3 New Movies That Are Redefining The Horror Genre



via BuzzFeed

At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, The Witch, The Nightmare, and Entertainment challenge old ideas of how horror films can look and feel.



The Witch.


Jarin Blaschke/A24


PARK CITY, Utah — There are horror movies, there are art movies, and then there are those that fall in the sweet spot between where fans of the scary and fans of the exquisitely shot come together. And that usually happens at a film festival.


Like many fests, the annual Sundance Film Festival has a midnight section where most of its genre selections — including Eli Roth's latest, Knock Knock , and David Robert Mitchell's beautiful, terrifying sexually transmitted haunting movie It Follows — are grouped. But this year, the most talked-about horror film in Park City, The Witch, premiered in the bright light of afternoon in Sundance's largest theater, courtesy of its place in the main dramatic competition. And, in addition to The Witch, two other movies also pushed the boundaries of what horror could be with innovative filmmaking and a willingness to show the many different types of fears people grapple with.



Jarin Blaschke/A24




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“Parenthood” Came Full Circle In Its Perfect Series Finale



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Farewell, Team Braverman.



Ben Cohen/NBC NBC


It couldn't be more fitting that Parenthood, which wrapped up its six-season run on Jan. 29, ended with a baseball game. The pilot episode of the Jason Katims-created show (very loosely based on the 1989 feature film) ended in the same fashion: After a negative experience, Max Braverman (Max Burkholder) doesn't initially want to play in his baseball game, but when he changes his mind, the entire Braverman clan races to get him there in time.


There's a beautiful sense of symmetry, therefore, to how Parenthood's final episode ended, with the Bravermans uniting to celebrate one of their own, Zeek (Craig T. Nelson), on the baseball diamond, fulfilling his wishes and bringing each other closer together in the process. With the series bookended both by the most American of sports — Crosby (Dax Shepard) once refers to baseball as the Bravermans' "religion" — and by Sarah (Lauren Graham) finding her true place (moving in with her parents in the pilot and finally getting the happy ending she deserves), Parenthood gave its audience the narrative equivalent of a home run with all the bases loaded.


And that final six-minute sequence at the end of Parenthood's series finale (called, fittingly, "May God Bless and Keep You Always," the first lyric of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young," the show's theme song) might just be one of the most gorgeous scenes ever to air on television. As the family gathers to pay their last respects to Zeek, felled by a Chekhovian heart attack in the final 10 minutes of the series, they do exactly as he once asked — to have his ashes scattered over center field of Marine Park and to have his family play a game of baseball over him. It's a somber but also joyous scene of connection in a series that has ultimately been about the ways in which we forge bonds with our loved ones and about how love grows and changes and is tested over time.




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The Year Sex Took Over Sundance



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From a teenage girl’s sexual awakening to gay men in a three-way, from incredibly flexible gymnastic sex to a mother having her way with a teddy bear, the 2015 Sundance Film Festival unabashedly explored areas of human sexuality rarely seen in feature films. Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS!


The Bronze


The Bronze


This brash comedy about a has-been gymnast, co-written by and starring The Big Bang Theory’s Melissa Rauch, may have kicked off Sundance on a decidedly mixed note, but people are still talking about its outrageous third-act sex scene. After receiving some disheartening news, Rauch’s character has an ill-advised fling with her nemesis, a former fellow Olympic gymnast played by Sebastian Stan. The pair go back to her hotel room and proceed to have athletic sex — literally. They do flips. They do lifts. They do turns. Rauch ends up bent over a table, and Stan does a few pommel horse moves on her back before getting back to it. Rings are involved. It’s incredibly raunchy and very, very funny. The scene was made possible with the help of some game body doubles, leaving us all wondering whether or not it’s Stan or his stand-in who’s flexible enough to lift his leg in a heel stretch above his head. —Alison Willmore


Scott Henriksen


The Diary of a Teenage Girl


The Diary of a Teenage Girl


Growing up is never easy, but Minnie (Sundance breakout Bel Powley) has a particularly rough time of it after getting involved in a relationship with her mom’s boyfriend, Monroe (Alexander SkarsgĂ„rd). Their secret hookups leave Minnie confused and emotionally wrenched around, but are themselves voracious and raw, an encapsulation of her sexual awakening and overflowing sensuality. The film is daringly frank in depicting the sex in which Minnie engages, with Monroe and with others, portraying it frankly, without a sense of prurience or judgment, and with the understanding that showing its heroine’s desire and enjoyment of what she does in bed doesn’t equal a stamp of approval for her illegal, unhealthy relationship. That said, the most provocative scene isn’t one that takes place during sex at all, but immediately after, when Monroe has taken Minnie’s virginity. As they’re tangled together in bed in the aftermath, she wets her finger with her own blood and uses it to draw an “X” on Monroe’s leg, the moment one of shocking triumph. —A.W.


Sam Emerson


Dope


Dope


Malcolm (Shameik Moore) is the relatable, empathetic, geeky kid we’re all rooting for throughout the best work yet from writer-director Rick Famuyiwa (Our Family Wedding, Brown Sugar, The Wood). So when Lily (Chanel Iman), a sultry, rich temptress, disrobes and tells him she wants to give him his first time, game on. The problem: After Malcolm is naked and ready, Lily is nowhere to be found. The culprit: She has discovered Malcolm’s backpack filled with bricks of drugs — and sampling those goods prove to be far more tempting than taking his virginity. Their would-be sex goes haywire — brace yourself for a vomiting in the mouth scene. So, no sex for now for our dorky protagonist; his only option is the comically graphic masturbating that we saw him doing earlier in the comforts of his bedroom. —Kelley L. Carter


Scott Falconer




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The "Game Of Thrones" Season 5 Trailer Is Here



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The trailer, which first premiered in IMAX theaters on Jan. 23, is finally available to all. Plus, 18 new images!


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Alexander Siddig as Doran Martell


Macall B. Polay / HBO



Carice van Houten as Melisandre


Helen Sloan / HBO



Conleth Hill as Varys and Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister


Helen Sloan / HBO




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"Parenthood" Actors Give Advice To Their Characters



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May god bless them and keep them always.



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NBC



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The Final "Friday Night Lights" Cameo On "Parenthood" Filled Our Hearts



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WARNING: SPOILERS FROM THE SERIES FINALE WITHIN.



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Ranking 33 Classic Hollywood Leading Men



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As only a gay man and a straight man could decide.



Ira Madison III for BuzzFeed / Via Getty Images


James Cagney


James Cagney


Notable Films: The Public Enemy, Angels With Dirty Faces


Javier Moreno: When you called him a Dick Tracy villain, I thought he actually was Flattop. That was such a horrible movie.

Ira Madison III: First of all, Dick Tracy is iconic.

Javi: Maybe Warren Beatty. Madonna was in it, right?

Ira: Madonna was perfect. Also, I retract my Flattop comment. He looks like the Spider-Man villain Hammerhead.

Javi: Hell yeah! He even has the same pinstripe suit.


Getty Images / Hulton Archive


Robert Mitchum


Robert Mitchum


Notable Films: Cape Fear (1962 version), Crossfire


Ira: So, he has an... interesting look.

Javi: I was gonna say that too. He's got that "hey, wanna see something?" look and you know it's not gonna be good.

Ira: Bless the time when male actors were cast purely on their talent.


Getty Images / Pictorial Parade




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Get To Know Meredith Grey's Sister On "Grey's Anatomy"



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Kelly McCreary has shaken up Shonda Rhimes’ medical drama in its 11th season. Now, the actor behind Maggie Pierce reveals how she got the part, why she once quit acting, and why the show is so important.



Reuters


In its 11 seasons, Shonda Rhimes' Grey's Anatomy has delighted loyal viewers, and, simultaneously, pulled popular culture forward with its representations of people of color, working women, working parents, and LGBT characters. It has taken its audience through both gasp-inducing medical plots and the slow unfoldings of characters — all of whom revolve around Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) — that we have now known for longer than most of us know the real people in our lives.


The ABC drama, is not, however, known for dropping in stories that it planted seasons before — it's never been filled with twisty mythology. But there is one exception: the character of Maggie Pierce (Kelly McCreary), the child Meredith's mother, Ellis (Kate Burton), conceived with Richard "The Chief" Webber (James Pickens Jr.) during their affair and given up for adoption, which Meredith was too young to remember clearly. Though we didn't know who she was at the time, Maggie appeared at the end of Season 10 to work at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. And her real reason for taking the job as the head of cardiology was to get to know her biological sister. Her mother's name, she told Richard in the Season 10 finale, was all over the hospital. "Ellis Grey," she said. "Did you know her?"


And with that, Maggie suddenly became a crucial part of the Grey's Anatomy tapestry. "We've known the Maggie storyline since Season 4; basically, since the beginning of the show," Rhimes told The Hollywood Reporter two months after the episode aired. "I knew the Richard-Ellis love child was a storyline since I planned the pilot. I was like, 'At some point, we're going to have the Richard-Ellis love child.'"


Since she planned the pilot! It was fascinating for the Grey's faithful.


In her half-season on the show so far, Maggie has proven to be serious, kind, nerdy, stable (unlike her sister, perhaps), and an excellent, confident doctor. She's also the product of a loving home with parents who raised her right (unlike her sister, for sure).


Over lunch recently at a cafe in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles, McCreary told BuzzFeed News many things you probably don't know about her, including how she got to Grey's Anatomy, what it means to master "Scandal pace," and why she quit acting and almost never returned to it.


McCreary grew up in Milwaukee, and lived there until she left to go to Barnard College in New York City.


McCreary grew up in Milwaukee, and lived there until she left to go to Barnard College in New York City.


McCreary with Joe Morton of Scandal


Todd Wawrychuk / ABC




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Everything You Want To Know About The Final Scene Of "Parenthood"



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Showrunner Jason Katims talks to BuzzFeed News about how the beloved NBC series came to a close, those Friday Night Lights references, and the importance of baseball for the Bravermans. WARNING: DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE PARENTHOOD SERIES FINALE!



Justin Lubin / NBC


The final six minutes of Parenthood have no dialogue. Instead, the only thing fans of the NBC family drama hear is an acoustic cover, courtesy of Sam Beam and Rhiannon Giddens, of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young," the theme song that introduced the Bravermans for 103 episodes — and a lyric of which ("May god bless and keep you always") serves as the series finale's title.


Those last minutes of the episode center on a baseball game in Braverman family patriarch Zeek's (Craig T. Nelson) memory interspersed with flash-forwards that depict how each individual family unit progresses. And any fan of Parenthood showrunner Jason Katims' previous series Friday Night Lights was likely particularly moved by those last six precious minutes, seeing as FNL said its good-bye in a similar fashion.


"The one thing that I think did inspire me from Friday Night Lights was that there's a version of the flash-forward at the end when you look a little bit into the futures of everybody," Katims told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview a few days before the Parenthood series finale aired. "Obviously, it's a very different ending. But I did think, in both shows, the one thing I really wanted to do in the ending was not only feel like I gave the show a satisfying ending, but I really loved the idea of getting into where everybody was heading next."


Unlike Friday Night Lights, which ended on a high note with the East Dillon Lions winning the Texas state championship football game, the Parenthood series finale went out bittersweetly in the wake of Zeek's death. Katims said he wanted to ensure fans didn't only cry tears of sorrow during the last episode, but that they smiled as well.


"The whole final season of Parenthood was about Zeek's passing, and I knew that's where we were going to head toward the end of the finale episode. To me, the flash-forwards helped for us to have that ending, which was a very tough thing, but still give the sense that, hopefully, the ending was ultimately uplifting because it's all about how life goes on," he said. "When you saw all these families continuing to grow and new families forming and you saw everybody sort of thriving, I thought it struck a very nice balance between the sadness of losing Zeek."



NBC




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The One "Parenthood" Detail That Predicted How The Series Would End



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WARNING: THIS POST IS ENTIRELY FILLED WITH SPOILERS FROM THE SERIES FINALE, “MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU ALWAYS.” Double warning: It could break your tear ducts.



NBC



NBC


And though it certainly made any fan of the NBC family drama cry, it likely did not come as a big surprise.


And though it certainly made any fan of the NBC family drama cry, it likely did not come as a big surprise.


After the fifth season aired, Parenthood showrunner Jason Katims told BuzzFeed News the sixth and final season would tackle the circle of life. And nearly every episode in the last season touched on the patriarch's failing health. In the Season 6 premiere, Zeek suffered a mini heart attack while celebrating his birthday in Las Vegas with his daughter Sarah (Lauren Graham). In the next episode ("Happy Birthday, Zeek"), his doctor told him he had exhausted all other, less invasive options, and needed to have heart surgery. But a strong-willed Zeek refused.


Justin Lubin / NBC




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56 Times The Bravermans Were The Best Dancers On Television



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Because we could all use a little happy right about now, Parenthood fans.



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NBC



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Finally, A Nina Simone Film To Shed Light On Her Legend



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”I’m just a soul whose intentions are good.” A documentary about the High Priestess Of Soul will air on Netflix.



Alfred Wertheimer / Via http://Sundance.org


PARK CITY, Utah — She walked stoically, and with purpose, to her piano. She sat down and took in her live audience, her eyes fixated on them sternly, almost as if she needed to approve of them before she spoke her first words, played her first notes, sang her first song.



This was Nina Simone. And her audience — for this particular performance, anyway — loved every bit of what she gave them.


At long last, here's an introduction to a legendary performer we're all yearning to learn so much more about. And her story unfolds with some of the most unimaginable pain.



There have been many attention-grabbing headlines about the singer in the last few years, largely about how her life would (or should) play out in a film, or speculating about which Simone viewers would meet on screen. Would it be the woman who painstakingly belted out deep contralto vocals of love gone right, wrong, or amiss? Or would we meet the woman who was inspired by civil rights political activism but eventually hit a wall, decided enough was enough, and — some might say— took things a bit too far, costing her the crossover audience she'd successfully built? Or would we learn about the last few years of her life, and how she died lonely at the age of 70?


Thanks to Liz Garbus' excellent documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival last week and will be available on Netflix later this year, we finally get to see Simone — who was born Eunice Waymon — as she saw herself. Complicated. Talented. Misunderstood. Passionate. Underrated.



Garbus, a two-time Academy Award nominee, was up for the challenge, untangling the resistance of those close to the singer, and getting them to open up and reveal intimate details of her life. Interest in telling Simone's story has existed for quite some time: Nearly eight years ago Mary J. Blige was cast in the role, and more recently Zoe Saldana starred in a feature film that only a few have seen. But completing any project about the life of Nina Simone has been a difficult task to pull off; her estate and those in her inner circle are fiercely defensive. Garbus said this particular film came to her in 2013:



"There had been a lot of Nina Simone projects that had been discussed and talked about, and the family felt like it was time to let go and let a documentary finally happen and give it their blessing," she said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. "Nina Simone's daughter — I mean, what person could see all of their family's laundry up on screen and not object and quibble on this? She gave me no notes. She said, 'We've done Mommy proud. Go Liz.' That was amazing. It's a testament to her strength, coming to terms with the type of parent she had."



Peter Rodis / Via http://Sundance.org


The director also was able to convince Simone's longtime lead guitarist and confidant, Al Schackman, to participate in the documentary. He'd declined other such offers, but said that learning Garbus had no agenda made him eventually cave.



"It took a bit of time. I was reluctant at first. And gradually Liz got through to me," he said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. "I saw the importance of it. I saw that this was the time to let go and share and not guard Nina's legacy. And I'm glad I did. I was right in letting go."



After Garbus was able to break through barriers and eliminate doubts like Schackman's, she tapped into details of Simone's life that haven't been largely discussed, like her late-in-life bipolar diagnosis.



"I feel like there are like six different camps of people's opinions and takes and visions of Nina. Whenever you'd call someone up, they'd be looking at us like, What camp are you from? And I'm like, We're from camp Nina. We're Switzerland. We just want to hear it all. We're truth gatherers. That's what we're doing. People were really suspicious," Garbus said. "I … wanted to get to know Nina. But it was really, really difficult. People have such protective feelings of her. I had to prove myself each time. But I felt like, I'm your conduit. In all of those truths, is the real Nina. She's in there."



Schackman has a strong feeling his longtime friend and collaborator would approve of the final product.


"I think she would be delighted," he said, before pausing and chuckling a bit. Then he added, "She would say, 'Yeah, that's me!'"




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“Elementary” Flipped The Script On The Standard Rape Story



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Ophelia Lovibond, Lucy Liu, and showrunner Rob Doherty talked to BuzzFeed News about how Kitty Winter “does not wish to be defined by her victimhood.” Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS ahead for the Jan. 29 episode.



CBS


When vengeful detective Kitty Winter (Ophelia Lovibond) first appears in the third season premiere of Elementary, she is a mysterious live wire who quickly engages in a baton fight with Dr. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu); it is not until the following episode that it's revealed euphemistically that she was "the victim of a horrific crime," as Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) puts it. He continues, "She was taken. By a man." It's Joan who is the first to say the r-word, in the third episode: "She's a rape victim."


The initial sketch of Kitty Winter, portrayed by Lovibond in a 12-episode arc that ended Jan. 29, dances at the edge of sexist caricature. It begins with a catfight, Kitty battling Liu's Joan on the street, two women pitted against one another over Sherlock — a man. In the next episode, the stereotype threatens to compound: Kitty Winter is a rape victim. But instead of falling into easy clichĂ©s of inimical women and fragile victims, Elementary proceeded to create not only an authentic representation of female friendship, but also a deeply empathetic, empowered story of rape survival. The crime is named. The woman does not "overcome," but rather takes charge of her recovery. She is surrounded by a network of support. Her story is never disbelieved. And, ultimately, Kitty shreds her rapist's cloak of respectability.


"She's not a victim. She has not allowed this to take over her life," Lovibond told BuzzFeed News. And still, throughout her episodes, Lovibond took great care to make the trauma a central part of the character. "Rape isn't a one-time thing: It is something that will change your wiring a little bit," she said. And this is what's so striking about Kitty Winter: She is indeed not defined by her victimhood, but she is inflected by it. It's never an afterthought, as gender-based violence so often is on television.


Small choices brought Kitty to life; Lovibond mentioned a scene in the Nov. 20 episode where one of Sherlock's eccentric consultants — Harlan, a doughy mathematician played by Rich Sommer — is alone in a room with her, shirtless.


"I said, 'I don't want to be too close to him, because even though he's clearly nonthreatening, Kitty's not comfortable being in a room with a naked man,'" Lovibond said. "It's not appropriate; it makes her uncomfortable."


That was a new notion to Elementary's showrunner, Rob Doherty. "That hadn't occurred to me," he said. "Harlan is this lovable goofball we introduced last year. I worked with the writer on that scene, and it never occurred to me. … When Ophelia pointed it out, it made all the sense in the world."


Kitty Winter is a minor character from an original Holmes story, "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client," so — SPOILER ALERT for a plot point that's going on a century old — Doherty always knew her arc would end with Kitty throwing acid in the face of her attacker. What was unclear to Doherty was just how she would get there. And there isn't much hint as to how she gets there in the story itself: The original Kitty Winter is more a collection of characteristics than a character. But, Doherty said, "Kitty Winter jumped out at me because she was one of the most active female characters I'd ever come across in the canon" — unlike the Kitty in Elementary, this earlier Kitty simultaneously punishes her attacker and saves Sherlock Holmes, making her a hero. In Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, "women come across a certain way, for the most part, and Kitty was this really fascinating exception." She's violent, full of anger, and self-determining.


As Kitty became more violent in the Jan. 22 episode — torturing someone for information — Lovibond played Kitty "doing it very reluctantly, and that wasn't how I was seeing it," Doherty said. Once Kitty finds out that her rapist is in New York City, Doherty began imagining "someone who is rage-filled and coiled and ready to snap," he said, but Lovibond took a different tack.


"Kitty's not an evil person," Lovibond said. "When she does do the wrong thing as a means to an end, it's very reluctantly."


This part of her story — this burning off the face of a sadistic serial rapist-murderer — is, of course, not without its doubts.



CBS


"He gets what he deserves, and Kitty gets some of what she needs," Doherty said, noting that Gruner (Stuart Townsend) is in police custody by the episode's end. Lovibond's moral interpretation was a little less certain: "There are so many variables to what he did to her; who's to say that that's not right? Objectively, that is a bad thing to do: Bad equals wrong. But then when you factor in everything that happened, how much less wrong does it become? There isn't an objective categorical there."


Certainly, Sherlock doesn't think there's an objective answer: He knows Kitty intends to torture and murder Gruner, and intervenes only to tell her that it might not be worth it to murder the man; still, he leaves it in her hands. And this is the kind of agency Kitty Winter is granted throughout her 12 episodes: She is radically trusted and supported by Sherlock and Joan. Sherlock is "the first person in a long time — man — that she has allowed herself to trust, to be vulnerable around," Lovibond said. It's partly because, moments after meeting her, he recognizes her trauma, but doesn't classify her as weakened by it; in fact, the rape, and her dedication to crime-solving, is largely what draws him to her. Likewise, Joan is drawn to her because she wants to help her.


"I think it's a very positive portrayal of how women group together in reality," Liu said, contrasting this on-screen friendship with the "more dramatic" — and fraught — female relationships often depicted on television.


It's Sherlock to whom Kitty says "I love you" in the end, but it's Joan who receives a file containing the details of Kitty's rape and doesn't read the file until Kitty, unprompted, tells her to do so. It's Joan who gets Kitty into group therapy. "I always wrote that [relationship] from a place of parenthood," Doherty said.


"Just because she's a little bit older than her and a woman, she has to become this kind of maternal figure to her? No. She could be something else," Lovibond said.


Liu agreed. "She wanted to relate to her on a more peer-to-peer level."


Indeed, there is a scene in the season's third episode in which Sherlock tells Joan he imagines himself as a father figure: "It's commonly believed that a child benefits mostly from the presence of two parents. He, or she in this case, can absorb certain qualities from the father: clear-eyed view of the world, capacity for rational thought, etc. He can also absorb certain qualities from the mother."


"Excuse me, but I am not Kitty's mother," Joan says, interrupting his somewhat infantilizing idea. "And she sure as hell is not our child."


And Kitty, later in the season, steps up to defend Joan. When Sherlock finds Joan's memoirs of their time together on a laptop, Kitty is quick to say that Joan has a right to tell her own stories. And in the Nov. 27 episode, she advises Captain Gregson (Aidan Quinn) to respect his daughter's right to keep her own story of partner abuse a secret. Kitty "does not wish to be defined by her victimhood," Sherlock tells Joan early on, and, granted this control over her story, Kitty attempts to give other women control over theirs.


Systems of communal support thread throughout the 12-episode Kitty Winter arc. The thing that's so rarely represented on TV — or in any narrative medium — fits with the ethos of the series: "We tell stories about characters who spend lots of time in [support] meetings," said Doherty. Characters — first Sherlock with his addiction, and here, Kitty — take an active role in their recovery while relying on a network of others for support, flouting the more traditional narrative of the rugged individual pulling himself up by the bootstraps. What we see here is more nuanced, more authentic, and more respectful to real human beings: The show doesn't reinforce the notion of internalizing struggle. "We're a show," said Doherty, "that absolutely believes in talk as help."




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The "Parenthood" Cast And Crew Watched The Series Finale Together And It's Too Much



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Seemingly, at creator Jason Katims’ house. Hold me?




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34 Times "Parenthood" Made You Sob Uncontrollably



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Happy tears, sad tears, all of the tears! And surely, there will be more from the series finale tonight. Check back for updates :(


That time, in the very first episode, when Adam (Peter Kruase) confided in his father, Zeek (Craig T. Nelson).


That time, in the very first episode, when Adam (Peter Kruase) confided in his father, Zeek (Craig T. Nelson).


And you knew this show was going to be more emotional and honest than anything you'd ever watched on television before.


NBC



NBC via evemyles.tumblr.com



NBC via evemyles.tumblr.com




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Joss Whedon Clarifies His Comments About Misogyny In Superhero Movies



via BuzzFeed

“If a raccoon can carry a movie, then they believe maybe even a woman can,” the Avengers: Age of Ultron director told BuzzFeed News exclusively.



Elizabeth Olsen, director Joss Whedon, and Jeremy Renner on the set of Avengers: Age of Ultron


Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios


On Wednesday, an interview with Joss Whedon on Digital Spy credited the Avengers: Age of Ultron director with a particularly damning indictment regarding the historical lack of lead female characters in superhero movies.


"It's a phenomenon in the [film] industry that we call 'stupid people'," Whedon said. "There is genuine, recalcitrant, intractable sexism, and old-fashioned quiet misogyny that goes on. You hear 'Oh, [female superheroes] don't work because of these two bad ones that were made eight years ago', there's always an excuse."


Soon enough, his words went viral.


The interview, however, was given last summer while Whedon was in the middle of production on the Avengers sequel — before Marvel Studios announced its first female-driven superhero film, Captain Marvel, before Warner Bros.' Wonder Woman finally landed a release date and director, before the Scarlett Johansson vehicle Lucy became a global phenomenon, and before The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 ended up as the year's top box office hit in the U.S., and made history in the process with its lead Jennifer Lawrence.


In the wake of that much forward momentum for female-driven blockbusters, Whedon told BuzzFeed News in an exclusive phone interview on Thursday that he found himself wincing a bit at the stridency of words he spoke several months before they were printed. "I just thought, I sounded very harsh," he said. "And then [Marvel announced], 'We're going to make Captain Marvel. We're going to make Black Panther. We're going to shake it up.' I was just like, great! Now I just sound mean and bitter. But, you know, there's a lot to be mean and bitter about."


Indeed, Whedon still very much stands by the sentiment that there need to be more women at the forefront of Hollywood's superhero movies — a feeling he's expressed before, and often. But the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is also quite clear that he remains eager to step out of the world of established comic books, and back into a universe of his own creation.


I can't say I'm surprised by the attention your interview has received, and I'm definitely not surprised by the sentiment from you — it's certainly one you have not been shy about in the past.


Joss Whedon: Yeah. I would not refer to that news as breaking. That news might be bending, slightly.


Were you aware of the Captain Marvel movie when you did that interview last summer?


JW: Yes, and not expecting it to get any traction, honestly. That's something that [Marvel Studios chief] Kevin [Feige] has been working on for a while. And I obviously was a cheerleader, but he had to get all the ducks in a row and get all the minds in agreement. I think being a part of Disney maybe makes it easier, because they're open to it. And Marvel now is in a position to shake up its own paradigm, because it's got such a success record.


Honestly, you know, Guardians [of the Galaxy] might have helped it, just because that was outside what was considered to be their box and did so well that— Well, let's put it this way: If a raccoon can carry a movie, then they believe maybe even a woman can.




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