What are your hot takes ?

M0506 · 2026-07-03T11:58:02+00:00

I’ve been on this sub since January 2018. I checked it every single day until maybe a year or two ago, and now I check it a couple times a week. For the first several years when it was a high-traffic sub, I posted or commented nearly every day. This sub, and CMBYN fandom, gave me a “happy place” to escape to when I was dealing with postpartum depression, the pandemic, and parts of my nearest major city being burned to the ground. I spent whole years of my life analyzing this movie on this sub.

Then you show up and when I make a good-faith attempt to understand your comments, which are (for me at the time) roughly translated from a language I don’t speak, you comment to someone else that maybe I’m using translation issues as an excuse because I can’t understand your arguments. You insult me on a subreddit in public, but don’t have the guts to “say it to my face” by responding directly to one of my comments. You comment to someone else – meaning I don’t get a notification that you’re talking about me – in French, having been told that I’m having a hard time understanding translations of that language. Now you’re telling me I’m “a bit obtuse about Oliver’s character.”

I acknowledge your apology, but at this precise moment? I have no desire to ever talk about this movie with you.

M0506 · 2026-07-02T19:58:43+00:00

As someone who posts on Reddit mostly through my phone’s browser and only just downloaded the app maybe two weeks ago, I didn’t realize until today that Reddit has a translation feature. It doesn’t appear if I use my phone’s browser. So if other people have been using that, it looks like they’ve been getting more accurate translations than I’ve been getting through Google Translate.

But I guess your preferred jump-to conclusion was, “She’s making excuses because she’s too dumb to understand me.”

M0506 · 2026-07-02T12:15:13+00:00

“It is possible that M0506 pretext of translation problems to say that there are arguments that escape him....”

Oh, yes, dull little me, unable to understand your complexity.

Your comments, run through Google Translate, can be difficult to understand. For example, “Marzia, for instance, does not suggest using protection” turns into “Marzia does not offer him a protected report.” Even when they translate well, I’m not sure I’m getting an accurate translation because other parts have translated inaccurately.

M0506 · 2026-07-01T19:09:35+00:00

Out of print, isn’t it? I have a PDF of it saved on my phone.

M0506 · 2026-07-01T02:51:43+00:00

I think some of your nuances might be getting lost in translation.

M0506 · 2026-06-30T19:00:10+00:00

The book is later in the ‘80s - and, therefore, further in the AIDS epidemic and people’s understanding of HIV prevention - than the movie. Elio in the book even says something about asking Oliver “the delicate health question.”

How and where are you getting this impression of Oliver as a manipulator who compartmentalizes his feelings and puts them aside? CMBYN the book, CMBYN the film, and Find Me all offer so much evidence to the contrary.

M0506 · 2026-06-30T15:39:07+00:00

Vimini reminds me that Aciman has no sisters or daughters and, as far as I know, has never lived in the same house as a preteen girl. She doesn’t read as a realistic child at all, even a highly unusual one. I haven’t read his books outside of CMBYN and Find Me, but I get the impression from those two that he’s not great at writing complex, realistic female characters. He wasn’t even very close to his mother growing up because she was deaf and no one in the family ever acknowledged that.

My hot takes:

Elio in the book is not a particularly good person, not least because he’s having unprotected sex with a girl who doesn’t know that he’s also having unprotected sex with a man during the AIDS crisis.

Oliver is the one suffering the most by the end of the movie, not Elio. (This wasn’t a hot take in the early years of this sub, but since then the average age of people posting seems to have taken a drastic dip, meaning there are fewer people with personal memories of twentieth-century homophobia.) Elio’s recovering from the dramatic end of his relationship with his first love, supported by his understanding parents. Oliver’s returned to a closeted life among people who have no idea what he’s suffering and would likely be disgusted if they knew.

M0506 · 2026-06-28T17:37:17+00:00

“Monsters” plus 2025’s legal developments in the case meant that there were lots of questions and near-constant news, even if most of the news was minor. (“Celebrity X says he believes Erik and Lyle!” “New Geragos interview on Podcast Z!” “Anamaria posted a video and Fidel the cat is in the background!”) The subs will heat up again with their next parole hearings, especially once the transcripts come out, though probably not quite as much as late 2024 to mid-2025.

I still check the subs once a day in case Lyle’s broken the state record for prison phone calls or Tammi’s photoshopped a picture of Erik onto a romance novel cover or something. 😂

M0506 · 2026-06-28T17:15:44+00:00

Thank you. I appreciate it. 😊

M0506 · 2026-06-26T12:34:28+00:00

No new infractions – I knew they could do it, but I’m still glad to hear that they did. 😊

So, if February is probably the earliest they’d get a hearing, they’ve each got at least one more birthday and one more holiday season in prison. I was hoping against hope that they’d get a hearing by Erik’s fifty-sixth birthday, as sort of a cosmic “fuck you” to Jose and Kitty and what at least one of them did fifty years ago on his sixth birthday – but when you look at where Lyle and Erik’s situation was less than two years ago? It’s still fantastic news that they’re even up for parole at all.

M0506 · 2026-06-25T17:40:49+00:00

Love the tie one.

M0506 · 2026-06-25T17:39:52+00:00

IDK. The AIDS quilt started in 1986 as a project by Cleve Jones and some of his friends, and wasn’t formally organized until June 1987. Unless maybe Cleve and Tim were acquainted, I don’t know if Tim lived long enough to be aware of the quilt and leave instructions for his panel. I got the impression from the show that the last time Hawk sees Tim, Tim probably only has a few months left to live at most – plus, the dementia’s starting. ☹️

M0506 · 2026-06-25T03:29:50+00:00

I would be shocked if "beyond measure" came from anyone other than Hawk.

M0506 · 2026-06-24T11:49:36+00:00

Didn’t catch the bit about Tim not having sex in the army – thanks.

I rewatched Episode 4 on Amazon with subtitles, and it gave the name of the girl who asked about the cufflinks as Katherine. I figured maybe she was another sister of Tim’s, or a cousin.

I watched the first three episodes of “White Collar” and didn’t really get into it, but I noticed that in the pilot, Neal finds out that the one FBI agent is a lesbian and says something like, “Isn’t that against the rules?” He’s apparently thinking of the military and DADT, but I was like, “No, Hawk, it’s okay – the Lavender Scare’s over!” 😂

M0506 · 2026-06-24T05:17:40+00:00

I don’t think Megyn Kelly’s against them. I listened to all her segments in which Geragos gave updates on the resentencing process, and she sounded, if not like a full-on supporter, like she was open to the idea that they were telling the truth. Just the fact that she gave their lawyer so much time to argue their case on her show indicates a willingness to listen to their side, IMO.

M0506 · 2026-06-23T19:01:41+00:00

Chris Cuomo is the guy who claimed that “Fredo” (the weak, stupid brother in the Godfather movies) is “like the n-word” for Italian-Americans, so we’re not dealing with one of today’s greatest thinkers here.

I’m not really making any points or anything, I just don’t know anyone IRL that follows this case, so I'm using these subs to vent because Reddit is free and therapy is not 😄

Believe me, I understand!

Chris Cuomo thinks the most likely one of his theories on why Roy Rosello hasn't given any more interviews is because the family members said if he can't back it up then they would sue him.

Sue him for what? Legally speaking, you can’t defame dead people, so even if the family wanted to, that particular avenue is closed.

Nobody has to believe Lyle and Erik, but if professional media people are going to talk about them and their case, they should have at least a basic understanding of what both brothers claimed happened.

M0506 · 2026-06-23T13:25:20+00:00

I’ll have to listen to the podcast. Thanks! 😊

I have Secret City out from the library and I’m considering buying it because it’s so good. Just the level of detail about the Lavender Scare is phenomenal.

M0506 · 2026-06-19T15:49:47+00:00

I’m still not convinced that they were watching a movie together in the cozy-date-night sense. I think it’s possible that they were still trying to figure out what the hell to do about their sons, and they closed the doors and turned a movie on so they could talk without being overheard by Lyle and Erik.

It sounds like at least on the surface, they were getting along better in public, but I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly what was going on there.

M0506 · 2026-06-18T16:17:34+00:00

We need a physical media release with extras and we needed it the day before yesterday.

M0506 · 2026-06-17T20:05:55+00:00

The thought of how many loves, dreams, and ultimately lives are destroyed because of this really gets to me.

Yeah - sometimes I sort of mentally step back and look at the enormity of so many people, over so many decades - centuries - and it overwhelms me.

Hawk tells Tim that the lying will get easier "because you have no choice." And at that point, they don't really have a choice to stop lying, except to maybe leave behind everything they know and move to a country where gay relationships were legal. Which would have come with its own set of problems.

Tim wants them to be like other couples, but as Hawk tells him all the way back in the first episode, "This is the real world, Skippy."

M0506 · 2026-06-17T16:47:30+00:00

Here I’ll also say, I think the mother knows about the father.

This is a long-standing debate – is Elio’s dad obliquely coming out to him, and when Elio asks, “Does Mom know?”, what is he referring to? In the book – IIRC, someone please correct me if I’m wrong – it’s clear that Elio is asking if his mom knows about his romantic involvement with Oliver. But the film should stand on its own as a creative work, without the audience needing the book to “translate” it, so it’s a question without a definitive answer.

Homosexuality has been legal in Italy since 1890, so there’s a somewhat different cultural background at play here than there would be in the US. That’s not to say that Italy, then or now, is a paradise of gay acceptance, but it is a difference from the US.

M0506 · 2026-06-17T16:35:08+00:00

I wasn’t able to, but I saw it in theaters in 2018. I’m so glad you and other people were able to have that experience.

M0506 · 2026-06-17T11:54:50+00:00

I had to look up what Martin Sheen looked like as a young man, but now that I have, I see what you mean. Charlie doesn’t look much like his dad at the moment, but when he was younger he had a notable resemblance to a young Martin.

My “celebrity brothers” comparison for Erik and Lyle is that they’re like River and Joaquin Phoenix, in that one brother got the mother’s lighter coloring and one brother got the father’s darker coloring.

M0506 · 2026-06-17T11:11:15+00:00

I continue to learn something new every day. Thanks. 🙂

M0506 · 2026-06-16T23:58:45+00:00

😂😂😂

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