Gavia Baker-Whitelaw

@gavia.bsky.social

5652 Followers 219 Following

Film and TV critic. Co-host of the Overinvested movie podcast, co-editor of the Rec Center newsletter. Bylines: TV Guide, Inverse, Vulture, Boston Globe, Atlas Obscura, Empire, etc. she/her

Lestat and Claudia’s experiences come together in one of the season’s most effective and harrowing pieces of non-chronological editing, intercutting Claudia’s words with a brutal replay of Magnus assaulting and then biting Lestat. Both of these characters survived a trauma that left them with lasting scars, and we’re invited to question whether closure is ever truly possible—especially when the original aggressor is out of reach.
During their first scene together this season, Lestat and Louis seem to have found an equilibrium. It’s probably sometime around 2022 or 2023, not long after their reunion in the season 2 finale. Lestat is noodling away on the piano in a beautifully accessorized Montreal apartment, while Louis provides commentary via videochat, proclaiming Lestat's new music to be (underwhelmingly) “nice.” Lestat asks him to visit, but Louis maintains his boundaries. In the background hangs a copy of Magritte’s painting The Lovers, depicting two people kissing with shroud-like fabric covering their heads, separating them from true connection. 
The Indigenous actress Q’orianka Kilcher (Yellowstone) is suing James Cameron for exploiting her image. The Native Peruvian star claims the famed director told his team to base the design for the main character Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña) on her facial features after Cameron saw her in the 2006 Terrence Malick film The New World. “This case exposes how one of Hollywood’s most powerful filmmakers exploited a young Indigenous girl’s biometric identity and cultural heritage to create a record-breaking film franchise — without credit or compensation to her — through a series of deliberate, non-expressive commercial acts,” the suit says, per NBC News.
Trevor zegras always stays out late in warmup to try to shoot into the opponent's empty net. the last two games evgeni malkin has waited him out so he could try to block the shot.
Two strangers try to find love on the one night a year when pre-marital sex is legal.
screencap of fake American names like "sleve mcdichael" from a 1990s Japanese baseball videogame
four letterboxd movies: blackberry, dark waters, project hail mary, hen.
decor from the dubai penthouse in amc's interview with the vampire
In a 5-1 win against Germany on Sunday, the broadcast caught the Team USA winger getting into a war of words with Leon Draisaitl, with Tkachuk delivering a verbal jab at the two-time Stanley Cup finalist. "Always the bridesmaid, eh, Leon? Always the bridesmaid, never the bride," Tkachuk said to Draisaitl during a break in the game, which was picked up by the NBC broadcast.
IMO it makes sense for Canada to pull its players from the Olympic Village and put them up in a hotel. The Village is noisy and chaotic. The beds are too small for enormous hockey dudes. The food is notoriously patchy, which is a particular problem when you need to eat 5000 calories a day and are used to the famously well-catered No Hungry League.
But that all changed after the players held an “internal discussion” about their “personal beliefs.” After that conversation, the club was forced to pivot into a lose-lose position that angered fans and ostracised the very community at the heart of Pride Night.
Italian Olympic gymnast Giorgia Villa doing the splits on top of a row of parmesan cheeses
Discussing “Heated Rivalry” on their podcast has increased the “Empty Netters” YouTube viewership by nearly 50 times compared to shows that discuss other hockey topics. For example, their recaps of Episodes 3, 4 and 5 averaged nearly 500,000 views. In contrast, the nine most recent non-“Heated Rivalry” episodes averaged 13,500.
dana from the pitt
there's a cringeworthy moment where he's forcibly given a regulation haircut, replacing his long, curly hair with a more clean-cut look. What are we meant to glean from this? To me, it immediately brought to mind the scandals around racist hair regulations in the U.S. military, making Starfleet look toxic and authoritarian in a way that is not, I think, intentional. Meanwhile in a world-building sense, it doesn't actually fit with Starfleet's inclusive ethos, which welcomes a wide range of alien cultures, and doesn't enforce similar regulations for long-haired women. This scene exists purely to poke fun at Caleb's outsider status, as he petulantly complains about having to follow the rules.
photo taken by florian wieser of a visibly unfinished building with a bare floor and building materials scattered around
letterboxd graph showing a 2.9-star average rating.
In real life there are no openly queer players in the NHL, and despite various inclusivity initiatives and statements of support from popular players, the league is backsliding in terms of queer allyship. Over the past couple of years, teams have scaled back their official Pride Night events, and the NHL has banned players from wearing their teams' Pride-themed merchandise on the ice.
For Shane, their time together also represents a rare expression of hedonistic bodily autonomy. In Episode 4, he admits that although he loves his career, hockey stopped being purely fun when he was a child. Since then he's been under constant pressure, not just as a star player but as the most prominent Asian athlete in a very white sport. By the time he was drafted, his mother had already crafted a squeaky-clean image for him, arranging endorsement deals and photoshoots that he clearly doesn't enjoy. He's been trained to see his body as a commercial product, avoiding alcohol and following a macrobiotic diet that borders on disordered eating. The only time he feels free is when he's alone with Ilya. 
montreal team logo from heated rivalry
Most of the cast remain underdeveloped by the end of this seven-episode season, and like many Netflix series at the moment, The Abandons suffers from a glut of explanatory dialogue. The characters all seem subconsciously aware that they're recapping their lives for an unseen audience, constantly telling each other what they're doing, where they're going, and why.
Q: Where does it take place? A: An alternate universe where hockey players meticulously wax their body hair.
cluttered messy bedroom with three bearded men on unmade beds, and a background wall covered in sexy magazine photos
wildly irritating!! the tear-jerker finale and central performances do not balance out this film's infuriating approach to historical storytelling, which brought to mind ursula le guin's critique of reducing women's wisdom to spiritual intuition: "I didn’t and still don’t like making a cult of women’s knowledge, preening ourselves on knowing things men don’t know, women’s deep irrational wisdom, women’s instinctive knowledge of Nature." shakespeare's wife was a psychic witch? her area of expertise is Herbs, implying that other people in her community aren't aware of traditional remedies? she "came from the woods" and purposefully gives birth alone in the wilderness? give me strength.
letterboxd screencap of four movie posters: The Shining, Paris is Burning, The Train, and Predator: Badlands.
young mark hamill in a skimpy blue cleavage-bearing shirt for some kind of star wars BTS photoshoot
portrait of ludwig van beethoven with messy hair
Set in 18th century Italy, the film stars Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Adele (in her movie debut), Ciarán Hinds, George MacKay, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Paul Bettany, Owen Cooper, Daniel Quinn-Toye, Hunter Schafer, Josephine Thiesen, Thandiwe Newton, Theodore Pellerin, Daryl McCormack, Cassian Bilton, Hauk Hannemann, and Lux Pascal.
Wake Up Dead Man - Rian Johnson Mirrors No. 3 – Christian Petzold Pillion - Harry Lighton A Private Life – Rebecca Zlotowski It Was Just An Accident - Jafar Panahi Peter Hujar’s Day – Ira Sachs The Mastermind - Kelly Reichardt The Testament of Ann Lee – Mona Fastvold Hamnet - Chloé Zhao
chart depicting the pittsburgh penguins at the top of the NHL metropolitan division standings after 12 games
Oscar isaac and Jacob Elordi on the Frankenstein red carpet
SUNRISE, Fla. — Niko Mikkola had an assist on a goal that gave the Florida Panthers an 8-0 lead. Problem was, he'd been kicked out of the game a few minutes earlier and nobody noticed.
Infiniti uses her middle name as her surname. She was named after the Batman Forever (1995) character Chase Meridian, played by Nicole Kidman, and Buzz Lightyear's line "To infinity and beyond" from Toy Story (1995).
Letterboxd screencap showing a list of horror movie posters.
statue of explorer john rae in orkney
In the context of Star Trek's legacy as a work of political science fiction, what does an intrinsically evil race represent? And what does it mean when the heroes defeat them by banishing them to another dimension, casting a human Federation officer as their biologically determined border guard? Compared to the allegorical underpinnings of the Klingon and Cardassian war storylines, this finale suggests some deep misunderstandings about what Star Trek is meant to stand for, sending an ominous message for the show's final two seasons.
Lover, you were gone so long Lover, I was lonesome So I built a foundry In the ground beneath your feet Here, I fashioned things of steel Oil drums and automobiles Then I kept that furnace fed With the fossils of the dead Lover, when you feel that fire Think of it as my desire
poster for the movie clearcut starring graham greene
letterboxd screencap of four movies: only the river flows, cronenberg's crash, fritz lang's m, mobile suit gundam 1.
scottish seaside landscape with overcast sky
one of thomas kinkade's legendarily lucrative paintings of a rural house with glowing windows.
the netherlands' "most wanted" style of art, an abstract multicoloured gradient
Andor screencap showing cassian holding a tube of peezos at a shop on coruscant
metal pan full of elderflowers and lemons
One thing I forgot to mention in this ep is Sinners’ placement within Hollywood history, as a story set specifically in 1932. That’s right in the middle of the Pre-Code era, when the foundational three gangster movies came out (Scarface, The Public Enemy and Little Caesar) - and there’s a ton of thematic overlap between those films and the arc of the Smokestack twins, whose backstory draws from the real history of Al Capone and the Chicago mob.
douglas fairbanks jr posing rakishly in a historical military uniform
In the midst of the massacre, he spots Cassian, "the object of his obsession from Season 1, whom he has come to blame for all the negative things in his life for the past four years."
Sydney Chandler as Wendy, a woman who has the body of an adult and consciousness of a child.
Contrasting with Chandrila or Kenari, Ghorman appears to be fully bilingual. The Ghor use their native language in private, but speak fluent Basic due to the planet’s reliance on offworld trade. As tensions mount between the locals and the Imperial interlopers, Ghor also becomes the language of rebellion. These three episodes include more subtitles than any other installment in the franchise, usually translating scenes where Ghorman citizens debate their plans for political resistance.
black and white illustration of a witches sabbath
In Star Wars: A New Hope, there's no distinction between the Empire's law enforcement and its military, introducing stormtroopers as an all-purpose army who guard prisoners, battle Rebel soldiers, and question civilians at gunpoint on the streets of Tatooine. The iconic "these aren't the droids you're looking for" scene takes place because Luke and Obi-Wan get asked for ID during a traffic stop, a dynamic that Andor expands upon with its top-down view of the Empire's fascist legal system.
Some viewers simply prefer other pairings for the characters and think putting them together is bad — which is standard fandom beef — but others seem to hate the idea of shipping anyone on the show at all, which is weirder and more sinister. This is not exactly a new phenomenon, but it is a little reactionary. These “No-romo” fans imagine some mythological bygone era where fans “watched programs like normal people” (which literally never happened) and didn’t write fan fiction that could sully their VERY SERIOUS TV program with the dirtiness of imagining characters hooking up with each other.
A veteran of political thrillers (Michael Clayton; The Bourne Identity), Tony Gilroy understands precisely what kind of people sign up to work for a fascist state, introducing a slew of boneheaded foot soldiers, petty sadists, and amoral rule-followers. Andor's casting department deserves an award for sourcing this many pallid British creeps to fill the ranks of the Imperial officer class, from the malevolent ISB boss Lio Partagaz (Anton Lesser, essentially playing a John le Carré character) to Dedra's hollow-eyed former assistant Heert
farley granger and john dall in the movie Rope.
farley granger in alfred hitchcock's rope
Raymond St. Jacques in Uptight (1968)
renaissance painting "lady with an ermine"