i cast semiotic pattern

No subscription. Just program.

On your computer. You got to use it forever and ever and never had to worry about it going away.

Because it was physically on your computer. As a program. That you actually owned. Not because you got it separately, but because it was a standard inclusion with your computer.

I'm sorry but I'll just never get over it. I remember when companies cared about their products being usable out of the box. I remember when our things belonged to us.

I am what God made me. And perhaps it is my difference that will make me useful. I think again of your sermon. I know what it is to exist between the world’s certainties.

Pulling up this movie I completely expected to only encounter Sister Agnes as the one woman we see in the trailer, the conclave a space that has been kept from the female members of the church. Now, color me surprised when I started the movie and most of the establishing shots we got were focused on all the women working in the Vatican.

And it is such a deliberate choice, it does the film a disservice not to talk about it.

Because while Cardinal Lawrence is having his fifteenth breakdown during sequestering and Bellini finds the ambitious asshole within himself, Ray does all the leg work, and Bel---- we see the women work.

We see the kitchens, we see them cook, we see them stand aside. Most of the time when the Cardinals are conspiring it is the women who interrupt because they are busy working, walking, running errands.

And there is power in that.

I think it is very deliberate how often (and with such lingering gaze) the camera shows us the lives of the other half - partially to connect to the wider themes of the movie, on how Bellini asks for women to get more power but never thanks them, and how Benitez stumps them all by thanking the women preparing their meals when asked to say the prayer (considering his own probably tumultuous relationship to gender within the church).

But it also stands in direct opposition to a long tradition in story telling: servants don't exist. How often the heroes of a regency romance are "alone" because the two hand maidens and three maids don't really count.

Conclave doesn't do that.

It doesn't let us look away.

Between all the petty drama, the politics, and the real life consequences of the conclave, we never stop looking at the people doing all the work.

Yes, we follow the ups and downs of Lawrence and Co, but in doing so the movie reminds us again and again of the women working the kitchen.

Dangers of working on a set.

he would spend multiple days walking overland to locations in full pack, sword, & armour when everyone else was travelling in trucks

refused to use any prop swords that weren’t actual steel

basically lived in the forest in-costume, sleeping rough under the sky, even fishing & foraging for his food when possible

often spent hours in the barn just bonding with the horses. He adopted the horse he rode, Uranus, after filming ended

repaired all his own gear by hand, which was often since he never took it off

had a tooth knocked out during filming but had the crew simply glue it back in place so they could keep filming

the instructor who taught everyone swordplay said Viggo was the best swordsman he had ever trained

carried his sword literally everywhere & practiced non-stop, resulting in the cops being called when locals reported “a wild man swinging a sword around his head" outside a gym in Wellington

an orc actor fucked up & accidentally threw a dagger directly into Viggo’s face, but Viggo just deflected it with his sword. They kept that shot

infamously broke 3 toes kicking that helmet but stayed in-character & sold his very real scream as part of the scene. They also kept that shot

Viggo insists on doing his own stunts; in The Two Towers where Aragorn is unconscious & floating down the river, the strong current pulled him underwater for so long that a rescue team had to go in to save him. Viggo survived by grabbing a boulder on the riverbed and pulling himself to the surface

Costume appreciation series: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) dir Stephan Elliott