enjoying it. Like I said, I always hated Schmidt and as far as I'm concerned he's the only really bothersome part of the current season, so I'm well-versed at tuning him out. Idk! I don't mind it but here's hoping it picks up a little more with time.

I generally avoid, like, tumblr-trendy shows just because I'm a huge asshole, but I could not resist the lure of an almost all-female cast, even though I generally really don't like prison shows. But I was so glad this show continued to surprise me with just how good it is! I live a Natasha Lyonne appreciation life, I'm so glad she's getting work again, so I have a bias and Nicky is my favorite. But everyone! Is! So! Good! Backstories!!!! Everything is better with lesbians. Sofiaaaaaaaaaa. SUZANNE. MISS CLAUDETTE. I'm just yelling names at you but that is the only way I can express my feelings. My only issue with the show is that I despise all the men BUT ESPECIALLY LARRY. FUCKIN LARRY. EATING HIS FUCKIN BAKED CHIPS AND DRINKING HIS FUCKIN MARGARITAS OUT OF MASON JARS.

YOU GUYS. Pretty Wild is the apex of trashy reality tv shows. It is the zenith. It has everything you could ever want, if you are the kind of person who likes trashy television (I am very much that person). These girls spend like 80% of their time crying, and it's because behind the scenes they were on black tar heroin. Everything is so fake. Alexis Neiers is so perplexed about the fact that she is being held accountable for robbing people's houses. The mom is so fucking spaced, she homeschools them based on The Secret, she was a lingerie model once and at one point there's this totally random naked shower photoshoot she does of her adopted daughter Tess, because Tess' dream is to be in Playboy. Gold, are you hearing me. GOld.

I've only seen seasons one and two so far, haha. I'm only a couple eps into season three right now. I'm pretty bored with s3? I don't know. I'm gonna keep watching it, but I'm pretty bored. I always get so exhausted by every guy on the show being all: shh Elena you can't do things just sit in this room mmkay? And, like, at the end of the day, one of Klaus' main goals was to make Stefan his murder boyfriend? Really? I can kind of tell I'm going to tire of the originals pretty quickly, but having juuust met Rebekah (is that the bizarro spelling I don't even know), I do like her so far. That seems to happen to me with that show. I really like the majority of the girls but am eh about the majority of the boys. And I still find none of them attractive. Idk! I'm not emotionally invested but I'm gonna keep on with it. Also why does everyone torture little Caroline all the time, like can she get a break for five seconds.

Became kind of obsessed with this dude this year. It started with Anna Karenina (which I enjoyed a lot, though I've never read the book and don't intend to, so) even though he had the frosted curls and little moustache, but then I busted through his filmography (I drew the line at Savages though). I liked Kick-Ass but wowza was the sequel shocking violent. Nowhere Boy was a really great film, I thought, and he did a great job in it even though he clearly looks nothing at all like John Lennon. Lastly, Chatroom was a very well done little thriller! I would totally recommend it. His performance was really good, and it was an interesting, well-made movie. And my girlfriend Imogen Poots was in it as well!! Basically I have the hots for him but also he can act.

THE GOLD JEWELRY. THE SPRAY TANS. THE LACEFRONTS. THE GLORIOUS LUXURY. It has been too long since there was a quality glittery queer movie in my life and this more than fit the bill. I usually do not like Soderbergh movies at all, but I did really love this. It was probably Matt Damon's best performance in ages, tbh. I hope he wins something for it. It's really hard to play quiet, self-contained characters like this and keep it interesting, but I think he did a great job and it's pretty different from a lot of what he's done already. Plus his 70s gay porn body in this movie is great.

Okay, as evidenced by my obsession with Pretty Wild, I have a thing for these kids. I really loved this. Most of the reviews I bothered to read were bad, and seemed to be coming for Sofia Coppola specifically in a way I thought was kind of gross (what, like no man has ever benefited from nepotism in Hollywood? People don't bring up this stuff up with every other male Coppola every thirty seconds), as well as totally missing the point that the movie is a satire. I mean, I totally get not liking this movie, but the reasons I saw for it in reviews were pretty lame. But I really liked it, it was fun and had a sense of humor and the non-acting of almost everyone involved really suited it because these kids are basically voids where media goes to die.

If you haven't watched Bound yet I honestly don't know what you're waiting for.

I'd never seen a Dorothy Dandridge movie before and wow is she amazing! She had hellfire in her eyesssss. She spent the whole movie wearing incredible outfits and sexy-trolling Harry Belafonte. And then the end was tragic like the end of all musicals are tragic but shhhhh look at her outfits!

Since I am writing a Cruel Intentions AU fic, I spent a lot of time rewatching said movie, but then somehow it launched me into watching a bunch of different adaptations? I have never read the original novel and don't have any plans to (should I?) but I do love to see how things are adapted differently. Despite the Glenn Close/Malkovich one seeming to be the most reputed, I really did not like it one bit, lol. Except for Michelle Pfeiffer, I have to say I didn't enjoy it at all. I liked Valmont to a point though from what I gather it's the least close to the novel? It should have been called Merteuil tbh because she was the main focus and Annette Bening was flawless; Colin Firth felt like more of a subplot and his half of the movie fell the flattest, mostly because Meg Tilly was such a blah. Fairuza Balk was also the best out of any of the Ceciles. I also liked that it ended without anything really bad happening to any of the women, lol. Valmont himself is not a character I give even the tiniest shit about and unsurprisingly I did not care about him in any of them (esp Sebastian in Cruel Intentions, vom) except for the Chinese adaptation. I really liked Jang Dong-gun a lot, he was the only one who blended the kind of dark charisma and trolling in a way that appealed to me. Plus, super handsome. That entire adaptation was gorgeous; it was set in 1930s Shanghai and oh my god the costumes.

Not necessarily a movie to write home about, but I really liked it? It was a rom com about girl best friends! I wish every single movie was a rom com about girl best friends. And both leads were very lovely though the premise is ridiculous, who uses a phone sex line in this day and age? They should've just set it in the 90s or something.

Despite myself, I guess I like Jennifer Westfeldt movies. I know it's just affluent white people angst, but Idk, I always seem to enjoy her movies. Ira & Abby was probably the cutest of them all, in no small part thanks to Chris Messina's darling little face and the darling little beard upon it. Also, not to be a such a bitch, but Westfeldt's face was still good in that one, it hadn't yet become the extremely tight mask of Friends With Kids. I feel like she might be a terrible human but the movies walk a nice charming-annoying line and I find myself rewatching them so I must like them. They're all on Netflix, too, along with Kissing Jessica Stein, which is really cute until the last twenty minutes, so just turn it off before you hit the end.

Did not really expect to have strong feelings about this one way or another, despite liking the directors and being in love with Amanda Seyfried. But I did like it a lot! I thought it was really well done and on a surface level, the costumes are fantastic and Amanda looks lovely. Her performance was really great. The movie has an interesting format: first it takes you through a relatively romanticized, clean-up version of events before giving you the truth from Linda's perspective. I really liked that, especially because there was so much controversy re: what happened on the set of Deep Throat. It always seems to me that all of the men have one version and Linda has another, and guess who I believe in that scenario. I really feel for Linda and I think it's disgusting that anyone would accuse her of fabricating the abuse she suffered through from her husband. I thought it was a good movie and the subject matter was well handled, but there are several scenes of rape and abuse, which I feel I should say in case anyone was considering checking it out.

This is a documentary made by HBO and easily the best movie about Marilyn I've ever seen. It was the only film I've seen that used her own words, in this case with actors reading and performing both her poetry and excerpts from her journals. It gave a deeper, truer insight into Marilyn than I've seen before, painting her as a real person – neither a bombshell nor a fetishized broken baby bird (ahem ahem my week with marilyn). It was really beautiful, a real honor to her memory.

My Monty obsession kicked into overdrive this year. I always feel kind of sad that Monty doesn't seem to get as much attention these days, comparable to his contemporaries, and I feel like it's because he doesn't really have a definitive role in the way that someone like Brando does. Monty was just really great in a bunch of movies of variable quality, but I don't think you could necessarily pluck out one and say, "There. This is the essence of a Montgomery Clift performance." I'm also sure it's in part because his presence was not explosive, but quietly yearning and tormented. But he is extremely charismatic and watchable, no matter what he's in. I also think he's the best at romantic scenes out of anyone in old movies; he somehow makes the face-smashing kisses natural and sexy and tender. He's always really beautiful and tender with his love interests, and from what I gather, he was that way with the women in his life too.

I raved about this movie in my movie meme post but I really can't talk it up enough. I rewatched it recently and loved it just as much as the first time. Such a great movie, pls watch it and then come and talk to me about it.

Ughhhhhhhh liking a Polanski movie is SO ANNOYING. I DO NOT WANT TO LIKE HIS MOVIES. I didn't think I would like Rosemary's Baby, actually, because it's not really my kinda thing in theory, but it's one of my friend's favorites so I checked it out. And annoyingly, I really enjoyed it.

I was moderately more literate this year!!! I hope the trend continues and I am even more literate in the following year. I really miss being a person who reads a ton of books. These are just the most memorable for me.

Interview with the Vampire was a book I last read in middle school and I have probably bored everyone to tears harping on it again and again, but I was just shocked how very much I loved it upon re-reading. There is also a really gorgeous graphic novel of the book from Claudia's perspective that I haven't technically 'read' yet because I am currently satisfied just flipping through the pretty pictures now and again. It's so pretty. I'm going to do The Vampire Lestat in the coming year too; I'm stretching them out a little so I can revel in them, haha. I also read a pretty cool book called The Science of Vampires by Katherine Ramsland that delves into vampirism from a biological/psychological standpoint. I found it really fascinating and illuminating. It got slightly distracted from the matter at hand by delving a little too much actual serial killers but I am interested in serial killers, so I wasn't too bothered.

The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire Legrand was one of my favorites of the year. It's a quick read, a YA horror-suspense novel that I definitely recommend, especially since good YA can be hard to find. The characters were so great and the tension built very well, I thought. The main character is my kind of girl, a bitchy over-achiever named Victoria who is friends with reject-y outsider and underachiever Lawrence (he's her only friend, I die, they are so wonderful together); one day he goes missing and she's the only one who notices, as everyone in town seems to have forgotten he ever existed, including his parents. Then she starts to remember other students who have disappeared and been forgotten, always the kids who never quite fit in, and she takes it upon herself to get to the bottom of it, leading her to the home of the title. It has moments of genuine horror and creepiness, as well as fantastic world-building. It also has lovely illustrations. I wish it would have a sequel, actually, but I think it's just a standalone novel.

I had read The Bell Jar in high school but I remembered not liking it, probably for asshole juvenile reasons. Since I am older and less terrible now I decided to re-read it and I am so glad I did. I cannot believe what a little twerp I was in the first place. I loved it intensely this time around. It really hit me in a way it had not before for whatever reason. Love love love. Why isn't there a movie.

Biography-wise, I read the Tim & Jeff Buckley book I raved about many times before and am still in the thick of the Monty Clift bio, because I am very slow with biographies. Monty had a crazy fascinating life. His mother was the illegitimate daughter of two very wealthy Southern families and her all-consuming desire to be recognized by those families drove and determined the rest of her life. She isolated and sheltered Monty and his two siblings, refusing to let them have outside friends and dragging them all around Europe as children to educate them and make them more ~genteel. She dressed them all alike and made them have the same haircuts, refused to really allow them space to have their own opinions or passions because she had such lofty plans for them. Shit was really a V.C. Andrews novel waiting to happen which brings me to

V.C. MUTHAFUCKIN ANDREWS. Bitch owned my LIFE in the latter part of the year. I am actually still reading My Sweet Audrina, which I will get to in a minute. Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind I had read before (I do plan to trudge through the rest of the series, but...ugh) but I was a kid then, so I didn't get the sick creeper pleasure I get out of them now. Such terrible books but so gloriously readable??? So creepy? So questionable? So shady? I love them. I'm fucking dying for the Lifetime movie, have you guys watched the trailer? Please watch the extended trailer on Lifetime's website, it promises to be as epically amazingbad as the book. I actually think that My Sweet Audrina (to my knowledge, her only standalone novel) is kind of a decent horror novel? Not just in a hilariously trashy way. The plot of that one, for people who don't know, is the titular Audrina lives with her parents, aunt, and cousin in a beautiful-but-hella-creepy isolated house surrounded by woods on three sides and a river on the fourth. It is far away from town. She is not allowed to go to school or to go into the woods. She had an older sister who died violently before she was born who was also named Audrina, and she is tormented by a desire to be like the First and Best Audrina (this is actually what they call her omg), which is fostered by her terrible father, who locks her in the First Audrina's room at night so she can rock in the First Audrina's rocking chair and try to access all her memories and talents. But she can only ever access her elder sister's most horrifying moments. She also has no sense of time because all the clocks in the house read different times, there are no calendars, and no one in the family will tell her their true ages. Seriously, kind of a legit horror novel imo! Also I know the twist, but I won't ruin it for you unless you want me to. I find knowing does not impede my enjoyment of the novel at all.

All the albums I was most obsessed with this year, unsurprisingly dominated by Jeffrey. I dug JT's album a lot this year but I did not bother with part 2 at all. Also Natalia Kills is absolutely my everything, I still listen to that album on a loop.

Also here is a link to a fanmix of other songs I was obsessed with this year. The songs on it are: Irreplaceable (Bey), I Don't Need a Man (Miss A), Bad Boy (Bigbang), Come On Over Baby (All I Want is You) (Christina Aguilera), Creep (TLC), Fade Into You (Mazzy Star), Brown Sugar (D'Angelo), Song to the Siren (Tim Buckley), Jolene (Dolly), Summer Wine (Lana Del Rey & boyfriend), Positively 4th Street (Bob Dylan), and Mojo Pin (Jeff Buckley).




This post was so long wow. Hope you enjoyed it, haha.