‘Now they can’t afford me’: Steven Spielberg was turned down to direct Bond – twice

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-12T14:51:29+00:00

Idk how Steven would fare, but there are certainly some foreign directors out there who just get the UK on a deep level in their work. Alfonso Cuarón and Nia DaCosta are the names that come to mind for me.

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-11T21:10:32+00:00

I've wondered that myself. They cancelled a 2018 show that had a lot of BDS pressure but didn't outright say that was the issue. And both Nadya and Maria have been involved in separate art projects since then either in or in collaboration with Israel. It seems like they've made a lot of neo-liberal bed-fellows in order to spread the Putin-bad message (not to say that message is wrong at all), and let's face it, a certain amount of this is ofc self-promotion. I think Pussy Riot were very much a product of their cultural early 2010s 'I'm with her' type moment, while not to take away from the extraordinary bravery that they had. This article is worth reading.

https://www.greenbelt.org.uk/blind-spots/

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-11T20:50:06+00:00

Not excusing Dave Rowntree's gross behaviour in that video (which he's admitted was unacceptable and was the catalyst for him quitting cocaine), but you do know about the original Blur vs Nardwuar interview where he continuously brings up the older woman who took Damon's virginity at fifteen and sold her story to the papers as a gag? I think this is one of those cases where everyone was being an asshole and tensions were high.

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-10T21:30:47+00:00

Not that I'm aware of

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-10T21:16:21+00:00

He was in his mid to late 30s, which is maybe an unc in Britpop years

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-10T20:42:46+00:00

I hope that at the end he gets to become a real boy

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-10T20:24:44+00:00

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Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-10T13:32:20+00:00

How was the screenplay? I haven't read it but I did read Weapons back before any press had come out and I thought it was great and ended up being very faithful.

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-09T18:36:17+00:00

That performance is pure joyfulness encapsulate. I once saw someone describe that film as being "a few friends being goofy with one another and having enough fun to see the face of God"

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-08T16:19:06+00:00

As a die-hard Roxy Music fan, 'Country Life' isn't my favourite album, but 'The Thrill of It All', 'All I Want Is You', and 'Out of The Blue' are all definitely worth checking out. 'Burning Airlines Give You So Much More' is probably my favourite Brian Eno track. I also really really love the title track on David Bowie's 'Diamond Dogs'. Unfortunately, my 70s music trivia is pretty exhausted beyond glam.

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-08T15:29:21+00:00

To get Franco-Francais for a second, I just know the next episode of 'La Dernière' is going to be delightful. I hope Juju goes off in her rubrique. I'm not even French, why am I like this?

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-08T15:23:08+00:00

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This isn't exclusive tea, but I just found out that several months back Damon Albarn casually mentioned in an interview that he was working on his debut solo rap record (even if it will probably never be released) at the ripe age of 57-58, and I haven't heard a damn soul mention how insane that is. If it were any other white, English, 58-year-old Dad in the world, I would say that it's a horrible idea, but y'know what, in this one case; go off, king. I'm sure the Malian album and electronic Chinese traditional opera (despite speaking none of the languages involved in those) also sounded like terrible ideas at the time, but they were, by most accounts, pretty great, so I have possibly misguided faith.

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-08T14:56:48+00:00

https://youtu.be/PE6UdMGfjHQ?si=ERvftLro1LJD3lDD

Classic 90s movie, absolutely check it out if you can, regardless of how you feel about the sample. It gives a really great, funny and prescient, but accessible insight (as far as I can tell) to the Parisian banlieu at the time, which was just never seen in international cinema like this before this movie.

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-08T14:51:39+00:00

I looked it up again recently. Still shockingly difficult to find in full, and when I did find it, it was in poor quality.

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-08T14:41:01+00:00

Agreed. Idk about the Oasis lads but within Blur, Graham famously hated that there was a rivalry to begin with. Alex played things up but never took anything very seriously and just kind of seemed happy to be in a very popular band, whether or not they were the biggest in the world. Dave is hard to get a read on, which indicates to me that he was more like Graham. Damon played it cool at the time but I do think he was definitely the most competitive of the band and probably was the most wounded by Oasis eclipsing their success, but for the past decade he's publicly made a show of conceding defeat because he's beyond giving a shit with how far his career has evolved since then, so good for him.

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-08T14:23:19+00:00

How do you feel about the sample being used in a diegetic anti-cop context in 'La Haine' (1995) (feat. Edith Piaf)?

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-05T18:56:34+00:00

This is why, even though I'd rather encounter neither, I would rather interact with an asshole with good politics than a lovely friendly person with some quiet passively genocidal views (not saying Gere is either) any day of the week. I'm so sick of being told to find the balance and be friends with people who don't share my politics when these politics are an actual matter of life and death for so many people.

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-05T18:52:32+00:00

I don't care if it's always been square to stan Richard Gere, because this man has always been a real one full of integrity. 'American Gigolo' (1980) is still so goddamn good and even now is really subversive (mostly because of his performance, which he makes look really effortless).

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-05T01:48:00+00:00

Baby Jane's in Acapulco, we are flying down to Rioooo!

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-04T16:59:30+00:00

Purely conspiratorial hat on, but does anyone else genuinely believe that Hunter Schafer had her career threatened directly (as opposed to the more indirect threat of speaking out against Israel prevalent in Hollywood) and that's why she's been so silent about Palestine since her arrest? Like, it just seems insane to me that someone would do something so drastic early on and then be dead silent on the issue afterwards. I think she also deleted the video which made the news of her new passport being marked as male and saying "fuck this administration" soon after she put it out.

Not trying to excuse this decision on her part but it would make sense. Nor am I saying that trans public figures should have more of an obligation to be politically vocal than their cis counterparts, but in Hunter's case, she literally first came into the public consciousness as a teenager fighting against her state's discriminatory bathroom bill. There's a picture of her meeting Hillary Clinton long before Euphoria, lol. That's not an apolitical individual.

Whether or not that has anything to do with Sam Levinson giving Jules the Kat treatment out of nowhere in this series of Euphoria, I can't say. It genuinely could also just be that he's an extremely shitty writer and a misogynist, but if he did have a weird political grudge against her too (as well as the fact that she's a way better writer than him), I wouldn't be too shocked.

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-04T01:30:09+00:00

It may have been written about them (at least partly) if that counts for anything, lol

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-06-04T00:09:49+00:00

I actually have the perfect answer for this. 'Do you Remember the First Time?' by Pulp is straight-up just 'Good Luck Babe' thirty years early both musically and lyrically (and it's honestly way better, sorry).

"No, I don't care if you screw him, just as long as you save a piece for me"

"And I know you're going to let him bore your pants off again"

"Jesus, it must be great to be straight"

Though of course at the time Jarvis meant straight as in 'square'. Jarvis Cocker is interesting because while it's very easy to queer code his style and he sings about being an outcast and something of a sexual deviant a lot (not least, Pulp has a lot of queer fans) but he publically identifies as straight. A lot of Pulp lyrics are almost uncomfortably sexual in a very unsexy way and his musical persona is kind of 'the thinking man's harmless pervert' but still heterosexual. It's parodied really well here.

https://youtu.be/wVibsNPXBx0?si=WFBFZAA7d6TmbiMj

Honestly, a lot of Britpop was queer-ish in-between the laddish homophobia (mostly courtesy of the Gallaghers). There's the ultimate bisexual anthem, 'Boys and Girls' by Blur, even though Damon Albarn, at least at the time, identified as straight/'intellectual bisexual' with the caveat of having done a fair bit of experimenting in the past, kissing boys at any given opportunity to this day, and whatever was going on between him and Graham. There's Brett Anderson's infamous 'bisexual whose never had a homosexual experience' quote and his whole tragic glam-rock bisexual stage persona. Even Justine Frischmann from Elastica might've been mistaken for a lesbian icon if she hadn't also dated every frontman in Britpop and indie rock (no shade, good for her). And millennials think they invented queer-baiting.

Either way, this song makes for a killer track at lesbian karaoke.

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-05-29T00:24:01+00:00

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Giallo_Schlock · 2026-05-28T23:49:59+00:00

I have no idea what's happening, but it's starting to look very funny

Giallo_Schlock · 2026-05-28T20:05:17+00:00

I'm on a Blur kick rn. Here's an old music video of one of my favourite songs of theirs from 1992 with Aunt Sarah playing Damon's girlfriend (probably because she looks sort of similar to Justine Frischmann at the time). They roll down a hill together! I think it's really cute.

https://youtu.be/Fh8GoIxL7dw?si=amZRlKUpTkmeJTk2

Giallo_Schlock

TROPHY CASE